S. Court Lets Places Like China, Venezuela Pick our Next Congress

Are you ready for future American leadership being picked with the help of ads run by foreign dictators?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations, even foreign ones, to pour millions into American political campaigns opens the door to some fascinating possibilities.

Imagine this real possibility made possible by this ruling. China. Instead of their government having a big political row over the U.S. selling arms to Taiwan, China simply takes part of the trillions in U.S. debt it bought in the last decade and invests it in Congressional races on candidates it feels would be more "favorable" in future votes.

Why have a diplomatic dust up when for a modest investment from their trillions anti-democratic Chinese leadership can attack or favor any U.S. Senator or Congress candidate they want? In the future you won't know if "XYZ" corporation buying ads is controlled by whom, so it won't be obvious who is pulling the strings.

The Supreme Court has even made it possible that someone like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez could run ads that favor Candidate X or Y or Z for Congress. Remember Chavez? He's the nut case running Venezuela who thinks Castro is cool and copies him by shutting down opposition TV stations, newspapers, etc.

Under the Supreme Court's ruling, Mr. Chavez' corporations are treated just like Joe and Jane Voter. Don't forget, Mr. Chavez has has an American subsidiary, CITGO, which can support or attack any American candidates they want. Your fill ups add to his buying power.

You won't know which one of these foreign leaders is pulling the chains on America's elections. As an attorney I know how easy it is to set up a corporation and mask its ownership.

This 5-4 decision that breaks 100 years of precedent. It means that future elections by Americans will no longer be between Americans when the winning candidates are picked and funded by corporate interests from around the world.

I wonder who the corporations in the other 200 countries in the world would like sitting in our Congress tomorrow?

Thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling that makes the Constitution "by the Corporation, of the Corporation and for the Corporation", American voters will have their decisions influenced by what the global corporations want - unless you tell Congress to do something about it.

Glaciers Then and Now - You Decide. Growing or shrinking?

Ok, Skeptics and those convinced we are in a global 'cooling' period. Here are several glacier shots, then and now. Do these glaciers look like they are growing (from cooling), or shrinking (from warming)....?

First up, the Matterhorn (left photo) in 1960 and then in 2009.

Next picture (right), Glacial National Park in 1938 (left side) and in 2005 (right side).

Do these ice caps appear to be growing - or shrinking?

Rise of the COFFEE Party! Fixing the World over a Cup of Joe

Are you feeling like it is all about the blame game? That nothing gets done in DC without bickering and blame?

We have Democrats, Republicans, Independents - and a "Tea Party" that seems fueled by anger and requires a rigidity in thought that the Taliban would feel right at home with, so I figured it was time for a whole NEW party.

I'm calling it the COFFEE Party (aka the Caffeine Party). Our slogan is "We can fix the world over a good cup of Joe."

Instead of having blame and "no" as the rules - the coffee party's central tenet is that only by sitting down with people we don't know, over a coffee or even a meal, we could address the serious issues of our day like adults - and actually FIX things.

I know that sounds pretty radical - FIXING things instead of playing the political blame game.

But it is the only thing that will do what most Americans want: to fix things! We have a fiscal mess brought on by a decade of fiscal madness, borrow and spend tied to new entitlements like the unfunded Plan D of (2006?). We can't fix it with a know-nothing party or a party of no or a party of hate and anger.

We can only fix things if we sit down together in a calm manner and start doing intelligent work. While Democrats and Republicans engage in a war with each other, the rest of the world is passing us by in their distraction. We need less politics and more action from BOTH sides towards REAL solutions instead of slogans.

All it takes to join the Coffee Party is a willingness to sit down with others over a cup of joe and start talking. Having an argument while a Tsunami approaches (from financial disaster to climate disaster that impacts our existence), doesn't make sense. Both parties will drown if we don't start addressing issues like rational adults - on all sides.

The Coffee Party wants you! Actually, we want the common sense middle Americans, not the radicals on either extreme and their inability to relate to anyone outside their narrow circle.

I think the common sense middle is a majority of Americans I'd like to sit down with a good cup of Joe to start finding solutions for our country's next great century of progress in a rapidly changing world.

NASA: Warmest Decade in History. 2010 Could Be Warmest on Record

NASA: "There's a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends...In the last decade, global warming has not stopped."

DETAILS AT:

http://armorglass.blogspot.com/

Emergency Helicopter Following Boat on Clear Lake

Anyone know why this emergency helicopter was following a small boat on Clear Lake this morning about 11:30 a.m.? I shot some video, which is at this link:

http://armorglass.blogspot.com/2010/01/emergency-helicopter-following-boat-on.html

Solar Minimum - Impact on Weather As It Moves to Max

It turns out that we had the hottest decade in history when the Sun was at its least activity in its cycle, known as the Solar Minimum. What does that mean for temperatures as it moves into the Solar MAXIMUM in the next few years?

Details and Sun cycle chart at:

http://armorglass.blogspot.com/2010/01/solar-minimum-impact-on-weather.html

Supreme Court Just Threw Out 1 Man - 1 Vote: Foreign Corp Ads OK

The activist Supreme Court just threw out 100 years of law and has ruled that corporations, even foreign-owned ones, are people - and can run political ads. In other words, they just tilted the table towards the powerful and ended the American principal of "one man, one vote." And the party who brought the suit never even asked for that ruling!

People no longer count. Now it is the artificial "people" who will increasingly control who gets elected. Put it this way. If that was the rule when the automobile was first introduced, the horse and buggy people would have made them illegal and we'd still we walking. Now, coal companies with millions can stop wind and solar projects that would advance our future.

Under this, the new guy and the new technology will be buried by the old guys and old money. Who does that advance our country? We face a world where it is the control of new technology that makes the winners. Now the old, powerful ones will have even more power to kill the new.

As a result of this activist decision by an increasing one-sided court, now voting power is no longer a choice between men and women: instead it will go to the corporations with billions of dollars and the most powerful entities on earth. Now even foreign-owned companies operating in the U.S. can run a politician ad for or against a candidate. How nuts is that?

This decision will tilt the U.S. to become more like Mexico, where the powerful elites stifle regular people and competition. And you can see how Mexico has been a technical whiz under that system, right? Their top heavy system can't even produce jobs - so they send them to the U.S. rather than changing their system.

This was a bad 5-4 decision that ordinary people who don't control millions of corporate funds (like Wall Street banks, hedge funds, etc.) should fear the consequences whether you are a Democrat, Republican or a tea bagger. The court made a ruling on an issue that the Plaintiffs had not even pled. It should be reheard and reversed.

Activism by a court on the right should be as wrong as activism by a court on the left - especially one that throws out 100 years of precedent.

Mass/Texas - No More One Party Monopolies. Avoiding the China Syndrome

It's foggy here on Clear Lake today - can't even see across it - but the fog seems to be clearing in Washington and Texas where its becoming crystal clear that this will NOT be a normal political year.

From the new Senator Brown to a possible Texas Governor Medina from a third party makes this a fascinating year to watch

What happened in Massachusetts - the breaking of a single party stranglehold on office is also happening here in Texas. And that's good for both states.

Why? Because single party states are monopolies on power where cronyism and corruption set in and the real decision is made by a few voters in a March primary instead of the general public in November. A single-party State is no different than the single-party Chinese State dictating policy without any opposition to temper excesses.

Let's face it: The Democrat left overplayed its hand and people are more comfortable with Centrism then either the ideas of either extreme (left or right).

In Texas, we have a three-way battle for the GOP Governor nomination, including a candidate that represents independents, disgruntled Republicans, tea baggers and Libertarians to boot - Deborah Medina.

So instead of the race being two candidates trying to out-right-wing each other for the primary voters, the first debate between the three brought out discussions on legalizing drugs and giving ownership of our roads to foreign companies. I hope Belo Corporation changes it mind and allows Ms. Medina to join the next GOP Governor debate now that polls show her over 10%.

Have you ever seen an airplane fly on only its left or right wing? No. It only flies when there is a balance between the two. Massachusetts needs a break from the Democrat lock and places like Texas need a break from the GOP lock in order to give voters more choice and more than extreme candidate No. 1 vs. extreme candidate No. 2.

Breaking the one party monopoly on elections, which is happening in Texas before it happened in Massachusetts, is the only way to avoid the "China Syndrome."

Foreign Journalists' Gmail Hijacked in China - Security from eWeek

Foreign Journalists' Gmail Hijacked in China - Security from eWeek

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Al Qaida's 21st Century Jihad Cyber Recruiting – Web 2.0 Used to Spread Hate

The Web has proved to be a great gathering place for the haters of the world to find each other and bond. Now Al Qaida is using it to grow their organization that would have died or withered without its ability to reach out globally to easily influenced people.

Al Qaida has managed to stay alive for two reasons: (1) the remoteness of the Afghanistan/Pakistan badlands and access to other failed States like Somalia, (2) because of its sophisticated use of 21^st Century technology: The Internet.

Creative websites have been established by Al Qaida webmasters to print articles and show videos that paint a one-sided story of their 14^th century beliefs – that one religion (theirs) control the world and that the Westerns are killing Muslims because of their religion. (The one-religion-controlling-the-world idea is arrogant and moronic in a multi-religion world).

Like most hate groups, Al Qaida fails to tell the other side. It occurred to me that Americans should tell that story. How many Muslims know that the U.S. was defending Muslims who were being killed by the Christian Serbs in Bosnia, etc. in the 90’s?

I was reminded of that while watching “Behind Enemy Lines” the movie with Owen Wilson. It was based on a true story of an American pilot shot down over Bosnia by Serbs in the 90’s, while on a flight to monitor Serb activity. ( He was successfully rescued).

Unfortunately, incidents like the Blackwater shootings and the Abu Gharib torture photos give Al Quaida fuel to fan the flames of hate. They are useful ways to generate anger in jobless young men like the underwear bomber. With video and articles, they are talking to thousands of young men like him, using those episodes to convince these easily influence young men (and potentially women) that Westerners hate their religion, so they need to kill themselves attacking us.

So it occurred to me after watching “Behind Enemy Lines” that we should get our own websites showing the good things we are doing to support the ordinary Muslims from brutes like the Taliban. Recent polls show that the Taliban has lost favor with the population because of the Taliban’s cruelty and indiscriminate killing of civilians. We need to build on that with our own creative use of Web 2.0.

We could start by getting them to watch “Behind Enemy Lines” to show that Al Qaida’s extremist leaders are telling lies. (The sequence with the SAM missiles chasing our fighter is amazing).

The world has many religions and no one needs to put themselves above everyone else. Extremists do just that.

Pass the word.

Australia Burns - Seabrooks Red Sky...

Photo: Seabrook Sunrise 12 Jan 2010

Compare this to the shots of Australia burning under the hottest summer ever - after 50 years of rising temperatures (at the Armor Glass blog).

It could be a sign of things to come next summer for us -

Details at the Armor Glass Blog:

http://armorglass.blogspot.com/

Sign up to "Follow" Armor Glass for updates...we could be looking at a severe hurricane season, etc...

Sarah Palin's Flip Flop on 'global warming'

I found an interesting article on the recent cold snap that has had people wondering if we were in a "global cooling."

Not even close. In fact, the temperatures in the arctic, where it counts, are still above normal. Some place are 15 degree above normal. It's all about the jet stream, which is letting colder air come further south.

Note this: before Sarah Palin become a national candidate, she was warning about "global warming" destroying parts of Alaska! Why the flip flop?

A few weeks before she mounted the national stage, in July of last year, then-Gov. Palin told her state:

"Alaska's climate is warming. While there have been warming and cooling trends before, climatologists tell us that the current rate of warming is unprecedented within the time of human civilization. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will warm at a faster pace than any other areas, and the warming will continue for decades."

So she was for global warming before she was against it.

Alaska happens to be one of the states where global warming effects are visible - villages are disappearing due to the loss of the permafrost like this one pictured above...

Texas: Solar Energy Jobs - Sign the Petition

This graph shows that the largest source of CO2 emissions is from fossil fuel combustion (oil, etc.).

There is a petition being circulated to encourage Gov. Perry to launch a Texas Solar Initiative. It would create new jobs as well as new energy for our rapidly growing state --while cutting our emissions. That's a win-win-win.

You can find the petition at:

http://www.environmenttexas.org/action/energy/other/its-time-to-go-solar

If we don't lead in this area, China and other countries will --as you can see in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html?hp

I would prefer to see Americans leading, and that starts right here in Texas. I encourage you to sign the petition and encourage our leadership to get us moving into solar and renewal energy as part of our energy future...

The Most Critical Issue To Our Future - If We Are to Have One...

Don't let the cold fool you. Here are graphs of both co2 and temperatures - and the trend is spiking way above the "normal" cycle. The second one is by the National Science Academy, showing both co2 and temperatures are spiking dramatically up.

Freak weather is part of the pattern of climate change. The next graph shows that yes, you will have drops in temperature along the way, but temperature trend is UP.

We can disagree on medical issues and a lot of other things and whatever happens is not that important compared to thie climate issue.

If the climate change people are wrong, we end up with cleaner, greener energy, water and air. If the climate skeptics are wrong, the air overheats, the ice is lost and the planet is toast, along with our grandchildrens' future.

Which is worse?

To fix the climate threat now would only take an annual U.S. investment of $17 billion per YEAR. We spend $12 billion a MONTH on Iraq.

If our kids and grandkids don't have a livable planet, what happens in Iraq or Afghanistan will hardly matter.

Enjoy the cold while you can - it's been a decade since we had one of these (remember, it used to be cold EVERY year). It won't be long when even cold snaps are a thing of the past unless we take action. It will have to be a global effort.

Larger version of 800,000 year graph of climate change

This is a larger version of the graph I posted, showing the normal cycle of heating/cooling the past 800,000 years. So, yes, there is a natural cycle. And it always stayed in a certain range. Or did...

Towards the end you can see that, starting in 2008, we are way above that normal range. Sure, we will still get snow and cold, but what we are getting is not keeping up with what we are losing.

At present emissions, we will continue to increase heating from co2 to the year 2100, when we are toast.

Unlike most issues, this one involves survival of the entire planet. Want to risk that?

How Earth Will Look in 90 years if Climate Change is Real..

In helping a friend do research on a presentation about "Climate Change: Myth or Real?" I came across a couple eye-popping pieces of real science.

The first is a graph showing the last 800,000 years of climate (they can do this by drilling ice cores). It shows that there is a natural cycle of heating and cooling for all 800,000 years -until now. Now the temperatures are spiking off the 800,000 year chart -- way above the average.

In other words, this is not a natural cycle... The second is a Google Earth video showing today's earth and how it will look in 90 years (in the year 2100), based on current temperature increases. Notice how it goes from a nice light green color to a dead, dark brown...

Think about this: If the climate skeptics are wrong, the planet dies, which is not good for either our grandkids or business. If the climate change proponents are wrong, we end up with cleaner, renewable energy, cleaner skies and more water - not to mention new jobs created by these new industries. Which scenario is worse for our kids' future?

Good Things About 2010

As we enter a new decade, here are some good things about 2010 to consider:

We survived the worst crash of our economy in over 70 years (that should make everyone feel better).

We have a whole new set of political figures to blame for everything we personally did wrong.

We are not starting this decade with a Presidential election being decided by The Supreme Court instead of the voters.

We are not in a bubble of irrational exuberance (which proved in the last decade to be a bad sign in a stock market).

We are not in a depression (they suck).

People are now saving more (instead of continuing the overconsumption binge, except possibly for overeating fatty foods).

More people now appreciate what it’s like not to have a steady paycheck, raising their empathy for those down on their luck (how can you understand the trap of being poor unless you have been there?)

We can be happy that Mr. Stanford and Mr. Madoff are in jail and that your GM (Gov’t Motors) warranty is still good (I need to trade mine in!)

We are rebuilding our economy with greener, cleaner, more diverse energy sources and 21st century technology that will create the jobs in the present and future (people who once made buggy whips were retrained to assemble the first cars; carmakers can now retrain to assemble wind turbines, solar panels, etc.) We don’t progress by standing still.

So, here’s to a new year and a whole new decade to try not to screw up (so we can look forward to the next one).

I’m thrilled to be in 2010!

TV interview on Bomber's Trip to Houston in 2008 - Changes needed

Yesterday I got a call out of the blue from the Houston Fox 26 TV station about the Flight 253 "underwear bomber" who paid a visit to Houston in August 2008. Here is the video, with my 15 seconds of hot air:


I was their terrorism analyst on 9/11. Why? Because I was one of the few talking about these threats since the early 90's. I had previously been their Mideast expert during the first Gulf War in '91.

It is obvious that we have to upgrade our technology. It is obvious that the system set up after 9/11 to insure sharing of information between agencies still is not working as it should. This includes getting intelligence from allies - apparently the British have a policy not to share their visa information with the U.S. If they had done so, and our system was computerized, it would have raised yet another red flag.

Now that we survived the train wreck of last year's economic disaster, it is time to focus on fixing this system as well as the financial one (which still needs attention to avoid a repeat of Wall Street recklessness).

Thank God this decade is over. It was a decade that doubled our national debt in 8 short years - by giving tax breaks to the wealthy financed by debt, waging two wars, financed by debt, and in 2004 enlarging the Plan D drug plan, also financed entirely by debt. Imagine running a business that way. It wasn't sustainable. It wasted an opportunity to pay for it when we did have money. That's another reason it all crashed in late 2008.

In the next decade we can't rely on 20th century technology. We will have to advance our technology and our global intelligence. We have to do nation building or continue to fail in Afghanistan. Bush was opposed to nation building; Obama has been cool on it. But nation building is what put Iraq back on the path so our troops can leave. It's what bought Europe and Japan back after WWII. It is the only solution.

We will have to be a lot smarter in the next decade just to keep up. We now face a wealthy China and an empowered India whose economies will exceed ours before this century is out. Even Russia is exhibited some vision - planning on tackling an asteroid on a near collision course with Earth. It's bad when Russia has more vision than we do.

We need a global strategy --militarily, technologically and economically-- to get back into the lead after our treasury was squandered in the last decade.

Americans Who Threaten our Leadership Are No Different than Al Qaeda

I see extremism these days as not just an Al Qaeda problem. We also have a domestic problem. I have seen it in comments on this blog--and in the protests of last summer. When someone says that our leadership should be "hanged as traitors" for the "crime" of supporting social security, that is a threat against our own leadership--and wrong. Who made them God? That is Tim McVeigh thinking. That is Al Qaeda thinking.

We have different extremists, and really more dangerous ones than the guys who can't figure out how to set a trigger on PETN. Tim McVeigh didn't even care that he was blowing away a day care center, his hate was that blind. How American is it to suggest that taking care of Americans is outside the Constitution of our great country? Cars didn't exist when the Constitution was written--so do we not drive cars?

How is it un-American to suggest that providing Medicare to aging Americans is an outrage against our charter? Logic would suggest that a great country does more, not less, to help its citizens, just as others have. I just saw a TV story on an American who went to Mexico to get a new hip, because he couldn't afford the $80,000 to $200,000 it was going to cost him here in the U.S. He had never been to Mexico, but it was the chance to get a new hip that he couldn't get here.

We have had too many people saying too many crazy things about our current government which inherited the mess they are trying to fix–-they didn’t create the mess. Let’s put things in reality.

Bush inherited a $50 billion surplus, a shiny new car; he left Obama an Exxon Valdez piled up on the reef, leaking oil. Lehman’s collapse froze all credit. The economy went off a cliff not seen in 70 years.

Now the crew that put our ship of state up on the reef is complaining about the cost of repairing the damages and cleaning up the mess. The Obama administration inherited the Homeland Security system which had a flaw--lists are not cross checked. That is another inherited problem that became evident on Christmas Day. Fixing TSA is another leftover problem to add to the “to do” list. The Senate could help by approving a new TSA administrator instead of letting one Senator hold it up. We don’t need leaderless security positions!

We need to improve our air security system GLOBALLY, by getting full body scanners in use in FOREIGN locations--like Nigeria and Amsterdam--that feed air traffic to the U.S. Having them everywhere is the solution. Technology has to keep up--and focus on explosives.

Improving our health services is also needed--rather than not changing a broken system that ranks No. 37 in the world. This makes sense for our future prosperity--and our humanity. With many Americans overweight and eating high artery-clogging foods--and moving into retirement age--there will be a huge and growing demand on medical services like never before. As we age, medical care will become as vital to each person’s life as air.

Our founders would have embraced this because they too were visionaries that wanted a better life for Americans.

We don't build a future based on hate. We build a future and prosper only if we are focused on leading the global technology race--and improving our system and the lives of our people.
Mexico is doing a better job than we are in providing medical care for an annual fee of $300/year. Their surgeons have the same instruments used in the U.S. To improve, we need to change what we have been doing.

That includes not tolerating threats against our leadership by domestic sources. If we are real Americans, then we don’t advocate violence against our own government leaders. That is what makes us better than Al Qaeda, who even kills other Muslims in their hate.

Christmas Day Attack on Northwest Flight 253: The Nigerian and Europe Connection

Has Al Qaida now spread to Africa? A Nigerian suicide bomber would be a first. The evidence points in that direction. If so, what can be done about Africa being used to launch a terrorist attack on the U.S.?

It was an American Northwest Flight No. 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. But the suspect who tried to destroy it on yesterday’s Christmas Day flight boarded in Lagos, Nigeria – not the Middle East. He used a device similar to what Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, used. Reports are that he claims to have gotten the device in Yemen. Fortunately, the device failed and passengers and crew sprang into action – the real heroes in action.

Authorities claim the Christmas flight terrorist was a “lone wolf.” Since when does someone go to Yemen for a bomb and act “alone.” Al Qaida has been building a base in Yemen, and that is connected to international terrorism. But a bigger threat than Yemen is – London! The suspect once lived in London, which is now regarded as where the largest numbers of radical Islamists are living. Why London? What can be done about it?

I know this: even a “lone wolf” who tries to kill is connected to radical terrorism. He was influenced either by an organization spreading hate on the Internet or in London’s streets. Radicalism is a global virus potentially more dangerous than H1N1. It is being spread 24/7 on the Internet. The time has come to see if the “Wild West” Internet should have some international oversight that can block hate websites. But Internet recruiting is being presented like hip hop, sort of a “jihad cool” that generates anger by showing attacks on Muslims as injustice that should be defended. That could also have led to this attack.

I have been to Lagos, London and Amsterdam, not as a tourist but as an international negotiator on major projects. It was on a project in Amsterdam a few years ago that I discovered a multi-million dollar international fraud ring being run, in Europe, by a Nigerian criminal organization (at which point things got very serious, but that’s another story). Nigeria is a country split between two religions: Islam in the North and Christians in the South. Al Qaida would love to dominate the country – and its vast oil reserves. It doesn’t have to be there to recruit. It can do so on the Internet.

Al Qaida seems to have gotten a foothold in the west – i.e. London—from which it can recruit radicals from the third world – and use the lax security in places like Lagos, Nigeria to get into a Europe, a jump point for flights bound to the U.S. In Nigeria, bribing a security official to get cleared is almost routine –and demonstrates how the weakest link in the international security system can be exploited by suicide bomber on a flight. Secondary screening in Amsterdam was not sufficient either.

Al Qaida has a fixation on blowing up aircraft, starting with its attempt to blow up a dozen flights over the Pacific in the mid-90’s. Why didn’t the security checks work in both Lagos and Amsterdam? Why has England become the biggest centerpoint outside the Middle East of extremist Islamic sympathizers? Why can’t we attack-- and shut down -- the Internet sites used by radical Islamists?

The bigger question is how to prevent future attacks like this. The first thing we need to do is deny radicals a western base. If London has become a breeding ground for Islamist radicals to build their networks and explosive technology –and to launch attacks on the United States -- U.S. authorities need to work with the British government to do what can be done to imprison or expel them. We need to deny radicals a European base to recruit suicide bombers from the third world to terrorize innocent people like those on the Christmas Day Northwest flight –which occurred 8 years to the month that Richard Reid attempted his shoe bombing. Just coincidence? We need to insist that security screenings of passengers from places like Nigeria be screened again in Europe before boarding U.S. flights. We need to improve screening procedures and technology. We need to start a 24/7 Internet defense strategy.

The passengers on Northwest 253 got lucky. If the suspect’s technology had worked, we would have lost that plane in mid-air and not known what happened. Fortunately, the device failed to create the disaster intended. We have to stay ahead of the terrorists, and that will take even more international cooperation and coordination.