Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

On Decision-Making

2012-02-01T16:38:00.001-05:00

There is a prior step to good decision-making: Problem Analysis

In my view there are quite a number of drivers for making decisions.

Here is a partial list, in no special order:

--Rational and analytical

--Dictated by:

   A person in charge, by careful thought or whim

   Religion

   Political ideology

   Laws, such as the Constitution

   Rules

   Customs

   Traditions

   Emotions of a mob

Other

--Haphazard, as in letting things happen

--Deliberate non-decision-making

--Irrational decision-making

   Astrological

   Soothsayer

   Mediums

   Tea leaves

   Other

--Probabilistic

   Mean of a distribution

   Median of a distribution

   Throw of the dice

   Toss of a coin

Rational/analytical decision-making is a preferred process since it minimizes the inclusion of extraneous or nebulous elements and constraints on the eventual solution.

A distinction should be made between decision-making and problem analysis. In fact, several things must happen before a rational decision can be made:

Problem Analysis

1) Objective and scope: Determine the objective of the decision, the scope of the problem and the universe of possible solutions, being careful to define the constraints to be imposed on the solutions. Take into account prior solutions to the same or a similar problem.

2) Problem Analysis: Analyze the problem, being certain to include all known factors affecting the objective within the scope of possible solutions. Establish the needs and requirements for the solution.

3) Possible Solutions: Identify all major practical solutions possible within the constraints.

Decision-Making

1. Perform tradeoff studies between the alternative solutions to decide which solution or solutions meet the needs.

2. Decide upon and select the most promising solutions for further analysis and tradeoff studies.

3. Decide to prototype the selected solutions for further evaluation. Halt the process if infeasible.

4. Decide and select the final solution.

Example: Perhaps a very simplified example will clarify these steps:

Problem Analysis

Objective and scope: to carry 400 passengers in comfort to any point on the globe within 10 hours.

Prior solutions: Boeing 747, 20 to 24 hours, and one stop for refueling. B-2 Bomber flying wing, which requires multiple in-air refuelings to extend its range.

Possible Solutions: The only practical solution at this time is to design a better commercial transport plane, and more efficient engines. Configuration possibilities are basically twofold: 1) a conventional aerodynamic design; and, 2) a more efficient aerodynamic design, such as a flying wing. Current jet engines cannot achieve the fuel economy needed for over Mach 1 flight for 15 thousand miles, which means a new state of the art engine development is necessary. In-air refueling is not to be considered. Consideration of the impact on ground handling must be factored into the analysis.

Passenger comfort and a pleasing experience is a heavy constraint.

Decision-Making

Decide between conventional and unconventional aerodynamic configurations by modeling and wind tunnel analysis, followed by a possible prototyping flyoff between competitive designs using available engines. Decide whether small scale models of the airframes would suffice to decide between the two configurations, or should the two airframes be built full scale.

Decide between feasible competitive engine designs through analysis of competing designs, and possibly a run-off test between prototypes. Constraints here include meeting the installation requirements of the airframes under consideration. (If no feasible engine design is forthcoming, the problem is over.)
Decide between competitive proposals from aircraft builders for the prototype developments.

Decide whether to extend the competition to include more than one airframe and engine selection, or to go ahead with detailed design, development, test and pre-production prototyping of only a single solution.

Decide the final solution, in this case, say, a four-engine 400 seat conventional configuration. This was decided basically on the needs for ground handling at terminals and the width of the wings, and (partially, shall we say) on the criteria for passenger comfort and a pleasing experience, since the wing configuration does not allow for as adequate a passenger viewing experience as does the conventional design.

An American Culture?

2012-01-27T15:04:00.001-05:00

Multiculturalism prevails.

Our culture is sliced up into many pieces; so much so that the common elements are very few. Consider the following slices and dices:

Rich man/ poorman

Democrat/Republican

liberal/conservative

liberal/progressive

educated/uneducated

White collar/blue collar

Religious/non-religious

Christian/non-Christian

Patriot/non-patriot

elite/non-elite

Givers/takers

ethical/unethical

Moral/immoral

Cultural snob/cultural boor

Pro-America/Anti-America

Intelligent/unintelligent

Strong/weak

Gifted/ungifted

upstanding citizen/criminal

Caucasian/non-Caucasian

American heritage/foreign heritage

Skilled/unskilled

Heterosexual/homosexual

Native American indians/settlers

Joiners/Loners

And, all shades in between.

We are a multicultural hodge-podge living our separate very uniquely human lives, and many, many different lifestyles, but held together socially by six or so very strong beliefs: The value of strength in numbers; the rule of law; the joys of our freedoms; the best place to raise our children; the opportunities for betterment, and the love of this country. There must be more…

All of our diverse cultural components contribute to a peculiar synthesis one might call an “American Culture,” but if examined closely, it quickly dissolves into some or even all of its constituent parts, and even harkens back to quite different historical origins.

Use of Guns

2012-01-25T17:19:00.000-05:00

Myths About Guns Need Clarifying

Facts about guns can be slanted and fudged to make a political point. Here are some hard facts that the gun control addicts usually ignore quite deliberately.

The number of reported defensive uses of firearms to police in the US during 2009 was in an estimated range from 760,000 to 3,600,000. Sources: LA Times, Gallup, Peter Hart Research, John R. Lott, Richard Poe, author, “The Seven Myths of Gun Control”. Further, FBI crime statistics for 2009 show that:

Violent crimes Total: 1,318,198

Property Crimes Total: 9.320,971 (a ratio of about 1 to 10)

Using this ratio of Violent Crimes to Property Crimes of approximately 1 to 10, this strongly implies that the number of saves from violent crimes by victim firearm use ranges from about 76,000 to 300,000!

This is a sensational statistic that clearly shows the advantages of using firearms for defense.

The crime categories of murder, rape, armed robberies, and aggravated assault are where the most heinous crimes are found, around 15,000 per year for murders and rapes alone, thus given the chance to prevent or halt such crimes surely ranks gun use at the top of the possible immediate reactions. The police, of course, are 5 to 15 minutes away from the crime scene at best, and taking the time to call 911 immediately could mean the difference between life and death. Citizens should therefore be trained, ready and willing to cope with crime long before the police can arrive.

Given the ratio of murder and rape cases to armed robberies and aggravated assault cases to be again about 1 to 10 from the FBI statistics on these subsets of violence (not included here for economy), this implies that on the order of 10,000 murders or rapes would be prevented each year, and a potential for 130,000+ serious injuries to be avoided were all citizens to be armed and ready. (This number can only include those rapes that are reported, of course, so it is a very conservative estimate. )

Suicide accounts for roughly half of all gun deaths in the nation, or about 18,000 per year, out of about 30,000 gun-related deaths per year. The question here is whether the troubled person would resort to other means than a gun should guns be unavailable?

There are many other means to commit suicide, including: self-hanging; poisoning; overdose of drugs; bleeding to death from wrist cuts; jumping from a very high place; stepping in front of a speeding vehicle, crashing your car at 90 mph; and on and on. If the will to die is really strong, the person will find a way. I find it rather difficult to blame the possession and use of a gun for the purpose of suicide as the fault of the availability guns in general, as opposed to blaming the individual in trouble and possibly the lack of help for him. It is also true that banning handguns is not a fully satisfactory solution for the suicide statistic. A rifle or shotgun will serve just as well.

Given that the person is unalterably committed to taking his life, possibly the most efficient means is a gun, as the other methods are much more likely to result in non-fatal, but with terrible, life-debilitating injuries to be coped with by an already seriously troubled individual. This is hard for Christians and others to accept, including myself, but it is true.

I am not counting the property crimes at all here, but the halting of thefts does have a measurable and salutary effect on the quality of life of potential victims. While any deaths are to be greatly regretted, that only about 680 accidental firearm deaths occurred in 2009 out of the well over 200,000,000 firearms then in the nation, with about 60,000,000 registered gun owners (source: NRA), shows the extremely low risks of gun ownership and use for self-defense by citizens.

Gingrich as President? Part 1

2012-01-20T13:51:00.002-05:00

An Historian?

There is a question in all of this that intrigues me. How long does it take a creative mind to understand what history is all about from a methodological and a love of the discipline viewpoint, and perhaps from a specific slice of history point of view? To follow that line, how long might it take for someone to weary of being immersed in the purely academic world as opposed to the present and potentially dynamic future of himself and our society outside of the academic world? A few years, perhaps, for a smart and ego-driven person?

I can agree that for Gingrich to tout his credentials as an historian too heavily is not appropriate, as they are weak from an academic point of view.

Perhaps he has felt more at home in or near government for these many years where there are enough problems surfacing daily to satisfy his cerebral popcorn mind. I have worked around many of these types of people, have been managed by some, and tried to manage quite a few. They were often disruptive of the team by their very nature and ego, but the key problem was always to sift out the really worthwhile ideas they come up with from the rest of the noise, and to exploit them properly.

They seemed to me to be able to look at problems from a new and different perspective, and to be able to work out the first order of both their inherent worth and their difficulties somewhat fearlessly. It was always left to others, however, to dig deeper to find the second order difficulties in their ideas, and often the second order goodnesses too. That is what the team around such a person is challenged to do, and it is irritating to some in the extreme, but the results are the measure of success, such as the Contract With America.

My own opinion is that the three aspects cited take differing times: methodology can be learned rather rapidly, say inside of several years; from a love of the discipline point of view, another number of years, perhaps as much as six; and from a specific slice of history view, it is a career that has no definite end. It most certainly takes much time if several languages are important to learn, for example, rather than relying solely upon translations.

I suggest that Mr.Gingrich easily comprehended the methodologies involved in a short time, became disappointed in the discipline, seeing a long road ahead to tenure and a reasonably good income, and therefore decided fairly soon not to spend the rest of his life wallowing in a special chunk of history, especially if the chunk he was attracted to was filled with highly competitive academics already.

One might say that he was a participant in the creation of a period of history within the US Congress from 1979 to 1998, which would fit his direct experience with more recent historical trends there in considerable detail. That doesn’t qualify him as an historian of the academic kind, however.

Jobs!

2012-01-20T12:22:00.002-05:00

We cannot solve the jobs situation in isolation

If you seem to think that spending, deficits, debt, taxes, regulation overload, poor environmental decisions, outsourcing jobs, and entitlements, especially health, are unrelated to the job situation, you are wrong. They most definitely are related.

It is folly to try to fix one of those in grand and glorious isolation to the others. This current administration gets a fail grade in long-term Macro-Economics 101, and in letting small businesses grow, instead of over-regulating them and creating uncertainty by overspending on new legislation with long-term spending commitments, and refusing to authorize job-producing private sector programs that would increase employment. That is where the jobs are (or were)–small businesses. Playing the richman-poorman card is shortsighted political gamesmanship that is laughable!

Furthermore, the recent pogo stick policies of an all democratic congress and presidency of propping up the economy artificially is unsustainable, as we will see in a year or two. We are almost “all in” as it were, and what happens when we cannot print more money? We default, and no one lends us money, stifling businesses and hence jobs. What happens if the US Dollar is dethroned from its current posture? We could not print money and use it then. What happens if we do print lots more? Heavy Inflation, which is on the way now. Then what happens to jobs? They go west.

The problem is that virtually no politician wants to see our real situation for what it is, and then take the steps needed to fix it across the board, least of all Obama! Just about every step he takes, or wants to take, worsens the problem, except for his truly token efforts to move right on some issues.

Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions in Perspective

2012-01-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

Iran will be attacked soon, and the logic of it is compelling

1. The purpose of their nuclear program is several fold: 1) It provides them with protection against nuclear threats from without; 2) It provides them with the technology to generate electrical power; 3) It give them the ability to threaten the total existence of Israel; 4) it gives them the button to push to annihilate Israel or any enemy in range within a matter of minutes should they so desire; and 5) It allows them to give nuclear weapons away to terrorist groups that might use them against the US.

2. Iran has a considerable armed force that is capable of overrunning any of their adjacent nations, and, coupled with Syria, they could conceivably conquer Iraq, and then attack Israel. Their forces have been augmented by Russian weapons systems for years. They are not far from having nuclear warheads for their long range missiles.

3. Israel’s nuclear weapons capability deters Iran from a frontal assault on Israel, just as they hope to have a nuclear deterrent against an Israeli attack.

4. Iran has considerable support from Syria, their strongest ally, and from both Hamas and Hezbollah in Palestine and Lebanon, as well as terrorist cells in strategic nations, including the US. Recent events in Egypt have raised the possibility of their support against Israel, the common enemy of all Islam. Even Turkey, which has been a NATO ally of ours for many years, now has an Islamic government that is hostile to Israel. All of Israel’s neighbors have been armed by Iran with very large numbers of missile systems that have been used often against Israel in random attacks.

5. The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, has bombastically threatened Israel with being wiped off the map with Iran’s nuclear weapons. From a practical standpoint, these threats can be laid to political posturing with no actual threat, or they can be considered to be real once Iran has the bombs to do it, either themselves, or by using a terrorist group to carry it out.

6. At the moment, there would be a nuclear standoff should Iran succeed in making a nuclear weapon, since Israel has the warheads and missiles to retaliate effectively. This would mimic the MAD posture of the US and the USSR that lasted for 60 years.

7. The strategic breakthrough that the development of nuclear EMP weapons brings to the situation is the possibility of immobilizing the armed forces of any nation by one or more air bursts that send high power pulses to the ground that disable electrical and electronics devices and vehicles, all types of missiles and communications of the nation attacked. It is fairly certain that Israel has such weaponry in their arsenal now, and probable that Iran is well on the way to having them. The advantage of such EMP weapons is that they do little or no harm to people but devastating harm to military equipment of all sorts.

8. The threat to Israel is therefore twofold: 1) an EMP attack by Iran that immobilizes their armed forces, thus negating the threat of nuclear or air force retaliation by Israel, followed by; 2) a nuclear bomb attack that destroys their centers of population and industry.

9. The situation from an Israeli point of view then, is that they face total annihilation once Iran acquires the nuclear weaponry suitable to the job, and their own retaliatory capability would be useless, thus completely negating the MAD posture.

10. Israel, then, is preparing to attack Iran once they determine that the “red line” they have established has been crossed by Iran. They must get the first blow in, in order to execute their plan to destroy Iran’s military systems and equipment before Iran does it to them. The Israeli Army, Air Force and Navy are fully capable of destroying Iran’s forces, once they have achieved the shutdown of literally all of Iran’s military hardware, especially their air defenses and missiles that heavily depend upon electronics to operate, including the long range missies of Iran’s developing nuclear retaliatory force. This shutdown can be repeated if needed, as some military equipment may survive or be reactivated after the first attack. The rate of repair is not easy to predict but it would likely be many days of downtime.

11. It cannot be stressed often enough that Israelis are totally fearful of Iran if they acquire the bomb, and they see it as a matter of Israel’s national survival. It is all the more acute when all of the facts about EMP attack are laid out in detail. Thus, resorting to their nuclear EMP capabilities is both logical and necessary for their survival.

12 From this brief summary, it is not hard to predict that Israel will attack Iran soon, perhaps in a matter of months from now in 2012, or almost certainly in 2013.

2012 Subjects and Issues

2012-01-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

Here is my guide to issues of concern for the year 2012. Both positive and negative aspects should be treated in this election year, since Obama is standing for reelection with a huge impact on many of the items listed.

Issues List

Taxes
Job Creation
Free Markets
Regulation Sanity
Secularization
Defense Policies and Posture
Defense Programs
Fighter Programs
Drone Programs
Shipbuilding Programs
Socialism
Communism
Same Sex Marriage
Independence
Abortion
Universal Health
Universal College
Curricula
Media Bias
Judicial Activism
Minimum Wage
Mexican Border
Illegals
Death Penalty
American Exceptionalism
Morals
Bailouts
Government by Fiat
Economy
Election and other Promises
Lies of the Administration
Experience Factor
Islam and Muslims
Redistribution of Wealth
Unions in Government
Intelligence Community
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marines
Coast Guard
CINCs
Space Programs
Space Policy
NASA
Nuclear Fusion
Agriculture
Commerce and Labor
Interior
FBI
State
Health and Human Services
Education
DEA
Infrastructure
State Governments
Major City Governments
Major County Governments
Dept of Energy
Housing and Urban Dev.
Transportation
Veteran’s Affairs
Justice
Energy Policy in General
Oil Policy
Coal Policy
Natural Gas Policy
Solar Policy
Wind Power Policy
Wave Power Policy
Science Policy in General
AGW Policy
Religions and Religious Policy
GWOT/GWOI Policy
Constitution Preservation or Change
National Debt
Government Size and Complexity
Political Correctness and Multicultural Diversity
Arctic Policy
Antarctic Policy
Law of the Sea Policy
United Nations Policies
NATO Policy
Clean Air Policy
EPA Policy in General
HSA Policies
Treasury Policies
Federal Reserve Policies
Investment Policies
Government Subsidies in General
Obama White House Czars
Obama Vacation Costs
Obama Lies
Nuclear Power Policy
Nuclear Weapons Policy
Nuclear Proliferation Policy
Foreign Policies in General
“stans
E. Europe
Mid-Africa
S.E. Asia
S. America
Foreign Aid
Israel Policy*
Iraqi Policy
Iranian Policy*
Saudi Arabian Policy
Syrian Policy
Afghanistan Policy
Chinese Policy*
Lebanese Policy
N. Korea Policy*
UK Policy*
French Policy*
German Policy
Italian Policy
Spanish Policy
Danish Policy
Norwegian Policy
Finnish Policy
Rumanian Policy
Chech. Policy
Hungarian Policy
Albanian Policy
Palestinian Policy
Russian Policy*
Ukrainian Policy
Libyan Policy
Moroccan Policy
Tunisian Policy
Algerian Policy
Chad Policy
Niger Policy
Nigerian Policy
Japanese Policy
Indonesian Policy
Australian Policy
Malaysian Policy
Philippines Policy
Indian Policy*
Pakistani an Policy*
Kenya Policy
Zimbabwe Policy
South African Policy
Brazilian Policy
Ecuadorian Policy
Peruvian Policy
Nicaraguan Policy
Panamanian Policy
Costa Rican Policy
Guatemalan Policy
Argentinean Policy
Venezuelan Policy
Mexican Policy
Canadian Policy
Egyptian Policy
Somalia Policy

Iran Conflict Warms Up

2011-12-28T16:28:00.002-05:00

Threatens to close the Straits of Hormuz for oil shipments

We inch ever closer to a final resolution of the Iranian question, fueled by their own threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. At least the US and Israel are talking about where the so-called "Red Line" should be. The Red Line is that technical line Iran may cross in their quest for nuclear weapons, which would precipitate action from either or both Israel and the US. So far, it is reported that while Israel has a well-defined line, the US, especially the Obama administration, is waffling about just where it is and when it could be crossed. The issue is defined by some as: when to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

This is foolhardy nonsense. In order to attack these facilities, the attacker must cross most of Iran, with their rings of anti-aircraft missiles, AAA, and fighter aircraft waiting for them. Further, since such an attack would be an implicit declaration of war, it is obvious that Iran would jump into a war mode and begin retaliations with a considerable armed force, and with allies in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine to execute bombings and shootings. Around the world, cells would activate to terrorize and destroy US and Israeli facilities. Iran would indeed try to close the Strait. Thus, it would be imperative for the attackers on Iran to neutralize or wipe out the Iranian armed forces as far as possible immediately.

It is my prediction that Israel would employ an EMP nuclear weapon or weapons over Iran to knock out virtually all electrical, electronic and vehicular systems wherever found. This would freeze the military almost completely. No missiles, tanks, planes, trucks, radios, radar, or any engine-driven vehicle would be operable for some time, until repaired. This window of paralysis, which would be renewable for perhaps days or a week, would be the entree for Israel's air force and missiles to rain down on every military installation and nuclear facility in Iran with impunity, virtually destroying their capability to fight and to produce nuclear weapons. Special attention would be paid to the missile sites that threaten the Strait, the navy vessels and shore facilities, and any oil vessels belonging to Iran. Their route to Iran from Israel is no longer any difficulty for the US in Iraq since we have largely departed that nation, and the Iraqis are virtually defenseless against air overflights.

It is also my prediction of long standing that Iran would then attack US facilities worldwide using sleeper cells, thus forcing the US to join in the attacks against Iran, and including their allied organizations in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. In fact, I believe that common sense dictates that, instead of waiting for the retaliations to begin, we join Israel in the first instance to ensure that Iran is totally disabled militarily, and that the other allied nations and groups on the Iranian side are neutralized quickly too.

Yet another idea I have promoted is for the US, perhaps with allies, and only after we have declared war, to move large tank and troop formations with air cover into the Western and Southern sectors of Iran, daring them to come out and fight us on our terms in a pitched battle. This would accomplish several objectives: 1) It would ensure that we find all of the missile sites threatening the Strait; 2) It would occupy the most prolific oil production sites and sea accesses in Iran, cutting off their sea sources of revenue and supplies; and 3) It would ensure the destruction of the remainder of their army should they dare to come out and fight. With proper handling, the Mullahs would be overturned at this juncture.

Media Bias and Obama's Election

2011-12-25T12:20:00.001-05:00

On media bias

Basically, I charge the press, especially the NYT, WAPO, and LAT, and their followers with solid bias against the right, Republicans, conservatives and such. (Yes, I have been a subscriber for many years to both the NYT and the WAPO.) Same with most of the TV news media. So, yes, my men get elected despite the best the media can throw at them, subtly or otherwise. In this instance, blowing negative thoughts all over McCain was the strategy, while also being neutral to positive for Obama, and it worked well. Even Clinton complained about the unfair press, which is a switch!

The other tactic of suppressing Democratic failings while highlighting Republican blunders has a long history.

So the media did a very good job in their own estimation, and mine, in 2008 to see Obama into the White House, and to fool all too many as to their sleezy tactics.

One part that is hard to measure is the non-coverage of favorable events for a Republican candidate, yet detailed coverage of Democratic events ad nauseam. Virtually impossible to challenge, too, unless you have inside information. They even tried to keep the number of mentions fairly close so that simple counts would not show the bias. Then, too, any minor gaffe, any small slip of the tongue by a Republican is sure to be covered thoroughly, while Democratic goofs are hardly mentioned, unless the rightist outlets get a whiff of it.

One never forgets the improper slams against Bush II throughout his terms of office either. To me, those many proven to be false slams over 8 years define the Democratic Party, and the press was very willing and eager to repeat them, too, thereby fostering a negative mindset regarding Republicans that most certainly helped their eventual candidate–Obama. Does Dan Rather ring a bell? There are many others…

Update: Two good reference sites: http://markhumphrys.com/media.obama.html#bias.08.election
http://www.mrc.org/.

Anti-Americanism of Progressives

2011-12-24T14:29:00.000-05:00

Let us remain free from excessive government!

This progressive liberal idea that we should tax the rich and let others go free is just about as un-American as I could think of today.

America was founded on a number of key principles, including: 1) individual freedoms to make one's way; 2) equality of opportunity to get ahead; 3) upward mobility to reach as high as your talent and energy can take you; 4) a free market within which to work; and 5) a voice and vote to participate in our government.

We do not need the voices of fear, of envy, of intimidation, or of resentment to hinder our way of life, our desires for a better life, or our freedoms to get there without government interference, without excessive taxation, and without government handouts.

The Sufferings of Non-Christians

2011-12-23T16:01:00.001-05:00

I wonder.

It must be terrible for non-Christians to labor under the massive load of Christian symbolism that surrounds one in the cities and suburbs, and piques one in the rural areas of America, especially on Sundays when they all trek to church.

Just who would feel that way? Off the cuff, I’d say it would be atheists, secular humanists, agnostics, Muslims, a-religious, neo-Nazis, and perhaps some of the vanishingly small sects of perhaps 15 other religions, such as listed in the census and make up the odd 20% or so of non-Christians.

I suppose they feel affronted and depressed that they do not have the majority power that Christians have and practice all the time, but they do have their own places of worship unhindered for the most part and their very own symbols marking the spot. But they are not satisfied with that. No, they must attack the Christians and their symbolism as if the very existence of Christian symbols threatens to stifle all of the odd religions and cause dissention in their ranks, especially in their children. No more prayer in schools, they demand, and succeed.

Wasn’t this Christian dominance in the US well known from way back, such that if they didn’t like it, there was ample opportunity to select another nation where their particular religion was coddled? No, they chose to stay here, because of our freedoms, security and our scale of living. Now they want to change things around to suit themselves, and tear down anything Christian they can get leverage on.

By doing so, they are creating a growing and potentially severe backlash that puts them in a very unfavorable light in our Christian culture and way of life. Can an employer that sees the damage done to his religion honestly trust, hire and promote such destructive people if he knows their deeds? I don’t know, but it surely could be an unwritten factor. Open bias of that sort is against the law, of course, of course.

One cannot attack a religion without such a backlash, however, and many, if not most, Christians, even divided into many sects as they are, see it as a concerted attack on their religion, and they see the levers being used as mistakes of interpretation that need to be corrected somehow, but not very clearly just yet. They marvel at the Supreme Court decisions that favor the odd religions, and grudgingly obey for the nonce, storing each affront to their sensibilities up for future use. We should appoint better justices to the court they say, and more conservatives to the legislatures and to the highet posts in the land.

Why, they ask, isn’t the status quo satisfactory to all? Are we not sufficiently secular now? Why create such challenges to our society when they are really not needed at all? What do they gain by such attacks? What do they lose? Have any of these people felt the bias against them? Have they felt the ceiling to their ambitions looming up because of their positions? Did they have to seek out positions that favored their rather stark differing thoughts and actions, such as self employment? Why are they being so divisive? Isn't it so that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good?

I wonder.

Displays of the Nativity Scene

2011-12-22T14:16:00.002-05:00

Nativity Scenes on Public Property

Both churches and private citizens erect nativity displays on their own property at Christmas time. Some are even enactments with live people in the traditional roles. There is one of these two blocks from my home, facing a public park and on a public street. Does anyone object to this display of religious belief?

What, then, to a viewer is the difference whether the display is on public property, exactly next to public property and quite viewable by all, and its residing on public property itself? Merely the suggestion that the religion is accepted by the owner of the property, namely the government.

It says nothing about other religions, of course, and from the viewer’s point of view, there is no knowledge imparted whatsoever regarding the government’s acceptance or non-acceptance of other religions, unless there are other displays from other religions there also. For that you must read the Constitution, where other religions are clearly given acceptance.

I find it quite silly indeed for some overly-reacting people to rise up to deny such displays on public property in a nation that is 80+% Christian. The same silliness has been openly expressed about crosses being prominently displayed on church steeples throughout a city. Just how far will they go with this idea that viewing something from public property is the same as advocating something? We might as well be influenced to worship Ford or Toyota, or Colgate Toothpaste, or the Crystal Palace, or the Democratic Party, they are certainly displayed prominently, if distastefully, on TV stations (public airways licensed by the government) and in public advertising, but just not on public property per se! There is a great distance between accepting something which is good passively (out of a set of those somethings also formally accepted) and advocating something actively.

Religious Tolerance in the USA

2011-12-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

How far does religious tolerance go?

My tolerance for religions and non-religious religions turns out to be selective. If a specific religion or non-religious religion shows utter intolerance of my religion or any other religion, and threatens to dominate the people of my nation by force or intrigue, then I oppose it with all my strength. If that religion expects to subjugate and rule me and my fellow citizens by its own set of laws, they will be opposed–by force if necessary.

So long as they are law-abiding and unthreatening, however, they are welcome, but they must be watched very carefully indeed lest their religious mandate for conquest surfaces to our detrement.

Our Constitution, and specifically its guarantees of personal and religious freedoms, are not at the same time a suicide pact.

Obama Administration Sins and Lies

2011-12-14T07:27:00.001-05:00

Obama Administration Sins and Lies: A Phrase Outline (to be expanded)

For some three years I have been appalled at the state of the nation and the direction our President has been taking in practically every endeavor of his administration. In a pique of frustration, I have decided to identify here for myself some of the major aspects of my charges against both Obama and his fellow liberals. This will keep me in focus for the arguments that will be rampant during the next election cycle, and provide me with more complete ammunition against this defective administration. Some of these items run into each other and overlap, others are a part of long-standing leftwing ideologies that have finally had their chance to be legislated.

I did not realize the enormous extent of both lies and sins of the Obama Administration. Once I began researching the subject, however, I discovered numerous websites where the authors have addressed the same subject matter. I intend to reference these sources and their URLs here as I develop the text to go with each item.

The outline:

1. Obama’s Lies to the people

2. The generalizing from particulars regarding Republicans and Conservatives

3. Demonizing the Opposition

4. Sloganeering their messages

5. Using the worst case approach

6. Ignoring or suppressing real problems in the nation that do not fit the ideology

7. Lack of transparency; closed door legislation

8. Spending, not cutting, and then trying to tax the people

9. Political Correctness/Multicultural Diversity

10. Anti-Christian campaign throughout the nation, led by the ACLU

11. Media bias is rampant and now well-documented

12. Upwards of 50 dominantly leftwing Czars run the nation

13. Obama’s excessive travel/vacation/campaigning costs in this era of financial straits

14. The Liberal Mindset

15. Legislation passed without it being read. “We will have to pass it in order to find out what is in it!”

16. Government by fiat: regulation explosion, Executive Order explosion

17. EPA excesses

18. Repeat the Line, true or false, in every possible channel

19. Government expansion through Obamacare and otherwise

20. The economy has tanked much further under this administration

21. Broken promises, both from the campaign and afterwards

22. Cronyism

23. Socialism or socialistic policies

24. Bailouts directed towards friends of the party

25. Corruption unchecked

26. Inexperience of the President

27. Incompetence of the President and staff

28. Chicago style of politics

29. Management/organization/leadership lacking

30. Obama’s innate flaws

31. Foreign Policy that antagonizes friends and supports enemies

32. Anti-Constitution efforts of the Administration, Congress, and the leftist courts

33. SCOTUS appointments

34. Allowing jobs to be lost by policies that could have been avoided

35. GWOT de-emphasis putting the nation in jeopardy

36. Leaning towards Islamic nations and peoples

37. National Debt of $15 Trillion speaks for itself

38. Redistribution of wealth as an objective

39. Incestuous relations with unions, especially the SEIU

40. Immigration Policies

41. Israeli Policies

42. Iraqi Policies

43. Afghanistan Policies

44. Iranian Policies

45. Stimulus for favorites

46. The Reverend J. Wright connection for 20 years and counting

47. The Bill Myers connection

48. The Eric Hoffer fiasco

49. The false idea that Republicans and Conservatives are anti-science

50. Health Care problems headed the wrong way

51. Anti-gun tactics and direction

52. Abortion tactics, RvW

53. The Acorn Connection

54. Add?

It is Obama Bashing Time Again

2011-12-05T15:44:00.001-05:00

Obama's mean distance from the White House is about 500 miles.

He luxuriates on AF-1 more than any previous president.

The cost to the taxpayer for his travels is enormous because of the huge logistics cost of three or four support planes, extra security and communications, among the more expensive items.

It seems that he needs dozens and dozens of leftwing czars to run the government on top of his cabinet, all of whom have signed up to his Hope and Change plans.

His principal proposals for new legislation have the characteristic of increasing the national debt by trillions, without any rational means to pay for them except to hit the taxpayers again and again, in an orgy of spend and tax and tax and spend.

He wants to redistribute your wealth to those who make less, so that we reach a levelling of incomes across the board, regardless of the state of employability and reliability of the more unfortunate.

Obama is the SEIU union's best advocate and supporter, and he is well-compensated for his support.

He hates Israel and Israelis, and would probably let Israel go down the tubes to a Muslim attack.

Just a few of my pet peaves about Obama gotten off my chest!

Gun Control Yet Again

2011-11-27T08:44:00.000-05:00

The fight seems to never stop.

Once again we are faced with the problem of defending our Constitutional rights as given in the 2nd Amendment. This new battle is shaping up within the United Nations as an International Arms Trade Treaty, and it has been endorsed or supported by President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and our Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. This treaty calls for confiscation of civilian firearms among other odious provisions that flaunt our 2nd Amendment rights, and it is a clear attempt by the current administration to end-run our Constitution and the will of the people if they are elected to a second term.

We must see that this does not happen.

Israel Beliefs--My View

2011-11-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

Beliefs:

1. Israel will make war with Iran.

2. They will use nuclear weapons, especially the EMP type to disable electronics and electrical systems all over Iran.

3. They will do their best to destroy as much of Iran’s military equipment as possible.

4. They will use their C-130 aircraft to haul MOABS to the nuclear sites, and will keep on bombing the sites until they are satisfied that the sites are destroyed.

5. Iran will fight back, using their surrogates worldwide to sabotage facilities, including many US owned facilities.

And, they will close the straits of Hormuz to tankers using their surface to surface missiles. Even US vessels will be hit.

6. The US will be forced to relaliate to open the Straits, and to stop Iran’s attacks at the core, while ensuring that Iranians in the US are not a threat.

7. If this is perceived as a highly probable scenario, the US may well decide to join the Israeli attack up front.

8. US forces would take only the Western and Southern parts of Iran to choke off their oil, and to destroy the hidden missile sites threatening the Straits. If Iran tried to attack US forces in those open plains without transport or tanks or artillery (mostly lost by the IAF arracks), our forces would obliterate them.

9. There would be regime change in Iran.

The Israeli-Iranian Conflict

2011-11-04T13:28:00.000-04:00

We are much closer to war now, and it will not be pretty.

I firmly believe that Israel is preparing to strike Iran, and have believed so for several years. From Israel’s viewpoint, it is a matter of the survival of their nation and people. The only question is timing, and that is a hard one to answer. I also believe that the attack will encompass not just the nuke facilities, but all war-making capabilities of Iran, with the idea of seriously degrading the Iranian capability to retaliate for years to come. Israel has a number of useful weapons with which to accomplish this, including: 1) long-range missiles with either conventional or nuclear warheads; 2) their version of the tomahawk cruise missile; the IAF with its F-15, F-16 aircraft fitted with conformal fuel tanks, and in-air refueling capabilities; 3) a submarine fleet armed with long-range cruise missiles, and 4) perhaps most serious of all, the EMP bomb and delivery systems.

The EMP weapon would disable most of the electrical/electronic systems in Iran for a significant time period sufficient to allow the IAF to obliterate any nuclear facility and weapon system they can find, even using slow-flying C-130 aircraft with super-MOABs. I do not know whether Israel has been allowed to use our underground facilities to test their nuclear weapons or not, but it is a real possibility, however covert such a set of tests would have to be. I do believe that the EMP weapon is Israel’s ace in the hole. As to the opprobrium that Israel would receive worldwide for using a nuclear device, they would shrug it off as necessary to survive, and would point out, of course, that a similar caculus led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US.

Since any strike is an act of war, especially one of such devastation as I suggest, it is an odds-on bet that Iran would declare war on Israel. The chances of Iran also including the US in that declaration are not small, either, which is what we should fear most. Their counters would be on a worldwide basis, and would probably consist of many bombings of US facilities. I have speculated before that Iran would retaliate against the US as well as Israel, thus dragging us into the conflict. The other possibility is an Israeli failure to achieve their objectives and their subsequent pleas for help to survive in the face of six or seven nations attacking them, perhaps even with Turkey now with their well-trained military. The list may include Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran, with even a possibility of some Iraqi support.

Any military man, when standing back and studying this situation, would conclude that we will not allow Israel to go under, and if there is a reasonably odds-on chance that their attack on Iran would spark a far wider Middle East war with their Islamic neighbors, and if the odds that we were included in the war by Iran were better than 50-50, then the US should join up with Israel up front and insure the success of totally neutralizing Iran’s military, and forewarning the other nations in the list that we will respond to their efforts as well with all the force we have. Most likely, the UK would see it that way and also join in the attack, and perhaps France as well. (Then too, there goes the national debt soaring to the sky in this cause!)

Note that friend Obama would be forced to act in such a scenario, or else forget about reelection next year, and, even if the attack did not occur until 2013 or a bit later, the Democrats would be tagged as well, thus seriously jeopardizing their 2016 and later chances. Loss of Israel would be tagged forever to Obama and to the immoderate Democrats. On the other hand, given a Republican in the WH by 2013, it is fairly certain that Israel would be defended, and even more likely up front instead of waiting for the counters.

Republicans! Vote!

2011-10-30T16:11:00.001-04:00

Any Port in a Storm!

The Democratic opposition to a Romney candidacy is by convention Obama. You know, the signer of drastic, debt-raising spending bills from his cohorts in the House and Senate, and all on his own, perhaps with the help of his 40 czars, signs a raft of Executive Orders to subvert Congress and the will of the people when he can’t get his way in the democratic process. At the rate of the now standard 1.5 trillion USD deficit per year, we should be totally busted if Obama gets yet another four-year chance to outspend the sum of all previous presidents, and to hide the fact behind non-budget budgets and other subterfuges.

The obvious reaction is “any port in a storm”, be it Romney, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, or any of the others, with the exception of Paul. We couldn’t possibly be worse off with any of those candidates than with another Obama and Democratic tour of destruction and prolonged economic disaster.

Yet there are those who will vote again for what has become the most disastrous presidency in history, and the most outrageous set of Leftwing demagogic Democratic congressmen and woman in history to foster the Left’s plans, which clearly illustrates the absolute lunacy of the Left. We all know the financial mistakes made in previous presidencies, because they were well and truly published before the 2008 election, yet the Left, led by Obama, and a fully Democratic Congress, did nothing in three years to correct them, but rather in all deliberate haste and chicanery tripled down on them! Tripled down!

No thank you!

Are We Really Anti-Science?

2011-10-26T16:13:00.001-04:00

I do not think so at all for the following reasons (among others):

There are over 5,000 cataloged theorems in science, some of the most famous of which are:

The General Theory of Relativity

The Special Theory of Relativity

Quantum Theory

The Standard Model of Particle Physics

Newtonian Physics

The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution (NDT)

Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory (AGW)

Some scientists would have it that if we have serious doubts about the latter two theories we are anti-science. Never mind that we buy into by far the majority of the 5,000 theories in the catalog, if we doubt Darwin or Man-made Global Warming we are not supporting science! This is rank nonsense.

Not only is it nonsense, in itself the statement is anti-science, since science is an open quest for the truth, and along with that quest comes reasonable doubts about the existing base of evidence supporting the current theories of science.

Let us examine Darwin briefly:

1) There are no intermediate forms for the species, especially for the Pre-Cambrian period as Darwin’s Theory demands. None!

2) Speciation during the Pre-Cambrian period was almost immediate and left virtually no time at all for gradual evolution as Darwin demands.

3) Microevolution requires infinite time to hopefully produce the complex molecule structures in animals by random selection, which is mathematically impossible.

Therefore, one can quite properly have doubts about NDT.

Then let us examine Anthropogenic Global Warming briefly:

1) Base data was massaged to fit.

2) Sufficient knowledge of the interaction of the sun, clouds, water vapor, and cosmic rays is lacking in the formulations.

3) Earth’s natural rotation cycles account for most temperature variations.

4) There are unscientific motivations to sell the public on AGW by frightening them in order to gain massive economic and fiscal control over our resources and governments.

Thus, there are valid reasons to doubt AGW has been properly analysed.

The Occupy Wall Street Fiasco

2011-10-20T17:50:00.002-04:00

Enter the ancient purveyers of collectivism!

The most coherent, organized and highly vocal radical group in the nation–the Communist Party–has staked a claim in the Occupy Wall Street movement and opened up information booths or tables, and those who are protesting for anti-capitalism, pay leveling, wealth redistribution, free college, free healthcare, and guaranteed jobs will find a sympathetic and rather dynamic reception in the ranks of the very red at the tables.

Down the street in other booths or tables, they will find a somewhat moderated version of collectivism–the Socialist Party–that would love to swell their ranks with the disaffected of America. My bet is that the sum number of these radicals will not add anything but the trash in the streets, and when the media become disenchanted, the radicals will fade away as if they never existed. Seems that today, a little rain washed the area clean in minutes, which is perhaps a testament to the staying power of this gaggle of discontents.

The cries for free everything, and down with capitalism, are so old they smell of the musty basements and ratty holes in the wall where all manner of dusty propaganda pamphlets have been stored for over 50 or more years waiting for the time to come out once again. One can almost hear Gus Hall exhorting his followers to man the streets. Or so the new generation of radicals must believe that do not realize their ancient, collectivist, anti-capitalist ideas have been thoroughly discredited, stuffed and flushed every time they have arisen in America, and will again if called for in jig time.

My Beliefs:

2011-10-17T08:51:00.001-04:00

Here are some essential basics of my belief system (as of 10/17/11)

-Theism, and adherence to the commandments of God: Belief in love, faith, hope and charity. Worship as and where one desires. Religious freedom.

-Insistence on moral certainty as derived from the commandments of God and His natural laws, rights, duties, morals and mores.

-Traditions as the compiled wisdom of past generations, which are not to be changed suddenly or lightly, without long and hard reflection on the consequences – both intended and unintended.

-Federal, constitutional, and republican form of government, including the carefully derived checks and balances between the various parts as given by the Constitution. Close adherence to the Constitution is a mandate. Belief in subsidiarity, which places problem solving as near to the individuals concerned as possible.

-A mankind that can be good or evil, and cannot be trusted to “do the right thing” without laws, regulations, and ordinances, and especially their daily enforcement.

-A mankind that has not progressed in any essential mental, moral, or spiritual way since the beginning of civilization, and cannot be forced, cajoled, or shamed into any real progress either, at least for the next millennium or two. Man is sinful.

-Responsible citizenship, honorable duty to country, and sincere patriotism for the nation.

-Freedom in all of its forms: worship, speech, association, assembly, movement, and ownership (property rights). Exceptions are in order here as well: pornography should not be accessible by underage children; treason and sedition must be punished; slander and libel must be punished; and liars must be shunned, if not prosecuted, especially liars in government. Organizations that advocate the overthrow of the nation must be destroyed.

-The right of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, subject to the restraints of common sense, good citizenship and the law. To this end, the legal right to abortion (murder) must be terminated.

-The family and the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the basic building block of society. Family unity should be supported wherever possible. Honoring one’s ancestors is an important factor in keeping family unity intact. Same-sex marriage must be prohibited.

-Equality of opportunity, but not equality of outcome. Redistribution of wealth for its own sake is an abomination. We must, however, care for the ill, disabled, and destitute using charity (by that name), and we must support people to regain their footing in society.

-Limited government, and limited growth in government sufficient to cope with the rise in population, and the complexity of modern life, and not growth in power, budget or personnel to further centralize the government. Reestablisment of effective state's rights is a necessity, as is the abolition of unfunded mandates.

-Traditional education, unfettered with the modern experimentation that has proven to be ineffectual, and funding mostly dedicated to teachers and pupils, not overhead “education experts” and unneeded administrators. The curriculum through high school should be pared down to reading, writing, English, arithmetic, civics, history of America, American literature, world literature, science, mathematics, geography, world history, and foreign languages, together with courses in trades as needed. The track system should be reinstalled to allow for students to proceed more closely to their natural pace of learning. Testing should be continued, with essay questions taking a more predominant role. The Federal Department of Education must be abolished.

-The university systems of so-called “academic freedom” and tenure need to be thrown out in favor of professors and administrators with a balanced view and desire to teach effectively and in an unbiased manner. Teach the students how to think, not how to recite the Communist or Humanist Manifesto. Reduce the budgets of Universities so that citizens can attend without incurring lifelong debt for themselves or their families.

-English is the primary language in America. Immigrants must learn and demonstrate proficiency in English to become citizens.

-Ultimate sovereignty of the US, its borders, and its institutions, is not to be diluted by world authority or by illegal immigrants or workers. The idea that nation-states are phasing out is wrong.

-The failure of the UN, or any such organization of nations to perform world government. The UN should be marginalized to its effective elements. There is an insufficient number of moral nations to effect world government on a democratic basis.

-Security for the US, both internally and externally. For this purpose we need strong, well-disciplined, coordinated federal, state and local police forces. We need National Guard forces in each state.

-The armed forces of the US should be well-equipped, and large enough to fight 2½ wars simultaneously while maintaining the defenses of the nation at home. Weapons research, development and production should allow for replacement and modernization throughout the forces in a timely manner. We should continue to seek peace through strength.

-Capitalism, and free trade throughout the world, but not collectivism ever! Free markets with reasonable regulation to prevent abuses.

-Proactive pursuit of freedom and democracy for all, but carefully limited in overseas commitments.

-Fighting terrorism wherever it arises. Subduing by force and eventually pacifying the remainder of Islamic Fundamentalists within the US is important to the reduction of terrorism.

National service of two years by all before the age of 35 is imperative, and can be satisfied through support to local, state or federal service organizations or the military.

-Voluntary association of free, democratic nations to promote peace, free trade, and the well-being of their citizens, as well as to promote their common defense, instead of reliance on the UN.

-Financial prudence and a strong thrust to balance the budget are imperative, as well as to materially reduce the natonal debt. A halt on costly legislation should be established until such time as our debt is under control.

We must all be stakeholders

2011-10-07T22:16:00.001-04:00

A Rant!

I see that the symbolism of contributing to the federal income tax escapes progressives and screamers. To be expected, I guess, since they are fully guilty of promoting and installing the virtually zero FIT the lower quartiles end up paying. Hint: paying in, then receiving it back doesn’t count.

Defenders all of the give-away programs, the discovery of ever newer needs, creating and expanding the dependency society, castigating capitalism and the capitalists alike, and installing much, much bigger government, for which they must seek greater and greater tax revenues, even if it emasculates our defenses, and actually increases our costs in the long run for just about everything, especially our soaring national debt and the interest payments we must keep up. Running up the bill for pork every year to the tune of billions and calling them earmarks, when they are actually a form of payoff or bribe, is a bad thing, an even dishonest thing, for any public servant to support, Democratic or Republican. Of course we have a President that says he will fight earmarks–sure he did, to the tune of even more of them! Say one thing and do the other! Unbelievable! And jobs, where are the jobs?

One gets the impression that all of these people only think about today, and not tomorrow; willing to shove our fiscal problems out to generations yet to come. We read about how FDR raised taxes to 90% at the top with considerable pride, forgetting that it was meant to be an expedient of war, not a permanent thing as the current leftists seem want, and the percentages did come down– eventually, and then the economy roared off!. Seems to be a rule that, if you raise taxes far enough, it is a hell of a job to get them back down again to rational levels. Other People’s Money is an aphrodisiac to the left; they really believe it is theirs to spend any way they can conceive. It is not, but they do it anyway, which is theft.

But this era of chaotic, Chicago-style, and spendthrift government is just about over. Sensible citizens have had enough of the cronyism, the lies, the dodges, the misdirection, and the stonewalling of what was touted early on to be the most transparent US government in history–yet another bald lie out of the book full.

The only word that satisfies this chaos is rampant hypocrisy.

Government is Expanding Beyond Comprehension

2011-10-05T11:03:00.000-04:00

Our Current Government Versus the Constitution

It might be rather difficult to measure the distance we have crept from the fresh new Constitution and its original intent and compromises to the current position our laws and practices are in today. The first push/pull was undoubtedly centralized versus distributed power, and centralization has won out in practice. It continues to do so, with the office of the president leading the way. From a purist point of view, we have expanded the scope of our laws well beyond the Constitution and civil laws envisioned in the beginning, most often due to pressures to meet a stream of new needs discovered that the Constitution neither covered nor thought to cover, and with the willing collusion of all three branches of the federal government to cater to these needs, ostensibly of the people, and, of course, for the good of the nation.

Books have been written about the role of the Supreme Court in deviating, in interpreting, and in legislating from the bench to achieve some functional goal not possible to achieve in any other manner. Seizing the decision powers of an autocratic leader by the Presidents has also been a continuing drumbeat pushing us ever further away from a strict adherence to the Constitution. Whole governmental departments, with their missions, functions, budgets, and staffing have been invented through legislation to meet these new needs and functions, and this process is even accelerating today. Earmarks fit into this creep also! I have often pointed out that currently there are over 1,177 separate organizational entities in the government with budget lines, staffing and all the trappings of bureaucracy. In fact they tend to stumble over each other in their zeal to approve or disapprove actions brought before them. Try to obtain approval for a new nuclear power plant and you will be dealing with an entrenched bureaucracy of 23 or so different organizations at last report.

The maze grows yearly, and even Reagan could only kill or rework some hundred of these entities, and it seems that he was about the last to try. We have grown many monster bureaucracies since his time, and Obama has created hundreds more yet to fully surface. To say that this gaggle has become unmanageable and unaffordable is to bring the wrath of entrenched congressmen, lobbyists, and advocacy groups down on your head, as well as the party or parties that stood behind the legislation in the first place.

Why don't we commission an independent group to take on the decade-long task of streamlining this governmental gaggle, much as BRAC did for military bases? It would be a many-year task, and it would spawn quite a few Constitutional amendments as it went along, I suppose, but the commission would end up paying for itself ten, twenty or more times over I'd guess, to the benefit of our bottom line. (Avoiding a Constitutional convention would be a prime objective here, since the scope of such a convention cannot be controlled, and we just might end up worse that we began!)

A Few Simple Truths

2011-10-04T14:39:00.000-04:00

The Way Things Are!
Corporate jets are efficient transportation and time savers for movers and shakers.

There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money, and keeping it– minus taxes, of course.

Contributors to our society reap rewards commenserate with their value in the marketplace.

Deficit spending has a hard limit; it will have to stop when you cannot pay back in full. (We are too near that now for comfort.)

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

It isn’t a secret that corporate taxes are factored into the price to the customer, and the higher these taxes, the higher the price charged, and the less competitive the product is in the world market. So now we have an ever decreasing manufacturing sector and number of jobs, because to remain competitive we have shipped the manufacturing jobs overseas, mainly to China. They will not return.

The top 10% of tax payers today pay over 70% of the taxes: The bottom 40-50% pay nothing, so in a real sense the bottom half are not stakeholders but simply takers.

The free market is the most efficient way to control an economy, but it needs the right amount of regulation to ensure a level playing field and control of fraud and abuse, and this needs constant work to keep up.

This free market approach has been the best for our economy, including health care.

Environmental stewardship is an important objective for society, but we cannot wreck the economy to achieve unrealistic environmental goals, or we will only achieve a beautiful, clean, yet dirt poor, vulnerable and starving nation. Further, the world measures of clean air and water will continue to be negative until China and India, for two, make enormous strides in their lands.

The jobless rate is far closer to 16% to 18% than the carefully calculated 9.1%, because the government doesn’t count those who have stopped seeking non-existent jobs, and shouting out the true number would be politically rather bad for Obama.

Judicious tax cuts stimulate the economy via increased consumer spending and demand, which in turn sparks hiring, production of more supplies and thus the flow of wages and profits, and lo and behold, greater tax revenue. The deficit is reduced by the disciplined spending of less than the revenue income.

The chief characteristics of illegal immigrants is that they are here illegally and they work well for less than citizens demand.

If we pursue our main natural energy resources to the fullest we can become energy independent inside of 10 to 15 years, and that means coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas. By playing with solar, wind, and wave sources, but not the main sources, we will still be heavily dependent on imported oil from the ME after that same 10 to 15 years. We need to get cracking and fracking right now!

Utopian or collective societies fail because they are diametrically opposed to human nature, and you can’t change or homogenize human nature by edicts or at the point of a gun. You can, however, create a huge mound of bodies of misfits and a bare subsistence level for the majority of sullen and resentful citizens who live on the promise of nirvana in another five years, and another five years, and…. No thank you!

Overhaul Our Government

2011-10-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

The Way I See It!

My political leaning is to the right, but since I cannot stand the far right’s nonsense, I aim to stand to the right of moderates, and rather far from the kooky rightists. I cannot stand the far left, or progressives, since they seem to me to be senseless and self-absorbed, prone to elliptical argumentation, and very close to downright America haters.

1. Christianity. I do see myself as a Christian, and make a strong attempt to follow the Golden Rule under all circumstances, as well as practicing the rest of the morals and ethics of my belief.

2. Constitution. My strong predilection is to show patriotism for America, adherence to her guiding principals of freedom and liberty, and her Constitution as the law of the land. I believe in the plain interpretation of the Constitution, and not the straining of words to mean something not intended. I also believe the Constitution is modern and timely and not really marred by its age at all: it is not a living document to be modified at the whim of politicians, but it is capable of being amended by due process with agreement of the people or their representatives. The right to own and use guns for self defense, and I include hunting and sport, for instance, is in our Constitution.

3. Natural Law. It easily follows that I believe in natural law, natural rights, and natural duties, since most of the laws in the Constitution are natural law derivatives.

4. Just War. Since I do believe that we have a right to defend ourselves, I also believe in Just War and Just Killing (but not murder). This translates into further belief in preemptive war if threatened, and in the death penalty.

5. Strong Defense. From my belief in the right of defense and Just War comes the further belief that we should have a strong defense capability that is ever ready to defeat our enemies both singly and in concert.

6. Strong Police Force. A strong internal police force throughout the land is to me an absolute necessity, because we have many lawless people here that must be thwarted. In addition, laws must be enforced, so the idea that police departments can ignore, subvert, or slow roll laws they do not like is simply wrong.

7. Sovereignty. I believe in the sovereignty of the nation, the strong protection of its borders, and the prevention of other authorities from subverting our sovereignty, such as the UN. In my opinion, there are far too many rogue states, unethical states and amoral states for a true international law and court to be fair. Furthermore, I do not see how we could find impartial judges that could administer the laws without some form of bias. Can we find truly honest men?

8. Free Market. I believe in the free market in general, but I also believe that we must have protections against criminal abuses of the market, investors and the customers.

9. Citizen Participation. In my opinion, we must have participation by the citizenry in the daily workings of our republic. This extends to voting at every election, supporting the cause of freedom and liberty, and supporting the nation is preservation of its sovereignty and in the wars it must pursue, and should include aid to disaster victims. Principled Dissent is proper also, I must agree. I believe in national service of some kind for everyone at some point in their lives.

10. Revenues. Taxation is necessary to provide the necessities of government, but I am opposed to the excesses of redistribution of wealth such as is currently reflected in our tax code and in the Amendment that authorizes graduated income taxes. A form of flat tax that recognizes the problems of lower income citizens is my preferred approach.

11. The Disadvantaged. We must take care of the disabled, the poor, and the jobless to the point that they are not destitute. I do think that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare programs, with some improvements, are needed. We must not create a dependent class of citizens, however, that does not work or strive to work when they physically can work. We should have corrected abuses of these programs a long time ago!

12. Foreign Aid. Foreign aid is a difficult subject for many reasons. Humanitarian aid is often subverted to other uses by the receiving nation. Loans may be diverted to the purchase of military goods. The poor around the world cannot be brought up to a subsistence level by use of our aid; there are simply too many of them. There are few good answers, beyond teaching them “how to fish rather than giving them fish to eat” as the saying goes. Subsidizing foreign governments is in general not a good idea either, because we would often be supporting oppressive governments. I make an exception for disaster aid.

13. Right-Sized Government. There must be a “right size” for our government appropriate to the agreed functions it must perform. Since we have state and local governments, I believe in a proper division of services between the federal government and the state and local governments. I do not believe in unfunded mandates by the federal government.

It seems to me that the well-identified government organizations have topped such a gross number—over 1177 agencies, bureaus, committees, boards, and the like---that it is imperative for us to take the pruning shears to this polyglot of spenders and bring them down to size. While we are at it, I think we should place all of the government offices and budgets under very close scrutiny over some period of time by a bipartisan committee, and force them to justify their mission, methods, staffing level and money expenditures to the public, the Congress and the President all over again.

14. Congressional Overhaul. Our Congress needs to be overhauled to stop the abuses of power that current party orientations employ to the detriment of us all. Such things as: stopping earmarks; creating term limits; standardizing the rules of the house and senate; and reform of election financing, among other reforms, are needed.

15. Illegal Immigrants. Illegal immigrants have by definition violated our law and they must be treated accordingly. I am willing to consider some route to citizenship for some of them provided they are law-abiding, willing to assimilate into our society, and are not destitute and unskilled to begin with. There should be a migrant worker program that is well-controlled and effective, but not a means to disappear into the nation, or to reside in the nation without a legal basis. The bottom line is I do believe in legal immigration of people that add to our nation with their skills, morals, work ethic, and wholehearted willingness to assimilate. Non-assimilation by some measure should be cause for deportation.

16. Abortion. “Thou shalt not murder” is a commandment that must be obeyed, and it extends to prevention of abortions in most cases. Personhood begins with conception, so abortion is murder, in my opinion. The law must reflect this. Incidentally, we currently experience over 1.3 million abortions in the US per year. Think of it! (In 4. above one must differentiate between “murder” and “just killing”.)

17. Same Sex Marriage. We have a large number of same-sex couples, and a growing number of them are being married in states that permit such. I do not believe in same-sex marriage, or adoption by same-sex couples, but I must recognize the laws that exist even if I do not agree with them. I will work to rescend such laws.

18. Subverting the Constitution. Our form of government—a republic-- must be permanent, and not subject to fundamental changes in how it is structured. To try to move our nation towards socialism or communism, or totalitarianism, or “pure democracy” (as opposed to republicanism) is, in my opinion, a form of treason. This must extend to the prohibition of the government from ever owning and operating commercial businesses.

19. Overhaul of Courts. We need a court system overhaul, too. I want to consider term limits for Justices instead of lifetime appointments. When too many justices line up with the progressive opposition, and legislate from the bench, we have a terrible situation that cannot be corrected today until one or more justices retire or die, and the then administration appoints more moderate or rightist judges as replacements.

20. Speak English. We must make American English the official language of the US. I believe that most people can become proficient in English inside of a year if they apply themselves to the task, and they should if they want to assimilate easily. We spend entirely too much money catering to the language needs of immigrants and their children.

21. Education. Our education system needs a full overhaul from top to bottom. We need to break the hold that progressives have on our education, and the hold that the unions have attained. I have seen little or no correlation between the growing wages of teachers and any improvement in the educational products being delivered. We need to ensure that students learn the basics thoroughly.

22. Unions. There may be a place in our society for unions, but it is not in the US government, or in state governments. Unions should be prohibited forthwith from organizing or existing in our government at all levels.

23. Treason and Sedition. We must reform our views and laws pertaining to treason to update them to meet the threats we face today. In my opinion an act of terrorism is an act of treason, and the promotion of anti-American movements, marches, and rallies is inflammatory, inciting to do harm and seditious. No group should have a pass when it comes to the threat or execution of terrorist acts, no matter their ultimate motivation, especially in their own thinking. This specifically includes Islamic Fundamentalists that preach the overthrow of the nation and the necessity for jihad against our nation, which in my eyes are treasonous or seditious.

24. States Rights. We must adhere to the idea of a federation, and restore such rights that have been usurped by the federal government back to the states where they belong in accord with our Constitution, or back to the people themselves.

25. Fiscal Responsibility. We must return the nation to an era of common sense fiscal responsibility, rein in spending, and pay down the national debt, while reducing the annual deficit to a practical level. Our objective should be to balance the annual budget and keep it that way, barring unforeseen events such as war or devastation. Any congressman that voted for spendthrift programs and earmarks should be defeated, and any president, from either party, that leads us into such spending should be defeated also.

26. Energy Resources. The nation has substantial natural resources which produce energy: coal, hydroelectric power, oil, natural gas, sun power, and wind, and eventually perhaps wave power. We also have nuclear power which has the two problems of handling radioactive wastes and the threat of a nuclear meltdown caused by damage to the plant. My belief is that we have not pursued our resources to the maximum over the past years, and we should therefore move out sharply to rectify this shortfall and thereby materially reduce our dependence on Middle East and other nations’ oil. Solar and wind power are both not yet ready for major implementation and economic production of power. Coal represents 50% of our production, and should be the starting place for R&D to develop cleaner plants, not solar!

27. Obama Problems. We must totally eradicate just about every Obama initiative and Executive Order, every Obama appointment, and every Obama policy statement, and then begin all over to straighten out the total mess we are in.

(To be completed)

Illegal Immigrants--Send them Home?

2011-10-01T17:14:00.000-04:00

We have a border problem that is costing us a lot.

What are the viable solutions to controlling our border with Mexico? So far, there have been a number proposed and partially implemented: 1. the border fence, which is imperfect and incomplete, and is thwarted by the drug dealers and everyone else; 2. Border Patrols augmented somewhat, but insufficiently; 3. All manner of technical surveillance systems coupled with pursuit teams, which has had some limited successes; 4. statewide patrols that catch some truckloads of aliens but not all; 5. a significant set of laws on the books that are not enforced; 6. and National Guard units deployed essentially unarmed. No one suggests that we shoot to kill any crossers, unless, of course, they shoot first, which has happened.

I suppose the final idea is to simply leave the border open and unattended with “y’all come! signs posted around. This idea is a non-starter in my book. We do not have an EU kind of relationship with Mexico with no intra-border control at all.

If we really want to shut the border as a first act, I am reasonably certain that we could reach a 95% to 98% seal, using the above closing methods far more thoroughly, including employing our armed forces, with a dispensation for posse comitatus along the border belt. The idea that the fence allows a reduction in patrols is simply wrong. The fence is meant to make it difficult for groups to cross quickly and to detect the crossings when they do occur, but we need constant surveillance and very frequent overlapping patrols and backups. This takes money; lots of money, and a fully completed and instrumented fence and border strip. A solution must be found for the instances where the fence disrupts our own citizens’ property. How dumb can you get? This problem must have a reasonable solution.

The second act here is to create a realistic and effective large scale migrant worker program using new ID technologies, police-type supervision and really heavy fines for sponsors if they can’t supervise their workers properly. Perhaps the employers should deposit a heafty sum for each migrant worker they hire as a guarantee of their keeping control, or else.

The third act is to use very heavy fines for employers that use illegal workers, and to supervise them very often. If the jobs dry up or are under the MWP fewer will come across illegally.

The fourth act is very simple, but evidently hard to do. Have all US police organizations charged with the responsibility to identify and apprehend illegal aliens, along with the INS and Border Patrols. The police should enforce the current laws on the books, which would allow them to question suspected lawbreakers and ask them for ID wherever they are found on US territory. The police do not want this job, and they have allowed laws to be broken in their presence because they do not want to get involved. The concept of our law enforcement people refusing to enforce a law is repugnant to me. There are some legal problems involved, but they can be handled, I believe, if we want to solve the illegal alien problem at all. The INS and legal screening process would have to be streamlined and their personnel motivated to reach a deportation decision, or not, more rapidly then earlier.

Such acts would materially increase the flow of illegal aliens from the US to their homeland. Provisions would have to be made to house and feed this crowd until they are shipped home en masse, possibly by using a combination of near border housing in camps, busses, and perhaps a string of leased cruise ships from our ports eventually to theirs.

Over a five or even a ten year program, this approach could reduce the number of illegal aliens in the US substantially if it were to be fully implemented in all respects.

Of course, there are those who wish to ignore the illegality of these people and would provide them amnesty and US citizenship sooner or later. Personally, I am against amnesty. Perhaps there are ways to grant some of them immediate migrant worker status or deferrals for humanitarian reasons, so long as they are gainfully employed and pay US taxes. Sooner or later, however, they would have to return home and apply for the normal and legal immigration route. There is nothing to prevent us from increasing the number of Mexican citizens that we would allow to immigrate per year either, through the standard channels.

The “standard channels” themselves need a major overhaul as well, but that is another story.

What needs development is the fairness of our system of permissions in the INS. What is the rationale for allowing, say, a large quota from Mexico to immigrate, but to block or reduce quantities from other nations? Should there be an upper limit per year, and on and on…?

Obama's Sins Emerging Clearly

2011-09-21T15:12:00.000-04:00

Obfuscation Tactics

Let me see, how many obfuscation tactics are available to deflect the import of documented sins if one is totally ruthless? Here is a short and incomplete list that can appear at any stage in any order! These tactics hold for office holders and for defenders of the faith! Some have already appeared!

1. Shoot the messenger! First thing they do; check!

2. Shoot the author! Second thing!; check!

3. Call the collected data a “hit piece” by biased people!; check!

4. Call the evidence to be somehow tainted!; TBD

5. Pick one accusation and find a supposed flaw, which is then used to try to discredit the entire set; TBD

6. Assure the silence of key potential witnesses; UNKN

7. Stonewall each accusation, and hide the data; UNKN

8. Blanket denials, lies and destroy the evidence (illegal in itself!); UNKN

9. Use executive privelege to deny access to data; check

10. Simply deny access and ignore court orders, etc; check

11. Bush did it; check

12. Bush did it too!; check

13. Other excuses; TBD

13. Clinton did it; check
14. X group or X individual did it, not me; check

15. Mount a counter argument that deflects the thrust; check

16. Assume the authority and challenge questioners; check

17. Publish counter reports from a biased perspective; check

18. Tie up the arguments in definitional problems and legal snares; check

19. Tie up the arguments in alternate interpretations of laws; check

Instances of most of these tactics are documented in Limbaugh’s book: “Crimes Against Liberty.”

Reply

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Government in Stasis

2011-09-19T17:57:00.000-04:00

Unblocking the Economy

There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security (that is: the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance for all...) should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is, some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision." The Road to Surfdom": F. A. Hayek

Thus we have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, and other welfare and job loss provisions for all. What is being debated is how to continue to pay for it all in the face of overwhelming national debt and its interest payments over the next 20 years, give or take, and while maintaining our military capability at "sufficient" levels, and, oh by the way, spurring the economy to life and making a lot more jobs. All in the right Hayekian direction, theoretically, but needing really serious tuning and pruning for affordability, safeguarding of free market principles and prevention of fraud and abuse. Politically, however...

The Democrats seem to want to minimize cuts in their programs and our entitlements, and to gain more revenue to pay the Piper and to add to their social programs. The Republicans seem adamantly to want to cut spending and avoid higher taxes in the first instance. There is a stymied position because of a complete lack of trust in the Obama administration by Republicans, who seem to be gun shy of mere verbal promises to cut spending while having to accept tax increases up front, as has happened in the past by, let us say, "slight of hand in Congress;" cuts which would diminish the power of the Democrats, plus many serious concerns about the low morality of this administration. The Democrats likewise suspect the Republicans of wanting to decimate their already legislated social structures, especially ObamaCare, do want to hold or increase their monetary and political power, accuse the Republicans of bad faith, etc. and hence do not trust the Republicans. The verbal offer of Obama of a 5 for 1 split was rejected, I suppose, for all of the above distrust reasons, plus nothing in writing. One key to the impasse is the fact of Republican control of the House, where all money bills must begin.

Yet, most of us citizens go along with Hayek, I believe, not full bore, perhaps, but to an acceptable degree of expenditures, and we want action on all the key elements to begin sharply.

This is a titanic struggle for power and control of the nation, and I am pessimistic that we can get on the right track without ceding power to one or the other parties for control of the Senate and the Presidency via the next election, and with a providential, lucky selection of key players in the government.

We need some genius to write a bill that is acceptable to both parties and the public. My only thought is that the parties should come to a written agreement as to the principles of the way ahead, get public acceptance of it, and then write legislation that faithfully adheres to the agreement, pass it in both houses, and have the President sign it.

I hope that is what the supercommittee does!

Ranking Presidents?

2011-09-04T17:04:00.000-04:00

How do we qualifiy a man to be President?

I would venture that none of the presidents actually trained to be the President, and therefore learned quite largely on the job what it means to run the administrative branch of the government, and the nation. I suspect further that few of them knew in any real detail just how things worked in Washington before they became President, nor did they grasp the wide-ranging subjects that had to be handled daily, or the external influences that may drive their every day. I do not know how to account easily (at this moment) for party affiliation or the makeup of Congress in ranking their success, but it must be a significant factor. I agree that executive experience per se may not be a telling differentiator.

Of all the traits one could wish upon a candidate for president, and I can readily think of several dozen, I select these four as crucial: prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude. Of course, if you believe in the Unity of Virtues concept, having these four just about guarantees the rest will be favorable also!

How one could directly measure these traits before or during a campaign, I haven't a clue. It is simply an inner perception of worth. I do believe that if my candidate scored 8.5 to 9.0 or better on all three by some method he would end up ranking rather high on the list, as in my opinion did Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and some others in these very traits.

Has any scholar attempted to rank the presidents specifically on such key virtues by some effective criteria, through their decisions, writings, or speeches for example, rather than by averaging polls?

Questioning the Religious Beliefs of Candidates

2011-08-30T01:03:00.000-04:00

Is this not the way things are today in the US?

The average voter really does try to find out something concrete about the person or persons he is voting for, and the MSM is most often of little help, or even far too much help! The blast of propaganda from all sides may or may not influence this voter. However, his interest picks up significantly when the candidate’s religion is brought up, since that is a major criterion that will be used by him to vote yea or nay, just as many voters do in sizing up any stranger.

Does this man believe in God? Does he make a serious attempt to follow the moral teachings of his religion, and if that religion is not well known to the voter, what are the similarities and differences from the voter’s own religion and morals? Can the man be trusted to follow the fundamental tenets of the majority of citizens, or does he bring a skewed view of the majority religion to the table? The further from the majority religion the candidate stands, or the further from the voters religion, the more the candidate’s views must be probed before he earns the vote–or not.

I suspect that any candidate that is not a Christian will receive considerably more attention to his statements about his beliefs than would an avowed Christian candidate. I also suspect that, regardless of qualifications, a candidate for the presidency that states he is an Atheist or an Agnostic will not receive a majority of votes in the US for some time to come. Then too, if the candidate ducks the question of his religious affiliation, he will become suspect until the issue is clarified satisfactorily. Of course, if the candidate professes an acceptable religion, but does not practice it, or even violates the moral code, this may have to be corrected dramatically downstream.

The Universe?

2011-08-20T16:18:00.000-04:00

Where did the Universe come from? We Don’t Know!

It seems to me that many if not most creationists and cosmologists are stuck in one or more ruts:

1. The Universe was created ex nihilo by God via the Big Bang or;

2. The Universe created itself, somehow, according to Stephen Hawking, following some sort of unknown cosmic disturbance (in the nothingness!), or;

3. There are many universes stretching back to infinity; ours just happens to be one that is well-suited for life. So there is a sort of steady state of universes forming and dissolving from minus infinity to plus infinity.

These, of course are not truly scientific theories since they cannot be observed or tested. One might simply label them “Just So” stories.

4. Along comes Superstring Theory that purports to show that the Big Bang came from the collision of two M-branes in existence prior to the Big Bang. This is pure mathematical speculation that cannot have an iota of truth to it that we can verify using the scientific method, not to mention asking where the M-branes came from in the first place!

There is nothingness to begin with, or else there is a plethora of universes to begin with. Either way, no proof is possible. The main reason to create an ex nihilo Big Bang is to support the existence of God the Creator, the First Cause, The Architect. The main reason to create a self-starting Universe or a Multiverse stretching to infinity is to deny the existence of God the Creator, and to support scientific materialism.

We cannot know what was in existence, or was not in existence, before the Big Bang. So it is a matter of taste or faith, take your pick.

Let Us Justify Government Organizations Anew

2011-08-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

A Radical Approach to Government Review and Citizen Approval

At last report, the number of organizations in our government has exceeded 1,177 according to the LSU government accounting group. This includes the major departments, agencies, commissions, boards, committees and the like, and the number is growing by hundreds under Obama! The idea I believe to be highly worthwhile would be to put each of these organizations under the public spotlight by law, and force them to justify their existence to the public, and then to their congressional representatives. By justification I mean a thorough review of their purpose, mission, leadership, staffing, plans, budget, contractor involvements, long-term commitments, principal accomplishments over the past five years, and projections for the future. In order to be fair, every organization should be scheduled for review, thus stopping political influence from omitting favorite groupings.

To do any major part of 1,177 oganizations would take a very long time. We have a mammoth government! If we could do 100 a year by using, first the filled out forms from each organization stating their case justifying their existence, budget and staffing, and then by using multiple objective teams analysing each one of the organizations and then presenting their findings for approval by public vote after allowing for a period of study by the public. This would easily require about 12 or more years, or 3 presidential terms, 2 Senatorial terms, and 6 Representative terms! There may be a few shortcuts available by referring to the Constitution for guidance in each case, by accepting the defining law for the organization, by accepting the organization's written case, or by a combination of these justifications, thus reducing the workload and time.

The order in which each organization is scheduled would be a significant battle in the Congress (as would the entire idea of course), but perhaps the order of their establishment in law would be the appropriate sequence. Thus older and perhaps antiquated organizations would go first.

The recommendations of the teams would be presented for voting in a series of national referendums, and the line item recommendations to be voted on for each organization would be to either:

1. keep or dissolve the organization over an appropriate time frame.

2. reduce the budget of the organization, and cut its mission and staff appropriately over time..

3. hold the budget, mission and staff steady as it is.

4. raise the budget, and add to the mission and staff appropriately.

5. consolidate two or more organizations and reduce administrative staff and budget.

6. or other possible changes to be determined.

The results of the referendums would supercede current law governing the organizations in question, unless Congress and the President take specific steps to alter the recommendations in the law. The only other appeal would be to the Supreme Court, or a number of Courts convened by the Supreme Court for the specific purpose of review, because of the probable heavy volume of challenges that would ensue (presumably 100 a year or so!).

While we are at it, we could also form referendums to justify or reject the formation of unions in the government, justify or reject the use of earmarks, justify or reject term limits for Senators and Congressmen, and justify or reject the need for a balanced budget each year, among other possible reforms of the government. It is perhaps the case that such a legislative approach to reforms would be far preferable to a Constitutional Convention, since such a convention could not be controlled as to subjects and conclusions, which might lead to objectionable results.

Our Socialist Neighbors

2011-08-12T16:53:00.000-04:00

What is it that turns people towards socialism and communism?

Here are a few possible reasons:

1. They are poor and need all the assistance they can get; and, they have the vote. So they flock to the party that promises, promises, and promises a better life. They forget, however, that the same promises were made in the last election, and the one before that, and still remain unfulfilled.

2. They are not so poor but see turning socialist as a way to a more plush, exciting and event-filled life, with lots of confrontations, and lots of marching militantly around with signs, and they see that paying for entitlements with other people’s money is no sacrifice for them.

3. They are reasonably well off, but their hearts bleed for the not so well off. They believe in the infinite perfectibility of Man and Utopia, so they work for these (unrealizable) ideals. Often these people are well educated by our progressive universities, have atheistic leanings, and come out swinging for socialist programs, not having the leavening of hearing the other side of the story—ever!

4. They are reasonably well off and see turning socialist as a means to increase their personal power. They thirst for the power of office to do something for the downtrodden, which the downtrodden gladly accept at the 10 cents on the dollar appropriated that manages to filter down to them.

5. They are very well off, and do not need government assistance, nor is their wealth easily attacked by the government, so they have the time, energy, and means to indulge themselves in progressive movements, mostly for the power trip it entails, and for the ideal of a Utopia at the end of the day(while they know very well that it has been proven that Utopias can never be realized!). Thus, they are first class hypocrites, mouthing such empty slogans as Hope and Change!

DoubleSpeak 2011

2011-08-09T17:18:00.000-04:00

This was destined for 1984, but it is flowering late in 2011!

Tea Party = Terrorists.

Fair Share of Taxes = 60% Pay None, Let Top 2 % pay 90% of all taxes.

Republicans = Throw Grandma Out The Window.

The Only Way Ahead = Obama's Way or No Way.

Reduce Spending I = Take a Symbolic 1% Cut Now, and Raise it back in 2012 (after the election).

Obamacare Will Save Money = Projected 15% Increase per year in Medical Spending Through 2016.

Reduce Spending II = Cut Defense by Half, we don't need so many troops or weapons, despite two wars, and a bunch of nations getting very hostile: China; Iran; Russia; Pakistan; NK to mention a few, all nukers!

Reduce Spending III = Make it up in reduced fraud and theft in government programs (why only now?).

Free Speech = Approved by the Administration Only. Cut out Fox.

Have a Nice Dinner = Only with approved ingredients.

Your Child is Being Educated = In the Socialist Way, and forget American History and Ideals.

New Car? = Buy Government Motors!

Friendly Foreign Nations? = Who Needs Them!

Economy Fix? = Government Control of the Means of Production. (Marx is alive and well)

Unions in Government? = How Else Will They Achieve Pay One and a Half to Two Times the Private Sector Average? Get rid of government unions!

More Government Employees? = Well aren't they off the dole?

Only 9.1% Unemployed! = Forgetting about the 14% that have stopped looking! Reality = 23.1%

Raise Taxes = They need to spend more?

Islamic Terrorist Threat? = Aw, just a few kooks in ragheads; don't worry about it!

National Borders? = Who needs them? Stop the fence, it is too expensive!

National Sovereignty? = Who needs it? Let the UN run us.

National Budget? = Who needs it? We have gotten along without one for two years!

Make Your Fortune? = Beware of Redistribution of Wealth programs and taxes

This is definitely not my America!

Austerity IV

2011-07-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

Label Obama the "Man Without a Plan" as he stumbles through our fiscal crisis. He asks for a blank check and more revenue to go along with his 4 Trillion dollar debt ceiling uptick.

This man has to go!

Austerity Program III

2011-07-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

Immanent Market Drop of 50% or More!

Within the next two to three months, our markets will fall drastically! That is how I read the 15 or so market gurus I subscribe to yearly. Virtually every one of them claims to have predicted the last few market drops well in advance, and I can certify that 5 of them did. They are all pessimistic about the US economy, regardless of the actions Congress and the President take now.

As a result, I have divested myself of all bonds and stocks except gold and silver, and one favorite energy stock, DOM (Dominion Virginia Power). I have a strong tax free cash position built up that will allow me to start buying when the signals indicate a favorable uptrend sometime in 2012 or 2013. In addition, I have taken a major position in gold bullion held in a vault with my name on it in Switzerland.

This post is to inform everyone of my thinking and my actions to prepare my portfolio for the worst, in the hope that others can benefit from it.

Austerity Program II

2011-07-24T15:54:00.001-04:00

Unfortunately, as I read the tealeaves, any rationally-sized tax hike will be gobbled up by the medical programs inside of a year or two from now, leaving us poorer in pocket right now and still needing an Austerity Program of biting depth, such as the plus or minus10% per year or so suggested earlier. Continue this tax hiking act each year and you simply dig us a far deeper hole. Let the debt spiral upwards to boot and the debt service will likewise spiral, perhaps even faster because of drastic hiking of interest rates for our borrowing. Job production would continue to go negative with a vengence.

The way out must be deep spending cuts by the government.

It is apparent that the financial world is watching, and may well lower our credit rating despite a healthy rise in the spending cap, which will raise interest rates on us all very rapidly, and could well lead to the formal shift by the world community from the dollar base to some currency mix. If that happens, we are in for superinflation soon thereafter to go with the interest hikes. We could no longer print funnymoney to pay our bills. All of which would be disastrous for everyone but the very rich. All because some of us want to preserve our lush spending ways in the face of impending financial doom.

Obviously, we need to be sensitive to real needs of the disadvantaged, but we do have to achieve savings in the medical arena, which means a major rework of Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid. The continuation of the defacto policy of raising the limit and raising taxes while promising spending cuts downstream that never happen must stop real soon now, or we will be in a heap of trouble we just might not be able to work our way out of in a pleasant manner. Whoever thought that SS funds were banked for use is wrong. They were diverted to the general fund, with a piece of paper IOU replacing them. They have been spent.

Whether most Americans or their representatives want to avoid these almost draconian cuts is absolutely immaterial and disingenuous because they will be forced on us from without if we don’t act ourselves while we can still set and pay for our own spending, import and export priorities.

Austerity Program

2011-07-23T15:57:00.000-04:00

We must get serious and take the hits needed!

Looks to me like we need a real Austerity Program for possibly as long as 10 years, depending on the economic level we can reach. This means cuts in spending of about 10% per year each year of the program, with every sector taking a real hit, except debt service. If the economy rises substantially in the meanwhile, rescaling some of these reductions could take place, and national debt reductions could be significant.

It should also mean rooting out fraud and abuse across the board, eliminating a number of expensive but "nice to have" government services, eliminating many donations to foreign nations, and reducing our overseas forces to a minimum. Many advanced weapons systems would have to be put on a "go slow" or even canceled outright until our economy recovers sufficiently to afford them. This could mean a very serious reduction in our military spread over the ten years, again, unless economic activity heats up substantially much sooner.

The Solomon's choices residing in Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and Social Security will have to be made in order to reduce both their outlays and their entitlements very substantially. This will be the most probable area of failure of our system to cope. I am not sure what means testing would do for Medicare, but it should be explored. Raising the elegibility level for SS to 68 or 69 may help, but other reductions will be needed.

I am sure that eliminating costly restrictions on exploration, production, and use of our oil, coal, and natural gas would have a strong economic benefit too. Perhaps the EPA needs to be scaled back substantially in its efforts to strangle our economy for the benefit of desert bugs and forest beetles while loading our energy sector with massive costs we now cannot afford.

Our Spendthrift Administration

2011-07-22T16:14:00.000-04:00

Those who want to put the blame on President Bush for our fiscal woes should heed the following facts:

Including all expenditures:

Clinton spent................................$564 Million per day over 8 years

Bush spent ..................................$1.2 Billion per day over 8 years

Obama spent................................$4.6 Billion per day over 2.5 years, so far!

This current expenditure rate is not sustainable. Source: GAO

Same-sex Marriage Passes in NY.

2011-06-25T14:53:00.001-04:00

Slippery paths abound over the next 25 years or so!

Next up? Polygamy! Does anyone really find a compelling legal reason to bar polygamy? Several airline pilots, truckers, railmen, salesmen and many servicemen would welcome such freedom to marry in each city they are based in, not to leave out various Mormon and other sects that practice it now.

Then allow mixed marriages, such as two gay men and a woman, two gay and one straight man and a woman, or any of a number of other combinations, thus destroying the concept of the family.

Following that logically: forgetting about marriage and the family altogether, as many already do, and adopting the Islamic divorce rule of throwing three stones on the ground and muttering “I divorce you!” with each stone.

And then: let the State support, raise and educate the children, as Secular Humanists once proposed in writing (but omitted in later manifestos), thus creating a society fully trained in SM ideology (read universal communism).

A Myriad of Crises

2011-06-14T05:55:00.001-04:00

Everywhere I turn, I see a looming crisis threatening our American way of life.

I will be brief here, and simply list the key words of the crises I see exploding in America

Spending
Jobs
Debt
Climate Change
Islamic Jihad
Energy
Banking
Healthcare
Investing
Housing
Iraq
Iran
Lybia
Yemen
War
Politics
Foreign Policy
Entitlements
Racism
Defense
China
Nature
Education
Civility
Other

What will happen?

The dismal outlook is for our economy to fail. Stock prices will tank, sending trillions of paper wealth into oblivion. States and cities will default on their loans, and be unable to pay their employees, much less keep up with the massive unfunded obligations the feds have placed on them. The price of oil and gas will soar, making it impossible to afford many kinds of products, most telling being food that must be shipped in. The distribution system will crash. Food prices will soar out of sight for many people. Jobs will disappear as firms try desperately to stay in business, and those that do keep their jobs will have to take big cuts in salaries and perks. Soup lines will appear to feed the destitute just as in 1930. Real estate prices will tank much further as well, destroying the equity of many thousands of owners.

Worse, there will be riots and burnings as people revolt against the status quo, just as has happened in Greece, Germany, and in the US when economic conditions force people to vent their displeasure. Stores will be looted and fat-cat's homes will be looted and burned to the ground.

What to do?

Hunker down
Protect investments
Take more security measures at home; purchase weapons and ammo
Stock up on food and other items--be self-sufficient for a reasonable time
Install a natural gas electricity generator
Put all funds in a secure bank
Pay off the mortgage
Get top notch health insurance
Do not depend on Social Security or Medicare
Do your job exceedingly well, or use your retirement to help the cause.
Vote Republican
Give to charities
Invest in foreign assets and currencies
Fight for the nation if needed
Enlist your neighbors in protecting the group or block when the police can't come fast enough

The Weiner Scandal

2011-06-11T13:18:00.002-04:00

A growing list of people and ever more explicit sex==> He must resign!

Without getting into details at all, because they are lewd and risque, I believe Anthony Weiner should resign his office and go home to repair his marriage and salvage his reputation. He should not be in public office ever again. sic transit Weiner. This goes for any public official that exhibits an inability to control their sexual urges on line while in or out of office. What goes on in their own bedroom does not interest me at all, unless they are cavorting with underage women.

Sanity in Military Force Reductions

2011-05-28T14:12:00.000-04:00

Just where might we become involved in a war?

1. Defending Israel from the Arabs, after the Arabs have built up their military further.

2. Defending South Korea from NK aggression yet again.

3. Intervening in Pakistan to neutralize their nukes, if not also to protect our logistics trails.

4. In the short term, carrying out the plans and operations for Iraq and Afghanistan.

5. Defending Europe once again in five or six+ years from now?

If we experience force reductions, say to a 500,000 man army, a 6 carrier navy, and a 40 wing air force, or roughly a 50% reduction from current levels, it would tax that remaining force massively to take on any one of these conflicts and hope for success, while maintaining other military commitments within the US and worldwide. If, any other of these possible conflicts were to pop up at the same time, we would be obliged to ramp up massively once again and call up the reserves, or else let fate take its course, which would be not only more expensive than keeping a sufficient force at the ready, but it also allows a large time penalty in favor of any aggressor before we can show up in force.

So what exactly is the right capability level for our forces? A 25% reduction? A 33% reduction al la Clinton and his peace dividend that was spent before it was actually realized, and cost us when we had to ramp up again a bit later more than was actually saved? What should we allow for RDT&E of new weapons, and what should we allow for stockpiling of weapons and ammunition? What should be allowed for initial or continued production of new combat and transport aircraft, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, missiles (large and small), and other military goods. What should we allow for continued intelligence gathering by all of the current organizatrions involved? And, not to forget, what is to be allowed for continued training of the standing force, and continued maintenance as things break?

Obviously, given that it can be found in the military and its procurement channels, waste, fraud and abuse of funds should be eliminated, as should weakly justified or totally unjustified studies and procurements. One estimate I saw reckoned that perhaps a billion dollars a year could be saved by tightening up on the oversight of expenditures.

In my opinion, rather than engaging in sweeping and generalized statements about reducing the military forces, we should delve into the realities of our needs, element by element., situation by situation, and forecast by forecast and plan by plan of our future military needs worldwide, and then rack up the score and the bill. This is what Bill Gates is doing right now, and he should be heard out fully.

Wishful Thinking

2011-05-19T22:14:00.000-04:00

On many recent occasions I have reacted to events stemming from the current administration with the thought that America would be far better off if Elitist Progressives were to somehow disappear: all of them! Then, I had a second thought that quite a few Radical Rightwing people might have to disappear also simply to balance the body politic properly and prevent any sort of Rightist revolution.

What do I mean by “somehow disappear?” I mean just exactly that. They are somehow suddenly and permanently no longer in their usual positions of power and influence over we the people. They no longer try to push their vision of society onto us instead of the Constitutional Republic that we were gifted with by the Founding Fathers. They simply cease to be in the public eye, and leave the nation to those of us who believe in America by and large as she is and has been for some 230 years, not as some leftwing radical dreamers think they know how she should be. Virtually every one of my list of the 100 worst horrors in America today would instantly resolve themselves and fade into the background.

You might ask: “do I mean kill them?” Certainly not! All I mean is that they go home instantly and tend to their own knitting, play bridge or chess, go boating, travel the world, party all day, write a book, or do useful and constructive work (if they know how), but they do not enter into the political arena or government service ever again (except to vote, of course). Their voices would not be heard on the national scene again, either. Their lies and half truths, their set pieces and schemes, and their false choices would never confuse the electorate again, and the media would perforce have to come round to honest reporting and analysis rather than being a megaphone for the worst of Elitist Progressive ideas and the worst of Progressive people. What is more important, we could begin to balance the books once more and eliminate the massive national debt these radicals have saddled us with, which would be most appreciated by our children and their children.

Oh how I wish I could snap my fingers and make this happen!

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Damn! It didn’t work!

UBL RIP

2011-05-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

The man is finally dead. He should have been not long after 9/11. I give little credit to Obama, except that he didn't stop the plan. This event should not have anything at all to do with the election, except to wonder why it took so long under Obama and Bush to find the man and kill him. Then too, why are many other high level terrorists still alive?

What an ironic tragedy if the death of ben Laden actually helped Obama to win a second term, so we can double the deficit again.
I cannot resist crowing that I told you so way before the 2008 election that Obama was poison to the nation.

A further thought on Obama: here is a man that exhibits a dangerous moral ambivilance; he organizes and avidly tries to watch in real time the assasination of ben Laden by a bullet in the face, yet he loathes the waterboarding and other extrodinary interrogation methods used to help find UBL in the first place, even though waterboarding leaves the victim essentially undamaged. A bullet in the face represents the ultimate damage one can do to a human being.

Blog Directions

2011-04-22T15:54:00.001-04:00

Revamping the basis for Rightwords---April 22, 2011, Revised April 26, 2011

Themes
1.   Preserving and improving the American way of life
2.   Philosophical basis for practical decisions—a bridge between them
3.   Promoting freedom, liberty, and the Constitution
4.   Affirming an American Culture superseding all others
5.   Patriotism born of love of country and its people
6.   Affirming Natural Law, Rights and Duties
7.   Defending the nation from attacks from without and within
8.   Countering media bias
9.   Religion, moral absolutism and religious rights affirmed, excepting religions that are dedicated to the overthrow of the nation.
10. Critique of military forces engaged in various conflicts.
11. Ensuring that changes to our laws do good and not harm.
12. Ensuring that our laws are enforced properly throughout the nation. We are to be ruled by laws, not men.

Issues

Here is my list of the 100 major horrors we face in America today
To absorb this list all at once is a truly frightening thing! While it is basically a phrase outline with notes at this time, the list represents a hundred or so of the major issues, problems and directions we Americans need to monitor, analyze, disassemble and then revise, redo or rebuild in better form.
The list is not complete, obviously, and the huge stories behind each of the items listed need to be told in depth. Some of the items are overlapping in context, but so be it. I intend to refine the list as time go on.
Here is the list in no special order except as they occurred to me:

1. Government spending: hyperinflation is near at hand!
2. Government growth
3. Government arrogance
4. Judicial activism is not an allowed function of courts, and it subverts the Constitutional system of checks and balances.
5. Attacks on the Constitution must be thwarted.
6. Political correctness and multiculturalism (PCMC)
7. Secularism and the ACLU are driving God out of the public square.
8. Government lying, shading the truth, cooking the books
9. Gun control efforts to disarm the public and leave them defenseless. Law-abiding citizens should have an arsenal and be able to use the weapons effectively.
10. Anti-military and anti defense movements
11. Open borders clowns subverting our sovereignty in a bald vote-buying move.
12. AGW supporters gone hyper over something we most likely cannot fix.
13. Public sector unionism
14. Islam and Jihadism, the GWOT must be renamed GWOI
15. Growth of entitlements with vastly increased future costs.
16. Amnesty for Illegal immigrants—why? Because they are here? No, they broke the law.
17. Judicial soft-heartedness; revolving-door prisons, unusually light sentences, etc.
18. Internationalism and the UN; we are not ready for world government. There are too many amoral or immoral nations and their corrupt leaders still standing.
19. Erosion of property rights by the Supreme Court
20. Downgrading State’s Rights; accumulation of power by the Federal Government. We must achieve a proper balance.
21. Abortion and abortionists, infanticide
22. Potable water, irrigation water must be ensured.
23. Gay rights, gay marriage, gays in the military, DADT
24. Obamacare and the thrust to nationalization of the healthcare system must be stopped.
25. Federal Reserve System should be reformed
26. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are toxic to our financial system
27. Government ownership or takeover of private businesses—subverting private enterprise and private failure as a market economy requires for its proper functioning.
28. Multiple-term, career congressmen and senators growing senile in office, voting themselves raises and perks galore. We need term limits.
29. Direct election of senators, downgrading States, instead of having State legislatures appoint their representatives.
30. Non-enforcement of laws on the books
31. Earmarks
32. Misuse of the Commerce Clause
33. Crooked politicians, especially those that are allowed to stay in their jobs.
34. Collectivism in all of its forms
35. Atheists active in promoting their views to our regret
36. Anti-Christian groups and individuals
37. “Blockers” of all stripes
38. The tort system and trial lawyers
39. Campaign financing
40. Corrupt political machines
41. Our leftwing State Department
42. Unnecessary agricultural subsidies
43. The floating dollar not backed by real assets
44. Flight of manufacturing overseas
45. Bleeding heart mentality
46. Sovereignty under attack
47. Misleading the citizenry
48. Closed government run by czars without a legal basis.
49. Foreign policy debacles, Barack Bowing
50. Progressives, especially politicos and professors that indoctrinate their constituents and students.
51. Anti-Americanism and unpatriotic citizens.
52. Moral relativism—not in our government
53. Monetary policy
54. Moral degeneration of our society
55. Nihilism
56. Radicalism of the left, and the right
57. RINOs
58. Elites of the left
59. Democrats and leftists in general promote irrational programs.
60. War policy in Iraq
61. War policy in Afghanistan
62. War policy in Iran
63. North Korea problem
64. Number of federal agencies, boards, commissions, etc (1,177) is obviously excessive. Pseudo agencies like ACORN need ending.
65. Quashing investigations regarding lawmaker’s sins
66. Using race as a weapon
67. Deep Federal intrusion into education
68. Distortion of a proper energy policy; we need oil, so drill and pump! Meanwhile, exploit coal, natural gas, wind, solar, tides…
69. Environmentalism out of control
70. PITA and animal rights out of control
71. We have progressive taxes instead of a fixed consumer tax
72. Redistribution of wealth by the government is theft
73. Welfare should be for the provably needy only
74. Corrupt police anywhere is a problem; strong-arm tactics must be disallowed.
75. TV commercials now take up 24+ of every 60 minutes and have 8 three-minute interruptions per hour.
76. TV in general is a waste of time, with a very few exceptions.
77. Media bias to the Left leaves the majority of citizens without proper information to make or support decisions.
78. Legislators do not read the legislation they are voting on; they rely on their unelected staff to tell them what is in a bill.
79. Legislative tricks to pass huge, unread, 2,000-page, unpopular bills. Rule of conduct for legislation should be fixed by law and not left to the party in power to decide.
80. Legislators ignore the will of the people. Do you think they know best?
81. Political polarization left and right—“winner take all” mindset.
82. Untruthful and misleading attack ads; all ads for that matter!
83. The motivations of greed and power are too blatant now. How is it that our representatives become multi-millionaires?
84. Policies towards Israel and Palestine are sick.
85. FTC power grab is the worst imaginable.
86. Celebrities talking when they should be singing or something.
87. Scams, frauds, and con games on the public-- even on TV.
88. Internet hackers and their methods, including ID theft.
89. Rejection of personal responsibility for one’s life.
90. The cost of a college education is unreal now. Why?
91. The strong family should be heavily supported and admired.
92. Ethics and virtues need an overhaul at work, in the home and at school.
93. Pornography is rampant and far too accessible by children.
94. The drug war needs a significant boost, and it isn’t legalization of drugs!
95. Education in most K12 schools and in churches is terrible, especially about American history, its government, values, civics, and freedom as opposed to all other forms of governance.
96. Every government organization needs a thorough-going audit and review of its necessity, budget, personnel and policies with a view to downsizing, eliminating, consolidating, or streamlining their operations.
97. Reject pacifism at all costs!
98. Reject the proliferation of so-called social needs.
99. Scientific programs that benefit man should be supported. Others should be reviewed for possible termination.
100. Beware of con men spouting “hope and change” slogans; remember that that is exactly what they are---slogans.
101. Nuclear proliferation must be solved before we have a catastrophe.

Hypocrisy Reigns

2011-04-19T17:36:00.000-04:00

Verbal political battles are rife with hypocrisy.

The tactic of saddling a political party or an individual with historical misadventures is a well-developed art. It presumes that the misadventure of years ago in different circumstances and for rather uniquely different reasons is cause to believe that the same or very similar decision or policy would be promoted the next time the party or the individual is in a power position. So beat them over the head with it till they bleed!

Such a tactic wilfully ignores several points: 1) Parties and people do learn from their mistakes and will most likely take a far better position the next time out; 2) The accusers most often do not have all of the facts, and wilfully ignore what actually was the case for political reasons. Then too, hindsight is so much more accurate than foresight! The real factual basis quite often turns a trumped up losing proposition into a winner if you maintain your objectivity; 3) Quite a few of the accusers are simply twisting the facts around to create a (false) club with which to clobber the opposition and influence the average voter; 4) The emphasis should be on the NOW and not the past; and, just to be a tad facetious, 5) Political promises are not worth very much in the scheme of things to begin with. We have ample proof of that in the last two years from Obama, and from other Presidents as well, as we all know! Circumstances alter cases, as the saying goes, just to make things more difficult for you and me.

You know who your are and which tactics you use–honest or dishonest!

Preserving and Improving America

2011-04-18T02:44:00.001-04:00

Conservatives are in the business of preserving and improving any and all worthwhile aspects of the American way of life as they perceive it.

This includes, among many factors:

1. A nation of laws: the Constitution, civil or positive laws, customs and rules.

2. Freedom and Liberty for all citizens, including strong property rights, and the right to own and use guns, as well as freedoms of speech, travel, association, and religion.

3. The free market system, yet with adequate active regulation that effectively prevents fraud and abuse.

4. Maintaining the full and complete sovereignty of the US, and not ceding any aspect of sovereignty whatsoever to an international body, especially not the UN.

5. Natural rights, natural laws, and natural duties.

6. Financial rectitude and budgetary common sense. We support adequate control of spending and borrowing, and orderly and effective reduction of the national debt over time.

7. Charity (that many call welfare) for the needy, the ill, and the destitute.

8. A strong defensive capability for both homeland protection and foreign wars if and when necessary. We believe in just war.

9. Preserving social institutions, customs, and traditions of the nation against the onslaught of progressive changes that would harm a majority of the people.

10. Education of all citizens that succeeds in preparing them to be good and creative citizens in our republic, but not fostering a costly Federal bureaucratic educational superstructure and unions. We need to revert to the tried and true subjects and texts, and the unbiased teachers of yesterday.

11. Moral rectitude and belief in the Golden Rule.

12. The use of science to make life better for all, and to improve our knowledge in all directions.

13. Belief in the nation, patriotism.

14. Outreach to troubled nations.

15. Being a staunch ally to those that we make common cause with by either treaty or simple agreement.

16. Unwavering, implacable enemy of those that would damage or destroy the US or our real friends.

17. The idea of being successful at all that we undertake, be it: social, political, economic, military, environmental, or religious.

18. The exceptionalism of the American experiment in governance: the Constitution of the United States of America as a nonpareil system of thought.

19. The custom of admitting immigrants by a legal process and assimilating them within a generation or so is proper. The necessity is clear for deportation of illegal immigrants and not amnesty.

20. Minimal taxation necessary for running the government, but not for redistribution of wealth per se. Fair taxation is the goal, while progressive schemes are not acceptable. The goal is to let each citizen keep as much of his earnings as possible.

21. Identification of elements that need changes over time, either by expansion or by collapse, and working carefully to institute them using both the legal procedures of the Constitution, and the legislature, and the judiciary and the administration, as the Constitution envisions it to take place.

22. Understanding that Islam is not compatible with our freedoms and liberty, that its jihadist element is an existential threat to the US and way of life, and hence Islam has no standing as a non-threatening religion under our Constitution.

23. Belief that public unions should not be allowed in government at all, and that unions whose actions imperil the citizenry, such as preventing dairy supplies from entering a city, not manning aircraft controller positions, or impeding the defense of the nation, should be completely barred from such actions. In other words, life and survival come before the demands of a union.

24. We feel that there are proper subjects that can be promoted by government seed money under careful supervision, and, eventually, partial or full withdrawal by the government from the arena. Space is an example.

25. Social problems must be addressed properly, including abortion, and same sex marriage. Perhaps a national referendum is in order to ascertain whether the majority of voters favor or disfavor these issues, with legislative action to follow in accord with the wishes of the voters.

26. It is unfortunate that we do not have a free press or a free media. The ideal of the media being a major counter-balance to ensure effective government has been largely destroyed by a virtually complete bias on their part in favor of Leftist positions and Leftist candidates. This is an extremely unhealthy situation for our republic.

April 18, 2011

A Bit of Joy

2011-04-10T22:09:00.001-04:00

Staring as I am way out to sea from my perch on the nineth floor balcony, with the sun on my face and a cool breeze to ward off the heat, and with hundreds of bathers and jet skis on the water, I become lulled into the rhythm of the ocean waves and the smell of salt water. This moment, this little bit of joy, out of months of tension and dire straits, is most welcome. In fact, it is rejuvenating to my spirit and even reaches my soul with a message of pleasure and basic sanity. The world is still there in all of its natural beauty, and at least some people are out for fun, not war. A week full of sun and wind and water, wonderful food, and new things to see makes for a fine vacation, doesn't it?

Control in Relationships

2011-04-03T05:22:00.002-04:00

Opinion: In any relationship there must be give and take.

This poses to me a dilemma. If there is give and take, then there must be order and obey, however the actual words are sugar-coated, such as with please, or I suggest, or I prefer.

Many people resent such orders or suggestions for their action. They are, in effect, saying that they will refuse to either give an order or take one, but especially refuse to take suggestions or even outright orders at any time and for any reason. That is the dilemma: how do you build a relationship, a normal give and take relationship, if that refusal is given up front?

An example might help clarify this dilemma. I find that my girlfriend is having meetings with another man, ostensibly for simple friendship, but at weird hours such as 1am in the morning, or for long dinners. I do not know this man, and my reaction to this discovery is to tell(order)my girlfriend to confine such one-on-one meetings with (to me) a strange man to normal daytime hours,in public places,to tell me who the man is beforehand and what they are meeting about. This doesn't change if it is my wife doing this. I will order a change to this situation--or else. The reaction from the girlfriend or wife might well be that I am too controlling and lack trust in them and in their loyalty to our relationship or marriage.

That, to me, is the dilemma. Do I come down hard with orders, or do I subserviently take it?

Obviously, I come down hard and take the guff, because I feel that it is way out of line with normal, customary and rational behavior in a comitted relationship. This activity must cease!

What do you think? Am I right or am I wrong, and a controlling monster?

The Birther Syndrome--Real or False?

2011-03-30T17:21:00.001-04:00

Mr. Obama is our 44th President. He will remain so until at least January, 2013, if not until, January 2017. The resurgent "Birther" syndrome has at its base, the provisions in our Constitution that the President must be a natural born citizen. Obama's Certificate of Live Birth from Hawaii is set forth to answer this requirement.

No one in any capacity has been able to prove otherwise, despite all manner of lawsuits or requests for information. Whether the truth lies in Hawaii or Kenya, we will still have Obama as President until his terms run out. This is what we must deal with today.

Should the truth lie in Kenya, it would undoubtedly take years and years of litigation to reach some kind of conclusion and corrective actions. Meanwhile, there is a fine opportunity to make the issue moot by simply not reelecting him to office in 2012.

The UN on steroids? Hell no!

2011-03-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

Do I think that conservatives would object to the formation of a strong international government with its own military force?

Yes, indeed, many conservatives would rise in opposition to this idea for a number of reasons:
1) Few if any safeguards or “limited powers” can ultimately prevent such an international army from violating the sovereignty of any nation that has reaped the displeasure of the UN or any other international body. Of the 190-odd nations in the UN, a considerable majority are not favorable to the US, and any security committee composed of many hostile nations , such as could arise in the UN Security Council, can and do block actions the US would favor, or initiate actions the US would consider to be immoral.
2) There would be no disinterested higher authority a violated nation could appeal to for timely justice.
3) This amounts to relinquishing considerable sovereignty of the US to an international body that we neither can control nor be assured of decisions favorable to the US, or to the moral standards of free and democratic nations.
4) Many of the nations of the world today, and for the foreseeable future, are immoral or amoral to begin with (communist, totalitarian, etc.), have a government that has no common ethical basis with the free world, or else have an economic or vengeful interest in a certain outcome, and their judgement or vote to use force would be highly suspect, if not immoral in itself.
5) We have seen the problems of the UN and its SC up front and personal. To give such a collection of rascals the power to declare and execute war or “policing actions” on anyone using their own forces is an abomination. Korea was dubbed a “policing action”, for instance, by the UN.
6) This One World kind of scheme will continue to have the fatal flaw of some or even a majority of foxes guarding the hen house, and the fatal flaw of irreconcilable moral convictions, until democracy and ethics are normalized sufficiently in the governments and the peoples of just about all nations. That will take forever to realize, which explodes the Utopian concept of One World-ism. In my opinion, federations of nations are possible, but a single, all powerful world government is either a chimera or a nightmare.
7) The idea that participation in the UN or similar organization aids the introduction of that nation into greater democracy and freedom is simply not proven.

Meanwhile, we should do our very best together with the free and democratic nations that are our friends and allies to keep things going in a constructive direction towards more freedom and liberty worldwide.

FDR Opinion on Government Unions

2011-03-17T13:10:00.000-04:00

FDR Quote

“The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, “I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place” in the public sector. “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.”

Government Corruption

2011-03-08T17:07:00.001-05:00

Does the size of government increase corruption?

While the size of government does not necessarily correlate with the size of the corruption problem, the bigger the government the greater the tax load on the citizenry. The question is then are we getting real value for our tax dollars in a fair manner across the board, or are we being conned into a significant redistribution of wealth by the government, which I believe is outright theft.

This is one of the stated goals of the current administration; to tax the rich heavily and redistribute the proceeds, and not tax perhaps 40-60% of the citizens. In my opinion, all of us should pay taxes at some rate, perhaps by one of the so-called flat or fair tax proposals that tax consumption and not earnings. (Yes, this would require an amendment to the Constitution to rid ourselves of the income tax.)

Paying a share of the tax burden is the act of a stakeholder in the nation, as opposed to a freeloader on the system, and far from reducing freedoms, it strengthens our collective freedoms immeasurably. The old dictum still holds: “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” which this and other administrations seem to have ignored deliberately, while increasing the indebtedness of the nation by trillions.

There does exist massive corruption in the government today in Medicare, a situation that I can attest to personally by the billing and review systems between Medicare, hospitals, the insurance companies and the individual–me and family members– now in seven different cases in four different hospitals. I doubt that ObamaC will correct these problems.

To my knowledge, no one has proposed to undertake a deep and thorough non-partisan review of all government agencies, bureaus, commissions, committees, boards, and the like, of which there are at least 1700 or more, in order to reduce functional duplications, reduce staff and budgets, or eliminate a significant number of these perennial hobby-horse dollar holes, perhaps with savings in the billions of dollars. (Go to LSU.com to see the official listing of government entities.)

Many of these organizations follow the “grow or die rule” that says they must increase their role, mission, staff and budget each year (or try to!).There should be a commission established along the lines of the BRAC commission that takes a multi-year look at this drag on the budget, and forces non-political reductions of much of the nonsense, and perhaps not a little bit of corruption as well.

Unions in Government

2011-02-26T15:24:00.000-05:00

Unions should not be allowed to operate within government organizations.

Collective bargaining by unions has no place in the government sector.
Government wage scales and benefits are set by Legislatures and the Administrative sector of government, both of which are elected representatives of the people.

If you allow unions to muscle into this picture, you have totally subverted the role and mission of the Legislature and the Administration, and hence, the fundamental citizen-representative relationship of a Republic. For some, the union members, you have added a citizen-union-representative relationship; but for the majority you have forced non-union members to accept and pay for the wage negotiations conducted solely between the representatives and the union. Further, it is obvious that union contributions in the form of funds and votes can sway the Legislators.

Unions have self-preservation as their primary goal, not service to the nation or state. Thus, the very objectives of unions are antithetical to good order in the state, so that when the state needs to proceed in a certain direction that turns out to be against the union’s objectives, there is a an unnecessary and wrenching fight.

Unions can and do call for strikes when they are not succeeding in their mission to up the ante for their people, and themselves. A union strike or walk-out in a government sector operation is injurious to all of the citizens relying on that operation. This is unacceptable.

Is this Administration Really Evil?

2011-02-22T17:38:00.000-05:00

Evil is as Evil Does!

Pursuing a radically different leftwing political philosophy, and a collective, socialistic course of action after it has been proven to be manifestly, demonstratively and massively damaging to this nation, or to any nation for that matter, is pure evil.

This cannot be excused by claiming ignorance, since there are so many brilliant, detailed and well–documented examples of the failures of leftist collectivism available in the nearest library and on the internet, plus many, many intelligent people available to advise the President on every subject imaginable—especially the failure of collectivism!

The one possible explanation that might be offered for this national catastrophe is that the Leader has such an overweening ego and narcissistic mindset that he cannot possibly admit failure in the least; hence, he must pursue his dreams and programs to the end, come what may. He therefore does not wish to listen to the advice of knowledgeable people or spend the considerable effort needed to grasp the true fundamentals of economics that he must master from the resources in the country. The Leader cannot change course!

If this is true, then the evil we see has not one but two parts: 1) the evil disaster of the nation’s finances brought on by reckless spending and commitments to la la land programs by this Administration, with its attendant joblessness and misery of 20% unemployment in real terms; and, 2)the evil, narcissistic ego of a flawed and ignorant President, and his muted advisors, czars and legislators that are forced to or are delighted to continue the same philosophy and courses of action in the midst of the screams of the unemployed, the wreckage of the commercial sector, and despite the dire warnings that have been given for over two to ten years from responsible and knowledgeable economists, financiers and businessmen. (The last Administration failed to heed their advice; our last chance was for this Administration to heal the nation’s sicknesses, but it has also failed.)

That is true evil!

Financial Chaos in the US

2011-02-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

The light in the tunnel is that of a train coming our way.

Do you realize the extent of real and countable US liabilities right now? It is north of $112.6 trillion, or about a million dollars per taxpayer. Our total GDP is on the order of $13 trillion. This implies that we are underwater for keeps. There has been no effective response from the Obama team about this crushing number. Real unemployment is north of 20% now, when you count those who have given up looking and are hence excluded from the administration’s count, and this will soon explode further. Yet Obama proposes a budget of over $3 trillion after ignoring a bipartisan committee that had good recommendations.

The idea of printing dollars to pay our way out will shortly be blocked by a group of international monitary people backed by their governments, and the US Dollar will cease being the world’s reserve monitary base. We will enter hyperinflation at about that point or a little after. These are the facts that have trickled down and sparked much of the hysteria, and I, for one, don’t blame people for becoming very highly concerned and emotional.

Hunting No More

2011-02-19T11:32:00.001-05:00

Let the Animals Roam Free!

I suppose I am no longer a hunter. I find that I cannot shoot beautiful animals any more for the sport of it, and the oft used excuse that what I kill can be given to a charity for food doesn't erase the horror I feel when I see a magnificent buck fall to the ground mortally wounded. Others can do this, and I am happy if they do give food to the needy as a result, but it is no longer something I will do, or want to witness.

Going further, creating a life-threatening situation in order to prove one's bravery and courage strikes me as idiotic. Beating the bushes to scare up lions or tigers or hogs or whatever to shoot before they reach and maul or kill you is a fool's game, and we are all lessened by the loss of such animals. That there is a trophy head on a wall somewhere does not impress me at all; rather, it saddens me to see a small part of what was once a free-roaming and proud beast adorning the abode of a fool.

At one time, I was a very good shot, both on the range and in the bush, but that skill has been allowed to wither as I realized how my feelings had changed so drastically. I don't miss it. I can still hit what I want to hit if needed, but now the birds and the beasts are safe from my guns.

Preparedness for War

2011-02-11T17:11:00.000-05:00

We Cycle Up and Down Needlessly

Virtually every statesman and general of note has taken the position that America must make steady and continuing preparations for possible wars, even in times of relative peace. There is great controversy as to just what this means in practical terms. Just how big a military force must we maintain on a yearly basis, and just how much must we spend on development of new weapons and equipment to support war activities? To figure this out, many analysts have resorted to the postulation of how many of what kinds of wars we should be ready to fight at the same time.

For years, the criteria were, first, to defend America from attack, and then to be able to conduct two major wars, one in Europe and one in Asia or the Middle East. Plus, added to that were one or two minor wars or “police actions” involving at the utmost a few divisions of troops plus air and sea support. From this basic threat definition our forces were allocated funds to achieve full preparedness to execute these missions.

Obviously, the European mission was to foil the USSR expansion into Western Europe. The second mission, somewhat vaguely defined as Asia or the Middle East, was supposed to cover a number of contingencies: a) Taiwan vs China; or, India vs Pakistan; or North vs South Korea, but not all three, and not a direct confrontation with China.

In hindsight, one of these became a major war with NK, and the other two have sputtered for decades verging on open hostilities rather regularly.
The foremost contingency was the USSR Cold War, which absorbed the lion’s share of our development budget and a major share of our troop expenses, especially in Europe itself under NATO. We relied upon the US Navy to intervene in Taiwan, and kept hands off in the various India vs Pakistan fights until more recently, since both of these nations have joined the nuclear club.

Another incidental effort included the Falklands fight by England vs Argentina, where we lent England considerable intelligence support, but little else.

In this mission set are several other highly significant tasks that need to be set forth: 1) we must maintain control of the seas if we are to support our troop deployments in wartime and our commerce in peacetime, in spite of other’s wars; 2) we must do our best to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide; 3) we must continue our support to the United Nations, especially the Security Council, whether they are really useful to us or not, simply because they are the source of legitimacy for a conflict in the eyes of the rest of the world, whether we like it or not; and 4) we must continue the façade of the NATO organization for the defense of Europe, although our role and money could be reduced drastically over time.

The concept of sending contingents of troops to act as tripwires guaranteeing US support to any war that might break out must be ended: that means about 85,000 troops in Europe should be withdrawn from there, and another 31,000 troops withdrawn from South Korea, all of this with adequate preparations and gradual timelines. The fundamental ideas behind these withdrawals are twofold: we cannot afford their expense now; and the host nations can and should step up to their own defense given some time.
With these considerations in mind, we need to reestablish the base possible wars we should be prepared to meet.

My oh so very personal belief is that we need somewhere around 70 to 80 combat brigades of all types, instead of the currently planned 48. The world today seethes with resentment and the smell of revolution, combined with the musty and fetid odor of Muslims massing for a really big Jihad, and the acrid smell of AK-47 rounds being shot in the air in celebration of the fall of Egypt, the mess in Tunisia, and the verging revolutions elsewhere in the Middle East.

Along with these brigades we need a bunch of Air Force wings to manage about 3,000 seats in F-15s, F-16s, F-22s, And F-35s plus a host of transport and other aircraft.

The Navy has 10 carrier groups now, and I believe they should be increased to 12, with a parallel increase in other naval forces, especially heavy landing equipment.

Starting right now, these forces will not be available for from two to five years at best, the way things are going in the world of finance, industry and the government. Thus, we will have to make do with what we have per usual for some time to come. I do hate to see the multiple tour call ups that our reserves and guard units are forced to make because of the lack of a sufficient standing army.

Traits and Attitudes and their Persistence

2011-02-04T16:08:00.001-05:00

People and their Opposite Attitudes and Traits.

Obviously, these are not binary attitudes or traits, but degree-to-which traits depending on many factors. These are the poles that people lean towards or away from, and at times surprise even themselves at their attitudes either way in a given instance.

Selfish;Unselfish
Virtuous;Non-Virtuous
Self-Centered;Other-Centered
Aggressive;Passive
Honest;Dishonest
Religious;Non-Religious
Believers;Non-Believers
Strong;Weak
Energetic;Listless
Intelligent;Dumb
Educated;Ignorant
Industrious;Lazy
Perceptive;Unperceptive
Skilled;Unskilled
Friendly;Unfriendly
Gregarious;Retiring
Personable;Drab/Boring
Straight-forward;Devious
False;True
Pride;Humbleness
True Citizen;Citizen in Name Only
Bigoted;Unbigoted
Gun Lover;Gun-Hater
Abortionist;Pro-Lifer
Same-Sex Marriage;Conventional Marriage
Liberal;Conservative
Far Left;Far Right
Collectivist;Individualist
Patriotic;Unpatriotic
Intellectual;Anti-Intellectual
Criminal;Law-Abiding
Democrat;Republican;Independent
Totalitarian;Anarchist
Secularist;Religious
Moral;Immoral
Acquisitive;Complacent

Applied to individuals, these attitudes and traits are somewhat malleable and can drift from one pole to the other over time as a function of many factors, including education, training, faith, experiences, maturation, stress, and so forth.
Applied to individual groups these traits tend more uniformly towards the poles in their outward behavior, because groups tend to form around one or more of these common attitudes, traits and positions.
Applied to groups of groups, serious conflicts can arise between the groups over one or more of the attitudes or traits, if one or more of their polar positions are in opposite directions.
Applied to a nation made up of groups, it requires strong laws and law enforcement to keep the conflicts between groups (and super-groups) at a minimum, such as represented by our Constitutional, State and Civil laws at many levels of government, together with their enforcement, as well as strong application of our mores, ethics, morals, institutions, customs and traditions.
The higher up in the government chain a conflict progresses the more polarized one way or another it tends to become, and the common factors and nuances between the groups tend to become lost as positions harden in their own defense. (This is one argument for subsidiarity in government. Justice can be better served the closer the impartial jurist is to the site of conflict.)
Then we arrive at the super-groups called nations, and their conflicting attitudes and traits, together with their goals and ambitions, their resources in men and material, and their will to succeed. Here lies the stuff of wars, of conquest, of subjugation, and of capture of resources and strategic territory.
Judging by the history of the past 50 years or so, we as a people have not arrived at a sound solution to either international conflicts between nations or internal insurrections within nations.
That a conflict such as Israel-Palestine can last for hundreds of years, even thousands of years by some accounts, speaks to the intractability of the problem. This conflict has brought to bear each and every attitude and trait identified above on both sides of the conflict, from each of the individuals through layers of groups (or tribes and religions) up to the national level, and no intermediation has had the slightest long-term effect.

Why the Universe, Life and Man?

2011-01-27T15:28:00.002-05:00

Nature Holds its Secrets Very Close!

I doubt the ability of modern man to reconstruct accurately the creation of ideas or memes regarding the fundamental questions of why the universe, why life, and why man. Then to follow accurately the causal chain of events and, more importantly, the sporadic evolution of these ideas down from ancient times to the present.

These chains and idea evolutions lead to one philosophy or another, one religious belief or another, one sect or another, or, as has also transpired, the nihilistic, atheistic state of non-belief in anything—except for, perhaps, the incremental and incomplete knowledge that science brings to the question.

There are attempts, of course, to chronicle all of this learning, and a long list of ancient scholars to peruse, but they all suffer from similar ills: bias, incomplete knowledge of the universe, and, ultimately, flawed views of why the universe, life, and man.

The best modern man can do is to trace the literature still in existence that treats the subject of “why everything”, and then to put their hope of greater clarity upon legions of philosophers, scientists and other scholars to pick up the trails that have been developed so far, and move our knowledge forward an incremental step or two.

But the scientists and scholars suffer from exactly the same deficiencies as the ancients did, except for degree: initial bias; lack of complete knowledge of their own mini-subject; and, in particular, knowledge of the entire universe of subjects that must be brought to bear; and more specifically, lack of sufficient training and firm grasp of the totality of philosophy, science, history and religion as they apply to the question of why the universe.

The fact is that every major philosophical system has been shown to have logical flaws that cannot be resolved, bringing each of them ultimately to an unbridgeable impasse. (This includes the following systems: Materialism; Positivism; Thomism; Critical Realism; Personalism; Phenomenology; and Existentialism among others.) Reference: Ideas of the Great Philosophers, Sahakian and Sahakian, Barnes and Noble, 1966. One cannot or should not use flawed philosophy in this quest.

Science, too, suffers from the same contretemps---the existing and frustrating ultimate limits to their knowledge of the universe, as opposed to their speculations on its origin, such as the Big Bang, the Multiverse Concept (invented to avoid the presumption of a First Cause) or the latest Self-Generation of the Universe a la Hawkins. These logical and physical constructs cannot be observed or proven. Thus, science, too, fails us at the limit, which is precisely where it ought to be our very best tool. Legions of scientists cannot break through the ultimate barriers of nature, such as: What was there before the Big Bang? Can we make something out of nothing? Did God have a hand in creation?

History is frustratingly incomplete on the subject also, or else it is riddled with superstition and myth if you go back far enough. One can incorporate a favorite myth or two or a large set of Gods into the answer, but that is hardly progress.

Thus, I doubt the ability of modern man to penetrate the final barriers of nature.

Tucson Fallout

2011-01-24T17:24:00.000-05:00

Yet another rush to ban guns from the public.

State and national representatives are ginning up another round of gun laws designed to make guns harder to own, carry, and shoot for ordinary citizens. They are using the events in Tucson as an illustration of the dangers of gun ownership, just as they have done after each shooting by crazed people. We do have too many shootings; one cannot deny that. But, is outlawing guns the right solution?

I say no. I say no for a number of cogent reasons:

1. It is a Constitutional Second Amendment right to own and use rifles, shotguns and handguns.

2. Guns of all types have been highly effective in preventing crimes--over three million criminal incidents in 2007 were prevented by gunowners from becoming tragedies, many of them potentially fatal to the victims. An estimated 3,000 of these incidents were destined to end in killings and rapes without strong intervention by the victims themselves. This number of gun related crime preventions completely outweighs the losses from crazed shootings and any other reason to deny handguns and rifles to the public.

3. Guns will be available to criminals regardless of the laws. It makes no sense to disarm the general public in the face of such threats as criminals pose today.

4. Most calls for help to the police take at least fifteen minutes before an officer or two arrives at the scene, and with the economic cuts on services we are receiving, perhaps a lot longer. That is a long enough time for major mayhem to take place in the home, on the family, and on the children. I cannot and will not stand by while intruders have their way with my family so long as I am able to respond effectively.

So, I say to all of the anti-gun people--come try to take my weapons!

2011-01-24T01:16:00.000-05:00

Some on the right are looking for a simple phrase, a meme, that will send home the problem of Islam to the American public, without having to spend months and whole books to explain the problem. I have a few candidates to suggest. Please feel free to suggest your own:
1. Islam consists of two parts:

a) a semi-coherent religious part that extols Muhammad as the messenger of God, and condemns Christians and Jews to be infidels worthy of death; and,

b) a secular part that prescribes Sharia Law as the law of the land, and sets up a tyrannical hierarchy of clerics to rule the country under Sharia.

2. Islam = Religion + Sharia Law + Death to the infidel.

Obama Report Card

2011-01-22T15:48:00.002-05:00

Report Card on Obama's First Two Years
By K.E. Campbell ( with permision)

Two years ago today, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States. Are you better off today than you were two years ago?

Numbers don't lie, and here are the data on the impact he has had on the lives of Americans:

January 2001/ Current/ % chg/ Source

Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S. (regular conventional)
$1.83/ $3.104/ 69.6%/ 1

Selected commodities:

Crude oil, European Brent (barrel)
$43.48/ $99.02/ 127.7%/ 2

Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel)
$38.74/ $91.38/ 135.9%/ 2

Natural gas, Henry Hub, $ per MMbtu
$4.85/ $4.48/ -7.6%/ 2

Gold: London (per troy oz.)
$853.25/ $1,369.50/ 60.5%/ 2

Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL
$3.56/ $6.33/ 78.1%/ 2

Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL
$9.66/ $13.75/ 42.3%/ 2

Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob
$13.37/ $35.39/ 164.7%/ 2

Consumer Price Index (for all urban consumers)
211.1/ 219.2/ 3.8%/ 3

Producer Price Index: finished goods
170.3/ 183.0/ 7.5%/ 3

Producer Price Index: all commodities
171.0/ 189.9/ 11.1%/ 3

Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall
7.6%/ 9.4%/ 23.7%/ 3

Unemployment rate, blacks
12.6%/ 15.8%/ 25.4%/ 3

Number of unemployed
11,616,000/ 14,485,000/ 24.7%/ 3

Number of fed. employees, ex. uniformed military (curr = 12/10 prelim)
2,779,000/ 2,840,000/ 2.2%/ 3

Real median household income (2008 vs 2009)
$50,112/ $49,777/ -0.7%/ 4

Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10)
31,983,716/ 43,200,878/ 35.1%/ 5

Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10)
7,526,598/ 9,193,838/ 22.2%/ 6

Number of long-term unemployed, in millions
2.6/ 6.4/ 146.2%/ 3

Poverty rate, individuals (2008 vs 2009)
13.2%/ 14.3%/ 8.3%/ 4

People in poverty in U.S., in millions (2008 vs 2009)
39.8/ 43.6/ 9.5%/ 4

House price index (current = Q3 2010)
198.7/ 192.7/ -3.0%/ 7

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index: 20 city composite (curr = 10/10)
146.4/ 145.3/ -0.8%/ 8

Number of properties subject of foreclosure filings, in millions
2.82/ 2.8/ 1.7%/ 9

DJIA (12,403 on 6/3/08, date BHO clinched Dem. nomination)
7,949/ 11,825/ 48.8%/ 2

NASDAQ (2,480 on 6/3/08)
1,441/ 2,725/ 89.1%/ 2

S&P 500 (1,378 on 6/3/08)
80/ 1,282/ 59.2%/ 2

Global Dow
1,356/ 2,153/ 58.8%/ 2

U.S. rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings
5/ 9/ n/a/ 10

Consumer Confidence Index (curr = 12/10)
37.7/ 52.5/ 39.3%/ 11

Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10)
29.9/ 23.5/ -21.4%/ 11

Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date)
140/ 164/ 17.1/ 12

U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate
89.76/ 82.03/ -8.6%/ 2

U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 preliminary)
1,575.1/ 1,865.7/ 18.4%/ 13

U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 preliminary)
8,310.9/ 8,852.3/ 6.5%/ 13

National debt, in trillions
$10.627/ $14.052/ 32.2%/ 14

Sources:

1 - U.S. Energy Information Admin.

2 - Wall Street Journal

3 - Bureau of Labor Statistics

4 - Census Bureau

5 - USDA

6 - U.S. Dept. of Labor

7 - FHFA

8 - Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller

9 - RealtyTrac

10 - Heritage Foundation and WSJ

11 - The Conference Board

12 - FDIC

13 - Federal Reserve

14 - U.S. Treasury

Identification? You are known!

2011-01-22T15:04:00.002-05:00

The Perils of Today's Government

Perhaps it is simply too late to turn back the thrust for accurate and complete identification, credit worthiness, a drug free body, and income security available to far too many people.

We have a Social Security Number. We have a Driver's License Number. We have Credit information filed in at least three major national organizations with file numbers. We have our income information filed in at least two or three government organizations--federal (IRS), state, and local governments--using the SSN, or something equivalent. We have one or more credit cards with substantial information filed at the card's organization number, which can be used to assess your purchases and gas buying habits. We have our property ownership filed at the courthouse and available to all.

We have a passport with a full docket on us filed at the State Department, including where we have traveled over the years. If you work for the government or are in the military, or are a contractor that requires a security clearance on you, the intelligence agencies have your fingerprints, picture, and history of addresses you have lived in, as well as commentary from investigators that have interviewed your neighbors, as well as all of the above imformation as they feel is needed.

Any private investigator worth his pay can compile a very substantial dossier on you without leaving his office desk, and so can any government agency that decides to take an interest in you.

The very last step is a national identification card that can be correlated with any of the above files on you, thus allowing for a much easier access to the sum of your dossiers by anyone with a modicrum of authority to do so, of whom there are legions.

The clock will not be turned back, unfortunately, so we must find the methods and practices that preserve our lives and our freedoms despite this massive amount of personal information available to these legions of curious people. Just how we do this is not clear to me. Any ideas?

Crossposted at American Thinker

Sarah Palin--Media Football

2011-01-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

If the Democrats spent as much time, devious thought and energy on creating jobs and balancing the budget as they do trying to run Sarah into the ground, we would not have nearly 10% unemployment and a national debt of 14 Trillion dollars.

Why Socialism?

2011-01-20T11:52:00.002-05:00

Work or not, you live well---maybe!

The Socialist dream will never die, simply because it promises a free ride to everyone regardless of their contribution to society or their indigence.
Those in favor of Socialism slather at the prospect of:
--free education through university, including subsistence.
--free healthcare.
--free or well under market value housing.
--free and paid six or eight week vacations plus 9 or 10 holidays a year.
--full employment and a protected job for life.
--worry-free retirement
--guaranteed living wage to everyone regardless of their being employed or not.
--very low-cost loans guaranteed by the government to buy furniture, appliances, automobiles, clothes and vacations.

All of these goodies would be paid for by the taxpayers, both private parties and businesses, through onorous tax burdens reaching 80-90% of profit or income at the top income levels.

This is the promise of Socialism--but it is a false promise that cannot be met for very practical reasons.

What isn't stated clearly is the thrust by Socialists for income leveling; that is, the CEO would make merely three times what the janitor would make. The incentive to get ahead would be lost. Then, too, a Socialist state has a built-in progression from a citizen's paradise to a more totalitarian state over a very short time in historical terms. Thus there would be the priveleged "haves" and the underpriveleged "have littles and have nots" rather quickly, which was the situation in Soviet Russia for 75 years.

The final blow to Socialism is the necessity to own and manage the economy, which is such an enormous task that even in this age of massive computers and a few intelligent men we still cannot account for all of the variables in an economy of any reasonable size. Thus there would be shortages, no output and overproduction of everything, including food, as was the case in the USSR.

It takes gall and hubris, not to mention stupidity, for anyone to think that they can do it better the next time around, mainly because it is completely contrary to human nature. Even Marx understood this!

Know Thyself

2011-01-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

Know Thyself is still valid advice!

This advice, attributable to a number of early Greek philosophers, including Socrates, is far easier to state than to achieve. What does it really mean, and how can one go about the task of knowing one's self in a rational manner?

This direction, and working towards its satisfaction, is essential to the development of a personal philosophy. I have been working on my version of how to achieve this knowledge for a while, without trying to state explicitly what my method for achieving it was.
A personal philosophy should cover each of the key problems that philosophy in general covers:

1) Knowledge and how it is obtained and verified,
2) Conduct of one's life,
3) Governance in one's life and culture to resolve any conflicts with other men who might have a wildly differing philosophy.

Now, I am readying a paper on this "how to" subject, which might be of interest to others. Stay tuned, I should be able to publish it in a few days.

UPDATE
Well, a few days is going to turn into a few months, or even more! The unknown unknowns got me! There are too many variables at the beginning, and too many prerequisites, for the range of people that might be interested. Such items as their current education, knowledge of philosophy and logic, religious affiliation, current self-knowledge, intelligence, and much more, affect the ideas I had for a common and practical methodology.

The one clear and surviving suggestion for the method I can state is that committing to writing down your own belief system or your philosophy of life in considerable detail is a task that will drive you in the direction I had intended. You will uncover gaps in your knowledge of both your external and internal world, which in turn will send you to research the literature, study and reflect on what you have learned to fill those gaps. It is a long, hard, discovery method that many people will give up on when the intellectual going gets tough.

After you have settled the main issues for your philosophy and have put them into writing, your job is still very incomplete. You discover many more subsidiary issues that simply must be solved in some sense. In fact, it is a lifetime work to do it real justice, though the preliminary edition of your philosophy will be a wonderful beginning to knowing thyself.

ACLU Survey

2010-12-29T22:24:00.002-05:00

Preliminary Results
Short versions of ACLU positions on some key controversial issues:

• Against the Death Penalty
• For Legalization of Drugs
• For Abortion
• Wants Illegals to have full government support
• Against many Military programs: Predator strikes
• For Open Borders
• For Same Sex Marriage
• For Bigamy and Polygamy
• For Pedophilia rights
• For Visas for Anti-American Foreigners
• For the right to disrupt military funerals
• For giving citizen rights to captured enemies
• Against parts of the Patriot Act
• Actively suing to remove religious symbols from public buildings and public property, based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

I am strongly opposed to each of these positions, and I am therefore anti-ACLU. My reasons for opposing these positions are still being formulated, but some of my thinking is quite obvious without going into details.

I accept the concepts of just killing and just war, which should be distinguished from murder as stated in the Decalogue.

I believe that in the case of murder, an eye for an eye is a just penalty. In the case of treason such acts jeopardize the existence and welfare of the nation, and therefore warrant the extreme penalty. I believe that in egregious cases of forcible rape, the extreme penalty is warranted.

The concept of legalizing drugs has one great benefit: the destruction of drug cartels and their distribution networks. However, with dangerous drugs readily available on the market, there would be a rush to try them out, thus creating a new generation of users, with all of the attending problems. No one can say how long this transitional spree would last, thus placing many thousands of our youth in great jeopardy for long periods.

Since I believe that each life begins at conception, I believe that abortion is murder and must therefore be prohibited. Every fetus carries all of the gene information and processes needed to grow a person, given the proper environment and nourishment, and should be accorded the status of a proto-person that cannot be murdered by abortion. I also believe that there are a few strict exceptions to this rule: triage to save the mother’s life; and rape, which is forced conception, and hence is a just killing.

I believe in the sovereignty of the nation and its borders. I do not believe in allowing all and sundry to enter the nation at their whim. What isn’t understood about the illegal status of certain foreigners? Are we a nation governed by laws or not?
I do not want to have my taxes continually raised to support a growing flood of illegal foreigners.

We have failed to create a satisfactory temporary worker program, or a temporary visitor program that polices the return dates, or an employer monitoring program for hiring illegals. We must do these things.

The legal benefits of same sex marriage can be obtained through contract law, making this putsch strictly an attempt to force citizens to recognize and accept gays as ordinary citizens and to allow them all of the benefits and rights of marriage. Marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman, and it should stay that way. Ultimately, I must consider gays to be outside the norm of society, but able to exercise the rights of citizenship but not the right to force us to ignore the teachings of the Bible on homosexuality.

As for bigamy and polygamy, it is illegal throughout the nation, but not enforced in Mormon enclaves. I do not challenge this illegality for the majority of citizens in most states, and I would be against propagating such pro bigamy laws further.

I believe that war is a dirty yet reoccurring necessity that must be fought to win in each case. I also believe that we must be militarily strong as all times for obvious reasons.

It is an abomination and a shame that some people want to desecrate the funerals of our soldiers, or limit grave marker types of a religious nature.

I believe that we are in a war with parts of Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, and its active arms, the jihadist groups in many countries. They declared this war on us, and have inflicted major casualties on both our civilian and our military people for years.

We are fighting against men that wear no uniforms, are not officially sanctioned as soldiers, and therefore have no rights as soldiers. The Geneva conventions do not apply, either. We therefore have the right to hold these captives until the war ends, in Guantanamo or elsewhere.

We must protect our homeland from insidious attacks from within. However, excessive use of force, or violation of citizen’s rights must not happen. Warrantless entry must be reserved for egregious cases and must be carefully monitored by the court.

Suing to remove historic religious symbols of Christianity from public display that have been in place for decades is an overzealous, unnecessary, weak, and vindictive application of the establishment clause and it reflects a nasty and unfair bias against the Christian religion, and no other.

There should be no legal objection for other religions to display their symbols if they are in keeping with the current aesthetic standards and space allocations for the sites. However, some such displays can be expected to cause civil unrest and even civil disobedience in some parts of the nation.

It is highly probable that maintaining the status quo affects the fewest citizens, mainly those few that have made this an issue after decades of observing such displays with no protest. I fail to see how most displays of religious symbols do any actual harm to anyone, if they even give passing notice to the symbols at all. Then, too, their own religion or non-religion should be strong enough to withstand walking or riding by a tasteful plaque depicting the Ten Commandments, or the Star of David, or even the Islamic Crescent, for instance.

I oppose the removal of prayer in our schools on the grounds that non-religious or other religious people can be accommodated in the schools in different locations at prayer time to perform whatever prayer or other activity they wish. No harm no foul. Besides, I fail to see the harm in being exposed to Christian prayers. Isn’t the student’s faith strong enough to shut out the Christian prayer message in any event if he so desires?

Sources: ACLU.com website, Wallbuilders.com/ACLU

Where Was Obama Born?

2010-12-26T17:54:00.000-05:00

Cool it with the birther argument!

Whether any evidence to the contrary exists of Obama’s birthplace in Hawaii or not, we have an elected President that will serve out his term or terms. There is no reset or undo button we can press, much as it would be desirable to stop the plus changes to our debt levels immediately. All energies and focus should be directed to his and his party’s defeat in 2012, and not wasted on such unwinnable arguments. We need all of these progressives out of power!

If it is in fact a conspiracy, it is well-covered and virtually impossible to unravel, except by time and accident and human frailty—or devine intervention!

If it is not a conspiracy, which is heavily odds-on, then no amount of scrounging around or wailing at the wall right now, here or elsewhere, will result in anything but redicule, especially from the faithful!

So play the odds, and work on 2012 and all of the substantive issues in between now and then!

Intellectuals

2010-12-09T15:32:00.000-05:00

Discovering the Academic Intellectual

During my 43 year career in the computer industry as an engineer, project manager, chief engineer, and department head, I have been literally surrounded by high-powered intellects, most of whom had advanced degrees. For one project, for example, I had over 90 PhD level people working for me, together with even more masters degreed and bachelor degreed personnel, and their expertise covered the gamut of specialties needed for man-in-space endeavors. When these 90 were combined with the talent from other companies working on the same job, the concentration of mind power was awesome indeed. The problems we tackled and solved became legend in the manned spacecraft industry. Here was a case where both industry and trained intellectual academics worked together effectively to put men in space safely.

At the same time, our very close cooperation with academia exposed us to another type of academic, professional intellectuals that were a very different and curious breed. They were not on the same page as other intellects at all. Their entire focus was on thinking up ideas and publishing them in the hope that their fellow intellectuals would give them their stamp of approval, and that some government agency would provide them research money to continue to think up more ideas in a similar vein. These were not hard core scientists, but rather denizens of the soft worlds of imprecise disciplines such as literature, psychology, social sciences, and political sciences, where seldom any definitive answers take hold.. There was no use of logic or scientific method involved, but simply what their peers thought to be correct or merely interesting views.

At the time, I had no interest in delving deeply into this phenomena, but as I continued to observe them from afar for years, it became apparent that they had a following not only in academia, but also in government, industry, and politics, and were a significant influence on government policies, foreign relations, legislators, and other idea-oriented people that could potentially put their intellectual ideas into practice. In fact, these idea people were at the heart of the progressive movement, heavily populating professorial positions in our universities, and thus influencing the new generations of students with their most often heretical ideas. In their view, for an idea to be taken seriously, it must be fresh and challenging, yet sufficiently obscure, subject to multiple interpretations, and laden with inside jargon that only a handful of “the annointed” could hope to make sense of it.

What struck me most was their lack of controlled experimentation and hard analysis of their ideas, together with a total lack of taking any responsibility whatsoever for results from implementing their ideas in the real world through their “intelligentsia” compatriots in government and industry. In most cases by the time something measurable was available, these intellectuals were already far away from the idea and deep into dreaming up their next idea set. In contrast to scientists and engineers where failure could result in death of many people, failure of an idea didn’t seem to affect intellectuals in any way, either in standing or pay grade, except to ensure their tenure under the umbrellas of “academic freedom” and “publish or perish”. One exception to this was the fate of Ward Churchill of “Little Eichmann’s” fame, but it took a massive campaign to rid the university of his obnoxious presence.

So I began to accumulate my observations over the years as I encountered these intellectuals, because I belatedly realized that they were in fact a dangerous breed to the American way of life, and in many instances were actively anti-American. Noam Chomsky comes to mind as a prototypical intellectual that fits this mold. Characteristic of the type is, of course, great intellectual depth in some discipline or other, such as semantics and linguistics in Chomsky’s case, and a predilection for giving outlandish opinions on any and all subjects that come to their mind whether they are well-founded and qualified on the subject or not. There are many examples of well-known academics that branched out into open commentary on the world as they see it; Albert Einstein is yet another example of a brilliant physicist but muddleheaded Public Intellectual.

As a beginning, I needed to develop a profile of such intellectuals to help me identify them for what they are as I came across them in real life, reading, or on TV or radio. My profile of such intellectuals became a relatively simple list of applicable phrases to describe their mindset and their actions. Not that every intellectual exhibits all of these characteristics, but most of them will have a significant number of the attributes in their makeup. Obviously, the more attributes one of them shows, the more certain the diagnosis will be that we are dealing with such a person.

So, on to the list of attributes and characteristics as I see them:
Attributes of Academic Intellectuals
1. Arrogance
2. Egotistic and condescending
3. Certainty of their reasoning with or without proof.
4. Brushes off alternatives with contempt
5. Articulate and deviously able to defend their ideas.
6. Frustrated Idealists
7. Materialistic
8. Will not take responsibility for their ideas or the outcomes of the ideas if used
9. Prefers the safety of the shadows behind the throne and the protection of academia.
10. Are horribly wrong much of the time, especially in the long view.
11. Will not admit their errors.
12. Tend to support collectivist ideas; socialistic, communistic, Marxist.
13. Supports the concept of non-discrimination across all disciplines and areas.
14, Pacifistic to a fault; hates war; and seems to be fundamentally a coward.
15. Atheist or Agnostic in their outlook on religion.
16. Shows contempt for the common man, and desires to remake him in their image.
17. Attempts to convert their students to their point of view
18. Not objective in their presentations
19. Prefer the academic life
20 Strives to influence government, industry, academia, and the military
21. Narrow expertise in some specialty; attempts to trade on that in other domains.
22. Tend to state opinions as facts without any proof.
23. Is facile in inventing ways that events support their point of view.
24. They drive to remake society in their most often Utopian image.
25. Use pseudo-philosophy to support their views
26. Usually Nihilistic and Hedonistic
27. Flaunt rules, conventions, traditions, and laws--all are malleable in their view..
28. Levelers for: equal outcomes; no discrimination; equal societies; redistribution of wealth.
29. Internationalists—one world government
30. Secular Humanists and progressives
31. PCMC
32. Supporters of Big Government, authoritarian, even totalitarian in outlook.
33. Use personal attacks against detractors rather than defending their position (calling the opposition racist, homophobic, etc.)

After composing this list, I was somewhat shocked to discover the unusually great correspondence between this list and my previous list of the attributes of Liberals. This leads me to the conclusion that most Public Intellectuals are Liberals. The converse may or may not be true, since one can be a Liberal without the depth of expertise and the recognition in some field that is evident in Public Intellectuals. It is quite possibly true also that the Elites of the Liberal camp are also Academic or Public Intellectuals.

My Verities

2010-12-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

1. The way is God and truth,
2. The virtues are Faith, Hope, and Charity/Love.
3. Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude follow closly behind.
4. Then comes my belief in Devine Law, Natural Law and Natural Rights
5. I must explicitly state my belief in the Golden Rule.
6. I am a sinner: I have not succeeded in following these beliefs, but I strive to perfect myself.
7. I believe in the Constitution as it was intended to be used.
8. But there are glaring exceptions to this paen to life: I believe in just war, just killing, and proper regard for the real nature of religions and pseudo-religions within our nation. A so-called religion that strives to conquer our nation, and to prevail as the one true religion, is not acceptable. I am speaking of Islam here.

Liberals-- Profile of Main Characteristics

2010-11-28T07:31:00.000-05:00

I present here my descriptive observations of Liberals or Progressives over the past ten years in phrase form:

Socialistic
Elitist and Intellectual
Moral Relativist
Atheistic or Agnostic
“Living Constitution”
Pacifistic
Moral Equivalence of all Societies
No Discrimination in All Domains
Welfare State
Statist
Multiculturalism and Diversity
Political Correctness
Total Control Syndrome; Power Hungry
Strict Social Liberalism Education
Intolerance of Objectors
Redistribution of Wealth
Arrogance
Materialistic/Materialism
Gun Controls
Abortion
Tax and Spend
Scientism
Darwinism
Cannot Accept the Truth about Islam
Righteousness
Infallibility
Uses Civil Law to force conformation to policies
Internationalism
Open Borders
Gay Marriage
Anti-Religion
Anti-American
Leftist with a Marxist or Communistic or Progressive touch
Pseudo-realism

If this is the type of person you admire, the sickness is spreading.

Additions welcome!

Heartland USA

2010-11-15T00:01:00.000-05:00

Back to the basics that make this nation great!

A week spent in the Heartland of America was delightful and revealing. Here there were people practicing their patriotism to the fullest, and their rights under the Constitution to the fullest as well. There were no namby pambys afraid of guns there: guns were visible in gun racks downtown, and were being carried into the fields for hunting, including pistols openly carried in holsters. On Veteran’s Day, many of the citizens turned out in Legion hats or even old army hats; and a few were wearing their full dress uniforms from WWII, or Korea, or Vietnam.

There were speeches at the town square, which was decorated with bunting and flags on the light poles. Men that were sincere and genuinely proud of their service rose up one at a time to tell something of their war experiences, and to affirm their love for this nation in strong and emotional terms. After six or seven ex-servicemen had spoken with such feeling, you could sense that the crowd around the square was joining in the emotion and clapping and cheering louder and louder, and waving their flags in agreement and sympathy with the speakers.

The master of ceremonies, I believe he was the mayor, introduced the local representative to the state government, and he spoke in the same terms and with the same fervor of the sacrifices many had made over the years in far-away, desolate and impoverished lands in the service of their country. He was a veteran too, and had served in Vietnam. That the crowd knew, respected, and approved of this man was apparent; he had their full trust that they would be looked after in the state capitol to the best of his abilities. “He is a good man”, I heard over and over as I walked through the crowd.

It would be a wonderful thing if we could feel that way about all of our legislators, instead of believing that many of them are actually acting against our best interests and our desires every day.

The GOP is in a bind

2010-11-03T12:58:00.001-04:00

I see nothing but minefields in every direction for the new Speaker. To promote job growth, it isn’t as easy as simply lowering taxes; one must also have products or services that consumers will buy. Today, virtually all of the products are made in China or Asia, not the US, and the consuming public is not in the mood to splurge as before, preferring to reduce debt and save for a rainy day. Another aspect is that perhaps as many as four million manufacturing jobs have been lost forever, never to return.

Services, for a large part, depend on sales and after sale service or product maintenance, which is under several kinds of positive and negative pressures, such as the introduction of new products along with withdrawal of support for obselete or obselescent products, and the current trend to make do for another year or two with one’s current set of products. We see this in diverse fields such as the auto industry, the aircraft industry, electronics, computers, software and others. If that is what’s left for our workers to aspire to, they are rapidly reaching a ceiling in their prospects for growth of income, and hence, their ability to consume at a relatively high rate.

Then, too, we have reached a high level of “throwaway parts” repair along with significant built-in sensors and diagnostics that simplify the identification of the part to be replaced, or the whole unit to be cast out. The parts themselves, of course, are manufactured overseas. Has anyone had the experience of a TV technician saying that it would be cheaper, or almost cheaper, to buy a new TV than to repair the old one? Thus, less expertise is needed to effect a repair or replacement decision, with a parallel decrease in wages for such jobs, and the real profits go to the overseas company.

If, as I have read, we need to generate five million new, well-paying jobs a year just to accomodate the rising generation, can anyone tell me just where such a set of jobs is coming from? If we need the economy (the GDP) to grow at an eight percent rate or better in order to pay the bills, and reduce the debt, it starts with more jobs, right now!

Why the rejection of Obama and the Democrats?

2010-11-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

#1 is the fact of the terrible economy, jobs, and national debt.
#2 is the image of tax and spend, spend, spend, with no visible and cheering impact on #1.
#3 is the image of a Leftist social agenda that impacts the economy without compensations.
#4 is the image of a disasterous and servile foreign policy that makes patriots cringe and friendly nations disgusted and disappointed.
#5 is the image of it being campaign time, party time, golf time, and vacation time on our dollar to excess in a belt-tightening era.
#6 is the image of being soft on Islam and Palestine to the detrement of Israel.
#7 is the image of being soft on illegal aliens, and supportive of amnesty.
#8 is the unsavory crowd of White House and Department lackeys pulling off illegal stunts.
#9 is the image and dread of more years of the same.
#10 other factors of far less impact.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!

2010-10-25T06:19:00.001-04:00

Where will they come from?

The standard answer to the fiscal crisis is more and better jobs. That is certainly true as far as it goes, because more jobs means more income per household, and hence more consumer spending, which boosts the economy directly. The problem is, where do we generate the jobs?

It is easily demonstrated that many of our job losses are in occupations that are either defunct or totally taken over by cheaper foreign sources. In product after product foreign manufacturers are able to under-price their US equivalents with little or no loss in quality. Our out-sourcing of manufacturing jobs has been enormously successful in reducing prices to the consumer, yet equally successful in forming a large ex-consumer crowd of the unemployed in the US.

The second standard answer has been to say this out sourcing is good because we can revert to a service economy and continue to grow our GDP. Well, the service sector is not hiring, it is not growing, it is not paying well, and it is unable to absorb the ever growing work population of the nation. Thus we are caught in a trap: fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs; less and less hiring; and a lessening need for service jobs since the consumer is not buying, because he is broke or ultracautious.

Then, too, any product you can name can be produced overseas considerably cheaper than in the US: whole store chains in the US are now stocked primarily with Chinese made items. I would cite Lowes, Target, Sears, K-Mart, and Home Depot as major examples.

Innovations that lead to new products are quickly put into the product engineering cycles for eventual production in China or elsewhere. Fine, you say, we can concentrate on being the great product innovators and let the grubby jobs in manufacturing go to China. The problem with that is there are simply too few positions for inventive people being created, and the rest of the work force is totally left out, except for low-paying sales and service positions or fast food chain hash slingers and waiters.

Most of the raw materials we use are imported now, which places us at a disadvantage in price and in jobs that develop and exploit metals and other elements used in major products. Our labor costs are driven by union demands for ever increasing benefits on top of better and better salaries. One analysis put the differential labor cost of producing an auto in the US versus in Japan at about $2,000 higher for us, which tells the key story of why Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and quite a few others can outsell our car manufacturers, and their margins are growing.

We also came to automation of car production much later than in Japan, which puts us in the double bind of less productivity per man and greater cost per man relative to Asian producers. One reason for this is after WWII, Japan had to create their manufacturing industries from scratch, thus they were able to create more modern and efficient manufacturing facilities, rather than making do with older plants as we did for too long.

The other reason was enormous resistance from the US unions to the use of automation that impacted their workers. We have become a second rate producer of autos, and it shows up in ever-lessening sales worldwide. Yet, foreign car makers can set up highly automated assembly plants in the US and fend off excessive unionization costs. Toyota has ten such plants in the US.

Electronics production has been captured by Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China, as has battery production, an essential for portable electronics, and a rising essential for hybrid or all-electric autos, such as the Toyota Prius hybrid or the GM Volt. Clothing manufacturing has long been outsourced to Asian companies, with only a few US sources left. Industry after industry in the US has been superseded by foreign competition.

We have even outsourced our call centers to places like India; no longer can you contact a manufacturer directly, you must argue your way through that Indian call center first.

For a while we had quite a monopoly on software development and production, but that too is eroding as more and more foreign companies are entering the business with competitive PC software products at lower prices. Of course, few PCs themselves or their components are made in the US any more either.

We are going to have to reemphasize trade studies as opposed to college degrees for our youth. There will be a persistent and growing need for repairmen of all stripes, and they command decent salaries and benefits. This includes computer and electronics maintenance and repair, plumbing, electricians, HVAC, auto repair, aircraft maintenance, and a host of other service professions that require training and skill development and apprenticeships. Retraining for such service technician jobs is likewise useful for the jobless at any level.

Professions that are still in demand include most forms of engineering, medical doctors, nursing, software development, data management and accounting, at least partially because students have not found these professions attractive recently relative to lawyer, economist, liberal arts, and therapist types of degrees, thus boosting the demand for more technically degreed people. The other reason for this demand is simply the growth in need for ever better, more complex, high-tech products, for which top engineering skills are required. Automation engineering and robotics should be popular and well-rewarded professions for some time to come.

For many years, professionals had the attitude that they would work for one or two companies in their entire working careers, or perhaps three different employers if necessary, or else they expected sooner or later to branch out on their own. This attitude is being forced to change. Today, because of the boom-bust nature of our economy, layoffs are far more prevalent and likely, which means that one will have to shop for jobs almost continuously, as well as enhancing their capabilities substantially over time in order to compete for the openings that do exist.

It is not unusual today to find professionals that have worked for four, five or even six companies in their careers, which has been more or less normal for aeronautical, electronics, and mechanical engineers and technicians in defense work for quite a long time, for example. You must be prepared to go where the work is, and where the latest large contract has been landed, and by which company. It is the old journeyman concept in more modern form.

It is apparent that we are not going to create as many large-scale system programs as in the past, especially during the Cold War, which has seriously impacted the professions of major systems engineering and project management. This can be verified by examining the far reduced employment levels and backlogs in space, ship and aircraft-related programs today in companies such as Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop-Grumman.

The bottom line, then, seems to be that we will be faced with high unemployment levels in both journeyman professional and technician positions for some time to come, and there doesn’t appear to be any employment sectors that stand out as saviors for the millions of unemployed today, and for some time to come.

The Rise in Anti-Muslim Sentiment

2010-10-18T16:22:00.000-04:00

That there is a rise in feelings is not a question, and there are several reasons for it!

I would call out the Muslims themselves that have demonstrated many times their willingness to terrorize the West, and the MSM that daily publishes the horrific acts of these Muslims as the basis for the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in America. It takes little imagination to transfer the acts of sabotage and mass murder around the world by Muslims into the very real possibility of such actions being undertaken here in the US by Jihadists. This is confirmed in many minds when we actually do experience acts of terrorism in the US itself or on US property and people overseas, for which there are extensive lists for all to read. There is far too much wishful thinking concerning the benign intentions of Muslims/Jihadists and their supposed inability to hit the US hard today as they did on 9/11/01.

Those apologists who keep on saying it is a very small group of Muslims that is active in Jihad should reexamine the reporting in Iraq over time, where tens of thousands of them faced our troops. It is a small step from slipping Jihadists into Iraq to slipping them into the US via Mexico or Canada and thence to welcoming Islamic communities here, and these groups are well-financed with petrodollars. The hard fact is we do not know what the exact level of threat is that they pose to us, but it most certainly is not benign, and it must be ferreted out.

To the degree that our efforts to close the borders to illegal entrants have been put on go-slow, and to the degree that our police forces throughout the nation have been severely hobbled in finding and deporting illegals of all stripes by this administration and its far too liberal State Department, they too must take blame from an uneasy public that perceives relatively open borders to be a deadly threat to us.

To the degree that actual terrorist crimes are covered up and not given the proper treatment, such as the seriously muffled Ft. Hood event, even our military is sucked into improper actions by the administration. The public rightly wants such actions to be labeled for what they are and handled as Jihadist actions, and they see this administration as derelict in this regard: meaning, of course, Obama and his Czars and minions. But our President can bow and scrape and plead for sanity in front of a huge Muslim audience, and then run like hell so as not to hear the jeers and laughter.

Then too, we had some of the worst Jihadists all locked up and tucked away in Guantanamo, but our President tried mightily to close the base and transfer the inmates to the US. He has not succeeded yet, thank God, but the worst of it is the release of quite a number of inmates, only to face them again on the combat fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a message there for the most avid supporters of Obama: he knows not what he does (and neither do we!)

Pledge to America: a Different Version in Draft form

2010-09-25T14:51:00.002-04:00

Draft Notes on a Possible Alternative GOP Pledge to America

This pledge is meant to be followed up with explicit legislation addressing the problems and directions we see as necessary for America to return to sound fiscal policies, creation of worthwhile jobs for all citizens, providing for adequate defense of the nation, and correcting the drift away from our Constitutional government, while also halting or even reversing the trend to expand the power and roles of the Federal Government.

Finances

First, we must get our financial house in order, which must entail significant strategic planning to figure out just how to do three things: raise the GDP which will create both jobs and tax revenue, institute a payback plan for the national debt, and reduce government spending by a substantial amount across the board.

The immediate key to raising the GDP has a number of components, including rapidly exploiting our national resources, such as energy from oil, gas, coal, solar power, nuclear power, wind power, and perhaps biofuels. It is not just one source that is important, it is all possible sources, including some technologies, such as clean coal, and advanced nuclear power units, that need a jump start. We need to clear the way through the bureaucracy for immediate starts on such efforts, especially nuclear power, using environmentally sound methods. Our power distribution network needs considerable extension and improvement as well. The sooner we start or augment these efforts, the sooner we build up job demands in the energy and related businesses.

We need to emphasize scientific research, and engineering development in a number of areas that lead to jobs, profit and tax revenue. To mention some of the areas that require both private and government investments there are: weather research, pollution reduction, water desalinization, energy, both conventional and nuclear, medical research, space and aeronautical research, and military weapons research. There are inventions in these areas that may well become successful products that benefit man everywhere, if proper seed money can be supplied.

We need to encourage manufacturing efforts within the US, as opposed to shipping jobs overseas. Increased automation is one path to lower cost production. Jobs can abound if production plants crank up their businesses.
Our national infrastructure needs repair especially bridges and roads nationwide, water management projects, and the power grid also as was mentioned earlier.. These projects are good job producers and add value to our lives.

We need to continue to support small businesses with loans, advice, and orders. A preference should be shown to use US businesses over foreign businesses. Some 70-80% of jobs lie in the small business sector. We must encourage small businesses to be more entrepreneurial.

Taxation

The second key is taxation. Given that we have arrived at the need for a certain payback amount on the national debt per year, that sum must be put aside and paid incrementally, every quarter, for instance, so that the temptation to rob the fund is reduced. We then must examine entitlements, since their budget percentage is increasing to over 60-70%, which is not sustainable. There are hard choices to be made here, and restructuring to be done on a graduated basis so that the impact of reductions is phased out over time, and the guarantees made in the past are not ignored.

The defense program and its operating costs are yet another major element of spending. We need to find the right compromise here between maintaining a first class military force and overspending on new weapons, maintenance of old weapons and keeping too many men in service all over the world. A first class force requires significant research and development of new products, followed by test and production of adequate numbers of proven products to meet the future.

We must pay for adequate defense, and hence we must study and determine what is truly required in a non-political manner, and then provide for it in the budget and tax approaches. In the past, we have armed for war, then disarmed even more rapidly, only to find that a few years later we must arm again. It would be more cost-effective if we maintained a sufficient force ready to go that needed reasonable augmentation for war, but not the almost total rearmament that we faced before WWII, and the significant rearmament we needed for Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf wars. A policy of one big war and two small wars may be the right mixture.

Taxation in the US has been a football for many years, with those who claim that reductions benefit the creation of jobs and boosts the economy, and providing greater revenue for the government, pitted against those who claim that the benefits are not real and the economic boosts that did occur were due to other factors. The direction we should take is to review every tax or quasi tax or tariff or duties or whatever that the federal government has in place for their need, then we need to assess their effectiveness, and the impact if that tax was eliminated altogether. This would most certainly include corporate taxes and personal income taxes.

Review of Government Organizations

Such a review would have to be done in conjunction with a second review of every government operation, agency, bureau, commission, board, and such, of which there are over 1177 now in existence. Elimination of duplications of missions and functions alone in high budget agencies would most likely have a great effect on the need for a number of budget line items, or at least their cost.

More significant payoffs would result from reducing or eliminating entire government organizations, such as the Education Department.
Such an effort would most likely upset many rice bowls, but that is the political cost of creating greater efficiency and lower costs of government, meaning less need for revenue and hopefully a smaller government footprint.

In the end, the question of redistribution of wealth versus a fair tax must be answered. The conservative answer is that everyone must become a stakeholder and support the government, and it is not the government’s task to do redistribution. Hence, a fair or flat tax is preferable, provided that it can be phased in to produce the revenue required. An objective review of tax approaches should be implemented to result in a recommendation of the best way forward for the nation.

Given that such reviews can be conducted in the space of a few years, with incremental useable products, and given that those that conduct the reviews can do so objectively and honestly, it would be reasonable to expect that a substantial payoff to the taxpayers could be realized as the recommendations are implemented incrementally over time.

Government Regulation

The entire approach to government regulation of all commerce should be examined to determine whether it is feasible and practical to create regulations and enforcement means sufficient to the need, yet without stifling the business world with excessive costs or reducing our dedication to free markets. Currently, small businesses are seriously encumbered with reporting requirements and their costs that may or may not be effective in reducing fraud and corruption, collusion and outright theft.

Constitutional Law

A significant theme of conservatives is return of the nation to constitutional government, as opposed to the extra-constitutional laws, decrees, regulations and opinions (or what have you?) laid down by the Congress, the Administration and the Supreme Court in recent years. This too, must be reviewed and carefully studied, for it has been claimed by some parties that practically every law passed since the FDR administration, or even the Wilson era, is in some manner outside of the purview of the Constitution. If so, we are continuing on the wrong track, trusting that our current desires and opinions outweigh those of the Founders in collective session, which may or may not be true.

Maintaining the charade of constitutional government, on the other hand, while wildly careening into uncharted legal waters, is sheer madness worthy of Wonderland.

Thus, phase one of this Pledge is to institute some seven or so fundamental studies and analyses, that result in concrete recommendations for implementation of cost savings and job creation that can be debated in Congress and presented to the nation for approval through their elected representatives, or by referendum of the citizens. It is expected that many of these recommendations, when implemented, would actually reverse much of the damage that the Obama Administration has done to the government, the market place, industry, and citizens in favor of more fiscally sound and politically conservative policies.

Congressional Reforms

Congressional reforms are needed. To mention a few that have been placed on track to be legislated: 1) Term limits for Senators (2) and Congressmen (4); 2) Revision of House and Senate rules of operation, including fixing the rules for all time instead of allowing the next Congress to change them without legislating them; 3) Campaign financing reforms directed towards reducing the need for continual fund-raising; 4) Requiring that all amendments and riders to bills pertain explicitly to the substance of the bills, and not attaching entirely different legislation to bills; 5) Requiring that all bills contain a clear, plain-English statement of all of its provisions, thus avoiding the almost impenetrable language of the bills proper; 6) Reducing the plethora of committees, and eliminating as far as possible overlapping jurisdictions between the committees; 7) Eliminating the practice of passing bills that contain unfunded mandates for States to perform; 8) Requiring that the budget process and the appropriations process be consolidated; 9) Requiring all bills to be given sufficient time for them to be read not only by the legislators, but also by the citizens and the media, through publication of the plain text on the internet well before floor action, say, a minimum of two weeks; 10) Complete and full elimination of the practice of Earmarks; 11) Other practices where found to be out of line or questionable with respect to constitutional governance.

Immigration

Our porous borders must be closed to illegal immigrants as soon as practically possible, We must also be able to have law enforcement officers identify and arrest illegal immigrants wherever encountered in the nation, for subsequent deportation actions. Use of fully armed National Guard and Army units, together with other services as needed, and with an aggressive yet practical ROE, must be authorized as a stop-gap measure.

Proper identification must be carried by aliens in the US at all times; failure to do so may result in immediate deportation. A migrant worker program must be devised that ensures sponsorship responsibilities, proper identification of the migrants, and heavy fines for employers of illegal immigrants. The loose quota system currently in practice must be revised and extended, along with significantly augmented supervision of visa provisions.

Education

Despite massive sums being spent through the federal government on education programs, our students are not receiving the education they need. This function is best performed at the State level, and the dissolution of federal involvement would be a great benefit.

The education system is well-overloaded with non-teaching positions, ostensibly to ensure an effective learning experience for the students. This has failed. We need a return to proven methods of teaching, along with curricula that ensures students acquire the necessary knowledge to become effective citizens and productive workers.

Two wars

Iraq

As of this moment the combat in Iraq is winding down, and our withdrawal from direct control of the fighting has taken place, although we are still supporting the Iraqi army in significant engagements, and over 50,000 troops will remain in country in a “training” role. It is apparent that should the current Iraqi government fail or become engaged in major combat, we would run to their support. This conflict was grossly understaffed from the beginning and thus resulted in a higher casualty rate than might have been the case.

It is not clear what the status of our Iraqi nation-building and infrastructure programs is now, and what will happen to them once we scale down, but our involvement will remain expensive unless we can decide to turn these efforts completely over to the Iraqis and get out of town.

One lesson that should be remembered from this war is that nation-building of primitive nations is too time-consuming and resource depleting for the US to take on by itself, since it inevitably ends up as an expensive multi-decade problem with few guarantees that the nation will survive our complete withdrawal. We should allow the Iraqis to build their own nation in their own way and we should turn our backs on trying to do democratic nation-building from such base material in the future.

Afghanistan

This on-going conflict to keep Afghanistan from becoming a major base for Al Qaida, and to remove the Taliban from it position of power in favor of the elected government, is enormously ambitious and expensive, and it was begun prior to our Iraqi adventure. The course we are on now is to train the home army to take over the security of the nation, and then to declare victory and withdraw as soon as possible.

Here too, we have embarked upon infrastructure improvements, largely to try to win the hearts and minds of Afghans, who will remain a primitive people regardless of the ruling organization and class we leave behind, and regardless of the economic and modernization reforms we have attempted to initiate on our dollar. This war is not winnable without enormous costs! Furthermore, we do not have the staying power this conflict and the parallel nation-building entails. We should recognize this and withdraw “gracefully”. There should be few objections to leaving behind a significant cadre of guard forces, special forces and Predators to continue their decapitation efforts.

The Global War on Terror (GWOT)

We have used this title for the worldwide conflict between the Western nations and the nations of Islam and their radical, fundamentalist Jihadists that have performed terrorist acts of unspeakable horror around the globe in the name of Allah, perhaps the greatest being their destruction of the Twin Towers in New York with the loss of over 3,000 lives.

We have refrained from labeling this war as The Global War on Islam (GWOI), sensing that might work in our disfavor within the Islamic world of 1.2 billion adherents. However, it is the Jihadists that we are fighting; there must be no mistaking this fact. Accordingly, we should label the war properly as The Global War on Jihadists (GWOJ) and be done with it! If moderate Muslims cannot recognize our right of self-defense against Jihadist acts, then they are making cause with the Jihadists, and are supporting Jihad. If moderate Muslims cannot fully support our nation against the Jihadists, then they are tacitly against the US, however pious they may seem.

There is no objective way to tell which camp a Muslim falls into, whether the Moderates, the Sympathizers, or the Jihadists, or whether a given moderate Muslim may decide to join up with Jihad later on. Thus, the only way to tell the bad Muslims is by their acts and their associations, which leaves us with either a reactive approach after the fact of some horror event or another, or a condemnation of all Muslims as either passive, potentially active, or active Jihadists, and act accordingly.

At the very least, we should be leery of massive immigration of Muslims into the nation, and we should have under deep surveillance those Muslim groups that we suspect of Jihadist leanings. We should also be leery of allowing Muslims to take sensitive government jobs, even if we do need Arabic and Farsi translators.

World Government is a Pipedream

2010-09-22T15:24:00.000-04:00

Global Governance?

Managing the non-democratic rogues and cowboys in the world by creating a democratic super-institution is clearly a fool’s goal: look at the UN and the EU! Then too, creating a “club” of big nations to exercise control over the ungainly and unprincipaled lot of nations is likewise foolhardy, and decidedly undemocratic. The world is not ready for a central super-government with the power to enforce its decrees, and we would be more than foolish to champion such a move; we would be acting against, or even more strongly, violating, the well-being and the wishes of our own citizens, our Constitution, and our sovereignty.

It is obvious that among the “club members” would have to be China, Russia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, India and Iran, which is a collection of nations that have little regard for the US or for international government, unless, perhaps, it is they that govern, some by way of religious dictates. Two blocks of nations stand in the way as well: the Africans and the Islamic nations, that tend to vote as blocks. The idea that all nations can be treated as sovereign individuals over which we can impose a strong government along the lines of republicanism (or even blatantly totalitarian, which may well evolve in the end!) is not only dangerous to us, but also impractical and immoral on the face of it! We cannot seem to stop nuclear proliferation today, for example, despite the best intentions and commitments of major nations, and I seriously doubt we will be able to tomorrow, either.

The Islam Question-- A Summary View

2010-09-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

What do we do?

1. There are many peaceful Muslims residing in over 65 Islamic nations and in just about every other nation in the world. Their population exceeds 1 billion people.
2. There are many violent Muslims.
3. There are many wretched Muslims that will do almost anything for money, such as to pick up an AK-47 and fire at our troops.
4. Absent the possession in hand of a smoking AK-47 or an RPG, we cannot readily determine which Muslims are violent from those that are peaceful. Peaceful Muslims have been of little help in identifying bad ones.
5. Some Muslims have been are still performing and planning to perform acts of terrorism and death on US citizens.
6. For the fundamentalist Muslims there is a duty to perform—Jihad. This segment of Muslims is not small, but estimates of their number are not reliable, seemingly ranging from a few hundred to many thousands.
7. For those Muslims that promote the idea of a new caliphate, there is a plan of action to use a stealth Jihad against their target nations, and eventually to take those nation over in the name of Allah. This segment of Muslims is not small either.
8. There is no way to determine by observation or inquiry which US Muslims are actually serving Allah first and foremost, and only secondarily at best America, from those who have become Americans through and through, and do not ascribe to the radical fundamentalist tenets of Islam, and hence are no threat to us.
9. Some Muslims have become true citizens of the US and will fight and die for their adopted nation (or their nation of birth). Some Muslims are merely abiding their time until they are called to attack us. Some Muslims cannot wait for the word, and proceed to attack us on their own.
10. We in the US have a serious problem. We have an enemy that is among us, and they cannot be ferreted out by simple means. To wait for them to strike merely assures them that some of their attacks will strike home and kill our citizens. Their numbers in the US are large and growing: the estimates of their number ranges from 2 million to 6 million. The most definitive number is over 4 million that have signed up to the Interfaith Church, while our census reports only about 2 million. How many of these Muslims are “bad”? Why the discrepancy in numbers?
11. It is already the case that our law enforcement organizations cannot begin to keep track of all the “bad Muslims” in the nation, not even a hundredth of them. We are therefore at risk every day for suicidal terrorist attacks from the bad Muslims.
12. We can observe their actions in the EU and UK, and easily conclude that they are gradually imposing their will on the nations there. The latest French day where thousands of Muslims took over the streets of Paris is a sign of their strength and progress to plan.
13. The number of mosques in the US is variously reported as about 1,200 to 10,000, if all small enclaves are counted along with those meeting in storefronts and other odd places. It has been reported that there are 100 mosques in New York City alone, and many more are planned. The GZM is merely the latest and most insensitive, publicized example.
14. So what should we in America do about this Islam Question? I have read of answers that range from “nothing” to “expulsion of all Muslims.”
All, meaning literally all that profess to be Muslims, including American blacks that belong to the Nation of Islam.

Hawking Touts Spontaneous Creation

2010-09-09T16:23:00.000-04:00

Spontaneous Creation? Like phosporous and water?

"The universe began with the Big Bang, which simply followed the inevitable law of physics," Hawking writes. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. The universe didn't need a God to begin; it was quite capable of launching its existence on its own," says renowned physicist Stephen Hawking explains in his new book, The Grand Design.
So Hawking has thrown down the gauntlet, and schools of atheists are taking to the blogs to crow. But, not so fast! Granted Hawking is a preeminent scientist, and he must be taken seriously; however, there are several points that can be made about this statement of his.
First is the contention that the universe was formed by “spontaneous creation” and that this is all possible within the universe itself. Well, something is not right. Before the Big Bang, there was no universe to work with. Hawking is trying to confine attention to our Universe with this invention of spontaneous creation, and no one is spelling out just how this works. New theories, he says, causes him to make these statements. We haven’t seen these new theories in popular literature, so there is no way to prove or disprove his word. On his word we are to ignore the problems with pre-Big Bang physics of the cosmos. He is saying that our universe in the only thing we need to consider.

My personal opinion is that there is a “before the Big Bang” state of the cosmos, but what it contains I haven’t a clue!

Hints are flying down various scientific channels that the Higgs boson fills all of the cosmos, and it is referred to as the Higgs Field or the Higgs Ocean. So, if this is true, there was one hell of a lot of H-Bosons in existence prior to the BB. We may find out about the Higgs Boson from the LHC in Switzerland and France. Meanwhile, theories abound as to how disturbances in the Higgs Ocean could result in such a super-explosion as the BB.

Illegal Immigration

2010-09-02T02:01:00.001-04:00

A quest for the right solution

For me, the starting point is the 11 million or so illegal immigrants now in the nation. They are human beings that were driven to breaking our laws simply to feed, clothe, and house their families back home. While we could organize a mass deportation over a few years, the human suffering and the dislocation of the Mexican economy–and our own economy–by such an act needs to be taken fully into account.

There are few answers that satisfy all comers to this issue. It seems to me that we need itenerant workers, and we need skilled workers, yet the quotas for them are not sufficiently high to allow for sufficient numbers of itenerants. Creating an effective itenerant worker program should be very high on the to-do list. Despite a number of difficulties, I believe that the US can solve this IW problem.

Good fences make good neighbors. We should complete the border fences and any other necessary additions to shut down illegal entry insofar as possible, while at the same time allowing legal entry to many more migrant workers under suitable controls. Employer sponsorship should be made more stringent and costly, and the migrants themselves should be monitored far more closely. The basic premise is that a migrant is not a candidate for citizenship here; he is expected to return home once his job is ended. Illegal hiring of migrants by employers should be penalized heavily.

Amnesty is another “third rail” issue. I believe it is not fair to those who have tried for years to emigrate legally to wipe the slate clean for the illegals that have managed to survive here—and to prosper in many cases. If we gave amnesty to all 11 million illegals today, we would in effect saying that the doors are open for all to come, and wait out the next round of amnesty here, instead of waiting for legal emigration at home.

This brings our current emigration policy into play. We have gone from Y’all come, to a strict quota system, and then to a looser system now in vogue that I cannot describe. I suppose the question is, how many emigrees per year in total should we allow in the US from now on? a million? Ten million? What? Should we require that emigrees be able to earn a living by way of their skills, or by sponsorship? Recognize too that by allowing many unskilled people into the nation during boom times, inevitably results in having them here without jobs during downtimes, when they may leave on their own, or may not.

I have not seen much cogent analysis of these issues by commentors here in blogs, but a lot of posturing for effect or beating of sour drums, when these and more issues cry for intelligent responses.

Beck's Rally Rocks!

2010-08-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

Two Comments on the Day

1. Crowd size estimates are politicized for the simple reason that they may foretell the political fate of the radicals in office. Since it has been speculated that for every citizen that shows up at a rally about 100 are wishing they could, Rally Size x 100 = Disaster for the Incumbents. A big cheer for that, even though the ostensible goal of the Beck rally was not political! I would put the size of the DC rally at about 300,000, which I hope represents 30 million voters against Obama!
2. For many years we had a proper, more livable balance of religion and secularism in the nation, but since more atheists and agnostics have found their voice and their organizations, such as the ACLU and The Humanist Society, the secularists have been on the rise. (It just may be that a few of them are posting here now!) Their main result so far seems to be to have created great disharmony where there had been little or none, to attack Christians wherever found, to advocate legislation that is counter to or subversive of the Constitution, to invent a community organizer and wishwashy, socialistic politico as worthy of the Presidency, to elect to Congress the likes of Pelosi and Reid, to pass unread legislation that will break the bank, and to run the deficit to the sky! Good job SH’ers! Go look back at #1 above.

Tea Party Movement Rocks!

2010-08-30T15:18:00.002-04:00

The People's Revolt for Sanity in Government

It should be obvious by now to the most dense partisan that the current government is in dire straits. The turnouts at various Tea Party Events, including Beck's "Restoring Honor" demonstration last Saturday, show clearly that we the people are on the march for real change far away from what this Obama crowd is delivering.

That the media have been downplaying the size of the crowds is laughable! Anybody could see with their own eyes that hundreds of thousands of men and women of all races, creeds, and colors were participating lustily in these rallies and filling up the Mall. For each one of thes participants, I would conjecture that another 100 wanted to attend, and cheered their closest march event on from afar. The message is that upwards of 100 million voters are totally discontent with the way things are, and are itching to vote in November against Obama and all that he stands for. Many Independents are saying that even Republicans couldn't this bad!

Meanwhile our president is known more for his vacations than for his steering of the ship of state into reefs and sandbars, both situations being to our deficit. Speaking of which, the monitary deficit is increasing under Obama, if only because he allows the idiots in charge of the Congress to manufacture bills no one reads until after they have become law--and he signs them, unread as well.

Gound Zero Mosque--No!

2010-08-27T22:48:00.000-04:00

Let's get on with stopping this!

Since I have done quite a bit of research and questioning of both real and pseudo experts on Islam in the past weeks, I have come to a simple opinion: 1) Muslims have the right to build a community center/mosque near ground zero; 2) they should not do so as it shows gross disrespect for the sensitivities of many if not most Americans for them to flag the area near the GZ with permanent Muslim/Islamic trappings and gatherings. That other longer-standing Mosques are also in the neighborhood is not of concern. That some Islamic sects are indifferent to the actions of their radical cousins and hence do not feel any sort of guilt over the 9/11 disaster is their problem, not ours, they will feel the heat anyway.

We will most likely not even try to educate our entire population about the divisions within Islam and the differences between the sects in America. The label is Muslim; The label is Islam; let them clean their own nest of radicals, or help our authorities do it, if they are truly Americans, and not Muslims that merely live in America.

You may believe otherwise, but in my opinion, Islam will now get way far more Anti-American points with this coup worldwide than we will get positive Islamic points within America, whether the building is completed as a CC/Mosque or not. So the net is greatly in favor of Anti-American sentiment worldwide, regardless! We have been maneuvered into a no-win situation by the Muslims, thus we should look out for our own majority desires and show our displeasure that this issue has even arisen at all. Where in all of this argumentation have the Muslims shown the slightest concern for American sensibilities regarding the GZ? Most distasteful and arrogant to say the least!

Are We Too Negative About Islam?

2010-08-24T17:13:00.001-04:00

Watch Your Words?

The US has been actively killing some kinds of Muslims (and others) in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, and has just stopped the combat in Iraq after killing many Muslims there for years.

Just how much more justification does a potential Muslim recruit need to join the Jihad against us? Would a few words from the bleachers do? This "watch your words plea" I am reading about in some blogs seems to be something of a reach to me, and might be one more attempt to put some kind of moral or PC constraint on free speech about Islam in the US, lest we give the Jihadists a club! Don't they have all the clubs they need from their point of view? Do they need some kind of proof that the US is becoming a deadly enemy to all Muslims within the nation, which is silly? If they were truly assimilated into US society there would not be a problem, and for most of that the onus in on them, not us.

All of these complaints come in the face of well-documented, Muslim-based terrorist attacks and conflicts worldwide, and potentially a Muslim-based Stealth Jihad in the US, all of which are ascribed to tiny minorities of Muslims of some sect or another. Tiny minorities that we cannot readily identify and separate from the Islamic majority, either; and, so far, I have not seen or heard of enough majority action against their wayward brethren to damp the bad ones out, or to identify them to us so that we can take care of them. No one from the majority has given up OBL to authorities, for example, but I will bet that his whereabouts are known to many, even back in SA.

The image that James Joyner used is very appropriate: Islam: The Large Majority/The Medium Sympathizers/The Small Supporters/The Tiny Terrorists. The factoring out of many sects as being basically passive, as John B. has pointed out, and the lack of global organization that Lang pointed out, lead to a lessening of the perceived threat. No one, however, has claimed that the threat to the US has gone away.

So let us demand of the Muslims that wish to live here in peace and harmony inside of a Christian nation that they do not push for further Islamic favors, further accommodations or building sites that grind so very hard against their neighbor's sensitivities as does the 9/11 site, and that they show their citizenship by massive and visible support, not just words, to the elimination of terrorists wherever found, especially in the US. Someone mentioned that over 15,000 Muslims are in the armed forces. That is an example of the kind of visible support I am asking for.

Ridding themselves openly of the whole idea of a fighting Jihad would be appropriate. Showing that the constant drumming against us by way of some Muslims has ceased would be appropriate also. That is, they should become convincingly Americanized, instead of remaining a ME Muslim that happens to reside here, or a second-generation Muslim American that has not yet fully assimilated here in his heart and mind.

Then the American rhetoric will change for the better.

Brief Comments on the Day

2010-08-23T17:23:00.000-04:00

The Mosque at Ground Zero
I agree that the Muslims have a right to build a mosque or a gathering center. I believe it is grossly insensitive for them to select a site so near the 9/11 attack by Muslims. I also believe that any so-called religion has as its basic tenet that they should rule over everyone must not be coddled in the US. We didn't sign up for an underhanded manner of subverting the nation in the name of Allah.

Attitudes Being Expressed
Too many Americans seem to have sympathy for Muslims and the religion of Islam. The problem is that Islam has two faces to its members, and a frightening face to unbelievers: that of a religion; and, that of a governing body with its own lawbook--Shariah. They want Shariah in the US. We do not want to have Shariah introduced in the US. Major conflict here!

Iran versus Israel
A number of well-informed watchers have stated that it is a 50-50 bet that Israel will attack Iran before the end of this year. The problem with this is Iran's possible reaction involving the US, thus taking us to war.
At the end of the day, if Iran does obtain nuclear weapons we will face a far larger threat to our nation and way of life, I believe. Watch for it!

The Coming Choice for Israel

2010-08-20T08:38:00.000-04:00

The Israel-Iran situation heats up---as of August 20, 2010

Here is an outline of my somewhat revised thinking about the current situation between Iran and Israel, and the rest of the West. It is a collection of posts on the blog "Outside the Beltway".
Assumption: Iran will not cave in to Western pressure to end their nuclear program.

1. Israel faces a hell of a decision: to attack Iran or not. That decision has at least two subsets: to attack essentially the nuclear facilities and any defensive systems in the way; or to attack a full package of Iranian military and nuclear facilities and all of the aircraft, weapons sites, barracks, tank and transport parks and naval ships they can find.

2. To hit only the minimum facilities that will impair Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, plus the defenses that must be reduced for that to happen has been the favorite scenario of many people. I believe that is flawed thinking. In executing such an attack, the IAF must destroy quite a few defensive capabilities, many of which are located near population centers. The list of targets must include every military airfield and military aircraft that can be found, every anti-aircraft emplacement, whether it is missile or gun based, every site that has both long and short range radar, every site that may contain long range missiles that could be used in retaliation, and the list goes on, even before starting the list of nuclear facilities that must be reduced. This is quite obviously an act of war: many civilians near the targets will be killed in the attacks, so retaliation must be expected, and blunted where possible. For Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability most likely would take 3 to 5 years. What then? We are back to square one, minus the losses on both sides.

3. To hit many of the nuclear facilities that are underground, there must be accurate targeting, and I suspect that a lot of low level reconnaissance will have to be flown to identify some of the sites by various “tells”, such as entrances and exits, air inlets, transport, tracks and so on. Further, these bunker sites will require large bombs to dig them out or to damage them adequately by overpressure effects. Such large bombs are not going to be carried by F-16C or F-15I aircraft, because they weigh over 20,000 pounds and up! The IAF will probably use C-130 aircraft for this purpose, once full air superiority has been gained. A similar method was used by the USAF to deliver MOAB’s, or Mother Of All Bombs in Vietnam, so the technique is very well known.

4.Thus there is the need for the IAF to gain complete air superiority in order to let recce proceed everywhere and to allow the slower transports, the C-130’s, to chug eventually over the nuclear sites and drop their MOAB’s. For low-flying aircraft, however, Iran has quite a number of ZSU-23-4 (23mm quad mobile gun radar-directed systems) antiaircraft weapons that are extremely deadly against low flying planes. Additional
ZSU-23-2 dual-gun systems have been reported. They still have SAM capabilities, although not the latest Russian systems they have tried to obtain. These are quite capable at altitudes where most of the IAF will be flying, or up to 40,000 feet, so they must be suppressed immediately. It is terribly expensive in aircraft and pilots to attack AA systems.

5. This leads me to a first hypothesis. The weapon of choice to suppress AA weapons, radar, AA missiles, command and control and communications systems, and aircraft, and just about anything using electronics, including vehicles, over a very wide area is a number of powerful and well-placed EMP or Electromagnetic Pulse bombs. A good part of Iran would go dark from such weapons, and during that time, the air would be mainly free from defenses of all kinds. Even ground forces would be stymied by the EMP effects on their engines and other electronics until repaired. Further, civilian areas within the effective range of the EMP blast would likewise have all of their electronics and electrical equipment disabled. There would undoubtedly be civilian casualties as a result, if only on highways and at intersections.
To obtain the necessary power in such a bomb, it would have to be a nuclear device, and it must be detonated at, as a guess, 5-to-10 thousand feet over Iran. As another guess, the radius of its effectiveness would be on the order of 30,000 ft or about 5 miles…perhaps more, I do not know. I have no idea whether Israel has such a weapon, but if they do, this attack is the time to roll it out.

6. Given this weapon’s use, a second hypothesis can be stated. With just about all of Iran, military and civil, virtually helpless and unable for some time to move in vehicles at all, it would be quite logical for Israel to take full advantage of this to destroy Iran’s military capabilities and military industrial base as fully as possible. Special Forces troops could be landed to search out additional hidden sites for destruction, for example.

7. Has the US government been made aware by Israel of such a weapon and their plan to use it? It is possible. The reaction in DC of the planned use of nuclear EMP weapons by Israel would be fierce and negative! Something like the unaccountably negative reaction of Obama during a recent visit by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

8. Without a weapon such as the EMP bomb I have speculated upon, the IAF has a daunting task, starting with the same needs: to suppress the Iranian air defenses thoroughly before their recce and transport/MOAB aircraft fly onto the scene. They must deliver a knockout blow to the Iranian air fleet or risk far too many IAF planes shot down. Airfields would be hit by multiple Israeli cruise missiles, as would known AA missile sites, such as for the SA-2, SA-5, Tor-M1 and SA-7, and would be followed up by F-16I attacks on specific airfield revetments still standing. Those Iranian aircraft, such as the F-14’s, that made it into the air must be handled by Israeli F-15I’s.

9. The low-level air defenses would have to be taken out as well, possibly by Israeli versions of US Wild Weasel fitted on F-16I’s, together with Harm anti-radar missiles for the kills. Losses to short range (up to 6 or 7 KM), hand-operated and optically sighted AA missiles of the will be moderate for fast jets such as the F-16I flown by combat-experienced pilots.

10. Once complete air superiority has been achieved, I envision waves of follow-on attacks on nuclear and other sites interspersed by recce flights to ascertain the damage done. This continued air assault would be maintained for days, until the Israeli commanders believe they have accomplished their mission.

11. The second Hypothesis holds here also, because Iran is now completely vulnerable to further air assault. The target set would be expanded to include most of the vital military targets in Iran.

12. At some point in this scenario Iran would begin their counterattacks, most likely using long range missiles, and by activating their Hezbollah and Hamas partners, if not Syria also, all targeting Israel. Whether there would be an all out attempt by Syria to invade Israel a second time is a big question; one that Israel would be prepared for this time. Lobbing missiles seems most likely.

13.The most fateful decision by Iran is whether to target US facilities and personnel worldwide, using sleeper cells or other terrorist resources to exact revenge. Such attacks would result in the US joining the attacks on Iran itself. The air war would be over in hours, if this occurs, with Iran made even more vulnerable to air assault by the USN and USAF resources in the theater. Thus enters the second hypothesis again, this time with far greater resources available.

14. Within days or weeks of the beginning of this war a ground assault on Iran can begin, and it can take several paths. First, to ensure that Iranian anti-ship missiles are destroyed in Southern Iran, US forces would effect landings to take possession of the sites threatening the Strait of Hormuz.
The third Hypothesis is that in due time US forces would also move to occupy the Western Iranian oilfield sites, thus cutting off a majority of oil revenues of Iran. This might bring a response from the Revolutionary Guard to face the US forces in ground warfare, totally without air cover. The outcome here would not be in doubt, I believe.

15. Scenarios of concern:
1. Try very hard to follow this:
Scenario 1:
1. We, the US, do not start a preemptive war against Iran.
2. Israel does attack Iran, and does a very good job of it using EMP weapons up front..
3. Iran responds by activating its surrogates, because that is all they can do (EMP damage).
4. Iran plus surrogates attack Israel AND US personnel and facilities.
5. We join the action to stop the carnage wherever it occurs.
Scenario 2
1. We, the US, do not start a preemptive war against Iran.
2. Israel does attack Iran, but does not have EMP weapons, which allows Iran to use its resources to fend off the attack or blunt its effectiveness. Iran declare war.
3. Iran activates its surrogates and pits Israel against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria, together with missiles from Iran.
4. Iran plus surrogates attack Israel but not US.
5. Question: what does the US do? Support Israel passively or actively, or not at all. I say we support actively by punishing Iran.
Scenario 3
1. We the US do not start a preemptive war against Iran.
2. Israel does, etc
3.Same
4.Iran plus surrogates attack Israel AND US Facilities and personnel
5 We join the action.
Scenario 4
1. we do not start a preemptive war
2. Israel does not start a preemptive war.
3. Iran uses its nuclear weapons and blasts Israel off the map.
4. Do we retaliate for this or not? I say we do.
Other scenarios?

16. My whole point has been that we do not control Israel, that Israel will attack Iran sooner or later, and that whether we join the action depends upon whether Iran and its surrogates attack US personnel and facilities. If Israel does not succeed, or is in serious trouble from the surrogates, then the question becomes what do we, the US, do about it? Do we allow Israel to go down or not? If we allow Israel to go down, do we retaliate against Iran for it, or do we simply ignore the event?

17. There have been lots of analyses as to the preferred route of attack by Israel. Most conclude that they will use many routes, but dominantly the “middle route” over Jordan and Iraq. The US has recently stated that they will not prevent the IAF from overflying Iraq. Jordan may well stand down from this also, If not, they will not provide a serious obstruction to the attack, and would lose what they put up. Over flight of Syria is a great obstacle, and it is too near Israel to use EMP fully without disabling Israeli assets. My own opinion is that Israel must try to neutralize Syria in the process regardless, since they will join the fray almost immediately anyway. How the Israelis handle Hezbollah and Hamas is a good question that I can’t answer.

18. Another question I can’t answer is will the Israelis use nukes, other than the EMP type, either strategic or tactical, if they are pressed hard? My only thought is–yes, what have they to lose?

19. I daresay that we could not cripple their war efforts in a heartbeat. Israel has been preparing for such a conflict for years, and has been carefully divorcing themselves from essential, baseline military supplies from the US, such that supplies on hand should be sufficient for a war of certain duration. The longer they have to prepare the more independent they become, such as to develop and produce their own equipment, stockpile and have refineries to produce their own fuel. It has been a standing policy for years not to become totally dependent upon the US, because they are quite aware of the twisting tides of anti-Semitism in the US, and especially within certain groups. Israel accepts much aid from the US gratefully, but their ultimate goal is to stand on their own, and they are prepared to do so now.

20. They have used the Swiss model for years, where the Swiss have prepared for a war of 6 months, planning on support coming within that time…from NATO, the US…etc. Israel, however, must rely only on themselves in the final analysis; hence, their development of nuclear weapons for the last resort, when it becomes clear that they will run out of conventional supplies to defend themselves, or are being overrun well before that happens.
Therefore, to say that the US possesses the ability to stop Israel from defending themselves in a truly dire moment is simply hogwash. They will do what they think is necessary.

21. I have expressed my opinion at key steps in the scenarios I gave above. Fundamentally, I see our role as entering the conflict to stop the counter-aggressions by Israel’s neighbors and Iran, and further nuclear or conflict-widening responses by Israel. We cannot stop the first attacks by Israel, in my opinion. Whether this could be done rapidly under the UN flag or not is probably a no, if only because of time. We may well see this UN blessing as an absolute necessity, and hence delay our operational start while the UN Security Council debates the issues. Russia and China would be vitally important to either neutralize or bring into this operation of ours, but lacking that, we must proceed anyway. Time is of essence, but there may be days involved.

22. Otherwise, we will have a ME conflagration that may not stay limited, with a hard-pressed Israel possibly electing to use its nukes wherever they are threatened, which would be a disaster for many innocent ME people, and ultimately ourselves, if this triggers a more general war—a more general nuclear war.

23. In this process of attempting to cut off the conflict, we would undoubtedly be tagged by the Islamic nations and the Socialist/Communist nations with aggression ourselves. Fine, those are words, and the people we save will live to hear them, and to compare their options that we provided them–namely life. Some days you cannot win everything.

24. Any delay, such as the UN debate might cause, or our inability to bring an adequate force to bear in a timely fashion, would work against Iran, as the Israeli attacks would keep going until they know that we can enforce a truce, which they would realize by the rapid buildup of our naval air power in the area in a matter of days. I would hope that the combination of real power in the area and very strong diplomatic efforts through all channels results in a stand down on both sides very rapidly.

25. If I see through my crystal ball clearly enough, the Israelis would take advantage of the relatively few days they have, because of the diplomatic and logistical delays inherent in the situation, to knock out as much of Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities as they could before standing down at our forceful insistence, and under our protection. So much for the air and long-range missile war, I say. Looking back at this, one sees that Iran did get its punishment, by Israel.

26. The ground and missile war that would be raging is quite another matter. Hezbollah and Hamas would not be brought to a stand-down by air power, although Syria might well.
Some form of international force would have to interpose itself between Israel and these nations that have the necessary teeth to compel conformance to the stand-down, and to stop the missiles from flying. The usual UN force is a farce.

27. This is yet another critical problem to be solved, and it would be in the best interests of all parties to solve it quickly. There are some interesting ideas on how to accomplish this task, such as to sprinkle some number of third-nation soldiers throughout Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, with the clear understanding that if harmed by opposing missiles, they will be revenged rapidly and fully, Israel included. Better ideas may be out there somewhere.

Deporting Illegals

2010-08-19T10:33:00.000-04:00

Many people are trying to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants by claiming that the US cannot deport 12 million people. Hogwash! As I have posted in the past, all that is needed is the will. Reflect on how we handled mobilization and maintenance of well over 12 million men and women during WWII for the armed forces. We provided clothing, shelter, medical help, food, and transportation to the lot for over 4.5 years.

So, it is obviously possible to do if we really want to do it. Such a program would have to be spaced out over a period of time, like 5 years, which would mean only 2.4 million people per year would be affected. It is also true that once such an effort was underway, many of the illegals would voluntarily go home to avoid the hassle.

At one point, I speculated that some 20 cruise ships could be hired to transport the illegals back home to their Central and Latin American nations from key ports around the US, plus the road and rail transport to the ports, and perhaps housing and feeding them awaiting a ship. If you do the math, each ship could turn around in about 2 weeks, and could carry about 5,000 per trip very comfortably. So that would be 26 trips per year X 5,000 people X 20 ships = 2.6 million people per year. In 5 years, the lot would be back home rather easily. The biggest glitch would be whether their home nation would accept them, and accept them at this rate of 2.6 million per year, divided, of course, between the various nations of origin.

So, please don't try to say that it is impossible to do, because it obviously isn't! It merely takes the will to do it.

Islam in America: A Possible Alternative

2010-08-17T13:06:00.001-04:00

Let us prevent Sharia from ever being practiced in America

A first problem is the definition of religion and the acceptability of religious beliefs in America. Religions in general appear to me to have several parts: spiritual, acceptable individual secular behavior, and secular control of society.

Most religions find ready acceptability within their spiritual and secular behavioral parts. One can easily name 15 or 20 such acceptable religions now in America that have a significant membership, and many others that have little recognition and few members. We rightfully pride ourselves on acceptance of the existence these religions in our nation, and have codified this into the law of the land. This much is fully agreed by almost all Americans.

When a religion contains a major emphasis on secular control of society, and has the thrust to force all citizens of that society to adhere to its tenets on pain of death, there arises in most other Americans, immediately upon recognition of this aspect of a religion, a fear, a loathing, and a distrust of such a religion, because it is rejecting fundamental laws of the land-- the personal and religious freedom--that are guaranteed by our Constitution and civil laws.

When one examines Islam in this light, this religion emphasizes the secular control aspect by Islam, the forced acceptance of its tenets on pain of death, and even the penalty of death for apostates as an integral part of the practice of Islam. We have seen these tenets in operation time and time again in Islamic states, and even in the EU and America. The basic tenets of Islam are an anathema to most Americans that have some knowledge of Islam.

While we accept Islam for its spiritual and individual secular behavioral sides, we Americans are truly horrified at the secular control side of Islam, and thus perceive a real dilemma for our nation, both internally and externally. We want to accept the Muslim for his humanity and his religious, spiritual, and secular, moral sides, but we cannot accept his thrust for control of society, such as dhimmitude or death, the role of women in Islamic societies, and numerous other tenets, such as is embedded in Sharia, and its violation of human freedoms that we value so much.

The dilemma is in what we should do about this form of total religion in America. There seem to be several groups of thought on the subject: 1) Leave them alone; 2) Leave them alone, but punish their violations of our laws; 3) Leave them alone, but prohibit the promotion or practice of their form of secular laws and codes of behavior that are inimical to our way of life, and punish their transgressions; and 4) Rid the nation of them altogether.

My own preference is for the third idea, which may amount to simply prohibiting Sharia to be promoted or practiced in the United States instead of or in addition to our own laws. This would allow Muslims to practice their religion, both spiritually and in most secular behaviors, so long as it doesn't violate our laws and our freedoms. To do any less is to jeopardize, however ultimately, our entire way of life, our Constitution, and our freedoms.

Islam in America Today

2010-08-08T18:45:00.001-04:00

A view from the citizen's angle

Most Americans have not read the Koran, the Haddith, or Sharia law, which lays them open to both ignorance and suggestibility when it comes to Muslim practices.

When they do read the Koran, and a few commentaries on it, they are really shocked at the attitudes expressed about infidels (i.e. Christians and other unbelievers of Islam).

Examining the record further, the naive American discovers that the hideous prescriptions for good Muslims about infidels have not been revoked at all, but rather reaffirmed as the true teachings of Muhammad as recently as 2000. Some of these prescriptions include: you may lie, cheat, steal, and even murder an infidel without sanctions from Islam.

The American looks at his newspaper and reads of beheadings, honor killings, bombs blowing up both Americans and other Muslims in Islamic nations, and draws the obvious conclusion that Muslims are unstable to be around. He reads of how many American soldiers have died and been wounded by Muslim insurgents and terrorists, and forms a resentment that we must deal with such a seemingly bloodthirsty crowd at all. The he reads that there are an enormous number of Muslims right here in America. Some say from 2 to 12 million have found their way here; a bunch by way of our open borders, and others by legal immigration.

Now he asks the simple questions: Are these Muslims real Muslims as they are overseas? Are they as likely to try to promote Sharia here? Are some of them possibly sleeper cells awaiting orders to begin terrorist activities here? Do we really know much about them here?

Geller and Spencer tell it like it is from their perspective: we are being subjected to a silent takeover plan, and all of these Muslims can, given the right commands, become Jihadists, because it is their Islamic duty. They cite the progress in the UK, and on the EU continent that has seen early introduction of Sharia in the UK and parts of Islamacized Sweden.

Now the opposite propaganda begins. These are peaceful people and they are not here to take over at all.

Who does one believe about Islam, the local apologists for Islam or the revered "gospel" of Muhammad?

Our Poor Old Tattered Constitution

2010-08-03T16:10:00.000-04:00

The Constitution is good for centuries!

There is an idea current that the Constitution is outdated. That is pure malarky. Properly interpreted and maintained the Constitution is good for a few more centuries. Certainly it needs some clarification, for instance, such as in the recent Supreme Court decisions regarding the 2nd Amendment, which have clarified some major aspects of the Amendment. All to the good. But more needs to be done, such as to strengthen the takings clause in favor of the owner rather than the government and developers. There should be a resurgence of States Rights as well, to place problems nearer to their source and immediate governance: think abortion, which has no basis in the Constitution (it may also not have a basis in State Constitutions either, but so be it). And it goes on and on…

Conservatives, Whither Goest Thou?

2010-08-01T15:45:00.001-04:00

Let us take a timeout for real planning!

It is rather difficult to separate clearly the strategic thinking of the conservative right from the tactical engagement of rightists with the loony leftists on daily issues. There has always been a struggle to rise up to the strategic level when mired in the mundane, and conversely, to descend to the tactical level once again with a valid rightist strategy in mind.

In my view, what is needed is a reset time where conservatives are forced to articulate their strategic views of whither goest thou once more for all to see, and then to show in some detail where those views lead us in solving our national tactical problems—of which there are many and varied! Once formulated, these views must be promoted in concert by our conservative leaders in great detail down all of the information channels open to us. As it stands, we appear to have too many voices with their own views of what is good for the nation, and no clear message to the voting pubilc.

So, to me the question is, where is our conservative roadmap for the future of the nation, say ten or 15 years out, and then where is our conservative and tactical action plan for the next few years that clearly leads to that future? We have seemed to be performing a Whack-a-Mole tactical battle against successive major issues without an overriding conservative philosophy and plan of action that counters the spendthrift left and their rush to buy voters.

The Islam Problem Redux

2010-07-29T00:43:00.003-04:00

Get the facts and get them right!

I agree that we shouldn’t lump all Muslims together. Let us separate out those Muslims that believe the word of Muhammad is absolute law from those who don’t. Then, let us separate from that bunch those who believe that Islam should rule the world and support a New Caliphate. Then from that group, let us separate out those who would accept a call to arms to pursue Jihad against the infidel right now versus those that would not.

If we started with a billion Muslims, how many would be left in this sieve: Well, about 2/5ths are adult women, 1/5th are too old, and 1/5th are children. That leaves the other 1/5th of the Muslim population, or about 200,000,000 actual or potential Jihadist Muslims who swear by Muhammad and are of fighting age. Of this number, the key question is, how many would accept the call now? What percent of the 200 million would sign up:

If it is 100% we have a horrible problem==> two hundred million
If it is 50% we have a horrible problem==> one hundred million
If it is 25% we have a horrible problem==> fifty million
If it is 10% we have a horrible problem==> twenty million
If it is 1% we have a horrible problem==> two million
If it is .1% we have a horrible problem==> two hundred thousand!!
If it is just .01% it means that 20,000 radical Jihadists are roaming our streets now, and they will receive support from the rest of the Muslim population!

One challenge I submit is that no one in the US really knows just what percentage yields the true number of potential Jihadists we are facing. I also submit that we don’t know how to find out, either. It is most probably true that we don’t know how many real Jihadists currently reside in the US. Out of the suspected 6 million Muslims purported to be in the US, how many of them are Jihadists, and do we have a solid track on them? I suspect that answer is not only no, but hell no!

It is this total lack of knowledge of the actual numerical threat from Islam that has many of our citizens spooked. A poster elsewhere claimed 990 million worldwide are not involved at all. That leaves the rather large number of 10 million involved, if my 3rd grade arithmetic is good, of which some significant number are in the US right now. Again, we do not know the basic facts about the potential threat. We do know, however, that it doesn’t take very many of these killers and suicide bomber types to take out a large number of our citizens with little warning, which is a scary fact. We also do know that the number of actual Jihadist incidents is not very large at this time, but it is most definitely not zero!

A second consideration: While there have been a few rather weak Muslim denunciations of Jihadism, I have not read or heard of a concerted effort by these more liberal and passive Muslims to identify serious Muslim Jihadists in our midst, to denounce Muslim organizations in our midst that are subversive, or to take any action themselves that would threaten their Jihadist brothers in the slightest. But I have seen their actions in Detroit and other cities in celebration of US defeats, and praising Islamic victories, as well as denouncing Muhammad cartoonists in a nation that prides itself on free speech. We do have to sign up to keep our nation free and open for religions that are not advocating the overthrow of the US.

I would also add that a list of published condemnations is fine, but where is the self-policing of the killers in their midst? Where are definitive actions, not just words? CAIR? Sure.

Someone here needs to get real. Yes, it has been a while since we lost 3,000 of our people in a Jihadist firestorm in NYC. We have lost over 5,000 more overseas fighting the Jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, have any of you pacifists noted that the rhetoric in US mosques has not toned down one whit? That imams rotating in from Saudi and Yemen have been preaching Jihadism and the gradual overthrow of the nation in the more than 10,000 mosques in the US? That police forces have been suppressing the religious aspect of all manner of killings of Muslims by Muslims in the nation?

That the government suppresses every action as far as it can to damp down the idea that we have a steady rain of Jihadist activities at a low level, till one breaks out at Ft. Hood that couldn’t be suppressed? That Muslims pop up demanding more and more dispensations of land, for school facilities, and independent foot washing facilities? Islam has a Farsi word for slow integration, assimilation, then takeover and installation of Shariah, but Robert Spencer has labeled it Stealth Jihad.

How is it that the true count of Muslims in the US is bandied about between 2 million and 6 million? Most people that have been more closely involved, as opposed to sticking their heads in the sand, sign up to the larger number. How is that possible? Why can’t we get answers? Be thankful that there are those who do not buy into the “all is well in this best of all worlds” crap when it comes to Islam. I fear however, just as the Brits were lulled into a pacifist mode in 1939, we are being lulled ourselves now, trusting that our Constitution and our police will keep the animals at bay here at home, and that our respect for all religion is right and good.

You want me to respect a religion many of whose members swear to conquer the US by stealth? That will install their Shariah law in our nation, and force us infidels to dhimmitude or death? Get real! Try reading the Koran and the Haddith with your thinking cap on to get a truer line on Muslim thinking. How many of you know what the tenets of Shariah law are? Precious few, I will wager. Do any of you know what provisions Islam makes for Muslims that emigrate to foreign countries? In essence it is to lie low and go with the flow until enough Muslims are in that country to make changes in their laws, namely, to install Shariah.

Finally, how can you tell a “bad Muslim” from a “good Muslim”? It is a bit late when you have to say, ‘the ones with the AK-47s are the bad ones’, as we have had to do overseas.

The Iranian Problem

2010-07-27T00:34:00.003-04:00

Which way forward?

Most commenters seem to think Israel would perform a surgical strike targeting Iran's nuclear facilities. My own belief is that they would attack everything military in Iran, from RG barracks and motor pools, to airfields and aircraft revetments, to missile sites, and command centers, along with any nuclear sites known. They would be particularly careful to hit all of the anti--air capabilities they could find, because they must have a sustained attack over Iran for days, if not for weeks, to hit all they can. I believe they would fly missions against the Gulf missile sites as well in the course of the week or weeks. Instead of simply trying to delay the nuclear program, they would go for denuding Iran of all the military hardware they could, and then, at more leisure go for the nuclear sites.

It is obvoius really, that any attack on Iran is cause for a declaration of war by Iran against Israel. Therefore, Israel wants to take out Iran's air defense capabilities and retaliatory capabilities up front, insofar as possible from the air. Their dig-em-out missions may well be performed by C-130 transport planes carrying the Israeli version of MOABs, just as we have done with our MOABS. You need air superiority for that to happen.

Thus, it is not at all surprising that Israel would want a lot of time to prepare this air offensive, since many items would need to be produced and stockpiled in advance, including the MOABs. If, as one has suggested, the Israelis plan to use tactical or larger nuclear weapons, that too would require preparation time, right up to the limit. Their home defenses would have to be prepared against Hesbollah and Hamas retaliatory actions as well, which takes even more time. I fear that time is running out now.

How does one deal with "nuclear Iran?" Since there would be an ever present threat of nuclear engagement between Iran and Israel, the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction rears its head as the only practical approach. MAD makes the assumption of two rational actors in the set, whereas in this case, I seriously question the rationality of the Iranian leaders that hold the trigger. If one examines their public statements over the past years, their religious ferver just might be more than bluster and connivance. Then too, there is the question of their stability in power and how to maintain it.

In any event, should the Israelis gamble with the lives of their people on a bet that the Iranian leadership would or would not pull the trigger? There have been over six years of negotiations with Iran to stop their program. Talk has not worked and will not work.

I could also believe that with their currently-thought-to-be nuclear superiority, the Israelis might sooner or later decide to try for a silicon-fused and electronically- fried Iran to eliminate the threat, and the agonizing fears of virtually total annihilation of the Israeli people, once and for all. In fact, that approach might best be undertaken very soon now, if ever, before the retaliatory capabilities of Iran grow. Of all the surprises, this one appears to me to be the greatest that the Israelis might employ, since it condemns many Iranians to a nuclear holocaust, something Israelis would not decide to do lightly.

As for continuing to live with that nuclear sword over their heads for years, and with zero faith in MAD, I seriously doubt it would last for very long. The greater the pressure from Iran or its minions Hesbollah, Hamas and Syria on matters of land, water, trade, blockades, fences or other concessions, the more likely the ultimate response from Israel. Any lesser response might then be fatal to Israel as well.

From the US viewpoint, and from a stability of the ME view, a nuclear Iran is quite unacceptable. We must not allow the Iranians the option of holding our population centers hostage to their atomic threats while they pursue a lesser aggression in the ME, nor can we sit back and allow Iran to pass a nuclear device to a terrorist group. Thus, we have vital interest in stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

Supermosque in Manhatten?

2010-07-22T16:48:00.000-04:00

Sheer effrontry. this is!

The symbolism of this act to the Islamic world must not be lost on the American people. What it says to Muslims is that Islam can place a mosque in the heart of America, almost exactly where the Islamic bombers flew aircraft into the towers. Since the mosque is a sacred place of worship and an extensive Islamic business center, especially of a Jihadist nature, such a structure here would be very symbolic of Islamic resurgence amd increasing power, even in America. That it is Saudi funded adds to the degradation imposed on us by the Islamic world.

They are thumbing their noses at us, and under our laws and conventions, there is little we can do about it. Unless, of course, the property owner or someone stands up and refuses to go ahead with it on civil grounds.

The Border and Amnesty

2010-07-18T17:11:00.001-04:00

Amnesty should not be part of the solution!

Let us face squarely the whole border issue in all of its complexity. Violence seeping into the US from Mexico is one important aspect that must be controlled and prevented right now. Smuggling of people and dope into the US is a second issue. A third issue is the penetration of our nation by millions of illegal immigrants which impacts us in innumerable ways.
Then come the issues of how to proceed from here, such as closing the borders effectively, getting the illegals to return home, controlling the employers in the US that hire illegals, creating an effective guest worker program, handling the Anchor Baby problem and the bringing into the US of strings of relatives, the problems of assimilation and teaching culture, custom, language and the “rules of the road” here, and the idea of amnesty and citizenship for the illegal lot that has been most seriously considered by Congress in the past, and appears to be headed for another legislative run in the near future, and the rather ineffective attempts underway to solve some of these issues of an open border policy that many in government have advocated.
Pull on any one of these issue strings and you automatically pull out the rest of them with all of their messiness and political, social, and humanitarian conflicts. It is a very explosive set of concerns, not only for the Border States but also the rest of the states that find themselves in opposition to the ideas of maintaining in effect an open border policy, mobs of illegal immigrants on the streets, and populating the jails in every state with Hispanic gangs, while the police merely stand by and watch these illegals run around.
My particular thrust is and has been to find and support effective solutions to the full set, and to ward off the radical, humanitarian-oriented and progressive solution of total amnesty, and the most likely augmentation of the Democratic Party through such amnesty using my tax dollars to pay for it.
These things, and others that will come to mind later, I consider of major importance to be discussed once the border problem is broached in one or more of its facets, including the very political aspects that frost my cake.

Let us see where the amnesty argument take us in the following months. The crucial defense of allowing amnesty centers on a humanitarian argument.

Blog Thoughts

2010-07-15T01:09:00.003-04:00

Some thoughts on blogging and bloggers

First, there are dedicated news hawks that feel they must contribute to our understanding of the very latest news events in as great a detail as they can dig up somehow. Not that they are at all biased or inaccurate, but they appear to fashion themselves after the great commentators of the past, and believe they are lending perspective and information to their public. Indeed they are, sometimes.

Second, there are message hawks that see an opportunity by way of the news to put their version of the truth before an audience and to sell themselves as a pillar of some political or social order, while also managing a putdown for the ideas behind other groups and factions.

Then there are blogger groups that post incessantly every day at the same site. Somehow these bloggers seem to combine the two themes of news reporting with their own commentary built around a political theme, and they achieve far wider coverage from collecting like-minded bloggers of good reputation from all over the nation. Some of these sites boast a cadre of 10 or 20 well known writers with a more or less harmonious view, which is an excellent drawing card for like minded readers. It is often like reading a continuous Op Ed page in the newspaper. Indeed, some of the very best bloggers are Op Ed contributors also.

The common trait with all of these types of sites is their demand to publish, daily in the case of a one or two blogger site, and at least weekly or more in the larger gang sites. The larger sites can maintain and grow their readership by virtue of their comprehensive coverage and their stable of excellent writers, yet giving individual writers more time to gather background information and form their pieces.

Oddly enough, some of these sites refuse to allow comments on their pieces at all. Others do allow comments, but the authors virtually never get involved in the commentary threads themselves, perhaps because it can be a major distraction from their other plans. It is well known that comment threads can be a disaster for useful exchanges on the subject at hand, and often degenerate into shouting matches, which help no one.

Then there are those sites that do allow comments and do participate in them to some degree. I have on my blog list and my favorites list a bunch of sites from each of the above categories, which forces me to consider commenting on their sites if allowed, or to form a post of my own on my site, which is far less well known and attended, and therefore draws less return comment—near zero in fact. Obviously, I prefer those popular sites that allow comments.

The best popular sites are becoming far more adept at composing, editing, illustrating, and presenting their posts attractively and compellingly, and it shows in the slick productions they create. They have become quite professional journalists over time, and their hits in the millions attest to that fact. Of course, having an editorial staff and a technical staff allows for a much more professional approach to journalism.

After five years of posting on my site, and of violating the” must publish daily” rule to build an audience, I have few visitors and fewer comments. Since I refuse to join the daily comment crowd, and the reporting-again crowd on the news events of the day, that loses me several classes of audiences. Since I have focused heavily on conservative theory and commentary from a conservative viewpoint, that loses me another swath of readers—ones that I don’t regret losing!

Then, too, my style and viewpoint probably drives even good conservatives away, never to return. My anti-PCMC attitudes, my anti-abortion stance, my anti-same-sex stance, my anti-liberal stance, and my anti-Islam stance, when combined with my anti-intellectual and pro-Christian stances appears to be rather unpopular with many potential readers, and makes for rather predictable commentary, I suppose, which is boring.

So be it! I-yam what I-yam, and have little ambition to become a lead blogger. The one aspect I regret is not having developed, somehow, a small set of commentators that would help to expand my outlook by critiquing my posts.