Say Anything Blog

Putting terrorists on trial in New York isn’t just stupid, it’s an unnecessay expense.

(AP)a member of the Judiciary Committee, Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, is urging the administration to reimburse the city for what he says could be $75 million in extra security costs related to the terror trials.

 

Charles Schumer is basically asking for an extra $75,000,000 to cover the cities expenses. That’s an extra $75,000,000 in addition to whatever the federal government is going to spend.

How much is the Kalid Sheik Mohommed mini-series going to actually cost?

I ask you progressives out there:

How many unmarried, unemployed single moms can be provided with fertility treatment for the cost of this trial?

There are many reasons not to put KSM and other foreign terrorists on trial in American courtrooms on American soil:

1.  I’m sure that the NYPD and FBI is more than capable of keeping the trial safe and the prisoners secured; the chance of terrorists staging some kind of successful prison break is less than minimal. But that security will come at a steep financial cost both to the taxpayers of NYC, but also to the American taxpayers. How much more expensive will it be to transport and guard the prisoners under these conditions than it would be to keep them atGitmo and try them under military tribunal? I haven’t seen any figures, but I figure that several hundred police officers collecting months or years worth of overtime will add up. The federal law enforcement presence that will bolster the NYPD will cost more money and divert the attention of agents from the important task of keeping the country safe. Will KSM escape? Almost certainly not. But making sure he doesn’t will be an expensive and unnecessary waste of money when we already have a secure location to keep and try these terrorists.

2.  The trial will provide a stage for the terrorists and their (probably radical) lawyers to put the United States on trial. While proponents of the “criminal court trial” scenario portray this as a process that will rehabilitate America’s world image, that’s unlikely to be the case. If we allow the terrorists and their lawyers a full range of arguments and questions, then the trial will make a mockery of American justice. The trial will become a farce. If the radical lawyers are constrained to a point where they can’t turn the trial into a farce, then the process will be denounced as rigged and unfair. Whether or not Americans believe that the trials were unfair, the arguments will resonate with the very audience of international progressives that Obama is hoping to impress.

3.  While it’s unlikely that any terrorist cell could break KSM or any terrorist out of jail on American soil (especially after we spend the additional millions to secure), those same militants may try other violent acts to try and force America to release the terrorists. By having the trial on American soil, we’re increasing the risk to American civilians.

4.  Are we willing to provide full time security to the KSM jurors for their rest of their lives?

5.  And a criminal trial under existing rules will put every spy and asset we have trying to penetrate al Qaeda at an enhanced and unnecessary risk of being found out. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, John Yoo pointed out just how much a criminal trial could hurt our anti-terrorism efforts.

Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress.

Whether a jury ultimately convicts KSM and his fellows, or sentences them to death, is beside the point. The treatment of the 9/11 attacks as a criminal matter rather than as an act of war will cripple American efforts to fight terrorism. It is in effect a declaration that this nation is no longer at war.

[…]

KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens—including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it.

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the “blind Sheikh”), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.

In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr.

McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.

Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.

Even more harmful to our national security will be the effect a civilian trial of KSM will have on the future conduct of intelligence officers and military personnel. Will they have to read al Qaeda terrorists their Miranda rights? Will they have to secure the “crime scene” under battlefield conditions? Will they have to take statements from nearby “witnesses”? Will they have to gather evidence and secure its chain of custody for transport all the way back to New York? All of this while intelligence officers and soldiers operate in a war zone, trying to stay alive, and working to complete their mission and get out without casualties.

The Obama administration has rejected the tool designed to solve this tension between civilian trials and the demands of intelligence and military operations. In 2001, President George W. Bush established military commissions, which have a long history that includes World War II, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. The lawyers in the Bush administration—I was one—understood that military commissions could guarantee a fair trial while protecting national security secrets from excessive exposure.

6.  Under the rules of our criminal courts, these cases could drag on for years as defense lawyers demand sensitive information and intelligence agencies fight to keep that information from the lawyers.

The masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist bombings are not bank robbers and crack dealers. They are not American citizens to be accorded the same rights we give to a car theif. They are foreign fighters, but they aren’t even soldiers. They wear not nations uniform. They don’t deserve either the constitutional protections offered to a common street hood, or the Geneva Convention protections accorded to uniformed soldiers.

There is no legitimate reason to bring these terror suspects onto American soil or try them in American criminal courts. We should leave the where they are and try them there.

I can’t take credit for the paragraphs below. They were sent to me as an attachment to an e-mail, and I’m not sure who the author is. But they’re worth thinking about.

This is very interesting!  I never thought about it this way. Perhaps this is why so many physicians are conservatives or independents or last of all republicans.

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers’ Party.

 
Barack Obama is a lawyer.
Michelle Obama is a lawyer.
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer.
Bill Clinton is a lawyer.
John Edwards is a lawyer.
Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer.
Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate).
Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.
Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress:
Harry Reid is a lawyer.
Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.


The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman.
Vice President Cheney is a businessman.


The leaders of the Republican Revolution:
Newt Gingrich was a history professor.
Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist.
House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer.
The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer?  Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.  The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.


The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers.  Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.


The Lawyers’ Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America.  And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers’ Party, grow.


Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?  Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.


This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.  Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people.  Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.


Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine.  But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.  When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the leg al system in our life becomes all-consuming.  Some Americans become “adverse parties” of our very government.  We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit.  We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.


Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives.  America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.  When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.  When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great.  When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.


We cannot expect the Lawyers’ Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America   Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789.  Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders.  Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy..
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business.  Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work.  Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.


The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 66% of the world’s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as “spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you” and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!

Keeping that in mind I do know who wrote the following words.

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

~James Madison

Math isn’t as hard as most people think. Developing mathematical skill is actually fairly straight forward (even for a non-mathematical guy like me), and not unlike the study of martial arts. Skills like adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing are like learning basic moves and stances. Fractions and ratios are like simple combinations. Like the simplest block, all these skills are developed through practice. To become good you must practice at least enough to develop automatacity. If you have to think about a block or about 7x7, you don’t know it. Practice prepares you for more advanced stages such as sparring or Algebra.

With a little common sense, it’s not hard to design a system to train students to master simple mathematical principals, and prepare for more advanced study. Unfortunately common sense is not a quality education professors are known for.

Like most other subjects, mathematics instruction is being assaulted by educational practices based more on social and political beliefs than on proven results.

In the current issue of City Journal, Sandra Stotsky explains how the progressive educational theorists are trying to purge mathematicians from the designing of math curriculum.

The educational trends that led to the NCTM’s approach to math have a long pedigree. During the 1970s and 1980s, educators in reading, English, and history argued that the traditional curriculum needed to be more “engaging” and “relevant” to an increasingly alienated and unmotivated—or so it was claimed—student body. Some influential educators sought to dismiss the traditional curriculum altogether, viewing it as a white, Christian, heterosexual-male product that unjustly valorized rational, abstract, and categorical thinking over the associative, experience-based, and emotion-laden thinking supposedly more congenial to females and certain minorities.

Those trying to overthrow the traditional curriculum found mathematics a hard nut to crack, however, because of the sequential nature of its content through the grades and its relationship to high school chemistry and physics. Nevertheless, education faculty eventually figured out how to reimagine the mathematics curriculum, too, so that it could march under the banner of social justice. As Alan Schoenfeld, the lead author of the high school standards in the 1989 NCTM report, put it, “the traditional curriculum was a vehicle for . . . the perpetuation of privilege.” The new approach would change all that.

Two theories lie behind the educators’ new approach to math teaching: “cultural-historical activity theory” and “constructivism.” According to cultural-historical activity theory, schooling as it exists today reinforces an illegitimate social order. Typical of this mindset is Brian Greer, a mathematics educator at Portland State University, who argues “against the goal of ‘algebra for all’ on the grounds that . . . most individuals in our society do not need to have studied algebra.” According to Greer, the proper approach to teaching math “now questions whether mathematics as a school subject should continue to be dominated by mathematics as an academic discipline or should reflect more fully the range of mathematical activities in which humans engage.” The primary role of math teachers, constructivists say in turn, shouldn’t be to explain or otherwise try to “transfer” their mathematical knowledge to students; that would be ineffective. Instead, they must help the students construct their own understanding of mathematics and find their own math solutions.

Classroom practices follow logically from these theories. Teacher-directed learning goes out the window, despite its demonstrated benefits for students with learning problems; instead, schools should embrace “student-centered” math classrooms.

Imagine going into a karate school and having with no sensei. Instead you get a karate facilitator who tells you construct your own techniques. Do you think you’re likely to, on your own, develop a superior kick or punch, or will you just developt bad habits? Unless you’re a natural Bruce Lee, chances are you’ll simply develop bad habbits that will take months if not years to unlearn.

The same thing happens with mathematics. When every step down the path of learning math requires the student to, figuratively, re-invent the wheel, a lot of kids pick shapes other than round for their wheels.

This is a concept that is understood in the countries where students achieve higher levels of mathematical competence than the average American student.

High-math-achievement countries teach arithmetic in the elementary grades in a coherent curriculum leading, step by step, to formal algebra and geometry in middle school. The progressive educators, by contrast, support “integrated” approaches to teaching math—that is, teaching topics from all areas of mathematics every year, regardless of logical sequence and student mastery of each step—and they downplay basic arithmetic skills and practice, encouraging kids to use calculators from kindergarten on. The educators also neglect the teaching of standard algorithms (mathematical procedures commonly taught everywhere, with only minor variations, because of their general applicability), insisting instead on the value of student-developed algorithms—this despite research by cognitive psychologists strongly supporting a curriculum that simultaneously develops conceptual understanding, computational fluency with standard algorithms, and problem-solving skills as the best way to prepare students for algebra.

The heart of the disagreement between progressive math educators and mathematicians is whether students are acquiring a foundation in arithmetic and other aspects of mathematics in the early grades that prepares them for authentic algebra coursework in grades 7, 8, and 9. If not, they then cannot successfully co

If you think that consequence a student receives for breaking a school rule should be determined by the severity of the infraction and the need of the school to maintain a proper learning environment, then you’re probably not a district hotshot with the Tucson School District. District leaders have mandated that school administrators meet racial quotas when it comes to handing out punishments.

Heather McDonald:

...Tucson’s school district adopted racial quotas in school discipline this summer. Schools that suspend or expel Hispanic and black students at higher rates than white students will now get a visit from a district “Equity Team” and will be expected to remedy those disparities by reducing their minority discipline rates.

[...]

Tucson’s administrators explain their disciplinary quota pressure on the ground that students removed from class lose valuable learning time, exacerbating the already great ethnic academic achievement gap. Such thinking ignores the students who are not disrupting class or threatening teachers and who also lose valuable learning time when unruly or violent students remain in the classroom. Surely those students have a greater claim to “equity” in school resources than gang members do.

The administrators want local principals to examine disparate suspension rates “in detail for root causes.” I can save them some time: the root cause of disparate rates of suspension is disparate rates of bad behavior. As for the root cause of that bad behavior, the biggest one is single parenting. If the Tucson school board wants to publicize the essential role of fathers in raising law-abiding children, it might start solving the problem of disciplinary imbalance. But until then, it should let schools resolve their discipline problems in a color-blind fashion, without worrying about a visit from an “Equity Team.”

 

I’ve actually seen this happen (unofficially) in California, where administrators became afraid to process referrals for some students for fear that they would suspend too many minority students compared with the number of non-minority students. We ended up with a seperate and unegual system of school discipline, where students of one color where held to a higher standard than students of another color.

Isn't it a form or racism to assume that African American and Hispanic students aren't as capable of following rules as caucasian students?

While the media has not given this case anywhere near the exposure of the Duke Lacross hoax of a few years back, I’m sure that most of you have somewhere heard about the 15 year old high school sophomore who was brutally raped on school grounds during a homecoming dance.  I won’t go into details of the attack. It suffices to say that it was a truly horrendous crime, and the victim suffered as no person ever should.

I have to admit that, as a teacher, this story probably bothers me more than most people. Both because I have known many naive 15 year old girls who could easily be taken advantage of, but also because I have known many predatory young boys/men who would be fully capable of this kind of brutality. We often take comfort in the belief that the kind of boys who would brutally rape a 15 year old girl are rare. That is far from the truth. I’ve had contact with at least one such male every year I’ve been in teaching, and some year I’ve had contact with much more than one boy with that kind of cruelty. I’ve dealt with young predators of every race, and the one thing they all had in common was aspirations to the gang culture.

A recent story by the San Francisco Chronicle basically points out that Richmond High School had at the very least a strong gang presence, and was quite possibly ground zero for gang activity. 

The courtyard where the attack erupted was the most infamous spot on campus, an out-of-the-way, poorly lit venue for gang initiations and dopers lighting up joints.

[…]

Take the poverty-driven frustration of inner-city Richmond, a youth street culture that glorifies thugs and applauds degradation of women, and the desensitization of young men through violent video games, music and language, and you have a template for trouble.

“This is like a lot of schools, where most of the kids are good kids - and then, we know which ones are going wrong,” said Charles Johnson, one of Richmond High’s security specialists.
“You wouldn’t believe the stuff we have to put up with those few who go wrong - guns, dope busts, fighting,” Johnson said. “We know that courtyard, and we’ve been waiting for something to happen there.

[…]

Johnson, teachers and students at least partially blame the attack on the lack of lighting, sturdy fencing or security cameras on the courtyard, which abuts a rough neighborhood on the northern end of the campus on 23rd Street. Signs for the Norteño and Crips gangs are scrawled in huge letters on a wall near the driveway leading into the courtyard.

It’s worth noting that not only did the gang infestation of the school and surrounding set the stage for the gang rape, but it also contributed to its duration. It’s precisely in area like this where the “don’t snitch” agenda promoted by hip-hop artists resonates. It’s believed that 10 individuals actively participated in the attack. But as many as 15 more watched, cheered, and videotaped it as passive participants. These passive participants could have stopped the attack at any time. But the gang culture “don’t snitch” attitude is far stronger than compassion or decency.

Shorty after first hearing about this attack I watched a group of boys walking around campus with their sagging baggy pants, exposed boxers, and backwards baseball caps. They weren’t gang bangers; they were too middle class. Still they effected the attitude of the gang banger. They spit frequently, called each other “dog” and spiced their language with liberal use of the words “bitch” and “mother****er.”  They were of course pretending to be something more sinister than these comfortable young men actually were. But in a way they were also aspiring to something. And those aspirations will surely shape their lives and characters the way your aspirations shaped your character and my aspirations shaped mine.

Knowing that I have to wonder why so parents allow their young sons to leave the house styling themselves after street criminals. As a society we would be justifiably repulsed if young men decided to dress like Waffen SS officers to go to the mall. Yet we tolerate our young men dressing up like members of prison gangs to go to school.

We shouldn’t wonder how something like a 2 ½ hour rape could happen on school grounds, but why we’re so lucky that it happens infrequently enough to shock us. (more...)

Is Amnesty for Illegal Aliens a hidden provision of PelosiCare socialized medicine. Well according to the good people at La Raza, passing of “health care reform” will enable illegal immigrants not just to get publicly funded medical services, but grant them legal status as well.

DougRoss@Journal reports

I want to tell you that last week I attended a conference on health care reform sponsored by La Raza. And I will tell you that what they had to say, Mark, is scarier than anything that’s been said so far on the health care plan.

The kind of comments that were made and the notes that I took… they started the conference out by saying “America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health care reform.”

And someone from Menendez’ office [Ed.: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ] promised that he would make sure that “the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill” and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like “streamline”...

It was La Raza, the Childrens Defense Fund and Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a representative from his office…

...Yes [they said they would get free health care for illegal aliens], these are my notes, Mark. They actually got up and said “Latino children need health care more than whites”. And then they would say things like “you must go out into your communities, use words like ‘streamline’, use phrases like ‘all workers’ and ‘all families’,” because they said—and I quote—“If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it.”

...One of the quotes they said was, “We want to make sure we take care of barriers like verification, but we can streamline programs to the more affluent” and, quote, “Useless treatments for the elderly can be gone because we don’t need to spend money for people who are going to die anyway.”

That’s a direct quote from that meeting. They also said, “We are very concerned there will be an effort to include” the illegal immigrants in this argument, so “we must make sure that we focus this” to the American people that it’s looking like we want “health care for everyone”.

And they also said that 75% of the children who will be picked up in this will be non-citizens and that 44% of the uninsured are non-citizens and they can’t possibly allow the American people to know this.” [Ed: Oops!]

Menendez’ office said that he’s going to make sure that “a family of four that makes $66,000 a year or less will pay nothing at all for the new health care. And he was the one who said he was going to get rid of specifics like “citizenship status” and focus on, quote, “equity for all workers”.

And he said he’s going to make sure that the Latino immigrants are the focus of the health care reform.

And La Raza said if they get this, they don’t even care about amnesty, because they’ve fixed it so that one family member can apply for all extended family members. And… Mark, if you think we have a problem with illegal immigration now, wait ‘til you see the borders when this thing gets passed.

(more...)

Why is it that after 30 years of ongoing engineering that highly complex hybrid economy car gets no better fuel economy than a 1970s era VW Rabbit diesel? It’s because cars have been getting heavier and heavier. But don’t blame the automobile companies. It turns out that it’s the social engineers in Washington DC, not the mechanical engineers in Detroit who decided that cars and trucks needed to pack on the pounds.

Eric Peters writes:

cars are also much heavier, more complicated—and expensive—than the cars of the past.
But which is better: A car that performs well in a 30 mph offset barrier crash but is also beyond your means? Or a car that’s maybe not quite so sturdy but which you can still afford to buy?
Like it or not, that’s the bottom line choice here. Just as we can’t all drive V-8 Cadillacs, neither can average people afford to buy the ever-increasing roster of safety equipment that Washington regulators think they need—and should be forced to purchase, in an ever-increasing spiral of add-on expense.
This creates all manner of absurd distortions. For example, the car companies have had to go to ridiculous lengths—using completely unnecessary technology—to (barely) achieve the same fuel economy in a modern gas-electric hybrid car that was possible in a simpler, non-hybrid car 20 or 30 years ago ... at two or three times the price.
For instance: A 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid gets about the same real-world mileage as a late 1970s VW Rabbit diesel or ‘80s-era Plymouth Champ. But the Prius costs several times what those cars cost because it is vastly more complicated. Get rid of the weight and expense-padding “safety” mandates and the car companies could stamp out legions of simple, lightweight 50 mpg (or better) economy compacts that could be sold for less than $10,000 brand new.
After all, 40 mpg cars were common 25 years ago—before the government’s rules added several hundred pounds of deadweight to each new vehicle. Nix the rules that add the weight—and with the benefit of modern engine technology, such as direct injection and Continuously Variable (CVT) transmissions—it should be easy to build a 60 mpg economy compact without having to resort to elaborate hybrid vehicle technology.
With diesel power, 70-80 mpg ought to be possible. In fact, VW sells a compact diesel model in Europe that is capable of close to that figure—but we don’t get it here, thanks to Uncle Sam.

For the sake of comparison, I decided to compare the weight of the Toyota Prius and Willys Jeep (the first SUV). The Prius weighs in at almost 2,800 lbs. The 1940s Jeep weighs in under 2,300. So a modern economy car is almost 500 lbs heavier than a 1940s SUV. Of course comparing an SUV to an economy car is like comparing apples to oranges. I also compared the Prius to a fifty year old economy car, the Citroen 2CV. It turns out the Prius more than twice as massive as the 2CV.
Of course it would be illegal to produce and sell a brand new Willys MB Jeep, Citroen 2CV or any vehicle of comprable simplicity.

The Toyota Prius has become to the first decade of the 21st Century what gold chains and vans with murals were to the 1970s. Nothing says hip in 2009 a Prius. But it turns out that the Japanese hybrid is a bigger resource hog than a jacked up H1 Hummer with Monster Mudders.

MSNBC...of all freakin’ places…reports that Hybrids are using up Rare Earth Metals at an alarming rate.

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

It turns out the Red China (which is not more Capitalistic than the U.S.) is the worlds leading supplier of rare earth metals, and is rather keen to use those in their own industry. Economists are expecting shortages of key rare earth metals in the near future.

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium’s magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.

And it turns out that that that most “progressive” of gold chains, the Toyota Prius is among the least green vehicles when it comes to rare earth metals.

Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius “the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world.”

Each electric Prius motor requires around two pounds of neodymium, and each battery uses 22-33 pounds of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota’s plans to boost the car’s fuel economy, he said.

A while back I posted an article about a Swedish couple that was raising a child without gender. They weren’t telling anyone whether baby it was male or female so as to keep its gender from everyone even itself.

Now The Local is reporting this tidbit:

Swedish father Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, has entered into an experiment that he hopes will help him breastfeed his future children.

On Tuesday, the Stockholm family man began stimulating his breasts with a pump in a bid to produce milk.

“Anything that doesn’t do any harm is worth trying out. And if it works it could prove very important for men’s ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage,” Bengtsson told The Local.

Not only is Ragnar planning to milk himself, he’s planning to do it in public.

As a full time economics student at Stockholm University, he is not always going to be in a position to pump in private.

“I’m going to have to pull out the pump during lectures. But really it doesn’t bother me if it makes people uncomfortable. If they have issues with it that’s their problem,” he said.

My question is this…what the hell is wrong with Sweden?

The American Spectator is reporting that Marxist Van Johnson, also known as the “Green Jobs Czar” helped organize an anti-America ralley in Oakland before the dust had even settled over the World Trade Center.

Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), the revolutionary group formed by self-described “communist” and “rowdy black nationalist” Van Jones, held a vigil in Oakland, California, “mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world” on the night after Sept. 11, 2001.

The reason this is important is because Van Jones is now President Obama’s green jobs czar. He does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration’s push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda.

 

What kind of energy policy can we expect from a man who's dedicated his life to overthrowing the free enterprise system and abolishing private property?

DenverPost.com reports:

(Denver) Eleven windows of the state Democratic Party headquarters were shattered by a hammer at 2:20 AM on Tuesday morning. This must have been the work of nefarious right-wing extremists…right?

Not so fast.

Police have taken a suspect into custody and it turns out that he’s a left-wing activists who lists a “bicycle cooperative” as his residence.

Police said that about 2:20 a.m., 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, now in custody, and an at-large accomplice took a hammer to the picture windows displaying posters touting President Barack Obama and his health care reform efforts.

[...}

Schwenkler received $500 in November 2008 to walk door-to-door in support of Democrat Mollie Cullom, who lost her race to Republican state Rep. David Balmer of Centennial.

[...]

In those disclosures, Schwenkler’s address is listed as Derailer Bicycle Cooperative, a free community bicycle collective that operates just around the corner from the Democratic headquarters. Multiple volunteers at the collective declined to discuss Schwenkler, though they said he was affiliated with the group.

 

So a Democrat activist breaks the windows at Democrat HQ, so liberals are blaming….Republicans.

Early Tuesday, Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak said the damage to her building in Denver’s art district was a consequence of “an effort on the other side to stir up hate.” She tempered her statement after Schwenkler’s political history was revealed.

“What I’ve been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum,” Waak said. “That’s what’s been disturbing to me. People are saying a lot of things not appropriate for civil discourse.”

You read that correct. The reason a Democrat broke the windows at Democrat HQ was because Republicans were daring to disagree with Obama.

There may be another explanation.

Balmer said he suspects the vandalism might have been aimed at making the GOP look bad.

“This sounds like the type of Democratic tactic from the left fringe trying to make Republicans look mean-spirited,” Balmer said. “In this case, it blew up in their face. He was caught red-handed.”

In what has got be the most disturbing cultural barometer I’ve seen recently, the Swedish journal The Local is reporting that some young men have come to see getting VD as a badge of honor.

Upon learning they’ve been infected with a sexually transmitted disease, some young people simply see themselves as unlucky, while others undergo a maturation process which leads them to be more careful in their sexual habits, according to midwife and University of Skövde researcher Kina Hammarlund.

members of a third group – consisting entirely of young men – succeed in transforming their diseases into a sign of their manhood.

With other male friends slapping on the shoulders and offering encouraging comments about “success with the ladies”, young men who contract diseases such as chlamydia or genital warts can come to view their infection as a badge of honour, rather than a serious health problem.

Just imagine how envious your friends will be when you tell them you have herpes.

Hike on the wrong state park trail in Northern California, and you might find yourself stepping on a Punji stake or a small improvised-explosive-device made from a shotgun shell. If you somehow miss the booby trap and make it further onto the trail, you might likely find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun. Why? Because large swaths of California’s state parks have been colonized by the very drug cartels that have turned Mexican cities like Tijuana into war zones.

In the wake of recent devastating wildfires, faires almost certainly caused by illegal immigrants growing marijuana on California public lands, Time Magazine has noticed the problem.

The damage they do to society is well-known, but drug traffickers, it turns out, also aren’t the most environmentally-minded campers. Law enforcement officials say that a wildfire now raging in Santa Barbara’s Los Padres National park, burning more than 136 square miles, was sparked by a cooking fire started by the hirelings of a Mexican drug cartel which was growing thousands of marijuana plants in the remote canyons.

Far from an isolated incident, the Los Padres fire, according to law enforcement agents, highlights an alarming trend: the invasion of California wilderness and parklands by armed Mexican drug cartels.

The Time writers lament the fact that drug cartels are corrupting the once mellow and ethical Cali-canibus industry and trashing the envoromment.

Of course, because California politicans have spent the state into financial ruin there’s no money to hire rangers to keep forests safe. We have money to hire deadbeats as home healthcare workers but we don’t have money for park rangers.

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While Honda, Toyota and GM (Government Motors) have enjoyed the increased sales created by the “cash for clunkers” program, some small businessmen may be closing their doors as a result of the government give-away. Our local newspaper recently ran a story on how taking working automobiles off the road permanantly is killing used car dealers.

While the Clunkers program helped push sales of new cars in July to the highest level in nearly a year, sales of used cars have taken a beating.

“We’re struggling and a lot of us small guys are going out of business,” said James Dameron, sales and finance manager at Chase Motors in suburban Richmond, where sales are down about 30 percent.

About 40 million used vehicles are sold a year, four times the number of new cars, said Keith Whann, an industry expert and chief executive of Columbus Fair Auto Auction in Columbus, Ohio. About a third of the used sales come from independent dealers

While the very people who pushed “cash for clunkers” like to claim that they’re all for the little guy, many of the used car dealerships being put out of business are the epitomy of small business.

Mom and Pop dealers typically sell just 20 to 25 vehicles a month and keep 40 to 45 vehicles on their lots, a fraction of the inventory for bigger dealerships, Whann said. So when the owner of a 1995 Ford Explorer opts for a new car, and the old SUV goes away forever, the repercussions are felt quickly. Especially for a majority of these dealers who have fewer than six employees.

As the supply of used cars dwindles, it means higher prices.

“The guy looking for a cheap used car is having a helluva hard time now,” said Greg Signore, 50, co-owner of Elm Auto Sales in Kearny, N.J. “This program is absolutely increasing the cost of the clunkers left on the market.”

He says he’s not getting as many customers with modest income looking for basic transportation.

“What about all these people who need the $3,500 cars? Are they going to ride the bus for the rest of their life?” said Mike Salarze, manager of Majestic Motors in Baltimore.