Sons of Irv

Headlines from the Year 2029!

2006-07-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world,

Mexifornia , formerly known as California. White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.

Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.

Baby conceived naturally. Scientists stumped.

Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon).

Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.

Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.

85-years, $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise is the key to weight loss.

Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.

Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.

Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals, violates their civil rights.

Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.

Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.

IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.

Florida voters still having trouble with voting machines

A True Patriot!

2006-05-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

We respect the passing of a great shipmate and friend . . .

Chester "Chet" Cholewinski, 50

BOWDOIN-- Chester Chet Cholewinski, 50, of Lewis Hill Road, died following a courageous battle against cancer Friday, Jan. 20, 2006 at his home with his wife and sons at his side.

He was born in Chicago, Ill., Sept. 19, 1955, a son of Chester and Mary Lou Lewandowski Cholewinski. He attended Chicago schools and earned a bachelor's of science degree from Southern New Hampshire College. He married Nancy Thelen Oct. 19, 1982. Chet served 20 years in the U.S. Navy.

He was most recently employed at Barber Food in Portland and also served on the Bowdoin Board of Selectmen.

Chet was a Patriots fanatic and an avid hunter and carpenter. He was a patient and supportive father to his sons and had a special bond with each.

His family will especially remember and admire the courage and resilience he showed throughout his illness. Until he could no longer physically manage, Chet worked diligently towards completing his home. Even fatigued from his treatments, he was always willing to lend a hand or offer loving advice.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy; and three sons, Joseph, Nicholas, and Michael Cholewinski; a stepson, Nathan Wittmayer of California; his father Chester Cholewinski of Wisconsin; his mother, Mary Lou Cholewinski of Illinois; six sisters, Maria Kozial, Sandy Wawczak, Susan Weigert, Laura Cholewinski, Mary Colletti, and Sharon Driggers, all of Illinois; and a brother Thomas Cholewinski of Illinois.

The family would like to thank Barber Food and Nappi Distributors for their support through Chet's illness. Special thanks are offered to Dave, Darrin, John, Braden, and Big Mikey.
Friends and family are invited to visit the Cholewinski home, 34 Lewis Hill Road, Bowdoin beginning 12 noon Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006 to celebrate Chet's Life.

Arrangements are in the care of Brackett Funeral Home, Brunswick. In lieu of flowers, any help towards finishing Chet's final project, his home, would be deeply and forever appreciated.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of our dear friend and shipmate -- Chester "Chet" Cholewinski

First You Need an Army

2006-05-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Robert J. sends . . .

First You Need an Army

One thing the situation in Iraq is demonstrating rather clearly. If you don’t have an army, you don’t have a country. Fortunately, the United States has always had an army, right from the start when George Washington first set siege to the British in Boston in 1775.

On Memorial Day that is something to be thankful about.

Not that the US Army was much good at first. The Revolutionary War was mostly spent in retreat. The Civil War was a bloody mess, the first instance of the modern lethal battlefield. In World War I the doughboys had too much money. In World War II the GIs were overpaid, over sexed, and over there. But in Iraq, a British general has said, the US Army is showing that it is the best in the world.

You need an army to found a nation. The modern French Army was born as the nation in arms defending the Revolution from the crowned heads of Europe. The British Army is descended from Cromwell’s New Model Army. The Soviet Union was founded upon a bloody civil war won by its Red Army. Chairman Mao, whether or not he spent the Long March reclining in a litter, founded modern China on the power of his Red Army. And the Germans achieved their unification on the back of the most popular institution in the North German Federation: The German Army.

Why then do our liberals insist that war never solves anything? It is because, uniquely in all history, our liberals came to power without having to fight for it. In their first outing, during the Progressive Era, they staged a wrestling match with the evil robber barons. But the contest was as fake as a professional wrestling match, because the robber barons really weren’t interested in political power.

Rockefeller was too busy founding the University of Chicago and funding medical research into hookworm; Carnegie was too busy building libraries and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and J. Pierpont Morgan was too busy serving as unofficial central banker to the nation during the Crash of 1907. Liberals came to power in 1932 after the Progressive Era Federal Reserve System had failed to act as the lender of last resort after the Crash of 1929. So they blamed the disaster on Progressive politician Herbert Hoover. Who needed an army when you could get political power the easy way?

Even so, it is curious that even as liberals have reviled and marginalized the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces they have lionized the lefty thugs who never appeared except in army fatigues: Mao and Castro. Then there was that chap in the beret. What was his name?

Whatever may be the truth about wars and violence, liberals don’t like our army and they don’t like our soldiers. They understand that this does not win elections so they direct their distaste not at the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coastguard directly , but obliquely at the “Pentagon.” In liberal books and liberal cartoons the armed forces of the United States are represented by the scheming Pentagon general with his chest of medals and his square, flat face.

The liberal war against the armed forces is part of their war against the nation state. The thinking goes something like this. The nation state equals aggressive nationalism, aggressive nationalism equals Nazism, therefore the national army is the instrument of fascism.

If you strip out the hyperbole, they have a point. The nation state is supported by the national idea. And if the national idea gets a little too enthusiastic it can be rather aggressive. When the nation state gets into a bad patch then the people of the nation look for strong leadership to lead them back from disaster to triumph. The chaps auditioning for “strong leader” may turn out to be Roosevelts and Churchills, or they may not.

But is the nation state such a terrible idea? On the contrary, far from being an atavism, the nation state is an advanced idea, the one political idea thus far that has persuaded ordinary people to loosen their loyalty to tribe and clan—that is, the instinctive tie to blood kin—and replace it with loyalty to a larger unity, to the abstract nation unified by the artificial and abstract idea of a national culture and a national language.

As we remember the fallen this Memorial Day let us all be proud of the advanced and civilized concept that they died to defend. They died in the name of a nation state that has been mixed together out every race and tribe in the world, a mongrel nation that is the prototype of the world society. Our nation state is defended and secured by the armed forces in which they served and fell. It can be no other way.

Every soldier who fell to defend the United States and its city on a hill is owed a debt by the nation that can never be repaid. The least we can do is to keep alive the memory of their service and their sacrifice. It is the only way to honor the loss that their families feel every day of their lives.

Christopher Chantrill 5 29 06

Who is this Handsome Commodore?

2006-01-24T20:50:00.000-08:00

Canadian Liberals doing what they do best...

2005-12-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

First it was "Bush's Fault" ... Now our lack of US gun control is the root of the Canadians surge in gun violence.... Blah Blah....

I get lectured weekly by my Canadian workmates who love to recite all the stats on why Canada is safer. Nothing like a sophomoric Apples to Oranges comparison.

In one instance, I was lectured on how dangerous the states are, yet this holier than thou liberal in Ottawa told me she carries a screwdriver with her when she walks her dog because she feels unsafe! How silly is that! Nothing like a craftsman to save the day!

The hoighty-totiy attitude rings hollow to me lately - the abject blindness of liberals to acknowledge the real source of problems is scary - scapegoating from politicians only leads to more horrible things long term.....

(insert a Wagner tune here).

Silver Wings Upon Their Chests...

2005-12-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

The Original Green Beret

America lost a good one this month. Retired US Army Lieutenant General William Yarborough, 93, passed away. Bill Yarborough was a veteran of three wars: WW II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was a highly decorated paratrooper and is considered by many one of the most imaginative, innovative combat leaders that America has ever produced. Yarborough came of age at the defining moment of the 20^th century, the onset of the Second World War.

Thoughts on the "Christ" in Christmas Debate

2005-12-18T11:08:00.000-08:00

Brothers,
Thoughts I wanted to share. Merry Christmas all. I hope the Lord gives you everything you need not necessarily what you want. :)

____________________________________________________________

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." The Gospel of Saint Luke – Chapter 2

This year there has been much conversation in the media regarding Christmas and how it is celebrated. Stories abound of conflict (real or perceived) between those who want to emphasize the “Christ” in Christmas and those who would rather dwell on the more secular aspects of the “holiday” season. Some organizations, apparently afraid of offending, are directing their employees to greet others with benign expressions such as “Season’s Greetings” with some Christians finding victory in responding with “Merry Christmas”.

But such quarrel truly misses the real challenge. For the task at hand for Christians is not ensuring Christ is within Christmas but rather one of ensuring we have Christ within us. The gift of the Christ child is the greatest gift from a Father above who loves us all. A gift we are not worthy of but one he freely gives because of His undying love for all of mankind. As Christians, as we reflect upon that gift this Christmas let us also reflect on what gift we can give back to Him to show our love in return. There are so many ways that we can do this and we don’t have to limit ourselves to just one. Start with yourself. Pray more, be more patient of His will for you, make an effort to go to church regularly, read the Bible and stay away from things that will lead you astray. Then Help others. For that panhandler on the street perhaps buy him something to eat and use that opportunity to expose him to the Gospel and encourage him to find help. While you won’t have immediate success that may be the seed he needed to move in the right direction. Be more understanding of the hardship of others. Don’t judge but instead be grateful the Father hasn’t put that burden upon you. Love your spouse more. Submit yourselves to their well being. Men especially, care for your wives like Christ cared for his Apostles. Remember how He washed their feet? Be vocal about your love of the Lord. Nothing showy, but never be afraid to let others know of your happiness in life and why that is so. Simply try to act like Christ would. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then flatter our Savior with conduct which he would approve. In short, give him your heart, your mind and your will and you will become an instrument for Him to spread the Good New to others.

Of course we are all men and women and are prone to fail. He understands that. But even so, we are called to continue. We get back up after we stumble, wipe ourselves off and start again. My purpose is only as a reminder for all of my fellow brethren as writing is a reminder for me. If we truly have Christ in ourselves, we won’t have to worry about keeping Him in Christmas. He’ll take care of that.

Democratic Veterans

2005-12-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

I believe this to be the left's new darling. I am watching her on This Week right now and while impressed with her sacrifice and physical comeback she comes across to me as a bit simplistic for a former Major in not being able to see the strategic value of the war in Iraq while being overally consumed with the tactical concerns. Stephanopoulos also heralded the fact that all of the former Iraq War vets who are running for Congress are Democrats. While I cannot say for sure, I suspect the Republicans are still over there wearing the cloth.

Wounded vet says war was 'mistake'
December 17, 2005
BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Wounded Iraq war vet L. Tammy Duckworth, who launches her Democratic campaign for Congress on Sunday, said she would have not voted to authorize the war that cost her both her legs and mangled her arm.
Though President Bush's decision was a "bad one,'' the Army helicopter pilot said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times that she was "proud to serve.''

Democrats Thy Name Is Willow Tree

2005-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

YGTBSM! I continue to be amazed that the only thing the leftists seem to stand for is, well, nothing. Best line: "there is no one Democratic position". Well she got that right.

Pelosi Hails Democrats' Diverse War Stances
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 16, 2005; A23
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party.
Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq. There is consensus within the party that President Bush has mismanaged the war and that a new course is needed, but House Democrats should be free to take individual positions, she sad.
"There is no one Democratic voice . . . and there is no one Democratic position," Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.

It's A People Thing

2005-12-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

I have been posting at some different boards lately. You have seen some of my comments about debating with left, the tactics they use and my impression that they (the ones I have talked to) are not interested in honest, civil debate. I just recently had a debate on religion (touchy subject I know) on a right wing forum. And while I expected more from that crowd I leave that site disappointed that the tactics employed were the same. It's not like I expect to change a mind but rather hope to have someone on the other side honestly articulate an opposing viewpoint. Not only did I not get that but I got some rather uncivil behavior as well. It's a people thing.

See What Happens When You Question The Liberal Mindthink

2005-12-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

Amazing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=225x591

Ten Simple Rules For Dating My Daughter

2005-12-14T15:23:00.000-08:00

I found the source of this document online but have customized it to my tastes. It will be framed and hanging in my foyer. Enjoy.

Rule One: If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up. I have a front door. Knock and state your purpose. Furthermore, you should not be getting phone calls in my house. Turn your cell phone off before you come in the door.

Rule Two: You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three: I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. If you really want to date my daughter, you will first overcome the mental challenge of figuring out how to pull your pants up like a man and put on a belt. Additionally, while I am pleased at your choice to wear underwear I had better not see it in any way. Anything less is unacceptable.

Rule Four: I'm sure you've been told that nowadays, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind will kill you. Let me elaborate: when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five: In order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this unless asked. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early". When addressing me or my wife I expect to hear the words “sir” and “ma’am” accordingly and often.

Rule Six: I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. Once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date her ONLY until she is finished with you. When together I expect you to open doors for her, carry her books, and in general treat her like a lady. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven: As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating.

Rule Eight: The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better. I think you get the point.

Rule Nine: Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. Looks however can be deceiving and when it comes to issues relating to my daughter I am the all-knowing, merciless god of YOUR universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have ONE chance to tell me the truth. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten: Be afraid. Be very afraid. However also relax. Because if you act like a responsible gentleman, follow my rules and conduct yourself like an upstanding member of society then all will go well. But in the end, one “ah shit” will erase twenty “atta-boys”.

Europe – Thy Name is Cowardice

2005-12-14T05:09:00.000-08:00

I have always wondered what % of Europeans "get it".

Europeans Outraged

2005-12-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

Do you think these folks will ever realize that there was a reason that most of our forefathers left Europe to begin with?

Europeans Outraged at Schwarzenegger

By VANESSA GERA
Associated Press Writer
Dec 13 3:36 PM US/Eastern

VIENNA, Austria - The execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams sparked outrage Tuesday throughout Europe, which has a deep aversion to capital punishment sustained by the painful memory of state-organized murder during the Nazi era. The disappointment was particularly strong in Austria, native country of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, where many had hoped the former bodybuilder and film star would spare the 51-year-old Williams.

Leaders of Austria's opposition Green Party even called for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship _ a demand rejected by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel as "absurd" despite his government's opposition to the death penalty.

Capital punishment is illegal throughout the European Union, and the issue was amplified in Williams' case due to the remorse supporters believe the Crips gang co-founder showed by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs and violence.

Schwarzenegger rejected that argument and allowed the execution to go ahead Tuesday, saying "without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

US Navy considers Global Hawk deployment

2005-12-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

US Navy leaders are considering proposals to deploy two Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles originally purchased only to perform high-altitude surveillance demonstrations. The manufacturer says the Global Hawk’s impressive showing in the two-week Trident Warrior ’05 exercise, which concluded in early December, and pressing operational needs have helped to remove lingering doubts about the vehicle’s utility.

“The naysayers were saying they didn’t think the [USN’s maritime mode] radar was going to work and you couldn’t do surveillance from 60,000ft [18,300m],” says Tom Twomey, Northrop’s Global Hawk maritime demonstration business development manager. “The last two weeks have been a huge success story. We saw that not only does it work, it works really darn good.”

Raise A Purple Finger For Freedom

2005-12-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Twice this year, Iraqis have shown their courage, defying the terrorists -- risking their lives to exercise their right to vote. They will vote again on December 15.

Shelby Dangerfield, a 10-year-old Montana girl, demonstrated Americans' solidarity with freedom-loving Iraqis by inking her finger purple last January. From December 12 - 15, let's follow her example by inking our index finger purple. For more things you can do to support free Iraqis, follow the directions to the right. Let's show the world that freedom loving peoples are united.

Chinese J-10 & AWACs

2005-12-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

Retreat and Defeat

2005-12-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Less Is More

2005-12-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Supply-Side Boom
osted 12/9/2005
Fiscal Policy: A picture is worth a thousand words, and nowhere is that truer than in the debate over supply-side claims that tax cuts lead to higher revenues.

We were struck by a chart that Treasury Secretary John Snow used last week when he presented the administration's case for making the 2003 tax cuts permanent.

For Democrats opposed to the cuts, no argument has been more potent than that tax cuts somehow "cost" the government money — and thus make deficits worse. Snow's chart, shown below, puts the lie to that argument.

In fact, the supply-siders are right: Revenues rise after tax rates are reduced. Federal revenues bottomed at $1.8 trillion just as Bush signed his bill; since then, they've risen 19.4% to $2.15 trillion, an all-time high.
A big reason is that tax avoidance recedes along with rates. When top personal rates are high, the rich find ways to pay less. That's why our tax code is 55,000 pages thick. When rates are lower and flatter, such behavior disappears.

This also explains why the richest Americans' share of all income taxes paid has soared to 34.27% from 19.05% in 1980 even though their average income-tax rate has fallen by roughly a third — from 34.47% to 24.31% in 2003.

More important, however, is the impact tax cuts have on the economy. Since May 2003, when Bush's major plan of tax cuts on both capital and income took effect, the economy has been on a tear. It's virtually impossible to argue the two aren't linked.

In the nine quarters before the tax cuts, GDP grew at an average rate of 1.1%. In the nine quarters since, it's averaged 4.5% — even in the face of punishingly higher interest rates and oil prices.

We also hear how all the tax cuts are going to the "rich." Again, not true. A surge in entrepreneurship, jobs, income and wealth has made all of us richer and more secure.

As Snow noted in his speech Thursday, 57 million Americans now own stocks — or about half of all households. Yet, the median income for shareholders is a very un-Rockefeller-like $65,000.

Many of those investors are retired, and have seen their incomes go up along with dividends. This year, shareholders will deposit or reinvest $201 billion in payouts — up 36% from 2002, the year dividend tax cuts went into effect.

Entrepreneurs are doing well, too. Fed data out Friday showed Americans' net worth is now $51 trillion — about 4.6 times real GDP. What's most impressive is that includes $6.6 trillion of equity in "noncorporate" — or small, entrepreneurial — businesses, up 32% since the start of 2003.

The House passed legislation last week that will trim growth in federal spending by $50 billion but keep most of the 2003 tax cuts intact. The Senate has identified $36 billion in spending cuts but wants to let the tax cuts expire.

The House version must prevail. The economy is surging, and the budget deficit is now shrinking as a share of GDP. Getting rid of the tax cuts that made all this possible would be the height of folly.

Four Out Of Four Surveyed Agree

2005-12-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

"And there is no reason… that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the — of — the historical customs, religious customs."
- Senator John Kerry (D)
Massachusetts

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home."
- Representative John Murtha (D)
Pennsylvania

"The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong."
- Chairman Howard Dean
Democratic National Committee

"I say to Bush, you entered Iraq with lies; you will lose Iraq and lie about it, and you will leave with the pretext that you have completed your mission. America only has to decide on the number of troops it wishes to lose before withdrawing."
- Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri
Al-Quaeda

P2V Neptune: Forgotten Warbird

2005-12-07T01:52:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the Cold War's least-heralded aircraft, the Lockheed P2V Neptune has been largely overlooked by aviation historians.

By Charles F. Clark, Jr. for Aviation History Magazine

It was spring 1954 at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Saufley Field at Pensacola, Florida, and the air was filled with the sounds of student naval aviators returning from formation-training flights. As each pilot struggled to maintain wing position on the aircraft ahead of him, there came a new noise. What sounded like someone whistling for Fido while two hogs squealed at a feeding trough was actually a big, multiengine plane taxiing toward the base of the Saufley control tower.

Where Is The MSM?

2005-12-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

Looks like the fruits of fighting back. Seems like I heard the low number almost hourly a few weeks ago from the MSM.

Tuesday December 06, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. The President's ratings have been at this level or above for five straight days and seven of the last nine.

Tell Me Again Why This Is Bad...

2005-12-06T03:22:00.000-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1375123

Vatican's Stand On Homosexuality

2005-12-03T07:48:00.001-08:00

Ellen Goodman's piece, A Vatican Retreat on Homosexuality, is exactly what I expected from the Left in commenting on the recent pronouncement from Rome. I don't know if she is Catholic, (if she is then she isn't a very learned or informed one) but I can say her analysis is both simplistic and lazy. Rather than comment on her piece point by point I thought it better (and easier) to link to someone who has already done a good job.

It's An Easy Policy to Attack - If Don't Put It In Context

I was wondering how long it would take the Mainstream Media to start mis-stating the new policy of the Catholic Churches regarding gays. When you try hard to misunderstand the new policy, it is easy to start attacking it.
Ellen Goodman did not take long. Today in the Washington Post, she blythely skips over parts, and misstates others Continue Reading Here...

Unsteady Path of Constitutional Democracy

2005-12-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Perspective is everything. If only the Left were to get it's history from the books vice Hollywood.

Were a foreign viewer to witness the debacle of American democratization and constitution-building during the late 18th century, surely our fate would have seemed no less imperiled and worthy of derision than the efforts now underway in the Middle East.

Army Strikes!

2005-11-30T16:20:00.000-08:00

Rather weak in my opinion for the losers to steal the trophy they failed to win on the field.

Navy's Commander-In-Chief Trophy Stolen
By Jon Gallo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; 12:06 PM
The Commander-In-Chief's Trophy, awarded annually to the winner of the football competition between the three major service academies, was stolen Monday night from the Midshipmen's locker room inside Ricketts Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, Navy spokesman Scott Strasemeier confirmed this morning.
The Midshipmen face the U.S. Military Academy this weekend and though Navy athletic officials are unsure who took the trophy, it is common for Army and Navy to pull pranks on each other in the week leading up to the game.

The three-sided, 2 1/2 -feet tall trophy that weighs 170 pounds was taken after it was moved to the team's locker room for motivation Monday afternoon. The Commander-In-Chief's Trophy is normally kept in a locked, glass case in the Rotunda area of Bancroft Hall, the school's dormitory.
The Midshipmen face Army on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Because both teams defeated Air Force this season, the winner of the teams' 106th meeting will win the trophy. Navy has won the award the past two seasons, and Army has not won the trophy since 1996.
Navy school officials discovered the theft along with a note that read: "Before we win the football game on Saturday, we thought we would take the trophy. By the time you read this, it will be halfway to West Point," home to the U.S. Military Academy.
Phone calls to Army sports information director Bob Beretta were not immediately returned.
"Navy has launched an investigation," Strasemeier said. "We don't know who did it. Someone broke into a building and stole it."

How To Lose A War

2005-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

By RALPH PETERS
QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up. Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration. Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq — and the region — if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round. Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media. After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the Dems' leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that they're risking their lives for nothing, we're throwing the game. forget that our combat veterans are re-enlisting at remarkable rates — knowing they'll have to leave their families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the squeezing of the insurgency's last strongholds into the badlands on the Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing cooperation we've seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a decent government. Just set a time-table for our troops to come home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia weren't anomalies — that's what Americans do. While we're at it, let's just print up recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity. Whatever you do, don't talk about any possible consequences. Focus on the moment — and the next round of U.S. elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American soldiers and Marines don't matter — they didn't go to Ivy League schools. (Besides, most would've voted Republican had they lived.) America's security? Hah! As long as the upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode. So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past 500 years? For God's sake, don't talk about democracy in the Middle East. After all, democracy wasn't much fun for the Dems in 2000 or 2004. Why support it overseas, when it's been so disappointing at home? Human rights? Oh, dear. Human rights are for rich white people who live in Malibu. Unless you can use the issue to whack Republicans. Otherwise, brown, black or yellow people can die by the millions. Dean, Reid & Pelosi, LLC, won't say, "Boo!" You've got to understand, my fellow citizens: None of this matters. And you don't matter, either. All that matters is scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black eye and we'll call that a win. The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking. (How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq — not one — has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win. There's plenty I don't like about the Bush administration. Its domestic policies disgust me, and the Bushies got plenty wrong in Iraq. But at least they'll fight. The Dems are ready to betray our troops, our allies and our country's future security for a few House seats. Surrender is never a winning strategy. Yes, we've been told lies about Iraq — by Dems and their media groupies. About conditions on the ground. About our troops. About what's at stake. About the consequences of running away from the great struggle of our time. About the continuing threat from terrorism. And about the consequences for you and your family. What do the Democrats fear? An American success in Iraq. They need us to fail, and they're going to make us fail, no matter the cost. They need to declare defeat before the 2006 mid-term elections and ensure a real debacle before 2008 — a bloody mess they'll blame on Bush, even though they made it themselves. We won't even talk about the effect quitting while we're winning in Iraq might have on the go-to-war calculations of other powers that might want to challenge us in the future. Let's just be good Democrats and prove that Osama bin Laden was right all along: Americans have no stomach for a fight. As for the 2,000-plus dead American troops about whom the lefties are so awfully concerned? As soon as we abandon Iraq, they'll forget about our casualties quicker than an amnesiac forgets how much small-change he had in his pocket. If we run away from our enemies overseas, our enemies will make their way to us. Quit Iraq, and far more than 2,000 Americans are going to die. And they won't all be conservatives. Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer.

Hooverville

2005-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

In this economic environment, it will be hard for the MSM to continue beating their doom-and-gloom dirge, though I am sure they will try.

Eliminate the "Iraq is a failure" propoganda, and the President's approval ratings would be in the mid-60s or 70s.

Hastert Wants 'Christmas,' Tree Together

2005-11-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

Nov 29
WASHINGTON
If it's a spruce tree adorned with 10,000 lights and 5,000 ornaments displayed on the Capitol grounds in December, it's a Christmas tree and that's what it should be called, says House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Hastert, R-Ill., in a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, recommended that the annual Capitol Holiday Tree, as it has been called the past several years, be renamed the Capitol Christmas Tree.
"I strongly urge that we return to this tradition and join the White House, countless other public institutions and millions of American families in celebrating the holiday season with a Christmas tree," Hastert wrote to Architect Alan Hantman.
His office said the tree began to be referred to as the Holiday Tree in the 1990s. Spokesman Ron Bonjean said the reasons were unclear.
On Dec. 8 Hastert will flip the switch to light the tree, a 65-foot Engelmann Spruce from the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. On Tuesday workmen were erecting the tree on the West Front of the Capitol.

At Least the Camera Guys Showed

2005-11-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan waits for people to show up at her book signing near President Bush's ranch on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old Casey died in Iraq, called for anti-war activists to return to Crawford this week as Bush celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Will Senator Kerry Stand Up For Anything?

2005-11-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

From the article: Truth, lies, and intelligence

''The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight, but any
suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped, or fabricated by the
leader of the nation is utterly false," Cheney said in a Monday speech.
''Senator McCain put it best: 'It is a lie to say that the president lied to the
American people.' "

At a press availability later that day, US Senator John Kerry shied away
from the term lie. ''I've never used that word," Kerry said. ''I've said they misled America. . . . They are still misleading America."

This guy is a flexible as a willow tree. I wonder if there is anything he really does stand for?

On The Lighter Side Of Thanksgiving

2005-11-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

Les: It's a helicopter, and it's coming this way. It's flying something behind it, I can't quite make it out, it's a large banner and it says, uh - Happy... Thaaaaanksss... giving! ... From... W.... ... K... ... R... ... P!!

Les: No parachutes yet. Can't be skydivers... I can't tell just yet what they are, but - Oh my God, Johnny, they're turkeys!! Johnny, can you get this? Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenberg tragedy has there been anything like this!

Johnny: Les? Are you there? Les isn't there. (composing himself) Thanks for that on-the-spot report, Les, and for those of you who just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys. Film at eleven.

Venus: Les! Are you okay?

Les: I don't know. A man and his two children tried to kill me. After the turkeys hit the pavement, the crowd kind of scattered, but some of them tried to attack me! I had to jam myself into a phone booth! Then Mr Carlson had the helicopter land in the middle of the parking lot. I guess he thought he could save the day by turning the rest of the turkeys loose. It gets pretty strange after that.
Andy: Les, c'mon now, tell us the rest.
Les: I really don't know how to describe it. It was like the turkeys mounted a counterattack! It was almost as if they were ...organized!!
Mr Carlson: As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

President's Thanksgiving Message

2005-11-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving everyone. Here are some words from, in my opinion, our finest patriot and best President ever.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.
--G. Washington

McCain Sings Streisand

2005-11-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

The Naval Aviator shows in this one. Enjoy.

McCain Sings Streisand

Al Franken: OWNED

2005-11-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

Couldn't happen to a better fellow. Kind of reminds me of the Polish using their cavalry against German tanks.

Al Franken Schooled by Antonin Scalia at New York Event

By CK Rairden
Nov 23, 2005

Al Franken stepped out of his comfortable echo-chamber of Air America on Monday night and was given more than one lesson by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The C-List political commentator attempted to rip off a sophomoric shot at Justice Scalia, but was quickly embarrassed, according to a report in the NY Post.

Clueless in New York

Franken, apparently unaware of exactly how far he was stepping up in class, was chided "as if he were a delinquent schoolboy at Time Warner Center on Monday night, " Richard Johnson of Page Six writes.

Johnson reports:

When (Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norman) Pearlstine opened the floor for Q&A, Franken stood up in the back row and started talking about "judicial demeanor" and asking "hypothetically" about whether a judge should recuse himself if he had gone duck-hunting or flown in a private jet with a party in a case before his court.

Franken was clumsily referring to the fact that Scalia had gone hunting and flying with Dick Cheney before the 2000 election.

First, Scalia lectured Franken, "Demeanor is the wrong word. You mean ethics." Then he explained, "Ethics is governed by tradition. It has never been the case where you recuse because of friendship."

Time Warner chairman Dick Parsons later told PAGE SIX: "Al was not quite ready for prime time." Franken was a "Not Ready for Prime Time Player" on "Saturday Night Live" long before he began hosting a radio show on Air America.

***

Ouch! If Franken had any shame it should have kicked in. But proving that he truly is clueless Al told the Post, "I think I got under his skin a little."

It sounds more as if he never laid a glove on Scalia.

--CK Rairden

CHIP SAYS...

2005-11-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

For those of you not in the immediate Bureau feedback loop, our own Chip Walter has been selected for PATRECONWING Commodore.

Respect For The Dead

2005-11-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Did anyone else see this? It really struck me as out of place. Okay, I understand individuals donating their bodies to science and understand the showing of such bodies for educational purposes. Aside from the other controversies surrounding this exhibit I also have a real problem with how the bodies are being displayed. It's one thing to present them in a straightforward manner but it become something entirely different when the bodies are displayed in what I will call "artistic" poses (playing basketball, holding their own brains, etc). Seems to send a message that human bodies are nothing more than art supplies further cheapening our humanity.

Sick: NBC's Today Displays Human Corpse Next to Katie and Matt
Posted by Rich Noyes on November 22, 2005 - 11:48.
Several times over the past few weeks, Katie Couric has used her Today show to push the idea that the United States is now a country that abuses human rights. But this morning’s Today saw a dead human corpse, stripped of his skin and with his skull removed, located just a few feet from where Katie was sitting next to co-host Matt Lauer on the couch.
The corpse was from a traveling exhibit on human bodies, where the preserved remains are dissected to show different aspects of human anatomy. But according to Friday’s New York Times, human rights groups are extremely concerned that the bodies on this exhibit — presumably including the one that showed up on Today’s set — could be dissidents executed by China’s communist regime...

I Now Support Prescription Drug Benefits...

2005-11-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

...because these folks need massive amounts of lithium.

1st seek to understand.......

2005-11-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

I always knew the Covey Cult was going to undermine us! :P

What a clown Matthews is....

"If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil -- they just have a different perspective."

George Goes To Japan

2005-11-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

GW to call Japan home
By Andrew Scutro - Times staff writer
A newly overhauled GW will be the American aircraft carrier home-ported in Asia. “The Navy has slotted George Washington to relieve Kitty Hawk in 2008 in Yokosuka,” a senior defense official told Navy Times.

The official announcement from the Navy is expected in the next few weeks, pending shifts in the massive restructuring plan known as the Quadrennial Defense Review.

95,000 Tons of Run Your Arse Over.

Guerilla Warfare

2005-11-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Another common theme I see from the armchair Leftists out there is to pontificate on how we as a country/military are not and have never been good at guerilla warfare. Perhaps they are right, if only in a small way. Here is a quote I found today that made me think of our American-Liberal friends:

The mind of the enemy and will of his leaders is a target of far more importance than the bodies of his troops.

-Brigadier General S. B. Griffith II
United States Marine Corps
(Introduction to Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 1961)

And what a soft target the minds of our liberal leaders make for those that would do us harm. Maybe its just the Leftists that aren't good at guerilla warfare because their will seems to vanish rather quickly.

Citizen Soldier

2005-11-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

This is in response to Llew's last point on the Murtha thread. It actually served to highlight a topic that has been in mind lately that I thought we could discuss.

Llewcifer said...: I didn't realize being a Retired Reserve Colonel inoculated you against being wrong. Hope I get as free a pass when I get on the stump...

The inoculation seems only to work if you are against the war just as troops in Iraq who oppose our actions are proof positive to the Left that the entire military wants out. At least that was the implied sentiment, flawed as it is, of a leftist blogger I recently had some interaction with. She also insinuated in another post that as a military wife she wasn't a civilian. Made me chuckle inside.

If the Left wants to go to some sort of "Robert Heinlein" standard for who gets to vote, hold office or even have a say in this country then fine . And while most of here would be covered, I think I should be exact and state that it doesn't include military wives. Statistics have repeatedly shown the military votes to the Right of the spectrum so such a method of determining who is a "citizen" would help the conservative movement unquestionably

Now I am obviously not truly for such a system as there are many other ways in which people contribute. For instance the wealthiest of Americans who foot the tax bill should certainly get a say. But to get back on topic, the tactics of the Left to herald anyone in the military who agrees with them as some sort of expert is both selective and nonsensical. Selective in that they will hardly consider the views of the "experts" on the Right and I also think it is silly for someone who never wore the cloth (Pelosi for example) to make the judgment that Murtha's point of view is the best because he did serve at one time. Leaves me to question that if she never served, then how does she know his is a good opinion? By her standards she isn't worthy to make such judgments. Silly civilians.

Llew, why don't you start by running against Murtha? I can think of no better dichotomy.

This article is also featured on the Political Teen.

Today's Lesson

2005-11-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

FYI, Cynthia Mckinney (known for her belief that the President was behind the 9/11 attacks), Rob Wexler and Jose Serrano voted for the resolution last night. I find it funny that many of the Democrats are congratulating themselves over "avoiding a GOP trap" by voting "no". I submit they are snared no matter which way they voted as it will make difficult their common practice of trying to have it both ways. Mr. Hanson's article deals with that issue today. School is in session. If only we could get the Left to read.

November 18, 2005
War & Reconstruction
For Bush’s critics, even hindsight is cloudy.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
This is the mantra of the extreme Left: "Bush lied, thousands died." A softer version from politicians now often follows: "If I knew then what I know now, I would never have supported the war."

These sentiments are intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible for a variety of reasons beyond the obvious consideration that you do not hang out to dry some 150,000 brave Americans on the field of battle while you in-fight over whether they should have ever been sent there in the first place. Read More Here...

Representative Sam Johnson

2005-11-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

LEADER!

(He did a great job on the floor of the House tonight.)

Representative John Murtha

2005-11-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

QUITTER!

I Guess Grace Never Was His Strong Suit Anyway

2005-11-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

How completely nonsensical.

So the invasion was a "big mistake" with a lack of planning yet somehow we managed to have the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution, and the holding of parliamentary elections. Sounds like there was a plan to me and it appears as though removing Saddam was easy. What is it with the former Democrat Presidents feeling the need to criticize the current Commander-in-Chief? This sort of behavior coupled with the current tactics of the neo-liberal crowd will unfortunately come back upon them tenfold when the next Democrat is in office.

Clinton says Iraq invasion was a big mistake

Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST

Nov. 16, 2005

The United States made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday, citing the lack of planning for what would happen after dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done, " Clinton told students at the American University of Dubai.

"It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country."

Clinton did however say that the United States had done some good things in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution, and the holding of parliamentary elections.

Liberals Lie! (Or Live In Bizarro World)

2005-11-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

The following comment was found on a great post at Froggy Ruminations. I thought it a very succinct summary of reality surrounding the "Bush Lied" reflex of the neo-liberals and couldn't resist sharing it here. Bravo to Tom W.

All (patriotic and truth-loving) Americans need to memorize the following, in order to have these FACTS at their fingertips, ready to use, the next time someone tells you that Bush lied:

1. Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq

a) Found no evidence of attempts to influence analysts to change intelligence.

b) Found that Joe Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, actually bolstered the case.

c) Found that contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serials...ports/ iraq.html

2. The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction (Robb-Silverman Commission)

a) Found that the Presidential Daily Briefing contained similar intelligence as the National Intelligence Estimate given to Congress but expressed it in more alarmist and less nuanced language.

b) Reported that the intelligence in the Presidential Daily Briefings was not markedly different than the intelligence given to Congress in the National Intelligence Estimate.

c) Found no evidence that intelligence analysts were pressured into issuing false aseessments.
http://www.wmd.gov/report/

3. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission)

Found no evidence that Bush manipulated intelligence.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/

4. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (Lord Butler Report)

Found no evidence that prewar intelligence--much of it used by the U. S.--was distorted.
http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/

5. Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr. David Kelly (Lord Hutton Report)

Found that British Prime Minister Tony Blair did not manipulate prewar intelligence, much of which was used by the U. S. This report forced two heads of the BBC to resign.

6. David Kay, former head of Iraqi Survey Group

Testified to Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. intelligence analysts were not pressured into giving false assessments of the threat posed by Iraq.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28...kay.transcript/

7. Charles Duelfer, former head of Iraqi Survey Group

Stated that U. S. intelligence analysts were not pressured into giving false assessments of the threat posed by Iraq.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/ ...erts050304.html

8. Australian Government’s Report of the Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies

Found no evidence that the Office of National Assessments (ONA) was influenced by policy or political considerations to conclude--as did U. S. and British intelligence agencies--that Iraq had significant WMD stocks.
http://www.pmc.gov.au/ publicatio...tm#aust_lessons

When someone tells you that Bush lied, ask them if they think that all of these commissions, committees, and inqueries lied too. Make them look like the childish, delusional buffoons that they are.
Tom W. | Email | Homepage | 11.15.05 - 5:42 am | #

Comment Link

Believe It or Not

2005-11-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

I don't always agree with Mr. Hitchens but I love his writing style and demeanor. In fact he is the only reason I even read Slate. I have included the essential part of this article but do yourself a favor and read the entire thing.

Are you sure you want to keep saying we were fooled by Ahmad Chalabi and the INC?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 14, 2005, at 11:46 AM ET

What do you have to believe in order to keep alive your conviction that the Bush administration conspired to launch a lie-based war? As with (I admit) the pro-war case, the ground of argument has a tendency to shift. I saw two examples in Washington last week. An exceptionally moth-eaten and shabby picket line outside Ahmad Chalabi's event on Wednesday featured a man with a placard alleging that Bush had prearranged the 9/11 attacks. I know a number of left and right anti-warriors who have flirted with this possibility but very few who truly believe it. (Even Gore Vidal, who did at one point insinuate the idea, has recently withdrawn it, if only on the grounds of the administration's incompetence.)
But then there is the really superb pedantry and literal-mindedness on which the remainder of the case depends. This achieved something close to an apotheosis on the front page of the Washington Post on Nov. 12, where Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus brought complete gravity to bear. Is it true, as the president claimed in his Veterans Day speech, that Congress saw the same intelligence sources before the war, and is it true that independent commissions have concluded that there was no willful misrepresentation? Top form was reached on the inside page:
But in trying to set the record straight, [Bush] asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.
A prize, then, for investigative courage, to Milbank and Pincus. They have identified the same problem, though this time upside down, as that which arose from the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, during the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1998. That legislation—which passed the Senate without a dissenting vote—did expressly call for the removal of Saddam Hussein but did not actually mention the use of direct U.S. military force.
Let us suppose, then, that we can find a senator who voted for the 1998 act to remove Saddam Hussein yet did not anticipate that it might entail the use of force, and who later voted for the 2002 resolution and did not appreciate that the authorization of force would entail the removal of Saddam Hussein! Would this senator kindly stand up and take a bow? He or she embodies all the moral and intellectual force of the anti-war movement. And don't be bashful, ladies and gentlemen of the "shocked, shocked" faction, we already know who you are. Read More Here...

Republican Silliness

2005-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

I guess the Senate Republicans have been so busy looking for ways to eliminate pork in the budget (sarcasm) that they missed the strategy we are pursuing in Iraq. How weak. Sometimes I think we are playing with the junior varsity team out on the field. Fortunately the Democrats have fielded their pee-wee team.

Senate Republicans Pushing for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war. Read More Here...

Never To Late To Learn Of The Threats Schools Pose To Property Rights

2005-11-14T21:43:00.000-08:00

Though I dislike name calling there is nothing else to say here but "stupid liberals". I would treasure the moment if one of my childrens' teachers tried to pull something like this. "School" would definitely be in session in the form of a one-way discussion from me to them.

Schools such as Jennie Reed Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington are rather open about their intentions to pilfer school supplies from their students.

With all the coverage of grandiose tragedies as of late caused by the hurricanes, less attention has been paid this year to the regular back to school festivities. However, it is at such times of mass distraction that the abridgements of liberty pose the greatest threat, and this is especially true of the mundane bureaucracies that govern much of every day life but are not very exciting in and of themselves, such as the public schools.

One annual ritual that connects one generation with the next is the subdued sense of joy that comes each year when parents and children go to acquire the supplies needed for the pending academic term. A less enjoyable accretion to this rite of passage is the additional practice of various schools staking a claim to this educational paraphernalia in the name of the community. Read More Here...

Bush May Stay in US Aircraft Carrier

2005-11-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

Get the "auto-dog" warmed up.

By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

PUSAN _ U.S President George W. Bush may stay in the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which arrived in the port of Pusan (Busan) for military exercises, while attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Pusan, sources said Sunday.

Bush will arrive in South Korea Wednesday, one day ahead of the scheduled summit with President Roh Moo-hyun in the southeastern city of Kyongju, a U.S. Embassy official said.

Washington has kept secret where Bush will stay during the global meeting, fearing potential terrorist attacks against the U.S. president.

What Is Wrong With The Word Black Anyway?

2005-11-14T14:41:00.000-08:00

Read this. Sometimes I think things can't get anymore ridiculous.

God Save The Queen

2005-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Does this mean Prince Charles will stop lecturing us about Islam and how "intolerant" we are? I have also heard that when and if he becomes King he wants to be called "Defender of the faiths" vice "Faith".
Sigh.....

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’
Abul Taher

AL-QAEDA has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London.

The warning has been passed by MI5 to the Queen’s protection team after it obtained the unexpurgated version of a video issued by Al-Qaeda after the 7/7 attacks. Parts of it were broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel.

In the video, Ayman al- Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden, targets the Queen as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and denounces her as an enemy of Muslims.

A senior Whitehall official said: “MI5 is aware that there are some pieces of that video that have not been aired. They are aware of the bit of al- Zawahiri talking about the Queen and they have notified the relevant authorities.”

The Sunday Times has obtained the full 27-minute video, which is circulating on secure jihadist websites in the Middle East used to recruit and inflame prospective terrorists. In Britain it has been posted by Muhammad al-Massari, the London-based Saudi extremist, on his website Tajdeed.
It also contains inflammatory material from Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the London bombings which killed 52 commuters. He is urging Muslims to take part in jihad and seek martyrdom.
Khan, 30, incites British Muslims to ignore the moderate Islamic leaders who want integration with British society.
“Our so-called scholars of today,” he said, “are content with their Toyotas and semi- detached houses” in their desire for integration. The message is believed to be the first of its kind in which a British suicide bomber calls on fellow UK Muslims to follow his example.
More here...

Veteran's Day

2005-11-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

Gents, I had the honor yesterday of being the guest speaker at the Ralston, Nebraska, Veteran's Day Commemoration. Audience of around 100 or so. Beautiful day here in the midwest. Below, I share the text of my speech for your consideration.

Veteran’s Day 2005
Ralston, Nebraska

"Good morning, Acting Mayor Krause, Council Members, Commander Bowman, veterans, guests. It is an honor and unique opportunity to spend a few moments speaking with you all today in recognition of Veteran’s Day on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. Strategic Command and the broader United States Armed Forces.

The charge against me in the program is true… I am in fact a Naval Aviator, and though it is generally difficult to get a Naval Aviator to stop talking---particularly about him or her-self, I found myself approaching this event with some trepidation. The challenge before me is rightfully a broad one; I was asked by Mr. Sievers to speak on the “subject of my choice.” So I ask you---given the enormity of what Veteran’s Day stands for---on what subject would you choose to speak?

Now, though my alma mater also employs a large letter “N” as a symbol---ours is blue and gold---this probably isn’t the right venue, or the right year---to discuss college football in this state. Obviously, the subjects one associates with Veteran’s Day aren’t subjects that most of us are truly comfortable talking about at the dinner table or the office water cooler… Honor, courage, and commitment. Duty. Patriotism. Service, and sacrifice. Yes, even death. Simple words, but not simple concepts… Hardly the topics you casually come across---but the infrequency with which we consciously face them is, in my mind, inversely proportional to their actual importance to our society, our livelihood, and our lives.

My academic discipline at the Naval Academy was History… And I believe that gatherings such as ours today serve an important role in ensuring that Veteran’s Day stands as something more than just another excuse to “take a long weekend.” Eighty-seven years ago to the minute we started this ceremony---at Eleven O’clock on the Eleventh of November in 1918---the guns fell silent on the Western Front… The combatants in the “Great War” had slugged each other to the point of an Armistice… Not a peace treaty---that would take over another year to negotiate, during which there were several periods of crisis where hostilities nearly recommenced---but an Armistice. The Great War, in the context of the use of the English language at the time, was “Great” because of its size, not because it was a really keen war. It lacked great rallying cries like “Remember Pearl Harbor.” It was a war entered into more so than any other in modern western history by neglect and miscalculation. The primary combatants were constitutional monarchies of very similar character and temperament with more cultural, religious, and psychological ties than differences. In the order of their day, 4 of the 6 main countries were democracies. Germany was by far a “freer” nation in 1914 than the Russian Empire. This Western European civil war exploded and inflamed the world and killed and wounded tens of millions, including 365,000 American servicemen.

On November 11, 1919 President Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given…"

The original concept for the celebration was for the suspension of business for a two-minute period beginning at 11 A.M., with the day also marked by parades and public meetings. It is reassuring to me that today we meet in that same spirit, though the name of the observance changed to “Veteran’s Day” in 1954 in recognition of the millions who served in World War II and Korea. Other than a period between 1971 and 1978 when Congress attempted to push all “holidays” onto Mondays, completely removing the symbolism of the Eleventh of November, and providing yet another data point to the contention that the 1970s was a decade we all probably could have done without, Americans have gathered at venues great and small---most probably very similar to this one, to spend a few brief moments reflecting on the meaning of Veteran’s Day.

To be honest, I have the impression that addressing some of these themes with a Nebraska audience is in a great sense “preaching to the choir.” I have been struck in my two years here with the honest and simple patriotism of Nebraskans and have been warmed and welcomed by it… As mentioned in my bio, I am a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, a mid-sized town in northeast corner of the Keystone State that grew to some importance on the national scene during the turn of the last century as a source of anthracite coal. My family, of Welsh and German extraction, immigrated to difficult and dangerous lives in their new Homeland. And, nearly without exception, at least some members of every generation served in the defense of that nation. In fact, the older folks back home still ask me if I am still “in the Service,” which quite frankly isn’t a term the modern Armed Forces bandies about all that much. In fact, when younger, I kind of resented the implication that I was a draftee or was in some compulsory arrangement like the old works project administration---but the longer I have worn my country’s uniform, the more I have come to identify with the term “the Service.” I am proud to serve. And I am humbled when others recognize that service.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two. 16 million Americans served their country during that conflict, of which only 4 million remain. Some of their numbers are with us here today, and they provide a link for those of us serving today with the traditions, honor, and valor of the past.

As a naval officer and historian, I have some fascination with the World War II battle of Okinawa. For all the fantastic work the historian Stephan Ambrose did in his studies of the Greatest Generation and the cataclysmic scope of the invasion of Normandy, many today miss the connection that at the same time Operation OVERLORD took place and America joined Canada and Great Britain in assaulting Hitler’s “fortress Europe,” half a world away the battle of Okinawa raged on. In March of 1945 a 1600 ship fleet had assembled to place nearly 250,000 American fighting men ashore to secure the crucial Ryuku Islands as a final stepping off point for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. 60,000 Marines went ashore on the first day---which in a less politically correct universe took place on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945. Ultimately over 183,000 combatants took part in the struggle against 110,000 Japanese troops. Putting those numbers into context with respect to today’s Armed Forces, one should know the entire United States Marine Corps today has somewhere in the vicinity of 175,000 serving on Active Duty. The United States Navy of 2005 possesses just over 300 grey-hulled warships. Of the invasion force, 12,000 Americans would fall in battle, including the famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle, and 35,000 would be wounded. More than 300 ships would be damaged and 5,000 sailors would perish in the fires and horror of kamikaze and conventional attacks. Of the Japanese forces on the island, 100,000 would die, and over 100,000 civilians would perish in the onslaught. In a historical irony certainly unintended at the time, the battle plan for Okinawa was named Operation ICEBERG… Ironic in hindsight as certainly these casualty figures would have been but the tip of the iceberg if the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland had been carried out later that year as envisioned. Thankfully, that invasion never took place.

One of the leading classical and military historians of our day is a small-town professor from central California by the name of Victor Davis Hanson, and I strongly encourage you all to find and read his 2003 work Ripples of Battle, subtitled How Wars of the Past Still Determine how we Fight, how we Live, and how we Think. In it you will find an eloquent argument that the battle of Okinawa has meant as much, if not more, to the development of the modern American military and modern world, as classical battles such as Thermopylae did to the ancient. For all the grand sweep of his thesis, though, Hanson keeps his narrative grounded in the actions of the grossly misnamed “common soldier,” particularly one young Marine who would have been his Uncle, also named Victor Hanson, had he survived. Hanson quotes the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian William Manchester, himself a veteran of Okinawa, in summary of the attitude of the Marines… Manchester wrote, “Debt was ignoble. Courage was a virtue. Mothers were beloved. Marriage was a sacrament. Divorce was disgraceful… All these and ‘God Bless America’ and Christmas or Hanukkah and the certitude that victory in the war would assure their continuance into perpetuity---all this led you into battle, and sustained you as you fought, and comforted you if you fell, and if it came to that, justified your death to all who loved you as you had loved them.”

Come forward then to the near-present, to my personal experience, and I will place you 3 years ago this week with me over Afghanistan. I will tell you that the American fighting men and women of today serve with the same determination, same courage, and same commitment to victory that our predecessors and many of you fought. I have watched our men and women in conditions as brutal as any take the fight to the enemy, and win. I have watched a committed enemy hole himself up in a compound likely built in the 19th century in order to ambush our soldiers, only to be pulverized into tiny pieces as an Air Force gunship systematically reduced the compound to ever-smaller piles of rock.

Despite Hollywood and popular culture’s perception, there is little more sanitary about modern warfare than about warfare in ages past. I will tell you that there is nothing precise about the way our convoys are attacked in Iraq and in many cases the only thing “surgical” about today’s operations are when legs and arms are amputated in the field hospitals. The Iraq war has cost over 1,000 combat deaths, and over 2,000 deaths overall. A small number compared to the carnage of Okinawa or the meat-grinder battles of Korea or the drawn-out bloodshed in Vietnam, but large enough indeed if one of those lost is your husband, father, or more so often than ever before, mother, wife, or daughter. Your countrymen are making the sacrifices of past generations again today, and maybe it ultimately speaks to the great-untapped strength of this nation that it happens almost without note.

On a brilliant November morning, in the heartland of America, we have come together for a few minutes, to observe a simple ceremony, to share the company of other veterans and survivors, and to remember. I am not a historical determinist---one who believes in unseen forces---I believe that God made man and men make decisions, decisions become actions and actions become history. Clearly, the exceptional character of America today has been shaped by the contributions and sacrifices of all those who have served under the nation’s colors in the years past. In ways large and small, this nation owes its very existence to those who placed themselves in harm’s way when called, or stood ready to do so should the call come. The roll call of sacrifice leads back from this point in time through Fallujah and “Roberts Ridge” in Afghanistan to the first Gulf War, to Beirut, Hue, the frozen Chosin, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Midway, Pearl Harbor and back still through the forests of France, the islands of the Caribbean, the very plains we live on today, through Gettysburg and Bull Run, Mexico and San Jacinto, New Orleans and the Barbary wars to Yorktown and the grass of Lexington Green.

This past Sunday, a member of this community, Captain Joel Cahill, United States Army, joined that roll of sacrifice. I hesitate to elaborate on a loss so recent, a wound so fresh in the community, a personal loss, possibly, to some of us here today. The day will come when this fallen soldier will return home to his family and the proper ceremonies will be observed. Let me only say that as I read the coverage of his loss in the local newspaper this week, I was struck that his remarkable story---enlisted into the Army after high school, training and qualification as a member of the Special Forces and as a Ranger, a commendable enlisted career leading to college and commissioning and service on the front lines of the War on Terror---isn’t so remarkable at all. I have served with many Joel Cahills, and any one of us in uniform today could meet with his fate at the hands of a determined and ruthless enemy. What makes the story of Joel Cahill so special is that his story is not special because of whom he was, but that he was an American fighting man serving his country and his countrymen the best way he knew how. It is impossible to know what is in the heart of another, but I believe with all my soul that, as the essayist G. K. Chesterton wrote, "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

This past spring I had the opportunity to visit the new World War II memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC. It is a tasteful, evocative location, and a clean, American design. What struck me most as I watched the flood of school kids on spring class trips walk through and pose for pictures, was the incongruity of a memorial to the fallen in the middle of such a vibrant, living entity like our capital and the nation it represents. I came to understand at that time that the memorial to those fallen warriors wasn’t the cold stone or gold stars representing the dead---the memorial to those who served was quite simply the nation we have built around us after their passing. As we work, play, raise our families, and live our lives in the freedom they purchased with their blood and service, we act out their dreams and aspirations and fulfill the promise of a free nation. I think no man or woman who stood watch or stood his or her post in time of war or in peace did so in order to earn a marble monument or to etch his or her name on a wall. They did so in order to serve and protect their country, their family, their friends, and the parlance of my service, their shipmates… In that spirit, let us go today with the memory of those heroes in our hearts and with the strength to face tomorrow’s challenges in our blood. Like the millions before us, the legions of veterans and the millions of Americans who earned their dedication… Let us serve."

After the event, a young U.S. Army E-5 introduced me to his grandfather, who told me he was one of the Marines who went ashore that first day at Okinawa. He said to me "Thanks for remembering." I didn't know what to say---and you all know how I do love to talk.

Something In The Water Over At Democratic Underground

2005-11-12T10:35:00.000-08:00

Great find by Right Wing News on the thought provoking, rational discourse over at Democratic Undergound. Here are a few gems that RWN found (follow the link for more. It's fertile gound over there.)

ChiciB1: "Okay I'll Say It... Zarqawi IS A LUNATIC!! As long as he's out there doing HIS damage... OUR Idiot can keep beating the "Terra" drum!!
What can be done???? Killing all these innocent people only fuels the WH Agenda!!! Even IF OUR Idiots Provoked them!! And THEY DID!! IMHO

Am I in "left" field here????"

AntiCoup2K4: Zarqawi is a computer generated composite sketch. There is no such person.

Lerkfish:you see the dots, you're just not connecting them. If Zarqawi's actions benefits Bush, who do you think is directing him? if there even is a Zarqawi

Jacobin: Who said that? (Zarqawi's) no more glorious than Smirky's Band of Shock N. Awe murderers.
why do you think the people who fight for the 84% of Iraqi's public who want to drive the U.S. out of Iraq, are any worse than the people blowing up women, children and men and frying them with phosphorous?

Just rank American Nationalism, or is there something more here to discuss?

leesa: Ummm....do ya think perhaps you're being duped by the warmongers? Very doubtful these things are done by either Zarqawi or AlQaeda...nothing to be gained for them....EVERYTHING to be gained by the coalition forces and their silent allies.
Read 1984 and focus on the usefulness of an contrived omnipotent villain like OBL or Zarqawi. Very handy

Pump Seriousness Into Energy Policy

2005-11-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

November 11, 2005
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Thank God for $3.50 gasoline. True, we had it for only a brief shining moment, and there is not much good to be said about the catastrophic hurricanes that caused it. But the price was already inexorably climbing as a result of 2.3 billion Chinese and Indians industrializing. Their increased demand is what brought us to the energy knife's edge and makes us so acutely vulnerable to supply disruptions.

Yet, the Senate is attacking the problem by hauling oil executives to hearings on ``price gouging.'' Even by Senate standards, the cynicism here is breathtaking. Everyone knows what the problem really is. It's Economics 101: increasing demand and precariously tight supply.

Yet for three decades we have done criminally little about it. Conservatives argued for more production, liberals argued for more conservation, and each side blocked the other's remedies -- when even a child can see that we need both:

Demand. Just yesterday we were paying $3.50 at the pump and ready to pay $4 or $5 if necessary. No blessing has ever come more disguised. Now that we have lived with $3.50 gasoline, $3 seems far less outrageous than, say, a year ago. We have a unique but fleeting opportunity to permanently depress demand by locking in higher gasoline prices. Put a floor at $3. Every penny that the price goes under $3 should be recaptured in a federal gas tax so that Americans pay $3 at the pump no matter how low the world price goes.

Why is this a good idea? It is the simplest way to induce conservation. People will alter their buying habits. It was the higher fuel prices of the 1970s and early '80s that led to more energy-efficient cars and appliances -- which induced such restraint on demand that the world price of oil ultimately fell through the floor. By 1986, oil was $11 a barrel. Then we got profligate and resumed our old habits, and oil is now $60. Surprise.

The worst part is that much of this $60 goes overseas to foreigners who wish us no good: Wahhabi Saudi princes who subsidize terrorists; Hugo Chavez, the mini-Mussolini of the Southern Hemisphere; and (through the fungibility of oil) the nuclear-hungry, death-to-America Iranian mullahs. This is insanity. It makes infinitely more sense to reduce consumption, drive the world price down and let the premium we force ourselves to pay at the pump (which begins the conservation cycle) go to the U.S. Treasury. If the price drops to $2, plow that $1 tax right back into the American economy by immediately reducing, say, Social Security or income taxes.

The beauty of a gas tax at $3 is that it obviates the waste and folly of an army of bureaucrats telling auto companies what cars in which fleets need to meet what arbitrary standards of fuel efficiency. Abolish all the regulations and let the market decide. Consumers are not stupid. Within weeks of Katrina, SUV sales were already in decline and hybrids were flying off the lots.

Supply. For decades we've been dithering over drilling in a tiny part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Look, I too love the caribou. They are sweet, picturesque and reputedly harmless. But dire predictions about the devastation that Prudhoe Bay oil development would visit upon the caribou proved false. They have thrived. Let's get serious. We live at the edge of oil shortages and in perpetual vulnerability to oil blackmail. We have soldiers dying in the oil fields of the Middle East, yet we leave untouched the largest untapped oil field in North America so that Lower-48ers can enjoy an image of pristine Arctic purity. This is an indulgence bordering on decadence.

As is our refusal to drill on the continental shelf. Offshore drilling technology is far safer and more efficient than it was decades ago when this prohibition was passed. We're starving ourselves.

The same logic applies to refineries. We have not built a new one since 1976. Gasoline doesn't grow on trees. The U.S. refining industry operates at 96 percent capacity. That is unsustainable. We need the equivalent of the military-base closing commission, whereby outside experts decide which bases should be closed in the national interest. A refinery commission that would situate 15 new refineries scattered throughout the U.S. (some perhaps on Army bases scheduled for closing) would spread the pain, depoliticize the process and arm us against future shortages.

With these simple steps, we could within a decade finally escape the oil noose. But don't hold your breath. The Senate just loved its little oil-executive inquisition. The House Wednesday night stripped out the ANWR drilling provision. And there is not a single national politician who dares propose raising gas taxes by even a penny. We are criminally unserious about energy independence and we will pay the price.

© 2005, Washington Post Writers Group

Apologies To France

2005-11-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

Remember the series of pictures from disaffected (obviously more intelligent than us) liberals aplogizing to the world for the election of our President. I came across a similar movement in light of the recent challenges the French (also obviously more intelligent than us) have had.

The source is Froggy Ruminations ( Navy SEAL). I also enjoyed his review of the new movie JARHEAD which confirmed my suspicions that it was nothing more than a waste of film or as Froggy characterizes it: "a first person account of what it is like to be a $hitbird in the Corps."

More On The Ills Of The Socialist State

2005-11-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

Interesting perspective.

Separation of Family and State
By Arnold Kling

"The rioters are generally 12 to 25 years old, and roughly half of those
arrested are under 18...Traditional parental control has disappeared and many
Muslim families are headed by a single parent. Elders, imams and social workers
have lost control. Paradoxically, the youths themselves are often the providers
of local social rules, based on aggressive manhood, control of the streets,
defense of a territory.

...Americans, for their part, should take
little pleasure in France's agony -- the struggle to integrate an angry
underclass is one shared across the Western world." -- Olivier
Roy

One way to describe libertarianism is that we believe in
the separation of family and state as strongly as the American Civil Liberties
Union believes in the separation of church and state. In contrast, both the Left
and the Right view government as a substitute parent. As pointed out by George
Lakoff in Moral Politics,
the Left wants government to be a nurturant parent and the Right wants
government to be a strict parent.

Libertarianism does not want the
government to act as a parent. What I want is for government to ensure that
property disputes are resolved peacefully, according to rules. The rules
themselves do not have to be perfect. They should reflect prevailing custom,
which in turn may evolve gradually over time. Read The Rest Of The
Article Here...

This Just Made Me Laugh

2005-11-10T06:37:00.000-08:00

President Bush has authorized the Joint Chiefs to begin drawing up a battle plan to pull France's ass out of the fire again. Facing an apparent overwhelming force of up to 400 pissed off teenagers, Mr. Bush doubts France's ability to hold off the little pissants. "Hell, if the last two world wars are any indication, I would expect France to surrender any day now", said Bush. Joint Chiefs head, Gen. Peter Pace, warned the President that it might be necessary to send up to 5 Marines to get things under control. The general admitted that 5 Marines may be overkill but he wanted to get this thing under control within 24 hours of arriving on scene. He stated he was having a hard time finding even one Marine to help those ungrateful bastards out for a third time but thought that he could persuade a few women Marines to do the job before they went on pregnancy leave. President Bush asked Gen. Pace to get our Marines out of there as soon as possible after order was restored. He also reminded Gen. Pace to make sure the Marines did not take soap, razors, or deodorant with them. The least they stand out the better.

He's at it again....

2005-11-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

No comment.

Ms Mapes In The Land Of Make-Believe

2005-11-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

I happened to hear this clip of Mary Mapes defending the forged CBS documents today on the way home from work.

BRIAN ROSS: Do you still think that story was true?

MARY MAPES: The story, absolutely.

ROSS:This seems remarkable to me that you would sit here now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards.

MAPES: I’m perfectly willing to believe that those documents were forgeries if there was proof that I haven’t seen.

ROSS: But isn’t it the other way around, don’t you have to prove they are authentic?

MAPES: Well, I think that’s what critics of this story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false yet.

ROSS: Have they proved to be authentic though, isn’t that really what journalists do?

MAPES: No, I don’t think that’s the standard.

Incredible to me that in her mind 1) the journalistic standard is as SHE asserts and 2) that she thinks the evidence still supports CBS' allegations. I also hear that OJ is still looking for the "Real Killers".

You can watch the video here if you want.

Positive Movement For Free Trade

2005-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

The News Hour (PBS) painted quite a different portrait than the article below. Come to your own conclusion on that. I believe the notion of free trade in the Americas not only is socially right but also goes towards solving our illegal immigration problem. Why leave your own country looking for wages if the money is coming to you?

Bush 29, Chavez 5
Posted 11/7/2005

Latin America: If you heeded the hype from gloomy hand wringers or news photos of shop-trashing anti-American thugs, you'd think President Bush left the Argentina summit in failure. It's nothing but rubbish.

Seldom has news been so distorted against facts. Most of the U.S. media claim that because the 34 states were obstructed from full agreement on a declaration to kick-start free trade by a few holdouts, it's some sort of victory for the chief obstructor, U.S. antagonist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Just by the numbers, it's a false impression. Only five states at the Organization of American States summit in Mar del Plata withheld signing a statement to restart talks for a Free Trade of the Americas pact, and four of those — Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay — did so temporarily on valid concerns about farm subsidies.

The U.S. sympathizes with them, but is hamstrung by its larger trade relations with heavily subsidized Europe. That's why the U.S. is going to bat for those four at the World Trade Organization's 148-nation Doha Round of trade talks in Hong Kong this December. More Here...

Reconsidering the Bush Doctrine

2005-11-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Behold. Cogent and respectful questioning of the Bush Doctrine free from smugness, accusations of lying, attacks on Halliburton, charges of corruption, rudeness, namecalling and underlying out of control rage.

By Arnold Kling
Recently, Commentary magazine put together a fascinating symposium on the Bush Doctrine, which includes the use of pre-emptive attacks and the strategy of bringing democracy to the Middle East. I strongly recommend reading the symposium, as well as other recent thoughtful pieces by Francis Fukuyama, Theodore Dalrymple, and others cited in the blogs Winds of Change and Belmont Club.

Commentary's editors kicked off the symposium with a number questions about the Bush Doctrine. Participants were asked to comment on the doctrine and its implementation to date.

I am skeptical of the Bush doctrine. Read More Here...

Another Front Fighting For The Modern Day Caliphate?

2005-11-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

In days gone by I am fairly confident I would have answered the call to protect the Christians that were being plundered and sold into slavery by the Muslims on their way to the Holy Lands. I sometimes wonder if we are going to come to that again.

Paris Burning: How Empires End
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted Nov 7, 2005

The Romans conquered the barbarians—and the barbarians conquered Rome.

So it goes with empires. And comes now the penultimate chapter in the history of the empires of the West.

This is the larger meaning of the ritual murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, the subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid, the Paris riots spreading across France. The perpetrators of these crimes in the capitals of Europe are the children of immigrants who were once the colonial subjects of the European empires.

At this writing, the riots are entering their 12th night and have spread to Rouen, Lille, Marseille, Toulouse, Dijon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Cannes, Nice. Thousands of cars and buses have been torched and several nursery schools fire-bombed. One fleeing and terrified woman was doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

The rioters are of Arab and African descent, and Muslim. While almost all are French citizens, they are not part of the French people. For never have they been assimilated into French culture or society. And some wish to remain who and what they are. They live in France but are not French.
The rampage began October 27 when two Arab youths, fleeing what they mistakenly thought was a police pursuit, leapt onto power lines and were electrocuted. The two deaths ignited the riots. Read More Here...

Luggage Visit to the Big D

2005-11-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

When Churchill went to war - with America

2005-11-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

I always like reading about Winston Churchill. Enjoy.

By Sir Martin Gilbert
(Filed: 06/11/2005)

On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, Winston Churchill was Minister of Munitions. As Big Ben struck 11, and the guns fell silent on the Western Front, he was looking out of his ministerial window over Northumberland Avenue.

The broad street was deserted. Suddenly, as he wrote, he saw "the slight figure of a girl clerk, distractedly gesticulating" dart out of the doorway of one of the government buildings that lined the street. "Then from all sides men and women came scurrying into the street. Streams of people poured out of the buildings. The bells of London began to clash."

As he watched the scene of celebration and pandemonium, Churchill reflected that after 52 months "of making burdens grievous to be borne and binding them on men's backs, at last, all at once, suddenly and everywhere the burdens were cast down".

As Minister of Munitions, in charge of vast factories, Churchill had been forced to impose his share of those burdens on the British people: a massive munitions production that drew in a vast labour force of women.

He had ordered the manufacture of many of those munitions for use by the United States, hoping, not only to enable America to make an effective contribution to victory, but to reduce Britain's vast indebtedness to the United States for the war materials that Britain had purchased.

Churchill was certain that without full American participation, Britain and France would not be able to defeat Germany. He had watched as America remained neutral and the Allied powers bled on the battlefield.

He was resentful that America had not declared war in 1915, when the harsh German occupation of neutral Belgium and the German economic exploitation of northern France were well known, but before the intensification of the slaughter on the Western Front.

Churchill was convinced that had the Americans entered the war in 1915, Germany could have been defeated by the arrival on the battlefield of fresh American armies, and the bloodbaths on the Somme and at Passchendaele avoided.

Bitterly, he later wrote that had America entered the conflict on the Allied side in 1915, "what abridgement of the slaughter; what sparing of the agony; what ruin, what catastrophes would have been prevented; in how many millions of homes would an empty chair be occupied today; how different would be the shattered world in which victors and vanquished alike are condemned to live!"

In 1919, Churchill was awarded the American Distinguished Service Medal for providing the American armies with essential weapons of war. A year later, as Secretary of State for War, he was at the unveiling of the Cenotaph in Whitehall, and the dedication of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey.

Finance was always a bone of contention between Britain and America. Churchill fought in vain in 1926, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to get a fair repayment scheme for Britain's substantial First World War debt. Twenty years later, when Leader of the Opposition, he supported the Labour Government's fight for a fair repayment scheme for Britain's equally large Second World War debt.

Churchill never saw the end of our war indebtedness; but at midnight this December 31, the British taxpayer may raise a glass when, finally, our debts for both wars will be paid off in full. Churchill fought in vain to reduce those debts. But he never let that struggle divert him from his search for Anglo-American harmony.

In 1921 he was elected President of the English-speaking Union. After giving the presidential address, he wrote to his wife Clementine: "It was uphill work to make an enthusiastic speech about the United States… when they are wringing the last penny out of their unfortunate ally.

All the same, there is only one road for us to tread, and that is to keep as friendly with them as possible, to be overwhelmingly patient, and to wait for the growth of better feelings which will certainly come…"

Another blow to Churchill's faith in American goodwill came in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Then, the United States Senate had voted down President Woodrow Wilson's vision of a League of Nations that would create a collective security system to prevent the aggression of any rogue nation.

Churchill feared that if America did not participate in building up a system of effective deterrence, Germany and France would draw Europe into another bloodbath.

In 1937, as war clouds loomed, Churchill wrote to an American friend: "How you must regret, how we all regret, that Wilson's dream was not carried through, for I have no doubt it would have made the difference between a safe, happy and prosperous world and the present hideous panorama."

Churchill never allowed vexation with America to turn into permanent hostility. During the Second World War he confined his fears and anger to his inner circle. "The Americans are very good at applauding the deeds of others," he commented, as America remained neutral, and even held back on some of Britain's urgent requests.

When President Roosevelt sent a warship to collect British gold reserves from South Africa, as payment for arms purchases, Churchill was deeply perturbed. "It is not right," he wrote to the president, "for any nation to put itself in the power of another nation." Prudently, he never sent this letter.

In only his third parliamentary speech, when he was 25 years old, Churchill told the House of Commons: "Evil would be the counsellors, dark would be the day, when we embarked upon that most foolish, futile and fatal of all wars, a war with the United States." Fifty-four years later, in his last Cabinet meeting before his retirement in 1955, he advised his colleagues: "Never be separated from the Americans."

Despite numerous, often sharp disagreements in the First World War, between the wars, and in the Second World War, this advice was his abiding belief. He was convinced that close Anglo-American relations were essential, if democratic values were to be sustained, and world peace preserved. As he declared during the Second World War: "If we are together, nothing is impossible."

• Martin Gilbert's new book Churchill And America is published tomorrow, by Free Press UK, price £25

Thing That Have Been Driving Me Crazy Lately

2005-11-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

Random issues that may indicate I am either on the edge or prematurely geriatric. Alternatively I could also be right. Admittedly subjective and in no particular order.

Boys/Men who wear their baggy pants hanging off their rear end. Reminds me of my kids when they had loaded diapers.
People who drive slowly in the passing lane. Even worse, slower drivers who randomly move into the passing lane as you approach.
Cell Phones to include people interrupting a conversation with you to answer it (I've started to walk away when this happens) and those who leave them on during classroom setting after being asked to turn them off. I don't think we have that many doctors out there.
Not dressing your best for church. Note I used the word "best" as we all have different wardrobes. I would think however most people have better shoes than flip-flops.
People at the supermarket who just stop in the middle of the lane with no regard for the people behind them. Complementary to that are folks who don't put their carts in the collection area but just leave then adrift in the parking lot.
Littering. Especially people throwing their cigarettes out of their car windows.

I reserve the right to add more. Anymore from the masses?

-Curmudgeon Stu

Learning From Eastern Europe

2005-11-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

While I wouldn't trade places with them I sometimes feel the former communist countries have the advantage of knowing socialist policies don't work while we continue to flirt with the notion of creating Utopia.

Defining Capitalism Up
George Orwell: Clear language leads to clear thinking.

Friday, October 28, 2005 12:01 a.m.

In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell famously lamented that our language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." He was writing about his native tongue, but today a group of young free-marketeers in Central and Eastern Europe have discovered the same thing--discussions of economics in their countries are being poisoned by a vocabulary inherited from their communist past.

Ruta Vainiene, a young former central banker in Lithuania, has decided to do something about it. Last month, she published her plainly titled "Dictionary of Economics." The response, both in Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe, has been striking. Since its release, the Dictionary has been the No. 2 nonfiction best seller in her native country. And plans are now afoot to translate the book into local-language editions in a number of other countries. Think tanks around Europe are supporting the effort, having seen the necessity of cleaning up economic language and thought that, a decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet empire, remains infected by history.

"The dictionary was my response to the market need to educate journalists and students about economic jargon that seemed very frightening to them," Ms. Vainiene said in a phone interview. "It explains the concepts in simple words. But also"--and this is crucial--"explains them correctly."

The book notes, for example, that "social 'justice' is always related to the unjust redistribution of wealth, and 'fair competition' is almost always related to unfair government intervention in the economy." In other words, Ms. Vainiene is trying to educate but also to eradicate the misleading and contradictory doublespeak that infects much economic language, especially as it is used in Europe.

Though Ms. Vainiene intended the book for her own countrymen, she has discovered a much wider interest in her project. The Dictionary is currently being translated into an English "master edition," which will in turn be translated by think tanks in Europe into other local languages.

Krassen Stanchev, the executive director of the Institute for Market Economics in Bulgaria, is spearheading the effort in his country. "There is a need for a fresh view," Mr. Stanchev says. "Outside of academia," which is dominated by the old guard in Bulgaria, "there are three or four think tanks that are trying to offer basic economic information," but they are stymied by an economic establishment that is loath to change the old ways of thinking.

The prevailing economic cant in Europe is arguably more destructive there than in the U.S. As Ann Mettler of the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based think tank, has observed, Europe's social "inclusion" excludes some 40 million people from the work force by driving up the cost of labor on the Continent. But here too one can see signs of the rot that Orwell warned against and Ms. Vainiene is trying to fight. Think of "affirmative action," which attempts to correct discrimination against one group by shifting it to another. As Orwell put it 59 years ago: "To think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration."

Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Chirp, Chirp...

2005-11-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

No one here but us crickets...

Only a Political Junkie would appreciate...

2005-10-31T06:26:00.000-08:00

This post below from Jonah Goldberg at National Review's "Corner" left me trying to suppress a spit-take this morning at my desk...

WITH ONLY SLIGHT EXAGGERATION: IT'S GO-TIME [Jonah Goldberg]
This is it. Back in June I wrote, "In Washington, conservatives and liberals are quietly loading up on drinking water, D batteries and extra ammo, in preparation for the coming battle over judges. Ralph Neas himself has been seen by the campfire carving notches into the stock of his rifle, muttering, 'Pain don't hurt.' No one knows when the fight's coming, but everyone knows it is."

Ever since, my prognostications seemed wrong. Roberts virtually sailed through. Miers didn't cause a split between right and left but between right and right. But now, this is the guy. Cokie Roberts said a senior Demcratic Senator has already denounced Alito as a "rightwing whacko" or words to that effect. Nina Totenberg called him "filibuster bait." Even now, federalist society and Naral types are running around town ducking their heads into barber shops and shoe shine parlors, shouting "it's on! It's on!" Those inside throw down their newspapers, haircuts unfinished, and race to the law libraries. It reminds me of one of those scenes from "Any Which Way You Can" or "Caddyshack" where the buzz spreads that the big fight or the big match is on.

The seventh seal has been broken, the goat entrails point toward gotterdamerung, it's on.

Telling Half The Story

2005-10-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how different something can appear when you find out the whole story. Michelle Malkin caught the NY Times doing just that. An interesting contrast to some of the "from the the front" bloggers over there complaining about having to fulfill their duty. God Bless CPL Starr. God Bless the Marine Corps.

CPL. JEFFREY B. STARR: WHAT THE NYTIMES LEFT OUT

By Michelle Malkin · October 28, 2005 10:49 AM

On Wednesday, the NYTimes published a 4,625-word opus on the "2,000 dead" milestone--a "grim mark," read the headline--on page A2. Among those profiled were Marines from the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, including Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr. Here's an excerpt from the Times' passage about Cpl. Starr:

Another member of the 1/5, Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to re-enlist. Corporal Starr believed strongly in the war, his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett Community College near his parents' home in Snohomish, Wash., planning to study psychology after his enlistment ended in August.
But he died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He was 22.

Sifting through Corporal Starr's laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine's girlfriend. ''I kind of predicted this,'' Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ''A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.''

Last night, I received a letter from Corporal Starr's uncle, Timothy Lickness. He wanted you to know the rest of the story--and the parts of Corporal Starr's letter that the Times failed to include:

Yesterday's New York Times on-line edition carried the story of the 2000 Iraq US military death[s]. It grabbed my attention as the picture they used with the headline was that of my nephew, Cpl Jeffrey B. Starr, USMC.
Unfortunately they did not tell Jeffrey's story. Jeffrey believed in what he was doing. He [was] willing put his life on the line for this cause. Just before he left for his third tour of duty in Iraq I asked him what he thought about going back the third time. He said: "If we (Americans) don't do this (free the Iraqi people from tyranny) who will? No one else can."

Several months after Jeffrey was killed his laptop computer was returned to his parents who found a letter in it that was addressed to his girlfriend and was intended to be found only if he did not return alive. It is a most poignant letter and filled with personal feelings he had for his girlfriend. But of importance to the rest of us was his expression of how he felt about putting his life at risk for this cause. He said it with grace and maturity.

He wrote: "Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

What Jeffrey said is important. Americans need to understand that most of those who are or have been there understand what's going on. It would honor Jeffrey's memory if you would publish the rest of his story.

The Pitfalls Of The Social State

2005-10-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

I believe that many American liberals (neo-liberals) are honestly out to help their fellow man and truly think their policies help the underclass. What they fail to take into account however is human nature. Mr. Brewton's piece explains the conservative objections to Big Brother taking care of our every need and ultimately depriving us of our soul.

Liberalism is Unmitigated Greed
by Thomas E. Brewton
27 October 2005

Liberalism's fundamental nature necessitates relentless, class-centered greed. Congressional or regulatory action truly for the general welfare is almost impossible.

The essential nature of liberalism forces people to think only of themselves and to place never-ending demands on the public treasury. When government becomes both the tax-collector of a huge portion of people's income and a mechanism for redistributing that income, people have no choice but to scramble for whatever they can get. Read more of this article here...

And The Band Plays On

2005-10-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Economy Grows at an Energetic Rate in 3Q

Oct 28, 9:19 AM (ET)

By JEANNINE AVERSA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Economic activity expanded at an energetic 3.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter, providing vivid evidence of the economy's stamina even as it coped with the destructive forces of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The latest snapshot of the country's economic performance, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, even marked an improvement from the solid 3.3 percent pace of growth registered in the second quarter.

Growth in the third quarter was broad-based, reflecting brisk spending by consumers, businesses and government.

"Holy Katrina! The economy weathered two major hurricanes and in spite of that showed accelerated growth," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "I think what this shows is that fundamentally the economy was and is in really good shape."

'With flying colors': F-117 Nighthawk tail no. 782 to retire after Edwards Open House, Air Show

2005-10-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

10/21/05 – EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – In true historic fashion, F-117 Nighthawk, tail number 782, will pass over show center Saturday and Sunday bearing its true colors — red, white and blue.

This flight test legacy will retire following the Edwards Open House and Air Show with 20-plus years of service.

U.S. Navy Announces CVN to Replace USS Kitty Hawk in 2008

2005-10-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Navy announced today that one of its nine Nimitz-class aircraft carriers will replace the USS Kitty Hawk as the forward deployed carrier in the Western Pacific, and will arrive in Yokosuka, Japan in 2008.

The USS Kitty Hawk is nearing the end of its service life and will return to the United States in 2008 to be decommissioned.

Thoughts On The Indictment

2005-10-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

From what I have seen so far I think Libby is guilty as charged. What a silly thing to lie about. Thoughts?

I did like Ann Coulter's comments the other day that at the very least it rids the administration of someone named "Scooter".

Battles Change, Wars Don't

2005-10-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

I hate to come across as a literary pimp for anyone, but if you don't read every word Victor Davis Hanson writes you are depriving yourself of insight that far exceeds the "commentary" available through the MSM.

Consider this:

"War is like water — its fundamental character remains unchanging precisely because the nature of the humans who fight it is constant over the centuries. "

Read all of it here http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson102305.html

There Is Hope Again

2005-10-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Judge Janice Rogers Brown

VDH does it again

2005-10-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

Context, context, context.

VDH helps put the current Monday-morning quarterbacking in context.

Changes For the Navy In Japan

2005-10-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Draft details realignment of U.S. forces
The Yomiuri Shimbun

A draft Japan-U.S. agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan calls for cutting the number of U.S. marines stationed in Okinawa Prefecture by 4,000 to 5,000, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Wednesday.

Under the proposed plan, the headquarters of the U.S. Marine Corps' 3rd Marine Expeditionary Forces at Camp Courtney in Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, would be relocated to Guam.

According to the draft, Naha Naval Port in Naha, Makiminato Service Area in Urasoe, Camp Zukeran in Ginowan and Camp Kuwae in Chatancho will be completely or partially returned to Japanese rule. All these facilities are located in the south of Okinawa Prefecture.

On the mainland, about 70 aircraft operating from the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk will use the marine corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, instead of the ground base at the U.S. Navy's Atsugi Air Facility in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Cindy Who?

2005-10-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

Old Ma Sheehan not pulling them in like she used to. My watch shows 14 minutes have elapsed.

The Political Pit Bull has the goods.

Tip to the Political Tenn

Marine Corps Special Forces

2005-10-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Unconventional Marines
These guys will be special.

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

The U.S. Marine Corps is developing a brand new special-operations force to serve as an element of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Though unique, the force — officially "Marine SOCOM Detachment One" — will be the Corps' participating equivalent of the Navy's SEALs, the Army's special-operations forces (Green Beret, Delta, and other special purpose forces), and the Air Force's special operations units.

Specifics have yet to be finalized regarding the Marine detachment, but the prototype unit has been fighting in Iraq, performing raids against insurgent strongholds and conducting special operations missions. Read More Here.

Indictments Today?

2005-10-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

Personally, if either Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby perjured themselved or obstructed justice then I do say indict them. Nothing would be more stupid than lying about a non-crime as this. Proving such charges is something entirely different and I would think somewhat difficult.

I'm sure most here are familiar enough with the details but this opinion piece does a nice job summarizing where we are today.

Betting This Will Bring Down Bush? No Chance
By Mark Davis

Sometimes controversies are not about what they appear to be.

We've been buried in anticipatory stories as reporters giddily anticipate
what many of them see as The Next Watergate, the possible indictment of two
lofty figures in the Bush White House.

Doubters say this is much ado about nothing, a story completely contrived
by those who drool at the prospect of scandal tainting this
administration.

What's an objective soul to do?

Moving Words From Senator Reid

2005-10-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

He apparently had everyone waiting on his every word. See here for yourself.

Shame On the Secretary Of State

2005-10-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

So in reading Mr. Robinson's opinion piece, Secretary Rice's success and world outlook should be questioned. As he asks, "Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?" In looking back upon her upbringing, he seems to take issue with her life in a "bubble" that sheltered her from the turmoil on the outside. From my point of view, it is exactly her upbringing that should be the lesson for Mr. Robinson and many others on how parents should take care of their children and instill within them values. Furthermore, I would submit that Secretary Rice has done all she needs to by providing a good example for not just blacks and women, but all of society on the value of education, class and character.

Read the "typical" here.

The Which Historic General Are You Test

2005-10-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=13827291814577368116

I came out as George Washington... Really, I did.

ACS Troubles

2005-10-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

Common story. For whatever reason (scope creep?) the Army wanted more capabilities than could reasonably fit in the ACS airframe. Plans now are also being drafted for a possible EP-8.

US forces make contingency plans for aerial sensor

By Joshua Kucera JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC

The US Army and US Navy are asking Congress for money to prolong the lives of their surveillance aircraft following delays caused by problems with the development of the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) platform.

The navy is asking Congress for USD15 million to be reprogrammed for research and development to modernise and prolong the life of its EP-3E Aries IIs, and USD21 million to conduct a formal analysis of alternatives for recapitalising the EP-3Es. The army will also request funds for the Guardrail Common Sensor and Airborne Reconnaissance Low but the exact amounts have not been determined, said Claude Bolton, assistant secretary of the army for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Members of the two services came under sharp criticism from members of Congress unhappy with the ACS delay during a 20 October hearing before committees on defence and intelligence.

In September, the army imposed a stop work order on Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the ACS, after it was determined that the operational requirements that the army had established were too ambitious for the small aircraft it wanted.

Lockheed Martin is now required to present options to the army for saving the potentially USD7 billion programme by mid-November.

Caught In the Doldrums

2005-10-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

I don't think this is the only area where we seem to be lacking a focus (shipbuilding for example). In fairness though, it probably did take a lot of effort for Task Force Uniform to come up with that blueberry patch camouflage.

The US Navy: lost in space?

by Taylor Dinerman
Monday, October 24, 2005

The cost and engineering problems the Air Force is having with their space programs and in trying to train a solid cadre of qualified and effective space personnel are all too familiar. Now it seems that, on a smaller scale, the Navy is stuck with a similar dilemma. This problem could become more serious in the future since, unlike the Air Force, the senior Navy leadership may not even be aware that there is anything wrong.

Economists Mugged by Reality

2005-10-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

"During President Bush's first five years in office total real discretionary spending went up by 36.5 percent... Rather than attack this cancerous growth, Republicans have fed it, doling out prescription drugs to seniors, hurricane relief and bridges-to-nowhere with equal glee." -Kevin Hasset

More On Spending...

Don't Spend, Amend

2005-10-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

It's time to write budgetary discipline into the Constitution.

BY PETE DU PONT
Monday, October 24, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

How big, how expensive and how fiscally generous to industries and local communities should America's national government be?

The spending policies of the current administration have made this the central domestic public policy question, for government has substantially grown under the leadership of a political party that for many decades has claimed to be the party of smaller government.

The real annual growth rate of federal government outlays is nearly at its highest modern percentage. Under President Clinton it was only 1.5%, under Ronald Reagan 2.6% and under Lyndon Johnson 5.7%. Spending has grown 5.6% a year since George W. Bush took office, and it seems likely to keep rising. Of course the war in Iraq is a part of it, but the current administration's domestic spending increase is 7.1% a year, the highest since the 1960s.

Continue Reading Here.

Prop 2 in Texas

2005-10-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well - Pam and I are excited to vote next week. I can't believe I even have to vote on such a thing:

Prop. 2

HJR 6

Chisum - Staples

Ballot Language
"The constitutional amendment providing that marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
"Enmienda constitucional que dispone que en este estado el matrimonio consiste exclusivamente en la unión de un hombre y una mujer y que desautoriza, en este estado o en alguna subdivisión política del mismo, la creación o el reconocimiento de cualquier estatus jurídico idéntico o semejante al matrimonio."

Brief Explanation
HJR 6 would provide that marriage in Texas is solely the union of a man and woman, and that the state and its political subdivisions could not create or recognize any legal status identical to or similar to marriage, including such legal status relationships created outside of Texas.

Can We Use Our "Man" Voice?

2005-10-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

2/3rds of an article by Michael Ledeen at National Review. I've never been enamored with the President's willingness to spend but of late another problem I have is with the lack of voice from the administration. Below are two such examples where the Executive Branch should be a little more vocal. I haven't even really made up my mind on the Miers nomination as of yet either but I can surely say the White House hasn't really presented a compelling case (if any) for her approval. One would think that a second-term President would be a bit more bold, or is it just me? If I were in his shoes, I would be ruling as if by "divine right" but that runs in the family.

Pentagon Non-Messaging
Meanwhile, our heroic media — the same ones urging the feckless Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana to get them a "shield law" — have been drooling over the story of some American soldiers apparently burning two dead bodies of our Taliban enemies in Afghanistan. The brave, the proud, Secretary Rumsfeld limited himself to remark that "charges of that type are harmful," and to call on Pentagon investigators to move with "a sense of urgency." The Associated Press thoughtfully tells us that "Pentagon lawyers had advised him to be careful about what he says because...remarks about the specifics...could complicate the proceedings."
Heaven forfend!

But I don't think even the Pentagon lawyers could object if Rumsfeld had called attention to another set of burning bodies, twice as many as in the Taliban incident. This one took place last month, and the victims were American. One of them was burned alive. They were contractors for KBR (owned by Halliburton), and they were in a convoy north of Baghdad when they took a wrong turn. According to the London Telegraph, "dozens of Sunni Arab insurgents [how would they know?] wielding rocket launchers and automatic rifles" attacked them. Two were killed, and the other two were dragged from the vehicle. One of those was shot in the back of the head, and the other was doused with gasoline and set on fire. "Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames." Then the mob dragged the corpses through the streets "chanting anti-U.S. slogans."

I wonder why it took so long for that story to break, and I wonder why it came out in a British newspaper rather than an American one. Was it available to American journalists? The Washington Post, which picked up on the Telegraph story, said "there was no explanation for why the military did not report the deaths earlier." It's odd, but then this Pentagon, and the major media, are not very good at informing the American public about the nature of the people we are fighting. Particularly when there is great media excitement about the two Taliban bodies-which seem, so far as we know, to have been burned because they were decomposing close by our soldiers — it seems like Rumsfeld, or somebody, should have pointed out that Americans are being burned as well, sometimes living Americans. And there won't be any Pentagon lawyers investigating those "Sunni Arab insurgents."

It all smacks of media overwillingness to portray our troops in a bad light, and our government's ham-handed inability to paint a full, accurate picture of what's going on. There seems to be no assistant secretary of Defense in charge of public affairs. Maybe Rumsfeld could appoint one?

Nuke the Whales
Finally, to round out this happy picture, on Page 9 of Sunday's Washington Post, we have the alarming full-page headline "Navy Moves Forward on Sonar Facility Despite Concerns About Whales." Back in the days when I contributed to The American Spectator, we used to sell t-shirts with the slogan "Nuke the Whales." Maybe it's time for a comeback.
The Navy wants to train our Atlantic fleet to hunt for submarines, especially because bad guys now have very quiet subs that they could deploy "in canyons and ocean beds closer to shore." Some environmentalists say, apparently with cause, that sonar can sometimes disorient and even kill what the Post's Marc Kaufman calls "some of the world's most endangered whales and sea turtles." Joel Reynolds, who heads an environmentalist group, says that "if the Navy wants to make North Carolina an epicenter for training with this dangerous technology, it must first show that we won't see more whales on North Carolina beaches because of its actions."

But that is certainly not obvious, is it? The usual unnamed U.S. "officials" speak of "the clear and present threat posed by quiet diesel electric submarines to our carrier strike groups..." and other Navy groups. Once again, the Pentagon's unbelievably inept public-affairs people swing into inaction. Why can't somebody with a name pose the question accurately? We certainly don't want to have our coast attacked by terrorists in quiet subs. But we certainly don't want to kill whales if we can avoid it. What to do?

Well, for one thing, you investigate the claims, and of course the government is doing that, of course very slowly. The report-from the folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — was due this summer, but it's not out yet, and isn't even scheduled until early next year. In other words, the usual lack of accountability.

But even with all that, and speaking as a lover of wildlife from here to the African bush, if I had to choose between protecting our citizens and saving every last whale off the Carolinas, I'm gonna go with the citizens. It's all about the children, remember?
The moral? Don't be surprised when the administration bungles the presentation of the Miers candidacy. They can't even make a convincing case for defending our coastline. Or our soldiers. Read the complete article here.

Technical Difficulties

2005-10-24T12:52:00.001-07:00

We have experienced some troubles with the comment functionality so I have reverted back to the standard Blogger template for now.

Coburn Amendment

2005-10-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

For the record, here is a listing of those Senators that voted in favor of the Coburn Amendment last week.

Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Bayh (D-IN)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Conrad (D-ND)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Vitter (R-LA)

Of note is my Presidential favorite, Senator Allen from Virginia. The amendment was not perfect in that it only transferred government spending from a pork project to hurricane relief which also contains pork. I really hope that this is just the beginning from Senator Coburn and along with his allies over in the House we get some fiscal restraint. If only the President could (would?) lead the charge.

The Doctrine of Preemption

2005-10-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

I had a few words with some individuals on a somewhat left of center blog. The interaction began with me offering a few bits of information that I thought cleared up some misconceptions of the blog owner in her understanding of war planning. Well ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the author of the post wasn't really interested in my opinion given the one sentence, soundbite response I got following some counterpoints to her arguments. I did decide to post again following her complaints of a conservative blogster on another blog not being interested in alternative points of view (seemed familiar to me considering my experience there) but to date no response to that comment either. Time will tell.

Her brother however did respond and did seem interested in honest discourse on the war, preemption and such but given the low key welcome I got from his sister I have for now opted not to respond to him either. This article by George Will did make me think of him as it discusses the difficult doctrine of preemption and why America's ideals are worth safeguarding through such early action. An outstanding read at any rate from one of the conservative icons, Mr. George Will.

The Doctrine of Preemption

What I will say tonight about the war on terror draws heavily on my earlier life as a professor and student of political philosophy. A long life in journalism and around Washington, D.C., has taught me not just that ideas have consequences, but that only ideas have large and lasting consequences. We are in a war of terror being waged by people who take ideas with lethal seriousness, and we had better take our own ideas seriously as well.

I think the beginning of understanding the war is to understand what happened on 9/11. What happened was that we as a people were summoned back from a holiday from history that we had understandably taken at the end of the Cold War. History is served up to the American people with uncanny arithmetic precision. Almost exactly sixty years passed from the October 1929 collapse of the stock market to the November 1989 crumbling of the Berlin Wall — sixty years of depression, hot war, and cold war, at the end of which the American people said: "Enough, we are not interested in war anymore." The trouble is, as Trotsky once said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." And this was a war with a new kind of enemy — suicidal, and hence impossible to deter, melding modern science with a kind of religious primitivism. Furthermore, our enemy today has no return address in the way that previous adversaries, be it Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia, had return addresses. When attacks emanated from Germany or Russia, we could respond militarily or we could put in place a structure of deterrence and containment. Not true with this new lot. Read more of this great article here.

Open TrackBacks @ The Political Teen

2005-10-22T18:42:00.001-07:00

BAM.

A Wrench In the BRAC-works

2005-10-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've also heard rumblings that the Navy now doesn't want to give up Brunswick but would rather keep it in mothballs.

Jacksonville withdraws effort to lure Oceana jets

By LOUIS HANSEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 21, 2005

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Faced with mounting opposition to a plan to return Navy jet squadrons to Florida, the mayor of Jacksonville announced Thursday afternoon his city will cease trying to lure operations from Oceana Naval Air Station.
The decision could cripple efforts by a federal base closing panel to move 250 strike fighter jets from Virginia Beach to the former Cecil Field Naval Air Station.

“The feedback I’ve received in recent weeks makes it clear that the community does not want the master jet base to return, and I respect that,” Mayor John Peyton said in a statement. Peyton said the idea was worth pursuing, but, “at the end of the day, the quality of life for residents of the Westside is the most important thing.”

Dead Meat

2005-10-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

Great short on Canada's "superior" health care system.

Tip to PoliPundit.

Chinese Navy Continues To Grow

2005-10-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've always enjoyed the term People's Liberation Army Navy. I wonder if they have an "Air Force Marine Corps"?

Is China building a carrier?

By Yihong Chang JDW Correspondent &
Andrew Koch JDW Bureau Chief
Hong Kong & Washington, DC

Chinese shipyard workers have been repairing a badly damaged ex-Russian aircraft carrier and have repainted it with the country's military markings, raising the question once again of whether China is pursuing longer-term plans to field its first carrier.

In the latest developments, images show that workers at the Chinese Dalian Shipyard have repainted the ex-Russian Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Varyag with the markings and colour scheme of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy (PLAN). Additional new photographs show that other work, the specifics of which could not be determined, appears to be continuing and that the condition of the vessel is being improved.

JDW believes that PLAN technicians have also conducted thorough studies of the basic structure of the Varyag during the past few years to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the carrier's structural design. Former PLAN commander General Liu Huaqing stated in his memoirs that China had purchased blueprints for the carrier - a fact that Russian sources confirmed to JDW. Moreover, Gen Huaqing added: "The competent departments of the defence industry employed Russian aircraft carrier designers to come to China and give lectures."

Still, China's ultimate intentions for the Varyag remain unclear. One possibility is that Beijing intends to eventually have it enter into some level of service. A military strategist from a Chinese military university has commented publicly that the Varyag "would be China's first aircraft carrier".

Tale From the Crypt

2005-10-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Or, How to Get a Head in Politics Without Really Trying

By Peter Carlson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 20, 2005; Page C01

When the stone was pulled off the tomb, Douglas Owsley peered down into the burial vault. He could see rotted coffins that had been dragged off a shelf and bones strewn around the floor.

"It's a mess," he said. Then he climbed down into the grave.

Owsley is a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian, a bone expert so famous that he is regularly summoned to inspect bodies from Guatemala to Croatia to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex.

Yesterday he drove to Congressional Cemetery in Southeast Washington and climbed into the family crypt of William Wirt, who was U.S. attorney general from 1817 to 1829, the presidential candidate of the Anti-Masonic Party in 1832, and a prosecutor in Aaron Burr's treason trial. Owsley was hoping to determine whether a skull that had been sitting on a shelf in D.C. Council member Jim Graham's office for a year and half is Wirt's stolen head.