Category: Uncategorized

Of course, it’s necessary to track and spy on Americans because the terrorists hate them for their freedoms:

The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations.

Officials say the Border Crossing Information system, disclosed last month by the Department of Homeland Security in a Federal Register notice, is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats. It also reflects the growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections.

As the irrelevant horse race continues apace, the bureaucrats methodically continue to expand their reach.

Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher would apparently rather see Sen. Barack Hussein Obama win the election than allow the puncturing of the mainstream Democratic-Republican narrative:

I’m not big on ritual denunciations: I’d rather argue with people than read them out of the conversation, as a general rule, and I hope my distaste for certain styles of political discourse is clear enough without my having to publicly denounce Ann Coulter every time she pulls an offensive, sales-goosing stunt on live TV. But along with Jon Henke and Pete Wehner, I think it’s worth making an exception in the case of Jerome Corsi’s anti-Obama book, whose Amazon page won’t be linked here. It isn’t just that Corsi himself is a conspiracy theorist and a crank, or that his best-selling farrago of innuendo and outright smears exemplifies everything that’s wrong with a certain sort of right-wing publishing, or that David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama demonstrates that it’s perfectly possible to write an anti-Obama book without descending into the fever swamps.

It’s amusing to see all the people who haven’t read Jerome Corsi’s book about the one-time Indonesian schoolboy attempt to minimize it as a “farrago of innuendo and outright smears” or some other ritual dismissal. This is a standard tactic of those who can’t manage to make their case; we’ve seen it time and time again by those attacking the imaginary “logical fallacies” and nonexistent “attacks on strawmen” that supposedly riddle TIA. Avoidance by belittling is S.O.P. for the mainstream media and those who wish to be mainstream media, so it’s disappointing to see it out of these two, who should know better. But Douthat’s uncharacteristic posturing isn’t merely an abdication of legitimate political discourse, it’s stupidly short-sighted. After all, it really doesn’t matter what Douthat thinks here, since he’s the one who is irrelevant to the subject, not the best-selling Corsi.

But why do Douthat and Dreher feel the need to ritually denounce Corsi without reading his work anyhow? Are they secretly hoping for an Obama victory? Douthat isn’t and I don’t think Dreher is either. Are they soldiers of the truth who possess information that Corsi is incorrect on any of the substantial charges he makes or questions he raises? That doesn’t seem likely, or they’d have addressed them directly rather than making their own unsubstantiated attacks on Corsi’s book. I find it very difficult to believe that the usually fair-minded Dreher would regard similar dismissals of his own book on crunchy conservatism to be either legitimate or fair.

I don’t have the answer, but I suspect that what Douthat and Dreher are attacking is Corsi himself, because if Corsi is credibly raising issues about Obama, as he previously did in the case of Kerry, then it’s also entirely possible, if not downright probable, that he’s credible with regards to the issues he’s raised about the plans for the North American Union and what happened on 9/11. And that simply cannot be born; better an Obama presidency than the puncturing of their conventional political worldview.

Now, I’d much prefer to see Obama beat McCain, assuming that he even makes it to November. Both men would be disasters for the nation, but there’s a slightly better chance that the Republicans might shake off the neocons and return to a genuine small government agenda with an Obama win than with a McCain victory. (I’m expecting the Democratic elders to figure out how to replace him with Hillary before then; if that substitution doesn’t take place, she’ll probably be president in 20122013.)

UPDATE – Rush Limbaugh also notes the obvious:

I’m just reading the tea leaves as they exist today, and the Obama campaign is in trouble, and this thing on Saturday night, this forum on Saturday night just focused everybody’s attention on why. You know, it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve any, because he’s who he is. He only can be nuanced because he doesn’t have the experience, and he doesn’t have the guts to be specific about what he wants to do.

Here’s what I think. If Obama falls behind by more than 5 points in the polls before Denver, Hillary will stage an insurrection and probably be successful. She may do it anyway even if he staves off a complete collapse, but she’d be crazy not to challenge him if he continues to plummet. Aside from the mindless Obamanations, Democrats are much closer than most observers realize to hitting the panic button, as they know perfectly well that McCain shouldn’t be anywhere near the Democratic candidate in this pro-Democrat electoral environment.

If Obama blows his VP choice, which would not surprise me given the strategic missteps he’s made since becoming the candidate apparent, the elders will have no option but to draft Clinton, who is all too willing to be drafted. At this point, he’d be best off choosing Clinton to forestall a revival of her candidacy, but don’t be too surprised if he does something totally insane like choosing a young black liberal as his running mate.

UPDATE II – well, that was certainly quick. Right after hitting Publish Post, I saw this: Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama. It’s just one poll, but if the others follow suit, it will be Hillary time again. Obama has lost 12 points in a month; if he manages to lose another 12 he can’t possibly be considered a viable candidate for the Cherry Blossom Throne.

Either way, only Algore can save us. Please give him your money, your wives, and your daughters, if you care even a little about the planet, you selfish capitalist pig-dogs:

An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity….

Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming. The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters.

Warming, cooling, the point is that CHANGE IS DOUBLE PLUS UNGOOD!!!

His VP selection will tell the story:

McCain has a golden opportunity to expose both Obama’s dark-heartedness and his lack of integrity by zeroing in on his abortion and infanticide record. But if McCain picks a pro-abortionist, he will forfeit his moral authority and political advantage on the issue and might very well be conceding the election to Obama.

Normally, you’d be sure that no Republican candidate for president would ever be crazy enough to select a pro-abortionchoice running mate. But now that Obama’s tendency towards auto-asphyxiation has been revealed, McCain may need to work harder if he’s going to tank the election. The worst possible choice of the names that have been floated, I think, would be Joe Lieberman, although the beetle-browed Tom Ridge would certainly be a close runner-up.

The Obama campaign is sinking fast:

Megan’s Fourth Law of Politics: The party that starts looking for implausible and unprovable conspiracy theories about the opposition candidate is in trouble.

The “strange coincidence” of McCain’s cross-in-the-dirt story is not necessarily any such thing, it merely demonstrates the extreme unfamiliarity of Democrats with Christian history and the frequency with which atheist Communists have persecuted Christians over the last 100 years. Due to the long history of Christian persecution, which dates back to Imperial Rome, communication between Christians is believed to have long involved such non-verbal interactions; the famous fish symbol is said to have been used in such a way.

Sadly, there is little doubt that there are Christians in North Korean camps drawing crosses in the dirt even today. Not all Christians have the courage to speak out against evil rulers and accept martyrdom, but it’s not surprising that even the most fearful and compromised believer would take action to tell a suffering fellow Christian that he is not alone in his darkest hour.

Obama was already sliding in the polls and he has really looked terrible this week. If he continues to head south over the next month, expect whispers of a pro-Hillary uprising to start being floated in the press.

UPDATE – It certainly is no coincidence, as Solzhenitsyn never wrote any such story about his imprisonment, not in The Gulag Archipelago or anywhere else. I have little regard for Republicans, but leave it to a Democrat – and probably an atheist Democrat – to come up with such a stupid and easily debunked means of attacking someone.

I’ve been thinking how it would be interesting to hold an Ultimate Gamer contest in which one would have to demonstrate a comprehensive mastery over a broad spectrum of computer games. Some scores would be based on time, others on score, still others on head-to-head play. Here’s my list of the ten games I’d use to determine the best gamer in such a contest:

1. Randomly selected text adventure (Zork, Enchanter, etc.)
2. Asteroids (arcade)
3. Pitfall (Atari 2600)
4. Super Mario Bros (NES)
5. Doom (deathmatch)
6. Warcraft II (random scenario)
7. Mortal Kombat II (best 2 of 3)
8. Total War: Medieval (score vs computer 100 years as England.)
9. Madden 2003 (score vs computer All-Madden).
10. Counterstrike – Source

I’d consider Ms Pac-man instead of Asteroids or HALO instead of Counterstrike… and I’m not the right guy to select the proper fighting game since I have a limited interest in that genre, but success across this range of games would certainly suffice to demonstrate genuine gaming skillz.

Musharraf is out, no doubt Sakaashvili will soon follow:

Pervez Musharraf announced today that he was resigning as a President of Pakistan….Mr Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, making the country a key strategic ally of the United States by supporting the war on terror. But his popularity at home sank over the years. Many Pakistanis blame rising violence in their country on his alliance with the United States, and his reputation suffered further last year 2007 when he ousted dozens of judges and imposed emergency rule.

It’s becoming abundantly clear that the neocon project is on the verge of collapsing about their ears. This is the dangerous period, as one has to expect them to push hard for one last risky throw of the dice that will get the world democratic revolution back to break-even. Given the recent positioning of the U.S. carrier forces, I think the fall of Musharraf and the Georgian debacle make a strike on Iran prior to November much more likely.

In today’s column, entitled “Geopolitical Sematary“, I noted the way in which NATO entanglements permit the ambitious rulers of sovereign states smaller than most U.S. states to drag the US into conflicts it neither needs nor desires. It’s interesting to note that South Ossetia was not Georgian President Sakaashvili’s first military adventure with his American-funded toys:

The stage for the confrontation was set in January 2004, when Mr. Saakashvili handily won the presidency after leading protests against a rigged election the previous year. He made the return of separatist areas to Georgian control a central plank of his platform. It was a potent theme. Georgia had lost the wars against separatists in the 1990s, and Russia’s involvement stung Georgians. Mr. Saakashvili saw international law on his side. His young government, a small circle of men in their 30s with virtually no military experience, openly endorsed this thinking….

Whether they intended to build a military for fighting or deterrence is unclear. American officials said they repeatedly and bluntly told their Georgian counterparts that the Iraq mission should not be taken as a sign of American support, or as a prelude, for operations against the separatists. And it was obvious that Russia’s army, which at roughly 641,000 troops is 25 times the size of Georgia’s, could easily overwhelm the Georgian forces.

Nevertheless, the career foreign policy establishment worried that the wrong signals were being sent. “We were training Saakashvili’s army, and he was getting at least a corps of highly trained individuals, which he could use for adventures,” said one former senior intelligence analyst, who covered Georgia and Russia at the time. “The feeling in the intelligence community was that this was a very high-risk endeavor.”

Mr. Saakashvili proceeded against other separatist enclaves — retaking one, Ajaria, in 2004, and advancing high into the mountains of the upper Kodori Gorge in Abhkazia in 2006 to sweep away bands of criminals who had long controlled the place.

Read the story, and see how eager Saakashvili was to get Georgia into NATO in an obvious attempt to ensure American military reinforcement as insurance in the event his military expansionism prompted adverse consequences. As, in fact, it has.

If Charles Murray’s proposal is ever adopted by the employers of America. Needless to say, I expect women’s organizations to eventually team up with America’s university administrators in leading the charge to ban the use of certification tests by employers:

Outside a handful of majors — engineering and some of the sciences — a bachelor’s degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

It’s interesting to see how many intellectuals are slowly coming around to the realization that the modern college education is completely worthless for most students.

This really is getting pretty funny:

The high temperature at Denver International Airport today was 58 degrees. This 58 degree reading will replace the previous low maximum temperature record for August 16th which was 63 degrees set 118 years ago in 1890.

And scientists wonder why so few respects them or science as they think they deserve… if they’d stop trying to peddle complete BS under the aegis of their sacred methodology, then people would be inclined to place more trust in them. As it stands, you’d have to be insane to permit them anywhere near the levers of power, especially given their predilection for technocratic autocracy.

I find it very interesting that despite the way in which science has prospered more in Christian, capitalist, decentralized societies, most scientists appear to favor secular, socialist, centralized societies. It’s amusingly unscientific… which should come as no surprise as some of them STILL subscribe to the Enlightenment prophecy that has remained unfulfilled for more than 200 years:

Science as an Instrument of Change

Atheism is a natural consequence of the scientific way of looking at the world; furthermore, the scientific perspective is ascendant. Myers will explain why the new atheism is a reasonable and predictable product of our culture, and why that should give us hope for a more secular future.
– PZ Myers

Good luck making that case. Only a scientist as poorly educated in history as old PZ could hope to do so; much better-educated atheists such as Jonathan Haidt and Daniel Dennett know better than to even try it.