Or so their filing report would lead us to believe.
Oh sure, you say it’s a typo. But just wait until they grab 100% of the police vote in November…
Williamson County Republicans Spend $5 Million on Donuts
October 6th, 2010EU: How about letting the yuan appreciate? China: How about you die in a fire?
October 6th, 2010It’s not just the U.S. that believes China’s yuan is pegged artificially low. The EU is also complaining at the current EU-China summit, asking them to let the yuan appreciate 20-40% in value.
China’s reply? Get stuffed.
That’s not the only China-EU news this week. China is also buying up Greek assets at the same time they’re dumping U.S. assets.
Let that sink in for a moment. As The Motley Fool’s Christopher Barker put it, “China may consider Greece a safer bet than the United States.”
If Obama Administration officials weren’t worried about our unsustainable budget deficits before (and every indication is they weren’t), now would be an excellent time to start…
Today’s Liberal Assaulting Someone for Taking Their Picture Comes to You From the One Nation Rally
October 6th, 2010This time the victim is a Human Events reporter.
What is it with liberals incensed people are taking their picture on public property? Do they think people are stealing their soul? Or just their chances of retaining power?
The Decline and Fall of the U.S. Air Force?
October 5th, 2010The main purpose of government is to protect its citizens from criminals within the nation (via the police and courts) and from enemies without (via the armed forces). Obama’s trillion dollar deficits not only threaten prosperity, they actually threaten national defense. Between extended missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and budgetary neglect at home, how are are armed forces holding up? According to this piece, the Air Force isn’t doing so well:
The average age of the refueler and bomber fleet, which forms the foundation of U.S. air power-projection capability, now exceeds fifty years. Most of the Air Force’s fighters were built in the 1970s. Virtually all Air Force aircraft are decades past their planned retirement dates. Technology designed to overcome Vietnam War-era surface-to-air missiles and fighters is becoming obsolete in the face of emerging air-defense capabilities. Air Force bases built half a century ago are poorly placed to meet emerging deterrence missions. Today, a large portion of the Air Force exists only on paper, its aircraft too old to fly in combat but requiring enormous sums to maintain. If current procurement practices continue, the readiness and effectiveness of U.S. airpower will steadily worsen over time, with serious consequences for U.S. national security.
This piece is well worth reading. However, I have to dissent from some of the conclusions. Frankly, the era of the manned strategic bomber has passed. There are few battlefield missions that can’t be carried out better by a combination of strike fighter aircraft, unmanned drones, and cruise missiles. The renowned “loiter” capability didn’t give us any advantage when we were hunting Saddam’s scuds during the first Gulf War.
Also, to say that “emerging land- and air-based defenses are likely to render [older fighters] incapable of participating in conventional conflict” overstates the case. In a near-term conflict with Russia now, or one with CHina ten years down the road, that might be the case. There’s simply no other nation on earth that, even with our depleted air force, we shouldn’t have achieved decisively air superiority over within 24 hours, because that’s maximum Russia’s export anti-aircraft batteries can be expected to last under a concerted American air assault. (Further down the road things may well be different.)
But the central point, that some of the biggest sticks in our air arsenal are getting dangerously old, is still undoubtedly true. Serious investment is going to be needed to rectify the problem, and sooner rather than later.
(Hat tip: Todd H.)
Fascinating Michael Totten Piece on the Druze of the Golan Heights
October 4th, 2010Michael Totten’s pieces are always worth reading, and this piece on the Druze of the Golan Heights is no exception.
I especially liked this bit on the religious beliefs of the Druze:
They’re monotheists who emerged from Islam a thousand years ago, but their religion changed so drastically it became something else. They don’t proselytize or wage wars of conversion or conquest. No one is even allowed to convert. That door closed in the year 1043. You’re either born a Druze, or you aren’t a Druze. And if you die a Druze, they say you’ll be reincarnated as one. Their religious texts are kept secret, not only from non-Druze, but from most Druze, as well. The “uninitiated” majority aren’t required to observe any rituals. They aren’t even allowed to know much about the religion.
Why is it that this one reader-funded world traveler always seems to bring back more interesting and detailed stories than all the Middle East bureaus of The New York Times combined?
As always with Totten’s work, read the whole thing and hit the tip jar if you feel so inclined.
I Was Wondering Why the Phrases “Spitzer” and “Call Girls” Were Leading My Blog Search Stats…
October 4th, 2010Well, now I know: Eliot Spitzer is joining CNN. Maybe CNN offered him a really sweet deal on his expense account…
Of course, this won’t even count as CNN’s most egregious breach of ethics, since that would still be Eason Jordan’s decision to cover up Saddam Hussein’s atrocities in order to maintain access.
CNN: The Least Trusted Name in News.
The Stuxnet Worm: Set Pants to Brown Alert
October 3rd, 2010The Weekly Standard has an interesting piece on The Stuxnet worm. It seems designed to attack Iran’s nuclear program, was in the wild for more than six months before being detected, featured stolen digital signature keys (which may have involved actual physical espionage) and used an off-the charts four zero-day exploits, which is pretty much unheard of.
We really, really better hope that we or the Israelis wrote this thing, because if not, there’s a team of scary-good black hat hackers out there (from the description of how large and sophisticated it is, and all the different things it does, makes me think it took at least ten really good hackers more than a year to create) that can physically destroy major infrastructure targets through code almost at will. You really, really don’t want a team of “non-state actors” to have those capabilities…
I suspect we’re getting a glimpse of what the opening rounds of the next major war will look like…
Voluntarily Cut Emissions or WE WILL KILL YOU!!!
October 1st, 2010The Eco-Left indulges their misanthropic fantasies of homicide against those that disagree with them, with comically horrifying results.
Keep in mind that the kind of people who heartily approve of such things are in the Obama Administration (and staff positions in the Pelosi/Reid congress) right now…
LinkSwarm for September 29, 2010
September 29th, 2010A few links you may find of interest:
- “Barack Obama is destroying the Democratic party. It may not recover for a long time. In this, he most closely resembles a synthesis of the failed candidacy of George McGovern and the catastrophic presidency of Herbert Hoover.”
- Are Democrats losing because the policies of Obama, Pelosi and Reid are unpopular? Nah. It’s because white people are crazy. (I think we’ve now had more racial friction in two years of Obama’s “post-racial” presidency than eight years of George W. Bush.)
- Mark Steyn on our internalization of Islam’s view of us.
- Who is to blame for our spiraling deficits? Bush? Obama? Neither. Steve Moore in the Wall Street Journal says it’s Pelosi and Reid.
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, head of the Islamic Republic of Iran, get’s a rapturous reception from the usual far-left gang of race-hustling poverty pimps.