Sunday, July 26, 2009

Henry Gates to Suppress Proof that Crawley is a Racial Profiling Racist Pig.

Obama was an idiot to get involved. His public opinion has taken a hit, as well as the notion that he is the first “post racial candidate” (much less post partisan, which died an early death). It isn’t just in public opinion where he took a hit; it also appears he took the wrong side in terms of the facts. That is why he is giving the mea culpa to Crowley and begging the press to make it go away.

Consider this though:

Gates' legal team argues that authorities are misrepresenting the professor and the officer, and Gates has said he is determined to keep the issue alive despite the charges being dropped.

"This is not about me; this is about the vulnerability of black men in America," he said this week.

Ogletree said Gates might sue the department and would bring forward witnesses who say they've had similar experiences with Crowley.

When asked for examples, Ogletree said only that they may come out in time depending on how the police department handles the situation moving forward.

"I think you will be hearing much more complex and different perspective on him [Crowley] in the coming days and weeks," Ogletree said, alleging that Crowley "is well-known among people, particularly young people, for some of his police practices."


So here we have a case where Gates claims to have evidence that Crowley is a racial profiling racist. That is what I read into it. They have witnesses willing to testify and evidence that he is a racial profiling racist. As of today it appears they are going to drop any of those claims as long as the Gates matter is put to sleep. And mind you, they still haven't released the tapes. Sgt. Crowley had an open mic, and I believe all of that stuff is taped. I think the tapes will vindicate Crowley and make Gates look bad. To the date of this post, they still haven’t released the tapes, which are supposed to be a public record accessible to all.

Fancy taking Gates and his legal team at their word for a moment. They claim to have evidence that Crowley is a racial profiling racist. Why would they drop such a case? For the common good doesn’t a veteran and historian of the civil rights movement like Gates have the responsibility to expose what his legal team has found? In their own admission, they already had people willing to testify.

I don’t think Crowley is a bad cop myself. But they say they have evidence that he is a bad cop. At least that is what they said until Obama did his best to shut down the investigation.

If Gates actually had such proof, he would have a moral right to expose the corruption. In that case it really wouldn’t be about him, it would be about getting a corrupt cop off the streets. His lawyers said they have proof.

What if Gates does have proof that Crowley is a racist?

What if he puts that away and doesn’t proceed on the case because it is not in his personal interest? What type of civil rights icon does that make?

Personally, I think Gates is a liar and a fraud, and this situation has outed him greatly. But if you think he is telling the truth, why would he not go after a man that is known to discriminate?


Steyn On Obama (Gates)

Mark Steyn: Obama knows 'stupidly' when he doesn't see it

When Sgt. Crowley announced through the glass-paneled front door that he was here to investigate a break-in, Gates opened it up and roared back: "Why? Because I'm a black man in America?"

Gates then told him, "I'll speak with your mama outside." Outside, Sgt. Crowley's mama failed to show. But among his colleagues were a black officer and a Hispanic officer. Which is an odd kind of posse for what the Rev. Al Sharpton calls, inevitably, "the highest example of racial profiling I have seen." But what of our post-racial president? After noting that "'Skip' Gates is a friend" of his, President Obama said that "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." But, if they're being "disproportionately" stopped by African American and Latino cops, does that really fall under the category of systemic racism? Short of dispatching one of those Uighur Muslims from China recently liberated from Gitmo by Obama to frolic and gambol on the beaches of Bermuda, the assembled officers were a veritable rainbow coalition. The photograph of the arrest shows a bullet-headed black cop – Sgt. Leon Lashley, I believe – standing in front of the porch while behind him a handcuffed Gates yells accusations of racism. This is the pitiful state the Bull Connors of the 21st century are reduced to, forced to take along a squad recruited from the nearest Benetton ad when they go out to whup some uppity Negro boy.


Steyn is one of my favs. The man makes me laugh. Another man I have been reading lately is Robert Stacy McCain. Now there is one McCain I would have taken pride in voting for.

The coverage of Gates in the press overshadowed his press confrence on health care. The death spiral kept spinning until Obama stepped in again to quell the storm. I think he may be successful in making the situation go away. In his press conference he pretty much asked the press to stop. He also contacted both parties and asked to have a beer with them.

I hope that Crawley brings his mother this time, as requested. I think Gates was mad about not being able to see her once they were outside as he predicted. Sphere: Related Content

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe

An article in by Michael Brooks in the New Scientist
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe

"IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn't create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.

Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.

The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. "We're moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster," says Daniel Baker, a space weather expert based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and chair of the NAS committee responsible for the report."



The article really captured my imagination.

This report says that a severe space storm could knock out all of the huge power grids in the world. It would melt all of the transformers and those would take years to replace if they all went bad all at once.

Life without electricity would mean death for millions. Hospitals would stop running after back up generators ran out of fuel. Water would stop running from the tap within days, and sooner than that for people in high rises. You couldn't pump gas without electricity. All the food in your fridge would go bad, and the just in time inventory of your supermarket would break down. Food would become the new gold.

Communication would break down in a severe solar storm, as would gps navigation systems.

I could only imagine the lawlessness. The whole system could break down, and eventually you would have every man for himself.

I think this would be a great basis for a science fiction novel. Check out the artcile. It goes into detail about what could happen. Sphere: Related Content