http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567205-abe-karem-created-robotic-plane-transformed-way-modern-warfare Abe Karem created the robotic plane that transformed the way modern warfare is waged—and continues to pioneer other airborne innovations “I WAS not the guy who put missiles on the Predator,” says Abe Karem, the aerospace engineer behind America’s most successful and most feared military drone. “I just wanted UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2380/Reliance-on-the-Trusted-Traveler.aspx
Saudi interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif. This first cousin of Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was last noted in this blog for ordering the arrest last month of a Saudi novelist, Turki al Hamad, for tweeting that Islam required a “correction.” Al Hamad now faces the death penalty for apostasy.
–From Al Arabiya (hat tip Ruthfully yours and http://www.whsroundtable.org/):
Saudi Arabia and the United States have signed a “Trusted Traveler” agreement to facilitate and accelerate the trusted passenger screening on the principle of reciprocity in both Saudi and U.S. airports.
Yes, you are going mad.
The Saudi state agency reported that Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Naif and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano “signed an agreement on arrangements relating to the implementation of a program of the ‘Trusted Traveler’ between the two countries.”
There is something extra grotesque in the newspeak, Mr.-Rogers-style.
According to the agreement U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s trusted traveler program, Global Entry, will be implemented. Global Entry streamlines the screening process at airports for trusted travelers, allowing customs authorities to focus on those travelers they know less about, in order to more effectively identify potential threats and keep our borders and country secure.
I wonder how such a program might have affected Hazma Kashgari’s flight for asylum last year to the West? It ended when Saudi religious police, under orders from King Abdullah (both Alwaleed and Naif’s uncle), caught up with him in Malaysia and dragged him back to Saudi Arabia for “tweeting” an imaginary conversation with Mohammed. He remains in jail.
“I am proud of the bond between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and today’s meeting marks another major step forward in our partnership,” said Secretary Napolitano.
Proud?
“By enhancing collaboration with the Government of Saudi Arabia, we reaffirm our commitment to more effectively secure our two countries against evolving threats while facilitating legitimate trade and travel.”
Why is the US government “proud” of a “bond” with this repressive dictatorship that denies freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equality before the law — while fomenting civilization jihad on the not-so-QT?
Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif and Secretary Napolitano also released a joint statement affirming ongoing cooperation on cybercrime, maritime security and infrastructure protection, and cooperation on cyber security, which is critical to both nations’ economic competitiveness and national security.
Does “cybercrime: include “tweeting”?
10 days before his assassination, at the annual convention on the Rabbinical Assembly, Dr. King said:
“The response of some of the so-called young militants does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in blackness or in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course…. Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect her right to exist, its territorial integrity and the right to use whatever sea lanes it needs. Israel is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.”
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
Forget Wal-Mart and skip your local gun show. The murderers of tomorrow will not be found wearing orange vests at your local sporting goods store. They won’t have NRA memberships or trophies on their walls.
You won’t find them in America. Look for them in Obamerica.
67% of firearm murders took place in the country’s 50 largest metro areas. The 62 cities in those metro areas have a firearm murder rate of 9.7, more than twice the national average. Among teenagers the firearm murder rate is 14.6 or almost three times the national average. Those numbers are from six years ago. They have grown worse since.
Those are the crowded cities of Obamerica. The places with the most restrictive gun control laws and the highest crime rates. These are the places where the family is broken, money comes from the government and immigrants crowd in from some of the most violent parts of the world bringing with them their own organized crime. These are also the places that have run by Democrats and their political machines for almost as long as they have been broken.
Obama won every major city in the election, except for Jacksonville and Salt Lake City. And the higher the death rate, the bigger his victory. He won New Orleans by 80 to 17 where the murder rate is ten times higher than the national average. He won Detroit, where the murder rate of 53 per 100,000 people is the second highest in the country and twice as high as any country in the world, including the Congo and South Africa. He won it 73 to 26. And then he celebrated his victory in Chicago where the murder rate is three times the statewide average.
http://www.israelandstuff.com/meet-israels-1st-illegal-immigrant-to-become-an-officer-of-the-idf#.UPrc_vwB1KY.facebook
After his illegal entry into Israel in 2005, Avi Bari overcame all obstacles and achieved his goals, one after the other.
Arriving illegally from the Republic of Guinea to Israel in 2005, Avi Bari overcame all obstacles that once stood in his path and became an officer in the IDF. He tells of his journey passing through Morocco to the Egyptian Sinai desert, to a brief stint in prison, to Tel Aviv and finally to an IDF base.
Second Lt. Avi BariSecond Lieutenant Avi Bari, known to his family who all remain in Guinea as Ibrahima, already enjoys a certain notoriety that he owes to his self-proclaimed status of “the first illegal immigrant to become an officer of the IDF.”
Born in February 1990 in the city of Labé, the Republic of Guinea to Muslim parents, 2nd Lt. Bari was orphaned at a very young age and adopted by his uncle when he was 11. At age 15, armed only with his will to “live a better life”, he decided to travel the 5,500 kilometers from his native Guinea to Israel, his now adopted country.
In 2005, Avi decided to leave his home along with a group of other Guineans. “In Africa, there is no work. I decided to change my life and go to another country,” he explains in the simplest way he can. After a brief stop in Morocco, he arrived at the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where he spent a few days before being driven to the Sinai desert. He then waited for the rest of his group to arrive to Sinai so that they could cross the Israeli border.
“I remember very well the desert. We were in a tent, two boys aged 15 stood guard. It was forbidden to get up the day. We were sent tomatoes, tuna, rice by the smugglers. We made a water filter, because the water was full of earthworms. I will never forget this point in time.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/educators_hit_by_obamacare.html Far too many teachers are uniformly uninquisitive. And, sadly, their vote for Obama is coming back to bite them as the consequences of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) are finally dawning on many of them. When ObamaCare finally goes into effect in January 2014, if an employer does not supply health care to employees […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/toward_a_conservative_foreign_policy.html
What might a “conservative” foreign policy look like?
In the post-9/11 era, it’s fair to say we have mainly followed a “neoconservative” foreign policy. This policy has been based on the rock-solid belief that there exist universal values that all peoples everywhere share and indeed yearn for if they don’t already enjoy them. Our neoconservative foreign policy, then – our war-fighting policy, too – has been a matter of spreading such universal values.
This has been a disaster. Think of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan — policies predicated on this denial of the existence of cultural difference. Certainly in this decade since 9/11 we should have learned that cultures, the West and Islam, namely, are different and that such universalism is a fantasy. The West enshrines the liberty of the individual, while Islam, like other totalitarian systems, enforces a collective will. Still, to this day, we don’t permit this simple reality to be discussed let alone reflected in any meaningful policy way.
The main dissent to neoconservative foreign policy on the Right comes from the libertarian point of view, most popularly expressed by Ron Paul – and not too dissimilarly expressed by President Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Sen. Chuck Hagel. This is the policy of “Come Home, America.”
I, too, subscribe to coming home, America, but with a difference. What I hear from our libertarian friends is that the way to fill the resulting vacuum is with a foreign policy that seeks negotiation and accommodation with Islam. Such a policy, exactly like that of the neoconservatives, fails to take into account Islamic realities that make such negotiations worse than fruitless, and such accommodations quite dangerous to our liberty.
So, what should a conservative foreign policy that is neither neoconservative nor libertarian look like?
To formulate a conservative alternative, I am starting with love of country. This is not to suggest that any of the other competing voices or views do not represent love of country. But I think it’s essential to start building a new foreign policy from the desire to live by and protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
NO URL: JAN POLLER IS MY FRIEND
The President’s hoped for laws and regulations are supposed to end massacres by mentally deranged people. Can they? Do all the proposed legislation and executive orders make any sense or are they just for show?
What makes one gun dangerous and another gun not dangerous? Does the shape of a grip make one gun really dangerous and another one, exactly the same except for the grip, really not dangerous? I may be simplistic in my thinking, but if a gun fires a bullet, it is dangerous. If it can’t fire a bullet, then it isn’t a gun.
Why is a ten round magazine safe but an 11 round magazine dangerous? If you shoot two rounds a second and it takes two seconds to change a magazine, how long does it take to fire 20 rounds? Even a treasury secretary who can’t figure out his own taxes can figure this out without a computer:
10 round magazines 12 seconds
20 round magazine 10 seconds
What will happen to lessen the death toll with those additional 2 seconds? Nothing, absolutely nothing! The death toll will be the same. A fully automatic rifle is different because it can effectively fire 40 – 150 rounds per minute although a burst at 900+ rounds per minute is possible but only until the magazine is emptied – 2 seconds for a 30 round magazine.. Aren’t fully automatic weapons already illegal?
The magazine limitation sounds really good but is essentially meaningless.
At the bottom are the 2007-2011 murder statistics by type of weapon per the FBI. Note that in 2011, more people were killed by Hands and feet (728), and knives (1594) than by rifles and shotguns combined (679). The vast majority were killed by hand guns (6220). More people were killed by fire and narcotics than were killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre. Should we outlaw narcotics and fires?
If rifles (323 dead) warrant such attention, why don’t blunt instruments, sharp instruments and hands and feet? Should there be a limit to the length of a blade to reduce the lethality? Should blunt objects (baseball bats, shovels and tree limbs) be outlawed or their size restricted?
How will laws change things? If fear of getting killed doesn’t stop a gang-banger from engaging in a shooting, how will a law? Will they go register a gun? Will they give up automatic weapons? Will they give up large-capacity magazines? Of course they won’t. Will laws stop mass murder like Columbine and Sandy Hook? These people knew that they would also die. Does that stop them? It sure didn’t, did it?
We already have laws that make murder illegal. It didn’t stop the murder of 12,664 people in 2011.
I added the column showing the percent change from 2007 to 2011. Except for murder by explosives, all categories decreased with a total decrease of 15%.
STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST REP. BACHMANN:
http://frontpagemag.net/witch-hun
And watch Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov defend Rep: Bachmann:
Video: Jamie Glazov Defends Michele Bachmann
by Frontpagemag.com
Frontpage editor exposes the unholy alliance fueling the vicious witch-hunt against a heroic truth-teller.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/video-jamie-glazov-defends-michele-bachmann/
