Well... I agree insofar that these persons who lie are not the right ones for the positions they hold.

Yeah, well, it's all of them from the U.S. Democrats to the German Social Democrats and Die Linke.

Well, aside from the fact that no-one from Die Linke is in really high positions, you left the worst liars out: the entire block from center-right to extreme-right.

As I've said a million times: They all do it. I was just noting the types that it seems you would agree with no matter what they said

These can be persons of any party, or no party at all. And you could of course help me to choose these people. People as I imagine them should be normal average people without any scandal; loving & caring for others; honest deep to their very heart, absolutely reliable; totally incorruptible, accepting no bribe, no advantage offered to them to break their principles; and willing to take up this challenge.

I know a number of libertarians that would fit this bill exceptionally well. They would not violate their principles, especially. Is that OK to you?

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Well... I agree insofar that these persons who lie are not the right ones for the positions they hold.

Yeah, well, it's all of them from the U.S. Democrats to the German Social Democrats and Die Linke.

Well, aside from the fact that no-one from Die Linke is in really high positions, you left the worst liars out: the entire block from center-right to extreme-right.

As I've said a million times: They all do it. I was just noting the types that it seems you would agree with no matter what they said

These can be persons of any party, or no party at all. And you could of course help me to choose these people. People as I imagine them should be normal average people without any scandal; loving & caring for others; honest deep to their very heart, absolutely reliable; totally incorruptible, accepting no bribe, no advantage offered to them to break their principles; and willing to take up this challenge.

I know a number of libertarians that would fit this bill exceptionally well. They would not violate their principles, especially. Is that OK to you?

:) Are they loving, and caring for others, too? Honest until deep into their heart? And totally incorruptible? Just alone not violating their principles won't work. All factors must go. These people must be as close to Saints as humans can be! Able to avoid each political and financial temptation!

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Pure pandering - Obama dredges up 'comparable worth'

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

September 4, 2007

In the 1970s and early 1980s, many liberals and feminists rallied around a truly goofy economic theory. “Comparable worth” held that sexism, not a lack of market demand, was why the pay was less in female-dominated professions such as nursing and teaching than male-dominated professions such as engineering and law enforcement. It posited that nurses and teachers had skills of “comparable worth” to engineers and cops. Therefore, the government should force employers to increase pay in mostly female fields.

The “comparable worth” push began to fade when some liberals became uncomfortable with the elitism inherent in proponents' denigration of plumbers, construction workers and many other blue-collar employees. Beyond that, as the U.S. economy rebounded and socialist economies foundered, the notion of having federal bureaucrats set pay for every profession began to seem nutty.

Incredibly enough, with the eager help of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, “comparable worth” – now dubbed “pay equity” – is making a comeback. The Illinois senator is a co-sponsor of the Fair Pay Act of 2007, which would give the government broad powers to set wages.

Yes, it is true that the average female full-time employee makes 81 percent of the average male. But this is because over the course of their lives, women are more than twice as likely to work part time, and because they work 40 percent fewer years, hindering their career progress. They also still pass on professions such as engineering and law enforcement where there is heavy demand and thus higher pay. If there is bias against women, how come pay for never-married women and never-married men is virtually identical?

“Pay equity” amounts to crude pandering. Obama is a lesser candidate for touting such nonsense.

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me@rescam.org

Cynicism or paranoia from Russia?

JIM HOAGLAND
THE WASHINGTON POST

September 4, 2007

Russian prosecutors say that the separate, grisly murders of two of the Kremlin's most vocal opponents during the past year have a common motive: They were committed by enemies of Vladimir Putin to frame and embarrass his government.

A similarly sinister hidden agenda lies behind U.S. plans to create anti-missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russian officials are telling Western diplomats. The silos that the Americans say are needed to defend against Iranian missile attacks will, in the Russian version, be stuffed with multiple-warhead offensive rockets aimed at Moscow.

These “explanations” of murders and missiles raise a chilling question about Putin's Kremlin: Is it worse if the Russians are cynically offering up blatantly implausible tales as propaganda – or if the Russian president and his aides actually believe their own accounts?

Americans should root for cynicism. Hostile governments run by self-delusional fantasy are far more dangerous than those run by knowing lies – especially when the government in question possesses a vast nuclear arsenal, and when the Bush administration is tempted at times by its own version of delusional thinking.

Two disturbing patterns emerged more clearly last week when Yuri Chaika, Russia's prosecutor general, announced 10 arrests in the murder last October of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in an elevator in her apartment building. Chaika portrayed the assassination of Politkovskaya – a fierce critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya – as the work of a Chechen crime boss who hired Russian policemen as killers in order to embarrass the government.

Politkovskaya's death emphasized the growing dangers of practicing independent journalism in Russia. In March, Ivan Safronov, a defense correspondent for Kommersant, mysteriously fell from the window of his Moscow apartment. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists reports that as many as 13 journalists have been murdered in Russia by paid killers since 2000.

The second pattern can be found in the motives cited by Chaika in Politkovskaya's killing. The prosecutor's account echoed the Kremlin's explanation of the poisoning in London last November of dissident Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive polonium-210. Behind this plot, which was once again aimed at defaming Putin, was exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Russian officials suggested without offering any evidence to support the theory.

The diplomatic argument between Washington and Moscow over missile defense in Central Europe also turns to a great extent on Russian suspicions that balance on a thin line between cynicism and paranoia. It does not help that Kremlin distrust on this issue has been stimulated by the Bush administration's refusal to engage Putin's repeated demands for new discussions on nuclear arms control and other confidence-building measures.

Publicly, the Russians reject the U.S. contention that modest deployments of U.S. radars and interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic will help defend against Iranian long-range missiles. In private conversations with Western diplomats and others, some Russians have been even more scathing.

The Russian argument holds that the Iranian missile threat “might” materialize only 15 years from now. So U.S. haste on deployments into the two former Soviet satellites is a cover for “creating facts on the ground” and gaining an offensive strategic edge over Russia.

It's worth asking if this is merely psychological projection at work: We know you Americans are going to hide MIRVs because it is what we would do in your shoes. You, after all, must be as cynical as we are. Your offers of unprecedented transparency and inspection rights (which were conveyed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Putin) are just one more trick and will not fool us.

The KGB graduates who run the Kremlin do seem to see Bush as being far more cunning and purposeful in planning to undermine their rule than is indicated by any available evidence. The same can be said of Berezovsky, and for Chechen crime bosses – if, that is, you are not a prosecutor trying to close politically explosive cases.

Other factors suggest that the Russian-American relationship today is a matter more amenable to psychology than to diplomacy, which runs its course as Putin and Bush move deeper into lame-duckhood.

The Russian leader leaves office next spring. He is not likely to have another encounter with Bush as substantive as their July meeting in Kennebunkport – which in fact produced no concrete results. In retrospect, Kennebunkport looks more like a leave-taking that seems to have augmented Russian anxiety over Bush's intentions and capacities – precisely because nothing happened.

“We cooperate where we can and compete where we have to,” Russian and American officials say when describing the uneven relationship the two leaders have forged. Perhaps only a cynic would have expected any better result.

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me@rescam.org

Israel: The holy scapegoat

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Is this a media assault on privacy?

By Edward Wasserman; Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University.

September 6, 2007

The state of Idaho is a blessed place, free of graft, environmental degradation, official stupidity, injustice and greed. I know that because the state's principal newspaper, The Idaho Statesman, had enough time left over from covering those mainstays to assign a top reporter to spend five months and devote 300 interviews to determining whether its senior U.S. senator, 62-year-old Larry Craig, ever had sex with another man.

The inquiry was triggered by allegations made last fall by a blogger who likes to expose the homosexuality of privately gay politicians who take anti-gay positions. He said he had spoken to several male consorts of Craig, a GOP family values stalwart. The Statesman did nothing with the allegations then but assigned a reporter to check them out.

His investigation was nothing if not energetic, and included conversations with 41 fraternity brothers of Craig's from his college days in the early 1960s. “The most serious finding was the report by a professional man with close ties to Republican officials,” the paper concluded. The 40-year-old man reported having a sexual encounter with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also explored dozens of allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable.”

The newspaper published its non-findings last month, after news broke in Roll Call, a Washington paper that covers Capitol Hill, that Craig had been arrested in June in a Minneapolis airport restroom for supposedly coming on to another man, an undercover cop. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a charge that he says he regrets not fighting in court. The disclosure immediately created pressure for him to resign.

I want to look beyond the restroom incident, which to me suggests recklessness and indifference to basic standards of public behavior that have clear bearing on Craig's fitness to remain in the Senate.

Let's talk instead about whether his sexuality, if it had remained private, was a legitimate target of media inquiry in the first place.

Three arguments are advanced: If Craig denied being privately gay he was lying publicly; if he took public positions that conflicted with his private sexuality he was a hypocrite; and if his supporters knew the truth they'd stop voting for him.

First, Craig has been dogged by rumors, which he has denied, that he's gay or bisexual almost from the beginning of his 27-year congressional career. After his arrest the Statesman asked: “Has he been lying, blatantly and repeatedly, to his constituents? Elected officials have a right to privacy, but also an obligation to tell the truth about who they are.”

Look at that last sentence, a model of illogic: It implies that officials have a right to keep private matters private until someone asks about them. Then they have a duty to tell all – hence no right to privacy.

I can't argue for lying. But surely the obligation to be forthright has some relation to the subject matter. The moral weight we attach to a lie depends, in part, on its gravity and on whether we are entitled to the truth that's being concealed. Lying is seldom right, but not all lies warrant the same condemnation.

But, the argument goes, this lie was egregious because Craig has hypocritically supported policies reviled by most gays. He voted against protecting sexual orientation under the federal hate-crimes bill, wanted to ban gay marriage and voted to let states disallow same-sex marriages conducted elsewhere – all hot-button gay-rights measures.

But wait, suppose he'd voted the gay line on all those measures? Why wouldn't that be a strong reason to bring his private homosexuality to light? Then, it would be anti-gay activists who would want Craig outed in the interest of exposing the hidden determinants of his public positions. Either way, his privacy is shattered.

Hypocrisy, then, is a red herring.

Finally, as the Statesman's editor said when she assigned a reporter to Craig: “Many of his supporters would not vote for him if they knew he was homosexual. . . . So I think it is an issue.”

That's perhaps the most disturbing rationale. It suggests a total capitulation to popular fancy, no matter how ill-founded or bigoted, no matter how irrelevant to an official's public duties. People are free to withhold their votes because of an official's private orchid collection or fascination with medieval erotica. But that doesn't justify journalists' dignifying their whims by treating them as publicly valid criteria for decision.

The private sphere remains under unrelenting assault from government and industry, and it's a pity when the news media line up to lead the charge – under the banner of public interest.

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me@rescam.org

Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?

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me@rescam.org

Bush, Roh Have Testy Exchange at Summit

Fred Thompson: I can stop Hillary Clinton

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me@rescam.org

I thought the philosophy behind this commentary is interesting.
======================================

Op-ed from The Objective Standard



The Bush Administration’s Latest Deadly Evasion

By Craig Biddle



The Bush administration’s plan to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization is worse than a waste of time: It is an outright evasion of the Iranian assault on America.



There is a good reason why the New York City Police Department does not make official pronouncements to the effect that Mafia hitmen are murderers: Everyone knows that Mafia hitmen are murderers. There would be no point in making such a declaration—unless, of course, the NYPD wanted to hype the significance of the hitmen so as to avoid having to deal with the real problem: the Mafia.



Of course the Iranian Guard is a terrorist organization; the very state that founded and employs it is a terrorist state—and every thinking person on the planet knows this. So why is the Bush administration engaging in such folly? The stated rationale is that by officially designating the Iranian Guard a terrorist organization, we will dissuade foreign firms and financial institutions from doing business with the organization. The problem with this rationale is (among other things) that it blatantly ignores the identity of our enemy.



Just as our enemy in World War II was not the German Navy but the Nazi regime, so our enemy here is not the Iranian Guard but the Iranian regime—a regime that has murdered or aided in the murder of thousands of Americans—a regime whose political and spiritual leaders chant every day about their desire to murder more Americans—a regime that is working around the clock to build or buy nuclear weapons. Yes, the Guard is a major part of the regime’s military, but, as such, it is a part of the regime—not a separate and distinct enemy. To treat the Guard as though it were an enemy apart from the Iranian regime is to pretend that the regime itself is not our enemy—and thus to evade the necessity of eliminating it.



The solution to the problem of Iran’s aggression against America is not economic pressure on a portion of its military, but the swift and total destruction of everything that enables the Iranian regime to exist: its military installations, assets, and personnel (including the Guard); its government buildings and political officials; its mosques, madrassahs (colleges in which students are trained to be Islamists), mullahs, and clerics. The way to accomplish this goal is by waging a massive bombing campaign from high altitude and long distance—and by sustaining this campaign until the Iranian regime is no more. (American soldiers should not be sent in on foot, except as necessary to identify targets or gather intelligence. And, as always, the deaths of all innocents in such a campaign are solely the responsibility of the force-initiating regime that necessitated the retaliatory measures.)



Why does the Bush administration ignore such an elementary solution? Why does it refuse to employ our advanced weaponry and eliminate the Iranian regime? Because the only possible motive for such a campaign is American self-interest, and, according to the Judeo-Christian ethic—the moral code that guides the Bush administration—self-interest is immoral.



Therein lies the obstacle.



We cannot support a foreign policy of self-defense apart from a morality of self-interest; the former is wholly an expression of the latter. In order for the U.S. government to engage in a campaign of American self-defense, American citizens—those who elect and influence our country’s leadership—must demand it. And in order to demand such a campaign, Americans must come to understand and embrace the principle that acting in a self-interested manner—which means: using reason to identify, pursue, and defend the values on which their life, liberty, and happiness depend—is the essence of being moral. The observation-based, logical proof of this principle, for those willing to let the evidence decide the matter, can be found in Ayn Rand’s book The Virtue of Selfishness.



The Iranian regime is tirelessly plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends. Every literate American knows this (even the ones who deny it). But under the spell of America’s current moral premises, we will not defend ourselves; we will not destroy the Iranian regime; and we will pay dearly, again and again. It is time to abandon the self-sacrificial guidance of the Judeo-Christian ethic and its corresponding foreign policy of paralysis. It is time to embrace the morality of self-interest and its corresponding foreign policy of self-defense. Our lives and the lives of our loved ones depend on it.





Craig Biddle is the editor and publisher of The Objective Standard (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/) and the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It. He can be contacted at cbiddle@theobjectivestandard.com.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

The Iranian regime is tirelessly plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends.

And five years ago, it was the Iraqi regime...

Who is the next 'enemy' on the devils checklist? ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

The Iranian regime is tirelessly plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends.

And five years ago, it was the Iraqi regime...

Who is the next 'enemy' on the devils checklist? ;)

Whoever is plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends, Jeffrey.

Incidentally, the authors and organization that produced the commentary I posted called for attacking Iran not Iraq 5 years ago. They stated this publically and knew from the outset that Iran and its propagation of the fanatical Islamic creed was the largest source of threat.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Whoever is plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends, Jeffrey.

That would be nobody... But hey, I'm not paranoid nor a warmonger, so whatdoIknow... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Bush, Roh Have Testy Exchange at Summit

When Bush got on the podium to speak he called APEC, OPEC, then corrected himself with a lame joke, and for the piece d'resistance he refered to Australian troops as Austrian troops...see, I'be been telling peeps that without Rove around to coach him, he's really going to step into it big time and make a total ass out of himself. Not that that is really news in and of itself.

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Handgun stamping bill sent to governor
Spent shell casings would be imprinted

By James P. Sweeney
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

September 11, 2007

SACRAMENTO – The Assembly sent the governor a bill yesterday requiring that the next generation of semiautomatic handguns stamp identifying serial numbers on spent shell casings.

The legislation that would establish the first law of its kind in the nation could have a lasting impact on the war on crime, according to backers. But the limited application of the bill does not figure to be felt for several years.

The bill covers only new models or brands of semiautomatic handguns approved for sale in the state after Jan. 1, 2010. That excludes nearly 1,300 different semiautomatics already sold in the state. Revolvers, which do not discharge shell casings, also are not covered.

Nonetheless, supporters said tagging microscopic codes on ammunition fired from the guns of choice for gang members and violent criminals could prove invaluable to law enforcement.

“Chiefs of police from Stockton to San Diego, from Fresno to National City, 65 of them standing together in support of this bill because they see the potential to solve gun crime,” said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat who carried the measure, AB 1471.

Feuer said the bill is being watched across the country, all the way to Washington, D.C., where Congress is weighing a similar proposal.

But in a passionate debate between gun-control Democrats and gun-rights Republicans, critics dismissed the technology as unreliable, expensive and easily thwarted. They warned that it would drive up the price of guns and drive manufacturers out of the state.

“There is nothing like this is any other state, and no other state is seriously considering this because they know it doesn't work,” said Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Council, an industry trade association.

The Assembly approved the bill on a 43-29 vote that fell largely along party lines. The Senate narrowly passed the bill last week. All involved are now closely watching for a signal from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken no position on the bill.

Gun-control backers have been pushing the concept, known as microstamping, for several years as an alternative to ballistic imaging, a much more complex system that relies on individual markings on bullets.

Feuer attempted to shift the debate away from the traditional gun-control rhetoric, insisting his bill would not restrict anyone's access or ability to use firearms.

“This is not a gun-control measure,” he said. “This is a public-safety measure.”

The legislation would require new semiautomatics to be manufactured with firing pins or some other internal part etched with an individual serial number. Feuer said gun makers have said the identifying parts can be added for as little as $1 per gun.

But Keane said it would require an overhaul of the manufacturing process and add up to $200 per gun. After all that, the internal code could be easily sanded off.

Feuer staged a demonstration of the technology last month for journalists and some of Los Angeles' ranking law enforcement officials. The test used a microstamped weapon that had been fired more than 2,600 times.

“Everyone there could determine which gun fired the bullets,” Feuer said.

More than 60 percent of homicides in California are committed with handguns and about 70 percent of the handguns sold in the state are semiautomatics, according to a legislative analysis of the bill.

Moreover, Feuer said, his measure could help deal with so-called “straw purchasers,” those who buy guns legally for those who cannot.

Opponents portrayed the legislation as another assault on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Those who live a life of crime typically do not buy weapons legally and certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to use guns with coded firing pins, they said.

“There are so many ways to game this technology, that's the difficulty,” said Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico. “This is not ready for prime time.”

To those that invoked the Second Amendment, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson offered up another passage from the Constitution.

“This is about life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” said Swanson, a Democrat who represents Oakland, where 148 people were killed last year and 93 so far this year.

As the bill moved through both houses, the legislation was amended to address criticism that it relied on patented technology available only from a single source. That supplier, NanoMark Technologies, has agreed to provide the technology for free to California and other states.

The measure also requires the attorney general to verify that the technology is made available to more than one manufacturer, Feuer said.

Of San Diego County-area legislators, voting against the bill were Republicans Joel Anderson of La Mesa, Martin Garrick of Solana Beach, Shirley Horton of Bonita, Kevin Jeffries of Lake Elsinore, George Plescia of La Jolla and Mimi Walters of Mission Viejo.

Democrats Mary Salas of Chula Vista and Lori Saldaña of San Diego voted for it.

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me@rescam.org

Bin Laden and beard dye

Clock is ticking for governor on pullout advisory

By Steve Lawrence
ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 12, 2007

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faced a ticklish decision last night about whether to allow Californians to vote on an advisory measure that urges President Bush to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

The Republican governor had until midnight to sign or veto a bill by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, that would put the withdrawal question on California's Feb. 5 presidential primary ballot.

If the governor failed to act by midnight, the bill would become law and go before voters without his signature.

Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Aaron McLear, said he didn't know what the governor planned to do with the bill or when he would act.

A signature is likely to anger many of the governor's fellow Republicans, who are more supportive of the war than Democrats and independents. A veto almost certainly would trigger criticism from the war's opponents.

A Field Poll conducted last month found that 58 percent of Californians who were questioned supported setting a deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by next spring.

Schwarzenegger has said he supports the troops and the war on terror but also backs a “timetable for withdrawal.”

In a television interview last week, Schwarzenegger said that in principle he doesn't like “nonbinding” resolutions and believes the Iraq war is a federal, rather than a state issue. Further, he said, every poll has already shown that California residents are against the Iraq war.

Perata's bill, SB 924, would put a measure on the February ballot asking voters if Bush should, “in support of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, end the United States occupation of Iraq and achieve the immediate, complete, safe and orderly withdrawal of United States forces.”

It also would ask if Bush and Congress should “provide the necessary diplomatic and nonmilitary assistance to promote peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East?”

Democrats characterized the Perata bill as an attempt to let California voters voice their views on the invasion of Iraq and on continuing U.S. involvement in the country.

But Republican lawmakers charged that the bill was an effort by Democrats to draw voters to the polls who also would be likely to support a ballot measure altering legislative term limits.

The term-limits measure, which narrowly qualified for the Feb. 5 ballot, would shorten the amount of time someone could spend in the Legislature from 14 years to 12 but allow lawmakers to serve the full 12 years in one house. State legislators currently can serve up to six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate.

If voters approve the initiative, dozens of lame-duck lawmakers would be allowed to run for re-election in 2008 or 2010, including Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles.

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