Experimental Russian ICBM Would Violate START, Senator Says

From NTI.org (Oct. 27):

U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) accused Russia last week of testing a new ICBM that, if deployed, would violate the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Washington Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 26).

Russia has successfully tested the ability of its RS-24 ICBM to deliver up to three independently targeted warheads, according to former Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter (see GSN, Nov. 5, 2008).

"That would be illegal for the Russians to deploy under START. So why are they testing it?" Kyl asked in an Oct. 19 Senate floor address. [read more]

I am getting the feeling that world leaders are thinking Obama is a weak leader. Or at least not taking him seriously.

Questions about Islam

Glenn Beck says we should speak without fear, question boldly, and hold to the truth. Well in this entry I will try to do the first two. It's too bad Muslims cannot do that as well without fear of their life.

1. Why didn't Muhammad pick a successor since he did not have a son with all his wives. Surely he knew he wouldn't live forever. He could have said if I die without a son then this person will be the next messenger. That would have prevented the Sunni-Shia rift that exists in Islam.

2. If Islam is a religion of "peace" then why does it have honor killings, homicide bombings, fatwas, chopping off your hand if you steal, etc. All of which are condoned by the messenger Muhammad. Jesus never condoned violence. The worst thing He did was to knock over tables.

3. Why cannot Islamic countries coexist with other religions? Why do these countries have to have non-Muslims pay a tax when they live in their countries?

4. Why does Islam force believers to hold to a strict practice of praying five times a day, giving a percentage of money to the poor, etc. Christianity only requires a person to belief in Jesus as the savior.

5. Moderate or modern Muslims say Islam can coexist with democracy then why is there few democratic Islamic countries? Turkey is one, and possibly Iraq.

6. If moderate Muslims do not support militant Muslims then why do they not speak out against them? Fear could be an excuse but why don't moderate American Muslims speak out against them?

7. Why does Islam disrespect and oppress Muslim women? I disagree with Glenn Beck. Muslim woman cannot change the structure of Islam internally. Islam is way too sexist for that too happen.

8. Why is Islamic countries so worried about non-Islamic proselytizing? Why do most countries kill other religious believers proselytizing? Is their religion that weak?

9. Why did Allah say several times in the Koran that he was the "greatest deceiver."

10. Islam and Christianity has their versions of the Apocalypse. Muslims believe that the Mahdi will come and all the world will be converted to Islam. The question is who will be good guys and who will be the bad guys? Hint: See the previous question.

Am I being disrespectful of Islam? Maybe, but every fact here is true about the religion. Even Muslims know that. Christianity has had its issues, but I believe those issues did not stem from Jesus himself but from corrupt gov'ts, politics and twisting what the Bible says.

Iran Helped Syria Acquire WMD, Missile Technology

From NTI.org (Oct. 26):

Iran has reportedly helped broker Syrian purchases of missile and WMD technology from North Korea, the U.S. Congressional Research Service said in a report published this month (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2008).

"Iran purportedly has acted as an intermediary with North Korea to supply Syria with various forms of WMD and missile technology," states the report, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses. [read more]

So much for Obama's Nobel peace price.

Obama and His Appointees

Either Obama did not know about his radical appointees & did not vet them, or he knew about them being radical and agreed with their philosophy. There are really no other options. Either one does not say anything good about who Obama is. If I had to choose which option was Obama's mindset, I choose the latter one. Obama said if you want to know what he believes look at the people who surround him.

California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs

From LaTimes.com (Oct 14):

Reporting from Sacramento - The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions. [read more]

If California bans big-screen tvs what will stop them from banning other energy-hungry electronics? Nothing. The more power you have the more power you want. It's an addiction. And if you can rationalize the power away you will always continue abusing it.

U.S. blocks N.C. city's nonpartisan vote

From The Washington Times.com:

KINSTON, N.C. | Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black. [read more]

So, according to the Justice Dept. black people are confused on who to vote for if there are no party labels. Hmmm. I don't know but that sounds like racism to me. The Justice Dept. is saying that black people are stupid and cannot decide on their own. If the Obama administration can do this to Kingston, N.Y. then they can do this to any city. The precedent has been set. Never mind this Justice action might violate the Constitution.

What candidates could do is register themselves as party "A" and party "B" just to dare the admistration to do something about it.

S.773 Cybersecurity Act of 2009

From Open Congress.org:

This is comprehensive legislation designed to address our nation's vulnerabilities to cyber crime, global cyber espionage, and cyber attacks. It would establish a new Cybersecurity Advisory Panel within the White House and stream-line the cybersecurity effort through all levels of government. The bill also calls on the Department of Commerce to establish and maintain a clearinghouse on information related to cybsecurity threat and vulnerability information to public and private infrastructure deemed "critical" by the President. The Secretary of Commerce would be given access to this information "without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." The bill would also give the President new authority to "declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network." [read more]

This legislation is sponsored by Senator John Rockefeller. Cybersecurity is major concern. Chinese civilians on May 4, 2001 crashed the whitehouse.gov site by doing a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS). The US intelligence community thought it was the Chinese gov't doing this but it wasn't. It was actually Chinese teenagers doing this for patriotic reasons. The Chinese gov't did not order this done but it did not discourage this behavior either.

If the President Bush's Homeland Security Act made critics nervous I wonder what they think of this bill. On the Open Congress site only 3% supported the bill.

Shutting down a major portion of the internet seems like overkill to me. Something has to be done, but that? Maybe recognizing and blocking DoS attacks would be better. Yes, recognizing malicious attacks like this is tricky but not impossible. Also, gov't sites should use firewalls, anti-virus pgms, and have hard to guess passwords on their websites too. Gov't sites are notoriously bad about internet security.

Sabotaging ObamaCare

There is a way to sabotage bad healthcare legislation. A Congressional member can append a line on a bill that says essentially: This bill applies to all US citizens. No exemptions. What that last line will do is have whatever healthcare legislation that is passed apply even to the Congress, the Executive power, and the Supreme Court. Since the three powers are US citizens they have to be included. The saboteur should not say a word about this to anyone unless the bill becomes law. If it does become law then no-one read the bill. Keep in mind the POTUS does not have line item veto power. So, even Obama cannot remove the line. If it passes then the saboteur can go on Fox News and other news venues and announce he found that inclusion line. That way everyone is aware that even the power-that-be are not exempt.
Now there might will be exemptions in the bill. Like exempting the Congress and the Executive power and Big Labor. But if there is a "no exemption" line in the bill that will override any exemptions or at least cause problems in implementing the bill.
It is up to the saboteur if he or she wants to out him/herself. If the saboteur does that then he won't be trusted by his colleagues again and will be criticized by the press. But he might just be loved by the majority of the American people. A politician that had guts to do the right thing. Outing himself is a decision he will have to make.
It will definitely be a self-sacrifice because the saboteur will be covered by the same bill. But that's the price he has to pay.

Scientist: Cap and trade will hurt Earth

From WorldNetDaily.com (10/9):

Carbon dioxide emissions are good for Earth and don't cause global warming, a noted geologist and best-selling author is warning Congress.

Leighton Steward, author of "Fire, Ice and Paradise," is storming Capitol Hill to convince senators that a cap-and-trade energy bill could harm the environment by reducing the Earth's CO₂ levels, according to U.S. News & World Report.

"I'm trying to kill the whole thing," he said. "We are tilting at windmills."

Steward, member of a nonprofit group called Plants Need CO2, plans to meet with several lawmakers this week. [read more]

I hope he succeeds. That is a very bad bill. What he says makes sense. People and other animals breathe out CO₂ and plants and trees consume it and produce oxygen. CO₂ is noxious to us but not to plants. It is their food. You can say it is a complementary relationship. We need them and they need us. If you remove CO₂ the plants and trees die. If they die then we are screwed. The envirofascists just don't understand.

If you want to remove CO₂ the right way it's easy: Just plant more trees and any green-leafy plants.

The Self-managing, 'Unbreakable' Internet?

ScienceDaily (2009-10-06) -- High-powered internet applications typically need teams of experts to maintain them. Not any more, say European researchers who have built a system to create applications that manage and fix themselves. [read more]

Interesting. That sounds like what living organisms do.

Doctors For and Against ObamaCare

The doctors for ObamaCare are shown below:

Seems a lot of doctors supporting universal health care right? They look nice in their white coats. Everyone here raise your hand if you donated to Obama's presidential campaign. In total 150 showed up. Pretty good head count. Forty of the 150 were from Doctors For Obama America. That's an organization for socialized medicine.

Now, look at the two photos below. These photos are taken from the Million Med March that was held on Oct. 1. These are doctors against ObamaCare. Never heard of this march? That's because it did not get a lot of press coverage. It is estimated that 200 doctors showed up for this protest. Notice in the photo on the right, there is no-one wearing white coats. What's with that? Like doctors wear their white coats outside of their practice all the time. Sure, right. So, it seems according to the photos there is about the same amount of doctors for (minus 40) and against socialized medicine or if you prefer the government public option.

Bin Laden's Book List

Since Osama Bin Laden recommended Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid I started speculating what other books he would recommend and here's the list:

1. The Quran
2. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
3. The Myth of American Exceptionalism by Godfrey Hodgson
4. The Camel, Its Uses and Management by Major Arthur Glyn Leonard
5. I Hate George W. Bush Reader: Why He's Wrong About Absolutely Everything edited by Clint Willis
6. Cave Animals by Francine Galko
7. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
8. Sex Tips from a Dominatrix by Patricia Payne
9. The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran by Robert Spencer
10. Cave Decorating by Osama Bin Laden

All these books by the way are real except for the last one. Some of these books of course Bin Laden would never read or even recommend for that matter.

The Olympic Commitee Rejected Obama

Or if you don't like that title how about "The Olympic Committee Wanted Obama to Fail." Sound better? This is pure and simple racism from the Olympic Committee. Where's is the national hemorrhoid Jimmy Carter's comment on this decision? After all Chicago was in the selection process before Hillary Clinton dropped out of the presidential race (can't blame President Bush on this decision). Maybe the committee wanted McCain for president. It couldn't be about anything else could it?

I mean surely the committee ignored the man-child messiah President Obama's negative remarks about America. Surely they could ignore Obama always apologizing for America. Not to mention Obama and his wife relating the Olympics to themselves when they were trying to convince the committee why the Olympics should be in Chicago. Narcissism anyone? Nah. The Olympic committee should have been mesmerized by Obama's charm and charisma like the rest of the world. Chavez sure likes Obama. It was racism even though Brazil's population is over 50% black people.

Sarcasm aside. Obama lost because him going there was overkill. If you remember Chicago was eliminated right off the bat. Wasn't his wife and Oprah enough? Couldn't he stay home and you know concentrate on growing the economy and winning the war in Afghanistan? Him going there was nothing but Obama repaying a favor to the Chicago powers-that-be in my opinion. We helped you out and now it's your turn to help us out. That sort of thing.

Only the committee itself knows why it did not pick Chicago. Unless someone asks the committee we will never know what the reason for their decision was. Here's an idea. Maybe the Obama Fan Club (the drive-by-media) could ask the members of the committee to find out why. Then again maybe the media does not really want to know why.

A Short Course on Political Power

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
-- Edmund Burke

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
-- Lord Acton

The second quote is well known, but not the first. Power corrupts people because people are imperfect. Most major religions and any good psychological school knows that people are imperfect and will always be imperfect. Examine this syllogism: Man is imperfect. Gov't is composed of men. Therefore gov't is imperfect. This syllogism will always be true. Of course if you think mankind can be perfected, then you'll probably think gov't can be perfected. And that is a dangerous idea to have. That's what the Soviet Union thought. The so called "New Man." Well, neither man or gov't can be perfected. It is a delusion. We can be better moral smarter people but not a perfect people.
The first quote is just saying that power can be an addictive drug. The more you have the more you want. The more you have the more you think you are god-like. Your ego gets bigger. You also become paranoid. You become obsessed with who has power and who doesn't have power that wants to take your power away even if they don't want to. Hitler killed a supporter because Hitler got paranoid that the supporter was becoming more popular than him. And get this. The supporter was giving speeches praising Hitler.
Abraham Lincoln said this about power: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Power is about what you do too another person. It can be for good or for evil. Or as William Hazlitt put it: The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. Actually, "love of ourselves" maybe the wrong way to put it. Being narcissistic is a better term. Sociopaths are narcissistic people with no conscience who get their kicks out of controlling people. Show me a brutal world dictator and I'll show you a sociopath. You know why Satan was tempting Jesus? It was because he was trying to find out how human He was. To see if Jesus could pass up ultimate power or not. Jesus did not fall for the Devil's trick though like most politicians would.

The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. . . . Civilization is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative. The recourse to force, however unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilization, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals. Thus in a live civilization there is always an element of unrest. For sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits, and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections.
-Alfred North Whitehead

Persuasion is hard. I took a class in it in college. There are several theories of how to persuade someone. All of them involve giving the person a choice to act. Coercion leaves a person no choice to act. True leaders don't need coercion. Using reason, listening, respecting free will, and trusting their fellow country men is all they need. Finally, a warning from founding father John Adams:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the People, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct [italics are mine] of their rulers. There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free 'government' ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people.

Gee, he sounds sort of like Glenn Beck. Hmmm...