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July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
I just got back from hearing Harvey Kushner speak at an event organized by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Harvey is the author of Holy War on the Home Front: The Secret Islamic Terror Network in the United States.
Harvey advises government agencies such as the FBI in the war on terrorists. There’s so much to blog about what he had to say. I’m dashing out now to another event, so for the moment I’ll just make this note, and then blog more later.
He discussed how there’s a $1.5 billion illegal trade in this country for a drug called khat (pronounced like “cot” ). 70 tons of it were seized by police; the rule of thumb used by the police and the FBI indicates that means there’s another 700 tons that were illegally imported and sold. It’s used almost exclusively in Islamic communities. The profits of this illegal trade are believed to contribute to the funding of terrorist actions. But because of political correctness, MSM won’t cover it, so you haven’t heard of it. And because of political correctness, judges are lenient and loathe to punish the drug dealers and runners who have been arrested.
I’ll blog more on what Harvey discussed later.
So there was a little typo in an Amazon product listing. A ViewSonic TPCV1250S-1303 computer was supposed to show a 1 GHz Athlon processor and a 30-gig hard drive, but the typo had it as a “10.0 GHz” Athlon processor, and a 3 terabyte hard drive.
That’s when the fun started. Here are some of the user reviews posted by Amazon readers:
“I hooked up my scanner to this beast and now there are two of me…. and my copy (no – really – the COPY) is getting me into all kinds of trouble.”
“This item ships from the future. It requires an additional charge of 7,000 Earth Barter Notes. An EBN is roughly equal to $60. It is SO worth it, though.”
“We have been using one of these at work for the basis of our SKYNET project. We are so impressed by this hardware that we plan on switching over the nation’s defense grid to be under complete control of this machine sometime next week. I’ll post a follow-up review after we do to tell you how it went…”
Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills have a comprehensive discussion of America’s energy usage. They state that nuclear power is safe:
And uranium’s combination of power and super-density makes the fuel less of a terror risk, not more, at least from an engineering standpoint. It’s easy to “overbuild” the protective walls and containment systems of nuclear facilities, since—like the pyramids—the payload they’re built to shield is so small. Protecting skyscrapers is hard; no builder can afford to erect a hundred times more wall than usable space. Guaranteeing the integrity of a jumbo jet’s fuel tanks is impossible; the tanks have to fly. Shielding a nuclear plant’s tiny payload is easy—just erect more steel, pour more concrete, and build tougher perimeters.
In fact, it’s a safety challenge that we have already met. Today’s plants split atoms behind super-thick layers of steel and concrete; future plants would boast thicker protection still. All the numbers, and the strong consensus in the technical community, reinforce the projections made two decades ago: it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be a serious release of nuclear materials from a U.S. reactor.
And they point out the need the U.S. has to be energy-independent:
It must surely be clear by now, too, that the political costs of depending so heavily on oil from the Middle East are just too great. We need to find a way to stop funneling $25 billion a year (or so) of our energy dollars into churning cauldrons of hate and violence. By sharply curtailing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, we would greatly expand the range of feasible political and military options in dealing with the countries that breed the terrorists.
The best thing we can do to decrease the Middle East’s hold on us is to turn off the spigot ourselves. For economic, ecological, and geopolitical reasons, U.S. policymakers ought to promote electrification on the demand side, and nuclear fuel on the supply side, wherever they reasonably can.
The Washington Times reports on a counter-jihad by the Islamic Council of Spain:
The Spanish commission’s fatwa, or condemnation, follows other signs of the kind of public theological debate rarely seen in the Muslim world, openly challenging the dominance of Saudi Arabia’s wealthy Wahhabi fanatics.
One Islamic scholar even calls it a sign of “a counter-jihad.”
In a recent interview with the Qatari daily newspaper Al-Raya, for example, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of Shariah and law at the University of Qatar, urged his fellow Muslims to purge their heritage of fanaticism and adopt “new civilized humane thought.”
NEWSMAX has a report on America’s first counterintelligence strategy, which has just been approved by GWB.
One counterintelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a key element of the strategy is “creative counterintelligence.”
The official said that means maintaining such a strong system that enemies don’t know if people who approach them with intelligence — like FBI spy Robert Hanssen — are truly disaffected government employees or double agents. Hanssen gave secrets to the Soviets for over 21 years
Virginia Governor Signs Bill Denying Illegal Aliens Public Benefits:
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner yesterday signed into law a measure that denies illegal aliens public benefits, including access to Medicaid, welfare and local health care services.
“I have signed this legislation into law but will ask the Latino Advisory Commission to study and monitor the legislation to ensure that it is fairly implemented and does not impose undue costs on local governments,” said Mr. Warner, a Democrat who is in his last year in office.
It’s cool that Gov. Warner is a Democrat.
It’s amazing that we actually have to have a law that says people entering this country illegally don’t get to profit at taxpayer expense. I’d like to see similar legislation passed in more states.
Gary J. Andres cites a Gallup Poll and says the Social Security debate is picking up steam:
A recent Gallup Poll supports this view. In February, Americans were asked, “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” Interestingly, Social Security now tops the list of domestic priorities — an extraordinary change from just a few months ago when Social Security barely registered. Now nearly 13 percent of respondents said Social Security was “the most important problem,” topping education, health insurance and the economy. Only a defense/foreign policy response “issues on the war in Iraq” (16 percent) ranked higher.
Economy Strong, Solid at End of ‘04
WASHINGTON – The economy — supported by solid business and consumer spending — grew in the closing three months of 2004 at an annual rate of 3.8 percent. It’s expected to perform even better in the opening quarter of this year.
...The fourth quarter’s economic performance was admirable, analysts said. “The economy is not sprinting but it is jogging along nicely,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
It’s pretty much definitely the future at this point.
The Spectator has a report (registration required) saying that Christians in Iraq are suffering from oppression for their religion.
At a church in Basra I visited a month after the war ended, the women complained of attacks against them for not wearing the Islamic veil. I saw many Christian-owned shops that had been firebombed, with many of the owners killed for exercising their legal right to sell alcohol. Two years and many church attacks later, Iraq may still be occupied by Christian foreign powers, but the Islamist plan to ethnically cleanse Iraq of its nearly 2,000-year-old Assyrian and Armenian Christian communities is reaching fruition.
...Across the Islamic world, Christians are systematically discriminated against and persecuted. Saudi Arabia — the global fountain of religious bigotry — bans churches, public Christian worship, the Bible and the sale of Christmas cards, and stops non-Muslims from entering Mecca. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking, blaspheming or Bible-bashing, as some British citizens have found. Just last month, furthermore, Saudi Arabia announced that only Muslims can become citizens.
The Copts of Egypt make up half the Christians in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. They inhabited the land before the Islamic conquest, and still make up a fifth of the population. By law they are banned from being president of the Islamic Republic of Egypt or attending Al Azhar University, and severely restricted from joining the police and army. By practice they are banned from holding any high political or commercial position. Under the 19th-century Hamayouni decrees, Copts must get permission from the president to build or repair churches — but he usually refuses. Mosques face no such controls.
Mara Salvatrucha is a violent crime organization based in Mexico:
The gang grew from Salvadoran refugees in California in the 1980s into one of the largest criminal syndicates in North America, with as many as 20,000 members in the United States and branches throughout Mexico, Central America and Canada. Mara Salvatrucha is among the most successful smugglers of drugs, weapons and people across the U.S.-Mexico border.
They are threatening to attack the U.S. civilians, called the MinuteMen, who are voluntarily seeking to police the U.S.-Mexico border.
The notorious crime syndicate Mara Salvatrucha is threatening Arizona’s Project Minuteman and reportedly plans to teach it “a lesson” once the Minutemen begin fanning out along Arizona’s border regions this weekend.
...Mara Salvatrucha has reportedly issued “green lights” to kill police officers in Virginia and Maryland. Such a criminal enterprise—which, we point out, is the largest criminal syndicate in the Washington area—benefits greatly from lax border security and under-funding of the U.S. Border Patrol.
The ACLU has warned the MinuteMen that it intends to monitor their actions to make sure the Minutemen do not abuse the rights of non-Americans trying to illegally enter this country. This story exemplifies how the ACLU—intentionally or not—helps the criminals who are using illegal immigration to do harm to the U.S.
The Minutemen are planning to observe only:
Project Minuteman’s 1,000 or more observers will likely be able to spot the gangsters as they attempt to cross into Arizona. They will be able to report on suspected criminal activity involving illegal border-crossings and point the Border Patrol toward the worst offenses. Some of the Minutemen with valid licenses will be armed. The Minutemen have been instructed to holster their weapons and not to confront any suspected lawbreakers. Their only purpose is to spot offenders and report them to the Border Patrol.
But knowing they can count on the ACLU to do their dirty work for them, Mara Salvatrucha is expected to attack the Minutemen. It is likely that they are counting on the ACLU to then take the Minutemen to court:
But Mara Salvatrucha may well do its best to force them to react otherwise, given the stakes for a criminal enterprise like Mara Salvatrucha and its violent record inside the United States.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the ACLU jumps right in to cooperate with the enemies of America in exactly this way.
Daniel Pipes reports:
This is the 21st Century version of the cruelty with which children were treated in schools of the 1800’s, as dramatized in the novels of Charles Dickens.
Pipes has more, with links.
Past Accusations Against Michael Jackson are Admissible Evidence in Current Case. What’s the deal on this? Aren’t we always hearing that someone accused of a terrible crime is on trial, and the judge excludes from the courtroom testimony on all the previous times he was accused or suspected of a similar crime?
Per scientist William F. Ruddiman writing in Scientific American, Earth has been in an ice age for millions of years, with brief interruptions by warm periods like ours. Given the length of previous such warm periods, this one should have ended 8,000 years ago. What stopped the ice age and made current human civilization possible? Global warming, caused by…. human agriculture.
Orson Scott Card has a great discussion of Ruddiman’s article here.
