Apr 05 2010

Mexico keeps on sinking

Category: Mexico — harmonicminer @ 8:01 am

Mexico: Denying the Obvious Much more at the link.

Ask these questions. At what point do frequent and periodic border incursions constitute a violation of US sovereignty? At what point does the instability in Mexico become a direct threat against American citizens? How many Americans will have to die before our federal government takes serious action along the Texas-Mexico border? And finally, how long does the federal government delay before violence against American citizens on American soil constitute an act that prompts more proactive actions than stating that “it continues to support Mexico’s fight against ruthless gangs smuggling narcotics into the United States.”

Quite obviously, we are fighting a war against terrorists worldwide. Regardless of what you call it, al Qaeda’s form of terrorism is an aggressive force on multiple fronts around the globe. More recently, American citizens influenced or motivated by some “need” have become another focus of terrorism concern. Yet, while we are working, fighting and dying to establish security and stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mexican President Calderone’s policies to control and combat the narcotics violence on/near or across our border appear to be ineffective and as some people believe, failures. Ask when (not if), it will fall to the United States to defend itself from continued incursions by the criminal and violent elements in Mexico?

Earlier this week, Texas Governor Perry deployed Texas military helicopters to begin patrolling the border as part of his Spillover violence contingency plan in response to the latest incursion by Mexico in the United States.

“As violence escalates in Mexican border cities, it’s critically important for Texas, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement to communicate and appropriately coordinate our efforts to combat border crime and protect legitimate cross-border trade and travel…

[continued]
…”The helicopter incursion and uptick in violence in Mexican border communities underscore the urgent need for more U.S. law enforcement and surveillance along the Texas-Mexico border. I once again urge our federal government to add personnel and technology along the Texas-Mexico border to prevent spillover violence here and to combat drug cartels operating in the border region.”

It’s been pretty obvious for awhile that (you should pardon the expression) things are going south in Mexico.  The problem on the USA side:  it seems to be politically difficult for the state governments or federal government to do anything really effective.

But with the best will in the world, massive political courage, and brilliant, keen insight into the problems, it’s hard to know what the USA can do, short of invasion, to “fix” the problems in Mexico itself.  (Please don’t leave comments that assume I’m serious about “invading.”)  The point is that Mexico IS Mexican, and they will have to find their way.  I suppose at some point a UN Peacekeeping force may be necessary, composed exclusively of troops from somewhere other than the USA, of course, to stifle cries of “invasion.”

I”m sure the Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Venezuelans and Iranians will all be willing to aid the UN in this noble effort. 

It is evident that the Mexican government is completely out of control, and that corruption, bribery and influence peddling are going to keep it that way.  Mexicans with some moral courage and no small determination will have to repair their own nation.  That process, when/if it comes, will probably be pretty ugly, involve trampling normal “civil rights,” etc.   I hope there are enough of them with the wherewithal to do it.  It isn’t looking promising at the moment.

If I was going to guess, I’d speculate that the next government of Mexico will be a dictatorship.  The only question is whether it will be a military dictatorship run by people who hate the drug lords, a military dictatorship of people in league with the drug kingpins, or a socialist/communist dictatorship of some kind, basically a transplant of Cuba or Venezuela.  I’d like to believe that the Obama administration would not let this last option happen.

But on the evidence of their treatment of the due process of law in Honduras, I’m afraid that the next government in Mexico will be great friends with Castro.

Apr 04 2010

Are you getting what you’re paying for?

Category: education,Group-think,higher education,left — harmonicminer @ 8:01 am

Hmmm…

The High Cost of College and What it Does to Your Children

Each fall, nearly two million American students will leave for college for the very first time. Their education will cost $12,000 a year for a public university and up to $50,000 for a private one. Scholarships and grants reduce the cost for most families, but still, the Wall Street Journal reports that the average student leaves college with $23,186 in debt.

Nationwide, the total cost for this transaction is somewhere between 25 and 40 billion dollars per year.

At least families are getting their money’s worth.

Or not.

A recent study confirms what many parents have long suspected: going to college can make kids forget what’s important and embrace values that are counter to what they learned growing up.

Before I share this study’s results, let me say this to parents: leftist professors don’t feel sorry for you. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve been oppressing the masses to get that money anyway, so it’s deliciously ironic that you not only turn your children over to the indoctrinators, but that you fork over 50k to 200k and for the privilege of doing so.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the late Richard Rorty, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, said on the subject:

“I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities … try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own … The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point … [W]e are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours … I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [domination] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents …”[1] [editor’s note: sorry for all the ellipses, but it’s hard to summarize Rorty’s windblown rhetoric].

When it comes to reshaping values, liberal universities know precisely what they’re doing. And the reality is that about four out of five students walk away from their Christian faith by the time they are in their twenties.[2]

The Indoctrination Plan:

What your child won’t learn at college: a sense of citizenship. In February, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute released its annual report entitled, “The Shaping of the American Mind.” ISI researchers studied students’ knowledge of basic citizenship questions, along with 39 issue-based propositions and found that college graduates are dangerously ignorant of basic civics.

For example, fewer than one in two college graduates know that the phrase “We hold these truths to be self evident…” is from the Declaration of Independence (10% actually think it is from the Communist Manifesto).

What your child will learn at college: liberal radicalism. According to ISI, college graduates are significantly MORE likely to believe in abortion on demand and same sex marriage, and significantly LESS likely to believe that the Bible is the word of God, that prayer should be allowed in schools, and that anyone can succeed in America with hard work and perseverance.

Apr 03 2010

Time to go to war?

Category: global warming,government,media,science — harmonicminer @ 8:15 am

The world according to James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists’ emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

“I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change,” said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. “The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.”

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

After all, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. And Woodrow Wilson had at least 150,000 people arrested during WW I for “sedition.” So I guess Mr. Lovelock is in favor of incarcerating SUVs. And wood fireplaces.

Personally, I’m in favor of incarcerating fraudulent scientists… but that’s just me.  From reading the rest of the article, it sounds like Lovelock might agree.  However, his notion that so-called experts should rule over the benighted masses, who are just too dim to understand the elevated mental process of the elite, is reminiscent of the Progressive era that gave us Margaret Sanger, Mussolini, and eugenics, or in a slightly earlier time the notion that the interior shape of the skull was determinative for intelligence.

…………

Lovelock, who 40 years ago originated the idea that the planet is a giant, self-regulating organism, the so-called Gaia theory, added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails, “I felt reluctant to pry”, but that their reported content had left him feeling “utterly disgusted”.

“Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science,” he said. “I’m not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It’s the one thing you do not ever do. You’ve got to have standards.”

Lovelock’s continuing touching faith in the underlying science of global warming is probably forgivable in a man of his years, who does not want the last two decades of his life to have been wasted time.  But whether or not HIS data is good, and fairly recorded and interpreted, is irrelevant.  The fact is that the case for global warming was made up mostly of computer models and attempts to draw huge conclusions from subtle data changes flowing from the interplay of enormously complex variables, by a thousand different scientists who understood that the fix was in, and career advancement was in that direction.  Does Lovelock think that the recent revelations represent the only fudged data, the only special pleading, the only career enhancing favorable interpretation (or, in this case, unfavorable)?

In any case, Lovelock’s comment on the desirability of discarding democracy in favor of rule by the elites is exactly what many on the Right have been saying for some time, namely that the new home of international socialism is the environmental movement (a thing quite distinct from mere “conservation”, clean water, clean air, and the like).

Based on who their fellow travelers are, I can’t disagree.

Apr 03 2010

April Fools? Or real report? You decide

Category: humor — harmonicminer @ 7:51 am

Army suggests brain scan for eligibility challenger

The U.S. Army is, unofficially, suggesting a brain scan and medical evaluation for an officer who announced he would refuse to follow further orders until and unless President Obama documents his constitutional eligibility to be commander in chief.

Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is the highest-ranking and first active-duty officer to refuse to obey orders based on President Obama’s eligibility.

A spokeswoman for the developing case of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, a flight surgeon with 18 years in the service, said the recommendation came to Lakin today from an officer whose name was not being used who implied that those higher up the chain of command thought it was a good idea.

The suggestion was described to WND by spokeswoman Margaret Calhoun Hemenway, a veteran Washington appointee and now volunteer spokeswoman, as being presented in a “solicitous” manner.

Officially, the U.S. Army says it has no plans for formal action at this point against the officer. But the controversy also raises the prospect that the government may be unwilling to pursue a prosecution because of the possible ramifications, including a defense demand for a court-ordered discovery process that would target Obama’s historical documentation.

As WND reported, Lakin is an active-duty flight surgeon charged with caring for Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey’s pilots and air crew.

The top-ranking, highly decorated officer says he’s refusing all orders until Obama releases his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate to prove his eligibility to serve as commander in chief.

Personally, I’m thinking a brainscan might be a good idea for the entire Congressional leadership. How else to explain their belief that they can cut costs, avoid rationing, and give more people medical insurance at the same time, all without expanding the pool of available medical services, physicians, hospitals, etc.?

And then there’s this guy.

This seems to be a person who could really use some professional attention. Perhaps a teeny, tiny alien starship has crash landed into his skull, and caused microscopic damage to a few neurons.

Well… quite a few.

There are reports that this person’s medical condition really IS the cause of his wackiness. If so… why is he still in Congress?

You really can’t make this stuff up.

Apr 02 2010

Service. Faith. Sacrifice.

Category: media,national security,society,terrorism,USA — harmonicminer @ 5:39 pm

We do not deserve people like this, but we should all thank God that they exist, and are willing to serve.

In all humility, we should bow our heads and thank God for them.

I can’t help wondering why the major media cover so few of these kinds of stories, and why Hollywood makes so few movies about these kinds of heroes.

On second thought, I suppose I don’t have to wonder.

Apr 02 2010

Russia, Canada, global warming, the Arctic, and Big Brother

Category: global warming,national security,Russia — harmonicminer @ 8:43 am

A Russian view on Climate Change, the Arctic and Russia’s National Security

What does Prime Minister Stephen Harper have in common with the Canadian Minister of Defence? He shares a sinister, hypocritical and belligerent discourse bordering on the lunatic fringe of the international community. Yet Canada’s new-found megalomania is the least of Russia’s worries: How can climate change in the Arctic threaten her national security?

From Canada, Russia has become used to seeing and hearing positions of sheer arrogance, unadulterated insolence and provocative intrusion. Take for example Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s declaration that Canada is “an Arctic Superpower” (what all thirteen of them?) and the idiotic reference by the Canadian Minister of Defence, Peter McKay, about Russian “overflights” outside Canadian airspace. How can you “overfly” outside?

What these statements hide is Canada´s nervousness at the fact that international law backs up Russia’s claim to a hefty slice of the Arctic and that international law will favour Russia in delineating the new Arctic boundaries. Inside Russia’s continental shelf lie huge deposits of gold, diamonds, nickel, cobalt and copper.

The immense importance of the Arctic to the Russian economy can be seen by the fact that 22 per cent of Russia’s exports and 20 per cent of her GDP come from products obtained from inside the Arctic Circle, where around 90 per cent of Russia’s hydrocarbon reserves lie. Canada, on the other hand, derives less than one per cent of its GDP from products which come from this region.

………………..

Given that the permafrost covers 66 per cent of Russian territory, a dramatic change in climatic conditions could threaten all engineering structures in this region, considers Averyanov.

Besides this, Yuri Averyanov considers that interstate conflict is a real possibility due to the new policies of allies of the USA in the Arctic in expanding exploration and research operations. Indeed, the possibility is referred to in the Russia National Security Strategy, adopted in Spring 2009 and mentioning the use of armed force and conflict over hydrocarbon resources.

In the event of a showdown between Russia and Canada, it is obvious that Russia would win. Yet Canada is becoming more and more arrogant, feeling its back covered perhaps by Big Brother to the south. Maybe it is time for Canada to stick its nose into its own affairs and forget adventures which might bring it dire consequences.

How about that? The Russians, of all people, referring to the USA as “Big Brother.”  Anyway, since “hockey stick” global warming is looking less and less likely (not that it ever looked very likely), the Russians should relax.  And in the worst case, both Canada and Russia will be so busy fending off rabid polar bears that they won’t have time to worry about anything else.

It is a uniquely Russian weirdness to think they own more of the arctic than Canada.  Just to get the picture:


It looks to me like Greenland has a better claim than Russia.  Or maybe if Russia gets too uppity, the fine folk at Ward Hunt Island will mount a punitive expedition, using the massive Canadian navy.

Apr 01 2010

The Left and the Right.

Category: left,right — harmonicminer @ 8:55 am

Michael Medved believes the recent totally partisan Congressional vote to establish federal control over all healthcare is useful in Exposing the Essence of the Left/Right Divide

After the House of Representatives voted on Obamacare, Representative Louise Slaughter, the New York Democrat who chairs the Rules Committee, told the Wall Street Journal: “It makes me so happy that, after 100 years, we can finally catch up with the rest of the world!”. Does Ms. Slaughter really believe the U.S. has lagged behind the rest of the world since 1910? During that period, we saved the planet in four major international conflicts while our surging economy brought higher living standards to most of the world. The key distinction between Democrats and Republicans involves attitudes toward America. The right believes the world would benefit by following America’s example; the left thinks the U.S. should become more like the rest of the world. Democrats may long to emulate France, but most Americans feel proud, rather than embarrassed, by our nation’s uniqueness.

I WISH this was true.  But if the divide were so simple, if mere emulation of Europe was the goal of the Left, then when European governments occasionally take a step to the right, the American Left would want to emulate that.  Obviously, they do not.  A more subtle piece on the left/right divide was written in 2008 by Dennis Prager, and I commented on it here.

Instead, the American left only celebrates the European left, a fact that has been obvious for at least 30 years, since the American left derided Margaret Thatcher at every turn.  In fact, one of the Left’s main briefs against Reagan was that he and Thatcher were such good friends.

The essence of the Left/Right divide, then, is very simple.

Leftists believe in the perfectibility of human beings and human culture, if only we could get it right, if only we could create just the right laws and social structures, if only the evil influences of traditional religion and selfishness could be removed, if only the right people were in charge to make everyone else “do right.”

The Right also wants the right people in charge, but the Right’s definition of “the right people” will be those who have no particular thirst to override basic human freedom in the service of some larger social goal, those who believe the government governs best that governs as little as possible (consistent with the basic functions of civil government), and, most important of all, those with enough humility to know that they don’t have the answers to everything, and who are convinced that government is not the answer to most things.

The Left wants to control us for our own good.  The Right thinks it’s good for us to be in control.

And that’s the divide.

Mar 31 2010

Who writes these scripts, anyway?

Category: media,society — harmonicminer @ 6:43 pm

I was watching an episode of “The Good Wife”, a CBS series in which a district attorney is caught cheating on his wife and is convicted of some corruption in office, and goes to jail, amidst scandal and embarrassment for his family, including his “good wife,” who has to go back to work as a junior attorney at a law firm owned by her old friend.

I’ve seen it from time to time, and it hasn’t always been that bad, though I confess that I don’t usually watch that closely, since when I watch TV I’m usually working on some composition or arrangement in my home studio.

The episode I watched deserves a little commentary, however.  It features a character very closely modeled after Glenn Beck, whose voice even sounds like Glenn Beck (an obviously deliberate decision), broadcasting a daily hour news/commentary show, who is being sued for slander by a client of “the good wife’s” firm.  The Beck character has accused the client, on air, of murdering her missing young daughter, even though he has no evidence of this.  It also appears that the Beck character has called an un-named African-American president a “terrorist” on air.

Now, I know that CBS News is desperately jealous of the fact the FOX NEWS actually has an audience, and, unlike CBS, is expanding its line up and bringing in new talent all the time.  Does that justify thinly disguised deadly insults aimed at CBS’s competition?

For the record:  I know of no FOX show, including the ones that focus on these kinds of stories, that would simply come out and make such an accusation in the absence of evidence.  And, more to the point, Glenn Beck does commentary on the macro-issues of the day, not crime commentary.  He has not, and would not, refer to Obama as a terrorist, nor would any FOX commentator…  though I believe Keith Olberman came pretty close to calling a sitting president a terrorist, on MSNBC, during the Bush years.

So what we have here is simple.  We have scriptwriters who either knowingly mischaracterize people just to pander to leftist sentiment, or we have scriptwriters who have never actually watched Glenn Beck (or probably FOX news, for that matter) and are willing to tell lies about him (by implication, at least), or have simply believed lies someone has told them about Beck.

Maybe Beck should sue them for slander.

This has not been a good year for television.  I continue to wonder why the scriptwriters don’t understand that it’s the characters and plot that matter, not the political references.  And I continue to wonder why the grownups at the network aren’t supervising the sandbox.

As their ratings drop.

Mar 31 2010

Get ready to duck… but don’t bother to cover

Category: science,space — harmonicminer @ 8:43 am

Dark, dangerous asteroids found lurking near Earth

An infrared space telescope has spotted several very dark asteroids that have been lurking unseen near Earth’s orbit. Their obscurity and tilted orbits have kept them hidden from surveys designed to detect things that might hit our planet.

Called the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the new NASA telescope launched on 14 December on a mission to map the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. It began its survey in mid-January.

In its first six weeks of observations, it has discovered 16 previously unknown asteroids with orbits close to Earth’s. Of these, 55 per cent reflect less than one-tenth of the sunlight that falls on them, which makes them difficult to spot with visible-light telescopes. One of these objects is as dark as fresh asphalt, reflecting less than 5 per cent of the light it receives.

Many of these dark asteroids have orbits that are steeply tilted relative to the plane in which all the planets and most asteroids orbit. This means telescopes surveying for asteroids may be missing many other objects with tilted orbits, because they spend most of their time looking in this plane.

Fortunately, the new objects are bright in infrared radiation, because they absorb a lot of sunlight and heat up. This makes them relatively easy for WISE to spot.

“It’s really good at finding the darkest asteroids and comets,” said mission team member Amy Mainzer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, on Thursday.

WISE is expected to discover as many as 200 near-Earth objects, but astronomers estimate that the number of unknown objects with masses great enough to cause ground damage in an impact runs into the tens of thousands.

Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says the dark asteroids may be former comets that have long since had all the ice vaporised from their exteriors, leaving them with inactive surfaces that no longer shed dust to produce tails. He points out that many comets have very tilted orbits, and comets visited by spacecraft have been observed to have very dark surfaces.

I think I’ve met some people with tilted orbits lately.  Hey, ease up, it’s a joke.  But you can only seem to spot some of them with infra-red…

I’m glad there is Somebody watching over us.

Mar 30 2010

Rewarding illegal behavior with citizenship

Category: Congress,constitution,government,Group-think,illegal alien,national security — harmonicminer @ 8:34 am

An argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship

A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.

To end the practice of “birthright citizenship,” all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment’s first sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.

……………………….

Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to mothers who are here illegally. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to those whose presence here is “not only without the government’s consent but in violation of its law.”

George Will’s piece, linked above, gives a nice history of the 14th Amendment, and explains clearly why it should not be interpreted to mean that all babies of illegal aliens are automatically US citizens.  But somehow, I don’t think Congress is likely to act on this anytime soon, since the Democrats want to turn as many illegals as possible into voters… for them.  That’s why they are loathe to enforce our borders, they are for same day registration/voting and “motor voter” laws, and are only too happy to accept the support of illegal alien activist organizations.

I’m sure the Democrats mourn the passing of ACORN, which was famous for finding ways for illegals to vote, not to mention evade taxes and other laws.

So we won’t see a Congressional reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment anytime soon.  But read all of Will’s piece.  It’s essential information for the next time someone tries to convince you that it makes any kind of sense Constitutionally for anchor babies to be automatic US citizens.

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