Jul 19 2008
In response to a request from Mrs. Miner: (I should have written more about Tony Snow sooner… I’ve been visiting my 93 yr old mom, and have been busy this week with her.)
Here is a nice tribute to Tony Snow, and a roundup of links to commentary on his life and passing. He wrote an essay titled “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings“, for Christianity Today. Read it all.
hat tip: Powerblog
Jul 17 2008
I am so happy that the children are being taught the correct views on crime and punishment. Video at the link. These kids need to understand that there are real consequences for bad behavior.
Jul 07 2008
Here it is.
I will, I suppose, be burned at the stake as a heretic for doubting.
Jul 07 2008
The usual suspicion, held by those of us who expect bad results from government meddling in the market, is that the housing/sub-prime meltdown is somehow a result of new factors entering the marketplace by government action. That is, the meltdown happened at this time, not 5 years ago, and the question in these matters is usually, why now? The main player with enough power to distort the market so as to create a fast moving set of bad circumstances is, you guessed it, the government. That is, why were all the sub-prime loans made recently, not ten years ago? In other words, what changed?
Uncovering
the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year
will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so
far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade
to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to
minorities.More than a negligible amount of the blame for the
mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism:
government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change,
illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political
correctness.The chickens have finally come home to roost.
If you find this a provocative thesis, he has made a very convincing argument, that, like it or not, is worth a read.
Jul 07 2008
Even if McCain is elected, there is considerable optimism about beginning pullouts of some troops from Iraq. Of course, a McCain style pullout, hopefully, will not be a complete withdrawal, but rather a reduction to the necessary level to maintain progress that has been made.
Obama, on the other hand, plans a full-on retreat, as quickly as possible, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Gains in Iraq may lead to pullouts – USATODAY.com
Although U.S. commanders are cautious about predicting further withdrawals,
interviews with military experts and recent official statements
indicate growing optimism about the potential to pull out more forces.“I believe the momentum we have is not reversible,” said Jack Keane, a
retired Army vice chief of staff who helped develop the Iraq strategy
adopted by President Bush in January 2007.There will be “significant reductions in 2009 whoever becomes president,” said Keane,
who regularly consults with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander
in Iraq.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki echoed Keane’s optimism Saturday by declaring that “we defeated” the terrorists in
Iraq. U.S. commanders remain cautious.
Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said recently that “our progress is fragile, and we continue to
work to make this progress irreversible.”Such encouraging reports could benefit both presidential candidates. Republican John
McCain has been a major supporter of Bush’s escalation of U.S. forces
in Iraq. Democratic candidate Barack Obama said he wants to withdraw
all U.S. troops from Iraq in 16 months, although he said any pullout
would be determined by conditions there.
Of course, when Obama speaks of “conditions” in Iraq, he does not mean using them to determine the timing of a pullout, but merely the manner of it. He has “clarified” that the “conditions” phrase just has to do with how to get troops out of Iraq “safely”, not whether the situation in Iraq will remain relatively stable after the pullout.
Jul 06 2008
FP: What are some of the strategies Israel and the West need to pursue to win the war against global jihad?
Glick: On a macroeconomic level, as people like R. James Woolsey, Gal Luft, Robert Zubrin, Frank Gaffney, Anne Korin and others have explained convincingly over the past several years, the West needs to end its addiction to foreign oil as quickly as possible. Energy security is a paramount issue. In Israel we have entrepreneurs working on changing Israel’s small transportation market into one based on battery operating cars. This is an interesting concept and it will hopefully be successful. But overall, the West simply has to get its act together. For seven years under the Bush administration, the US has done essentially nothing as gasoline prices have gone from $20-$130 per gallon.
The culture wars in the West are also a key aspect of a winning strategy. We see many societies simply sinking into nothingness, places like Sweden and Norway come to mind most readily. And Britain for its part, seems to be on an inexorable decline towards collapse. When we do not understand who we are, we also cannot understand why who we are is worth defending. When we cannot assert our cultural and national identities, we cannot explain to either ourselves or Islamic totalitarians, why freedom is preferable to slavery.
Finally, we have to realize that people who call for global domination in the name of Islam and carry out acts of violence, and develop nuclear weapons are our enemies and that they are irreconcilable. They are fighting a war to the death against us and we need to fight back. We need to develop strategies aimed at defeating our irreconcilable foes and first and foremost among them is Iran. We have the means to win this war. We just have to understand why it is necessary to fight it.
Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt and NRO
Jul 02 2008
A recent poll of “the Arab street” has produced some some interesting results.
In all six countries surveyed (those polled were all non-Palestinian Arabs), Arabs favored Hamas over Fatah.They also wanted to see a Palestinian unity government. Palestinian polls that Telhami mentions in his paper keep showing some advantage for Fatah, but also that the leader of Hamas in Gaza would defeat Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a head to head election (47 percent for Ismail Haniyeh, 46 percent for Abbas).
Telhami asked in the poll: “What step taken by Washington would most improve your views of the United States?” The options he presented the participants in the poll were:
Pushing for the spread of democracy in the Middle East even more.
Providing more economic assistance to the region.
Stopping economic and military aid to Israel.
Withdrawing American forces from Iraq.
Withdrawing American forces from the Arabian peninsula.
Brokering comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.As for what they choose: “Fifty percent of the public identified brokering Arab-Israeli peace based on the 1967 border as the single most important step to improving their views of the United States.”
The incomprehensible aspect of this is that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Israel’s destruction is official Hamas policy. So “the Arab street” prefers the government that wants to destroy Israel, and wants the USA to broker a peace between these two parties, and return Israel to its (indefensible) 1967 borders.
Continue reading “The Arab “street”: Really Alien, or just biding its time?”
Jun 27 2008
From the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage of a National Academy of Sciences meeting underway in D.C.:
It is a grim, almost unthinkable scenario: a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, smuggled into the United States, is detonated in a major U.S. city, perhaps even the Bay Area.
Top federal officials and medical experts gathered in Washington on Thursday to consider this nightmare vision. Their conclusion: Cities and states are frightfully ill-prepared for dealing with an attack using a small nuclear bomb.
“Few of them have coordinated response plans for the aftermath of nuclear terrorism,” said Brooke Buddemeier, a specialist in the radiological and nuclear counter-measures division at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “There is a general lack of understanding of the response needs and uncertainty over federal, state and local roles and responsibilities.”
Federal officials are worried enough to have convened a National Academy of Sciences committee on medical preparedness for a nuclear attack by terrorists. The panel is holding its first two-day meeting in Washington this week.
The presentations got specific:
The committee began its first session with a ghastly overview of what a 10-kiloton nuclear blast would look like: If detonated at the White House, it could destroy virtually every building within 1,500 yards. People in an area out to 1.55 miles could suffer second-degree burns, while others would be injured by flying debris and shattered windows. Those 4.5 to 7.5 miles away could suffer momentary “flash” blindness, causing traffic accidents.
A lethal plume of radioactive material would, depending on winds, stretch as far as 9 miles, affecting up to 300,000 people, although injuries would depend on a person’s exposure to radiation.
“It’s not just about radiation exposure,” Buddemeier said. Many of the injured would have shards of glass in their eyes, ruptured eardrums and other impact injuries from the blast’s shock waves.
Read the whole thing and understand that there are millions of people who go to sleep every night and dream of such a scenario –and take pleasure in it.
Good Lord. I don’t usually quote an entire post of someone else, but: Good Lord.
The 2008 elections are not just about health care and the economy, or even the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which of our candidates do YOU want running the show? Which one do YOU think is likely to know more about this threat, and be highly focused on doing something about it?
This is no time for a President on training wheels.
Jun 27 2008
Maybe most people can sing a song….or maybe the researchers are tone-deaf
Despite the hilarity of early-season “American Idol” episodes, nearly everyone can carry a tune, new research shows.
Of those who can’t, there are two types – those that know they sound bad and those that think they sound fine.
OK, I admit it… I’m in that last category.
Jun 26 2008
N.Y. Wants All Bronx Adults Tested for HIV
Community-based organizations, hospitals, and health clinics throughout New York City will voluntarily test every adult resident between the ages of 18-64 living in the Bronx for HIV, The New York Times reports.
The decision, announced by The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, comes on the heels of a recent report which shows New York City residents have the highest rate of practicing unsafe sex, and one of the highest HIV rates in the United States.
The Bronx, the report shows, has been hit especially hard.
In 2005, an estimated 250,000 Bronx residents aged 18–64 had never been tested for HIV, and one in four people with HIV did not know they were infected. The report also shows that one out of every four people that found out they were HIV-positive also found out they had full-blown AIDS at the same time.
………………….“The Bronx has 1.3 million people. It’s bigger than most cities, bigger than Boston, bigger than Washington. We’re talking about a significant urban population,” explains Futterman, who helped develop the program for the city.
Simply unbelievable. It’s a brave new world.
