Category Archives: Politics

What are American Papers Afraid Of?

Across Europe newspapers are showing their solidarity with the Danish Press by reprinting the cartoons of Mohammed, but only one paper in the U.S. has seen fit to do so. If they are not printing the cartoons because the do not wish to put U.S. service men and women in any additional danger than they already face, I applaud them. If they are afraid for their own skins or are just too politically correct to do so then they are simply craven cowards.

How Will the Danes Respond?

A cartoon depiction of Mohammed wearing a turban with a bomb in it was published by a Danish newspaper. Muslims around the world have reacted by rioting in the streets, threatening western interests and, in Damascus and Beriut, buring down the down the Danish embassies. The Muslims are well and truly outraged.

A cartoon, while it may be offensive and repugnant, is merely an image while the loss of life and property is a much more serious matter. I am somewhat conflicted over this issue. I would be outraged about the prospect of sacrireligious treatment of Jesus in the press. But my outrage would prompt me to write a letter to the editor, post to my blog, boycott advertisers or cancel my subscription not march in the street carrying a sign calling for death to the infidels or burn down an embassy. I believe my coreligionsits would respond the same way.

No it is the Danes who should be outraged and who should now respond with force. Nations cannot allow their embassies to be burned without reprisal. I do not know the capabilities of the Danish Armed Forces. Their navy seems designed for costal defense and fisheries patrol and their Air Force does not have access to bases that would permit them to strike targets in the middle east. But they must find a way. Countries who are unable to defend their interests abroad will not have a voice, especially in the middle east.

Full Agreement on Racism

Morgan Freeman is echoing my long held sentiments about racism in a 60 Minutes interview quoted in an article on the SeattlePI website. In the interview he says that the only way to get rid of racism is to “stop talking about it” and to quit labeling people as black or white, and view them as simply people.

I suppose Mr. Freeman would not be opposed to being able to describe people by the color of their skin in the way we might describe someone as a redhead or tall or thin (Mr. Freeman for example is an older, distinguished looking black man, with salt and pepper hair). Here black and man are merely descriptive terms not terms laden with hidden meanings. It is these hidden meanings and agendas I, and I hope Mr. Freeman, oppose.

We we need to be able to describe each other in a physically objective manner, we need to do so without the subliminal baggage that comes with describing someone as Black or White or any other color (human variety being almost endless) and not lump people into classes based on purely physical descriptions. Bravo Mr. Freeman, Bravo.

Golf Leading the Way

Who would have thought that golf would ever be on the cutting edge of anything except, perhaps, tedium for viewers and frustration for casual players? But today golf finds itself on the cutting edge of gender equity in sports. Women golfers such as Michelle Wie and Anika Sorenstam, created a stir with their efforts to play in men’s events, but now, in a sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander move, Jean Van De Velde has announced his intention to attempt to play in the Women’s British Open.

I have long held that the divide between men’s and women’s sports is wrong. This sporting apartheid, with all the attendant baggage of separate but equal, diminishes the accomplishments of the true leaders in any sport and hinders the development of championship caliber women athletes. Sports is one of the few pure meritocracies in the world and we should demand that it stay that way.

Women’s sports will one day be considered as discriminatory as Baseball’s Negro Leagues and we’ll wonder why so many great athletes were forced to labor in obscurity. Anything that hastens the day when there is only sports, with no gender division, is welcome. So to Jean Van De Velde I send a hearty, “You go girl.”

Our Staggering Tax Burden

This excellent article by Joseph Bast points out that over 40% of the total income of the U.S. is being sent to Governments, at various levels, to spend. Over 40%!!!!!! That is way beyond absurd.

It’s time to take back our income. Let them know at every level that you don’t like to be taxed. Force them (Congressmen, Presidents, State Legislators, City Councilors) to balance budgets, not by increasing taxes, but by cutting spending. Especially those that profess to be conservatives. They need to remember who voted for them and what we elected them for.

Mutually Assured Destruction and Terrorism

Before I get started let me make a small disclaimer, I’m not advocating this position, just thinking out loud. With that out of the way lets get right to the meat of the matter: should we threaten to destroy, by whatever means, the holy sites of Islam in an effort to deter future terrorist attacks?

This very idea has surfaced in comments from Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado. The notion is simple in its concept. The people who are involved in the terror war against the United States are doing it in the name of Islam (whether Islam actually supports such actions is an open question) and might respond to threats to the very heart of the religion. But the core question is would it work?
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Forking the Internet

This Report currently running on CNet highlights an ongoing disagreement between the US government and countries like Brazil and China over what institution has the right to assign Internet names and run the root servers of the Internet. The writer raises the possibility that failure by the US to surrender control of the Internet risks a “Balkanized” Internet with multiple root servers and where servers could resolve the same address differently depending on where the client was located.

I say, let them fork it. The only content worth anything on the Internet is in Western Europe (primarily the UK), the US, Canada and Australia (in English too, I might add). Those are the only markets where enough people have both Internet connections and the money to buy things over the Internet. If the developing world wants to sell to the developed world (which they must to survive), then they must be able to connect to our version of the Internet. So the heck with them. I won’t miss anything from Syria or Brazil, but they will sure miss the opportunity to sell stuff to me.

What really has me perturbed is the notion that a UN agency would have the authority to decide what a domain name costs me, tell me which one I can have, tax my connection or domain names and potentially decide what content is permissible. I don’t really trust my government to do that so I sure don’t trust the Indian ot Chinese governments to do the job. So fork away world. I doubt we’ll miss you, mainly because you need connectivity to us more than we need it to you.

Fight 'em Over There

Yesterday’s tragic and cowardly attack by Islamic terrorists on innocent citizens in London is proof positive, as if any were needed, of the urgency with which we must take the war to the terrorists. Free and open societies, such as exist in the U.S. and U.K. cannot survive the intrusive security measures that would be necessary to play defense against this threat. Check points, identity cards, heavier police presence, and other intrusive law enforcement methods would surely reduce the risk of attack (although not to zero) but would also prove corrosive to our freedoms, changing the very fabric of our societies.

No, instead of us loosing our freedoms we should concentrate on making sure that those who engage in, promote and sponsor terrorism lose their freedoms and, if necessary, their lives. We should take the war to them even more aggressively and cast our net wider including places known to harbor terrorists like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. This is not a time to retrench or shrink from waging war on offense, it is a time to double our efforts.

What's Good for Klaatu is Good for George

“Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.” Does this quote sound familiar? Was it George W. Bush talking to terrorists? Nope, its a quote from the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Don’t exactly remember it? Well here’s a plot synopsis.

An alien lands on earth with an indestructible spaceship and a robot of enormous power. He has an important message for the world and to prove he is a bona-fide alien ambassador, he stops electricity around the globe for half an hour (hence the name of the movie). But what of the message you ask? That was the quote above, you’re with us or against us, join us in peace or die. The alien, Klaatu, was a member of a galactic civilization that was so advanced they had given control of their defense to an army of super powerful robots who immediately annihilated anyone who committed aggression. Those robots were now concerned that earth had developed nuclear weapons and would soon have the potential to use them against the galactic civilization.
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