Al-Qaeda Still Pursuing WMD, FBI Chief Says

From NTI.org (March 18):

The terrorist organization al-Qaeda has not ceased its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb or other unconventional weapons to use in a strike against the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 16).

"Al-Qaeda remains committed to its goal of conducting attacks inside the United States," Mueller warned a House Appropriations subcommittee, according to Newsmax. "Further, al-Qaeda’s continued efforts to access chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material pose a serious threat to the United States." [read more]

Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

From Wired.com (March 17):

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle. [read more]

The auto center manager said the hacker "was pretty good with computers." No kidding. If he had hacked into an OnStar computer system he could not only make the horn honk, but make the lights flash and unlock the doors with cars that have the service.

You’re Leaving a Bacterial Fingerprint on Your Keyboard

From Wired.com (March 15):

The bacterial communities that live on human skin may form a bacterial fingerprint on the items that you touch.

In a new study led by microbiologists Rob Knight and Noah Fierer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, researchers swabbed three different keyboards and nine mice for bacteria, then compared the genomic variation between the communities to deduce whose hands had been touching what. The people were clearly identifiable from the bacterial communities they’d transferred to their computer input devices.

“The results demonstrate that bacterial DNA can be recovered from relatively small surfaces, that the composition of the keyboard-associated communities are distinct across the three keyboards, and that individuals leave unique bacterial ‘fingerprints’ on their keyboards,” wrote Knight and his colleagues at the University of Colorado, Boulder in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [read more]

Isn't that nice to know! Ha! I expect to see this technology used in a upcoming CSI episode.

You Might Be a Communist

If you believe any of the following:

1. Inheritance should be abolished.
2. Credit should be controlled completely by the federal gov't by means of a central bank.
3. Communication and transport should be completely controlled by the gov't.
4. From each according to ability to each according to need.
5. The free market system is just a collection of greedy individuals.
6. A right to work
7. A right to rest and leisure.
8. A right to health care. 
9. A right to housing.

Actually if you believe most of the following you are most definitely a Communist. Beliefs 5, 8, and maybe 9 resonates with the far-Left. The Left may believe #1. They definitely don't want to reduce the inheritance tax. The rights 6 through 9 by the way are taken directly from the Soviet constitution.  

As for belief #2, we do have the Federal Reserve in America. That is like a central bank. It does control different kinds of banking rates. 

The right to work sounds like a nice idea doesn't it? But the USSR made you work. I mean if you did not work you were considered a parasite to the mother land and were punished. The gov't gave you tests to find out the best job for you in society and then assigned you to that job. Your personal needs or wants did not matter. That's where "from each according to ability to each according to need" is all about. Still think it sounds neat? 

One final note, Karl Marx the father of the Soviet constitution, wanted a heavy graduated income tax (does that sound familiar?) and free education for school children. Of course the free education was more like brainwashing.

The Desirable Characteristics of Any Health Care System

First, a health care system should be consistent. That is the procedures for treatments, billing, etc. should be more or less the same. If there is very little consistency then you will have confusion.

Second, a health care system should be accurate. You want the surgeon to do an accurate job at surgery, you want your billings to be accurate, any diagnoses should be accurate as humanly possible. The scanners (CTs, MRIs, etc.) should be state of the art so any scanning will yield the best results. Under socialized medicine you may or may not get state of the art medical tools and medicine. I just read that the Secret Service is still using old computers from the 1980's. 

A health care system should also be timely. If you are sick you want your diagnoses and treatment (if any) to be quick as possible. Otherwise you could get sicker and die. Or you could just be in a lot of pain and want relief. In 2008 in Canada the wait times for neurosurgery is almost 32 weeks. Notice that is in weeks not days. That's a really long wait time.

Next a health care system should be economically feasible. In other words it should not make the country go into debt any further. Let's see you have to pay the salaries and training for the health care specialists. Not too mention there are drug and medical equipment costs too. It all adds up. ObamaCare will costs billions to implement. And with the country in debt, and the economy as it is, it will hurt the economy even more if Obama raises taxes on everyone. 

Finally, a health care system should be relevant.  

Actually, any man-made system should have these characteristics.   

Odds are, it's wrong

From Science News.com:

For better or for worse, science has long been married to mathematics. Generally it has been for the better. Especially since the days of Galileo and Newton, math has nurtured science. Rigorous mathematical methods have secured science’s fidelity to fact and conferred a timeless reliability to its findings.

During the past century, though, a mutant form of math has deflected science’s heart from the modes of calculation that had long served so faithfully. Science was seduced by statistics, the math rooted in the same principles that guarantee profits for Las Vegas casinos. Supposedly, the proper use of statistics makes relying on scientific results a safe bet. But in practice, widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science more like a crapshoot.

Replicating a result helps establish its validity more securely, but the common tactic of combining numerous studies into one analysis, while sound in principle, is seldom conducted properly in practice. [read more]

Combining studies is just plain laziness. Chalk it up to human nature I guess. But what if one of the studies is wrong? A scientist can just make up results (see Jan Hendrick Schön and Woo Suk Hwang for instance) or miscalculate or mismeasure for whatever reason. Maybe they got sloppy because of a deadline. Or maybe they get a lot of money if they produce a certain result. Who knows. Whatever the reason, wrong experimental results could skew your results. It is better to test the results yourself. Yea, I know this takes time and effort but you know personally if the results fit the experiment.

Democracy Denied

This chart pretty much sums up of how Emperor Obama runs the country.

How The Undecided Dems Will Vote for ObamaCare

This is how the "undecided" Democrats I think will vote for the ObamaCare. I put the undecided word in quotations because I think they already have made up their mind but are too chicken to say how they will vote. The names in red are the Dems who voted NO for the House version of ObamaCare.

Vote for ObamaCare: 

1. Arcuri (NY).  His American Conservative Union (ACU) score for 2009 is 16 out of 100. A true Lefty.
2. Baird (WA). ACU score is 12. 
3. Barrow (GA).  ACU rating is 17. Life rating of 36.20.
4. Berry (AR) ACU rating is 22. 
5. Boyd (FL). ACU rating is 13. Life rating of 33.79.
6. Connolly (VA). ACU rating of 1. 
7. Dahlkemper (PA). ACU rating is 13.
8. Davis (TN). ACU rating is 29. Life rating of 49.17.
9. Ellsworth (IN). ACU rating 32.
10. Kanjorski (PA). ACU rating of 8.
11. Markey (CO). ACU rating of 8.
12. Matheson (UT). ACU rating of 24. Life rating of 40.67.
13. McMahon (NY). ACU rating of 16.
14. Nye (VA). ACU rating of 32.
15. Perriello (VA). ACU rating of 18.
16. Pomeroy (AL). ACU rating of 8.
17. Rahall (WV). ACU rating of 12.
18. Schrader (OR). ACU rating of 8.
19. Space (OH). ACU rating of 20.
20. Sutton (OH). ACU rating of 0.
21. Tanner (TN). ACU rating of 20. Life rating of 40.47.
22. Teague (NM). ACU rating of 29.
23. Titus (NV). ACU rating of 4.
24. Wilson (OH). ACU rating of 13.

A possible vote for ObamaCare:

• Childers (MS). ACU rating is 40. 
• Mitchell (AZ). ACU rating of 40. 

My logic for the predictions is simple. The more progressive or liberal you are the more you will tend to vote for the Senate version of ObamaCare. The two "possible votes" could switch to no. They are more moderate than the rest. Childers even voted no for the House version. The likely voters for ObamaCare who voted against the House version with life ratings close to 40 could swing there vote to no. Even some Dems who say they are voting for Senate version that voted against the House version could be persuaded by their constituents to vote no. It is interesting to note that their ratings of last year are a lot lower than their life ratings. ACU only shows scores for the last year and the year before so I am not sure why the major difference between the two.

According to the Code Red website where I got the "undecided" Dems, the Yes count is 19. The No count is 27. So, 19 declared yes + 24 predicted yes = 43.  I hope I am wrong about my predictions. I was hoping that there would be "undecided" Dems with ACU ratings of at least 50 or higher. I was disappointed but not surprised.

205 House members are voting no on the bill, or at least they are saying no. All the Republicans say they are going to vote no. 198 are voting yes. 28 are "undecided." Only 216 no votes can kill the bill. The "undecided" are they key here. So, it does not look too good by my calculations, but it only takes eleven "undecided" to switch to the no side to kill the bill.  And maybe some people who are voting yes to switch too. 

The ACU ratings by the way are from ACU's Congress ratings website. 

 

Mobile phone allows boss to snoop

From BBC News (March 10):

Researchers have produced a mobile phone that could be a boon for prying bosses wanting to keep tabs on the movements of their staff.

Japanese phone giant KDDI Corporation has developed technology that tracks even the tiniest movement of the user and beams the information back to HQ.

It works by analysing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets.

Activities such as walking, climbing stairs or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say.

The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen and employment agencies. [read more]

Does Obama know about this phone? Maybe he can get people to use it so he could possibly know how they vote in elections. Just joking! Although he wants to track people's phone's whereabouts as I mentioned in an earlier blog.

North Korea Vows to Continue Nuclear Weapons Buildup

From NTI.org (March 10):

North Korea announced yesterday that it would continue to build up its nuclear forces and accused the United States of doing everything in its power to "bring down" the Stalinist regime, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 8).

An unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman said that "the U.S. is leaving no means untried to bring down the D.P.R.K. including military threat, economic sanctions and ideological and cultural poisoning."

"(The North) will continue bolstering up its nuclear deterrent as long as the U.S. military threats and provocations go on," the spokesman said. [read more]

I thought once Obama was elected all the dangerous nations would like the US and not cause trouble anymore. I'm so shocked. Sarcasm aside, this little pip-squeak of a dictator would probably not like the US no matter who is in power.

I am not sure who is more dangerous. This nut job or the nut job leader of Iran. At least Kim Jong-il doesn't want to start another world war. I don't think anyway he does.

Patients' medical records go online without consent

From Telegraph.co.uk (March 9):

Patients’ confidential medical records are being placed on a controversial NHS database without their knowledge, doctors’ leaders have warned.

Those who do not wish to have their details on the £11 billion [$16.47 billion] computer system are supposed to be able to opt out by informing health authorities.

But doctors have accused the [British] Government of rushing the project through, meaning that patients have had their details uploaded to the database before they have had a chance to object.

The scheme, one of the largest of its kind in the world, will eventually hold the private records of more than 50 million patients. [read more]

The article goes to say the database is not hacker proof. What else is new. I read somewhere that 1 in 3 businesses in the US don't use firewalls. It's probably worse than that for the gov't.

That kind of database would eventually come to America if ObamaCare is passed.

A Weak Argument for Making Health Care Mandatory

A guest on The O'Riley Factor made this argument to Bill O'Reilly about why Americans should be forced to purchase health insurance. Actually, more likely you'll have three choices: purchase health insurance, pay a fine if you don't, or go to jail. That's the choices in the House bill. What might happen is if you don't purchase health insurance is that the gov't will just deduct the fine from your bank account without your permission. I mean if they are going to make you pay for health insurance they could just as easily make you pay for the fine if you don't. The gov't will get their money from one way or another. The Congress will not have to pay any fine. They will be allowed to opt out of their own system. It's too bad Congress don't extend that courtesy to the rest of America. But I digress...

The argument the guest used is this: When you live in a city or town you pay taxes for use of the police department or fire department even when you may never need them. The argument is weak because if you are renting an apartment then you don't pay any property taxes. Or if you are just visiting you don't pay property taxes. The renter and the visitor may actually have the need of both departments. If the city is using some sort of sales tax then the citizen could buy outside the city like online to avoid the sales tax. Or if a citizen gets too fed up with the taxes he can move to somewhere else. If you have mandatory health insurance where do you go to escape that? Yes, both are required in both scenarios but one scenario you have even less choices. 

One other point about the argument. Comparing the fire department and police department to ObamaCare is an insult to the departments. At least firemen and the police work well when allowed to do their jobs. I don't think you can say that about any universal health care. Also, I don't believe there is any person on the Left that has exempt themselves from paying property taxes where they live. 

Iran, North Korea Seen Collaborating on Rocket Launchpad

From NTI.org (March 8):

Iran appears to have worked with North Korea in preparing a new rocket launchpad under construction east of Tehran, an independent defense analysis firm asserted Friday (see GSN, June 12, 2009).

Iran seems poised to do additional work on the launch site, located near the city of Semnan, the group IHS Jane's stated. With about 30 feet in additional scaffolding, the facility could be used for the Middle Eastern nation's recently announced Simorgh space launch vehicle, Agence France-Presse quoted the organization as saying.

"The development of the Semnan facility and the Simorgh SLV both demonstrate the likelihood of collaboration with North Korea in Iran's missile program," the group said. "The platforms seen on the new gantry tower resemble those seen on the gantry tower at North Korea's new launchpad at Tongchang. A drainage pit [560 feet] directly in front of the pad also mirrors one at Pyongyang's new west-coast launch site. [read more]

Iran and N. Korea sure aren't intimidated by Obama that's for sure. When Reagan was president countries feared and respected him. Not with this administration sadly.

The article goes on to say that Iran on Sunday started building a new type of cruise missile that could eliminate objects as heavy as 3,000 tons. Nice. To put that amount of tons in perspective, that's almost the same weight of the Titanic.

Terrorists Could Use Drones, Expert Says

From NTI.org (March 3):

No fewer than 40 nations are seeking to develop or acquire unmanned aerial vehicles [(UAVs)], which raises the specter that the proliferation of the technology could enable extremists to obtain the drone aircraft and use them in a terrorist attack, according to the latest issue of Newsweek (see GSN, July 17, 2009).

Drones have already been used by extremists. In 2005, the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah flew an unmanned surveillance plane into Israel.

An assessment by the U.S. Air Force recently found that UAV systems would be "an ideal platform" for deploying biological, chemical or radiological "dirty bombs," the unconventional weapons most likely to be acquired by terrorists, stated P.W. Singer, head of the 21st century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. [read more]

Scary, but not surprising. The militant Jihadists could fly one of those UAVs from the Mexico's border into the US or even from Canada's border.

A Pro-Choice Conservative

No, I am not saying I am an abortionist. What I am saying is this:

1. I believe that every American has a right to choose his own medical practitioner.
2. Every American should be able to choose and buy there own medical insurance across state lines like all other insurances.
3. Every American has a right not to buy any insurance if he does not want to.
4. You have the right to pay out of pocket for your medical bills if the medical practitioner and/or hospital allows this option. This agreement is between you and the medical professionals--no one else.
5. What medical procedures and medicine is strictly between you and your doctor if you pay the bills yourself.
6. You should be able to opt out of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Every gov't program should be optional. If it is a worthwhile program then people would naturally contribute to it.
7. No-one should be coerced or intimidated to join a labor union.