We are SO Screwed!: Part One

We are so screwed.  I mean, gigantically screwed. Bent over the desk and rammed home by an elephant.

Wow. That is some REALLY over the top imagery.  What gives with that? What has me soooo pessimistic?

• National Debt
• Health Care system takeover
• Out of control congress.
• Out of control bureaucracy
• Too damn many lawyers
• Out of control Lobbyists
• Out of control Defense Contractors
• Lack of an adversarial, objective press
• Out of control educational special interests
• Apathetic and under educated populace

Now, I will submit that the last item is primary cause of all the rest. IMHO at least.

NATIONAL DEBT

I don’t know about you, but $12,000,000,000,000 seems like a shit pot of money to me. What exactly do you get for that kind of money?  I ain’t seeing a whole lot.  To be that much in debt CANNOT be good. Especially when you consider that the 2009 estimated GDP for the United States is only (God, I never thought I’d use THAT phrase before) 14 TRILLION dollars.

In other words we are in hock for about 85% of what we made last year. That’s not what the Government made, thats what the ENTIRE COUNTRY made.   Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

This site describes this stuff better than I, so I’m just going to repost what they’ve already said

(Defeat the Debt http://defeatthedebt.com/  various pages accessed 1/2/10)

“We talk a lot about our federal deficit and our national debt, and it’s important to understand the difference between the two words.

The deficit is the difference between how much the federal government spends and how much it collects in one year. If the government “earns” $2 trillion in taxes in one year, but spends $3 trillion, that’s a deficit of $1 trillion. In order to pay for the difference, the government has to borrow money from itself, American citizens, foreign countries, and other sources.

The federal budget deficit for 2009 was a record-breaking $1.42 trillion.

The national debt, on the other hand, is the total amount we owe. Every year that we borrow more money, the debt grows larger.

The difference between the deficit and the debt is especially important because when politicians talk about reducing the deficit, all that really means is that our debt isn’t growing as fast. It does not mean we’re getting out of debt.

In more personal terms: If you have an income of $50,000 per year, and you spend $60,000, that’s a deficit of $10,000. You would need to borrow that $10,000 from someone, maybe with a credit card or a home equity loan. If you reduce your spending the following year, to $55,000, you have “halved the deficit”, but you’re still spending $5,000 more than you’re earning, and going further and further into debt. After two years, despite halving your “deficit spending,” you’re $15,000 in debt .”

And

“Our national debt is more than $12,147,478,386,030.78.

That is how much the United States has borrowed, and how much we have to pay interest on. To put $12 trillion in perspective, our national debt is larger than the total economies of China, the United Kingdom, and Australia combined.

The combined gross domestic products of China, the United Kingdom, and Australia, as estimated by the International Monetary Fund in 2008, are $10.89 trillion.

And under current policies, our national debt will continue to grow by hundreds of billions every year.

According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget, our national debt will grow an additional $9 trillion over the next decade, to more than $20 trillion.

During that time, the United States will accumulate $2.5 billion in new debt each and every day. That’s $1.72 million per minute, for the next ten years.

Using the projected addition to national debt based on the August 2009 Mid-Session Review Budget of the U.S. Government, we find that the United States government will accumulate an average of approximately $905.1 billion of debt per year for the next ten years. [9,051,000,000,000 / 10 = 905,100,000,000 (per year)] That means that every day, the government will accumulate an average of $2,478,079,632.02 in additional debt. [905.1 billion / 365.2425 = $2,478,079,632.02 (approx. $2.5 billion per day)].Accordingly, more than $100 million of debt is being accumulated every hour. [$2,478,079,632.02 / (24 hours) = $103,253,318] And every minute, the U.S. government accumulates approximately $1.72 million in additional debt. [$103,253,318 / (60 minutes) = $1,720,888] That’s $28,681.48 a second. [$1,720,888 / (60 seconds) = $28,681.48 per second]

• The Treasury Department estimates that our debt to China is approximately $776.4 billion, having grown more than $240 billion in the last year. That is more than $10,000 in debt for the average American working family.

  According to the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Board, China held $776,400,000,000 in Treasury securities as of June 2009. http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt The total estimated population of China was 1,338,612,968 in July 2009. The estimated population of the United States at that time was 307,212,123, according to the US Census Bureau. Therefore, China’s per-capita debt holdings to the United States is $580.00. [Total Securities Debt /Total Chinese Population = $580.00] Each American’s share of that debt is $2,527.24. [Total Securities Debt / Total US Population = $2,527.24] This means that every American owes $580 to 4.36 people in China. [$2,527.24 / $580 = 4.36]. According to the 5th National Census taken in 2000, the average Chinese family size was 3.44 people. [Handbook of World Families, Edited by Bert N. Adams and Jan Trost, pg. 93]. This means that an average Chinese family of 3.44 people is owed about $1,995 USD. [3.44 people x $580 per person = $1995.2] The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the American civilian labor force was 154,504,000 in July of 2009. Each working American’s share of that debt is $5,025.11. [Total Securities Debt / Total US work force = $ 5,025.11].

  [Close]

• Over the course of the next decade, the government will borrow approximately $1.72 million every minute. That’s the equivalent of 5,733 flat screen HDTVs it cannot afford.

  [Prove it…]

  Assuming that the rate of debt accumulation is constant, the U.S. government will accumulate approximately $1.72 million in additional debt every minute. According to a major electronics retail chain, a 26 inch LCD HDTV costs about $300.00 ($299.99) which adds up to 5,701 TVs for the $1.71 million of new debt per minute. [$1,720,000 / $299.99 = 5,733]

  [Close]

• From 2010 to 2019, the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget estimate the cumulative deficit will be $9 trillion. This means that over the next decade $9 trillion will be added to our existing national debt, creating a total debt of more than $20 trillion.
• According to the August OMB report, this year’s projected deficit alone is almost $1.58 trillion (11.2% of GDP). Next year’s deficit is projected to be $1.5 trillion (10.4% of GDP). These are the largest deficits relative to GDP since 1945.
• From 2008 to 2009, public debt rose from 41% of GDP to 56% of GDP–about $8 trillion). According to the March CBO report, under current policy, public debt will rise to 82% of GDP by 2019, equaling approximately $17 trillion.
• About $4 trillion of the total debt is money that the government has borrowed from itself, by writing IOUs for huge sums taken from Social Security and Medicare surpluses.
• In July of 2009, the United States paid more than $19 billion in interest on the public debt [$19,812,486,187.83, Office of the Public Debt]. In 2009, according to the CBO, $177 billion of taxpayer funds will be used just to pay interest on the debt—not to pay off the debt, just to pay interest on it.
• Every American worker’s share of the national debt is more than $75,000.

  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the American civilian labor force was 154,504,000 in July 2009. Each of these U.S. workers’ share of the $12 trillion national debt is $77,667.89.

• According to the Department of the Treasury, foreign holders of our national debt are owed a combined total of about $3.3 trillion.
• As reported by the Treasury Department, the top ten countries and entities holding U.S. debt are: China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Oil Exporters, Caribbean Banking Centers, Brazil, Russia, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.”

Do you have $77,667.89 laying around?  I don’t. And if I did, I surely wouldn’t want it going to the government.

Does that not WORRY THE SHIT OUT OF YOU?  IT SHOULD SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOU.

And it makes sense to take on AN ADDITIONAL Trillion dollars of debt?  That’s what the health care is ESTIMATED to cost. I emphasize estimated, because I want to call attention to the FACT that the government has a LOUSY history of correctly estimating costs of things.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 – they’ve had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.

Medicare was supposed (i.e. the Govt ESTIMATED it) to cost $9,000,000,000 – to date, it has cost more than $67,000,000,000.  Thats like 740% OVER BUDGET.  Are you feeling worried YET?

Now, how many of you have read everything so far?  If you have, GOOD FOR YOU! I mean it, I’m not being sarcastic.  It means and shows that you may actually care about what is going on.  Most people will not make the effort to dig and find out.

I am worried. So many people who know about this stuff have NO idea what might happen.  Buffet says we are in uncharted territory.  We CANNOT sustain this level of debt.  So what happens when the bill comes due?  Beats me, but it CANNOT BE GOOD.

And what is our vaunted congress doing about it? NOT A GOD DAMNED THING!  No, they are more interested in doing things that will incur MORE unsustainable debt and getting their faces and names in print.

Consider

• With everything else going on, congress decides that it needs to worry about steroid use in baseball

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4540278(Accessed 1/2/10)

• During the time in which they were looking into health care reform, the critters felt the need to reform college football season, by mandating a playoff system (I am NOT kidding you)

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-390 (Accessed 1/2/10)

And some others, courtesy of http://www.stupidvotes.com/ (Accessed 1/2/10)

• House Resolution 298: Congratulating the on-premise sign industry for its contributions to the success of small businesses.
• Senate Resolution 67: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that providing breakfast in schools through the national school breakfast program has a positive impact on the lives and classroom performance of low-income children.
• House Resolution 210: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive impact on classroom performance.
• House Resolution 154: Honoring John D. Dingell for holding the record as the longest serving member of the House of Representatives. (Not an accomplishment that I’D be willing to admit to)
• House Resolution 60: Recognizing and commending University of Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford for winning the 2008 Heisman Trophy and for his academic and athletic accomplishments.

And my favorite,

• S.Res.94: A resolution designating April 2009 as Financial Literacy Month.

That one is priceless!  If there is one thing that the senate of the United States is NOT competent to comment on, it is financial literacy.

So what we have here is a shit pot of money going out, not nearly as much coming in, and a bunch of congress critters who don’t seem to see a problem.

Damn. We are SOOOOO Screwed.

When does a failure equal a system success?

Not anywhere that real people live.  This mess with the terrorist getting on the plane.

1. Guys DAD goes to the US Embassy and says “Hey, I’m this kids dad and I’m worried that he may do something whacko” and the US says that they don’t have enough to put him on the no fly list?  Get real

2. Guys dad lets us know that he’s whacko, and he gets on the plane ANYWAY, and tries to blow up the plane, and the ONLY thing that stops him are the PASSENGERS AND POOR EFFING DESIGN, and the Head of DHS says The System worked as designed?  Are you kidding me?

What the Gubmint is NOT!

It is not your daddy, your mommy, your bank, your HMO, your 401K, your IRA, your baby sitter, your sugar daddy. It’s time to relearn some self sacrifice and taken care of your OWN business.

A note to the House Minority leader

Sent this to Rep Bohner via his website(http://republicanleader.house.gov/Contact)

Could you please call the members of your party in the house to account?  I have said the same to speaker pelosi, and honor demands I say the same to you.  Your party is behaving badly.
I am not a Democrat, but rather a Republican who left the party after 20+ years to become a Libertarian.
Sincerely
William R Hunteman
USN (RET)

A note to the Speaker nancy Pelosi

Sent this to her via her website (http://speaker.house.gov/contact/).  Not really expecting an answer

will you please call the members of your party in the house to account? Specifically a) refusal to answer a question honestly and in a straight forward manner
Specifically Rep Wasserman, when on Fox was asked Where the savings were going to come from, where did SHE think they were going to come from to pay for the Health care plan.  Instead of giving an actual answer to the question, even an I don’t know, she instead went off on a tangent that never even remotely answered the question.  This seems to be a hallmark of your party.
Now, I am not ‘Astroturf’ I am a Libertarian who LEFT the Republican party because of their stand or lack of one on Civil Rights.
Not expecting an answers
I remain
William R Hunteman
USN (RET)

The Religious Right: A MINORITY!

So I’m sitting here wondering what in God’s name has happened to the Republican party. I know that that is a target rich statement, but I refer particularly to the Far Right, i.e. the Evangelicals and the overwhelming control they exert over the platform and actions of the RP.

The Eve’s HAVE to be a small minority of the party. Only 15% of Americans identify as ‘Evangelical’ and only 20% say they believe that God ‘favors’ the United States. They don’t appear to be the biggest donors giving to the party – that is I don’t think that they contribute more money than all others combined. So how do they manage to drive the RP in a direction that is increasingly counter-productive from a political standpoint? Do they have something on Chairman Steele?

Am I the only one who thinks that this cannot be a good thing for the RP?

I really would like to hear cogent and coherent thoughts on this.

Barak Obama: Some of his ideas actually make some sense.

 

On another BBS I am a member of, this link to a youtube video of Obama was posted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs. The video features some of his ideas about DOD and spending cuts and policy changes he would make, viz DOD.  The comment the poster made was ’Why this man must be kept out of the White House, OR….How to destroy America.’

Now, I am NOT an ObamaFan.  I think that without question he is a populist.  I think that he has one thing in common with Hilary, aside from the obvious – membership in the Democratic Party and being pretty liberal in political thought – he wants to be President REALLY BAD!   So he is pretty much, in my humble opinion, selling the basic populist themes ‘Not your fault’ ‘Give me the power and I will fix it’ ‘It’s those rich people who get all the unfair breaks fault, and we’re gonna stick it to them’ and my favorite ‘All we need to do is CHANGE THINGS’.

OK. We are going to change WHAT? HOW are we going to change it, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHY are we going to change it?  These are questions he has adroitly managed to not answer.  The what and how are obviously important (like How are we gonna fund these initiatives and how is that going to impact who) but I am more inclined to worry about the Why question.

It seems that the younger generation (I am arguably a member, being born in 1964) talk a lot about the NEED FOR CHANGE.  What is never answered is WHY.  Why do we need to change this or that?  I’m not saying that change isn’t needed, but what I have seen is a conviction on the need for change without ever showing any reason why it needs to change.  I guess what I am trying to say is that it appears there is a lot of change just for the sake of change, without ever being shown why something needs to be changed.

Its kind of like this.  Say that there is a new drug just coming out. And this drug will cause the male body to have an erection.  And the drug company starts saying that EVERY MAN NEEDS TO TAKE THIS MEDICINE.  Why? Is every man not able to have erections? Or, as another example, take my brother.

My brother is an IT director for a small company.  He is about 14 years younger than I am, and he is a computer geek. All the computers in his house run LINUX.  He is really smart about computers.  He makes the pretty common younger IT guy pitch that “BUSINESS NEEDS TO CHANGE” but when my mom, who is 70 and in many things pretty pragmatic (and this is a woman who in the 60’s was a Goldwater Republican/Conservative, broke a lot of political ground for women in 1960s Florida, and is now a pretty committed Hilary Liberal) asks him “Change What? Why?”, he can’t answer her with anything other than “It just does!”

That’s what’s going on with Obama. All populism, but with no “WHY”.  In my humble opinion, if you don’t know why something needs to be changed, it generally means that you don’t really understand it in the first place.  Again, take my brother.  Great guy, smart about computers.  But he’s never really been IN business.  Being an IT director is an important job.  You have to know a) what computers can do, b) how to make them work together, and c) what you producers NEED in order to produce.  One of the discussions he and I would get into was his frustration with the sales force.  He couldn’t understand why they wanted the Microsoft Office suite of applications, when in his opinion the Lotus suite was far superior.  I tried to explain to him that their needs really overshadowed his, because they, sales, were the only ones in the company who made the company money.  They wanted Office, because, regardless of your opinion of Microsoft, you gotta admit that the Office suite is a pretty well (mostly) thought out approach.  All of the componants interacted and interfaced easily and smoothly (mostly) with each other.  And the Windows GUI is pretty intuitive, whereas the Lotus one was not so much (This was about 6 years ago).  The sales force already knew how to use Office, and it did what they needed to do.

I think what confused him the most about it all was what I said about sales being the only element of the company that makes the company money.  “Without IT (The company makes a high end computer peripheral) and the factory, the company makes no money.” So I explained to him that you can make the BEST widget in the world, and make it cheaper than anyone else, and support it better than anyone else, and none of that makes a hill of beans, if you ain’t selling it. 

Point being here, is that he’d never been IN business. I know IT guys will hate this, but IT is support. It is pretty much on the same level as maintenance. Not saying it isn’t important, but there is a BIG difference between support and sales.  Support is a cost.  Unless you make computers (and really even there, as IT isn’t production) the IT costs you money and doesn’t bring in a single cent. IT expenses are in the liability column, and there is no income column in the IT department ledger. IT doesn’t make money. Sales does, which is why sales is the most important department in the company. No sales, no income. Simple as that.

Now people who are IN business know that. They know that while good production is highly important, good sales is a must.  An effective sales force can market and sell a, shall we say ‘less than optimum’ product. Microsoft is a PRIME example of this.  Netscape was far superior to Microsoft’s corresponding offerings.  To do what Netscape Navigator could do for free, you would have to buy OUTLOOK, IE, and FRONTPAGE. And you still wouldn’t have everything, because OUTLOOK doesn’t really have a seemless newsreader segment. But Outlook Express did. (I never understood that). So you could get free from Netscape what would cost you $100+ from Microsoft. 

Can you even get Netscape anymore? Nope. But Microsoft Office still leads the pack. Now Lotus and OpenOffice are moving up, but still not anywhere near the top of the heap. Why? Because Microsoft hires a good sales force. And sales includes marketing. And someone IN business would know all that. And without knowing things like that, and really ‘grokking’ them, you might be inclined to think that ‘your way’ is better.  But the sales force will tell you that every minute spent trying to learn a new program is a minute you aren’t spending prospecting for new clients.  And that costs the company more money than adopting your new program MIGHT save the company. 

Business people, people who ‘grok’ business know (unlike those in Congress) that POTENTIAL savings a) aren’t REAL savings and b) ARE NOT INCOME. You cant spend potential savings.  They MIGHT (once they become REAL cost savings) enhance the bottom line, but really not by that much.  Put another way, every department in a company (and this is a general rule) represents costs except one – sales. Sales is the only department that shows an income.  This is business.

And yet we have myriads of people advocating change. But they aren’t advocating change for a reason – this or that function, organization or process isn’t working as it should. They are advocating change for changes sake.  Ultimately they are advocating changing the ‘what is’ for ‘what they want it to be’ so they can understand it, because they don’t really understand the why of ‘what it is’.  This is not only bad practice from a management standpoint, it’s pretty stupid and wasteful from an economics standpoint as well. Incurring costs, and make NO mistake about it - change costs money and time – that you do not really need to make causes chaos and confusion in the organization.  I saw that many times in my 23 years in the Navy.  A new ‘fad’ would come along and the Navy would spend oooodles of money trying to force it in place, and what resulted was mass confusion, chaos, frustration and lost productivity, when even a cursory examination of the ‘what is’ would have shown that the change, as presented,  a) would most likelycost a lot of money and time and b) would not produce the desired effects and c) was not grounded in a true understanding of the ‘what is’. 

This is what ‘We NEED to CHANGE’ will bring you when you have agents of such change can’t offer up the WHAT and HOW and again, most importantly WHY of change.
 ==========================================================

Anyway, I find I have wandered FAR away from where I started this post at. As one of my former Chiefs liked to say, ‘to make a short story long’, my point was to illustrate that while I do  not support Obama, and my reasoning for such lack of support is based on his populist rhetoric of ‘We Need To Change’, I do think that Obama does have some good ideas.  And they should be looked at by whoever ascends to the Oval Office this November.

BACK TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND. OBAMAs Comments regarding DOD as reported in the video on YouTube.

 After watching this video, I felt the following remarks pertinant. Basically just to be fair to the guy.

 

1.  You either agree with unproven, flawed logic supporting going into Iraq or you were/are against the war in Iraq.  Much evidence supports the position that we shouldn’t have gone in, at least with the plan that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield created, which is kinda hard to say ‘it worked’ ’cause by any rational metric, Iraq is an unsafe country to be in.  I firmly believe that we should not have gone in, but that is really a moot point (BTW, I was on active duty at the time, on a combat staff over there at the time, and this war was manufactured – they had made up their minds and put things into motion in 2001/2002, WELL before they said publically that they were going in).

 

Question is, now that we’ve gone in there and basically made a mess, and allowed the situation to develop that created the mess that is there now, what do we do about it?  I don’t think that we can just cut and run.  And I think that if he gets elected he’ll get educated as to why we’re gonna be there awhile.  I’d like to hear what he proposes to do about the abysmal situation that is there now. 

 

2. Eliminate wasteful spending. Well, there is certainly enough of that in DC – WHAT a target rich environment.  My question is WHAT EXACTLY does he plan to eliminate?  There is ALOT in DOD that is wasteful.  DDG-1000, LCS, etc etc etc.  I like the idea of an independant review board vetting DOD programs.  Just because DOD wants something doesn’t mean they need it. There are quite a number of programs that in reality have no current defined Operational Requirement (No new weapon or other system is SUPPOSED to be developed except in response to a combatant commander defined Operational Requirement. That ain’t happening), and exist merely because the program happens to be produced by a company in a congress critters district. NOT the way we need to be doing business. 

 

Case in point. 

I was at a conference several years ago (Late 2003), that dealt with a particular weapons system.  At the conference the CAPT in charge of the conference gave a brief about a program that they were worried was going to be forced on the Navy.  An activity within the Navy was tasked to evaluate the target aimpoints shoot at during OIF, and determine which of the aimpoints could have been serviced by this proposed new weapon system. Only about 5% of the targets could have been hit with this weapon.  Funny part of the story. The company that was developing this system was headquartered in the House Armed Forces Services Committee chairmans district.  The Navy didn’t want and didn’t need the system, but for a time it looked like the system, which had 1/10th the range and 1/5th the warhead of my weapon system, was going to be imposed on the Navy.  So I like his idea of an independant commission keeping DOD grounded in fiscal realities.

 

Missile defence systems? Well, look at me with a straight face and tell me how North Korea or Iran is going to attack the US with ICBMs.  And those were two of the countries that this administration cites as ICBM threats.

Russia? Umm, maybe.  I MIGHT be more inclined to support the Missile Defense System if they were putting the interceptor bases closer to where real threats are…i.e. Middle East.  Israel and Bahrain.  Maybe Qatar.  Don’t see a need for them in Poland or that other country (forgot which one it is). 

 

Not saying we should shut down the entire thing, but I do think that the pace of it should be scaled back.  Also think that the interceptor launch platform would better be the AEGIS platforms.  Fixed launch sites can be negated.  That’s why SSBNs were and are better than bombers or Silos.  Basically I think that the Navy should take over the program.  After all, we’ve proved we can hit a satillite, which in reality is about as hard as hitting an ICBM – same basic orbital mechanics. Less time of response, but it’s a ballistic trajectory which is the simplest and most predictable of flight paths.

 

3. Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.  I don’t think that this is a bad goal……as long as the other guys do the same thing.  Now I’m suspicious and pragmatic enough to believe that the other guy, if so inclined, is gonna make it really hard to find ALL his nukes. So, there does need to be a minimum number of warheards.  And this would necessitate a given amount of maintenance and replacement activity.  But how many would this number need to be?

 

Projected operational U.S. strategic nuclear warheads and bombs after full enactment of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in 2012: 1,700-2,200.  Additional strategic and non-strategic warheads not limited by the treaty that the U.S. military wants to retain as a “hedge” against unforeseen future threats: 4,900

(Source: http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx Accessed 3 MAR 08)

So at a MINIMUM DOD wants 6600 Nuclear warheads.  Do we REALLY need that many? 4,900 warheads, JUST IN CASE SOMETHING COMES UP?  What do they know that they aren’t telling us?  4,900 is a LOT of firepower.  Assume an average yield of 100KT.  You are talking about 49 GIGATONS of firepower.  That is WAY more than you would need to blow up the entire planet.  And thats what DOD wants as a HEDGE?

 

Oh, just a curious factoid about nuclear weapons.  I had thought that the following number was around 2-3. Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered: 11 Where are they at? Is anyone ELSE worried about that?

 

SO reducing absolute numbers of nuclear weapons isn’t a bad thing.  And a goal of zero in the world is a nice goal.  Not gonna happen, but it’s nice to shoot for.  ANd he NEVER says that he would (and he couldn’t anyway) engage in unilateral disarmament.  So you really can’t fault him on his position on that.

 

Now, all that being said, I don’t support Obama no matter how crazy I am.  He is a populist that has provided very little substance on how he’s gonna pay for all the benefits he wants to provide.  He’s offering a lot of head patting and class envy to suck people into buying what he’s selling. Which is ‘elect me!’ and nothing more.

 

But just because I don’t support him doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some good ideas.  Just because he’s a liberal, doesn’t mean he can’t have ideas that make sense.  Ain’t NONE of us cornered the market in the smart ideas department, so it behooves us to be open to all quarters when it comes to ideas on how to fix what’s broke in America. And there is so very much broke.

 

The Games Islam plays – they play for keeps

First

Don’t judge Islam by the Muslims you know, and do not judge the Muslims you know by Islam.

 

That being said, we as a people, westerners, need to really get smart about Islam.  It is quite likely the biggest long term threat the west faces.

Now I am about religious tolerance.  But it has to be a two way street.  Islam DOES NOT believe in such a two way street.  Islam cannot even concieve of the concept of plurality.

 

I am a Libertarian by belief. My ‘credo’ if you will is that my rights end where your’s begin, and vice versa.  So I’m pretty tolerant of most things.  I am pretty open minded.  But.  The more I read nad research, the more I see that Muslims pose the greatest risk to the west of all the threats out there.  There can be, as far as I can tell, from their side of the aisle, any form of compromise or co-existance.  Their belief system won’t allow it. 

 

One of the reasources below, the tretise, outlines in great detail why we cannot co-exist.  Islam is NOT just a religion.  It is even more than a way of life.  It is a complete societal contract that brooks NO possibility of anything other than Islam.  No co-existance.  No plurality.  No tolerance of anything other than reimposition of the caliphate.  Islam a) says that there is NO religion save Islam. Period.  b) Muslism are to impose Islam on the world c) Islamic law, as laid down by the prophet in the koran and the hadith(sp), is inviolate. Period. Cannot be re-interpreted in the light of new events.  If it’s in the 9th sura, then it’s more than gospel.  d)  Islamic law is THE law.  Period.  Any treaty or constitution or any other rule, regulation, code whatever is SUBORDINATE to Islamic law. Period.

 

MAJ Stephen Coughlins’ tretise explains it all much better than I do.

Do not delude yourself on this. Islam is and will be the defining threat until a) they defeat and subjugate us or b) we defeat and subjugate them. Period. 

 

I refer you to the following sites/resources:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019465.php 

 

http://www.strategycenter.net/docLib/20080107_Coughlin_ExtremistJihad.pdf

A tretise by Maj Stephen Coughlin.  This is about a 330 page dissertation.  BUT, a) it is pretty readable and b) it explains in a straitforward coherant and thorough manner why Jihad is 1) MANDATED by the Koran, despite what Muslim apologists say and 2) Why Al quida et al are not ‘extreme’ in their beliefs (in the Muslim/Islam context) and practice regarding jihad.

 

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Games-Muslims-Play.htm

A good exposition of the games muslims play promoting/defending Islam.

 

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Myths-of-Islam.htm

A good shootdown of various ‘myths’ promulgated by the muslims and their apologists.

Explain this to me, conservatives

George Bush, whom many call conservative, has managed to do something interesting.  He has drawn, publically, the ire and criticism of the President of the John Birch Society, arguably one of the most conservative of organization.

 

What appears to have pushed Mr McManus over the edge, was bush’s use of a signing statement regarding the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.

“Congress passed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act and sent it to the President for his approval. Citing his designation as “commander in chief,” Mr. Bush added a signing statement that voided four sections of the law. “

“The National Defense Authorization Act recently passed by Congress prohibits the use of federal funds to establish permanent military bases in Iraq. Mr. Bush’s signing statement cancels that sensible directive. With the stroke of his pen, his action also voids protections for whistle-blowers who complain about corruption in government contract work, impedes turning over to Congress intelligence reports, and cancels the creation of a bipartisan commission designed to investigate allegations of waste and mismanagement in federal contract work.”

This is the act of a conservative?  Aren’t conservatives committed to the rule of law?  Isn’t there something that sets out who writes the laws and who executes the laws? Oh yeah, the Constitution.  Funny, I’ve read the Constitution many times now, and I have yet to see ANYTHING that could even remotely be construed as granting the President the authority to ignore the parts of a law he doesn’t like.  He can veto a bill sent to him, but CONSTITUTIONALLY, it is an all or nothing proposition.  He doesn’t get to pick and choose.  Didn’t he (and all of us on this BBS) take an oath or something? Oh Yeah, to UPHOLD AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.

 

It seems to me when you disregard something, something you have sworn to defend, you fall out of the support and defend catagory and slide into the enemy catagory.

 

http://www.jbs.org/node/6982

And still, they waste time

I read today that, contrary to any sense of propriety or shame, the Congress, specifically the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform,  still feels compelled to hold hearings on steroid use/abuse in Major League Baseball.  I am, as I have observed previously, outraged over this politically motivated headline grandstanding.  I still cannot see by what strange interpretation of the Constitution that Congress has any jurisdiction over this.  It appears to have only one purpose – to get congresscritters additional press headlines. 

Further confusing things, is that this non-issue is being examined by the Government Oversight and Reform Committee.  (http://oversight.house.gov/contact/http://oversight.house.gov/contact/) to contact the committee.

What possible stretch of interpretation could land steroid use in MLB in the Government Oversight and Reform Committee? This is bizarre.  I mean, I could MAYBE understand Commerce, but Government Oversight and Reform?

We have many issues facing this country.  A war begun under questionable premeses at best,  spending out of control, etc etc ad nauseum.  And yet, the Congress can waste time on this. 

And they wonder why their approval rating is lower than even Bush’s