SVC has challenged the contributors to NWBloggers to nominate our critter/person/entity/group/thing that impacted history the most in 2006…

After a great deal of thought, and with the criteria of Impacted History foremost in my mind, I don’t believe that there can be any doubt that the Person/Group that most impacted history in 2006 was the Islamic Terrorist.

These fanatics have, just this year;

1. Kept the most powerful nation on earth tied down in a war of attrition.

2. Harassed and murdered civilians from numerous countries, almost with impunity.

3. Contributed strongly to the recent electoral defeat of the Republicans in the House and Senate, with repercussions for the next two years, if not more…

4. Cost average travelers literally millions of extra lost hours due to ever increasing restrictions on travel paperwork, and even how bags are packed.

I can’t imagine a person or group that has had more impact on the world, and history in 2006.

Now, if I am just looking for a Person or Group that deserves the honor of being the most worthy for praise – most necessary to freedom and liberty, most self sacrificing, most under appreciated – there can also be no doubt that it is the Military Man/Woman: Be they Grunts, Wing-nuts, Squids, Jarheads, Ground-Pounders, Leathernecks, Fly boys, Swabbies, whatever.

What we have built would not have been possible without them, and would not last if they were not there, on the wall, to protect us.

To Celebrate the New Year, the American Empire is MOVING!

Starting today, all new posts will be found here, at www.paxamerica.com, the new home of the American Empire.

This previous blog will remain online for the forseeable future, as an archive site, if nothing else.

Thanks for helping make 2006 great, and see you in 2007!

Iran is in the news a lot these days. Most notably for their intent to develop Nuclear Weapons Power, but also because of their support of terrorists in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.

Now, According to the Washington Post , Iran’s Oil production is suffering from a lack of reinvestment:

(Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University) said oil production is declining and both gas and oil are being sold domestically at highly subsidized rates. At the same time, Iran is neglecting to reinvest in its oil production.

Iran produces about 3.7 million barrels a day, about 300,000 barrels below the quota set for Iran by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The shortfall represents a loss of about $5.5 billion a year, Stern said. In 2004, Iran’s oil profits were 65 percent of the government’s revenue.

So here’s the deal: The UN Security Council bans Iranian Oil Sales, until they agre to halt their Nuke program. Of course, President Ahmedina-whackjob will REFUSE. At which point we take out their Oil production and refining capacity.

No more money for Hamas, Hizbullah, Iraq Terrorists, CAIR, or any other Terrorist affiliated organization. Well, maybe not CAIR, but who knows, I haven’t seen their books.

In the big picture, we are only talking about taking 2.5 Million barrels a day of production off line. This could easily be made up by the other Gulf states that are currently shaking in their boots over Iran and its puppets in the region.

Just a happy though for the holiday season…

Coyote over at NW Republican (who we will forgive for the sin of being based in Oregon) has an excellent piece showing the obscene expense and absurd lies of the Light Rail crowd, regarding the MAX extension in Clackamas County.

But the same issues apply to Sound Transit…

By 2025, about 46,500 people are expected to board light rail every day between Clackamas Town Center and downtown Portland. About a third of those riders will travel within the section of the light-rail track that runs along I-205.

Do the math: 46,500 people, is Trimet speak for 46,500 boardings which is 23,250 people making round trips (you do have to get back home). 1/3 of those will travel “within the section of the light-rail track that runs along I-205.” 1/3 of 23,250 is 7,750 people that Trimet projects by 2025, according to this report. So our headline number of 46,500 is really 7,750. This is called “transit math”.
As a result of the project, cars will drive 125,000 fewer miles a week along the I-205 corridor, according to a study evaluating the environmental affects of the project.

Lets do the math again. 125,000 / 7 =17,857 miles per day. For 6.5 mile route, that is 2747 one way trips. That is equal to the capacity of one and one-half HOURS of ONE lane of freeway. Trimet just said that MAX will remove the equivalent of one and one-half hour’s worth of traffic from one lane. But Trimet forget to mention that about 2/3 of those people would have been on the bus if MAX wasn’t built, so the reality is that MAX is projected to remove 915 cars from the road – less than one-half of one lane for one hour. And at a cost of 1/2 billion. Had that money been spent on adding a lane pair, congestion would really be reduced. Adding a lane pair to 6.5 miles of freeway should cost no more that $65 million – a savings of 88% compared to MAX.

You just gotta love Fun With Math!

Speaking of Lies…

Bill Whittle over at Eject! Eject! Eject! has a great piece on the Slogans/Beliefs common on the Left of the spectrum, and the rebuttals for each.

Here’s a couple of points, condensed for your reading pleasure:

The Chickenhawk argument

If you ever see this charge again, you may want to reflect that person’s own logical reasoning in the following fashion: You may not talk about education unless you are willing to become a teacher. You may not discuss poverty unless you yourself are willing to go and form a homeless shelter. How dare you criticize Congress unless you are willing to go out and get elected yourself? Your opinion on a National Health Care System is negated out of hand since you are unwilling to get a medical degree and open a clinic. And as far as your opinions regarding the Democratic Underground or The Huffington Post are concerned, well, you can just keep them to yourself, mister, unless you can produce an advanced degree in Abnormal Psychology and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

No Blood for Oil!

What would a real “war for oil” look like? Well, US troops would have sped to the oilfields with everything we had. Everything we had. Then, secure convoy routes would have been established to the nearest port – probably Basra – and the US Navy would essentially line the entire gulf with wall-to-wall warships in order to ensure the safe passage of US-flagged tankers into and out of the region.
End U.S. Imperialism Now!

Look, the whole point of having an empire is to take the wealth out of the colonies and return them to enrich the home country. The US not only does not pull in the resources of other nations…it does exactly the reverse. We pump billions and billions of dollars annually into those nations that host our facilities, and the minute any one of those nations decides we are no longer welcome, we pack our bags, leave and turn those billion-dollar institutions over to the host country.

Give Peace a ChanceSounds reasonable to me. How much of a chance? Three years? Five? Ten years? See, now you’re playing me for an idiot.

Bush Lied, People Died.

Here is a pretty decent encapsulation of what both Republicans and Democrats had to say about Saddam and WMD’s. You will find Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s rhetoric somewhat less adamant and warlike than that of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Al Gore, Robert Byrd, Nancy Pelosi, Hans Blix, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger and all the rest. These were elected representatives who studied the same intelligence that the White House did, and came to the same conclusion.

Unfortunately for them, Al Gore in his unbridled enthusiasm went and invented the Internet, and so now there is a record of what they said and when, available to the great unwashed masses. It shows a group of people deeply concerned about what was a pressing threat to this country. And now, almost all of them claim they were lied to?

Pop over to Bill’s blog to read the whole piece! You’ll be glad you did. Unless you are a Liberal/Watermelon/Media-Described-Moderate/America Hater/Sufferer of Bush Derangement Syndrome… Fair warning is given…