Mood:  irritated

Reading the criminal complaint against Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his flunky John Harris, I was struck by something.

From "CRIMINAL COMPLAINT - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, and JOHN HARRIS"

"105. Later on November 11, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor A.  Advisor A indicated that he will stay “on top” of getting the Senate Candidate 5 information leaked to the particular Sun Times columnist. ROD BLAGOJEVICH again raised the idea of the 501(c)(4) organization and asked whether “they” (believed be the President-elect and his associates) can get Warren Buffett and others to put $10, $12, or $15 million into the organization. Advisor A responded that “they” should be able to find a way to fund the organization. Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH returned to the issue of the 501(c)(4) organization and noted that he is looking for “$10, $15, $20 million in an organization like that.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that when he is “no longer Governor” he could go over to the organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that “[Senate Candidate 6]” (Senate Candidate 6, based on other intercepted conversations, is believed to be a wealthy person from Illinois) “could raise me money like that for a Senate seat.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked, “if I get [Senate Candidate 6] to do something like that, is it worth giving him the Senate seat?” Advisor A responded that it would be hard to put Senate Candidate 6 in the Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that it would be better than putting Senate Candidate 1 in the Senate and not getting anything back. Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH and Advisor A again discussed the possibility of a 501(c)(4) organization, and ROD BLAGOJEVICH again noted that “[Senate Candidate 6]” could “do it.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH and Advisor A discussed who might be close to Senate Candidate 6 to talk with him about the issue, because ROD BLAGOJEVICH did not “want to be the one to ask something like that.” Advisor A agreed to find out who is close to Senate Candidate 6.

106. On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with JOHN HARRIS. ROD BLAGOJEVICH noted that CNN is reporting that Senate Candidate 1 does not want the open Senate seat. HARRIS said he thought that is just a tactic. ROD BLAGOJEVICH raised the issue of the 501(c)(4) organization and that contributors and others can put “10 to 15 million in it so I can advocate health care and other issues I care about and help them, while I stay as Governor, she’s (believed to be Senate Candidate 1) a Senator.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH noted that the President-elect can ask Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and others for money for the organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH states he will ask “[Senate Candidate 6]” to help fund it as well. HARRIS said that funding the 501(c)(4) would be a lot easier for the President-elect than appointing ROD BLAGOJEVICH to a position. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said, “They could say ‘hey, we get [Senate Candidate 1]. Let’s help this guy have a 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization. Let’s fund it to the level that he’s asked for and then we’ll get [Senate Candidate 1].’” ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that he will control the 501(c)(4) organization through a board of directors while he is Governor, and then a position in the 501(c)(4) would be waiting for him when he was no longer Governor.

107. On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor B. ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed with Advisor B his idea for a 501(c)(4) organization. Advisor B stated that he likes the idea, but liked the Change to Win option better because, according to Advisor B, from the President-elect’s perspective, there would be fewer “fingerprints” on the President-elect’s involvement with Change to Win because Change to Win already has an existing stream of revenue and, therefore, “you won’t have stories in four years that they bought you off.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that he likes the 501(c)(4) idea because he knows it will be there in two years when he is no longer Governor, whereas Change to Win might not be.

108. On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with one of his Washington D.C.-based advisors. ROD BLAGOJEVICH explained the 501(c)(4) organization idea to the advisor, and that “[the President-elect] gets these Warren Buffett types to [fund it].” The advisor asked ROD BLAGOJEVICH if the 501(c)(4) is a real effort or just a vehicle to help ROD BLAGOJEVICH. ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that it is a real effort but also a place for ROD BLAGOJEVICH to go when he is no longer Governor. The advisor said he likes the Change to Win idea better, and notes that it is more likely to happen because it is one step removed from the President-elect."

But the most interesting thing was this conversation between Blagejovich and the representative of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU):

109. On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke with SEIU Official, who was in Washington, D.C. Prior intercepted phone conversations indicate that approximately a week before this call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH met with SEIU Official to discuss the vacant Senate seat, and ROD BLAGOJEVICH understood that SEIU Official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1’s interest in the Senate seat. During the conversation with SEIU Official on November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH informed SEIU Official that he had heard the President-elect wanted persons other than Senate Candidate 1 to be considered for the Senate seat. SEIU Official stated that he would find out if Senate Candidate 1 wanted SEIU Official to keep pushing her for Senator with ROD BLAGOJEVICH.

ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that “one thing I’d be interested in” is a 501(c)(4) organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH explained the 501(c)(4) idea to SEIU Official and said that the 501(c)(4) could help “our new Senator [Senate Candidate 1].” SEIU Official agreed to “put that flag up and see where it goes.”

Just how did Governor Blagojevich understand that the "SEIU Official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1’s interest in the Senate seat?"

Remember, "Senate Candidate 1" was President-Elect Obama's choice for the seat he is vacating.  Was the SEIU providing that vital arm's length between Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich? 

How many 501(c)(4) organizations out there are run as pay-me's to guys like Rod Blagojevich who can't live on a salary of $177,000 (of course, as liberal bloggers like to say about the fine people of the UAW, "that includes pension, Medicaid, Social Security withholding.... ")?

How big a sewer is Democratic Party issues advocacy, anyway?  I can't believe that a bozo like Rod Blagojevich had an original idea in his life - he has to have heard or known another guy who found a way not to actually work and still make several hundred thousand dollars a year.  I think we know where he got the idea of trading political favors for lucrative employment for his wife....

People, this is not "The West Wing."   Barack Obama has brought the politics of his father's homeland to us.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 11:51 PM MST

Updated: Wednesday, 10 December 2008 12:08 AM MST

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Mood:  down

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/obamas_end_run_around_congress.html  shows one way Barack Obama could get everything he's been promising his liberal friends in sotto voce discussions - all those drastic expansions of Federal spending.

Obama could call his outsize shopping list a "stimulus package," then demand that Congress pass it right after the Inauguration.  And when our tax cuts expire in 2010, suddenly we're all going to see our tax rates go up.  Can't expect all of this good Federal managing of our lives for free, can we?  

Gee, we'll get Everything Corps (free non-parental consent abortions for minors at Planned Parenthood!), our First and Second Amendment rights abridged to an extent unheard of, a "civilian national security corps" funded like the Armed Forces and a tax hike, all for the price of a dirty election in 2008.  

Don't know about you, but I think we've crossed more than one frontier with the election of Barack Obama. 

Hitler promised Germany a lot of public works projects and cradle-to-grave government management of their lives, too.  They wound up with a tyranny in the bargain - because Hitler, like Obama, had a mean temper and couldn't stand it when people criticized him out loud. 

And Obama already has two people on the Federal Communications Commission - Copps and Adelstein - who want to give him a license to control political speech on the air.  They call it the "Fairness Doctrine," but it's always been used by Democrats who wanted to tell radio station managers, news editors and political commentators to shut the Hell up. And it took Ronald Reagan to rid us of it.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 10:04 PM MST

Updated: Wednesday, 24 November 2010 6:55 PM MST

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Mood:  incredulous

In his continuing quest to insult the intelligence of the American voter (and shaking in his boots because of the way his thugs over at ACORN were caught trying to register fake voters for him) Barack Obama has told another baldfaced, stinking lie.  (But that's the only way he knows...  )

This time, it's about the McCain Palin health plan.

Barack Obama has said that under the McCain health plan, health care benefits will be taxed. 

As a cancer patient, that pissed me right off when I saw the ad.  I was even more pissed off a minute later when I went to my computer, called up the McCain Web site to tell them what I thought of what I had heard... then learned I'd just been pwn'ed.  

Barack Obama Lies Again.

Let's set the Barack Obama health plan lies right NOW.

From the McCain/Palin Web site:

"The Facts about the McCain-Palin Health Care Plan

Barack Obama And Joe Biden Have Consistently Lied To Americans About John McCain's Plan. Their claims have failed every fact-check – from CBS to the Washington Post. John McCain is not going to raise taxes on middle class families. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the only ones in this race that plan to raise taxes.

Transforming The Tax Code To Create Greater Equity: The McCain plan transforms the current tax code to provide all American families – including the self-employed and the uninsured – the same tax benefit, a $5,000 refundable tax credit ($2,500 for individuals) that was previously only available to those with employer coverage. Families can use this credit to purchase insurance of their choice, including keeping their current coverage. This is an approach supported by Barack Obama's own Senior Economic Advisor Jason Furman who wrote that "we could scrap the current deduction altogether and replace it with progressive tax credits that, together with other changes, would ensure that every American has affordable health insurance."

Better Than "Members of Congress": Under the McCain Plan, your employer can provide you with health insurance as good as a "Member of Congress", and you would pay no more in taxes – regardless of your tax bracket. In fact, you would have some additional money left over from the McCain tax credit to put in a health savings account.

On The Issue Of Congressional Plan – There Are Options, But All Are Under The FEHB Program: A good example is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan, which has combined monthly premiums for family coverage of $1027.95, for an annual cost of $12,335.40.

Income Tax Liability

McCain-Palin Tax Credit

Total Tax Savings

10% Bracket (Up to $15,000)	$1,200 ($12,000 x 10%)	$5,000	+$3,800
15% Bracket ($15,650 - $63,700)	$1,800 ($12,000 x 15%)	$5,000	+$3,200
25% Bracket ($63,700 - $128,500)	$3,000 ($12,000 x 25%)	$5,000	+$2,000
28% Bracket ($128,500 - $195,850)	$3,360 ($12,000 x 28%)	$5,000	+$1,640
33% Bracket ($195,850 - $349,700)	$3,960 ($12,000 x 33%)	$5,000	+$1,040
35% Bracket ($349,700 and Over)	$4,200 ($12,000 x 35%)	$5,000	+$800

Where Is The Middle-Class "Tax Increase"? If you or your family is in the 28% bracket, with an income of $180,000, you could receive employer provided health insurance even better than a Member of Congress, with a cost of almost $18,000, with no increase in taxes. Even the liberal leaning Tax Policy Center, agrees that the McCain proposals will result in a "net tax benefit" of more than $1,200 for an average tax payer.

Helping Those Without Employer Coverage: If you are a middle-class American today without employer provided health care, the McCain plan would give you a tax credit of $2,500 as an individual, or $5,000 for a family, to help you buy your own health insurance coverage, including across state lines. American families – not government bureaucrats or insurance companies – will choose the coverage that best meets their needs. Today, the government does nothing to help you. Why does Barack Obama oppose this?

McCain Health Plan Puts Families in Charge: In another desperate attack, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said that McCain health care tax credits to help families buy coverage "will go straight to the insurance company." Here is what they fail to mention – the credit goes to the insurance company that the American family chooses to get coverage from, anywhere in the nation. The power of choice lies with the family – not government bureaucrats or insurance companies. Ridiculing this line of strange attack, The Associated Press stated, "Of course it would, because it's meant to pay for insurance. That's like saying money for a car loan will go straight to the car dealer." Furthermore, any additional money left over after purchasing coverage will be controlled by the family in a portable health savings account.

McCain Health Care Plan Protects Our Vulnerable Population: John McCain believes that no American should be denied access to quality and affordable coverage simply because of a pre-existing condition. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow – a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP – that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.

McCain Health Care Plan Gives American Families More Choices: John McCain believes that American families should be given more choices by allowing them to purchase policies across state lines. In a move derided by fact checking organizations including Fact Check, the Obama campaign used this as an opportunity to falsely accuse John McCain of deregulating health care markets akin to Wall Street. A recent study showed that simply allowing Americans to purchase across state lines would reduce the number of uninsured by almost 12 million.

McCain Health Care Plan Preserves Employer Coverage: The McCain health plan builds on the employer-based system. Employers will have the same incentive to provide health insurance as they do today since they will continue to deduct the cost of health insurance they provide to employees. Nothing will change. In addition, payroll taxes will be protected from taxes under the McCain plan. Millions of American families with employer sponsored coverage in all tax brackets with the same coverage as a "Members of Congress" will now come out ahead with additional funds going into a portable health savings account. Importantly, younger and healthier employees with the McCain health care tax credit will have a bigger incentive to stay with the employers. For example, a 25-year-old employee in the 25 percent tax bracket with a $2,500 tax credit could either purchase a policy in the individual market for the same amount or stay with his employer plan and receive a $5,000 policy with an additional $1,250 to invest in a portable health savings account. Why would people choose worse insurance and less money? Finally, the McCain plan through comprehensive cost-containment policies addresses the single biggest threat to employer coverage – rising costs.

The Truth about the Obama Health Care Plan:

Barack Obama's Plan Continues The Push Toward Government-Run Healthcare: The Obama plan will create a brand new government-run health plan at the cost of $243 billion a year – a financial burden of more than $3,000 a year on American families.

Barack Obama's Plan Will Harm Employer Coverage: The Obama plan includes a $179 billion a year employer mandate. The mandate requires employers to either provide "meaningful" coverage or pay a tax towards the government plan. Faced with tough economic conditions and rising health costs this creates a clear incentive for employers to drop coverage and move families into the new government plan. A Lewin Group study which examined a similar employer mandate combined with a national plan, like the Obama plan, concluded that almost 52 million individuals would lose their private employer coverage. To maintain their competitive edge, others employers will follow - spelling the demise of the employer coverage system.

Barack Obama's Plan Will Damage Private Coverage: The government-run plan will have a clear advantage over private insurance since it will be subsidized by American taxpayers. A recent analysis of both plans by the nonpartisan CATO Institute concluded that the Obama government-run plan will be able to "keep its premiums artificially low…since it can turn to the U.S. Treasury to cover any shortfalls" resulting in "undercutting the private market." According to Wall Street Journal, the goal of the Obama plan "…like HillaryCare in the 1990s, is to displace current private coverage and switch people to the default government option."

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 7:06 PM MDT

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"hegemony [hig-em-on-ee]

Notes on the potential for a war in and around Taiwan, China and the rest of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with speculations on how this new totalitarian axis around Shanghai might grow (especially if Barack Obama is elected President and takes no action to slow its growth).

 _______________________________________

The Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) is increasing the percentage of its national economic output and the absolute amount of money they spend to prepare for a military resolution of the Taiwan issue to their satisfaction.

Over the past decade, the non-Communist Republic of China (ROC) on the island of Taiwan has allowed real spending on their national defense to decline.   This has created a challenge to the Taiwanese capacity to remain independent.

The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 commits the United States to help Taiwanese maintain peace, security and stability through arms sales, indirect support and direct power projection into the area.  If we don't live up to that treaty, our other allies throughout the world will decide that it would be better for them to be allied with some other country.  China or Russia, perhaps. 

Then, our current troubles getting oil into the country will be remembered as "the good old days," just as we now reminisce about how calmer the world was when we just had to worry about one alliance dedicated to our destruction.  (We now have at least two - the Islamist jihad as interpreted to mean that we and all other non-Wahhabi Muslims must be subjugated or murdered; and the new one, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.)

The 2007 Taiwan government's defense budget was US $8.9 billion.  (Compare that to the PRC defense budget (estimated) of between US $97 billion and US $139 billion.)  With that money, in 2007 Taiwan bought 12 P-3C maritime patrol aircraft for locating and dropping torpedoes on Communist Chinese attack and missile submarines, six upgrades for their Patriot system, 3 TP-3A airframes (spare parts), 144 SM-2 naval Surface to Air Missiles, and a feasibility study for 8 diesel-electric submarines.

Over next three years (2007-2010) Taiwan is buying 218 AMRAAM Air to Air missiles, 235 Maverick Air to Ground Missiles, and 60 Harpoon Block II Air to Surface Cruise Missiles. 

Taiwan's 2008 defense budget is US$10.5 billion - a 12% increase over 2007.  This is puny compared to business as usual across the Formosa Straits in Red China.  Fortunately, Taiwan has natural defensive advantages that help offset mainland China's higher levels of spending on military hardware - mountains and caves which lend themselves to conversion into fortifications.  If it weren't for those, China might have already invaded Taiwan.

 ------

From the US Department of Defense "China Military Report 2008":

"The circumstances in which the mainland has historically warned it would use force against the island are not fixed and have evolved over time in response to Taiwan’s declarations and actions relating to its political status, changes in PLA capabilities, and Beijing’s view of other countries’ relations with Taiwan.

These circumstances, or “red lines,” have included: a formal declaration of Taiwan independence; undefined moves “toward independence”; foreign intervention in Taiwan’s internal affairs; indefinite delays in the resumption of cross-Strait dialogue on unification; Taiwan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons; and, internal unrest on Taiwan.

 Article 8 of Communist China's March 2005 “Anti-Secession Law” states that Beijing would resort to “non-peaceful means” if:

-“secessionist forces . . . cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China”;

- if “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession” occur;

-or if “possibilities for peaceful reunification” are exhausted.

The ambiguity of these “red-lines” appears deliberate, allowing Beijing the flexibility to determine the nature, timing, and form of its response.  Added to this atmosphere of ambiguity are political factors internal to the regime in Beijing that might affect its decision-making but are opaque to outsiders."

_____________

Deterrence Factors (from the DoD's "China Military Report")

"China is deterred on multiple levels from taking military action against Taiwan.  First, China does not yet possess the military capability to accomplish with confidence its political objectives on the island, particularly when confronted with the prospect of U.S. intervention.

Moreover, an insurgency directed against the PRC presence could tie up PLA forces for years. A military conflict in the Taiwan Strait would also affect the interests of Japan and other nations in the region in ensuring a peaceful resolution of the cross-Strait dispute.

Beijing’s calculus would also have to factor in the potential political and economic repercussions of military conflict with Taiwan. China’s leaders recognize that a war could severely retard economic development.  Taiwan is China’s single largest source of foreign direct investment, and an extended campaign would wreck Taiwan’s economic infrastructure, leading to high reconstruction costs. International sanctions could further damage Beijing’s economic development.

A conflict would also severely damage the image that Beijing has sought to project in the post-Tiananmen years and would taint Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympics. A conflict could also trigger domestic unrest on the mainland, a contingency that Beijing appears to have factored into its planning.

Finally, China’s leaders recognize that a conflict over Taiwan involving the United States would give rise to a long-term hostile relationship between the two nations – a result that would not be in China’s interests."

 _______

Most of the 70 billion dollars a year Beijing clears from its trade with the United States would evaporate in the event of a war between the PRC and Taiwan. 

(Unless a Democratic Party president is influenced by the Chinese - perhaps by old friends who are also Maoists, or perhaps by cash, as the Clintons were - to smooth over little bumps in the road like Chinese espionage in our nuclear weapons program or their slaughter of their own people and helps the Communist tyranny in Beijing overcome their own blunders.) 

The Chinese hard currency balance could dwindle to nothing overnight - given a collapse in the Chinese banking industry like our own recent troubles - they have a similar bad loan problem to ours which enriches the favored few of the Chinese government and their cronies in big business - and their dependence on imported oil for any transportation not fueled directly or indirectly by coal.  In China, if it doesn't travel by rail, transport depends on oil that must be purchased from Russia or the Middle East. 

It's possible that the PRC economy might not survive a protracted shooting war, or even economic sanctions involving the US and one or more other Western nations that go on for any length of time.   Sanctions might cause the Chinese to default on contracts,  and causing worse economic damage to the mainland in a cascading pattern. 

In short, if we stop buying their merchandise, the Communist Chinese could go broke in relatively little time.

Whether this would destroy or cement the Chinese Communist Party's hold on the people of the mainland is unclear; it's highly doubtful that following their "24-character strategy," any Chinese government would invade Taiwan or pursue similar aggressive actions without having cast itself as the injured party to the Chinese people.  Any economic damage to the Chinese might then be usable as justification for hardening of the government's stance toward both Taiwan and any of her supporters.

Much would depend on the degree of credibility the Beijing regime enjoys with its people going into such an adventure - and the resolve of the United States to punish China for attacking its neighbors. 

If elected President, Barack Obama would send a letter to the United Nations (over whose military actions China enjoys a veto in the Security Council, thanks to his predecessor Jimmy Carter) if the Chinese invaded Taiwan.  That would not even slow the Chinese down, any more than Obama's tut-tutting or George Bush's impotent bleating slowed Russia down in Georgia.

More problems with Tibet or the Uighurs could cost Beijing hard-won public relations capital and weaken support for action against Taiwan; conversely, an adventure against Taiwan might be used precisely to distract popular attention from economic or political misadventure at home, as well as to justify repressive measures against dissident elements at home.

As the DoD "China Military Report" shows, Beijing understates its defense expenditures officially (as opposed to estimated actual expenditures) by from fifty to two hundred percent.  It would be unreasonable in the regional context to assume that Taiwan was transparent in all of its defense expenditures. 

Rumors persist about at least an embryonic Taiwanese nuclear weapons program from which it was dissuaded by the US, and which might have provoked an invasion from the mainland if pursued publicly.  A previous administration probably explained the facts of life to the Taiwanese - the US could not be held to the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act if Taiwan did anything as provocative as acquiring nuclear weapons (even though the mainland Chinese had over 700 nuclear-armed missiles aimed at Taiwan a few years ago - the total's probably over 1,000 now).

Taiwan , numerically inferior in troop strength and faced with several thousand intermediate-range ballistic missiles aimed at it by the mainland, and outspent between ten and fifteen to one on defense by the PRC, could be expected to have developed a covert nuclear weapons program. 

Taiwan could afford nuclear weapons; if the Taiwanese want to remain politically independent rather than negotiating a largely meaningless Hong Kong-like quasi-autonomy from the mainland, they would have to hold Beijing at risk in order to deter either an invasion or a bombardment.  Nuclear weapons would seem to be the only deterrent worth considering in this context (unless other weapons of mass destruction such as biologicals are in their arsenal).  

An unusually clever (and effective) approach to a nuclear defense might be for Taiwan to hide a nuclear device somewhere in the maze of tunnels under Beijing, close enough to actually endanger the PRC's national command center if its location were known to the Taiwanese.  This tactic has drawbacks - a working nuclear weapon emits neutrons constantly, and relatively cheap handheld neutron detectors about the size of a large flashlight are available.  China has plenty of policemen and soldiers who could sweep the capital on a regular basis with these detectors.

Of course, the opposite is true as well - it might make sense to the Communists to simply cut their Gordian knot and take the obloquy of having slaughtered several million people as the price for consolidating their "first island chain" defensive perimeter and becoming the hegemon of Asia in fact as well as geography. 

Since the Chinese already support the dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in exchange for a new colonialism in which most Zimbabweans are oppressed in a terroristic regime supported by armed Chinese in uniform, it's hard to believe the Chinese worry about how the nuclear devastation of Taiwan might look on CNN. 

Given CNN's propensity to manage the news to make Barack Obama look good right now, it's entirely possible they'd bury any bad news coming out of the Formosa Straits - with or without "suggestions" from an Obama White House.   CNN is certainly covering-up Obama's deep and abiding debt to the radical left.

Whether the rape of Taiwan would be worth the isolation the West would impose on China as a result depends partly on whether the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could replace the revenue which Beijing would lose after committing mass murder in order to settle the Taiwan matter - and whether the West did much of anything.

It wouldn't be the first time a Chinese government in Beijing has chosen to murder millions of innocent people rather than risk losing its control over the rest of the country.

 ___________________________

There is a very real chance, given the current make-up of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its candidate nations, that the foundation for a forcible hegemony including the entire Western Pacific may be in the making.

Decisive amputation of the Taiwanese leadership would signal resolve in a way that might destroy or cripple the Western Pacific and South Asian democracies and re-align the transCaucasus away from reformism and democracy and toward an curving Eastern axis reaching through Beijing from Moscow down to Karachi.   

This, of course, would be only the beginning of a course culminating in threats to India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and Sri Lanka - each of which is now experiencing instability that poses a real threat to its national existence.  The candidacy of Pakistan, North Korea and Iran for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an ominous development because these three countries stand to benefit directly from instability in the states outside the Shanghai axis.

In Pakistan and China's case, territorial claims which have stood for centuries might be settled in a swift strike at India.  Kashmir and the Indian borderland with China in the Himalayas could be ripped away from India in a series of strokes along the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organization axis. 

A resurgent Pakistan might allow the Taliban to operate even more freely from its sanctuaries than it now does, taking Qandahar from the east of Afghanistan, while Iran creates mischief and perhaps even grabs some land from Afghanistan's western borders.

Russia and China would scarcely have to act in this case, except to make adventitious additions to their own borders in the Caucausus and Central Asia; the cozy relations between Russia and Iran may finally give the Russians the warm water port they have coveted, replacing the access they lost when the Ukraine seceded

(Even if the unrest that Putin and his Communist retreads are fomenting causes the Ukraine to fission, their supporters probably could not recover access to the Black Sea for Russia from Ukrainian soil, because the reunionists live over to the East and North.  The Russians' bid to kill Kuznetsov and abort the Orange Revolution aborning has failed, so far).

Russian activity in Georgia, meanwhile, continues.  There has been no real justification for their invasion or continued presence in Georgia beyond the borders of Abkhazia or Ossetia; none that doesn't involve laying the foundations for an eventual Russian takeover of all of Georgia, gaining the Russians a foothold on the Black Sea to replace the one they'll eventually lose when the Ukrainians boot them out of their naval base there.

 ___________________________

We're looking at an axis extending from Shanghai to Moscow, with ambitions to expand all along that line into other people's territory.  

Look at it.  Look at the size of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a military alliance which exists... why does it exist?

Consider when World War II started in 1939, it was begun by Germany, Italy and Japan, with the Soviet Union promising to stay out of Germany's way as they conquered Europe - until they themselves were invaded by Germany in 1941. Three relatively small countries could only be defeated an alliance of nearly the entire rest of the world which had not already been conquered.  

Russia and Germany split Poland between them in the years between the beginning of World War II and the invasion of the Soviet Union.  And, as we've seen in Georgia, Russia has their walking shoes on nowadays.  They might elect to either stand aside and split Chinese conquests on their border with the Chinese - or strike out on a campaign of conquest of their own.  History supports either outcome.

Barack Obama doesn't think we need to maintain or expand our military.  He has pledged to draw it down.  Apparently they don't teach map skills in Harvard - or European history, a subject that seems to bore Obama, since he failed to show up for even one meeting of the subcommittee he chairs on European Affairs in the Senate.

History shows us that in 1939 plenty of people who went to Harvard didn't think Hitler and Tojo were a threat, either.  Then as now, people here in the United States screamed about how the axis threatening the world just wanted peace, and how we were provoking them by daring to defend ourselves. 

FDR had to weave a tortuous path between isolationists in both political wings and Stalin's "community organizers" simply to rebuild the United States' military and supply Great Britain with what she needed to resist a German invasion.

We never really recovered from Clinton's destruction of the US military - and Obama wants to throw away even that degree of recovery.  He's promised to do exactly that.  We'll be many years and spend billions rebuilding our military if Obama wins this election - and WE WILL NEED A MILITARY. 

Obama has an incredible set of endorsements - every dictator and would-be dictator on Earth hopes Barack Obama will be elected President of the United States.  Professional courtesy, I guess.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 8:34 AM MDT

Updated: Wednesday, 24 November 2010 7:16 PM MST

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Posted by V.P. Frickey at 3:27 PM MDT

Updated: Sunday, 5 October 2008 3:02 PM MDT

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Commentary magazine recently printed a column, "Why Iraq Was Inevitable," by George Mason University historian Arthur Herman dealing with the current fad of condemning George Bush for getting us into the war with Iraq.  As they point out, it's hard to remember that he had plenty of company in wanting to neutralize Iraq's potential as a home base for terror and a nexus for attacks on neighboring countries: 

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-iraq-was-inevitable-11456

"In this light—that is, in light of what was actually known at the time about Saddam Hussein’s actions and intentions, and in light of what was added to our knowledge through his post-capture interrogations by the FBI—the decision to go to war takes on a very different character. The story that emerges is of a choice not only carefully weighed and deliberately arrived at but, in the circumstances, the one moral choice that any American President could make.

Had, moreover, Bush failed to act when he did, the consequences could have been truly disastrous. The next American President would surely have faced the need, in decidedly less favorable circumstances, to pick up the challenge Bush had neglected. And since Bush’s unwillingness to do the necessary thing might rightly have cost him his second term, that next President would probably have been one of the many Democrats who, until March 2003, actually saw the same threat George Bush did.

_____________

It is too often forgotten, not least by historians, that George W. Bush did not invent the idea of deposing the Iraqi tyrant. For years before he came on the scene, removing Saddam Hussein had been a priority embraced by the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton and by Clinton’s most vocal supporters in the Senate:

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons. . . . Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: he has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. . . . I have no doubt today that, left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

These were the words of President Clinton on the night of December 16, 1998 as he announced a four-day bombing campaign over Iraq. Only six weeks earlier, Clinton had signed the Iraq Liberation Act authorizing Saddam’s overthrow—an initiative supported unanimously in the Senate and by a margin of 360 to 38 in the House. “Iraqis deserve and desire freedom,” Clinton had declared. On the evening the bombs began to drop, Vice President Al Gore told CNN’s Larry King:

You allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons. How many people is he going to kill with such weapons? . . . We are not going to allow him to succeed. [emphasis added]

What these and other such statements remind us is that, by the time George Bush entered the White House in January 2001, the United States was already at war with Iraq, and in fact had been at war for a decade, ever since the first Gulf war in the early 1990’s. (This was literally the case, the end of hostilities in 1991 being merely a cease-fire and not a formal surrender followed by a peace treaty.) Not only that, but the diplomatic and military framework Bush inherited for neutralizing the Middle East’s most fearsome dictator had been approved by the United Nations. It consisted of (a) regular UN inspections to track and dispose of weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) remaining in Saddam’s arsenal since the first Gulf war; (b) UN-monitored sanctions to prevent Saddam from acquiring the means to make more WMD’s; and (c) the creation of so-called “no-fly zones” over large sections of southern and northern Iraq to deter Saddam from sending the remnants of his air force against resisting Kurds and Shiite Muslims.

The problem, as Bill Clinton discovered at the start of his second term, was that this “containment regime” was collapsing. By this point Saddam was not just the brutal dictator who had killed as many as two million of his own people and used chemical weapons in battle against Iran (and in 1988 against Iraqis themselves). Nor was he just the regional aggressor who had to be driven out of Kuwait in 1991 by an international coalition of armed forces in Operation Desert Storm. As Clinton recognized, Saddam’s WMD programs, in combination with his ties to international terrorists, posed a direct challenge to the United States.

In a February 17, 1998 speech at the Pentagon, Clinton focused on what in his State of the Union address a few weeks earlier he had called an “unholy axis” of rogue states and predatory powers threatening the world’s security. “There is no more clear example of this threat,” he asserted, “than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” and he added that the danger would grow many times worse if Saddam were able to realize his thoroughly documented ambition, going back decades and at one point close to accomplishment, of acquiring an arsenal of nuclear as well as chemical and biological weapons. The United States, Clinton said, “simply cannot allow this to happen.”

So if William Jefferson Clinton had lived up to the lofty rhetoric in his speeches, we would have been in Iraq before the end of his administration - perhaps if Clinton's compulsive womanizing had left any intellectual energy in the Capitol for anything but impeachment hearings and abortive air raids such as Operation Desert Fox which did nothing to discover what was really on the ground in Iraq.

If George W. Bush hadn't sent the Armed Forces in to invade Iraq, hadn't pressured Saddam to hide (perhaps export) his weapons of mass destruction, such as the sarin nerve agent used on American troops after the war by insurgents, or the 450 tons of yellowcake uranium which was not in Iraq for glazing pottery, the impetus for the next President might have been a series of attacks on the American homeland with weapons from the Iraqi arsenal solicitously provided by the Iraqi hosts of Al-Qaeda and Ansar Al-Islam, both present in Iraq before the invasion.

But there's an election to steal, so the Democrats and their allies in the press are going to forget that the leaders of the Democratic Party were for the war up to, and after, the point at which it happened.

The reason we don't respond to this hypocrisy as such is that it's not remarkable coming from the Democratic Party.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 12:03 PM MDT

Updated: Sunday, 24 August 2008 12:12 PM MDT

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Mood:  mischievious

The press has been repeating a memo mailed to them by the Eleison Group, an ad agency which specializes in getting religious people to vote for the Democratic party and "progressive" causes, that the McCain campaign has created a powerful Web ad/video, "the One," which supposedly uses imagery from the "Left Behind" books to make people believe Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

No, really.  The Antichrist.  The Father of Lies. 

Anyway, I watched the video many times, because it's pretty funny, and no urge to scour the Mark of the Beast from my skin overcame me, nor had I a feeling that Barack Obama was heading my way with four guys on horses behind him.

So I decided to take a poll to see whether anyone else felt that way after seeing this particular Web ad.

Please watch "the One," then take the poll.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 10:46 PM MDT

Updated: Saturday, 16 August 2008 4:21 PM MDT

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We could be as little as five years away from clean, cheap fusion power.

Fusion, if you need a refresher, is one of two nuclear reactions that can give us energy.

Nuclear fission, the reaction we now use in nuclear power plants, splits the center (or "nucleus") of a heavy atom like uranium, thorium or plutonium into smaller atoms to release energy in the form of heat and radiation.  We also use fission in nuclear weapons.

Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which light atoms like hydrogen, lithium, boron or helium are fused together into larger atoms, which also releases energy and radiation.  Nuclear fusion is used along with fission in some nuclear weapons (usually the ones called "hydrogen bombs").

Nuclear fusion is harder to make happen outside of a hydrogen bomb.  So far, fusion reactors are great, huge things that consume more power than they make.  By contrast, the very first nuclear reactor (under the west stands at Amos Alonzo Stagg Field in The University of Chicago in 1942) made more energy than it consumed (essentially none) from the beginning.

But there are different ways to make this reaction happen that haven't really been explored with the money and energy that have gone into the big-iron thermonuclear reactors built so far, and the monstrous ITER reactor under construction in France (with American help in funding and design).  Possibly the most promising one - one which its developers say could be producing power in as little as three to five years - is the Bussard Polywell fusion reactor.

Dr. Robert Bussard, a nuclear physicist from the fun old days who designed a nuclear-powered cruise missile for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s, also the father of the concept of the "interstellar ramscoop," was one of the major exponents of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) concept.

Not many years ago, Dr. Bussard presented a talk at Google entitled "Should Google go Nuclear?" (amid rumors that Sergei Brin and some of the other investors in Google were thinking about funding him):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

For those who, like me, like written presentations of technical data better, there's a written transcript:

http://askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/Should%20Google%20Go%20Nuclear.pdf

and a Web page on the progress made by Dr. Bussard's group:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/bussards-inertial-electrostatic.html

ICF doesn't have to emit or use neutrons - the boron-11 (80% of natural boron is boron-11) + proton (ionized hydrogen) inertial confinement reaction emits no neutrons and it emits charged particles that can be captured in the magnetically-active inertial confinement grid to produce electrical current directly. 

Boron-11 + proton  -->  Helium-4 + Helium-4 + energy

Producing electrical current in the reactor is something no other reactor design, fusion or fission, does.  It's brilliant - it has far fewer systems and parts than other reactor designs.  Instead of a huge concrete reactor dome next to a large concrete building holding the generators and water pumps and auxiliary diesel generators, a Bussard Polywell fusion power reactor would sit in a single building, about a story or two tall.   The transformers would be the same, because electrical power is electrical power.

What's better is that the power wasted when a nuclear reactor or an oil or coal furnace heats water into steam to spin electrical generators, then pumps the water from the cooled steam back into the reactor is not wasted in this design.  Much, much more of the energy made by the Bussard Polywell design goes out of the reactor as electricity.

Finally, and best of all - no meltdowns.  When a Polywell fusion reactor breaks, it just stops.  No explosions, no radioactivity, no muss, and no fuss.

Calculations indicate that a full-scale Polywell IEC reactor could produce as much as 128 gigawatts of power.  Normal fission reactors and oil and coal power plants top out at 1 - 2 gigawatts.  And Polywell fusion reactors are much, much cheaper to build per unit of energy generated than current nuclear reactors.

The projected cost to build the first power-generating Polywell IEC reactor is about $200 million, with a generating capacity of a gigawatt.  The reactor would be 4 meters (about 4.3 yards or 13 feet) across and weigh 14 tons.  You could install one inside a medium-sized freighter.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/bussards-inertial-electrostatic.html

By comparison, it costs between $2,000 million ($2 billion) and $3,800 million ($3.8 billion) dollars to build modern fission power plants for a generating capacity of 1.05 and 1.15 gigawatts.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/17/18348080.php

So electricity made by Polywell fission plants could cost up to nineteen times less than electricity generated by existing nuclear plants.  And if the boron-11 + proton reaction can be made to work in large Polywell reactors, this would be CLEAN nuclear power, with no neutrons and very little, perhaps no radioactive waste.

Say that three-fourths of your utility bill is related to power generation costs and fuel, and your power is all made by nuclear power plants (both very conservative assumptions favoring present-day utilities).  If you pay 12 cents/kilowatt-hour for power, 9 cents of that may be traceable to power plant operations and fuel. 

Replace the current power plant with a Polywell fusion power plant, and this part of your electricity rate drops to 0.47 cent.  Your overall power rate becomes 3.47 cents instead of 12 cents.  You get to spend 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour you use on other things, assuming your power use remains the same.  Your power bill drops by 71 percent.

If you, for the sake of argument, use 2,000 kilowatt-hours of power a month, your power bill is 240 dollars a month if you pay 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.  Drop that rate to 4.8 cents and your bill drops to $69.40.

Interestingly, power output in Polywell reactors varies exponentially with physical size.

Double that hypothetical 4-meter Polywell reactor in size and you get a reactor theoretically capable of generating 128 gigawatts!  (exclamation point mine)

I don't know how much that 8-meter Polywell reactor would cost to build, but even if it cost a billion dollars, the part of your electricity bill traceable to power plant construction and operation would be reduced up to 128 times.

Using that analysis of mine again, this part of your present 12 cents per kilowatt-hour electrical power rate falls to 0.07 cents.  Your rate could drop to 3.07 cents per kilowatt-hour. 

Say again that you use two thousand kilowatt-hours a month.  At 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, now you pay $240 a month for power.  At 3.07 cents per kilowatt-hour, that bill is now $61.40 most of it payroll, debt service, maintenance of the power distribution grid, etc.  The power generation cost (assuming a 128 gigawatt power plant) for 2000 kilowatt-hours would be $1.40.

Since nuclear power right now is twice as cheap as coal power and many times as cheap as oil, even cheaper than natural gas, the cost advantage of fusion power over fossil power is even greater.

We're really talking about knocking the props out from under Russia and OPEC.  If we get this concept to work and sell these plants around the world, Vladimir Putin is going to have to drink generic brand vodka.   Works for me.

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 7:01 PM MDT

Updated: Wednesday, 24 November 2010 7:29 PM MST

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Just in case we need reminding why disarmament and "peace-oriented" defense policy don't work, the Russians decided to remind us two days ago.

But some people won't learn until it's too late. 

One of them is Barack Obama.

Hear him explain why in his own words:

This is your country on dope on January 20th 2009 if Obama wins. 

Any questions?

Posted by V.P. Frickey at 8:55 PM MDT

Updated: Tuesday, 12 August 2008 10:34 PM MDT

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