Tag Archives: Nuclear

News

Obama cuts missile defense as Iran test-fires missile that can hit Israel

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Yesterday I linked to the story about Obama’s decision to weaken our nuclear capabilities, and a while back I blogged about the ACORN lawyer’s cuts to missile defense, just as North Korea was ramping up its medium-range missile program.

Here is a quick refresher:

Closing Velocity had some more details on the missile defense cuts. (H/T Hot Air)

  • Total cuts in missile defense: $1.4 billion or roughly 15%.
  • Cancel second Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft, keep the one remaining ABL prototype as a testbed and revert to pure R&D.
  • No increases in Ground-based Interceptor (GBI) deployment in Alaska. Remaining silos will stay unfilled. European GBIs will be decided on later during the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
  • Termination of the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) program.

    • Well, now we can add Iran to the list of nations emboldened by Obama’s weak foreign policy.

    The Heritage Foundation reports: (from their 33 Minutes blog)

    Earlier this week we mentioned Iran’s defiance and nuclear ambitions, President Barack Obama’s too-friendly request to enter into talks with Iran, the necessity to build agreed-upon missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Israel’s desire to take more aggressive action against Iran. Today’s post reaffirms why we blogged about these issues.

    My Way News reports that Iran test-fired an advanced missile today, with a range far enough to hit Israel, southeastern Europe, and our bases in the Middle East. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made this claim. So, despite Obama’s “tough” words of warning, Iran is busy developing and apparently testing its ballistic missile capability.

    That Iran doesn’t have nuclear capability at this very moment is beside the point. A team of U.S. and Russian scientists just released a report stating Iran would have such capability in as few as five years. In light of this recent missile test-fire, will our president take a more aggressive approach to dealing with Iran, or will he stand by his decision to give the rogue nation a year-end deadline?

    Here’s Nile Gardiner and a leftist journalist on MSNBC:

    This reminds me of a quotation from Ronald Reagan’s debate against the 2nd worst president ever, Democrat Jimmy Carter.

    And I’m only here to tell you that I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security. Now, I believe, also, that this meeting this mission, this responsibility for preserving the peace, which I believe is a responsibility peculiar to our country, and that we cannot shirk our responsibility as a leader of the free world because we’re the only ones that can do it. Therefore, the burden of maintaining the peace falls on us. And to maintain that peace requires strength. America has never gotten in a war because we were too strong.

    We had 8 years of constant terrorist attacks with the Democrat Clinton. We had 7 years of security, liberty and properity with the Republican Bush, who had the moral clarity, (from his Christian worldview), to oppose tyranny. Let’s see how well Obama’s diplomacy works. Somehow, I don’t think Obama’s appeasement of torturing, murdering dictators will be as effective as peace through strength.

    UPDATE: Gateway Pundit links to details on the missile. Range is 2000 km, two-stage solid fuel.

    News

    How progressive social policy enlarges the size of government

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    Great editorial by Ed West writing in the UK Telegraph. Is it possible to be a social leftist and a fiscal conservative? Or does the former impact the latter negatively? West’s editorial assesses the impact of feminism and sex education on government budgets, which receive much funding from the productive private sector.

    First, Britain’s social program for unwanted children is seeing record enrollment:

    Last night’s Rageh Omaar programme, Lost in Care, is timely. The number of unwanted children in Britain has reached 80,000, and that figure was calculated before the recent Baby P surge. Of those unwanted kids, 10,000 live in children’s home.

    And what are the costs to the taxpayer for this skyrocketing number of unwarranted children?

    The show reminded us how awful the statistics are for care home children; only 13 per cent get good GCSEs [high school diplomas] and almost half achieve no qualifications. One in four prisoners were in care, as were one in three homeless. and one in five girls in care are pregnant within a year of leaving. No wonder there is currently a desperate drive to find more foster parents, a calling that is seriously heroic.

    Well, I already talked about how leftist domestic policies destroy marriage here (socialism), here (same-sex marriage) and here (no-fault divorce). But the interesting thing is the cost of the anti-family, anti-child policies of the left. They were in such a rush to rebel against social conservatives, that it never occurred to them that those moral rules were in place to protect the interests of all parties.

    Recklessly impregnating someone or getting pregnant without the ability or willingness to look after that child ruins another person’s life, and also costs the state £25,000 a year for that matter.

    This is the problem with people who enact policies based on the need to feel compassionate and superior, while disregarding the logical consequences. Should we really be voting in people who undermine traditional morality run our government? If we do, it will cost us. To see more about how leftist policies increased the size of government and raised tax rates, see this previous post.

    For more news from abroad, check out my recent post on the state of free speech in Canada, the United Kindom and Cuba.

    UPDATE: Just noticed this over at OneNewsNow: Obama would ax abstinence-only funding.

    Excerpt:

    If Congress approves President Obama’s budget requests, there will be no more federal funding of abstinence-only education programs.

    Barack Obama has recommended completely zeroing out Title V abstinence programs to states, as well as abstinence education programs to community-based organizations (CBAE) and replacing them with more than $100 million for contraceptive-based sex-education programs. The massive omnibus bill signed by the president had already reduced funding to abstinence programs by $14 million.

    And then there is this story from mensactivism.org, entitled “Number of Unwed Moms in the U.S. Rising.

    Story here. Excerpt:

    ‘(AP) The percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States has been rising sharply, but it’s way behind Northern European countries, a new U.S. report on births shows.

    Iceland is the leader with 6 in 10 births occurring among unmarried women. About half of all births in Sweden and Norway are to unwed moms, while in the U.S., it’s about 40 percent.

    France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.’

    Oh, well. Ideology beats out fiscal prudence, I guess. I don’t think that immorality of the parents is too good for the children who are affected, either. Bible: 1, Atheists: 0.