Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Obama Expands Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan
NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.
Read Entire Piece - also - The Drone War
Opinion: I always thought "covert" meant secret. How secret is something I read about in the NY Times?
I'm troubled that once again the executive branch of our government is waging an undeclared war. This is not surprising, since Obama said in the campaign that he would do this. Militarizing Afghanistan didn't work for the Brits or the Soviets, we will fare no better.
And our military will be squandered in this pointless war. Deaths and casualty counts will continue. By violating the sovereignty of Pakistan we risk expanding this war such that we may see the return of the draft (another horrendous evil). How will we know when we have succeeded?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
6 Broken Promises
1. Make Government Open and Transparent
2. Make it “Impossible” for Congressmen to slip in Pork Barrel Projects
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public
4. No more secrecy
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a Bill
7. We will put every pork barrel project online
2. Make it “Impossible” for Congressmen to slip in Pork Barrel Projects
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public
4. No more secrecy
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a Bill
7. We will put every pork barrel project online
"US Nation of Cowards"
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing awkward racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives."Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," said Holder, nation's first black attorney general.
Read more if you like
Opinion: Outrageous! Is this really the US Attorney General?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Hey Big Spender
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) provides a great service to Washington State. One of the ways is by providing the list of big spenders in our congress. Check it out
Monday, February 16, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Quiet please
I listen to podcasts throughout the day. Some of the ones I enjoy are Lew Rockwell, Radio Free Liberty and Cato for political commentary. But mostly what I like is good bible teaching. Some of the ones I listen to are: Walk in the word(James McDonald), Grace to you(John MacArthur), Word for today (Chuck Smith), Truth for Life (Alistair Begg), and 66/40 (Chuck Misler). I'm fortunate in that my work allows me to write code while my mind is listening to God's word. And there is so much available!
This week's memory verse is 1 Thes 4:3 "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication" KJV I like to read the whole passage to make sure I understand the context and don't miss too much. Anyway, this week I was struck by 1 Thes 4:11 which says "and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you," in the NASB (emphasis mine). Anyway it challenges me to look at how I live my life. In the KJV is says, "Study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands". I find it interesting that one needs to study in order to be quiet.
Militarizing Police Depts. With Your Bailout Money
George Orwell, call your office !
by texpat · 02/11/2009 1:57 pm
If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then city mayors follow a very close second. In fact, it occurs to me they may be the spiritual offspring of the aforementioned liaisons. Whenever there is loose change or unclaimed dollar bills laying around, mayors can smell them a mile away and if a Sugar Daddy offers free cash, they never stop to question what the vigorish might be. The urban emperors, suburban commissars, the hack and the highbrow, the Republican and Democrat, the apolitical and amoral, the exurban apparatchiks all assemble to line dance down Pennsylvania Avenue like ladies of the evening on the way to a golden score with Big Daddy.
The United States Conference of Mayors has assembled the most ridiculous and repulsive example of government excess I think I have ever seen. Here is a PDF file of the document which stretches to 344 pages. One of the most alarming features of this civic gluttony is the gift list request for funds to buy military SWAT assault equipment for police forces like the examples offered here by Texas blogger and Reason.com contributor, Trey Garrison:
Frisco wants $125,000 for an armored vehicle and $200,000 for a mobile command vehicle. You know, for all that gang tank warfare going on up in Frisco.
McKinney wants $5 million for SWAT toys and stuff.
North Richland Hills wants $51,000 for volunteer patrol volunteers. Let’s throw in $10 for a dictionary so they can look up the word “volunteer.”
Irving wants $5 million for biometric scanners, digital cameras, RFID scanners — nothing Big Brother there.
Grand Prairie wants $1.25 million for nicer landscaping around the public safety building.
And finally, Arlington is really gearing up for urban warfare. Arlington wants $1.6 million for SWAT toys including more equipment for those deadly but camera-friendly no-knock raids, $56,000 for military grade carbines, $625,000 for unmanned aerial surveillance drones, and $130,000 for “covert ops.”
Here is the “Public Safety” wish list from the US Conference of Mayors.
Radley Balko, of The Agitator and contributing editor of Reason, offers these galling examples of cops gone Rambo:
• Sparks, Nevada wants $600,000 to purchase a “live fire” house its SWAT team can shoot up, and another $420,000 for a SWAT armored vehicle.
• Pleasanton, California wants $250,000 to buy a vehicle for its SWAT team.
• Gary, Indiana wants $750,000 for a host of “modernization” upgrades to its police department, including “sub-automatic machine guns” and an “armored vehicl” [sic].
• Hampton, Virginia wants a whopping $3.5 million for “Air Tactical Unit Support and Equipment,” which I’m pretty sure means they want a sweet helicopter for the SWAT team.
• Ottawa, Illinois (population: 18,307) wants $60,000 to purchase, among other things, five “tactical entry rifles.”
• Glendale Heights, Illinois wants $96,000 to purchase red light cameras, and another $67,000 to hire someone to monitor them.
• Toward a more Orwellian America! The following cities requested stimulus funds to supplement, initiate, or upgrade public surveillance camera systems: Brockton, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Burnsville, Minnesota; Caguas, Puerto Rico; Cerritos, California; Columbia, South Carolina; Compton, California; Homestead, Florida; Hormigueros, Puerto Rico; Indianapolis, Indiana; Inglewood, California; Lewiston, Maine; Lorain, Ohio; Lynn, Massachusetts; Marion, Ohio; Merced, California; New Rochelle, New York; North Richland Hills, Texas; Oakland, California; Orange, New Jersey; Orem, Utah; Orlando, Florida; Pembroke Pines, Florida; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Riverdale, Illinois; Shreveport, Louisiana; Silver City, New Mexico; Sumter, South Carolina; Tallahassee, Florida; Warren, Ohio; and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina requested just under $85 million in security-related stimulation. But top prize goes to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is asking the rest of the country to stimulte its economy with a whopping $135 million in public safety-related requests.
All in all, America’s mayors asking for a little over $5.5 billion in public safety “stimulus.”
The city of La Porte, Texas has applied for $700,000 to build a “Lifestyle Center” while the city of Houston wants a whopping $175,000,000 to build the “Metro Houston Intermodal Terminal” in downtown Houston. I could go on, but I am nauseated by reading these documents. Readers will have to carry on in my absence while I try to recover.
by texpat · 02/11/2009 1:57 pm
If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then city mayors follow a very close second. In fact, it occurs to me they may be the spiritual offspring of the aforementioned liaisons. Whenever there is loose change or unclaimed dollar bills laying around, mayors can smell them a mile away and if a Sugar Daddy offers free cash, they never stop to question what the vigorish might be. The urban emperors, suburban commissars, the hack and the highbrow, the Republican and Democrat, the apolitical and amoral, the exurban apparatchiks all assemble to line dance down Pennsylvania Avenue like ladies of the evening on the way to a golden score with Big Daddy.
The United States Conference of Mayors has assembled the most ridiculous and repulsive example of government excess I think I have ever seen. Here is a PDF file of the document which stretches to 344 pages. One of the most alarming features of this civic gluttony is the gift list request for funds to buy military SWAT assault equipment for police forces like the examples offered here by Texas blogger and Reason.com contributor, Trey Garrison:
Frisco wants $125,000 for an armored vehicle and $200,000 for a mobile command vehicle. You know, for all that gang tank warfare going on up in Frisco.
McKinney wants $5 million for SWAT toys and stuff.
North Richland Hills wants $51,000 for volunteer patrol volunteers. Let’s throw in $10 for a dictionary so they can look up the word “volunteer.”
Irving wants $5 million for biometric scanners, digital cameras, RFID scanners — nothing Big Brother there.
Grand Prairie wants $1.25 million for nicer landscaping around the public safety building.
And finally, Arlington is really gearing up for urban warfare. Arlington wants $1.6 million for SWAT toys including more equipment for those deadly but camera-friendly no-knock raids, $56,000 for military grade carbines, $625,000 for unmanned aerial surveillance drones, and $130,000 for “covert ops.”
Here is the “Public Safety” wish list from the US Conference of Mayors.
Radley Balko, of The Agitator and contributing editor of Reason, offers these galling examples of cops gone Rambo:
• Sparks, Nevada wants $600,000 to purchase a “live fire” house its SWAT team can shoot up, and another $420,000 for a SWAT armored vehicle.
• Pleasanton, California wants $250,000 to buy a vehicle for its SWAT team.
• Gary, Indiana wants $750,000 for a host of “modernization” upgrades to its police department, including “sub-automatic machine guns” and an “armored vehicl” [sic].
• Hampton, Virginia wants a whopping $3.5 million for “Air Tactical Unit Support and Equipment,” which I’m pretty sure means they want a sweet helicopter for the SWAT team.
• Ottawa, Illinois (population: 18,307) wants $60,000 to purchase, among other things, five “tactical entry rifles.”
• Glendale Heights, Illinois wants $96,000 to purchase red light cameras, and another $67,000 to hire someone to monitor them.
• Toward a more Orwellian America! The following cities requested stimulus funds to supplement, initiate, or upgrade public surveillance camera systems: Brockton, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Burnsville, Minnesota; Caguas, Puerto Rico; Cerritos, California; Columbia, South Carolina; Compton, California; Homestead, Florida; Hormigueros, Puerto Rico; Indianapolis, Indiana; Inglewood, California; Lewiston, Maine; Lorain, Ohio; Lynn, Massachusetts; Marion, Ohio; Merced, California; New Rochelle, New York; North Richland Hills, Texas; Oakland, California; Orange, New Jersey; Orem, Utah; Orlando, Florida; Pembroke Pines, Florida; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Riverdale, Illinois; Shreveport, Louisiana; Silver City, New Mexico; Sumter, South Carolina; Tallahassee, Florida; Warren, Ohio; and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina requested just under $85 million in security-related stimulation. But top prize goes to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is asking the rest of the country to stimulte its economy with a whopping $135 million in public safety-related requests.
All in all, America’s mayors asking for a little over $5.5 billion in public safety “stimulus.”
The city of La Porte, Texas has applied for $700,000 to build a “Lifestyle Center” while the city of Houston wants a whopping $175,000,000 to build the “Metro Houston Intermodal Terminal” in downtown Houston. I could go on, but I am nauseated by reading these documents. Readers will have to carry on in my absence while I try to recover.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Winning the war in Afghanistan
This video is of a reporter who arranged for and visited the NW region of Pakistan.
It's worth the watching. Click here to see the video
It's worth the watching. Click here to see the video
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon: How Taxpayers Finance Fantasy Wars
Source: TomDispatch.com - Chalmers Johnson
Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the U.S. automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline. Unless it receives emergency financing and undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the graveyard in which many American industries are already buried, including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics, many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools, textiles, and much earth-moving equipment -- and that's to name only the most obvious candidates. They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service, and fuel economy, among other things.
Read the entire piece
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Watching Our Rulers Destroy Our World
by Robert Higgs
Our rulers are destroying the economy. Not little by little, as they usually do, but in huge swaths. Each great assault on the free market, whether it be denominated a bailout, a stimulus, or some other species of purported salvation, brings us visibly closer to the complete ruin of an economic order that required centuries to build. Awestruck, as if we were observing a tsunami sweep across an island, we can only watch the rulers' devastating actions, for which, strange to say, they expect the public to be grateful―and, truth be told, most people are grateful, and clamor for more of the same. We listen to the kingpins' lunatic ravings as they describe their perceptions of the current situation and solemnly declare their determination to "do something" to restore the prosperity that they themselves have demolished by previously "doing something" of the very same kind.
Read the entire piece
Our rulers are destroying the economy. Not little by little, as they usually do, but in huge swaths. Each great assault on the free market, whether it be denominated a bailout, a stimulus, or some other species of purported salvation, brings us visibly closer to the complete ruin of an economic order that required centuries to build. Awestruck, as if we were observing a tsunami sweep across an island, we can only watch the rulers' devastating actions, for which, strange to say, they expect the public to be grateful―and, truth be told, most people are grateful, and clamor for more of the same. We listen to the kingpins' lunatic ravings as they describe their perceptions of the current situation and solemnly declare their determination to "do something" to restore the prosperity that they themselves have demolished by previously "doing something" of the very same kind.
Read the entire piece