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James Lileks, Master Of His Domain

In the two months since I started blogging I've noticed that although I dont have deadlines, I do have competition. I dont mean to say that I'm anywhere as good as James Lileks or Stephen Green, its just that if I get an idea on which to blog, I know I have to finish it fast, or those guys will clock me in the head like Cassius Clay, and they are two full hours ahead of me in timezone and light years in writing ability. I stand in awe sometimes by what they write and how they write it.

Tonight, James Lileks lays it down for everyone to see.

The money quote:

"If the rightness of a cause is measured by the number of one’s allies, would Britain have been right if the US had stayed neutral in World War Two?".

Damn. Maybe I should take up whittling?

Posted @ September 30, 2004 10:27 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Boy, Is This Gonna Be Great!

Dontcha just dig this? I mean, here we are, in the worlds greatest Democracy, the worlds only Nuclear Superpower, and here it is, willingly putting its entire executive branch of government in the hands of people, who are sitting in living rooms all across America, watching two guys beat each other to death for the chance to get a job that will leave the winner weak and infirmed for the rest of his short post-presidency life. You ever look at a President when they start the job and after they are done with their time in office? They all come in like Steve Mcqueen but they all leave like freshly hammered dog crap. Anyone who is or was the President deserves our respect, just for surviving the experience. Imagine what its like to go to bed every night knowing there are billions of people who want to kill you and your country. Imagine what its like to read the intelligence reports that the President gets every day. Imagine what its like having to trust the commanders of every nuclear submarine, every carrier, every bomber pilot, all the while knowing that they are both commanded and flown by men, and all men have flaws.

Tonight, Kerry did fine and Bush did fine but "We, The People", did great. Thank God Kerry put up a good fight. Thank God Bush did as well, but the real winners were the American people. What did I like the most about tonight? It was a fair fight well played. No snot nosed cheap shots, no fascists street theater in the audience. Just two guys on opposite ends of the political argument banging on each other to determine the truth. We are all well served by the contest displayed tonight. At the end, they shook hands and their wives joked about wearing the same dress. It was a great scene.

All I want for Christmas is for those who lose on Election day to accept the loss and remember that you are all Americans and we are all on the same team. No one is served by undermining this contest by saying its illegitimate. Try to remember that our contribution to mankind as Americans isnt the strength of our armies but that we willingly and regularly put that military under the command of a civilian, who is chosen by average folks.

That, is a miracle, and we live in it every day.

I just love democracy. I just love election season but I think I really need to get a hobby.

UPDATE: later tonight, The old man weighed in:

"I don't understand a damn thing that Bush says, but I sure as hell know what He's doing and why, where with Kerry, what He says sounds good enough but what He does don't make no damn sense at all".

I couldn't agree more. I wonder if the simple eloquence of that statement can be translated into French?

Posted @ September 30, 2004 08:19 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

Miami Ham Festival

I know the papers are full of talk about how there is going to be a debate tonight. As I've said before, this is not a debate, its a jointly paid campaign advertisement. That being said, we can still have fun. Following the great college tradtion of the Bob Newhart game, let's try this:

Varifrank announces The First 'Miami Ham Festival' Contest:

Commentors who leave their guesses in the comments section of this post who come closest to predicting the most correct answers with the earliest post will win the contents of my desktop "penny jar". My "panel of experts" will help me determine the correct answers.

You must post a real email address, and your answers must be in prior to the beginning of the "debates"

1. Total number of times Vietnam is mentioned :
- By Kerry
- By Bush

2. The number of minutes into the debate that Kerry mentions "This Administration" in a condescending fashion.

3. The total number of times Kerry uses "This administration".

4. The number of minutes into the debate Bush issues the first "Presidential Malaprop".

5. The number of minutes before " changing positions" is mentioned by Bush.

6. The total number of times "the Economy" will be mentioned.
- By Bush
- By Kerry

7. The number of times Israel will be mentioned.
- By Kerry
- By Bush

8. Will Jim Lehrer make his bias obvious?

9. Will there be a Bernie Shaw "kitty dukakis " question?

10. The total Number of times "evil" is mentioned
- By Bush
- By Kerry

11. Which candidate gets the first laugh?

12. Which candidate gets the best takeaway line of the evening?

13. Which candidate makes the first " Poland is not communist" type gaffe.

14. Who mentions Osama first?

15. Who mentions Saddam First?

16. Who mentions France first?

17. Who says "compassion" or "failure" first?
- Kerry?
- Bush?

18. Who sucks up to:

- Florida hurricaine survivors
- Elderly voters
- African American voters
- Hispanic voters
- The "kids today"
- soccer moms

first?

19. Which candidate first uses his wife and kids to score points with the audience?

20. Who makes the biggest surprise statement of the evening, and on what subject.

The winner will be announced tommorow as I will be at a soccer game this evening with my daughter. Interesting parallel, 3 years ago I was at a soccer game with my son listening to the Gore/Bush debates. It's been a very busy 3 years, I look back on that time like it was a billion years ago,

Posted @ September 30, 2004 09:50 AM | Kerry File | Comments (0)

Holocaust Denial

Once upon a time, there used to be a clique of crazed self-loathing people called "Holocaust deniers". These people were from all walks of life, some were your average trailer park trash but there were even some who were accredited academics. The Historian David Irving serves as the poster boy for the "I'm so smart I'm stupid" movement.

Their like has died out somewhat, I'm not sure why, whether its a generational thing with the passing of the WWII generation the experience of the Jewish holocaust is somewhat lower on the bigots playlists of something that needs to be perverted, since fewer people remember what the holocaust was and what it meant to the world.

Anyone in the world today who stands up and says "The holocaust didn't happen" or "Hitler wasnt a threat to the United States" is considered, and rightfully so, a self centered bigot.

Now, just to be clear, We didnt declare war on Nazi Germany to save the Jews of Europe and we didnt even declare war on Nazi Germany until after Hitler, in one of the true turning points of history, declared war on the United States. . Frankly we did very little to save the Jews. It is to our eternal shame that we stood by and did nothing. You could argue in the 1940's that no one would believe that such things were possible, but not after the 1940's. We know, We all know how far men can go in the search for power.

It was towards the end of the war that we confronted the horror of what happened in Europe, not the beginning. General Eisenhower took explicit and exacting steps to ensure that a record was kept of the holocaust. The world took steps to make sure that everyone understood what happened in places like Dachau and Treblinka, if we didn't, its entirely likely that no one would believe it. How could anyone believe that such evil exists unless confronted by the filmed evidence. The bodies stacked like cordwood, the boxes of teeth, extracted for their gold, nevermind the innocent mouths they were ripped from.

After the war was over, after the world began to put itself back together, the UN, in one of its few moments of decency, helped create the modern state of Israel out of recognition that the Jewish people of the world could not be expected to live on the "kindness of strangers" any longer. They would have one state on earth where they would not be victims by being an automatic racial and religious minority.

The collective world opinion has been and should always be that the Jewish Holocaust happened, that it was bad, and that the world should feel ashamed for not doing more to stop it. Everyone in the intelligencia looked at the holocaust and gasped at the horror, and we all learned to say "Never Again". Well, atleast we learned to use the words.

Now, Here's what I'm grappling with.

It occurs to me that today's academic intelligencia, today's media and today's Democrat party are operating in regards to Iraq almost exactly the way that the holocaust deniers did in regards to the Jewish Holocaust.

First, They deny that evil actually exists.

Today, Kerry said this to Dianne Sawyer:

"We should not have gone to war knowing the information that we know today."

Now, I'm not going to get into the time-twisting illogical connection that this statement is attempting to make, but when Kerry says something like this, he is saying it with full knowledge of the situation in Iraq before we arrived. Kerry is a Senator, he sits on the Intelligence Committee. Kerry has seen things we will never see about Iraq and lots of other places.. Frankly, He knows better. We know Michael Moore would like everyone to believe that Iraq was the world's kite flying capital before we screwed it up, but we know better. Death came easy in Iraq long before we arrived. It came in large numbers, entire towns were gassed in the Kurdistan areas, and the Shia civil war that occured after the first Gulf war was particularly bloody. Saddams security forces kept order by killing entire families at a time. I've always said that the entire run up for the Iraq Invasion, the WMD search, or any other justification went away when on the 4th day of the invasion we liberated the first of many "Childrens Prisons".

Once I heard about "Childrens Prisons", the whole reason for being there changed for me, it no longer mattered about sovereignty, or any other justifications, theres just some things that are not right and should not be allowed.

But to many in the Democrat party, the existence of such horrors is simply said to be "none of our business". It's as if to say that because it's not in the United States we have no right to say that its wrong and should be stopped. What's worse, to many more people in the Democrat party, the only evil involved is our cultural imperialism for wanting to stop the Iraqis from practing their institutions ( like Childrens Prisions ) in what ever way they see fit.

Second, Excuse the crime as misinterpretation of data.

I actually had someone argue with me that the "Childrens Prisons" were actually the Iraqi governments way of ensuring the welfare of children while their parents were incarcerated. They went on to argue that it was we here in the west that didnt understand the ways of life in the middle east and that if we in America would only try to understand the Islamic world, we wouldnt get into so much trouble misunderstanding things like the "Childrens Prision".

I was reminded of when Senator Patty Murray of Washington said that Osama Bin Laden was a hero to the Islamic world because he was building "day care centers" in the middle east. Now, for just a second, think about that and remember that in the middle east, women are routinely stoned to death for disobeying their husbands commands and ritualistic "honor killings" dont even make the news because they are such common occurances. Women are not "fast talkin career gals" in the middle east, they are farm animals that get to eat at the kids table.

Third, Misdirect the crime to other crimes that fit their agenda.

You can tell you are making headway with your argument when you get someone who says "well it was America who gave them weapons of mass distruction in the first place."

Now by way of analogy I usually have to offer this up:

OK, Let's say Dr. Frankenstein has created his monster. Suddenly, Igor gets careless and the monster gets loose and begins to ravage the the town below the castle.

Should Dr. Frankenstein:

A) Take a seat and enjoy an Martini while the townsfolk deal with the monster?

Or

B) Grab a pitchfork and help put the monster out of his misery, side by side with the townsfolk?

Dr. Frankenstein created the monster. That means that Dr. Frankenstein has a responsibility to get rid of the monster! Doing nothing is not an option! Doing nothing would be W-R-O-N-G.

The townfolk arent going to look at Dr. Frankenstien and say "well I guess since he created the monster, hes too politically impure to help us get rid of it, I guess he has to remain neutral". Hardly. The townsfolk are going to make their decision on whether Dr. Frankenstien gets fitted for a rope afterwards based solely on whether or not he gets his ass up and helps get rid of the monster.

Fourth, Blame it on the Jews.

Today, when you hear the word "neocon", try to remind yourself, that this is the left media polite way of saying "Jew". When the first name you hear in a complaint about the Administration is "Wolfowitz", guess what? You're talking to a Bigot! A real life, sheet wearing, knuckle dragging bigot, and it doesnt matter if the person saying it has a latte in one hand and this weeks "New Yorker" in the other. The home of Bigotry can be found in every zip code.

Ask yourself this. In this election year, has anyone in the Democrat party made a clear unequivocal statement in support of Israel? Why would this be controversial? Senator Lieberman is practically a pariah in his own party for his stance on the war, and for his stance on Israel. When did this happen? If Republicans were not necessarily supporting israel, it would follow a historical norm, but Democrats?

This - is something new.

I find it hard to understand why one of our political parties is talking about the war in Iraq, as if it hasn't happened yet. There was a war, its over, we won, the Iraqis won and there are no more "Childrens Prisons", and we should all be happy. Iraq was once a net exporter of terror, and its now become a net importer. The Imported terrorists are not to coming to restablish an Islamic cultural Capitol, but to return Iraq and its resources back to the people who would use those resources to re-enslave the region. Where once was a tribe of madmen who used profits from oil to spread terror and disease throught the world, now is a burgeoning Democracy. Where once the countries surrounding Iraq lived in fear and blackmail from the head of the tribe in Tikrit, The people of Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan and yes, Syria and Iran have nothing to fear from Iraq because the head of the tribe is now an inmate awaiting trial for his crimes against humanity and his two evil sons are dead.

I find it impossible to understand why one political party is not excited at the fact that Afghanistan is less than 30 days from engaging in a free election, one in which women are given equal rights, as if it can't possibly happen. Afghanistan will soon have more rights than Russians are afforded in their country. Imagine that! Afghanistan is soon to be arguably more free than Pakistan. Imagine that! Now try to imagine the level of hate you have to have in your heart to go out that far out of your way to ignore the good news of freedom in a place thats never seen it before by a people who have known nothing but war.

I find it impossible to believe how one political party with a major constituency of Jewish people hasn't made one-single-statement about Israel. Not even to bring the awful phrase "Peace process" into the game. Israel has made a fence to keep the peace with its neighbors, but you would think that Israelis were putting Palestinians up on pikes like Vlad Dracula. Support from Democrat party for Israel? Only Crushing Silence comes from the Democrats about Israel and when Republicans give unequivocal support, Democrats only sneer in response.

So, it appears to me that there is a new generation of Holocaust Revisionists. Only its not the Jews of Europe being exterminated thats being denied, but the Shia, The Kurds, The North Koreans, and now Darfur. Apparently to the left and the current Democrat party, the color of the skin of the victim determines the level of indignity one should shed towards the crime. But even if it were the Jews of Europe being exterminated, would the left of today call Treblinka and Dachau a crime, or just an unfortunate cultural misunderstanding with "Middle Europe"?

Posted @ September 30, 2004 01:28 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...

If you live east of the Washington or Oregon, Its time to get your plastic sheeting out and get your cars in the garage. Mt. St Helens looks like she's going to give us another example of how the earth is not as solid as it looks.

Add this to the 6.0 quake in Parkfield Ca and the recent uptick in volcanic activity in Mammoth Lakes Ca, and I'd say we are probably going to get some ash out of this.

UPDATE: Thar she blows!

Posted @ September 29, 2004 11:45 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Notice

Real Work has interfered to keep me out of Mojave this morning. Im hoping to make the next launch in the next two weeks.

( I'm not happy about it, but I am employed, so its a good news, good news thing)

Posted @ September 29, 2004 07:25 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

The New Model Office

So, here I am, in the middle of the busiest month in a very long time at the paying job, and I take this week to tear down my office and re-invent the whole home office concept. I am one of those people in the rapidly expanding ranks of the "Remote Worker" revolution and with that has come quite a bit of stuff. Once upon a time I wouldve been happy just to get a separate phone line, now its gone well beyond that.

One of my ongoing complaints has been monitor size. Those who work a few hours a day at a PC, a 17 inch monitor is sufficient, but those of us who work at a PC for upwards of 18 hours a day, you just can't get enough real estate on which to work. Now, of course if youre usinga traditional monitor, you will soon discover that large monitor also means large amounts of heat. Since I already live on the edge of a geographic area we call "God's Catbox", heat is the last thing I want to generate.

So, obviously, that leads us towards the LCD monitor. Now, They are nice, but let's get serious, for a 21 inch LCD monitor, you are talking about 700 to 800 bucks. For something that only serves as a monitor, it's a bit hard to justfy that for the home budget.

I also have a major beef with my office chair. Again, a few hours a day, its fine, but modern computer science is hard on the fanny. Im not saying it compares to "black lung" disease or being shot at by criminals, but there are some things about this industry that are just tough on the body.

It all started this summer when I had a chance to work in Seattle. I had to take my office essentials with me to work at the other location, it was a working vacation sort of thing, one of the real perks of being a "remote worker", your work is where you are, not the other way around. In Seattle, I was given access to an small room with a sofa, and a desk at a wonderful house on Puget Sound. After some basic work and imagination, I found myself working comfortably but without my traditional office desk setup.

That started me thinking, and I then realized that the only function that the desk served was holding up my monitor. I rarely write by hand, and when I do, its on a clipboard. Everything else is done on the keyboard. After the number of times I've broken my arms, my hardwriting is simply indecipherable,so I dont use it. If I didn't need to mount my monitor on a desk, I could work from a recliner or a sofa/recliner or any of a dozen other more comfortable locations.

That was when I read about Projectors. Of course, as your basic Demo-whore I was all too familiar with Projectors, but what I wasnt familiar with is how much the technology has changed in the last two years and both lowered the cost and increased the quality of the device.

It turns out for not much more than a big LCD monitor, I could have a good serviceable Data Projector, that could also serve as an HDTV Monitor, which would make my media PC into a very useful device.

What does this do? By having a projector as my monitor, I can have a monitor that is 72 inches wide. Since its a projector, I dont need a desk for the monitor, that allows me to replace the desk with recliner.

So, I picked up an Infocus projector and screen at Sams Club. The biggest criteria was "return policy", since there is no real way to tell how this is going to work until you actually get it into the real life work environment. The result of this little experiment? It works terrific, much better than expected or hoped it would.

So thats what I'm doing now, I'm replacing my traditional office desk and PC monitor with a Sofa/Recliner and Wall Projector. Right now, My office and the Linux LAN and all the telecomm has all been pulled out and I am sitting on boxes while I decide what goes and what stays in the "New Model Office".

Posted @ September 28, 2004 01:20 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (5)

Another Saturday Night

It is 38 days till election day. To Western Civilization, election day is the day we order our government to meet the challenges of the current day. We, the citizens of a democracy have our say in who shall lead us and to what the nations agenda should be. We hold our leaders accountable, we hold our public treasure under the accounting of the average common folk who decide en masse what is and what is not the right use of our public commons.

It is a miracle in history that we choose to do this. We have decided to collectively abide by the ruling of common everyday people who is best to provide the executive leadership of this Democracy. We do not serve our leaders, Our leaders serve us.

For far too much of the world, this is an upside down idea. The idea that the lowest caste of society can command those at the top is simply not done in the polite societies abroad. There are far too many in the world who believe that order is more important than enfranchisement of its subjects. There are many in this country that believe that leaving Saddam Hussien in power was a more righteous position than fighting to return the Kurds and the Shia to the brotherhood of civilization.

One person who feels this way is running for President in this country, He has the relative support of 50% of his countrymen. The other Candidate disagrees, he has the support of the other 50% of this country. Ours is a nation at war with the world and at war with itself. What is different about our country over others is that we will argure complain and throw a fit, but on election day, all the bull stops. We vote, we have our say and life goes on.

On Election day, we will choose and we will abide by the better judgement of the majority of voters in this country. They will be answering the question of should a man who cannot make up his mind about the rights and freedom of others, should be fit to sit at the desk of an office that has freed billions of people from tyranny. The man elected to the office of President during this election will be taking office to sit at a desk that once held the likes of men like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Each man, faced with the horrors of war, chose to support the rights and liberty of mankind. Each man was not seen as a great and loved man in his time, but was seen by later generations to be the great men that they surely were.

What our Democracy has shown us over its history is that citizens of a Democracy are also good stewards of their Democracy. During times of strife and times of diffculty, Americans are willing to forgo the narcotic of comfort for the sacrifice and hard work that is required of maintaining our Democracy. America is not like the rest of the world. In America, we are citizens of, not subject of the government. On both sides of the political aisle We believe the words of another great President who said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".

Tonight is the 38th night until the night we engage in our duty for our country by the simple act of voting. We will tuck our children in, we will sit in our living rooms and talk the quiet talk of adults. We will instinctively look out at the horizon, like our ancestors did, watching for signs of an oncoming enemy.

But our enemies arent coming. Our enemies are already here.

Tonight throught this country sit the agents of anti-democracy. Men and women planted into our open society well in advance of their being used. They are not obvious, they do not wear costumes like henchmen in "batman'. More precisely, they have been chosen specifically because of their ability to blend in with average folk.

These agents sit quietly in non descript cars at the end of airport runways and calculate the distance and speed of aircraft in landing. They watch to see if the areas around the edges of airports are being watched. They work for custodial supply companies working after hours in our cities biggest buildings and our airports. They sit outside of schools and watch to see how secure they may be, they work for school bus companies. They watch and take notes and pictures and report back to their handlers. Their work goes on for years. They are patient, cool and reserved, they are not amatures, they believe that God is on their side and will reward them for helping kill the infidels, the people who until recently were their neighbors.

These agents sit at kitchen tables, creating bombs with chemicals purchased at any hardware store, wrapped in nails and rat poison, for the exact purpose of killing civilians, perferably women and children civilians. They go into the countryside to practice firing weapons, guns bought at any wal-mart with ammunition from any hardware store. They communicate on computer sytems made in Texas, on software created in Washington, on phone connections supported by satellites launched into space by rockets from Florida.

Their targets are not Airports, Airliners, Navy Ships, Air Force Bombers or Army Tanks. Their target is us.

We are free people. We are citizens of our country, not subjects of a king or caliphate. We live the way we want, believe what we want and we allow all the rights afforded to men to also be afforded equally to women and we dont even blink an eye at the blasphemy that this represents to the Jihadis.

The problem for the Jihadis isn't just that we are are free, but that our freedom is spreading. On October 9th, The people of Afghanistan, men AND women will vote. A country once known as the "meatgrinder of europe" is becoming a moderate Islamic state where women are given the enfranchisement to vote. In January 2005, Iraq, home to the cradle of civilization, recently ruled by the clan of a madman, will also vote. For those of us born and raised in the west, the simple act of voting doesnt seem like much, but to those who are not enfranchised with the liberating power of Democracy it is unlike anything we can imagine. It is like a prisoners first day outside the prison gates after a life sentence that has been commuted. Those of us living in freedom do not understand what it means to those about to be liberated to know the day is coming when they will live free. Those that control these places, the Jihadi tyrants are fully aware of what is coming and they will do anything the need to do to stop it. They will kill as many of us as it takes to break our will and if need be kill themselves in the process.

In Madrid, The Jihadis and their socialist allies succeeded in subverting an election. "One down- three to go" they said. 300 people were killed, but a Democracy was crushed with not much more than a few backpacks full of explosives. Spain gave up, and now the rest of us will pay the price.

"One down- three to go" they said. We are next. Between now and election day, this country is effectively under attack. In the last war against tyranny, Citizens of this Democracy took action to help in any way they could to hold off the enemy. Some served in the Military, Some served in factories, but all did something.

Citizens - It is now time to do something.

If you are a former seaman or crewmember or if you are on a coastal area, you should join the Coast Guard Auxillary

If you are a pilot, you should join the Civil Air Patrol

If you are anyone, anywhere you should join and work with the American Red Cross

If you are a former police officer or a fireman, check with your local police department. many of these organizations have been hit hard by deployments overseas, since many police officers are also in the national guard. Many police and fire departments have civilian auxillaries that are created to help in a time of emergency.

Join a Community Emergency Response Team

If you are a Medical Professional or you have had training in the medical field, Join the Medical Reserve Corps

It is virtually certain that this country will be attacked in the next 38 days. If you knew before 9/11 what was coming what would you have done differently from what you did? Then get up and do it now. The next attack is being planned tonight. Are you prepared to respond?

Update: My thanks to Leelu for the CERT Tip. Keep em coming guys.

Posted @ September 25, 2004 08:44 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Apparently, The "F" Stands For "Fredo"

Today was a low point in American politics and a low point in the prestige of the country. Today, an American Senator skipped a joint session of Congress that was being addressed by a visiting head of state, a Guest of the American people. If that was all that had happened you could say it was a scheduling problem or that an illness had occured, forgiveable and understandable at some human level. Unfortunately, it didn't and it wasn't. 30 minutes after our guest spoke, the Senator, a petty little man, who seems to be getting smaller by the minute, broke with protocol and tradition and chose to dress down the man while he was visiting our country. Our guest is a man who 2 years ago lived under a death sentence, a man who who's life is at risk every day for simply standing in oppositon to those who want to turn his country into a charnel house. He is a man who has put everything at risk for just the hope of a better future.

The Senator did not offer praise for the personal bravery our guest has exhibited. He did not offer to meet with the man, to offer suggestions or even offer any support for his struggle. He just snarled in his little smarmy way and talked the big talk about "needing allies",while showing the Iraqi people that he didn't mean them. To people like the Senator, all Arabs are terrorists, and how foolish we are for thinking otherwise. How foolish we are for thinking that the little brown people of the middle east would want to be free. How foolish we are for trusting the "little wogs".

While the Senator and the Democrats talk the big talk about wanting rights for women and minorities, our guest is doing it, he's doing it while being shot at, while being reviled by many in his own country by many in his religion, and most certainly, he's doing it while being reviled by the leftists around the world and in this country. Leftists, who always scream about their own rights and how they are being violated seem very quiet when the rights of others are in jeopardy. While Democrats talk about "government helping people", our guest is doing it. While the Democrats and the Senator talk about America being an example to the world, our guest is being an example to all of us of grace under pressure, of selflessness, not selfishness, of putting the needs of the many ahead of the pride and desires for power of the one. Our guest could declare himself dictatior tommorow and no one would be surprised. Instead, our guest works against the advice and counsel of the world to bring his country, in the cradle of western civilization into the modern age and civility with the cooling salve of democracy.

When I watched our guest speak to our countries government, I felt a sense of pride, in my country, in our civilization, and I felt a certain pride for our guest. 30 minutes later, I felt a sense of shame that our country could treat this man and his culture so shabbily. When the Senator talked afterwards I was just watching a small man get smaller by using every life event as a chance to bloviate about his great ideas on what he would do for the world 'if only we would let him'. It was as if all that matters to the 'Incredibly Shrinking Senator' is that his craving for attention, his fixation on "the self" is satisfied.

His words, which could be used to elevate, educate and inspire are instead used as indictment against his country and his culture. His words have given strength to those who kill captives by beheading, who deny children the use of bathrooms while they hold them hostage, only to shoot them in the back later. At every opportunity where the Senator has had a chance to be clear about the resolve of this country in the defense of liberty, the Senator has chosen instead to spread confusion, fear, uncertainty and doubt. By doing so, he's put the world at risk. He's given hope to the monsters that our will can be broken and their goals can be met.

Once upon a time, another Democratic Senator from Massachusetts ran his campaign in West Virginia Appalachian country and was inspired to help the people he found there. Todays Democratic Senator from Massachusetts sneers down his nose at the little people who foolishly hold on to their small town values. Once, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts would say words like " pay any price, bear any burden in the defense of freedom", todays Democratic Senator from Massachusets says "The wrong war, wrong time, wrong way". He offers no plan, no solution, no direction, only critique. Much like the weak screenwriter or incompetent actor who finds great pleasure and validation in becoming a theater critic, the Senator seems incapable of leadership, but finds great pleasure at providing critique for those who show it. What is that phrase we say behind their backs? "Those who can - do - those who cant..."

It would appear that the quality of Democratic Senators from Massachusetts is not a constant in the universe. It would appear that we will not find that the current crop of Democratic Senators from Massachusets being men who will go on to inspire the world. There will be no "let them come to Berlin" moment, no "Ask not what your country can do for you" inspiration leading a generation to take up the cause of freedom around the world.

What I saw happen today was the Senator do something I never expected. The Senator has decided he will not run from the firm liberal traditions of the Democratic party, a party whos theme song was once "happy days are here again", and ran from a solid pro-american positive future platform. The Senator has decided that he will run against the United States of America.

In the movie "the Godfather" is a moment when Michael Corleone tells his brother Fredo to "never take sides against the family". Today, The Senator took sides against the family.

Today, John F. Kerry became John "Fredo" Kerry, and our world is poorer for it. At at time when our world is struggling to survive, the Senator put his own interests ahead of the interests of the country and the world. By saying what he said and the way he said it he's become a smaller man as every day goes by. Every interview, every chance to be a bigger man he's instead shown us all what a small petty creature he is. This could've been an election that showed the world the best in our country , two political parties in open debate both with positive visions of the world to be. Instead, one party openly hopes for failure of the economy, failure of armed services, failure and defeat at every turn. The people who belong to that party are so deep in hate that to show any signs of happiness or joy is seen as potentially being "good for Bush" and thus must be stopped. Shhhh, dont talk about that, It would be good for Bush...

The Senator could stop all of it, he could inspire all of us, but instead he bathes in it. Worse still, he thrives on it. He could do so much, but instead has chosen to do so little. But worse of all, he's chosen to go against the family.

In my opinion, There are a great number of people in the world who dont like Mr. Bush, but I believe there are a great number of people who do respect him. Some out of fear, some out of admiration, some even out of inspiration. I also think there are a great number of people who do like Senator Kerry, but don't actually respect him. They certainly don't fear him, I doubt that even people in his own State admire him and I have yet to find anyone who has been inspired by him.

"Fredo" does not get to lead the family. Despite his best hopes, The Don knew this would be the case.

Posted @ September 23, 2004 11:43 PM | Kerry File | Comments (8)

My Guess is Hale-Bopp Is Coming Back Early.

So, first I hear that Joe Lockhart is joining the Kerry team as a communication director.

Then Kerry says this, and I think " Hey wait a minute, I think I've smelled that kind of bizarre, pointless, circular logic "coast-to-coast AM" driven claptrap from an aged and neutered cult leader once before".

and then I remembered this guy:

and it all came together. I guess this means I have to wheel the telescope out again.

Posted @ September 22, 2004 09:06 PM | Kerry File | Comments (0)

When Stars Go Bad...

I think weve found our new picture to add to the aghanistan leaflet drops. The story can be found here.

UPDATE: I wonder if "her man takes Levitra". To quote H.L. Menken " a face like that makes you want to burn every bed in the world."

Posted @ September 22, 2004 09:36 AM | Making fun of people | Comments (4)

Bush to UN: Yeah, I'm talkin' to you Sonny...

President Bush went to the UN today and gave a speech to the General Assembly.

The Key points of this speech are this:

"Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights and every charter of liberty ever written are lies to be burned and destroyed and forgotten."

"We're determined to end the state sponsorship of terror, and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan"

"Our wider goal is to promote hope and progress as the alternatives to hatred and violence. "

"The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls or martial laws or secret police; over time and across the Earth, freedom will find a way"

"More than 10 million Afghan citizens, over 4 million of them women, are now registered to vote in next month's presidential election. To any who still would question whether Muslim societies can be democratic societies, the Afghan people are giving their answer. "

commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption and maintain ties to terrorist groups.

Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a democracy fund within the United Nations.

President Bush has effectively brought an end to the fantasy that makes up one of the pillars behind the construction of the UN, that is that all countries are of equal value and no one has the right to say what is and what is not a valid government. Democracy and totalitarian governments have always stood side by side in the UN, despite the obvious asininity that such a thing creates, for example when Syria and Lybia sat on the UN Human Rights Commission and US and Israel are called violators of Human Rights.

President Bush has now set the agenda that says there is truly a difference between Democracy, Liberty and freedom and Totalitarianism. Bush is signalling that the US will begin to push the UN to accept the new reality.

There are 192 Countries in the UN General Assembly. While President Bush gave this speech today, a Speech every bit as eloquent and as moving as anything uttered by President Kennedy,in the audience sat the ambassadors of Cuba, Sudan, North Korea, China, Syria and Iran. I imagine they sat there with their fingers in their ears chanting "LALALALALALALA-NOT LISTENING". I also imagine that President Bush was looking direectly at them when he gave this speech. Its no wonder they hate this guy, he's out to change things. It's one of the few truly universal human traits, everyone hates change.

Would anyone care to guess the number of actual democracies that are within that august world governing body?

What percentage of the worlds population lives today within the umbrella of Democracy?

My answers will be provided tommorow after a marathon session of google-banging for the facts and figures. .

Posted @ September 21, 2004 11:01 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Do We Deserve To Win?

Air Vice Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris.
RAF Bomber Command.

One the best resources available to a blogger is your readers. They are the worlds best editors and fact checkers. They are also one other thing, they are a great source for inspiration for ideas.

One reader left a comment the other day that has been rattling around in my head. In essence, the reader was saying that: "Unless we remain true to our ideas, we don't deserve to win"

There's a part of what the reader was saying that I understand, and at a basic level I agree with. But theres a deeper truth that I think they might be missing.

We are not in an idealogical cultural competition with the Jihadis, we are in a fight for our lives.

We start off each and every war by saying that we won't become like "them", but to survive, you often do what you have to do in order that you survive.

At the beginning of WWII, RAF Bomber Command would only allow bombing of German cities with propaganda notes, by 1942 the concept of "total war" had been adapted by the allied powers. By 1945, we had gone to the process of accepting as normal the the firebombing of civilian populations of Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo and the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1939 - We drop paper.
1944 - We drop incendiaries from "1000 plane" raids that last three days.
1945 - We drop Atomic bombs.

Did the methods we engaged in to expedite the war "spoil" the victory? No. An enemy civilian population that engaged in and abetted the open genocide of 6 million of their former schoolmates and next door neighbors, as well as gave material support to an Army that engaged the "scorched earth" polices across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can hardly expect to be afforded the kind of protection given to true non-combatants. In the modern world, the designation of "civilian" does not hold the same weight as it did in the middle ages. In the modern world, you are either a combatant or a target, it would seem that a civilian today is simply someone who just didn't "get the memo".

Did we "deserve" to win World War II because we managed to remain idealogically pure? No. Quite frankly, we didn't remain idealogically "pure", but I'm damn glad we won all the same. I do not- for one second - think that in the area of atrocities that we were the equals of the fascists, but that is not to say that we executed the war in a completely clean civilized fashion, thereby "holding true to our ideas" . We didn't target civilians if we could aviod it and there are many cases where our servicemens lives were lost in the attempt to remain within the parameters of civilized war. American Daylight Bombing Strategy had a terrible cost for American Air Corps personnel, yet it continued throught the war. The strategy was used because "targeted/strategic" bombing was acceptible to American Military command and civilian authorities, while the "area bombing" of our allies in the UK was not. However, in events like the Dresden bombing, a combination of US and UK aircraft and aircrews were used to do the job over a three day period. To cling to belief that we were clean and they were not, overlooks the basic facts of the execution of the war, that both allies engaged in activities that they felt stood the best chance to win the war, and took whatever steps they felt necessary to complete the task,even if the other allies considered them reprehensible. In those days, they both recognized what we cannot yet see, that is, the consequences of losing were understood and made very real by their enemies daily actions.

To put it more simply, We "deserved" to win only because we were able through force of action to compel our enemies to capitulate by being willing to whatever was necessary to get an "Unconditional Surrender". There is only one end to any war, and that is when your enemy is compelled to stop fighting and calls out to say " no more", everything else that may be offered by your enemies is just an "armistice" or a polite version of slow rearming which will eventually lead to a more bloody rematch between the aggrieved still warring parties.

What were the Fascists willing to do to win? Everything they could get away with and more. To expect an enemy to fight within written parameters of a legal agreement is the first admission that you haven't really accepted the reality of war. If warring parties could agree to comply to written conditions in the first place, war would have likely not have happened. Parties are in the condition of war because they are no longer able to work within the confines of the process of law. The lesson of history is absolutely clear, War is truly hell on earth and should not entered into lightly. Getting into a war is always easier than getting out, for getting out means that someone has to lose.

There is probably only one greater shame than entering into war, and that is failing to prosecute the war to its full conclusion, thus ensuring that the war goes on for another generation. It's bad enough when war visits one generation, but its inexcuseable to allow the bloodletting to go on to the next generation simply because of ones personal desire to satisfy the need for closure. I always felt the best reason that was ever expressed for a war was used often by soldiers of WWII, when asked why they were fighting, they would simply say " I'm fighting, so my kids wont have to come back and finish the job".

In our war with the Jihadis, it is not clear whether we are willing to do all it will take to win. Our culture and civilization is still not collectively sure that we are actually "at war", and cannot decide if they should take the Jihadi threat as serious as some of us feel it is. Many people in the world believe the greatest threat to the world is in fact, the United States, rather than those who's openly stated goal is the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate unto the world. A world where men like myself and you too , dear reader, will be killed outright and all women will be reduced to a status lower than that of "favored farm animal". Our future under their "Islamic Caliphate" is that of enslavement or death, nothing more, nothing less. If you think I'm overstating it, try convincing the members of the Beslan PTA that I'm just "over the top". For those of you who still feel that your leftist progressive sentiments will save you under their mercy, try to remember that while you consider yourselves separate from people like me, the only difference they will make between us is the order in which we are marched into an open trench to be shot in the back of the head. Jihadis don't look at us as "Democrats" and "Republicans", we are all blasphemous infidels. We are all Americans. We all wear the "yellow star of David".

Any strategy to fight the Jihadis that says "we will fight this far and no further" is a strategy that will surely result in our losing this war. The consequences of the Western World losing this war is beyond the comprehension of people living in the modern age. We must understand the horror that the war has forced us to embrace, we must be capable of not just withstanding the terror acts made against us but we must also be capable of administering a credible, horrific response that will eventually lead to the breaking of their will.

Falluja Delenda Est...

Let it also be clear, that our enemies are not supermen, they are mortal men, as are we, and they too have a spirit and a will that can be broken by our actions. It will take time and it will take effort, but it can be done. That is, as long as we are willing to do it.

Arthur Harris said this about his predicament:

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a dozen other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

Since 9/11, I've often thought about that last phrase. The words are "old testament" and are not the kind of words that are thrown around lightly by real adults. "Bomber" Harris did not fight this far no further, he clearly established that it was his enemies that set the terms of war, not he. He simply responded in kind.

I've had the feeling lately that Vladimir Putin knows the Russian translation of the phrase and is about to start using it. I hope we are prepared for what I think he is likely to do.

Posted @ September 21, 2004 12:40 AM | History file | Comments (7)

What does a "blogger" look like?

The picture is from a series of paintings that were created during World War II. Norman Rockwells "The Four Freedoms" give a graphic interpretation to what was the real reason we were being asked to sacrifice so much of our lives and property.

The man, a common every day joe, is standing and speaking his mind in a town hall meeting. He is standing and speaking without fear of retribution, from either his neighbors or his government.

The freedom to speak is a simple idea and a fundamental truth within the civilized world. The painting is that of a miracle in human history, captured with oils on canvas. With the rise of blogosphere, normal people are confused as to what a "blogger " is or what we look like. Are we an evil cabal of "right wing crazies", the new milleniums version of the "Montana Militia", the "Digital David Koreshes", out to take over the minds of the children like some "silicon svengalis"?

No. Were 'just folks", nothing more, nothing less.

This painting is what a "blogger" looks like. We are just people, average joes( and josephines), having our say on the affairs of the world without fear from neighbors or our government. The only difference between ourselves and the man in the painting is that the method for speaking our minds has moved from the cold wooden walls of the Elks Lodge to the cold wiring of the internet.

As they say in the street theater protests " This is what a Democracy looks like...".

I couldn't agree more.

Posted @ September 19, 2004 08:56 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Wapo - Graphic Comparison

Washington Post Provides One Stop Shopping for all your memogate comparison needs.

Posted @ September 19, 2004 07:47 PM | Dan Rather | Comments (0)

The Camera Never Lies...

But truth often exists only in the eye of the beholder.

Today, the man who took this picture, a picture that defined to many people, the horror that was Vietnam, died.

Pulitzer Winning Photographer Eddie Adams was 71.

Most people who know anything at all about Vietnam have seen this picture. In the eyes of the layman, this is street justice being meted out by a monstorous regime that is wholly supported by the United States.

But that is not the truth of what is going on in this picture. To quote the great film Director Samuel Fuller " The camera lies like a sonofabitch".

From Eddie Adams Obit:

But fame — instant, enduring and discomforting — resulted from a single photo taken Feb. 1, 1968, the second day of the communists' Tet Offensive, in the embattled streets of Cholon, Saigon's Chinese quarter.

Drawn by gunfire, Adams and an NBC film crew watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated. Instead, South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, strode up, wordlessly drew a pistol and shot the man in the head.

Adams caught the instant of death in a photo that made front pages around the world. It would became one of the Vietnam's War's most indelible images, shocking the American public and used by critics to dispute official claims that the war was being won.

In later years, Adams found himself so defined — and haunted — by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998.

"The guy was a hero," Adams said, recalling Loan's explanation that the man he executed was a Viet Cong captain, responsible for murdering the family of Loan's closest aide a few hours earlier.

"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."

Or as a friend of mine once said: 'context is everything'.

Posted @ September 19, 2004 05:01 PM | Vietnam | Comments (1)

PhotoBlogging: Lessons Learned

Submitted for your approval, The 2004 Reno Air Races.

This is my first time out covering an event for the web. I used my normal around-the-house Sony Mavica, thinking it would be fine( how hard could it be?).

It was not fine, it was awful. There are two things to take into extreme consideration when working in the field. First, always check you batteries youself, and always test the camera prior to being at the event.

The camera died about 30 minutes of arriving at the Races, so coverage of any actual "air races" became impossible. What was covered was grossly inadequate, because what makes a good house camera does not make a good field camera. The Mavica has a big LCD display, which is nice around the house, but is basically unuseable in outdoors light, so you end up taking pictures like your granny did with the old brownie camera of the past, you just point and hope at the composition of the scene.

I also had to rethink the whole process of covering the show as opposed to just watching as an audience member. Next event I will cover is the Launch of SpaceShipOne in Mojave on September 29th. So, I guess its off to 'Best Buy' for camera tryouts and product reviews, and more than a little bit of practice.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of trying to catpure the scene and get it on the web. I think theres a number of things I can do next time to make it worthwhile for the audience.

Oh, what did I think of the event? I loved it. But you knew that anyway. I love Reno, the whole vibe is unlike anything else there is in aviation. While most of aviation is a culture of squeaky clean choir boys, the Air Races represent the latent badass part of our little culture. Theres large amounts of greasy food, beer, loose women, "smokeless tobacco", big reciprocating engines and smell of jet fuel and the magical sound of a dozen Mustangs going all out overhead. All sense of "politically correct" is dumped in the trash outside the entrance to the races like cartons of milk past its 'drink before' date.

This is not an event for the sierra club or greenpeace types, there is no reformation in the offing for these types, no discussion of 'greener fuels' or "noise abatement". This is the aviations version of what the pirates had at "Port Royal". After hours, you go back to the Reno casinos and give the knowing glance and thumbs up across the blackjack table with pilots and crew of aircraft you only wish you could sit in, much less ever hope to fly.

Posted @ September 18, 2004 09:13 PM | Photoblogging | Comments (2)

Iraq: It's not for us.

There's a few things I want to get a few things cleared up here before I set off on my photoblogging adventure at the Reno Air Races.

First:

War is not limited to just Iraq. The world is at War. When we talk about "The War", some of us are talking about the Iraq Theatre of Operations in the First Jihadi War. Some of us are talking about Americas Unilateral Aggression in Iraq as an "illegal war". I hope to persuade the latter of the reality of the former.

Let's be clear here. Battles in this war have been fought on every continent in every country in the world. In the last three years the Jihadi madmen have killed in:

Morocco
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan
Thailand
Yemen
Somalia
Sudan
Jerusalem
Afghanistan
Jordan
Iraq
Kazakistan
Uzbekistan
Beruit
Turkey
Phillippines
Madrid
Moscow
Beslan
India
Bali
Manhattan
Pennsylvania
Washington D.C.

There is a clearly a war going on, but it is a "world war". Iraq is just a small part of it. Iraq is just one of many "Theater of Operations". And in case you havent been paying attention to the headlines, unlike WWII, we in the US are living in a "theater of operations". America is an active battleground. There is no safe place for us to hide, no organization with which we can sign a peace treaty, no border to respect.

Second. I want us all to understand something that I think we are missing in the debate over Iraq.

We are not in Iraq for ourselves. We don't give a damn one way or the other how Iraq goes. But the Iraqis had better care, and the Islamic world had better care. Iraq is not just a country, Iraq is the Islamic worlds last chance. If Iraq falls, our response to terrorists will no longer involve our putting our men and women at risk for the hope of bringing property and human rights to the native populations. Our response so far has been to allow our men to die in defense of greater ideas, in the belief that the people of Islam, if given a choice, would choose Democracy over Tyranny. We've given them a choice. The choice is simple, Change, adapt, or you will die. Not necessarily by our hands, but most certainly by their own. The Islamic world is so far behind in every meaasureable metric that without the accident of geology that is middle eastern oil reserves, it is entirely likely that Islam would have already died out like the ancient world believers in Marduk.

We have a choice in how we fight the Jihadis. Our men are not losing their lives because the enemy is effective, our men are dying because we wish to be humane. We will not continue to do this if we feel that the Islamic world would prefer to live in Tyranny. We can destroy people in mass numbers if we choose to. For now, we simply choose not to. Our respect for other nations and cultures is not a suicide pact. We will defend ourselves and we have been known to kill in mass numbers in the past to defend our lives and liberties.

Islam has the choice in what its future will be, not us. We can leave if we choose to. I would caution those who think that is best to remember that our leaving will not only not bring peace, to us or the Iraqis. It will very likely lead indirectly to the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqis due to the terror that would certainly follow in the rush for power and directly in the war with us that would surely follow.

Why are we in Iraq? To preempt a far larger and more deadly war.

Why should we stay in Iraq? Because to do otherwise would be inhumane.

Who gains if we stay? Islam will survive as a pillar of culture in that part of the world.

Who loses if we stay? All of the Jihadi Tyranny systems that exist. The power structures of the middle east have existed largely out of a power vacuum. By prodiving a strong alternative to the Jihadi leaders, we can lower their importance.

Who gains if we leave? The powerful who prey on the weak, those who wish to enslave people and treat women as farm anmials.

Who loses if we leave? Billions of innocent people who want nothing more than to live their lives in freedom.

Iraq is an experiment in which we can only hope that it will work. No one really knows how it will turn out. We've run this experiment before, in Europe and in Japan. While we were successful with those two, it would be best to remember that the world laughed at us when we ran that experiment in Germany and Japan. Once people are enfranchised with Democracy, they have proven again and again to be a powerful force, one that will very possibly overthrow the Jihadi Tyranny that exists in the middle eastern islamic world.

Knowing what the alternatives are in the world that "might be", I think betting Iraqi Democracy is worth the risk.

Third: The war is not our idea. This is not a border dispute or a trade problem or some cultural greivance in which we have transgressed the values of other people. We are hated for no other reason than we exist. Our women wear nearly nothing and live a life of freedom and privledge unfound even for men in the best Islamic countries. We are the living embodiment of blasphemy to the Jihadi madmen, as were black men to the klan and jews to the Nazis. It's not just our territory or our prosperity that threatens them, our every existence threatens these ghouls. You don't negotiate with the Klan, and you dont sign treaties with Nazis. You dont try to understand their anger or accomodate their needs in the world. You hunt them down and kill them.

The war has been brought to us, by the Jihadis. We've been trying to avoid it at least since 1979. We've tried every other method there is to not fight it, but its here and in the final irony, the best way to get the war over is not to avoid it, but to fight it to its conclusion. They must capitulate.

Those that think we can live peacefully 'side by side' with the Jihadis in brotherly understanding and respect simply havent been reading their books. Weve only been given one choice in this war, "submit to islam or die".

I'm not ready to do either. All wars are fought until someone capitulates. If you're not ready to surrender to the Jihadis, then I suggest you shut the hell up about seeking peace. We didn't seek peace with Hitler, we wanted him dead, at the end of a rope, or under city sized rubble and millions of bodies of his own countrymen, we didn't care.

Four:

How do you fight an idea? We don't have a Jihadi Navy to attack, Jihadi Air Forces to shoot down, Jihadi Armies in uniform all marching in neat rows to capture or their territory to command. Our enemy lives in the back alleyways of thousands of towns and cities throught the world. It lives on the soiled resentment of the loser in life who believes that their lot is the fault of someone else. "the jews' they used to say, and now they say "the americans".

How do you fight an idea? First, you defend your own. We are an important and valuable culture that has a lot to offer the rest of the world. Our culture has roots that go back 4,000 years and have been under assault in every generation since the Athenians thought up the idea of asking their citizens to participate in decision making. Every generation in 4,000 years has had to add to the tradition of laying down their lives for the freedom of others. Every generation finds a way to expand the offerings of liberty to mankind. Freedom is not free and liberty is essential to life.

How do you fight an idea? Do you stay home and hide? Ask the "freedom riders" who lost their lives in pursuit of other peoples right to vote in the backwoods of Alabama, Missisippi and Georgia. Ask them if that was only something that was important only for African Americans. Then ask them if the same rights they fought to secure in the south should not be extended towards the lives of the people of Iraq or Afghanistan. Ask them if the cause that Martin Luther King believed in and died in pursuit of, ends at our shoreline.

How do you fight an idea? Ask the men of the Union buried in Gettysburg. And then, go thank God that they did.

Posted @ September 17, 2004 09:33 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (8)

Anyone Got the Link?

I've been hearing alot about the need for an 'exit plan' for Iraq. I decided I might help the President by spending my valuable broadband allotment looking up previous 'exit plans' on the internet. In particular, I thought I'd look up what the Democrats have offered in the past in the way of "exit plans' for their wars.

After half a day of google-banging, I can't find any sort of "plan" from any one of these guys!

Wilson runs on a campaign slogan of "He Kept us out of war". He then turns right around and sends us off to Europe. He hardly had a plan to get in the war, much less get out of it.

I'll be darned if I can find any actual plan that FDR put up in 1941 when he entered into the war. Roosevelt and Truman may have "won the war" but they clearly failed to win the peace because they failed to have an exit strategy. One that included our allies, the Soviet Union. Why did it take a full 2 years after the so called "end of the war" in Europe to propose the "Marshall Plan"? A plan that entitled the famers and businessmen of the former regime in Germany to better benefits than the farmers of Kansas. It also appears that he didn't even bother to ask our allies Like France and the United Kingdom to help fund this program, which is as arrogant and unilateral. Why did Presidents Roosevelt and his "Selected, not Elected" heir apparent Vice-President, Mr. Truman go out of their way to not get help from our allies, like the Soviet Union? A truly enlightened President would have not asked the entire burden of rebuilding Europe and Japan to fall on the backs of the American Taxpayer.

Truman lets our situation in Europe degrade to such a low point that our military forces were forced to fly food into Berlin, rather than work with our allies in the Soviet Union. While America thought nothing of sending arms to the Soviets during the war, they didn't raise of finger to help our former allies, the russian people, after the war.

Worse still, Truman tries to distract us, to take our minds off the fact that Hitler hadn't been captured in Germany, he engages in a war against a country on the other side of the planet, that was never a threat to the United States. Yes its true that Truman went to the UN to get aid, but he neglected to get the approval of our greatest friend in the Second World War, the Soviet Union.

And yet, despite all my searching I can't find any plan to win the peace in Korea. I also found that we still have troops in Korea! So many years! When will we win the peace?

It seems to me that the unilateral actions and foolish foreign policies of Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman is what has lead to the current state of anti-americanism that is sweeping the world. It's no wonder we fell into a needless and unneccessary "cold war" with such a foolhardy foreign policy.

UPDATE: I forgot to put my editor in "snark-mode=off" when I typed this. Sorry.

Posted @ September 17, 2004 07:46 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Look, Up in the Sky!

Click Here and laugh.

Posted @ September 16, 2004 10:42 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Meanwhile, Back at DNC HQ...

Now try to remember when you read this, that according to Mickey Kaus and Kevin Drum, the "memogate affair" is supposed to be having a "net negative" effect on the Bush campaign.

Well for Kerrys sake Let's hope so, because at this rate, my "40 states for Bush" prediction is looking a wee bit on the light side! Be aware that many of the States that Bush is up in are States where Bush hasnt spent a dime or visited even once. And remember, Bush is a marathon runner, Bush likes competition, he thrives on it, he looooooves it when you misunderestimate him.

Those of you still working under the belief that "bush is stupid", let me try to explain something to you. There's a game that people play in the south; its called "I'm a big dumb hick". The way it works is you come from out of town , you meet someone who starts the game by acting like a "big dumb hick" you naturally assume you are superior and can take advantage of "Poor Joe Hick" and naturally you let you guard down. At the worst possible time, and the worst possible moment the "big dumb hick " game comes to an end when the person you previously thought to be an extra from "Mayberry RFD", turns out to be the freakin' MBA from Harvard, and suddenly those jokes about inbreeding don't seem quite so funny. You walk away from the game feeling like you got hit in the crotch with a cricket bat.

( Which, approximates the way I think that Democrats will feel on November 3rd. )

After years of working as a software consultant in the south, I learned that when someone starts playing "big dumb hick" , you put your hand on your wallet, keep your back to the wall and make sure you got two ways out of every room you enter with "Joe Hick". My travels in the south taught me that the only dumb people in the South were actually people from the North.

Has it occured to anyone else that the generation that lost Vietnam the first time is now in the process of metaphysically losing it a second time? Was there something in the water when the "greatest generation" came home to breed that helped produce a generation of narcissistic, whiny pathetic and perpetual losers? Is this the true effect of flouridation? I thank God every day I'm not a "baby boomer". Jeezus! do these people need to get over themselves. My only real sadness is I have to listen to them whine and kvetch all the way to their sunshine years, all the while complaining about how awful life has been for them. Hey thanks guys. Thanks for all you left behind for my generation. What a swell bunch of whack jobs you turned out to be.

Only a pack of self-involved idiots would actually think that they should base their whole campaign for executive office on the world that existed 35 years ago. What makes the unibrowed morons at the DNC think anyone can relate to a candidate who's best days occured before refrigerators had the autodefrost feature?

Good Gracious people! Didn't Bill Clinton teach you anything? You had eight years to learn how to work in the modern world. He tried to warn you. He tried to show you. He begged you to listen. Hell, he even called Kerry personally and said "SHUT UP ABOUT VIETNAM, YOU FREAKIN' ANOREXIC SCARECROW...". Did Kerry listen? nope, why? Because like everyone in that generation, you can't tell them anything. They know better, you just wait, they'll show you! ( one tin soldier rides awaaaaayyyyy....)

Bill Clinton looks positively statesman-like by comparison to this pack of morons, and thats really saying something. It's no surprise to me at all that Bill is MIA this year. Who wants to associate themselves with people who "overpromise and underdeliver" year after year after year.

If theres just one reason I want Bush to win, it's so I wont have to hear the word Vietnam ever again. Believe me, I've had my fill over my lifetime of "Fill-in-the-blank-place is just like Vietnam". I think if more people had known we were going to winge and whinny about that freakin place over a whole freakin lifetime, they probably would have said we should have kept fighting it.

You know what I really, really hate about the Kerry 2004 Campaign? It completely ruined one of my favorite movies. I can no longer watch Apocalypse Now anymore without thinking of Kerry.

That's-just-not-fair...

Posted @ September 15, 2004 11:46 PM | Kerry File | Comments (12)

Rather: Bush still refuses to answer questions

Open Question:

If CBS were accusing Bush of raping a woman in 1972, would they be able to get away with saying that the existance of evidence of rape is not as important as the need for Bush to answer the charge of rape?

Im just curious. I'd like to know just how far we are willing to let the media go before we collectively say "thats enough, now clear out your desk and be gone, sir!".

How far are you willing to go Dan? If they can do this to President Bush, which of us can hide if we were to become the target of the press?

Posted @ September 15, 2004 04:13 PM | Dan Rather | Comments (0)

Dan, Theres some guy named "Pierre" on the line...

Dan shouldn't feel so bad. He's not the first prominent member of the "Ted Baxter Media" to fall for a hoax. This guy fell for a real bute, the TWA 800 Hoax. It was so bad that theres a syndrome for it now on Wikipedia.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.......

Posted @ September 15, 2004 03:21 PM | Dan Rather | Comments (0)

New Orleans: Below Sea Level

Most of New Orleans is below Sea level. We can watch the situation unfold from the comfort of our pajamas via webcam here.

Posted @ September 15, 2004 12:03 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Mr. Hand Goes to Borders Books

I think we all know how I feel about Borders Books and the staff that inhabit those establishments. But when I saw this at Michelle Malkin
All I could think of was this

More on this later.

Posted @ September 15, 2004 09:54 AM | Book Reviews | Comments (0)

New Dictionary Entry: Blowback

From the Wikipedia entry:

Blowback is a term used in espionage to describe unintended consequences. In context, it can also mean retaliation as the result of actions undertaken by nations. The phrase is believed to have been coined by the CIA.

Is it really news that CBS is biased? Hardly.
Is it really news that Dan Rather will only look at information that fits his 'template' for the interpetation of news? Hardly.

So what's the story here?

The story is that everyone, everywhere has noticed an egregious case of political advocacy by a major media outlet covering a Presidential election. It's not that it happened that's news, It's that everyone noticed and everyone noticed that everyone noticed. Thats news.

CBS set out to tell a story that fit within its existing worldview template. Into that template fell a series of documents that backed everything that CBS already believed to be true at a deeply personal level. When contradictory information was put in front of the producers and their staff, it was dismissed as 'partisan driven' or 'unsubstantiated', only information that fit the template was allowed to enter the holy temple in the Church of the Divine St. Murrow and Chronkite.

It was just one story. One story that the producer will insist to her dying day is true now and was true then, with or without the documents, or any witnesses. She wanted it to be true, she needed it to be true, therefore, It just has to be true, what else could it be?

What's important here isnt the newest case of what we saw demonstrated with Jason Blair, Howell Raines or the BBC ,the important thing here is what is not what is going on in press rooms, its what is going on in the country.

I am now of the opinion that we are seeing something really, really big happening.

America has changed. It was changing before 9/11, but that fateful day didnt start the change, it just accelerated the change. In 1994, The House of Representatives switched parties from control of the Democrats to the Republicans. It was a sizeable victory, that has remained in place ever since. Bill Clinton, to keep "relevant" needed to run towards the right, away from his parties left leaning tendancies. The result is that the great liberal icon Bill Clinton ended the welfare state and made fiscal responsibility a reality. Only Nixon can go to China, but only Bill Clinton could end welfare as we know it. In 2000, a sitting Vice-President of a popular President in a time of prosperity found himself in a narrow race, when by ever historical indicatior, it should have been a "walk in the park". In 2002, Democrats poured everything they had into defeating Republican Govenor Bush in Florida and outspent Republicans 3 to 1, They lost.

The Democrat party and their willing accomplices in the "Ted Baxter Media" have walked into this election season like a careless baggage handler into the prop of a commuter airliner. They literally dont know what hit them.

Into this new reality the leaders of the Democrat party have made the fateful strategic mistake of attempting to "reinforce an indefensible position". They have poured everything they have into pointing out George W. Bush and his National Guard service.

Now,every hour on the hour, America is treated to pictures of George W. Bush in a flight suit, climbing into the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. On the cover of "Newsweek" sits two pictures side-by-side, Bush on one side, Kerry on the other. The problem is that the Picture of Kerry is the anti-war Kerry, the doppleganger who was not at the Democrat Convention.

Mr. Bush, who has never made an issue of his service, who has rarely if ever shown pictures of his service, now has his opposition running ads and doing hit peices in the media to remind us over and over again that Bush was in the military.

The Democrats set out to discredit the President. The President is now setting the terms of the debate.

This is the 'law of unintended consequences' having the same impact in press rooms that the law of gravity has on the foot of everyone who ever dropped a hammer over their toes.

This is 'blowback'.

In 60 days, the wikipedia entry for blowback will include a picture of Dan Rather.

The Democrat party is no longer fighting to win for Kerry, They are fighting for their lives. When the party trots out Teddy Kennedy, the party is scared. When Bill Clinton finds himself immobilized by quadruple bypass at this crucial time in history, you have to wonder if its providence or an innate sense of smell on the part of Mr. Clinton that has caused him to avoid standing side by side with a loser. When only half the people who say they are for Kerry say that they like Kerry or agree with him, the threat to the Democrats is the downticket losses that are sure to come with a Bush Landslide.

Whatever position Kerry takes at the debates will alientate half of his constituents. With the smell of loss in the air, many will be asking themselves "if Im going to lose anyway, why compromise my values"?

For those that say that the Kerry campaign is being purposely sabotaged so that Hillary Clinton can run in 2008, at this point you have to ask if she will run as a Democrat or as a Whig? Will there be a Democrat party in 2008 for her to be candidate in?

Posted @ September 15, 2004 01:18 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)

If the media was really "fair and balanced"

Today's headline:

Kennedy to Hit Campaign Trail for Kerry
Should Read:
Aged and Infirmed Killer Of Campaign Staff Reported to be "on the road again".

How do you know when you are losing? when you actually think that Teddy is an asset instead of an embarrasment. Perhaps he's just waiting for Jimmy Carter to clear his calendar to help with the foreign policy weaknesses.

Posted @ September 14, 2004 05:02 PM | Kerry File | Comments (0)

History's Forgotten Forgers: Frank Abagnale

I was wondering when this guy was going to weigh in on the subject, and now "apparently" he has, at rathergate.com.

I say apparently because having not been able to talk to the man myself I can't vouch for his authenticity. Besides, the man is a forger for gods sake, how can we believe anything he says?

Posted @ September 14, 2004 03:05 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

WMD FOUND!

But not where you would expect. If I remember correctly,there's another in Greenland.

UPDATE: Live by the post, die by the post. Here's a list of others:

July 28, 1957 – A C-124 Globemaster with 3 nuclear weapons and a nuclear capsule from Dover Air Force Base lost power in two engines. Two weapons were jettisoned somewhere off Rehobeth, Delaware and Cape May, New Jersey/Wildwood, New Jersey; they were reportedly never found.

December 5, 1965 – An A-4E Skyhawk airplane with one B43 nuclear weapon onboard falls off the USS Ticonderoga into 16,200 feet (4.9 km) of water off the coast of Japan. The ship was traveling from Vietnam to Yokosuka, Japan. The plane, pilot, and weapon are never recovered.

January 22, 1968 – 7 miles (11 km) south of Thule Air Force Base, Greenland, a fire breaks out in the navigator's compartment of a B-52 which crashes, scattering three hydrogen bombs on land and dropping one into the sea. During a cleanup complicated by Greenland's harsh weather, contaminated ice and airplane debris are buried in the U.S. Bomb fragments were recycled by Pantex, in Amarillo, Texas. Danes were outraged by the event because Greenland is a Danish possession, and Denmark forbids nuclear weapons on its territory. Denmark had massive demonstrations against the U.S. One warhead was recovered by Navy Seals and Seabees (U.S. naval engineers) in 1979. An August 2000 report suggests that the other bomb remains at the bottom of Baffin Bay.

Posted @ September 14, 2004 08:19 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Open Questions: Did Only Rich Kids Get into the National Guard?

10 Open Questions for my 'Main Stream Media' friends:

Resolved:

The only way Bush got into the National Guard during the Vietnam era was because his father was a prominent politician who used his deep pocket political influence to get a coveted slot as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.

Question #1: What political machine ran the State of Texas In the 1960's?

Ans: Democrat party. Texas was a stronghold of Democrat politics until the 1980's. You remember LBJ, from the great street theatre chant in the 1960's. Yeah, he was from Texas too!

Question #2: What percentage of political offices in Texas were held by the opposition party?

Ans: Few and far between. Senator John Tower and 2 term Congressman George H.W. Bush were two that come to mind, but in fact, many, many Congressional seats in Texas went unopposed for years after FDR.

Question #3: To which party did the Bush family align itself at the time?

Ans: Republican. Yes Virginia, Once upon a time the Republican party had the strength of the current day libertarian party in most places in the south. The Democrat political machine ran everything south of the mason dixon line, and I do mean "ran".

Question #4: Were pilots from the Texas Air National Guard Mobilized during Vietnam?

Ans: Yes. One pilot of ironic interest is the said same Col. Killian, Bushs Squadron commander, who was in Vietnam in 1968, as was Bushs flight instructor.

Question #5: What aircraft was George W. Bush certified to fly in the Air National Guard?

Ans: The Convair F-102. Details can be found here.

Question #6: Was this aircraft used in Vietnam, and were there any losses?

Ans: Yes. 15 Aircraft of this type were lost in South East Asian Theater of Operations. Interestingly, the 147 Group, of which Lt. Bushs' squadron was a part of, flew the F-102 in Vietnam.

Question #7: If the goal of George W. Bush was to avoid dangerous duty, is there perhaps a better choice available in the National Guard besides being a pilot in single engine, single seat subsonic fighter aircraft which he could have chosen to 'bide his time'?

Ans: Sure. Ask Rep. Richard Gebhardt of Missouri.

Question #8: In what way will family and political connections aid the pilot of a single seat aircraft experiencing 'hard IFR' conditions at night and low on fuel in the midst of an all too common Texas thunderstorm?

Ans: It dont matter whos your daddy when your the "Pilot in Command" of a single seat aircraft.

Question #9: Since jet fighter aircraft and pilot training are an expensive line items on the accounting books of any organization, is it at all likely that an organization like the Air Force and its subsidiary, the Air National Guard would allow a pilot of low regard near an expensive piece of hardware where even under the best of conditions a pilot stands a better than average chance of killing himself and destroying the said same aircraft, resulting in hours of legal paperwork and untold 'courts of inquiry' into the accidental and untimely death of a scion of a rich political family?

Ans: Imagine youre Col. Killian. One day, someone walks into your office and presents you with a new wetnose officer. You are introduced and someone tells you that this is a "Congressmans kid". "Great", you say to yourself. Your first task is to find out what kind of guy this is, is he a whiner? a tattletale? a 'little napoleon' out to make his bones as real he-man medal hound? or worse is he a danger to himself and the other pilots in the Squadron, and possibly an embarrasment to you and your command?

The one thing you are not going to do is take chances. If "Young Mr. Bush" goes out one day and crashes into an elementary school, it isnt going to be him that takes the heat, its going to be you. He will be a hero for staying with his plane, while you will be the incompentent officer who's shoddy paperwork lead to the disaster. If the FNG is anything short of great, he's going to be the new squadron supply officer, just as soon as you talk to the Squadron flight surgeon to tell him with a wink of your eye that your 'positive' that our young pilot has a small "heart arythmia". Something not too messy, or scary, just something to keep our boy away from the pointy end of expensive aircraft.

What did the real Col. Killian do with the real Lt. Bush? He put Lt. Bush on alert status full time for 6 months and regular flight duty for 2 years. Never broke a nail, never crashed into an elementary school, never embarrased the good Colonel or his command.

Question #10: If the only way to get a coveted spot in the National Guard during Vietnam was due to favoritism by wealth and power, how did Dick "my dad was a union milkman" Gephardt get in to the Missouri Air National Guard at the same time that George W. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard?

Ans: Well golly, maybe George W. Bush put in a good word for him, so that he could manipulate Rep. Gephardt in the future over his vote on Iraq. Those Bush people are just evil plotters, they are willing to wait decades to collect on a debt. They are like the mafia, just ask Kitty Kelly.

Posted @ September 13, 2004 10:35 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)

You wont see this on the shelf at COMPUSA

The latest attempt by our "friends in Redmond" to corner the market in campaign document forgeries.

As I'm a Linux guy, I wont soil my desktop with software from "Big Bill", so I'm waiting for the GNU version to appear.

Posted @ September 13, 2004 10:02 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

History's Forgotten Forgers: Epstein

I was trying to think of when I had seen a worse case of forgery, and then it hit me:

Welcome Back, Kotter! Circa 1975.

The I noticed the actors name who played "Epstein" - Robert Hedyes

Could this be the same person referenced as "Hodges" in this Washington Post piece:

"Yesterday, another retired Air National Guard officer came forward to attack the network's credibility. Retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, who was cited by a senior CBS official on Thursday as the network's "trump card" in verifying the documents, said in an interview that he was "misled" by CBS and believes the documents to be forgeries. "
Hodges, Hedyes. It could be true. I want it to be true, therefore it must be true.

EPSTEIN FORGED THE NOTES!

Posted @ September 13, 2004 11:04 AM | Election 2004 | Comments (1)

A Note to Main Stream Media

If it bothers you to say the word 'blog', try saying 'freelance reporter'. Instead of castigating the web denizens,why not join forces and use them as a resource instead? We are everywhere, and we have a vast capacity to find information, provide analysis, and publish the results back to you in a short time frame. We generally dont care if you take credit for the work as long as we get the gig.

if you are paying a huge set of fees to use the news feeds from AP and Reuters, why not look at the "blogosphere" as just one more "newsfeed" from which to pull information?

Try to remember that Journalism is a methodology, not a job title. Anyone can practice journalism. You don't need a pay code from an employer to practice good reporting. If you're worried about our 'lack of editorial standards', try to be aware that most of us allow comments on our posts and actually like it when our readers correct us, its a good thing to be found wrong and to publish the corrections when you are. I'd rather have rigorous fact checking provided by my readers than assume that my readers are just carbon based self replicating space heaters.

The important thing to remember is not that you might be smarter than your readers but that your readers and you are sharing information on a given subject. I am not smarter than my readers, I just happen to take the time to write it up and post it. I dont make the news, I just "paint what I see". In the world of the blog, Information is rarely owned, its shared, discussed analyzed and the whole process is published. See, we assume that if youre smart enough to get online in the first place, then you are smart enough to think for yourself.

I know it upsets alot of you who got into the business not to write, but to 'change the world', but its ok. Try to go with the flow. It's your only hope to stay relevant.

We are the blog, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

UPDATE: Nomenclature change: "Main Stream Media" shall now be known as "Ted Baxter Media". "Main Stream" Refers to their audience. "Ted Baxter" is the very defintion of the archetype of the blowdried morons that inhabit too many newsrooms these days.

Posted @ September 13, 2004 09:17 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)

Summary Analysis of John Kerry's "The New War"

In nine chapters and 168 pages from John Kerry himself about the world of international crime and terror. The book "The New War"

Ladies and Gentleman of the Blogosphere, I sacrifice my own eyes to keep each of you from going out to buy and read this book on your own. It's a small book, and with the help of this "Summary" you can glean most of what is needed in about 15 minutes from any bookshelf at any library or bookstore where you can find it. Abbie Hoffman, eat your heart out.

Mark Twain once offered an analysis of another book where he called the it "cholorform in print"**. I always thought that was a good line, so I will use it here as its best approximates the effect this book has upon large mammals like myself. This is one tough book to read, if you read it with John Kerrys 'Boston Foghorn" voice as your inner dialog, it could probably be used at Guantanamo to break Taliban detainees.

Senators often suffer the affliction of 'Senator-itis' where they feel free to pontificate in their own voice how they would run the world if they were in charge. This book is poorly written, poorly edited and almost never gets to the point. Kerrys book is long on "tsk-tsk" and short on action, perhaps that alone can serve as the best summation of Mr Kerrys long, yet dull, career.

Kerrys Book, "the New War" is the lawyer or accountants version of Sun Tzus or Clausewitz' treatise on war. Mr. Kerry feels that with enough paperwork and enough lawyers, international criminal elements and their little brothers, the terrorists, can be dealt with in a civilized fashion. There is no discussion given to law enforcement, or perhaps even police action or dare I say, War, as a way of putting the nefarious criminals in check.

What follows is a chapter by chapter breakdown of the book:

Dedicated to his mother and father, and daughters with the words:

“ …who taught me to look beyond our shores and in all directions”

Really. It sounds like an SNL sketch, but you can’t make that stuff up. I’m sure it doesn’t sound so pompous in the original French dialect, but in English it sounds pretty thankless and soulless at the same time.

Chapter 1 – Darkness Visible

Summary: Capitalizing on his former Criminal Prosecutor role, Kerry tells how crime has become an international enterprise requiring an international response. To deal with the problem, America must retool itself to meet this challenge by confronting its bigotry and biases at home and in some cases, must give up some of its freedoms and liberties. Kerry equates international criminal enterprises with the forces of fascism in World War II.

Money quotes:

Paragraph 2; page 32:
“America must lead an international crusade, rallying together domestically on a bipartisan basis. We must recover our courage and moral vision”.

Last paragraph of page 32 :
“In forging in international alliance against crime, Americans will have to confront some of our most dangerous domestic demons: race, poverty, street crime and the often inflammatory politics that surround them. We will have to wrestle with issues that challenge our deepest beliefs about our constitutional freedoms and our appropriate international role. But success in those struggles will only make us all the more fit to lead the world into war against the sworn enemies of civilized law and human liberty.”

Thoughts:

Kerry makes every effort to equivocate the actions of the Maoist Shining Path with the “Montana freeman” as if they were anywhere in the same league. The “I,I,I,Me,Me,Mine” meme continues unabated in this chapter. There is no mention of al-queda. One mention of Saddam Hussein, but only as a dismissive throwaway line on page 32. Kerry uses the term “we” almost as an invective, such as “you there, peasant, get off my lawn…”.

Chapter 2 – Hijacking the Russian bear

Summary: While Communist, Russia was certainly a bad country, but now that it’s free of Communism, its worse off than before, and what’s worse, it’s all our fault. Apparently, Reagan didn’t have a plan to win the peace after the cold war (the old fool….). Russia is now the center of a large criminal enterprise, one that we have been lax in paying attention to, and again, it’s all our fault.

Money quotes:

Page 50 “As an example of our failure to treat the globalization of crime with appropriate seriousness, it took until 1994 for the FBI to open an office in Moscow”

Page 50 “ The greatest danger to us comes from the damage that crime can do to the Russian economy and therefore its stability and fight for democracy’

Thoughts:
If you read this chapter and replace the word “Russia” with Iraq, you make the best case for the Iraq Theatre of operation in the Jihadi War. I don’t want to be overly harsh, but the man seems almost nostalgic for the control that communism provided.

Chapter 3 – China on the Brink

Summary: China while still remaining true to the holy church of communism is every bit as big a threat as is Russia, due mostly to our incompetence in dealing with them. China is teetering on the edge of being a criminal enterprise, and we have done nothing to stop it from becoming one.

A theme is starting to evolve within the book:

"It's all your fault - and only I can save you from yourself!"

Money quotes:

Page 69 “Nobody knows what Chinas future will bring. China is veiled by our ignorance, by it’s own preference for secrecy and discretion and by its sheer numbers. There are too many people, too many factors in the equation for anyone to fathom. China has to be a mystery even to itself.

Thoughts:
If I were his editor, I would have cut this chapter. I think its here to pad the book out to a respectable page count. Very little is said, and the kidney trade story is, well, odd in light of the subject matter of world terrorism.

Chapter 4 – Who Stole Colombia?

Summary: Colombia is not really a country but a drug cartel wrapped inside the protection of an internationally recognized sovereign state. Again, Kerry makes the case for why sovereignty should not offer protection from international law. Yet, who does Kerry blame? That’s right, you and me, compadre.

Money quotes:

Page 75: Get this! Kerry quotes himself! , Kerry quotes himself taking testimony in the Pablo Escobar hearings. This is like George Costanza talking about himself in the third person.
Page 78: Kerry makes a great case for the Patriot act by describing in detail how easy it is to avoid phone taps. Kerry blames Radio Shack.(Hey, Tandy Corp is based in Texas….)

“ …And having pointed out that Colombia is on the State Department’s list of top twenty money-laundering countries, I would be unfair not to mention that the United States also belongs to that elite club”

Thoughts:
On the closing paragraph in this chapter, Kerry again unintentionally makes the case for Iraq:

“ Democracy is a rare and recent development in human history; the world can ill afford to lose a single one. In Columbia, crime has killed democracy by turning it into a grotesque and humiliating parody of itself. “ The whole paragraph maks the clearest case yet for action in Iraq. If I were doing opposition research for the Bush campaign, I would be sure that this was noted and used in the debates.
Chapter 5 – Reengineering the Drug trade

Summary: The Drug trade, aided by NAFTA/GATT and other international trade agreements is worse than any war in Americas history, and our political class with their insistence on so called ‘free trade’. Oh, and by the way, its all your fault, peasant.

Money quotes:

Page 98 “Prime Minister Bhutto herself was forced out of office by Pakistans president who charged her with corruption, temporarily leaving no one even nominally in control of Pakistan. This is the kind of political vacuum made for exploitation by drug traffickers and terrorists as well”

Page 108“But aren’t there any positive effects of drug money on a nations economy?”

Thoughts:
Standard “War on drugs” boilerplate. It’s hard to disagree with something when it says essentially nothing of value or anything requireing any action. It's like someone writing 10 pages on how all babies should be fed and not go hungry, yet offer no plans on how to get food to the mothers of the babies. His biggest issue with the Taliban seems to be their part in illicit drug trade, no mention of their role in the obliteration of the rights of the women of Afghanistan.

Chapter 6 – The Globalization of terror

Summary: Aided by our recent trade agreements with NAFTA and GANNT, the world of terror is at our footsteps. Alothough I voted for both, I know that they will bite us later. Terrorists are everywhere, not just overseas, and some of them are driven by their hatred of the West. The Unabomber is driven by the way that modern life is not as nice as it could be.

Money quotes:

Page 122-123 - Quoting Ted Kaczynski “ The Industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race…”. Indeed there is a general sense of displeasure with technology that accompanies its obvious benefits”.

Thoughts:
This chapter is in fact the core of the book. If you are going to the library to skim read this pontificating tome, this is the only chapter worth reading. However, his argument is layered on the back of the idea that global crime enterprises, which are really just an extension of normal business corporations are the real enemy, not terrorists per se. Terrorists are just another flavor of ice cream in the freezer of John Kerrys mind.

Chapter 7 – Human Contraband

Summary: Apparently, Mr. Kerry has detected that there are many people who regularly flout our border controls to enter the country illegally. As a resident of California, I concur Mr. Kerry.

Money quotes:
None.

Thoughts:
If Kerry wanted to win the election, this chapter would serve as the centerpiece for the campaign. Its clear, cogent and direct. My guess is someone else wrote it.

Chapter 8 – Where Dirty money washes up

Summary: Kerry makes his role in the fall of BCCI a center stage case for international banking regulation. Noriega and Oliver North serve as the authors protagonists in this tale on international intrigue.

Money quotes:

Page 151 Willie Sutton robbed banks because “that’s where the money was” . Oh Wit!, thy name is 'Kerry'.

Thoughts:
Throughout this chapter Kerry says in some form of the following quote “ …a painful example of how transnational criminals inevitably erode a nations sovereignty, jeopardize its security and even threaten its very sense and definition of identity". Given that Kerry is constantly telling us that our main duty is to work with other countries as allies, he seems to have forgotten that very often the other countries have been compromised by the forces that are trying to kill us.

Chapter 9 – A vision of victory

Summary: Kerry says that there are essentially three strategies to take in the new war, Multilateral, Bilateral, and oh heaven forbid, Unilateral. In all three cases, Kerry calls upon a completely new set of international conventions to deal with the problems he’s has outlined in the book.
He advocates strategies such as making money laundering an international criminal crime. Well golly, I sure wished we had thought of that. Why sure, make it illegal, why couldnt we see that before!

This last chapter is painful to read. In the rest of the book, Kerry repeatedly points out the failures of countries to deal with the low level types of problems with international crime. The fact that a countries sovereignty is often used a shield for nefarious activities by criminal gangs is an obvious problem. Yet, in Kerrys proposed solutions he repeatedly points out that “we, nor should anyone else be made to give up sovereignty”. I think he believes that by the time anyone gets to this point of the book, they are likely not awake anyway to offer any objections to his case.

His solutions take the form of written agreements between sovereign states that agree to behave to a global canon of ethics. Yet, Kerry has spent 8 Chapters outlining the failure of just such an existing structure. He seems to think that the problem is that all previous international law was simply poorly worded, and if he and his crack legal team were able to get rid of all the partisan "democracy" fol-der-ol, why he'd have the world running better in no time at all.

Money quotes:

“in a globalized world, our national security is only as strong as the weakest link” (Get thee to an editor, sir!)

Page 186“In 1994 I went to President Clinton and we agreed it was essential to put 100,000 more cops on U.S. streets within five years.

Page 173 “Obviously, the United States cannot go it alone” – referring to the “war on international crime and drug trafficking ”

Page 189 “Going abroad is not the only solution, of course. We need to get our own house in order. Legislators must join the executive and judicial branches of government in revising laws and reconfiguring relevant agencies to strengthen our response to the complex, multidimensional nature of global crime today.” – Apparently, Kerry was for the patriot act before it was even proposed.

Items stated in the book that require further research
( To Your Horses Fellow pajama clad Blog demons!):

1. Kerry makes the statement that he ran the criminal division of the DA’s office in Middlesex County Massachusetts(page 17). What did he do? and what was his record?

2. Kerry says he had a role to play in the prosecution of Howie Winter of the Winter Hill gang (page 17). Really? what was the role, and what is the concensus of the legal community on this case.

3. Kerry says in 1987, “my work shut down BCCI, and in the process I uncovered the bad guys”(page 18) . BCCI was a big stinkburger of a case, I'll bet you theres more than one grub under this bit of debris. I do remember that Kerry took quite a bit of heat from other Democrats for his calling the venerated "Clark Clifford" up to testify.

4. Kerry makes a big stink about Chinas trade in Human Kidneys and other Human body organs. I have head these stories before, but I always attributed them to nacent western racism or urban legends. (pages 65-69)

5. He states that crack cocaine is named for the sound the cocaine crystals make as they burn. ( page 106)
6. On Page 96, He states that Taliban took power in 1996. Did Kerry ever once give any speech about the Taliban and its takeover in Afghanistan?

** - I am aware of the book he reviewed for that quote on. I would not take it too personally, as Mr. Clemens was hard on the entire human race, and not just those of the faith. I personally think he was a bit too harsh. but it was a good line and deserved the best of all compliments and that is to be borrowed for use elsewhere.

CORRECTED: Columbia changed to the correct "Colombia". Thanks Rich.

Posted @ September 12, 2004 11:06 PM | Kerry File | Comments (4)

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth...

Blast, Mushroom Cloud Reported in N. Korea

Information just starting to come in about a very large ( hinting at nuclear ) explosion in the same areas of North Korea.

Its 1:00 PM local time over there, I suspect we will know more by the time I get up in about 10:00 hours time, but this key passage from the Reuters report:

Citing an unidentified source in Beijing, Yonhap said the explosion happened on Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. The damage and crater left by the explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county was big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.

First - To be noticed from space, its not a standard every day 'train accident', like last time.
Second - Nice to know someones looking, and knows where to look.
Third - It appears to be the Chinese who are doing the most looking, which seems right.

UPDATE: NKOR says its just excavation for a hydroelectric dam.

Posted @ September 11, 2004 09:22 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Occams Razor

I'd like to turn 'occams razor' on the CBS documents for just a second and ask a simple questsion:

"What evidence is there that can clearly verify that they ARE what CBS says they are?"

From the top of the document to the bottom we have every indication that the documents are frauds and bad ones at that. I'd like someone, anyone, anywhere to give me one thing on these documents that will help me say "ok, I cant get around that one - they must be real".

I can take one or maybe two things that seem odd, but the preponderance of evidence presented shows that they can only be fruads. For me, the PO BOX of '34567' makes my 'baloney detector' peg all the way over into the red. I guess '1212 boogieboogie Ave.' was just too over the top, even for them.

This is like someone throwing a pie plate in the air, taking a picture, and then insisting that I believe its a real spaceship from Tau Ceti, 'proof at last' of life in outerspace!

It's not that I don't want to believe in life on Tau Ceti, and if presented with evidence that shows it, that I wouldn't believe it when presented with it. However, when you are reduced to tossing pie plates into the sky, it makes me think that you really don't have a case, and maybe you should go home to your apartment over your parents garage and read your comic books. To make matters worse, it makes me think that you think I'm stupid, which is a really good way to make sure I don't listen to you ever again, even if you do get real pictures of Tau Ceti Spaceships.

There's an old saying that applies here that says 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs". If you want me to believe your case, that Bush was a malingering patrician familiy advantage pusher, I'm willing to accept that, if given evidence that says it's so.

But when the evidence that has been put in front of me shows:

- A clearly faked PO BOX

- Is not on paper of the type used in military documents ( onion skin)

- Uses the wrong letterhead, and appears to be referencing the wrong group in relation to the Squadron.

- Has the wrong referenced regulation

- Uses nomenclature not used in military documents of the same era

- Cannot be sourced to the location where these little gems have resided for the past 35 years

- Does not contain distribution notes at the bottom for filing.

- Is not based on originals only on copies not in possesion by those performing authentication

- Facts purported are in direct opposition to all other known documentation of the subject.

I'm not going to even get into the fact that the presented documents are clearly not produced by a typewriter. If CBS is correct then any other document available from the same organization at the same vintage should look similar. Simple answer, They dont - or we would see side by side comparisons.

I wonder if CBS had the good sense to go to the secretarial pool of their vast enterprise and ask one of the grand old ladies who surely work there what they thought about the documents or if they could replicate such a thing.

Update: What I think we got here kids is a good old fashioned case of what we pilots call "get-there-itis". "Get-there-itis" affects otherwise smart and capable pilots who put an overriding priority on the need to "get there" and as a result, overlook the basic safety practices in flying. "Get-there-itis" is why year after year, pilots of great acclaim manage to stuff their aircraft into mountains, land downwind during thunderstorms and crash in flames, run out of gas, or simply get lost; Ameila Earhart serves as but one 'poster child' for this disease.

CBS is an organization with a great history of solid journalism. The producer of this piece on GWB's military history is also the producer who found the abu girab story, she is obviously good at her job. Dan Rather is most certainly a good journalist. So what happened? How did people so smart and professional allow themselves to 'fly into a mountain'?.

What I think happened here is that they needed "the story" to be true, so much so that they left themselves open to the suggestion that the information in the documents proffered were in point of fact true, when nearly all objective observers outside of "the bubble" see the information for the clear fraud that it surely is.

The 'fever swamp' that opposes President Bush also needs the story to be true. They need it so much that there are many websites that are offering real cash money for any and all documents the 'prove' that bush was a malingering drunk while in service.

Enter,stage left - the producer, eager to continue her trend of headline breaking ( hopefully president breaking ) "news". Enter stage right - thousands of people only too willing to provide documentation for something they all know is true anyway( so what could be the harm in just making it up?) and you have all the makings of a full sized self-hallucinatory 'endulgence'.

Hey-presto-chango-hey-diddle-diddle and out pops a fraud. No one did it on purpose, no one involved thinks thats what they are doing, but that is in fact, what has happened. There are times when a hoax just takes on a life of its own, and this is one of those times.

I have lots of friends who really REALLY believe in UFO's. I don't, because frankly I've seen too many of them. One trick I love to play on them is to take them out at night into an area of good darkness and get them to talk openly about UFOs and what they believe about UFO's. A couple of beers helps. All the while I keep an eye on my watch, because before we left for this little trip, I managed to look up when the next 'iridium flare' would occur in the area.

When the flare occurs, (always like clockwork), I act shocked and then I let the victim go on and on to exclaim how that "it must've been a UFO- Theres no other explanation! ". They go on to tell me that I must agree with them now, after all I've just seen one with my own eyes! They can't wait to take me back to civilization, one of the newly converted to the great cause.

When we return to the car, I pull out the printed copy ofthe 'iridium flare' prediction. At that point, they know they have been had.

Interestingly enough, there is still a large percentage of people who when presented with the facts, still insist that it mustve been something more exotic, it just HAD to be a UFO!

So, what do I think we have with the CBS documents? What we have is the need to tell a story overriding the basic 'safety factors' of good journalism. The result is that a whole series of good journalists convinced themselves that they could 'scud-run' around the low clouds of a dangerous story, because, well, they were long time professionals who had taken chances like this thousands of times before and could get away with it again.

This is very similar to what is often the last thing that otherwise good pilots say on the last flights of their lives.

The real shame of this story isnt that a promising producer will take the fall for a poorly executed story, but an entire organization, made up of many good people who are truly innocent in this affair will suffer because of one persons overriding desire to 'get home'.

UPDATE I: The boys at Wizbang are on the case of who the actual forger is.

UPDATE II: A good breakdown by a good ( e.g. not a bush supporter) source can be found here.

Posted @ September 11, 2004 02:32 PM | Election 2004 | Comments (5)

Never Forget

I Will Never Forget, though sometimes wish I could.
I Will Never Forgive, although I know I should.

I fear we've let them down, and yet, I hope we haven't.
I hope we've all learned the lesson,
still I know the class has only begun.

An accounting has come due at the feast we have been given.
I know the bill has been prepared, for the liberty we have taken.

And while each may argue the cost of our freedoms;
All now know the high price that's been paid.

I Will Never Forget.

Frank Martin

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

Posted @ September 11, 2004 12:29 AM | History file | Comments (0)

Kerry Book "The New War" II - First A-HA!

I'm busy chasing down all sorts of things as a result of the first read through of "The New War". But in the first of what are sure to be many A-HA'S! I found this.

Money quote:
During this period, Kerry was linked romantically with several Hollywood starlets, including Morgan Fairchild

John Kerry vis a vis Tommy Flanagan?

Ever seen Jon Lovitz in the same place as Kerry? Coincidence? I think not!

I'm punchy. Theres a days worth of googling to do on the details found in this book.

UPDATE: Kerry mentioned his book, traffic comes a flyin. Heres the finished piece

Posted @ September 10, 2004 11:28 PM | Kerry File | Comments (0)

Kerry Book "The New War" I - First Pass

What I've learned so far.

One of the weirdest things about whats been going on lately has been why the Kerry campaign has been using, of all people, Senator Tom Harkin as a mouthpiece to speak for Kerrys military experience. This is really, really odd to me, given that Harkins own military record is a model for how not to take credit for something you didn't do. Senator Harkin has taken credit for things he simply and completely did not do as part of his military record, this is not partisan rhetoric, his own party denounced his proclamiations of service in Vietnam, when he was in fact nowhere near the place.

Yet, despite Kerry under a barrage of accusations for doing very similar things, the Kerry campaign is using the said same Senator Harkin to vouch for Kerry veracity.

Why?

Well, in my reading of Kerrys book "the New War', I discovered that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Harkin have been collaborative partners for some time.

On April 15th 1985, newly elected Senator Kerry and Senator Tom Harkin went to Nicaragua to meet with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega.

I'm putting together a timeline for how these two have worked together and what they have worked on. In light of the rather surprising turn that history brought us with the fall of communism, just 7 years after this fateful visit, It does not look good for either Mr. Harkin or Mr. Kerry to have made such a bet for a losing side.

This is just one crouton in a whole salad bar of tasty, crunchy goog-able facts. And it's all in Kerrys own words. Theres good and bad in that of course. First, as I said before, Kerry starts nearly every sentence with the word I. He rarely if ever says " We in the senate' or even "We Democrats", it's 194 pages of "I,I,I, Me, Me, Mine". If he does reference someone else, it is only to bask in their reflected glory.

Look, this book is like the La Brea tar pits. Its a historical repository that represents all that John Kerry thinks about in terms of the world as whole and the world of terrorism.

I think this book and the things Kerry talks about and the conclusions he draws in it are why we are all talking about Vietnam. The Vietnam thing from Kerry is like a magicians misdirection, watch the right hand while the left is moving the card to another location.

However, unlike his views on Vietnam, theres no excusing some of the things I see in here as part of the 'angry young man,betrayed by his country ' meme, but this is all very recent stuff by comparison, this book was written in 1997, this is not the heady days of the early 1970's we are talking about. Kerry is an adult at this point and has dropped the snot-nosed patrician Boston accent. I also recognize alot of what I see in here as reflections of things I read in "The Star Spangled Mirror" by his father Richard Kerry. It will be interesting to go back and do a line by line comparison.

One other thing of note. Al Qeada, Osama Bin Laden are not mentioned anywhere in the book. This book was also written prior to the release of both Pakistan and India into the "Nuclear Club", something I consider one of the key failures of the Clinton Administration.

UPDATE: Since Kerry Decided to mention his book, traffic to this piece has gone up. Heres the final link to the finished review.

Posted @ September 10, 2004 08:48 PM | Kerry File | Comments (1)

Breaking My ' No Kerry ' Pledge

Today, I found a copy of a book written by Kerry in 1997 - The New War.. It is a book on terrorists. Imagine that, A book on terrorism that Kerry wrote well in advance of 9/11 and I haven't heard a word about it.

Now, The last time I read a book that involved Kerry, I snapped and wrote the "Farewell John Kerry' piece. I haven't heard of this book before, nor have I heard anyone from inside or outside the Kerry camp comment on how 'in 1997 I said in my book: the new war "blah,blah,blah..." This gets my interest up. I wonder if the whole Vietnam riff is just a smokescreen to cover up some really dumb things that he may have said about the 'war on terror'.

So I will break my pledge for this effort only and provide a breakdown of what the book has to say.

Blog entry to follow as soon as I read to completion.

Update I: In the preface , page 1, sentence 2 - He mentions that he was in Vietnam. Unbelievable. I'm begining to wonder if this is going to be a book level fisking. The hardest part of reading this is trying to keep his monotonous voice out of my inner dialog while I'm reading it. I will try to channel Richard Kiley or Charlton Heston( or maybe Jacques Cousteau...).

Update II: Oh good lord. It's worse than I thought.

RED ALERT: THIS IS A BOOK LEVEL FISKING UNDERWAY
194 pages. The word "I" starts almost every sentence. pray for me.

Posted @ September 10, 2004 03:48 PM | Kerry File | Comments (1)

Delta to Marines: Drop Dead

This just makes me livid, first at the premenstrual polyester wrapped hairsprayed house-cow from Chicago and then at the 'just following orders' morons at Delta.

All I have to say is don't even think of letting this happen if you're on the same flight as me. ( not that I fly Delta with any regularity, I just dont think I should have to go to Salt Lake City and sit for 2 hours to get to Seattle from Sacramento, but hey, I'm just picky I guess.)

To better serve the 'weak willed' amongst us who still cant see who deserves more service than others, I present:

Varifrank's 'order of precedence' for serving people( highest to lowest):

1. Small Children
2. Mothers of Small Children
3. Pregnant women
4. Elderly or infirmed
5. Men or Women in Service ( Military, Police, Fire )
6. Family of Men or Women in Service ( Military, Police, Fire )
7. You
8. Me
9. Vendor ( Airline, Hotel, Resort ) Personnel
10. Holders of elective office

You get it people? It's not about you.

Why is Delta going bankrupt? Gosh, I can't figure it out.......

Update I : I worked at Delta for 18 months. The people I know there are a hundred times more mad at this than I am.

Update II: 'premenstrual polyester wrapped hairsprayed house-cows' come on this list right after "recently paroled criminals" and right before "convicts en route to prison".

Posted @ September 09, 2004 10:21 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

You know what I dont like?

· People who feel the only real threat to world peace are people who wish to be free.

· People who think the defense and expansion of human liberty are “cultural imperialism”, but slavery and genocide are simply "cultural misunderstandings".

· People who think ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are just fallacies for small-minded religious nuts.

· People who insist on their ‘right to free speech’, yet make death threats at others for simply speaking in opposition.

· People who say “dissent is patriotic” yet condemn any overt display of patriotism.

· People who believe that peace comes into being by any other process, except capitulation.

· People who cannot accept the reality of the evil that men do.

· People who decry crass commercialism, and then condemn the desire to find meaning in ones life.

· People who think that there was no world before they were born and that the world will end when they die.

· People who forget the sacrifices of their ancestors.

· People who fail to understand what a miracle their life really is.

· How every man who defends freedom is considered 'another Hitler', while every Socialist dictator is considered a "true savior of mankind”.

· The way people say they “support the troops”, yet deride their service and sacrifice at every opportunity.

· The way most everyone fails to recognize the simple elegance of a sunrise.

· The way I learned to accept the act of stepping over homeless people on the way to work as something normal.

· The quiet shame I feel for never having served my country.

· The way I miss my father and he’s not even gone.

· The way this time of year I look over my shoulder and I talk in hushed tones every time I hear a siren, hoping that the nightmare hasn’t returned.

· The dread I feel when I turn on the TV or the radio first thing in the morning. The silent hope of wishing that the first thing I hear is a commercial, knowing if I do, that things are ‘normal’.

· The way I choke back tears every time I see the WTC in the backdrop of a movie.

· The grief I feel when I think of all that we’ve gone through since that black day.

· The sadness I feel when I think of how far we have to go.

Posted @ September 08, 2004 10:26 PM | Election 2004 | Comments (3)

If a satellite falls.......

Will CNN report it?

Reuters Headline:
State that voted for Bush in 2000 has role in failure of science.

AP Headline:
NASA workers take heat as Bush Administration drops statellite.

NY Times Headline:
Earth pays for failure of Bush administration.

LA Times Headline:
Satellite falls in wasteland beyond Barstow.

Seattle Times Headline:
Big light in sky scares llama herds for miles around. Council of shaman report " It's Bushs fault"

Boston Globe Headline:
Kerry would have caught satellite.

Chicago Tribune Headline:
Bush drops satellite on purpose to help friends in aerospace industry.

Update: National Review Magazine:
Metaphor for Kerry campaign lands in Utah.

Posted @ September 08, 2004 10:23 AM | Comments (3)

One in five Germans want Berlin Wall back

Apparently, theres trouble in the German paradise

Of course, the punchline here is "9 out of 10 Frenchman want the wall back too"!

Posted @ September 08, 2004 09:41 AM | Comments (2)

Ghosts of Thermopylae

It’s been said by many people that the terrorists of today are fighting a different kind of war.

Bullshit.

This war is the same kind of war that’s been fought for 10,000 years. All military action, no matter the tools, techniques or players is designed to do one thing:

“ Make your enemy lose the will to resist”

Sometimes, you can do this by just showing up offshore with a Naval Task Force. Sometimes, it takes years of horrible fighting in near hand to hand conditions to get the other side to stop resisting. But no matter if it’s a long artillery barrage, naval blockade or medieval castle siege, the goal is the same, get the other side to give up and submit to negotiations.

For 10,000 years, all human warfare can be gauged by one simple metric. You are winning when the other side breaks ranks and runs. Therefore, all political action in concert with military action is designed support that one thing, “breaking the will”.

So, let’s take a look at the battlefield today. Some direct combatants, some indirect combatants, but make no mistake, the target they are aiming at is the same. Terrorists aren’t attacking factories or armies or navies at sea. They aren’t putting cities at siege or capturing ships in harbor.

They are attacking our spirits; they are attacking our will to resist.

Today we passed one of those asinine 'green eyeshades' metrics. U.S. death toll at 1,000 as forces battle al-Sadr

Let's be clear about this. Iraq is a battle, It's the world that is at war. When we have battlefields in this war as diverse as Bali, Morocco, Beslan, Madrid and yes, Manhattan it should be clear to all that there is no safe haven, no border, no ocean that we can hide behind for safety. There is no mountain range or river behind which we can hide, no philosophy we can adapt to make ourselves less a target.

I want every one who reads this to understand what I am about to say and let there be no mistake about what I am saying and that I'm not at all happy when I say it, but it needs to be said:

We will lose 100,000 soldiers,sailors and airmen before this war is over, maybe more.

This isn't a war in Iraq, it's a battle. It's a battle in which the enemy can't afford to lose and we can't afford to retreat. To allow the blasphemy of Democracy and the doctrine of human liberty into the domain of Islam belies the failures of their tyrannical leaders. Democracy is like a stake through the heart of the Jihadist tyrannies that have already destroyed the once proud and prosperous peoples of the middle east. These forces are now on their way to destroy the other 3/5ths of the earth if we let them win by giving into their will, by letting them break our spirits.

Iraq is just one battle, there will be many many others. Some of the battles in this war will be fought here at home and yes, many more of our "civilians " will die in this war. Our civilians, both left and right, democrats and republicans will die, not because killing them is militarily effective for the Jihadis, but simply because by killing us, the jihadis feel they can break our will to resist.

And that is what this whole thing comes down to. Will we, as free people, who want nothing more to live our lives and to be left alone, resist the forces of Jihadism?

But "What if"?

What if we retreat in this war, then what? Will the weak countries of the world continue to fight while America signs a separate peace with the mullahs? Shall we expect that Europe, already prostrate before the powers of tyranny, to fight on without us when they can't defend themselves even today? Can we expect the new children of Democracy, of which Russia is but one member, to fight on for liberty if we were to crawl back into our coccoon of consumer safety?

How shall we best lead the world?

I beleive the idea of "civilians" died in Guernica, Hamburg, London, Nanking, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was brought home again to me when our people died in downtown Manhattan. We are all targets, we are all combatants and the fastest way to get this war over with the least amount of death is to get busy fighting it. The more we wince, the more we shirk from the job at hand the more they rub their hands together and say to each other:

"one more day my fellow jihadi brothers, and their lines will surely break".

We determine the length of this war by the depth of our determination that it must be fought. If we decide to shirk, the war will grow longer and more deadly. If we fight with diligence and with force, it will end quicker and with less bloodshed for all.

Just as we recognize the "round number" metric of today at 1000 soldiers lost, we must also recognize that many, many more of us will not live to see the day when the whole world lives in freedom, but we must all dedicate ourselves to the cause that says that even for our enemies, it is a world that must be.

For without liberty and freedom, there will be no world at all.

The words echo up from our past:

Steel yourselves my friends. Stand up, grab your shields and swords and be prepared to meet the growing enemy, for tommorow we will all surely dine in Hades.

Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Posted @ September 07, 2004 03:50 PM | History file | Comments (1)

September: A Big Month for Aviation

In 10 days, I'll be attending the Reno Air Races. Considering the fact that half my wardrobe is t-shirts with pictures of airplanes on them, I'm sort of required to go to replenish my annual stock. Althought I foolishly didn't bring a digital camera with me to the Chino Air Show this year and didnt have a blog at the time, I won't miss the opportunity this time to post the pictures of the event. I will also be springing for a 'pit pass' for the "up close and personal" effect. This year like last year, there will be Jets racing! Although nothing beats the sound of a bunch of V-12 Merlins going past you at 400+ miles per hour, the sight of 6 or 7 jets in close formation going around the pylons isn't bad either.

When I was a kid, I lived in a trailer park on the other side of the valley from what was then "Stead Air Force Base", where the Air Races are held today. We lived in a real live single wide aluminum "trailer", with myself and my 3 sisters and a big German Shepard named "Buck'. One summer day, my Dad brought home a Comet model airplane - A piper cub. I dont think I was more than 4 or 5, but the process of taking a pile of balsa out of a box and making an airplane that really flew is something I will never forget. The day he and I first ran down the dirt road in front of the trailer and launched that little plane into the air is the day my love of aviation and engineering started.

I've been going to the Reno Air Races every year since 1987. For me, it marks the formal start of the year. I go not just to see the air races, but as sort of a memorial to a day a very long time ago, where a boy and his dad ran down a little dirt road and sparked the imagination thats lasted for over 40 years.

Thanks Dad. I'm sure it was just an afternoon of fun for you, but it was a lifetime of love for me and I've never forgotten it.

I will also be uncharacteristically taking a day off of work in midweek to go to the X-Prize Launch in Mojave on September 29th. Go Scaled! I still dont know if the Scaled team has decided to launch with three astronauts or to use "dead wieght". I Guess since Im not blogging about Kerry, it might give me time to go find out.

I wonder how many kids will have their imagination sparked by the Burt and his team and what things might they build in their future?

If an ignorant kid like me can go from a trailer in Lemon Valley, Nevada to building "high availability fault tolerant grid based stateless servers", what will the future be?

UPDATE:Show your support of Free Space, Free Enterprise and SpaceShipOne by visiting Rocket Boosters

Posted @ September 05, 2004 02:48 PM | Aviation | Comments (1)

I got yer bounce right here...

Theres only one sound that can go with this, from your friend and mine Gary Oldman

Posted @ September 03, 2004 01:01 PM | Election 2004 | Comments (0)

Overheard on IM:( The new water cooler)

Best quotes overheard last night at the cyber water-cooler of Instant Messenger:

While we all of us on our chat session loved the Presidents speech, the real show of the evening was watching Kerrys attempt to get back in the game afterwards

SNIP...
K**ry's now runnin' like a scalded dog

SNIP...
You know anyone with a car in their driveway from 1968?
Then why in the hell would anyone want to put a man in the whitehouse who still thinks its 1968?

SNIP...
Holy Christ!, he just said Vietnam again. If you took that word out of vocabulary, you'd get nothing out of his piehole but but the words "I and Me".

SNIP..
Who's bright idea was it to keep a 60 year old man up past midnight to give a speech?

SNIP...
Is there anyone on the planet that doesnt look at this as sad and pathetic?

SNIP...
Just like a politician from Massachusetts to schedule a rally at midnight on a weeknight completely ignoring that people have to get up in the morning get the kids to school and go to work.

(reply)

You say that like he ever got up for work and got the kids to school or knew anyone who did.

Posted @ September 03, 2004 08:53 AM | Election 2004 | Comments (1)

Milestone: 30,000 visitors!

Varifrank Vital Statistics :

Three weeks of blogging = 33 posts, 180 comments, 525 emails, 10 hate mails, 3 death threats.

2 Vodka-lanches
2 Insta-lanches

Results in :

30,000 unique visits.

My sincere thanks to all.

Note to varifrank: Those classes in English you skipped as a kid, where they talked about spelling and punctuation? They might have been helpful after all.

Posted @ September 02, 2004 05:31 PM | Comments (7)

Japan "Surrenders" : Candidate Asks "Where is the plan for Peace?

Japan Surrenders To Allies, Signs Rigid Terms On Warship; Truman Sets Today As V-J Day

After yesterday's recognition of the beginning of World War II, it is now only fair to match it with the announcement of end the war, September 2, 1945 but viewed through the lens of the politics of today.

Our Time Travelling candidate visits the past to provide a op-ed piece for the NY Times.

The original New York Times Page is found below

...SNIP.. "Of course it must be said at the beginning that we question the "timing" of the release of this information as it only serves to bolster the unproven and unilateral case that war can ever be for a 'good cause'. Each citizen of this great democracy should wonder aloud "where is the plan to win the peace"? The Japanese, a country who's culture is much older and wiser than our own, were under the control of a dictatorship and while we applaud the removal of that brutal regime, we cannot deny that the actions of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 helped keep that regime in place. Yet, the current "selected but not elected" Presidents actions have only punished the people of the great and diverse land.

I wonder if President Truman understands how "haughty" he sounds when he insists as many of his neo-con pro-business cabinet in insisting that Japan submit to our definition of "Democracy". President Truman has gone so far as to propose the establishment of rights for women and for the formation of unions within a constitution which we will write for the Japanese. These concepts are foreign to the Japanese and had the president ever travelled beyond the borders of his midwestern state, he would be aware of the worlds beautiful mosaic. It is with great shame that our country should be a part of such a blantant case of cultural imperialism.

It is foolish for the United States to believe it can force Democracy on to a culture at the end of a gun. It will only feed the hatred that the Asiatics have felt towards America. It was precisely this anger that lead to Pearl Harbor. How many more "Pearl Harbors" is Mr. Turman creating by his 'go it alone' approach in Japan?

While we certainly "support the troops", we cannot help but recognize the fraudulent coalition inolved with the illegal occupation of Japan does not include our stongest and most important allies, The Soviet Union, who's sacrifices in this war far outweigh those of our own. While President Truman says that this is the "United Nations", it is in fact a coalition lead by largely colonial powers who's only desire it is to secure the resources of the fallen empires for the use of the multinational corporatations , such as Michelin and Bayer and of course, "General" Motors and the anti-union Ford Corporation.

While the President may disagree with the protestors cry of "No Blood for Soy" , he cannot deny the anger that all thinking Americans feel towards him and his middle American upbringing. While the President has guided the Armed forces of the United States, over 45,000 men have died in places like Okinawa. Okinawa did not attack Pearl Harbor, and has no direct linkage to the so called "war against fascism" yet the poor people of Okinawa have been made to pay the price for our ignorant polices. While 'League of Nations' inspectors were kicked out of Pacific waters during the 1920's, the inspectors were able to verify that there were no "naval bases" in the Ryukyu islands. President Truman must answer why if the reason for invading Okinawa was to remove it as a base for the already defeated forces of Japan, why if not a single Japanese carrier was found in the waters around Okinawa.

The world awaits his answer.

The real question this country must ask is "where is the plan to win the peace"? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for the occupation of Japan?

We strongly urge the President to remove all American troops from Asia with all due haste as our occupation of the holy cities of Kyoto, and Tokyo will only inflame the growning insurgency against our troops."

....SNIP

Update: Just so everyones clear, the first part of this piece is a parody, the second part that follows is the actual history. The first part is a reflection of the knee-jerk prefabricated intention of the "candidate" to take history and spin it towards disaster. This is a new phenomenon, at least at the scale that it is being played today. What is interesting is how much of what I wrote is actually being said today by supposedly responsible people in regards to the current world situation.

The biggest mistake we make today is assuming that the challenges of the past were easy and guaranteed of success. They were not. Japan has a dozen alternate histories, all much worse for the world. Japan ( and Germany) are models for the world on how the embrace of liberty can have a transforming effect on nations of the world, and thus the betterment of all mankind.

On a sunny day in 1945, the "second half" of the world war which began in 1914, came to an end.

New York Times : Front Page Sept 2. 1945.
Sunday, Sept. 2--Japan surrendered formally and unconditionally to the Allies today in a twenty-minute ceremony which ended just as the sun burst through low-hanging clouds as a shining symbol to a ravaged world now done with war. Twelve signatures, requiring only a few minutes to inscribe on the articles of surrender, ended the bloody Pacific conflict.

On behalf of Emperor Hirohito, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed for the Government and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu for the Imperial General Staff.

MacArthur Voices Peace Hope

Gen. Douglas MacArthur then accepted in behalf of the United Nations, declaring:

"It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past." One by one the Allied representatives stepped forward and signed the document that blighted Japan's dream of empire built on bloodshed and tyranny.

First was Admiral Chester W. Nimitz for the United States, then the representatives of China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet and China fluttered from the veranda deck of the famed superdreadnaught, polished and scrubbed as never before. More than 100 high-ranking military and naval officers watched.

Pledges Justice and Tolerance

"As Supreme Commander for the Allied powers," General MacArthur told the Japanese, "I announce it my firm purpose, in the tradition of the countries I represent, to proceed in the discharge of my responsibilities with justice and tolerance, while taking all necessary dispositions to insure that the terms of surrender are fully, promptly and faithfully complied with."

All through this dramatic half hour, only those aboard the battleship knew of what was taking place, because the Missouri has no broadcasting facilities. But recordings were rushed to the near-by communications ship Ancon, and the solemn words of General MacArthur beginning the ceremony--"We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers"--were flashed around the world.

The Japanese representatives were present at the command of Emperor Hirohito contained in a proclamation issued by order of the Supreme Allied Commander. The Emperor further commanded his officials "to issue general order to the military and naval forces in accordance with the direction of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." The Imperial General Headquarters issued the order later.

Thus Emperor Hirohito formally acknowledged that General MacArthur's word in Japan would come foremost of all Japanese officialdom during the Allies' occupation of the country, which never before had been occupied by an alien force."I command all my people forthwith to cease hostilities," the Emperor said, "to lay down their arms and faithfully to carry out all the provisions of the instrument of surrender and the general orders issued by the Imperial General Headquarters hereunder."

All issues have been "determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate," General MacArthur said before he invited all representatives to sign the surrender instrument.
"Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do the majority of the peoples of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice or hatred," he added. "But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve. * * *"

General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz paid deep tribute to Allied dead and to the people of all Allied nations whose blood, work and sacrifices helped bring victory. Admiral Nimitz said he took "great pride in the American forces which have helped to win this victory," and declared that "America can be proud of them."

"The officers and men of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine who fought in the Pacific have written heroic new chapters in this nation's military history," Admiral Nimitz said. "I have infinite respect for their courage, resourcefulness and devotion to duty. We also acknowledge the great contribution to this victory made by our valiant allies. United we fought and united we prevail."

Admiral Nimitz observed that "the long and bitter struggle, which Japan started so treacherously on the seventh of December, 1941," was at an end.

Recalls Our Dark Days

General MacArthur touched obliquely on the bitter days of the early Philippine fighting when he said:

"As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that He has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mould victory." General MacArthur told of the Allies' plans to help Japan take her place among peaceful nations.

The Japanese used the knowledge gained from Western science to forge "an instrument of oppression and human enslavement," he said. Freedom of expression, action and thought were denied the Japanese through "application of force," he declared.

"We are committed by the Potsdam Declaration of principles to see that the Japanese people are liberated from this condition of slavery," the Allied leader declared. "It is my purpose to implement this commitment just as rapidly as the armed forces are demobilized and other essential steps taken to neutralize the war potential." He declared that "if the talents of the race are turned into constructive channels the country can lift itself from its present deplorable state into a position of dignity." General MacArthur said that "in Asia as well as in Europe unshackled peoples are tasting the full sweetness of liberty," and asserted that "in the Philippines America has evolved a model for this new free world of Asia." The United States granted the Philippines commonwealth status more than a decade ago, and the islands will in time become completely independent under an act of Congress."In the Philippines, America has demonstrated that peoples of the East and peoples of the West may walk side by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit," the general said. "The history of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East."

Posted @ September 02, 2004 02:55 PM | Kerry File | Comments (1)

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."

On September 1st 1939:
Hitler orders the extermination of those deemed by the state to be 'mentally ill" and orders the Nazi Armies to invade Poland. 17 Days later in concert with their German Allies, Russia invades Poland from the east and occupies the countries of Latvia, Lithuiania and Estonia according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty.

World War II has begun. 52 Million people will die as a direct result of the war. A war that by the time it was over, taught humanity about the inhumanity of concentration camps, work camps, "arbeit macht frei",conscription, flamethrowers, napalm, firebombing, carpet bombing, scorched earth, ethnic cleansing and the atomic bomb.

On September 1st 2004, Polish soldiers serve side by side with Americans and British soldiers in defense of liberty in Iraq while German,French and Russian governments protest their actions. I hope to God the Poles have forgiven us for our leaving them behind the Iron Curtain and I thank them all for the courage to stand up to tyranny. They are an example to all of us. The Germans, French and Russians serve as an example of how short some peoples memories really are and how spoiled some cultures have become.

W.H. Auden's poem "September 1st, 1939," fits the world stage today as the United States stands in rigid defiance to tyranny and yet many around the world wish for and live in desire for an increasingly pathological isolation as solution to our situation. It appears to W.H. Auden in 1939 as though we are prepared to take an incredible gamble for no good reason, and where would we be if he were correct?

Auden's poem, with all its incredulity, bitterness, dread and humanity-lacerating guilt, resonates with uncanny power. It is music for the coming shadows. It was written in New York City, the old city of Ralph Kramden, Damon Runyon, "Dave the Dude", Jack Dempseys "joint" and a colorful Mayor, an Italian fellow named "Fiorello", who knew how to run a city.

The poem wasn't written yesterday, but it might have been.

This is a day of shame for all Democracies. This day should serve as a warning to all future generations. Today is a warning to all free men and lovers of liberty that there is a cost to neglecting your obligations to civilization and that cost can be seen reflected in the eyes of every Polish citizen. Warsaw was not a just a victorious battlefield for the Nazis, but it was also the first of many graveyards for pacifist "good intentions".

Update: You can have Mike Moore, you can have Jimmy Carter. I will stand with this man. I am ashamed that we did not stand with him. No country can ask more of its men than what he sacrificed for freedom and no one could have been treated worse for his sacrifice.

Posted @ September 01, 2004 04:20 PM | History file | Comments (2)