Radioactive Communist Zombies

Priorities, Rick

2012-02-16T14:59:16-08:00

I was just thinking I didn't know much about Rick Santorum's foreign policy positions. You know, what he intends to do as president about Iran, Israel, Islamofacism, the growing threat of Marxism in South and Central America, and of course the Chinese and free trade. So I went to his web page (do not go to www.santorum.com) and after getting past the de rigueur "donate" screen, clicked on "ISSUES." And here's what I saw (click for a bigger image):

Let me ponder for a second or ten. The economy is going into the toilet. The national debt is out of control and slated only to increase to Greece levels. Iran is about to get a nuke that they can give to al-Qaeda (or launch one on one of their North Korean-made missiles) and use against the West, and the Obama Administration is using Obamacare to attack religious organizations, including churches. And the top issue on Santorum's page is pornography?

Whether you think pornography is a problem or not, should it be his top issue? He's already alienating libertarians and those who aren't culture war warriors. Maybe he should think about his priorities. Like someone parking an Iranian nuke in downtown New York City.

(Oh, and the fact he doesn't own/control www.santorum.com seems to show a bit of incompetence on his campaign's part making me wonder how they'll deal with Obama and the MSM's attack machine if he gets the nomination.)

Is It Too Late to Bring in Palin?

2012-02-15T15:46:07-08:00

Well, here's how the 2012 presidential election looks to me:

1) Obama: the worst president in my lifetime and possibly since Woodrow Wilson. Or possibly worst president ever. I've heard people speculate that he's a plant by the Chinese/Radical Muslims/Marxists to destroy America. Looking at his policies, it's hard to argue (except by saying that that seems highly improbable).

2) Gingrich: seems to be the only one who doesn't know he's finished.

3) Romney: A flip-flopping pro-abortion until he wasn't moderate who wants to tie the minimum wage to inflation and thinks the only problem with America is he's not running it as our government sucks up more and more of our economy and the national debt threatens our solvency. Oh, and Romneycare. Oh, and he's Mormon which will alienate more than a few people.

4) Santorum: a "big government conservative" (okay, that is preferable to #1 above but not by much. A huge conservative on social issues (and a Catholic) he's even against birth control (but says this won't affect his policies). But everytime he speaks it sounds like he's a small-town minister whining that the church collection basket wasn't full enough again this week. And I hate sweater vests.

So, where are we? I think I'm looking forward to a brokered convention. Maybe then we can get someone like Palin to run. I really had hopes for Rick Perry but he just couldn't catch fire (his debate performances didn't help). Maybe we could run Jindal/Rubio.

It could be we could dig up zombie Goldwater and run him and win this election. But we haven't seen the billion-dollar Obama attack machine come out yet with its MSM chorus. Sure, no one seemed to care that Bobby Kennedy was anti-birth control (his wife was pregnant with their eleventh child when he was assassinated). But that was 44 years ago. A lot of attitudes have changed since then. If Santorum becomes the nominee, the left will eviscerate him with his statements against contraception (which line up pretty much with the Catholic Church's statements against contraception that I read last night).

Will I vote for Santorum? Over Obama, in a heart beat. But can't we do better than this (yes, I'm ignoring Ron Paul)? There will never be another coming of Reagan. Can we at least have another coming of Calvin Coolige?

Heading into War?

2012-02-15T12:34:19-08:00

Seventy years ago, the U.S. was just starting it's involvement in the the worst war the world has ever seen: World War II. We were fighting simultaneous;y Japanese militaristic imperialism and German national socialism.

But what started World War II? Most historians believe it was 1) Appeasement of Hitler, 2) Ignoring the growing threat of Japan and German, and 3) the unilateral disarmament of Europe's democracies under the Kellogg-Briand pact that Japan and Germany both signed and then ignored.

So now we have radical Islam threatening the world and Iran working on nuclear weapons. What is the Obama Administration's policies: 1) Appeasement of Iran by offering unconditional talks, 2) Ignoring the threat by not taking action against Iran until it is too late, and 3) Now, unilateral disarmament. As AP reports:

The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama's 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons.

No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.

While the nutjobs who run Iran are getting nuclear weapons, Obama is cutting the U.S.'s deterrent force.

Meanwhile Russia and China are building more nuclear weapons.

This is right out of every liberal's dream list: unilateral disarmament. They called for it during the cold war ("If only we stopped threatening the Soviets they'd stop threatening us!") and now they want to see us disarmed in the face of Iran getting nukes.

This could cause war. And this time it could be nuclear war.

Religious Freedom and Today's Politics

2012-02-14T16:04:30-08:00

How's this for being confused: I think the Supreme Court erred in Griswold vs. Connecticut (which said states couldn't prevent married adults from buying contraceptives) yet I'm glad there is universal access to birth control. Griswold was a forerunner to "penumbra" rights in the Constitution and led directly to Row vs. Wade and universal access to baby killing. I would love to see Roe overturned. I'm not so sure I want to see Griswold overturned. These days if Griswold were overturned, some states might restrict contraceptives (Utah?). I doubt Washington State were I live would. If Roe were overturned some states would restrict abortion. Washington State would probably not since in the early '90s there was an initiative that put in place laws allowing abortion up until the kid moves on to college (okay, that's a slight exaggeration). To me, there is nothing wrong with preventing pregnancies but there is something deeply wrong with murdering inconvenient offspring.

Having said all that (to establish my positions on birth control and abortion), the position the Obama Administration has taken on contraception and abortion services being required to be provided by even Catholic employers is just an amazing over-stepping of the powers of government.

I don't agree with the Catholic Church on birth control. But they should have the right to hold that position and not be forced to provide birth control to their employees. If the employees want birth control they can buy it themselves or find another employer. I do agree with the Catholic Church on abortion, mostly. And the matter is exactly the same: they shouldn't be required by the government to pay for abortion services.

First of all, the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. But if government forces you to violate the tenant of your religion, you have no religious freedom.

I don't know on what basis the Catholic Church proscribes birth control. Maybe a Catholic could enlighten me. (I do know why Mormons are anti-birth control and it's pretty silly.) But it is their religious right to do so. If the Obama Administration gets away with this (and it doesn't appear they will but who knows), what's next? We've already kicked God out of the public square, will we kick Him out of the churches, too?

Five Years Ago on RCZ: Love Is a Mental Illness

2012-02-14T15:42:20-08:00

Five years ago today on this blog we were discussing whether being in love could be classified as a mental illness. The conclusion was, yes, you'd have to be sick in the head to be in love.

Anti-Gun Justice Robbed By Machete-Wielding Man

2012-02-13T16:36:32-08:00

I wonder if he wished he had a gun.

AP is reporting the Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed at his vacation home in the West Indies by a "machete-wielding intruder." Breyer dissented on the Heller decision which returned Second Amendment rights to Washington D.C. (sorta). He also dissented on the McDonald case which did the same for Chicago.

According to AP:

The 73-year-old Breyer, wife Joanna and guests were confronted by the robber around 9 p.m. EST Thursday in the home Breyer owns on the Caribbean island of Nevis, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The intruder took about $1,000 in cash and no one was hurt, Arberg said.

Lucky that no one was hurt since I assume the anti-gun rights justice probably was unarmed and had no way to defend himself, his wife, or his guests. Of course Breyer, a Bill Clinton appointee, has access to things you and I don't:

The U.S. Marshals Service is assisting local authorities and the Supreme Court Police with the investigation, Marshals Service spokesman Jeff Carter said.

"Supreme Court Police"? Yep, Breyer has his own police force to protect him. No wonder he doesn't think the little people need guns. When he calls the police, they probably are there in seconds, unlike when you call the police.

You know what they call a conservative: a liberal who got mugged. Maybe Breyer will modify his views on self defense, now. But more likely, the Supreme Court Police will just increase security around him, insulating him further from real life.

Washington State Now Allows Same-Sex Marriage

2012-02-13T15:51:14-08:00

Lame duck (she says she won't run again) Washington State Governor Christine Gregiore today signed a law that makes the state the seventh to allow same sex marriage.

I have complicated feelings on this. One: I'm against same sex marriage per se. But I would like to see a system where gay couples can enjoy some of the rights and some of the responsibilities of married couples. I am not real happy about allowing gay couples to adopt since I think children do best with both a mother and a father. But having two mommies or two daddies may be preferable to being bounced aorund the foster home system. I don't think same-sex marriage should be forced upon us by the courts. In Washington State it was voted on by the legislature and passed into law. Which means apparently a majority of voters in the state either like it, or can vote out their representatives that voted for it. But at least it was some what democratic.

We're probably going to go through the same tribulations as California when they passed a same-sex marriage law. Opponents have already filed an initiative and will try to have it on the November ballot. This could be a good thing for the GOP as it may bring out conservatives in droves. It may also bring out liberals in droves. Dunno. And to be honest, I'm not sure how I'd vote.

Then, if the ban passes, there will be a court challenge and the state supreme court will probably strike it down as unconstitutional. Then there will be a Referendum 8-type initiative to change the state's constitution and then someone, probably the Eighth District Court in San Francisco will declare the constitution unconstitutional.

I've never quite understood why gay marriage is a threat to marriage. Some kooks have come out and said "Hey, now I should be able to have two wives" or "Hey, now I can marry my horse." But that seems a long leap, not a slippery slope.

Marriage, in my opinion, should be about protecting children. Again, that brings us back to should gay couples be allowed to adopt. And in some cases, that may be preferable.

So, as a comment on the Seattle Time's page said, the sun will rise tomorrow. Heterosexual marriages will not suddenly evaporate. And children will still be tossed around like toys in divorces and custody battles not not just by heterosexual couples.

However, this might be a boon for divorce lawyers: a whole new demographic to exploit.

Cross a Border, Lose a Civil Right!

2012-02-10T14:12:31-08:00

Back in January, one Meredith Graves, aged 39, of Louisville, Tennessee visited the 9/11 memorial in New Yuck City. There she was overheard by a policeman making disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama. She was arrested and faces a felony charge. She is currently free on $2,000 bail. Ms. Graves didn't realize that she didn't have the same civil rights, i.e., First Amendment free speech rights, in New York City as she enjoys in Tennessee. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was unsympathetic, stating that the city's speech laws save lives and are well known.

Oh wait. I'm sorry, I'm wrong. It was the Second Amendment that New York City was ignoring and Ms. Graves was arrested because she was carrying a gun.

Can someone please explain to me why all cities, states, and local jurisdictions are required to respect First Amendment rights (sometimes ab absurdum) and yet states, cities, and other jurisdictions are allowed to restrict Second Amendment rights? How can you cross a border and lose your civil right? It's as if you go into a different state and it has Alien and Sedition laws that don't allow you to speak badly about the president.

We need one, uniform gun control law in this nation, one that respects the Second Amendment rights the people enjoy (what part of "shall not be infringed" don't you understand?). This patchwork of differing laws is simply going to make instances like what happened to poor Ms. Graves more common.

Five Years Ago on RCZ: Barack Obama Announces!

2012-02-10T13:43:41-08:00

Five years ago today on Radioactive Communist Zombies I wrote a very long piece on why I'm pro-life. But also, this relatively unknown senator for Illinois announced he was running for president. At the time I said:

[I]f he weren't black, he'd be more fringe than Dennis Kucinich. He's been in the Senate about a month. Before that he was a state senator. He makes Dan Quyale look like an elder statesman when he was running for Vice President.

But the American people (and lots of illegal foreign money) elected Barack Hussein Obama to be president and the rest is painful history.

I'm not the only one remember that it was five years ago that Obama announced he was running. The RNC has an ad:

Are you better off than five years ago?

Bad News on Climate Front

2012-02-09T15:04:30-08:00

From CNN:

The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world and could disappear altogether by 2035 according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

The result of this deglaciation could be conflict as Himalayan glacial runoff has an essential role in the economies, agriculture and even religions of the regions [sic] countries.

Oh my gosh! Why is this important?

The Himalayan glaciers form the world's largest ice body outside of the polar caps. Popularly known as the "Water Tower of Asia," they are the source of water for rivers that flow across the continent: the Indus River in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra that flows through Bangladesh, the Mekong that descends through Southeast Asia, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, the Yellow and Yangtze rivers of China and a multitude of smaller rivers that flow through the Indo-Gangetic plains of Northern India.

Oh, wait, that was October of 2009, almost two and a half years ago. Then in January 2010, the UN's IPCC had to admit they'd screwed up:

One paragraph, buried in 3,000 pages of reports and published almost three years ago, has humbled the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Facing global outcry, Rajendra Pachauri backed down and apologised today for a disputed IPCC claim that there was a very high chance the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.

The assertion, now discredited, was included in the most recent IPCC report assessing climate change science, published in 2007. Those reports are widely credited with convincing the world that human activity was causing global warming.

And now, it appears (hat tip, Instapundit), there as been no melting of the Himalayan glaciers in the past decade:

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

How can this be? Could it be that global warming stopped 10 years ago? Could it be it stopped because it's not caused by humans but is natural?

But, of course, we all have to pitch in and spend quadrillions of dollars and make most everyone poorer (except the politically connected) to "save" the planet from what might be natural variation in the Sun and the Earth's oceans.

Oh, and the bad news? It's if you still believe in man-made climate change.

It's the End of The World

2012-02-08T17:07:20-08:00

Today Popular Science has a list of 12 ways the world could end in 2012 (Hat Tip: Instapundit). Forget the Mayans, here's 12 actual, scientific ways we could all be in a lot of trouble (according to PS).

1) Asteroid Impact. That would take an asteroid about one mile across to destroy civilization and make humans extinct, according to PS. There just doesn't seem to be any asteroids that size in the neighborhood after NASA searched for them. But even a small asteroid, say the 300-yard-wide asteroid called 99942 Apophis that is going to have a very near pass by Earth in 2029, if it hit a city, could kill millions.

2) Pandemic. Some new strain of the flu that is very deadly and very contagious emerges. Or something nasty comes out of the jungles of the tropics (like HIV) that is very deadly and very contagious. And it doesn't have to kill everyone. Just take out, oh 200 million and civilization would be in trouble.

3) The Rise of the Machines. I still have trouble thinking we can make machines that are dangerous to us. All we have to do is include a line of code that says "if someone says 'klaatu barada nikto' to you, shut down." But the machine doesn't have to be a terminator that wants to kill humans:

"A malign neglect would be a bigger problem. You get something that's very intelligent but has motivations that are completely nonhuman. [The computer] might not really care about anything that we care about, but since it's smarter, it's going to get what it wants."

And if it wants water, air, oil, and takes it . . .

4) Gamma Ray Bursters. Much more worry some (in my opinion) than machines is astronomical events, such as gamma ray bursters (GRB) which happen when some massive stars die. If one happens within 3,000 light years of Earth, we could all be fried by the radiation. The good news, most galaxies only have them about once every 10 million years.

5) Brrrrrrrrr. A nuclear war or supervolcano eruption (see #8) could cause enough debris to be in the atmosphere to cool the planet significantly. And if it gets cold enough, all the ice and snow would reflect sunlight back into space, leaving the planet in equilibrium at a nice 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Apparently this has happened before and life only survived in volcanic-warmed areas. And we are over-due for another ice age.

6) Ocean Acidification. The ocean is normally basic (pH higher than 7.0, think back to your high school chemistry). When environmentalists use scary terms like "ocean acidification" they mean a slight drop in its alkalinity. For ocean acidification to threaten humans, it would have to kill the oxygen-producing plankton. And no one sees that happening. So I don't know why they even brought it up.

7) Solar Storm. Another astronomical event. The sun shoots out charged particles at the Earth (well, into space, Earth just happens to be in the way). A "storm" where a whole lot of these particles are shot at the planet could overwhelm the magnetosphere and cause widespread damage to our electrical infrastructure.

During the worst solar storm ever recorded, in 1859, the currents were so intense that telegraph lines burst into flames. "If we had a storm like that today, it would be possibly quite catastrophic," says Jeffrey Love, a geomagnetic researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Months without electricity could cause losses of trillions of dollars and basically wreck the economy."

(An EMP with a nuke could also send a large portion of the planet back into the pre-electricity age. Iran has been training to unleash an EMP over the US.)

8) Supervolcano:

Two million years ago, a massive volcanic eruption near what is today Yellowstone National Park shot 600 cubic miles of dust and ash into the atmosphere—2400 times more than Mount St. Helens did in 1980.

So we are talking global cooling at worst (see #5), longer cold winters, shortened growing season, and disrupted air travel for years at best. Oh, and we're about 40,000 years over-due for such an eruption.

9) Geomagnetic Reversal. What the heck is that, you're asking? No, it's not when Romney changed positions after he decided to run for president.

Right now, the magnetic North Pole is up near the rotational north pole, but this hasn't always been the case. Throughout the earth's history, the north and south magnetic poles have swapped places, a phenomenon known as geomagnetic reversal. It happens irregularly, every 100,000 to 1 million years, and the last time they flipped was 780,000 years ago. So maybe we're due. Geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon has suggested that the reversal could cause the geomagnetic field to temporarily collapse, disrupting everything from power grids to gas pipelines to communications satellites.

The good news is, the "flip" would probably take 1,000 to 10,000 years. A blink of an eye geologically but a long time to mitigate the problem for humans.

10) Nuclear War. Well, Iran will probably have a nuke soon and China is building up their stocks of nuclear weapons and Russian is acting all tough and hegemony seeking. And it doesn't have to be a full out superpower nuclear exchange:

A study published in 2008 by the journal Physics Today suggests that a regional war involving as few as 100 bombs could cause a nuclear winter, resulting in the lowest temperatures in 1000 years, while an exchange involving thousands of weapons would, the study concluded, "likely eliminate the majority of the human population."

Do over on that "Reset" policy with Russia?

11) Artificial Black Hole.

In 1999, as the Brookhaven National Laboratory prepared to fire up its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a Hawaiian man named Walter Wagner filed a lawsuit to have the facility shut down. He claimed that the collision of high-energy subatomic particles could spawn tiny black holes that could subsequently grow until they swallowed the earth.

In more than a decade of operation the RHIC has not produced a black hole, but Wagner is currently warning of the same danger for Europe's Large Hadron Collider, which is generating yet higher energies.

But physicists say there's nothing to worry about. The energies in these colliders are too low to produce black holes. And if they could produce black holes, we'd all be dead, now.

And number 12) "The X Factor." Yes, cheesy British-derived talent shows can wipe out civilization. Actually, this refers to the unknown unknowns. The thing we have no idea about that could kill us. Like vacuum decay of the entire universe. But hey, we don't know anything about it, so why worry.

Well, let's see, of the dozen ways to wipe out civilization, only 3 are man-made (assuming catastrophic ocean acidification isn't possible by humans). The rest are pretty much out of our control. Or we could just surrender to the Islamofacists and turn back the civilization clock 1,000 years. That would almost be as bad.

But don't let it keep you up at night. I'm sure our leaders take this as seriously as they take Iranian nukes, the rise of fundamental Islam in the Middle East, and the amount of money we owe to potential enemy, China.

Photocopier Control

2012-02-07T11:48:26-08:00

In the aftermath of the shooting involving Congresswoman Gabby Giffords when people were calling for gun control and speech control, I wrote, satirically, that we needed photocopier control (actually, I called for an outright ban of photocopiers).

Well, in the column of "be careful what you joke about" the state of California, which has bigger things to worry about, had decided that "professional photocopiers" need to be licensed by the county they live or work in. I'm not joking. Apparently this is an attempt to control cyberbullying. In Orange County the license costs $188.

As those of us who support gun rights know, first comes registration, then comes control.

Now why is California registering/licensing "professional photocopiers"? Yes, they say it's to prevent cyberbullying (not quite sure how that works). But could it be the first step in controlling free speech in a state where the government has gone wild? I don't know. But it would make me very nervous if I lived in California. And unfortunately, what happens in California often models what Democrats do in Washington State where I live.

Climate Affects Europe's Economy

2012-02-06T17:06:15-08:00

The ravages of the climate have come home to roost at least for Europeans (who have tried, as we all know, to stop climate change).

Oh, wait. I'm sorry, the problem in Europe is, according to the U.S. News and World Report, it's too cold! I thought global warming meant dire consequences because it would get, you know, hotter. But:

If there's one thing Europe doesn't need, it's more drag on economic growth.

Yet that's just what it could be getting, with a fresh dose of snow and frigid weather. The recent European cold snap has killed hundreds, closing airports and schools, cutting power to many, and even breaking a dam and causing flooding in Bulgaria. As people stay in from the cold and commerce shuts down, the cold could mean further stress on a continental economy strained by a debt crisis.

Gee, makes you wonder if all those models predicting a heating planet are correct. Or maybe it's all natural and we're in a cool-down cycle, now.

Or maybe, we just don't have enough information to devastate our economy in the name of a theory and computer models.

Government Doesn't Create Jobs Updated

2012-02-06T16:29:38-08:00

Back in August I wrote a piece about how government doesn't create jobs. It was my usual brilliant analysis and explanation of why government jobs kill private sector jobs. At least until the end when, I don't know, maybe I was tired, but I wrote:

Government doesn't create jobs. Oh, it can hire people, but always at a cost to the economy that will result in jobs being lost. It probably isn't a one-to-one correlation. Maybe ten government jobs to one private-sector job lost. But there is a causation. Shrink the government and watch the economy flourish.

Recently (okay, Thursday) I re-read that and realized I'd made a huge error. If my statement above is correct that you can hire 10 government workers and only kill one private sector job, then you're up nine jobs and we can tax and spend our way to prosperity. But the empirical evidence is that we cannot.

So where did I go wrong? I didn't do the math. Let's think about this. Let's say you are the city manager of a small town and you want to hire a new dog catcher. And you have to pay him a living wage or the newspaper will write articles about how mean spirited you are. So you have to pay him $50,000 a year plus benefits which comes to $75,000 total (based on my experience in business). Then you have to administer that job, i.e., hire someone to do the payroll, pay the payroll taxes, managed the health care benefits, etc. Maybe that takes one person per 100 city employees. And the dog catcher needs a supervisor so that's another person who can supervise maybe 10 people. And the supervisor needs a supervisor (this is government after all) who can supervise another 10 people. So we're up to 1/10th of a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) for the supervisor, and 2/100ths of an FTE for the payroll/benifit person and the supervisor's supervisor. That's 12/100ths of an FTE. Assuming all those people make $50,000 a year, too ($75,000 with benefits) that's $9,000. Add that to the $75,000 to hire the dog catcher and that's $84,000 to hire one dog catcher. And I ignored the benefits person's supervisor and their supervisor. But let's stick with that $84,000 number. Oh, and then there's the government money sausage factory that can't do anything cheap so you're probably up to $100,000 by the time all is said and done.

Now, let's say you're a small businessman in this town and you want to hire a laborer. That pays $25,000 plus benefits so about $33,000. And you have other expensises, too, like payroll clerk and supervisors so let's guess a total of $40,000.

But guess what, the city is taking $100,000 out of the local economy to pay for a dog catcher. That means there's at least two laborers or one supervisor who won't be getting a job (I forgot to mention, you're the only business in town).

Now, that's a vast over-simplification. But because government pays more than the private sector when benefits are included, works people less, and does less with the people they have, a government job might cost one and a half or two or maybe even more jobs in the private sector that have to be taxed to pay for them.

And that's why government job programs don't work!