ISIS Is Nothing Like The Cold War

A recent Real Clear Politics article says fighting ISIS is another Cold War.  This analysis is completely wrong.  While the effort against Islamic terrorists may take years, this is not the time to settle in for a long siege of ISIS. The one thing that makes ISIS superior to other Islamic terrorists is that ISIS controls territory and proclaims their territory the restored caliphate. But unlike our Cold War opponents, ISIS is vulnerable because ISIS has an address that's not protected by nuclear weapons. ISIS has almost no air defense other than deploying civilian shields, which is a war crime. ISIS makes a million dollars a day from oil sales. All ISIS military and economic activity takes place in wide open desert. ISIS has just occupied Sirte, Libya, Muammar Gadaffi's home town. ISIS is shipping in troops and supplies by sea. As long as the US allows ISIS to hold territory, ISIS can claim divine intervention has given them victory of the so-called super power crusader country.

This is not rocket science. Henry Kissinger's diplomacy is not required. The way to stop ISIS is to destroy their assets, especially any transportation assets.

There is no way ISIS should be able to move men and supplies between Raqqa and Mosul over open desert roads against US air dominance. There is no way ISIS should be able to move its oil from oil fields to market by truck in the face of competent air attacks. There is no way ISIS oil fields should still be in operation given what one well planned air attack can do to a defenseless oil field. There is no way that ISIS should be able to move men and supplies through the Mediterranean Sea to Sirte, Libya, without a navy.

Even after budget sequesters, the US military can do the job as long as the White House lets them do it. And that's the point. The only reason we need patience is because the White House isn't trying to win and maybe doesn't even want to win. The White House isn't allowing our pilots to do the job. The White House is just trying to play out the clock to the end of the term in January, 2017. Mr. Cannon is probably right that problems with Islamic terrorists will continue for a long time. But there is no reason to slow walk the destruction of ISIS.

Article I was reacting to:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/12/20/combating_isis_another_cold_war_129091.html

Lifting US Oil Export Ban: Big Foreign Policy Win!

Many people think that lifting the US oil export ban was a hollow victory for Republicans in the Omnibus spending bill this year.  It looks hollow now, but it’s a big foreign policy win for the future.

Three of our most dangerous enemies, Russia, Iran and ISIS, finance their military and terrorist operations with oil sales.  Russia and Iran need a crude oil price of about $100 a barrel to maintain spending at current levels.  ISIS needs about $80 a barrel to be able to sell its smuggled oil at an attractive discount.  With European benchmark crude selling for about $37 a barrel, all three are really hurting financially.

In the US, most oil production uses ever improving fracking technology. Fracking injects a solution of water, sand and secret ingredients under pressure to fracture rock formations that contain oil and natural gas.  Fracking technology can ramp up production much more quickly than ordinary drilling.  When the price of oil is low, you stop injecting.  When the price goes up, you resume injecting.  Break even for US fracking operations is somewhere between $45 and $60 a barrel.

Lifting the US oil export ban means that Russia, Iran and ISIS will not see an oil price above $60 in the next 5-10 years.  They will be financially incapable of continuing their aggressive violent strategies.  The last time oil prices were this low, inflation in Russia topped 80% a year, Russia defaulted on its government bonds and Boris Yeltsin was forced out of power.  Prolonged financial difficulty may destabilize three of our most dangerous enemies, based on a concession the Democrats didn’t think was worth anything.

How Global Warming Cooked the Books

The problem with the theories of anthropomorphic global warming is that the models don't predict future observed events.  They also largely ignore historic weather events which occurred before systematic temperature records began about 135 years ago.  Finally, we have less than 30 years of experience with all global climate models because we didn't have the computing power to run predictions for such complex models before about 1985.  Here's a link to a description of the climate over the last 18,000 years.  See what you've been missing.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/29/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years-2/comment-page-1/

Obama says that 99.5% of climate scientists think controlling CO2 emissions is important.  The original paper this figure is based on, by John Cook, has been completely discredited by reviewers, including reviewers who accept the thesis of anthropomorphic global warming, AGW.  See Professor Richard Tol's blog entry about Cook's paper:

http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/now-almost-two-years-old-john-cooks-97.html

Professor Tol  accepts AGW.  See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tol

FDA Wants To Regulate Medical Lab Tests

The latest target for federal regulation is medical laboratory testing.  The FDA sees lab developed tests as the Wild West.  This situation requires the FDA to be in charge of evaluating medical lab tests for both safety and effectiveness.  Industry objections are met with liberal arguments that if the FDA does not regulate medical lab test, we might as well get rid of municipal health departments.

Some VA patients see government controlled medicine as a vast Stalinist gulag that can kill them with delays.  Why do liberals always assume that government is actually going to help?  Bureaucrats don't become saints in employee orientation.  They stay just as self-interested as they were before they became civil service employees. 

It amazes me that government is always looking for more responsibilities to take on, especially given their poor record at accomplishing most of the things they are already responsible for.  Perhaps we should have a moratorium on expanding government responsibility until all of the fraud and abuse everybody talks about is reduced by a measurable amount.

My argument is that we have gone past the point of diminishing returns with governmental regulation at the federal level.  I do not advocate dismantling the FDA, merely stopping its growth.  

There is a difference between snake oil purchased by individuals who can barely read and lab tests purchased by doctors for their patients.  Doctors are government licensed educated consumers who should be allowed to make decisions based on their own education and experience.   Since liberals want a change, they have the burden of proof.  They need to show some evidence that doctors are not qualified to judge lab tests and that large numbers of lab tests are misused with a huge casualty rate which is not controlled by personal injury lawsuits.  Or liberals can pretend "The Jungle" was written recently about current events, instead of in 1906.