Trayvon Martin and Resurrecting the Race-Card

According to the latest US Department of Justice survey of crime victims, more than 6.6 million violent crimes (murder, rape, assault and robbery) are committed in the US each year, of which about 20 percent, or 1.3 million, are inter-racial crimes.[citation needed]

According to the survey "Highlights from 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims", published in 1993, of the 1.3 million violent crimes that are interracial, 75% involve white victims and black offenders, 15% involve white victims and other-race offenders, and 10% involve black victims and white offenders.

And according to the latest annual report on murder by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most inter-racial murders involve black assailants and white victims, with blacks murdering whites at 18 times the rate that whites murder blacks.

Trayvon Martin was killed by a Hispanic named George Zimmerman. What I find intriguing about this case is not the case itself. Obviously, statistically this story is unusual since blacks are 1800% more likely to kill whites than the other way around, and furthermore there are not even any whites in this story. So this news is just not that compelling in and of itself. Americans―of which 82% are white―are aware of the self-evident and obvious fact that the main stream media has been hyping this story to an incredible degree, running it on every channel every hour of the day and night. As each new so-called "fact" is publicized, it is endlessly mulled over, theorized upon and subjected to debate by various public figures, each with their own particular axe to grind.

I'm not writing this blog post to argue the facts or theories of this case. If you aren't yet aware of them, then it's almost certain you haven't turned on a television or a radio in more than a month. What I want to explore―what I find incredibly compelling―is the rationale behind the media hype. And can there be any doubt that this story has been hyped to unimaginable proportions?

SANFORD — Members of the New Black Panther Party are offering a $10,000 reward for the "capture" of George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin.

New Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad announced the reward during a protest in Sanford Saturday. And when asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad replied defiantly: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

The purpose behind the hype is to re-establish the race card. This is of incredible importance to the left as the 2012 Presidential Election draws near. Al Sharpton has made this story his Raison d'être. Jesse Jackson has also decided that of all things of significance in the world today, this shooting is of paramount significance, arguing that Trayvon Martin is a Martyr.

Civil-rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson took the microphone shortly before noon today at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Eatonville and pronounced slain teen-ager Trayvon Martin to be a martyr. "Martyrs have power," Jackson said near the end of his hour-long sermon. "He represents all of us."

Spike Lee has joined the "man-hunt" by using Twitter to proclaim to his thousands of followers the address where he assumed George Zimmerman resided―luckily for George Zimmerman, Spike Lee's criminal attempt to incite violence was hindered by the fact that George did not in fact live there.

How will Trayvon Martin's death serve to re-establish the race card? How on earth will what Florida police are calling a justifiable homicide committed by a Hispanic man, serve to prove once and for all that white people really are a bunch of racist whip-cracking, lynching, incestuous, cross burning, red-neck Ku-Klux-Klansmen? That doesn't matter. It doesn't have to make sense. Bill Whittle has an interesting observation. He noticed that people who were upset at being labeled as racists were self-evidently not racist. Imagine, if you can, calling a Ku-Klux-Klansman a racist and him becoming upset by that. It's absurd! Only people who don't think of themselves as racists are bothered by that accusation.

Our very own President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama, declared the following: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Obama, just like Al Sharpton, just like Jesse Jackson, just like Spike Lee, just like any rabble-rousing demagogue with an axe to grind, each of them cares nothing for the facts of the case. The only thing that matters is that the narrative they are spinning be believed by a sufficient number of people. The actions of the above public figures are incredibly irresponsible. The deliberate inciting of riots and violence across the nation is dangerous and stupid and selfishly self-serving, and the speakers should be punished accordingly. But they won't be punished, because these speakers are all effectively playing the race card. Bill Whittle has an excellent exposition of the race card in action, and how it can be defeated:

Are you angry at George Zimmerman because he killed Trayvon Martin? Or, like me, are you absolutely furious because Barack and Jesse and Al and Spike are all flashing their race cards and they apparently expect us to kiss their collective black asses while we pathetically grovel in our shameful white guilt?

Technological Game Changers in the Political World

This is not a technology blog, it's a politically oriented blog for the most part, yet sometimes innovation turns politics on its ear. Take the invention of electricity, or the Industrial Revolution, or even the invention of nuclear weapons, for example. In cases such as these, political forces in play are dramatically changed and forever altered by the introduction of world changing technological innovations. There are about to be some very new and incredibly big things coming soon. Get ready to change your political view point accordingly.

Standard conservative opinion holds that alternative energy sources such as solar and wind are inefficient hare-brained schemes promoted by our left-wing POTUS who is doing so because he wants to see the United States of America become a 2nd-rate, 3rd-world, bit player on the global stage. Far be it from me to defend the President, but I don't give Obama that much credit. He's not some kind of diabolical super-villain genius bent on nation-wide destruction. He's a golf and basketball playing part-timer who has assembled a less-than talented team of like-minded bureaucrats to run this country on a sort of simple-minded autopilot.

Therefore, I believe that while the boondoggle known as Solyndra is completely Obama's fault, I don't believe that he wanted it to fail. I don't believe that he fully intended to waste half a billion dollars and get nothing for the price. In all likelihood he probably expected Solyndra to do very well, finally proving that solar power is a viable and efficient improvement over traditional and environmentally damaging energy sources such as coal and petroleum. His gamble with America's bankroll was a big-time losing bet. We gave Obama control of the budget and he took all that money and went to the race-track and he bet it all on a long-shot. And he lost.

In similar vein, electric cars such as the Chevy Volt have been the source of both grumbling and scorn by conservatives who've watched these turkeys roll off the assembly lines, drive thirty miles and then stop, waiting for another multi-hour-long charge to get them another 30 miles down the road. The fact that a car which is good for only 30 miles at a time on the road costs $40,000 is just incredibly foolish to most Americans. Even worse than this already inexcusable profligacy is the fact that buyers of this foolish toy will receive a massive tax break which amounts to a subsidy benefitting only Chevy and the wealthy eco-fanatics who buy the Volt.

So far the story is simple: Obama is an idiot while efficient solar power and useful battery powered vehicles are still just pipe-dreams. That's all about to change. Graphene is the game-changer. Suddenly all the possibilities that have thrilled eco-fanatics to imagine are becoming possible through this new two-dimensional substance.

“Our study demonstrates that our new graphene-based supercapacitors store as much charge as conventional batteries, but can be charged and discharged a hundred to a thousand times faster,” said Richard B. Kaner, professor of chemistry & materials science and engineering. The electrodes are composed of an expanded network of graphene―a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon―that shows excellent mechanical and electrical properties as well as exceptionally high surface area.

They've only just scratched the surface of this idea. While newspapers natter on about portable electronics, they're totally missing the big picture. Efficient cost-effective methods for storing large amounts of ready-to-use power have until now been confined to petroleum-based products such as gasoline. This new technology has totally changed the game but they don't seem to see that just yet. I wonder how much longer it will be until they realize that an instantly rechargeable electric-powered vehicle powered by a super-light, super-efficient, completely solid-state, graphene super-capacitor is not only possible but inevitable?

Another technological innovation using the wonder material graphene is a better method of harvesting solar power, which until now has been highly inefficient, and not at all cost-effective. The technique described below promises solar collectors which are orders of magnitude more efficient than the current crop of gallium arsenide silicon panels in use today.

A new device that combines graphene with special metallic nanostructures could lead to better solar cells and optical communications systems. That is the claim of researchers in the UK who have measured a 20-fold enhancement in the amount of light captured by graphene when it is covered by such nanostructures.
The new devices have an external quantum efficiency of almost 50%, the highest value to date for graphene, says team member Alexander Grigorenko of Manchester. This boosts the light-harvesting capacity of graphene by more than an order of magnitude compared to its non-contacted counterpart, without sacrificing its speed. "If the plasmonic nanostructures we employed were optimized, it should be possible to realize perfect light-to-current conversion, where every photon falling on graphene is converted into current," he told physicsworld.com. "This is exactly what the solar cell industry is waiting for."

Final thoughts: Nothing of what I've written here is guaranteed. It's possible that it's all still just a pipedream. In our cynical world where everything that everyone says is held up for evaluation and suspicious second guessing about motives it's hard to accept or believe when the genuinely miraculous is in the offing. However, I believe we are on the cusp of an incredibly momentous time in the history of the human race. The future has never been so uncertain, while I have never been so filled with hesitant and very cautious optimism.

The red-herring war against women

As I drove to work this morning, I was listening to a radio station here in Memphis, Tennessee, called 98.1 The Max. On the air were these two characters called Drake and Zeke. They have a large following in the Memphis area, and I occasionally listen to them, because most of the time they're intelligent, cogent, and entertaining to listen to. That is, until they start bloviating on behalf of their morally bankrupt left-wing political party. I don't remember the exact words and I don't know which one of them said which asinine thing but the following is the gist of it:

"I don't know what is wrong with these people. Haven't they got anything better to do?"
"Nope, that's all they've got."
"Well, I suppose that's true. What with the economy doing much better, and the national debt being paid down, these tea-baggers have nothing left but nonsensical social issues to whine about. But I've just got to tell you that women are really starting to get pissed off about it! It's none of their damn business what women do with their own bodies."
"Right! I mean, why do these people think they can somehow control what other people are allowed to do with their sexual parts? Just get off their backs already, and let people do what they're going to do anyway. Who cares?"
"In recent news on this, there's this bill in Ohio to get even with these idiots by limiting Viagra prescriptions to those who meet certain specific "government" conditions." [ juvenile laughter ]
"There's also something in Oklahoma that would regulate sperm and make it against the law to deposit it anywhere except in a female vagina." [ more juvenile laughter ]
"They are such Idiots!" [ sound of a pistol being cocked and fired ]

This whole conversation just floored me. For a couple of weeks now, the liberal narrative has focused on the "Evil" Rush Limbaugh and the so-called "War against Women," which is supposedly being waged by right-wing extremists. This story has been spun and spun and this is where we are right now:

Rush Limbaugh calls a 30 year old far-left activist―who has demanded that Congress force her Catholic law school to pay for her and her friend's birth-control―a slut and a prostitute. In response, has come a non-stop deluge of outraged blow-back, with a slew of sponsors firing Rush Limbaugh. As far as I know, Rush is the only celebrity or personality of any kind on the right, calling any woman any derogatory or unkind words.

Obama doesn't want to talk about our dysfunctional economy. He doesn't want to talk about our gargantuan national debt. He doesn't want to talk about his foreign policy which follows an outrageous script of obsequious bowing and scraping before foreign dignitaries and then descends from there into abject apologies for being so pathetically American. The only thing left for the Democrats and Obama to discuss is this absurd red-herring of free birth-control for women, and they've been screaming about it for more than two weeks!

Yet, somehow, it is the conservatives who Drake and Zeke try to blame for the non-stop birth-control hysteria! In a nutshell, the liberals want to force every insurance company to pay for, and every hospital or clinic to perform, abortions immediately upon demand regardless of whatever trimester the mother is currently going through. No counseling about alternatives will be permitted. After all, the last thing we want is for the mother to feel the slightest residual guilt over her decision to terminate her pregnancy.

First Amendment, Shhmmirst Amendment...whatever!...stupid tea-baggers! Birth control is a constitutional right, what about that Amendment? These tea-baggers want to enslave women and put shackles on their uteruses. They want women back in chastity belts and metal panties. It's a war I tell you!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Look, over there! The tea-baggers are waging a war against women! Quick everyone, let's go get those scumbags!

Family Feud continues as Man bites Dog in Afghanistan

As of today, March 12, 2012, there have been at least 18,566 terrorist attacks committed by Muslims since September 11, 2001. Many of those 18566 attacks killed multiple innocent civilians, many times they were Americans. Never before, in all those thousands of stories with their pictures and headlines, have I seen the glistening tear-filled eyes of any American mourning the death of a loved one at the hands of a Muslim terrorist attack. However, let there be just one terrorist-like attack by an American, and immediately we see the hypocrisy of the Islamic world. Immediately we witness the full-court press of the left-wing dominated American media who will run this story in headline after headline, never caring that it will further inflame a region that was already an inferno of hatred and cold-blooded murder.

In case you didn't read about what promises to be the biggest story this spring, apparently a U.S. Army staff sergeant went berserk, walked off base and then began indiscriminately murdering civilians. I am sure more details will be forthcoming as this story unfolds.

The Taliban promised revenge Monday for the alleged massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier, an incident which may pose the biggest threat yet to the shaky U.S. alliance with Afghanistan's government.

The U.S. Army staff sergeant's rampage began at 3 a.m. local time on Sunday. The 38-year-old suspect allegedly walked off his remote base and went to two villages nearby, going house-to-house and shooting civilians. Nine children and three women died in the massacre.

This is difficult to write about. What this man has done is in one sense inexcusable, yet at the same time I understand. To understand the actions of this murderer, you have to understand the entire sordid tit-for-tat tale that comprises this family-feud-like situation.

It all began with a book. No, actually, it all began with a man. This man, this warlord, this pedophile-rapist-murderer-prophet, this liar, claimed to speak for God, for “Allah.” How stupid do you have to be, to accept the words of a man who claims to speak for God when we are all of us such pertinacious liars?

Nevertheless believe this man these fools did, and thus a religion was born. The family feud began shortly after the death of the prophet who authored the book. The prophet was as I've described a degenerate and a liar, and the book was a poorly written manuscript espousing the doctrines of hate, lies, misogyny, and genocide. The illiterate benighted peasantry of the region was slowly converted to this religion of slavery and murder by slavers and murderers. These Muslims, expanded their territory primarily through conquest. They conquered Greater Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Armania (Byzantine Armenia and Sassanid Armenia), Persia, Iraq, Transoxiana, Central Asia, and finally the Iberian Peninsula, establishing a Caliphate that stretched from the borders of China and the Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees.

Several hundred years after this murderous rampage of rape, slaughter, and conquest, some Christians in plate-armor went hunting for a cup that Christ had used during the "Last Supper." I feel certain that during the Crusades some Muslims were killed. Not millions, perhaps thousands, though more likely merely hundreds, but never millions. And so the feud continued.

Recently some jet airliners were flown into the World Trade Center destroying it and killing more than three thousand Americans. In response we invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban backed government in power at the time.

More recently a few of those Qur’ans I described earlier were inadvertently burned. In retaliation, Afghanis went berserk:

1. 9 killed in Afghan Quran burning reprisal
2. A suicide bomber blew himself up.
3. A suicide car bomber struck early Monday
4. Quran burning backlash
5. 2 Americans killed in Afghan interior ministry

Meanwhile the entire Islamic world demanded that the Qur’an burning soldiers face justice under Sharia law. And so the pressure has mounted higher and higher. Every American soldier in that savage Heart of Darkness must feel like they could be killed at any moment by someone who they'd thought was an ally. For almost a month, since February 20, this pressure has mounted. Finally, someone snapped. Of course he snapped! I don't condone his actions, I don't excuse him, but I do understand.

Justin Frank...ly you've probably got Obama poo on that 'stache...

Headlining Google's News page was the link to an editorial about President Obama's AIPAC speech, published in that paragon of professional partisan punditry and journalistic integrity, Time Magazine. The editorial was titled:
How Barack Put Bibi In the Corner.

Barack Obama’s masterful speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) revealed more than his growing comfort with his own power and with the gravitas of leading the most powerful nation on earth. Moving him forcefully into the center stage of world diplomacy without relinquishing his familiar message of bipartisanship, responsibility, and a never-ending quest to improve the lot of nations, Obama’s speech was the latest in a series of behaviors that revealed a kind of psychological maturity not seen on a presidential level in recent memory.

As I sipped my coffee, and read these words of star-struck adulation, I inhaled some of that coffee and after coughing for a while I finally pulled myself together. I was left dumbfounded! I'd read various quotes from that speech but I had no idea that America had been presented with another Gettysburg Address moment! The glowing praise from Justin Frank, the superlatives that jumped out at me―words like: gravitas, masterful, never-ending quest, forcefully into the center stage, psychological maturity not seen in recent memory―left me frantic to read the text of this oratory masterpiece of erudite statecraft!

Thank you. Well, good morning, everyone. Rosy, thank you for your kind words. I have never seen Rosy on the basketball court. I’ll bet it would be a treat. Rosy, you’ve been a dear friend of mine for a long time and a tireless advocate for the unbreakable bonds between Israel and the United States. And as you complete your term as president, I salute your leadership and your commitment.

To me, Obama's clumsy attempt at lighthearted humor came off as somewhat patronizing. We get it. You're this awesome and tall basketball-playing black-dude, and Lee Rosenberg is just a short white Jewish lawyer. Hahaha that's so funny! Okay not really.

His speech continued on in this fashion for quite some time, taking on the quality of an Academy award speech, as he thanked all and sundry for this opportunity to make another speech. Next, he talked about what great friends America is with Israel:

When one-sided resolutions are brought up at the Human Rights Council, we oppose them. When Israeli diplomats feared for their lives in Cairo, we intervened to save them. When there are efforts to boycott or divest from Israel, we will stand against them. And whenever an effort is made to delegitimize the state of Israel, my administration has opposed them. So there should not be a shred of doubt by now―when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.

The rest of the speech was the same message, reiterated over and over. We love Israel, we'll be there for you. We'll continue to help you and protect you. When the bullies threaten to beat you up, we'll be there to back them down, etc. Again, Obama sounded a little bit patronizing to me.

As speeches go, it wasn't that bad. I've heard worse from this president, for instance when he called for the so-called "67" Borders.

"We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."

What was so amazing about this speech? Justin Frank positively gushes about Obama's awesome ability to virtually smite his foes with what to mere mortals would be only "words" but when uttered by―The One―become weapons!

When Chris Matthews had his jumping the shark Obama-groupie moment admitting to getting a "thrill up his leg" listening to Obama, I was amazed that a journalist would stoop to such unbridled unabashed adulation. How could anyone ever again take Chris Matthews seriously? But to read the words of Justin Frank swooning over the POTUS, you'd start to think Chris' crush was just a little case of puppy-love

Obama’s ability to put “war talk” in its place was not only a harbinger of his AIPAC speech but also showed his clear appreciation of the literal power of language. At AIPAC, he used words as genuine weapons to confront Israel (and some American Republicans) about the danger of loose talk – almost scolding them. He asserted Presidential power in new ways, not just by urging people to search for common ground, but by setting limits.

I haven't heard prose like this since... Well, since 2008. Here we are in 2012 and it sure looks like the partisan and liberal media networks are gearing up for another orgiastic Obama love-fest. They're calling it an election, while they hypocritically and unapologetically promote their guy to be the Shoe-In.

Obama thinks gas prices are still too low!

In an election year, with gasoline prices hitting $4.00 per gallon in many parts of the country, you'd think that Obama would want to see gasoline prices come down. See, that's what you get for thinking! That old intuitive common sense thinking will trip you up every single time.

Speaking to a crowd of about 1,000 at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire, Obama defended his energy policies for the second time in as many weeks, saying that there are “no quick fixes” to escalating prices at the pump.

Obama insisted that lawmakers should vote in the next few weeks to repeal the oil industry’s $4 billion federal subsidies, a demand he has made several times in the past three years. Ending the “industry giveaway,” Obama argued, would spur the development of alternative energy sources that could offer long-term relief from rising gas prices.

“Every time you fill up your gas tank, they’re making money,” Obama said of the gas companies. “Does anyone really think Congress should give them another $4 billion this year? Of course not. It’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable.”

I guess Obama's not after the votes of people who're hurt by the high price of gasoline...well not directly hurt anyway. His constituency rides the bus, or the subway, or peddles a bicycle, or maybe even drives a Chevy Volt®. After all, Obama's voters are relying on him to save the earth and stop global warming and help the oceans to recede. Perhaps these non-gasoline using voters are maybe even celebrating the rising prices at the pump like cheerleaders after a touchdown...Go Go Gasoline!

Unfortunately, these Obama cheerleaders fail to understand basic economics. They fail to realize that the price of virtually every product and service which they rely on every day is directly or indirectly affected by the price of gasoline at the pump. Distribution expense is priced into every product we buy. Those eighteen wheelers, those planes, trains, and ships, they all run on gasoline or some petroleum based energy source, all created with crude oil. Therefore when the price of oil goes up, it hurts the economy.

Oil shocks have a long, storied history of coming along right before the economy crashes. In a 2010 paper, [James D] Hamilton pointed out that 10 of 11 post-World War II recessions in the United States were preceded by a sharp increase in the price of oil.

One 2010 study from the St. Louis Fed found that “an average-sized shock to... oil prices increases the probability of recession in the U.S. by nearly 50 percentage points.”

Obama says he wants to end the "Big Oil" subsidies. What does Obama mean by subsidy? We're giving four billion dollars to big oil companies? Obama is getting out his Uncle Sam checkbook and writing Exxon-Mobile, and ConocoPhillips billion dollar checks? Well, that's just got to stop. Obama's right; that's outrageous!

...oh, wait...no the government is not in fact giving them subsidies. When Obama says subsidy, what he really means is tax write-off. The "big oil" companies pay taxes on their profits and get to claim depletion allowances. In a nutshell, the oil company owns an asset—the oil well—but the more oil they take out of the well, the less oil remains in the well. This asset depletion means that the well is worth less than it was. Therefore they have experienced a "loss" and can now write-off that loss.

This tax "write-off" partially offsets the money owed to the Federal government in taxes. The big oil companies still write multi-billion dollar checks to the IRS every year, but just like you and I, they do what they can to lower their taxes. When you pay that huge price at the pump, just be aware that the big oil companies make a couple of pennies for every gallon of gasoline sold, but it's the taxes per gallon and the cost of crude oil that determines your price at the pump.

Obama and his "eco-friendly" policies have absolutely destroyed the domestic oil industry. Nobody's drilling for oil here in the United States anymore, because it's almost impossible to get permission. The price of oil is never going to come down until we start drilling again.

It's the Federal and state governments that are the ones who are really making outrageous profits from the sale of gasoline. And now Obama wants to raise those taxes even more!