A Few Important Updates

These things are all important, so I wanted to pass them along to you.

Killing proven defense technology

Heritage’s James Carafano writes about the Airborne Laser, “a defensive weapon once ridiculed as science fiction”:

Skeptics even persuaded the Obama administration to slot the airborne laser for the ninth circle of procurement hell — a pit for dead-end research and development programs.

The Airborne Laser (ABL) has now been tested, and:

It is proven.

But don't expect high-fiving in the White House. The administration already passed on the option to build a second test aircraft. Rather than add the ABL to the military's arsenal, the administration seems more than willing to let the project end as a successful science experiment.

An ABL could help neutralize the threat of “Scud in a bucket,” which, Jim says, in many ways is “the ultimate weapon”:

It could sail close to U.S. waters without being subject to inspection by the Coast Guard or Customs. The enemy could fire the missile and scuttle the ship, leaving no record of who launched the attack.

If Iran has one missile and nuclear weapon, it might have two. It could detonate one over New York in a low-altitude air burst that would kill up to a half-million and cripple Manhattan forever.

Iran could fire a second at high altitude over the mid-Atlantic states, creating an electro-magnetic pulse that would take down a large portion of the national grid and plunge Washington, D.C., into permanent darkness.

America would be crippled in a flash, with no obvious enemy at which to shoot back.

So, naturally, Obama kills the program.


Covering lies with more lies

On April 23, 2009, the Far Left Speaker denied she was told that waterboarding or other “illegal” interrogation methods were being used on terrorist detainees.
She lied.

Today Speaker Pelosi stood by her lie. She said she was never told that waterboarding was being used on terrorist detainees even though newly released documents prove again that she knew about the agency’s use of harsh interrogation practices on captured terrorists.
FOX News reported:

Prodded by the release of dozens of declassified CIA documents, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reasserted her longstanding position about what she knew regarding the agency’s use of harsh interrogation practices.

“I have never been briefed by the CIA or anyone else on the subject of those interrogations, to the extent that they were being used,” the California Democrat told reporters Tuesday. “We were only briefed that there were lawyers in the Justice Department that thought they were legal, period.”

...

The documents show Pelosi was briefed about “ongoing interrogations of Abu Zubaydah” on April 24, 2002, just weeks after the top Al Qaeda suspect was captured in Pakistan. Previously, Pelosi asserted the 2002 briefing covered only “interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”

...

CIA records show that during the September 2002 briefing, Pelosi and others were given “a description of the particular enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed” on Zubaydah.

Lies upon lies upon lies, and all were committed purely for political reasons, at the expense of national security.


Government Motors commences attack on Toyota

It’s officially a full-court press:

Leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Monday that Toyota relied on a flawed study in dismissing the notion that computer issues could be at fault for sticking accelerator pedals, and then made misleading statements about the repairs.

The comments, from Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the committee, and Bart Stupak, a subcommittee chairman, were made in an 11-page letter to James E. Lentz III, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. The letter was released Monday on the eve of the committee’s hearing on the Toyota recalls, one of three scheduled.

Verdict first, trial after — but it does not stop there. Toyota is now also under investigation by Securities and Exchange Commission and United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

There are a lot of shady studies and gigantic conflicts of interest involved here. I'm sure it's an amazing coincidence that Toyota is the biggest competitor to Government Motors.


You want government spying? Here it is.

Obama Administration: We Need Warrantless Tracking of You By Cell-Phone Signal, and There's No Fourth Amendment Right to Be Free of Government Tracking

Unbelievable.

Truly, unbelievable.

Note that he seeks warrantless access to cell-tower triangulation which pinpoints your every move.

I have no problem with getting this information with a warrant.

But warrantless? He thinks the government should be able to compel a service provider to turn over its records of your every movement, as figured (within 50 meters, and surely that will only get more precise) by triangulation, with no warrant whatsoever?

Just because a government investigator wants that information?

Bear in mind this is the same crew that screams about the Patriot Act -- and now they want to follow every citizen in real-time without a warrant?

Are you kidding me?

I have a right to not have my property rifled through, but I have no right to expect I can walk around freely without constant government monitoring? That's a right I don't have?

Ahem...

'Miss Me Yet?' Billboard With Photo of George Bush is Real
by burghnews

Show of hands? That's what I thought.

There's my two cents.