We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
"When you read The New York Times (if you still bother to read it), always ask: What is the Times NOT telling me? The answers are invariably more compelling -- and newsworthy -- than what the paper actually deems "fit to print."
John Kerry* gave a speech at Georgetown University today, in which he offered the following brilliant insights on Iraq:
"When they [the Bush administration] could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong."
"General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence 'feeds the notion of occupation' and 'extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.' . . . It is essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down."
Apparently Kerry was for more troops before he was against it.
* Should we have heard of this guy? Ya can’t make this stuff up!!
The Left and the Military: Further Comments on Imperialism, re Yesterday's Post
Remarkable, that Anatol Lieven review of the Bacevich book on American imperialism and militarism, just remarkable.
Lieven cannot stand “American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world.” One wonders whether this is in intentional contrast with the failure of Marxism and Communism to do anything more than enslave peoples unfortunate to be contiguous to the Soviet Union, which most earnestly, but so far unsuccessfully, has tried to “spread that system to the rest of the world.”
Lieven writes, “Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.” I suppose he is referring to the coercion of Kuwaitis when Iraq had occupied their country fair and square; or maybe he means Bosnia and is suggesting we consider the Serbs’ notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ when cleansing ethnics as having equal validity to America’s concepts. However, when someone with logic as pathetically shallow as Lieven’s refers to “the military coercion of other nations”, one longs to be able to ask for a list of just which nations we have “coerced”.
Lieven keeps on: “Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching ‘freedom’ at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than ‘voluntary’ conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.” Right. Those Kuwaitis and Bosnians must just HATE their restored ‘freedoms’. One wonders which word he finds objectionable: “rifle” or “American”.
And don’t you just love it when British and Europeans talk about American Imperialism in speeches that could have come out of Pravda in the 1960s? Imperialism is what the Russians did – taking countries and not giving them back. Names like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan come to mind.
Oh, wait! Maybe Anatol Lieven and Andrew Bacevich aren’t Russian (any more). Maybe Lieven is British! Does anyone in class remember that Britain was imperialist? Like, THE imperialist nation of all times (although Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Germany did pretty well too)? Children, can you name a British colony (other than the 13 in the USA)? No? How about Aden, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British Central Africa, British East Africa, British Guiana, British Honduras, British New Guinea (Papua), British Somaliland, Brunei, Burma, Canada, Cape Colony (South Africa), Ceylon, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East India Company, Fiji, Gambia, Kiribati and Tuvalu, Ghana, Ionian Islands, Grenada, Heligoland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Labuan, Lagos (Nigeria), Leeward Islands, Malacca, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mosquito Coast (Nicaragua), Natal, Nauru, New Hebrides, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, North Borneo, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Palestine, Penang, Rhodesia, Saint Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sarawak, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Australia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanganyika, Tasmania, Tonga, Transvaal, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Weiheiwei, Western Samoa, Windward Islands, and Zanzibar? Now THAT’s a KNIFE!
Let’s see now, who did the United States conquer and keep? Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and neither of them are willing to go away. The other states (beyond the 13) as well. Who did the United States occupy and give back to their native peoples? The Philippines, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Italy, Panama, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and even Grenada. Add Iraq to the list - we're trying to give it to them, if they have the power to keep it.
It is a settled axiom in common law that “bad cases make bad law”. The same applies today. Sarbanes-Oxley is not only bad law, it will be a handicap to America’s competitiveness in the world markets, just as the hundreds of thousands of EU regulations are strangling European businesses. A prime example appeared in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “Living with Sarbanes-Oxley”.
The article said: “Dow started its compliance efforts in mid-2003 by scrutinizing access to computer systems. It then went on to examine inventory-counting procedures at big warehouses and management's ability to question large accounting expenses, as well as profit targets in top offices. Targets that were too high could create pressure for managers to cook the books.”
It is clear from the Refco and Wood River scandals this Fall that managers inclined to cook books will cook books for their own reasons – personal civil and criminal liability will deter those they can; the others will not be found by SarBox “controls”. What we have just seen here is that it in now illegal for a public company in the United States to set aggressive profit goals. Isn’t that great? the EU has shot itself in both feet, so in the US we must put on leg-irons with a ball & chain, guilty and innocent alike.
The economic implications of that simple prohibition chill the blood.
We, like most of the blogosphere, are impressed by Michael Yon. His latest post is about how one becomes an "embed" in Iraq, and what his life in Iraq is like, as an independent reporter who is willing to approach danger. Here.
We looked up “insurgent” in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, which defines it as “a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially: a rebel not recognized as a belligerent.” The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines “insurgent” as “someone who is fighting against the government in their own country.”
We query the use of the term “insurgent” in Iraq, where it is pretty clear (to all but the mainstream media) that the terrorists or jihadists or Islamofascists, or whatever one chooses to call those pigs, are not Iraqis. They are not revolting (in the military sense); they are attacking and they certainly are “recognized as belligerent”; they are not in their own country and are not rebelling against their own government. They cannot therefore be “insurgents”.
We also note that the pigs who bombed the subways in London were legally resident in England, and therefore were truly “insurgents”, but are referred to by the mainstream media as “terrorists” (which was also appropriate). It seems to us that we should henceforth reverse the terminology.
Perhaps the mainstream media themselves are “insurgents” – they seem with great vigor to be “fighting against the government in their own country.
As an aside, we are also deeply disappointed in the Cambridge’s mixing the singular “someone” with the plural “their own”!
So -- Gwynnie thought she'd like to pursue some Fall troutses in the Empire State, and was not surprised to see that its Dept. of Environmental Protection protects its fishes by making it impossible to get a license!
Their newly announced on-line internet program D.E.C.A.L.S. purports to offer on-line licensing, but you can't use the system unless you have used it before! [How to you get on a train that doesn't stop?]
But wait! You can get a license by mail if you print out the application and (b) show your on-line D.E.C.A.L.S. number you obtained in (a) above AND (c) pay by credit card - no checks or cash! [How do you send money by mail using an application without blanks for a credit card number?]
So, off she goes to use the old method of visiting the nearest NYS town hall -- wonder what the unusable internet site cost NYS residents?
Observing the Foolish Master, Packing for Hunting Trip
Gwynnie the dog just has to speak out: Whazzizname is crashing about the house, panting, with foam flecking his ample chins.Scary to hear about – appalling to see! Shouted comments to the innocent: “Have you seen my boonie hat?” Did you touch my blaze vest?”Where are my camo hat and jammies?”
The innocent, and Gwynnie is as innocent as they come, stay clear.Whazzizname is going on his annual hunting expedition to upper Manitoba and is incapable of packing till the last minute – which, at his pace, is a couple of days in advance.The innocents don’t know what a boonie is, or why he needs a hat.“Chokes!” he shouts, “I never remember chokes!Oh, oh! Handwarmers,gotta find those too.Wonder if Bird Dog will remember everything?”
Gwynnie is glad she’s a herding dog – what can you forget, the cow?“Look at those labs,” she says. “They have all that GEAR – electronic collars, camo jackets, bells, all the stuff from Orvis or Cabelas or Kevins. Stuff must drive them nuts!”
Yet, still, Whazzizname grins with a blended expression of eager anticipation and deep satisfaction whenever he pauses to take a breath.
Could it be he is remembering Manitoba Sunsets?
Or chilly dawns?
Or simply chatting idly with great friends?
Whatever it is, it is an enduring mystery to Gwynnie and Whazzhername – but to Whazzizname himself as well.
Gwynnie reports a flash of insight reading the Houses of Worship article in the Friday 9/9 Wall Street Journal, which said in part:
"Pity Larry Lowenthal. His job as executive director of the Boston branch of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) includes finding and training leaders from among the 700,000 Russian Jews who have immigrated to the U.S. in the last 30 years. Mr. Lowenthal has fared well: Today there are Russians helping to guide a number of major Jewish organizations, like the one called Boston for Israel. But now these immigrants turn out to be … oh no! Republicans!
"To judge by his public statements and writings, Mr. Lowenthal's idea of a faithful Jew is someone who opposes the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, supports gay rights, abortion and euthanasia, and demands a strong separation of church and state. After all, as Mr. Lowenthal concluded approvingly in a July op-ed for the Jewish Advocate, Jews are "the most liberal" and "the least religious people in America."
"Imagine his consternation when an avalanche of emails from Russian Jews began to pour in to the Web site of the Jewish Russian Telegraph, a daily blog, in response to his article. About 100 people wrote to say that Mr. Lowenthal needed to stop making "outrageous statements" on behalf of people whom he doesn't represent.
"Alex Koifman, who arrived in the U.S. from Belarus in 1978, and whom Mr. Lowenthal trained for his position as a board member at the Boston AJC, criticized his old teacher for overstepping his bounds, saying: "Since when are these concerns [abortion, gay rights, and church-state separation] concerns that are specific to the Jewish community? These are the Left's concerns."
"This was only the most recent in the Boston area's Russian Jewish population's battles with the so-called Jewish leadership. Last fall, Mr. Lowenthal came down hard on the Hasidic community in Wellesley for putting up a menorah display on public property. The Russian Jews wrote scores of emails to the AJC and Russian-language media in response, suggesting that the display was actually a triumph of religious freedom.
"In August, Mr. Lowenthal found himself in hot water again. During an interview with the Boston public radio station, he showered praise on the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston. When Russian Jews learned that the society was distributing Arabic-language pamphlets with the words of Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, a cleric who condones suicide bombings, they were outraged. The Telegraph editor wrote an article contrasting Mr. Lowenthal's intolerance toward their community with his embrace of the local Muslims.
"Mr. Lowenthal finally became so exasperated by these conflicts that he emailed Jim Kaufman, the immediate past president of the local AJC: "I am sorry we ever started up with the Russians." Unfortunately, his confessional somehow fell into Russian hands, and Mr. Koifman published it in the Telegraph."
Gwynnie would lo love to hear from Maggie's brilliant psychiatrist contributor Dr. Joy Bliss, but her insight is that the secular leftist American Jew is filled with a sense of self-loathing and guilt, which raises many issues.
Is a self-loathing Jew anti-Semitic?
Does this explain the NY Slimes' hatred of Israel and embracing of the Palestinian "cause"?
Does this explain the NYT's 9-part series on class which intentionally tries to stir up class warfare (even though their perceived under-classes aren't generally NYT readers, and and even though they would be among the first victims of real class warfare)?
Does all this guilt and self-loathing result in a subconscious desire for self-destruction (which would explain the sick embracing of the Islamofacsists and encouragement of class warfare)?
Gwynnie feels like a key has turned in a mental lock and all sorts of things are now falling into place. She feels like a passenger in a lifeboat with a maniac who keeps tryng to scuttle it; she sees they threaten her very survival and that she must fight them at all times and in every way she can, as well as their Islamofacsist allies.
Thanks to Mark Levin, here is the sad story of how environmental activists scuttled the 1977 New Orleans hurricane barrier project. The following is from the website of Save Our Wetlands, Inc. (S.O.W.L.).
LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN HURRICANE BARRIER PROJECT
During the same time period the Corps was also pursuing the development of a Corps’ project called the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project. This plan proposed to build a billion dollar dam stretching from Fort Pike to the Rigolets under the guise of hurricane flood protection. This area is approximately one mile wide and is one the entrances of to the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed project would have created hundreds of millions of dollars in dredging contracts. This pork-barrel project was the brain child of U.S. Congressman F. Edward Hebert. Had this proposed project been undertaken it would have destroyed the wetlands of New Orleans east and promoted further housing development in extremely low-lying hurricane susceptible areas. The project also would have destroyed the ecology of Lake Pontchartrain by causing it to become stagnant.
. . .
What the Corps really wanted was the construction of the billion dollar barrier/dam across the Rigolets at Fort Pike, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in dredging contracts it would create.
. . .
The United States Army Corps of Egineer's [sic] Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project had the potential to make Lake Pontchartrain a stagnant body of water, which would have negatively affected its productivity. Under the guise of hurricane protection, this project was not only going to destroy Lake Pontchartrain but was in fact going to drain the wetlands of New Orleans East and promote development in these newly drained areas, regardless of the fact that they would have been highly susceptible to flooding due to hurricane tidal surges. This project was also going to create hundreds of millions of dollars in dredging contracts for F. Edward Herbert political supporters and for the cronies of the Orleans Levee Board. Judge Charles Schwartz ordered the Corps not to intimidate, threaten, or in any way jeopardize the job security of Glen Montz, for telling the truth.
After three days of testimony and hearing Judge Charles Schwartz stated from the bench that Save Our Wetlands had proven her [sic] case and ordered defendants to sit down and negotiate with Save Our Wetlands a type of solution and compromise. Save Our Wetlands spent an entire day communicating with counsel for the defendants in attempting to obtain a compromised injunction on these barriers. This discussion lasted into the night. At all parties met in Judge Charles Schwartz chambers Save Our Wetlands was of the impression that the defendants would agree to cease all of their operations on the construction of the Hurricane Barrier Project.
. . .
Judge Charles Schwartz orders the Army Corps of Engineers to do a new Environmental Impact Study on the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project. During the trial one of the key arguments of Save Our Wetlands was that alternative hurricane protection measures should be considered including building up preexisting levees. The new EIS conducted by the Corps concludes that building up the existing levees is in fact a better alternative to the Hurricane Barrier Project. The end result of this litigation is that the wetlands of New Orleans East were saved and the Bayou Savauge National Wildlife Refuge was created.
An interesting side note is when the attorney for Save Our Wetlands went before Judge Schwartz to obtain attorney fees. Judge Charles Schwartz agreed, in his injunction that the Corps of Engineers lied to the public. However, now he tells the Save Our Wetlands attorney that, “he is interested in ‘fish’ and ‘birds’ while the Corps was interested in the welfare of the people.”
The Save Our Wetlands attorney says "how can you possibly talk to me that way after all we have proven." Judge Charles Schwartz says, “I have been waiting to hold you in contempt of court for sometime, one more peep out of you and you will go to jail.” The Save Our Wetlands attorney collected no fees for the time and energy he invested in saving the wetlands of New Orleans East and the entire Lake Maurapus, Pontchartrain, Catherine, Bornge, ecosystem. Many people in this litigation are now dead and even though Save Our Wetlands did not recieve any monetary compensation SOWL's legacy lives on and on within the heart and spirit of every man, woman, child, bird, red fish, speckle trout, croakers, etc.
Gwynnie thinks that it is only natural that the political looters would follow the street looters; they only see what’s in it for them and have no interest in the notion of the far greater damage that they leave behind.
Gwynnie has noted on TV and in news bulletins the extreme division of the African-American community in New Nairobi, LA. Most of them are gentle people of the deepest, most sincere faith, which comes through in everything they say. The other part resembles the most lawless areas of Africa: Nairobi, Darfur, and Somalia, and their shameless, smirking appearances in huge numbers on TV may well deepen the residual racism in the United States, which is not what we need. Black looters have even been shooting at the police, military helicopters, air ambulances and rescue boats, all of whom have had to cease or suspend vital search and rescue operations.
One would think that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, National Urban League President Marc Morial, and NAACP President Bruce Gordon would get down a to New Orleans as fast as possible to use their powers of persuasion to halt the anarchistic looting and bring order. But no; what is the NAACP’s current concern? Justice Roberts, whom they strongly opposed in a press release yesterday, August 31, while New Orleans and Mississippi writhen in agony!
Gwynnie says the media’s favorites in the African-American leadership appear much more interested working in their personal interests than in the interests of the people they purport to support. (She actually said, “pampered, over-stuffed, self-important, self-promoting political windbags”).
Update: Gwynnie heard on the radio last night that the country's African-American leaders ARE doing something about New Nairobi -- they are telling the maimstream media not to show pictures of the looting and riots. If you censor it, it didn't happen.
Bennett tells the story of the hero who survived a bizarre B-17 collision over Germany:
Tomorrow morning they'll lay the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, Pa., just southeast of Pittsburgh.He was 81, and had been in the air conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport.If you had seen him on the street he would probably have looked to you like so many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose names appear so often now on obituary pages.
Egyptian Generals - hopefully not Egyptian psychiatrists. Curious how this has happened. From DebkaFiles:
A high-ranking 100-man Egyptian military delegation has taken de facto charge of Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip and is handling talks with Hamas to avert an outbreak of terrorist violence. DEBKAfile’s military sources report General Ibrahim Shukri heads the team of three Egyptian generals and several colonels and majors. The same general also led the probe of the October 15, 2004 al Qaeda Taba bombings. His appointment betokens Cairo’s anxiety over the threat of al Qaeda terror infiltration of the Gaza Strip. Our sources add that all Palestinian operations, including the deployment of 24 battalions in the evacuated territory are coordinated with Israel indirectly through a direct channel set b y by General Shukri and Israel’s Shin Beit HQ. A second Egyptian general, Muhammed Ibrahim, is in close communication with the Hamas to guard against wildcat action including gunfire on Israeli targets
Re yesterdays post on the Citgo story, Corzine, and the Kelo decision:
Kelo was decided the way it was because SCOTUS didn't want to decide a local issue - may their tribe increase.
Citgo could offer it to Audubon or the Conservancy and accomplish the same result.
Kelo is not new law. All railroads were build by condemning private property so railroad companies could provide a service for profit.
IF New Jersey law permits a taking of the property AND New Jersey files an eminent domain suit to take the property, the only possible fight is the fair value of the property.
Connecticut got the message from its citizens and the papers today report the Dems behind a new law to prevent future development takings. NJ could do the same.
(Note: photo at right was a consequence of Moslem unterrorists who are longing for sensitivity and understanding.)
On July 7, Gwynnie wrote Maggie that, “The Reuters ‘News’ Service still can’t bring itself to use the term ‘terrorism’. Maybe it would like to refer to the bombings in London as caused by ‘insurgents’”. The mayor, “Red” Ken Livingston, once referred to the murdering IRA terrorists as “freedom fighters”! Now, in the BBC’s fantasy world, they have intentionally stopped using the term “terrorist” so it won’t be applying “value judgments”. Here it is:
BBC edits out the word terrorist, By Tom Leonard (Filed: 12/07/2005)
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers". The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/12/nbbc12.xml
Mr. Free Market, a British blogger had this to say, “Quite right … as the perpetrators are not terrorists, they are murdering pondlife scum. This however does seem to have stopped the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation (an organisation that through its collective liberal lefty glasses, sees terrorists as freedom fighters)& to think my taxes go to pay for these numpties. This country has gone to the dogs - & I should apologise to dogs at this point because some canines lead useful lives, unlike the staff at the BBC.” http://www.fmft.net/
Gwynnie adds, yeah, and don’t call Hitler a “Nazi”; it would be a barrier to understanding. Gwynnie is only a corgi, but she doesn’t care if we understand Osama; she thinks we should kill him now, and the Waziristan warlords who are protecting him. Maybe someone, someday, might do a high school paper to try to “understand him”. Who cares? What’s to understand, anyway? He is a rich Saudi who hates us enough to want to kill us, all of us. Understand that, not him!
Comment from Editor: I can only come to one conclusion - these people at the BEEB would like to see western civilization collapse. But something tells me that they might not enjoy the consequences. Thank God England didn't have these "no value judgement" folks on board during WW2 - they'd be speaking German now.
Wilfred McCay wrote “But it was not enough for the constraints of this order to be applied externally, like so many fences and leashes. Control, which led to a kind of moral self-sufficiency, needed to be internalized, with the help of institutions like the family, the church, the neighborhood—and the polity. Indeed, in the literature of the era, the relationship between the self-governing soul and the self-governing polity appears as a recurring motif.”
This notion was not invented by 19th Century evangelicals; Gwynnie wants to remind you that it is a Biblical promise made by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah and realized through Jesus: (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NLT) "The day will come," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife," says the Lord. "But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the Lord. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, `You should know the Lord.' For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me," says the Lord. "And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins."
Throughout our culture, we are being encouraged to break that new covenant as well as the old.
Gwynnie looked at Jeff Harrell's blog, Shape of Days, cited below and read the following:
"If we laid down every weapon held by every soldier and every armed civilian, if we completely foreswore violence and gave up our prosecution of the war tonight, our enemies would be unable to wage genocide against us. They simply wouldn’t have the ability. Yes, our enemies can attack us. They can kill Americans by the thousands. They can grievously wound our nation. But wipe us out? Three hundred million Americans? Even if that were their goal, even if they armed themselves with nuclear or other unconventional weapons, it simply wouldn’t be possible.
"While the immediate, day-to-day threat of terrorism is a matter of life and death for every American, what’s really at stake here, in the long term, is the destruction of our culture. To quote Abraham Lincoln, what we face is the possibility that government of the people, by the people and for the people might perish from the Earth."
Gee - they get first punch , and second, and third, and we won't do anything? How many lives is he willing to sacrifice, fifty million? A hundred? Does he know that others in this world depend on us? Their very lives?
Man, is this guy ignorant! Wanna make a daisy garland and see if North Korea can land a nuke in it?
Seriously, this is the liberal left speaking with characteristic hyperbole, and the MSM and a lot of Americans are buying it. Gwynnie wants to pare it down to its essence, but it is difficult to know what part of American culture is at risk and from what. Interrogating prisoners at Gitmo seems to be the 'from what'. What is at risk is our entire culture, as envisioned by Mr. Lincoln. Here's another Shape quote:
This war, as much as any war in our nation’s history and more so than some, is a war of survival. If we choose not to fight, our culture will be overwhelmed by the totalitarian Islam that gathers like a wave in the poor corners of the earth, poised to surge out and bury the liberal democracies of the West. But on the other hand, if we fight this war too thoroughly and too well, our culture will vanish because we’ve chosen to abandon it.
Now we have the essence: in the last fifty years the US Supreme Court has created new rights for criminal suspects (which some think might have gone too far). Let's not look at the issue of whether US burglars and wartime captives deserve the same treatment. If the US military is not nice to terrorists captured on the field of battle trying to kill US soldiers, the author is saying we will have abandoned our entire American culture, even that overwhelming portion of it which predates the newly discovered rights of criminal suspects.
Here it is: Jeff is willing to accept millions of US deaths as well as the fall of the many governments we support and risk being "overwhelmed by totalitarian Islam" (his words) in order to extend US criminal rights to a handful of Islamist terrorists we are detaining to (1) gain actionable intelligence which will save Iraqi and Ameerican lives and (2) prevent their immediate return to the battle to try to kill more Americans. This guy needs a new dog food.
In Ann Coulter’s column “Dare Call It Treason” of June 25, 2003, she wrote, “The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis. As Whittaker Chambers said: ‘Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.’
“At the time, half the country realized liberals were lying. But after a half century of liberal myth-making, even the disgorging of Soviet and American archives half a century later could not overcome their lies. In 1995, the U.S. government released its cache of Soviet cables that had been decoded during the Cold War in a top-secret undertaking known as the VENONAProject. The cables proved the overwhelming truth of McCarthy's charges. Naturally, therefore, the release of decrypted Soviet cables was barely mentioned by the New York Times. It might have detracted from stories of proud and unbowed victims of ‘McCarthyism.’ They were not so innocent after all, it turns out.”
The National Security Agency’s web site has this incredible story of espionage and treason and also all the materials. Yet it remains almost totally unknown. Here’s an excerpt from their preface:
On 1 February 1943 the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, a forerunner of the National Security Agency, began a small, very secret program, later codenamed VENONA. The original object of the VENONA program was to examine, and possibly exploit, encrypted Soviet diplomatic communications. These messages had been accumulated by the Signal Intelligence Service (later renamed the U.S. Army Signal Security Agency and commonly called "Arlington Hall" after the Virginia location of its headquarters) since 1939 but had not been studied previously. American analysts discovered that these Soviet communications dealt with not only diplomatic subjects but also espionage matters.
Six public releases of VENONA translations and related documents have been made. These releases covered the following topics and are all discussed in this monograph.
Soviet atomic bomb espionage
New York KGB messages of 1942 and 1943
New York and Washington KGB messages of 1944 and 1945
San Francisco and Mexico City KGB messages; GRU New York and Washington messages; Washington Naval GRU messages
KGB and GRU messages from Europe, South America, and Australia
Messages inadvertently left out of the previous five updates of previously issued translations. Updates some translations by restoring names that had been protected for privacy reasons in the original releases.
Watching the furor about Gitmo, Gwynnie asks us to imagine the furor if the Republicans proposed a bill that said the following:
A. Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
B. Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; or
Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully . . . obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
If two or more persons conspire to violate subsection (a) of this section and one or more such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be punished as provided in said subsection (a).
Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offense under this section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Oh, wait! Gwynnie can’t read! That IS the law of the land: paragraph A is in Title 18, Part I, Chapter 115, Section 2381, Treason, and part B is in Sec. 2388.Isn’t it time that the Department of Justice opened their law books? Can anyone remember some US citizens giving aid and comfort to our enemies (other than the French-looking presidential loser)? Does anyone remember if some institutions of higher "learning" have interferred with any military recruitment efforts? Recently?
Gwynnie has been fascinated by the European Constitution controversy. It seems simple to her. A structure would be created under which the European kings and rulers are compelled to elect a supreme ruling body to which their sovereignty is subordinated and which is not accountable to the needs or desires of their own people. In return, the states of the electors are protected from external and interstate competition and strife.
She recalls it all happened exactly that way once before. It lasted from 800 to 1806 AD and it was called the “Holy Roman Empire”. Because the emperor was not accountable to anybody except for being routinely confirmed by electors upon whom he devolved great riches, the succession of the emperor became largely hereditary and ended up for the last 400 years in the house of Hapsburg.
Gwynnie thinks that it was clearly the intention of the French that the house of Chirac and the elites of France considered themselves uniquely suited to filling the lost role of the Habsburgs and leading a proud return to French rule of both the lands won and lost by Napoleon and also of his traditional opponent England. She thinks that a large part of the French “non” to the Constitution was the realization that France would not be ruling the EU, and would have no more than equal status to all those grubby little nations east of the Rhine and the Rhone, and south of the Pyrenees. Recall Monsieur Chirac’s comments February 18, 2003 (as translated from Le Monde):
The French president, Jacques Chirac, denounced the ex East-European countries hoping to enter the EU on Monday evening, saying that they had "missed a good opportunity to shut up" by aligning themselves with the warlike position of the USA in the Iraqi crisis. "These countries have been at the same time, let's say, not very well brought up and a little careless of the dangers which come with a too-rapid alignment with the American position", said M. Chirac at the end of the special summit at Brussels.
M. Chirac warned the candidate EU members that they were risking making their membership more difficult. "I find that Romania and Bulgaria have taken their decision to act this way too lightly, when their position as regards Europe is already very delicate. If they wanted to reduce their chances of EU membership they could not have found a better way", insisted the French president to the press.
"If, on the first important issue, they give their point of view independently of all consultation with the others who they wish to join, well, that's not very responsible behaviour. . . So I believe they have missed a good opportunity to shut up."
Oui, realize your true inferior status and elect me emperor. I’ll let you into my club and agree to throw you some bones.
Regarding France's refusal to adhere to the Maastricht Treaty requirement on budget deficit limits, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had stated that creating jobs in France was his priority, not satisfying "this or that office or country!" -- by following rules France had once said were critical to the European Monetary Union. Gwynnie believes that that statement was France’s true “non”, and that last week’s vote was merely ratification by the French worker/parasites who thought the deficit crisis was a close call (imagine if France could be compelled to live up to its treaties)! Only the “little people . . .“
Maybe it's because Gwynnie is under 24 inches tall, but she seems to notice things others don't, like how do you flush a Koran down a toilet into a septic system that you have to use daily? As a Corgi, septic systems only amuse her, but she knows they are really, really important to people. She also knows that paper clogs them mercilessly. She also knows that no person smart enough to be in the Army would foul his or her own septic system!
The latest item about which she is astounded is that no bloggers have commented upon is Mr. Kerry's famous recent quote:
"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people."
Gwynnie suggests a new game of fill-in-the-blanks:
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that: ___________________!
The only rule is that what you use to fill in the blank must appear nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ, no suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover!
Suggestions to get you started:
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that children shound be allowed to eat pizza after noon!
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, thatyou ought to take the money from the rich, the opportunities from the rich and give them to the poor people.
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that John Kerry has ever picked up a Bible!
Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that John Kerry was fit to be president!
[Gwynnie noted a fine Memorial Day piece in the Federalist Patriot]
Public Prayer? Where's the outrage!
Yesterday, much to the vexation of the ACLU and company, President George W. Bush invited a group of religious leaders to the East Room of the White House. There, he talked about the importance of prayer, and then (you'd best sit down) he prayed. Yes, on government time and on government property, he prayed.
Who does he think he is?
In this enlightened era when progressive, free-thinking liberals insist on the removal of all religious references and symbols (Crosses, Ten Commandment monuments, etc.) from federal, state and local public places, the President of the United States impudently promoted the merits of prayer and encouraged all Americans to do the same.
But wait, it gets worse.
"We pray to give thanks for our freedom," the President said. "Freedom is our birthright because the Creator wrote it into our common human nature. No government can ever take a gift from God away." He then asserted that giving thanks to God is writ through and through upon American history, from Plymouth Rock to the Revolution and to this day. He reminded us that in our nation's supreme founding document, the Declaration of Independence, "...our Founders ... declared it a self-evident truth that our right to liberty comes from God." Then, he concluded, "We pray to acknowledge our dependence on the Almighty [and] we who ask for God's help for ourselves, [since we] have a particular obligation to care for the least of our brothers and sisters within our midst."
How can he, and other elected leaders, get away with such a blatant breach of the "wall of separation" between church and state? Because, in short, there is no such doctrine supported in our Constitution or its superior guidance, our Declaration of Independence. In fact, the First Continental Congress called for national prayer.
Fishing for a fishing license in NY
A War Hero, and an incredible story
