Simi Valley Sophist

The Simi Valley Sophist ruminates on all manner of topics from the micro to the macro. SVS travels whatever path strikes his fancy. Encyclopedia Britannica: Sophist "Any of certain Greek lecturers, writers, and teachers in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, most of whom travelled about the Greek-speaking world giving instruction in a wide range of subjects in return ..."

Name:
Location: California, United States

Retired: 30years law enforcement-last 20 years Criminal Intelligence Detective.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Passion & Rioting-A Muslim Consistency

No one can truthfully claim that Muslims lack passion. Take for instance the ten thousand Sudanese that massed and wanted to kill a teacher because one of her students, named Mohammed, names his teddy bear Mohammed. Undoubtedly that incident taught a naïve, do-gooder English teacher some facts of life. In fact, passion seems to be one of the Muslim predominant characteristics, along with being thin skinned.

They riot at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t seem to be too hard to get a Muslim riled up: you could publish a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed; you could start a false rumor that Americans desecrated the Koran by putting it in a toilet; you could have a ferry sink and drown a bunch of people coming back from the Hajj; you could have a car accident in which Muslims were killed; you could have the police chase some criminals, who then hide in an electrical enclosure and get electrocuted; or you could have a political person assassinated.


Some 38 people have died in violence that has broken out since Ms Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday.
Interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said rioting across the country had destroyed 176 banks, 72 train cars and 18 railway stations, while at least 100 prisoners had been sprung from jails.

Ah yes, passion. It’s a wonderful thing. Perhaps we Americans could use a little more of it. Not that some of us don’t. For instance, how about those who riot when a major league athletic team loses a championship game? Or, wins one? Or, because police officers are acquitted of beating a black man? “Can’t we just all get along?”

Links in this Blog:
Thin Skinned and Dangerous

Musharraf cracks down on rioters

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I Have Become My Grandma

Through the eyes of a ten year old, it was extremely amusing to watch my grandmother search in vain for her eyeglasses until I pointed out to her that they were securely perched on the top of her head. We both had a hearty laugh when her hands flew up and discovered the missing spectacles. She was a good sport with such things. That was some fifty years ago. She was about the same age as I am now.

Flash forward to the present. It’s still dark outside and cold as a well diggers …, well you get the idea. I’ve just come down from the barn with a dozen things running through my mind; ticking off the day’s agenda. I dialup my wife, she is already at work, to discuss some weighty subject or the other. Midway through the conversation, my hand drops to my waist and discovers the cellphone clip securely attached to my belt sans cellphone. A quick appraisal of the situation and I conclude that I must have lost the cellphone somewhere around the barn. That means that I must trudge back to the barn in the cold, dark morning. I exclaim as such to my wife. As I put the period at the end of my sentence, I have a gestalt realization that I am talking to my wife on my cellphone. Upon my reflexive disclosure of the mental lapse, my wife bursts out laughing. Now we are both howling with one of those pee your pants sort of laughter.

OK, so I’m getting older and had a little mental faux pas. A least I didn’t lose bladder control. That comes next. Oh well, they say laughter is good for your health.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Democrats Support Ramadan But Not Christmas

Amanda Carpenter reports that,

Democrats who supported a House resolution to honor Ramadan voted against a similar resolution to honor Christmas and Christianity last night.

18 Democrat voted “nay” or “present” on a resolution to “recognize the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.” An eagle-eyed Republican House staffer points out that those same members, with one exception, voted to “recognize the commencement of Ramadan,” a Muslim religious observance in October.

According to the Pew Report on Muslims in America, “A sizable majority of Muslim Americans (63%) identify with or lean to the Democratic Party. This compares with 51% of the general public who are Democratic or Democratic-leaning."

Are these Democrats pandering to the minority Muslim population for political purposes, or are they simply showing their hatred for Christianity?

Link in this Blog:
Ramadan Yea, Christmas Nay

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

God Says: No Global Warming

Well, God did not really say that, as far as I know. It was the Pope, God’s representative. Well, the Pope did not really say that either. But, he did say,

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

Referencing the environmental movement.

But senior cardinals close to the Vatican have since expressed doubts about a movement which has been likened by critics to be just as dogmatic in its assumptions as any religion.

As Dennis Prager opines, when you aren’t religious you will make up your own secular religion. Environmentalism is a good example.

Link in this Blog:
The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

Monday, December 10, 2007

Some Immigrant Advocates Wish Harm on the U.S.

I understand the issues about illegal immigration and the supposed unwanted jobs that they fill. I understand the issues of family unification. But, can anyone tell me why certain Americans want to allow criminal “immigrants” to remain in the country? By criminal I’m not talking about the criminality of entering the country illegally. I’m talking about immigrants who are in the country legally and who commit crime.

Among the immigrant advocate community, there are individuals whose words and actions indicate that they wish harm on the U.S. community at large. How? By objecting to the possible deportation of criminal legal U.S. resident immigrants. The issue comes to the front surrounding the issuance of new Green Cards.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is considering a proposal to eliminate hundreds of thousands of green cards issued years ago without expiration dates, a move that would help the agency track down individuals who have committed crimes and might be eligible for deportation.

Newer cards, which expire after 10 years, are equipped with technology that makes them less susceptible to fraud…

But some immigration attorneys and advocates said the proposal is just another way to round up legal permanent residents with criminal records. Under the law, green card holders who have committed certain crimes are eligible for deportation.

And, what is wrong with that? And, why do these people want to inflict harm on our society?

Link in this Blog:
U.S. agency looks at eliminating old green cards

Babies Are Another Excuse For Liberals To Tax

Liberals like to do a couple of things: they like to steal money from the person that earned it and give the money to a person who did not earn it; and they love to worry about the environment. Using babies, liberals have found two different ways to additionally steal the hard earned cash.

Hillary Clinton suggested that every baby born in the U.S. should receive a $5,000 bond at birth.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.

What a bunch of b.s. Hillary’s scheme is just another proposed government mechanism to tax, grow government creating a new bureaucracy, and misappropriate the funds. Think not? Take a look at Social Security.

Now, along comes a good doctor in Australia who wants to charge Australian parents for future “carbon” impact.

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a 'baby levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle."
Does anyone remember Paul Ehrlich and his enthusiastically liberal supported concept of zero population growth?

Ehrlich wrote an article that appeared in New Scientist in December 1967. In that article, Ehrlich predicted that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985 due to population growth outstripping resources. Ehrlich wrote that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also stated, "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980," and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." These specific predictions did not actually come to pass, and his later book The Population Explosion is much more cautious in its predictions.

The article led to a book (The Population Bomb), the founding of Zero Population Growth, a vigorous policy debate, and both widespread support and criticism of Ehrlich.

The pending carbon impact disaster, and global warming for that matter, has no greater scientific foundation than Ehrlich’s unfounded population bomb. It looks as if the Australian Chicken Little found a new way to soak the citizens of their money and at the same time support the latest liberal environmental agenda.


Links in this Blog:
Hillary Clinton suggests $5,000 savings bond for every U.S. baby

Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert

Paul Ehrlich-The Population Bomb

Saturday, December 08, 2007

I Watched A Good Man Die

I witnessed the death of an old man: eyes glazed over; ragged breathing; spasmodic muscle contractions; the death rattle. He rejected the energetic gift flowing through my body, the conduit. He was ready to go. He said so previously. And he told me again, this time by pushing away my hands, which rested directly over his heart. With energy still flowing within me, I did not have time to touch him again. In less than five minutes he was gone. And with his passing, the tension drained from his face. As death’s go, it’s a relative thing, his was a peaceful ending. Finished was a life well lived.

Today was to be his wedding anniversary with wife, business partner and friend all rolled into one. The passing concluded an earthly partnership just 5 days short of a 56 year run. She is ailing and will follow him soon. The hospice people know these things. As good a man as my uncle was, the best, my aunt is his equal.

Thanks Bob for all that you gave to me and my family. Rest in peace. Soon the love-of-your life will be with you again.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Intelligence: Art of the Best Guess

For many years, I’ve lectured on the function of “intelligence,” specifically as a law enforcement policy advisement mechanism. The law enforcement function is no different than the intelligence function in the federal government, as an advisement mechanism to foreign policy.

I describe the intelligence function as the “art of the best guess.” As far as I know, the phrase is original to me. A Google search revealed a usage of the phrase in April 2007 on a different matter. I liken the intelligence function to the construction of a jigsaw puzzle, as an attempt to visualize the big picture. Realistically, the intelligence function is an exercise of divining the present and future by gazing into a murky crystal ball.

A good number of years ago, liberal/leftist factions within the US government stripped away much of the intelligence gathering capacity of the CIA and other government intelligence agencies. That story is beyond the scope of today’s missive, other than to note the serious consequences of such short-sighted action. The dialogue, as to whether or not Saddam Hussein did or did not have weapons of mass destruction and whether or not he attempted to acquire yellow cake from Niger, is case in point. Currently, the back and forth as to the Iranian nuclear bomb intentions is dominant in the news.

The seriousness of the potential possession of an Iranian nuclear bomb is immense given the stated goal of Iranian leaders to eliminate Israel from existence and the desire by Twelver Shi’as to cataclysmically spur the return of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam.

Will the Israeli’s bomb Iran, like they did Iraq’s nuclear development in 1981 or Syria in September 2007? Do we bomb Iran’s nuclear development facilities, or don’t we? This is a huge question with potentially serious international consequences. The decision is the ultimate responsibility of the US President. Since the President is to act on our behalf, it is in our best interest to provide him with the finest information possible. When it is all said and done, our intelligence advice is still the art of the best guess, or maybe not so good.


Links in this Blog:
Ahmadinejad: Report a Victory for Iran

Why did Israel unilaterally attack Iraq in 1981?

Israeli Nuclear Suspicions Linked to Raid in Syria

Sunday, December 02, 2007

On Islam I Used to Say…

Previously when I lectured on Islamo-fascism, I used to say, “Watch what happens to Europe.” Now I say, “Watch what is happening in Europe.”

From the current round of Muslim rioting in the suburbs of Paris.

In retrospect, it was not a good idea to have left his pistol at home. Called to the scene of a traffic accident in the Paris suburbs last Sunday, Jean-François Illy, a regional police chief, came face to face with a mob of immigrant youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and shotguns.

His bruised and bloodied face signalled a worrying new level of barbarity in the mainly Muslim banlieues, where organised gangs of rioters used guns against police in a two-day rampage of looting and burning last week.

Muslim rioters have upped the ante since last year’s disturbances.

Altogether 130 policemen were injured, dozens by shotgun pellets and shells packed with nails that were fired from a homemade bazooka. It prompted talk of urban “guerrilla warfare” being waged on French streets against the forces of law and order.

The French are stunned by the savagery? Why? Don’t the French pay attention to what happens routinely in the Muslim world? Apparently not, and the U.S. is no better.

Don’t think it can happen in the U.S.? You must be a liberal or a leftist. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, including the U.S. Here the growth is fueled by self-defeating immigration policies, which allow foreign Muslims into the country, and by U.S. black citizen conversions to Islam. It is simply a matter of time and demographics. Continue the same head stuck in the sand policies, and it will come.

Oh, are you one of those self-deluding persons who parrots the Islamic apologist’s mantra that Islam is a religion of peace? It makes absolutely no difference whether or not Islam is a religion of peace or not. The only thing that counts is the behavior of the Islamic adherents. Take a look at Paris and the Sudan and Mohammed the Teddy Bear.

Armed police are on standby to protect her after 10,000 sword-wielding fanatics took to the streets demanding her execution on Friday.
Let’s all join hands and sing Koombya. Turning the other cheek does not do well when someone cuts your head off and sets it on your chest.

Link in this Blog:
France stunned by rioters’ savagery

Teddy teacher set to be freed

Saturday, December 01, 2007

What Is Wrong With These Gorgeous Women?

The joint is a small, upscale pizza, beer & wine bar. In the corner sat my friend, George, singing and strumming on his twelve-string.

In front of me and partially obscuring my view of George was a party of eight. They munched on pizza, drank red wine and enjoyed the conviviality of their group. The women, about 22-25 years old, all with long hair (a blonde and three brunettes) sat with their backs to me. Each was attractive, slim, fit, manicured and well dressed. As they turned their heads to address the friend sitting next to them, I could see clear, smooth facial skin accented with mascara and lipstick. They laughed, smiled and talked among themselves with the comfortableness of old friends.

Two of the women were sexually attractive to me, and I could definitely be interested in either one of them. But as desirable as the women were, I knew after returning from a visit to the restroom that there was something wrong with them. It was something that I had not perceived earlier while just sitting there and enjoying their presence.

The fatal flaw is that I am 30 to 35 years too old for them. You don’t realize that fact just sitting there staring out from yourself at a woman of your desire. You subconsciously transport yourself back to the physical persona that you were when you were her age. A look in the restroom mirror shocked me back to reality.

Eventually the party arose from their table. Each women left with a male of her own age. That’s as it should be, even if none of those males can hold a candle to me.