Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Money Still Isn’t There

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The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 pension overhaul, unraveling an effort by lawmakers to rein in benefits for the consistently underfunded public-sector system.

The current pension shortfall is estimated at $111 billion, one of the largest nationally.

So now the citizens of Illinois must act. It is, after all, their Constitution, not the judges’. Assume that the judges of Illinois’ Supreme Court aren’t partisan hacks (they’re politician-lawyers who are elected to 10-year terms by the citizens of Illinois) and have correctly interpreted the state’s Constitution: they ruled correctly, ruling in accordance with the text of the state’s constitution.

Get to work, folks. Nobody else is going to bail you out, nobody else has an obligation to bear the expense of your own foolishness in repeatedly selecting politicians to represent you in Springfield like those who got you into this mess.

Northern Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program

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Are they getting ready to break out and vastly expand their arsenal and stockpile?

After three years of diplomatic deadlock, the Obama administration says it is willing to hold preliminary talks with North Korea to probe its intentions and assess the prospects of ridding the country of nuclear weapons.

Given the Obama administration’s performance with Iran, it’s a distinct possibility that northern Korea’s nuclear weapons program is about to take off.

In the case of Iran, the US has joined with several world powers in negotiating the framework agreement to prevent Teheran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

North Korea, though, does not seem to be looking to disarm anytime soon.

And neither is Iran looking at nuclear disarmament. There’s a hint there.

And

“We want to meet with the North first without any conditions to determine whether it has real commitment (toward denuclearization),” [RoK’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Hwang Joon-kook] said in Beijing on Thursday.

What was it someone said about doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results?

Oh, and here’s northern Korea’s answer:

Pyongyang answered the overture with a fresh show of force—test-firing a new ballistic missile from a submarine.

North Korea claimed Saturday that it successfully test-fired the newly developed ballistic missile. Not long after that announcement, South Korean officials said the North fired three anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea off its east coast.

That’s pretty clear, to those willing to listen.

The Land Grab Goes On

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Even if they have to create the land, first.

China’s mysterious campaign to build artificial islands in disputed waters of the South China Sea has grown to cover roughly 2,000 acres, a senior defense official said Friday, as the Pentagon issued a report warning the sites could be used to bolster the country’s military infrastructure.

There’s nothing mysterious about it. This sort of thing is being built to support the People’s Republic of China’s air and sea forces as the PRC moves to concretize and enforce its attempts to occupy the East and South China Seas.

The DOD report warned that while Beijing’s island construction intent is unclear, five emerging outposts in the Spratly Islands could be used for surveillance systems, harbors and logistical support. The report said they could also hold “at least one airfield.”

That’s just dissembling or timidity. There’s nothing unclear about PRC intentions with these construction projects. Many of the sites are within the Exclusive Economic Zones of other nations on the rim of the Seas. If the PRC were just building these things to support fishery, or oil and gas, or rare earth mining and processing, they’d get permission from the host nations and cut costs by partnering with them for the development of these sites and split the processors’ output.

The PRC, though, is holding out, on threat of gunfire, those nations.

The Foolishness of the Left

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Fareed Zakaria, writing in The Washington Post, has provided a living illustration.

Reality has changed, but look beyond the headlines. On closer examination, one can see that [the situation] has changed dramatically in Israel’s favor.

Here’s an example of how things have moved in Israel’s favor.

[T]here is the disappearance of the Arab threat. From its first day in existence, Israel has faced the danger of extinction by Arab armies. This is the threat against which the Jewish state has planned, armed and trained for most of its national life. Today, it’s gone.

Say, what? It’s true that some of the threat from nation-state Arab armies has lessened. Jordan and Egypt made peace with Israel decades ago. But on Israel’s southern border is the Palestinian Authority, which only last summer launched a terrorist-style war against Israel from Gaza and presently is being re-funded and re-armed by Iran. On Israel’s northern border there are Hezbollah, al Nusra, and Daesh…and Syria. Hezbollah is continuing operations against Israel in during the chaos of the Syrian civil war (which Zakaria argues with a straight face represents a lessening of the threat to Israel).

And: who will win the civil war? In the perspective of the threat to Israel, it doesn’t matter. If al Nusra and Daesh win, the one will resume operations against Israel, and the other will begin, and we’ve seen how Daesh treats those who oppose them. If al Assad “saves” Syria, that nation will resume harboring terrorist activities against Israel—and against Lebanon, thereby broadening Israel’s northern front.

The Iranians are on the verge of gaining nuclear weapons, and they’ve sworn to destroy Israel. Imagine what will happen at the hands of a nuclear-armed Iran. Things have moved in Israel’s favor?

Then there’s this bit of foolishness:

Whatever the outcome of nuclear negotiations, it is worth remembering that Israel has a powerful deterrent….

Deterrent against whom, exactly? A nation whose leadership doesn’t think at all like we do, doesn’t have the same pain thresholds, doesn’t even have the same triggers of pain? Men for whom death is not to be feared but a consummation devoutly to be wished, being martyrdom and a path to Heaven and to virgins?

Zakaria’s premise is false, and therefor so is his entire “argument.”