North Korea Doesn’t Have Enough Know-How to Inflict the Kind of Damage That Sony Entertainment Sustained in Cyber Attack: Why the Rush to Blame Them Right Off the Bat?

I don’t understand what’s going on with the FBI statement that North Korea was involved in the cyber attack on Sony Pictures…it’s too sophisticated for a backwards country like North Korea to do on its own, with such devastating precision.

It’s far more likely that China was involved with it, as a demonstration of what it could do if a cyber war were to break out between the United States and China.   The Sony movie was an excuse to throw blame on someone else.

If North Korean hackers were involved, it was with Chinese handlers and hackers sitting right next to them, possibly in Chinese territory due to North Korea’s “limited” Internet access.  

It usually takes months to research who did what, and when, when this level of industrial espionage takes place.   Instead, they rushed out a statement blaming North Korea.   Something isn’t right here.  I’d rather see the FBI take its time in investigating this massive cyber attack, instead of rushing to conclusions that are not supported by the evidence.

North Korea can take its joint investigation and jump off a cliff.

Hydraulic Fracturing is Good, But Oil Prices Should Stabilize to Keep As Many Suppliers in Business as Possible

I’m a supporter of fracking as it’s helped us reduce our dependence on foreign oil suppliers, such as Saudi Arabia and the rest of the crooked OPEC cartel.   But too much of a good thing is NOT a good thing.

In order for everyone to stay in business and to make a profit, the free-falling oil prices need to stabilize at a level that will do two things: allow fracking to supplement our oil consumption needs while alternative energy continues to be explored, and damage OPEC at the same time.

OPEC’s been screwing us since 1973.  The more we can tell OPEC to go screw itself and rely on our own resources, the less we will need to be involved in foreign conflicts to protect our energy interests.   Iran wants to blockade the Persian Gulf down the road?  Let ‘em.  OPEC forces can fight it out with Iran—without our help.

Of course, the reality is that we’ll still depend on OPEC oil and we’ll have to keep a lid on Iran ourselves, if Israel doesn’t decide to turn Iran into a parking lot first.  

Saudi Arabia seems to be flooding the market with oil to lower the prices to drive more American companies out of the hydraulic fracturing business.   I don’t know how to combat that strategy, except to embargo Saudi and OPEC oil.  

Whoever wins this energy scrap will control pricing for years to come.  If we hope for maximized energy independence, Saudi Arabia and OPEC must not win this fight.

Reverend Sharpton Hypocricy: A Reminder of What This Man Has Done and Why He Has No Credibility Now

Media Needs to Stop Trying to Link Ferguson and Cleveland Shootings: Both Are Tragic Enough Without the Political Machine in Liberal Media Trying to Make Matters Worse

On the heels of the violence in Ferguson, a report of a young boy with a fake gun being shot by police in Cleveland moved into the 24-hour news cycle, and almost immediately CNN and MSNBC and other liberal outlets started to link the Ferguson violence with the tragic shooting in Cleveland.

One has nothing to do with the other.   They’re two separate and unique situations.

If ANYONE is waving a real-looking pistol around in front of police and not following police instructions, they’re going to get shot, regardless of what their skin color is.   It doesn’t help that the boy’s toy gun had the bright colored toy identifier pulled out of the barrel, which made it look much more real.

How long will it be before Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton show up in Cleveland, doing their race baiting routine again?  They didn’t help matters at all in Ferguson, and backed the wrong side again.

What Jackson and Sharpton should be doing in Cleveland and around the country is going after toy makers for making such realistic looking handgun toys.   Toys need to look like toys, and not like a real gun. 

If one takes the plastic out of the barrel, the gun below looks real…the cops can’t take a chance that something that looks like this is fake…they’re going to open fire, as they did in Cleveland.

Contrast the above photo to the one below.  The above toy needs lots of green and orange like this one does:

Nerf has the right idea.  Simply putting a plastic piece into the barrel isn’t enough.  That’s what the focus should be in Cleveland, but it’s going to be a race thing. 

Ferguson Shooting Witnesses Who Changed Their Stories in Favor of the Popular Narrative Guaranteed That No Charges Would Be Filed: If Activists Want to Blame Someone, Blame the Pro-Michael Brown Witnesses Who Lied Under Oath

The contrast couldn’t be more stark:

Pro-Michael Brown witnesses changed their stories so that they would match the popular narrative, while the eyewitnesses who supported the Ferguson police officer who shot Brown didn’t.   The evidence supported the witnesses who told the truth and weren’t affected by peer pressure.

Given that information, it’s no surprise at all that a grand jury refused to issue an indictment against the police officer.  How could they? 

Those lawyers who are crying about the grand jury system being “broken” should accept the fact that their witnesses turned out to be a bunch of liars who bore false witness to what they saw.  Some of the witnesses changed their story multiple times, too.  The grand jury system worked as well as it could have under the circumstances.

If there’s a lesson to be learned, it should be that witnesses to something like the Ferguson shooting shouldn’t let others influence the way that they tell their story.  Anyone who changed their story should be ashamed of themselves. 

Navy SEAL Who is Revealing Secrets About Bin Laden Raid Shouldn’t Be: Other SEALs Have Kept Military Secrets for Decades Without Fail; What’s This Guy’s Issue?

I have a lot of respect for the service of our veterans, past and present, for all the things that they’re asked to do in the line of duty.

The Navy SEALs are no exception.  They do the impossible, and make it look easy.  But what happens when one of that elite group starts revealing stuff about classified missions, such as the raid in Pakistan that resulted in Osama bin-Laden’s demise?

He’s been allegedly giving interviews to one magazine for months, and another magazine publicly identified him.  Fox News is getting ready to do a major story on it.  The Pentagon is taking a very dark view of the matter and is threatening to take legal action against any military personnel who reveal operational details.

Just because he’s not in government service anymore doesn’t give him the right to start spilling military secrets.  Some things should be left well enough alone and revealed in 50 years or so.

Retired SEALs and other special operators have kept military secrets for decades.  Why is this guy any different?  I respect what he’s done for our country, but he needs to think about his choices in moving forward from here.

If Republicans Take the Senate, They Need to Do Something About the Disastrous Medical Insurance Law: Affordable Care Act Needs to Either Be Repealed or Modified to Help People Instead of Hurting Them

If the GOP wins big tomorrow, they really need to move the Affordable Care Act to the top of their agenda.  ObamaCare goes too far, and should be modified so that it covers only those people who do not have health insurance, or repealed in whole or in part.  

The astronomical deductibles need to go away too.   $5,000 deductibles make purchasing insurance really hard to swallow.    And the IRS shouldn’t be involved in health care either.

I do like the idea of insurance companies not being able to cancel a policy because someone gets pregnant, or gets sick. 

This should be dealt with before immigration reform.

CDC MUST Take Charge of Ebola Response: State Governments Are Messing Things Up and CDC Is Said to Be “Unhappy” With NJ & NY Responses to Ebola Threat

More evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) MUST take charge of all screenings of travelers coming into U.S. Airports of Entry emerged in the last few days.  Nurses returning from Africa reported that they were treated like prisoners and that officials were rude and insulting to them when questioning was going underway.  And the screenings were not done correctly.

These are Americans who risked their lives to save others and they deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, while at the same time ensuring that they are not sick.  

There has to be a way to respect Constitutional protections while isolating those who need to be isolated.  The answer is probably in better Ebola detection testing.  Waiting 21 days to learn if someone is going to come down with Ebola is too slow.   

We need a test that shows the presence of Ebola in a test subject within a matter of an hour or two at most, at any point during the incubation period.

CDC needs to be on point NOW.

Wait a Minute: ISIS Is Using IRAQI Chemical Weapons??! The Weapons We Went to War Over in 2003? Iraq War Narrative Favored By the Democrats Appears to Be Falling Apart Right Before Our Eyes

I’m really confused.  It’s being reported that ISIS is using captured Iraqi chemical munitions against the Kurds in northern Iraq.   WHAT IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS??!

According to anti-war Democrats and liberals and peaceniks, those weapons were destroyed in the 1990s by the United Nations. 

Yet there are now news reports about a bunker that was nicknamed by U.S. occupation forces as the “Dragon’s Egg” as being under ISIS threat.

Looks like the anti-war peacenik narrative on the reasons for the Iraq War are crumbling to dust right before our eyes. 

I had accepted that there were no chemical weapons in Iraq and that we had gone to war for no good reason, but now there are news accounts of U.S. soldiers finding Saddam’s deadly arsenal.  The liberal media ignored the reports in favor of their own narrative.   And the U.S. military, realizing that the media was not on their side or on the side of the Bush Administration, decided not to reveal all that they had found.

Former soldiers are releasing the information now.   And the media is being forced to confront the photographic evidence, such as in the case of Specialist Richard Beasley, who was burned by mustard gas.

Michelle Obama’s School Lunch Program is Awful: The Food Has No Taste, the Kids Don’t Like It, and Schools Are Abandoning the Program and Federal Money to Purchase Food That Kids Will Eat

“Too far, too fast” seems to be echoing throughout many school districts across the country as the districts struggle to meet Federal standards on school lunch programs.  Some of the districts have opted out of the program to buy food that their students will actually eat.

Having eaten school meals over the last couple of years, including food that the district bought before and after the change in Federal standards went into effect, the food they offered before was better, in my opinion.  The pizza they served tasted like cardboard, no yogurt was available, the healthy choice chips that they offered were bland, and most of the items on their menu would not appear on most home menus.  Bleah!

Cut the sodium, by all means.  Cut the artificial flavoring too.  But they shouldn’t have to sacrifice basic good taste for healthy options.

Ebola Screening Begins at Five International Airports in U.S.: It’s Not Enough

Ebola screenings have begun at five airports that accept international flights: Chicago-O’Hare, JFK, Newark, Hartsfield-Jackson and Washington-Dulles.   It’s not enough. 

It’s said that 90% of passengers in Ebola-ravaged Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia use those airports.  But what if passengers change their flight plans to get past the screenings at those airports?

What if a traveler carrying Ebola comes in at one of the other “Airports of Entry?”  The list is quite extensive as shown here.  Five airports for this screening process clearly isn’t enough.

If Americans have the “right of return” as the director of the CDC has said, then they should return when they’re declared Ebola-free.  Same thing for others who have the right to travel to the U.S. from wherever they are.

I have not seen anything so far to indicate that our government has a handle on the problem.   This band-aid fix may be too late.  We’ll know within a matter of days if there’s a huge problem in Texas.   The Liberian who died there had contact with 46 others who are under observation.  A nurse who was treating him was diagnosed with Ebola last night.

And what’s with this story of the NBC news team breaking quarantine?  If they do develop Ebola and infect others during their violation, can they be charged with some kind of crime?  They are said to be “low risk”, but many would rather see them pass by the 21-day incubation period without getting sick before pronouncing them “low-risk.”   NBC should threaten to fire this crew if they don’t follow orders, regardless of whether they get sick or not.

Ebola is here.  We need a better solution than what’s been done so far.

Vice-President Biden Does It Again: He Had to Call Foreign Leaders to Apologize for His Latest Gaffes

Once every generation, we have a politician who comes along who makes gaffe after gaffe, and makes all prior political gaffe-makers look good by comparison.

That’s what Vice-President Biden is doing for former Vice-President Dan Quayle.  That’s all I’m going to say on that topic.

In the latest gaffes, Biden was forced to call the leaders of the UAE and Egypt to apologize for suggesting that they were aiding the al-Qaeda spinoff group ISIS.  The media seems to be having a field day with it; even the liberal press is jumping on it.  It probably has something to do with a recent poll that suggests Democratic voters prefer Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate over Joe Biden as a presidential contender by a HUGE margin---70% to 20% in some markets.

Biden really needs to stay away from the cameras and live mikes if he’s serious about a Presidential run.  After this latest royal screw-up, he can’t make any more mistakes while he’s Vice-President. 

Limbaugh is probably counting down the days to launching Operation Chaos II…getting Republicans to vote in Democratic primaries for Biden to derail Clinton.  I think it’s going to happen. 

For a senior politician, Biden isn’t helping the feeling that the Administration is running amateur hour through the Oval Office.   He rivals Cheney in sheer arrogance, and doesn’t have the foresight to see what kind of damage his words cause.

God help us if Biden ever becomes President, either through the 25th Amendment, or if he is elected to his own term as President.  

Why Hasn’t There Been a Full Embargo on Air Travel to Ebola-Hit Nations in West Africa? Huge Screw-Up at Texas Hospital Has Allowed Ebola to Gain a Foothold in U.S.

An “out of the blue” case of Ebola appears to have hit in Texas due to a screw-up at a Dallas-area hospital.

Why was this allowed to even happen?   The outbreak in West Africa was bound to show up on our shores sooner or later, yet our government has no controls in place to contain it, other than to have the Centers for Disease Control to play catch-up.

There’s no air embargo against West Africa in place.  There’s no plan in place to quarantine incoming travelers until they’ve undergone testing and observations in CDC or infectious disease facilities.   And hospitals haven’t been adequately warned.

CDC cannot afford to play catch-up; one man in Texas may have infected a dozen other people, plus untold (and unconfirmed) hundreds of other people who were in close proximity to him during the flight from Africa to the various air terminals.  All of a sudden, we may have a thousand people or more who are at a direct risk of coming down with Ebola.  How many will these people pass Ebola to?

Hopefully the damage that’s already been done will be contained to the people who are directly involved in Texas.    The nightmare scenario is that Ebola cases start to pop up all over the country like a bad case of chicken pox, and thousands more are infected.

The Obama Administration needs to take drastic action to keep this problem from happening again, if the current situation is indeed contained, as we’re all hoping and praying that it is. 

Russian Government Should Stop Blaming U.S. For Russian Inferiority Complex: Get Your Own House in Order, President Putin

The Russian inferiority complex was on full display at the United Nations, with the Russian foreign minister blaming NATO, the West and the U.S. for destabilizing the world and interfering with Russian affairs.

He was referring to the illegal Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory, of course, and the Western and Arab decision to deal with the ISIS problem in Iraq and Syria.   Putin’s also still seething about the Kosovo declaration of independence from Serbia and the quick Western recognition of Kosovo as a new nation.  He’s also angry that the South Ossetian declaration of independence from Georgia has only been recognized by Russia and a couple of Russian allies.

Then there was the statement that the U.S. had to abandon it’s claim of “eternal uniqueness.”  This guy needs to go back to grade school and learn that everyone is unique, and so is every nation.  We teach our Young 5s to play nice with others, and to share.  Russia’s the bully on the playground, taking other people’s stuff and breaking what it can’t have, like a petulant child.  For a Russian strongman, he sure has thin skin.

Putin’s just upset that he can’t pull out the carving knife and start slicing off parts of other nations without economic consequences.  The Russian ruble is down sharply since they started using their carving knife against Ukraine, and that’s probably going to worsen if Russia doesn’t start behaving and being a good neighbor.

President Obama Should Stop Deployment of U.S. Troops to Ebola-Hit Countries: It’s Too Little, Too Late and Not a Proper Mission for the U.S. Military

Mistake after mistake has been made in the fight to contain the Ebola virus currently rampaging across Western Africa, and President Obama made a big one in deciding to send American troops into Ebola-ravaged country to “fight” it.

They have no business there.

Medical professionals are getting hit by the virus as well, so why send ground troops there and expose more Americans to it?    They should have been setting up field hospitals many weeks ago, if they wanted to take that course, but now it’s almost too late.   The victims number in the tens of thousands.  

We need to impose a blockade on air travel to the U.S. and Europe from Africa, to stop the spread of Ebola.  That’s what the U.S. military should be doing.

If Global Warming is “Settled Science,” Then Why Does the Scientific Community Keep Changing the Data Around to Suit Their Needs? This is Why There Are SO Many Global Warming Skeptics---They Can’t Trust The Data That The Alarmists Are Presenting

Global warming skeptics cannot trust any data coming from the global warming alarmists, as the latter keeps changing the data or suppressing new data that proves that their theories are nothing but hot air.

If the data from the alarmists were genuine, they could present it immediately, and without data alterations or changing how they read the information.   And it would be accepted by all—as-is.

The term “settled science” throws out the much-vaunted scientific method, which involves  forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis and so forth.   All they’ve given to us is a whole lot of hot air that they themselves have been generating about their “settled science.”

This is what happens when politics mixes with science: HOGWASH!

They prepare hockey stick data, falsified data, omitted data, changed data, ignored data, and when all else fails---name calling the skeptics.  Al Gore is an expert at this, and he’s the worst of the lot.  Then they “correct” the data when skeptics blast the incomplete or incorrect data full of holes.

If they’d simply present their data in an unbiased form, we might be able to come to some kind of consensus.   But the alarmists are trying to ramrod shoddy information down everyone’s throats, in the hope that their half-baked theories convince a public that they hope is dumbed down enough to believe it.

Just present the data—as-is—and let the rest tend to itself.  If the data is truthful, many would be more inclined to look at it.   Those involved with the data manipulation should no longer be involved in the discussion or research.  They’re political hacks, not legitimate scientists.

If global warming is going on, these discredited alarmists have sabotaged their own cause.  They can’t blame the skeptics for that.  The responsibility is theirs.    Does anyone in the alarmism ranks even remember the scientific method?

Biden Uses the “Let’s Take Back America” Quote That President Obama and Secretary Holder Think is Racist: Biden Gets a Pass From the Left on This Too, But the Next Republican to Say the Same Thing Will Be Greeted With Screams of “RACIST!” and “RESIGN!!”

Once again, we see the racial double standard in play on the left.  Vice President Biden used the “Let’s take back America” line that President Obama and Eric Holder think is racist.  And nothing is being said by the left.

This begs the question…is this statement racist or not?   I think not.   This is the line that both parties use when they’re not in power or lose a bitterly contested election.

Another question…who is Biden suggesting we take the country back from?  The liberal arm of the Democratic Party, to which he belongs?  What an excellent idea!   I’ll bet someone in the White House communications office was facepalming when they heard Biden utter those words.

Waiting to see what the left will do when a Republican suggests the same thing down the road.   It’s a no-brainer, especially when Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton get into the act.

Massive Breach of iCloud Security Leads to Hundreds of Celebrities Having Nude Photos Leaked Online: Why Did These Hollywood Stars Use iCloud to Store Nude Photos of Themselves?

The headline should read “Hollywood Celebrities Stupidly Store Nude Photos of Themselves on iCloud” or “Massive Security Breach Exposes Danger of Posting Nude Photos Online.”  These celebrities brought this down on themselves.

I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for these actors and actresses who naively posted their nude photos in iCloud.   Uploading these kinds of photos for storage purposes?   STUPID!

If someone else uploaded them without the celebrity’s consent or knowledge, then I do feel bad for them, but if they did it to themselves, that’s just too bad.   Internet safety rules and common sense apply to them as well. The top rule is this:

Never post a photo or revealing information you aren’t prepared to have the entire world to see, in high definition and in multiple places.

“Celebrity is as celebrity does.”  And celebrity does stupid!

“Government Publishes Detailed Instructions on How To Roast Marshmallows”: WHAT??! Did the Government Actually Pay For Such a Study and Document?

The U.S. Forestry Department just published a detailed step-by-step document on how to safely roast marshmallows. 

Excuse me?

The U.S. Forestry Department just published a detailed step-by-step document on how to safely roast marshmallows.

THE GOVERNMENT PAID SOMEONE TO RESEARCH AND PUBLISH THIS KIND OF THING??!   If I want a step by step guide, they should have gone and asked a Boy Scout or Girl Scout to write it down on a piece of paper for them.  They wouldn’t have needed to come out with a 700-word manual on roasting marshmallows.

What is this wacko government doing??!

Double Standard in Progress: Harry Reid Uses Racial Slurs AGAIN, and the Dems Are Going to Let Him Off the Hook AGAIN

Harry Reid and the political double standard on racism are at it again.

Senator Reid was at the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce and used some racial slurs during his speech; he quickly offered a lame apology and everyone seems to have accepted it and forgotten about it.

What would have happened if a REPUBLICAN had used such language?  There would be have been much more of a reaction, and pressure would have quickly built up among Democratic politicians and in the media for the Republican to apologize and resign. 

If it’s a liberal Democrat with Harry Reid, there is an embarrassed silence.   He’s a repeat offender…this double standard must end. 

Media Should Stop Treating Israel and Hamas Like They’re Some Kind of Equals: Hamas Should Be Looked At in the Same Way That the Islamic State “Caliphate” Is

I’m tired of the way the media has been treating Israel in their recent air and ground offensive against Hamas.  They’ve also been very reluctant to compare Hamas to the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terror group, which has seized vast amounts of Syrian and Iraqi territory.

• Israel doesn’t use human shields to protect their military assets.  Hamas and the IS do.  
  
• The Israelis don’t execute people for practicing a different religion than they do.  Hamas and the IS do. 
  
• Israel is a democracy.  Hamas and the IS are not.  In fact, Hamas seized total power by overthrowing the Palestinian Authority in a raging gun battle with Fatah in 2006.  Over the last four days, reports have come out that Israel disrupted a Hamas plot to overthrow the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as well.
    
• Israel protects it’s people.  Hamas and the IS murder their own people by the bushel. In fact, if ordinary Gazans get in the way, Hamas makes an example out of them.  See the video above on the Hamas overthrow of Gaza.

On a side note, can you imagine what would happen if Israel were captured by Hamas?   They wouldn’t offer the Israelis the opportunity to convert to Islam; they’d slaughter every last man, woman and child.  It would be a slaughter, on a scale unseen since the darkest days of World War II and the concentration camps.

The media needs to get its act together and stop treating Israel and Hamas as equals.

Texas Governor Perry Charged With Political Crimes: Texas Really Needs to Get a Handle on What is a Crime and What is Political Tactics, Because the Texas Judiciary is Acting Political and Not Like a Judicial Arm of the Texas Government

First, a couple of definitions…

Political Crime:   a violation of the law or of the public peace for political rather than private reasons; specifically :  one directed against a particular government or political system (credit: Merriam-Webster Online).   My perception of this term is that it’s a political act which inconveniences the other side of a political argument or debate and the other side retaliates by misusing the legal system. 

Criminal offense: a REAL crime.  For example, sexual harassment, rape, wire fraud, mail fraud, tax evasion, lying under oath, driving under the influence, sexual assault, murder, embezzlement, extortion, racketeering, money laundering, insurance fraud, bribery, conspiracy, lewd conduct, manslaughter, obstruction of justice, child pornography, voter fraud, perjury, theft, drug possession, contempt of court/Congress, destroying evidence, treason.  (These are crimes committed by federal officials—credit to Wikipedia)

What has Governor Perry been accused of? 

Abuse of power in the form of a vetoing of a budget of a Texas state government department whose department head was arrested and spent THREE MONTHS in jail for her crime.  Governor Perry wanted her resignation, she said ‘no’.    So when their budget came up for his signature, he vetoed it.  His reason is that the head of the Public Integrity office should have some integrity.  Without it, the department has no reason to continue operating.

So now, if a governor attempts to get a convict to resign from public office, he’s going to be charged with a crime?  This is a political crime, not a real one.

Texas really needs to separate politics from criminal law.   A political act like a veto is not a criminal action in any circumstance.   The correct action for the opposition would be to try to override the veto, but they chose to abuse the legal system instead.  Some sanity in the Texas legal system would be appreciated.

Media’s Blatantly One-Sided and Nonstop Coverage of Killing of A Criminal (Who Happened to be African-American) is Another Example of the Press Trying to Stir People Up Instead of Calming Things Down: No More Media Activism!

I’ve been watching the unfolding story coming out of Ferguson, Missouri with a growing sense of unease, due to the media’s political activism and presenting only their version of what they wish happened, instead of what actually happened.  Right, CNN?

Witness after witness has stated that the “gentle giant” charged the police officer and that the cop opened fire to protect himself.  They’re being called liars by protesters who don’t care about what really happened.   They have their narrative and they’re sticking to it, no matter what the evidence says.

The people on TV stating that marijuana doesn’t alter how a person acts are a joke!  Mind altering drugs DEFINITELY affect how a person acts.   For the media to treat these people as anything other than crackpots is totally ridiculous.

How can showing the “gentle giant” robbing the store be considered to be “character assassination?”   Missouri is required under their “sunshine laws” to share all evidence in the case.  The Jackson/Sharpton crowd are unhappy because, again, it doesn’t fit the chosen narrative.

Finally, the peaceful protests are one thing.  The outside agitators coming in from outside the area to riot and loot are another.  If the demonstrators want to demonstrate peacefully, then they should do so during daylight hours, because the agitators own the night.

If the local prosecutor decides not to pursue the police officer who shot the kid, will all sides accept the decision?  Not a chance!

Germany and Other EU Members Condemn IS Butchery in Iraq: Ho, Hum…If They’re So Worked Up About It, Why Doesn’t the EU Do Something About It?

Germany was quoted as saying they can’t stand idly by while the Islamic State (IS) butchers ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq.

Oh, really?

Sounds like some in the EU are drawing a political “red line” similar to President Obama’s, when he said that use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war would trigger a strong U.S. response.  Chemical weapons were used in Syria, and there was no U.S. response.  Russia’s President Putin saved and humiliated President Obama at the same time.

It’s become obvious that the 2014 version of Iraq will not survive in one piece.   If the EU and the United States arm the Kurds heavily against the Islamic State, who is to say they won’t declare independence from Baghdad, and fight for their political and economic freedom using American and NATO arms?

And what of the Sunnis, who don’t want anything to do with the Shiites?   Seems like the Islamic State is supporting them.

I can see a partition of Iraq, with Sunnis and Shiites crossing into their own territory, such as what happened when India and Pakistan were partitioned.  Hopefully none of them become nuclear-armed like India and Pakistan did.

If the EU wants to take the lead, then they should lead from in front, and not behind the United States, which is engaging IS with air strikes so far.

Please, no more red lines from the West.

Hamas Tunnels Are Proof That Blockade Against Gaza Needs to Be Strengthened, Not Lifted: Concrete Used in Tunnels Was Diverted from Projects Designed to Help Palestinian People and Instead Used to Benefit Hamas’ Militarism

Israel’s stunning photos of Hamas’s underground tunnels show that Hamas is willing to hurt the Palestinian people to benefit itself at their expense.  The tunnels are huge, and constructed of steel and concrete, materials that should have been used for building apartments, hospitals, schools, power plants and other similar projects that would have eased the suffering of the Palestinian people.  Instead, Hamas diverted the materials and built tunnels to bring rockets and explosives across the border, and to transport terror cells under the border into Israel.

In addition, the U.N. has reported that its buildings and schools have been used as ammunition depots and launching areas for Hamas rockets; Hamas uses densely populated civilian neighborhoods to do the same thing, hoping that Israel will attempt to knock out Hamas rocket launchers that are near lots of civilians.

We already knew that Hamas couldn’t be trusted to abide by any international norms in its dealings with Israel, but the tunnels are the proof that the Palestinian people are being used as Hamas pawns, and that Hamas will continue to steal resources and lives from ordinary Gazans who just want to live out their lives in peace.   Gaza really needs a civil war to throw Hamas out, so that this can happen.

Israel recently suggested that the Gaza Strip be demilitarized in exchange for a permanent cease-fire.  This is a great idea, and one that Hamas will never agree to, so long as they refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

I see no quick end to this.

GOP Plays It Smart on Impeaching Obama: It’s Off the Table and Denounced as a Democratic Ploy to Get Attention Away From Obama Administration Failures

The Republicans will not impeach President Obama for his many failures, which is the smart move for the GOP to make.  They are right in denouncing the impeachment talk as a Democratic ploy to create an issue for their liberal base to rally behind.

Hopefully the Republicans keep the legal heat on the Administration.

If Obama Wants to Be Impeached, Why Doesn’t He Save Everyone the Trouble and Resign Instead? GOP Should Stay Away From Impeachment Talk and Let the Lawsuits Play Out

Drudge has a headline that blares “Obama Begging to Be Impeached” and a story outlining the rhetoric that has started in Washington and in the news media about all the actions that President Obama is taking or not taking in terms of the invasion along our southern border, the war between Israel and Hamas, the Ukraine crisis, and the subsequent airliner shootdown in eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed rebels.

The “trigger” for an impeachment is being reported by the media as an Executive Order granting amnesty to five million illegals.

Another news story reported that President Obama is no longer “in” the White House, that he’s mentally checked out of it.

If President Obama wants to be impeached because he wants out of the job, he should spare us the trouble and resign.   But that’s not why he “wants” to be impeached.

As outlined in this WND report, Democratic leaders believe they’re heading for a massive defeat in November and possible loss of the Senate.   If Obama is impeached before the election, it will turn out the unenthusiastic Democratic voters, which could stave off defeat in November.

If that’s the case, the GOP should avoid any mention of impeachment whatsoever.  It’s an unwise course of action to take, and it’s a trap. 

They’re better off suing over illegal Executive Orders and restoring the checks and balances system which is seriously out of whack under President Obama’s Administration.    I hope the GOP focuses their energy on that instead of trying to convince the Democratic-controlled Senate to convict President Obama of impeachable offenses.  

It’s the GOP’s election to lose, so don’t blow it GOP.

If Eric Holder is Having Sleepless Nights Because He’s Afraid of Homegrown Violent Extremists, Perhaps He Should Resign and Let Someone Less Provocative Than Him Run the Justice Department

Eric Holder says that he has a lot of sleepless nights, thinking about homegrown violent extremists among other people.

I don’t know how he sleeps at night anyways.   His Justice Department has lead an assault on the Constitution in ways that will have ramifications for generations to come.   Like the Clinton Administration before it, this Justice Department is being used as a political shield against the President’s enemies.   So much for an independent Justice Department.

I also noticed he mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers, but forgot to mention that this was an attack by terrorists from Chechnya. They were not American citizens, and court papers seem to indicate that while the Chechens were moving in that direction, their foreign radicalization in their native lands shows that they were use the immigration process as a step in carrying out terrorist attacks on Boston and New York.

Perhaps the Democrats should take that into consideration before manufacturing this crisis on our southern border to create new Democratic voters.

IRS Conduct Over Lerner Probe is Disgraceful: IRS Doesn’t Lose or Misplace Documents When It Goes After People Who It Thinks Owe Them Money, So Are We REALLY Supposed to Believe They Actually “Lost” Anything?

OK, so we have the most powerful tax collection agency in the world, which spares no expense at getting every penny they’re owed by American taxpayers, saying that they lost a ton of emails and other data that has been subpoenaed by a Congressional committee that is looking into the targeting of conservative and other groups by the IRS.

Their claims of having “lost” emails baffles the mind.  They don’t lose or misplace information, so the only logical conclusion is that the emails were deliberately deleted by political people inside the IRS who are trying to protect the Administration from another scandal.

Of all the federal agencies, this agency is well-known for its daily data backups of every digital record in its possession.   The thought of anything “lost” beyond recovery at the IRS points to deliberate deletions of both the original emails, and the deletion of the data from the daily backups.    Who has that kind of access at the IRS?

This is going to get a whole lot worse, especially since this is taking place in a poisoned political environment.   If these emails were deleted, the responsible parties should be facing jail time.   And not the poor mid-level patsy that they decide to throw under the bus to throw the bloodhounds off the scent.

And there should be criminal penalties for the IRS taking sides in political discourse, as they appear to have done.   I don’t know if this behavior is already banned by law, but if it isn’t, then it should be.    The IRS has no business furthering the political agenda of an Administration or a political party.

Reserving Judgment: We Need to Let the Military Sort Out Fact From Fiction in Case of Exchanged POW

I’m not going to weigh in on the case of the American soldier who was traded for five top-tier Taliban prisoners until more facts are known.   When I first heard of this story, I thought it was a promotional thing for an episode of the TV series “Homeland.”   Really surprised when I read that it was not a promo.

The military needs more time to figure out if this soldier was captured, or if he deserted as members of his platoon are saying in the media.  Everybody needs to settle down for a while, and stop throwing words like “traitor” around until the military figures out what the circumstances were behind the soldier’s disappearance. 

I’ll wait for new developments before saying more.

Bundy’s Race Comments Are Major Screw-Up: Whatever Goodwill He Had Built Up Went Out the Window and He Won’t Get It Back

Clive Bundy decided to discuss race relations following his victory against federal agents who were sent to rustle his cattle, and managed to turn many sympathetic people against him in the space of a few short minutes.

What an idiot.

Captains Who Abandon Ship Before Every One of Their Passengers is Accounted For Should Be Charged With Crimes: Recent Cruise Line/Ferry Disasters Had Captains Who Left While Leaving Passengers to Their Fates on Sinking Ships

I do not expect captains of stricken ships to go to the bottom of the ocean with their vessels, but they should be leaving their ships on the last lifeboats, or jumping into the water along with the passengers that they’re responsible for.   In two major passenger disasters, the captain of the Costa Concordia and the captain of the recent South Korean ferry abandoned ship before all hands and passengers were safely off.

The captain of the Costa Concordia abandoned ship and refused an Italian Coast Guard order to re-board the ship and take charge of the evacuation of the rest of the passengers.  He was charged with crimes by Italian authorities.  The captain of the South Korean ferry left on the very first lifeboat.  Authorities are seeking his arrest.

Some other examples of captains evacuating themselves before their passengers (credit to Wikipedia):

• November 12, 1965: Captain Byron Voustinas of the SS Yarmouth Castle
• April 7, 1990: Captain Hugo Larsen of the Scandinavian Star.
• August 3/4, 1991: Captain Yiannis Avranas of the cruise ship MTS Oceanos.
• January 13, 2012: Captain Francesco Schettino of the Costa Concordia.
• April 16, 2014: Captain Lee Joon-seok of the "Sewol ferry." The Captain and all of the crew (except one) escaped first, abandoning nearly 300 junior high school students to drown.

Some examples of captains going down with their ships, or choosing to stay aboard when they realized there were people still on board (credit to Wikipedia):

• September 12, 1857: William Lewis Herndon was in command of the commercial mail steamer Central America when it encountered a hurricane. Two ships came to the rescue, but could only save a fraction of the passengers, so Captain Herndon chose to remain with the rest.
• April 15, 1912: Captain Edward Smith was in command of the RMS Titanic when it struck an iceberg. Smith knew within minutes that the ship was doomed and did all in his power to prevent panic. Smith did not survive the sinking. As the ship went down, Smith was seen walking towards the bridge, only a few minutes before it and the rest of the ship's forward superstructure were engulfed by the sea.^[3] When the ship's lamp trimmer Samuel Hemming entered the bridge seconds after Smith was seen walking towards it, he found the bridge apparently empty.^[4] There are conflicting accounts of what happened to Smith: Some, including second radio operator Harold Bride,^[5] claimed to have seen him jumping in the water, or in the water swimming either toward a lifeboat or near the capsized collapsible lifeboat "B," while others claimed he committed suicide by shooting himself.^[6] Others including first class passenger Robert Williams Daniel said that Smith entered the wheelhouse on the bridge and died there when it was engulfed.^[7][8] The actual fate of captain Smith will probably remain uncertain.
• February 7, 1943: Commander Howard W. Gilmore, captain of the American submarine USS Growler (SS-215), gave the order to "clear the bridge," as his crew was being attacked by a Japanese gunboat. Two men had been shot dead; Gilmore and two others were wounded. After all others had entered the sub and Gilmore found that time was critically short, he spoke his last order: "Take her down." The executive officer, hearing his order, closed the hatch and submerged the crippled boat, saving all of the crew from the attack of the Japanese convoy escort. Commander Gilmore was never seen again, but the submarine made repairs and returned to battle. Gilmore received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his "distinguished gallantry," the first submariner to receive this award.
• October 29, 2012: Captain Robin Walbridge of the Bounty, a replica of the HMS Bounty, stayed on the ship until it capsized during Hurricane Sandy. Fourteen crew members who made it to life boats survived the sinking of the sailing ship and were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard helicopters. Walbridge's last known words were to his crew: "Abandon ship."^[9]

In the case of the USS Growler, the captain sacrificed himself to save his crew, hence his Medal of Honor.  Smith of the Titanic and Walbridge of the Bounty sailing replica were heavily criticized for their command decisions prior to their ships going down, but they still stayed aboard their sinking ships.

The captains of the South Korean Sewol ferry and the Costa Concordia could have chosen to stay on board until the last minute, before jumping into the water or being rescued by local Coast Guard and military rescue crews. They chose to save their own skins.

Some thoughts:

--All cruise line and ferry crews should speak a common language.   On too many cruise ships (all of them?), the crews can’t understand the captain or officers because they speak their own languages.   In worldwide aviation, English is the spoken language.  This should be a cruise line standard as well. Crews and officers need to be able to communicate with each other instantly, and not just through a translator, IF they’re fortunate to have one on board.

--Captains need far more training than they currently get.  It might be better if captains have a naval background and possesses the military ethos on their responsibilities to their passengers and crew.

--Captains are not bystanders when a disaster strikes aboard their ship.   They need to do their duty and save the lives of others, AND STAY ABOARD THEIR STRICKEN VESSEL to do it.

Something has to change.  I hate hearing stories that captain and crew abandoned ship and left passengers behind when a disaster at sea strikes.  That isn’t right, and no amount of apologizing by the dishonored captain or crew members will be sufficient to make up for their bad decision making, or for the people who die because the captain decided to save his own neck and then watch his own ship sink from the safety of a life raft.

Harry Reid Needs to Retire: He’s Acting Like Nevada’s Emperor over the Bundy Ranch Situation Instead of Acting Like the Senate Majority Leader and Dealing With More Pressing National Issues…Get With the Program, Reid, or Get Out of the Way!

Harry Reid is up to his eyeballs in the federal government vs. Nevada rancher situation, calling the civilian militias “domestic terrorists” and vowing that the fight “isn’t over.”

Get real, Reid, and do your job.  You’re not the Nevada Emperor, and not a particularly good Senate Majority Leader either.   Either do the job your Nevada constituents (including Clive Bundy) elected you to do, or retire. 

This situation was created by the Obama Administration ignoring legal protocol and going over to a direct armed confrontation, which brought the armed civilian militias out in droves to stop the federal rustlers.

The Obama Administration is at fault here.  

Reid needs to start acting like the Senate Majority Leader and get off his high horse, or retire.  The militias are playing him like a drum.

Obama Administration is Provoking a Domestic Uprising With Their Stupid Cattle Round-Up: They Need to Stop Sending Police, K-9 Units and SWAT Teams to Handle Arguments With Farmers and Ranchers

The civilian militias are having a field day, with the latest domestic blunders by President Obama and his Senate lap-dog, Harry Reid.   And the liberal media outfits aren’t covering any of it either.

The latest incident happened in Nevada, where federal officers and local police began rounding up cattle belonging to a local rancher.  The feds were claiming that Clive Bundy owed over a million dollars in grazing fees and brought in two hundred armed agents to rustle Bundy’s cattle.

Out came the militias, who were, of course, armed to the teeth, and a standoff ensued, with both sides pointing guns at each other, and several highly publicized confrontations being filmed in front of (conservative) news crews, and by private citizens, who almost instantly posted their videos to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The feds backed off, but vowed to win in federal court.  That’s probably where this situation should have gone first.  Again, the Obama Administration seems hell-bent on short-cutting legal procedures.

In the meantime, now they have emboldened civilian militias looking for the next fight with federal government forces.   Thanks a lot, President Obama.   What’s next, a civil war when a state government refuses to enforce a federal law?  Sounds like a remake of Bleeding Kansas in the works.

Veteran Politicians Being Driven Out by Gridlock: Good, It’s About Time! Now Maybe Their Replacements Will Be Willing to Negotiate More Than Their Incompetent Predecessors

A lot of career or long-term politicians have decided to retire at the end of the term; the gridlock that is the hallmark of several sessions of Congress is said to be the reason for the frustration and decisions of some to retire.

GOOD!

If they’re not part of the solution, then they’re part of the problem. 

I don’t care if my state loses the chairperson’s position on this committee, or that committee.  It’s worth losing those politicians who hold those positions, if we get someone in there who is at least willing to talk to others.  Our current Congress doesn’t do enough talking; they refuse to meet with their political opponents to arrive at a deal.

As things stand, the only way that Congress can get anything done is if one party controls both houses of Congress.   It shouldn’t be that way.  

With recent debates on the budget and the debt ceiling, we’ve seen politicians make statements to the media about their positions on the debate, and then no meetings for weeks and months on end, until a week or two before the money is set to run out for the federal government to operate.  That doesn’t include Congressional paychecks, mind you.  Then there’s a flurry of meetings, like someone flipped the switch to the “Congress ON” setting.   They should have been meeting weeks and months prior, and hammering out a deal. 

Perhaps the next Congress should pass a law stating that their paychecks should be affected by the presence or absence of a budget agreement.   No budget=no pay.  After all, they force other federal employees to not get paid if there’s a shutdown.   Why shouldn’t Congress play by the same rules?

That’ll get them motivated to reach a budget deal much quicker, instead of shutting the government down.

So, to the Representatives and Senators who are retiring because they’re “frustrated,” bye bye.

Mozilla CEO Forced to Resign Over Donation to Anti-Gay Marriage Proposal in California: That Isn’t Right—ALL People Should Be Allowed to Exercise Their Freedom of Expression Regardless of Issue

A dating service called OKCupid recently asked Firefox users not to use the browser to access their site because of Mozilla’s CEO donating money to an anti-gay marriage proposal in California.  It started a firestorm, which lead to the CEO of Mozilla stepping down (?)  to defuse the situation.

Mozilla did not stand their ground for freedom of expression and their CEO was shown the door.

I do not support Mozilla’s spinelessness and hypocrisy on their statement of freedom of speech and equality.  Mozilla has shown that their statement only extends to certain individuals, and not all individuals, such as their ex-CEO. 

I don’t care about the ex-CEO’s politics or if he supported this or that or the other thing.   He can support whatever cause or political agenda he wants, with his vote or with his money, the same as anybody else, and the same as those who were opposed to Proposal 8.

I’m rethinking my use of Mozilla products over this situation.  If I can find a viable alternative that I like for Firefox and for Thunderbird, I may well take them.    That’s very unfortunate because I really like both products and Mozilla as a whole, until this scandal hit.

I’m very unhappy with Mozilla.  They should amend their statement to be not as inclusive as it currently is.  They’ve demonstrated that they will not support some legitimate forms of speech, such as monetary donations to anti-gay marriage proposals in the state of California.

I also think that the decision of the California state government to publish the names of donors to Proposal 8 is an obscenity.   If I want to support a particular party or proposal as a private citizen, it’s my right to do so, privately and free of threats of retaliation and harassment from any village idiots.   There’s at least one web site in California that has posted locations on maps of people who supported Prop 8, and harm has come to some of them.

Mozilla needs to decide which side it’s on, and California needs to stop the voter and donor intimidation.

United States Should Reverse its Decision to Give Up Internet Controls: U.S. Will Do a Much Better Job of Maintaining Internet Freedom of Expression Than Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and Other Nations Who Lock Up Their Own Citizens For Saying What’s On Their Mind

President Obama made a major mistake in giving up control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which controls how users can access websites all over the world.

It’s not too late to reverse this decision.   Until every nation on the planet guarantees freedom of speech to their citizens, and establishes a history of respecting those rights, AND stops locking up those same citizens for daring to disagree with their governments, we have no business surrendering control of it to any international body.

American ingenuity and treasure was spent on creating the Internet, and it should rest permanently with the same department in the United States government that it has been with so far.

The Democrats talk about having an Internet free of government control, and that’s fine and dandy if all world governments agree to the same thing in a legally binding contract.   I don’t see us agreeing with Russia, Iran, China, or other regimes that have poor records on free speech.

Congress needs to reverse this decision before it’s too late.   The last thing we need is Vladimir Putin or one of a dozen despots around the world to decide that they want to shut down sites that report on what they’re doing.  Information is power, and these leaders who desperately want control of the web know it, and fear it.

That’s reason enough to keep the controls under U.S. jurisdiction permanently.

ATF Violates Court Order and Confiscates Gun Ownership Records in San Diego: How Did this Happen?

Wow.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went after a customer list of people who bought parts to manufacture AR-15s from several gun store locations in San Diego.  At the heart of the dispute is one piece of the construct that is being reviewed by a San Diego court, and who had issued a restraining order against the ATF to hold off raiding the store until matters were settled in federal court first.

For whatever reason, the ATF violated the restraining order and went after the parts, the customer lists, and whatever else they felt like grabbing.

The U.S. district attorney for San Diego is said to be in possession of the customer lists; 5,000 people are said to be on the list.

Lots of questions on this story:

Did the ATF go to court to get the restraining order lifted?  If they didn’t, isn’t this search and seizure illegal, and all information gleaned from the confiscated computers and lists considered to be fruit from the poisonous tree?

Is the ATF in contempt of court?

Who issued the order for the ATF to ignore the court order?

Did the ATF search warrant come from a higher federal court than the one who issued the restraining order?  How does this work?

It look an awful lot like the ATF royally screwed up an open-and-shut case and violated a whole slew of federal laws related to the Second Amendment in the process.  This will be an interesting story to follow.

Crimea Votes for Independence As Precursor to Rejoining Russian Federation: European Union and U.S. Respond With Feeble Sanctions Against Russia

The Russian/Crimean situation has been royally screwed up by Russian oil-dependent European states, and by the feeble U.S. government.  Putin is laughing his head off at how weak the West has become.

If they want to stop Russia from overrunning the rest of Ukraine, they have to apply sanctions that will do more than hurt the Russian government and military.  Targeted sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian political figures is a joke.  Some of the targeted Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians and generals have no assets to seize in the E.U. or in the U.S. and have no interest in traveling to the Eurozone or to the United States.  Can we cut off Internet access to the entire Russian Federation?  That would get their attention.

Crimea is a lost cause; the Russian Army is already dug in there.   Let the Russians have the Crimea.  Ukraine isn’t about to launch a full-scale war against Russia to retake Crimea, but they will fight to keep the Russians out of the rest of Ukraine.  We should offer them NATO membership immediately.

This crisis has shown that European nations need to diversify their energy imports in order to preserve their national sovereignty against future Russian aggression.   They’re at Russia’s mercy much more than the U.S. is. 

I think we should also look at the criticisms that are being leveled at Russia for conducting this “referendum.”  They’ve raised the point that we did the same thing in Iraq and in Afghanistan while having our troops in control of both countries.  We also recognized Kosovo, almost immediately, after it broke away from what was left of Yugoslavia.   We also recognized South Sudan almost immediately.  The British held a referendum on the Falkland Islands during last year’s diplomatic flare-up with Argentina.  These are valid points that we cannot ignore.

We also cannot ignore the ballot language in Crimea.  The question was “Should Crimea join the Russian Federation now, or later?”  There was not a “No” option on the ballot.  This makes the referendum invalid.   Such ballot language in the United States would be challenged in court before the vote was even held.  And the language would be thrown out by the court.  If the revised language wasn’t submitted for approval in time, there would be no ballot question at that particular upcoming election.

Compare Britain’s Falklands 2013 referendum language from Wikipedia: ….they asked each voter if they supported the continuation of their status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom in view of Argentina's call for negotiations on the islands' sovereignty?   Yes or No.    A successful No vote would have lead to a second referendum which would lay out more options, including joining Argentina.  As it was, 99.8% of Falklands voters decided in favor of staying aligned with Britain, with a 92% turnout rate.  Credit to Wikipedia for the important stuff in this paragraph.

The British also allowed international monitors in to make sure the balloting was fair.  Russia did not.   In fact, there were reports that international observers (UN people, including the Secretary General’s emissary, not international voting observers) had automatic weapons fired over their heads in warning shots to get out and stay out of Crimea.

What we haven’t said yet is that we don’t like how Russia manipulated the vote, and that Russia seems hell-bent on getting their way, at any cost. 

The EU, the U.S. and Russia all have valid points.  We need to focus on keeping Russia out of the Baltics, Poland and other nations that share a border with Russia.  Putin’s empire building must stop in the Crimea.

Next Russian Move in Ukraine Will Be After the Paralympics are Done in Sochi

It looks like the Russians are focused back on behaving themselves while the Para-Olympics are taking place over in Sochi.   Someone had better schedule Olympics year-round in Sochi so that the Russians desist from power-slamming their neighbors while Sochi is being utilized by the international community.

The “vote” that the Russians have scheduled to complete their land-grab in the Crimea will happen as the Winter Olympics end.  Wonder if all the Russian soldiers who have invaded will get to vote too.

A Russian/Ukrainian Military Conflict is Imminent: Putin Asks for and Gets Russian Senate Approval to Use Military Force in Ukraine After Obama’s Weak Statement

My February 11th prediction appears to be coming true…I said that Russia would go after Ukraine with Putin daring the West to stop him, and that appears to be happening quicker and quicker.

If President Obama wants to get Putin’s attention now, he needs to send the entire Russian Black Sea fleet to the bottom of the Black Sea TODAY and destroy the Russian base on the Crimean Peninsula.  Easier said than done.  Our President is too timid to send in U.S. troops to get between the Russians and Ukrainians. Ukraine is going to have to fight to stay in one piece now, without international support.  The U.S. and NATO are going to sit this one out.  

Who didn’t see this coming?

If Ukraine Attempts to Use Its Law Enforcement Forces to Restore Order in Crimea, Russians Will Invade: They Did the Same Thing in Georgia/South Osettia War

If we’ve learned anything from recent history, it’s that Russia will not tolerate threats to ethnic Russian populations in any neighboring countries.  They invaded Georgia  in 2008 to stop the Georgians from cracking down on South Ossetians who had declared independence from Georgia and were calling for annexation to Russia.   That’s why I think the Russian Army will attack Ukraine.

With Ukraine coming apart, and the ethnic Russians in the eastern part of the country taking paramilitary action, Russia began maneuvers with a 150,000 man army in the region, and sent its military aircraft to threaten Ukraine’s borders.  They’re also protecting Ukraine’s former president.
 
Now that the Olympics are over, there’s nothing to stop Russia from going after Ukraine, in whole or part, should the Ukraine attempt to use force to retake their government buildings in the Crimea and bring the ethnic Russians back into line.  That’s exactly what the Ukrainians must do, and what Russia is waiting for them TO do. 

This is not going to go well for the Ukraine.   How far the Russians would take a military confrontation is unclear, but they’d love to have the entire country under their control again, and not just the eastern Ukraine.   They’d also love to reclaim the rest of the Black Sea fleet, which was divided between Russia and Ukraine.

The Russians have everything to gain and the Ukrainians everything to lose.

Un-backed Virtual Currencies Are Far Too Risky to Invest In: Fly-by-Night Exchanges Like Mt.Gox Come and Go on Slightest Vague Problem

One of the largest bitcoin exchanges got virtually robbed, and $400 million of their virtual money is gone, making the company insolvent.  MtGox is under investigation by American and Japanese agencies over the $400 million theft.

In an age where many companies are unable to secure their own servers due to cost, ignorance, or lack of care, why is everyone surprised that hackers managed to get into an online company to steal online money?   Investigators are saying that those who lost money are going to be out of luck.

What in the world is a bitcoin anyways?  From the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for it: “ Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency introduced as open source software in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a cryptocurrency, so-called because it uses cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money.^[5] Conventionally, the capitalized word "Bitcoin" refers to the technology and network, whereas lowercase "bitcoins" refers to the currency itself.^[6] “

In other words, people pay real money for a certain number of bitcoins.  At today’s exchange rate, one bitcoin is worth $558.00  The currency sharply devalued after the MtGox exchange was robbed of roughly $400 million in bitcoin currency a few days ago.

I don’t trust online-only currency that is not backed by full faith and credit of a sovereign government and in widespread use.    Seems like “buyer beware” is the word of the day when it comes to deciding whether or not to invest in this kind of currency.

Piers Morgan to End CNN Show: Americans Didn’t Like Non-Citizen Preaching to Them About Gun Control

It was announced that Piers Morgan and CNN will end his talk show, which is not a bad thing.

It’s bad enough that American  politicians of both stripes and their supporters are doing their part to shred parts of the Constitution that they don’t like, but when it came to a foreign reporter preaching to the American public about gun control, it was too much for many Americans to take.

No disrespect to the British, but we can handle our own debates in our own country, in the same way that you British folks can handle your own affairs without our input.  Piers Morgan went too far and it backfired on CNN in the form of declining ratings and revenue.  His condescending attitude didn’t help his cause either.

This is a smart move on the part of CNN.

If Karzai Won’t Sign the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), U.S. Should Zero Out All U.S. Forces No Later Than January 1st, 2015

Enough with Afghan President Karzai already.   His continued belligerence toward international forces and his refusal to sign agreements with the international community should lead to an immediate pull-out of all U.S. forces, to be completed no later than January 1st, 2015.

2,169 U.S. troops have died on behalf of the Afghan ingrate and not another soldier should be asked to fight there if Afghanistan doesn’t pull its head out of the sand and start to deal with these issues, and for the Afghan president to get his rotten attitude under control.

I know U.S. forces want to remain there to finish the job, but our own President isn’t committed to victory, and neither is the Afghan president.  Our military needs time to address the needs of its soldiers, to retool and rebuild.  They’ve been at war for a long time, the longest war in U.S. history, and those troops should come home.

Afghanistan should be allowed to revert back to tribal kingdoms as it was before the imperial powers got in there.  It’s a failed state in its current form, and no Western army will change that by force of arms.

Mid-January to Mid-February Notes

Need to do something for in-between times, when I’m working on stuff but am not ready to publish yet.  Thoughts:

--With all the trouble in the Ukraine, how long can it be before Russia invades, under the guise of “restoring order?”  Anyone remember the war that they had with Georgia a while over South Ossetia?   Once the Winter Olympics are over, I think there will be a Russian intervention, with Putin daring the West to try and stop him.

--With the kickoff of the Olympics, Russian TV commentators are behaving quite badly toward American Olympic athletes.  They’re doing a fine job of humiliating themselves.   In addition, anti-FBI and CIA propaganda has started appearing in Sochi businesses.

--Cossacks are helping to secure the Winter Olympics at Sochi.   I didn’t think the Cossacks were Putin supporters.   There’s a possibility of increased tension between the Russians and the Cossacks after the Olympics and possibly clashes too.

--President Obama can’t change laws on his own once they’ve been enacted by Congress as he’s done with his health care law.    Someone needs to take President Obama to court to rein him in; the GOP appears ready to do so.  He can’t do “what he wants” via Executive Orders despite what he thinks.  Limits on Executive Orders need to be permanently defined by the Supreme Court  for this President and all future Presidents.  Until this happens, the checks and balances system will remain under threat from an “over-reaching Executive Branch.”  American Presidents do not rule by fiat like North Korea’s president or Russia’s president do.

--The Bieber brat is facing charges in Los Angeles, in Florida and in Toronto. He may be facing federal charges for smoking pot on a plane bound for the Super Bowl earlier this month as well.   His dad isn’t helping matters.

 

That’s all for now.

Media Needs to Throw the Ignore on Dennis Rodman’s North Korean Jaunts: Don’t Give the Egotistical Wingbag Any More Coverage

The media needs to stop covering the Dennis Rodman/Kim Jong Un story.  They’re giving both megalomaniacs the kind of press that they both crave.

Rodman got into a rant with a CNN reporter today, with his fellow ex-NBA players looking awfully uncomfortable in the background.   He is way out of his league in the area of “cultural exchanges.”   His idea of a cultural exchange is to marry himself and put himself in front of the cameras in a wedding dress.

If he wants to be friends with the North Korean brat, whatever.  Keep the cameras away and don’t report on his movements, and see how often he goes to North Korea when everyone is ignoring him.

“Polar Vortex” is Nothing to Get Worked Up About: It’s Happened Before and is Not Unprecedented

The news networks have been overblowing the “polar vortex” thing related to the cold snap in the U.S. and elsewhere.  It’s not an unprecedented event…this has happened many times before, and not just in the winter either.  Polar air does drive southward from time to time.

It is not related to global warming, despite what the global warming alarmists are trumpeting on CNN and MSNBC.  It’s SUPPOSED to be cold in the winter.

According to news network precedence, if it happened twenty years ago, it didn’t happen.  The reason why is they are targeting people young enough to not remember the last time we had an extremely cold winter, or a cooler-than-average summer due to the jet stream being further south than normal, and further south than we would like it. 

This too, will pass.  Until then, we can experience what the Russians normally experience during the winter in their country: cold temperatures.

I’m enjoying watching the global warming alarmists try to whip up a panic.  THE SKY IS FALLING!  THE SKY IS FALLING!  (NOT!)

So, This is What Global Warming Feels Like: Alarmists in the U.S. Should Stand Outside Naked Over the Next Few Days and Enjoy Their “Global Warming”

Global warming freaks in the U.S. will be trying to ignore freezing their collective butts off this week as their “global warming” nonsense took another major hit, a couple of weeks after a Russian research vessel sent to Antarctica to monitor “thinning polar ice” got trapped by record THICK ice.  How many icebreakers got stuck down there in record ice?  Two?    HOW EMBARASSING!

When will these fools admit that their “settled science” is nothing of the sort, and that they have a huge amount of research left to conduct before even being ready to form a hypothesis on global heating and cooling?  The only thing that’s melting around here is the “settled science” theory.

Enjoy freezing your butts off, global warming alarmists and AL GORE.   You can blame your pipes freezing and your carbon-emitting cars not starting because they’re frozen on “global warming” too. 

Hezbollah Involvement in Syria Has Brought Retaliation From Syrian Groups into Lebanon’s Streets: Who Didn’t See This Coming?

As expected, Syrian militant groups opposed to Syrian President Assad’s reign of terror have struck back at Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based terror group, by attacking Hezbollah targets inside Lebanon.

Hezbollah has been complaining that the targets that are being hit are civilian targets, which may or may not be true, but with their attacks on Syrian civilians, they should have taken steps to protect Lebanese civilians from retaliation.  The Lebanese are caught in the middle again.

Hezbollah probably considers the loss of Lebanese civilians as acceptable losses if it helps to keep one of its major suppliers of weapons in power.  They’ve already ruined Lebanon, and now they’re doing their best to ruin Syria too.  Did they really think that the Syrian rebels would take no steps to strike back, especially where Hezbollah lives?

I have no sympathy for Hezbollah.  If they want to do some good in the region, they should pull their forces from Syria, leave Assad to his fate,  recognize Israel and work toward peaceful goals.

Iraq Pulls Its Troops From Fallujah and Turns Control Over to Local Police, Who Are Promptly Defeated by Militants: This is Nouri al-Maliki’s Problem, Not Ours

Two Iraqi cities have been captured by al-Qaeda, or by militants opposed to both al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government, after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pulled the Iraqi Army from those areas.  Responsibility for security was turned over to local forces who were no match for battle-hardened militant fighters.   Fallujah and Ramadi both fell to the militants within days of the army pulling out.

Time to see if the Iraqi Prime Minister can back up his bold words and retake both cities, as well as securing the rest of al-Anbar province. 

He’s going to find out the cost of launching military operations against fortified enemy positions with major civilian populations nearby, in terms of lives and political capital. 

Can’t help but think about the press conferences held by this Iraqi Prime Minister who was quick to criticize U.S. and coalition forces for inflicting collateral damage on Fallujah and its residents during the occupation.  Now he’s calling the shots and ordering his military in. 

There’s no doubt that the Iraqi military will defeat the militants, but they’re going to cause the same kind of damage to the city and residents as the coalition did during the war, and Nouri al-Maliki will take the same kind of heat that the U.S. and international forces did when he criticized them.

This is an Iraqi problem, and the U.S. needs to stay out of Iraq.   We can’t go riding to the rescue of Nouri al-Maliki every time he makes a blunder and Islamic militants take full advantage by capturing entire cities.   Iraq has to deal with this on its own.