Who wants to reduce all citizens' liberty? Is it Obama or the NRA?

President Obama (see article, link at bottom) said that gun lobbyists' "grip" on Congress is, in effect, to blame for mass murders with guns. So, simply, crazy killers are the blame of the NRA, or any other firearms education and civil rights organization with millions of members. And, I imagine, we can include all the gun manufacturers in that list of evil lobbyists, too. But Obama doesn't cite them, specifically, because then he'll have cops and the military on his ass, as he does the NRA, gun owners and hunters. That LEOs and the armed services aren't already chastising him in unison is a matter of THEIR patience and respect for order, I'd gather. It has little to do with Obama. 

The  has a grip, indeed, though it is on the clear purpose of the Second Amendment, not the bent one the nanny state left promotes. Unlike Mr. Obama, who seems to have a very loose grip on the Constitutional idea of a citizenry free from government tyranny.

Criminals will NOT bring in their guns to the nearest police station because you ask them to, Mr. President. It is beyond buffoonery to continue to propel the myth that restricting public's gun ownership would have prevented  or other mass murders, with guns or without. 

What a shame that a group which insists upon upholding the rights of law-abiding citizens to own guns and not have to register them is bashed by the people who lead us, and entire PARTY system that wants to lead us exclusively.

Too bad that the POTUS of a once free country promotes the idea that the lack of freedom for all will improve the odds of horrible crimes from happening. That will assure only one thing: only police, military and criminals (true criminals and renegade gun owners, which could be grandmas in Harlem or cowboys in Texas) will then have firearms. Which is how citizens plummet into the serfdom of democratic socialism and other forms of soft tyranny. 

I think we should and can trust the government, but only insofar as they are willing to trust law abiding citizens, and respect their right to join any civil rights groups they choose, such as the noble -- and totally, completely and undeniably anti-crime -- NRA. If you're not a member, if you don't read their publications, then you know nothing about them, except what statist haters want to tell you (inaccurately) about the NRA. It's members are all about gun safety. 

Obama, meanwhile, seems to be for government expansion -- of debt, deficit and tyrannical potential. The Second Amendment isn't about "lax" gun laws, it is about superior gun rights, and so is the NRA.  


Obama blames the NRA for 'lax gun laws' and gun violence (at IBT.com)


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Good Muslim states would do better to learn from Israel rather than attack it

I am sick of seeing supposedly informed, aware, non-radical Muslims bitching about "Zionists" and the Western World. They even do so while living right here in the United States. These people seem to be nothing other than shills, or worse. 

One, a cleric named Omar Suleiman (search him), in Dallas, TX, posted comments about radicals and those who supported them. Yet, in other posts this same imam complains about "Zionists" but seems not to really have any opinion about democracy ever popping up in the rest of the Middle East. Yet, he lives in the United States. In TEXAS, no less! Check out his Facebook page (his official one --?!).

It's simple: nothing will change for the better in the contentious Middle East until the wealthy Middle Eastern countries start really fighting their own terror war. 

Muslim countries are overdue for "putting on their big boy pants," as we say in the States. I heard nothing of "hate crimes" provoked by the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, but Imam Suleiman recently suggested that there were plenty. I noticed that there was not a single Muslim theocratic state that doubled down on squashing radicals in their midst after Hebdo. (Perhaps I only forgot, though; maybe the Saudis took some out, or Bahrain bombed some. No, not really.) I do recall hearing of Western kids trying to escape to jihadist enclaves, however.

I'm sure there were some contentious moments for Muslims after Charlie Hebdo, and I truly regret any of that. But when good people let the voices of monsters overcome their own, guess what? Bad things happen to good people. Good people who are cowardly about their principles, as well as those who are willing to stand up for positive principles. 

Rational, clear-headed, non-Islamist people in Muslim countries, as well Muslims in places where they are minorities, need to go after these murdering monsters with every words and with military vigor. This is a war, and you seem to expect others to wage it for you, then complain about it. 

Please, Muslims countries, do not complain about "anti-Muslim" foreign policies of Western countries when it seems you expect the USA to go after these radical groups for you, by default. What I see from your states is effectively trying to ignore these murdering radicals (those who are not quietly cheering them) like the British tried to ignore Hitler in the 1930s. 

The "Muslim World" had 30 years to rid of the monster Saddam Hussein, but did you? No. You needed the US and allies (few Arab soldiers) to kick him out of Kuwait, and look at the thanks we got from most of the Muslim World as a result of that. Appreciation didn't seem to last very long. Find the appreciation upon Hussein's removal in 2003. I am not seeing it. Does anyone else? Only the Kurds seemed to appreciate it. 

The "Muslim World" could have rid of the Taliban, but did you? No. You could have stopped bin Laden, but did you? I find it difficult to believe that Pakistan wasn't hiding him, frankly, seeing as he was living a few miles from the major military training center of the country. Yet Muslims note the mistakes that the Western allies made in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, when they were comparably few, by contrast to the shameful habits of Muslim countries in matters of brutal totalitarian dictatorships over many, many decades. 

Please, Muslims, for your good and the world's, quit your mere whining and go after these beasts yourselves. No more Talibans, no more bin Ladens, no more Husseins, no more ISIS. This is your internal problem, not ours, but you made it ours by your seeming inaction or weakness of will against this evil. 

I'm not simply watching today's news. I have read Middle Eastern history. I respect the realities of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and other imperial maneuvers by Western European countries after the end of the Ottoman Empire. The West -- namely France and Great Britain in the aforementioned case -- only helped mess it up. That was 100 years ago, though. More intervention was done. But Muslim states also colluded with Hitler during WW II. He was a Western leader, yeah, but he's no Western statesmen of good repute. They were not exactly ready to be their own states then. But oil changed that. But that's history. 

What now? Tiny Israel is to blame for all of the Middle East's troubles? Please, Muslim states and Palestinian apologists. Quit being cowards and racists, and rid of the beasts in your midst and enforce civility in the Palestinian non-states. So they can some day become states. 

We've seen recent actions by Gulf states fighting ISIS. It's about time. The Saudis and others should get their hands dirty, very dirty, and dedicate some of their treasure to destroying Muslim extremism. That, or quite whining about Western action in the region. You can't have it both ways. 

As for Arab states involvement against ISIS and all radical Islamists, it's not yet enough. Sure, we have some wacky televangelists and other Christians or just plain unaffiliated types who believe all Muslims are dangerous or at least divisive. They're wrong. But they have not bombed buildings for it in neighborhoods, like terrorists. If they did, they would be arrested or killed in a war with police (their choice, really), if they did. I fight a war of words against their war of words online. Even amongst my friends. 

Ignorance is everywhere. I'm certainly not free of it. But I am not blissful in it, not when it comes to extremism. Too many are blissful in the peace and quiet of their own home or cities or nations while others are dying at the hands of -- quite sane, but cruel -- murderers in the "the name of Islam." Muslims need to learn how to be effective activists, not against Israel, but against Muslim extremists. And yes, that is a very accurate term for it. 

When the "Western World" won't need to try and rid of the monsters in your midst, Muslim World, they will not have a reason to be in your lands. They will only be there to do business, or as tourists. 

Of late ( thanks to something called freedom of speech, which you don't seem to like all that much), we are less and less able to practice in overseas propaganda wars (as we did in South American countries in the 1960s-80s). Speech is more wide open than ever now, which makes it harder to low to smarter people. 

Meanwhile, some continue to quietly, or loosely, refer to us as the great Satan, just as your extremist friends do. It's simple: nothing will change for the better in the contentious Middle East until the wealthy Middle Eastern countries start really fighting their own terror war. You're kidding yourselves if you think you are. 

Those who know liberty are proud to defend the ideas of liberty, even for those who are too ignorant to know what it is. Oppressive leaders of one kind or another don't really give people much hope or insight into human freedom and liberty. But they do cultivate an attraction to leaders such as bin Laden. 

I recognize evil and good. I've had some unfortunate run-ins with them, in paradox. Forget utopia, either New Age or Muslim. It sounds great, but utopia is like heaven: it's not of this Earth. Wake up and face the real world, Muslims. Israel and Western cultures are not your enemy, your own radicals are. 

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

(Revised)

Defense: most Muslim nations, Israel & U.S. far more heavily armed than others

Below is an edited version of a post I originally shared in 2010. It still reflects 2010 numbers. I revised and highlighted the material for this post.

Since the Syrian civil war and the alleged Arab Spring gave the world a bunch of broken states (to add to the generally iffy Iraq and Afghanistan), I think this general review of militarization of nations, though it's now outdated, is worth posting again as food for your thoughts. World security and peace relies on a mix of freedom and security (military and otherwise) where the "good guys" have the balance. America and NATO allies do not need to be the world policeman forever, do they? Many of these highly militarized countries were thrown into a revolution or civil war of some sort during the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab Spring felt more like an Islamist Chill to some, including me, except for Tunisia.

I'm not trying to suggest that just because a nation is Muslim it is dangerous, because some are modern and positively aware of ideas such as women's rights and tolerating a diversity of religions, such as wealthy, civilized little Brunei.

What this list does suggest is that many Muslim nations have been very well armed. In some cases, that's not good news for the West, but in other cases, you have to ask questions such as: "When was the last time Eritrea attacked a neighboring country, or was attacked by another country?"

"... most of the top 20 military spenders are Arab and/or Muslim-dominated nations."

The CIA World Factbook provides many bits of information about the world we live in, such as the discernible numbers for a variety of subjects, such as population, average income and GDP - gross domestic product. (Think of GDP as similar to being all household annual income before expenses, but for a whole country. That's perhaps not exactly right, but you can read up on GDP on your own.)

An interesting thing gleaned from the information provided on military expenditures is that most of the top 20 military spenders are Arab and/or Muslim-dominated nations (the Muslim nations in the top 20 are bolded). In the top 20 is Israel, too. There are 14 predominantly Muslim countries in the first 20, 12 of which are essentially Muslim states (as in, I see them as being run by Muslim religious law).

So are these nations insulating themselves from the non-Muslim world, concerned about their safety from enemies who would come at them from the outside, or are they more worried about some internal enemies?

The world average for military spending is 2% of GDP. The U.S. is just over double the average, at 4.06%. The U.K., by contrast, matches India and Iran, at a mere 2.50%.

The US military commitment is massive, of course. So is its GDP. So the US military outlay far outweighs these much smaller economies, pound-for-pound. In 2011, US production output was about three times that of China, our closest economic competitor. Even though China's population is three times larger than the U.S. headcount. China's military outlay is 4.60% of its GDP.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/rawdata_2034.text


Raw Data: 
1    Oman        11.40
2    Qatar        10.00
3    Saudi Arabia        10.00
4    Iraq         8.60
5    Jordan         8.60
6    Israel         7.30
7    Yemen         6.60
8    Armenia         6.50
9    Eritrea         6.30
10    Macedonia         6.00
11    Burundi         5.90
12    Syria         5.90
13    Maldives         5.50
14    Mauritania         5.50
15    Kuwait         5.30
16    Turkey         5.30
17    Morocco         5.00
18    Singapore         4.90
19    Swaziland         4.70
20    Bahrain         4.50
21    Bosnia & Herzegovina         4.50
22    Brunei         4.50
23    China         4.30
24    Greece         4.30
25   United States         4.06
26    Libya         3.90
27    Russia         3.90
28    Tajikistan         3.90
29    Cuba         3.80
30    Zimbabwe         3.80
31    Djibouti         3.80
32    Cyprus         3.80
33    Namibia         3.70
34    Angola         3.60
35    Colombia         3.40
36    Turkmenistan         3.40
37    Egypt         3.40
38    Algeria         3.30
39    Botswana         3.30
40    Guinea-Bissau         3.10
41    Lebanon         3.10
42    United Arab Emirates         3.1043    Australia         3.00
44    Sudan         3.0045    Solomon Islands         3.00
46    Pakistan         3.0047    Indonesia         3.00
48    Cambodia         3.00
49    Rwanda         2.90
50    Comoros         2.80
51    Kenya         2.80
52    Chile         2.70
53    Korea, South         2.70
54    Azerbaijan         2.6055    Sri Lanka         2.60
56    Lesotho         2.60
57    France         2.60
58    Bulgaria         2.60
59    Congo, Democratic 
        Republic of the         2.50

60    Iran         2.50
61    Vietnam        2.5062    
62      India         2.5063    
63      United Kingdom         2.4064    
64      Croatia         2.3965    
65      Portugal         2.3066    
66      Sierra Leone         2.3067    
67      Uganda         2.2068    
68      Taiwan         2.2069    
69      Burma         2.1070    
70      Malaysia         2.03
71      World 2.00 < avg
72      Seychelles           2.00
73      Uzbekistan           2.0074 
74      Estonia           2.0075
75      Finland           2.0076
76      Afghanistan           1.9077 
77      Mali           1.9078 
78      Norway           1.9079 
79      Romania           1.9080 
80      Fiji           1.9081 
81      Slovakia           1.8782 
82     Guyana           1.8083 
83      Zambia           1.8084 
84      Thailand           1.8085 
85      Italy           1.8086 
86      Hungary           1.7587 
87      Poland           1.7188 
88      Brazil           1.7089 
89      Chad           1.7090 
90      Ghana           1.7091 
91      Slovenia           1.7092 
92      South Africa           1.7093 
93      Nepal           1.6094 
94      Netherlands           1.6095 
95      Uruguay           1.6096 
96      Togo           1.6097 
97      Cote d'Ivoire           1.5098 
98      Sweden           1.5099 
99      Peru           1.50100 
100      Nigeria           1.50101 
101      Germany           1.50102 
102      Albania           1.49103 
103     Czech Republic           1.46104 
104     Belarus           1.40105 
105     Belize           1.40106 
106     Kyrgyzstan           1.40107 
107     Papua New Guinea           1.40108 
108     Tunisia           1.40
109    Ukraine         1.40

110    Senegal         1.40
111    Mongolia         1.40
112    Bangladesh         1.30
113    Cameroon         1.30
114    Denmark         1.30
115    Liberia         1.30
116    Niger         1.30
117    Malawi         1.30
118    Bolivia         1.30
119    Belgium         1.30
120    Burkina Faso         1.20
121    Spain         1.20
122    Venezuela         1.20
123    Ethiopia         1.20
124    Lithuania         1.20
125    Latvia         1.20
126    Canada         1.10
127    Guinea         1.10
128    Benin         1.00
129    Switzerland         1.00
130    Paraguay         1.00
131    Panama         1.00
132    New Zealand         1.00
133    Madagascar         1.00
134    Bhutan         1.00
135    Central African Republic         0.90
136    Congo, Republic of the         0.90
137    Ecuador         0.90
138    Gambia, The         0.90
139    Ireland         0.90
140    Luxembourg         0.90
141    Tonga         0.90
142    Somalia         0.90
143    Philippines         0.90
144    Kazakhstan         0.90
145    Gabon         0.90
146    Argentina         0.80
147    Sao Tome and Principe         0.80
148    Mozambique         0.80
149    Japan         0.80
150    Austria         0.80
151    Barbados         0.80
152    Bahamas, The         0.70
153    Malta         0.70
154    Dominican Republic         0.70
155    Costa Rica         0.60
156    Honduras         0.60
157    Suriname         0.60
158    Nicaragua         0.60
159    Jamaica         0.60
160    El Salvador         0.60
161    Georgia         0.59
162    Antigua & Barbuda         0.50
163    Mexico         0.50
164    Laos         0.50
165    Cape Verde         0.50
166    Guatemala         0.40
167    Haiti         0.40
168    Moldova         0.40
169    Mauritius         0.30
170    Trinidad & Tobago         0.30
171    Tanzania         0.20
172    Bermuda         0.11
173    Equatorial Guinea         0.10
174    Iceland         0.00

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Obama's decision on Syria: just a pragmatic coward's choice?

It shows that Obama wanted the job of president really bad, but he didn't want the WHOLE job. Perhaps he should have hired a stand-in Commander in Chief?

I don't know who talked Obama into facing the Syrian chemical attacks like a leader, but they must be silver-tongued advisers who aren't the peacenik hippy-bred types like Obama and most of those surrounding him.

I cannot imagine he'd have even brought up this idea of a missile attack himself, seeing how painfully long it took him to make his "decision" to act. Such magnificent drama must be going on in that self-adoring head of his: cowardly, academic, hippy-raised, political animal that he is!

It's a rare sight to see him forced to put on "big boy pants" and make some tactical decisions as a leader of a country of great military importance and substance. That's why he should never have been made CiC, but we don't elect presidents to be leaders of our military anymore, do we? We've enjoyed a relative freedom from ominous threats in the U.S. since WW II -- no matter what you think of Sept, 11, 2001. And it seems, even despite any concerns over terrorists, the impact has been so indirect that we are electing overzealous camp counselors (or professional campaigners, if you prefer), rather than experienced leaders of substance. Or, so the election of Obama twice would suggest.

This Syrian decision, slow-roasted as it was, suggests something at a broader level. It shows what a comparatively spoiled, entitled, isolated, coddled, misinformed, blissfully ignorant population can do to muddle up, through elections, a very free country, despite having options otherwise. It appears that, in the U.S., the slight majority of active voters are mainly interested in yet even greater domestic comforts (read: petty, selfish interests) compared to the citizens of much of the world. Consider such delusions in the US as a "fairness" doctrine or the silly notion that safety can be guaranteed by "gun-free zones." People who uphold such ideas are not interested in choosing leaders who wish to deal with the planet as it is, which is a "law of the wild" place. This world can be cruelly hierarchical (far worse in other countries than in the US), ruled by a specific pack of elites, with many peoples without basic liberty, many governments of tyrants, nations packed with populations who have deeply broken and haggard lives. People who dream of even being among the poor in America are all over the world.

This Syrian chemical weapons attack response decision-making drama shows that we elected a president who is only a political animal, and who is a mere government bureaucrat at heart, and a coward (where leadership is concerned, not where campaigning is concerned). This Syrian response shows that Obama wanted the job of president really bad, but he didn't want the WHOLE job. Perhaps he should have hired a stand-in Commander in Chief?

We elected Obama twice to be Commander in Chief. But, not really, because the duty of CiC doesn't really matter to his voters, it seems. The Coddler in Chief is more their style, maybe. Whoever is the star of the news and gets on magazine covers matters. To hell with substance, right? Well, no, actually, but it is what's important to the uninformed problem children of society. It seems they are topping the voter rolls.

It is stunning to me how the majority of voters would prefer to choose the lying rhetoric that feeds their delusions about domestic bliss rather than taking ownership of themselves and letting this robust nation be the caretaker that fights the tyrants of the planet. What's worse, the domestic bliss Obama has been peddling isn't working out either, is it? Unemployment, race relations and other issues are not improving under him.

Don't let anyone give you killing bin Laden as an example of Obama's brass. He just signed the paper and then shamelessly used the epic military covert action for himself, politically, like any coward would use others' heroism to prop themselves up. Some were even impressed by Obama's swagger after bin Laden's death. Fellow cowards.

Obama will likely use the missile action against Syria the same way he used SEAL Team Six. He will use it the way someone unaccustomed to being a leader would use such an action: for political advantage.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Ten years on, I regret its start, but I love what could have been in Iraq

We toppled Saddam Hussein, and he was found in a spider hole. He was tried, and hanged.
How dare we, huh? I guess Iraqis would have been better off if nobody died but the hundreds of thousands who would have died at bequest of the maniacal psychopath Saddam Hussein.
Or, is it only that tender-footed Americans would be better off had we not engaged his deadly dictatorship?
It was upsetting and offensive to me and many that the invasion happened over what proved to be bad intelligence. No matter the political or overemotional regard or hatred for Bush and his team, the bad intel stung him, and America. But once you're in, you're in.
Bush and his team knew, while America in general is afraid to accept it, that the only way to change a place in the Middle East is to look after it for an entire generation to prevent another brutal dictatorship. But we don't care enough to hold out that long, do we? Time to shut up and do your best, once you're in, though. And so many did their best, and, yes, many died in the pursuit of more freedom in the world, hardly meaningless despite what some cowards have said against the effort in Iraq.
So Bush wanted people to die? He enjoys death? Yes, the left is certain of it. Rumsfeld is EVIL, just like Cheney and Bush. Who cares that we toppled the most evil, imperialist bastard of his region?

Hussein kept his country in order, I recall several cowardly, halfwitted people noting, their apparent reason to regret our invasion. Like pinning a butterfly to a cork board keeps the insect in order, Hussein kept things in order. We should have let it be, those who demonize Bush suggest either directly, or indirectly. I guess these Middle Eastern furr-nurs are abstractions to some living the good life (whatever their intelligence or economic level) in the United States of America, huh?


- jR

(revised, July 2013)

The DNC Takes a Pass On National Security

Fred Thompson, the former US Senator from Tennessee, reminds me that Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts might act like he knows foreign policy, and might have claimed the same of Obama in a speech at the DNC, but Kerry is foolish -- or easily fooled -- where dictators are concerned.
Thompson writes in a recent message for Grassroots Action that Kerry is "the man who looked into the soul of Syrian thug, Bashar al-Assad, and claimed to know him as a reformer."
I'd forgotten this highly specious moment in American foreign policy. (I am informed by Thompson's messages from time to time, but am especially appreciative in this instance.)
It's one thing to try to be diplomatic, Sen. Kerry, but quite another to be a blind advocate for a longtime dictator as a reformer, when little suggests he was anything like it. This statement by Kerry was not long before the crackdown in Syria.
This is a time when such comments should come back and haunt you, Senator. And President Obama. Instead, I needed to be reminded if it by an email. If the news media were doing a really good job of covering the conventions, these words would have been haunting Kerry immediately after his speech at the DNC.
Please, let them haunt him, and Obama, now, with no end in sight of the violence in Syria, and the Arab Spring becoming the Muslim murder Spree in Libya.
Let us see to it that Obama leaves the White House, to become a figurehead for a university or launch an international nonprofit, and stay mostly outside of blatant politicking.
Haven't we had enough of his divisive, self-serving politics? I think we have.
I know Obama has failed us in foreign policy, evidenced by his generally passive encouragement of the so-called Arab Spring, but not reacting to the disaster that Syria has become, and being just another vote in the UN with regard to Iran's threat. He is not going to reasonable lengths to sway extremist trends. Now, Libya and Egypt are hotbeds of hate for America, and what will happen in response? Condolences and a return to dictatorships?
Obama: change you should be leavin'. Get on it now. We cannot have four more years of this passivity.

- jR

Posted via email from Like, Totally Political Dude! - posterous

Raw info: Percent of Nations' GDP that goes to military expenditures

"... most of the top 20 military spenders are Arab nations and Muslim-dominated nations." 

The CIA World Factbook provides many bits of information about the world we live in, such as the discernible numbers for a variety of subjects, such as population, average income and GDP - gross domestic product. (Just think of GDP as similar to household annual income, from all sources, but for a whole country. Before expenses. That's not exactly right, but you can read up on GDP on your own.)  

An interesting thing gleaned from the information provided on military expenditures is that most of the top 20 military spenders are Arab nations and Muslim-dominated nations. In there among them is Israel. In the top, I caught 15 predominantly Muslim countries in the first 20.

So are those nations insulating themselves from the non-Muslim world, mostly concerned about their safety from enemies who would come at them from the outside, or more worried about internal enemies? 

The world average is 2% of GDP, which the US more than doubles, at 4.06%. The UK is matched with India and Iran, at a mere 2.50%.

The US commitment is massive, of course.  So is its GDP. US production output is about three times that of China, our closest competitor. China's military outlay is 4.60% of GDP. 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/rawdata_2034.text

1    Oman        11.40
2    Qatar        10.00
3    Saudi Arabia        10.00
4    Iraq         8.60
5    Jordan         8.60
6    Israel         7.30
7    Yemen         6.60
8    Armenia         6.50
9    Eritrea         6.30
10    Macedonia         6.00
11    Burundi         5.90
12    Syria         5.90
13    Maldives         5.50
14    Mauritania         5.50
15    Kuwait         5.30
16    Turkey         5.30
17    Morocco         5.00
18    Singapore         4.90
19    Swaziland         4.70
20    Bahrain         4.50
21    Bosnia & Herzegovina         4.50
22    Brunei         4.50
23    China         4.30
24    Greece         4.30
25    United States         4.06
26    Libya         3.90
27    Russia         3.90
28    Tajikistan         3.90
29    Cuba         3.80
30    Zimbabwe         3.80
31    Djibouti         3.80
32    Cyprus         3.80
33    Namibia         3.70
34    Angola         3.60
35    Colombia         3.40
36    Turkmenistan         3.40
37    Egypt         3.40
38    Algeria         3.30
39    Botswana         3.30
40    Guinea-Bissau         3.10
41    Lebanon         3.10
42    United Arab Emirates         3.10
43    Australia         3.00
44    Sudan         3.00
45    Solomon Islands         3.00
46    Pakistan         3.00
47    Indonesia         3.00
48    Cambodia         3.00
49    Rwanda         2.90
50    Comoros         2.80
51    Kenya         2.80
52    Chile         2.70
53    Korea, South         2.70
54    Azerbaijan         2.60
55    Sri Lanka         2.60
56    Lesotho         2.60
57    France         2.60
58    Bulgaria         2.60
59    Congo, Democratic 

        Republic of the         2.50

60    Iran         2.50
61    Vietnam         2.50
62    India         2.50
63    United Kingdom         2.40
64    Croatia         2.39
65    Portugal         2.30
66    Sierra Leone         2.30
67    Uganda         2.20
68    Taiwan         2.20
69    Burma         2.10
70    Malaysia         2.03
71    World         2.00
72    Seychelles         2.00
73    Uzbekistan         2.00
74    Estonia         2.00
75    Finland         2.00
76    Afghanistan         1.90
77    Mali         1.90
78    Norway         1.90
79    Romania         1.90
80    Fiji         1.90
81    Slovakia         1.87
82    Guyana         1.80
83    Zambia         1.80
84    Thailand         1.80
85    Italy         1.80
86    Hungary         1.75
87    Poland         1.71
88    Brazil         1.70
89    Chad         1.70
90    Ghana         1.70
91    Slovenia         1.70
92    South Africa         1.70
93    Nepal         1.60
94    Netherlands         1.60
95    Uruguay         1.60
96    Togo         1.60
97    Cote d'Ivoire         1.50
98    Sweden         1.50
99    Peru         1.50
100    Nigeria         1.50
101    Germany         1.50
102    Albania         1.49
103    Czech Republic         1.46
104    Belarus         1.40
105    Belize         1.40
106    Kyrgyzstan         1.40
107    Papua New Guinea         1.40
108    Tunisia         1.40
109    Ukraine         1.40
110    Senegal         1.40
111    Mongolia         1.40
112    Bangladesh         1.30
113    Cameroon         1.30
114    Denmark         1.30
115    Liberia         1.30
116    Niger         1.30
117    Malawi         1.30
118    Bolivia         1.30
119    Belgium         1.30
120    Burkina Faso         1.20
121    Spain         1.20
122    Venezuela         1.20
123    Ethiopia         1.20
124    Lithuania         1.20
125    Latvia         1.20
126    Canada         1.10
127    Guinea         1.10
128    Benin         1.00
129    Switzerland         1.00
130    Paraguay         1.00
131    Panama         1.00
132    New Zealand         1.00
133    Madagascar         1.00
134    Bhutan         1.00
135    Central African Republic         0.90
136    Congo, Republic of the         0.90
137    Ecuador         0.90
138    Gambia, The         0.90
139    Ireland         0.90
140    Luxembourg         0.90
141    Tonga         0.90
142    Somalia         0.90
143    Philippines         0.90
144    Kazakhstan         0.90
145    Gabon         0.90
146    Argentina         0.80
147    Sao Tome and Principe         0.80
148    Mozambique         0.80
149    Japan         0.80
150    Austria         0.80
151    Barbados         0.80
152    Bahamas, The         0.70
153    Malta         0.70
154    Dominican Republic         0.70
155    Costa Rica         0.60
156    Honduras         0.60
157    Suriname         0.60
158    Nicaragua         0.60
159    Jamaica         0.60
160    El Salvador         0.60
161    Georgia         0.59
162    Antigua & Barbuda         0.50
163    Mexico         0.50
164    Laos         0.50
165    Cape Verde         0.50
166    Guatemala         0.40
167    Haiti         0.40
168    Moldova         0.40
169    Mauritius         0.30
170    Trinidad & Tobago         0.30
171    Tanzania         0.20
172    Bermuda         0.11
173    Equatorial Guinea         0.10
174    Iceland         0.00

-jR (AirFarceOne)

We can hold onto relative peace with nuclear arms, perhaps only with them

Image via Wikipedia

A year ago, a TIME editor opined that nuclear warheads have helped prevented much conflict death. To me, it's hard to imagine how this assertion could be wrong. They likely prevent, to this day, a third world war. Editor-at-Large David von Drehle wrote in Time, last October (2009): "Major powers find ways to get along because the cost of armed conflict between them has become unthinkably high."

From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, many world leaders have wanted nukes to go away. It's a shame leaders still seem to think it's a scary power source, as Obama seems to (he is encouraging all sorts of alternatives to fossil fuels, and nuclear isn't one).

It would be nice to rid of these armaments, but impossible to see happen. There's one 20th century event that will prevent the complete eradication of nuclear arms: the fall of the Soviet Union. That's the tidiest questionable variable in the nuclear device problem. It's possible, as presented in the book by Tom Clancy (and the movie, though its story varied significantly from the book, the essence of the nuclear bombing did not vary), The Sum of All Fears, that a missing warhead could find its way to the wrong hands.

If we eliminate the known nuclear devices, some group could have an "unknown" device, or several devices -- devices reported missing or stolen, falsely claimed as dismantled, or somehow wrongly acquired -- and they could commit the ultimate guerrilla attack without fear of equal retaliation against their people. Even the most morose extremist and terrorist leader, I want to believe, does not want to see his homeland decimated by nuclear missiles, nor would they likely avoid arrest in any sponsoring nation, with the threat of nuclear attack hanging over. There's only so far that the honor of martyrdom will go, even with the distorted beliefs of extremist communities, terrorist groups and their sponsor states.

Barring the horrific possibility of a Sum of All Fears-type attack, nuclear bombs came from a Pandora's Box, and it cannot be closed. Until the tracking and detection of what's in nuclear devices grows to the degree that we could locate one anywhere at any time, only the naive would try to see the end of the known nuclear devices. But the Nobel committee gave Barack Obama the Peace Prize in part for his stated interest in seeing an end to nuclear arms. How, exactly, will this be accomplished?

Why Nukes Are Necessary: To Stop Industrial-Scale War - TIME

As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel Committee truly cares about peace, its members will think a little harder about trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description. ...

Industrial killing was practiced by many nations in the old world without nuclear weapons. Soldiers were gassed and machine-gunned by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches of World War I, when Hitler was just another corporal in the Kaiser's army. By World War II, countries on both sides of the war used airplanes and artillery to rain death on battlefields as well as cities, until the number killed around the world was so huge that the best estimates of the total number lost diverge by some 16 million souls. The dead numbered 62 million or 78 million — somewhere in there.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929553,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz11WnEdLcw

For more on the nuclear weapons problem, search the Internet. Here's some additional work regarding Pres. Ronald Reagan's approach to nukes and the USSR:

• Reagan's Nuclear Weapons legacy (Heritage.org)
• George Schultz on Ronald Reagan (PBS)

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

'Baby' Obama seems to prefer adulation over taking responsibility

Obama and Medvedev - Image via Wikipedia

When I was in fourth grade, what we called blamers -- kids who blamed everything on others, some inanimate object, their dog, or some private event -- were "babies," "sissies," or far more crass names. Some of us adults moved on from blaming others to distract attention from us or to keep ourselves from culpability. And some of us moved on from the juvenile thinking of the fourth grade.

With some amusement, but also in bemusement, I wonder: is President Obama caught in the juvenile fourth grade blame-game? He blames most problems under his responsibility, and his failures, on others. Who didn't know that Obama stepped into office in the midst of lots of problems? I suspect that the Obama camp is trying to get more than docile agreement from fans and liberals out of the blaming rhetoric, but I don't see how they could honestly expect anything but true-believer support. That they do this constant blaming, and that they seem to think it will serve them well, both mystify me. It's childish!

So should we call him "Baby" Barack Obama? I think that's hardly appropriate for the long-term, but for the sake of argument, let's try it on, see how it fits. (It's better than "Sissy" Obama.) The POTUS's, and others', blaming, of former Pres. G.W. Bush and the "failed policies" of the past -- in addition to BP, corporate customers of general aviation, banking CEOs, small town cops, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, conservatives, "tea baggers" (as he referred to Tea Party activists on at least one public occasion) and a host of others -- have increased the divide in the States. The blaming certainly has not reduced the nation's divide. That sourness, a plague on our political discourse, is further enhanced by the echoes from Obama's now-ironic vow to bring us together in a "post-partisan" age. Not at all arrogant, that presumption! (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

G.W. Bush was no champion of careful budgeting or small government, he is not a smooth talker nor the embodiment of a crafty personal narrative like Obama. But "W" had a crisp respect for his office, for people who saw things differently, and for his duties as POTUS and Commander-in-Chief. Not so sure how we fare, on those counts, with Obama.

Beyond the blaming, Obama seems as if he's working up to the point where he is actually being president. Some day. Oh, yeah, there's the speeches and the signing events, the political fundraising, and those arts evenings at the White House (haven't you watched them all on PBS, or been invited?). He is confident, he plays a great president for the cameras, he is a stubborn political presence, but where's the, uh, presidential-ness?

Those of us who willingly follow an historic track in the build to greatness of the United States of America can see what's wrong with Obama's blaming ways. The USA's greatness was affirmed with the victory of WW II and proven by the subsequent holding back of the godless, closed-off, aggressively expansionist, intimidating Soviet tyranny and our dominance as an economic engine. (That greatness has nothing to do with the dark spots, like Native American injustices, slavery, bias against Blacks in the "Old South," putting Japanese citizens in camps during WW II, or other travesties. Informed Americans take ownership of the mistakes, and the greatness, and don't gloat, at least not much. They know how great things are in the U.S., by comparison.)

The U.S.A. is supposed to be a country which is both rationally self-interested and respectfully world-aware. Being world-aware has nothing to do with genuflecting to others (physically, or figuratively through words or actions) while chastising this nation too much. Obama has even turned American-style civility on it's head, at times, with his "Apology Tour" and similar farces. He presumes that America needs a president who tells the world we've made mistakes. Who's in need of hearing that?! The people under the autocratic rule of Iran? Saudi Arabia? The anarchists in France, or Germany? Who needs to know we have made mistakes?! 

The ways of "Baby" Obama are failing America, at this point, in most Americans' opinions, thought only a slim majority of Americans currently agree (as of July 2010). With specific subjects, such as the economy, foreign affairs, etc., the margin grows much broader against him. I believe MORE Americans will see through the fog of Obama idolatry in time. Early November 2010 would be a nice point for people to have turned from fawning to comprehension, but 2012 will do. 

Obama's artful dodging -- of his primary job duties, when it comes down to it -- seems to be serving him just fine, in an ivory tower of power and protection. Or, it seems that he thinks it is serving him well. For someone who is all about telling the world, literally, that "America is arrogant" (look it up), he sure puts a face on that belief for many of us non-Democratic Party people. His arrogance and static confidence is strangely left widely unquestioned, as if it is granted, or as if he's given a pass for it. Is it reverse liberal political pandering, or is it political correctness because he's Black? I don't know, but I don't get it.

His actions tell a story of narcissism: lecturing fellow leaders, even on subjects for which he has no qualified experience, nor practical education, such as business or economics). His self-centered rhetoric is impossible to sit through without shaking my head: Remember when people were counting each time he said "I" in his speeches? His lack of ability to see the very broad reach of the office he holds, on so many occasions, and his clumsy results from selling his commonness to the average citizen, only emphasize his monarch-style overconfidence in his current and future greatness. He seems to think he's running a small community, maybe even a fancy camp site, not an economic, cultural and military giant. And he seems to think stale gestures to regular people make him respected by the even less naive among them, not as some academic with a chip on the shoulder.

We could use a smart, sincere, clever leader right now. We seem to have a lot of smart, clever, self-interested ones in charge, ones who have never run anything but campaigns (and that, only in name and reputation, as their campaigns are run by others who do those things for a living) and know how to spend but not budget other people's money. Obama is leading that amusing pack, as a man who takes his responsibility seriously, so long as he can blame everything on others. But that's not really accepting the role of POTUS, is it?

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
(updated & revised on Jul 22, 2010)

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