Hillary Clinton's 2003 Speech

In 2003, Senator Hillary Clinton gave a speech to an anti-war group called Code Pink. In this speech she talked about the soon-to-be Iraq War and how she supported it. Why would anyone try to convince a group that is militant against any kind of war to support a war beats me. I'm thinking they thought she would have done a different speech and that's why she was invited to speak. I'm guessing. If you do not want to watch the eight minute video of the speech you can read her speech below:

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something that I have followed for more than a decade. If he is serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information and intelligence that I had available, talking to people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision. I would love to agree with you, but I can't based on my own understanding and assessment of the situation. With respect to whose responsibility it is to disarm Saddam Hussein, I just do not believe that, given the attitudes of many people in the world community today, that there would be a willingness to take on very difficult problems were it not the United States leadership, and I'm talking specifically about what had to be done in Bosnia and Kosovo, where my husband could not get a Security Council resolution to save the Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing, and we did it alone as the United States, and we had to do it alone. And so I see it somewhat differently. So forgive me for my experience and perspective.

I wonder if the drive-by-cloned-media is going to show this speech? Naw. Now of course Hillary is against the war. Then again in 2003 she was not running for president. Notice what I highlighted in bold. She said she "carefully reviewed the information..." about going to war. That's interesting because now she is blaming President Bush for tricking her about the war. That begs the question. How can a so-called simpleton like Bush trick the world's smartest woman? Hmmm. And Hillary Clinton wants to be president?

The Reversing Universe

Physicist Peter Lynds has come up with a new cosmological theory of the universe. His theory says instead of the universe collapsing to a singularity in a big crunch then expanding into another big bang, the universe will reverse itself before it reaches its singularity. Lynds says the universe has to reverse so the laws of thermodynamics are upheld.

For you wanna-be-time travelers, the article mentions time traveling is not possible according to this theory. Sorry.

Ethanol Economics

I don't think it is a necessary good idea that we use food like corn as a fuel source. When you use corn (moonshine, er I mean ethanol) as a fuel source that will raise the price of corn. Grain farmers who usually do crop rotation will now do less crop rotation and plant more corn especially when the demand for it rises. Take for instance, the island of Jamaica. Partly because of ethanol the price of chickens in Jamaica is going to increase. Why? Because chickens eat corn. When corn prices go up because of ethanol demand then eventually chicken prices will go up because chicken farmers will shift the cost of the corn to the consumer. Any product that uses corn will see an increase in price. That is hardly ever discussed in the ethanol debate. Another point about crop rotation to think about. If a farmer does less crop rotation and plants more corn instead of wheat or barley then there might be a shortage in those crops that he decides not to plant.

I think it is better if we are going to use ethanol as a fuel source we use a non-food source. For instance, trash. Researchers are developing a new system for converting trash into ethanol and methanol could help reduce the amount of waste piling up in landfills. Or how about switchgrass and wood chips? A company called Abengoa Bioenergy in Chesterfield, Missouri has developed a process that converts switchgrass into ethanol and methanol.

Interestingly enough some guy has a make-it-yourself ethanol web site. He even shows a diagram of his still. He mentions if you do this you have to get permission from the ATF though.

One final thought on this issue. I believe that government should not endorse any specific alternative fuel source. There might be a better fuel source better than ethanol in the future that we don't know of. Let the free market decide what the best fuel source would be.

A Test for Ghost Whisperers

I have a good test for ghost whisperers (gw)--ie people who talk to spirits that have not "crossed over" to the other side--to see if they can actually talk to spirits or not. What you do is this: Take a card from a full shuffled deck of playing cards and have them have the spirit tell the gw what the suit and value of the card is. Now, obviously the spirit should be able to see the front of the selected card and the gw should not be able to see the front of the card. If the gw is able to name the card this a real good indication that the person can talk to spirits. The probability of the gw just guessing the card is 1/52 or 1.92%. Of course, you can do this test more than once and see if the person can tell you the card to rule out chance. And of course this test can be done by different testers with the same gw.

It is probably a good idea for the experimenter not to see the front of card until the gw tells him what the card is. This is called a double-blind test. That way the gw cannot see the reflection of the card in the persons eyes or glasses. I suppose though that the experimenter could wear dark shades to eliminate that possibility.

My way is a good way to test the gw because it does not rely on having the spirit relay personal information to the gw about the experimenters life. If the gw tells a researcher that (s)he is acrophobic from the spirit who knows the researcher and (s)he is acrophobic that could just be a good guess. After all acrophobia (the fear of heights) is one of the most common fears of all. Plus you don't know if the gw had previous knowledge about the experimenters life or not to give answers about his/her life. The deck of cards method is independent of any knowledge about the experimenter.

What does it prove if the gw passes the test? Obviously it proves that the gw is authentic and there might be more like the testee. More than that it proves there is life after physical death. Of course to religious people (like myself--although I think it would be good to know if there are authentic gws) you don't need this test. Atheists might discredit the test. Agnostics might pause and even be persuaded. It's hard to say.

And if the gw fails the test? Well, it is a lot harder to prove a negative result. The gw could be fake. This does not prove however life after physical death does not exist. It only proves the gw claim is false that (s)he is a gw or for some reason that the spirit is not cooperating with the gw, but there is no way for a non-gw experimenter to know that.

Detecting a Suicide Bomber

A Virginia-based company is creating a system that detects suicide-bomber suspects from a safe distance. The CounterBomber system shoots low-power radar beams at a suspect bomber. It is even able to track the suspect as he walks. Future versions of the system will have "gait recognition" software. This software will be able to analyze anomalies in a person's gait to see if he is carrying a heavy object or putting something on the ground.

Invisible 'Radio' Tattoos

LiveScience.com reports that a company called Somark Innovations is making RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) ink for cattle. The tattoos can be colored or invisible.

What's cool is this technology in the future could be used on troops to keep track of them on the battle field. For instance, it could be used to rescue soldiers and prevent friendly fire.

What a rich high-profile person could do is when they have a child that is born is to put this on the child. That way if the child is kidnaped the police would be able to locate the child easier. This technology could be put on prisoners just in case they escape but if a person can wash the ink off (the article does not say) that would not be of much help.

The Iraq War & Other American Wars

It is interesting to compare the Iraq War to other American wars. I am not going to do all American wars just a good representative sample. All the deaths are American military deaths and the deaths per year are rounded.

The Iraq War which has lasted so far three years have killed 3,017 deaths. This comes out to be 1006 deaths per year.

The American revolutionary war caused 8000 deaths and lasted for eight years. The deaths per year for this war was 1000 deaths per year. Pretty close to deaths in Iraq. Historians say one-third was for American independence, one-third was against the war (Tories were probably thinking those Brits weren't that bad why do we have to fight them?), and one-third did not care either way.

The Civil War lasted four years. In those four years there were 204,070 deaths. That's a big chunk of the population. The deaths per year were 51,018. A much bigger rate than the Iraq War. Even this war had it's detractors. Some of the population thought President Lincoln should have let the south succeed--succeeding was in their constitutions.

Then there is World War I. That war which lasted two years was a cost of 116,708 American deaths. And the death rate per year? 58,354. Trade unions and pacifists were against this war. Trade unions were initially against this war because they thought it could only mean workers getting killed in the interest of their bosses.

Then there is World War II. The rate of death for that war is 135,767 per year (407,300 deaths / 3 years). The isolationists like Charles Lindbergh thought that war was none of our business. Hitler was not bothering us. That changed when Hirohito bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on America.

As you can see The Iraq War has the lowest rate of death. For those of you who think it is a waste of time because it costs money well all wars cost money. After all it is because of the Civil War Americans have to pay a national income tax. That is how Lincoln paid for the war.

If this "civil" war was just between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis then we might get away with cut-and-running like we did in Vietnam and Somalia. Or we could get away with moving the troops away from the fighting but leaving them in the country to guard the border and infrastructure. But there is third element that the drive-by-cloned-media does not mention a lot and that is Al Qaeda. This is not a pure civil war like the American Civil War. Al Qaeda is involved in it. Iran have sent their terrorists in it to. If we withdraw too soon, Saudi Arabia said they would send their Sunnis into the country. The whole thing would be more of a mess than it is now. It is not so much about making Iraq our friend, but to make it a buffer against terrorism. American national security is the issue and will always be the issue (it is too bad President Bush does not mention that enough when he gives his TV speeches. He needs to remind the American public that over and over again.) As Clinton might have said during his campaign: It's National Security stupid! Here is something to consider about the enemy (the Islamofascists) are not afraid to die, are patient, don't care about polls, and thrive when countries are unstable like Iraq (remember Afghanistan? It was unstable before we got rid of the terrorists. And they still are trying to cause trouble.) I wish the United Nations would help out in the war on terror but they won't until it is too late like it was almost too late when Hitler was conquering nations.

Humans Virtually Inhabit Robot

In Germany, university researches have created a robot where a user can virtually inhabit. The robot allows the operator to tactilely sense via gloves what the robot senses when it touches something. Also, the operator can control the movements of the robot. The operator can also see with goggles what the robot sees and hears what the robot hears. The article did not mention this but this is telepresence technology. Telepresence is where a person experiences a location via a robot without him/herself actually being there. The person actually thinks and feels (s)he is somewhere else. Sound like daydreaming doesn't it? Telepresence is a close cousin to virtual reality.

Actually, what the German researchers did is quite an accomplishment. Next to simulating smell, the tactile sense is tricky to simulate. Think what your skin can sense. It can sense touch, pressure, temperature change, and pain. Pain I don't think really needs to be simulated by a robot glove. I don't see a use for that for telepresence. Temperature change sense does not need to be simulated either. You can have a thermometer on the robot to check for instance the temperature on a distant planet but the operator does not need to feel the temperature. Like wise for firemen using telepresence when rescuing people from a burning building. They know that the building that is on fire would be hot so a robot telling them how hot the building is would be redundant. On the other hand simulating touch and pressure is important because the operator does not want to crush anything fragile that the robot hand picks up. In this case, the operator needs feedback from the robot in picking up objects.

Now, if the researchers can now only simulate smell that would be nice but that is going to be much harder.

Senate Bill 1 (Section 220)

The Senate is planning to pass a bill that will discourage grassroots lobbying groups from forming. The bill will fine any grassroots group that does not report issues, employees, contractors and dollars spent in what is called "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying." The fine is up to $100,000. To me this bill is close to violating the freedom to assemble right.

It seems to and others that it sounds like the Senate does not want to be bothered with their constituents have to say. They don't want to be bothered with phone calls, emails, etc. That smacks of elitism. I can understand eliminating bribes from lobbyists--which is what I believe what the voters really want in lobbying reform--but not discouraging voters from communicating with them. When the legislative branch does not want to listen to what the voters have to say then you have the legislative branch potentially out-of-control.

For the reader who does not belong to a lobbying group you may think this bill is not important. But what if you wanted to join a special interest group or even start your own? What if you got your friends, family and neighbors together to email a Senator about a particular issue? This bill might discourage you from doing that. There is nothing wrong with lobbying groups as long as they don't bribe a Senator. A Senator might ignore one email about an issue, but it is hard to ignore 50 or 100 emails from different people about the same issue.

I should say this bill is sponsored by Harry Reid (D-NV). And it has so far 13 Democrats co-sponsoring it and four Republicans co-sponsors. It's funny that the Democrats say President Bush does not listen to the American people about the Iraq War when the people sponsoring this bill do not want to listen to the American people. I hope the President vetoes this bill if it reaches his desk.

Teams in the Fine Arts

In computer science there is a concept called team programming. This is where more than one programmer program on a large complex system (a program) because it would take one programmer a lot longer to do it himself. Also, it makes sense. Why handle a complex problem in its entirely when you can break it up into smaller easier to digest (mentally, ie) parts and have each programmer only worry about his part. This is in a nutshell is the team programming concept. Could this concept be applied to the fine arts? Let's explore that notion.

Painting. I think it could be applied here. In landscape painting, you have several elements that could be done by several painters (probably not at the same time). One painter could be responsible for the sky, another could be responsible for the mountain(s), another painter could paint the ground, and yet another one doing the trees. For every element in the painting, a corresponding painter could paint. The same for portraits. Break up the face into eyes, ears, mouth, etc.

Literature. Here again this can be broken up. One writer is responsible for dialogue, another one could write the details of the setting, and maybe another one who is responsible for the plot.

Music. Music has already been doing this in a way. Where you have one who is the lyricist and the other one who is responsible for the melody. Technically, this is not a team, but a dual. A team is composed of at least three players. Musicians other than soloists sort of apply the team concept. One person sings, one plays the percussion instruments, one plays the keyboards, one plays lead guitar, etc. as in a rock or country band.

How realistic are these scenarios? Not very realistic. Artists tend to be individualists and their creations are a part of them.They have a hard time detaching themselves from their creations. (Actually, I believe that anyone who creates has this emotional reaction.) Also, the fine arts is about communicating emotion especially in music and painting. It is not about solving problems like computer science is. This maybe why you don't see team painters for instance.

Unions and Secret Ballots

Unions are proposing "card-check" legislation that would eliminate secret balloting during representation elections. Where are you ACLU? I mean this to me would be a civil rights violation. Then again this fits the behavior of most unions--worker intimidation. One local chief a union confessed to the Wall Street Journal that "we don't do elections." Well, isn't that nice. With the democrats in charge now that legislation might happen to the detriment of the union members.

If you think this kind of intimidation is rare you would be wrong. In 1996, A West Virginia miner was shot dead for working during a strike. Want another example a little more recent? In 2004, a worker who opposed unionization has his house "put on the map" by flyers put in the plant that had the worker's address and phone number on it and this message "Jeff Ward lives here. Go tell him how you really feel about the union." Mr. Ward had the plant cancel its recognition of the union because the workers never had a chance to vote for or against the union. The two examples sound more like organized crime than organized labor. That's why I like right to work laws that make it illegal for unions to force or coerce someone to join a union.

I find it interesting that labor unions say they back the worker and yet call him a "scab" when he crosses the picket line. Unions should not endorse such behavior but they do and they probably even encourage it. I guess the unions only support workers if they go along with what unions want. Then again if workers don't join a specific union the union's leaders not only loses money from dues but also power.

I believe not only should people hold big government and big business accountable for their actions but also big labor.

The Death Penalty

I am for the death penalty for two reasons: One, when a country executes someone for murder you are sending a signal that for the ultimate crime you will get the ultimate punishment--death. After all serial rapists and other felonies can get a life-sentence. A country needs to differentiate between murder and other felonies. Two, dead murders cannot commit murder ever again. They can never be paroled. Murders with a life sentence have a possibility of being paroled. In all fairness to the death penalty opponents I will give some arguments why they oppose the death penalty.

One argument--and probably I think the best argument they have is--a country might execute an innocent person. True, this might happen but executing an innocent person has more to do with the actual criminal trial of the person than the punishment. After all an innocent person could go to jail too. Fault lies in the criminal trial itself. Justice is not so much about finding the truth about the crime than winning and losing. The prosecutor just wants to find the defendant guilty and the defense lawyer wants to find the defendant not guilty. Both parties use whatever legal means possible to win and meanwhile the truth gets lost. If you are going to execute someone the prosecutor has to have a lot of independent credible witnesses and/or incriminating hard physical evidence. You don't want an innocent person to be executed then reform the justice system. Besides a criminal does not get executed right away at least in America. There are always appeals. I would even let the execution delay a month so that the defense attorney or anyone else who thinks the person is innocent can investigate the case further. A month should be plenty of time to investigate. Along the same lines, if you let a murderer out of jail because of a technicality (for instance evidence that is obtained illegally) and he kills someone then an innocent person still gets killed. Either way an innocent person might be killed. In this case because the truth was ignored because evidence was obtained illegally probably not on purpose some else might die. Evidence is still evidence. I am not condoning police breaking the law, but if they obtained it illegally through an oversight of their own then it should still be allowed in a trial. It is the truth that should be the determining factor.

Another argument is the death penalty is state-sanctioned murder. In his book Think A Second Time Dennis Prager has a good reply to that argument. He says if the death penalty is state-sanctioned murder then putting someone in prison is state-sanctioned kidnaping.

A third argument is the death penalty does not deter murder. Well, does putting a criminal in prison deter any crime at all? If that was the case then the crime rate should be zero. I mean if you are to the point of committing a crime you are not thinking about getting caught. You are probably concentrating and planning the crime itself. Also, most criminals think they can outwit the police and not get caught until they get on America's Most Wanted show. The only thing that stops someone from committing murder is a healthy conscience.

Number four reason against the death penalty: Executing someone is revenge by the state. No, it is not. When a person is arrested for a crime (s)he is given a jury trial before being put in prison or executed. Revenge is usually done by someone without a cool head and the victim does not have a chance to defend himself.

Bill O'Reilly has a unique argument against the death penalty. He says that executing someone is too easy. He wants to punish the murderer by having him do hard labor. Okay. I have a compromise to his argument. We can have the convict do hard physical labor up until he is executed. That way it will keep his mind off of his execution and keep him busy.

Executing someone is never a happy event. The victim is still dead. The victim's friends and family will still miss and mourn the victim. The only consolence the victim's significant others has is justice and knowing that no-one else will be hurt.

The Iraq War

Here is a list of ideas about the Iraq war from different people.

Greg Reason wants to divide Iraq into two states. He wants to divide it north with the Kurdish and south with the Shiite. Not a bad plan.

Here is Col. David Hunt's plan.

1. Fire Rumsfeld--that's been done already.
2. Fire at least two big generals.
3. Put a Special Forces officer in charge--I like that idea. He wants all the militias disbanded.
4. Bring home all the heavy U.S. divisions.
5. Arrest every corrupt official in the Iraqi Government and put them in jail.
6. Find out who is running the death squads inside the Iraqi Government, put them on trial and if found guilty execute them.
7. Leave three bases with a total of 50,000 U.S. troops in the north, central and southern parts of the country, and we continue to support the government with money, trainers and technicians.

Daniel Pipe's suggest "pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert." According to him this "permits the American-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monster takes power) while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks)."

Then there is the Iraq Study Group report. Reading this 160 page (yea, can you believe that) behemoth almost made my brain turn to oatmeal. There are 79 recommendations in this report! It almost sounds like they got together through ideas out and did not evaluate them. Basically, the group (made up of mostly retired bureaucrats--no military or foreign affair experts in the group) wants to create an Iraq International Support Group. Support group? Psychological support groups don't usually solve problems--they just give a person a way to vent their feelings to other people who share their particular problem. They don't solve problems because most don't have mental health professionals in the support group. Iraq does not need support now. It needs to become stabilized and secure.

The Libertarian Party wants to gradually move troops out of Iraq in increments of 11,600 per month. The party wants to redeploy 30,000 to other Middle Eastern countries. While the U.S. is withdrawing we should negotiate with Iraq nationalist groups not tied to Hussein's regime and start a direct-aid program with Iraq gov't to help them build their infrastructure.

Finally, we come to Senator Joe Biden's plan. He wants to "federalize Iraq in accordance with its constitution by establishing three largely autonomous regions - Shiite, Sunni and Kurd -- with a strong but limited central government in Baghdad." Not a bad plan.

There are probably more ideas than these but these are the ones I know about. Whatever plan is taken Iraq first has got to be stabilized ( probably using a plan like Col. David Hunt's). And any plan that directly involves the Iraqi gov't has to be approved by them. They have to live with it. What do you think?

Ten Point Larry Elder Plan

The following is Libertarian Larry Elder's plan for American government reform with my comments.

1. Abolish the IRS. Basically, he wants a National Sales Tax (NST). If you have a NST then the 16th amendment has to be repealed or else you will have the NST plus the federal income tax. Not a good thing. For now a better idea is to have the flat tax similar to what Steve Forbes recommends in his book Flat Tax Revolution. Another thing to consider is that most states have a state sales tax. So, adding a NST will make merchandise more expensive to buy.
   
2. Reduce government by 80 percent. I like this idea. He wants to do this by eliminating most government agencies. I think every agency should be examined and this question should be asked of it: Does the U.S. need you?
   
3. End welfare, entitlements and special privileges. Another good idea. There was some welfare reform in the 90's but not enough. Is it fair for the government to decide who gets favors and who doesn't? Most of the decisions end up being political and not based on skills or performance.
   
4. Abolish the Minimum Wage. I agree. Let the free market decide what the minimum wage should be.
   
5. Legalize drugs. This one I am not so sure about. He wants to tax the drugs and use the money for drug treatment. If you are going to legalize drugs then you should have the same restrictions on the drugs as you have on alcohol consumption. I for sure do not want the government handing out drugs like they do in some European countries.
   
6. Take government out of education. This is a good idea. To do this you would need to abolish the Department of Education. He is in favor of vouchers (I am too) but if he wants vouchers this would conflict with his first suggestion. You cannot have vouchers if you have a NST because there would be no more IRS.
   
7. Drop the Davis-Bacon Act. I agree. It is interesting to note that four different presidents (including the present one) suspended the act for different reasons--two of which were for national disasters. If the act is such a good act why suspend it at all?
   
8. Eliminate corporate taxes. I agree. Having a NST would certainly eliminate the corporate tax. Let's face it you are just about taxed everywhere you turn. The corporations pay tax on stocks, the stockholder pays tax on the stock and even (I do anyway) have to pay intangible tax on the stock.
   
9. Charity from people not government. The individual person does a far better job at charity than the government does.
   
10. End protectionism. I am not for tariffs. All that does is to get you into a trade war with another country, and the consumer gets shafted. If country A does not like how country B conducts its trade then A should not trade with country B. The same goes for the individual consumer. You don't like a country's behavior toward your country--don't buy their product. Businesses like protectionism because that diminishes competition--the ideal environment for a business is no competition at all. Big labor likes protectionism because they think it protects the worker. Maybe. Neither is thinking about how protectionism does not protect the consumer.

Using Defaults Correctly

Defaults in computer programs I think can lead to precarious situations in some cases. For example, consider this prompt:

Launch nuclear missiles? Y/N Y is default.

God forbid if the user mistakenly entered another key other than 'N' when he meant to press the N key. This is exactly where defaults can lead to big trouble.

The example I showed I admit is a little bit ridiculous. In the first place the default would have been on the 'N.' In the second place there might not even be a default.

A more likely prompt is one where the computer asks the user if (s)he wants to delete a file and the default is on the 'Y' or if (s)he is sure (s)he wants to delete a file if the user wants to delete a file. In either case if the user enters a 'Y' both effects are irreversible or very hard to reverse. This I think is where defaults can be dangerous in those cases. Either have the default on the 'N' or eliminate the default entirely or to be more safe make the user spell out the words 'Yes' and 'No' since there is a less chance that (s)he will hit those letters in exactly that combination that to hit a single character.