Archive for the 'National Security' Category

Is the administration being penny wise and pound foolish?

My earlier post was about the fact that the US spends and spends and spends, and saves very little.  We definitely need to stop spending, but we need to be smart when we do it.  Because our current administration tilts Left, it is reluctant to slow the hemorrhage but, to the extent it will cut [...]

The moral imperative of American energy

Cheap fuel is an important key to peace, human welfare and prosperity. We have the key. The world can’t do without fuel and the scramble for world fuel resources lies at the root of most of our current geopolitical problems. The high price of fuel affects the environment (e.g., 3rd world deforestation) and the price [...]

Osama: dead or alive? *UPDATED*

The narrative about a maddened Osama racing out firing an AK47 is starting to unravel.  The truth, one that the Obama White House didn’t want the base to hear, is that the Navy SEALS had orders:  kill Osama. The question is why kill him?  Why not capture him and get information out of him?  Why [...]

There are some things you simply don’t farm out — and national security is one of those things

I am cheap.  Very cheap.  That means that I’m a bargain hunter.  I like used books and cheap clothes.  I prefer to buy American but, if my pocketbook tells me that America isn’t a good deal, I’ll usually follow my pocketbook.  Usually, but not always.  If buying something from another country would put me in [...]

Out of sight, out of mind

Zombie believes that the Berkeley City Council, with its unerring instinct for getting to the heart of the matter, and then going in the wrong direction, is on to something with its decision to laud Bradley Manning as a great American hero.  After all, while Assange gets the fame, it was Manning who got the [...]

Wikileaks

I have been, I suppose, almost remarkably silent about the whole wikileaks fiasco.  The data drop is of such enormous proportions, it’s actually difficult for me to process all the implications.  I have, however, got a laundry list in mind of some conclusions to be drawn and some of the things it means, which I’ll [...]

Wikileaks — obvious, yet still dangerous, stuff spread by wicked people and useful idiots *UPDATED*

I haven’t had time (nor do I have the will) to pay close attention to the myriad revelations in the Wikileaks documents.  My overall sense, though, is that, fact-wise, there is nothing new here — or, at least, nothing new to those of us paying attention.  All of us at Bookworm Room have known that [...]

Are we overreacting to junk-touching?

Ace asks a question that needs to be asked, which is whether conservatives are overreacting to the TSA’s new search techniques (naked scans and intimate searches): This has been bothering me. On one hand I’m inclined to just not like invasive pat-downs and naked body scans. On the other hand, I can’t help but think [...]

Real airport security — by Spartacus *UPDATED*

Sometimes, a reader leaves a comment that is too good not to elevate to post status.  This time, it was Spartacus, writing in response to my question about real ways (not stupid, embarrassing, intrusive ways) to improve airport security: *** A childhood friend of mine got married in the Tel Aviv area in 2002. By [...]

Why airline security will always be merely offensive, and never useful

In a previous post today, in which I asked how to make airline security actually work, the clear winner was profiling, a la the Israeli system (along with some other solid suggestions, such as privatization).  But as long as the feds control airline security, that’s not going to happen.  Witness what’s going on in LA, [...]

How should we improve airport security? *UPDATED*

Over at RedState, there is a post that succinctly sums up the three choices currently facing people who plan to travel to a faraway destination: Door #1: Have nude pictures of yourself beamed to some video monitor to be viewed by a total stranger where it may or may not be stored; or, Door #2: [...]

Deconstructing Janet Napolitano’s fatuous statements *UPDATED*

By now, you’ve all heard that Janet Napolitano, the head of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, is going around saying that the system worked perfectly when a guy on the US no-fly list, who had been turned in by his own father, boarded a plane and detonated a bomb, only to be foiled by a [...]

Join Keep America Safe

William Kristol, Liz Cheney (Dick Cheney’s daughter), Debra Burlingame, Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III’s sister (his plane was hijacked into the Pentagon on 9/11) have started Keep America Safe, an organization specifically aimed at tracking national security issues.  The mission statement is simple, and should resonate with every American who believes in American exceptionalism, recognizes [...]