Internationalism

The Obama administration recently abandoned the “ownership” of the internet, having invented this medium. They did so in the interest of internationalism, but there are many “unintended consequences.’

The first just appeared. When the US controlled domain names all domain names were in English.

The ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved “non-Latin characters.” There are some 100,000 of those, and I don’t know about your keyboard, but mine is severely limited. I don’t have a Cyrillic, Japanese character or Chinese character keyboard in the house!

English was a unifying language – just as international pilots and their controllers, and international Formula 1 drivers and pits must communicate in English, worldwide.

The internet is about to fracture along national lines.

This is not a move in the right direction, but it is a forerunner of many places where US interests will be placed under international control.

 

Decision Week

The Virginia, New Jersey, and now with the withdrawal of the New York official Republican from the Congressional race, that race will more clearly demonstrate an Obama referendum. This will be an interesting week to examine.

The Republican New York candidate (Dierdre Scozzafava) who withdrew was behind both the Democrat and the Conservative Party candidates – by a bunch. The latest polls say that the Democrat and Conservative were tied prior to the Scozzafava withdrawal, but the official Republican candidate was way behind because she was simply Democrat-light…she supported Card Check and Cap and Trade, for example.

The Conservative candidate is not a professional politician – just an accountant who is fed up like many of us.

The Republican candidate had been supported by the official Republican forces, but Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had supported Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate.

This is a deserved blow to the Republican Party apparatus, and hopefully Conservative Hoffman will win and send a blow to the Democratic Party as well. The Conservative Party in New York supports Republican candidates if the candidate is reasonably conservative, but Scozzafava was just too much to take.

New Jersey is too close to call. Virginia looks like a Republican win — but the polls have been wrong before.

Tea leaf reading, this week. Rationalization will soon commence.

Hillary Gets it Right!

Filed under “At least she is honest”)

(Pakistani Daily Times)

“(Hillary) Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, AFP reported. “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world… We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.”

A Swipe At Al Bore

(Comment:An admission extremism is masking the problem)

Exaggerated claims undermine drive to cut emissions, scientists warn

Mark Henderson, Science Editor

“Exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risk undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change, senior scientists have told The Times.

Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers and journalists who distort climate science to support an agenda erode public understanding and play into the hands of sceptics, according to experts including a former government chief scientist.

Excessive statements about the decline of Arctic sea ice, severe weather events and the probability of extreme warming in the next century detract from the credibility of robust findings about climate change, they said.

Such claims can easily be rebutted by critics of global warming science to cast doubt on the whole field. They also confuse the public about what has been established as fact, and what is conjecture.

The experts all believe that global warming is a real phenomenon with serious consequences, and that action to curb emissions is urgently needed…”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6896152.ece

Government-Think

The Sacramento Bee has been all over a great story about the excess buying of vehicles – from 50 Prius vehicles to huge trucks – by the California Department of Transportation.

There are 37 Prius that were not spoken for by State agencies, and they are being converted to electric plug-ins at further taxpayer cost. Since they are not being driven  as hybrids, and are not spoken for to be driven as all-electric, they both get the same gas mileage (zero), and have the same emissions (zero) – just when converted they have it at a higher cost. (Government-think at work!)

A top General Services official has resigned and a Department of Transportation peon has been reassigned.

Many of the vehicles were purchased on June 30 so as to spend money left in the budget, but there is a large lot filled with unused vehicles purchased in 2006, 2007 and 2008 – many with extended warranties ticking away as they sit!

The State Transportation agency spent $6.5 million this year on vehicles, while many sat idle in parking lots and the State was/is in fiscal crises.

World-wide Wealth Redistribution

“East-west climate row at EU talks ”

EU leaders have begun a summit in Brussels deeply divided over how much money to offer developing nations to cope with climate change.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8332484.stm

It seems the EU has about the same internal relationships as the religious-right to the Republican Party, or the Blue-Dog Democrats to the Democratic Party – which is to say they are poles apart. In an effort to get some solidarity among European nations to act as a bloc before the Copenhagen Climate Conference, what actually happened is a demonstration of deep division – but more importantly is demonstrates that there is more to income redistribution than just domestically in the US.

Yes, the Copenhagen conference will try to share their wealth (or more appropriately, the wealth of their taxpayers) ALONG WITH THE WEALTH OF THE US, with “developing countries” to offset the developing countries loss for going green.

The developing countries are, of course, a bottomless pit who will bleed the developed countries dry, but that will assuage liberal guilt for those developed countries being successful.

If anyone thinks that the “rich” in the US will just have to share their wealth with less fortunate Americans – stand by for equalizing the wealth across the globe.

Anyone with a bathtub is rich beyond the imagination of most of the rest of the world – so prepare to share yours.

Enron By The Sea

Democrats are too easy a target when it comes to out-of-this-world spending, but it is not a cut and dried issue.

(I fear the Republicans invasive personal proclivity and their mixture of politics and religion – but they are not currently in power anywhere that threatens me.)

There are “moderate” Democrats even on the San Diego Silly Council, fortunately because the (broke) San Diego City Council is dominated by Democrats, as is the broke State Legislature, as is the (broke) government of the United States.

But locally I give  you (Exhibit 1) the Downtown Library.

Estimated at $185 million in 1985, that Edifice Complex is still alive, despite city economic situation (pension fund, city deficit, potholes and diminishing staff and services.) – in effect, REALITY.

The Silly Council voted yesterday 6-2 to continue the bid process. Donna Frye, whom I anoint a “rational liberal” voted with the majority, but like Senator Snowe did in her Senate Finance Committee vote, Donna announced that her vote yesterday did not predict her future votes. (Donna voted “no” on several pension funding issues – in the minority – and that helps cement her “rational liberal’ designation.)

Carl DeMaio, Republican (and the brightest bulb), and Sherri Lightner, Democrat, voted to try to end this downtown library continuing financial fiasco. Donna voted “yes” but with her caveat.

The downtown library has morphed into the schoolbrary – a library with a Charter School on the top floor in an effort to ride the school mystique, on the theory that no one votes against a school. Lipstick on a pig.

In theory, the downtown library has $30 million in private pledges, but that was years ago before the economic collapse and the head of the organization in charge of collecting those refuses to collect the pledges and open an escrow, or announce from whom the pledges came.

Smoke and mirrors economics.

Just what one expects from Democrats.

A Little Perspective

President Obama BEGGED for the right to make these decisions. He WORKED for the right. He SPENT a fortune  (other people’s fortunes) for the right. He DEFEATED strong political competition with 8 years in the White House (Remember “two for the price of one”) and eight more years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – and brought her into the Cabinet as a trusted advisor!

President Obama has had his personally selected Afghan team in place for many months.

Liberals on this Blog have roundly dumped on GB for not being up to the 9/11 crises, nine months after inauguration..

President Obama has been in office longer that GB was on 9/11.

Fighting For a Draw

Apropos of my previous remarks of the problems that attend fighting men in pajamas (or beards) with technology – there is even a more basic question: How do you fight a war if civilian casualties are off-limits?

In WWII, we PURPOSELY destroyed Tokyo, Dresden, Nagasaki and hundreds of other cities for the express purpose of ending the civilian support for the German and Japanese Armies! Germany did the same in England with London Plymouth and Coventry.

V-1, V-2, iron bombs, fire bombs, and atomic weaponry are not discriminating of military or civilian targets.

As you possibly remember, I have scanned two diaries (one photo with captions once primarily writing with photos) of the destruction of civilian center of London and much of Europe, as take by a couple of photographers – three amateurs and one professional.

The destruction was ENORMOUS and purposeful. We did it to our enemies, and our enemies did it to such of their enemies as they could reach – not just for destruction, but to destroy the will of the people. Those who could flee, did, but many died and those that fled soon tired of fleeing our bombers one city at a time. In resignation, they finally tired of war and were happy with peace, even in defeat.

Did it anger the residents? Absolutely, but with overwhelming force we imposed our will.

How do we use our technological superiority to divine which hooch has which farmer who plows during the day and picks up his rifle at night to kill Americans. Or which hovel has which sheepherder who gets his AK-47 from under the hay at night to kill Americans?

One defeats insurgencies with FEAR, denying them not just sanctuaries but anywhere they could lay there head with public support…something we have not been willing to use.

We fight and settle for a draw – but the draw is at a high price of blood and fortune.

A Message for California

Tax refugees staging escape from New York

By ANDY SOLTIS Last Updated: 6:08 AM, October 27, 2009 Posted: 2:53 AM,

October 27, 2009 (NY Post)

 New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows. More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out. “The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource — people,” the report said.

What’s worse is that the families fleeing New York are being replaced by lower-income newcomers, who consequently pay less in taxes.”