Clinton Obama 2008: A Republican’s Wet Dream

Obama Clinton has been called a “dream ticket.” I guess it depends on who you ask.

February 18th’s Time Magazine has an article written by Michael Duffy titled “Why Not Both?”

“Pair the visionary with the technician, the candidate who could inspire the masses and the candidate who could get under the sink and fix the plumbing.”

The Clinton duo damaged their image with black voters when they declared that South Carolina should be counted as 3/5 of a state due to the fact that it is majority black. Bill deriding the entire state for supporting the Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1984 did not help their cause either. Having a black vice presidential candidate would go a long way in healing that debacle.

Duffy says that “Obama, in turn, would get a mechanic to match his magic, someone who could turn his poetry into governing prose.”

Duffy utilizes vivid analogies and alliterations to write two pages of rhetoric. It is one of those articles that was created to plant an idea in the heads of people. Without any facts or logic, just a bunch of ‘what ifs’ and other people’s suppositions… but I guess that is what political commentary is all about. If you want to read the article for yourself, click here.

From John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism to Barack Obama’s “blackness,” race and religion have never been separated from politics.

Joe Lieberman sank Al Gore. Lieberman was a super delegate until he decided to support McCain… how was this War Mongering Jew the vice presidential candidate for the democratic party? I don’t have a problem with Lieberman being Jewish, I have a problem with him being a war mongering corporate soldier.

Black, Woman, Jewish, and most minorities still have a lot of hate and derogatories directed towards them - and its not just in the deep South. Recent polls in Ohio showed that 20% of people did not vote for Barack Obama because he is black.

Even in Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities in the world, if you are colored you have experienced it. If you are white, you never will.

John Kerry paired with John Edwards was certifiably inane.

John Edwards did not win his home state of North Carolina in 2004. Both Mondale and Dukakis won their respective home states, and they were clowns… Jokers even.

Edwards’ issue is poverty?!? In order to find a more hypocritical pairing of a politician with an issue, you would have to pair Dick Cheney with gun control, but that might get you shot.

There has been a long line of poor democratic candidates for president.

Why is pairing Hillary with Barack bad? Because it can’t win.

How many people remember any speech that a vice president gave?

The veep can have a few significant roles 1) to pull in an electoral state that would have otherwise gone to the opposing party, i.e. a swing state like Florida or Ohio 2) serve as an attack dog, i.e. Dick Cheney 3) secure a potentially undecided demographic, i.e. black people.

Illinois is already going to vote democratic; Obama has no sway in any major swing state. Obama as an attack dog is actually a good comparison to Edwards as a champion of the poor - forced. Black voters aren’t going to vote for McCain (if he is to be the republican nominee).

It seems like the ticket would read [President: Hillary Clinton, Vice President: Barack Obama] because the Clinton campaign has put that thought into the heads of the masses. Also because Hillary has more to gain. Don’t forget super delegates are going to have something to say in the democratic nomination process, and Hillary is winning that category.

The fact that the overriding issues for this presidential election are going to be national security (the “war on terror”) and the economy (government spending, taxes, and jobs) puts the democrats at a disadvantage right off the bat. Democrats are perceived to be weak in those issues. American politics have been simplified to the point where one party is better than the other when it comes to general policy categories - that is what the masses understand.

The fact that there have been both massive disagreement and open attacks between Obama and Clinton on the issue of Iraq, any republican has the opportunity to flank both candidates on any day of the week in regards to national security.

Universal health care, expanded government spending, and taxing oil companies sound good in the democratic primaries, but will undoubtedly hurt the democrats when the republicans preach limited government, prudent spending, and “no new taxes” - even though those things are far from the truth.

Neither Obama nor Clinton brings any rebuttal that can stand up to Fox News.

One more thing that would need to be considered is the role of Bill Clinton in this possible White House. Would he have more priority than Obama? Very likely. Under Bill Clinton’s administration, Hillary was more in the limelight than Al Gore. Hillary had a larger office, traveled to more foreign nations on “official government business,” and had more personal staff than Al Gore. Obama would be volunteering himself to be the third wheel.

A problem that the republicans were facing was a splintered base, but that has mended. A Clinton Obama ticket would finish the job by unifying everyone from small and big business to the xenophobic, “we won’t surrender,” and evangelicals.

If the democrats put this “dream ticket” up for election, it just adds to the evidence that this sham called American government is what it is… a one party system.

Man Made Black Holes

CERN is the leading high energy physics laboratory in the world, their incredibly powerful particle accelerators are an important piece of their resume.

What can be done with particle accelerators? Theoretically, they can create black holes.

I don’t know at what point it sounded like a good idea to create a black hole on Earth, but its more about hypothesizing what could happen.

Nearly half of the world’s particle physicists work on experiments conducted at the CERN facilities, which are located on the border between France and Switzerland. The acronym comes from Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research). It was established in 1954, and now has 20 member states.

The World Wide Web was started as a project called ENQUIRE at CERN in 1989. They announced it would be free to everyone on April 30th, 1993.

Currently, CERN is building the Large Hadron Collider, which is a particle accelerator and a hadron collider that is 26.659 kilometers in circumference and will be located 50 to 175 meters underground [pictures below]. This is the one that is theorized to produce many novel particles including: Higgs Boson, strangelets, magnetic monopoles, supersymmetric particles and Micro Black Holes.

Particle accelerators and “atom smashers” are one and the same. Just like the name says, they are used to create collisions between [altered] atoms - they do this by utilizing electric fields to propel electrically charged particles at high speeds.

The LHC is just one piece of the puzzle. The picture below is of the LHC experiments and the pre-accelerators. Each piece of equipment has to do with particular experiments.

The goal of these experiments as well as particle physics in general, is to find the fundamental building blocks of this universe. A fundamental particle would be something that has no substructure - it is made up of no other particles.

A micro black hole is sometimes categorized under “particle.”

Once we grasp that mass and energy are equivalent, it makes sense to destroy matter in order to release energy. Hence splitting of the atom to make energy. When you pair that information with 1) our belief that black holes are dense points in space and 2) our ability to use particle accelerators –> we have some very interesting results to look forward to.

The “Planck Mass” is believed to be the unit of mass when both general relativity and quantum mechanics simultaneously become important. The Planck mass is very very small.

General relativity is best explained using the analogy of fabric, hence the fabric of spacetime. Take a blanket and stretch all four corners and place a ball in the middle. The fabric “bends.” It is that bend in the fabric that acts like gravity. Think of a marble circling the drain, only if the marble took eons to fall down the drain (eventually the moon will crash into the Earth).

Quantum mechanics is the study of the relationship between “indivisible units of energy” and mass. Think of fundamental particles, but in the sense of fundamental energy. It would be cool to know if the fundamental building blocks of this universe was energy - which is what string theory states.

Energy is clearly important.

The LHC might allow scientists to create a collision that reaches some incredible activation energy at the level of the Planck mass. Basically, there would be a lot of energy in a very small amount of mass. If that happens, we are going to get a whole lot of stuff that we probably couldn’t have predicted.

So we start predicting some the improbable, in all of the fields we barely understand, based on all the information that we think we know.

Start at the conservation of mass - at first glance a black hole don’t make sense. How can something go into a black hole and disappear [in all of its forms] from this universe? Where does it go? How is it not “here” anymore? Etc.

Stephen Hawking put forth a theory in which he predicts that a black hole will emit exact black body radiation, and has since been called Hawking Radiation.

A black body is an object that absorbs all light that falls on it. But, gives off radiation depending on its surrounding temperatures.

Stephen Hawking predicts that a black hole gives off thermal radiation inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole. The bigger the black hole, the less radiation it gives off.

It doesn’t make sense to me, but that is because he made “reliable” calculations far from a black hole in the framework of quantum field theory in curved space time. [thank you Wikipedia]

If a black hole is losing more matter than it is taking in, it would make sense that the black hole will cease to exist. There is a tipping-point. If the mass of a black hole is less than X, we would expect it to eventually evaporate. If the mass of a black hole equals X, we would expect it to stay the same. If the mass of a black hole is greater than X, we would expect that the black hole continue to grow.

Lets go back to the fabric of spacetime. Lets call that ball in the middle of our sheet the sun. If the sun is 780 mm in circumference and 650 grams in weight [regulation basketball], a black hole could be smaller than a speck of sand and weigh more than our actual sun. The tricky part is that black holes can vary in size and mass, but they are probably governed by some function of energy.

It makes sense to conceptualize a black hole as a very massive singular point in space - massive means magnitudes of mass greater than our sun. That is why some might refer to a black hole as a single [super massive] particle.

So how big will the black hole that CERN makes be?

We can predict its mass based on the atoms, ions, etc. we are using to smash together, we also can estimate how much energy will be in that particle. IF they make one, it will most definitely be a micro black hole, and it will be much smaller than X.

It will quickly evaporate… hopefully.

What do we have to gain from all of this?

An outlandish guess is space travel at or near the speed of light.

A better understanding of Our Universe, is almost a given.

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For a list of news on black holes click here.

Genetically Engineered Domesticated Animals

How close are we to wanting a blue eyed baby, clicking a box, and then having a blue eyed baby? Very Close.

An Atlantic Salmon that has deliberately been inserted with a gene from a Rainbow Trout is called a transgenic animal. We could take a specific gene out of a human being and then put it into a test tube baby.

Google “transgenic salmon.”

The seminal ideology behind genetic engineering is both ancient and noble by most accounts.

but once you start, where do you stop?

If the government finds out that your child will have genes that would predispose him towards a life of violent crime, will they force you to genetically alter your child? Would you resist?

Once genetic engineering of human beings begins in mass - the laws, rules, and regulations will quickly follow. The laws would establish not only when you can change your child’s genes, but when the law itself determines your child’s genetics.

I guess it is important who writes the laws.

I file the movie “Gattaca” under Sci-Future.

Currently, we are socially engineered domesticated animals.

Haditha: Changing the Rules of Engagement

Haditha is the first case that forces the American Public to evaluate military counter insurgency combat tactics.

Haditha is in western Iraq near the border of Syria. It was a popular vacation spot before the war. By 2005 it was war torn. The city also provides tactical support to a dam that supplied the region with a lot of energy, making it a strategic military launching point.

Kilo Company was the elite and highly decorated marine unit that was assigned to retake Haditha. The “Thundering Third,” as it was called, was one of the most battle tested cores in the history of the marines, and had recently performed well in the second battle at Falluja.

The marines felt the citizens of Haditha had a seething disdain for the American military troops. They weren’t welcomed as bringers of freedom, instead they were despised as harbingers of death.

Marine Corporal Tim Tardif was told it was going to be bad, but their first night there, they “only heard crickets.”

November 19, 2005 was the day of the incident. Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich was in charge of 4 Humvees and 11 marines.

As the unit was moving around Haditha, an improvised explosive device destroyed the 4th Humvee in the caravan and killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas.

After looking for the “trigger man” for the IED, they saw a white sedan on the side of the road occupied by 5 men. The soldiers decided they were hostile and after no dialogue could be establish, the occupants were shot and killed.

As that was going on, the marines took small arms fire, which they decided came from a house off the road.

At the end of they day there were 9 wounded marines and Terrazas was dead. On the Iraqi side, there were 24 dead civilians including 7 children under the age of 15. but that was not noteworthy to the soldiers, “it just happens” was what one soldier said on camera.

The initial report read that 1 marine and 15 civilians died from one improvised explosive device. It was an inaccurate press release, but the soldiers did not see it as problematic because “the media usually doesn’t get it right.” The soldiers know the media is trying to Wag the Dog.

Requests for a formal investigation were made by the Haditha City Council. The marines learned a week after the incident that the council asked for the entire incident to be labeled a crime of war and call the killings “executions.”

That led the military to believe that the city council had alliances with insurgents and terrorists. Because if you aren’t “supporting our troops,” you must be a terrorist.

A human rights organization happened to be in Haditha at the time, and they were quick to make a film of the deaths. A movie based on war crimes always gets attention.

Tim McGurk, a writer for Time Magazine, was introduced to this video and the entire situation became obviously suspicious.

McGurk made a formal inquiry to the military and got an incredulous response deriding the video as typical terrorist propaganda.

Within a month there was a full investigation ready to go.

Thomas Betro, who is the head of Naval Criminal Investigation Service, said this investigation had more manpower devoted to it than any other in the past 25 years.

The Iraqis wanted to be part of the investigation, but the United States didn’t allow it.

What really put this into the main stream was Congressman John Murtha. He brought it up on May 17, 2006 on television. He went from CNN to Fox News talking about shit he didn’t know. He spammed the term “cold blooded murder” and turned Haditha into a launching pad for political rhetoric.

This war, this election, this false democracy is all about political rhetoric.

A pervasive feeling, from the ground troops to the highest level of the American command, is that Iraqi lives are not as important or valuable as the lives of American troops.

According to everything being done in Iraq, that is true. Relatively routine was, and still is, the deaths of innocent Iraqi women and children.

This is a problem because it makes sense [to many people] to value your nation’s soldiers more than the women and children of a perceived hostile nation.

On December 21, 2006, the U.S. military charged eight Marines in connection with the deaths of 24 innocent Iraqi people at Haditha. Four of the Marines, Frank Wuterich, Sanick de la Cruz, Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum were accused of unpremeditated murder. Tatum was further charged with negligent homicide and assault, while de la Cruz was also charged with making a false statement.

The fact that an investigation was purposely delayed brought questions to the desk of the people in charge.

Dereliction of duty is pretty bad. It means that one willfully, through negligence or culpable inefficiency, fails to perform one’s expected duties.

The battalion commander, Jeffrey Chessani, was charged with one count of violating a lawful order and two counts of dereliction of duty. First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson was charged with obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty, and making a false statement, while Captain Randy Stone and Captain Lucas McConnell were charged with dereliction of duty. Stone also faced an additional count of violating a lawful order.

The Marine Corps dropped all charges against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz in exchange for immunity during testimony. Seven other Marines involved in the incident have also been granted immunity.

The court proceedings are going on at camp Pendleton right now.

What they are trying to figure out is if the marines acted appropriately under the then Current Rules of Engagement.

After the 5 males in the white sedan had been neutralized, Wuterich’s people had to address the small arms fire.

The soldiers established that the small arms fire came from a near by home. That is when things got more than dicey. Wuterich, the marine in charge, was asked what he said before clearing House 1. He claims he said something like “shoot first and ask questions later.”

One of the soldiers claims that he heard the sound of an AK-47 “racking” (being readied to fire) from inside the home. He threw a grenade in the house. When a grenade goes off, visibility goes to shit, nothing more than targets can be made out. Each target was taken out. They went from room to room, not entering more than 2-3 steps into any room. House 1 was cleared.

After clearing the first house, Wuterich acknowledged that women and children were dead. Once collateral damage has been discovered, it does not mean the threat has been eliminated or even diminished. The defense argues that there should be no slow down in forward progress. That is why the marines went on to House 2 and killed more innocent people.

The marines declared the entire house as hostile. When they did that, their actions become justifiable.

Many interesting questions have been raised.

Do you need to positively identify a “target” in order to open fire?

What happens when collateral damage is observed in the middle of combat?

The definitions of words like hostile, target, Torture and even “danger” have being debated and redefined.

Many obvious questions have been put to the side.

Why are so many innocent people dead?

How can we value one life over another?

None of the soldiers are charged with murder.

Important questions have been ignored.

What is war?

Is it ever justified?

These young soldiers have the moral authority of judge, jury and executioner. They have to calculate and balance maintaining troop safety, mission accomplishment, threat level from the enemy, collateral damage, and every single aspect of the situation in a split second.

They have an impossible job: To kill people, and justify it.

It would be a much better world if we did not have any rules of engagement.

I am against AIDS research

Its not because I am an insensitive prick. Its not because I don’t know anyone who has the disease. Its not because I am for population control. Its about opportunity cost and greed.

2.1 million people died of AIDS in 2007. The world invests about $8 billion to $10 billion in AIDS research every year.

About 1 billion humans lack clean water on a daily basis. 2 million children die annually of preventable waterborne disease. The world spends about $80 million a year on water projects.

90 percent of the global medical research budget takes aim at illnesses that cause just 10 percent of the world’s disease burden.

The reason why so much money is put into AIDS research is because whoever has the AIDS cure [or vaccine] stands to make a lot of money.

George W. Bush is visiting Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria right now [February 15 to February 21st 2008] in hopes of getting support for an American military base in Africa to help pollute, loot and plunder whats left of Africa. 25% of of America’s oil for the next decade is expected to come from Africa. Bush is claiming that the military base will help facilitate the fight against terrorism, poverty, and disease.

AIDS “research” allows the imperialist United States to enter Africa and rape the land and its people for whatever resources are left. The Constant Gardener is just the tip of the iceberg.

AIDS research it is about making money.