Hiroshima @ 65: BFD

Sixty five years ago today,  one United States warplane dropped one bomb on one  Japaneses city, Hiroshima and killed what a hundred thousand Japanese civilians; men, women, children. from Bruce McQuain, Q and O:

[I]t is the annual Hiroshima remembrance in Japan and the usual cries of “outrage” and demands for an “apology” fill the air.

My father fought against the Japanese in WWII on Saipan, Leyte and Okinawa. I have studied the war in detail. I’ve been particularly interested in the planned invasion of Japan.

Okinawa was the first indicator of what that would have been like – it was and is considered a Japanese “home island”. My father was slated to be with the first wave of divisons landing on Kyushu. The technical description of their anticipated condition after a day or so was “combat ineffective”. That means those initial divisions would have been destroyed and unable to continue to fight.

So what the big deal? It was better for Harry Truman to have Japanese civilians die than have one more American die.   As William T. Sherman once noted, War is Hell.   Well Give em Hell Harry, did just that.   That what Presidents do.  The Japanese started the war.  Truman ended it.  I suppose if Dim Won were Commander-in-Chief at the time,  he would bowed down to Hirohito and negotiated a  surrender, an American surrender.

The Labor Department reported this morning that nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 in the month of July.  Even more discouraging was that June’s revised payroll number was revised downward to a negative 221,000.  This is huge.  Initial jobless claims estimates released Thursday was 479,000, and was an increase from the previous week’s 460,000.  The two statistics, nonfarm payrolls and initial jobless claims, are suggesting the same thing–employers are not hiring, and are, in fact, laying off workers, and we may very well be headed into a “double dip” recession.

That’s the report.  Here’s the analysis.  As suggested some months ago, the past predicts the future.  As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.  There will be no new net growth in employment until new jobless claims fall below 400,000.  Hiring cannot and will not happen until employers are confident that they have sustainable business prospects, that their expenses will be stable (like health insurance premiums) and that their taxes will be stable.  Again, we’ve seen this scenario before.  It was called the Carter Administration.

Right now, President Obama and his staff are crafting a spin that would suggest this is all the Bush Administration’s fault.  That somehow, the last 18 months didn’t happen and they are not responsible for any of the anemic economic growth evident currently.  The reality is, they could blame the Bush Administration for anything that happened in the first six months of the current administration.  All economic activity since August 2009 is due to Obama Administration policies.

It’s time for the President to put his big boy pants on.  No one wants to hear his whining anymore.  Nor do we want to see solutions that will expand the national debt and budget deficit.  And while I feel for all of the 6.6 million people that have been out of work for six months or more, it’s laughable to watch the arrogance of liberal Democrats defend their failed policies.  The Democrats are imploding, again, something I predicted in November 2008.  They violated economic principles.  They thought they were smarter than that, and that, somehow, because the sun rose and set on Barack Obama, it would be different for them.  This is a hard lesson to learn.  The longer this lasts, the more seats the Republicans will gain in the November elections.  By all means, they should continue their rhetoric.  It’s fun to watch.

I notice that the most recent gamble of our tax money involves the Chevy Volt…

Keep in mind, this is the president who told us that the GM and Chrysler bailouts were an unvarnished success. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that this monstrosity of General Motors is at the center of the government -run bailout.

Let’s see what happens here.  We have a car that will go 40 miles on a charge. That’s pretty much what a golf cart will do. and this thing certainly qualifies as that.  Unfortunately that won’t even get me to work.  Nor, will it most people.  Particularly, in the northeast where some sort of heat to keep windows clear and passengers comfortable is required.  Yet this is what happens when government becomes involved.  The government is involved in the development of this monstrosity to the tune of billions of dollars and billions of promised dollars.  Remember, that there is a $7,000.00 tax write-off for every one of these $40,000.00 monstrosities.

$40,000.00.  For that kind of money I could turn around and get a real automobile.  And I suspect, that tax write-off or know, most people will.  See, here’s the problem.  Absent governmental involvement, had all this been done simply by virtue of General Motors investors, there would have been an investor rebellion.  The Volt is clearly stupidity on steroids from an investor point of view.  A singularly stupid business decision.  The fact is, it always has been.

New York Times, glowed about the electric car, saying it was cleaner quieter and more reliable than other forms of transportation back in 1911.  It didn’t sell back then, and it still doesn’t sell.  As it stands right now the future of our automotive industry thanks to governmental involvement is entirely dependent on a vehicle that cost something like $40,000.00 but doesn’t offer the performance of $15,000.00 worth of Econo box.  Indeed, it fails to compete in performance and comfort as compared to it’s biggest rival… an electric golf cart, which uses the same technology.

Oh, and the jobs in the automotive sector that the president has been touting ?  You may want a look at where the batteries for this thing are being created.  South Korea.  Reason?  The stuff they’re made with is extraordinarily toxic.

This degree of failure should surprise no one, given that everything government sticks it’s nose into becomes a failure of epic proportions.

Mr. President, I have a small piece of information that you may want to consider.  Game changing technology, it does not require government involvement.  In fact the only way to achieve game changing technology is to keep government the hell out of the way.

Does anyone think that our economic recovery is going to be based on this failure?  Somehow, I don’t think so.

Hey, Bruce:

Bruce McQuain

This “Ground Zero” mosque controversy has begun to rankle me. It is my understanding that those who want to build the “ground zero” mosque own the property there.

Secondly, it really isn’t adjacent to the old World Trade Center site, but a few blocks away.

Even if it is adjacent, however, if the first part is true, then it is theirs to build what they wish. I may or may not be happy about it, but they are the property ownthe ers and what is built there is their business.

The Anti-Defamation League seems to understand that as well, however, under the guise of “doing what is right” it acknowledges the mosque builder’s rights but then dismisses them in favor of the bigotry of those who oppose them. In a statement they said:

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right. So the bigotry expressed in this is “unfair, and wrong”, but to hell with rights, we’ll side with the arbitrary and subjective “what is right”.

An amazing statement coming from a group which was founded to fight bigotry against Jews.

Thankfully not all Jews feel that way.  They also understand how profoundly wrong headed the ADL’s statement is.  From J-Street:

The principle at stake in the Cordoba House controversy goes to the heart of American democracy and the value we place on freedom of religion. Should one religious group in this country be treated differently than another? We believe the answer is no.

As Mayor Bloomberg has said, proposing a church or a synagogue for that site would raise no questions. The Muslim community has an equal right to build a community center wherever it is legal to do so. We would hope the American Jewish community would be at the forefront of standing up for the freedom and equality of a religious minority looking to exercise its legal rights in the United States, rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fear-mongerers and pandering politicians urging it to relocate.

Exactly right.  Another way of saying all of this is “grow up”.  You either have religious freedom and ownership rights or you don’t.  It isn’t a “right” if it can be selectively applied under the arbitrary rubric of “what is right” fueled by bigotry.

Sigh.
I’m not convinced that this can be considered bigotry .  Might we expect the same kind of concessions from the world of Islam , say setting up a Jewish temple in the middle of Mecca?  I tend to doubt it.  And the current tussle over Jerusalem would seem to answer that question before it is fully uttered.  I don’t seem to recall anybody accusing Islam of bigotry there, can you?

I wonder a bit at the dependence on law and government, here. If there are many here ( @ Q&O) who claim the title of “libertarian”. Martin mentions the fine line between legalities and social correctness.  I’m usually not much on social correctness, but I am less enthralled with dependence on legalities.  Trying to dance the line between those two we invariably end up with the kind of situation being described in the article.  And certainly, such a dance is not inspired by the fundamentals of libertarianism.

The entire question surrounding whether not something should or should not be the legal in this case strikes me as not being in keeping with the libertarian mindset.  Because something is legal doesn’t make it the right thing to do.  Or, so I have been told several times over the years.

They may well have the right under law to do as they propose.  That said, might we at least agree that it is a singularly insensitive and provocative act?

Yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning, President Barack Obama was being interviewed by Harry Smith.  This seems to be this President’s primary function.  I can just see his job description now–Item 1, must interview with the media incessantly.  Never mind running the country.  We’ll leave that to Pelosi and Reid.  And, who can blame him?  It’s more attractive to meet with adherents to your policies, glowing supporters and people who will fawn over you than with the other 80%, the rabble, the people who just don’t get it.  Bring on The View!  They love me!  Everyone must love me too!

Anyway, Mr. Smith asked the President if he thought the criticism leveled at him and his administration was “undeserved”.  “Yes”, the President replied, “it is undeserved”.  He went on to suggest that the future will be kinder to him and his administration once people begin to understand all that he has had to endure and reform in the first 18 months of his administration–that is, the recession, bailouts, health care reform, financial reform, etc.

What?  Is the President delusional?  Politics, particularly modern politics, has always been about the mastery of spin, and this administration is clearly good at it.  But the American people are tired of it, and for the last six to nine months, have begun to see it for what it is–nonsense.

First, President Obama needs to understand–deeply understand–that the stimulus, bailouts, deficit spending, health care reform, and now financial reform, have run counter to the will of the majority of Americans.  Not the people in the la-la land of Obama and cronies, but the folks who do the tax-paying, hiring, spending and bill-paying.  The President’s agenda of wealth redistribution is not what they signed up for.

Second, President Obama needs to understand that there are deep concerns about the economy that transcend stimulus and the expiration of the “Bush tax cuts”.  Last week’s release of economic statistics are a perfect example.  The housing industry is in severe recession still, and no amount of home-buyer incentives will work any longer.  Consumer confidence is low and durable goods orders are soft.  New claims for unemployment benefits were 457,000 in the previous week, suggesting that companies continue to lay off workers.  Finally, preliminary GDP estimates say the economy grew at a 2.4% rate in the second quarter, a mediocre reading at best.

The President is clearly out of touch with his constituents.  Nervous companies are not hiring.  Nervous consumers aren’t spending money (at least, the ones who are working).  And until they are confident that the government is going to stop spending money and that their taxes are going to remain stable, they will not spend or invest, or do anything but sit on their cash.  At least, until the government takes it…

Is the criticism deserved?  You bet!  But we’ve seen this movie before.  We know how it ends.  It was called the Carter Administration and it ended with the resurgence of conservatism and Ronald Reagan.  As long as the current Administration continues to ignore the people and continue down the road they’ve set before them, they can continue to expect criticism.  They are self-destructing.  How I love a happy ending!

As the BP oil spill unfolds in the Gulf and in our living rooms through our television screens, the coverage has focused on two major problems that it has created.  One is the flat-out brutal images of oil soaked pelicans; the other is the crisis of the Gulf fishermen who have been forced out of work.  One thing is clear, if you had to choose between being a pelican or a fish your choice is an easy one.  At the same time everyone is rightfully heartbroken about the pelicans, we can’t wait for the fishermen to get back in the water and cast their nets to catch and kill as many fish as possible.  While I am not by any stretch a PETA guy and I grant the fact that this is largely because we don’t eat pelicans, the point it makes is that we constantly draw large subliminal differences between things.  In this case, though both are “wildlife,” we subconsciously dismiss the plight of the fish while granting a level of sympathy to the pelicans that compels some of us to set about capturing them and hand rubbing them with Dawn dish detergent.  The same point could be made by asking the questions:  Why do we eat turkeys and chickens but not pelicans; why cows and not horses?  Why are mice disgusting but gerbils and hamsters cute?  In large part the answer is:  that’s just the way it is.

I suppose you might be asking yourself a question right about now—how does this relate to politics?  While I’m quite certain that indeed everything relates to politics, the specific answer is the power of the mentally presumed.  The United States is now and has always been a relatively conservative country.  Our Constitution, laws, and values, as well as every poll ever taken on the subject, prove this.  The problem for Liberals is that well . . . they are not.  This presents a huge political task for them.  In order to get the Country they envision, Liberals have to change a large number of long entrenched status quos, and over time they have developed a strategy and the tools to potentially get the job done.

In politics success in the long-view can be defined as a fight for the subconscious.  Winning this fight takes time and, what I consider to be Liberal’s most effective tool, patience.  Sacrificing in the short term for future benefit is counter to human nature, but seems to be an ability they have developed in spades.  Having entered into every professional sphere for over 50 years, they have been undertaking the unscrupulous duty of chipping away at religion, the courts, the military, our school system, and our moral standards.  They have a big task, big ideas, and an even bigger amount of gall in the way that they have gone about this business.

Your message entering the mainstream is not just the Holy Grail for marketers, but for obvious reasons, is also priceless if you happen to be a political movement attempting to transform a society.  It is for this reason that the vast majority of lawyers, teachers, and reporters lean hard to the left.  They have correctly determined that this is the surest way to achieve the political equivalent of a tissue being referred to as a Kleenex, a bandage being called a Band-Aid, or gelatin being Jell-O.  In advertising lingo, achieving this is called an eponym; in politics I guess you would just call it “shrewd”—disingenuous but shrewd.

There is no need to win the legislative argument if you can turn a carefully crafted and well directed lawsuit into law.  There is no need to win the moral argument on social issues such as gay marriage if you can impart it as the norm to a generation in Sex-Ed classes starting at the age of seven.  There is no need to win the philosophical argument of the role on government if you can marginalize the Constitution in a college lecture hall and then have the issues pitched to the people by the media as questions of “empathy.”  This level of subversion and the distance it creates from the substantive political debates that we should be having, debates that make this Country better, is infuriating and flat out scary.

Interestingly, this battle for the subconscious is one that Liberals have been fighting with no active resistance, and the reason for this is simple.  The status quo has been held and assumed by conservative leanings for years.  Past generations of Democrats, while certainly having political differences with Republicans, were at least in part buoyed by similar values and constraints as their political opposition.  Not since 1933 has the Right been opposed by such a widespread and transformative-minded group as today’s Liberal Democratic leadership.  Republicans have in essence been playing with the lead, and the scoreboard is starting to reflect it.  Though alarming the question that this begs for some is, might it be time for the Conservative movement to counter by beginning to engage in these types of fronts?

For my part the answer is no.  While I think it is important to be aware that this effort is afoot, publicly expose it and defend traditional realities and values, there is far too much relativism being employed by both political parties as it is.  Any actions based on this are indefensible, as what is at stake is the moral high ground.  Joining Progressive Liberals by wading into the oily waters of politically-motivated education, biased journalism, and judicial activism is not only unnatural but is dirty, dirty business.  Come to think of it—it’s about as dirty as an oil-soaked pelican.

Noted today an article in the McClatchy News wire… a service that I seldom scan anymore. Today, they offer up something fairly useful.

The first paras:

BAGHDAD — Shiite Iraqi militants have trained in Iran in preparation for attacks against U.S. military bases as American combat forces prepare to withdraw by September, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said on Tuesday.

In an unusually candid assessment, Gen. Ray Odierno said that Kataib Hezbollah – an Iraqi Shiite militant group backed by Iran – may be seeking to take some credit for the long-planned departure of U.S. troops.

“For years these groups have been (saying) that they are forcing the U.S. to leave,” Odierno told reporters in Baghdad. A significant strike “could be a huge propaganda tool for them in the future.”

Well, gee, ya think?

Our commanders on the ground over there are seeing this rather clearly.  It’s the White House and their attitude that has those field commanders very nervous these days.  It’s not just a Iran that this is happening in, either.  You can easily include Somalia and Afghanistan and frankly, Pakistan as well.  And he ran as it the center of all of this.

Let’s make this simple; air and is doing everything they can to kill Americans.  They are setting up for more such attacks, and more vicious attacks, in future.  Meanwhile, the White House still sticks to the foolhardy and arbitrary withdrawal date set forward in their campaign promises to the antiwar left.

Or maybe  Vurkey?  From Edward Niedermeyer, New York Times:

GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.

Will you be the first on your block to own your own electric turkey?   Let me see when Dim Won starts starts riding in one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806141.html

Weren’t these the same people that screamed about the terrible Patriot Act?

I was interviewed by Stefano DiPietrantonio on 100723 on the 10 O’clock news regarding the necessity of ensuring that your Wi-Fi (wireless) network is secure to prevent data theft, identify theft, viruses and network intrusion.  This story was prompted by a piece of scum who was running servers for child porn out of his house using his neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi connections. Where do you think the FBI went first? That’s right, to the neighbor’s houses!

You can watch this interview and many others on my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUIrapI108A

Please share this to inform your friends and neighbors, and take steps to ensure that your network is secured!

From DRJ, Patterico’s  Pontifications:

The hottest story of the week was Shirley Sherrod. Alexander Marlow at BigGovernment looks at why Sherrod was silenced by the Sunday media shows

Was silence the price the Obama adminstration extracted from Mre.  Sherrod as the price of getting back on the public dole?

Fast Company Social Media Influence Project nearing 20,000 users. Check out your Influence in the expanding world of social media.

http://fcinf.com/v/ct0r

I was interviewed by Larry Shields on 100719 on the 11 O’clock news. We discussed how attorneys are increasingly using social media, blogs, and other sources to dig up dirt for court, especially in divorce cases, and how Online Reputation Management (ORM) is increasingly important in all facets of your life.

You can watch this interview and many others on my YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRWIhq_Y0c

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The two major forms of Republicanism each have a doctrine that is tied to actual documents.  Religious social conservatives have The Bible, while fiscal and Constitutional conservatives have the Constitution.  It is safe to say that the vast majority of Republicans have their political tenants supplied by one, if not both, of these documents.  This type of textual anchor is a positive philosophically and morally but in a strictly political sense can be a liability.  The resulting positives are what tend to be deep, time-tested convictions, stability, certainty and, when used, an effective measuring stick for candidates in primaries.  However, in our current event driven and largely politically uninformed society the negative is that this rigidness makes it nearly impossible to adapt positions to individual situations and use current events for maximum political gain.

This is a problem that the modern day liberal Democrat will not have anytime soon.  They indeed stand in the starkest of contrast.  Having left the Constitution behind decades ago, they move forward with no defined doctrine.  No set of black and white documents that create, inform, or guide their ideology (and don’t even try to give me the party platform).  This creates a situation in which changing party leadership sets an evolving standard as to what defines a Democrat.  This not only allows them to easily tailor their political message to what they perceive to be popular at the moment, but grants them the option of playing the role of “lifeguard” and coming to the citizenry’s rescue with politically crafted legislation.

This, in tandem with the current perception that this is indeed the role of government, is extremely effective but thankfully also comes with disadvantages.  First, the party can more easily be driven to the fringes as their lack of rigid philosophical boundaries allows a handful in the leadership of a given generation to rather rapidly change their party’s principles.  A quick look at their current leadership and the top three finishers in the last two Presidential primaries reveal not a single, even remotely, moderate candidate and safely proves this point.  Second, though both unfortunate and ironic, their biggest roadblock is that given our current level of debt the Government simply can not sustain an ever increasing financial role.  As long as our citizens are concerned with the debt, and according to the most recent polling all but 24% are, their “lifeguard” advantage will be minimized.  Though these points make it likely that due to their intensely progressive ideology they will drive themselves off a cliff, in the short term this chameleon like flexibility to adapt to changing realities is a net advantage and one that must be tactically dealt with.  What has been created here is the political equivalent of a moving target and the challenge facing Republicans is developing a sound defensive strategy.  Sounds strange to say, but the question is: how does one turn the political disadvantage of having and following defined ideological principles and a narrow view of the Federal government’s role into an advantage?

What should be done from a focus standpoint, and what is currently working, is a continued, exhaustive fixation on deficit spending and our National debt.  What should be added is further concentration on the ineffectiveness of the Stimulus Package, especially considering the Democrats just quietly tried to procure another $50 billion in borrowed money to funnel to the States.  The Recovery Act is not only recent, relatively uncomplicated, and directly tied to the current Liberal leadership, but proves rather blatantly that even with a trillion dollars the Federal Government is not capable, nor was it designed to, “fix” these types of problems.  Simply put Republicans can not afford such an expensive and unnecessary tragedy to occur without it being politically fatal to the Democrats.

Legislatively two things come to mind.  First, the already passed PayGo legislation needs to be hammered on and strictly followed by Republicans no matter the circumstance.  In many ways this was a gift given by the Democrats, as it fits the Republican message, while almost certainly being a check written for political reasons to the American people that Liberalism will not allow them to cash.  Along with this is what should be a unified, party-wide push for an Enumerated Powers Amendment.  In my view this is the Republicans single best chance to not only start reigning Government back in, but also to maintain the energy of the Tea Party movement by proving that motion in their direction is both possible and something besides lip service.  While the actual passage of such an amendment is an impossibility given the Republican’s current minority status, and I concede likely a long shot even with complete control of the Legislative branch, forcing the Democrats to vote down or ignore this concept would pay huge dividends now and in the future.

While any marksmen will tell you the only way to hit a moving target is to aim in front, in this case the surest place to aim is behind, and more specifically about 234 years behind.  While it is certainly frustrating to watch the opposition bend and mold their positions to gain short term political support, and though it may be true in this day and age that strictly adhering to principles of limited government may at times seem like a burden, we must as Republicans resist the convenience of straying.  We must be strengthened by the knowledge that in the long run, being principled and following the Constitution’s principles is always the correct answer.  In those times that the temptation to deviate presents itself we can remember the Italians’ have an old saying for just such a quandary, “A burden that is chosen is not felt.”

From Jake Tapper, ABC News:

Speaking about the Uganda bombings, the president said, “What you’ve seen in some of the statements that have been made by these terrorist organizations is that they do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself.  They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains.”

The Obama administration is just not very smart.    While Islamists wage war on Western civilization,  the entire Obama administration can not bring itself to use the word Islamist or the phrase radical Islam.   Yet while the Obama administration can not or will not see the Islamists bents on killing us, they seem to find racism everywhere it is not.