The Trump card

Well, here is a couple of links to articles on Donald Trump’s possible Presidential run:

The Donald: Doing the Job the Media Won't Do

Trump Is for Real

No Trump

My own opinion?  It can be summarized in the title of Larry Elder’s article, the 1st one I linked to: Doing the job the Media won’t do.  Trump is blunt and unapologetic.  And that is what I like about him.  It will be hard for the leftist media to demonize him because he does not care what is said about him.  The media will still be able to ridicule him enough for people not to take him seriously, and that might bring about Obama’s re-election.  I am not sure whether he is the best candidate to beat Obama.  Perhaps Romney might be better.  He certainly might want to learn some bluntness from Trump.  For now the danger is in Republican establishment ridiculing him.  They should re-learn Reagan’s 11th Commandment:

"Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

Ethics of self-defence

Elder of Ziyon posted an interview with IDF ethicist from Jerusalem Post:

Tel Aviv University philosophy professor Asa Kasher co-authored the first IDF Code of Ethics and continues to work on the moral doctrines that shape the parameters of our army’s actions.
He has taught at the IDF colleges since the late 1970s and for a long time was the only professor talking to officers about military ethics. When the IDF decided to try writing a Code of Ethics, he was approached and appointed head of a team of generals that wrote a draft and then the final version of the 1994 code, which was approved by chief of staff Ehud Barak and prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
In the wake of Richard Goldstone’s belated withdrawal of the accusation that Israel deliberately targeted civilians in Operation Cast Lead, and the fresh round of moral argument the judge’s climbdown has provoked, I contacted Kasher to discuss the IDF’s ethics. I wanted to understand the thinking that underpins IDF dos and don’ts, the problematics of grappling with enemies that do not follow any such rules, and the gaping discrepancy, Goldstone’s reversal notwithstanding, between most Israelis’ certainty of the IDF’s morality and the international diplomatic, media and legal community’s relentless opprobrium.

Read the whole thing.

“Never again!”, …

… says the German woman in this video (from Atlas Shrugs):

The Underground Conservative provided full English transcript:

Never again! Never again! I am ashamed that he is allowed to speak here. I feel ashamed! I am German, and I am so sorry that someone like him can stand here and speak like Hitler! I am so ashamed! Where is everybody? Why are people not standing up in this country of ours? Why are you all keeping your mouths shut? Do you want Germany to be like those countries from which they all came? Do you really want that? You have to speak out! . . . Germany, you have to rise! Rise up, Germany!

What’s interesting is that toward the end of this video people she confronted tell her: “Stop the provocation”.  So, confronting this new kind of Nazis is now called “provocation”.  Good thing she was not arrested on top of that.  That is certainly what modern dhimmy politicians might do.

Engineers and politics

Here is another interesting article on engineers and politics from EETimes:

…The 112th Congress has 541 members. The average age in the Senate is 62.2 years, in the House 56.7 years.
The top four occupations are business, public service, law and education. There are five engineers (chart below). None in the Senate. This meager representation is ridiculous for a profession that is crucial to the economy. But then we know that.

I often asked myself if I would ever consider running for office.  The answer was always “Hell, NO”.  I would imagine many other engineers would feel the same way.  Why?  Well, because politics often requires saying a lot without much substance, something engineers are not very good at.  Those who would like to stick to engineering, like me, would not want to change careers.  I don’t even want to be a manager.  High level managers, on the other hand, are not much different from regular politicians.  So, a high level manager in office would represent only marginal improvement over a career politician.  Still, an engineer in a high political office is a nice dream to have.