Heavy Israeli Hint

The latest Israeli surveillance satellite is up and running:

An image of a dam in Syria as viewed by the new spy satellite Eros B.Photo: ImageSat International

Blair Opposes ID Cards (For Fraudsters)

When Blair is finally busted, it’s going to take years for the Brits to rebuild their social capital. Here’s why and how he’s undermined the integrity of the once incorruptible Brit electoral system.

The “why” is that most immigrants vote for Blair’s Labour party:

…it is thought that about 80 per cent of Asians who vote and 90 per cent of blacks vote Labour.

The “how” is that the Muslim immigrant community has imported it’s low trust values to the UK (my ellipsis):

A judge investigating vote-rigging in Birmingham’s local elections has ruled there was widespread fraud and has ordered new elections.

Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC upheld allegations of postal fraud relating to six seats won by Labour in the ballot of 10 June last year.

The results have been declared void and the polls in two wards must be rerun.

“The system is wide open to fraud and any would-be political fraudster knows that,” Judge Mawrey said.

Mr Mawrey had heard petitions lodged against six Labour councillors…Shafaq Ahmed, Shah Jahan…Ayaz Khan…Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal and Mohammed Kazi.

So Brit election officers have asked Blair to help them combat fraud:

The Association of Electoral Administrators, which represents election officers throughout the country, called for all electors to be required to give their signature and date of birth when they registered to vote.

The details would then be checked against applications for postal votes and could also be used to check any individuals who aroused election officers’ suspicions at polling booths.

You’d expect that a government that’s forcing every Brit to carry an ID Card full of biometrics to prove themselves to state officials would be cool with this. Shockingly, it ain’t so:

Bridget Prentice, the Electoral Administration Minister, said compulsory checks could deter people from registering to vote and reduce election turn-outs.

Yeah, looks like it would indeed cut the Muslim vote.

Unmaking Of A Retailer

When a company starts attacking its customers, its days are numbered – here’s a Brit example.

The Tesco supermarket chain achieved market dominance by focusing remorselessly on its customers – single professionals, retirees, working mothers, etc.

Now it’s switched to policing, not serving, them (my ellipsis):

A deer hunter who took his photographs to (Tesco) for processing was shocked to find himself reported to police.

Tesco has no ban on photographs of shooting and its privacy policy says: “We will never pass your personal data to anyone else”, but it contacted the police without telling (him).

Staff deemed photographs of him with his gun and a deer he had shot “inappropriate”, although he had broken no animal cruelty or firearms laws. Although the sport is legal, Tesco gave his details to officers who questioned him for several hours.

…he was “utterly shocked and stunned” when two policemen arrived at his house on a Sunday morning with a set of prints given to them by Tesco.

The Tesco management team is broken – alienating customers cuts revenues and paying inspectors to check photos for “inappropriateness” bloats overhead, since photo processing is fully automated.

So we’re dumping its stock & won’t shop there again.

The Illegal Immigration Train Wreck

The president’s proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants has seriously backfired on him, the GOP and the illegals – hat tip Power Line.

The GOP meltdown:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national opinion survey finds that 44% of Americans say they would vote for a Democrat if the Presidential Election were held today. Just 32% would vote for a Republican.

The survey also asked respondents how they would vote if “a third party candidate ran in 2008 and promised to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority.”

With that option, support fell sharply for both major parties. The Democrats still come out on top with support from 31% of Americans. The third party candidate moved into a virtual tie at 30% while the GOP fell to 21%.

A “stop illegal immigration” slate could win in 2008 because this is what Americans think (my ellipsis and emphasis):

66% (of polled Americans) believe it doesn’t make sense to debate new immigration laws until we can first control our borders and enforce existing laws. Just 21% disagree with that approach.

In our survey, we informed respondents that there are 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States and that more than half have lived here for more than five years. Upon hearing those facts, 40% favored forcibly requiring all 11 million to leave the United States. Just 44% are opposed to a forcible removal of illegal aliens.

So now illegals are scared:

Rumors of immigration roundups have prompted thousands of illegal immigrants

to stay home this week and are making some afraid to participate in a national immigration protest planned for Monday.

Though federal immigration officials said they were unfounded, rumors of random
sweeps were rampant from coast to coast Friday, prompting thousands of immigrants to stay home from work, take their children out of school and avoid church.

The absences caused the rumors to build, as some thought their missing friends and co-workers had been arrested.

The president is a brave and honest man – big enough to admit that he’s misread the American people, and back down. He should do that quickly, else we get Hillary in 2008.

The Minister From Hull

Blair’s deputy, Prescott, has worked hard to appeal to the Brit Muslim vote – practicing petty corruption, driving two flamboyant government-issue Jaguars, engaging in fisticuffs to defend his honor, demolishing dhimmi democratic institutions and thousands of their houses. He’s even showcased male dominance by seducing his secretary on the taxpayer’s dime.

But now he’s thrown it all away:

There was further embarrassment for Labour and the Prescotts last night as voters in his Hull constituency reacted to a party newsletter showing a full-length picture of Mr and Mr Prescott posing happily together under the headline “Home Pride”.

The Muslims of Hull will not be merciful.

Reaping Whirlwinds

Brit politicians have declined to deal with voters’ concerns on domestic terror, illegal immigration, law and order, and the EU. Instead they’re trying to suppress a small party that struggles to address these concerns. The elite will probably win, but they might not, in which case expect an earthquake in Brit politics.

Here’s an example of the suppression (my emphasis):

A theatre in Kent has sacked its drama tutor after it was revealed she had been working for the British National Party (BNP). It happened after a newspaper revealed that Emma Chamberlain, from Deal, presented interviews and features on the far-right party’s website.

The Tory leader put the fix in too:

(The Tory leader) called yesterday on voters in next month’s English local elections to support any party other than the far-Right British National Party. (He) accused the BNP of “thriving on hatred” and wanting to set one race against another.

Still, many Brits are aren’t buying the elites’ message (London Spectator ($)) :

Labour voters are switching to the BNP in large numbers because they believe that only the BNP articulates what they are thinking. This is a story being repeated up and down Britain in local elections… Racist politics is on the march.

So what is the BNP proposing? Here are the bullet items from their manifesto (my ellipsis):

…an immediate halt to all further immigration…deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants…voluntary resettlement of (legal) immigrants…assisted by…generous financial incentives…for individuals and for the countries in question.

…British withdrawal from the European Union.

…re-introduction of corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals, and the restoration of capital punishment for paedophiles, terrorists and murderers as an option…

…selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports…

…(end ) the ‘trendy’ teaching methods that have made Britain one of the most poorly educated nations in Europe.

…maximum (agricultural) self-sufficiency for Britain (and)…restoration of Britain’s…fishing industry with the reimposition of the former exclusion zones around our coast.

…revitalise the Health Service by boosting staff and bed numbers, slashing unnecessary bureaucracy and by addressing the root cause of low recruitment and retention – low pay.

(Cut) fuel tax, (raise) motorway speed limits…(and ban) hidden speed cameras.

…replace the brutalist modernism of 1960s-style-architecture with a blend of traditional local styles and materials and ensure that developments take place on a more human scale.

…(only give) foreign aid (linked) with our voluntary resettlement policy.

…restore the earnings link with (national) pensions (currently linked to living costs).

…end all attempts to force the people of Northern Ireland to accept foreign interference in their affairs and deal with terrorism – from whatever side – once and for all.

…boost Britain’s armed forces to ensure that they are able to deal with any emergency, and defend our homeland and our independence…bring our troops back from Germany and withdraw from NATO…

…maintain an independent foreign policy of our own, and not a spineless subservience to the USA, the ‘international community’, or any other country.

…remove legal curbs on freedom of speech imposed by successive Governments over the last 40 years (and) implement a Bill of Rights guaranteeing fundamental freedoms to the British people.

Much of this will be unexceptional to red-state Americans. OK, the presentation is rough and anti-globalization is unrealistic for a trading nation, but it does offer concrete proposals to stop Brits becoming a victimized minority in their own country.

Voluntary repatriation may be a slippery slope, but how else does a nation deal with immigrants that seek Sharia law, oppress women, threaten mass murder, and commit it?

And aren’t the issues raised by the BNP more important to Brits’ lives than the elites’ favorites – Kyoto, gender, and the Precautionary Principle?

So Brits who vote BNP next week will be realists, not racists.

Small Step At The UN

Excellent news, John Bolton made the UN Security Council line up against the Darfur genocide. Let’s hope he can pull off the same trick on sanctioning the Mullahs.

As the U.N. Security Council slapped sanctions on four men in Sudan
yesterday and prepared to begin negotiations next week to halt Iran’s nuclear
program, the leaders of the two renegade countries met in Tehran, promising to
increase cooperation, including a possible transfer of nuclear technology.

The council’s economic sanctions against a Khartoum air force officer,
a Janjaweed sheik, and two rebel leaders marked the first punitive measures
taken against anyone involved in the ongoing atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region
that have left hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless, and which
America considers genocide.

China and Russia expressed reservations about the measures, but both countries refrained from vetoing the American-proposed resolution. Both, along with Qatar, abstained from the vote, while the rest of the 15 council members supported the action.

China and Russia had threatened to veto sanctioning the killers, so Bolton must have twisted their arms mightily. They have more at stake in Iran however, so will be tempted to veto meaningful sanctions there. Still, as all salesmen know, once you get the prospect to say Yes, it’s hard for them to start saying No.

The Dangers Of Ignoring 80% Of Voters

Both the president and the leader of the Brit Tories announced policies that ignore the views of over 80% their respective electorates. This has to be bad news for Republicans and Tories.

The president:

President Bush and a group of senators yesterday reached general agreement on an immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for many illegal aliens.

Mr. Bush in brief remarks to the press said there was agreement to get “a bill that does not grant automatic amnesty to people, but a bill that says, somebody who is working here on a legal basis has the right to get in line to become a citizen.” But senators, speaking afterward, said Mr. Bush was far more specific in the meeting.

The polls suggest the president is riding for a fall (my emphasis):

Americans agree (85%) that illegal immigration is a “serious” problem, and over half (55%) say it is “very serious.” Completely halting illegal immigration (68%) and the reduction of the number of illegal immigrants now present in the United States to near zero (67% agree), according to a RoperASW poll of 1,012 Americans.

Granting US citizenship to illegal immigrants does solve the problem of their illegality, but it’s unlikely this is the solution 85% of Americans are thinking of.

Meanwhile, the new Tory leader had this to say:

David Cameron threw down the gauntlet to Eurosceptic Tory MPs yesterday by declaring that anyone who advocated withdrawal from the European Union would not serve on his front bench.

On the eve of the launch of a pressure group promoting withdrawal, the Tory leader effectively warned backbenchers not to get involved if they valued their careers.

This is odd, since here’s what the Brits thought when last polled (I’ve summarized the questions):

Pull out of the EU	24%
Stay in the EU but only if it slims down to a free trade area	35%
Stay in the EU as it is now, but only if the UK can veto further integration	21%
Work for closer political union within the EU	10%
Don’t know	10%

The first 3 categories either want to withdraw unconditionally, or to withdraw if the EU refuses to accept changes that the other big members will never agree. Together they add to 80% of the population, so alienating them hardly seems a winning ticket.

Fixing The CIA

There’s no need to despair at the news that a senior operative at the heart of the CIA has been leaking to the WaPo lefties – it shows that the man the president put in to clean house is doing his job right.

The CIA’s failure to prevent 9/11 suggested it was broken, and the subsequent flood of self-justifying leaks by senior CIA officials confirmed that. Then Porter Goss (CIA field operative turned Congressman), with others, ran the 9/11 inquiry. As you’d expect, the published results were fairly anodyne – although it flagged the Plame female as a liar – but, more importantly, it told Goss what exactly was broken. He concluded:

…the agency has “been ignoring its core mission activities” and the clandestine service is on its way to being “a stilted bureaucracy incapable of even the slightest bit of success.” He called the CIA’s human intelligence gathering apparatus “dysfunctional” and averse to change, and charged that its intelligence analysts were timid and lacked proper focus.

In 2004 George Tenet bailed out as director and, the president – no doubt with a sigh of relief – gave Goss the job of fixing the wreck.

Now “dysfunctional”, “averse to change”, “timid”, “unfocused” describes the typical broken computer company. It’s been my misfortune to work in or take over four of these, and I’ve learned the simple techniques of turning them round. Goss will likely be working from the same 3 step cookbook, and here’s what he’ll be doing.

1. Identify The Good Guys

The rottenest organization still has plenty of good people, usually trapped below incompetents. You find them by observing which ones advance towards the sound of the guns. In a computer company, that means closing hard deals, facing down manipulative customers, writing good code quickly, and bringing projects in on-time, within budget and to specification. Since any company faces plenty of such problems, you just have to ignore the hierarchy and find out who is actually doing the good work.

Once you’ve done that, you know who’s going to take the company forward. But before you can promote the good guys, you have to neuter the deadbeats. That’s because they will a) block you, and b) undermine the good guys.

In an employment-at-will jurisdiction, that’s easy – you just hand out pink slips. But in regulated European companies, or the Government, you can’t do that. So you use two further tactics.

2. Create A Deadbeat Reservation

In a computer company, you move all your deadbeats into a new division called something like “Range Aims And Strategies”. You give them impressive titles – Global Systems Architect is a favorite – and fancy offices, then ask them to establish Standards.

You encourage them to attend lots of standards meetings, where they can mingle with their opposite numbers from other companies. I once encountered a fellow who spent years creating a Corporate Standard For Holes Punched In Company Documents. It specified four holes, allowed for all paper sizes, and had a compatibility mode for our French subsidiary (I think they used 5 holes, all square). Of course nobody paid any attention to the standard, but the company avoided all the damage this deadbeat would have inflicted on an real assignment!

The EU is actually a Deadbeat Reservation. Think about it. If you’re desperately trying to run a Brit government department & are told to supply someone to work in Brussels, who to you choose? Right – the most useless person you have. That way they’re out of your hair and of course making a mess of the EU enemy. You can see this deadbeatness in their pathetic attempts to beat up on Microsoft for not unbundling WMP (my ellipsis & emphasis):

Microsoft accused the European Union’s top anti-trust regulator of making “fundamental errors” yesterday as it appealed against the €497 million fine imposed on it in a landmark decision two years ago for abusing its dominant position.

(It) told the court that no computer maker had shipped a PC or laptop with the (WMP-free) Windows XP N version and that only 1,787 copies had been ordered worldwide out of global sales of 35 million copies of Windows — less than 0.005 per cent. “The failure to offer a product that nobody wants cannot be an abuse…”

Herding together the deadbeats is not always enough, since they love power, and will try to break back into the functioning organization. To deal with that you need one last trick.

3. The Motorway/Interstate Job

The trick here is to split the Deadbeat Reservation off, either by moving it or the Good Guys out. It’s an easy cost-based decision based on proportions of good to bad (remember that the smaller the real company, the better it will work!).

Either way, you isolate the deadbeats somewhere nice with lots of corner offices, good restaurants and international airports so they can go to Interoperable Systems Conferences in Hawaii (much easier for their Japanese opposite numbers to get to than, say, Des Moines).

In the UK, Motorway Jobs have one other advantage – after a decent interval, you can just declare the Deadbeat Reservation redundant and fire the lot. That gets round all the firing rules about seniority, because if you have no commercial need for a hole punch design outfit, it’s pretty hard for the government or lawyers to insist that you really do. Of course this trick would never work in France or Germany, where deadbeats are a protected species.

So, What’s Mr Goss Doing?

His Deadbeat Reservation is clearly the office of the inspector general:

Mary McCarthy’s position–the post from which she is likely to have learned the most sensitive information at the heart of the leak controversy–was inside the CIA’s inspector general’s office. This is the unit that investigates internal misconduct. This is the unit to which government employees are encouraged to report government abuse or illegality so it can be investigated, potentially reported to Congress, and prosecuted if appropriate.

OK, she could still leak to her lefty buddies, but she’s out of the line of battle, which is what matters.

And What Will Mr Goss Do Next?

My money is on a move of the Real CIA from Langley to somewhere like Denver. Washington DC swarms with lefties and lawyers, so it’s the worst place to get competent, brave and patriotic hard workers. Whereas Colorado has concealed carry and its people get upset when their country is attacked.

Goss can leave the Reservation in DC, and feed it with whatever nonsense he wants the MSM to publish – as the Brits did in WW2 when they had all their turned German agents misreport V1 and V2 strikes on London.

So we should not depair – the CIA will rise again.

$10 Gas Will Be Good!

The head of OPEC says oil prices will fall if everybody becomes calm. But the Mullahs are nutters, and won’t, so will go on threatening Israel and tankers in the Gulf. The good news is that escalating oil prices will trigger a switch to nuclear, de-fanging our enemies.

Gas prices are way up:

Retail gas prices across the country jumped an average of nearly a quarter per gallon in the past two weeks, according to a survey released Sunday.

Self-serve regular averaged $2.91 a gallon, up from $2.67 two weeks ago…

Crude-oil prices hit a new record Friday, fueled by concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and tight U.S. gasoline supplies.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries president said the solution to high prices lies in a calmer international environment and boosting refining capacity — not increasing output which would only clog the market.

“If we do the right things by lowering international tensions, oil prices will definitely stabilize,” (he) said…

International tensions won’t fall unless the Mullahs back down, which is unlikely given their addiction to violence. So leaving them – as seems likely at the moment – will merely convince them that their threats have no consequences & so they’ll start translating them into actions.

Then we’re looking at $10 a gallon, and a crash nuclear power program across the civilized world.

When that’s done, we can get on with our lives, leaving the fear states of Islam, Russia and Venezuela to sink to their natural levels.

It’ll be a bumpy ride, but worth it.