Brit Intel Warns of Surgically Implanted Bombs

The battle against Islamic terrorism just took another turn:

A leading source added that male bombers would have the explosive secreted near their appendix or in their buttocks, while females would have the material placed inside their breasts in the same way as figure-enhancing implants.

Experts said the explosive PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate) would be placed in a plastic sachet inside the bomber’s body before the wound was stitched up like a normal operation incision and allowed to heal.

A shaped charge of 8oz of PETN can penetrate five inches of armour and would easily blow a large hole in an airliner.

Security sources said the explosives would be detonated by the bomber using a hypodermic syringe to inject TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide) through their skin into the explosives sachet.

I'm not sure if this really possible or just terrorist's trying to scare us even more. US privacy rights will run head on with safety concerns and cause even bigger headaches for TSA and DHS.

Read the article where they mention that the technology is available but the outcry will be enormous from civil liberties groups.

Wednesday Morning News & Notes

here's what's news:

-Here's a new blog from a guy who is in manufacturing and has watched the steady decline in that sector. Check it out. Added in the blogroll at right.

-Tracking the stimulus and it isn't working.

-Hmmmm...A bomb threat was issued for Air France flight 447 according to a Brazilian newspaper.

-ACORN was busted red-handed, now they take the usual liberal tack and claim they were the victims. My heart pumps piss.

-The Obama administration's amateurism with everything is breath-taking. Their security procedures make Clinton's look downright impressive.

Where Does the GOP Go From Here?

Let's all be honest about something here; the GOP is in shambles with very few bright spots. Let's also be very honest that we've put ourselves in this position.

The last eight years prior to January have put us where we are since that time. By giving lip-service to our core principles and then doing the exact opposite of them we've allowed our party to become one not of ideas but of expediency. Arlen Specter was more the typical Republican not the left-leaning fringe faction.

We allowed George W. Bush to spend and our elected legislators happily jumped aboard the pork barrel express sending earmarks to their districts for projects not needed and in some cases not even wanted. We became Robert Byrd--fiscally of course, not with the hoods and kleagle stuff in our past. We allowed lobbyists to dictate our course instead of core values and an underlying belief in what the Constitution means. We allowed Bush to create education legislation (and immigration) with Ted Kennedy and create the largest entitlement program in a generation in prescription drugs for seniors program. Fortunately we stopped his insanity on amnesty but that was one of the few and far between victories conservatives have to hold up.

So where does the party go now? Here's my take on the future of the party and how we can regain those votes lost and those people who felt betrayed:

Fiscal sanity:

We have to become what we once were; fiscal hawks. That means no earmarks of any kind from anyone. It will be tough, earmarks are how the Senators and Congressmen say to the locals that they care and are bringing jobs to the region. They build tangible things that they can stand in front of for a photo-op. Any legislator that proposes an earmark should be called out by the party establishment and be made to suffer for it. In turn, we should hold up every single earmark by the Dems and ridicule it incessantly.

Taxes:

Not one single yes vote on any bill that raises taxes. Let the Dems own the high tax issue. We did on the stimulus in the House and all but the most liberal held out in the Senate. If we stand firm and united, we actually may gain some trust of the public back. We've looked like morons screaming about spending while we were as bad in that regard under Bush over the last half-decade. We need to regain the moral high ground and can't do so if we vote to raise taxes. Taxes will surely have to be raised on everyone and Obama knows it. He may wine and dine some soft Republicans and invite them over to watch football on a Sunday but they simply need to go to the White House, have a beer, look Obama right in the eye and say no.

Gay Marriage:

It's a loser issue. We support the ideal of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It doesn't say "except for homosexuals". We look like zealots who are beholden to the Christian cause and that is not who we are. We are a Judeo-Christian culture and the Founders of our nation were influenced by the church but they specifically struck down the creation of a national church or religion. Face it folks; you're born gay. Think to yourself, why would anyone choose to be gay? Why would anyone opt to live life as an outcast? Homosexuals have as much choice over being being gay as I did on being white and Tiger Woods did on being Cablinasian. we can continue to pursue our current course on this and it will be like a fifty-ton anchor around our collective necks. The American population is inundated with homosexuality whether it be movies or TV and people are not as judgemental toward homosexuality as they once were. We lost this particular cultural battle and it's time to let it go.


Abortion:

It's tic-tac-toe at this point; no one can win. If you are not set in your ways on this issue, you never will be. None of the arguments will sway anyone. We should still be vigilant on partial-term and late-term abortion but if we allow this to be a major pillar, we risk being in the wilderness for some time. Don't get me wrong, we need to remain anti-abortion and make it an issue come election time but we're not going to have another conservative on the Supreme Court anytime soon and we stand no chance of overturning anything until that happens. Once we regain power, it's back in play.

National Defense:

We will get hit again and it will be devastating. Obama has neutered our intelligence operations by releasing the "torture" docs and may well have lopped the legs off our agents in the field. The days of getting actionable intel are over in the short term and until we win back the trust of the CIA and other intel agencies, we will be in a precarious position. We've allowed the Dems to take the offensive in the battle on water boarding even though we gained intel that directly saved American lives. Dick Cheney is out their brawling and the rest of the GOP is wishing he'd go away. How about having Cheney's back and say loud and proud that no, we don't torture and we didn't in this case. We have to make the average citizen see that we did what was required and it was effective.

Military:

Obama has pledged more troops because he had to. He boxed himself in when he railed about losing Afghanistan because we focused on Iraq. We have to push Obama hard on this and once the body bags start increasing, we can't dive to the gutter and use their sacrifices for political gain. It unseemly, disgusting and exactly what the the Dems did to us. I'll never forgive them for that and won't ever forgive the GOP if we play that game as well. Reid said we've lost in Iraq, Murtha falsely accused Marines of murder. They were both wrong and we should hand those particular albatrosses around their necks come 2010. We have to continue to push Obama to give our fighting men and women exactly what they need to win.

The Middle East:

The Obama administration is all over the map on the region. The not fringe anymore left hates Israel and everything the nation stands for. We can't let Obama cave to them or we will have problems we never even dreamed of . An emboldened Syria will retake Lebanon while Islamo-fascist's will rise in Egypt and start a full-scale civil war. We have to be vigilant on supporting the Israeli's.

Iran:

Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran means a constant battle to keep the Straits of Hormuz open and the oil flowing. Add to that the confidence that will allow them to step-up operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and we will have a nightmare scenario.

In conclusion, we as a party must return to our core values: low taxes, reduced spending, strong national defense, protection of the 1st and 2nd Amendments and the spirit of hard work breeding success, not government handouts. We must allow the evangelicals to have a say but not the only say. We have to purge the soft fiscal conservatives and the hard-core social cons and elect fiscal conservatives who will stand up and say no to any new spending. We need to have House and Senate leaders with the guts and leadership abilities to keep the caucus in line. It's the only way we will ever come out of the wilderness.

Update: Via Glenn Reynolds, the public has veered right on guns and abortion. The guns numbers I expected, the abortion ones I did not.

Energy Bill Chaos

Late last year, Congress passed the latest energy bill packed full of nice little goodies like subsidies for ethanol producers and an increase in the fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. All of these are nothing but feel good measures enacted for no other reason than to gain votes. It's a sham being perpetrated upon the country for shameful political purposes.

Bush should have stood up and said the following:

We need new sources of fuel as the political situation in the Mideast will continue to remain volatile. We see an ever increasing population that will require more fuel for more vehicles--not just in the US but in emerging Asian nations.

The United States must become more energy independent, not just in the area of fuels for vehicles but in fuel for power plants. With that in mind, I propose the following:

Increase fuel efficiency standards by 100% over the next 10-years and give the struggling auto industry tax incentives for new and improved engineering.

Research new sources of bio-fuel other than corn. Corn-based ethanol is not a solution to any problem due to the impacts on other sectors of the economy and the costs associated with distillation. I will propose to fund research into any and all other agricultural products and to establish whether or not their use as a fuel is viable. Ethanol has been shown to be at least as harmful to the environment as standard fuels are and unless a true alternative crop can be grown without effect on the current agricultural balance and reduce emissions, to continue the charade that ethanol is viable is absurd.

Streamline the process for building nuclear power plants. The ability to produce and maintain smaller, more efficient plants with no emissions is known and has been shown to work. France has zero coal or fuel-burning plants and is a net exporter of energy. Former military bases shut down due to the latest BRAC would be used for this purpose.

Next, refinieries must be built and I propose to also streamline the process for that as well. A completely new refinery has not been built in the US in nearly thirty years and the efficiancy and capacity of our existing refineries is not sufficient to meet current and future needs. I propose that our refining capacity be increased by 50% over the next ten years. We can purchase all the crude oil we want but without the ability to refine it into diesel, gasoline and home heating oils, the shortfalls will continue.

This brings me to new sources of crude oil. Currently we buy our crude oil from the Persian Gulf region and Venezuela. At the same time, we have major stores of crude oil sitting beneath our feet in ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico and under portions of the continental US. I propose that we drill for this oil and get production on line quickly. I will ensure that the natural environment around these areas is protected by increasing the staffing of the EPA and creating a citizen commission that can ensure that petroleum firms are good stewards. We have the ability to extract this precious resource in an environmentally safe and efficient manner and we should be doing just that.

I would further propose that oil shale--oil trapped in shale deposits--be extracted as efficiently as possible. New technology can be used to address the extraction problems and get this vital resource into the pipeline.

Another important avenue we must research is the development of true alternative fuels. Whether it be hydrogen or other renewable and safe resource, we need a new fuel strategy because this is first and foremost a national security issue. American business runs on fuel be it the trucks and trains that haul goods domestically or the ships that carry our exports, we need a new visionary approach.

Global warming may be the reason some would buy into this theory but the need for us to cut our ties to regions where the oil is extracted is paramount.

Finally, back in the early 1960's, John F. Kennedy challenged this nation and NASA to build spacecraft that could reach the moon and to have a human set foot there within the decade of the sixties. We accomplished that goal in 1969. I now propose that we as a nation become energy independent within ten years of today. This will increase domestic job opportunities and will put the nation on track that establishes us as the forward thinking nations we once were. Our technological abilities are peerless and we need to use those abilities to further this cause.

The bill presented to me by Congress does nothing to further the cause of energy independence and therefore will not be signed by me. It's a band-aid on a huge wound and will hurt us more than help us. By utilizing the power and innovation of American business to achieve these aims, we will be beginning the next great industry in the country. I will add needed tax incentives and subsidies to reach this goal. The process will be very open to everyone and those that invest in research and development that shows promise will be rewarded with these subsidies. The days of buying votes with half-baked bills such as the one presented to me are over. I call on the large oil firms and the small entrepeneurs to step up and meet this challenge head on. There is economic and national security benefit for everyone in this proposal and I now say to Congress, the ball is in your court.

It will never happen that way but one can daydream, right?