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Heavy-Handed Politics

"€œGod willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world
without the United States and Zionism."€ -- Iran President Ahmadi-Nejad

Friday, August 01, 2008

I will be heading to the Mall of America shortly for some academic awards program that involves my son HH Jr.

And from there, we will heading out of town to participate in a "Relay for Life" fund raiser for the American Cancer Society. This will be my 10th year of participation. It's always a fun time. Last year I think we raised over $150,000 dollars.

Therefore, this will be my last post for a couple of days.Check back later - perhaps Sunday evening.

Until then, everyone have a great weekend, and stay safe.

Aide to Sen. Jim Webb Found Dead
Fox News


"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." - Barack Obama -

Study finds 11% drop in illegal immigrants

Bush's policy of enforcement via workplace raids seems to be working.

WASHINGTON -- A report Wednesday indicating a marked decline in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. fueled a widening national debate over the Bush administration's policy of immigration enforcement through aggressive workplace raids.

The largest such enforcement action was in May in Postville, Iowa, where federal immigration agents descended on a meatpacking plant and arrested nearly 400 workers later detained in a building used to house cattle. Read on.

51% of Californians back offshore drilling
San Francisco Chronicle

Record Deficit Without Meaningful Countermeasures

By Paul M. Weyrich

The American economy would benefit significantly from lower taxes. Yet disingenuous and influential members of the media and of Congress insist that the current malaise in the Federal Government’s budget is due to tax cuts. This is absolutely incorrect. The problem is that our elected officials lack the fortitude and wisdom to make the necessary cuts in spending that budget realities demand. Read more.

Obama’s Women Problem

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

If soccer moms determined the outcome of the 1996 presidential race and security moms tipped the balance in 2004, it is beginning to look as if older moms are the key to the 2008 contest. Obama has a problem among women over 40 and a big problem among women over 50. These groups, normally the staunchest of Democratic supporters, are showing a propensity to back John McCain and a disinclination to support Obama. Read more.

Iran Wins Backing from ‘Anachronistic’ Non-Aligned Bloc

The 118-member Non-Aligned Movement has endorsed Iran’s right to nuclear energy. Tehran said the move signals the failure of U.S. efforts to isolate it. The support from the United Nations’s biggest bloc came just days before a deadline set by major powers for Iran to accept a deal aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff. Read more.

Fairness Doctrine Vote Not Happening, House Majority Leader Says

A bill to permanently ban the “Fairness Doctrine” probably will not be voted on this year in Congress, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday. Hoyer said he is interested in “ensuring the availability of fair and balanced information to the American public.” Read more.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Barack



As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think Mr. Obama made a terrible decision when he canceled his plans to visit the wounded troops in German hospitals. He is being roundly criticized for it and I believe is taking a hit because of it.

What do you get when you add socialism and Marxism?

Obama. You get Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

Democrat Barack Obama arrives in Washington on Monday. On the campaign trail, Obama has styled himself a centrist. But a look at those who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years shows a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism. Read more.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

STRATFOR
Terrorism Intelligence Report

Busting the Anthrax Myth
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant and that the U.S. government knows its terrorist enemies have sought to use biological agents as instruments of warfare. Runge also said that the United States believes that capability is within the terrorists’ reach.

Runge gave his testimony before a subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology that was holding a field hearing in Providence, R.I., to discuss the topic of “Emerging Biological Threats and Public Health Preparedness.”

During his testimony, Runge specifically pointed to al Qaeda as the most significant threat and testified that the United States had determined that the terrorist organization is seeking to develop and use a biological weapon to cause mass casualties in an attack. According to Runge, U.S. analysis indicates that anthrax is the most likely choice, and a successful single-city attack on an unprepared population could kill hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Later in his testimony, Runge remarked that many do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that of a nuclear or conventional strike, even though such an attack could kill as many people as a nuclear detonation and have its own long-term environmental effects.

We must admit to being among those who do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that posed by a nuclear strike. To be fair, it must be noted that we also do not see strikes using chemical or radiological weapons rising to the threshold of a true weapon of mass destruction either. The successful detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city would be far more devastating that any of these other forms of attack.

In fact, based on the past history of nonstate actors conducting attacks using biological weapons, we remain skeptical that a nonstate actor could conduct a biological weapons strike capable of creating as many casualties as a large strike using conventional explosives — such as the October 2002 Bali bombings that resulted in 202 deaths or the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191.

We do not disagree with Runge’s statements that actors such as al Qaeda have demonstrated an interest in biological weapons. There is ample evidence that al Qaeda has a rudimentary biological weapons capability. However, there is a huge chasm of capability that separates intent and a rudimentary biological weapons program from a biological weapons program that is capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Misconceptions About Biological Weapons

There are many misconceptions involving biological weapons. The three most common are that they are easy to obtain, that they are easy to deploy effectively, and that, when used, they always cause massive casualties.

While it is certainly true that there are many different types of actors who can easily gain access to rudimentary biological agents, there are far fewer actors who can actually isolate virulent strains of the agents, weaponize them and then effectively employ these agents in a manner that will realistically pose a significant threat of causing mass casualties. While organisms such as anthrax are present in the environment and are not difficult to obtain, more highly virulent strains of these tend to be far more difficult to locate, isolate and replicate. Such efforts require highly skilled individuals and sophisticated laboratory equipment.

Even incredibly deadly biological substances such as ricin and botulinum toxin are difficult to use in mass attacks. This difficulty arises when one attempts to take a rudimentary biological substance and then convert it into a weaponized form — a form that is potent enough to be deadly and yet readily dispersed. Even if this weaponization hurdle can be overcome, once developed, the weaponized agent must then be integrated with a weapons system that can effectively take large quantities of the agent and evenly distribute it in lethal doses to the intended targets.

During the past several decades in the era of modern terrorism, biological weapons have been used very infrequently and with very little success. This fact alone serves to highlight the gap between the biological warfare misconceptions and reality. Militant groups desperately want to kill people and are constantly seeking new innovations that will allow them to kill larger numbers of people. Certainly if biological weapons were as easily obtained, as easily weaponized and as effective at producing mass casualties as commonly portrayed, militant groups would have used them far more frequently than they have.

Militant groups are generally adaptive and responsive to failure. If something works, they will use it. If it does not, they will seek more effective means of achieving their deadly goals. A good example of this was the rise and fall of the use of chlorine in militant attacks in Iraq.
Anthrax

As noted by Runge, the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis is readily available in nature and can be deadly if inhaled, if ingested or if it comes into contact with a person’s skin. What constitutes a deadly dose of inhalation anthrax has not been precisely quantified, but is estimated to be somewhere between 8,000 and 50,000 spores. One gram of weaponized anthrax, such as that contained in the letters mailed to U.S. Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in October 2001, can contain up to one trillion spores — enough to cause somewhere between 20 and 100 million deaths. The letters mailed to Daschle and Leahy reportedly contained about one gram each for a total estimated quantity of two grams of anthrax spores: enough to have theoretically killed between 40 and 200 million people. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the current population of the United States is 304.7 million. In a worst-case scenario, the letters mailed to Daschle and Leahy theoreticall y contained enough anthrax spores to kill nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population.

Yet, in spite of their incredibly deadly potential, those letters (along with an estimated five other anthrax letters mailed in a prior wave to media outlets such as the New York Post and the major television networks) killed only five people; another 22 victims were infected by the spores but recovered after receiving medical treatment. This difference between the theoretical number of fatal victims — hundreds of millions — and the actual number of victims — five — highlights the challenges in effectively distributing even a highly virulent and weaponized strain of an organism to a large number of potential victims.

To summarize: obtaining a biological agent is fairly simple. Isolating a virulent strain and then weaponizing that strain is somewhat more difficult. But the key to biological warfare — effectively distributing a weaponized agent to the intended target — is the really difficult part of the process. Anyone planning a biological attack against a large target such as a city needs to be concerned about a host of factors such as dilution, wind velocity and direction, particle size and weight, the susceptibility of the disease to ultraviolet light, heat, dryness or even rain. Small-scale localized attacks such as the 2001 anthrax letters or the 1984 salmonella attack undertaken by the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh cult are far easier to commit.

It is also important to remember that anthrax is not some sort of untreatable super disease. While anthrax does form hardy spores that can remain inert for a period of time, the disease is not easily transmitted from person to person, and therefore is unlikely to create an epidemic outside of the area targeted by the attack. Anthrax infections can be treated by the use of readily available antibiotics. The spores’ incubation period also permits time for early treatment if the attack is noticed.

The deadliest known anthrax incident in recent years occurred in 1979 when an accidental release of aerosolized spores from a Soviet biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk affected some 94 people — reportedly killing 68 of them. This facility was one of dozens of laboratories that were part of the Soviet Union’s massive and well-funded biological weapons program, one that employed thousands of the country’s brightest scientists. In fact, it was the largest biological weapons program in history.

Perhaps the largest attempt by a nonstate actor to cause mass casualties using anthrax was the series of attacks conducted in 1993 by the Japanese cult group Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo.

In the late 1980s, Aum’s team of trained scientists spent millions of dollars to develop a series of state-of-the-art biological weapons research and production laboratories. The group experimented with botulinum toxin, anthrax, cholera and Q fever and even tried to acquire the Ebola virus. The group hoped to produce enough biological agent to trigger a global Armageddon. Its first attempts at unleashing mega-death on the world involved the use of botulinum toxin. In April 1990, the group used a fleet of three trucks equipped with aerosol sprayers to release liquid botulinum toxin on targets that included the Imperial Palace, the National Diet of Japan, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, two U.S. naval bases and the airport in Narita. In spite of the massive quantities of toxin released, there were no mass casualties, and, in fact, nobody outside of the cult was even aware the attacks had taken place.

When the botulinum operations failed to produce results, Aum’s scientists went back to the drawing board and retooled their biological weapons facilities to produce anthrax. By mid-1993, they were ready to launch attacks involving anthrax; between June and August of 1993, the group sprayed thousands of gallons of aerosolized liquid anthrax in Tokyo. This time, Aum not only employed its fleet of sprayer trucks but also used aerosol sprayers mounted on the roof of their headquarters to disperse a cloud of aerosolized anthrax over the city. Again, the attacks produced no results and were not even noticed. It was only after the group’s successful 1995 subway attacks using sarin nerve agent that a Japanese government investigation discovered that the 1990 and 1993 biological attacks had occurred.
Biological Weapons Production

Aum Shinrikyo’s team of highly trained scientists worked under ideal conditions in a first-world country with a virtually unlimited budget. They were able to travel the world in search of deadly organisms and even received technical advice from former Soviet scientists. The team worked in large, modern laboratory facilities to produce substantial quantities of biological weapons. They were able to operate these facilities inside industrial parks and openly order the large quantities of laboratory equipment they required. Yet, in spite of the millions of dollars the group spent on its biological weapons program — and the lack of any meaningful interference from the Japanese government — Aum still experienced problems in creating virulent biological agents and also found it difficult to dispense those agents effectively.

Today, al Qaeda finds itself operating in a very different environment than that experienced by Aum Shinrikyo in 1993. At that time, nobody was looking for Aum or its biological and chemical weapons program. By contrast, since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States and its allies have actively pursued al Qaeda leaders and sought to dismantle and defang the organization. The United States and its allies have focused a considerable amount of resources in tracking and disassembling al Qaeda’s chemical and biological warfare efforts. The al Qaeda network has had millions of dollars of its assets seized in a number of countries, and it no longer has the safe haven of Afghanistan from which to operate. The chemical and biological facilities the group established in the 1990s in Afghanistan — such as the Deronta training camp, where cyanide and other toxins were used to kill dogs, and a crude anthrax production facility in Kandahar — have been found and destroy ed by U.S. troops.

Operating in the badlands along the Pakistani-Afghan border, al Qaeda cannot easily build large modern factories capable of producing large quantities of agents or toxins. Such fixed facilities are expensive and consume a lot of resources. Even if al Qaeda had the spare capacity to invest in such facilities, the fixed nature of them means that they could be compromised and quickly destroyed by the United States.

If al Qaeda could somehow create and hide a fixed biological weapons facility in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas or North-West Frontier Province, it would still face the daunting task of transporting large quantities of biological agents from the Pakistani badlands to targets in the United States or Europe. Al Qaeda operatives certainly can create and transport small quantities of these compounds, but not enough to wreak the kind of massive damage it desires.

Al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was reportedly killed on July 28, 2008, by a U.S. missile strike on his home in Pakistan. Al-Sayid, who had a $5 million dollar bounty on his head, was initially reported to have been one of those killed in the January 2006 strike in Damadola. If he was indeed killed, his death should be another significant blow to the group’s biological warfare efforts.

Of course, we must recognize that the jihadist threat goes just beyond the al Qaeda core. As we have been writing for several years now, al Qaeda has undergone a metamorphosis from a smaller core group of professional operatives into an operational model that encourages independent grassroots jihadists to conduct attacks. The core al Qaeda group, through men like al-Sayid, has published manuals in hard copy and on the Internet that provide instructions on how to manufacture rudimentary biological weapons.

It is our belief that independent jihadist cells and lone-wolf jihadists will almost certainly attempt to brew up some of the recipes from the al Qaeda cookbook. There also exists a very real threat that a jihadist sympathizer could obtain a small quantity of deadly biological organisms by infiltrating a research facility.

This means that we likely will see some limited attempts at employing biological weapons. That does not mean, however, that such attacks will be large-scale or create mass casualties.
The Bottom Line

While there has been much consternation and alarm-raising over the potential for widespread proliferation of biological weapons and the possible use of such weapons on a massive scale, there are significant constraints on such designs. The current dearth of substantial biological weapons programs and arsenals by governments worldwide, and the even smaller number of cases in which systems were actually used, seems to belie — or at least bring into question — the intense concern about such programs.

While we would like to believe that countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia have halted their biological warfare programs for some noble ideological or humanitarian reason, we simply can’t. If biological weapons were in practice as effective as some would lead us to believe, these states would surely maintain stockpiles of them, just as they have maintained their nuclear weapons programs. Biological weapons programs were abandoned because they proved to be not as effective as advertised and because conventional munitions proved to provide more bang for the buck.

In some ways, the psychological fear of a “super weapon” — undetectable, microscopic, easily delivered and extremely deadly — shapes assessment of the threat, more so than an objective understanding of actual capability and intent (not to mention the extreme difficulties of ever creating some sort of a super bug). Conventional weapons systems, and unconventional tactics, continue to be the most cost-effective and proven methods of warfare, whether between state actors or between state and nonstate actors. Nuclear weapons have also been shown to have true weapons of mass destruction power.

To help keep the cost-benefit calculation of a biological warfare program in perspective, consider that Seung-Hui Cho, the man who committed the shooting at Virginia Tech, killed 32 people — more than six times as many as were killed by the 2001 anthrax letters. John Mohammed, the so-called “D.C. Sniper,” was able to cause a considerable amount of panic and kill twice as many people (10) by simply purchasing and using one assault rifle. Compare Mohammed’s effort and expenses to that of the Aum Shinrikyo anthrax program that took years of work by a huge team and millions of dollars to develop but infected no one.

Now, just because biological weapons are not all they are cracked up to be does not mean that efforts to undermine the biological warfare plans and efforts of militant groups such as al Qaeda should not continue or that programs to detect such agents or develop more effective treatments and vaccines should be halted. Even though an anthrax attack probably will not kill huge numbers of people, as we saw in the case of the anthrax letters, such an attack can be quite disruptive. Cleaning up after such an attack is expensive and takes considerable time and effort. Like a dirty bomb, an anthrax attack will more likely serve as a weapon of mass disruption and not a weapon of mass destruction.

Due to the disruption and the potential for some deaths as a result of an anthrax attack, the threat against the United States does remain a significant concern. However, the threat it represents is not as great as that of conventional attacks using firearms and explosives against soft targets, and it certainly does not rise anywhere near the level of a threat posed by a terrorist attack using a nuclear weapon.

Homeland security resources are very limited and have been shrinking as we move further from 9/11 and as other items begin to take precedence in the federal budget. This means that an array of different programs is being forced to scramble for an ever-shrinking piece of the funding pie. In such an environment, it is often a temptation to overstate the threat. Such overstatements are harmful because they can sometimes prevent a rational distribution of resources and prevent resources from being allocated to where they are needed most.

Source: www.stratfor.com

MT. SOLEDAD CROSS CAN STAY

ANN ARBOR, MI – Federal District Court Judge Larry Alan Burns, ruled yesterday that the giant cross atop Mount Soledad, the center piece of a national veterans’ memorial and subject of a 20 year legal battle, can stay as it is where it is.

Chicago Sun-Times Columnist:
Women voters aren't warming to 'cool' Obama

State ends FPL's green program, questions where $8 million went
By CHRISTINE STAPLETON

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The state - unable to figure out what happened to more than $8 million that Florida Power & Light collected from customers in its green energy program - on Tuesday ordered FPL to end the program immediately.

"This program has been mismanaged from the inception," said Florida Public Service Commissioner Nathan Skop, the biggest critic of FPL's Sunshine Energy Program. "The bottom line is 80 percent of the money is unaccounted for." Read more.

Washington Post:
Mexico's Drug Cartels Take Barbarous Turn: Targeting Bystanders
In Sinaloa, Carnage Brings Widespread Terror

Latino Lawmakers Agree With Obama

Latino lawmakers agree with Obama and accuse ICE agents of being terrorists. Yep, Obama is a uniter.

Related story:
Democrats Want to Stop Immigration-Enforcement Raids

Iraq’s Interior Minister Thanks U.S. Troops for Liberating Iraq
Washington
– A top Iraqi official visited wounded American troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to thank them for their part in ending Saddam Hussein’s rule in his country. “We also want to express our gratitude to the families of all these great men and women and express how important their sacrifices are for our nation,” Jawad Karim al-Bolani, Iraq’s minister of the interior, said.

It’s The Economy Again, Stupid
The Economist

Energy Policy: Let's Not Repeat the Mistakes of the '70s
The Heritage Foundation

Survey: Fewer economists believe recession likely
USAToday.com

MINIMUM WAGE

Second Wage Hike Not 'Enough' for the Media
"The minimum wage went up last week, but the media still mostly ignored the economic problems that may result. Labor economists say that increasing the minimum wage can cause job loss and price increases, but that didn’t stop journalists from complaining that the federal standard is still too low."

Read more at the Balance Sheet.

ON OBAMA AND OBAMA'S BERLIN SPEECH

“What, what do you make of this? Let’s take another bite here because it was quite a speech. You have to judge for yourself but the speech had its thrill factor, certainly once again.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

“Barack Obama’s overseas trip—it was almost flawless.” —CNN’s Jack Cafferty

“And I think what [Barack Obama is] trying to say, one of the messages that I heard was, ‘look, I’m not some wooly-headed liberal lefty that thinks we should all sing Kumbaya together. I’m here to tell them that we need international cooperation to beat the terrorists, to beat the extremists, to win the war in Afghanistan.’... But I think for the American voter he was saying, ‘look, I’m here speaking for our national security interests... My metaphor is the wall that Reagan used, not John Kennedy’s metaphor.” —CBS’s Jeff Greenfield

“[Obama] doesn’t have to equal McCain in [foreign policy and national security issues], he just has to make voters seem like he’s okay, he knows what he’s talking about.” —CBS’s Jeff Greenfield


“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin

“Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney.” —New York Times columnist David Brooks

“Why can’t Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics, including this page, thought it would? What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president he’d be?” —USA Today

--------

In my humble opinion, I did not find anything stirring in his Berlin speech at all. At times, I felt he was running for the EU presidency. At times, I felt he was campaigning for the Beliners to vote for him as the next U.S. president.

It was short on substance - although that came as no big surprise to me.

He came across as lecturing them as if he was giving them a history lesson; yet much of what he said was factually incorrect or exaggerated.

I refer you to a good column by Dennis Prager in which he does a good job of fisking Barack and his Berlin speech.

Random Thoughts
By Thomas Sowell:
Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can't stop with just one.

Anyone who is honest with himself and with others knows that there is not a snow ball's chance in hell to have an honest dialogue about race.

I wonder what radical feminists make of the fact that it was men who created the rule of "women and children first" when it came to rescuing people from life-threatening emergencies.

Barack Obama's motto "Change you can believe in" has acquired a new meaning-- changing his positions is the only thing you can believe in. His campaign began with a huge change in the image he projects, compared to what he was doing for 20 years before. (Read more.)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

BBC:
Iraqis attack al-Qaeda stronghold

Rocky Mountain News:
Anarchists offer DNC deal to Denver
They'll go away if $50 million goes to community

COMMENTARY

Kyoto Treaty: Pointless Promises
By Ed Feulner

Next month, the greatest athletes in the world will visit Beijing for the Olympic Games. Undoubtedly they’ll set new records in plenty of sports. But after the stars go home, China (which has cut back industrial production in an effort to clear the air ahead of the Olympics) will go back to setting a dubious record of its own: It’s the greatest emitter of carbon dioxide on earth.

Iranian President: 'Big Powers' Going Down
By George Jahn, Associated Press

Tehran (AP) - Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other "big powers" for nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other global ills, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. and other organizations for their own gain and the developing world's loss.

But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries' side.

"The big powers are going down," Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era." More.

Dems Moving to Fund UN Agency That Aids China’s One-Child Policy
If a Democrat is elected president in November, Congress probably will resume direct funding of the United Nation’s Population Fund (UNFPA), a program that has been supportive of China’s coercive “one child” policy, an expert told CNSNews.com on Monday.

Registered Sex Offenders Are Beneficiaries of Medicare Fraud
Registered sex offenders and deceased doctors are among the beneficiaries of more than $60 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims paid by the U.S. government each year, according to experts. Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) have introduced a measure to help prevent Medicare fraud.

"What is honored in a country will be cultivated there." - Plato


We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
-Plato

Socialism is still a dirty word

By Henry Lamb
In the 1950s, the word “socialism” was as vulgar as the four-letter words, which, when uttered by a youngster, could result in a mouthful of soap. Not so today. Perhaps contemporary acceptance of the term is the result of tolerance lessons, or political correctness that permeates progressive thought today. It could be ignorance; schools no longer teach the flaws of socialism. Or, what’s even worse, today’s acceptance of the term is more likely to be acceptance of the system.

When Representative Maxine Waters blurted out in a congressional hearing that she was ready to “socialize” the oil industry, it caused only a minor ripple in the media. There’s no way of knowing, of course, whether any school teachers seized on the event to discuss with their students why government should, or should not, follow Ms. Waters’ advice and “socialize” the industry. This would have been a great teaching opportunity. Read more...

Pelosi blocks gas price relief

By Henry Lamb
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that she would block any vote to allow offshore drilling. This remarkable stance comes in the face of the latest poll that says 73 percent of Americans favor offshore drilling, while only 27 percent oppose it. Nancy Pelosi again displays her contempt for her employer, the American people. Her arrogance and wrong-headed philosophy have led Congress to an approval rating of a staggering 14 percent, the lowest ever.

The arguments she advances in defense of her position are, at best, silly, and at worst, devious. She says she will not allow additional reserves to be drilled because .......

Planned Parenthood's New Strategy
—Albert Mohler

"It is indeed a new look...a new branding, if you will." That's the explanation offered by Leslie Durgin, a senior vice president at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. She was speaking of Planned Parenthood's new "upscale" approach to marketing abortions and other "services" to wealthier suburban women.

Planned Parenthood is setting up new offices known as "Express" which will offer services just short of abortions in upscale suburban settings such as shopping malls. One Planned Parenthood executive went so far as to say, "I like to think of it as the LensCrafters of family planning."

New leadership may try to brush up the organization's image, but the business remains abortion. Planned Parenthood may soon be coming to a mall near you, but no matter how much they want to burnish their image and go "upscale," their business remains death on demand. The Culture of Death creeps on--mile by mile, mall by mall.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

McCain goes on the offensive.

I still don't understand why Obama would cancel his trip to visit the bases in Germany and particularly why he would cancel his visit to the hospital to see the wounded troops.

So what if he could not bring his entourage, the cameras, and the news anchors. This of course would make it a campaign trip... which is a no-no...but I think it was a significant tactical mistake. It is hard to spin this into a positive, no matter what excuses you throw out there. McCain is making it a political issue and has come out already with a political ad.

See it here:

ARROGANCE

Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis and frequent Fox News contributor and political analyst, wrote a column this past Friday, Arrogance Will Not Help Get Obama Elected.

She does seem concerned about Barama's electability.

Anti-Trade Obama Has Brother Running Illegal Firm In China
- Gateway Pundit

Doing It Right in the House
For the first time in a while, House Republicans are on the offense on an issue of national importance: removing obstacles to the production of more American energy.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey abruptly shut down his committee indefinitely rather than allow Republicans to offer an amendment to open more areas to drilling for new sources of oil and natural gas. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid concur. According to the New York Times, she and Reid "appear intent on holding the line against calls to approve drilling in areas now off limits." Read on.

Who protected Obama while in Afghanistan?

Hint: Obama says they got a "bad rap."

#264

Heavy-Handed Politics has landed at #264 in Wikio's rating of political blogs.

Wikio - Top Blogs - Politics





You must be nicer to Muslims, Britain is told by UN human rights chiefs

Daily Mail (UK) Online:
Britain was told yesterday by a United Nations committee to take firm action to combat 'negative public attitudes' towards Muslims.

The nine-member human rights committee also criticised some of the UK's antiterror measures.

The body, which is composed of legal experts, said it was concerned ' negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society' continued to develop in Britain.

Read more.

Rebels could win Pakistan's nuke haven

The Australian:
A CRISIS meeting of Pakistan's new coalition Government has been warned that it could lose control of the North West Frontier Province, which is believed to hold most of its nuclear arsenal.

The warning came yesterday from the coalition leader, who, although he is part of the new Government, is regarded as having the closest links to al-Qa'ida and Taliban militants sweeping through the region.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman bluntly told his colleagues: "The North West Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan. That is what is happening. That is the reality." Read more....

Web jihadist employed by federal contractor

Communications worker says dead GIs 'bring great happiness to me'
A young American Muslim has been employed by a federal contractor while running a radical website promoting al-Qaida.

Until just last week, 22-year-old Samir Khan worked at the Charlotte, N.C., branch of Convergys Corp., which in March was awarded part of a $2.5 billion federal contract to set up emergency communications centers in the event of terrorist attacks and other national disasters. Read more...

Supremes strike 'hate crime' statute

'Preaching about sin of sodomy should not be made illegal'
The Supreme Court in Pennsylvania has declared the "hate crimes" laws used to jail the Philadelphia 11 in 2004 violated the state constitution.

In a four-line statement this week, the court said the ruling from the lower Commonwealth Court "is affirmed for the reasons ably set forth in the opinion of the Honorable James Gardner Collins, which opinion is adopted as that of the Supreme Court." Read more...

Congress' bailout opens doors to eminent domain seizures

Warning issued about 'bonanza' of potential property confiscations
The congressional plan to bail out the U.S. housing and mortgage industries, which could be approved by Congress and signed by the president as early as this weekend, actually endangers Americans' housing, according to the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House – of which there will likely be many – one of the most ironic and far-reaching may be this: that whatever security marginal homeowners have from foreclosures, their homes will be far less safe from being taken by a bureaucrat through eminent domain," John Berlau wrote on the organization's website. Read more...

Report: Surviving EMP to depend on preparation

'Many people may die for lack of basic elements necessary'
A report from the federal Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack has painted a bleak picture for America under such attack: Electricity grids down, uncontrolled fires from exploding gas transport systems, no communication to summon firefighters and if they could come, no water to battle fires. All in city after city after city.

The 200-page report says Americans should look to past incidents, then multiply those impacts by the number of cities that could be hit by such an attack. For example:
(Read on.)

1 in 3 Muslim students approve killing for Islam

'Stop talking about celebrating diversity and focus on integration and assimilation'students
If ignorance and poverty are responsible for the growth of extremist views in the Islamic world, someone needs ask to Muslim students, privileged enough and bright enough to attend some of the United Kingdom's best universities, why one-in-three of them endorses killing in the name of Islam.

The report of this finding, based on a poll of 600 Muslim and 800 non-Muslim students at 12 universities in the UK, and conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Center for Social Cohesion, will be released tomorrow as "Islam on Campus."

Among its findings of Muslim beliefs: (Read on.)