Evidence that New York City is considering using drones to keep an eye on its citizens is growing, according to Don Dahler of New York’s CBS Channel 2. Dahler quoted an email it obtained indicating that a detective in the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism division asked the Federal Aviation Administration “about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] as a law enforcement tool.”

Dahler noted that NYPD commissioner Joe Kelly suggested that drones would be useful: “In an extreme situation, you would [then] have some means to take down a plane.” A spokesman for the NYPD admitted that “We’re always looking at technology. Drones aren’t that exotic anymore. Brookstone sells them. We’ve looked at them but haven’t tested or deployed any [yet].”

A retired officer from the department said that the use of drones would help protect the police from physical danger: “Not only would it be a form of surveillance gathering to protect the public, it also in many respects removes the officers…from harm’s way.”

UAVs, or drones, have benefitted enormously from advances in technology. Increasingly used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to target terrorists, drones can take photographs of license plates and citizens’ faces from elevations of 10,000 feet. They are essentially silent and can be maneuvered by the operator located miles away in a small government cubicle. They can fly at night and take pictures using infrared and ultra-violet technology. They can stay in the air up to 20 hours at a stretch, with improvements using solar panels likely to extend such operations around the clock. The drones’ technology can see through dust storms and roofs and walls of buildings, and even below the earth’s surface. In other words, drones’ capabilities mean there is no place to hide.

This capability extends the reach of the surveillance state even beyond the

Continue reading Drones: Newest Tool of the Surveillance State

Recently, Obama told some of the few Jews still blinkered enough to support him that “This administration – I try not to pat myself too much on the back – but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.” I would laugh but I’m too busy feeling sick about the damage that Obama and team has done to one of our most important and strategic allies.

If that’s not bad enough, the US Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who is the Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor, is now the center of a firestorm following comments he made on November 30th. A quote being attributed to him, but which is really a reporters analysis of what Gutman said, is causing the trouble: “A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Again, this line was part of a newspaper article, not a quote from Gutman himself and the left is falling all over themselves to defend Gutman on that basis.

However, Gutman’s actual remarks, while less inflammatory, are still troubling.

Early on, Gutman says “There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different.”

Really, is there a substantial number of anti-Semites who also hate Muslims? Yes, Europe has its share of neo-Nazis. But what Europe is really facing is a large and rapidly-growing Muslim population. According to a Pew study, “The number of Muslims in Europe has grown from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1 million in 2010. Europe’s Muslim population is projected to exceed 58 million by 2030. Muslims today account for about 6% of Europe’s total population, up from 4.1% in 1990. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.” France is already near 8 percent Muslim population, and Belgium 6 percent.

And we’re supposed to believe that anti-Semites are just like (and just as few) as haters of Muslims or gypsies?

Gutman also sees “a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem. It too is a serious problem.”

Notice the word “too"? It implies that the virulent and violent anti-Semitism of Muslims is not THE serious problem, but some sort of secondary problem. The use of “too” diminishes the word “serious". A better construction might have been that anti-Muslim sentiment “is too a serious problem"…except that it isn’t – and certainly not in America.

Gutman continues with the left’s worst bit of moral relativism: Anti-Semitism based on the Israel-Palestine conflict “is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.”

So, for Gutman, Israelis building an apartment in Israel or retaliating against terrorist targets is as big a problem as the Palestinians’ murdering Israeli civilians.

I understand that the primary religion of most American Jews today is liberalism, not Judaism or Zionism. But at some point, more of my tribe must wake up to the fact that the Obama administration and liberals in general are inclined to side with murderers over the only democracy in the Middle East. Obama and his team are truly giving aid and comfort to the enemy with their words, their moral equivalencies, their apologies, their pandering for Muslim approval.

The danger this causes is not just to Israel, but to western civilization, and I do not offer that as hyperbole. It is time – far past time – for Jews to abandon the ever-less-subtle haters led by Barack Hussein Obama.

[Robert Goldberg has a good article at the American Spectator today discussing these and other issues, including Hillary Clinton’s anti-Israel rhetoric.]

Recently, Obama told some of the few Jews still blinkered enough to support him that “This administration – I try not to pat myself too much on the back – but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.” I would laugh but I’m too busy feeling sick about the damage that Obama and team has done to one of our most important and strategic allies.

If that’s not bad enough, the US Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who is the Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor, is now the center of a firestorm following comments he made on November 30th. A quote being attributed to him, but which is really a reporters analysis of what Gutman said, is causing the trouble: “A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Again, this line was part of a newspaper article, not a quote from Gutman himself and the left is falling all over themselves to defend Gutman on that basis.

However, Gutman’s actual remarks, while less inflammatory, are still troubling.

Early on, Gutman says “There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different.”

Really, is there a substantial number of anti-Semites who also hate Muslims? Yes, Europe has its share of neo-Nazis. But what Europe is really facing is a large and rapidly-growing Muslim population. According to a Pew study, “The number of Muslims in Europe has grown from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1 million in 2010. Europe’s Muslim population is projected to exceed 58 million by 2030. Muslims today account for about 6% of Europe’s total population, up from 4.1% in 1990. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.” France is already near 8 percent Muslim population, and Belgium 6 percent.

And we’re supposed to believe that anti-Semites are just like (and just as few) as haters of Muslims or gypsies?

Gutman also sees “a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem. It too is a serious problem.”

Notice the word “too"? It implies that the virulent and violent anti-Semitism of Muslims is not THE serious problem, but some sort of secondary problem. The use of “too” diminishes the word “serious". A better construction might have been that anti-Muslim sentiment “is too a serious problem"…except that it isn’t – and certainly not in America.

Gutman continues with the left’s worst bit of moral relativism: Anti-Semitism based on the Israel-Palestine conflict “is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.”

So, for Gutman, Israelis building an apartment in Israel or retaliating against terrorist targets is as big a problem as the Palestinians’ murdering Israeli civilians.

I understand that the primary religion of most American Jews today is liberalism, not Judaism or Zionism. But at some point, more of my tribe must wake up to the fact that the Obama administration and liberals in general are inclined to side with murderers over the only democracy in the Middle East. Obama and his team are truly giving aid and comfort to the enemy with their words, their moral equivalencies, their apologies, their pandering for Muslim approval.

The danger this causes is not just to Israel, but to western civilization, and I do not offer that as hyperbole. It is time – far past time – for Jews to abandon the ever-less-subtle haters led by Barack Hussein Obama.

[Robert Goldberg has a good article at the American Spectator today discussing these and other issues, including Hillary Clinton’s anti-Israel rhetoric.]

Colonel Gaddafi (Pic: AFP /Philippe Desmazes)

And this very shaky video:

Thank goodness Colonel Gaddafi told the truth once in his life, when he said he would fight to the death.

The words of a mother of a college student who died on Pan Am 103, in which 189 Americans died at the hands of Colonel Gaddafi, are well worth listening to. Her sentiment that the man deserved just what he got, and that he should never have been brought to trial, is exactly right.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1229432663001/mother-of-pan-am-victim-this-is-justice/

Al-Awlaki is thought to have been behind the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt in Detroit in 2009 as well as the Fort Hood massacre by Major Nidal Hasan on November 5, 2009.

Al-Awlaki was a relatively effective propagandist for al Qaeda because of his fluency in English. Fortunately, it will not be easy for al Qaeda to replace him. Knowing that a drone will take you out if you take the newly vacant job will also be a deterrent to finding qualified applicants.

The world is a safer and better place with Anwar al-Awlaki, or rather pieces of him, somewhere on the path to hell.

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

BlueCarp

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

BlueCarp

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

BlueCarp