Life in the Atomic Age

Oh, Yeah,

And Finish The Job.

Then you’re a heartless bastard. Period. No room for discussion.

Capt. Walter Hynes of the New York Fire Department’s Ladder 13 dialed home that morning as his rig left the firehouse at 85th Street and Lexington Avenue. He was on his way downtown, he said in his message, and things were bad. “I don’t know if we’ll make it out. I want to tell you that I love you and I love the kids.”

Firemen don’t become firemen because they’re pessimists. Imagine being a guy who feels in his gut he’s going to his death, and he calls on the way to say goodbye and make things clear. His widow later told the Associated Press she’d played his message hundreds of times and made copies for their kids. “He was thinking about us in those final moments.”

They come in all flavors, and of all political inclinations.

Just, wow.

This type of posturing just boggles my mind.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

are doomed to repeat them.

These supposed news outlets published Massey’s claims without even trying to verify them — or, in some cases, without even getting a pro forma response from the Pentagon. During Vietnam, the news media promoted a similar showcase of the anti-war Left called “Winter Soldier,” which also featured first-person allegations of U.S. war crimes. Eventually, it came out that the claims were a total fraud. Now, the same crowd is at it again. And, once again, their media allies are playing along.

Do you get a profound sense of irony when you read this statement?

Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly branded it (Al Jazeera - ed) a “propaganda network

Full article here.

Help me out with this statement:

One might feel compassion for Hitler, Stalin or Saddam on learning about their appalling childhoods (like most famous dictators, they lost a parent before the age of 14), or even for George Bush (who had a beastly time), but still hate them for what they did.

(emphasis added) Is the author of this article really saying the GWB is less deserving of compassion than Stalin? That the leader of a democratic society prosecuting a war against terrorists deserves less compassion than a dictator who willfully starved millions of his own people to death. And there’s not to much doubt about that “hated” language, eh? The authors choice of “cruel foci” is interesting as well:

Given that the last century gave us Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, it is important not to exaggerate the extent of modern day cruelty within western European and Anglo-Saxon nations. It is now more subtle, but very much on the increase.

Gee, I wonder who’s missing from the list of “cruel”?

And, as my students will attest, that doesn’t happen often. Apparently, Louisiana deserves her fate for being stupid enough to have voted for Bush. Perhaps someone should point out to the author that New Orleans is heavily democratic, and voted for Kerry by a wide margin in the last Presidential election.

I’m not going to post the piece I started to write. My original reaction to the Katrina catastrophe was going to be: “NOT ONE DIME.” For an hour or so, I contemplated the idea of turning it into a crusade: No-one in the blue states (where the money is) should give one dime of aid to the victims of this hurricane, which devastated Bush-friendly regions. Why did I flirt with such a callous attitude? Because it should be obvious to all that this tragedy was not just an act of God. Dubya and his Deity conspired to transform mere disaster into an unprecedented mega-catastrophe.

It seems like the only reason the author decided to back off his “not one dime” stance was because some of the people affected are poor. Not because it is morally reprehensible to wish such a fate on anyone, but because you might get more than your intended white Christian Bush supporters in the ensuing catastrophe. The real endearing sentiments can be found in the comments, if you have the stomach to find out that you should just be left to die because of how you voted in the last election.

Read the transcript. But remember, we’re the real terrorists here.

Vectored via Austin Bay Blog - one of your best sources for information on Iraq on the web.

Is that I was a better writer. But, I’m a scientific/technical writer, not an inspiring (or inspired) one. That’s why it’s a pleasure to read posts like this one penned by Scott Randolph.

Here’s the obligatory tease, but you really should go read the entire essay.

Soldiers know, when they enlist, that it is entirely possible they will be shipped out and never come home. It’s part of the job. The fact that people still walk in to recruiters’ offices and sign that piece of paper make them heroes. To imply that they are simple kids who didn’t know what they were getting into, or even worse, that they died for no reason, or an immoral reason, does a horrible thing. It strips their sacrifice of the honor that it deserves. Even though those folks sitting out there in the Texas fields claim to honor and support the soldiers, they obviously have been blinded by their own selfishness as to the real way to support them.

This is going to leave a mark.

If not, I wonder why?

Practicing for “dove” season.

Indeed.