61% of American Jews...

... must be suicidal.  According to Jerusalem Post article from back in May, Gallop poll indicated that 61% of American Jews prefer Obama to McCain.  In my view, this makes 61% of American Jews outright suicidal in their blind support for the Democratic Party.  It's not just Obama's views on the current war, in which Israel is our staunchest ally.  It's not just Hamas' active support for Obama's candidacy.

Right before my family vacation was about to start, Obama was visiting Israel.  As it is customary for dignitaries visiting Israel, he went to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.  Here is what Gateway Pundit posted about it:

Barack Obama refused to ensure Israel today that there will not be another Holocaust...
Right after a tour of Yad Vashem Memorial!
Jake Tapper at the Political Punch reported:

An Israeli journalist called out to Obama: “Can you ensure that there will be no second Holocaust?”

Obama walked into the museum’s main building without responding...

Once again an Israeli journalist asked the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee how he'd help prevent a second Holocaust. "Senator can you assure Israel that there will be no second Holocaust despite Iran's threat to wipe us off the map?" he asked.

Obama demurred, saying that it wasn't appropriate to answer the question there.

"This is Yad Vashem!" the journalist responded.

Obama said he would answer the question at a later press availability.

Gateway Pundit provided some more links and comments, so go there.  But can please someone explain to me why Obama refused to answer?  It seems that it would not be harmful for his campaign, indeed, it would politically expedient, to simply reply: "Yes, I will ensure that there will be no other Holocaust".  The Israeli journalist was absolutely correct: Yad Vashem is precisely the place to ask and answer the question like this one.  Yet, Obama chose not to answer.  To me it means that there are forces supporting Obama that would not accept his promise of ensuring that there will be no other Holocaust, even if that promise was given clearly out of political expediency.  Obama clearly does not want to risk losing support of those people.  To me this is pretty scary.  And, my fellow American Jews, those of you who will vote for Obama are in fact suicidal.  A comparison between you and Adam Czerniakow, the Chairman of the Jewish Council in Warsaw Ghetto is not fair to Adam Czerniakow, a very descent, albeit misguided, man.  Perhaps better comparison is between you and Yevsektsiya - the Jewish Section of the Soviet Communist Party - a bunch of Jews who blindly supported leftist ideology without realizing that it would eventually destroy themselves and everybody around them, as it most assuredly eventually did.

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Long silence

I have to apologize to those who find my blog interesting for my long silence: between trying to finish up all I had to do at work prior to my family vacation and then my family vacation I simply did not have time.  Now hopefully I will be able to post something at least once a week, hopefully even more often.

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America's Birthday

July 4th was the Independence Day, the birthday of my adopted Motherland.  Unlike the great majority of the citizens of this great nation, I am an American by choice, not by birth.  My journey started in early winter of 1989, when my parents and I applied for permission to leave the old Soviet Union.  We knew at the time that we wanted to come to America, but we did not know much.  We knew that the free market economy makes more sense that the authoritarian economy of the Soviet Union.  We knew that, unlike in the Soviet Union, people were free to criticize the government in America, if they so chose.  We also knew that people were free to emigrate from America, if they so chose.  We knew that there was no state-sponsored anti-Semitism in America, which was obviously important for us, as Jews.  Finally, we knew that any problems we might have while living in America would not go against common sense, and their resolution would be entirely under our control.  For example, the problem of making a living is a normal problem, but the one that can be resolved by an individual through hard work and perseverance.  This is very different from not being able to get into college you want because of your ethnic origin or not being able to get an apartment simply because none are available.  (I since learned that there are problems here that go against common sense, but those are few, not as bad, and generally result of the leftist policies resembling the practices of the old Soviet Union.)  Since state-sponsored anti-Semitism was one of issues, we did consider going to Israel.  But Israel was a second choice for us because from the information available to us at the time it seemed that Israel had too many elements of socialism (this turned out to be true, although perhaps not as bad as we thought).

And so, on September 2, 1989, we finally left the Soviet Union, and on November 15, 1989 we finally arrived in San Diego, CA, USA.  From the beginning we were made to feel at home.  People accepted us as new Americans, even though we just arrived and weren't citizens yet.  For the majority of people we encountered it did not matter that our English was heavily accented and limited.  What mattered was the fact that we were trying to learn English and become Americans.  We were welcomed with open arms.  Later one of my co-workers told me that, even though I did not have the citizenship at the time, I was just as American as anybody else: after all, this is a nation of immigrants.

And what a great nation this is.  Founded on the notion that all people have "unalienable rights... [to] life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", it has never been perfect, but always strived to meet these ideals.  There are other countries that are free, similarly to the United States.  But only America was founded and exists to basically uphold the idea of liberty.  There are other nations of immigrants, like Canada or Australia.  But only America was created specifically as a place where persecuted people from anywhere in the world could find refuge.  And even though sometimes the admission of refugees becomes somewhat limited, America always returns to being this place of refuge and always proudly proclaims: "...Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  This great country has a national policy of "liberty and justice for all" and is not shy about it.

And so, after coming to this country with nothing 18.5 years ago, I am pretty happy with my life.  "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not just empty words.  It does not matter where you come from, or what your ethnic or religious background.  As long as you play by the rules and want to be an American, you are.  I am forever grateful for being admitted into this great nation.  And I am proud to be an American.  Yes, this is the song that gives me goose bumps.  Enjoy!

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History of American support for Israel

LGF linked to this post by the Elder of Zion, who linked to the article explaining in details the history and reasons for American support for Israel:

On May 12, 1948, Clark Clifford, the White House chief counsel, presented the case for U.S. recognition of the state of Israel to the divided cabinet of President Harry Truman. While a glowering George Marshall, the secretary of state, and a skeptical Robert Lovett, Marshall's undersecretary, looked on, Clifford argued that recognizing the Jewish state would be an act of humanity that comported with traditional American values. To substantiate the Jewish territorial claim, Clifford quoted the Book of Deuteronomy: "Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them."

…………………………………………………………………………….

Since then, this pattern has often been repeated. Respected U.S. foreign policy experts call for Washington to be cautious in the Middle East and warn presidents that too much support for Israel will carry serious international costs. When presidents overrule their expert advisers and take a pro-Israel position, observers attribute the move to the "Israel lobby" and credit (or blame) it for swaying the chief executive. But there is another factor to consider. As the Truman biographer David McCullough has written, Truman's support for the Jewish state was "wildly popular" throughout the United States. A Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many Americans "sympathized with the Jews" as "sympathized with the Arabs." That support was no flash in the pan. Widespread gentile support for Israel is one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign policy, and in the last 60 years, there has never been a Gallup poll showing more Americans sympathizing with the Arabs or the Palestinians than with the Israelis.

…………………………………………………………………………….

The story of U.S. support for a Jewish state in the Middle East begins early. John Adams could not have been more explicit. "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation," he said, after his presidency. From the early nineteenth century on, gentile Zionists fell into two main camps in the United States. Prophetic Zionists saw the return of the Jews to the Promised Land as the realization of a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy, often connected to the return of Christ and the end of the world. Based on his interpretation of Chapter 18 of the prophecies of Isaiah, for example, the Albany Presbyterian pastor John McDonald predicted in 1814 that Americans would assist the Jews in restoring their ancient state. Mormon voices shared this view; the return of the Jews to the Holy Land was under way, said Elder Orson Hyde in 1841: "The great wheel is unquestionably in motion, and the word of the Almighty has declared that it shall roll."

…………………………………………………………………………….

Any discussion of U.S. attitudes toward Israel must begin with the Bible. For centuries, the American imagination has been steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. This influence originated with the rediscovery of the Old Testament during the Reformation, was accentuated by the development of Calvinist theology (which stressed continuities between the old and the new dispensations of divine grace), and was made more vital by the historical similarities between the modern American and the ancient Hebrew experiences; as a result, the language, heroes, and ideas of the Old Testament permeate the American psyche.

…………………………………………………………………………….

The United States' sense of its own identity and mission in the world has been shaped by readings of Hebrew history and thought. The writer Herman Melville expressed this view: "We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people -- the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world." From the time of the Puritans to the present day, preachers, thinkers, and politicians in the United States -- secular as well as religious, liberal as well as conservative -- have seen the Americans as a chosen people, bound together less by ties of blood than by a set of beliefs and a destiny. Americans have believed that God (or history) has brought them into a new land and made them great and rich and that their continued prosperity depends on their fulfilling their obligations toward God or the principles that have blessed them so far. Ignore these principles -- turn toward the golden calf -- and the scourge will come.

Both religious and nonreligious Americans have looked to the Hebrew Scriptures for an example of a people set apart by their mission and called to a world-changing destiny. Did the land Americans inhabit once belong to others? Yes, but the Hebrews similarly conquered the land of the Canaanites. Did the tiny U.S. colonies armed only with the justice of their cause defeat the world's greatest empire? So did David, the humble shepherd boy, fell Goliath. Were Americans in the nineteenth century isolated and mocked for their democratic ideals? So were the Hebrews surrounded by idolaters. Have Americans defeated their enemies at home and abroad? So, according to the Scriptures, did the Hebrews triumph. And when Americans held millions of slaves in violation of their beliefs, were they punished and scourged? Yes, and much like the Hebrews, who suffered the consequences of their sins before God.

…………………………………………………………………………….

Although gentile support for Israel in the United States has remained strong and even grown since World War II, its character has changed. Until the Six-Day War, support for Israel came mostly from the political left and was generally stronger among Democrats than Republicans. Liberal icons such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King, Jr., were leading public voices calling for the United States to support Israel. But since 1967, liberal support for Israel has gradually waned, and conservative support has grown.

…………………………………………………………………………….

On the right, the most striking change since 1967 has been the dramatic intensification of suppport for Israel among evangelical Christians and, more generally, among what I have called "Jacksonian" voters in the U.S. heartland. Jacksonians are populist-nationalist voters who favor a strong U.S. military and are generally skeptical of international organizations and global humanitarian aid. Not all evangelicals are Jacksonians, and not all Jacksonians are evangelicals, but there is a certain overlap between the two constituencies. Many southern whites are Jacksonians; so are many of the swing voters in the North known as Reagan Democrats.

…………………………………………………………………………….

U.S. opinion on the Middle East is not monolithic, nor is it frozen in time. Since 1967, it has undergone significant shifts, with some groups becoming more favorable toward Israel and others less so. Considerably fewer African Americans stand with the Likud Party today than stood with the Jewish army in World War II. More changes may come. A Palestinian and Arab leadership more sensitive to the values and political priorities of the American political culture could develop new and more effective tactics designed to weaken, rather than strengthen, American support for the Jewish state. An end to terrorist attacks, for example, coupled with well-organized and disciplined nonviolent civil resistance, might alter Jacksonian perceptions of the Palestinian struggle. It is entirely possible that over time, evangelical and fundamentalist Americans will retrace Jimmy Carter's steps from a youthful Zionism to what he would call a more balanced position now. But if Israel should face any serious crisis, it seems more likely that opinion will swing the other way. Many of the Americans who today call for a more evenhanded policy toward the Palestinians do so because they believe that Israel is fundamentally secure. Should that assessment change, public opinion polls might well show even higher levels of U.S. support for Israel.

One thing, at least, seems clear. In the future, as in the past, U.S. policy toward the Middle East will, for better or worse, continue to be shaped primarily by the will of the American majority, not the machinations of any minority, however wealthy or engaged in the political process some of its members may be.

Of course, read it all.  This article is completely in line with "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present" by Michael Oren.

Basically, this article is a review of this book.  I highly recommend it.  In addition to explaining the roots of American support for Israel, the book also helps to understand the roots of our current conflict with militant Islam, otherwise known as Islamo-fascism.  The book details how jihad warriors, otherwise known as Barbary pirates, terrorized merchant shipping and even raided villages on the East Coast of the United States.  It also explains that, far from being "Gentlemen of Fortune", the Barbary pirates had jihadi ideology and their governments' support behind them.  After reading this book one starts to understand that our current conflict has nothing to do with American foreign policy and perceived injustices perpetrated by the West.  Rather, it is a conflict between religion-based totalitarian ideology and Western liberal values, similar to the other conflicts of the 20th Century between Western liberal values and atheistic totalitarian ideologies of Nazism and Communism.  That totalitarian ideology has to be defeated.  It cannot be appeased.

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A solution for high gas prices

Are you tired of high gas prices?  They will go even higher.  Bookworm linked to a very good article by Gerry Charlotte Phelps:

Exxon-Mobile is a tiny oil company (even though it is the biggest of the U.S. oil companies.)  At 18th in the world, it ranks way down in the scales.  The other 17 companies are the real oil giants.  They are all government-owned oil companies.  Saudia Arabia.  Kuwait. Venezuela.  Pemex in Mexico.  It is a very different picture from what you may have been thinking, or hearing.

You want to go after the "oil giants"?  Good!  Then look somewhere else.  None of them are U.S. oil companies, which have shrunk and shrunk over the years, under environmentalist attack in the U.S., and through being shut out of foreign oil by the governments who own all the oil in their countries. 

You really want to go after the "oil giants?"  (Remember now, all of them are oil giants owned by the governments of other countries.)  Then drill here!  Drill now!  What is happening to our energy is going to hurt everyone in the U.S. and in the world.

Read it all.  Then click here and sign that petition to drill here and now.  You can see the icon linking to it on my sidebar as well.

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An interesting question

Is Obama qualified to be President, according to US Constitution?  Bookworm posted a link to the discussion on the subject at the National Review Campaign Spot and also had an interesting discussion in the comments to her post.  Check it out!  I don't think anybody will dare to disqualify Obama from running, although I would not be surprised if it is brought up at the Democratic Convention by Hillary's supporters.  But it sure is interesting.

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Negotiating with the enemies

Here is another article mentioned by Dennis Prager, this one about negotiating without preconditions:

May 22, 2008

Op-Ed Contributors

Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed

By NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS

IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.

They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to negotiate with America’s adversaries as appeasement. Senator Obama defended his position by again enlisting Kennedy’s legacy: “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.”

…………………………………………………………………………….

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

Read it all.

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With friends like these, ...

... who needs enemies?  Dennis Prager mentioned this story from Spiegel in his radio show:

NOT LICENSED TO KILL

German Special Forces in Afghanistan Let Taliban Commander Escape

By Susanne Koelbl and Alexander Szandar

German special forces had an important Taliban commander in their sights in Afghanistan. But he escaped -- because the Germans were not authorized to use lethal force. The German government's hands-tied approach to the war is causing friction with its NATO allies.

The wheat is lush and green in the fields of northern Afghanistan this spring. A river winding its way through the broad valley dotted with walled houses completes the picturesque scene. Behind one of these walls, not far from the town of Pol-e-Khomri, sits a man whose enemies, having named him a "target," would like to see dead. He is the Baghlan bomber.

The Taliban commander is regarded as a brutal extremist with excellent connections to terror cells across the border in Pakistan. Security officials consider him to be one of the most dangerous players in the region, which is under German command as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The military accuses him of laying roadside bombs and of sheltering suicide attackers prior to their bloody missions.

He is also thought to be behind one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan's history, the Nov. 6, 2007 attack on a sugar factory in the northwest province of Baghlan. The attack killed 79 people, including dozens of children and many parliamentarians and other politicians, as they celebrated the factory's reopening.

Germany's KSK special forces have been charged with capturing the terrorist, in cooperation with the Afghan secret service organization NDS and the Afghan army. The German elite soldiers were able to uncover the Taliban commander's location. They spent weeks studying his behavior and habits: when he left his house and with whom, how many men he had around him and what weapons they carried, the color of his turban and what vehicles he drove.

At the end of March, they decided to act to seize the commander. Under the protection of darkness, the KSK, together with Afghan forces, advanced toward their target. Wearing black and equipped with night-vision goggles, the team came within just a few hundred meters of their target before they were discovered by Taliban forces.

The dangerous terrorist escaped. It would, however, have been possible for the Germans to kill him -- but the KSK were not authorized to do so.

Go ahead and read the whole thing.  Is there anyone who even played a soldier as a kid, who does not find this story ridiculously pathetic?  Don't get me wrong: the German Special Forces soldiers are likely very good and professional, but their superiors are another matter.  Dennis Prager often says that the Germans learned the wrong lesson after World War 2: instead of learning of necessity to combat evil even in their own midst they learned that it is always wrong to fight.  I could not agree more.

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Renaming the terms

This blog was started from the article "Reclaiming the Terms" that I wrote and ever since keep shoving into people's faces.  In my article I insist that true Liberals are found on the Right of the political spectrum.  But it turns out that sometimes you have to go even further.  So, at the risk of flattering Bookworm again, I am presenting here another of her brilliant articles, in which she renames the illiberal Left into Statists and liberal Right into Individualists:

Renaming the paradigm *UPDATED*

Bookworm on May 13 2008 at 9:07 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized

I’ve decided it’s time to jettison entirely the words “Left” and “Right” when used with reference to political ideologies. I came to this conclusion after a very interesting discussion with my mother. While we were talking about the military Junta in Burma, she let drop the fact that she believes that all tyrannies come from the political Right.

I was taken aback, especially when my mother explained to me that the Soviets, Nazis and Italian Fascists were all tyrannies from the Right. I could understand her confusion about the Nazis and the Italian Fascists — after all, Jonah Goldberg wrote a whole book trying to educate people out of their confusion on this subject — but her statement about the Soviets perplexed me.

…………………………………………………………………………….

Conservatives want to contract the power of the Federal government, not expand it, because they have recognized that tyrannies, regardless of the political ideology that powers them, are Statist. Republicans, I said, are Individualists. Given the opportunity to shape this country’s politics, they are the ones who are least likely ones to lead America into the tyrannical, militaristic regime she fears.

It was quite an amazing conversation because, by the end, she really grasped the difference between Left and Right. Right is not Nazis and Fascists and failed Communist states. In America, Right is about individual rights, and Left is about Statism — and it is Statism that, when it runs amok, is dangerous.

Anyway, because of the fact that this type of confusion has poisoned the meaning of these commonly used political terms, I think it’s more accurate to describe the two American ideologies as Statist and Individualist — and I know on which side of the political aisle I want to reside.

As before, excerpts don't do justice to Bookworm's article, so read the whole thing.  And, as Bookworm, I know exactly on which side of the political aisle I am - on the side of individual liberty.

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Prestige of the engineering work

Engineers were not very highly regarded in the former Soviet Union.  In terms of salary, blue color workers were always paid more.  In fact, if 2 people did the same job, but one had a title of engineer and another was technician, the technician would get higher salary.  So, when Gorbachev came to power, he recognized that the Soviet Union was technologically lagging behind the West.  So, the Soviet Government announced that they would promote the engineering work in order to raise its prestige.  Mikhail Zhvanetsky, a famous Russian-Jewish satirist and a native of Odessa, joked that engineers got increased prestige, but not increased salary.

It turns out that in this country, while engineering pay is pretty good, the prestige of the engineering work is not very high.  There is simply no glamour in it.  Planet Analog, one of the professional publications whose newsletter I get at work, posted an article on this subject:

Commentary: Engineers need an image makeover
Bill Schweber
EE Times
May 02, 2008 (1:43 PM)
URL: http://www.planetanalog.com/showArticle?articleID=207501896

At the recent ACE Awards dinner, our industry honored leading innovators, companies and products. It was good to see an appreciative audience for this well-deserved recognition. But then I realized we were preaching to the converted. The broader world still dismisses engineers and scientists as quirky outsiders.

This became clear when I was trapped and had to watch an episode of the dreadful "Beauty and the Geek." The show's premise is that there is something wrong with the geeks, but with some help they can be made to be cool, if not actually hot. If I suggested that perhaps the beauties could benefit from a knowledge makeover, I'd be dismissed as, well, a geek.

It wasn't always this way. Until about the 1960s, engineers were not only honored, they were respected. They were guests on popular TV shows for their accomplishments, not as oddballs to be mocked. Earlier in the 20th century, engineers were accorded more respect and stature than any other professionals.

We've come a long way from that world.

The Associated Press has announced it will hire 20 more reporters solely to cover celebrities, and they don't mean scientists or engineers. And I'll bet if eight-year-old Carson Page—the Editor's Choice ACE Award winner for his impressive work with FPGAs—ever appears on the Leno or Letterman show, he'll be there as an oddity, not a role model.

How did this transformation happen?

I think we are victims of our own success. In the past few decades, we've made such incredible progress in so many areas, at an ever-increasing rate, that we've made it all look so very easy. The public is no longer impressed by feats of engineering: They think all this amazing gadgetry just happens by itself, because we've made it seem that way.

What can we do? It wouldn't be practical, or advisable, to squelch scientific and technological progress. But perhaps professional societies, universities and high-tech companies could team to launch an image campaign. One message might be: "If it weren't for the nerd next door, you wouldn't have (fill in the blank)." Here's another: "Celebrity fades. Knowledge lasts."

As with so many engineering problems, there is no simple solution. Perhaps it is not even viewed as a problem. Our culture has moved to a new perception of what it values, and it's not us.

If that's the case, we have only ourselves to blame. But we owe it to ourselves, and certainly to the next generation of innovators like Carson Page, to do something about it.

The article is pretty short, so I just posted the whole thing here.  It really is sad.  My daughter recently had a "career day" at school.  None of the kids said that they wanted to be an engineer.  And I live in the area heavily populated by engineers.  In addition to that, the whole society is technically illiterate.  A friend of mine told me that in the 1980s, when VCRs first became available, people could not set the clock on the front display of the VCR.  So the clock display kept blinking, and people were getting annoyed.  Apparently some company like RadioShack came up with a kit to stop the blinking.  It was simply a piece of black electrical tape that you would stick onto the clock display and cover it.  The fact that someone was able to sell this thing has to be embarrassing.  Part of the problem that kids nowadays don't have to make anything themselves.  You can buy everything.  You can even buy a slingshot or a rubber band gun.  What is that?  Things like that kids should be building with their own hands, coming up with their own designs.  Of course, it would be nice if there was some sort of a TV show about engineers.  But, unlike doctors or lawyers, engineers don't have drama associated with their work.  So, a TV show would not be very exciting.  Something like MacGyver would be pretty exciting, but most of the stuff MacGyver does is not necessarily realistic and definitely not something that you could try at home.

Oh, well.  My older daughter still says once in a while that she wants "to be an engineer, like daddy".  So, not everything is lost.  Although, if my daughter becomes a nurse like mommy, I would be pretty happy too.

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Significant dates in May

The month of May has several significant dates in modern history, particularly in modern Jewish history.  Those are the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli Independence Day and Victory in Europe Day (Victory Day in Russia).  Additionally, the Memorial Day is also at the end of May.  So, in commemoration of all these dates I'd like to present an article that I compiled several years ago.  This article was originally published on the wonderful historical site called WW II Ace Stories.  I highly recommend this site for World War 2 history and aviation history enthusiasts.  I used the word "compiled" rather than "written" regarding the article because the article is based on the book "I Am My Brother's Keeper" by Jeffrey Weiss and Craig Weiss.

In fact, there are chunks of text that were simply scanned out of the book.  But I don't think the authors would mind: after all, I am suggesting to people that they should buy the book and read it.  It really is a very good book.  The pictures are also from this book and the Internet.  I dedicate this post to those, who fought back and saved or avenged themselves and their loved ones.  So, without further ado, let me present the story of

Rudy Augarten - avenging the Holocaust.

(Click here to read the story.)

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In fairness to Obama

Obama recently gave an interview to Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic.  After this interview many commentators on my side were quick to point out that Obama called Israel a "constant wound... a constant sore..." on our foreign policy.  But here is exactly what he said:

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.

From reading his exact response it is clear that he did not mean that Israel is a "constant sore", but the conflict is.  To accuse him of calling Israel a "constant sore" is to use a favorite trick of the Left: taking his words out of context.  However, this does not mean that his interview is not full of crap.  The Republican Jewish Coalition in its press release called Obama's statement what it really is, in its proper context: excusing the inexcusable, or, in other words, another of the Left's favorite things - moral equivalency:

RJC: Obama Excuses the Inexcusable

Contact: Press Secretary Suzanne Kurtz
Monday, May 12, 2008

Washington, D.C. (May 12, 2008) -- In response to Sen. Barack Obama's interview in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, the Republican Jewish Coalition released the following statement today:

"Once again, Senator Obama demonstrates his questionable grasp of America's foreign policy. Senator Obama manages to excuse the inexcusable actions of anti-American militant jihadists by putting the blame for their actions on America's foreign policy. America stands with Israel because it is one of our strongest allies and the only democracy in the Middle East. Senator Obama naively believes that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will solve the global scourge of radical Islamic extremism. Yet Senator Obama never says how he will rein in Hamas' daily onslaught on Israel or Iran's scurrilous condemnations of Israel. Is it any wonder Hamas has endorsed him for president?"

In his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Obama described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as 'this constant wound.' Sen. Obama said 'that this constant sore, does infect all of [America's] foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions.'

RJC is fair and absolutely correct.  And Obama is still full of crap.  And, in related news, linked from LGF to Jim Geraghty:

Palestinians in Gaza Are Phonebanking for Barack Obama

Phil Klein calls our attention to an al-Jazeera news report that sounds like a parody, but is genuine: A report on Palestinians in Gaza who are phonebanking in support of Barack Obama's campaign.

I transcribed the most jaw-dropping parts:

REPORTER: It may be hard to believe, but working in this tiny Internet cafe in Gaza City may just be one of Barack Obama's biggest fans.

Before every U.S. primary, 23-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab gathers 17 of his friends to try and rally support for Obama's campaign in the U.S.

So why does a young Palestinian living in Gaza spend so much of his time and money on an election thousands of miles away?

ABU JAYYAB: [translated] It all started at the time of the U.S. primaries. After studying Obama's electoral campaign manifesto, I thought, 'this is a man that is capable of change inside America.' As for potential change in the Middle East, he can also do that. I think he can bring peace to the area, or at least this is what we hope.

REPORTER: And the game plan? Ibrahim and his friends call random numbers in the U.S. before every primary to deliver one simple message:

ABU JAYYAB: [in English] Elect Senator Obama. I will change. I will achieve... the justice in the Middle East.

I am guessing, this must be illegal, if Obama's Campaign is actually involved in this.  Read it all.  Here is another link.

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The next time someone accuses US...

... of not trying to alleviate poverty in the world, you might want to point to this news item:

A Gulf in Giving: Oil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program

Friday , May 09, 2008

By George Russell

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top lieutenants on Monday are convening the first meeting of the U.N.’s Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. Ban says it will “study the root causes of the crisis,” and propose solutions for “coordinated global action” at a summit of world leaders in June.

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Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.

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And while Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan have hastened to pony up an additional $260 million in aid since WFP’s latest appeal, the world organization told FOX News, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the international oil cartel, tossed in a grand total of $1.5 million in addition to the $50,000 it had previously donated.

The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.

The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.

By contrast, the poverty-stricken African republic of Burkina Faso is listed as donating more than $600,000, and Bangladesh, perennial home of many of the world’s hungriest people, is listed as donating nearly $5.8 million.

And those people talk about honor?

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Do all politicians lie?

They probably all do to some extent.  So, whenever I would point out to someone, even someone who agrees with me, some outrageous lie by a leftist politician, the response I often get is: "Yes, but they all lie".  I often found myself at a loss for words after that.  Well, maybe I don't have to be in such position any longer.  Bookworm has brilliantly explained in her post that

All lies are not created equal

In response to an earlier post I did about Obama’s habit of lying about easily verifiable events, beliefs and associations in his past, echeccone made the statement, one we’ve often heard, that “every politician lies.” There’s a kind of sweeping truth to that statement, but its very broadness hides the fact that not all lies are created equal. I was just going to leave a responsive comment to echeccone, but it got so long that I decided to use my blogger privilege of elevating my response to its own post. So here is my little riff on why all lies are not created equal, and why Hillary’s and Obama’s lies fall into the worst category.

As any of us who have children or who remember our own childhoods know, lying is an integral part of the human condition. There is no toddler who hasn’t stood before Mom and Dad, staring at the paint on the living room wall, and then glancing down at the paint all over his hands, only to announce without shame, “I didn’t do it.” Said child is always punished, and the punishment comes along with a lengthy explanation about the value of truth and the danger of lies. As a society, we don’t tolerate it well when people deny wrongdoing.

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We also are willing to give favored politician some latitude on broken promises. Thus, the question in the voters’ collective mind when a politician breaks an promise is, “Did s/he, at the time s/he made that promise, have any intention of keeping it?” If people believe the answer is “yes,” they’ll listen with some respect to the politician’s excuses for failing to keep that promise. If the answer is “no,” or if it is apparent that no person of reasonable intelligence should have made such a promise in the first place, then voters will be much less forgiving.

And then there are the lies that Hillary and Obama tell, likes that hark back to the toddler years: They get caught doing something bad, and they simply lie about. Hillary confines herself to denials and accusations. In the face of her intransigent denials, when the truth finally emerges, she tends to look awful. Obama is more clever. His first instinct is to deny, and then he starts leaking out the ugly truth. And by leaking it out slowly, he defuses the impact of the fact that, yes, he did engage in wrongdoing or, yes, he did associate (fairly closely) with terrorists or, yes, he did know all along that his preacher is an anti-American racist kind of guy.

The excerpts truly don't do justice to Bookworm's article.  Go read the whole thing.  I will have to remember her arguments the next time someone tells me that all politicians lie.

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Muslim reformers

My previous post dealt with the problem.  This one has to do with the solution: Muslim Reform Movement.  The fact is that we all can talk about violence inherent in Islam till we blue in the face, and we will still have a problem.  Even if we defeat the the jihadis militarily now, they will come back later because the ideological basis for them will remain intact.  So, they will have to be defeated ideologically as well.  The only one way to do it in my opinion is to re-interpret Koran, de-emphasizing violence in it.  So, we need to promote the genuine reformers of Islam, people who seek to re-interpret the religious doctrine of Islam.  One of such organizations, Muslims Against Sharia, left a comment on this blog recently, and I am thankful for that.  There are others:

Dr. Tawfik Hamid;

American-Islamic Forum for Democracy.

I am adding these links to my sidebar.  There are probably others.  We need to scream as loud as we can, so that the media listens to these people, rather than CAIR.  Front Page recently conducted a symposium of Muslim reformers.  There is hope.  Finally, it seems that Turkish Government got involved in the Muslim Reform effort:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

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Turkey is intent on sweeping away that "cultural baggage" and returning to a form of Islam it claims accords with its original values and those of the Prophet.

But this is where the revolutionary nature of the work becomes apparent. Even some sayings accepted as being genuinely spoken by Muhammad have been altered and reinterpreted.

Prof Mehmet Gormez, a senior official in the Department of Religious Affairs and an expert on the Hadith, gives a telling example.

"There are some messages that ban women from travelling for three days or more without their husband's permission and they are genuine.

"But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because in the Prophet's time it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone like that. But as time has passed, people have made permanent what was only supposed to be a temporary ban for safety reasons."

The project justifies such bold interference in the 1,400-year-old content of the Hadith by rigorous academic research.

Prof Gormez points out that in another speech, the Prophet said "he longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone".

So, he argues, it is clear what the Prophet's goal was.

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According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.

He says that to achieve it, the state is fashioning a new Islam.

"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he says.

"Not exactly the same, but if you think, it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion. "

Fadi Hakura believes that until now secularist Turkey has been intent on creating a new politics for Islam.

Now, he says, "they are trying to fashion a new Islam."

Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.

They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.

"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.

"You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.

"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."

Read the whole article.  Generally conservatives like myself are skeptical about government involvement in anything.  But in this particular case, placing government resources behind the project might be a good thing.

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What is the number of the enemy we face?

We often hear that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but just normal peaceful people going about their daily lives.  That is definitely true for one simple reason: day-to-day activities tend to preoccupy people.  But how big is that violent minority?  Well, consider this post by Elder of Zion:

That "tiny percentage of radical Muslims" again

I've already had a number of posts on the book "Who Speaks for Islam?" as I (and others) have shows the duplicity of the authors as they try to downplay the number of radical Muslims in the world. The authors defined the 7% of Muslims who considered the 9/11 attacks "completely justified" to be "politically radicalized" and they used the term "moderate" for the other 93%. In a new article by Robert Satloff, he blows a few more holes into the book - but he also gets a hold of the all-important data: how many Muslims mostly or partially justified 9/11? The answers are not quite as comforting as the authors implied. In addition to the 6.5% who felt that 9/11 was "mostly" justified, we find out: The cover-up is even worse. The full data from the 9/11 question show that, in addition to the 13.5 percent, there is another 23.1 percent of respondents -- 300 million Muslims -- who told pollsters the attacks were in some way justified. Esposito and Mogahed don't utter a word about the vast sea of intolerance in which the radicals operate. And then there is the more fundamental fraud of using the 9/11 question as the measure of "who is a radical." Amazing as it sounds, according to Esposito and Mogahed, the proper term for a Muslim who hates America, wants to impose Sharia law, supports suicide bombing, and opposes equal rights for women but does not "completely" justify 9/11 is . . . "moderate." So over one out of every three Muslims worldwide, 36.6%, can find some justification for 9/11; and about 80% of those were defined as "moderate" in this book.Which means that there are nearly a half-billion Muslims worldwide who would be considered supporters of terror by any reasonable definition, not "only" the 91 million that the authors claim.

Read his complete analysis in order to understand the problem.

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Infiltration

Being sick has its rewards: I have a little bit more time for blogging when I am not miserable.  So, when a friend alerted me to an interesting article, I decided to post about it:

Amerabia

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times | Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Even Americans knowledgeable about Europe's growing accommodation to the totalitarian ideology known alternatively as Islamism, jihadism or Islamofascism tend smugly to believe the same thing can't happen here. Think again.

Every day, new evidence appears of similar acts of submission — the Islamists call it "dhimmitude" — on the part of the U.S. government, judges, the press and leading corporations. Eurabia, meet the United States of Amerabia.

On May 4, an ominous alarm was sounded in a Pajamas Media column by Youssef Ibrahim, a former New York Times reporter. Mr. Ibrahim is an astute critic of the Islamists' steady, tireless and increasingly effective efforts to impose — on Muslims and non-Muslims alike — the repressive theo-political-legal agenda they call Shariah law. He warned that "In the very real war on terror, a noisy squabble over 'fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here' clouds a simple truth: namely, that 'they' are here already. Indeed, Islamists are busy constructing a wing of jihad in America's backyard."

Among the most worrisome of the "they" now operating inside the U.S. are various front organizations systematically established by the Islamist organization known as the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. During last year's federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation on terrorism-financing charges, the government introduced into evidence the names of many scores of such Ikhwan fronts. Identified also as unindicted co-conspirators were virtually every one of the most prominent Muslim-American organizations, including notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

Read it and be scared.  Here is the Yossef Ibrahim's article that Frank Gaffney mentions:

Islamist Chickens Roosting in America’s Backyard

May 4, 2008 - by Youssef M. Ibrahim

In the very real war on terror, a nosy squabble over “fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” clouds a simple truth: namely, that “they” are here already. Indeed, Islamists are busy constructing a wing of jihad in America’s backyard.

A potential audience of one million Arab-speaking cable subscribers of Time Warner in the greater New York area can feast on the Arabic Channel known as TAC to choose a menu that includes:

• A daily dose of Islamic jurisprudence from a sheik — most often Egyptian Amr Khaled, who wears a suit instead of a robe, advocating “peaceful jihad.” He opines on how it is the duty of Arab-Americans to become first, second, and always members of the Muslim ummah. The softness of his jihad-chic demeanor belies its exclusionary message: segregation of Arab-American Muslims from fellow Americans.

• TAC also serves a nightly diet of Syrian TV News, direct from Damascus with Syria’s view of the world. In this diatribe of analysis and disinformation, Iraq is an American butchery, the Zionist regime of Israel is destined for obliteration, and Syria is the greatest gift to the “Arab cause.”

• For entertainment there is a sprinkling of pseudo-historic soap operas about the old Muslim empire of Europe. In Ramadan, the month-long fasting period, this proselytizing is revved up to new levels of intensity, removing footage of belly dancing and other “infidel” joys from the steady fare of old Egyptian movies.

On its website, TAC says it is now 14 years old and serves the “Greater New York City Metropolitan area, including Jersey City, Bergen County, NJ, and Mt. Vernon, NY.”

Again, read it all.  And while you are thinking that those people have their 1st Amendment right to broadcast all this stuff which amounts to enemy propaganda, ask yourself this: "Can you imagine German American Bund operating its own radio station during World War 2?"

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How the Prius works

Engineers like me always want to know how things work.  So, Planet Analog provided some info on Toyota Prius:

One year ago, Automotive DesignLine and EETimes took a Toyota Prius fresh from the dealer and tore it down to see what makes it tick. The resulting series of stories became some of our best read features ever.

Today, with fuel prices continuing to soar, the hybrid cars are selling faster than ever. If you missed them then, or would like a review, here are direct links to features in that series—along with a time lapse video (at the end of the first article) of our crack engineers taking the vehicle apart, and a subsequent take on the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, targeted to debut in 2010.

Enjoy, my fellow nerds.

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Quick links

Here are some quick links without my comments.  Just read them.

My cousin Karlchen.

Melani Phillips: Happy 60th birthday, Israel — well done for surviving.

WHAT I LEARNED AT 'ANTI-JIHAD U' by Judith Miller.

Getting to Know John McCain by Karl Rove. (via Bookworm).

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Irresponsible journalists

I got this in e-mail from Planet Analog, but unfortunately they did not have this editor's note on the site, so I am posting it here in full.  Many of us know how irresponsible media is.  In addition to that, these journalists are also technically illiterate.  So, what else is new?

EDITOR'S NOTE

As some of you know, I have a pretty low opinion of most journalists, especially those who try to cover a topic which has even a tiny amount of technical content. I've met and worked alongside many of these journalists over the years, and I don't know which group is worse: the ones who don't know anything technical but figure they can skate by; or the ones who know just enough to be dangerous and wrong, and that they can handle the topic. This week's example is the coverage and hysteria about the MD-80 jet aircraft, mostly operated by American Airlines, and the emergency stand-down of these planes for inspection (and thousands of cancelled flights) due to a possible wiring problem. This was described by most of the media as "faulty wiring", "dangerous wiring", "miswired", and other very skewed, misleading terms. They made it sound as if the AC-supply lines were plugged into DC supplies, or that connectors and cables were mismatched or even crossed. Only the Wall Street Journal, among the major media, actually had some specifics: "it [the FAA] determined that American Airlines' repairs didn't meet its painstaking standards, which dictate details such as which way retention clips holding the wires face, toward the back or front of the aircraft. This matters because the clips could chafe the coating on the wires, causing wear that would expose the wiring to leaks from fuel or hydraulic fluid. . . . some wiring was secured at intervals exceeding the one inch dictated by regulations." (I did find some pictures, after a little on-line searching, and the cable bundles were laced down pretty tightly, with lots of clips and ties closely spaced. But the caption didn't say if the picture was of "good" or "bad" cabling!) Now, I know that proper cable dress is very important to long-term reliability (I have been tripped up by cable sloppiness and poor strain relief too often) but does this aircraft-wiring problem constitute "dangerous wiring" or even "miswired"? I'll let you be the judge! On a more mundane topic, here's a thought problem I came across: my laptop PC was doing some disk-intensive work, and fairly warm air was coming out the exhaust. So I thought I would raise it a little, off the flat surface of the desk, to allow airflow and better cooling. But then I thought about it some more. Air, especially stagnant air, is a poor conductor of heat. Maybe it is better to have the bottom of the laptop directly on the desk, which could act as a heat sink? How good is the thermal contact between the laptop and the desk, and the heat-sinking properties of the wood top? Pretty soon, I was convinced that the intuitive ideas to lift the laptop might actually be counterproductive. I know that you can buy thermal mats to go under a laptop, to improve surface heat-sinking, but I am not ready to do that. Before I do anything, I want to know if placing the laptop flat on the wooden desktop is better or worse, from a thermal perspective, than raising it a little. And what about a metal desktop, or a plastic laminate desktop? I'd be interested in hearing your views, especially if you can model the thermal situation (and hey, it would make a good article, too!). OK, enough off-the-subject thoughts. Check out the solid array of diverse technical articles below. And while this week's ebb-and-flow has fewer new products than last week (don't read anything into this, it's a normal weekly variation we see here), we have more news and short items than last week. Until next week. . . . Bill Schweber, Planet Analog Site Editor bschweber@techinsights.com (formerly @cmp.com; same "desk", new company name)

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