-Google Online Security Blog

Anyone who visited the Independent Bloghorn, on the night of February 3, would have briefly seen my post, Gambler in Chief, then they would have been promptly redirected to a site full of Chinese crap.  Luckily I back up my blog, so most of my content was saved.  Recent comments from some of my latest posts were lost, so sorry to those who commented, but other than that, I am back up and running.

It is pretty big news lately that the Chinese government sponsored a hack job on Google’s servers, and Google is threatening to pull out of China.  In addition to this, Google hacked China back and discovered that this cyber attack targeted many major American corporations.  I see the Independent Bloghorn hack as a small attack in a larger war.  In this war, I am on Team Google, and at this point I say screw China.  It wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all to see the following actions take place.

1.  To see Google, Adobe, Yahoo, Symantec, and the other companies that were hacked boycott China completely.

2.  To see individual American consumers boycott Chinese goods.  This probably sounds hypocritical, given my typical attitudes toward free markets.  However, I think that getting to participate in free markets is a privilege that China isn’t worthy of.  It will probably be impossible to do this completely, but from now on, “Made in China” doesn’t make it to my house.

3.  To see the Federal Government turn over its land holdings in the West back to the states.  This will open them for a boom in energy exploration.  We will use the money from this effort to pay off the debt to China (only $800 billion at this piont), and reduce our trade deficit.  That is the only leverage they have, so let’s get rid of it.

4.  To see the capital gains tax lowered to zero.  I would like to see as much of the investment capital in the global financial system absorbed as quickly as possible into the American economy.

5.  Place tariffs on Chinese imports, and use the money to pay off our debt to them.  That’s what they get for borrowing against the future value of their currency to create false economic growth.

6.  Dramatically lower tariffs for goods from other Asian countries, South American countries, and India.

Yeah right, like any of that will happen.  I’m just venting, cause I’m mad they hacked my blog.  Hopefully Google takes them out.

Given the fact that Las Vegas is getting completely screwed by the recession, the last thing the city needs is for the president to be using his bully pulpit to discourage tourism.  I can’t say I disagree with Obama’s statement, but I can understand why Las Vegas and the state of Nevada would be upset.

My problem, is where does Barack Obama get off lecturing anyone about gambling.  If times are so tough, Mr. President, why are you so insistent on gambling the future solvency of the country on failed car companies, green jobs, failed banks, and the federal government’s ability to do anything in a way that yields a higher output of value than was put in (e.g. health care).

Every year I get my Social Security newsletter, and it tells me that for every dollar I put into Social Security, I will get $.78 back.  Slot machines in Vegas at least pay out $.96 on the dollar.  If the president were smart he would be encouraging citizens to stop paying taxes and go gamble their money away, but unfortunately gambling away Americans’ money is an activity that he has reserved for himself.  Sorry Vegas!

Regulating is hard work!

I really used to like Thomas Friedman.  I thought The World is Flat was one of the best non-fiction books of the last decade.  However, like most people who have become zealously converted to the cult of envirostatism, he has completely lost touch with reason and reality.  In his Sunday column today, “Who’s Sleeping Now,” Thomas Friedman engages in yet another Sinophiliac rant about how China is leading the charge towards a clean, green future.  He then claims that in order for us to catch up, “We are either going to put in place a price on carbon and the right regulatory incentives to ensure that America is China’s main competitor/partner in the E.T. revolution, or we are going to gradually cede this industry to Beijing and the good jobs and energy security that would go with it”

Did you catch that, just like China, we are going to place a price on carbon and use regulatory incentives …oh wait, China is the one leading any resistance to taxing carbon.  So I guess you have to ask, if China isn’t interested in putting a price on carbon, what regulatory incentives are they using to encourage such a nourishing environment for the E.T. revolution that Friedman longs for?

He unwittingly answers this question:

Here’s e-mail from Bill Gross, who runs eSolar, a promising California solar-thermal start-up: On Saturday, in Beijing, said Gross, he announced “the biggest solar-thermal deal ever. It’s a 2 gigawatt, $5 billion deal to build plants in China using our California-based technology. China is being even more aggressive than the U.S. We applied for a [U.S. Department of Energy] loan for a 92 megawatt project in New Mexico, and in less time than it took them to do stage 1 of the application review, China signs, approves, and is ready to begin construction this year on a 20 times bigger project!”

So, Mr. Friedman, I am confused.  Will having an expensive tax on carbon somehow speed up the bureaucratic process for getting solar power plants approved?

Friedman then revels in the recent announcement of China’s new super-fast bullet train, then he compares this accomplishment to the dismal failure, Amtrak.  I guess we can assume that an expensive new tax on carbon will also fix Amtrak.

Just in case you missed it, he closes with this statement:

It is clear that if we, America, care about our energy security, economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation. We can’t afford to be asleep with an invigorated China wide awake.

I am going to have to conclude that Friedman is a complete idiot.  The problem that he correctly identifies, the impotent and massive regulatory bureaucracies of the federal government, will not be solved by increased taxes that will only augment the regulatory burden of this apparatus.  The problem isn’t that we need to be taxed more, Mr. Friedman.  The problem is that the regulatory regime that Friedman thinks will fix this problem won’t wake up.

Please keep burning the fossilized remains of my distant ancestors!

This week, parts of the Midwest reached a balmy -52 degrees.  Snow and Ice are plentiful.  Municipalities have already burned through their snow removal budget.  Traffic accidents are resulting in millions of dollars in property damage.  But, perhaps the most troubling development of all in all of this changin’ climate is what is happening to the poor iguanas in Florida.

Freeze warnings covered nearly all of Florida with temperatures expected to drop into the 20s. Iguanas were seen falling out of trees; experts say the cold-blooded reptiles become immobilized and lose their grip when the temperature falls into the 40s or below.

Last year I wrote a post called Darwinists vs. Global Warmingists which featured a propaganda video from the global warming alarmists of animals commiting suicide.  I have also been monitoring how GWAs have been using animals to advance their cause.  I think we need to mobilize an extensive effort to save Florida’s iguanas.

The fiscal situation was serious before the recession. It is now dire. An important proposal being released Monday by the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reformurges Congress and the White House to commit immediately to stabilizing the debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2018; come up with a credible plan for getting there; and begin phasing in the necessary policy changes in 2012, once the recovery is fully underway. Warnings about fiscal danger may sound familiar, but one reflection of the current circumstances comes in the composition of the group that signed on to this report and agreed that both tax increases and spending cuts would be required. They range from a liberal former chair of the House Budget Committee,  William H. Gray III of Pennsylvania, to a conservative former chair, Jim Nussle of Iowa. The recommendations envision annual benchmarks, enforceable by a debt trigger that would impose spending cuts and a surtax if the specified reductions were not achieved. Once the debt is stabilized in 2018, the goal would be to set it on a glide path to further reduction, closer to the historical average of below 40 percent. (emphasis added)

I don’t think the Peterson-Pew suggestion goes far enough.  Some triggers are more effective than others, and I have little faith in a debt trigger that would supposedly force Congress to cut spending and increase taxes.  It is also interesting the same group that insists that we can reduce CO2 emissions to ridiculous levels, despite the fact that our control over the natural world is limited, shows no ability to control spending.  Unlike natural elements, money, and our current systems of currency and credit are entirely man-made, and therefore entirely subject to our manipulation.  If we can’t control something as simple as our debt, by what line of thinking do we think that we can control something as complicated as the climate of our planet?

On the other hand, Mitt Romney, published ten things that should be done to start creating jobs now in an article in the USA Today.  Of course, he is just advancing the same tired ideas that got us into this mess.  He and all of his rich corporate buddies.  What do they know about creating jobs?  For what it’s worth, here is the list:

• Repair the stimulus. Freeze the funds that haven’t yet been spent and redirect them to immediate, private sector job-creation priorities.

• Create tax incentives that promote business expansion and hiring. For example, install a robust investment tax credit, permit businesses to expense capital purchases made in 2010, and reduce payroll taxes. These will reignite construction, technology and a wide array of capital goods industries, and lead to expanded employment.

• Prove to the global investors that finance America’s debt that we are serious about reining in spending and becoming fiscally prudent by adopting limits on non-military discretionary spending and reforming our unsustainable, unfunded entitlements. These are key to strengthening the dollar, reducing the threat of rampant inflation and holding down interest rates.

• Close down any talk of carbon cap-and-trade. It will burden consumers and employers with billions in new costs. Instead, greatly expand our commitment to natural gas and nuclear, boosting jobs now and reducing the export of energy jobs and dollars later.

• Tell the unions that job-stifling “card check” legislation is off the table. Laying new burdens on small business will kill entrepreneurship and job creation.

• Don’t allow a massive tax increase to go into effect in 2011 with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The specter of more tax-fueled government spending and the reduction of capital available for small business will hinder investment and business expansion.

• New spending should be strictly limited to items that are critically needed and that we would have acquired in the future, such as new military equipment to support our troops abroad and essential infrastructure at home.

• Install dynamic regulations for the financial sector — rules that are up to date, efficient and not excessively burdensome. But do not so tie up the financial sector with red tape that we lose a vital component of our economic system.

• Open the doors to trade. Give important friends like Colombia favored trade status rather than bow to protectionist demands. Now is the time for aggressive pursuit of opportunities for new markets for American goods, not insular retrenchment.

• Stop frightening the private sector by continuing to hold GM stock, by imposing tighter and tighter controls on compensation, and by pursuing a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Government encroachment on free enterprise is depressing investment and job creation.

]]> http://independentbloghorn.com/2009/12/baracktile-dysfunction-nice-work-if-you-can-get-it/feed/ 3 http://independentbloghorn.com/2009/12/your-mothers-kitchen/ http://independentbloghorn.com/2009/12/your-mothers-kitchen/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:54:43 +0000 admin http://independentbloghorn.com/?p=465 The thing I hate about Russians is how quickly they jump to conclusions.  For example, last week, an unexplicable explosion caused a train wreck in Russia.  Despite the fact that a lot of things cause explosions, Russian reporters quickly rushed to the following conclusion:

The worst terrorist attack to hit the Russian heartland in five years was almost certainly engineered by Islamist extremists, who are increasingly active in Russia’s volatile northern Caucasus region, say analysts.

First of all, they assume that it was a terrorist attack.  It could have easily been a man-made disaster.  It is also disappointing that they blamed Islamist extremists.  Where is CRIR (Council for Russian Islamic Relations) denouncing these blanket accusations.  It is a little disturbing that the Russian press would not take an apologist stance and try and figure out how Russians themselves are to blame for this little mishap with the train.  After all, Vladimir Putin has yet to travel to the heart of the Muslim world and make a spectacular apology to the Muslims for the centuries of mistreatment at the hand of the Russians.  They get what they deserve.

A man-made disaster

If you compare the Russian response to what could have easily been a mere act of spontaneous combustion, to the American media’s response to the Fort Hood human-caused disaster we learn a valuable truth about terrorism:  Terrorism lies in the eye of the beholder.  The United States hasn’t had a terrorist attack on its soil since 9/11, because we have stopped calling these man-made disasters terrorist attacks.  Problem solved.

Meanwhile, it was only a few short weeks ago that I read the following report on Stratfor:

In the 11th edition of the online magazine Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battle), which was released to jihadist Web sites last week, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasir al-Wahayshi wrote an article that called for jihadists to conduct simple attacks against a variety of targets. The targets included “any tyrant, intelligence den, prince” or “minister” (referring to the governments in the Muslim world like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen), and “any crusaders whenever you find one of them, like at the airports of the crusader Western countries that participate in the wars against Islam, or their living compounds, trains etc.,” (an obvious reference to the United States and Europe and Westerners living in Muslim countries).

Al-Wahayshi, an ethnic Yemeni who spent time in Afghanistan serving as a lieutenant under Osama bin Laden, noted these simple attacks could be conducted with readily available weapons such as knives, clubs or small improvised explosive devices (IEDs). According to al-Wahayshi, jihadists “don’t need to conduct a big effort or spend a lot of money to manufacture 10 grams of explosive material” and that they should not “waste a long time finding the materials, because you can find all these in your mother’s kitchen, or readily at hand or in any city you are in.”

While Al-Wahayshi’s new battle plan would be less-frightening if we were willing to admit that a terrorist attack doesn’t have to always result in a destroyed skyscraper; or if we were more worried about preventing future attacks instead of giving enemy combatants full-constitutional rights and a civilian trial,  at least Al-Wahayshi gives away their plan.  They are going to use materials from your mother’s kitchen.  If we all join together and clean out our mother’s kitchens of anything that could be used in a terrorist attack, we can stop these attacks.  Also, don’t invite Muslims over for dinner.

-Chuckles

I can respect Chuckles’ ability to distill what is probably the essence behind most of the current health care debate.  I can also agree that private/public corporations and conglomerates with their “evil” profit motives will do some things that a lot of people will find reprehensible.

However, the power of private/public corporations and conglomerates to do these reprehensible things is severely limited by the very profit motive that makes them so “evil.”  Their evilness can only be prolonged as long as they are able to make a profit.  Ultimately, their growth, power, and influence is going to be determined by whether they can create value for society or not.

Governments, on the other hand, operate by a different set of rules.  For a good example of the complete failure that  government’s disinterested incompetence can lead to, we can look at the usual suspect: California.

This week lawmakers in California authorized the government to withhold 10% of everyone’s paychecks to cover their budget shortfall.  As evil as they are, private insurance companies cannot perform acts such as this.  This is only the fourth or fifth time in the last year that lawmakers in California have raised taxes to close their budget shortfalls, and this will only be the fourth or fifth time that recent tax increases have resulted in lower than expected tax revenues.  They keep raising taxes, and the amount of tax dollars coming in keeps shrinking.  Democrats and liberals will try suggest that the era of Reagan is over, and it is time to remake the economy.  The problem with this thinking is that economic laws can’t be changed by legislative will, e.g. you can’t legislate away the scarcity of an economy’s resources.  There seems to be enough historical examples, of which California is just the latest, where increasing taxes during a recession only accelerates the downward spiral of decreasing overall tax revenues.  The most recent Californian tax increase is absolutely criminal, and I guess I can’t understand why the same people that are livid about an insurance company making a profit will give disinterested, incompetent governments a free pass.

Given the current abuse Californians are receiving from their disinterested, incompetent government my objections to Obama’s current health care plan boil down to the fact that I don’t believe that Obama’s supporters can adequately answer the following questions:

• What evidence do you have that democrats’ health plan will be successful?  Please! Point me to the government model of success that I can look at and say, if they run this the same way, we’ll be fine.
• What is the exit strategy for the possibility that things get worse?  Let’s say Obamacare passes, and health costs don’t go down, joblessness increases, private insurers do go out of business, people stop wanting to go into the field of medicine, etc.  I am not saying that I think all of these things will happen, but I do believe that the likelihood of a variety of negative consequences resulting from this bill is very high.  In fact, the potential for these “reforms” to cause a lot of damage is a lot more likely in my opinion than that the earth will be destroyed by Carbon Dioxide.  Once again, I am not saying that I have fallen off the fearmongering cliff, but I am asking for an exit strategy.
• Disinterested incompetence?  Really?  This is the impetus behind your hope and change?  This is what you think will solve problems?
• Why try to do this all at once?  The whole health-care reform issue comes across as a big, expensive power grab to me rather than a sincere desire to solve legitimate problems.  If there is a a couple hundred billion dollars worth of waste and fraud in Medicare, let’s go fix that.  Once it is fixed, and we can see that one of the government’s largest entitlement program isn’t careening towards bankruptcy, then let’s talk about how we can use some of the same intelligence and expertise that fixed that problem to help those who are currently uninsured.

“The most dangerous thing that would threaten others is that if we really create success in building a democratic state in Iraq,” said Maliki, whose country today now has about 100 newspapers. “The countries whose regimes are built on one party, sect or ethnic group will feel endangered.”

The most interesting part of this quote to me is that Friedman feels the need to mention that Iraq now has 100 newspapers.  I don’t know how many newspapers Iraq used to have under Saddam’s rule, but I imagine the answer would have to be one.  This quote also led me to wonder why newspapers are such a hot growth industry in Iraq, but they are floundering business disasters from coast to coast in the United States.  I also found Friedman’s statement to be even more interesting when juxtaposed with a quote about the Obama administration’s recent assault on Fox News from one of my other favorite columnists, Mark Steyn:

The most recent whine – the anti-Fox campaign – is, apart from anything else, unbecoming to the office. President Obama is the chief of state of one of the oldest free societies in the world, but his official White House Web site runs teasers such as: “For even more Fox lies, check out the latest ‘Truth-O-Meter.’” It gives off the air of somebody only marginally less paranoid than this week’s president-for-life in some basket-case banana republic ranting on the palace balcony because his interior security chief isn’t doing a fast-enough job of disappearing his enemies.

I don’t need to get into a Fox vs. the rest of the media debate here.  This, to me, comes down to one simple question: which country is more American, Iraq or America?  We should be proud of our troops for what is likely the right answer to this question, and we should be embarrassed by the Obama administration for creating an environment where this question can even be asked with any degree of seriousness.