Another Terrorist Lawsuit

This one in Britain. A convicted Islamist bomb plotter, Salahuddin Amin, is suing the UK government. He claims that he was tortured while in Pakistan, and that therefore the UK is responsible and owes him money. 

At this point it isn't surprising that plenty of people are stupid enough to support such lawsuits, and actually take them seriously rather than laughing them out of court. But the twist in this case is that Amin is receiving "taxpayer-funded legal aid to pursue his case." That's right. Britain is funding the frivolous lawsuit of a convicted terrorist.  The country is literally paying for someone to sue it.  What's next, buying terrorists bomb-making materials?. 

What Not to Do in a Storm

Remember when you were a child and learned not to stand under trees in a lightning storm? This guy forgot.

Brad Gifford, 38, was sheltering under a tree during a thunder storm when the bolt struck his right lobe, travelled through his body and left via his left ankle.

The bricklayer suffered 11 per cent burns to his body, across his shoulder, groin and left leg, and only realised what had happened when he woke up the next day in intensive care.

His friend, also stupidly standing under a tree, described seeing a blinding flash of light that ignited Gifford. He called it "the most terrifying thing I've ever seen." 

It's pretty difficult to get yourself struck by lightning. But standing under trees during thunderstorms is a good way to improve the odds.

HOT5 Dailiy 8/3/2009

1. "The Dangers of Making Everything a COIN Fight" Is Afghanistan actually a counterinsurgency war?

Representative Sample: Is Afghanistan a nation or a collection of tribes and tribal governments which at times work together but more often than not fight each other?

2. "Steyn: Health care as a liberty issue" Something completely ignored by health care "reform" proponents: freedom.

Representative Sample: How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?

3. "Unverifiable "Knowledge" is Demonstrably Trivial." Uses a friendly fire incident to illustrate important points about knowledge & perception.

Representative Sample: We are fundamentally bounded in our rationality. We are bounded by the physical architecture of our brain, our experiences, what we already know and believe, our feelings, our self-interest. We don't examine every possible option, or every scrap of data before we make a decision.

4. "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (4): Manipulating the Y-axis Scale in Graphs" A great visual example of  how a graphic representation can mislead rather than inform. 

Representative Sample:Another common manipulation of statistics: play a bit with the starting and ending values on the y-axis of your graphs. This can give astonishing results. I prepared a fictional example

5. "Where’s the Money for Responsible People?" Easy answer: it's going to the irresponsible instead.

Representative Sample: I’m trying to think if there’s some area of life where I can be stupid and irresponsible now, so I can get paid by Obama in the future. Because so far I’ve really screwed myself by doing things right

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Panetta Says It's Time to Move On

CIA Director Leon Panetta has an op-ed in today's Washington Post called, "Congress and the CIA: Time to Move On." The article is interesting. Does this mean that the Obama administration has definitely decided against investigations and political prosecutions?  Let's hope so. Here's Panetta making a big understatement,

focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action.

Threatens to? From various reports, CIA morale is at rock bottom. It's far more than distracted.  Panetta again,

the Obama administration made policy changes in intelligence that ended some controversial practices. The CIA no longer operates black sites and no longer employs "enhanced" interrogation techniques. It is worth remembering that the CIA implements presidential decisions; we do not make them. Yet my agency continues to pay a price for enduring disputes over policies that no longer exist.

Basically he's saying, the CIA is already crippled, how about leaving us alone? I mean here you have an secret intelligence organization that can't maintain secret facilities, and has had its interrogation practices scrutinized, exposed to the public, and put in a straightjacket of ridiculous limitations based on blind legalism. Enough is enough. Even Panetta recognizes it.

He also takes issue with Congress jumping on the CIA regarding the unimplemented assassination program that he shut down. As he says, his reward for being straightforward with Congress was "a fresh round of recriminations about the past." Unfortunately Panetta is probably wasting his time. Those he's talking to don't care about the CIA's intelligence capabilities, as they have amply demonstrated. They prefer it neutered.

HOT5 Daily 8/2/2009

1. "The 7 countries that are pissed at Obama (economics edition)" And that's mostly friendly countries. The benefits of having a clueless amateur in charge.

Representative Sample: let me offer my list of countries with which relations have deteriorated in the last six months. I'll pocket the Post's Israel point and omit Iran, since relations with them are bad, but not necessarily worse. The list is necessarily subjective, but I'll give my reasons for each.

2. "Dr. Valerie Tarico- Non-theists and Evangelicals: The IM Interview" A Christian interviews a non-theist. Interesting, serious interview.

Representative Sample: I have been wanting to do an interview with an articulate and perceptive non-theist, and I have found one in Dr. Valerie Tarico, author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth

3. "Obama's Anti-Israel Diplomacy Spectacularly Fails To Win Even A Single Arab Or Muslim Concessions" Big surprise.

Representative Sample: Iran is holding three American civilians, Saudi Arabia says that they won't make any gestures toward Israel, Syria is insisting on a series of non-starters as preconditions for talks, the oh-so-moderate Fatah party is about to harden their party line to match Obama's anti-Israel stance, and Hamas is threatening to boycott Palestinian unity talks because of whatever today's pretext is.

4. "The Aggressor State" Interesting description and analysis of the left. 

Representative Sample: Because liberalism defines itself as transformative, it is very comfortable with aggression. This posture serves them well with a public that believes “progress” is inherently positive. The business of building the modern super-state has been a sustained attack, using cultural pressure, legislative power, and the blunt instrument of loyal voting blocs to beat Middle America into submission.

5. "What's Really Inside the Democrat WelfCare™ Bill" If you actually read it, it is even worse than it has been characterized.

Representative Sample: Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Democrats' Ignorance of Basic Economics

You have to laugh listening to top Democrats such as Obama and Pelosi  insist the "Cash for Clunkers" program was a big success that exceeded expectations -- even though it ran out of money and now needs emergency financing. Democrats are actually amazed that a program that essentially involves giving people money proved so popular. If you have an older car that meets the guidelines -- especially one that is a low value trade-in -- and have the resources and any inclination to think about getting a new one, you'd have to be crazy to pass up the opportunity to have the government turn your practically worthless trade-in into 4500 dollars.

I wonder what Democrats think would happen if we put a new program into place that subsidized the purchase of high definition televisions by giving people  a 200 dollar credit if they turned in a non-HD model that was more than five years old? Would they be surprised if the program budget was exceeded? How about if we set up a program to trade old worn-out 5 dollar bills for shiny new 10 dollar ones?

HOT5 Daily 8/1/2009

1. "Cairo Joins the Battle Against Tehran" Egypt siding with Israel against Iran?

Representative Sample: By granting canal access to the warships now, Cairo too is signaling its concern. In fact, lately Egypt’s Mubarak regime has been demonstrating an increasingly public identification with the nascent coalition against Iran. 

2. "Turkey Looks East" Turkey, the Uighurs, China and implications for the future.

Representative Sample: Turkey has long occupied both a cultural and geographic pivot, positioned between three key areas—Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. 21st century geopolitical thinkers such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington have written of Turkey’s unique position and how Ankara has the most choices of any other state in its weight class as it moves into the future.

3. "Double Standard? You Decide."The difficulties of arguing with the religious.

Representative Sample: They complain that we are not open minded enough or that we are not willing to sit down and take their beliefs seriously. Then, seemingly without batting an eye, they explain in no uncertain terms how their faith is essentially non-negotiable - no matter what the evidence.

4. "Cash for Clunkers: Why Government Should Not Meddle In The Economy" And they just pumped 2 billion more into the program. 

Representative Sample: if Government cannot anticipate the basic law of supply and demand, why are we to trust them on understanding health care, the financial sector, unemployment, small businesses, the auto industry, or any other area of our nation’s economy

5. "Pirates in the Baltic Sea?"We refuse to implement basic anti-piracy countermeasures such as hanging those captured in the act. In the face of weakness and foolish legalism, it's not surprising that piracy might spring up in other areas.

Representative Sample: A ship was hijacked in Swedish waters early Friday morning last week, news wire TT reports. The boat was sailing between the islands of Öland and Gotland when the hijacking occurred.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.