Racism and Government Opposition

Jimmy Carter, a man I greatly admire, has stuck his foot in the poop:

"I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American.

"It's a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States..."

The personal attack he is describing is:

"When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler..."

Now I don't think Obama is an animal or a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, but I do think that Mr. Carter has missed the mark. Many people of his age, and many professional politicians, are quick to blame racism. I understand that for them racism still exists. But many other people, mostly younger people, I suppose, have grown up learning that we do not judge by the color of skin but by the content of character. This is the great lesson of Martin Luther King.

I do oppose Obama, and although I don't think he is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, I am really unhappy with his approach to government and its similarity National Socialist Workers Party and other totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Government takeovers, abortions, the thugs at ACORN all point to discredited governments in history, and I don't want to see America make the same mistakes.

Opposition to the Government is not racist because the head of state is of a different race than someone who might oppose him. That thinking is also a failed and discredited world view from the past. Let us judge by the content of character and the results, not the skin color, Mr. Carter.

Obama is wrong

First, I hate racism. I detest it in all forms.

Here is what Obama said:

"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 -- what I think we know separate and apart from this incident -- is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

In 1985 I was caught by a police officer standing next to a car trying to open the door while the alarm was wailing. Very suspicious. I showed my ID, explained that it was my employer's car, and showed him a pay stub to show I worked at the company where to car was located. I told him I didn't know how the alarm system worked, so although it looked bad, I had a reason to be there and was doing no wrong. The cop had me wait sitting down while he made a call to check the facts, came back and handed me my ID and wished me a nice evening.
I was not angry. The cop did not act stupidly, and since I am not African-American or Latino, but was stopped, Obama's number 3 doesn't hold either.

If a situation is suspicious should Obama's police ignore the situation if the people involved are African-American or Latino, and only investigate if they are European-American? That's racism.

Happy Roe Day. How cruel can you be?

Today we celebrate the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which turned out to be the cruelest Supreme Court decision in U.S. history, even worse than Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Our new President fully promotes the killing of unwanted unborn children for no reason other than unwanted children are inconvenient. Just as the Nazis decided that Jews were not people who deserved rights, our country has decided that unborn children are not people and can be killed at will, and for the profit of government supported enterprises like Planned Parenthood.

On Tuesday we celebrated the inauguration of the first black U.S. President, who supports the racist policies of Planned Parenthood and their selective killing off of black unborn children. (Over one third of the children killed by abortion are black, and yet only 12 percent of America's population is black.) Your President's promotion of the killing of unborn children is wiping out the future of African Americans. Since 1973 there have been 13 million black children killed before birth in America.

Today I read in the paper a news article about "cruelty free vegan shoes" now available. On the same page was a advertisement taken out by Planned Parenthood and their co-profiteers celebrating the anniversary of the commercial abortion industry. At the same time our society celebrates cruelty free shoes, and the cruel murder of unborn children for money. Do you feel good about that?

Moving closer to a bomb for Iran

To read a little background, go back to this posting: http://hard_look.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html.

A news item:
"An International Atomic Energy Agency report confirmed Iran's refusal to heed Security Council demands to freeze uranium enrichment and stated that the Islamic republic has enriched about 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel. Some analysts contend that the amount is enough to upgrade into a nuclear weapon."

What is low-enriched uranium and how can you make a bomb from it?

Natural uranium is about 0.7% U-235, 99.4% U-238 and the balance U-234. It is the U-235 that is capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction, necessary for making a bomb. In fact, U-235 is the only naturally occurring isotope that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. But the 0.7% content of natural uranium is loo low a concentration for making a bomb. The percentage has to be increased using a method such as a centrifuge, to a level much higher, at least 20%. The graph below shows the kilograms of uranium needed to make a chain reaction vs the amount of enrichiment. At 6 percent the amount is infinite. At 20%, 400 kg will do it. At 80 % a few kg is more than enough. Low-enriched uranium is that which is less than 20% enriched. Well on its way to bomb-grade, but not practical for making a bomb. If the Iranian LEU is 10% U-235, continued refining will give enough to make at least one bomb.

Your Government: Are you proud of America?

As of the inauguration of the new administration, all three branches of your government--the executive, legislative, and judicial--will promote the killing of unwanted unborn children. The method of killing these children is generally death by dismemberment, but sometimes it is by inducing labor, allowing the child to be born as far as the feet and torso, but then puncturing the skull from beneath and sucking the brain out.

The diagram shows how an abortionist would kill a baby girl in the process of being born. Once the abortionist punctures her skull, he opens and closes the scissors do do as much destruction of brain tissue as possible and to create a hole into which he can place a tube to suck the little girl's brains out.

Once in a while the baby is born so fast that the abortionist can't get his scissors in fast enough. If that is the case, the live little girl is denied medical treatment and left to die.

This cruelty is promoted by the U.S. Government and is often paid for by tax dollars.

Do you promote this as well?

Wrong Answer, Obama

O.K., Listen up:

"RACE" doesn't really exist. The longer we keep kidding ourselves that it does, the longer racism will exist. No race, no racism.

I learned about racism in Japan. I was discriminated against due to my race there, but the funny thing was that many Japanese discriminated against people who they considered different "races"--Koreans and Chinese--that in America would considered the same race. When I lived in Hongkong I saw the same thing: Chinese considered Japanese to be a different "race".

Clearly race is arbitrary and is clearly decided by the observer. If I decide someone is the same race as I am, they are. If enough people decide that we are all the same race, racism will cease to exist.

Obama, stop recognizing race and racism will cease. You may think I am being too idealistic, but this is the teaching of St. Paul, so if you are a Christian, you need to start thinking like this. In Christ, there is no difference between the any races or nationality: the same Lord is over all.

Dumb question

The stupidest question I have heard come from the abortion industry is this:

"If abortion is illegal, what penalty do you propose for a woman who has one?"

This pre-supposes that the woman who has been bullied into having an abortion is the criminal. Feedom of choice proponents, such as this poster, feel that if women fairly consider what an abortion really is, they would rarely choose one. But the abortion industry is vested in keeping the truth away from the women they rely on for their obscene profits.

The fact is, abortion is cruel, and if an identical method of execution were proposed for the most vicious murderers on death row, it would not be allowed because of its extreme cruelty.

What kind of religion kills aide workers and takes girls hostage?

News item:

Taliban threat to kill hostages

18 women and five men were kidnapped nearly two weeks ago south of Kabul. Their leader, Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, 42, was killed last week. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/596f6a12-3f7a-11dc-b034-0000779fd2ac.html

I understand the punishment for apostasy in the Moslem religion is death. I think if I were a Moslem, I would risk death rather than be part of this kind of religion.

Letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger to stop making the abortion industry rich

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

15 June 2007

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

Recently there have been a series of radio advertisements sponsored by Planned Parenthood. These ads are encouraging the listeners to call the Governor's office to urge you to increase the transfer of tax dollars to the abortion industry, which they euphemistically call "reproductive health". They claim that aborting babies saves tax dollars!

This is despite the fact that Planned Parenthood's own annual reports show they are making huge profits from tax money they already receive, and have performed a record 264,943 abortions nationwide in the last year. Taxpayer dollars paid to Planned Parenthood totaled $305,300,000, or $1,153.32 for each abortion performed. (Their revenues amount to $3,407.52 per abortion--more than one third of which is paid with our tax dollars, Governor.) Moreover, they report no referrals to adoption in the last year. They are strictly in the abortion for profit business, and will take money from taxpayers to make their profits.

I respectfully request that no more money be given to the abortion industry.

You may check the accuracy of my information by reviewing Planned Parenthood's annual report at www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/Annual_report.pdf.

Sincerely,

Right to what?

News item:

The (Republican) candidates are split on social issues, most notably a women's right to terminate a pregnancy.

This is the wrong way to phrase it. It is the abortionist's right to terminate a pregnancy. A woman doesn't terminate a pregnancy, she goes to a abortuary to have her baby terminated by an abortionist.

The debate is not over a woman's rights, but over the rights of the abortion industry to make money killing babies. I remember reading the words of an impoverished confederate soldier who said he was fighting for his "rights". He wasn't. He was fighting for the slave owner's rights to keep slaves, a right that did not benefit the soldier. He had just been convinced by those with power and money that his rights were compromised somehow if slaves became free. He didn't want to be equal in the eyes of the law with blacks. So he fought for his "right" to be better than the slaves.

Similarly, a woman who has been convinced that she needs to protect her "right" to terminate her pregnancy is supporting the abortionist's right to kill children for profit. The abortion industry, though it's slick marketing and huge amount of political contributions feeding the greed of U.S. politicians, has convinced her that letting them kill her baby is a good thing. The woman doesn't really need the abortion industry: there are plenty of ways to keep from having children if she doesn't want children, but the people with power and wealth have convinced her that the cruel practice of abortion is a good and necessary thing.

Happy Earth Day: News Flash: Gasoline to $4/gal.

Last Thursday we purchased a new car. My old car was getting worn out, and it was too small for us to carry passengers, something we have been doing more and more. We decided to go with a Prius.

At first I wanted to name the car: "El Rushbo" in honor of Rush Limbaugh, who claims to hate Priuses, but the navigation system has a female voice, so we named it "Haru-chan", a Japanese girl's name.

O.K., Pros and Cons:

Pros
Good mileage (no kidding--I'm gettin 45 out of the chute, and I haven't started trying to drive nenpimaniacally
Nice styling
Large interior
Comfortable, quite drive

Cons
More cost than cars with equal acceleration performance
People think I am a Democrat

I understand Toyota will have a new generation model with upwards of 100 mpg in a few years. Maybe I'll buy one for my wife.

Abort gay babies?

News item:

"Experiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger": http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524408_1,00.html

This article discusses a series of experiments done on the 10% of rams that are more prone to attempt to mount other rams than ewes. The goal is to increase their desire to mount ewes. Results show that hormonal levels can be monitored and changed to increase mounting of ewes and therefor increase lamb production. A ram that tries to mate with other rams is useless to the farmer. This has been interpreted as a possible medical cure for homosexuality.

But buried in the story is a discussion of how this could lead to pre-natal testing to determine the probability that an unborn child will grow up "gay". If the mother should decide that she doesn't want a "gay" child, should be allowed to abort it? Should she even be allowed to test for that? What if she wants a "gay" child? Should she be allowed to abort any unborn babies that do not test positive for "gay"?

It hurts to kill

News Item:
OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in Florida after a medical examiner said Friday that prison officials botched the insertion of the needles when a convicted killer was put to death earlier this week.

Here in California, thankfully, capital punishment has also been suspended. Yes, I know that the murderous criminals who deserve death are now not going to die, but deserving death and actually being killed by the state are two different things. We do not improve the murderer by murdering him or her ourselves. We participate in a culture of violence. We remove any chance for redemption.

But the reason they give for not executing murderers is absurd: It might hurt! Do you think dismembering a baby doesn't hurt? The same government that is too kind hearted to stick a needle into a convicted murderer thinks nothing of tearing the arms and legs off, one piece at a time, of an unborn baby.

Hypocrites.

What will Iran do with a bomb?

The picture to the left is the "Little Boy Bomb" that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The previous post described this as a uranium bomb. What that means is that it contains two pieces of the uranium isotope with a mass number of 235 that are shot together to make an explosive nuclear reaction.

Uranium is an atom with 92 protons in its nucleus, but with different numbers of neutrons. The mass number is the sum of the protons and neutrons. Uranium-235 makes up less than 1% of the atoms of naturally occurring uranium. So to make a bomb, you need to separate the U-235 from the rest of the uranium, which is mostly heavier U-238, assemble two smaller pieces in a way so that when they are rapidly brought together, they explode. This is not difficult for a country like Iran, which has a huge oil revenues to fund this work.

Separating the uranium is the difficult part of this work, since chemical separations don't work. There are two ways to separate the isotopes. One is to make charged atoms called ions, and send them at a high speed through a strong magnetic field. The magnetic field will cause the flight path of the ions to curve, with heavier ions going in a less curved path. Once the ions hit the a device called a "collector", which is placed at different distances along the flight paths in the vessel, they lose their charge and are converted back to atoms. The collector will accumulate U-235 atoms. When the U-235 concentration in uranium becomes higher than the normal concentration, the uranium is called "Enriched Uranium". When the U-235 concentration is lower than natural uranium, it is called "Depleted Uranium."

The instrument used to enrich uranium using magnetic fields is called a "Calutron". This is an expensive, but not technologically difficult method to produce bomb grade enriched uranium, and was the technique used to make the U-235 that went into the Little Boy Bomb.

Another way to enrich uranium is to react the uranium with fluorine to create uranium hexaflouride, which is a gas at elevated temperatures. This can be spun in a high speed gas centrifuge and gradually enriched, as the lighter U-235 will migrate to the top of the centrifuge tube and the heavier U-238 will migrate th the bottom. This process is repeated many times and requires many expensive centrifuges. This is the technique Iran is using to make bomb grade uranium.

The view that Iran is making enriched uranium for "peaceful purposes" is incredible. There is plenty of lightly enriched uranium available for nuclear power applications, and Iran has only a single nuclear power reactor. They are producing highly enriched uranium for only one possible purpose: to make a bomb. Yesterday, November 20, Iran stated that they were in the process of building 60,000 centrifuges for its nuclear "fuel" needs.

The production of uncontrolled highly enriched uranium with centrifuges is not consistent with nuclear power fuel needs. But it is consistent with making an atomic bomb. A simple atomic bomb will take about 25 kg of highly enriched uranium. Once Iran has this quantity (or any other country that wants to make a bomb), assembling a weapon requires only existing military technology, and is much simpler than making a plutonium bomb.

Iran will build a bomb as soon as they have enough highly enriched uranium. What will they do with it?

Why Iran is scarier than North Korea

The picture is of the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. This explosion was made with a plutonium based fusion bomb, the same type North Korea tried to explode a few weeks ago, but failed. Even though radioactivity was detected, that was more from the dispersion of the partially fissioned and unfissioned plutonium than from a successful fission bomb, such as the one shown to the right.

In other words, the North Korean bomb was a dud. The reason it failed is that plutonium bombs are hard to make. Plutonium fissions so quickly that conventional explosives have a hard time compressing the plutonium into a small lump for a long enough time to allow a significant amount of the plutonium to split and release all its energy. An improperly built plutonium bomb blows itself apart too soon.

Creating a plutonium bomb requires complicated machining and advanced detonator technology. But plutonium is created in a nuclear reactor, so it was readily available to the North Koreans because they have a reactor, and can use it to convert uranium to plutonium.

In the World War II the U.S. exploded three fission bombs. The first was a test of a plutonium bomb to be sure it would work. The second was the uranium bomb exploded over Hiroshima, and the third was the plutonium bomb over Nagasaki. The uranium bomb was never tested prior to use in combat. Uranium bombs are much easier to manufacture, once you have enough highly enriched uranium. In the case of the Hiroshima bomb, it was just assembled, and tested in combat. The problem is that the highly enriched uranium (HEU) needed to make the bomb is very difficult and expensive to make. It requires special devices such as a calutron, which can only make a small amount at a time, or very high speed centrifuges, which are a complex technology and difficult to keep clandestine. Still, it is what the Iranians are working on. Once they have enough HEU, the rest of the assembly of the bomb is not difficult.

Also, North Korea is surrounded by countries who are highly motivated to keep them from producing a bomb, especially China, who have significant influence on North Korea. Iran has enough oil revenue to be free of influence of its neighbors if its neighbors do not act in a very aggressive manner to keep the bomb out of the hands of the Tehran regime.

North Korea, even with plutonium in hand, is not as great a threat as Iran who are actively enriching uranium.

Thank you Barbara Boxer!

You will rarely see me agree with Barbara Boxer, but today I will bless her in my prayers of thanksgiving. She voted against the flag desecration amendment.

The amendment would have given the flag, a man made thing, special protection as a sacred object. This is repugnant case of too much government. I do not support flag burning. I have never burned one, I have never seen one burned. The thought of burning a flag is offensive. But even more evil is the thought of the U.S. Government raising a man made object to the level higher than religious symbols. Last time I checked, it was not a crime to burn a cross, stomp on a Magen David, put a statue of Buddha in a toilet, or draw an offensive cartoon of Mohammed. In fact, I am more offended by a cross burning than a flag burning, but it is not the government's job to protect me from being offended!

God bless Barbara Boxer.

No death penalty?

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced Thursday to life in prison. It makes sense. I hope he lives a long time an will have an opportunity to repent and be redeemed. I understand the anger and the desire for revenge and punishment. But if he were sentenced to death, we would continue to hear about it for a long time to come. Now he quietly disappears from humanity and will spend enough time, I hope, to understand how wrong he is.

The life in prison penalty made me feel proud to be an American.

Where Rush is Wrong

Rush Limbaugh is a kick to listen to. He has two views that are wrong, however.

One is his irrational dislike of hybrid automobiles. There are lots of arguements against hybrids, but they are mostly irrational and emotional. The facts are that hybrids get good gas mileage, and most owners enjoy owning them. If Rush hates them because they are driven mostly be liberals, that is an unfair guilt by association. Actually, Conservationists, like me, are usually conservative politically in many other ways, but we don't like to waste gas!

The other thing Rush doesn't understand is the effects humans can have on climate change. His logic seems to go like this:

"Can we make it rain?...Well if we can't make it rain it is arrogance to assume we have anything to do with climate change!"

This is confusing climate with weather. It is quite possible for human activity to change climate, and most evidence shows the effect of human activities is an increase in average temperatures worldwide.

Other than that, have at it, Rush!

Why not all Christians agree with "intelligent Design"

Christians all agree that God created each one of us, and that we are each giving a unique set of qualities, that we call gifts, that make us each unique. We are each a unique object of God's love.

But a recent proposal called "intelligent Design" (ID) promoted by some Christians is not accepted by all. The general idea behind ID is that at the biochemical and organelle level in living organisms, there are structures and biochemical processes that are so complicated that they could not have evolved according to the rules of Darwinian evolution, but must have been created by an intelligent creator. The ID theory does not say evolution does not occur, nor that the universe was created only a few thousand years ago.

Because of this, ID lies half way between the strict and literal view of the Bible where the world was created about 6000 years ago (5766 years ago according to the Hebrew calendar) in 6 days, and that any appearance of greater age was also created, and the completely atheistic view that the universe was not created by any God, but formed and changes strictly due to action of natural laws.

Since a good many Christians believe in the strict literal view of the Bible, there is by no means universal acceptance of ID among Christians. Also, many Christians take another view of the Bible, also highly respecting its authority as the Word of God, but interpreting the Genesis story as metaphoric, dealing not with the question "how did the world come to be?", but rather
"why did the world come to be, and what is our relationship as creatures, to God, the Creator?" These Christians do not seek to find literal concordance between the science of biology and the Word of God, because scientists seeks to answer different questions than those God is answering in the Scripture.

So adding the two types of Christians together: the Bible as Scientific Fact Christians and the science and Bible are not required to be identical Christians, you may end up with quite a large majority of Christians who do not accept ID.

As science, ID has one major shortcoming. The statement "because I cannot explain some complex biochemical process without assuming God, God must exist" is a logical fallacy. In the future, a discovery may occur that does not require God to be the source of the biochemical process. If such a proof is found, it does in no way disprove the existence of God. Because I cannot disprove the existence of God in this way, I did not actually prove the existence of God in the first place. I would need to first prove that not only can I not explain the biochemical process without assuming God, but that it is impossible that anyone will ever be able to do so. That proof that has not made.

Finally, many Christians feel that scientific proof of God is not attainable, because God's plan for the salvation of humanity requires faith, and faith, by definition, requires belief in things that cannot be proved (or disproved.)

Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd Differences Threaten to Break Up Iraq

Sunnis represent 20% of Iraq's population but have ruled the country with ruthless oppression since its founding. Now there is a lot of hand wringing about how Iraq might break up if "federalism" is enacted over Sunni objections.

Why is that bad? Iraq is not an authentic nation: it has no contiguous history and natural bonds between the peoples who live there. It is an artificial construction. Iraq created as a map drawing excerise by the British. If it breaks up into a more rational set independent states that represent true bonds between the people living there, it will be more stable, not less.

Sunnis will no longer be able to use the huge profits from oil taken from others to support their reign or terror over the other peoples in the country. If the Shiites are more aligned with Iran than with the Kurds, that is probably because it is a more natural and stable alliance. If the U.S. or the British press don't like it, too bad. The Iraqi people don't exist to make the U.S. or British press feel good.

I am happy to be proven wrong, but as long as the Shiites and Kurds cannot defend themselves against infiltration and murder by the terrorist Sunnis, there will be no stability in Iraq.