Hopefully, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP are not going to follow their SOP of coming out strong and ending flat on the Keystone XL Pipeline announcement. This is the one bulletproof issue they need to get back on track. I hope they will not end up staring at their shoes again, while the President turns Wednesday’s announcement into an election season win.
Jay Carney said that the Whitehouse says they hasn’t had enough time to adequately review the issue.
Really? How long did it take the administration to review Solyndra?
For those who live in the West and believe in multiple use of public lands, we’ve seen this movie before. The Department of The Interior yanked 77 leases because of “inadequate review.” And a federal judge found that Ken Salazar did not have the power to do that.
Under the guise of “preventing lawsuits” and “streamlining” the DOI began created new guidelines for the energy industry and things such as “Master Leasing Program” which in my part of the country mirrors proposed new wilderness, thus any drilling there will either be denied or undergo such an extensive review that it simply will not be worth a company‘s time to apply. The “streamlining” has resulted in energy companies pulling out for the greener pastures of North Dakota. And if the environmentalists have their way with the fracking fracas, North Dakota could find itself in trouble, too.
Stalling for time as a means to achieve an end is nothing new to this administration. In the case of the intermountain west, forcing the energy industry into a holding pattern was a way to appease a vocal and angry environmental lobby.
This time around the President cannot truthfully aspire to as lofty a goal as saving the planet. No, the President opted to deny the pipeline and invite Keystone to apply later to buy time to figure out with whose wrath he can most afford to risk: environmentalists who in their usual spirit of compromise want what they want when they want it, facts and jobs and lives be dammed; or the unions who clearly want a piece of the action. We will have to see who has the fatter checkbook. And in the meantime, the pipeline, its jobs and its energy will go to China, who is no friend to the U.S. and has an abysmal human rights record.
As someone who watched solvent people sink into poverty, the foreclosure of homes and self sufficient families become patrons of the local food bank, and who listened to stories of men so despondent over not being able to support their families that they attempted suicide, as a direct result of this administration’s policies, I’ve seen this administration kill jobs.
If you people on the Hill were looking for the issue, the thing you need to get up off the mat, this is it. You need to repeat it over and over again until everyone in America understands what is going on. Every time you open a mic, write an email, talk to your constituents or draft a press release, bring it up. Don’t give him a pass on this one. Don’t put your tail between your legs again and wait to get routed.
Twenty thousand jobs and another step toward energy independence on the chopping block.
Postscript: Your friends at the Environmental Protection Agency apparently don’t think you are paying enough at the pump. But hey, don’t take my word for it.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Expecting the Worst from President Hypocrite
Obama told us that he had a plan to end US dependence of overseas sources of energy.
By John Ransom
1/19/2012
“If I am President,” he told us in 2008, “I will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — in ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela.”
Last March, two years into this ten year plan, Obama gave a major policy speech on energy that the White House pitched for weeks. It was necessary to give the speech because, well gosh, wouldn’t you know it? Obama’s only energy policy so far was to enrich his favorite Democrat donors.
The major thrust of the speech was that greedy oil companies weren’t producing enough oil and Obama was sick and tired of the do-nothing oil companies standing in the way of progress.
“Right now, the industry holds tens of millions of acres of leases where they're not producing a – a single drop,” the president said according to the CSMonitor.com. “They're just sitting on supplies of American energy that are ready to be tapped. And that's why part of our plan is to provide new and better incentives that promote rapid, responsible development of these resources.”
Obama told us that he has a plan for jobs too.
He promised that if we just spent $1 trillion on a jobs plan guided by the White House that he would create 3.5 million jobs. He was off by 9 million. Instead of adding jobs, the country has lost 1.1 million jobs and 4.4 million people have permanently left the workforce.
Last summer, two years into this four-year job plan, Obama gave a major speech on jobs that the White House pitched for weeks- because it was a fundraiser. It was necessary to give the speech because, well gosh, wouldn’t you know it? Obama’s only jobs policy in the first two years was to enrich his favorite Democrat donors. The one area Obama crowed about was so-called green energy jobs. But those jobs cost $5 million apiece and, as the Washington Post pointed out, were mostly about financial payback for the president’s political supporters.
The thrust of the speech, the president gave last summer was that the economy wasn’t growing because a do-nothing Congress was stopping the president.
From National Review:
‘This Congress, they are accustomed to doing nothing, and they’re comfortable with doing nothing, and they keep on doing nothing,” President Obama whined at a September 15 Democratic National Committee gathering in a private Washington residence.
I only point out all of the above because right now the president is standing before the entire nation with his pants bunched up around his ankles.
And he’s grinning, hoping you won’t notice.
Because today is the day that Obama increased the amount of energy we need to import from places like the Middle East and Venezuela; today is the day that he crushed hundreds of thousands of US jobs. He did it because he can't be bothered to do ANYTHING, except campaign.
Today is the day he morphed from President Do-Nothing to President Hypocrite.
He did it by killing the XL Keystone pipeline which would bring a million barrels per day of North American oil to US refineries, create at a minimum 200,000 jobs and open up the US heartland for domestic development of oil- and the millions in jobs and domestic GDP it would create.
So much for jobs, so much for energy, so much for the economy.
So much for a president with a focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.
And it shows why his presidency will be considered a grand failure.
Obama has just told us that environmentalists mean more to him than your job, your kids, our economy, our safety.
“It is in both our economic and national security interests to use the oil and gas reserves right here in our own backyard instead of continuing to spend billions to OPEC nations every year,” said Rep John Sullivan, Vice Chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee. “Iran, a country that is wreaking havoc with the global oil markets must be smiling today. Congratulations Mr. President, you just gave a victory to Iran.”
But that doesn’t mean we won’t still fight Iran.
Because his decision on XL also exposes Obama as the hypocrite he’s become.
Far from being a success, Obama’s present war in Libya, a war fought by his own admission for oil, is one of the most damning indicators that the president is a confused, rudderless, purposeless man, condemned to a drunken-walk life in a purgatory of liberal thinking.
No blood for oil?
Obama chooses only blood, but no oil. Not even oil for his country.
Hurrah for progressives!
They have this neat trick of working for equality by promising slavery to all.
This country really is at an XL crossroads. If we pick the wrong road we could be lost forever.
Because Obama’s policies amount to little else than energy, job and income rationing; policies pushed by UN globalists, extreme eco-groups and the billionaires’ lobby.
It’s the leadership of planned failure in the quest for diminished expectations.
And it’s working too.
When it comes to my expectations for Obama, I’m learning to expect the very worst.
By John Ransom
1/19/2012
By John Ransom
1/19/2012
“If I am President,” he told us in 2008, “I will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — in ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela.”
Last March, two years into this ten year plan, Obama gave a major policy speech on energy that the White House pitched for weeks. It was necessary to give the speech because, well gosh, wouldn’t you know it? Obama’s only energy policy so far was to enrich his favorite Democrat donors.
The major thrust of the speech was that greedy oil companies weren’t producing enough oil and Obama was sick and tired of the do-nothing oil companies standing in the way of progress.
“Right now, the industry holds tens of millions of acres of leases where they're not producing a – a single drop,” the president said according to the CSMonitor.com. “They're just sitting on supplies of American energy that are ready to be tapped. And that's why part of our plan is to provide new and better incentives that promote rapid, responsible development of these resources.”
Obama told us that he has a plan for jobs too.
He promised that if we just spent $1 trillion on a jobs plan guided by the White House that he would create 3.5 million jobs. He was off by 9 million. Instead of adding jobs, the country has lost 1.1 million jobs and 4.4 million people have permanently left the workforce.
Last summer, two years into this four-year job plan, Obama gave a major speech on jobs that the White House pitched for weeks- because it was a fundraiser. It was necessary to give the speech because, well gosh, wouldn’t you know it? Obama’s only jobs policy in the first two years was to enrich his favorite Democrat donors. The one area Obama crowed about was so-called green energy jobs. But those jobs cost $5 million apiece and, as the Washington Post pointed out, were mostly about financial payback for the president’s political supporters.
The thrust of the speech, the president gave last summer was that the economy wasn’t growing because a do-nothing Congress was stopping the president.
From National Review:
‘This Congress, they are accustomed to doing nothing, and they’re comfortable with doing nothing, and they keep on doing nothing,” President Obama whined at a September 15 Democratic National Committee gathering in a private Washington residence.
I only point out all of the above because right now the president is standing before the entire nation with his pants bunched up around his ankles.
And he’s grinning, hoping you won’t notice.
Because today is the day that Obama increased the amount of energy we need to import from places like the Middle East and Venezuela; today is the day that he crushed hundreds of thousands of US jobs. He did it because he can't be bothered to do ANYTHING, except campaign.
Today is the day he morphed from President Do-Nothing to President Hypocrite.
He did it by killing the XL Keystone pipeline which would bring a million barrels per day of North American oil to US refineries, create at a minimum 200,000 jobs and open up the US heartland for domestic development of oil- and the millions in jobs and domestic GDP it would create.
So much for jobs, so much for energy, so much for the economy.
So much for a president with a focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.
And it shows why his presidency will be considered a grand failure.
Obama has just told us that environmentalists mean more to him than your job, your kids, our economy, our safety.
“It is in both our economic and national security interests to use the oil and gas reserves right here in our own backyard instead of continuing to spend billions to OPEC nations every year,” said Rep John Sullivan, Vice Chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee. “Iran, a country that is wreaking havoc with the global oil markets must be smiling today. Congratulations Mr. President, you just gave a victory to Iran.”
But that doesn’t mean we won’t still fight Iran.
Because his decision on XL also exposes Obama as the hypocrite he’s become.
Far from being a success, Obama’s present war in Libya, a war fought by his own admission for oil, is one of the most damning indicators that the president is a confused, rudderless, purposeless man, condemned to a drunken-walk life in a purgatory of liberal thinking.
No blood for oil?
Obama chooses only blood, but no oil. Not even oil for his country.
Hurrah for progressives!
They have this neat trick of working for equality by promising slavery to all.
This country really is at an XL crossroads. If we pick the wrong road we could be lost forever.
Because Obama’s policies amount to little else than energy, job and income rationing; policies pushed by UN globalists, extreme eco-groups and the billionaires’ lobby.
It’s the leadership of planned failure in the quest for diminished expectations.
And it’s working too.
When it comes to my expectations for Obama, I’m learning to expect the very worst.
By John Ransom
1/19/2012
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Path: From Democrats to Socialists
By Timothy Carl
For a number of years I found it difficult to understand how the Democratic Party of 1828 led by Andrew Jackson could become a socialist party led by Barack Hussein Obama. After all, the parties of the early 1800’s were ultra-conservative and supportive of the US Constitution when compared to the two major parties of today. Right?
Aside from the fact that Andrew Jackson was a truly evil and vindictive figure, who mercilessly assaulted the American Indian populations of the United States, he surely could not have been a socialist! While it is true that in 1827 the British subject Robert Owen fathered the cooperative movement, while subsequently others followed a similar course, did Jackson and Martin van Buren (the political architect of the modern party system) actually follow their theories? No, this would be false.
However, the question remains, how did the Democratic Party devolve into a socialist bastion of public ownership, government control, a planned economy, and a lack of faith in individualism, among other socialistic tenants? The answer came to me not through my own devices, but simply by reading “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848” by Professor Daniel Walker Howe.
In his amazing book, Professor Howe states, “The Democratic and Whig Parties took very different stands on the subject of class. Echoing Jackson’s Bank Veto, Democrats called upon the working classes--a term they generally used in the plural and defined to include farmers and planters--to oppose the machinations and oppressions of no producers. Whigs insisted that there was no such thing as class conflict, that the different economic classes, like the sections of the Union, were interdependent, and in any case, class membership was fluid. Rhetoric of class conflict they deplored as demagogic. To some extent, urban workingmen chose their political party according to which analysis of class relations they found persuasive. Where industrialization had de-skilled and proletarianized workers, and where workers felt alienated from their employers because of ethnic differences, labor voted Democratic. Where workers felt that the system worked and that they enjoyed an opportunity to better themselves, they voted Whig.”
Howe goes on by stating that, “The success of the Democratic Party among white wage-earners owed more than a little, unfortunately, to the emphasis it placed on white supremacy. Democratic politicians found an effective way to synthesize their party’s appeal to two disparate groups, the northern working class and the southern planter class. They declared that solicitude for southern slaves distracted attention from the plight of northern “wage-slaves,” who, they insisted, were actually worse off.”
For Jackson and van Buren the party system they created and the course they navigated for the Democratic Party was a matter of power. President Jackson often spoke of the US Constitution, while upholding it only as long as it coincided with his policies. Perhaps there is no greater demonstration of this “convenient” support of the constitution than with the Supreme Courts decision in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832).
In Worcester v. Georgia the Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee nation, stating that the nation was a "distinct community" and one "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force”. This decided federal supremacy over states concerning Indian affairs. It was also one example of a growing number of Court decisions supporting Indian rights.
Many historians attribute the quote, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" to President Jackson concerning the decision. Although many also dispute this quotation, Jackson’s response was to follow-up by initiating a policy Cherokee removal (also called the Trail of Tears). For those who are not familiar with this policy, it was the forced relocation of the Cherokee nation between 1836 to 1839. It was during this forced relocation that approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on their way under brutal circumstances and horrible humiliation from their ancestral homes to present day Oklahoma.
Andrew Jackson may or may not have said "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" However, it is clear when looking into Andrew Jackson’s presidency that he knew that the Supreme Court had no way of enforcing their decisions and that in spite of a short lived exception, the congress was controlled by the Democratic Party, and would turn a blind eye towards any instance when the president behaved in a manor which would be inconsistent with his oath of office. For example, on March 28, 1834 President Jackson was censured by the United States Senate for his questionable actions in removing US funds from the Bank of the United States. When the Democrats were re-instated as the majority party in the Senate, the censure was not just removed, the Democrats ordered it to be expunged, hoping that history would not realize it had ever happened. This reminds me a great deal of what happened in the Soviet Union and other socialist nations in the years to come in dealing with what would be deemed inconvenient history.
It was also the Jackson and van Buren duo who as founding fathers of the Democratic Party created the spoil system which enlarged the Democratic voter base while increasing the dependency of large numbers of citizens on government positions for their livelihoods. These same voters / government workers clearly knew what was expected of them if they were to continue to be paid: support the Democratic Party, its policies and its candidates..
It was also Jackson who instituted a “kitchen cabinet” to often bypass the cabinet which under the constitution had specific powers and had to be approved by the US Senate. Aside from the differences in the times and positions, is this much different than Obama’s czars?
If one would investigate the creation of the Democratic Party in much more depth than is the intent of this article, it becomes crystal clear how the Democratic Party of the early 1800’s could de-evolve into the socialist party of today. It was born of a theory that the best way to power is to make as many people dependent upon government jobs as possible, while simultaneously dividing the nation on class and racial grounds, making sure that such a coalition gives them at least a plurality and hopefully a majority. It is a party that at its inception demonstrated a distain for the constitution when it conflicted with party policies and supported individual rights only if it didn’t conflict with its maintenance of control. In fact, many of the political gimmicks which we look at with distain today can be attributed to the Jackson and van Buren duet of the early Democratic Party and the political system they created.
Looking back at history, it is not so hard to understand how the party of Jackson became the party of Obama and Lenin.
For a number of years I found it difficult to understand how the Democratic Party of 1828 led by Andrew Jackson could become a socialist party led by Barack Hussein Obama. After all, the parties of the early 1800’s were ultra-conservative and supportive of the US Constitution when compared to the two major parties of today. Right?
Aside from the fact that Andrew Jackson was a truly evil and vindictive figure, who mercilessly assaulted the American Indian populations of the United States, he surely could not have been a socialist! While it is true that in 1827 the British subject Robert Owen fathered the cooperative movement, while subsequently others followed a similar course, did Jackson and Martin van Buren (the political architect of the modern party system) actually follow their theories? No, this would be false.
However, the question remains, how did the Democratic Party devolve into a socialist bastion of public ownership, government control, a planned economy, and a lack of faith in individualism, among other socialistic tenants? The answer came to me not through my own devices, but simply by reading “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848” by Professor Daniel Walker Howe.
In his amazing book, Professor Howe states, “The Democratic and Whig Parties took very different stands on the subject of class. Echoing Jackson’s Bank Veto, Democrats called upon the working classes--a term they generally used in the plural and defined to include farmers and planters--to oppose the machinations and oppressions of no producers. Whigs insisted that there was no such thing as class conflict, that the different economic classes, like the sections of the Union, were interdependent, and in any case, class membership was fluid. Rhetoric of class conflict they deplored as demagogic. To some extent, urban workingmen chose their political party according to which analysis of class relations they found persuasive. Where industrialization had de-skilled and proletarianized workers, and where workers felt alienated from their employers because of ethnic differences, labor voted Democratic. Where workers felt that the system worked and that they enjoyed an opportunity to better themselves, they voted Whig.”
Howe goes on by stating that, “The success of the Democratic Party among white wage-earners owed more than a little, unfortunately, to the emphasis it placed on white supremacy. Democratic politicians found an effective way to synthesize their party’s appeal to two disparate groups, the northern working class and the southern planter class. They declared that solicitude for southern slaves distracted attention from the plight of northern “wage-slaves,” who, they insisted, were actually worse off.”
For Jackson and van Buren the party system they created and the course they navigated for the Democratic Party was a matter of power. President Jackson often spoke of the US Constitution, while upholding it only as long as it coincided with his policies. Perhaps there is no greater demonstration of this “convenient” support of the constitution than with the Supreme Courts decision in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832).
In Worcester v. Georgia the Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee nation, stating that the nation was a "distinct community" and one "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force”. This decided federal supremacy over states concerning Indian affairs. It was also one example of a growing number of Court decisions supporting Indian rights.
Many historians attribute the quote, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" to President Jackson concerning the decision. Although many also dispute this quotation, Jackson’s response was to follow-up by initiating a policy Cherokee removal (also called the Trail of Tears). For those who are not familiar with this policy, it was the forced relocation of the Cherokee nation between 1836 to 1839. It was during this forced relocation that approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on their way under brutal circumstances and horrible humiliation from their ancestral homes to present day Oklahoma.
Andrew Jackson may or may not have said "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" However, it is clear when looking into Andrew Jackson’s presidency that he knew that the Supreme Court had no way of enforcing their decisions and that in spite of a short lived exception, the congress was controlled by the Democratic Party, and would turn a blind eye towards any instance when the president behaved in a manor which would be inconsistent with his oath of office. For example, on March 28, 1834 President Jackson was censured by the United States Senate for his questionable actions in removing US funds from the Bank of the United States. When the Democrats were re-instated as the majority party in the Senate, the censure was not just removed, the Democrats ordered it to be expunged, hoping that history would not realize it had ever happened. This reminds me a great deal of what happened in the Soviet Union and other socialist nations in the years to come in dealing with what would be deemed inconvenient history.
It was also the Jackson and van Buren duo who as founding fathers of the Democratic Party created the spoil system which enlarged the Democratic voter base while increasing the dependency of large numbers of citizens on government positions for their livelihoods. These same voters / government workers clearly knew what was expected of them if they were to continue to be paid: support the Democratic Party, its policies and its candidates..
It was also Jackson who instituted a “kitchen cabinet” to often bypass the cabinet which under the constitution had specific powers and had to be approved by the US Senate. Aside from the differences in the times and positions, is this much different than Obama’s czars?
If one would investigate the creation of the Democratic Party in much more depth than is the intent of this article, it becomes crystal clear how the Democratic Party of the early 1800’s could de-evolve into the socialist party of today. It was born of a theory that the best way to power is to make as many people dependent upon government jobs as possible, while simultaneously dividing the nation on class and racial grounds, making sure that such a coalition gives them at least a plurality and hopefully a majority. It is a party that at its inception demonstrated a distain for the constitution when it conflicted with party policies and supported individual rights only if it didn’t conflict with its maintenance of control. In fact, many of the political gimmicks which we look at with distain today can be attributed to the Jackson and van Buren duet of the early Democratic Party and the political system they created.
Looking back at history, it is not so hard to understand how the party of Jackson became the party of Obama and Lenin.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Rage Against the TSA Machine
By Jonah Goldberg 6/29/2011
The backdrop for my favorite science-fiction novels, Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, is something called the Butlerian Jihad. Some 10,000 years before the main events of the story take place, humanity rebelled against "thinking machines" -- intelligent computers -- controlling people's lives. The revolution was sparked because a computer decided to kill, without the consent of any human authority, the baby of a woman named Jehanne Butler.
I bring this up because I'm wondering why we can't have a Weberian Jihad.
Its namesake would be Jean Weber, a woman whose 105-pound, 95-year-old Florida mother was forced by airport security to remove her adult diaper in compliance with a body search. Weber's mother is dying of leukemia. She did not have another clean diaper for her trip.
The Transportation Security Administration belatedly denied forcing the removal of the diaper. Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the TSA, insisted that the agency was sensitive and respectful in dealing with travelers, but she also told the Northwest Florida Daily News that procedures have to be the same for everyone: "TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability."
That's apparently why Drew Mandy, a 29-year-old disabled man with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, had his 6-inch plastic toy hammer yanked from him by TSA on his way to Disney World. Mandy used the hammer as a security blanket of sorts. But the TSA agents insisted it could be used as a weapon. "It just killed me to have to throw it away because he's been carrying this, like, for 20 years," Mandy's father told WJBK in Detroit. What his dad doesn't understand is that if Islamic terrorists can't have plastic toy hammers, no one can.
Mandy's father says he wrote to the TSA and got an apology and a promise that agents would be retrained, but horror stories like these keep mounting. I'd tell you how thorough the TSA search was of blogger and advice columnist Amy Alkon (who collects such tales), but this is a family newspaper. Suffice it to say, your government left nothing to chance.
And that's what brought to mind "Dune's" Butlerian Jihad. The holy war against machines was also a war against a mind-set. "The target of the jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," a character explains. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments." In the aftermath, a new commandment was promulgated: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
It seems the first commandment of the TSA is that every mind must be trained in the likeness of a machine. "Garbage in, garbage out," is how computer programmers explain the way bad outputs are determined by bad inputs. Likewise, if TSA workers are programmed not to use common sense or discretion -- surprise! -- TSA workers won't use common sense or discretion.
Why not? One reason is we've institutionalized an irrational phobia against anything smacking of racial or religious profiling. Once you've decided that disproportionate scrutiny of certain groups is verboten, you'll have to hassle everyone equally. Thus we're told that a 95-year-old woman's diaper is just as likely to be the front line in the war on terror as a 22-year-old Pakistani's backpack.
Defenders of the TSA insist we can't abandon such mindlessness because if we do, clever terrorists will start using adult diapers as IEDs. Others say we know that profiling isn't effective because the Israelis don't use it.
Both lines of argument assume security personnel cannot be trusted to be much more than automatons, mindlessly acting on bureaucratic programming. If that's true of the current personnel, it's not because it has to be.
In fact, the reason the Israelis don't do simple profiling is that they use intelligent profiling conducted by highly intelligent screeners. At Ben Gurion International Airport, everyone's interviewed by security. Some are questioned at length, others quickly. The controlling variable is the "living judgment" -- to borrow a phrase from "Dune's" Herbert -- of the interviewers, and not wildly expensive full-body scanners and inflexible checklists.
Does anyone think that the personnel searching Jean Weber's mother honestly thought there might be a threat? Or is it more likely they were, machine-like, just doing what their garbage-in programming dictated?
The backdrop for my favorite science-fiction novels, Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, is something called the Butlerian Jihad. Some 10,000 years before the main events of the story take place, humanity rebelled against "thinking machines" -- intelligent computers -- controlling people's lives. The revolution was sparked because a computer decided to kill, without the consent of any human authority, the baby of a woman named Jehanne Butler.
I bring this up because I'm wondering why we can't have a Weberian Jihad.
Its namesake would be Jean Weber, a woman whose 105-pound, 95-year-old Florida mother was forced by airport security to remove her adult diaper in compliance with a body search. Weber's mother is dying of leukemia. She did not have another clean diaper for her trip.
The Transportation Security Administration belatedly denied forcing the removal of the diaper. Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the TSA, insisted that the agency was sensitive and respectful in dealing with travelers, but she also told the Northwest Florida Daily News that procedures have to be the same for everyone: "TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability."
That's apparently why Drew Mandy, a 29-year-old disabled man with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, had his 6-inch plastic toy hammer yanked from him by TSA on his way to Disney World. Mandy used the hammer as a security blanket of sorts. But the TSA agents insisted it could be used as a weapon. "It just killed me to have to throw it away because he's been carrying this, like, for 20 years," Mandy's father told WJBK in Detroit. What his dad doesn't understand is that if Islamic terrorists can't have plastic toy hammers, no one can.
Mandy's father says he wrote to the TSA and got an apology and a promise that agents would be retrained, but horror stories like these keep mounting. I'd tell you how thorough the TSA search was of blogger and advice columnist Amy Alkon (who collects such tales), but this is a family newspaper. Suffice it to say, your government left nothing to chance.
And that's what brought to mind "Dune's" Butlerian Jihad. The holy war against machines was also a war against a mind-set. "The target of the jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," a character explains. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments." In the aftermath, a new commandment was promulgated: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
It seems the first commandment of the TSA is that every mind must be trained in the likeness of a machine. "Garbage in, garbage out," is how computer programmers explain the way bad outputs are determined by bad inputs. Likewise, if TSA workers are programmed not to use common sense or discretion -- surprise! -- TSA workers won't use common sense or discretion.
Why not? One reason is we've institutionalized an irrational phobia against anything smacking of racial or religious profiling. Once you've decided that disproportionate scrutiny of certain groups is verboten, you'll have to hassle everyone equally. Thus we're told that a 95-year-old woman's diaper is just as likely to be the front line in the war on terror as a 22-year-old Pakistani's backpack.
Defenders of the TSA insist we can't abandon such mindlessness because if we do, clever terrorists will start using adult diapers as IEDs. Others say we know that profiling isn't effective because the Israelis don't use it.
Both lines of argument assume security personnel cannot be trusted to be much more than automatons, mindlessly acting on bureaucratic programming. If that's true of the current personnel, it's not because it has to be.
In fact, the reason the Israelis don't do simple profiling is that they use intelligent profiling conducted by highly intelligent screeners. At Ben Gurion International Airport, everyone's interviewed by security. Some are questioned at length, others quickly. The controlling variable is the "living judgment" -- to borrow a phrase from "Dune's" Herbert -- of the interviewers, and not wildly expensive full-body scanners and inflexible checklists.
Does anyone think that the personnel searching Jean Weber's mother honestly thought there might be a threat? Or is it more likely they were, machine-like, just doing what their garbage-in programming dictated?
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Looking back
For those of you who are sick of hearing Obama and the Dems propagate the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", Educate yourselves:
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was "Financially risky for the US economy"):
http://www.sportstalkworld.com/showthread.php?16828-Dems-Cause-CRASH%21
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???
The HYPOCRITE in Chief Obama
So when the kool-aid crowd blames Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was "Financially risky for the US economy"):
http://www.sportstalkworld.com/showthread.php?16828-Dems-Cause-CRASH%21
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???
The HYPOCRITE in Chief Obama
So when the kool-aid crowd blames Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!
Friday, May 20, 2011
History of Passive Reserve
Dena M. Campbell
Revoking the authorities and positions of elected officials and abolishing a destructive government is unprecedented in America's history. Since the founding, the people have accepted whatever the Government did with only protests. Why? Many don't know that only the people have the executive authority to abolish any form of government that is destructive to our rights, liberties and the principles of American heritage. The United States of America has always stood as a lighthouse on the hilltop of the world, shining its welcoming and protective beacon into the darkness of despair, giving hope to those drawn to its freedom and liberty.
But there are those who've been dimming that bright light for decades, who've crawled out of their gutters, cloaked in evil radicalism, to impose their own evil wills into the fabric of this nation. I have a fitting poem for every one of them;
And the dead of mind and soul shall reap their sorrow in the dark abyss in their core. Heeding not to the lighted truth of justice, but in the mud of confusion, truth's abstract is adored. Their ideologies stew and is poured into their shell. Deception and lies wrapped in hell's veils. Their days of destruction are numbered as liberty rings its bell. Woe to the liberals, whose folly is expelled.
~Dena M. Campbell
Revoking the authorities and positions of elected officials and abolishing a destructive government is unprecedented in America's history. Since the founding, the people have accepted whatever the Government did with only protests. Why? Many don't know that only the people have the executive authority to abolish any form of government that is destructive to our rights, liberties and the principles of American heritage. The United States of America has always stood as a lighthouse on the hilltop of the world, shining its welcoming and protective beacon into the darkness of despair, giving hope to those drawn to its freedom and liberty.
But there are those who've been dimming that bright light for decades, who've crawled out of their gutters, cloaked in evil radicalism, to impose their own evil wills into the fabric of this nation. I have a fitting poem for every one of them;
And the dead of mind and soul shall reap their sorrow in the dark abyss in their core. Heeding not to the lighted truth of justice, but in the mud of confusion, truth's abstract is adored. Their ideologies stew and is poured into their shell. Deception and lies wrapped in hell's veils. Their days of destruction are numbered as liberty rings its bell. Woe to the liberals, whose folly is expelled.
~Dena M. Campbell
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Our prayer for our Country
Father God, In the name of Jesus, (I) ask for the forgiveness of my sins, Please forgive me Lord, Fore (I) am A sinner with out excuse.
Thank you Lord for this forgiveness.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) want to dedicate the place that we all know as our heart of hearts, the very place that makes me what and who I am, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my brain, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my mind to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my eyes and ears to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my whole body to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all my life to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my Speech and thought to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate house and home to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my spouse and children to Christ.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate ALL that (I) own, car’s, motorcycles, boats, land, livestock, buildings, and business, all of my entire net worth to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole neighborhood and development where my home is located, to Christ..
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the land, houses, people, all their possessions, and live stock of the whole neighborhood to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the town and city we live in, all the people, all their families, all their homes, all the Government, land, streets, buildings, businesses, churches, schools and utilities, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the entire county that our town is located, all the land from border to border, all the people, any farms, ranches, livestock and all the businesses, that is with in its boundaries to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole state that our county is in, from top to bottom side to side all the counties and all the towns, the whole of the state government and all the politicians in the state, all the police agents and fire departments and people to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our country The United States of America and all its proprieties, Islands, seas, lakes, rivers, oceans, from sea to sea and from border to border to Christ, In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the content of this country, every road, every business, every person, every house and home, the entire gross national product, of our God blessed country, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all that we are as a country and all that we do as a country, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our military, and all our military hardware, all our military families and friends, to Christ.
In the Name of Jesus (I) dedicate our government, from the top to the bottom, from the dogcatchers to the president, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the courts from the lowest to the Supreme Courts of the United States, all the judges, lawyers, officers of the court and the buildings they are in, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all of our founding documents, treaties, laws, all that make us the greatest country on earth, to Christ.
God has promised us this.
(If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) 2 Chronicles 7:14
I am starting with this simple prayer; our country needs God’s healing.
Steve Rago
Thank you Lord for this forgiveness.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) want to dedicate the place that we all know as our heart of hearts, the very place that makes me what and who I am, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my brain, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my mind to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my eyes and ears to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my whole body to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all my life to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my Speech and thought to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate house and home to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my spouse and children to Christ.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate ALL that (I) own, car’s, motorcycles, boats, land, livestock, buildings, and business, all of my entire net worth to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole neighborhood and development where my home is located, to Christ..
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the land, houses, people, all their possessions, and live stock of the whole neighborhood to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the town and city we live in, all the people, all their families, all their homes, all the Government, land, streets, buildings, businesses, churches, schools and utilities, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the entire county that our town is located, all the land from border to border, all the people, any farms, ranches, livestock and all the businesses, that is with in its boundaries to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole state that our county is in, from top to bottom side to side all the counties and all the towns, the whole of the state government and all the politicians in the state, all the police agents and fire departments and people to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our country The United States of America and all its proprieties, Islands, seas, lakes, rivers, oceans, from sea to sea and from border to border to Christ, In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the content of this country, every road, every business, every person, every house and home, the entire gross national product, of our God blessed country, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all that we are as a country and all that we do as a country, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our military, and all our military hardware, all our military families and friends, to Christ.
In the Name of Jesus (I) dedicate our government, from the top to the bottom, from the dogcatchers to the president, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the courts from the lowest to the Supreme Courts of the United States, all the judges, lawyers, officers of the court and the buildings they are in, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all of our founding documents, treaties, laws, all that make us the greatest country on earth, to Christ.
God has promised us this.
(If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) 2 Chronicles 7:14
I am starting with this simple prayer; our country needs God’s healing.
Steve Rago
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