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NEW DELHI: India is likely to oppose the reported European Union threat to impose fines on Air India and Jet Airways for not accepting EU's emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS) and not reporting their emissions over European skies, officials said today. Only these two Indian carriers, which fly to Europe, are likely to be slapped a total fine of around Euros 30,000, while eight Chinese carriers could face fines totalling Euros 2.4 million euros, they said. Refusing to be cowed down to the EU threat, the officials, requesting anonymity, said the two Indian carriers operate a total of about 5-6 flights...

HAIFA, Israel: Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has laid a wreath at the memorial of Indian soldiers here, appreciating the decision of the local municipality to include stories of these soldiers in its history textbooks. Paying tribute to the soldiers, Gehlot said that he wanted to visit the memorial during his trip to Israel to pay his respects to the fallen soldiers on behalf of the people of his state. A large number of Indian soldiers sacrificed their lives in this region during the World War I and nearly 900 are cremated or buried in cemeteries across Israel. The Indian Army...

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian, imploring party activists Friday night to defeat this state’s Indian-American governor, predicted next year’s Democratic standard-bearer would “send Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from.” Haley was raised in South Carolina and attended college here, but her parents were Sikh immigrants. Harpootlian, a longtime Democratic figure who has a history of using harsh rhetoric, made the comments at the party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner just moments before Vice-President Joe Biden took the stage. Asked what he meant by comment, Harpootlian wrote in an email: “Lexington County.” Before being elected governor...

LONDON: A woman desperate for another child forced her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant using syringes of donor sperm, a British judge said. In a ruling reported for the first time on Monday, high court judge Peter Jackson said the mother had behaved in "a wicked and selfish way" that almost defied belief. The judge said the woman, an American divorcee living in Britain with three adopted children, hatched the plan after she was prevented from adopting a fourth. The scheme involved getting her oldest daughter to inseminate herself with syringes of sperm purchased over the internet from a Denmark-based...

NEW DELHI: With Pakistan developing "tactical" nuclear warheads, that is, miniaturizing its weapons to be carried on short-range missiles, India will protect its security interests by retaliating to a "smaller" tactical attack in exactly the same manner as it would respond to a "big" strategic attack. Articulating Indian nuclear policy in this regard for the first time, Shyam Saran, convener of the National Security Advisory Board, said, "India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but if it is attacked with such weapons, it would engage in nuclear retaliation which will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable...

Late Richard Holbrooke, the first US special Af-Pak envoy, was fully aware that the Pakistani generals were lying to him on their support to the Islamic extremist groups against India, but he was against cutting off military aid to Islamabad, a new book has said. In his latest book "Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East", the two-time Pulitzer winner David Rhode said Holbrooke wanted massive aid for Pakistan and launch some signature big projects there, in the absence of which he increasingly became frustrated with the USAID. "While publicly praising the Pakistanis, he was tough- minded...

Activists fear that Indian authorities may execute more prisoners despite petitions for mercy currently pending before the president after the hanging of two high-profile convicts within six months. An Indian court sentenced alleged Indian Mujahideen operative Mirza Himayat Inayat Baig to death this week for his role in what has become known as the German Bakery bomb blast. The terror attack on the popular eatery in the western city of Pune killed 17 people and injured over 60 people in February 2010. Baig is the only accused in the terror attack to have been arrested, tried and now convicted. 300...

An Indian court sentenced a cyber cafe worker to death on Thursday for his role in a deadly bomb blast which ripped through a restaurant in the western city of Pune three years ago, lawyers said. Mirza Himayat Baig was found guilty earlier this week of criminal conspiracy and murder for the attack on the packed German Bakery restaurant, which killed 17 people including five foreigners. "The court said it was the rarest of rare cases and gave the death penalty because they found him guilty of a terrorist act," special public prosecutor Raja Thakare told AFP. Baig, in his...

NEW DELHI: China can "throw'' at least 21 fighter squadrons against India, from its eight airbases in Tibet and other airfields to their north. Even more Chinese fighters can join forces if they are able to overfly Myanmar. Similarly, Pakistan can deploy 21 to 25 fighter squadrons against India. With this hard-nosed assessment in mind after defence minister AK Antony himself asked the forces to be ready for the twin-threat posed by China and Pakistan, the largest-ever combat exercise undertaken by IAF tested its capability for a two-front contingency by deploying "swing forces'' from the western theatre right across to...

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that long delays in deciding on the mercy plea of a terror convict cannot be grounds for granting a commutation of death penalty to a life sentence, putting terrorism on the top of a hierarchy of "rarest-of-rare" crimes which attract the capital punishment in India. "Terrorism stands on an altogether different plane and cannot be compared with murders committed due to personal animosity or over property and personal disputes," Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Muhopadhyaya said as they turned down the plea of Khalistani terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar. The judges also said...

NEW DELHI: It's a rebirth for 16-year-old Pakistani girl Madiha Tariq Sheikh, who feels India is her "own country" where she underwent a successful liver transplant surgery. Madiha, who hails from Lahore, was flown to India on February 3 after she slipped into coma due to acute liver failure and underwent a liver transplant surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital here. "This is my own country (India)...It has been four months now and I am missing my school. Inshallah, I will return home next week," Madiha told reporters here. Her brother Rizwan had donated a part of his liver to save...

NEW DELHI: Fewer countries are carrying out executions than a decade ago, but India along with nations like Gambia, Pakistan and Japan bucked the trend to resume handing out death penalties. An Amnesty International report says that 21 countries executed convicts last year as compared to 28 in 2003. But there is greater concern that Indian courts had meted out at least 78 death sentences with more than 400 estimated to be on death row at the end of this year. The new death sentences given by India (78) are second only to Pakistan (242) in the Asia-Pacific region. At...

There was a lot in common between former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her British contemporary Margaret Thatcher as the two had struck up a close rapport and both felt the loneliness of high office. Besides being the first women to take charge of a largely male-dominated political world of their respective countries, the two women had an almost identical steely resolve on difficult issues. They may not have always agreed with each other and are believed to have had a number of fiery exchanges, but there was a grudging respect on both sides. "But in spite of everything...

Two Italian marines arrived back in New Delhi Friday to face murder charges following a last-minute climbdown by their government, leaving India to savour victory at the end of a bitter standoff. Their arrival came after a shock decision by Italy's government to drop its opposition to their trial in India for shooting dead two fishermen off the coast of the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. The Indian government, which last week issued orders to immigration authorities to prevent Rome's ambassador to New Delhi from leaving the country, hailed Italy's U-turn as a victory for diplomacy. Italy meanwhile said it...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime. Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 on Saturday that pedophilia was a "disorder" that needed to be treated. "From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It's not a criminal condition, it's an illness," he said. Napier said he knew of at least two priests who became pedophiles after they were abused as children. "Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who...

Canada's first military satellite is headed into orbit alongside six other satellites that were all launched aboard a single Indian rocket Monday morning. The ‘Sapphire’ will increase Canada’s ability to protect its "assets and interests" in space and track man-made objects in orbit to avoid collisions, according to the Department of Defence. A second Canadian satellite will help scientists keep track of meteors, asteroids and other space debris that could be heading towards earth. The NEOSSat (Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite) will also track space debris in orbit, to better understand their movements. The NEOSSat and the Sapphire are among seven...

Chuck Hagel, former senator from Nebraska, and now the brand new US Defence Secretary, has walked into a typical South Asian storm even before he formally entered office. From a partial revelation of a previously unreleased speech he made over two years ago, in 2011, at Cameron University in Lawton, Okhlahoma, Hagel appears to hold a brief for Pakistan. This is what he said in a video clip that runs for several seconds: “India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the...

Astronauts onboard a privately-funded expedition to Mars in 2018 will use their own faeces to protect themselves against cosmic radiation. The couple during the Inspiration Mars mission, funded by multimillionaire Dennis Tito, and set to fly-by the Red Planet in 2018 will face cramped conditions, muscle atrophy and potential boredom. However, their greatest health risk comes from exposure to the radiation from cosmic rays, 'New Scientist' reported. The project will develop a radiation shield for the spacecraft by lining its walls with human waste, among other materials. "It's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to...

Malina Suliman's "crime" was to paint the walls of Kandahar with the graffiti of a skeleton wearing a burka and the depiction of an ordinary Afghan entangled between an American tie knotted to a turban worn by the Taliban. She defied the Taliban for as long as she could. But when the threats became frequent and after her father's leg was broken in an attack, she had to flee her home town a couple of months ago and take refuge in Mumbai. 'Un-Islamic art' Her sculptures outraged conservative Muslims and the Taliban. They declared that her work amounted to idol...

NEW DELHI: "The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender," the Supreme Court had said while upholding the death sentence of Afzal Guru. Holding Afzal guilty of the conspiracy culminating in the attack on Parliament House, the apex court in its August 4, 2005 judgment added: "The conspirator, even though he may not have indulged in the actual criminal operations to execute the conspiracy, becomes liable for the punishment prescribed under Section 302 of the IPC (Indian...

NEW DELHI: Strongly rejecting the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's suggestion of allowing an OIC fact- finding mission to Jammu and Kashmir to assess the human rights situation there, India said on Friday the grouping has no "locus standi" on such matters, and termed suggestions to this effect by Pakistan foreign minister as "propagandist". "The OIC has no locus standi on matters concerning the internal affairs of India or the recent incidents on the LoC. We have already clarified that United Nations MIlitary Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has no relevance in regard to the latter, either." "The propagandist...

If this is what it looks like, this is bad for everyone who isn't Iran: after claiming the capture of a downed, super-advanced American drone in 2011, we now have what looks like decoded video straight from its brain. The video, which The Aviationist's David Cenciotti says is indeed shot "from the FLIR turret of the RQ-170" Sentinel drone, clearly shows Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan—a vital limb of the American military presence in the region. Fears over the drone's capture had been tempered by the fact that any onboard data would either be damaged or encrypted beyond the point of...

New Delhi: Coming under increasing criticism from India for not awarding the death penalty for 26/11 Mumbai Attacks plotter David Headley, US Authorities defended on Friday that Headley hadn’t been awarded death penalty as he had ‘cooperated with the security agencies during the investigation process’. “This decision was taken because of Headley's willingness to cooperate with law enforcement authorities -- American, Indian and others -- to help bring the perpetrators to justice and prevent other terrorist attacks," read a US embassy statement. The statement is being viewed as veiled snubbing to India's requests to award death penalty to Headley, or...

NEW DELHI: Faced with a China that is aggressively pursuing its territorial interests in the South and East China Seas, Japan and India on Tuesday decided to coordinate moves and exercises in the first ever maritime dialogue held here. The India-Japan maritime dialogue was decided during a meeting of foreign ministers last April. Interestingly, India decided to hold a maritime dialogue with China over a month before the India-Japan decision. The Indian move to start talks with Japan ahead of the dialogue with Beijing points to a stress on New Delhi's security priorities. The Indian side was led by D...

Suresh Sambandam of OrangeScape, Krishna Mehra of Capillary Technologies, Jaspreet Singh of Druva, Balaji Sreenivasan of Aurigo, Vivek Ravisankar of InterviewStreet - all have something in common, other than that they have been featured here for their accomplishments. They are all technology entrepreneurs who started their ventures in India over the past few years, built them to a significant level of success, and now they have all relocated to the US, or are in the process of relocating (themselves, not the companies). We have mentioned just five names. But there are more. And the one common reason for the move...

WASHINGTON: Despite India's efforts to extradite Pakistani American David Headley over the Mumbai terror attack, the US has virtually ruled out the possibility saying that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative "will serve in the United States". Asked to comment on a report that India wanted to keep up the effort to extradite Headley, state department spokesperson Victoria Nuland Friday noted: "He's been tried, convicted, and will serve in the United States." Even as India expressed disappointment at the 35 year sentence given by a Chicago court to David Headley, the US called it a very positive example of US-Indian collaboration in...

WASHINGTON: The United States has ruled out any extradition for the American-born Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Headley, in lieu of providing critical information to the US agencies about various other terror outfits. The Mumbai attack accused also agreed to cooperate with the government, as well as any foreign judicial proceedings held inside the US through video conferencing or deposition, attorney Gary S Shapiro informed a Chicago court on Tuesday. The attorney ruled out any extradition for the 26/11 accused under a guilty plea that the Pakistani-American had entered into with the US government and in lieu of the co-operation he...

For a country that is undergoing huge economic , social and demographic changes, education needs a more resolute direction. Nationally, private school enrolment in rural India is increasing at about 10% every year. In the next five years, India may have half of the children attending private schools even in rural areas. According to the Annual Status of Education Report, ASER 2012, released recently in the Capital, the enrolment level for the 6-14 age group continue to be high in rural areas. In 2012, 96.5% of all the children in this age group in rural areas were enrolled in schools....

NEW DELHI: IAF chief Norman K. Browne's assertion that India has a few strings in its bow to get a delinquent Pakistan to halt frequent ceasefire violations could stem from confidence in tactics the air force developed in operations along the line of control (LoC) during the 1999 Kargil war. Use of air power had never before been attempted at heights of 14,000 to 18,000 feet and IAF's critical contribution in demoralizing intruding Pakistani forces by destroying supply lines and dumps rewrote existing air combat manuals. IAF's rapid innovation after initial setbacks to refit top-end fighters with laser-guided bombs and...

NEW DELHI: A furious India on Saturday kept up the pressure on Pakistan over the killing of two soldiers and beheading of one of them with Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal Norman K. Browne saying that the country may have to look at "other options" for ensuring the sanctity of the line of control (LoC) and the ceasefire along it. "We are monitoring the situation carefully because if these things continue to be the way they are and these violations continue to take place, then perhaps we may have to look at some other options for compliance,"...

HYDERABAD: India has denied award-winning British journalist Yvonne Ridley a visa. She was scheduled to address the Spring of Islam conference being held here by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. The London-based journalist, who was captured by the Taliban on an undercover assignment in Afghanistan in 2001 and converted to Islam after her release in 2003, was to address various sessions at the three-day conference, which began Friday. "The Indian Government is refusing to give me a conference visa to address 50,000 women in Hyderabad about women's rights ... I would have thought after the catastrophic handling of the Dehli rape case,...

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: New Delhi on Friday reacted to Pakistan's protest over the killing of one of its soldiers in cross-border gunbattle the previous day by asserting that Indian troops had resorted to "controlled response" in retaliation against unprovoked firing by Pakistani troops at Mendhar. With Pakistan persisting with its disdain towards the outrage in India over the beheading of its soldiers and tensions spiking, Indian troops were stepping up their "alertness levels" along the entire 778-km LoC. Indian Army threatened Pakistan with "dire consequences" if the latter refused to mend its barbaric ways. Indian high commissioner in Islamabad Sharat Sabarwal...

India on Thursday rejected Pakistan’s demand for a UN probe into the LoC incident, saying it would be tantamount to internationalising the issue. The development came as reports from Islamabad suggested that a Pakistani soldier had been killed in firing by Indian troops across the Line of Control (LoC). “We are not going to agree to internationalise the issue or allow the United Nations to hold an inquiry. That demand is rejected out of hand,” Union finance minister P Chidambaram said after a cabinet committee meeting on security. Defence minister AK Antony briefed the cabinet committee on security and said...

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday successfully test-fired a highly manoeuvrable version of the 290-km range supersonic cruise missile BrahMos from a naval warship off the coast of Vizag in the Bay of Bengal. "At 9.30 am, the missile blasted off in a pre-designated war scenario taking a 'double-manoeuvre in S-form' hitting the designated target ship just one meter above water line. The sheer velocity and power of the hit made the missile rip through the ship's hull," BrahMos Aerospace CEO Sivathanu Pillai said on Wednesday. This is the 34th launch of BrahMos after the successful October launch from INS Teg...

NEW DELHI: Jolted by the extreme cruelty unleashed on Nirbhaya by the only juvenile among the six accused in the Delhi gang-rape case, the government may be looking at enhanced punishment for minors — even a waiver of the delinquent's age by six months to a year — keeping in view the severity of the crime. While this review comes too late for the Delhi gang-rape case as it cannot be applied with retrospective effect, the shift is significant because heinousness of the crime committed rather than the exact age of the accused will determine the punishment. If the government...

Tukaram Omble, Girgaum martyr "A terrorist like him should have been hanged in public, but I know our laws don't permit this,'' said Eknath, younger brother of Tukaram Omble, who helped capture Ajmal Kasab alive. "I am proud that my brother's efforts have paid off. We have been waiting for this for four long years. My family is happy,'' he added. At Girgaum Chowpatty, unarmed assistant sub-inspector Omble had helped stop the Skoda hijacked by Kasab and Ismail Khan, and held on to Kasab despite the latter spraying him with bullets from his AK-47. Omble's youngest daughter Bharati has joined...

The European Union has expressed serious concern and deep regret over India executing a Pakistani militant who carried out a massacre during the Mumbai terror strikes four years ago. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pak gunman captured during the attacks on the western Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people and injured 300 others nearly four years ago, was hanged to death on Wednesday. The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist was executed and buried at the Yerwada Central Jail in another western Indian city of Pune after his mercy petition was rejected by the country's President earlier this month....

Faced with a more militarily assertive China, Japan and India are banding together. Two serious newspapers – the Times of India and the Asahi Shimbun, in separate reports, have emphasized the burgeoning ties between New Delhi and Tokyo prompted by mutual concern over an assertive China. Japan is feeling the brunt of the assertiveness as Chinese ships - for over two weeks - have made forays to challenge Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands. The Chinese ships claim that they are operating in Chinese territorial waters. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are slated to...

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The US, on Wednesday, said it is working on an inter-government engagement with India and other countries to check non-compliance by American taxpayers using foreign bank accounts in their jurisdictions. Through these engagements with more than 50 countries, the US is looking to implement information reporting and withholding tax provisions, commonly known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Enacted in 2010, FATCA aims at checking non-compliance by US taxpayers using foreign accounts. It requires foreign financial institutions to report to the US tax department information about accounts held by US taxpayers, or by foreign entities in...

NEW DELHI: In what was described by a frequent flyer as the "scariest flight of his life", a passenger on board a Mumbai-Delhi IndiGo flight suddenly turned violent mid-air on Wednesday and started raising Islamic slogans while threatening to harm the aircraft. The situation turned so alarming that the cabin crew and passengers pinned down the flyer, Mursalim Shaikh, 41, and blocked the aisle with a food trolley to prevent him from making a dash for the cockpit. The IndiGo flight 6E 196 made a quick descent in Delhi after seeking priority landing, where Shaikh, a used car dealer from...

NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the sagging economic situation, family businesses in India are thriving, as 74 per cent of firms have witnessed growth in sales in the last fiscal, says a survey by consultancy firm PwC. PwC calls the family business as a "resilient model" for the 21st century as the structure offers significant advantages and benefits - particularly with regards to their agility/flexibility, continuity and the longer-term perspective. Moreover, family businesses also have a stronger set of values than other businesses, it says. According to the Family Business Survey (FBS) 2012 conducted by PwC, 74 per cent of family businesses...

The hero of the 1971 India-Pakistan war over Bangladesh, 89-year old Lt. General (retd.) JFR Jacob's recalls that he joined the army to fight the Nazis. Lt General Jacob is the scion of an old Baghdadi Jewish family that immigrated to India some 200 years ago in order to escape persecution in their native lands. Despite the opposition of his father, in 1941, he enlisted in the British Army in order to fight the Nazis, whom he had heard were committing atrocities against the Jews. "No I would not have taken a career other than the army. After the 1945...

Against the backdrop of increased Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, India, the US and Japan will hold their third trilateral dialogue here Monday to expand their cooperation in maritime security and in shaping the Asia-Pacific architecture. During the talks, the Indian delegation will be led by Gautam Bambawale, joint secretary in charge of East Asia in the external affairs ministry. The US delegation will be led by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, while Deputy Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kenji Hiramatsu will head the Japanese delegation in the talks. The three countries,...

Capital and labor will flow to the best-performing states, pushing the lagging ones to raise their games. India is a country of huge regional diversity and massive income inequality, with 22 official languages and 28 states, each with different social, cultural and political traditions, as well as vastly varying levels of industrialization and infrastructure. Under IndiaÂ’s constitution, states have always held considerable powers, playing a leading role in law and order, electricity, education, land, and roads. Several states have begun holding regular summits to advertise themselves to foreign investors, while chief ministers jet off to places such as China and...

San Francisco: A new study showing that immigrants founded one quarter of U.S. technology start-up companies could fuel calls to relax immigration rules ahead of next month's U.S. presidential elections, where the economy and immigration are key issues. The study "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Then and Now," shows that 24.3 percent of engineering and technology start-up companies have at least one immigrant founder serving in a key role. Indian-born entrepreneurs, representing 33 percent of the companies, dominated the group. The study paid particular attention to Silicon Valley, where it analyzed 335 engineering and technology start-ups. It found 43.9 percent were...

JULIA Gillard did important and useful work in India this week. Three headline results came out of the Prime Minister's three-day visit. First, Australia and India will negotiate a formal safeguards agreement that will allow the export of Australian uranium to India. A year ago Gillard got the Labor Party to reverse its previous opposition to selling uranium to India. At the moment, India is not short of uranium. But its nuclear industry is embarked on a huge expansion, as is the nuclear industry of some other countries such as China. In an interview in 2006, India's Prime Minister Manmohan...

ACHIEVING an IQ score higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking seems almost impossible, but not for one young girl. Northwood College School pupil, Fabiola Mann, of Harrow on the Hill, scored a remarkable IQ of 162 in this summer’s University of London’s (UCL) Mensa medical test. It is the highest possible score anyone can achieve in the UK and European test. The 15-year-old beat physicists Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, who both scored 160 when they took it. Being a whizz kid at puzzles and mathematical tests, Fabiola decided to give it a go, she sat the test on...

PESHAWAR: Pakistani surgeons removed a bullet on Wednesday from a 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for speaking out against the militants and promoting education for girls, doctors said. Malala Yousufzai was in critical condition after gunmen shot her in the head and neck on Tuesday as she left school. Two other girls were also wounded. Yousufzai began standing up to the Pakistani Taliban when she was just 11, when the government had effectively ceded control of the Swat Valley where she lives to the militants. Her courage made her a national hero and many Pakistanis were shocked by her...

WASHINGTON: As it has happened in the past, Pakistan has been spared the rod by the United States for its international transgressions, this time for its continued patronage of terrorism in the region, in the interest of what Washington believes is American national security. The US state department last month waived legal requirements that made its nearly $ 2 billion annual aid to Pakistan contingent on its cooperation in counter-terrorism, ending nuclear proliferation and building democratic institutions, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report released recently has revealed. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is said to have informed Congress, which has...

Mitt Romney has hit a nerve. The mainstream media are indignant and downright apoplectic over Romney's "47 percent" comment. But as Eric Hoffer once observed, "we are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about." In fact, the Obama administration's long term strategy is to create a permanent class of federally dependent citizens tipping over 50 percent in order to suffocate the very atmosphere that gives life to intellectual and political diversity in America. As James Madison said, there are "two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which...