Monthly Archives: February 2016

Racism on the Left?

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Hillary Clinton ratcheted up Democrats’ criticism of Senate Republicans in the debate over filling the Supreme Court’s sudden vacancy, suggesting Tuesday that those calling on President Obama not to nominate someone are motivated by race.

After all, it takes a strong measure of racism to manufacture a racist beef where no racism exists. She, and the Left who are silent on her slur, are also racist in this way: it isn’t possible to criticize a President’s policies or politics when he’s a black man because—he’s black. He can’t handle the criticism, Clinton and her cronies seem to be saying.

Security Tradeoffs

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Here’s one.

A federal judge has ordered Apple Inc to provide software to the Justice Department to help it unlock a phone used by one of the suspects in the San Bernardino, CA, terror attack because investigators suspect the device may hold critical details of the plotting behind the mass murder.

The government’s justification is this:

Law-enforcement agencies say companies such as Apple make it harder to solve crimes including terrorist attacks, child abuse and murder by putting security measures on phones that make it difficult or impossible for investigators to open them and examine data inside.

That’s an entirely valid concern.

The problem, though, is that forcing a back door into citizens’ communications encryption utterly destroys citizens’ privacy and security. There’s nothing to prevent Government from abusing that back door to engage in snooping on general principles and then actively and maliciously snooping in order to preserve the power of the men then in Government. The lawlessness of the present administration demonstrates that progression.

Of immediate effect, though, is that a backdoor for Government is a backdoor for hackers, whether these be script kiddies, terrorist hackers, financial or identity theft hackers, or any other sort.

The privacy and the security of our private identities, of our finances, of our health records, of any aspect of our lives we find useful to protect from prying eyes are critical to our ability to engage with our neighbors and our businesses and our government free from threats or attack.

The privacy of our communications, the security of our speech, must absolutely be preserved. There is no security at all without our individual liberties, of which speech is one, held secure.

“Law-enforcement agencies” and this Federal judge know this full well. And they know full well the truth of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s statement in his letter posted to Apple’s Web site:

We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack.

Carbon Dioxide

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Enhanced levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are a likely key driver of global dryland greening, according to a paper published [Tuesday] in the journal Scientific Reports.

The positive trend in vegetation greenness has been observed through satellite images, but the reasons for it had been unclear.

After analyzing 45 studies from eight countries, Lixin Wang, assistant professor of earth sciences in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and a PhD student in Wang’s group, Xuefei Lu, concluded the greening likely stems from the impact of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide on plant water savings and consequent increases in available soil water.

Atmospheric CO2 is plant food. Who knew?

Hypocrisy at the State Level

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Congresswoman Mary Lou Marzian (D, Louisville, KY) has proposed—and she’s serious about it—House Bill 396, under which

Kentucky men would have to visit a doctor twice and have signed permission from their wives before obtaining a prescription for Viagra or other such drugs for erectile dysfunction[.]

She insisted

it is merely an effort to protect men’s health and ensure they are informed about a drug with potentially dangerous side effects.

“I want to protect these men from themselves,” said Marzian[.]

She compounded her hypocrisy:

This is about family values[.]

Leaving aside the fact that it isn’t government’s role to protect anyone from himself—only a Democrat insists on so intrusive a government—the lie in her claim of concern about men’s health is shown in her subsequent comments about her purpose in proposing this bill.

[S]he acknowledged the bill is a pointed response to several anti-abortion measures in the current legislative session, including Senate Bill 4, which requires a woman seeking an abortion to get counseling 24 hours in advance of the procedure from a health professional.

This bill is about family values and about men’s health? She wrote in a related op-ed for the Louisville, KY, Courier-Journal:

A rash of anti-abortion bills have been filed, and one is now law, that places extreme hardship and emotional stress upon women and strips away their rights to make choices about their health, future and well being.

And

The conservative movement sweeping Kentucky has put women in the cross hairs of its battle to take over government at all levels, and it’s time we recognize this hypocrisy for what it is.

As these legislators and our governor increase efforts to mandate their presence in our doctor’s examining rooms I believe it is time we regulate men’s reproductive choices.

No, Marzian is simply railing at those who oppose abortion, and being logically inconsistent in her plaints—and as a highly intelligent and accomplished woman she knows she’s being inconsistent, hence her hypocrisy—and placing those who oppose abortion in Kentucky in the cross hairs of her battle to intrude government into the lives of Kentucky citizens—including Kentucky’s babies.

There’s nothing in opposing abortion that concerns women’s health or their reproductive choices, there’s only concern for a human’s life, that baby’s life who hasn’t yet been born. That tale takes up after the “reproductive choice,” made voluntarily or otherwise, already has been made. Now there’s a baby whose right to life must be addressed.

Family values? Nonsense. The baby is as much a part of that family as are the mother and father. Marzian’s bill is simply another Liberal shot at those who oppose abortion; it has nothing at all to do with family values. As far as she’s concerned, the unborn baby is unimportant; the baby’s extreme hardship and emotional stress, his choices about his health, future and well being are beneath her notice.

Maybe a Good Idea, Maybe Not

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Russian scientists are planning to tweak their ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) to target near-earth objects (NEOs), according to a report by news agency TASS. The news came from Sabit Saitgarayev, the leading researcher at the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau. The projectiles could be aimed at meteorites measuring 20-50 meters in size.

The ICBMs would need upgrades for the purpose. Also, those NEOs include our satellites—weather-watching, surveillance, and GPS, for instance.

There are, of course, cheaper and faster methods of striking satellites already extant. This sort of research, though, also is a necessary step toward developing means of targeting other systems farther out: industrial and other facilities in earth orbit (not necessarily close in, depending on the source of the factories’ inputs and raw materials), in lunar orbit or at a Lagrange point, or facilities on the moon.

Of course those facilities don’t yet exist, but Russia, and the PRC, would like to have weapons available for that eventuality, an eventuality that is coming.

Also of course, this proposed Russian development isn’t, of necessity, aimed at developing a new weapon system.

“Good idea” depends on your frame of reference.