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Iran completes another ballistic missile test

Does this make you feel safer? Iran has successfully completed another ballistic missile test with a rocket capable of reaching Israel and most of the Middle East.

And does the Obama administration response below ease your mind?

The rogue nation conducted the test in defiance of a United Nations resolution that calls on Iran to cease work on its ballistic missile program. “Iran has to abide by U.N. resolutions with regard to ballistic missiles tests, and if they have violated or not been consistent with those resolutions, that clearly would be a concern for us,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

37 comments

  • Phill O

    Oh I feel real safe now! And the sanctions were lifted, right? And the USA put out some billions to Iran?

  • Cotour

    This is why you unlock $150 Billion dollars that you have legally sequestered for cause and enrich your enemy before they prove that they are no longer a threat. This is what fairness is to the Obama administration, they are willing to sacrifice the security of millions of lives in order to reconcile the bad acts (as they see it) of America.

    It is bizzaro righteous leftist think, and we are all going to have to learn to live with it. There really are consequences to leading from behind and elections.

    (you could not imagine that a U.S. president would use such a term as “lead from behind” would you?)

    PS: I believe that these last months of the Obama administration may be the most dangerous for our country and the world, our enemy’s best friend is about to leave office and with it their free range in the world.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    Hope Ben Rhoades is at ground zero if Iran launches a nuke.

  • Wayne

    I’m not afraid to say it aloud– I fully advocate subjecting Tehran to 6 psi of over-pressure, then methodically working outward.

    ‘It’s the only way to be sure…”
    https://youtu.be/aCbfMkh940Q

  • Alex

    It is good to see that counter-weights to US dominance arise all over the world. We need a multi-polar world, not a US-kind of fascism (one world system), which destroys local ethnics, cultures and nations.

  • Wayne

    Har– Alex, talk about “fascists” (Statists) how many people DID the Soviet Union liquidate, last Century?
    Who exactly did, the destroying of “local ethnics, cultures, and nations?”
    (I have ancestors who escaped from the Ukraine–I have zero problem with subjecting Moscow to 12 psi overpressure.”

  • Wayne

    The ayatollah can eat one of these—

    ICBM launch animation
    https://youtu.be/S-V6MZlyCqE

  • Alex

    Hi Wayne, USA is a country, which lives on expensive of rest of world for many decades by controlling world currency system and trade. It is a parasitic country. There is no country, which has started more wars and attacks against other countries since end of WWII as USA. USA tends to impressive its ideological, political views of world on other country without any respect of specific heritage and tradition. See what happens in Middle East, in Europe or even Far East by introducing so called US type mono “culture”. That Soviet Union was also an awful country does not relieve US’s responsibility.

  • Juan

    Alex, how old are you? I ask because I see this type of attitude from those who either were too young to remember or were not born before the fall of the Soviet Union.

    I admit the United States has it’s problems and is not perfect, but who is a better alternative? Europe with their decadence and the all to real threat of being overrun by an outside culture? China, who will crush at the drop of a hat any real individualism/freedom desired by their population? Russia, who is ruled by oligarchs and a KGB thug?

    If you can provide an alternative, I am all ears.

  • Joe

    Perhaps Alex would prefer the workers paradise known as N. Korea, everyone there is pretty much equal or could be with just one wrong move. Stalin, Mao, Hitler are the kind that the United state leaders have had to fight for the betterment of the rest of the world. Our current leader prefers to Lead from behind, this is how we wind up with an Iranian nuclear project that threatens all of us.

  • Cotour

    Alex, as is Obama, appears to be a moral literalist. I suspect that if you asked him the question: Would you rather be respected or loved, he would always choose love.

    The result of absolute power is always abuse, but I will take American abuse of power over multi polar nuclear armed country’s. Especially when our own president who has not been properly stopped out by our own Congress and Senate has essentially done the empowering.

    This kind of thinking and worse, actions IMO promotes the greater potential for their use. There are no nice and neat and clean and “social justice” solutions here, only the cold, hard, raw reality.

    I suppose in the multicultural / “borderless world” these rules no longer apply?

  • Cotour

    When stuff like this posted below begins to happen throughout the world, just like freely and “justly” distributed nukes, then everyone’s future and safety hang in the balance. The infantalization of adults and emo think of the left does no one any good, except the left.

    http://lawnewz.com/columnists/oxford-lets-sensitive-law-students-skip-class-if-they-find-coursework-offensive/

  • Wayne

    Alex:
    “There is no country, which has started more wars and attacks against other countries since end of WWII as USA.”

    —A statement so absurd, it requires no refutation.

    “The Former Soviet-Union,” a Gulag with 12 time zones.
    “Russia” — a Collectivist, Oligarchical-Kleptocracy , run by sociopathic-gangsters, masquerading as a Nation.

    (I only hope, I live long enough, to see Matter-converted-into-Energy, over the Capital City.)

    Renaissance – “Mother Russia”
    https://youtu.be/QP0rXRt5dog

  • Actually, Wayne, the sad thing is that much of what Alex says is true in regards to foreign policy, but only in the past few decades or so. The U.S. has not been a reliable partner in foreign affairs since the mid-1960s. It has squandered billions in poorly executed military actions that were routinely abandoned before they achieved their worthwhile ends. And it has begun trying to impose the leftwing philosophy of our intellectual elites who control our government on other countries, against their will.

    The one place that Alex is wrong is when he says we impose the true American ideology of freedom on others. What has really happened is that people worldwide and in the U.S. want to choose the ideology of freedom, and thus try to copy the U.S. or come here, whenever they can. And sadly, once again, this ideology is no longer believed in by many in the U.S. itself, making us increasingly less beneficial to the rest of the world.

  • Cotour

    I think what Alex actually is referring to are the actions by the C…….I……..A.

    I will still take that over the alternatives. When our own president endeavors to rectify such things of his own volition ala his now famous and ongoing apology tour………..I have a problem with that. Look for the extension of his tour to culminate in Americas worst offence (in his opinion) Hiroshima.

    Strategy is always essential, morality is many times optional, Obama only sees that America as a culmination of offences to morality. His solution? Hollow out the Constitution and replace it with a U.N. run borderless America.

  • Wayne

    Mr Z.,
    I hear you, but would quibble over the degree/extent to which “much of what Alex says is true…” and totally reject any moral-equivalency between the USA & the former Soviet Union or current Russian State.
    As well, I certainly can not excuse the degree to which our many (many) Progressive leaders have followed the path of the USSR.

  • Cotour

    We may be the cleanest dirtiest shirt, but we are still dirty.

    Its the nature of the beast.

  • Wayne

    Cotour:
    Granted. (good one!)
    — I’ll take being the cleanest dirty-shirt, on the Planet, any day!
    (btw–back up to 98% ally-status, my friend!)

    “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
    -Winston Churchill

  • Edward

    Am I reading you correctly, Alex? Because you think the US is the Great Satan, it is OK for Iran to nuke anyone it wants?

    You do realize that it is the United Nations, Iran, and several other Islamic countries who want to force a “one world system” onto everyone, don’t you? Who is being the fascist?

  • Wayne

    Mark Levin live-streaming Tuesday; dissecting Iran, ICBM’s, and the “usual-suspects,” (Obama, Corker, Mitch, etc.) as it relates to the ICBM test, the UN, etc.

  • Cotour

    98% !

    Yahoooooooo !

    It got a little sketchy there, but everything worked out OK.

    :)

  • pzatchok

    I can’t think of another culture America has destroyed.

    If your thinking about native American tribes they were pretty much destroyed before America became its own nation. So blame the colonial powers of that time first.

    How many nations did the Soviet Union take over then impose a total cultural suppression on? Including religion and language. How about China?

    How many nations did America take over and do that to?

    Out of all the nations of the Earth which one would you want to be the police force of the Earth?
    And ‘none of them’ is not an answer because one of them WILL take the lead and rise to the needed power. Especially with no other nations stopping them.
    Or would you give a group like the UN power over all the armies of the world?

    Be an adult and make a choice.

    America might have its faults but if you think someplace else is better I will help you move there.

    Why does Mexico celebrate Cinco de Mayo? It not for their victory over America.

  • LocalFluff

    How much of the blame for this disastruous failure for the survival of the human race is blamed on Hitlary in the presidential campaigne?

  • Wayne

    pzatchok: many excellent points!

    “Cinco de Mayo”— it’s largely a made-up, phony-baloney, “holiday” here in the USA.
    (just ask a random person what they think it means– you’ll get some crazy answers)
    -In Mexico, its not widely “celebrated,” & commemorates a military-battle Mexico unexpectedly won, with the French in the 1860’s.

  • Cotour

    This is another element to this multicultural / boderless world:

    http://eagnews.org/over-120-languages-spoken-in-nashville-schools/

    Everything has been turned by the left 180 degrees from what a reasonable and “normal” American would think reasonable and normal and in the country’s interests.

    No standards is low standards and is a ticket to cultural and Constitutional destruction. But this is all about more than just low standards, its about the engineered and purposeful undermining of OUR American culture and Constitution specifically. ( the Constitution is being used as a weapon against itself, this is its fatal flaw if strong American leadership does not emerge)

    Which presidential candidate has the potential to reverse much of this? Some of this? Any of this?

  • LocalFluff

    Cotour, Actually, the USA has always been multicultural. Today’s immigration is monoculturally arabic. We must not use the word multicultural to describe the most intolerant and monocultural etnicity in the world. The Middle East and Noth Africa used to be the leading cultures of the world, from the Persians via the Bysans to the Egyptians and Greeks. Then islam arrived by the sword, and all of society was dictated back to the stone age of the desert nomads. No cultural or scientific development has taken place in the region ever since, since a thousand yeats. Islam is a likely candidate to explain The Great Filter candidate solution to the Drake equation! They love to die.

  • Cotour

    Point taken, but the left uses the term “multicultural” as an effective tool to call the more conservative or non liberal among us racists or bigots in order to force them to defend their positions. Take the bathroom issue for example, I see it as purely a tool to force conservatives into a conversation so they appear to be unreasonable and bigoted. An issue similar to the “gay” issue or the “abortion” issue (no one really cares as long as there is respect all around). When ever a liberal wants to reveal a conservatives “unreasonable” nature these tools are utilized and the conservatives are unprepared and defenseless because they sincerely respond.

    America is based on the many cultures of the world coming together and becoming American, that is what America is. This is offensive to the leftist because they are unable to manipulate the traditional mono American primarily English speaking culture. They must have racial and cultural division in order to be effective so they use the Constitution against itself as the means of its own destruction and to effectively bring about this U.N. run “borderless world” where America has surrendered its sovereignty and the core of its annoying and individual empowering Constitution. How better to destroy what they despise but to Constitutionally demand that 120 different languages be pandered to instead of requiring that those who speak those languages to speak English?

    The tool “Multiculturalism” is the lefts tool of American destruction on their road to their socialist utopia.

  • pzatchok

    Wayne

    Cinco de Mayo has been celebrated in the Us for over100 years.

    No its not a national holiday in Mexico but it is observed with military parades and celebrations.

    The BS holiday you think it is was brought about by beer companies in the 80’s.

    I have been in Mexico during the celebrations. it is celebrated with a little reverence and used as a day to learn of their culture. Just like the US teaches their children why the 4th of July is important.

  • Wayne

    pzatchok:
    I’m intrigued— exactly who has been celebrating a Mexican military battle against France, for the past 100 years, in the USA? (that’s a sincere question.)

    Personally–I think it’s a phony-baloney ‘holiday,’ & if beer companies fabricated it, that just proves my point.
    People, of course, can celebrate anything they want. I would prefer if we celebrated what happened in May of 1945, as part of our shared American Culture & History.)

    Let me get this straight– cinco de mayo is somehow equivalent to our 4th of July? ( I thought Mexican Independence Day was celebrated on September 16th? )

    I have to reject any comparison between the two.

    “Learn of their culture.” –Maybe instead of focusing on 1862, they could examine why they are a failed narco-state who’s chief exports are drugs & illiterate people?

    The PRI Party controlled Mexico for over 70 years—corrupt socialists. In many ways its akin to the Gangster State known as Russia, today.

  • Alex

    Wayne, many in Europe (I belong to them) consider Russia as last ressort, which defends western conversative values as nation, family, faith (that is not my part), manhood and so forth, especially if compared to the actual liberal decadent situation in the West, where many people lost their national identy and are not able to devide beween the “own” and the “alien”.

  • Alex

    Cotour: You said many correct things, but it is my belief that even for USA multiculturalism is no option for future. More homogenous countries perform better and present less crimes and soon. Be aware, that one quarter of people in prisons worldwide are arrested in USA (which has only 5% of world population). I prefer the Japanese model.
    Mr. Zimmerman is right about his statement that the former USA was a better country compared to the present, which developed to the worse, even if the thread by Soviet Union were quite exaggerated by the US military-industrial complex (which was critized even by Eisenhower) specifically in the period between 1950 and 1970. However, today the USA helps to destroy the ethnicity of European countries as Sweden and Germany by supporting the invasion by so-called muslim refuges (I use the term invaders). Obama wants a mixed-race Europe, an objective which I reject with all my available personal power.

  • Cotour

    Alex, to be clear my position is that many cultures come here to America but ultimately you come to America from other places to become American, become one. The left want / are turning that model on its head and create many, and in the many there is confusion and tension and that is where they find their strength. Very, very UN AMERICAN. “Multiculturalism” / leftist thought is antithetical to the concept of America.

    That is why they all must be rejected, and I think that that rejection has the potential to be very great in this election cycle.

  • Cotour

    A video that illustrates my point perfectly: https://youtu.be/mTlr0707vLU

  • Edward

    Alex wrote: “However, today the USA helps to destroy the ethnicity of European countries as Sweden and Germany by supporting the invasion by so-called muslim refuges (I use the term invaders).”

    However, today the USA is ruled by a tyrant who directs us as to how to spend our own money. (What other tyranny in all of history has had the audacity to do that? I really want to know.) Our tyrant dictates by bypassing the US Congress and the US Constitution, which he sees as a document of negative rights — from a tyrant’s point of view he would be right, but from a citizen’s point of view it protects our rights. That he is destroying Europe’s culture as well as America’s is no surprise to us.

    The America that you see today has been hijacked by fascists, who use race, suppression of speech, and regulation to control the population:
    http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fascism

    The Philippines is a good example of traditional American philosophy. As soon as they expressed their wish to be an independent country, we agreed wholeheartedly. We didn’t even let an occupation during the second world war upset the timetable for their liberty. How many other countries have been that willing to part with territory? (And you, Alex, thought that we were exploiting them mercilessly — living only at their expense (a parasite on them), destroying their local ethnicity, culture, and nationalism.)

    Do not be mistaken, Russia may defend what Europe considers western conservative values, but here in America, conservatives value individual liberty, not centrally-controlled liberty. You seem to be confusing American liberals for American conservatives.

    Before Obama, we were a more homogeneous country, but now, we are a country that Obama’s government has divided by race, religion, sex, gender, creed, color, politics, productivity, prosperity, education, and region.

    Most of us who post to this site would like to see our country return to the liberty and freedom that we once enjoyed and once provided as an example for the world to emulate, rather than force onto the rest of the world. Indeed, it is because we were once free while much of the rest of the world wasn’t that people legally flocked here by the boatload. Now they seem to only come for the free stuff that the fascists pass out in order to buy their favor.

    Alex,
    Nukes pointed at us were not an exaggerated threat. The Soviet leaders of that era made very pointed statements that they would destroy the United States. This is not the US military exaggerating. Maybe you think the Soviet leadership was exaggerating, but when they send nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba and submarines with nuclear-tipped missiles just off our shore, it looks much, much more like an actual threat than an exaggerated threat.

    Wouldn’t it be more constructive of you to point to the positive direction that you would like America to take rather than for you to support Iran’s use of nuclear weapons in its own fascist takeover of the world?

    What you confuse for US dominance over the world is in reality the United Nations asking us to act as their police force. It is UN domination that you disagree with, but the UN has made the US its scapegoat, and you fell for it.

    Most of those wars that you think the US started were actually started by other countries, and the US was asked to help out, as with the UN’s “police action” in Korea. (Also, there was this conversation — France: “This Vietnam war is a problem for us; can you help us out?” US: “Sure; you are a good friend who is in need.” France: “OK, we’re out now; good luck with that war.” That must be an example of one of those European western conservative values you speak of — looking for a stronger country to help in time of need, only now it is the increasingly Soviet-like Russia that you want to turn to.)

  • Alex

    Hello Edward, I am not a defender of Soviet communism, but the so-called Soviet missile gap did not exist as proposed by US government around 1960. It was just a lie. Please consider also that USA developed and testet fission and also fusion type nuclear weapon before Soviet Union, which responded later only to the new threat. I remember also that USA stationated IRBM in Turkey to threat Soviet Union, before the Soviets reacted by sending missile to Cuba.

  • Edward

    Alex,
    The missile gap was a carefully orchestrated lie by the Soviets in an attempt to get the US to spend too much money on defense and go broke before the Soviet Union could go broke. The only reason that we discovered the Soviet lie was through the Corona satellite program.

    Please consider all of history before you try to fool us with your half-truth history.

    Indeed, it was at a Soviet Mayday parade that the Soviets pulled a fool-you on the US dignitaries in attendance by flying ten bombers one after the other over and over again to make it look like they already had 30 of their new bombers, suggesting that production rates were far greater than they were. This stunt was intended to get Eisenhower to panic and start spending too much on defense. It was this fear that led directly to Eisenhower ordering the development of the U-2 (which did not get used over the Soviet Union as much as people think), the SR-71 (developed as the A-12), and our spy satellites. Eisenhower was adamant about finding out actual Soviet capabilities.

    Please consider that several nations, including the Soviet Union, were developing fission and then fusion weapons while the US was doing so. That we beat them to it shows not that we are the Great Satan but that we have better scientific abilities than they have.

    So you admit that there was a genuine threat, not a made up threat to the US. So why did you try to pass off actual nukes off our coast as a threat “quite exaggerated by the US military-industrial complex”? You knew the truth.

    You are the one who is willing to accept the increasingly Soviet-like Russia, even as a last resort. It looks to me like you do not reject them too much. You may think that you don’t defend them, but you defended their nukes on Cuban soil — which was one of the non-exaggerated threats that I mentioned.

    And you continue to be critical of the US, rather than recommend an alternate direction that you wish our leaders would take our country. It is possible that we both wish for the same alternate direction, one of liberty rather than tyranny, one that would still act as we did with the Philippines.

  • Wayne

    Edward:
    Another good post!

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