John's Recommended Articles

A quick description of the Active Denial System and its purpose:

If you're worried about terrorism, upset about the war in Iraq, and depressed by global chaos, violence and death, cheer up. The U.S. military just invented a weapon that fires a beam of searing pain. Three weeks ago, it was tested on volunteers at an Air Force base in Georgia. You can watch the video on a military Web site (follow above link). Three colonels get zapped, along with an Associated Press reporter. The beam is invisible, but its effects are vivid. Two dozen airmen scatter. The AP guy shrieks and bolts out of the target zone. He says it felt like heat all over his body, as though his jacket were on fire. The feeling is an illusion. No one is harmed. The beam's energy waves penetrate just 1/64 of an inch into your body, heating your skin like microwaves. They inflame your nerve endings without burning you. This could be the future of warfare: less bloodshed, more pain.

Military technology has always sought a greater precision from a longer range. In the Persian Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan, we exploited the increasing accuracy of laser-guided bombs. In the post-9/11 terrorist hunt and the occupation of Iraq, we've sent hundreds of remotely piloted aerial drones to spy and kill. But the lives protected by drones are ours. The pain beam is more ambitious: It can spare civilians and even the enemy. Precision isn't just the ability to kill. Sometimes, it's the ability to disperse and deter without killing.

The Washington Post, February 18, 2007

Of the four leading GOP presidential contenders in 2008 -- John McCain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani -- The only one of these guys who hasn't had multiple wives is The Mormon.

Republicans lost the 2006 elections because they abandoned their principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
"The Republican Congress came to power in 1994 promising "the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." But for the past six years, with Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress, they have instead delivered the biggest spending increases and the biggest expansion of entitlements since Lyndon Johnson, the federalization of education, the McCain-Feingold restrictions on political speech, and the Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory burden."

From stalwart hawk to get out fast.
"The polls show her to be the favorite to be the next Commander in Chief, so what she really believes, and how firmly she'll stick to it, deserves to be debated. Here's a summary of the arc of Mrs. Clinton's public thinking on Iraq:"

The latest U.N. report shows the "warming" debate is far from settled.
"The IPCC report should be understood as one more contribution to the warming debate, not some definitive last word that justifies radical policy change. It can be hard to keep one's head when everyone else is predicting the Apocalypse, but that's all the more reason to keep cool and focus on the actual science."

Public school teachers make $34.06 an hour. Is that "underpaid"?:
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker. "