Homeland Security’s Version of “Minority Report”

From The Blaze.com (May 30):

Straight out of Minority Report a new Homeland Security program would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect people who are intending to commit a terrorist act at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places has moved closer to being implemented after the FAST program passed its first round of testing at an undisclosed location in northeast US.

The system uses a computer program that studies physiological indicators of a person, such as heart rate and the steadiness of a person’s gaze, and then uses the data to make a judgment on whether that individual has “mal-intent”. [source]

Unnerving. FAST is an acronym for Future Attribute Screening Technology.  The question is when this technology detects Obama or one of this radical associates will it judge them as “mal-intent”?

The DHS website gives a little more info about the technology to clear things up:

The system will measure both physiological and behavioral signals to make probabilistic assessments of mal-intent based on sensor outputs and advanced fusion algorithms and measure indicators using culturally neutral and non-invasive sensors.

Did you understand all that? There will be a test on it later. Advanced fusion algorithms? Huh? Culturally neutral? (Read: it will not judge you if you are a Muslim.) Gotta love those gov’t technocrats.

On that same webpage the DHS also has an Insider Threat Detection Project. I wonder if it will detect Obama as an insider threat? Just wondering.

USDA fines Missouri family $90k for selling a few rabbits without a license

From News.Yahoo.com (May 24):

It started out as a hobby, a way for the Dollarhite family in Dixa, Mo., to teach a teenage son responsibility. Like a lemonade stand.

But now, selling a few hundred rabbits over two years has provoked the heavy hand of the federal government to the tune of a $90,643 fine. The fine was levied more than a year after authorities contacted family members, prompting them to immediately halt their part-time business and liquidate their equipment.

John and Judy Dollarhite began selling rabbit meat by the pound in 2006, and as pets to neighbors and friends in 2008.

Raised on the three-acre lot on which their home sits, the rabbits were heralded by local experts for their quality and kept in pristine condition.

When a local pet store asked them to supply their pet rabbits, the Dollarhites had no idea they would be running afoul of an obscure federal regulation that prohibits selling more than $500 worth of rabbits to a pet store without a license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under the law, pet stores are exempt from regulation. [read more]

First the FDA goes after Amish farmers now the USDA is going after other private citizens trying to earn a living. The gov’t is just out of control. $90,000 for a few rabbits? It’s just plain ridiculous.

I’m starting to think every gov’t agency should be examined to see if it has a legitimate function or not. If it does not, then shut it down.

Feds cracks down on Amish farmers for selling raw milk

From the EU Times.net (April 30):

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria. [read more]

Doesn’t the FDA have anything better to do than going after farmers? I don’t care if the agency thinks adults shouldn’t be drinking unpasteurized milk. That’s none of their concern. Haven’t people been drinking unpasteurized milk  before it  pasteurizing became common? Has there been massive amounts of people getting violently sick from unpasteurized milk?

It almost seems like the FDA is treating these farmers like Al Capone selling moonshine or something. I seriously doubt the Amish would sell unpasteurized milk on the black market but other dairy farmers might. The FDA is turning the farmers into common criminals. What’s next speakeasies for people who want to drink unpasteurized milk?

What I Would Cut

I took the “What Would You Cut?” survey from The Heritage Foundation.
Below is a summary of the money I want Washington to save taxpayers in the upcoming 2012 fiscal budget:
Department of Education:                                         Cut $15 billion
Obamacare:                                                                             Cut $5 billion
2009 Federal Stimulus Program:                          Cut $60 billion
Welfare/Entitlement Waste and Fraud:            Cut $10 billion
Excessive Pay for Civilian Federal Workers: Cut $40 billion
TOTAL SAVINGS from these five areas alone:            $130 billion!
The Foundation says they will use my recommendations to guide their efforts to educate lawmakers about spending cuts. These cuts, by the way, are the maximum cuts you could choose on the survey.
America has to get serious about cutting the budget and the size of gov’t.  And if Congress raises the debt ceiling again they are crazy. Then it’s not a ceiling. It’s a hot air balloon.
Congress should read the book or pdf file Downsizing the Federal Government on what suggestions to cut. It’s a very detailed plan. The author goes over a lot of government agencies and programs.

Social Chaos and Human Needs

People have to save the basic needs met first. This includes hunger, thirst, sleep, and getting rid of bodily waste. 

Once the basic needs are met then secondary needs like safety and societal order come next.

After the secondary needs are met then the higher order needs or wants come into play. Love, belonging, etc.

During social chaos like a revolution the secondary needs and higher order needs tended to be not met because you are too worried for your safety. Revolutionaries know this. That is the inside-out part that Van Jones was talking about. People want the government (the top-down part) to restore safety and order. Then the radicals can remake society into their own vision.

Obama adviser: American freedom, equality are just 'myths'

From WND.com (May 4):

President Obama's faith adviser, Eboo Patel, blasted what he called the "myths" of America – describing them as beliefs that the country is "a land of freedom and equality and justice."

Patel explained how he used the "faith-based movement" to channel his rage at America "in a direction far more compassionate and far more merciful."

Patel, a Muslim activist from Chicago, further implied that had he grown up in the 1960s, he may have joined the Weather Underground terrorist group led by William Ayers.  [read more]

This guy is a faith advisor? Geez. Then again he is a radical like Obama so go figure. Having people like this around him like this it’s not helping to counter the belief that Obama is a true-believing radical. After all you are judged by the company you keep.

When a radical talks about “a direction far more compassionate” that’s code words for spreading-the-wealth-around. And “far more merciful” means social justice.

CIA chief: Waterboarding aided bin Laden raid

From MSNBC.com (May 3):

WASHINGTON — Intelligence garnered from waterboarded detainees was used to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and kill him, CIA Chief Leon Panetta told NBC News on Tuesday.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" were used to extract information that led to the mission's success, Panetta said during an interview with anchor Brian Williams. Those techniques included waterboarding, he acknowledged. [read more]

And just think Obama put an end to waterboarding, a technique used during the Bush administration that helped track down bin Laden. Waterboarding to me isn’t torture. Yea, it will probably scare the devil out of you (just like any good horror movie) but it doesn’t cause a lot of physical pain or damage. That’s my definition of torture—lots of intentional physical pain or damage inflicted on a person. Play X genre of music to a person that doesn’t like X is not physical torture. Or keeping him standing all night isn’t either.

Did Panetta say in that interview that Obama wanted bin Laden killed and not captured at all? Or am I just reading into something that isn’t there. I really don’t care if that was originally the plan. No trial. That’ll save the taxpayers money and emotional pain.

If the Obama administration doesn’t want bin Laden death picture shown then how about showing a computer-generated picture? Heck, I’ll take a pencil drawing of his death. Show me something! I don’t think recreations would tick off the already crazed Jihadists. I would think killing bin Laden would have already done that.

The Dynamics of Islamic Violence

Pretty much sums it up. Notice what factors are not in this diagram: Education level, economic status, and US occupation. That’s because those factors aren’t important if they are important at all. The Islamists attacked the US Navy back in the 1800’s—way before the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation. Why do you think the marines got the nickname of “leathernecks”? Look it up (you can even look it up on my blog).

Source of diagram: The Roots of Jihad. A very revealing book.

As I write this (May 1) Osama Bin Laden (the goat fornicator) was killed by US special forces. Good for them! Good riddens to that murderer.

The navy dumped the dirtbag’s body in the ocean. Good idea. I hope the waters were shark infested. But why clean the murder’s body and wrap it in silk? That’s not going to make any Muslim happy if you are dumping the body in the water. Some kind of weird Muslim outreach program I guess. And the shark’s aren’t going to care if he is clean and wrapped in silk or not.

Advice to a Young Scientist

The following advice is from the late Turing award winner computer science professor E. W. Dijkstra. I believe the advice was given mainly to a computer scientist but it could apply to any scientist:

• Raise your standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.
• We all like our work to be socially relevant and scientifically sound. If we can find a topic satisfying both desires, we are lucky; if the two targets are in conflict with each other, let the requirement of scientific soundness prevail.
• Never tackle a problem of which you can be pretty sure that (now or in the near future) it will be tackled by others who are, in relation to that problem, at least as competent and well-equipped as you are.
• Write as if your work is going to be studied by a thousand people.
• Don't get enamored with the complexities you have learned to live with (be they of your own making or imported). The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.
• Before embarking on an ambitious project, try to kill it.
• Remember that research with a big R is rarely mission-oriented and plan in terms of decades, not years. Resist all pressure —be it financial or cultural— to do work that is of ephemeral significance at best.
• Don't strive for recognition (in whatever form): recognition should not be your goal, but a symptom that your work has been worthwhile.
• Avoid involvement in projects so vague that their failure could remain invisible: such involvement tends to corrupt one's scientific integrity.
• Striving for perfection is ultimately the only justification for the academic enterprise; if you don't feel comfortable with this goal —e.g. because you think it too presumptuous—, stay out!

If the Leftist scientists would follow this advice we would have better science. Global warming definitely does not follow the second to the last advice.

What Obama Should Disclose

First, I like to say that I believed Obama was born in this country even before he showed his certificate of live birth. Hillary Clinton during her primary run was the one who started questioning his birthplace. Don’t you think if she found out he wasn’t born in America that she would have blown him out of the water? We would have the first women president instead of the first black president. The way John McCain ran his campaign he probably would have lost against Hillary too.

Whatever your opinion of Donald Trump you have to admit he is not afraid of Obama. He will take it to Obama. If McCain was less afraid during his campaign he might be president. Politics is war. Democrats understand this. It is about time the Republicans understand this mindset too.

No, what Obama should disclose is everyone who donated money to his presidential campaign the first time. He should have disclosed this when he was running since he ran on a platform of transparency in gov’t. McCain disclosed everyone who contributed to him. Why not you Obama? Why are you hiding your campaign donators?

And who is advising you that is not on your staff? Possibly George Soros? Who was advising you for two years while you were not talking to your staff? Hmmm?

The Four Dimensions of Violence in a Muslim’s Life

These four dimensions are taken from the book The Roots of Jihad (2005) by Dr. Tawfik Hamis:

1. When a Muslim’s child reaches the age of 10, he/she should be beaten to force him/her to practice the five prayers. The prophet Mohammed had said: “Order your children to pray when they are seven years old and beat them to force them on the prayer when they are ten years old…”
2. If a Muslim wife disagrees with you or disobeys you then it is your responsibility to discipline her. Discipline such as admonishing her, avoid making sex with her, and beating her. From the Koran: “Men are superior to women because Allah has made so. Therefore good women are obedient, and (as to) those (women) on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and BEAT them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.” (Sura 4, verse 34).
3. If your neighbor does not pray in the mosque then burn his house down.
4. Kill any infidel (non-believer). An infidel is someone who does not believe there is no God except Allah and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. He doesn’t do the five prayers, and does not fast on Ramadan.

The author says most Muslims are afraid if they don’t follow these rules Allah will send them to burn in hell for eternity. Nice.

The Second Coming of Christ?

Are we in the end of days as prophesized by Jesus? Well, let’s see what Jesus said what the signs are. Here are his exact words in boldface:

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. There is fighting over in Libya for starters. Although Obama is not calling it a war. And the leader of Iran wants to blow Israel off the face of the earth and start wars to bring back the 12th Imam.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. The nation against nation hasn’t happened yet. Famines has happened either, but we are burning food (corn) for fuel. Pestilences haven’t happened yet. Japan had a major earthquake and several aftershocks.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. This is nothing new. Christians have always been persecuted. Here I believe Jesus is talking about the Antichrist killing people when the new world order is created.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. This sounds like the total breakdown of civility. Of morality. This is exactly what the far-Left radicals wants. Total chaos so they can re-create society in their own sinister image.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. The false prophets are the ones that say follow me blindly and without question and I will save you during the chaos. And when you don’t follow them you be treated as a traitor and will be dealt with.

So are we in the end of days? Hard to say. Some of the signs are there but not all.

Senator Durbin wants Internet sales taxes

From CNET News.com (April 12):

A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping.

The proposal--expected to be made public soon after Tax Day--would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET. [read more]

It must be true a Democrat never met a tax he or she did not like. Isn’t this a state issue? Then again that doesn’t matter to The Left. They are so addicted to power it’s ridiculous.

I am just waiting for Congress to tax money found on the street. After all it is income you know. Have you seen all the things that are taxed on the IRS forms? It’s got to be like 20 items or so.

Then you have a wealthy real estate millionaire on The O’Reilly Factor wanting to give more to the gov’t to make the debt smaller he said. You’ve got to be kidding me! He said he would give more but thought the gov’t would waste it. They are already doing that now!

The Measures of Restoration

In his 1954 book A Program for Conservatives, American conservative founder Russell Kirk mentions six ways to restore America’s boredom:

1. Renewing the power of religious faith, and piety, among the mass of men. Men must always be bored, if they can find nothing better in the universe than their own little mean selves; they suffer the punishment of Narcissus.
2. Reviving the concepts of honor and dignity which gave motive to honest desire for emulation-in short, reminding men that there are some persons who are more, and better, than "just ordinary guys," and that mediocrity is not the norm for civilized beings.
3. Returning to individuals the responsibilities which bring a decent satisfaction, the duties of self-reliance, and the rights and actuality of private property and inheritance.
4. Reaffirming the right of men to what is their own, and to whatever they can make their own without injustice to others-rewarding ability and honesty and diligence with those material satisfactions which most men always must hunger for.
5. Reminding modern society of the truth that security, though a good thing, is not a better thing than freedom-and that, indeed, security does not long survive the extinction of prescriptive freedom.
6. Reawakening men's minds to the eternal contract of society, which affirms that we do not live simply for ourselves, in the fleeting moment, but instead live to justify the faith and labor of our ancestors, and to transmit life and justice to our posterity.

Not bad advice.

Lawsuit wants to dissolve some Georgia city charters

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website (March 28):

The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County.

The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday, claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the “super-majority white ” cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to dilute minority votes in those areas, violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. [read more]

This lawsuit is completely stupid. It would be like suing the state because there is not enough women in a city for example or not enough Republicans. How does a city stop anyone from entering itself? Unless they have a law against black people entering I don’t see how this is done.

Officials: Yemen a Bigger Security Threat Than Libya

From NTI.org (March 28):

WASHINGTON -- As the United States spearheads the attack against Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's military assets, key former officials said an even bigger threat to U.S. national security comes from Yemen, a country that hosts many militants and is now enmeshed in a civil uprising that is threatening to unseat U.S.-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh (see GSN, Feb. 10).

Saleh has been a crucial American ally in combating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that chief U.S. counterterrorism analyst Michael Leiter recently called the “most significant risk to the U.S. homeland” and the most poised to successfully attack American cities (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2010). Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and government officials said the current instability in Yemen appears likely to threaten already strained U.S. counterterrorism efforts and could provide new opportunities for AQAP to launch attacks.

“From a security standpoint, our interest in what happens in Yemen is much more significant than our interest in Libya,” Chertoff told National Journal. “In Libya it's a humanitarian issue -- there's some security issue, but really, Yemen is a critical issue.” [read more]

Well, that’s nice to know. So, is Obama going to do a kinetic military action against Yemen then? Who knows.

I watched Obama’s speech about the war in Libya and I did not notice any mention about an exit strategy. Are we going to take out Qadhafi or not? That’s the question to paraphrase Shakespeare. And by the way why wasn’t his speech on the CBS, NBC, or ABC? Seems odd.

Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To “Destabilize” America

From Business Insider.com (March 22):

A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.

The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.

The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend. [read more]

Word by word this is what Lerner said:

There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.

For example, 10% of homeowners are underwater right their home they are paying more for it then its worth 10% of those people are in strategic default, meaning they are refusing to pay but they are staying in their home that's totally spontaneous they figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because foreclosure is backed up

If you could double that number you would  you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again.

We have an entire economy that is built on debt and banks so the question would be what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike if we get half a million people to agree  it would literally cause a new finical crisis for the banks not for us we would be doing quite well  we wouldn't be paying anything...

You can read the rest of the transcript at the Business Insider website but I think you get the point.

Isn’t this domestic economic terrorism? Where is the just justice department investigating this guy? On, no they are too worried about TEA parties and people who vote for third parties and carry around pocket Constitutions.

Is this the “Inside Out-Bottom Up” part that Van Jones was alluding to?

What Might Have Been

In his great book The New Reagan Revolution:  How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness (2010), Michael Reagan says his father would have never ran for governor then president if Bobby Kennedy wouldn’t have had the General Electric Theater TV show cancelled.

According to Michael Reagan, President Reagan enjoyed working on the show and it was one consistently ranked in the top ten. He probably would have never quit and ran for governor of California. But because GE was negotiating a contract with the federal gov’t and Ronald Reagan criticized the JFK administration on the show in some of his speeches, Bobby Kennedy had GE cancel the show evidently for revenge. Hence the President had to look for work. You know the rest of the story.

This incident got me wondering. Let’s say in another parallel universe where the GE Theater was not cancelled who would have got the 1980 republican nomination in the primary? Probably George HW Bush. I am assuming of course everything else would have stayed the same. HW was second runner up in the primary race. Would HW have won the general election against Carter? It’s possible. He won against Mondale. So, instead of a strong conservative the country would have had a moderate. All this is speculative of course. GE could have cancelled the show in the far far future since it had good ratings and Reagan might still have ran for office later on.

Let this be a lesson to the vindictive Left. They might think getting a strong conservative fired from a TV show or radio show is a good idea but it might come back to haunt them. Their revenge might end up having Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck run for a major office. It would be better for the Left if they just leave those conservatives alone and let them keep their current jobs. Or would they rather have them as POTUS?

Al Qaeda's New Magazine for Women Mixes Beauty and Bomb Tips

From Fox News.com (March 14):

Would-be female Islamist extremists Sunday were awaiting copies of Al Qaeda's newly-launched women's magazine, which mixes tips on skin care with articles on marrying suicide bombers and waging electronic jihad.

Al Shamikha magazine -- its title means "The Majestic Woman" -- features beauty and fashion tips alongside articles on "marrying a mujahedeen" and carrying out suicide attacks. [read more]

You can’t make this stuff up! What exactly does one wear to a homicide bombing anyway? What will be next a cave decorating magazine? Maybe a militant Jihad version of the O(prah) magazine?

Maine gets break in federal health care overhaul

From CNBC.com (March 8):

PORTLAND, Maine - The federal government Tuesday granted Maine a waiver of a key provision in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, citing the likelihood that enforcement could destabilize the state's market for individual health insurance.

The U.S. Health and Human Services department said in a letter it would waive the requirement that insurers spend 80 cents to 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and quality improvement. Instead, the letter said, the state could maintain its 65 percent standard for three years, with the caveat that HHS intends to review the figures after two years.

The decision makes Maine the first state to receive a waiver of the requirement. Similar requests are pending from Kentucky, Nevada and New Hampshire. [read more]

First, if Obamacare is the “ideal” health care system then why have any waivers at all? Second, can the other states (like the ones who are suing to get off this oppressive system) have a waiver like this?

And what about this Section 9 (Limits on Congress) in the Constitution:

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce [my emphasis] or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

Then again it isn’t the Congress granting the waiver, but still I think that law would apply to gov’t agencies too following the spirit of the law. True, the waiver is only temporary but it would be nice if all states could get a waiver permanently. Only way to do that is to repeal  Obamacare. And the only way to repeal Obamacare is vote people in Congress who will repeal the law and a president who won’t veto the repeal like Obama would.