| Wednesday,
August 13, 2008 US public supports missile
defense, poll shows
(reposted from Defense Daily)
U.S. PUBLIC SUPPORTS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE BY A
WIDE MARGIN: A lopsided 87 percent of the American public supports creation
of the multi-layered U.S. ballistic missile defense shield being developed
by the Missile Defense Agency, according to a national poll taken by a
professional polling organization that was released by the Missile Defense
Advocacy Alliance (MDAA). "This is the highest percentage of support ever
recorded in the history of missile defense," according to Riki Ellison, MDAA
president and founder, terming it an overwhelming show of support. This poll
comes as some Democratic lawmakers in Congress have moved to cut funding for
some ballistic missile defense programs, as MDA funding legislation is
written for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009. The survey showed
that 58 percent of Americans believe that there is a real threat from
missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction and that missile defense is
the preferred option over pre-emptive military action or diplomatic efforts
for dealing with the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass
destruction by nation states. As well, the poll further showed 71 percent of
Americans support deployment of the U.S. European Missile Defense shield in
Poland and the Czech Republic, 84 percent believe that the U.S. BMD shield
protects U.S. troops overseas, and 65 percent believe the U.S. missile
defense system should protect U.S. allies as well. Further, 78 percent of
the American public believes it is important for the U.S. presidential
candidates to address the issue of missile defense. Sen. Barack Obama of
Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, has been seen
as possibly being lukewarm in supporting missile defense programs. However,
after Iran fired a series of medium- and long-range missiles in a salvo
test, Obama said last month that "Iran is a great threat. We have to make
sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran,"
according to the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom. Further, Obama
has voiced support for cooperation with Israeli missile defense programs,
including the Arrow. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican
presidential candidate, over the years has voiced strong support for missile
defense programs. He is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services
Committee. The poll was conducted by Opinion Research Corp. with a 3 percent
plus or minus margin of error. Opinion Research Corp. partners with CNN on
public opinion polls. (Defense Daily, 8-13)
Mike
Real missile defense requires space based
components, as well as ground lasers with popup mirrors.
==========
Subject: Prince Georges Police Self-Justification
If one views the video embedded in the story you
linked to, about the raid on the mayor's house, you'll eventually get to
Mark Spencer, identified as "Prince Georges County Police Dept. Inspector
General," making a statement on camera. Here's my transcription from the
video:
"It's unfortunate that innocent civilians do get
caught up in activities like this, but, the drug dealers know that, and
that's why sometimes they use the innocent to try to screen their
activities, and this is just an unfortunate occurrence."
In other words, he's claiming the police are allowed
to inflict collateral damage on innocent civilians, if they deem it
necessary. Sorry, but the bad guys using you as a shield negates all the
rights you thought you had. But I don't think martial law has been declared,
so I'm pretty sure the police are a bit off base in thinking and acting like
an army in a war zone.
'It's just an unfortunate occurrence.' 'innocent
civilians do get caught up in activities' One wonders--does Mr. Spencer
think anything done by the police ever constitutes an intentional action by
a human being?
I too get to a point where I need to stop talking
about this.
Mike Juergens
It's in Maryland, not California, I keep telling
myself. I do wonder about the Maryland Attorney General. Those police ought
to be in big state trouble.
===========
What were they thinking?
Dear Doctor Pournelle,
"What were they thinking>"
I have noted some recent published letters to Chaos
Manor have alluded to some confusion over the Russian attack on Georgia. As
with many of the Chattering Class on Television and Radio, , some readers of
Chaos Manor have asked "How could the Russian leadership have ever thought
they could get away with such a brazen act of 'aggression'?"
For those who ask that question, a primer:
First, take a small country that has one province
overwhelmingly populated by an ethnic group that has traditionally been
connected politically and culturally with a bordering nation.
Then, that ethnic group decides to revolt, and uses
force in an attempt to secede their province from the small nation.
In ude course, acting as nation-states are wont to
act, the small country uses force to stop the revolt and attempted secession
by the breakaway province. This force is directed largely against the ethnic
group that seeks to secede.
Peace keepers are then dispatched to the province in
order to stop the "ethnic cleansing". Since there is no peace to keep, this
is useless, but there you have it. International opinion is appeased.
When fighting continues, the small country decides to
cut the "Gordian Knot" and settle things once and for all with relatively
massive military force.
So then the local nuclear superpower intervenes to
"stop the genocide" (note the escalation in terms?), using massive air power
because it's cheap, fast and pretty much all they have ready to go on such
short notice, since they were relatively unprepared, and want to protect the
peacekeeping forces they have in the breakaway province under the previous
agreement. The nuclear powers leadership labels the leadershoip of the small
country "war criminals" and demands their punishment.
So then the OTHER nuclear superpower, an ally of the
small country, protests vehemently and seeks for anything they can use to
punish the offending nuclear superpower for attacking its' ally. With little
leverage, the second nuclear superpower is reduced to vehement protests,
pointless gestures and a simmering sense of outrage. Over time the entire
fiasco poisons the two nuclear superpowers relationship to everyone's loss.
Eventually, when enough times has passed, the
breakaway province gains independence, under the protection of the first
nuclear superpower, and the small country undergoes a change of regime in a
process once called "Finlandization" when we did not like it.
You might think I have just described recent events in
Georgia.
You would be wrong.
I have just described events in 1999, in the Balkans,
when the United States and NATO intervened in the Serbian province of
Kosovo.
Yes, how could the Russians have -possibly- thought
that they could get away with something like that? "I'm shocked, SHOCKED!'
that they could have ever made such an assumption.
The chickens have come home to roost.
Petronius
==
Putin for US president - more than ever,
Jerry
Putin for US president - more than ever, says Spengler:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH13Ag01.html
He has much to say on the Georgian and Kosovo affairs.
Juicy quotes:
" If Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were
president of the United States, would Iran try to build a nuclear bomb?
Would Pakistan provide covert aid to al-Qaeda? Would Hugo Chavez train
terrorists in Venezuela? Would leftover nationalities with delusions of
grandeur provoke the great powers? . . . Thanks to Putin, the world has
become a much safer place."
" Russia has wiped the floor with a putative US ally,
and apart from a bad case of cream pie on the face, America has lost
nothing."
" Contrary to the hyperventilation of policy analysts
on American news shows, the West has no vital interests in Georgia. It would
be convenient from Washington's vantage point for oil to flow from the
Caspian Sea via Georgia to the Black Sea, to be sure, but nothing that
occurs in Georgia will have a measurable impact on American energy security.
It is humiliating for the US to watch the Russians thrash a prospective
ally, but not harmful, for Georgia never should have been an ally in the
first place."
Of Russia, China and the US: " never before in the
history of the world has the world's economic and military power resided in
countries whose fundamental interests do not conflict in any important way."
" If it had not been for America's insistence on
installing a gang of trigger-happy pimps and drug-pushers in Kosovo, Russia
might have responded less ferociously to the flea bites on its southern
border."
" America remains so committed to the myth of moderate
Islam that it is prepared to invent it. Kosovo, like the Turkey of Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, supposedly embodies a moderate, Sufi-derived
brand of Islam that will foster an American partnership with the Muslim
world. The US intelligence community knows perfectly well that the networks
that traffic prostitutes through Albania into Italy and the rest of Europe
also move narcotics, weapons and terrorists from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to
Grozny in Chechnya to Tirana in Albania and Pristina in Kosovo." (He
comments on Sufism and pederasty here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH12Ak03.html.)
" The number of flashpoints for violence in the world
has grown in inverse proportion to their importance. The world is full of
undead tribes with delusions of grandeur, and soon-to-be-extinct peoples who
rather would go out with a bang than a whimper. The supra-ethnic states of
the world have a common interest in containing the mischief that might be
made by the losers. China, which has an annoying terrorist problem in its
Westernmost province, has plenty of reason to help suppress Muslim
separatists.
"Unfortunately, modern weapons technology makes it
possible for a spoiler state to inflict a disproportionate amount of damage.
China recognized this when it cooperated with the United States to defuse
the North Korean nuclear problem. The most visible prospective spoiler in
the pack remains Iran. If America wants to recover from its humiliation in
the Caucasus, it might, for example, conduct an air raid against Iran's
nuclear facilities, and justify it with the same sort of reasoning that
Russia invoked in Georgia. Contrary to surface impressions, Moscow wouldn't
mind a bit."
As usual, much to enjoy here.
Ed
There is very little moderate Islam in the middle
east. The Kemalist Turks are secularists and atheists, not moderates. The
Baath party came closest to being "moderate Muslims".
Spengler is always worth paying attention to. I
do not always agree. Regarding Iran, if we can stave off a real
confrontation with Iran before there is a disaster in the Middle East,
Iran will come apart under the impact of America's cultural weapons of
mass destruction -- which actually can create "moderate Muslims" in the
same sense that many American teenagers are "moderate Christians." How
desirable this kind of paganism might be is possibly worth discussing. I
would suppose that Uday Hussein of Iraq was a "moderate Muslim"...
==
Georgia on My Mind
Hi Jerry,
I wish that I could disagree with your essay here:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view531.html#Tuesday I
was born in 1960. I have wondered how I would have felt when the Russian
tanks crushed the rebellion in Hungary in 1956. Now I know. I am upset
watching the Russian tanks drive the roads of Georgia but I know that the
cost of USA blood and money would be too immense to do anything.
That blood and money are extremely near and dear to my
heart right now as the wife and I are holding our breath praying that our
USMC son does not go to Afghanistan in October. He just got back from Iraq
in April (tour #2). The four US Marine battalions that went to Afghanistan
in April from his base only had two to four weeks notice before leaving.
Most people don't know that we have a surge going in Afghanistan also !
I also noticed that the Russian troops are using the
latest in digital camo and look fit and eager. I had the impression that
Russia was downsizing their army and neglecting them. Looks like I was
wrong. 500 tanks and 20,000 troops deployed on a day's notice means a well
trained and well supplied army.
It is a hard world out there and we best remember that
here in the USA. Especially when certain presidential candidates talk about
unilateral disarmament and other such nonsense.
BTW, I saw John McCain saying that Russia is using
Georgia as an object lesson to the Ukraine. If the Ukraine does not learn
their lesson we could be watching this again in the not so distant future.
Lynn
Russia is a Great Power, and has a legitimate
sphere of influence.
We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but we
are guardians only of our own. If our liberty is threatened, as it was in
World War II (but not the Great War) and in the Cold War, then we have no
choice but to seek alliances and take active part in changing that
condition -- which usually means hot war: in the Cold War that was proxy
war, with Viet Nam a highly successful (to the US) campaign of attrition
against the USSR.
Our liberty is not threatened; and the best thing
we can do for liberty abroad is to keep the trade routes open, defend the
notion of International Law, and remain both strong and free as the City
on the Hill.
=====================
Price of farm land
Petronius said: “If you own 500 acres of good corn
land, you can sell it for about half a million dollars, move to town, buy a
house for a hundred thousand, and retire.”
Good corn land is selling for around $7000/acre now in
mid-state Illinois where my family (dad and brother) farm. So make that $3.5
million. Assuming it’s an old family farm, probably no more than 100 acres
of that is “owned by the bank”, and there’s a good chance even that was
bought for around $5000 to $6000/acre. Some farms are about half that size,
and some are deeper in debt than others. So call it $1 to $3M, if the farmer
sold out now.
I suspect family farms are in for a very hard time in
a few years, as algae or some other relatively efficient alternative to
burning food comes on line. Crop prices will probably collapse fairly
rapidly, while fuel and fertilizer will remain relatively expensive. As
farms go under, land prices will fall. I’d guess we’re now at or near the
market top for crop and land prices. If the only reason to farm were the
money, a smart farmer would sell now.
But most farmers can’t bear the thought of letting the
family farm go. The farm defines who he is; to sell it would be to sell his
soul AND betray his father, who entrusted him with the farm. No matter how
bad things are getting, no matter how many other farms are going under,
farmers figure that they’ve always been able to make it through bad times
before – “people have to eat”.
Tom Craver
Chandler, AZ
It has been a long time since I thought about the
price of land. The yeoman farmer. mainstay of Jefferson's notion of a
Republic, has not been an important factor in the US for decades. Which is
very much a pity.
===========
Aren't you glad that they've turned the Capitol into
an armed fortress, completely inaccessible to the proles?
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/
man-threatens-to-jump-from-hart-atrium
-2008-07-21.html
-- Roland Dobbins
==========
Ratborg.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=
080813192458.ud84hj9h&show_article=1
-- Roland Dobbins
===========
Kipling eBook Collection
Available in HTML or MOBI format.
<http://www.di2.nu/files/kipling/>
-- Dave Markowitz
===========
Saudi Textbooks, and some short comments on mail.
Thought you might find this interesting.
http://www.slate.com/id/2195684/
::
foreigners: Opinions about events beyond our borders.
A Textbook Case of Intolerance Changing the world one
schoolbook at a time.
By Anne Applebaum Posted Monday, July 21, 2008, at
8:01 PM ET
Because they are so clearly designed for the
convenience of large testing companies, I had always assumed that
multiple-choice tests, the bane of any fourth grader's existence, were a
quintessentially American phenomenon...
<snip>::
Other comments:
Petronius:
Not that I'm an expert or even checked the numbers,
but Petronius neglected Sugar Beets (somewhere I heard that we get lots of
table-sugar from them) and they grow in the Upper Plains/Mountains areas.
Perhaps I misremember...
Michael Flynn:
These same people that maintain the "Hitler was a
Christian" idea wouldn't possibly have any connection to the people who
maintain that "Hitler WASN'T a Vegetarian" websites would they?
Enjoy
Patrick
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