A superpower with an emergency strike force, big airlift capacity and air superiority is always tempted to intervene in the internal affairs of Third World countries. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
(Phys.org) —Can scientists rid malaria from the Third World by simply feeding algae genetically engineered with a vaccine? That’s the question biologists at UC San Diego sought to answer after they demonstrated last May that algae can be engineered to produce a vaccine that blocks malaria transmission. In a follow up study, published online today in the scientific journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, they got their answer: Not yet, although the same method may work as a vaccine against a wide variety of viral and bacterial infections.
Democratic strategists have always said that elections can be won by espousing gun control, doubting the existence of God, and fighting for Gay rights. They put forward that platform in 2004 and again in 2008. The only difference is that in 2008, they also had George Bush to blame for all the ills the American people were feeling at the time. So Obama and the Democrats promised to pull America from the brink of Depression as long as the government was able to spend $875 billion.
Fast-forward to the third month of President Obama’s second term. Suddenly, the Democrats’ stance is not looking so good anymore. It’s not hard to see why they’re changing gears to fight a culture war of their own choosing.
They promised the economy would rebound in 4 years. The U.S. economy is still suffering through the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. In some areas of the country, they are still suffering the effects of the recession. Unemployment is stubbornly high, especially for Black Americans and others age 25 to 54, who make up the core of the nation’s would-be workforce. All of the polls show that the American public does not approve of Obama’s bumbling and ineffectual attempts to handle the economy.
Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment, the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare), is becoming more and more unpopular as the many parts of the law are exposed for the burdens they are. Health care premiums are rising fast, as its opponents predicted and the CBO confirmed; and now even the Nanny Press is being forced to highlight how the law is either discouraging new hiring altogether or forcing more Americans to accept part-time work to stay employed. The key component of the law, the state-based insurance exchanges, are supposed to be up and running in just over seven months; and no one at the state level believes they will be functioning properly. Many states have chosen not to fund the changeover. In the words of the federal bureaucrat in charge of implementing the exchanges, “I am no longer trying to make these exchanges provide a ‘world-class experience,’ but instead merely hoping they won’t provide ‘a Third World experience.’” Suddenly, guns, God, and gays are looking better and better to Democratic strategists.
On Saturday, Obama devoted his weekly radio address to proposed new gun control laws (including background checks, which everyone agrees would not have prevented the tragedy in Newtown) and the restoration of a demonstrably ineffective assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. None of this will do anything to attack the true cause of senseless slaughter and mass shootings. It is not the tool, but the person using the tool that needs to be addressed. Given that nearly all gun violence is perpetrated with handguns — not long guns and not so-called “assault weapons” — it is evident that Obama’s new focus on guns is designed not so much to prevent gun deaths, but rather to energize Nanny-driven Democratic voters who look down their noses at gun …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Raytheon‘s Patriot missile system blasted onto the world stage in 1991, when the missiles famously sheltered U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and Israeli civilians in Israel, from a furious swarm of Scud missile launches by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
In fact, though, the Patriot’s been in active deployment since as far back as 1984, and this poses a problem for Raytheon. With an expected shelf life of 30 years, many of the 10,000-plus Patriot missiles lining military armories around the globe are beginning to approach obsolescence.
On the plus side, this might give Raytheon an opportunity to sell its customers newer, better missiles to replace the aging Patriots they already own. The company’s continually innovating the product, after all, and in partnership with Lockheed Martin , has racking up mongo sales of their new PAC-3 configuration of missile-and-launcher.
On the other hand, though, any time a customer is forced to think about replacing its hardware, a risk arises that it might choose to buy its replacements from… somebody other than Raytheon. Russia‘s S-300 and next-gen S-400 systems, for example, have proven very popular among Third World militaries. Israel‘s new Iron Dome technology, if it becomes available for sale, could also become a contender. So what’s a defense contractor to do?
Offer upgrades.
On Monday, Raytheon announced that the U.S. Army has approved the Patriot for “recertification.” What this means, in essence, is that for a small fee — Raytheon says it will be a mere “fraction of the cost of replacing them with alternative interceptors” — Raytheon can check the oil and rotate the tires on a customer’s Patriot inventory, and if everything checks out, extend the missile’s approved lifespan by 15 years, to 45 years in total. Alternatively, Raytheon can upgrade the missiles to their latest, most advanced GEM-T configuration (as the Army recently paid if $46.7 million to do).
So recertify or upgrade — pick whichever alternative you like, says Raytheon. Just don’t make the mistake of going with an “alternative interceptor” from some other company.
Foolish takeaway
Seems to me, this is good policy on Raytheon’s part. Sure, selling entirely new missiles would generate greater sales for the company (which booked $24.4 billion in 2012). But the revenues from a recertified bird in the hand is worth two uncertain sales of birds in the bush. And the longer Raytheon can keep its customers loyal, and doubling down on their Raytheon-produced products, the less likely they’ll ever choose to switch to an unfamiliar supplier years down the road.
Profiting from our increasingly global economy can be as easy as investing in your own backyard. The Motley Fool’s free report “3 American Companies Set to Dominate the World” shows you how. Click here to get your free copy before it’s gone.
The article Raytheon Plays a New Patriot Card originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
On a cold and snowy day in January a few years ago, I took a guided tour through the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. Charcoal-colored skies paired with a ground blanketed in freshly fallen snow offered a monochromatic glimpse of what life must have been like every day for the tortured residents of that hellish camp. By tour’s end, I decided that even if I had visited on a sunny day in June, it still would have felt like January in my soul.
Afterward, I met some friends for a burger at an oddly place, a beer-serving McDonald’s Cafe restaurant just across the road from Dachau. I ordered but couldn’t eat much. It felt wrong, sacrilegious even. Looking around the cafe that day at all the people scarfing down their food seemingly unaware Dachau was across the road brought to mind the story my tour guide told about those who lived nearby who went about their daily lives, later claiming they were unaware of the atrocities taking place, despite the sounds, sights, and putrid odors just a stone’s throw away.
This blonde journalist included, all humans have a propensity for that kind of selective ignorance, which shelters us from pain or personal responsibility. How easy it is to be convinced that a homeless person or wandering dog doesn’t need our assistance; someone else will help. Or, maybe something sinister is happening next door, but we don’t want to get involved, like what investigators found to have happened at the Women’s Medical Society abortion clinic in West Philadelphia.
Only God knows why it took so long for the abortion clinic’s owner, Kermit Gosnell, to be charged with murder. Besides the Third World conditions at this clinic likened to a serial killer house of horror, FBI investigators discovered a vast collection of hewed babies’ feet and other parts dispersed in plastic bags, juice cartons, and containers.
By the time I finished reading the more than 260-page grand jury investigation, I was overcome by nausea, much like I felt at Dachau. If you are up for it, you can read it online. Prepare to be sickened.
The report states: “This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy — and then murdered these babies by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out his business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels — and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.”
One former employee’s account claims the doctor joked about the large size of one of the children he allegedly snipped to death.
So why’d he do it? Gosnell, an African American, claims it was his way of giving back to his community. Seems it was more about money, allegedly pocketing millions of dollars, primarily from poor minority girls and …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
By Bradlee Dean
“We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but the men who pervert the Constitution.” – Abraham Lincoln
In response to being called out on the carpet for his tyrannical methods, Obama stated publicly, “I am not a dictator.”
Whatever Obama says, you can rest assured he is doing the exact opposite, calling “evil good and good evil” and putting “darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
To add to Obama’s list of abuses, his administration attempted to justify drone strikes on his own people. The American people are now beginning to realize we are no longer speaking of what happens in Third World countries; it is happening in our own backyard.
What is it that defines a dictator?
Parallel the abuses of tyrant King George III in 1776 to what is happening to the American people under Obama’s administration, and you will see the same tyrannical measures stemming from the same tyrannical ideology.
Replacing King George with Obama, the Declaration of Independence states:
The history of the present [president of the United States] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted. …
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Operation Fast and Furious: Obama, as an accessory to criminal activity, including murder, asserted executive privilege where law as well as court precedent clearly shows it unlawful.
Obama has used criminal measures to attack American immigration law and illegally usurped constitutional laws by unashamedly announcing he will issue work permits to illegal aliens.
As the chief law-enforcement agent, Obama has refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act as well as the Voting Rights Act against a domestic terrorist group, the New Black Panthers.
Obama has been held in contempt of court for refusing to lift the Gulf of Mexico oil-drilling ban.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained;
With no constitutional jurisdiction in the area of states laws regarding illegal immigration, Barack Hussein Obama sued states such as Arizona and Alabama for their laws preventing and prosecuting illegal immigration.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
Czars, anyone? He has sent his EPA, IRS, DOJ, and other gangsters to sue private American businesses and citizens, steal private lands, and assault churches as well as private groups that oppose him.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
Obama set criminal precedents as he moved the United States military from the congressional chain of command and used them in Libya with no regard to the violation of the War Powers Act. Obama’s secretary of defense has advised Congress that the military will go to war upon the authorization of the U.N., NATO, or other global entity, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
While Wall Street worries about Baidu‘s dominance and mobile efforts, one thing remains clear: Baidu is the “King of Search.”
Or so it seems.
According to Baidu Director of International Communications Kaiser Kuo, via tech blog Tech in Asia, Baidu processes more than 5 billion search queries per day. That’s measured across search, community, and partner sites and across all device platforms.
For comparison, Google processes just 3.3 billion queries per day. Now, to be fair, this number doesn’t include Google’s properties, such as YouTube and Gmail, and altogether Google may in fact process more searches than Baidu. But even so, a Google lead could be short-lived. When you dig deeper into the numbers, Baidu could double, maybe triple, its search queries.
Don’t believe me? Well, to make things simple, let’s consider the company’s respective home markets.
In the U.S., Google commands 67% of the U.S. search market. Yet, that still that pales in comparison with Baidu’s 72% market share in China. Furthermore, the U.S. has 78% of the people online, amounting to 245 million Internet users. Altogether, that means Google’s market is 191 million people.
Baidu more than doubles that figure with 406 million users. China has a 42% Internet penetration in China, totaling 564 million Internet users.
Now, Google is already a huge, international company with 53% of its revenues coming in from its 50 international offices. More importantly, Google’s products are are well established, and they are often the market leader when it comes to search, video, and mobile operating systems abroad.
However, Baidu does operate in 130 countries and has made significant moves over the past few months in capitalizing on its international expansion. Just this week, Baidu released its mobile developer tools in English. And in January, the company struck a deal with France Telecom to create a better mobile experience for customers in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Finally, the company released an antivirus suite in Thai and English in early January. As the search market is still in its infancy abroad, especially in Third World countries, Baidu has the chance to remain the “King of Search,” with maybe 10 billion, 15 billion, or more searches per day.
Nonetheless, there are fears. Wall Street is worried that Qihoo may beat out Baidu’s search dominance.
So far, there isn’t a report on the number of searches per day newcomer Qihoo has, but according to market share reports, Qihoo has 11% of the country’s Internet population, or 62 million people using the service. And that’s all within the span of a little more than half a year.
As time goes on, Qihoo could get stronger. In fact, Qihoo seems as if it has. Amidst its dwindling search market share in China, Google and Qihoo struck a deal last month giving the new search competitor access to Google’s ad optimization techniques.
Moreover, it was rumored that Sohu‘s Sogou and Qihoo were in talks of partnering together. The partnership would result …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
It’s a political campaign like no other, with no declared candidates or front-runners and a well-adhered to taboo against openly gunning for the job. But the maneuvering to select the next pope is already under way a day after Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world and announced he would retire on Feb. 28.
One African contender declared Tuesday it was time for a Third World pope — and said he was free if God wanted him.
Berlin‘s archbishop urged mercy for the victor, given the terrible weight of the office, while Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera asked for prayers so that the best man might win.
It’s all part of the ritual of picking a pope, the mysterious process that takes place behind closed doors at the Sistine Chapel, where the “princes” of the church, the 117 or so cardinals under age 80, vote in next month’s conclave.
Once sequestered, they cast secret ballots until they reach a two-thirds majority and elect a new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, sending up smoke signals from the chapel’s chimney to tell the world if they have failed (black) or succeeded (white).
In the run-up to the conclave, cardinals engage in a delicate dance, speaking in general terms about the qualities of a future pope and the particular issues facing the church. It’s rare for anyone to name names, much less tout himself as a candidate.
If asked, most cardinals routinely invoke the refrain: “He who goes into a conclave a pope comes out a cardinal.”
Such genteel public platitudes, however, belie the very real factions within the College of Cardinals that determine the outcome of the vote.
Just because the cardinals all wear the same red cassock and recite the same prayers doesn’t mean they all think alike. They have different visions of what the church needs, different views on critical issues and different allegiances: geographical, sentimental and theological.
And this time around, it seems geography is very much front and center, at least in the public debate that was in full swing Tuesday, the first day of the conclave campaign.
One of Africa‘s brightest hopes to be the next pope, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, said the time …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
One of Africa‘s brightest hopes to be the next pope, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, says the time is right for a pontiff from the developing world.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Turkson said the “young churches” of Africa and Asia have now become solid enough that they have produced “mature clergymen and prelates that are capable of exercising leadership also of this world institution.”
Turkson said the Third World doesn’t need a pope of its own to thrive. It’s done just fine growing exponentially with European pontiffs. But, he said, a pope from the global south, where half of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics live, would “go a long way to strengthen them in their resolve.”
