Nuclear weapons-- Peace through strength

It must be nice living in the fantasy world that Obama lives in:  His push for eliminating nuclear weapons is a good idea in theory, but it won't work too well in practice.

Obama is suffering from the same delusion as some of the scientists on the Manhattan Project did around the time the Trinity test occurred:  He's thinking we can put the genie back in the bottle. We can't.

The notion that we can reduce our stockpile to "hundreds" instead of "thousands" neglects a scientific reality of nuclear weapons:  Time.  The circuits aboard the missile, ranging from navigation to detonation, are subject to the ravages of time.  Given enough time, the nuclear material in the warhead can decay to the point where it is no longer sufficient to produce the critical mass necessary for a nuclear explosion.  That's why major national powers have stockpiles in the thousands:  Some weapons, especially older ones, may not detonate or only detonate as a non-nuclear explosion.

The other consideration is versatility.  One commenter on DU said we could have something like 10 warheads to defend ourselves.  No, not realistically.  Weapon yields vary, depending on whether the weapon is a tactical nuke (intended for battlefield deployment) or a strategic nuke (intended to cause mass destruction and eliminate the enemy's ability and/or will to wage war).

Consider the following scenario:  A rogue state has placed short-range nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons aboard a ship.  When the ship approaches the coast of an American city, it intends to launch.  Intelligence learns of the plot right before the ship comes into weapons range.  A nuclear cruise missile could destroy the target with little or no warning, not giving the ship a chance to launch its payload while at the same time vaporizing that same payload.  A strategic weapon would gross overkill in such a situation, vaporizing not only the ship, but large quantities of seawater.  The radiation would also have a more profoundly damaging effect to the local ecosystem than a smaller tactical nuke.  Finally, strategic weapons are often carried by ICBMs or large bombers, increasing the time the rogue ship would have to launch its payload before destruction.

On the other hand, the same rogue state has built 10 strategic nukes to counter our 10 tactical.  During an exchange, their weapons level our cities, while ours level only a few blocks.

The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction kept the Cold War from boiling over. Both sides stood to lose too much in a conflict.  The guarantee of at best a Pyrrhic victory, at worst the extermination of the human race.  When dealing with emerging and aspiring nuclear powers today, however, MAD doesn't fit:  Religious fanatics are as a rule prepared to die for their beliefs, and when those beliefs include the destruction of Israel, the deaths of thousands if not millions of Americans, and the ultimate goal of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, the possession by those powers of nuclear weapons becomes a frightening prospect.

Mr. Obama has shown time and again he has little or no business acumen.  We first saw with the way his administration took over GM and sought to contradict free-market principles and tell people what kind of car they wanted to drive.  Now, we are seeing it with the way Obama tries to pursue a noble and honorable goal in the midst of dishonorable people.  In any negotiation, the goal is to get as much from your adversary as possible while giving up as little as possible.  What is Iran giving up?  What has North Korea given up?  We gave them light water reactors for a nuclear power program in exchange for them promising not to pursue nuclear weapons.  Instead, history will remember Madeline Albright as someone who foolishly followed in Neville Chamberlain's footsteps.  All indications are that, with regards to nations such as Iran, Obama is ready to follow Albright in the hollow pursuits of appeasement.

Finding out through Facebook...

My girlfriend's brother got engaged recently.  Not a big deal, people get engaged all the time.  People get married all the time.  But how often is the would-be groom's sister's boyfriend among the first to find out?  Through Facebook?

On one hand, it's not like I've just met my girlfriend's family.  My girlfriend's mother jokes about me being her favorite son-in-law, much to my girlfriend's chagrin.  But I would've figured my Facebook friend would've told his sister first before announcing it to his Facebook friends.

My Facebook friend, whom I'll call "Fernando" and thank him for the music (I'll admit, I'm a straight male who likes to listen to Abba, I counter it with Rob Zombie, so please don't question my manhood), has been married once before.  Like approximately 50% of the population, he decided he was married to a psychopath.  Like a smaller percentage of those 50%, he was correct in that assessment, as I'm inclined to agree that a woman who piles her ex-husband's clothes in the middle of the living room and sets fire to the pile may indeed have a couple of screws loose.  She subsequently had a child, and everyone on the Fernando's side of the family breathed a sigh of relief when the counting backwards yielded a larger amount of time since the divorce papers were finalized than since the little rug rat was conceived.

Now, it seems, Fernando has decided to marry his current domestic partner, a woman with a kid by another man.  Nothing wrong with that, I wish them all the happiness.  But I doubt happiness is a long-term reality for them.  Fernando sometimes has a short attention span.  I think he wants to experience the normalcy of family life while remaining a non-conformist.  I think once the charm has worn off on taking care of a miniature human being, Fernando's sister will find herself drawing up divorce papers again.

In the past, I've apologized to my girlfriend for being relatively boring, but I think she knows I"m not being sincere.

Hypermilers: Friends of Gaia, enemies of other motorists

So while sitting at a stoplight this evening, I observed a man sitting on his motorcycle turn the engine off. I recognized what he was doing, for I do it every time I wait for a train crossing, and last year, I tried it a couple of times waiting for stoplights myself:  He was hypermiling.  When I tried it in my old 15-year-old sport coupe, the results were not ideal:  I became the object of irritation to other motorists stuck behind me who ended up having to sit through another light while I furiously tried to get the engine on my car to start again!  A train crossing is one thing:  Usually you can see the end of the train.  If not, you can see the brake lights of the car at the front of the line as its driver sees the end of the train coming and restarts the engine.  You have time, you're not under pressure to get that bad boy to fire again.  Not so with a stoplight.  You might see the cross traffic light go yellow, but that's about it as far as warnings go.

So what happened this evening was predictable:  The green left-turn light illuminated for its brief performance, and the hypermiler in front of me is trying to kick-start his chopper.  Thanks to the delay, I barely made it into the intersection with a yellow left arrow.  I'm pretty sure the guy two cars behind me ran a red light.  As for the lover of Gaia?  Well, he celebrated his conscientiousness by kicking in the burn and putting at least a quarter-mile of distance between us.  Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

It got me to thinking, which is probably why the government has got me on a watch list:  How many gallons of fuel are being wasted by motorists stuck waiting for another light because they were stuck behind the hypermilers' whose engine may not start on the first try?

Passing the buck...

So I saw a former subordinate of mine today.  He's looking for a reference, as well as a recommendation.

Now he asked my former boss' boss, and he asked my former boss.  Now he's asking me.  My predecessors passed the buck on this guy because of less-than-stellar job performance.  Now I'm faced with a decision:  Agree to be a reference and paint a glowing portrait of the guy, or agree to be a reference and be tough on him.  I would hate to burn a potential networking contact for the future, but I feel it would be irresponsible of me to simply pass a problem off to another employer.  Were it not for the layoff, he'd have been reassigned or let go.

So I think I'll do the only thing I can do:  Give an honest assessment of my former subordinate's skills and abilities.  I won't trash him, but I can't sing his praises either.

I only hope my own references are as fair to me.

In one motion.

"Insert and remove your card in one motion."

You ever notice that instruction on gas pumps, the automated Post Office machine, and similar credit/debit card readers? How the hell does one accomplish this feat? You slide it into the reader, and then you slide it out. That's two motions-- Two very good motions, she'll tell you if you know what you're doing. But I digress.

It's like the asinine question everyone gets asked at the airport: "Has anyone put anything into your bags without your knowledge?" If they did without my knowledge, THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ASKING ME? I WOULDN'T KNOW! All that needs to change with that standard question is to replace "Has" with "Could". I'm pretty sure the screener is trying to ascertain if you've been keeping an eye on your bag, but instead it sounds like an on-the-spot litmus test of latent psychic abilities. I've always wanted to point out the insanity of the question, but it would be just my luck if I caught someone in law enforcement without a sense of humor and having a bad day.

I'm sure everybody has noticed the Braille dots on the drive-up ATMs. Just for amusement, I might go to the bank's drive-up ATM when it's busy, wear dark sunglasses, lean well out of the car, pretend to read the dots while everyone else in line looks on in mortal terror, get my cash, and then maybe turn to the car behind me and shout: "Is anybody in front of me?"

Isn't it possible to just disagree?

Apparently not. If you're a conservative who has the temerity to reject the socialism that our president seems to be embracing, the root of your policy disagreements must be because you have a personal problem with the man sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.

Oops, I used the S-word. We've been told that the S-Word is the new N-word.

"The N-word"? Are you kidding me? What are we, in third grade? Is someone going to spank us if we use it? How come blacks can refer to each other as "nigger", but the word is completely off-limits to any other races? I agree with blacks, it is an offensive word, best left to the days of slavery and the Jim Crow South. So they need to stop using it as well. As Chris Rock pointed out in one of his stand-up routines, whites do not go around calling each other "cracker" or "honky."

And what happened to "black" being used to describe someone whose roots trace back to Africa? "African-American" seems silly when used on people whom have been living in the U.S. for generations. I can see a Nigerian friend of mine using it to describe himself: He was born in NJ and grew up in Nigeria. He'd probably just call himself Nigerian-American, though, if he bothered to hyphenate at all. More likely, he would say he's an American. Because being American means you or your ancestors came from somewhere else. Much evidence exists to support that even the American Indians traversed a land bridge from Asia to North America some 12,000 years ago. The bridge is gone, having been replaced with the Bering Strait. Is "Native American" an accurate description? Am I not native to this country? I was born here, too, as was my father, his father, and so on, going back about 12 or 13 generations. At what point do I become "native"?

The point of this tirade is to point out the fallacy in assigning these asinine labels. That's a contributing factor to racism-- the labeling of differences. For this reason, I reject the concept of diversity. Celebrating the differences between people requires drawing attention to those differences. I'll take color-blind equality over diversity any day.

The ascribing of racism to Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) is a desperate attempt by the left. You know they've exhausted their slate of arguments when that's the best they can come up with.

Competition is the new buzzword

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard liberal politicians trying to appeal to our inner capitalists by claiming the public option will "provide competition" in the health care industry. Really? There's something like 1300 private insurers spread across the country. If every state had laws forbidding an out-of-state insurer from selling insurance in-state, that still is an average of 26 insurance providers per state. That's a pretty competitive environment.

But wait a minute.

Seriously, wait a minute, I'll be right back.

Intermission.

OK, I'm back, I needed a refill. Now here's the problem with the notion of the public option competing with private insurers: Nobody said the competition would be fair. Since our federal government wants to roll this plan out to us, how does that mesh with state laws governing insurers having to operate within a state in order to sell insurance? You don't suppose the federal government would have an unfair advantage? I mean, another unfair advantage. Consider:

• The federal government does not have to make a profit.
• The federal government can operate at a loss.
• The federal government does not have to pay corporate business taxes.
• The federal government has no incentive to do more with less.
• The federal government is not subject to state laws by virtue of federal mandate.

Over time, that public option will become the only option, since Uncle Sam always wins when he doesn't play under the same restrictions.

A "Stark" example of elitism

I've followed the rantings and behavior of Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) off and on for a few years. The latest is an elderly man telling Mr. Stark, with regards to the bill of goods the Democrats are trying to sell the public in the form of health care "reform": "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

To which, classy as always, Stark responded that the old man wasn't worth the urine. Nice way to treat a constituent, Pete.

A brief sojourn over to the Huffington Post told me what I already suspected: Not only were many of the commenters approving of Stark's elitism, they tee-heed about how "cool" and "awesome" it would've been if Stark had actually peed on the constituent. I suppose it's easy to find humor in the matter when one considers anybody with right-leaning political ideology to be subhuman. My God, what the hell's a matter with these people?

Granted, the old man could have been a little less verbally combative with Stark. Then again, Stark has a reputation on the Hill for being a bully. Like most bullies, he threatens from behind false bravado.

As a child, I was picked on bullies from time to time. Every once in a while, the Christian value of "turning the other cheek" that my mother instilled in me would be overridden by a mental shout of "enough is enough!" Said bully would go from yanking me around by my backpack, or trying to trip me, to kissing brick wall or concrete sidewalk. Unfortunately, my timing could have been better, as the teacher would always see my retaliation, but rarely would she see the provocative act.

So I find myself agreeing with the Huff-Post nitwits: Yes, Pete Stark, go ahead: Unzip your fly, whip it out, and let the golden shower fly. Chances are if the old man didn't kick your ass, one of his friends would.

Oh, and a variant of the old man's saying appeared in The Outlaw Josey Wales. The scene involved John Vernon as Fletcher, a Missouri bushwhacker whom was facilitating his men's surrender to the Union at the conclusion of the Civil War. Ironically, he was addressing Senator Lane, a Yankee Senator, played by Frank Schofield. Fletcher protested Senator Lane's use of Kansas Redlegs, the leader of whom he described as a "looter and a pillager". The Redlegs, Fletcher said, were the "worst kind of enemy" the Missouri bushwhackers had. It led to this exchange :

• Senator: The war's over. Our side won the war. Now we must busy ourselves winning the peace. And Fletcher, there's an old saying: To the victors belong the spoils.
• Fletcher: There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

Mr. Stark, you will get your comeuppance. No, unlike Stark, I don't threaten, I'm just offering a warning.

Grammatical pet peeves

We need to replace the English teachers, that's all there is to it. How else can one explain not just one but two or even three generations that use "there" not only as an interjection and noun, but also use it in place of its adjectival and contractional homonyms? When reading some moonbat's leftist rant, which his or her colleagues will later praise as "insightful" and "well thought-out", nothing deflates the argument like someone acting intellectually superior while misusing "there."

Listen up class:

• There is reason to believe that liberalism is a mental disorder.
• Liberals praise Canada's health system while ignoring the facts from people whom have been treated there.
  
• Liberals think they're so smart.
• Their logic is mined with non sequiturs and emotional disturbance.

Got it? I sincerely hope so.

The ultimate expression of a superiority complex...

While enjoying plate-sized pancakes in my favorite diner recently, I spied a woman with half-dollar peace symbols dangling from her ear lobes. No big deal, my life brings me into contact with hippies all the time. But we weren't at an anti-war demonstration. We were just having breakfast.

Get a grip, UltraC, I can hear some saying, they're just earrings. Woman's got a right to wear 'em, got a right to her own opinion, you militaristic, right-wing extremist, you! Quite right, she does. But consider this: Be it earrings, T-shirts, bumper stickers, what have you, we display certain icons because they reflect our interests and passions. With those earrings, the woman is communicating her interest in and comittment to peace. That's cool. Any rational person prefers peace over war. So does her gaudy display of peace symbols imply the rest of us aren't as committed to peace? I think it does.

As for myself, I would agree with that sentiment. I'm probably not as committed to peace as she is, for I recognize that peace, in the absence of force to protect that peace, is not a lasting peace. Think of the Cold War: Numerous skirmishes around the globe, but in the grand scheme of things, the threat of nuclear annihilation ultimately kept the superpowers in check. Both sides having the bomb actually benefited mankind: The Soviet Union's million-strong Red Army was never able to realize its potential following WWII. The USSR had to act through agents to promote political change. The US only used it's most powerful military weapons twice in armed conflict. Following that, it was compelled to abandon its pre-war isolationist policies and become the biggest promoter of democracy in the world. Nuclear war made the prospect of total war simply too costly, but only so long as each side believed the other had the capacity to follow through on threats.

Patterns cannot be ignored

Eighty-three to seven. That's the Senate vote on the anti-ACORN amendment to the transportation and housing appropriations bill. It comes on the heels of the U.S. Census Bureau severing ties with ACORN. Elected representatives and bureaucrats on both sides of the political aisle are acknowledging an uncomfortable fact: Doing business with ACORN is political poison. I forget who said it, and I'm sure I'm not quoting them verbatim, but a saying I once heard comes to mind: Once is forgivable, twice indicates a lack of intelligence, but three or more times indicates a pattern of immoral behavior. Such as it is with ACORN. Workers were charged with voter registration fraud in last year's election in more than a dozen states. Members have committed trespassing, vandalism, and have engaged in threatening behavior in their zeal to draw attention to the "downtrodden" whom were kicked out of houses after failing to pay for them, or the bank executives who dared to do their job and make money for their employer.

ACORN's director assures us that the criminal behavior we see on tape-- be it breaking into someone else's house, harassing the children of someone just doing their job, or offering tax advice to people promoting a criminal enterprise-- is the actions of a few bad apples. That may very well be so, but why take the chance? Why take a chance steering more and more taxpayer funds to an organization with so many members who break the law? Why take a chance giving this same organization's members the charge of assisting with collecting census data? We might as well furlough convicts for the purposes of counting people, for it would carry the same taint of corrupted data.

So let the investigations proceed. ACORN is entitled to its day in court, so to speak. But until its management can demonstrate zero tolerance for criminal or unethical behavior, they shouldn't get another red cent.