Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts

Friday, April 20, 2012

Good news! Joe Kennedy the 12th wants to end 'cheap oil'

Joe Kennedy the 19th believes he has a royal right of inheritance to Barney Frank's seat. No, I mean his Congressional seat. How else to explain this idiocy:

Ever since he entered the race for Massachusetts' Fourth Congressional District, Joseph Kennedy III has been facing criticism for avoiding discussing any substantive issues. Even left-leaning blogs have pointed out that his website lacked an issues page.


Well, Kennedy finally stepped up this week and gave the voters some idea about where he stands on the issues:

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama — they’ve all talked about the same thing: the need to wean ourselves off our debilitating dependence on foreign oil.

The cycle that allows cheap oil to trump tough choices has to stop. Forty years is enough.

- Joe Kennedy III, April 17, 2012, "A Note From Joe"

So our problem is cheap oil. Who knew?

I'm sure that comment gives a lot of comfort to the residents of Massachusetts, many of whom are dependent on heating oil each winter.

So I created the following bumper-sticker:


Feel free to spread it around. I know Joe Kennedy is often described as "out of touch". That's a monumental understatement.

Update: Bonus sticker!



Related: Support Sean Bielat.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

New look for the BadBlue conservative news service

If you've only recently returned to Earth after being kidnapped by aliens, you may have missed January's introduction of BadBlue.com.

BadBlue helps you discover the hottest stories from center-right news sources, ranging from new media behemoths like Hot Air and The Blaze, to major league blogs like Instapundit and Michelle Malkin, to lesser-known new media outlets like the Free Beacon and CDN, to even small, up-and-coming blogs like Alexa Shrugged and Hoosier Access.

BadBlue doesn't have any human editors. Only the "buzz" a story gets on the social networks will promote it to the front page. Furthermore, BadBlue has no political agenda. It monitors nearly 600 sites, 24 by 7, to make sure you don't miss a thing. You can also use the tabs on the top of the page to review the most popular stories for the last 24 hours, the last week, or even the last month.


In any event, this weekend, we upgraded the cosmetics of the site based upon several concerns we'd heard expressed. The background should be a bit easier on the eyes. And the default typeface (Georgia, 14-point) was selected based upon a study produced by the Software Usability Research Lab. If you don't like the size of the font, use the buttons at top right to adjust up or down.

The idea behind BadBlue is to promote stories based upon merit, not the whims of editors, and -- best of all -- to bypass the filters that old media still tries to enforce. So check out BadBlue, if you would, and let us know what you think in the comments!

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

More anti-Obama street art spotted

It started last year and included a sticky note campaign.


I have a strong feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of this over the next few months.


Thursday, March 29, 2012

Leftist-In-Training (i.e., "Journalist") Beclowns Herself With Faux Book Review of Ameritopia

Over at the Indiana Daily Student, a leftist-in-training (also known as a "journalist") named Sidney Fletcher -- if that is her real name -- just butchered a review of Mark Levin's bestseller Ameritopia.

Sure, there are examples and ideas in the literature of liberal utopias that might be considered tyrannical. The work of utopian socialist Charles Fourier comes to mind.

But I suspect that if Levin were to ask young leftists about their utopias, he would discover that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Leftist utopias are a libertarian’s paradise...

...It is people such as Levin, who claim to be on the side of liberty but want to take women’s rights to control their own body and want to continue the clear economic bias of the state in favor of the rich, who are responsible for statism and for creating the problems in America today.

Levin decries utopia as the fantasy of the left, but in doing so he ignores his own desired utopia: a utopia led by the perversions of the memory of the Founding Fathers in which all those annoying minorities would just go away.

Sidney, it is curious indeed that you omitted two of the most critical elements of Ameritopia. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are central to Levin's thesis and yet you give no credence to the history and context of the these documents, other than to tar the Founders and Framers as racists.

The Constitution inarguably created the most benificent society ever seen on Earth. People of every background, race, religion and creed strive to enter the United States, not because it is an intolerant society, but because it offers the most opportunities for the individual to succeed on his or her own merits.

Clearly you have skipped over the battle between the northern and southern states while the Declaration of Independence was being written. The slave states, most prominently South Carolina and William Rutledge, refused to endorse The Declaration unless the scourge of slavery was omitted. It is clear, however, that no country with a founding document like the Declaration could long tolerate slavery.

In fact, the ratification of the Constitution by the states performed two noble services to advance the anti-slavery cause: it banned the importation of slaves, setting the stage for the eventual end of the despicable practice; and it forced the southern states to count slaves as three-fifths of an individual for purposes of Congressional representation.

This was critically important, because the slave states wanted to have it both ways: they sought to count slaves as human beings for the purposes of strengthening their Congressional numbers, but also to treat them as chattel from a legal perspective.

The Constitutional compromise thereby instantiated an inherent conflict between North and South.

Had the Declaration and Constitution not united the states, there would have been no Civil War over the issue of slavery and emancipation. Slavery likely would have survived far longer in a set of disparate states without a cohesive federal charter like the Constitution.

In summary, you do a disservice to the overall point of the book. Conservatism recognizes the inherent flaws of government and its tendency to dissolve into various corrupted forms of tyranny or authoritarianism -- consider the long history of mankind as proof -- and attempts to strengthen the bulwark against this dissolution. That bulwark is the Constitution.

You claim that "Leftist utopias are a libertarian’s paradise", yet the public sector unions and trial lawyers -- two groups working in lockstep with Democrats -- argue endlessly for bigger government, more regulations, more taxes and more sovereignty of the government over the individual. You can look no farther than the teachers unions' unequivocal war against charter schools, against the will of most parents seeking a better education for their children.

In fact, progressivism, the tenet of the Democrat Party since Woodrow Wilson, recognizes no limits on government. Can the federal government force you to buy health insurance? Why, of course it can! Can it tell you what kind of shower heads, light bulbs, cars, clothing, baby strollers and food to purchase? Yes of course! No, leftist utopias are totalitarian states, where freedom of speech is banned, there are no gun rights, and state governments have no power whatsoever.

Tell me, which of the Bill of Rights do you think Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would support?

And Sidney, I ask you: where are the limits on government if not the Constitution? Many of our temporary politicans take an oath to uphold that document and then promptly attempt to evade or ignore it. If laws are malleable, if they can be shredded at the whim of a Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer for some temporary expedient, what prevents the eventual descent of this Republic into Ameritopia? Where are the limits on government, if we are to ignore our highest law, not to mention history, facts, logic and experience?

The default condition of humankind has been poverty, misery and slavery. We live in the most magnificent society ever seen on Earth, and instead of protecting it, Democrats continuously push us to adopt the failed policies of central planning, massive debts, unlimited welfare, and managed economies. And now we stand perilously close to the abyss, both from an economic and a societal perspective.

So do you support America? Or Ameritopia?


Related:
The Fork In The Road
The Complete Epilogue: Ameritopia

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Complete Epilogue: Ameritopia

The epilogue of Ameritopia, Mark Levin's latest bestseller -- a brief synopsis of its key themes -- is available in PDF format... and now plain HTML, for easier reading.

My premise, in the first sentence of the first chapter of this book, is this: “Tyranny, broadly defined, is the use of power to dehumanize the individual and delegitimize his nature. Political utopianism is tyranny disguised as a desirable, workable, and even paradisiacal governing ideology.”

Plato’s Republic, More’s Utopia, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Marx’s workers’ paradise are utopias that are anti-individual and anti-individualism. For the utopians, modern and olden, the individual is one-dimensional—selfish. On his own, he has little moral value. Contrarily, authoritarianism is defended as altruistic and masterminds as socially conscious. Thus endless interventions in the individual’s life and manipulation of his conditions are justified as not only necessary and desirable but noble governmental pursuits. This false dialectic is at the heart of the problem we face today.

In truth, man is naturally independent and self-reliant, which are attributes that contribute to his own well-being and survival, and the well-being and survival of a civil society. He is also a social being who is charitable and compassionate. History abounds with examples, as do the daily lives of individuals. To condemn individualism as the utopians do is to condemn the very foundation of the civil society and the American founding and endorse, wittingly or unwittingly, oppression. Karl Popper saw it as an attack on Western civilization. “The emancipation of the individual was indeed the great spiritual revolution which had led to the breakdown of tribalism and to the rise of democracy.” Moreover, Judaism and Christianity, among other religions, teach the altruism of the individual.

Of course, this is not to defend anarchy. Quite the opposite. It is to endorse the magnificence of the American founding. The American founding was an exceptional exercise in collective human virtue and wisdom—a culmination of thousands of years of experience, knowledge, reason, and faith. The Declaration of Independence is a remarkable societal proclamation of human rights, brilliant in its insight, clarity, and conciseness. The Constitution of the United States is an extraordinary matrix of governmental limits, checks, balances, and divisions, intended to secure for posterity the individual’s sovereignty as proclaimed in the Declaration.

This is the grand heritage to which every American citizen is born. It has been characterized as “the American Dream,” “the American experiment,” and “American exceptionalism.” The country has been called “the Land of Opportunity,” “the Land of Milk and Honey,” and “a Shining City on a Hill.” It seems unimaginable that a people so endowed by Providence, and the beneficiaries of such unparalleled human excellence, would choose or tolerate a course that ensures their own decline and enslavement, for a government unleashed on the civil society is a government that destroys the nature of man.

On September 17, 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Delegate James Wilson, on behalf of his ailing colleague from Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin, read aloud Franklin’s speech to the convention in favor of adopting the Constitution. Among other things, Franklin said that the Constitution “is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become corrupt as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. . . .”

Have we “become corrupt”? Are we in need of “despotic government”? It appears that some modern-day “leading lights” think so, as they press their fanatical utopianism. For example, Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, considers the Constitution a utopian expedient. He wrote, “If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so. . . . The framers weren’t afraid of a little messiness. Which is another reason we shouldn’t be so delicate about changing the Constitution or reinterpreting it.” It is beyond dispute that the Framers sought to limit the scope of federal power and that the Constitution does so. Moreover, constitutional change was not left to the masterminds but deliberately made difficult to ensure the broad participation and consent of the body politic.

Richard Cohen, a columnist for the Washington Post, explained that the Constitution is an amazing document, as long as it is mostly ignored, particularly the limits it imposes on the federal government. He wrote, “This fatuous infatuation with the Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment, is clearly the work of witches, wiccans, and wackos. It has nothing to do with America’s real problems and, if taken too seriously, would cause an economic and political calamity. The Constitution is a wonderful document, quite miraculous actually, but only because it has been wisely adapted to changing times. To adhere to the very word of its every clause hardly is respectful to the Founding Fathers. They were revolutionaries who embraced change. That’s how we got here.” Of course, without the promise of the Tenth Amendment, the Constitution would not have been ratified, since the states insisted on retaining most of their sovereignty. Furthermore, the Framers clearly did not embrace the utopian change demanded by its modern adherents.

Lest we ignore history, the no-less-eminent American revolutionary and founder Thomas Jefferson explained, “On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times and three-time Pulitzer Prize recipient, is even more forthright in his dismissal of constitutional republicanism and advocacy for utopian tyranny. Complaining of the slowness of American society in adopting sweeping utopian policies, he wrote, “There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”

Of course, China remains a police state, where civil liberties are nonexistent, despite its experiment with government-managed pseudo-capitalism. Friedman’s declaration underscores not only the necessary intolerance utopians have for constitutionalism, but their infatuation with totalitarianism.

It is neither prudential nor virtuous to downplay or dismiss the obvious—that America has already transformed into Ameritopia. The centralization and consolidation of power in a political class that insulates its agenda in entrenched experts and administrators, whose authority is also self-perpetuating, is apparent all around us and growing more formidable. The issue is whether the ongoing transformation can be restrained and then reversed, or whether it will continue with increasing zeal, passing from a soft tyranny to something more oppressive. Hayek observed that “priding itself on having built its world as if it had designed it, and blaming itself for not having designed it better, humankind is now to set out to do just that. The aim . . . is no less than to effect a complete redesigning of our traditional morals, law, and language, and on this basis to stamp out the older order and supposedly inexorable, unjustifiable conditions that prevent the institution of reason, fulfillment, true freedom, and justice.” But the outcome of this adventurism, if not effectively stunted, is not in doubt.

In the end, can mankind stave off the powerful and dark forces of utopian tyranny? While John Locke was surely right about man’s nature and the civil society, he was also right about that which threatens them. Locke, Montesquieu, many of the philosophers of the European Enlightenment, and the Founders, among others, knew that the history of organized government is mostly a history of a relative few and perfidious men co-opting, coercing, and eventually repressing the many through the centralization and consolidation of authority.

Ironically and tragically, it seems that liberty and the constitution established to preserve it are not only essential to the individual’s well-being and happiness, but also an opportunity for the devious to exploit them and connive against them. Man has yet to devise a lasting institutional answer to this puzzle. The best that can be said is that all that really stands between the individual and tyranny is a resolute and sober people. It is the people, after all, around whom the civil society has grown and governmental institutions have been established. At last, the people are responsible for upholding the civil society and republican government, to which their fate is moored.

The essential question is whether, in America, the people’s psychology has been so successfully warped, the individual’s spirit so thoroughly trounced, and the civil society’s institutions so effectively overwhelmed that revival is possible. Have too many among us already surrendered or been conquered? Can the people overcome the constant and relentless influences of ideological indoctrination, economic manipulation, and administrative coerciveness, or have they become hopelessly entangled in and dependent on a ubiquitous federal government? Have the Pavlovian appeals to radical egalitarianism, and the fomenting of jealousy and faction through class warfare and collectivism, conditioned the people to accept or even demand compulsory uniformity as just and righteous? Is it accepted as legitimate and routine that the government has sufficient license to act whenever it claims to do so for the good of the people and against the selfishness of the individual?

No society is guaranteed perpetual existence. But I have to believe that the American people are not ready for servitude, for if this is our destiny, and the destiny of our children, I cannot conceive that any people, now or in the future, will successfully resist it for long. I have to believe that this generation of Americans will not condemn future generations to centuries of misery and darkness.

The Tea Party movement is a hopeful sign. Its members come from all walks of life and every corner of the country. These citizens have the spirit and enthusiasm of the Founding Fathers, proclaim the principles of individual liberty and rights in the Declaration, and insist on the federal government’s compliance with the Constitution’s limits. This explains the utopian fury against them. They are astutely aware of the peril of the moment. But there are also the Pollyannas and blissfully indifferent citizens who must be roused and enlisted lest the civil society continue to unravel and eventually dissolve, and the despotism long feared take firm hold.

Upon taking the oath of office on January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address President Ronald Reagan told the American people:

If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.

So, my fellow countrymen, which do we choose—Ameritopia or America?

Buy a copy and pass it on. Drop some knowledge on your family, friends and colleagues. These are perilous times. And November is coming.


Best Ranch Sign Ever

Via Reaganite Republican:

Because, when it comes to home defense, sometimes only a belt-fed will do.

Daddy like.


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Top 10 Reasons Obamacare IS Constitutional...

I can assure you, despite all of the hullabaloo from the hoi polloi, that Obama is entirely, 100% Constitutional, no if's and's or but's:

• Because Congress can compel Americans to engage in commerce in order to then regulate their activities under the Commerce Clause.

• Because the fee that every American must pay -- by dint of their mere existence -- for failing to comply with "the Individual Mandate" is either a "tax" or a "penalty", depending on which day of the week it is.

• Because health care is a unique market, one in which every American must participate at some point in their lives. Unlike the markets of, say, clothing, shelter, food, transportation, ...

• Because Congress has the right -- the obligation -- to trump God and the First Amendment in order to ensure that all Americans get free contraceptives and abortifacients.

• Because the "Consent of the Governed" is outdated and antiquated. Congress can do anything it wants, even if 63% of all Americans are opposed to their actions.

• Because a 2,200-page bill that not one member of Congress read -- much less understands -- is inherently Constitutional, as the noted legal scholar Nancy Pelosi insists.

• Because what could be more American than nationalizing one-sixth of the entire economy?

• Because a few masterminds in Washington will be able to manage that one-sixth of the economy more effectively than the entire private sector.

• Because government-run health care has turned out to be cost-effective, innovative, and efficient in delivering health care, except in countries like England, Canada and Sweden.

• Because every founder of this country -- every single Framer of the Constitution from James Madison to George Mason -- would agree with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. That is, all Americans have the right to free health care, which must be delivered by a 15-member panel of elite masterminds overseeing an authoritarian, centralized, massive federal bureaucracy.


Monday, March 26, 2012

Why do the Russians know more about Obama's agenda than America's citizens?

The administration can't be too fond of ABC News' Jake Tapper. Tapper reported early today that President Obama was caught on an open microphone telling Russian President Medvedev that once he's reelected, he won't have to bother with those pesky Americans who are worried about sharing missile defense secrets.

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Senior GOP officials are rightfully concerned, given that missile defense is a critical element of U.S. national security.

“If there was any doubt how dangerous Barack Obama would be for America’s security in a second term, the president put all uncertainty to rest today,” said the source, who closely tracks foreign policy matters. “The president just told us that he is itching to hand over America’s most secret missile defense data to a country that is arming Syria and fueling Iran’s Bushehr reactor—and he would do it today but for his re-election concerns. With no political constraints in a second term, who knows what Obama will do.”

The adviser also said Obama’s remarks should cause concern among pro-Israel forces in America.

If this is what the president’s promising the Russians on missile defense, God only knows what he’s promising Arab leaders about Israel,” noted the souce. “If you think Barack Obama was bad for Israel in term one, put your seatbelt on and get ready for term two.”

Rep. Michael Turner, Chairman of a House Armed Services Subcommittee, is seriously ticked off and he said as much in a letter to the president that has undertones of a threat laced within it.

As you know, in the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress enacted, and you signed into law, a provision constraining your ability to share classified U.S. missile defense information with the Russian Federation. Congress took this step because it was clear based on official testimony and Administration comments in the press that classified information about U.S. missile defenses, including hit-to-kill technology and velocity at burnout information, may be on the table as negotiating leverage for your reset with Russia. Despite signing the FY12 defense authorization legislation into law, you then issued a signing statement signaling that you may treat that provision protecting U.S. missile defense information as non-binding. This morning’s comments, on top of that action, suggests that you and your administration have plans for U.S. missile defenses that you believe will not stand up to electoral scrutiny.

Congress has made exquisitely clear to your Administration and to other nations that it will block all attempts to weaken U.S. missile defenses. As the Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which authorizes U.S. missile defense and nuclear weapons policy, I want to make perfectly clear that my colleagues and I will not allow any attempts to trade missile defense of the United States to Russia or any other country.

Once again, I've been forced to update President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts to include this missive:

"First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government.."


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Magazine Cover o' the Day: Semper Fi!

Surely it can come as no surprise to the anti-American Left -- i.e., the Democrat Party -- that the U.S. military despises Barack Obama. After all, this is the president who promised to "fundamentally transform" America, and started by gutting NASA, all branches of the service, and our nuclear deterrent force.

Sgt. Gary Stein might be saying things about President Obama that a lot of Marines think, but some are saying he took it too far.

Stein has come under fire for stating on Facebook that he wouldn’t follow certain orders given by his commander in chief. And Marines say Stein’s not alone in his disapproval. More anti-Obama talk is being heard in the workplace and new Military Times poll data shows declining approval among military service members for the president’s job as commander in chief.

The Marine Corps depends its chain of command structure, especially in a time of war. Some Marines say Stein and other vocal Marines like him are undermining that system.

The full article requires a subscription, but suffice it to say this behavior is simply quid pro quo.

A president who has defied multiple court orders, operated outside the bounds of the Constitution on numerous occasions, and runs arguably the most lawless administration in history should know: what goes around comes around.


Hat tip: Wanda.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

4 Charts: "Ryan’s tax plan is a powerful antidote to Obamanomics"

The quote, from Investors Business Daily, summarizes the battle between good and evil, fiscal sanity and economic collapse, Paul Ryan vs. Barack Obama.

Faced with the economic failures of a Democratic president, Rep. Paul Ryan is, like Ronald Reagan, "raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors." Ryan's Rx for America: a jobs-generating tax code.

...He would cut the top marginal tax rate from its current 35% to 25%. (A second Obama term could mean a big tax increase, with the top rate going back up to Bill Clinton's 39.6%, as President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire next year.) ... Instead of the six brackets under our current punitive tax code, Ryan gives us just two: 25% and 10%.

And America's corporate tax — at 35% the highest rate in the world, with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa's one-party socialist state of Cameroon — is cut to 25%, and it largely eliminates the taxation of U.S. companies' overseas profits.

Individuals and businesses would be taxed $2 trillion less over 10 years under Ryan's plan than under President Obama's budget, while the federal government would spend more than $5 trillion less.

Ryan also scraps something politicians have been promising to get rid of for years, but haven't: the infamous Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT was passed over 40 years ago to punish a tiny handful of tax-sheltering "super rich," but — surprise, surprise — soon started slamming the middle-class.

...Ryan's tax reform would help bring America back to what it could, and should, be. It may just be the best weapon in the GOP arsenal.

Where is the Democrats' budget?

For more than 1,000 days -- a record period of time -- the Party of Economic Suicide has failed to produce one.

Where is Obama's budget?

He doesn't have one. He even rejected all of the recommendations from his own "Deficit Commission".

Instead, Obama's "solution" is to demonize various productive members of society, including energy companies, doctors, health insurers, small business owners (the so-called "rich"), and the like.

So you won't see any charts or graphs produced by Democrats. Because they know that we are on the road to fiscal collapse or, as the modern Marxist Democrat Party likes to call it, "fundamental transformation".


Sunday, March 18, 2012

Here's what would happen if Washington, DC got nuked...

Gizomodo points us to a DHS and FEMA analysis (PDF) of the after-effects of a nuclear detonation in the heart of the District of Columbia. Everything from blast effects, fallout, evacuation procedures, casualties and first-responder preparations are described in great detail.

Unfortunately, our instincts can be our own worst enemy. The bright flash of detonation would be seen instantaneously throughout the region and may cause people to approach windows to see what is happening just as a blast wave breaks the window. For a 10-kT detonation, glass can be broken with enough force to cause injury out to 3 miles and can take more than 10 seconds to reach this range.

Another urge to overcome is the desire to flee the area (or worse, run into fallout areas to reunite with family members), which can place people outdoors in the first few minutes and hours when fallout exposures are the greatest. Those outside or in vehicles will have little protection from the penetrating radiation coming off fallout particles as they accumulate on roofs and the ground.

...Unless a given shelter location is considered unsafe due to fire or structural damage, the length of time individuals should remain sheltered depends on instructions from regional emergency management agencies. For those in good shelters, such as a large concrete, brick, or underground structure, optimal shelter times will likely be in terms of days. In the absence of specific guidance from authorities and adequate supplies of food and water, or for those who are in smaller 2- to 3-story structures or shallow basements, evacuation should be considered after 12 hours. Upon leaving shelter, the best course is to follow routes that take advantage of sheltered passages (subways, underground connectors, or through building lobbies) that lead away from damage and heavy fallout areas. Once clear of potential fallout areas, evacuees should seek a change of clothes (including shoes) and wipe or wash exposed skin surfaces...

...The Severe Damage Zone (SDZ) is the area that immediately surrounds a detonation site and extends to ~0.5 mile radius for a 10-kT explosion, as shown in Figure 10. In the SDZ, few, if any, above-ground buildings are expected to remain structurally sound or even standing, and few people would survive; however, some people protected within stable structures (e.g., subterranean parking garages or subway tunnels) at the time of the explosion could survive the initial blast...

...Very high radiation levels and other hazards are expected to persist in the SDZ making the zone gravely dangerous to survivors and responders. The SDZ should be considered a no-go zone during the early days following an explosion...

...Emergency response and access to the MDZ will be greatly affected by the substantial rubble as well as crashed or overturned vehicles that will completely block streets and require heavy equipment to clear. Broken water and utility lines are expected, and fires will be encountered. However, many casualties in the MDZ will survive and will benefit most (compared to casualties in other prompt effect damage zones) from urgent medical care (AMA, 2011). Responders approaching from the blast-area periphery should be cognizant that when they begin observing that most buildings are either severely damaged or have collapsed, they are entering the SDZ...


...In addition to prompt effects that radiate outward from a detonation site, a nuclear blast can produce nuclear fallout, which is generated when dust and debris excavated by the explosion are combined with radioactive fission products produced in the nuclear explosion and drawn upward by the heat produced...

...The cloud rapidly climbs through the atmosphere, potentially up to 5 miles (8 km) high for a 10-kT explosion, forming a mushroom cloud (under ideal weather conditions) from which highly radioactive particles drop back down to earth as the cloud cools...

...Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not experience substantive fallout because the detonations occurred well above ground at altitudes of 1,900 ft (579.12 m) and 1,500 ft (457.2 m), respectively. At such altitudes, fission products do not have the opportunity to mix with excavated earth...

Net net: this is why the nation's capital is reportedly ringed by extremely sensitive detectors for radioactivity.

And -- sorry, Paulbots -- this is also why we need to continue to invest in missile defense.


Saturday, March 17, 2012

I Refuse to Give Up This Republic Without a Fight

"...These [health care] negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made...” (Barack Obama, 1/20/2008)

...[I want] to repeal some of these tax breaks for these oil companies. But I want to do more than that. I also want to go after their windfall profits, take a segment of those profits..." (Barack Obama, 3/3/2008)

"...Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket..." (Barack Obama, 11/1/2008)

"...“I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had..." (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 1/4/2009)

"...We will launch a sweeping effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars..." (Barack Obama, 1/28/2009)

"...Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards..." (Attorney General Eric Holder, 2/18/2009)

"...We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem)..." (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, 3/5/2009)

"...Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration..." (Department of Homeland Security report to Janet Napolitano, 4/12/2009)

"...in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way..." (Time Magazine, 7/2/2009)

"...right now drug companies are fighting so that they can keep essentially their patents on their brand-name drugs a lot longer... every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got." (Barack Obama, 8/11/2009)

"...When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”..." (CNS News, 8/23/2009)

"...the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York..." (Washington Post, 2/11/2010)

"...But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it..." (Nancy Pelosi, 3/9/2010)

"...[President] Obama and his health secretary staged a two-pronged attack Monday in a stern letter to health insurance chief executives and a speech in which the president castigated insurance companies 22 times...." (Washington Post, 3/9/2010)

"...once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway..." (Wall Street Journal, 3/16/2010)

"...I don't care about the Constitution when it comes to this [health care bill]..." (Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL), 4/2/2010)

"...The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies... The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem... by its Arabic name, Al-Quds..." (Fox News, 5/27/2010)

"...As solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan argued in front of the Supreme Court that the federal government had the constitutional authority to ban certain political pamphlets. She also strongly implied that some political books, if they were partisan enough, could also be censored..." (Reason Magazine, 6/29/2010)

"...The financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign into law on Wednesday is supposed to clean up Wall Street. But an obscure passage buried deep in the 2,300-page legislation... could have a broad impact [on] electronics companies..." (Washington Post, 7/2/2010)

"...The federal government filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at blocking a controversial Arizona law that requires local police and sheriffs to question and arrest anyone whom they suspect is in the country illegally..." (Politico, 7/7/2010)

"...Less than two months after the US Department of Justice sued Arizona over the state’s controversial immigration law, it has filed another lawsuit targeting immigration practices by Arizona authorities... the [DOJ] says Phoenix-area Maricopa Community Colleges (MCC) discriminated against almost 250 noncitizen job applicants by requiring them to fill out more documents than the law requires to prove their eligibility to work...." (Christian Science Monitor, 8/31/2010)

"The Justice Department's civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification... Texas is the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over photo ID requirements for voters...

...In December, the Justice Department rejected South Carolina's voter ID law on grounds it makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. It was the first voter ID law to be rejected by the department in nearly 20 years..." (CBS News, 3/12/2012)
You don't have to ride on a treacherous, unlit cow path from the north-side of Boston to Lexington as the King's Regulars attempt a surprise attack on the Sons of Liberty.

You don't have to board a frigate, sail for weeks across the Atlantic and then sack a city in Tripoli to rescue your imprisoned countrymen.

You don't have to kill a British soldier in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle after leaping out of a boat on the beach at York during the War of 1812.

You don't have to hold the line against Pickett's desperate charge at Gettysburg as thousands of wounded men shriek bloody murder around you.

You don't have to resist a vicious attack by the Hun with fixed bayonets at Belleau Wood.

You don't have to survive a terrifying duck-boat run onto Omaha Beach as men around you are being chopped to bits by fortified Nazi gun emplacements.

You don't have to liberate the Nazi Death Camps, capping months of brutal fighting and desperate marching through the dirt roads of Europe.

You don't have to withstand a surprise attack by the Chinese 'People's Volunteer Army', fighting to hold the line in 35°-below-zero temperatures for days on end near the Chosin Reservoir.

You don't have to defend the city of Huế from a surprise attack by Viet Cong and PAVN regulars, fighting block-to-block as the entire country is set afire by the Tet Offensive.

You don't have to race across the desert, waiting for a chemical attack or a Scud missile to hit, baking in 130° temperatures, so that you can expel Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard from Kuwait.

You don't have to patrol a patch of hard-scrabble earth in Aghanistan or Iraq, waiting for the inevitable IED by the side of the road -- or signs that you've rolled right into an ambush by heavily-armed 'insurgents' equipped with Iranian RPGs.

You don't have to do any of those things. You just have to vote in November. You just have to take the time to rally your neighbors, your family members and your co-workers to vote for candidates who believe in the Constitution. You must marshal voters who will reject the out-of-control, free-spending government that has brought our country to the edge of bankruptcy.

Because if the Constitution doesn't mean anything, if all of the founders' sacrifices went for naught, if all of those American heroes who fought and bled and died for the flag mean nothing, if all your parents and grandparents gave you doesn't amount to a hill of beans, well, then our generation will be forever known as the weak-willed group that let the American dream slip from our fingers.

And we will be known forever as the generation that allowed American exceptionalism to be stolen from us by a radical leftist from San Francisco, a crooked, power-hungry weasel of a man from Nevada, and an Alinsky-trained community organizer who rose to the presidency without qualifications or even so much as a background check by the media.

You don't have to bleed for your country. All you have to do is rally our forces to vote in November. That is what we can do and that is what we must do to preserve this Republic for future generations.


Friday, March 16, 2012

How Long Until Obama Bans Troops From Wearing This Awesome "Pork-Eating Crusader" Gear?

In ...three... two...

Exhausted from how they feel they're being perceived, troops have taken to wearing patches and carrying items that label themselves infidels and offer translation in local dialect.

In the Muslim world an infidel means literally "one without faith" who rejects the central teachings of Islam.

Military.com tracked down Clayton Montgomery at Mil-Spec Monkey, a large online seller of infidel gear, who says his most popular item by far is the "Pork Eating Crusader Patch."

The patch includes an image of a knight in a Crusade's tunic, eating what appears to be a large ham hock, and lest there be any confusion — a translation in Arabic.

They haven't gone unnoticed. The website Muslim Awakening, posts a picture of what appears to be a German soldier with the patch adhered to his combat uniform.

Other items are more subtle.


There is the Infidel Zippo advertised as: "This one is small enough to hold some personal meaning and not be in-your-face to everyone you meet. It’s perfect for pulling out at just the right moment to get the full effect."

Well, we wouldn't want to offend the extremists who routinely stone women, hang homosexuals, and let children burn to death because they're not wearing burkas, can we?


Hat tip: Winterspirit.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Admirer of him though I may be, it's time for Newt Gingrich to step aside

While I wasn't directly in Newt's camp -- he was my second favorite candidate after Rick Santorum -- I agree with Dan Riehl.

Via Reuters, yes, I'd say Newt's campaign is very much in doubt, alright. Now, he'll only hurt his reputation with many in the base if he remains in the race...

"This really was his last chance to show whether he had the ability to win," said Natalie Davis, professor of political science at Birmingham Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama. "If he can't win in Alabama ... he really can't win anywhere. This was his last stand and he lost."


...I backed Newt after Perry dropped and didn't turn on him after he imploded in Florida, while also having a terrible debate. I've been content to watch it play out, not hitting either him, or Santorum. But all Newt can be from here on is a spoiler.

The bottom-line is, whether you back him, or not, Santorum has won himself the right to go one-on-one with Romney and settle things cleanly and once and for all. Not only will Newt begin to lose more and more friends across the conservative base by staying in - they'll see it as his ego and Adelson's money keeping him in - he's likely to begin performing worse and worse, only making it all the worse for him.

By losing as he did last night, he proved he can't win much of anywhere. His candidacy is not viable. The only honorable move left for Newt is to drop out. Do the right thing, Newt. Enough GOP primary voters have spoken that, in my opinion, the best thing Newt can do now is to show some respect for them.

What's been fascinating about Santorum's rise is that he's done it even though Gingrich (and earlier, other conservatives) split the base's vote.

Romney's problem is that he abandoned the base from the start. That doesn't seem to me to be a viable plan to win the primary, much less the general.


Related:
In defense of Rick Santorum.
Rick Santorum for President.