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Whos Winning, Whos Losing, and Whos Crying
I’m never more certain that we are winning the war than when I hear Al Gore/John Kerry/Teddy Kennedy try to tell me that we are losing.
Face it, ‘winning the war’ is something we universally think everyone is naturally interested in, but the truth is quite different. If by tomorrow afternoon, Osama, Zarqawi, Mullah Omar and Dr. Zawahiris heads all appeared on the end of 82nd Airborne regimental pikes, if on the day after, Iran erupted into a popular Democratic uprising, if by Sunday the Baathists in Syria and the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia suddenly pack their bags and ran off for Aruba, with all that there would still be no praise from Al Gore/ John Kerry/Teddy Kennedy. They wouldn’t say “ Hey I guess that worked after all!” or “ Boy was I ever wrong!” Or “ What a bunch a dopes we are!”. The New York Times Editorial will never read “President Bush is OK after all”
So stop looking for it.
Most of us know there is an end to the war, an end where we win, and most of us actually look forward to it! But for some Democrats and most liberals, they dread the fact that the end to the war with our victory is coming, an end that comes with our victory not in spite of the President, but because of it.
Just think about it; 35 million people live in freedom today because of the action and the leadership of our current President while the same 35 million lived in oppression under the leadership provided by their party. 35 million people now live in freedom because of the sacrifices of the American people, direct sacrifices of both their blood and treasure that have made the world a safer place in which to live. From Libya to Afghanistan the people of the Arab Muslim world are now breathing free for the first time in a millennium and the average Arab knows that in Gods great wisdom, it is the people that the Iranian Mullahs call ‘the Great Satan’ who has brought those winds, not the ‘Holy Mullahs’ of Persia. They know what a sad joke it is to compare the horrors of their own Muslim countries prisons to the horrors of Guantanamo. They know the truth, and they are laughing at you Mr. Gore/Kerry/Kennedy/Durbin for the stupidity of you trying to spread fear of America with your petty party politics and corrupt rhetoric.
For some people it seems the only victory they are interested in is President Bush’s defeat. They don’t want to win the war against al-queda, they want Bush to lose. Not just the war, but at something, anything, anywhere, so they can proclaim their own relevancy in a world that increasingly seems to have ‘moved on’ and put these dinosaurs in their proper place into the ashheap of history.
So stop expecting to see the New York Times “get it”. Oh, they get it, and the harder the fight against the President for no clear reason except to be against the President, the more you know they get it.
They are losing. And the more insane they act, the more certain you can be that they know they are losing.
The President is winning.
The Muslims are winning.
Humanity is winning.
We are winning.
And the day that Osamas head rests on the end of a pike is close at hand. And that idea scares the living hell out of the Democrats and the rest of the worlds leftists.
sic semper tyrannus...
UPDATE: Bush Speech Review: Good. Solid. Perfect. Now repeat it every day, when people start to say " I Wish he'd shut up about the war", he can back off a bit. Democrat Response: You know, listening to Democrats talk about the war is like being forced by a court order to listen to my ex-wife describe our marriage.
It doesnt matter what is said or how its said, it always comes out sounding like a little yapping dog with its leg caught in a snare.
yap-yap-yap-yap-bush-yap-yap-no plan-yap-yap-wheres osama?-yap-yap-yap-youre stupid for voting for republicans-yap-yap-yap-yap...
Wheres Osama? What do they care? Republicans want to 'catch and kill' Osama, Democrats just want to make sure he's got good legal representation and a voter registration card.
Sheesh. Democrats : The Drunken First Wives Party.
Posted @ June 28, 2005 03:57 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Notice
My whereabouts?
Well here's what it sounds like in my office.
cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep inhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep exhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep inhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep exhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep inhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep exhale, cough, cough, cough, wheeze, gack, snort, glurgh, deep inhale...
I'll be back when the pattern changes to inhale-exhale without sounding like my dog when she swallowed a squeaky toy.
Posted @ June 28, 2005 10:39 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Rumsfeld/Kennedy: Fun with Audio
Wow, I've discovered something interesting on CSPAN tonight. I took the Kennedy Rumsfeld exchange from the tivo and ran the audio into a tape recorder and I found that there was some barely audible conversation going on behind the microphones.
Kennedy: This war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged. And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire. Our troops are dying. And there really is no end in sight"
Rumsfeld: sound of briefcase going to desktop, briefcase opening rumsfeld speaking under breath into briefcase Hey teddy six chins, hows about you go get me a cup of coffee with a couple of cubes of kiss my ass….
Kennedy: (Reading from prepared 5x7 cards )"the American people, I believe, deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our fighting forces have made, and they deserve the real facts, I regret to say that I don't believe that you have provided either."
Rumsfeld: Well, that is quite a statement Inaudible, Inaudible, Cough, Cough, Kopechne, Cough "The suggestion by you that people -- me or others -- are painting a rosy picture is false. Cough, so blow me…Cough
Kennedy: In baseball, it's three strikes you're out, Isn't it time for you to resign?"
Rumsfeld: (speaking into hand) yeah, and usually when you drive off a bridge and kill a girl that’s usually a good time to resign but if you’re a Kennedy, its not even considered bad manners. "Senator, I've offered my resignation to the president twice., That's his call.” inaudible, inaudible, come on bacon sandwich, come on out back with me and let say we setting it like men, ok? Oh maybe like one man and a big burlap sack of full of fat little boys, which is what your sorry ass looks like in those sweaty polyester slacks. Hit a stairmaster now and then you fat bastard! My god, I’m 72 years old and I could still kick your ass. Oh, Is this thing on TAP-TAP-TAP, Hello, Im sorry "Senator" Kennedy ,were you saying something, Im afraid I wasnt listening.
wow! See what 40 bucks at Radio Shack can do for your understanding of politics?
( Give em Hell Mr. Secretary. Someday they will name an Aircraft Carrier after you and a mighty ship it will be.)
Posted @ June 23, 2005 11:33 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)
Willie And Joe: 2005 Edition
I don’t know about you Willie, but I’m sure as hell questioning Senator Durbins Patriotism...
(With deepest respect to the widow Maudlin...)
Posted @ June 21, 2005 11:44 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
In Defense of Tom Cruise
“The incident was for a new entertainment show, part of which involves playing comedy pranks".
“It was not intended to cause offence and was very much in a spirit of fun. We hope Tom Cruise will be able to see the joke in the spirit with which it was intended.”
PR guru Max Clifford said: “I understand him being angry, but keep things in perspective. This doesn’t merit an arrest.”
Dear Mr. Clifford;
Heres a little "perspective" for you. This time it was water, but it could have been sulfuric acid . Im sure thats what just went through Mr. Cruises mind in that millisecond between shock and horror and slight relief that he discovered it was "just water".
That's what Mr. Cruise has to wonder every time he shakes a hand from a fan, is this a handshake or a potential threat on my life? Because no thanks to mindless goons like yourself, you cant tell anymore.
The world is full of little horrid, pathetic people who want to validate their existence by making headlines. If they cant make headlines by doing something good, they will very often do something bad. Do the names Mark David Chapman or Lee Harvey Oswald mean anything to you?
Tom Cruise shouldnt have had your little goons arrested, he shouldve put them in the hospital, then had then arrested.
Posted @ June 21, 2005 10:54 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
President Bush: I Will Go To Vietnam
`I want to thank the prime minister for his government's willingness to continue to work on finding the remains of those who lost their lives in Vietnam'
Said President Bush, who announced he would visit Vietnam next year.
Stay tuned. This is one hell of a big story.
Hmmmmm...Future headlines
George W. Bush, Statesman?
Bush Pulls a Nixon.
Democrats staggered by loss as long standing metaphor for disaster disappears.
Presidents Carter and Clinton in struggle for relevancy in joint visit to home of Millard Fillmore.
China Infuriated as US President Vists Former Foe - US Signs treaty to bring US Fleet To Cam Rahn Bay.
US President visits Vietnam battlefield with Mccain. Democrat Presidential Candidates Dean/Kerry/Clinton/Biden cant buy headlines to save their lives.
Kerry stumped to find no one remembers him during preemptive campaign visit to Vietnam.
Candidate Dean finds "lots of foreigners" in Vietnam: "Not at all like Vermont," says head of Democrat party.
This Weeks Democrat Diplomatic Blunder: Candidate Dean hands luggage to Premiere of Vietnam.
Democrats get whiplash as they bolster support for embattled Vietnamese Christians.
Halliburton stock goes way up as President secures oil rights in Vietnamese controlled Spratly Islands.
Bush loses last vestage of Solid Republican Votes in California as Vietnamese community awakes to find political knife deeply imbedded in their back.
Posted @ June 21, 2005 08:09 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Question of the Day
If Newsweeks improper reporting on the 'Koran Flushing' incident resulted in 60 deaths worldwide, yet the US government operation of Guantanamo has resulted with no deaths...
Then why has no one called for closing down Newsweek?
Posted @ June 20, 2005 05:15 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Whats The NASA Budget Again?
Every time I see what the boys in Mojave are up to, I always find myself asking "why we are paying NASA to do what it does"?. Heres two pictures that help illustrate my dilemma.
This is Scaled Composites' Proteus aircraft, with Chuck Coleman at the helm, carrying tSpace's 23 percent-scale spaceship mock-up. Proteus is a fully reusable expandable flexible mission aircraft, the center fuselage section is replaced with different modules depending on the mission. The aircraft is also capable of being flown as a UAV/Drone. In this case the ceter section has been replaced with a "drop" module.
Photo: Courtesy of Transformational Space Corporation
TSC is developing its own version of the Space Shuttle. TSC and Scaled are private companies.
This is Scaled Composites 'White Knight' carrying the NASA X-37 for 'drop tests' yesterday in Mojave.
Photo: Courtesy of Mojave Books. Please visit their site often...
NASA had been using a B-52 for drop tests for the X-37, but for the cost of a single drop test on the B-52, NASA could buy 10 drops from "White Knight". Thankfully, NASA was able to overcome its natural "Not Invented Here" sense of things and contracted out to Scaled Composites for the work, saving both money and time.
More pictures of the tspace private shuttle effort can be found here at Wired.
Posted @ June 18, 2005 11:09 AM | Aviation | Comments (0)
I’ve got a bad feeling about this
The difference between Republicans and Democrats is essentially this; Republicans are great political campaigners but they eventually get on with their lives and go back to work. For Democrats, political campaign is both their life and their work; there is nothing else. While those of us on the right have been doing just that since the election, I think our opposites have been planning and working to accomplish their goals, even though they lost the election.
Here’s where I’m coming from; I don’t think the Sen. Durbin “I support our Nazi troops” statement is a one off slip of the Democrat tongue, I think its part of a bigger play that is now in the process of unfolding.
The play is this; The Democrats can’t undo the election, so they will undo the President by discrediting him and his party.
How do they do that? Easy, they use “The Summer Story”.
“The Summer Story” is a phenomenon I’ve noted ever since the days of Watergate. There is a natural cycle to the news that corresponds to the amount of time people are at work. During the post 4th of July time period, a high percentage of the workforce is out on vacation. This leaves less than a critical mass behind to get anything accomplished. Very often what happens that everything goes on hold until enough of the staff returns to get on with work. In the media its much the same, except for one small problem, they can't just wait around for the news, they cant go dark just because there’s nothing to report. The result is that most news organizations make things up to get excited about during the late summer. When news organizations are free of adult supervision, youd be surprised what they make up to ratings sake.
Remember the “Shark Attack Summer”? I think were in for that all over again, only this time its main stream media that is the shark and President Bush is the swimmer.
The current “Bush’s made our troops into Nazi’s” meme is just the start of the summer story, and its by no means over with that little nugget; but rest assured its all part of the same story arc.
I think Durbin spoke out of turn in a calculated campaign. He and the Democrats clearly miscalculated the reaction, but I don’t think its over with just this one flub. I think we are going to hear much, much worse, and in a much more coordinated fashion over the summer. I don’t think we should just be shocked, I think we need to prepare ourselves for what is about to come.
The Democrats are in serious trouble; Howlin’ Howard isn’t raising enough money to make them competitive in 2006. They are losing battle after battle with the President in this session of congress. If Howard can’t show that he can win in 2006 and bring his party into some level of parity with the Republicans, a full out civil war will break out in the Democrat party, which basically brings their chances in 2008 to a dead halt unless the Republicans nominate an absolute stiff (its happened before, it can happen again).
So this is it for the Democrats, change the dialog on the war on terror from a fight for freedom and democracy into an assault on human rights and decency then convert Bush into the New Nixon, or a half-century of dead end leftist policy will fall by default.
The end result of this “Shark Summer” process will be for the Democrats to push for impeachment of the President some time during the summer of 2005; the groundwork is already being laid for this action this summer. The Democrats are trying to get traction on something, anything to allow them to drive home to an impeachment trial on which they will end the Bush Legacy.
Now, here’s where you come in. Durbin just got a big lesson this week. Once upon a time, a Senator or Congressman could safely go in and give lovely speeches on camera for C-SPAN, which make lovely campaign ad footage later, and no matter what you said no one would ever know and you would never be held accountable. Now he knows that’s no longer the case, but it doesn’t end with his rebuke. This sort of thing will continue all summer and we need to be ready to respond at each of the inevitable charges. Once momentum takes off on these stories, it will be hell to stop.
Before you know it, reasonable people will be saying to themselves that it might be a good idea to have an impeachment trial. If this were the “Internet 90s’ again, it might be, but this isn’t the “Internet 90’s” and we can’t afford to have this country distracted right now, disgraced with a political hit job like an impeachment trial during a war with al-queda, a trade war with the EU, all while we stare into the maw of North Korea. This is a dangerous world and our enemies are waiting to take advantage of any weakness in our system.
We each need to be diligent and respond quickly to the barrage that is about to occur. But first, we have to see it coming and recognize it for what it is. Its political crap, and most of the time I would find something else to do with my time, but this time a failure to respond will put us at risk of being killed.
UPDATE: In the "You Cant Make This Stuff Up" Category, Dana Milbank tells a story in the Washington Post of how the Democrats are already practicing for the pending 2006 Impeachment trial.
As Spock would say: "Fascinating..."
Posted @ June 17, 2005 01:07 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)
“Babykiller” Redux
I started the day with the news that Sen. Dick Durbin thinks that US soldiers and our Government officials are the equivalent of the Nazis.
At first I thought, “Well there you go, the final piece of confirming evidence that the left in this country has lost. Once you start comparing what we are doing to that of the Nazis, it means they’ve clearly run out of arguments and are in full retreat”.
As the day wore on, I began to realize that this was about something more. Sen. Durbin didn’t just agree with Amnesty International, he raised the stakes significantly from what they had said.
Allow me to illustrate:
Remember the phrase “ Of course we support the troops”. You should, because every time someone from the left who didn’t support the troops opened their mouths they had to say that first or they would get a pitchfork run through their chest by the rest of us.
Now, Let’s say we take Dick Durbin at his word; that Guantanamo really is exactly like a Nazi concentration camp, a Gestapo headquarters or a soviet gulag.
So, “Dick”, if that is the case, can you really say that you “support the troops” even when they are – as you say – “Nazi like”?
And if you don’t support them, are you now calling for ‘war crimes trials’ against the troops that man the base at Guantanamo? Are you now calling for ‘war crimes trials’ for Secretary of Defense?
I mean I just want to be sure, because as you say "you support the troops" which seems contradictory with this last statement. You made a pretty harsh statement there “Dick”, I just want to see if you will back it up. You said in your pretty little speech that detainees who have the air conditioning left on too long or not at all is the exact moral equivalent of this:
Nazi troops interrogating Russian "detainees" Circa 1941.
If you really believe that Senator then you need to say so, because as far as I can tell, it now seems that in your rotted little mind, “Guantanamo” is the Cuban word for “Lidice”. That’s ok, because in my rotted little mind, “Senator” now means the same as “jackass”, so I suppose were even.
Now, I don’t want to spend this piece just “jumping on Senator Durbin”, that would be all too easy.
The real issue here is “why”.
Why is guantanamo even an issue? Why is this 24x 7 x 365 “atrocity watch” even going on? Does anything that has ever been put forth so far rise to the occasion to even begin to acquire the description of “ Nazi like”?
Come on now, does it? Of course not.
The reason why Sen. Durbin, Leahy, Kennedy and Amnesty International have all decided “Guantanmo has got to go” hasn’t anything at all to do with detainees or their legal state, or our place in the world of Human Rights.
It has to do with you. You see, its easy to say you ‘ support the troops’ when you think of them as liberators and warriors out killing terrorists and keeping you safe and and the world free from harm. Its not so easy to “support the troops” when you think they are uni-browed goons and babykillers who are out gleefully “torturing innocents”. That’s what they want you to think, that’s what this is all about, it a full court press to change the narrative of the war from one of voting and freedom to one of the oppression of innocents and “torture”.
Oh you say you supported the president when you saw all those people voting, but lets see how you support the war when its presented as “Cool Hand Luke meets the Birdman of Alcatraz on the set of OZ”.
This effort to “close Guantanamo” that is underway right now is about separating your hearts and minds from our troops, it has nothing to do with “Human Rights”. It has everything to do with making it socially unacceptable to wear those “I support the troops” ribbons on your cars. you know, the ones the leftists hate with a passion.
The reason the leftist in the 1960s called our troops “babykillers” was as much about trying to lower the morale of the troops as it was making the people who actually did support the troops into 'social pariahs' and thus lowering the effectiveness of our military. They couldnt beat us on the battlefield, so they beat us at home.
The left is out to lower your morale. The left is out to weaken this country and strengthen its enemies. The left is not on your side; the left is on their side. They are losing this war, this is their only chance to change a defeat into a victory, and they are banking on you to give it them.
Please understand that for all the caterwauling over “closing Guantanamo” not one of the 'esteemed senators' have said what the replacement should be or how it should be different than what is already in place. If they are proposing a general amnesty, then they should say so, if they are proposing putting the detainees somehwere else they should say where. However, I have bad news for them, there isnt anywhere that will be as perfect as Guantanamo. Thats why we used it in the first place.
This is not about Guantanamo and the state of the detainees and the respect for "human rights" or Americas image in the world, its about you.
This is a war of information and morale. The blogosphere has helped equalize the ‘information war’, but the 'morale war' is up to you.
And try to remember that in the ‘war on terror’, you are the prime target on the battlefield.
Oh and if you get the “Do you support our torture in Guantanamo” from people on left, just answer them the way I do:
“I’ll put our treatment of our detainees up against any Al-queda camp. Our camps have thousands of visits from members of media, the red cross, access to lawyers and regular food and to date there has not been a single beheading, on camera or off. Al-queda cant begin to match that record”.
UPDATE: Captain Ed and I both seem to be on the same freqency.
Posted @ June 15, 2005 11:36 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (4)
Bellringer...
Magnitude : 7.10 MW (A major quake)
Crescent City California and Entire West Coast Under Tsumani Watch.
Standing by...
UPDATE 21:02 Local: KCBS reporting Crescent City is being evacuated. A prudent move given the history of Tsunamis in that town.
Posted @ June 14, 2005 08:37 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Why We Fight: #304 in the Series
#304: For The Right Of All Women Everywhere to Be Free.
Look at that face, and hold your manhood cheap.
Posted @ June 14, 2005 03:47 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Guantanamo In Perspective
Before There was a Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo, This monster and 18 of his very best friends were able to infiltrate this country.
Remember that face. Think about what it does to you to see it.
He and his men, Using nothing more sophisticated than box cutters and human ingeniuity, were able to do this:
and this:
These are pictures of 3,000 people, 3,000 living, breathing human beings being turned into carbon. The lives of countless others altered forever because of the murderous acts of 19 men who for several years before lived in the very largess of the United States. Our kindness, our comittment to Human Rights mattered for nothing in the minds of the men who turned people into corpses that day in September.
As a result of the direct inaction by goverment authorities responsible for tracking and tracing threats to the United States, thousands of people died. No one in the Government stopped Attas men, frankly no one even tried to stop them, lest they be accused of "racist" acts. Any attempt to monitor, or deny entry to Mohammed Atta and his band of murderous bastards was going to be met with lawsuits from people who were only interested in the possible violation of rights of the poor put upon people of the Middle east and not the potential for the extinction for 3,000 people on one sunny day in September.
Later, Mohammad Attas friends overseas were able to do this:
And this:
Get it? The war Atta brought to us didnt end when he died on September 11th, the war goes on. These people make no issue at all with killing anyone they can, through any methods available. They are to restrained by morality or ethical codes. Death, yours or theirs and preferrable both is all that they desire.
But you should rest assured that before he died while flying a Commerical Jet filled with women and children into office buildings, filled with other men and women whos only crime was simply being on time for work one day, Mohammed Atta was well protected and his civil rights were guaranteed by the very government he was sworn to destroy. You'll notice that the respect we paid to him and his minions during his stay in our country had no effect whatsoever in his desire to kill us. While he was planning to kill thousands of people in downtown Manhattan, Mohammed Atta was protected by the full faith and credit of the Constitution of the great satan.
Before we were massacred on 9/11, no one would dare say that a man like Mohammaed Atta was trying to kill thousands of people, to say so was to be deemed as "an obvious racist", such is the insanity of our culture. What we would have been concerned with then was the potential "backlash to the Islamic community". Fear then as now is reserved for the backcountry hicks that our culture irrationally fears above all other things.
This is what 9/11 did to us. It didnt just kill our neighbors, family and friends but it killed them in mid town Manhattan, New York. New York is "our town", everyones town, no matter where they lived in the world. What the massacre of 9/11 finally showed the American people something they have never really wanted to believe; that there are people and forces in the world who want nothing more than to kill every single one of us, left or right, liberal or conservative, man or woman, white or black.
Dead.
Now, think of all the things that happened afer 9/11. Think of that pitch that The President threw in Shea Stadium just a few days after the Massacre. Think of when we all wondered if we would ever see planes in the sky again. Think of the fear we had for the Winter Olympics in 2002. Think of every event, every parade, every gathering, every opportunity that could have and probalby should have been attacked or destroyed since then.
Ponder that for a bit. Do your own math on the number of times you've flown since 9/11, the number of concerts youve been to, the amount of raw unrefined freedom that you've tasted since 9/11. Remember that for a few days after that utterly horrible day we all thought it would end. Remember how politics as gone on as normal since then, that elections have been held, the President has been accused of the very worst crimes by people around the world, large and small,rich and poor none of which have served a moment in jail for their seditious and sometimes treasonous acts. Not once, not nowhere. Its not even been suggested.
Think of the Rose Parades, Thanksgiving Day parades, St. Patricks day parades, and so on.
Think of the Olympics.
And remember, Without Guantanamo, Without the ability to gather information and to literally chase the terrorists from one end of the globe to the other, shut down their funding, find the safe houses, shut down their cells, none of that would have occured.
Remember that face at the beginning? There have been many, many like him that have been stopped since 9/11. You just havent seen their faces, because to do so would weaken our attempts to infiltrate and destroy their networks. If I showed you Attas face on 9/10 what would you have said? But with perspective of 9/11 and what we now know about that man and the network that he operated in, we now know better.
Imagine if Atta had been stopped.
Imagine if Atta were in here
living safely behind bars, with a government provided Koran and three squares a day. he would be angry that he was caught, but he would thank his lucky stars that he was incarcerated by the United States, rather than Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Russia or even Israel. Imagine how you would feel if you knew what Atta was going to do and you had managed to stop him. Imagine standing outside his cell, knowing that he had a plan to take commercial aircraft and crash them into buildings, only he had been stopped at immigration and information from other sources confirmed that he was part of the Bin Laden network. That sort of thing happens every day at Guantanamo, unfortunately Atta isnt there, but many people are who are equally as bad if not worse. Guantanamo is not full of traffic violators, these men intended to kill us by what ever means necessary.
When someone talks to you about torture at Guantanamo, try to remember that the worst form of torture for the detainees in Guantanamo is the idea that someday they might be given back to their country of origin, not that they are getting rice pilaf and orange chicken thrice weekly in Cuba.
Because of the reserve of the President and the actions of Secretary Rumsfeld, your life will go on pretty much as it always has, despite our being at war. The efforts of the Jihadis to take the world back to the enslavement of the 11th century Caliphate is ending. Slowly, with fits and starts, but it is already on its way to the grave.
Not in spite of Guantanamo and Camp X-ray, but because of it.
I Thank God for the service of men and women who work at Camp X-ray.
I Thank God for Guantanamo.
May the day when Camp X-ray is no longer needed come as soon as possible, but let us not close the camp one day before the job is done.
We were careless once, and thousands of people died. Let us not make the same mistake again.
Posted @ June 14, 2005 12:54 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)
Is Howard Fineman Worth it?
As his lackluster career enters its sad last phase, We ask Howard Finemans readers;
“Is He Worth It?”
Mrs. Edna Grimsby.
4th grade Elementary School teacher
“ I thought he was like Woodward and Bernstein, but it turned out he was just another TV talking head” I’d tell my students “ you know, Howard Fineman was once my student” and they would just look at me like I was speaking Spanish or something, none of the kids have any idea who he is, but the real hard thing was when I tried to explain who he was, and you know, I couldn’t point to a single thing he had done, he was a complete cipher. I know he’s important, he’s on TV every week, but darn if I can figure out why he’s important.
Mr. James Escutcheon.
PBS Station Manager
He had such promise as a prognosticator, but he never really delivered. It was always “wait till next week, you’ll see, Bush will lose on this vote and the Republicans in Congress will dissolve in the first heavy rain like they were made of alka seltzer and return the Democrats to their rightful place in control of the Government.”, but you know, next week just never comes.
Janice Plenty
Software Programmer
“Week after week of he writes these articles that are full of angst and fear for the future of our democracy but I keep wondering, has he ever been right about anything? I mean if I was consistently wrong in my job, how long would I last? This guy has weekly column,52 shots a year to make a prediction that actually happens, but he misses every single time, I mean what are the odds? Then he gets on TV shows to pontificate about the same stuff that he’s always wrong about. I mean, who pays this guys salary? and why? I can make crap up too! Oh lookie everybody! Bush is evil!, Cheney is a puppetmaster!, Mccain is a really great guy. Howard Dean is our next president, whoops, I mean John Kerry is going to win, whoops!, I mean Bush wont get his Tax cuts-judges-legislation passed by Congress because of the moderates like Mccain who really run everything, Oh Whoops again! El Salvador is Vietnam, Kuwait is Vietnam, Afghanistan is Vietnam, Iraq is Vietnam! Feh!
Jhonen Catharsis
Starbucks Barista
“You know, he comes in here every single day, “tall macchiato, no foam”, he says with his finger in the air, like it was the first time I heard that. Then he always makes a big deal about fumbling with his ATM card, always wants to know if I want to “see his ID”. I say fine, I’ll look at your ID, just to make you happy. So I look at it “Howard Fineman” – So what? Is that supposed to mean something to me? I mean, He does it every day, and every day it s the same damn thing. He gets his tall macchiato and then storms out because no one in line knows who he is. You know, I don’t think he even likes Macciatto.
Kari Pulaski
High School Student
So one day were at the food court at the Mall and my friend Meg says “ Hey look at that guy, he’s talking to himself” and she points over at this guy, a real “square joe” you know, blue suit, red tie, haircut, the whole bit, at first I thought; ”cell phone” but no, he’s just sitting their talking to himself while he’s eating his sbarro pizza. He kept mumbling under his breath and then he started shouting “Bush this” “Bush that”, “Cheney this” ”Cheney that”,” blah,blah,blah, Mccain” and then laughing like a maniac, I mean it was the weirdest thing to watch.
The next day were in Civics class and Mrs. Klondike starts to read this article in the New York Times about how “Bush is ruining life on the whole planet” and it hits me, that guy at the mall, that must be the same guy who wrote the article! So I ask Mrs. Klondike who wrote the article and she says “ Tom Friedman”. So I tell her that Meg and I saw Tom Friedman at the mall yesterday! Then she goes and tells me that Tom Friedman is on assignment in Iran and he couldn’t possibly be at the Westchester mall. How embarrassing. So I wonder who that guy was?
Howard Fineman? Who’s that? Is he important?
Posted @ June 11, 2005 12:05 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
Japan's Middle-Aged Men Start to Preen
Varifrank Suggested Alternate Headlines:
Japanese begin to shows signs of possible extinction due to lack of viable mating options.
"Childhood exposure to massive quantities of cheap plastic toys increases estrogen levels in Japanese men" Say Puzzled experts.
Biololgists discover odd new paradox where Japanese women become more beautiful as they age but Japanese men becoming increasingly childlike.
"High levels of dietary Seaweed makes you act like a girl" says Varifrank.
Strange "whirring" sound overheard from within the Tomb of Admiral Yamamoto, reports Tokyo News.
Single Japanese Women prone to public sobbing and general dispair as dating prospects dry up.
"Where did we go wrong" Japanese parents say to therapists.
Posted @ June 10, 2005 12:41 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
SPIELBERG SLAMS HOLLYWOOD FOR FAILING KERRY
In an interview on Australian chat show ENOUGH ROPE, Spielberg fumed, "I was disappointed that Hollywood didn't do enough for John Kerry's campaign, compared to what Hollywood did for Bill Clinton's campaign".
Ahem, cough, obvious reason, cough, cough, ahem...
Steve, You can have the best chefs in the world, you can have the best kitchen in the world, you can advertise all you want but I dont care how hard you try to do it, You just cant make Chicken Salad out of Chicken Sh*t.
Kerry is the very definition of Chicken Sh*t. Grade A USDA Choice, Prime Cut Boston Backbay Chicken Guano. Everyone could see that from Kansas to Kankakee, hell even Mrs. Kerry could see that, so why can't you? I admire your loyalty, but damn, let it go ok?
Kerry didnt get support because Kerry was a bad candidate, not because "Hollywood didnt help enough". Trust me, Hollywood did plenty and for all the money the spent, it probably hurt his case more than helped it. Heres another clue for you "Steve-o", Hollywood is not an asset. Why is that? Because Hollywood doesnt have a voting bloc outside of West Hollywood. When Hollywood wants to go back to backing the country it lives and thrives in instead of castigating it( see Wikipedia under "sacrificed movie careers for country" - Jimmy Stewart, Robert Montgomery ),it just might start to be an influence again, but when every other movie that is made makes fun of "the evil white suburban lifestyle and poison of American patriotism" you cant really expect them to vote for your guy, now can you? Yeah you did good with "Saving Private Ryan', I wonder sometimes if you ever saw it, its a hell of a flick.
Now shut up and get back to making movies again will you? People who work with bright lights, make up and make believe should stay out of politics, its bad for your health. Love ya babe, have your people call my people, we'll do lunch...
Original Aritcle is found here.
Posted @ June 09, 2005 01:16 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Funny, you don’t hear much about the “Patriot Act” anymore.
The big news today is that the FBI announced that it has broken an Al-Queda Cell in Lodi California.
Here are a few of my rough notes on the subject.
1) Absolutely not a single headline anywhere by anyone that said: “ FBI uses patriot act to catch terrorists in Lodi California”. But rest assured, they did.
2) If I were a terrorist, and if I were looking for the perfect base on which to stage my operations, a place like Lodi would make the perfect location in which to hide and to operate within. I am currently about 40 miles north of Lodi, I have lived here most of my life. Everyone is making jokes about Lodi, but I have to tell you something, the central valley small towns are under assault from narcotics smugglers who buy up small houses out on the periphery of town and use them to create meth labs or grow pot. The access to freeways and the complete lack of any sort of police force in small towns makes this very lucrative business these days. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the area, Lodi is a small town on the edge of the Sacramento River Delta. The Sacramento River Delta, like all Deltas in the world are known for one consistent illegal activity, smuggling. In my opinion, Lodi as a location of this cell was not an accident.
3) Apparently, ‘the Son’ was on a “no fly list” and was detained after an attempted flight from Korea and was “detained and interrogated” in Japan. Really? Korea? Come See Sunny Korea on Vacation? What’s the deal?. Can’t he get enough of that good ole Kim Chee at home? How much does a round trip ticket to Korea go for, its not cheap that’s for damn sure, and when you get there, you gotta have somewhere to stay. Korea? Was he ‘routing through’ or did he have business in Korea with agents of the North (most obvious, but puzzling) or was it just a convenient place to meet with some other pals? Why go somewhere where you will stand out in a crowd like a pimple on a prom date?
4) What sits at the mouth of the Sacramento Delta? , Two of the west coasts biggest refineries and their transportation pipelines. One small industrial accident at either of those facilities can hike fuel prices in California by 50 cents a gallon. What sits on the other side? ,the Capitol of California. Within 4 miles of the Capitol building sits the ‘Port of Sacramento’, which is attached to the delta by the deep water channel. This port is capable of holding very large ships. The port is virtually unsecured.
5) In 1973, an ammunition train in Roseville California exploded, causing millions of dollars of damage including damaging the Capitol dome, which is 12 miles to the south of Roseville. Today, train tracks run 3 miles from the Capitol with unrestricted commercial and passenger traffic. These same trains run unprotected and unsecured through the delta for long stretches. For reference material, see the Dutch Moluccan terrorist case.
6) In an odd, make your hair stand up on its end, make you wonder if something’s being said across the quad at the local madrassa, The Richmond California Amtrak and Bay Area Rapid Transit train station was closed due to a man whose suspicious behavior led to the station closure as it was on its way to Martinez. Martinez if you haven’t already guessed, is at the mouth of the Sacramento River Delta. “One Crazy Guy” or someone who knows more than he’s supposed to know getting out of control.
7) School is out for the summer for most districts in California this week. It’s interesting to me that the arrests came this week, although it’s also very clear that the investigation has been going on for some time. A “Premptive” move on the part of the FBI?, perhaps.
8) One local station reported that one of the younger suspects names was actually that of another older man ( age 72) who died recently. Its entirely possible that the names we have seen in relation to the actual suspects have nothing to do with the people caught as they are probably under layer after layer of identity laundering that has gone on for years. Don’t allow yourself to be lured into the “ hes just a boy”. Defense.
9) The seven stages of "Chronic Islamic Criminal Victimhood", goes something like this:
a) Your fellow mosque members are on local video saying: “Yeah, they were arrested, and sure they confessed, but they were harassed by the FBI”.
b) The Imam of the mosque will be invited to a weekend public affairs show, which is hosted by a former college radical, an American Indian activist, and a Democratic strategist. The Imam will say “Of course we don’t believe in terrorism, but if Americans could see how the Jews and the Zionists have destroyed the people of Islam, they might be more sympathetic to our cause”. The rest of the panel will nod in knowing approval.
c) Local news will ask repeatedly if there are any signs of reprisals against Moslems by the country bumpkins who voted for Bush in the last election. The Local news anchors will appear to be praying for a lynching, just so they can get the story in camera. An audible sigh will be heard from the anchor when once again, nothing of the sort happens.
d) Ramsey Clark takes up your case. Proclaims this a prime example of Imperial America and its Injustice.
e) The BBC decides that the ‘Bush Family and Karl Rove “is using your trumped up case to win elections by scaring the dumb back country bumpkins with xenophobic racism.
f) Jimmy Carter says you should be set free in the interest of peace; Nancy Pelosi says you should bet set free so we can have a “Clean Slate” with the Islamic World.
10) Make no mistake, we will be hit again, and its my opinion that it will be the west coast this time, not the east. When that happens, how long will it take for the left to launch into an attack, not on the people who actually committed the crime, but on the people in the government who have been working day and night to stop it. Think about it, the agencies of this government are working as hard as they can to stop something from happening, all the while the left and the media have done literally everything they can to stop any effective action from occurring, and who will be the one that gets the blame for it happening? Not the left who have aided and abetted the very terrorists who are going to carry out their crimes, but the people who have given up their lives in the defense of this country.
Only to the people of the left can the defense of America be considered indefensible and its distruction somehow justifed.
UPDATE: The Lodi Sentinel does an excellent job getting to the known facts. They are to be congratulated in their work.
Posted @ June 09, 2005 12:05 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Oh Miss Lillian, Ah think you got company!
This came straight from the mouth of former US President and Nobel Prize winner James Earl “Jimmy” Carter.
Ok,let me get this straight. "Jimmy" wants to jump on the bandwagon and close Guantanamo. That means in real terms that he wants us to set free approximately 700 detainees that are being held at camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
Ok. I just want to make sure I understand exactly what he is saying, because I dont think he does. Allow me to illustrate.
Lets go ahead and take the advice and council of the man my generation calls the “Great Capitulator” and go right ahead and “ close Guantanamo”. Im sure Tom Friedman and Joe Biden will be very happy.
Now, its entirely within reason that a number of the detainees will be set free, returned to their country of origin, no harm no foul. its already happened with 200 detainees and we have every expectation that process will continue. (You see unlike a real Gulag, people do get set free from our prisons). However, there is also likely to be a number of detainees that cannot be returned to their country of origin because these countries, like Afghanistan, and Iraq or maybe even Saudi Arabia simply wont accept them back! Sort of like trying to get a child molester returned to his neighborhood after his sentence has been served, no matter the legality, its just not going to happen. I know its hard for the "idiot left" to understand, but its entirely likely these are not nice people that we have detained.
So, some prisoners go home, but others - try as we might,even with Joe Biden as their lawyer, can't go home! Their "Home" doesnt want them back!
So that means we are going to need to put our newly liberated “guests” into some sort of facility that is more to the liking of Amnesty International and our esteemed Ex-President.
Now, where could that be...
Oh man, I just had a brainstorm. I’ve got the perfect place to put the detainees! I don’t know why we didn’t think of this sooner.
It's the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta Georgia!
Think about it! It works on so many levels...
From the Carter Center Website:
Prestigious....
Tucked into a rolling hillside with a skyline view of Atlanta, The Carter Presidential Center is a 37 acre retreat located just two miles from downtown. It is the ultimate business experience in an awe inspiring setting. Our impressive full service meeting facilities offer a complete business center equipped with telephones, computer, fax and copying machines. The latest technology, including internet access, video conferencing, and satellite uplink/downlink can be arranged as needed for your meeting. Our meeting and special events spaces can accommodate groups of ten to 1200.
Oh cool!, it turns out to be just big enough to house all of our new "guests" too! It must be a sign, why its a sign from God!
Elegant....
The Carter Presidential Center is also one of the top venues in Atlanta for hosting special events, weddings and receptions, and bar/bat mitzvahs. It is also a popular site for hosting visiting dignitaries, heads of state, and press conferences.
Bar mitzvahs? How disrespectful in your obvious imperialist racist oversight of Islamic values, You must address this gross injustice Mr. Carter.
Memorable....
Experience the historical ambiance of The Carter Presidential Center's uniquely designed interiors or open a door and step into the serenity of our gardens, a setting exclusive to Atlanta and unique to the world- the perfect choice for your next event.
Or the perfect choice if you are a well intentioned liberal blowhard who cant quite get off the stage before he starts stammering like a buffoon.
Oh, and for those of you who still want to believe that the "US is running Gulags", even Jimmy Carter - No Imperialist Republican He, Says it aint so...
Quote: (from the same article referenced above)
"It's just absurd to equate Gitmo and Guantanamo with a Soviet gulag," he said. "Just not even close."
"absurd"? Well I guess thats pretty strong language from the man whos feckless and irresponsible response to Iranian terror in 1978 set the stage for the rise islamic fascism around the world.
Posted @ June 08, 2005 05:47 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
Bunker Mulligan: 1953-2005
Michelle Malkin reports that a blog-friend and a frequent commentor here at Varifrank, Bunker Mulligan has passed away.
Please send your condolences along to his family.
Having lost my father to a stroke just a few weeks ago, and my being of roughly the same age as Bunker and suffering from heart disease as well, I now find myself at a loss for finding just the right words to say goodbye to a man I never met and now never will.
Maybe its better just to say that I should take a hint when its given. Thanks for the heads up Mike, you will be missed...
Posted @ June 07, 2005 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
Howard Dean: "They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."
(With the courts permission, I'd like to submit Exhibit "A", refuting the plaintiffs statement: "The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people"
I could go on like this all day, but I'm graphically challenged.
Dear Dr. Howard Dean,
I reget to say that I was right about you after all. You really are just a sad, bitter little bigot who suffers from "little man's" disease.
Please keep talking, youre the single greatest thing to happen to the Republicans since Ronald Reagan changed parties.
Hugs and Kisses,
Varifrank
Oh, and as one intolerant 'white guy' to another, You can bite my bubble gum pink ass.
Update: My buddy Ramone writes: "Gosh, theres no better minority spokesman in the world better suited at pointing out the evils of 'White folk' than a lilly white, ivy league doctor from the rough and tumble ghettos streets of Montpelier Vermont.
Posted @ June 07, 2005 04:35 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1)
Next, We have a 'legacy pledge' from Beantown...
Bluto: From now on, your Delta Tau Chi name is "Hammerhead".
Kerry:(looking puzzled) but why?
Bluto: (Burp!) WHY NOT!!!!
After seeing this picture, I can safely say that for the first time in my life, I feel sorry for John Kerry.
Truly, Deeply, Sorry. Just look at the man, all this time and Ive been picking on a cripple.
His poor mother, how she mustve cried...
Posted @ June 07, 2005 03:26 PM | Election 2004 | Comments (0)
For Junior
For the first time in days, he sat alone accompanied only by the sound of the constant English weather as it hit the thatch roof, filling the small room with the silence of falling rain. He sat in the near darkness at the varnished oaken table, the room only lit by the embers of the tip cherry of his ever-present cigarette and a large English fireplace. He crossed his legs and looked down towards his lap, at his legs, splattered with the ever-present mud, somewhat unbecoming the uniform of a commanding officer. The mud was from an airfield he had visited a few hours before, while visiting the troops of the 101st Airborne.
He himself had never seen combat, his battles were always in rooms like this one, one party or another jockeying for power across a large varnished table in the bloodless but never ending combat that is politics. He hated it, it was unbecoming, but it was a job to be done. It was his duty. He also hated the way that those in the press called him a hero, when all that he had done that could even remotely be called heroic was serve as an aide to the most pompous man on the face of the earth, General Macarthur, who was now serving in the Pacific. For that the General was always most grateful for the extreme distance placed between himself and his former boss.
The fireplace cracked as the burning of the moist English oak reminded the General of the slow passage of time, the gradual darkening of the sky through the windows told him that this most unusual time of peaceful solitude was growing short and his appointment with the pen and paper before him would not wait no matter how he delayed.
Yet, he could not get their faces out of his mind. The airborne troops he had met that morning, who had met him so enthusiastically as to nearly sweep him off his feet. He stood quietly and somewhat reverently in their group, smoking, listening, nodding his head up and down and offering the small talk found on city street corners, asking them questions about their towns and families, baseball scores and petty gossip. As he walked back to his car, across the wet grassy airfield he could not help but think that most of the men in the crowd he had just stood in would not survive the events of the next 24 hours. As he stood by his car and waved, as they waved back through the windows of their C-47's, all the while wondering if the 'folks back home' would ever believe that they once met General Eisenhower on one rainy day in June at a grassy field in the south of England.
He knew that their faces would haunt him for the rest of his life, but he went anyway, camp to camp, headquarters to headquarters. It wasn’t just his job to send men to die; it was his duty.Men would die because of his actions and there was no way to avoid it, yet many more would surely die if he took no action at all. This was the combat with his soul that he and he alone had to face, it was a combat with no cease fire. It was the type of combat that no book of warfare would ever describe, no Military academy could ever prepare you for, to awaken every day with the burden of command. While the men he had met that afternoon who fell from the sky to do their combat and the men who huddled in foxholes had each other, he was condemned to bear his duties in his form of combat all alone.
All men doubt, all men suffer the slow nagging bone deep and soul searing pain of wondering “what might have been”, but few men have stood as naked on the stage of history, waiting to be judged by future generations for his actions like General Eisenhower did in 1944. He was now the 'Supreme Allied Commander' yet he was a man who just only a few years before had only been "Major Eisenhower,aide to General Macarthur". Now, the world placed its faith in a man who's main qualification had been his ability to work with and accomplish tasks in the face of the great belligerent pomposity that came from politicans and other allied Generals.
The General sat at the table and slowly leaned forward in this quiet English manor house that served as his sanctuary, his eyes closed and his hands joined together in silent prayer. He prayed to himself, for his men, for his country and in deference to a power greater than himself that he had placed all of his faith and the lives of his men and all that was worth fighting for in the world.
Despite all of his preparations, despite all of his planning, with all of the valor and bravery of the men under his command, he knew the truth. Despite his being the most powerful military leader in the history of mankind and in command of the largest force of free men under arms ever assembled, he and the rest of the western world were taking the biggest risk in the entire war and it could all go horribly wrong.
What would happen in the next 24 hours would be largely out of his hands and in the hands of individual men. An artillery shell here, a machine gun nest there, a bridge, a hill in the wrong place, a swamp where it wasnt supposed to be, just the right or wrong man at the wrong or right place and all of the planning and training could come to naught. All of the faith, all of the hopes that the world had placed on his shoulders could come to nothing but condemnation from those who called him hero today. He was no hero, He was just "Ike from Abeline" and he knew it. But to the world, he was 'General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Forces' and it would fall on his neck no matter the reason of the failure.
He opened his eyes and looked up from his cross weaved hands and slowly reached out for the pen.
It was time and it had to be done.
He wrote:
“Our landings in the Cherbourg Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
He knew it had to be done. It was one thing to have the landings fail, but the war must go on afterwards, he must not allow the self-criticism and bickering that failure would surely generate to destroy the alliance. He must take the blame alone, just as surely as if everything were to go right, he would undeservedly get all the credit. While there were always plenty to help with the credit, there would never be any help in catching all the blame, nor would he look for any.
It was done.He had prepared for the worse in the only way left for him. Just then, his aide knocked to disturb the Generals solitude.
“Sir, you asked me to let you know when it was 18:30, you said you wanted to be at Prime Minister Churchill’s command center in Whitehall for the evening” she said in a near whisper, not wanting to break the spell.
“I did, and I do”. He said in full exhale, finally breaking the spell the old English fireplace had put on the room. He folded the note and placed it into his jacket pocket.
The aide, who normally did all of the Generals correspondence, noted his movements and gave the General a look askance, as if to signal that she felt that she might have failed him in some small way.
“No Kay, this is personal. Its something only I could and should write. I hope to God I wont have to use it, but I feel better knowing that I am prepared in the event that I do”.
"Yes Sir. I understand".
He just nodded back to her and smiled, but he knew she didn’t really understand, and for that matter, so did she. No one could. For in the next 12 hours as the earth mindlessly rotated around its axis as it improbably orbited around the Sun as it had done since its creation long ago; the entire human race lived in the twilight between its futures with no certainty as to which way it would all go. The fate of the human race was now in the hands of destiny, the gods of statistical chance and the uncertainty that comes with the all too infrequent phenomenon of "miracle".
It didn’t have to work. The landings could have failed and Eisenhower knew it. The invasion and the allies could have been pushed back into the sea, and with it the end of the hope of defeat of Nazi Germany. In the end, it might very well have been the Soviet Union who dominated the continent of Europe in the post war years, condemning millions of innocents to the Soviet gulag, stomping out the hope of freedom for an entire generation. The Iron Curtain might have gone up on the very same beaches that Eisenhower sent his troops in 1944, rather than the middle of Europe.
It didn’t have to work out the way it did; the Nazis were certainly capable of creating the atomic bomb, or at the least, what we today call a “dirty bomb”. At the end of the war, the Nazis were testing the use of Submarine launched Cruise missiles and even Ballistic missiles to further their distructive capabilities. What might have become of our alliance or the German people themselves had their leaders carried out their war against the civilians of North America the way they had done against the civilians of Europe?
The alliance of the west might not have held. The Soviets might have sought a separate peace in 1943, leaving the English and ourselves to fight on against fortified Nazi Army.
Churchill was a great leader but as the English proved in 1945, great leaders and great men can and very often are replaced despite their accomplishments. Democracies are made of people and people can tire of war, and Democracies will often try to vote their way back to the “happy days”. Roosevelt didn’t have to win re-election, he didn’t have to die in 1945, he could have died earlier, placing the country in the hands of Henry Wallace, a man who was most certainly more of a fan of the Soviet Union, than his replacement Harry Truman later proved to be.
World War II was a horrible experience for the bulk of humanity. It was in a very true sense, a ”World War” as virtually every part of the world was effected. The estimates are of 52 million killed and 200 million wounded or displaced as a result of the war. We in the modern age have nothing to compare in our experience to those who lived in those days. The losses we see for an entire war don’t add up to a single hour at the Battle of Okinawa or the first 15 minutes at Omaha Beach. In that new mechanical and technological age when men for the first time could travel to all parts of the globe and weapons could be produced in such astronomically vast numbers, Men of all nations fought only with one thing in mind, to fight and win meant simply the hope of being able to stay alive, to lose was most certainly to be enslaved or worse, exterminated by the “ubermen” of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. There was no hope to be remain neutral in light of such stakes. Life or death, slavery or freedom, collaborator or partisan, there is no grey shadow cast under the yellow Sun of the Earth.
It's important for everyone who is alive today to remember that the men and women of 1944 did not know how it would all turn out, but they went forth into the uncertain world and did their duties out of hope, out of faith and out of a sense of duty. One night in 1944, a man from Abilene Kansas sat in alone in a room in a home in England and had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He knew that he had no more weight on his shoulders than the anonymous private who might also be from Abilene, who was at that very moment boarding a ship in Southampton or a C-47 in East Anglia for an unfriendly reception on the shore across the English channel. What he and the rest of the human race would find in the morning was unknown to them, but they stood and did their duty despite how they may have felt individually.
Remember when you see pictures like the one above, that when the light came through the camera lens to imprint on the chemicals on the film for that particular picture that the world didn’t know what you know. Imagine what it must have been like to not know if "June 6th" would be remembered forever as a "day of liberation" or the day that the Nazis found their “second wind”. Remember that the men you see coming out of the front of the small landing craft or lying on the beaches at Normandy didn’t know how it would all play out, they didnt know about your future. Remember that the bodies you see are someone’s Father, Uncle, Brother or boyfriend, they are some other mothers little boy who once went to war and who didn’t come home one day. To those families, the day that the telegram arrived to tell them that a loved one had been killed in some far off place called "Utah" or "Omaha" was the day that their world had ended forever. That day brings a whole different emotion to their mind over the 'happy nostalgia' that the rest of us engage in on commemoration days like "June 6th".
Remember when you see gun camera footage on the History Channel of B-17s falling from the sky, that it isn’t Lucasfilm Computer Graphics of what a bomber might look like in that situation, it really is a film of the death of 11 men. Remember that after those planes fell from the sky, another man sat alone in a tent and wrote letters home to their families, carrying out his sad duty much like General Eisenhower carried out his in that cold english manor house. His life will forever be marked by the days he sat in a tent in Foggia, Italy and wrote “ Dear Mrs fill-in-the-blank, It is with deep regret that I write to tell you of the death of your son…” over and over and over again, hating each time he did it and hating more how used to it he eventually became.
It happened. It all happened. It was all very real and none of the people who lived in that time knew how it would all turn out. You do, you live in the certainty that their sacrifices provided, but for them it was all far from certain.
We all live today in the bright light of freedom provided by the courage they found on that dark day. We should all be thankful for the men who had the selflessness to stand in those small ocean going boats, covered with the nervous vomit and cold fear to face the machine guns manned on the shore by men who were a part of a system that was so devoid of its own humanity that it was exterminating people with the same cold manufacturing efficiency that other men used to make cars and razor blades.
Try to be greatful and thankful to the man who you only knew as "Grandpa", who took you fishing, “stole your nose” and made fun of your haircut, who on June 6th 1944 ceased being the kid his family called "Junior" as he crawled along the blood soaked sands of the uncertain shores of Europe,only to come home an old man of 21 just a year later.
And hope and pray you never get to know for yourself why it was that he always got so quiet on June 6th.
Posted @ June 06, 2005 03:34 PM | History file | Comments (4)
Syria: Assad to address Baath Party Conference.
( I guess this conference is "BYOB" - Bring your own Bomb...)
Gosh, It sure would be a shame if something were to happen to it, seeing as how I’m sure we have the GPS coordinates and all that. It would really be unfortunate if say an “accident” were to occur, I mean all that lost Saddam ammunition, all that insurgent activity going on next door in Iraq. You know how, ahem, careless Americans are with their weapons, seeing as how 100,000 civilians were killed in Iraq. Why, anything could happen.
(from the Pythons " The Army Protection Racket" Sketch)
Dino: Good morning, Bashir.
Bashir: Good morning gentlemen. Now what can I do for you.
Luigi: (looking round office casually) You've ... you've got a nice Baath party Conference going on here, Bashir.
Bashir: Yes.
Luigi: We wouldn't want anything to happen to it.
Bashir: What?
Dino: No, what my brother means is it would be a shame if... (he knocks something off mantel)
Bashir: Oh.
Dino: Oh sorry, Bashir.
Bashir: Well don't worry about that. But please do sit down.
Luigi: No, we prefer to stand, thank you, Bashir.
Bashir: All right. All right. But what do you want?
Dino: What do we want, ha ha ha.
Luigi: Ha ha ha, very good, Bashir.
Dino: Bashir's a joker, eh Luigi?
Luigi: Explain it to our friend Bashir, Dino.
Dino: How many T-72 tanks you got, Bashir?
Bashir: About five hundred altogether.
Luigi: Five hundred! Hey!
Dino: You ought to be careful, Bashir.
Bashir: We are careful, extremely careful.
Dino: 'Cos things break, don't they?
Bashir: Break?
Luigi: Well everything breaks, don't it Bashir. (he breaks something on desk) Oh dear.
Dino: Oh see my brother's clumsy Bashir, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don't feel the Baath party is playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, Bashir.
Bashir: What is all this about?
Luigi: How many men you got here, Bashir?
Bashir: Oh, er ... seven thousand Baathist thugs, six hundred Baathist spies, and er, two divisions of murdering suicide bombers.
Luigi: “Insurgents”, Dino, “Insurgents”.
Dino: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.
Bashir: Set fire to them?
Luigi: Fires happen, Bashir.
Dino: Things burn.
Bashir: Look, what is all this about?
Dino: My brother and I have got a little proposition for you Bashir.
Luigi: Could save you a lot of bother.
Dino: I mean you're doing all right here aren't you, Bashir.
Luigi: Well suppose some of your SCUD missles were to get broken and your insurgents started getting lost, er, fights started breaking out during Red Cross and UN weapons inspections, like.
Dino: It wouldn't be good for business would it, Bashir?
Bashir: Are you threatening me?
Dino: Oh, no, no, no.
Luigi: Whatever made you think that, Bashir?
Dino: Bashir doesn't think we're nice people, Luigi.
Luigi: We're your buddies, Bashir.
Dino: We want to look after you.
Bashir: Look after me?
Luigi: We can guarantee you that not a single al-queda division will get done over for fifteen bob a week.
Bashir: No, no, no.
Luigi: Twelve and six.
Bashir: No, no, no.
Luigi: Eight and six ... five bob...
Bashir: No, no this is silly.
Posted @ June 05, 2005 11:41 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
A Bedtime Story
Daddy, Whats a GULAG?
Well children, gather ‘round while I tell you a bedtime story of what a “gulag” is.
Once Upon a Time, there was a group of people who lived in a far away land called the “Soviet Union” the people that lived in this fairy tale land were called “ Communists”. Communists were very odd people indeed as they didn’t have castles and palaces, oh no children in fact in the land of communists, Palaces and Castles of all types were forbidden. And to make sure they were forbidden, the leaders of the communists confiscated the very best castles and palaces for their own use, lest their corrupting influences of wealth escape into the general populace.
Now Children, Communists were very odd people indeed. You see, Communists were deathly afraid of anyone who might be able to think for themselves and who might question the wisdom of the communist leaders. So they invented a system, called a corrective labor camp system, known by their Russian initials, G.U.L.A.G.
At first, Gulags were only for special prisoners but over time the system began to be used as a general punishment for any perceived crime against the state. It wasn’t long before the Gulags contained millions of people who were forced into these labor camps for the smallest of crimes and most arbitrary requirements by the leaders of the Communists. People were abused, tortured and forced into hard labor for decades at a time with no hope of eventually being freed. Rather than being allowed to go free at the end of their sentence, many prisoners were killed by firing squad.
While a person was a prisoner in the Gulag, they had no rights, no privileges, no access to legal staff or any rights to appeal their convictions. They were guaranteed no condition of their incarceration. They were housed in conditions that were less than that used for farm animals because children, to the Communists, that’s just what they were, animals, beast of burden to be used and thrown away at the behest of the communist leaders.
“But Dad, what happened to the Gulags?” said the little kid.
Well, one day a man named Ronald Reagan came along and he called the communists an “evil empire” and set the country on a path that would not cater to or accept the communists any longer. Unlike many of his predecessors, he didn’t want to learn to live with communists in peaceful coexistence, he wanted to see them and their nightmare reign of terror put to an end. Many people gasped at the rudeness of his statements and positions towards the Communists but those who were incarcerated behind the wires of the gulags thanked God that someone finally understood the evil that they have lived with for years. Then, all of a sudden and in the blink of an eye, the communists gave up as they finally realized that they had no hope to succeed in beating the west now that they had been exposed for the evil that they truly were.
“So, millions of people were put into communist labor and reeducations camps, tortured and then systematically exterminated to support an evil system that put the rights of the state over the people it governed and that was suppressing the rights of its very own citizens as a regular course of governmental action?” said the kid.
“Yes son, that’s correct” said Dad with an air of exasperation.
“So, if you don’t mind my asking dad, just what the heck was Irene Khan talking about when she said the United States is running the Gulag of our times. Doesnt the fact that she could say that without any fear of incarceration prove that she is full of it?" questioned the kid.
Well son, there are some things that a person is required to believe if they are to get into the right kinds of parties in Hollywood and Washington D.C. If your in an organization that makes its money from the gin soaked checkbooks of holier than thou liberal types, who frankly liked the Communists anyway and agreed with their methods no matter how murderous and harsh, then there is no better way to generate cash than to accuse the United States Government of the very crimes that dictatorships and communists have been doing all along. Youre just not going to generate alot of cash from those people if you stand up and say " Fidel Castro is the warden of a prison called Cuba ". Now if you say "Bush is Hitler" Checkbooks start popping open pretty fast.
You see, according to those people, The United States was really no better than the Soviet Union anyway, and to them, this is just proof of that idea. I guess that idea just helps them sleep better at night.
“Dad?”
“Yes my son?”
“Do you think people still eat lead paint chips?”
“Yes I do. Apparently they are served fairly regularly and in large doses at Amnesty International Fundraisers”.
Update: The Great Babalu tells-it-like-it-is.
Posted @ June 02, 2005 12:43 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2)
This Just in...
The Actual Headline:
Afghan mosque bombed, killing at least 20 and wounding dozens
However, The Houston Chronicle decides that this is just more proof of that the United States is a big bad influence on the poor put upon people of afghanistan with this headline.
Afghan violence undermines U.S. claims of stability
But the headline should have been this:
Al-Queda suicide bomber desecrates an Islamic holy mosque, killing 20 innocent muslim civilians with many Holy Korans destroyed in the process
with follow-on stories such as this:
Muslim world erupts with protests against Al-Queda as a result of crimes against innocent civilians.
Fatwa against al-queda as civilian body count escalates in bin laden sponsored reign of terror.
Sure. Theres no liberal bias in the media. I can see that now.
Posted @ June 01, 2005 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
Burt Rutan Chides NASA for Dullness, Says Space should be Fun
White Knight mated with the X-37. Photo Courtesy of Mojave Books
This should be titled: Burt Rutan: How to ensure you never get a dime of government grant money ever again, and why thats not necessarily a bad thing either.
Favorite Quote:
As for detractors that point out that the fledgling space tourism industry is only offering up sub-orbital joyrides for the wealthy, Rutan was dismissive.
"There is nothing wrong with doing things for fun, Rutan said: "We don't know what going to space is good for, and we don't give a damn."
As someone who spent 7 years of his life sanding fiberglass resin, styofoam and glass microballoons into a workable Rutan aircraft design, I can tell you for a fact that he means it exactly the way it sounds. Once upon a time in the late 1980s Burt gave a speech to folks at an airshow that "Someday we will have homebuilt spacecraft going into space".
After he said it only the people who were flying traditional metal aircraft were laughing. Those of us who fly Rutan Canards knew he wasnt kidding and just shook our heads silently in agreement. We knew that Burt didnt kid about things like that. It was just that most peoples imaginations simply handt caught up with his yet. Those who had been bitten in the past by saying "Burt cant do that" knew better than to put limits on the man.
Oh by the way, my sources at Mojave tell me that the Scaled Composites White Knight has recently been seen toting the NASA X-37 around in taxi tests. Of course the silly bastard couldnt be bothered to take pictures for me to post!
So heres the link to great white knight/x-37 stuff from Mojave Books.
Posted @ June 01, 2005 10:19 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)
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