Drink alert!

Saddam's plans for his money.

Sent to me by Ms. Cait from Caiterwauling

I was wandering around Ravenwood's Universe yesterday and happened upon a post on the issue of property taxes in Virginia.

About halfway through the post he comes up with a brilliant idea.

The Earned Income Gun Credit

Every year, you get $500 dollars back for every gun you own.

In the past you may have heard of a couple of small towns somewhere in the country passing laws making it mandatory for everyone citizen of the town to own a gun. Those citizens that choose to not own a weapon pay a moderate fee every year for the privledge of not having to provide for the towns defense.

Usually, these laws are taken down later by a town official doesn't think this is fair to the non-gun owners. Which is why I think that this is a much better idea.

Remember, according to the 2nd Amendment, you are a part of the 'well regulated militia'. You are responsible for your own safety since the police do not have a legal obligation to protect you and yours. In the case of a natural disater, you and your firearm may be the only thing standing between your home (or your neighbor's home) and looters.

You are providing for the common defense. Why should you not get a benefit for it for a change instead of being made to feel like a criminal?

Like you didn't already know that.

From Nick Cohen at FrontPageMag

Noam Chomsky is the master of looking-glass politics. His writing exemplifies the ability of the Western Left to criticise everything from the West - except itself. He is immensely popular; but his popularity is mystifying on the first reading. His work is dense and filled with non sequiturs (here he seeks to use the Cuban missile crisis to explain the Iraq war, which is a little like using the first Moon landing to explain the dotcom boom). He claims to confront the comfortable with uncomfortable facts they don't want to face. Yet his audience is primarily a comfortable Western audience.

Got that? Not that propaganda is more subtle in the United States than, say, China, or harder to detect in Britain than say, North Korea, but 'more important'. To the far Left, accustomed to decades of defeat, Chomsky's account of the brainwashing of the dumb masses provides an excuse for failure. For others he presents a curiously ethno-centric and soothing view of the world.

You just gotta wonder if this man is insane.

So what does it take to get the Howard Dean juices going? A few days later, the governor was on CNN and Judy Woodruff asked him about his admission that he'd left the Episcopal Church and become a Congregationalist because "I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church over the bike path." I hasten to add that, in contrast to current Anglican controversies over gay marriage in British Columbia and gay bishops in New Hampshire, this does not appear to have been a gay bike path: its orientation was not an issue; it would seem to be a rare example of a non-gay controversy in the Anglican Communion. But nevertheless it provoked Howard into "a big fight." "I was fighting to have public access to the waterfront, and we were fighting very hard in the citizens group," he told Judy Woodruff. Fighting, fighting, fighting.

And that's our pugnacious little Democrat. On Osama bin Laden, he's Mister Insouciant. But he gets mad about bike paths. Destroy the World Trade Center and he's languid and laconic and blas�. Obstruct plans to convert the ravaged site into a memorial bike path and he'll hunt you down wherever you are.

I know that I'll be a government target if Dean get elected. I can't stand bikes or bike paths.

At least in Hillary's mind.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused the Bush administration Tuesday of nullifying the success of her husband's administration and urged party activists to retake the White House next year.

I could only hope!

"I shouldn't take it personally. Because what (the Bush) administration was attempting to do was turn back the progress of the entire 20th century. They were not just after Bill Clinton - they wanted to undo Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt," Clinton said.

Carter? You bet your ass. Johnson? Uh-huh. Kennedy? OK. Truman, Roosevelt? Eh.

"They were on their way to Teddy Roosevelt. It was a bipartisan right-wing extreme agenda," she said.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Hillary!? Bipartisian? Some of your office staff can't even spell bipatisian! The only reason you can say that word without spitting is because you had your forked tongue surgically repaired.

No Premium Grade Gas for you!

In another one of those 'SUV's are evil' articles, Hal R. Varian of the NYT says that everyone buying more and more SUVs is equal to another arms race.

Michelle White, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, estimates that for each fatality that light-truck drivers avoid for themselves and their passengers, they cause four fatalities involving car occupants, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. "Safety gains for those driving light trucks," Ms. White said, "come at an extremely high cost to others."

So they're saying that for every accident from which I avoid injury, I'm might be able to kill 4 hippies?! Then fill up the tank, Martha!

Hey Michelle and Hal, the 'others' need to get the f*uck out of the way!

From the "What was he thinking!" category,

Dean Taps Clinton Aide Who Bungled Bin Laden Deal

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean has tapped former Clinton administration Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice to be part of his foreign policy team, CBS News.com reported Monday - despite Rice's reported role in bungling a 1996 offer from Sudan to hand over Osama bin Laden to the U.S. on a silver platter.

In a May 2002 radio interview, Clinton White House diplomatic troubleshooter Mansoor Ijaz strongly condemned Rice as a leading force behind the U.S.'s decision not to take bin Laden into custody.

Or maybe he was polishing up Lewis and Clark fact sheet?

A license plate was found in one of Saddam's automobile garages.

Is the 1984 license plate genuine? Chatterbox ran the number by Oregon's Department of Motor Vehicles and was told that no such plate appears in its records. It's possible that it slipped between the cracks when the 1984 records were transferred from paper to a computer, but the greater likelihood is that the license plate is a counterfeit. How Saddam or his sons would have acquired a counterfeit American license plate, however, is no less a mystery than how they would have acquired a genuine one.

Time for a joke.

Well, was there ever any doubt?

If you were listening to The Producers radio show on KVI 570 last night at around 18:50hrs you would have heard me on the radio.

The fastest hour in radio, The Producers show, had a dilemma. Their board engineer, Matt, had just moved into his and his new home two weeks ago with his wife. They came home last Friday night to find that their home had been burgled. The thieves took everything, including his locked fireproof file safe.

Producer #1, Travis Box asked Matt if he had plans to buy a firearm soon. Matt said yes. Producer #2, Luther Haigs immediately went ballistic and said that buying a gun in anger or fear was a bad idea.

Being the kindhearted fellow that I am (hee hee), I called up and offered a compromise. I said that until they feel comfortable owning a firearm they shouldn't get one. They should get a good sized dog or other guard animal (someday, I'll tell you all about the Komodo Dragon some guy in Florida had), some good pepperspray and a big club or batt.

I also offered to help Matt and his wife get started in feeling comfortable with firearms by offering them a spot at our little get-together this Saturday. I haven't gotten a confirmation from Mr. Matt yet, as he wants to talk to his wife about it. But he has my cell number and will get ahold of me later this week.

As for the plan for this Saturday, Wade's in Bellevue seems to be the place. 10am is when I'll be there. 14:30-15:00 is when I'll be leaving. Y'all can arrive anytime that is convenient for you. If you guys want a two-fer, I'll be meeting Mollbot at Wade's this Friday at 10am as well.

If you need directions to Wade's or can't make either of those times and need a third option, let me know and we'll pull a three-peat.

Hello Ironbear or TrooperJohnSmith?

Madelene Albright seems to be reading out of the Kucinich/Dean/McDermott political hay playbook.

Albright thinks Bush is hiding bin Laden
Tells Fox News' Kondracke she suspects political dirty tricks

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke yesterday she suspects President Bush knows the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and is simply waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.

Quit laughing!

I wonder which former employer of hers may have committed some 'political dirty tricks' that leads her to project this crap.

UPDATE #1: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), says she has invited Syrian leader Bashar Assad to come to the United States to speak.

My G*d, what is in the water supply over at the DNC Headquarters?

UPDATE #2: Found at LGF. MAdeleine 'Fighting Mad' Albright now says "She was just kidding"

You may have heard about the new display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum that includes a restored Enola Gay. You may also have heard about a group of Hiroshima 'survivors' who were angry about the display. But you may not believe what those ungrateful bastards did to Lady Enola.

Six survivors and about 50 peace activists visited a new museum, where the restored Boeing B-29 Superfortress has just gone on public display, holding pictures of hideously burned victims among tens of thousands killed or injured by the 1945 blast.

One was charged with destruction of property, while the other faces loitering charges, police said.

The ungrateful bastards seem to want to forget that their country attacked us on December 7th, 1941. They also seem to want to forget about the atrociies that their country was commiting in China. Those santcions being levied against their country were the major reason that Japan launched their sneak attack.

They also seem to forget that if we had not dropped the bomb on them, that we would have invaded their island nation and, by very conservative accounts, would have killed 3-4 million Japanese citizens. Not to mention the US casualties that were estimated at 500,000 minimum.

I can guarantee that the '50 Peace Activists' were members of groups such as ANSWER International or MoveOn. Anything to make more people hate America.

That commies didn't celebrate Christmas.

From a report over at FrontPageMag.com comes a report on the Communicrat (communist democrat) Convergence.

Looking for a perfect oliday gift for that lefty on your list? Try shopping at the Communist Party USA online.

That’s right, the Communist Party USA has gone capitalist. It now exploits its brand name, built by years of anti-communist attacks, and now it is turning its brand into a cash cow.

I hope that 'Bush Out 2004' thing isn't a no underwear plan for communist women. That would be terrorism.

The turkey has landed.

Governer Locke saw the error in his anti-business ways and kissed Boeing's ass. And now Washington continues it's Boeing addiction.

Chicago has Boeing's world headquarters, but Everett has the 7E7.

In a major economic boost for the region, and a badly needed morale boost for The Boeing Co.'s commercial jetliner work force here, the company's board of directors yesterday approved Everett as the final assembly site of the new jetliner.

If I sound anti-Boeing here, it is because I am. I don't like the company, the way it treats it's employees, the way it bows to the machinists union, the way that Western Washington is dependant on these guys staying here or the way the Lazy-B lets the government step on it's supplier businesses.

A few years back, the story was of how Boeing merged, or aquired, McDonnell/Douglas. It is actually the other way around. The McDouglas boys seem to want the commercial part of Boeing to die off so that they can go after more military contracts. And I refuse to ride an AirBus.

Drill it.

Montana voters generally support more oil and gas drilling along the Rocky Mountain Front, a new Gazette State Poll shows.

Thirty-four percent of voters said they opposed drilling, while 15 percent were unsure.

You might remember my trip back to Big Sky Country last August. Part of the reason I went was to check out a couple of job prospects. Let me tell you this, there weren't any. Wal-Mart is the state's largest employer, followed by the government. People are leaving the beautiful state of Montana to find work. If the damn Eco-Nazis would get off their high horses and let the drilling begin, hundreds of good paying jobs would be created and this state would grow by leaps and bounds.

And to all you anti-war (read: anti-America) types, 51% is the number you need for a majority. 20,000 hippies/college students in a park or 50,000 America hating Euros in Trafalgar Square does not constitute a majority. That make you a minority. A very loud and annoying minority.

And this man wants to be President.
"I've just finished my first session in the trial at The Hague of former Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. The last time I had seen him was 1999," Wesley Clark told reporters outside the tribunal.

Clark spoke to Milosevic for more than 100 hours over a period of almost four years in the 1990s when he was a U.S. negotiator at Dayton and later NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Every time this man opens his mouth I am more and more convinced that Hillary is blackmailing him to be a spoiler for Dean.

Do you eBay?

New York State has been quietly selling surplus items for more than a year through the highly successful online auction house eBay, officials said Tuesday.

OGS sales on eBay have already earned the state almost $300,000 on hundreds of items, she said.

Imagine that! Capitalism works!

Another example of a group that needs to take a long walk off a short pier.

King County Council backs Patriot Act changes

The Metropolitan King County Council yesterday joined a growing bipartisan movement to soften some of the most controversial provisions of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act.

County Councilman Rob McKenna, R-Bellevue, wrote the revised resolution that passed 13-0 yesterday. Republican council members had objected to provisions in an earlier proposal.

How many times do I have to tell these people, if they thought government wouldn't snoop on its citizens until the PA got signed, they need to grow up.

The Eco-Nazi's have taken over the Seattle City Counsil.

We'll all recycle or else, City Council decides

While I think that recycling is a great idea, I do not believe that it should be mandatory. The new rule coming in 2005 is that if the person doing the curbside pick up opens your trash can and sees recyclables, they can refuse to take your trash. And until you separate your trash it will not be picked up. And you will still be charged your regular rate for them to stop by stop by and check.

Add this to the fact that the city tells both it's residents and businesses who they have to go through to get their trash and recyclables collected (depending on where in town they live in), they also tell the providers the minimum and maximum that they can charge.

Oh, and just to let y'all know, don't waste your time separating your glass by color. It all goes into the same truck and then into a big pile to be separated (in Seattle at least). One of these days, I'll get a pic of our recycle pile. You could hide a 2000 sqft house under it.

Pointing a finger at the media, Rhys-Davies went on, �What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is� The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.�

Looking at the lone female journalist at the table, Rhys-Davies said pointedly, �You should not be in this room [according to Muslim custom]. Because your husband or your father or your husband is not here to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.�

Holy Sh!t.

And the raving moonbat disintigration continues.

With this picture?

The caption from the MSNBC story:

An Iraqi medic checks an X-ray of Bata Thaer Shallal's chest at the general hospital of Samarra on Tuesday. She was allegedly wounded when U.S. troops opened fire in the al-Khadra area of the city.

The "medic" is holding the radiograph upside down. And not looking at it through light (you can't see squat if you hold a radiograph down towards the ground - just a black piece of film).

But surely they wouldn't stage this for our benefit, eh?

This really pissed me off. I apologize in advance for the bent feelings of anyone I respect who happens to be Catholic. I've had many friends who were staunchly Catholic without any trouble, but this speaks of a dark past that the Vatican should best not bring back to the fore.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A top Vatican official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated "like a cow."

Really?

This from the same Vatican that opposed the reigning in of the Serbs love of genocide?

This from the Vatican that turned a blind eye to the rounding up of Jews on "cattle" trucks and packed into trains to be shipped off to death camps?

This from the Vatican with a long history of covering up and defending boy abusing priests?

This from a Vatican that only a couple of years back apologized for the persecution of Galileo? Nice of them since he's only been dead for over five centuries.

"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.

"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.

Fuck your pity old man. Save it for yourself.

Save it for the day in which you have to answer to God for why? Why, did you turn your eyes away from the death and destruction, why did you make excuses for it, why did you oppose stopping it, why did you feel compassion for the butcher but not the victims? God's vicars are supposed to represent him on earth, which like a doctor, the first order of business should be, "First, do no harm". You haven't done the worst harm yourself, you've merely held it's coat while it happily murdered and sprayed the blood of millions.
Your fancy cloaks and titles have made you comfortable with standing close to power, yet the power that you and your kind choose to defend is the most horribly shamefull kind. Wether the PLO, the Serbs, the Nazi's or your own ass plundering Priests,....you always pick the wrong side.

Everytime.

Better you should go back to bible school you old fool. Try reading the passages about protecting the meek. I think you'll find there is no part about protecting the meekly caught after thirty years of savagry. No part about sucking up to the worst elements in power just because it's easy.

Turn in your collar old man. The "shoes of the Fisherman" are being poorly served by the likes of you. You forget who you are sworn to serve.

Both in Heaven and on earth.

I wrote about Mcdermott a long time ago. I wrote how, in my opinion, he was a treasonous bastard aiding and abetting the enemy with his trip to Iraq.

Well, it turns out that old Jimbo wasn't done.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., told a Seattle radio station Monday the U.S. military could have found Saddam "a long time ago if they wanted." Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said: "Yeah. Oh, yeah."

"With all due respect to my colleague, that is a fantasy," Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said of McDermott's comments. "That just is not right. ... It's one thing to criticize this administration for having done this war. I mean, that's a fair question. But to criticize them on the capture of Saddam, when it's such a big thing to our troops, is just ridiculous."

As I promised you all last week, I now give you 'Christmas songs played on instruments made out of dead animals' (screw off PETA).

This week's song is off an album I started listening to the day after Thanksgiving. It consists of 15 traditional Scottish Chirstmas songs played on one of my favorite instruments in the world. Yep, the Bagpipes.

Now, I don't want any whining about how 'annoying' or 'dreadful' sounding bagpipes are. If you think that, you haven't heard good pipes. When I mailed this weeks selection off to the Doc, I got an e-mail back from him saying that the song was loaded and ready with a note saying 'I love this!'

It starts out slow with an english horn and a guitar and then picks it up with the addition of some lowland pipes and wood flute.

So give it a click. If you don't like it, your delete tag is only a couple clicks away.

So here ya go,
'What Child is This (Greensleeves Jig)' by Laura MacKenzie

If you have the urge to hear about my 'Christmas past' look in the 'More' section.

I'm fussy about my Christmas. I don't go shopping after Thanksgiving week because I have all mine done by then. Hell, if I don't have my shopping done by Halloween I consider myself running behind.

I'm also fussy about my music. The wife goes for the Bing Crosby/Frank Sinatra stuff while I only listen to Celt instrumentals or acappella songs sung in Gaelic.

You may ask why. (everyone else does)

One of my earliest memories is taking a loooong plane ride with my father, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins and landing in Edinburgh during Christmas time. It was 1978. I was 6.

We met up with some people who talked like grandpa and went on a loooong drive. It is daylight out, but everyone is tired and I fall asleep. I wake up and there must be 30 people besides the dozen of us at this big house in the middle of nowhere.

It ends up we were near a place called Oban and I was somehow related to all of these people. Grandpa and dad are sitting at a table with a group of men and talking funny.

As the week goes on, I get used to the time change and then Christmas day comes around. My G*d! There must have been eighty people at the house that day. People had come from all over to see the American relates. And they all either spoke like grandpa or talked in some funny code.

We ate, and ate, and then ate more. Some of the food was a little odd, but I couldn't refuse anything and just ate. Gifts were exchanged and songs were sung. And then we ate some more.

A few days later we flew back home and I had to get used to the time again. The next week at school all my friends said I talked funny.

This happened every other year for the next twelve years. I got very excited everytime it came around. In later years we got to travel to different relatives houses and the celebrations weren't so big. But they were still as fun.

And that is where I got my love of the pipes. Especially at Christmas. Maybe in the future I'll share more.

Until then, Meadhrach Nollaig

But I do have the 'Ace in the Hole' hit parade for you.

From MT Politics,
'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead

And from The Ville,
'Down in a Hole' by Alice In Chains

Both of these guys just went and redecorated recently. Stop by for the music. Stay for the atmosphere of freedom (and then come back to RNS).

They wouldn't be claiming to have any.

From Drudge comes the story of how Dean and Clark are getting money for their campaigns from people and organizations that reside outside the USA via that sorry group of losers at MoveOn.org.

Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet!

Both men are named on international fundraising websites suggesting donations to MoveOn.org. Meanwhile, MoveOn.org, which has been running ads critical of the Bush Administration, has named an "International Campaigns Director".

I hope that this gets big. And I don't mean 'Enron' big, I mean 'Watergate' big. I want it so that both of these dweebs and all of their soft money contributors have to open up all of their books.

Because then they will both have to drop out and Kerry will be the frontrunner in the race.

Dean says he wants $100 dollars from 2 million Americans. But if you're not an American, he doesn't really mind. Just the $100 dollars will do.

In case you haven't heard, Mrs. du Toit is hanging up her keyboard.

We here at RNS owe a special thanks to the Mrs. in that she helped us with the Bellicose Women's Brigade. She contributed more than just a couple of articles that she wrote and for that we are grateful.

Stop on by and wish her well, won't you.

I will be keeping her on the blogroll until the lights go out over at her place.

Of the Seattle IMC

The Seattle IMC has resumed electronic publishing. The staff are still working some of the bugs out and the site is a little slow to load up, but then again, most IMCer's are a little slow anyway so they don't really notice.

A couple of news articles from the Iraqi Resistance Solidarity Network (here's one and here's another and here's another) were some of the first things to be posted once the site was reopened, but no, the IMC doesn't support radical agendas.

The one other article I would like to point out was posted by someone from the site named 'In Defense of Marxism' (aka marxism.com) (sorry, but I refuse to link directly to their site).

It is about calling America an 'imperialist nation' and a group of cowards as many times as possible in an article. Oh, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

This one is of the medical variety.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's surgery for prostate cancer went well on Monday and he is expected to make a full recovery, the State Department said.

The doctors report though, they were not able to remove the stick from his ass and that his balls were not to be found.

of the horrors of capitalism.

Not as good as getting an extra roll of toilet paper from the "worker's paradise co-op", but almost....

We now return you to our regular programming.

G
After all, the media's gotta find some way to get Dean back on the front page.

We are pariah's, outcasts among the world community, so sayeth the leftwing faithful. That we have enemies is not in doubt, never has been. But their contension that the feelings against us are universal are just absurd. As was recently pointed out to me by a libertarian, AWolf, we have always been considered pariah's and outcasts. By the governments and elites of the world, but not so much their citizens, they vote with their feet. Nobody had to climb over barbed wire to get INTO the Soviet bloc, but they sure as Hell had to to get out didn't they?

We are the bad guys says the hard left, the world hates us for what we've done in Iraq. Explain this then please......

Care to guess which ones are
Iraqi journalists?

In Stockholm

Ottawa

South Korea

Our own imigre population

And finally in Iraq itself.

These images are plain enough, no fancy words can deny the joy in the eyes of people who have been freed of a fear. Saddam the boogeyman is no more, it's Saddam the coward, the betrayer, the butcher, the tyrant.

And now Saddam the inmate.

Justice and mercy have had a good day on Sunday. Try as they might, the monkeys of the radical left can't pull down what many people feel, can't change what's clearly in their hearts. Their bitterness is their own, it's not something a great many people choose to share.

I think they have been pretty elequent here already, don't you?

Photos courtesy of Yahoo news.

Ain't got your Christmas shopping done yet? Too Bad!

Are you already full of yule and can't stand anymore on your log? That is also too damn bad!

Why?

Because you're going shooting!

I'm calling all Seattle area people to a 'Merry Christmas Shootathon' (aka the Santa Security Squad).

Because after all, what says Merry Christmas to a loved one or friend more than a new firearm or ammo?

The prospective date is Saturday, Dec 20th. I don't know where everyone is at so we'll have to get everyone's base location and center on a range that is kind to all. RSVP me via e-mail or in the comments. If you cannot make it Saturday, let me know what date you will be available. I absolutely do not mind going to the range 2 or 3 days in a row and I'd like to meet as many local folks as I can (Ironbear and TrooperJohnSmith, I'm looking in your direction).

I will be bringing my usual collection of pistols and small caliber rifles for all to shoot (e-mail me for a caliber list) and some ammo for them.

That is exactly what Jennifer Meeks, ex-Canadian and soon to be American, does in this editorial piece from the Seattle Times.

My husband and I left Canada six years ago to start a new life in the United States. Tens of thousands of university-educated, middle-class Canadians leave Canada for the U.S. every year. The Canadian government even has a name for us � "The Brain Drain."

Why do we leave?

I think it is because America ROCKS! and Canada smokes monkey pole. But that is just my opinion.

If you read only one thing today, make it this .

Mrs. Meeks reasons (the 'Cliffs Notes version):

#1 Taxes - Fifty percent of the Canadian paycheck goes to taxes.

#5 Political Oppression - Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien's regime has been in control for more than a decade and the average Canadian is fed up and glad to see him go. Even then, it was his decision to allow an election. Living in Canada made me feel like a barn animal in George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

Sadly, she moved to Seattle. AKA the Little Frisco.

From 4 Right Wing Wackos

Liberal friends say Saddam's capture is no big deal?
Tell them to fuck off. Then point them to The 300,000 Dots

TrojanHorseshoes puts up 300,000 dots. One for each of the people in the recently uncovered mass graves.

And if some left wing turd tries to tell you that their deaths were Americas fault, remind them that they are Saddam Hussein's fault.

If they want to add a second party to the blame circle, they can look straight to the UN. It was their plan, their arrogance and their desire to not let American Coalition forces go straight to Baghdad in 91. Fuck the UN.

Mr Puggs' post about needing volunteers for the remaining '51 Reasons' took me by surprise. I thought I'd missed out. Oh, well. Here we go. 31-40 above, 41-51 below.

31) Dean thinks it's doubly wrong that some of the war profiteers are actual members of the Bush administration.

But he has no problem giving the real 'war profiteers' contracts to rebuild the country that they helped oppress for over 3 decades.

32) Howard Dean wouldn't award no-bid contracts to Halliburton and let them charge the US Army $2.64 per gallon of gasoline while limiting the pay of the new Iraqi army they're building to $60/month.

But I'm sure that he has no problem with charging US drivers $2.64 a gallon if it means pricing us out of being able to drive our cars. And if you still need to be educated on the Haliburton issue, just shoot yourself in the head. It's easier than coming to the realization that you've been lied to by ANSWER.

33) George Bush claims he won't allow the US government to be limited by international organizations like the UN. But he sure backed down on steel tariffs when the World Trade Organization told him what to do. Dean feels the WTO should have labor protection and environmental protection rules which protect lives and would limit the pace of corporations moving companies and jobs to countries that don't have these safeguards.

I understand that Dean would throw away the US Constitution. That is why I won't vote for him and will tell as many people as I can to do the same. The simple fact about the steel tariffs is that they didn't do what Bush wanted them to. The were also wildly unpopular at home. Imagine that! A President doing what is good for his citizens.

36) Howard Dean wouldn't keep stiffing allies.

No, he wouldn't. He would however, give their 'stiffies' a good licking if it'll make them like us.

35) Howard Dean would help overcome all the jobs lost since Bush became President.

By charging all of us who still have jobs so that those folks could stay on vacation.

36) Howard Dean would restore funding to Americorps so its members will serve Americans while gaining an affordable college education.

Because Mr. Dean knows that there is no better campaign tool than Americorps. Heck, they'll not only print his election flyers for free, they distribute them. Just like they did for Clinton. Paid voluteers. It must be a Democrat creation.

37) Howard Dean would would support better benefits for military veterans and their surviving spouses.

By disbanding the military and making them find work in the private sector.

38) Howard Dean would repeal the limits on overtime pay that Bush is imposing.

If Dean has ever worked an honest hour of overtime, I'd be surprized. And if you need to have the job market explained to you, e-mail me.

39) Howard Dean doesn't want government restrictions on the earnings middle-class Americans can earn.

Yep, he'll wait until they become upper-class Americans and tax the hell out of them.

40) Howard Dean supports fair wages and progressive taxation for all Americans, not just the super-rich ones.

More proof that he has never taken an economics course and is unfit to run the country.

41) Howard Dean knows that when employees earn healthcare benefits for their partners and families that it's simple fairness to let gay people earn exactly the same.

Because, l*rd knows that both of them cannot work and earn their own benfits.

42) Howard Dean knows that when one partner dies and the inheritance laws protect their partners and families, it's simple fairness to let gay people have equal economic rights.

So that he can double tax that inheritance. And because going to a lawyer and drawing up both a will and a living will is sooo difficult.

43) Howard Dean knows Karl Rove and George Bush will make gay marriage a campaign issue when the real issue is economic fairness.

Yes, but does he know baseball? If Dean can name one 'economic fairness' issue that cannot be handled by a trip to a lawyer, I'd be surprised.

44) George Bush thinks economic fairness means protecting his biggest campaign contributors like Ken Lay from Enron, who's still at large. Howard Dean thinks that's unfair.

Don't even bring up Dean and Enron until he releases those papers from when he was governor of Vermont. Then we'll see which end Dean is talking out of. And to add, I can guarantee that his version of 'economic fairness' would include his family. You know, the "Dean' in "Dean-Whitter" family

45) George Bush thinks we're safer with 8,000 Iraqi civilians dead while Saddam Hussein is still at large. Howard Dean thinks that's unfair.

Umm, December 14th, 2003. An early Christmas gift to Iraq, America and Britain from the 4th Infantry. Oh, and Dean would prefer if Hussein was still murdering 30 Iraqis a day. As long as he was able to blow Europe's 'stiffies'.

46) George Bush's administration caused an intelligence agent to be exposed because her diplomat husband told the truth. Howard Dean wants to know who exposed Valerie Plame and throw the book at them for this breach of national security.

And yet, her and her husband appear on television every chance they are able. Allowing more people to see what a CIA analyst looks like.

47) Howard Dean thinks intelligent agents should trust their president so they can focus on catching Osama Bin Laden, instead of worrying about their jobs and spouses.

He would do this by firing all of the agents and having more satellites built. Having people on the ground is so......messy.

48) Howard Dean won't let fatcat corporate CEOs tell him how to run the government. He's trying to raise $100 from each of 2 million Americans with some support from worker's organizations. Bush's campaign is funded by the super-rich and you can guess which ones he'll pander to. Howard Dean will represent all of us.

Nope, he'll let fatcat lawyers run the country. Effectively making everyone liable for everything and making sure that we pay for a winos wine if it'll make the wino happy. 'Some support from workers organizations'? Oh you mean 'UNIONS'. Soft money is so much kinder. That must be why they call it 'soft'.

49) Howard Dean won't let the corporate media spin the myths about who he is. Howard Dean will let the world's greatest interactive media get the truth out via the people of the United States and will mobilize the largest volunteer voter mobilization force in the history of the world.

Yep, old Dean-boy would shred the 1st Amendment rights of anyone who says unkind words about him. Under his definition, RNS would probably qualify as a 'corporate media outlet'. He would leave 'corporate media' groups like Hearst Publishing alone because they refused to print Charles Krauthammer editorials that say 'mean words' about Dean.

50) Howard Dean doesn't believe in torture or promote its use. Howard Dean thinks the Patriot Act went too far, invading the privacy of hundreds of millions and denying due process to prisoners, hundreds of whom turned out to be innocent. Howard Dean thinks we're safer when patriots act than with this Patriot Act. Howard Dean thinks before we can establish democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, we need to restore democracy in America.

If he really didn't believe in torture, he would stop talking and drop out of the race. He would prefer if you would please let the police know if your neighbors had been saying mean words about him. That way, they could send the secret speech police he plans to establish out to 'talk' to you. Democracy is OK, but freedom of speech is not.

51) This isn't just about the election of Howard Dean. It's about Americans, you, your family, me, saying we reject the anti-progress gang of old-cons who prefer to keep us living in fear and favor the country that inspired the world, the country whose losses on 9-11 made the world mourn, the country of fairness and opportunity, the country of possibility, the States of America, united again.

Of course this is about the election of Howard Dean! Why lie? What Howard Dean doesn't realize about Americans is that they work long and hard (something he has never done) and don't want to have to worry about being pushed around by another country or group of countries. Or whacked out Islamic militants that want us all either dead or under their boot heel. He would rather convert back to paying 'danegeld' to keep them off our backs. But he is too stupid to see where that leads.

With Howard Dean, we no longer have to settle for less.

Nope, Uncle Howie will make all the bad stuff go away.

You may have seen 'RJ Baxter' in the comments section around these parts, but did you know he got himslef a blog?

Red Meat Daddy

Don't that have a ring to it?

He wants to know where you'd keep Saddam until his trial? Stop by and let him know.

Do not try this at home.

A while back, I said "I think I can agree with the readers here that government is something not to be trusted. And neither is anyone involved in politics. I am going to carry that a little further and tell you all that I do not trust George W. Bush as a polititian."

I would walk a pheasant line with the guy and trust him to not accidently shoot me or my dogs. I'd let him borrow my vehicles (and if you knew me and my vehicles, you'd know what this means). Hell, I'd trust him alone in a room with my wife. And those three things, espescially the last one, I would never trust to any Democrat."

Why do I bring this issue up? Well, two days after Thanksgiving, one of my co-workers named Dan was shot while walking a bird line. This pic was taken last Friday, when he was cleared to come back to work in 'light duty' tasks.

You will have to click on the pic for the larger version.

He took a 2 3/4in 12ga loaded with #7 shot from 12 yards away in the right upper body.

The shot came from the 13yr old son of a friend of his. The kid got excited about seeing a bird, but couldn't line up the shot until the bird flew in between himself and Dan.

#7 shot is barely bigger than grains of sand, but one of the pieces of shot was moving hard enough that it pierced his tricep (the bottom muscle in the upper arm) and went into his chest. He has 76 pieces of shot still in him. The doctors think that they'll be able to get about half of them out. The rest is so deep that it will cause more damage to remove them than to leave them in.

Be careful out there people.

Mike the Marine threw down a challenge. A tag team fisking, of the 51 reasons to vote for Dean. Semi-intelligent Thoughts picked up the second round, I humbly take up the third.

Anymore volunteers? We need to spread the love. #31-40 and 41-51 are open.

Udate, I missed on the first read that it was CD at Sem-Intelligent thoughts that came up with the idea, It was Mike at From the Halls to the Shores that got it rolling.

21) Despite the privileged background, he and his wife well understand the challenges and sharing necessary to balance a two career marriage successfully, providing time for family and time for those they serve. That is clearly evident in the available articles by reporters who've interviewed his wife.

Really? He's all in tune with working America because the press likes his squeeze? How does that work, she get's possesion of the family strap on on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Maybe heaven forbid, he should have to pick between being late on the gas bill versus the power bill?............Oh, not THAT in tune then.

22) In the last article in that last link, where it speaks of Dean's critique of the press coverage of Bush's children, he displays a belief in something more important than politics, the protection of family, even if the family is his political opponent's. There's something fair and decent and principled in that. I find it very refreshing.

Very nice, but how does that separate him from Bush? You think Dean is the only one who thinks their kids should be off limits? You really need to get out more.

23) Pundits, particularly on the right, love to warn us he could be the next McGovern. You remember McGovern. He was the decorated WW2 bomber pilot whose career in the Senate was spent passing bills that alleviated hunger all over the world, which simultaneously provided a ton of demand for the products of American farmers. He fervently believed hunger in the world could be wiped out completely. And he also was convinced the Vietnam War was wrong and promised to shut it down. His principled position forced Nixon to counter by promising the same thing. Nixon's administration proved to be the most corrupt in history, with many convicted, and both he and his vice-president forced to resign.

Oh yeah, I see the parallels to Dean - and Bush - now. In the scheme of important things in life, McGovern lost the battle, but Nixon lost the war. Several wars, now that I think of it. Dean as the principled McGovern... I like it.

He likes the comparison?......Jesus Christ it doesn't get any easier than this. He likes the guy who lost bigger than Mondale did, the guy who after all those years in the Congress bemoaned the rule he piled on small business's when his went bankrupt. That McGovern? The pied piper of the yippie crowd? The guy who promised to half our military budget at the peak of the cold war, that suckhead? What a retard.

24) Dean is cast as an 'angry liberal' by media pundits who keep trying to box him in with simple definitions. They keep on forgetting to mention his messages of hope and his reminders that the race is not about him, but about all of us. It's a powerful message about hope, but all the pundits can see is anger. This is journalism? Go figure.

I take it this guy hasn't seen the pictures of Dean that his very own supporters wave around? The spittle still flying in the air, .....those pictures. Dean's protrayed as an angry spit talker, because he is an angry spit talker. I bet the press have to wipe off the camera after every interview.

Next stupid statement please.

25) Dean took on politics as a parttime profession, as many positions in Vermont state government are. He wanted to stay a doctor while providing some public service. It was only when he served as Lieutenant-Governor and the Governor died that he was thrust into it fulltime. And he did it so well that he was repeatedly elected by comfortable margins.

Vermont is a one party state, like several old new england states. The dem party could have run a stalk of celery and still won there. That proves nothing. His practicing medicine while in politics has a lot less to do with mercy than money I suspect. State political positions rarely pay as well as celebrity doctor status does. Why all the greed, why the selfish pursuit of manna you capitalist pig?

26) Dean wants to undo the devastation Bush has caused by relaxing rules to permit more pollution and to allow more wilderness to be exploited. Dean understands the damage mercury can do especially to pregnant women and their fetuses. He protects life.

Uh huh, now point out to me the words Bush uttered where he mandates the force feeding of pregnant women with mercury you asshole. As a doctor Dean knows that's a false charge, but he makes it anyway. We are talking about parts per trillion as opposed to parts per billion. The original guidelines were so strict that we get a pennies worth of difference for a grands worth of spending. The money is better spent on buying your kids quality food over the wandering molecule of mercury that may get into a whole friggin lake.

27) Just as Dr. Dean expanded healthcare coverage in his state to cover 91% of the population, he'll do as much or more for all Americans. And unlike the prescriptions of the Bush administration, every gap in coverage will be filled and not by HMOs.

So, that's why everybody is rushing to settle in Vermount right,........(crickets..)

28) Dean knows the healthcare costs problem is not caused by lawsuits for damages caused by medical professionals and doesn't want to arbitrarily legislate limits on damage awards for the pain and suffering caused. He has faith in the courts to provide justice and set their own reasonable limits.

Translation, he's in the employ of the Trial Lawyers Association. He is also in disagreement with virtually every other doctor in the practice of medicine. He doesn't read the AMA's own journal? Struck blind by the campaign money huh? Mustn't speak ill of wealthy liberal attorneys now, they won't hold up bright shiney coin.......Dance little monkey, dance for the pretty penny.

29) Dean knows the healthcare costs are caused by big corporations putting ever higher profits above healthier people.

Oh yeah, the evil McMedicine theory. Silly me, and here I thought that hundred million dollar lawsuits had a widdle to do with it. That the hundreds of accountants and lawyers employed by medical companies for lawsuit protection, the millions spent on research and testing, the perfect outcome or I'll sue your ass off mentality of tort lottery winners?

I take it allllllll back,.........sap.

30) And speaking of higher profits, Dean doesn't think the crony system that lets the Bush administration's friends become war profiteers.

What?

Couldn't finish the sentence? Talk to Gephardt, seems the crony system in Vermont with Enron is alive and well, thank you very much. Seems that Dean isn't all that fussy about where his money comes from after all does it? Dean's an ass, you defender of Dean, are a sucker of ass. Dean's prospects for the White House are seeming as small right now as the size of Saddam's cell. You remember him right?.........The bad guy that your side held up as the uncatchable criminal mastermind, the one who wasn't really our enemy anyway, but as long as he was loose.........Was proof of our "failure"?

That means this is a success right?

I won't hold my breath waiting for that admission. Or for the realization that you have backed a loser.

So, have you considered Canada?

From Instapundit to Oxblog, in which this link is displayed. Josh is right, it's still funny.

When I reloaded the page. That freakin burns dammit. Breakfast blend goes out poorly through the sinus's.

Great cheesecake though. Like noseart.

I owe you one now.

True to form, the lunatic fringe just can't decide wether to cry or just explode in anger.

Poll question: How Long Will It Be Before Ashcroft's Goons/FBI Comes Knocking At My Door?

Edited on Sun Dec-14-03 03:10 PM by Bertha Venation
In response to *'s comment (thank you, trof) warning us Americans that "The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East." I wrote*:

(Yeah. I'm a little angry. This may be a lame thread but I am pissed off! I despise what the Bush Admininstration has done to the world!)

It must really suck to be such a mindless drone of the hateful fringe. Spitting is a filthy habit usually associated with trashy people, you surely qualify.

And this gem of a thread. The more level headed among them spoke against it, but were quickly drowned out in th rush to paint Bush as just as evil.

This is sick...

we can watch video clips of Saddam getting a medical exam. Yes, he was a bad man, but this is just makes me sick. We treat him like an animal.

Oh the humanity, we gave him a check up, bring out the crying towels. This string produces some really insightful looks at what they really think about their own country. Why they can never be trusted to run things.


If the majority vote for him...

...I have no sympathy for them. They deserve what they get.

If you know what Jesus REALLY taught, you know that Bush is the Anti-Christ !!

REeeoooooowwwrrrrr,.....phiissssst! Bad kitty, bad bad kitty. These assholes always threaten to......

Hello comrade frog! Welcome to DU!

Edited on Sun Dec-14-03 03:49 PM by sexybomber

I may be joining you in the Great White North soon... the day Bush wins is the day I submit a transfer application to a Canadian university.

But they never freakin do it, glad they put so much stock in keeping their word. You know also that while most accept the capture as real, the diehards must scream fake and conspiracy as loud as they can.

If the left picture and the right picture were both taken today...

these are two different men.

Look at the left eyebrow. In the "after" picture, the left eyebrow is bushier at the outside than it is in the "before" picture.

It never ends.

These guys could take a sunny day and make it sound like a thunderstorm. All Bush's fault don't cha know. Small minds unable to grasp that life exists beyond their little theories and dark dreams. That maybe they might not have any, let alone all the answers. This is a good event, and they can't accept that at face value and just move on. That would be too mainstream I guess.

Much as they say it, Bush is not the same as Saddam. America isn't a "rogue" nation any more than any other, and the truth be told, far better than almost all. Iraq will be far better in ten years than they have a right to expect, and will these guys then say it's all wrong, all built on a lie because they lost the debate? I think they will.

The hallmark of a small closed mind is the inability to assimilate new information and adapt to it. Refusing and denying it is hardly going to change the facts as presented.

What a wretched little tribe they are.

Here's a link to the video to the Bremer press conference where the Iraqi Journalists got up and cheered "Death to Saddam!".

Congrats Doc, on being able to get this news up so quickly and so well. I woke up at 11am PST to NPR's hourly news report. I can honestly tell you that I have not gotten out of bed so quickly since some drunk knocked on my door at 3am a few weeks back.

I really only want to say this right now (I'll be updating my thoughts in the 'More' section in a minute).

Oh, and I knew that there was a reason I bought this last night.

A tip of the bottle to all the men and women in our armed forces.

From the reactions of the Iraqi news agents at the news conference where the capture was announced (if you haven't seen their reaction, I'll try to find a vid link soon) to the reactions of the Iraqi refugees in Dearborn, MI, this is a great moment in history. I have see so many pics of Iraqis and former Iraqis whose smiles you couldn't pry off with a crowbar.

Some will try to bring the moment down and say that it means nothing in the overall sceme of things. Screw them! We will watch history play out and they will be proven wrong.

As I mentioned above, I woke up to NPR's hourly news broadcast. You could say that the announcer was missing the 'oomph' in her voice that she normally has when she announces attacks in our soldiers in Iraq.

I have stopped by the usual suspects places (Eshaturd, DUh, and IMCommunists) and what I read got me so pissed, I cannot even comment on it here. There are just no words. I am trending towards pulling a 'Frank J's Rumsfeld.

Anyway, I would like to wish well to Iraq and her people. I would like to congratulate the 4th and Ft. Hood.

I would like to wish an early Merry Christmas to our service men and women.

And I would like to thank President Bush for having enough gumption to get up and do something about the festering boil that was Saddam Husein and his regime.

Last week I compared pics of Dean to McGovern.

How about this one?

The father of modern socialism vs. a typical socialist leader

Reaction in Iraq seems rather enthusiastic, as you would expect if you weren't blinded by partisan and pathelogical bigotries. If you care more about justice than posture. The normal grumbling from the other side in this war is already being heard.

But this image says all that needs said about this day.

Proud of her country of birth, proud of her nation of choice. This is her day to be sure, and try as they might, they just can't quite steal it from her, from us. Justice be done.

WIND OF CHANGE

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change-----Scorpions

This is a good day. I always end up coming back to this song somehow. The momentum of history is flowing fast now, so very fast. It's difficult to keep up, but really can anyone doubt that the future is looking brighter with each passing day? The monsters are falling, driven out and brought to pay for what they've done. It's not over surely, and much still needs to be done, but today is a good day. For us and everyone who believes in the things we do.

Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change

Hmmmmmmm, some of JarJar's friends aren't so pleased.

Capturing Saddam doesn't make any difference unless the US can prove he has connection with Osama and most importantly, whether Iraq actually possessed WMD.
Sophia Britannia, Singapore

I am very sorry to hear the news. I believe that he was the leader of not only the Iraqi people but also the Muslim people against the USA.
Iqbal Chowdhury, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Although Hussein's capture is wonderful news for the Iraqi people, it still does not provide justification for this war and my country's continued Empire building throughout the world - most recently through the seizure of Iraq's oil. Bush has finished what his Daddy started and I'm sure the family will be especially grateful to their Good Lord at this Christmas.
Robert Lattanzi, New York, USA

Funny how Saddam Hussein appears in the news just when both the American and British Governments are struggling to gather support for their respective 'Presidential' campaigns. This fantastic piece of detective work has the same smell as the reason the war was 'inaugurated'.
David, Rome, Italy

My favorite, though, is from a moonbat of the USA variety:

I was happy to learn that Hussein was captured, certainly good news from a human rights point of view. But, I am left wondering - does the end justify the means? Does this mean that the US should wage war with every other horrible dictatorship around the world in the name of freedom, democracy, and peace?
Lori Wilson, Washington, DC, US

Why yes, Lori. Yes it does. What ends and means are you talking about? Stopping the rape, torture, and murder of the innocent people of Iraq by deposing a murderous thug by war? Or should we have "waged peace", hoping that Saddam would see the error of his ways.

Oooooh, alright. Just a few more:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, WE got him" Possibly the worst, most crass and counter-productive way to announce joyous news. It sends out the wrong message about America and the coalition to the world, especially the Arab world.
Adam Stimson, Sheffield, UK

Oh. That boorish and evil cowboy Bush and his administration. Whenever will they learn to speak in a fancy, edumacated way.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a proper moonbat fest if we didn't manage to equate Bush and Blaire with Hussein:

The American administration must now be very nervous. If a proper war crimes tribunal is allowed, Saddam will implicate most of them (and previous UK administrations as well). I think we should think where Saddam's support, funds and weapons came from when he was actually committing the worst atrocities for which he may now stand trial.
Peter Budek, Bedford

What's the major recurring theme? After months of making the capture of Saddam a mainstay of theirr criticism against Bush's prosecution of the war, now the focus turns to convincing us that it really wasn't all that important, and that his capture changes nothing. Really? Think a few more people with intimate knowledge of the regime might be willing to talk, now that Saddam and his 2 devil spawn are unable to threaten them?

JarJar must be SOOOOO depressed. The US economy rebounding at a rate not seen for 20 years. The DOW over 10K. More and more material evidence of the link between Saddam and 9/11. And now, the capture of her hero.

Holy f#cking shit.

As you might expect, the blogosphere has erupted over this. Several independent news sites seem to be confirming it.

Oh, yeah, why are these people so happy? I thought Saddam was beloved by all, and it was just a matter of time before the American oppressors were driven from Iraq.

UPDATE

Of course, not EVERYONE is pleased. Read the comments for the full effect.

Jeff Jarvis responds to the Atrios post. And look how unhappy the Iraqi bloggers are.

Heather "My panties are wet over Noam Chomsky" Mallick is drooling on herself again. Bad enough she's stupid, bad that she's vapid, shallow and as deeply thoughtful as a layer of bird droppings on an old car....Now she professes to speak for the "little man".

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH...........!

The man who mends my shoes says his dentist reproved him for not bringing the kids in for two whole years. "I couldn't afford it," the man told me. Can a man with a country house as lavish as Mr. Martin's comprehend this? Does he understand that it is a disgrace for Canada to define children's teeth as skinless and therefore not part of the body, just so medicare doesn't have to pay for their fillings?

Did you tip him well you bimbo? Or just suggest he vote socialist?

I really can't stand this harpy. All full of gushy praise for idiots like Chomsky and full of venom for all things American. She's told in past columns in lavish detail about her frequent trips to Europe, her spending sprees, her collections of designer labels. Her kept self has it just rosey and pink, spending what she will when she wants, the entire time imagining herself the covert revolutionary champion of "The man who mends my shoes" and his family...

Freakin reality check already. This bimbo is the damned enemy in class warfare for crying out loud. How many tax shelters has your old man got Heather? How many lawyers to see to it that your lavish lifestyle is well funded?

What's that? Can't hear you with your mouth full like that. But it pays well don't it? She speaks of conscience as if she freaking understood what it means. As if being a fashionable leftwing fanatic was somehow elevating her above the fact that her very existence is an abomination to the politics she spews.

The far left is so friggin dumb, she doesn't even see the irony of a jetsetting socialite pushing a marxist agenda, doesn't see how if the world she wants came about, she would be in the first group of prisoners stood against a wall and shot, by those very same revolutionaries she gets all wet over.

The really sad part is, she would thank them for it.

The German MP40, also known as the Schmeisser. Here's a list of international weapons pics. I have no opinion of the weapon as to it's effectiveness, I simply don't know enough about it to comment. I just remember that it was the sexy weapon of choice in WWII films during the sixties and seventies. Everybody used it on film, the bad guys, and often the allies as well. Remember the Dirty Dozen? 9mm, with a thirty round box magazine, it had a good reputation.

Does anyone have a first hand opinion?

Clint Eastwood and Sir Richard Burton, not on the best fifty guy films maybe, but my first pick. A very old movie, and it's probably been on TV a tousand times. I still watch it when it's on. Great guy film, lot's of action, a bit of cleavage, and tons of explosions and dying Nazi's.......

What's not to like?

On Wednesday, Lee over at Right Thinking was showing off this pic of the concept Hummer H2 based truck.

While it may be sharp looking and all, I cannot stand H2's. I don't like the look of them, I don't like the mid-life crisis/wannabe offroader/spoiled teenager types who buy them. There is even a site dedicated to people dislikeing H2's called F U and your H2 .

The vehicle is funtionally illterate (a term I also use for any hopped up front wheel drive vehicle, especially civics/integras) and cannot compete in the arena for which it was designed.

Already twice this year, I've laughed my ass off at two people who got their H2's stuck/ditched/high centered (and I refused to help them any further than calling a tow truck). Now, to be honest, I also got my truck stuck twice in one day (while alone) this year. But I was prepared and got myself out.

If I had the means, I would build up something like this

only bigger. Possibly an Excursion or a Dodge and if then, probably with duals.

And I would write across the tailgate
"Oh look! You have an H2! How cute! Is that for the wife?"

What do you call it when the two richest and fatest kids on the block try and tell you that you should join their club? But only of course if you agree to allow them to run it forever, make all the rules and promise to stay silent and bow and scrape alot?

Does it sound like a Constitution? Or a version of the Cosa Nostra's protection racket?

Thankfully, the smaller Euro states are saying not a chance. They find the prospect of France running their lives as repulsive as we do. And you have got to love the Poles, courage and principles.............my, how that must really gall the French. France and Germany want an empire by proxy, they provide all the brains and half the money, they just want the others to pony up the balls and men. What a deal, and now why do you suppose the Poles and Spanish think it's bullshit?

Maybe because it is?

From ELF

Via IMC

"No, the IMC's never promote radical agendas!"

Only 'metrosexuals' couldn't have guessed this one,

Men's Journal: The 50 Best Guy Movies Of All Time

#1

"Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?"

If this turns out to be real, then there are going to be huge amounts of crow force fed to the anti-war types who screamed over and over again,....."Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11, has nothing to do with the war on terror." Instapundit pointed me to this one.

The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.

In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".

If it pans out as real, it turns the arguement over Iraq on it's head. Bush never said there was a direct connection, not once. His was a more general "drain the swamp" point of view, which I share. But the anti-war types kept on saying that he did make that point, well, now that line of arguement is going to bite them in the ass. Because the majority of American's always suspected he did have at least a partial connection, and if true, this confirms that that gut instinct was correct. Score one for instinct over wasted education.

They opposed us in Afghanistan, saying we had no right to root out the Taliban supporters of Al Quada. They lost that arguement in a devastating manner, even the most dense of fencesitters now give grudging acknowledgement that we have a valid right to pursue this war on terror. Now the anti-war types try to say we can't do Iraq or any single other thing because it detracts from the very same war they opposed, they seem to say it's all unconnected. We know that it's all interwoven. This memo may be the first piece of evidence that proves that terrorism is a Gordian Knot, that it's all connected at some level. That we need to go after all of the safe ground that any country provides, wether they go after Americans or Israeli's, or Turks and Brits, it's the same nest.

Good thing we gots napalm.......huh.

This was pointed out to me by Cait, and you just have to roll your eyes at the pompous pigeyed dumbass at the ACLU who had a problem with this.

If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the
Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That's because they're praying.
The incident took place at a recent ceremony honoring the birthday of the
corps, and it has the ACLU up in arms. "These are federal employees," says
Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU, "on federal property and on
federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and
we must nip this in the bud immediately." When asked about the ACLU's
charges, Colonel Jack Fessender, speaking for the Commandant of the Corps said
(cleaned up a bit), "Screw the ACLU."

Allow me.

Update..............

I apologise to everyone for posting what has been revealed as a hoax. Mollbot pointed it out. I am sorry for incorrect information conveyed. My own fault, and I blame no one else but myself. Cait, no worries, I still luvs ya. Neal is quite right in the comments, it so looks like something they would do that I took it without question.

Now,....that said. I take back nothing on the ACLU. They can simply rot in their little utopian PC Hell. If I have inadvertently insulted them by mistake for something they didn't do, oh well. If they dislike my tone and candor in the level of contempt expressed.....

Good. I made my point then.

Fuck them. They can wrap themselves in the mantle of protecting the world from backsliding into a theocracy from now till Hell freezes over, it won't change what they really are. They are censors, bigots and intolerant fools. They protect the most gawdawfull shock speech you can imagine. Wallow in it's filth and smile the smile of a canary with a mouthful of kitty fur.

Just try and say a simple prayer of thankfullness to God, and they shriek in rage and torement.

Marines, Sailors, Army and Air Force have chaplins because.........they want them. Nobody is compeled to pray, and guess what? They choose to. The ACLU will defend the most outrageous of choices, save the choice to be normal and humbly Christain, or Jewish. Be a Muslim and toss people out of windows, you will find them ready to say the Evil Bush cabal drove them to it.

I'm sick of it. Right up to my eyes I'm sick and tired of the double standards, the hypocrisy and distortions. The hyperbole and wailing. I'm sick of them.

These Marines are doing something that Marines have always done. They are Honoring the Corps. It's an almost holy thing for them, Never a Marine, I understand and deeply respect them for their fidelity, the deep traditions of sacrifice and brotherhood that they have. What kind of a grinch souled shriveled little cretin do you have to be to tell them that they shouldn't be allowed to do it?

The ACLU steps forward here, again.

This could be embarrassing.

After all of the hyperbole Dean has used to vilify anyone even remotely acquainted with Enron, he better hope this bit is not true.

Hmmmm, I wonder what IS sealed away under lock and key in Vermont?

From the Iraqi perspective.

Let's just say that the whining from France, Germany, and Russia about reconstruction contracts does not playing to rave reviews.Yes there're dangers in Iraq, but what about us? Whom terrorism lives next door or block. Yes you can't afford the loss of your men and your money, but Iraqis? Well... they're used to it, death is a daily routine to them. They don't appreciate life as you do. Let me tell you something, you coward hypocrites, this may surprise you, but I love life, and love my family and friends. I can't bare it if something bad happens to them. Yet I don't intend to run away. I and a lot of my friends could get a job any where, with much better income, but I’m not leaving, not because I’m a patriot, as I don't believe in your classification of human beings; Iraqi, Indian, German, black, white, Jewish, Muslim…etc.
I’m a human being, and I feel responsible towards all mankind, and I will fight this battle with all the good men and women on earth. And you keep watching from a distance, and don't even think of coming near, and carrying the risk of smearing your fancy clothes with (our cheap blood). I don't need you, and even if I did, I won't ask your help, we've had enough of it. Go somewhere else, go to Africa, and relieve your conscience by donating some pennies to the poor, starving people there, and don't bother how their dictators will use the money, and don't even bother asking why they are so poor. I will stay here and fight for freedom and democracy with the good and brave Americans (yes..the good and brave.. Eat your hearts), and with all the honest soldiers and people of the coalition.
Bon voyage to Africa...have some conscience.

Interesting that Omar sees the "pro-saddam" machinations of these countries and the peace protestors as cowards, too. I guess my choice of adjectives was appropriate.

In response to Mark's post below about Lt. Col. West, I propse a 'solution' to the problem of having our military personell getting hung out to dry by 'certain people' in the Pentagon.

Now, we have all of these contracts in Iraq that need to be filled. We also have three of the countries who actively fought America's going into Iraq holding the majority of the the IOU's from the Hussein regime.

The contracts need to be filled and the debts need to be cleared or forgiven.

But, we also need to be given the ability to clean up Iraq of the remaining Baathists and fehdeyeen.

So, here is my plan,
If the countries that are currently barred from the higly lucrative contracts in Iraq want to be able to toss their hats in for bids they have to do two things:

#1 Forgive all of the debts run up by the Hussein regime. If they want, they can enter the country to reposess the equipment they sold to him. We will be awaiting them at the borders to inspect said equipment and it manufacture date.

#2 Let America write up a fifth accord to the Geneva Convention that covers soldiers actions in the new style war that we are seeing. They must the sign it and help us push it through.

In it we will include things such as the new rules for prisoner interogations, new rules that define the Gitmo prisoners, new rules that clear forces of wrongdoing in the case of human sheilds, and convenants for pre-emptive actions against terrorist states or those who sponsor them.

The Geneva Convention accords are not written in stone and are not 'un-amendable'. That is why we have four Geneva Conventions. They evolve.

It is time for the fifth.

(That is a link to the four Geneva Conventions an the two protocols as published by the Red Cross. It is now, also in my links section.)

If you haven't heard about Lt. Col. Allen B. West, then read this.

�"Lt. Col. West's impeccable service record in tough jobs combined with his prior unblemished character support this decision. Many of his soldiers testified to his positive, proactive leadership style. The soldiers felt like a team and would go out of their way to support him and many stated they would work for him again.

Did he break the rules? Yes, clearly he bent them somewhat. Was he out of line? Well now that is a whole nother story. In his place, I would probably have kneecapped the bastard. We are talking about a war zone, where death is cheap and easy to find. It's also the ironclad duty of an officer to care for the lives of his men. Suppose he had followed the rules exactly, played it safe, minded his career over the safety of his men? Suppose he played Pentagon politics and just punched his card and waited for the Generals stars?

Some of his men would be dead now.

He did what he did, clearly in the face of a known threat. He got results, and the craven little bastard he gave a Depends moment to is still breathing. I call that a good day. We are in a grey area here, where truth and justice sometimes conflict with law and regulation. Legal is not necessarily moral, and laws are sometimes better read as guidelines rather than scripture.

In my fathers time, the beat cop was sometimes,........creative, in law enforcement. Say a man was known to beat his wife, and say,........oh, he was quietly asked to stop, to seek help. Suppose then he ignored the friendly advice and kept up the beatings. Now,...........the beatings stop suddenly. Said abusive hubby has a broken arm, busted lips, and a limp from that terrible fall he took down three flights of stairs. He spent days in the hospital, and it will be a long time till he's pretty again.

He must have been drunk, they stumble alot, get clumsey and such don't cha know.

Strangely though, he now has learned to not beat on his wife anymore. Call it a revelation, an enlightenment. The fact is, it was a come to Jesus moment, brought courtesy of..........persons unknown. That was a form of justice in it's own right, and you will never convince me it was wrong, or immoral. Against the rules.....Just look away if you are squeamish.

It got the job done. West got the job done, and by God I'll hold the coat of any man in his command who wants to "instruct" anyone who says different. A man has to know when doing the right thing, trumps doing the "correct" thing. I believe West knows.

Enjoy your Honored retirement Colonel. I'd love to buy you a drink and just say thank you. We'd be graced if all officers took as much effort in the safety of our fighting men, if they all cared more for their men's lives, then their careers.

Lt. Col. West is a true warrior, and I believe, an Honorable man.

Quoting Instapundit, "THEY'RE NOT ANTI-WAR -- they're just on the other side:".

Just when you thought the German �peace� movement couldn�t get much more hypocritical they take things to a whole new level. Last week the unbelievable lack of protest at the German government�s plutonium and arms deal with Communist China made it seem as the peace freaks had all rolled up into a big ball for a long winter hibernation.

Not so! The German TV news program �Panorama� uncovered some of the wonderful activities that particularly dedicated cadres of the German peace movement are currently engaged in. In the spirit of peace, a number of groups have started a fund-raising campaign entitled �10 Euros for the Iraqi Resistance�. The money will be provided to the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA) a group dedicated to carrying out attacks against US soldiers in Iraq in collaboration with Saddam loyalists. The common goal is to "liberate� the Iraqi people from the evil imperialist American occupiers. On their website these groups gush with enthusiasm about turning Iraq into another Vietnam for the USA.

Cover your ears pumpkin,.......................Daddy's gonna yell.

What do you call someone who funds terrorists and provides aid? I call them the walking dead. A target rich enviroment, wether by JDAM from 20,000 ft. or from the K-bar of a SEAL, death needs to seek them out. They are not American, are making themselves players in a game where the prize in collected in blood and bone, so they get's what they get's. YOU RUN WITH THE BIG DOGS, GET READY TO FEEL SOME TEETH IN YOUR THROAT!

Oh man, for a locked room and a bat, a chain, or my bare friggin pawlike hands. They really get a giggle from playing at this. How hard will they laugh when they are choking on their own blood? How friggin funny would that be? I WANT THEIR STEAMING GUTS STRUNG LIKE TINSEL, THEIR MICRO-TESTICLES HUNG ON DISPLAY, AND THEIR EARS STRUNG LIKE POPCORN STRINGS.

DID I LEAVE ANYTHING OUT?

Like some I have a dark side, these Che' ass-suckers bring out the beast in me. This isn't romance, not politics, not even wildeyed fantasy. It's playing at war.

Well OK then, let the lessons commence.

So I stopped by my local IMC tonight, looking for someone to kick in the nuts. It didn't take long to find a couple of worthy subjects, but when I went to submit my comment I got this message.

You would have been publishing a story...but...

Feel free to go out, get offline, and perform some anti-capitalist action.

So, since I can't get any action there tonight, I'll just show off this comment I put in caling bullsh*t on a poster who goes by the name of OzzyTeppics.

I got to him early and actually got a pat on the back from a couple of people for it.

Well, go here and find out.

Via The Mudville Gazette. I have nothing to add after reading this, and paraphrasing does it a disservice. Just go read the whole damn thing, OK? You'll be glad (and sad) that you did.

In the comments in this post over at Four Right Wing Wackos, a question was posed that got me thinking.

Can you imagine how many years it would take them just to figure out where to build the new headquarters? And then they'd need to figure out how many countries they should contrasct to build it?

And that is your question.

In the comments section here, let us know your answer to this question:

If we actually did kick the UN off the continent (please G*d), how long would they argue amongst themselves about where the new UNHQ would be, AND, how long would they argue over contracting? Please also give the year in which the building would be completed and occupied.

BONUS question, depending on the location you choose, how many times would the site be attacked during construction or how long after completion until the building is destroyed.

I will get together with Raging Dave over the weekend and we will compile your answers and give you the answer on Monday. You have all weekend to enter your answers.

Well, then you better go read the primer, Sparky.

To do something like this?

I went to this story, expecting to be less than impressed. But the guy saved 4 lives (his included), at a pretty significant cost to himself.

The question is, if reporters see one of their own as a hero for doing something like this, why are they so reluctant to see soldiers, who potentially face the same situation (or worse) on a daily basis, as such?

I'm not trying to detract from what this guy did. He was in a life threatening situation, he thought fast (although not fast enough to escape unscathed), and he came through. For that, in my opinion, he deserves to be commended.

Iraqi civilian casualties?

Military planners �overall made extraordinary efforts to avoid civilian casualties,� Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth told NEWSWEEK. �But they fell short of doing everything feasible to avoid� civilian death.
The distinction sounds small. Civilian casualties are a grim reality in any large-scale conflict and while military planners may speak euphemistically about �collateral damage,� so long as war is fought where the innocent live, it seems inevitable that some will die. Still, under the Human Rights Watch�s interpretation of Geneva Convention protocols, military combatants are required to do everything in their power to preserve innocent life. �Everything feasible� meets the standards of international law. �Extraordinary efforts� does not.
Where did the U.S. military go wrong? As bombs dropped on Baghdad in March and April of 2003, Pentagon officials assured global audiences that while shock and awe was putting the pressure on Iraq�s Baathist leadership, the U.S. arsenal was so sophisticated, it could minimize the effect on the Iraqi people. �The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict,� Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assured reporters days after the outset of the war. The implication seemed clear: U.S. forces could wage violent war without widespread violent death.

And nowhere does the article talk about how many of these civilians died because Saddam placed them in harm's way. Of course, the real, unsaid focus of the article is that "everything feasibly possible" meant no attacks at all.

If not, shame on you!

Fuzzy Bunny Tater Tots?

Looks like their special ops guys are after Hugh Hewitt.....

What they say.

Had to be more than one.

I'd heard this while climbing in the truck yesterday, but couldn't get to a computer until now.

Champagne all around

From what I heard, Europe was not happy about our economic recovery

Now, as for my original question,
"I wonder if there will be the same hoopla around the DOW hitting 10,000 like there was when it hit originally?"

There wasn't. I understand that the last time was 'the first'. But this 10,000 is not an inflated/overrated number like it was 'the first time'. It is a solid setting.

I realize that it will dip back below 10,000 for readjustment either today or next week. It'll then go back up. And then back down. And then back up, etc, etc until we reach a solid 11,000 (which I think we will by next summer).

But what irked me were the radio and television news reports saying that "the market really doesn't want to focus on numbers right now" or "but is this really a sign of recovery?'. Leave it to the naysayers to take the air out of the room.

Just to let you all know, I now have $50 more for my Christmas shopping. It was donated by the shop steward from the union local (read: staunch Dem) in a bet we had that it would hit 10,000 before Christmas (it was the inspriation for my original post).

Oh, and just to let those who would wish my finances ill know, my 401K didn't lose a penny in this 'recession'. I am actually way ahead now.

Tip#1 Take care of your own business. Package deals suck.

Take a lookee here

Saddam of Iraq vs Asad of Syria: The Twin-regimes of Terrorism

It has juicy comparos like this;

Baath Rule of Iraq:
The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Iraq became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.
The dictator of Iraq was running fake elections were he was ‘re-elected’ as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he was overthrown in April 2003

Baath Rule of Syria:
The opposition figures were persecuted, arrested, executed and even assassinated abroad. Syria became a police-state ruled by fear and brutality.
The dictator of Syria was running fake elections were he was ‘re-elected’ as president with 99.99% of the votes for consecutive terms until he died in 2000. His son Bashar inherited his father’s position and policy in 2000 and started his own 99%-vote elections.

And much, much more.

The Democrat Party is stabbing itself in the back.

Former Clinton war room capo James Carville is trashing ex-Vice President Al Gore's decision this week to endorse Howard Dean, saying that Gore looked like "a corpse" at Tuesday's announcement ceremony in Harlem.

The Clinton hit man also derided Dean's decision to bring Gore to Harlem in a bid to appeal to African-Americans, saying Gore could never compete with his old boss.

Keep at it Dems.

On the 'Sad News' post from Tuesday.

Pentagon Identifies Stryker Brigade Soldiers Killed In Iraq

The Department of Defense on Thursday identified the dead soldiers as:

Staff Sgt. Steven H. Bridges, 33, of Tracy, Calif.
Spc. Joseph M. Blickenstaff, 23, of Corvallis, Ore.
Spc. Christopher J. Rivera Wesley, 26, of Portland, Ore.

They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Lewis near Tacoma.

I've heard that a service will be held today at Ft. Lewis, but I do not believe that the general public is invited.

I found this over at Ravenwood's Universe and I share his sentiment on the subject.

The Austrailian National Coalition for Gun Control says semi-automatic handguns need to be completely removed from the community.

"So it's like stopping a leaking tap."

And what was RW's sentiment?

When someone tells you that the plans for American firearm registration will never lead to confiscation, kick them squarely in the nuts!

Say you work at a convenience store. Your boss wants you to know what to do in case of a robbery. Who does he call?

Armed Robbery Trainers, of course.

Hugging the floor of the convenience store and cradling her head in her arms, Kristin Johnson waited to hear the click of the trigger.

But the terrorized Johnson wasn't physically injured. She and six other managers were unknowing participants in an armed-robbery training session organized by their employer, the Lincoln-based Gas 'N Shop convenience stores.

While I support the employer in being able to train his employees for situations suck as robberies and I know that it was all set up so that no one was hurt, I fear what would have happened to someone like myself had I walked into that store.

I don't go to the range often for nothing, ya know.

So the Doc goes and tells us all about that new prime number with 6.3 million digits yesterday, but I have the real good science news.

Canadian scientists have found that "Pretty women make men behave irrationally"

Leave it to the canucks to just figure this out.

Must be the parkas and touqes.

To learn that the candidates for the Democratic nomination for president might "leave out" certain inconvenient facts when attacking Bush.

It seems to be a universal leftist phenomenon, eh?

The good old days.

Sure is easy to see why we should all be running towards the beautiful utopia that is communism, no?

There's also this.

And then there's this

Here is another reason to not give into the UN in Iraq and to cheer their departure.

Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo. Ethnic cleansing, smuggling rampant under UN's aegis.

Four years after it was "liberated" by a NATO bombing campaign, Kosovo has deteriorated into a hotbed of organized crime, anti-Serb violence and al-Qaeda sympathizers, say security officials and Balkan experts.

In recent weeks, UN officials ordered the construction of a fortified concrete barrier around the UN compound on the outskirts of the provincial capital Pristina. This is to protect against terrorist strikes by Muslim extremists who have set up bases of operation in what has become a largely outlaw province.

Now take that last sentence and subsitiue 'Israel' for 'UN'.

Hmm, as usual, the UN says 'for me, but not for thee'.

Bastards.

Found @ Right Thinking from the Left Coast.

Nat King Cole

A tribute site. I know he's from a time long past, but his music is as much a part of the season as Santa Claus is anymore.

That's a pretty decent legacy to have really.

New "largest" prime number. Over 6.3 MILLION digits.

A new meaning for the term "stop light". This one is actually tough for me to fathom.

James Lileks strikes,

But the Democrats want revenge. For Florida. For Bush's refusal to let France and Germany decide American foreign policy. For invading poor, helpless, never-hurt-a-fly Iraq. For making the Dixie Chicks feel uncomfortable. Not for drilling in ANWR, but for wanting to. For this and a thousand other sins, Bush must pay -- and if al-Qaida detonates a nuke in the Baltimore harbor during President Dean's term, it'll be Bush's fault for toppling the fascists of Iraq without the approval of Syria and China.

Nicely done don't you think?

Satire or Serious? You decide.

The left's advice to Islamic terrorists in Iraq: kill more civilians (especially westerners).

While Iraqis have every right to shoot and kill occupation soldiers, that isn't necessary the most effective way to influence George Bush. Quite a few of the people who fund Bush's election campaign are involved in the latest corporate gold rush ("reconstruction") in Iraq. Attacking their interests might be a quicker way to get the president into listening mode. The lives of American soldiers are dear, but four more years in the White House are priceless.

Notice that Gabriel Ash chooses to live in the United States. Seems like there would be a lot of places he would prefer. Funny that he focuses on the steel tariffs, while ignoring the EU stance on things like GM foods. There's those old ideological blinders again.

Via Right Wing News

EU countries shut out of reconstruction $$ are angry.

Is there any better example of exactly how blatantly cynical France, Germany, and Russia are with respect to this entire process. Obstructed the war effort - not because they were necessarily opposed to war, but because they didn't want to disturb their sweetheart deals with Saddam. In fact, their anti-war/pro-Saddam stance all but insured that war was inevitable. Contributed nothing to the coalition. But now want to profit from the reconstruction.

Oh that's how it's played, give the Europeans the respect of an upraised middle finger in response to their back biting craven behavior, and end up with the dreggs of past democratic adminstrations wailling over it.

Several times this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned that countries that did not assist in Iraq's liberation from Saddam Hussein could not expect to be rewarded.

Still, Germany called the decision unacceptable.

Right..............they may feel free to go fuck themselves now. It's OK, we'll wait, I got a newspaper here somewhere.........What goes around comes around, these pissant hypocrites have been making a fortune off Saddam's mafia state, they threw away their only chance to do the right thing. Now they are upset because they are getting their proper level of respect?

Screw them, the proper level of respect that they deserve is laying on the bottom of as many as 270 mass graves. They can dig for it themselves. Nobody else cares anymore about their pride.

Imagine that!

When hear the words "Israeli Security Fence" do you think of this?

Or this?

While nearly all news photos show an enormous concrete structure, in fact only 3% of the security fence will be constructed from concrete. Such sections are in high terror-risk locations such as eastern Jerusalem and adjacent to Kalkilya.

Fully 97% of the barrier will be a chain-link fence.

I found this report at Dangerous Liberty Blog. Another who linked to the Pro Troops Rally post. He found it at Allah Pundit.

The call is for America to help. Neal's right the western protester is a coward, a sniveling, whining little bitch with no common sense or reason. Because what they are protesting against, is what many thousands of people are protesting for in Iran and Iraq. Democracy, freedom, the very things these anarchist and commie rats hate so much.

Maybe if they took off the red colored glasses, they could see just how unpopular their "vision" truely is. Communism is nothing but a retro-fringe movement in the west, barely worthy of notice, which is why they try and hide behind front groups. When exposed for what they are, the room empties pretty fast.

Maybe they should take a peek at what real protesters look like.

Posters and tracts that were distributed had many slogans in favor of US intereference in Iran. A poster read "Establish democracy with American boots", another one read "foreign oppression is preferable to domestic oppression" . The cover of a student magazine carried by everyone stated "Establishing democracy and freedom has the highest value even if its through occupation and foreign interference".

A tract read: "Our main enemy is not the US, our main enemy is inside of our house".

People who want to be free always come to us for help, for stinky cheese and lessons in back biting, there's always Europe.

Here in King County (aka the Seattle Metro area) our police officers are called 'Sheriff's Deputies". Their boss is the King County Sheriff Dave Reichert. Sheriff Reichert is a good man. Earlier this year it was rumored that he was contemplating a run for the soon-to-be-open Governor position. I not only would have voted for him, I would have worked for his campaign. But alas, he has come out denying all of those rumors saying that, for now, he likes his position as Sheriff.

Reichert is a rough and tumble guy. During his time as a Sheriff's Deputy, he was shot, had his throat cut and was run over in two seperate traffic stops.

He is also a straight talker.

His Sheriff's Department is/was the one investigating the Green River Killer cases. Recently, the investigation's budget was looked at by the King County Council. And they were not happy. Over the course of the investigation they have run over budget by $1.7 million dollars.

He sent them a letter;
Reichert wrote: "For 20 years, there were some county officials who believed that these girls and young women did not deserve justice. The ... Sheriff's Office was often on the losing side of those battles over resources. Some felt that county money was better spent on pet projects or to advance political careers instead of to bring justice to these families and our community."

Ooooh, that had to hurt.

Because it is so true.

Normally, I would be incredibly pissed off about my county government losing $1.7 million. But I think that in this case, the catching of the longest running mass murderer the US has ever seen is a good excuse for a budget blowout.

And while I would like to see Ridgeway swing for the crimes he committed, I'll let the families of the victims pass judgement in this case.

Scottish Socialist Party , ass end of the communist world movement. He claims they made huge strides in the last election, well when you start from zero, anything is better. But in this case, worse than pathetic. In the last parlimentary election they garnered, drumroll please,...............a whopping 1.81% of the vote. The got a whole six seats. Conservatives are a minority there and they got eight times the support these ivory tower commie inbreds got.

Let the laughter begin.

Editor of Kuwaiti Daily: 'The U.S. is not going to Quit... It will Convert Poles of Jihadi Flags into Arrows to Pierce the Hearts of Terrorists'

Should be the last thing these bastards hear.

MSNBC Producer: Reporters "Feel Vindicated" By Setbacks in Iraq

A month ago MSNBC producer Noah Oppenheim traveled to Iraq to "find out if things had really gone as horribly wrong as the evening newscasts and major print dailies reported." In the latest Weekly Standard, he recounted how found that "the mounting body count is heartbreaking, but the failure of American journalism is tragic." Oppenheim discovered that "America has brought to Iraq the notorious Red State-Blue State divide. Most journalists are Blue State people in outlook, and most of those administering the occupation are Red." Since "most journalists did not support this war to begin with," Oppenheim observed, they "feel vindicated whenever the effort stumbles."

I've got something else for them to 'feel'. At least for a second or two.

Probably doesn't match yours.

One month to the day after the Republican club at Wells College (an all-women’s college located in Aurora, NY) published a study revealing a grossly disproportionate number of left-wing professors on its faculty, the student government denied recognition to the club as an official campus organization.

A Wells professor responded to the study calling Republicans "stupid" and calling for Republicans to be forcibly lobotomized.

I am waiting for a good 'Affrimative Action' story to come down the pipe. I have a comparison that I think you will find 'incitefull'. ( I do not mean 'insightful')

Another reason to laugh at Kerry,

Kerry blasts president over carcinogenic fuel additive...

That Kerry helped promote in 1990

In a classic case of the political pot calling the kettle black, Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the Bush administration over failing to be accountable for the disastrous fallout of the use of a fuel additive deemed carcinogenic, without mentioning he was behind legislation that mandated its widespread use.

While I generally try not to believe anything written in El Guardian, I have no trouble believing this.

Kerry Asks FEC to Block NRA Media Plan

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry doesn't want to tune in to a National Rifle Association channel anytime soon.

"We urge you to prevent the NRA from hijacking America's airwaves with the gun lobby's money,'' Kerry's letter said. "If the NRA has something to say, it can play by the rules, just like the millions of people in America who do every day.''

Because only MoveOn.org has the right to tell the people what to think, right John?

Iraqis protesting Islamic terror in their country, ever met up with these people:

leftist "peace protestors", who wanted to leave Saddam and his thugs in power to brutalize the populace of Iraq forever?

Personally, I think the Iraqis would kick the proverbial ever-lovin crap out of the "pro-Saddam, pro-terror" group. But that's just my opinion.

For a lot more on these protests, go here.

And now, some Nukevet commentary:

Give people a chance at freedom and the right to live unafraid and most will jump at the opportunity. Yet STILL we hear the screams of "no blood for oil, it's all about Halliburton", while the leftists and America haters steadfastly ignore the silent witness of half a million bodies in mass graves. That they are unable to overcome their ideologically driven hatred of the US to show any empathy for the innocent victims of Iraq is telling, indeed. But of course, to show sympathy for the suffering endured by an entire people, and to acknowledge that the suffering was, if not abated, at least alleviated by the actions of the coalition would be to admit that the removal of Saddam was the correct path. It is pathetic to see a group whose hearts are so hardened and whose souls are so shriveled that they cannot, even for the briefest period, feel happy for the Iraqi people. But, of course, that might suggest that America was in the right, an admission they will never make.

Here's a question - if all we wanted was Iraq's oil, why didn't we just make a deal with Saddam to buy it (like the French and Germans, in open defiance of "international law". Law, apparently, that is only important when America is somehow involved. But I digress). Let's get Bush, Halliburton, Saddam, whoever else together in a big room, pay Saddam whatever he wants, let him terrorize the entire region, and just sit back and drive our big, air conditioned SUV's to the mall and back, where we buy as many electricity guzzling gadgets as will fit into the back of said vehicle.

When you watch 10,000 people put their lives at risk to march against the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Islamist terrorists that have infiltrated their country, you can only feel contempt for the �peace� activists who tried mightily to condemn them to further torment. These �anti-war� groups are composed of people who risked nothing (including the human shields, who ran when it became obvious that Saddam was going to use them as, you know, human shields) while standing by and watching thousands (tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?) of Iraqis be raped, tortured, murdered. These �peace activists� used the war as a vehicle for their ideological war against the US, supporting Hussein and abandoning the people of Iraq without so much as a backward glance. Never has the full meaning of the term �useful idiots� been more apparent than now.

Pathetic. Nauseating. Despicable. Vile. Perverse. I don�t know, you pick the one that fits best. Of all the fitting adjectives one could apply to this group, I think COWARDLY is the most appropriate. What else would you call it when you are willing to stand by and let a nation suffer at the expense of your ideology?

Don't you think you should?

To those countries that accepted none fo the risk, but now want to "profit" from the reconstruction of Iraq: ppppbbbbbbbbtttthhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Let's see: shared none of the risk: check.
Have contributed little, if anything to the Iraqi reconstruction: check.
Threatened to pull out if they don't get lucrative contracts: check.

So tell me, who are the REAL war profiteers here?

UPDATE:

OK, so I see that I have double posted for 2 consecutive days. Once on a post of Mark', and now AK beats me to the punch. That's what I get for being a daywalker.

It was a difficult choice, but I finally made it. This weeks selection was picked partially due to Mr. Brent's song that I linked to on Monday. I would love to hear a band like his cover this song.

This weeks song is from ZZ Top's sophmore effort, 1972's 'Rio Grnade Mud'. While I liked their first album pretty well, this album hooked me. If all you've ever heard from ZZTop is "La Grange" or 'Gimmie all your lovin'" or just about anything else that was popular on FM rock radio, you definitely need to load this baby up.

And here you go,
ZZTop's "Just Got Paid"
(lyrics below)

If y'all are nice, maybe sometime this summer I'll whip out my 18 minute, live version of 'Cheap Sunglasses'.

NEXT WEEK: Christmas songs played on instruments made out of dead animals!

I just got paid today,
got me a pocket full of change.
Said, I just got paid today,
got me a pocket full of change.
If you believe like workin' hard all day,
just step in my shoes and take my pay.

I was born my papa's son,
when I hit the ground I was on the run.
I had one glad hand and the other behind.
You can have yours, just give me mine.
When the hound dog barkin' in the black of the night,
stick my hand in my pocket, everything's all right.

I just got paid today,
got me a pocket full of change.
Said, black sheep, black, do you got some wool?
Yes, I do, man, my bag is full.
It's the root of evil and you know the rest
but it's way ahead of what's second best.

Yet another Pro Troops Rally likner, Spot On @ Alarming News, put up a 'Thinker' post this morning.

Because women are naturally less violent.

We're getting used to seeing children with guns and bombs, but it's easy for us to blame that on their fathers. Their teachers. The men who "control their societies." Apparently, it's harder for us to think of terror as a force that can be women-driven.

Until today, when a women suspected of intending to blow up the Parliament building detonated herself in Moscow.

Give it a read. Let her know what you think.

UPDATE: The link works now

I actually found a sane person to talk with over my local IMC.

He goes by the name of 'The Chocolate Fireball' and he was taken with this statement of mine, "Your witch hunt for useless facts is even more childish than anything the Repubs did to Billary."

He is wondering how I came to this theory. I don't know why he chose this particular statement, but here is my question to you;

Do you believe this?

We have gone through the motions of defining words and both agreed that a group with hate is inferior to one without. I contend that since the anti-Clinton crowd only had disdain for him, that they are superior to the Bush-haters because they actually do hate him.

I have settled on this sentence to explain my earlier statement,
"The anti-Clinton group was superior to the Bush haters because it's members did not have hatred for Clinton."

The link to the post on which we are discussing this is here and the Fireball comes into the discussion about halfway down the page.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Got some nut bugging your school administrators about the 'Christmas Songs' that are going to be included in your childs 'Winter Concert'?

Is your company having a 'Holiday Party' instead of a 'Christmas Party'?

Who you gonna call?

The Alliance Defense Fund.

I was listening to the radio last night and head from a representative from the ADF. You could call them 'The Anti-ACLU'.

Did you know that the majority of the time, when say, a school changes their 'Christmas Concert' to a 'Winter Concert' it is not because of case law, but because of the misunderstanding of case law by school officials. Or because some small group of whackos mentions the ACLU.

Well, these guy have a nationwide network of over 700 legal eagles that can counter the ACLU's legal beagles (all apologies to any beagles out there).

Generally, all it takes is one ADF's guys sending a letter to said school or workplace desk jockey to straighten the whole thing out.

Last year, An Army SF officer came home from Aghanistan to his home town for Christmas. His town had a community "Holiday Tree" in the town center and citizens could donate ornaments to have hung on the tree. The officer presented a red, white and blue ornament that had three words on it. It said "God Bless America'. The person behind the donation counter said that he couldn't accept the ornament because of what it said. After a short discussion, the officer left and went home and called the ADF.

The ornament was up the next day.

Now, I have stated before that I am what most would call a deist heathen. But this 'anti-Christmas' crap really hits me in the wrong place. And I really don't like to be hit.

Take a look at their site.

Japan showed us that they had some extra soccerballs.

Now, they're showing us that they have some real balls.

Japan decided today to deploy ground troops to join the American-led war in Iraq, in what will be its most ambitious military operation since its surrender to the United States at the end of World War II.

The Defense Agency is expected to set a timetable for the dispatch next week, though the mission is likely to get under way early next year.

Both links were found at Right Thinking from the Left Coast

You may get fleas.

But you sure as hell ain't getting no reconstruction contracts.

The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step "is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States."

The administration had warned before the war that countries that did not join an American-led coalition would not have a voice in decisions about the rebuilding of Iraq. But the administration had not previously made clear that French, German and Russian companies would be excluded from competing for the lucrative reconstruction contracts, which include the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure and equipping its army.

So, hows that unemployment rate goin' for ya frenchie?

Chrisopher Hitchens, in an article at FrontPageMag.com, talks about why arguing with the anti-war/anti/America crowd is so mind-numbingly painful at times.

The truly annoying thing that I find when I am arguing with opponents of the regime-change policy in Iraq is their dogged literal-mindedness. "Your side said that coalition troops would be greeted with 'sweets and flowers!' " Well, I have seen them with my own eyes being ecstatically welcomed in several places. "But were there actual sweets and flowers?" Then again, "You said there was an alliance between Bin Laden and Saddam, and now people think that Saddam was behind 9/11." Well, the administration hasn't said there was a 9/11 connection, but there are reams of verifiable contact between al-Qaida and Baghdad. Bin Laden supported Saddam, and his supporters still do, and where do you think this lovely friendship was going? "But there's no direct link between Saddam and 9/11." Finally, "You said that weapons of mass destruction would be found, and they haven't been." Well, what I said in my Slate/Plume book was that the programs were latent—which is why we wouldn't face WMD in case of an invasion, as the peace movement kept saying we would—but that I had been believably told of stuff hidden in a mosque and that I had every reason to think that Saddam Hussein was trying to make up for what he'd lost or illegally destroyed by buying it off the shelf from North Korea. Incidentally, if the Iraqis destroyed the stocks they had once declared, they were in serious breach of the U.N. resolutions, which stipulated that they be handed over and accounted for. "But they said they'd find actual stuff."

This is not just tiresome in itself. It convinces me that, if the Bush and Blair administrations had not raised the overdue subject of Saddam's hellish regime, nobody else was going to.

Yep. Go read the rest.

Not to piss off the garbage man.

Want to know what I've been doing so far this week?

Showing the snow virgins how to chain up their trucks.

Do you think I could pass this off as modern art?

Oh, as for the title of this post. Reason #28 not to piss off the garbage man is because his vehicle has 'Schwarzenegger' tires.

You are puny. They will crush you.

Even off the truck, the assembly you see in the pics weighs over 300lbs. I had one guy crunch his hand while practicing the instal. That is why we don't let them go at it for the first time when the snow falls.

More reasons to follow at a later time. I'll see if I can find the pic of what happens when you piss off a guy with forks and he knows which car is yours or the ones that show how the grapple arm is a weapon.

Where's my ticketbook?

Premise,
County Sheriff's Deputy pulls over the mayor and a councilmember of a small town because said mayor had his car windows tinted darker than regulation. Deputy steps up to car to and asks mayor to roll down the window. Mayor does so and Deputy then sees an open container of alcohol.

Deputy then says "Dude, had me the alcohol."

Mayor files a complaint against deputy that ask that he be fired.

Why? Because the deputy called him 'Dude'.

This weeks entry for the Soundboard post has been selected, the doc has loaded it up lickety split and will be presented to you tomorrow morning.

Caution: This one cooks!

Sure he does. It's called being a f#cking psychopath.

Sayeth the psychobabbler:

�He is, in my experience, a very unusual, rare case,� said Cornell, of the University of Virginia.

Translation: I really don't know what, if anything, is wrong with him. But if I couch it in enough psychobabble AND claim that it's so rare that no one has ever written on it before, how are you going to prove that he DOESN'T have it.

No shit he's got a "disorder". He helped kill to random people in a sniper attack meant to do nothing more than instill fear and extort money. I don't care if he was the spotter or the trigger man - he is equally culpable in these deaths.

I wonder if I cold make big bucks on the "professional witness" circuit? No one would care that I was a veterinarian, as long as I said the right stuff.........

Then there's this.

Shortly after trading began, the Dow briefly topped the psychologically-relevant 10,000 level for the first time during a session since May 31, 2002. But the industrials quickly gave back that level, struggling in rangebound trade for the rest of the morning. The Dow had closed Monday's trade within points of 10,000. The last time the Dow closed above 10,000 was May 24, 2002, when it settled at 10,104.26.

Back in May I entered this post about how Howard Dean looks like McGovern and how I thought that he was going to play McGovern in a replay of the '72 election.

Back then, with less than 3 weeks under my blogger belt, I didn't know how to post a pic. So here is the pic I was describing.

You be the judge (c'mon, give Dean some sideburns and thats it).

Also, when the election is over next November, I plan on using the graphic below at the IMC sites. I don't remember where I got it, but I think it will be suitable.

AK, this is your fault, I followed your link to the good Watcher of Weasels, then to the esteemed Pave France: The British need more parking. Where upon this Hasbro Toy of an aircraft carrier came to my attention.

Mr. Moll.........pay special attention please.

Flaws in the "de Gaulle" have led to the use of propellers from it predecessor, the "Foch," because the ones built for "de Gaulle" never worked right. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, and the carrier has been under constant repair and modification.

I must congratulate the humor of Gunsniper in the comments section, it was his idea. For those of you who do not remember the Thunderbirds..........

A reminder.

Kind of makes sense now doesn't it. The French have been getting their design ideas from a Brit sixties kid TV show for Christ's sake. Weren't the French supposed to have been good sailers once upon a time?

If you zipped around the blogosphere yesterday, you probably saw people talking about the latest Charles Krauthammer article.

It spoke about Howard Dean's helping spread the myth that 'George W Bush knew about the September 11th attack ahead of time, but did nothing to stop them so that he could go to war and enrich his friends' across the airwaves of (surprise!) NPR.

You may have even read it in your local newspaper. But I didn't.

Every Sunday the Seattle Times carries Krauthammer's artcles. Except for this Sunday.

You see, Charles wasn't very kind to Howard in that article and the Times loves Dean with a passion. It must have saddened the newspaper's staff to have to read Krauthammer's piece that morning.

I know it pained them. Because they refused to publish it.

With all of the BS 'censorship' claims coming from the left lately, I just figured I pass one around as well. I do not actually believe that this was an example of censorship because I was able to read the article elsewhere.

It just shows where their heads are at.

In an article from FrontPageMag.com we read about the founding members of the 'Code Pink' activist group. Namely, Jodie Evans.

Evans rose to prominence via her role in Code Pink for Peace, a self-described “grassroots peace and social justice movement” formed just one year ago to organize public protests against America’s impending war in Iraq. Though its leaders benignly present themselves to the public as ordinary, concerned women who would simply rather “wage peace” than go to war, this group was in fact founded by four experienced activists and hardcore communists - Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin, Diane Wilson, and a radical Wiccan activist calling herself Starhawk. Code Pink works closely with United For Peace and Justice, whose leader Leslie Cagan is a longtime devotee of Fidel Castro and the Socialist Party USA.

Another Code Pink ally is Medea Benjamin’s group Global Exchange, which has strong ties to the communist Workers World Party. Imbued with a deep hatred for the United States and capitalism in general, Benjamin is a pro-Castro activists who lived in Cuba (and was married to a Cuban) was a principal organizer of the 1999 Seattle riots in which some 50,000 protesters wreaked havoc and tried to shut down the World Trade Organization meetings.

Are you really surprised?

UPDATE: I found this report filed by Starhawk at my local IMC. She is claiming victory at the FTAA riots that took place in Miami.

Miami: A Dangerous Victory By Starhawk

Nevertheless we have had a significant victory that we need to understand and recognize, not least because it throws us into a new and very dangerous phase of activism.

I guess Starhawk is a frenchie

Another linker to the Pro Troop Rally post, The Watcher of Weasles, gives us some new figures about how peaceful life is in france.

Long considered a dangerous country, the United States has recently seen its violent death rate decrease to the point that it is now inferior to Japan's or France's violent death rate.

Nice wording there, frenchie. Inferior? Inferior? If there was one classification in which I'd like America to be inferior to france, it would be this.

Have fun frenchie. Those Islamofascists are just a kick in the pants aren't they.

Three Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade Soldiers Killed In Iraq

Three soldiers were killed and one was injured Monday when two Stryker vehicles they were riding in rolled into a canal, Army officials said.

The Stryker Infantry carrier vehicles were traveling on a rural road during combat patrol northeast of Ad Duluiyah, Iraq, when an embankment collapsed, causing the rollover, Lt. Col. William MacDonald said from Tikrit.

They just arrived in country last week.

Hillary Clinton: 'Right-Wing Apparatus' to Blame for Troop Comment Firestorm

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she was right to tell U.S. troops that Americans back home were starting to doubt President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, calling complaints that her comments undermined military morale "the latest flaming charge by the right wing."

The top Democrat claimed instead that she was merely responding truthfully to a question from a soldier with the 10th Mountain Division when she told him, "There are questions being raised about the administration's policies."

Of course it wasn't her fault that she said demoralizing things to the troops. A soldier made her do it.

Talk about blaming the victim.

I wonder if this will catch the British left's attention?

Thirty years after Afro-Caribbeans in Walsall successfully fought off white skinhead thugs, their children face a fresh wave of attacks - this time from Pakistani gangs

Pakistani gangs are targeting us, say fearful black youths

In recent months Pakistani youths have threatened and assaulted dozens of Afro-Caribbean teenagers, according to leaders of the black community. Some have been roughed up; others seriously injured.

The town's 4,500-strong Afro-Caribbean population is increasingly concerned: they say that the attacks are racially-motivated and are becoming more frequent and more vicious.

Now, the Telegraph article identifies the Pak gangs as 'Asian', which technically they are. But you would think that they could get a little less 'intellectual' about it.

Good or Bad?

President Vladimir Putin profited from a nationalist tide to win powerful control over the Russian parliament in legislative elections Sunday, as his party dealt a crippling blow to Communists and may have ousted two pro-Western democratic parties.

Leave you opinions in the comments.

Get over yourself.

Canadian government: Americans insecure
Focus-group report urges citizens not to boast near 'sensitive' Yanks

The Canadian government is warning its citizens not to appear "boastful" to Americans, who it says suffer from insecurity over the war in Iraq.

The report was compiled from focus groups held this fall in four U.S. cities where Canada is opening consulates, the Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported.

Once again: Canada, leading the world at being just north of America

You might have heard about this billboard in Spokane

I was listening to a radio show last night and got to hear from a couple of parents who got the opportunity to tell the 7 year old what impotence was. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Another mother had to calm her kids down (while in a moving vehicle) and tell them that Santa would still be stopping by their house this year. He had just dropped some of their toys down his pants.

Hey PETA, go brainwash your own kids. Leave everybody else's out of it.

Do we really?

I think so. Wether secular or religious or some combination, Christmas is the best holiday for the child in you. When you can be a little more giving, a little nicer, a little more of the person you wish to be. My favorite is Dicken's Christmas Carol. A ghost story, yet one built on hope, not on dispair. It highlights the singular human aspiration, you can change for the better, you can walk among the "better angels of your nature". Fleetingly maybe, but for a time at least.

Redemption is one of my favorite themes. The criminal, in a moment of revelation makes a choice, sees the burning home, hears the cries, takes a risk and saves the child from the preverbial fire and is transformed. Scrooge is a sympathetic figure to me, because he is what he is, not because he's inherently bad, but because he's simply forgotten his humanity in the bitterness of life. Lost it along the side of the road. He makes the journey back, and all is saved and good again.

It's never that simple of course, but the principle isn't so wrong. I have had two lives really. the one where I was alone, no lover, no children. Life was all responsibility and the drudgery of work. I had an emptiness the size of a heart in my chest. I fell into depression after finally one death too many, and was just about ready to let it end. Not actively, but to just pull inward totally and shut down. I had had enough, my arthritis was undiagnosed in those days, I hurt in mind and body without really knowing why. Only that my life was empty. I would as easily have stepped in front of a moving train as pour a coffee.

Somehow, somewhere I found the strength to make a decision. Rejoin life, or continue down the road to a lonely death forgotten by everyone.

I chose life. I knew I needed to see someone, maybe find that certain person that was destined to complete my soul, join ours together. I stumbled around a bit, of the sweet ladies I knew who I would consider asking for their time, who would I be afraid would not say yes to allow me to see them? Not that I'm such a catch, but if there is enough of a concern that she would say no, then maybe, just maybe, there already exists a certain spark. I knew right away who I would ask.

She said yes.

You all know how this ends up. Child number three to make it's appearence hopefully in July. When we were engaged, it was in december. So maybe now you understand why I believe in redemption. Not just from bad behavior either. But the journey from darkness to light in your own soul. We can make amends, can make an effort to do the right thing. I do not claim sole credit in my shift to the light, I just took the first step. She made the difference, making me burn to keep her love, keep her faith in me. The credit is hers, and now, her's and our two proud children.

A man is not a solitary achievement.

Many hands come into play in our construction, many lessons, many mistakes to overcome. No male is born to be a man, that is something that takes effort. Just being male and thinking it's enough is a job half done. Too many remain boys their entire lives, never knowing the difference.

And it's never too late to learn that.

Merry Christmas to us all, and to those of you follow a different path, enjoy the seaon. It truely is a magical time, open yourself to it and the joy of life will find it's way to you. Sometimes on tiny feet, with brown eyes and a heart as big as love itself.

It's been pointed out lately that our loosing one or too men a day on average denotes another Vietnam, "quagmire" was said. I refuse to use the bastard number 1.55% that was qouted. no one is ever 55% dead, or 90% wounded. I won't use the numbers like that. Like many veterans, when I read or hear of a serviceman killed, I think of a face, a uniform, and a family. Maybe it's being foolish but I will never qoute decimal figures on death.

Give them at least that much respect.

But the statistics aren't as friendly to the anti-war crowd as they would have us believe. Not when the math gives us figures like this.

The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq has said that at least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimate more than 1 million were executed.

Without exhumations of those graves, it is impossible to confirm a figure. Scientists told The Associated Press during a recent investigation that they have confirmed 41 mass graves on a list of suspected sites that currently includes 270 locations.

I hope we loose no more people. I hope no more innocent Iraqi's suffer. But what kind of fool can say with a straight face that this war is immoral? The kind that doesn't actually oppose all war, just the ones where we are the good guys.

And we're winning.

This from the people who want to know why democracy in Iraq is taking so long.

The Curtiss P-40, strong, rugged, with a punch like a train wreck from it's battery of six Browning 50cal. machine guns. Amored, well protected, it was slower in a climb, not as nimble as it's enemies, but in the hands of skilled pilots.......It became a legend.

It didn't have the familar tiger paint scheme that day at Pearl, just standard USAAf olive with the early white star markings on the wings. I missed posting on Pearl on the 7th, no excuses, I simply failed to do so, family obligations cut short my time online. But I will not let it pass completely without comment.

So many accounts of that day have been written, all moving all important. But this one story always stuck with me over the others. Those two young pilots accomplished a miracle that day. They took on the second wave of the Japanese Imperial Fleet by themselves, and were credited with seven kills. They had no chance, were almost certainly as doomed as the dozens of pilots killed running to the scramble, cut down before they could get in the air to even the odds.

I can imagine the rage, the flood of boiling hot blood surging in their veins as they clawed their way into that morning sky through the smoke and flames. Roaring past the burning wrecks of their brothers who hadn't made it off the field. Who had been not killed in war, but murdered in the end of a false peace. Vengence, certainly, but also the frantic need to drive off the Zero's and Vals murdering their fellows, savaging the Navy. The urgency of fighting back.

Not all those sonsabitchs were going home.

Imagine too the stark Horror of Battleship row, all the terrible losses. The men were torn and ravaged, fighting on, desparate to get away from the docks, to fight their ships in the open seas. The never ending rain of bombs and bullets, the whine of aircraft engines. We were loosing, so many dead, so little to fight back with.

Fighting their way to the anchorage at Pearl, 2nd Lt.'s Ken Taylor and George Welch could see the smoke and fires. See the sinking ships. Out numbered a hundred to one they leaped to engage the bombers and Zero's. Think of it, a hundred to one and they dove in regardless of the very real certainty of their own deaths. Two planes could not end the attack, couldn't save the Fleet, but they did save the men who would have died at the bombs of the Vals they shot down.

They saved something else as well.

They saved the heart of a nation. Amid the disaster of Pearl Harbour, they fought back, fiercely pressing in, ripping one plane after another from the skies. They were defiance, a shining, glowing example to the survivors as they pulled eachother from the burning oil covered waters. The sound of an Allision engine they say was unique, deeper, stronger than the lighter ones of the Japanese. As they bore in, those sailors looked up, their ears telling them something was different. Imagine one more time, the explosion of hope, the radiance of strength they recieved as the Warhawks blasted through the smoke to pour hundreds of rounds into their tormenters. They cheered from the decks of burning vessels at the David and Goliath match they saw.

Courage is something that inspires, that gives hope.

The aftermath of Pearl was hard on everyone in our nation. The heroes of that day were so many, so very many, and we needed them all. The victory in 45 was a very long way off. We won, because of who we are, who they were. We aren't so different. Flight 93 proved that. We fight back, no matter the odds, the cost.

We can't not pursue victory in a battle of survival. The example of that day alone should give our enemies pause. We know pain and sacrifice, we know loss.

We also know courage, devotion. We know heroes.

This is a baby name finding site, my wife and I have settled on both a girl's and boy's names, but more on that in a bit. My name's meaning is listed here as defender,....ok, but here it's defined as,

MARK (English) Warlike

Much better. It's the classic definition. Supposedly traced back to the Roman God Mars, commonly Marcus in that time. The first site lists Neal as--leader. I won't show AK's since he chooses to remain unknown. But it's sort of appropriate as well. He can put it up if he likes, but I'll not violate his privacy.

What did we choose?

Well, these our our two children already.

AMANDA (Latin) Beloved

NATHAN (Hebrew) Gift from God

If it's a girl, it's to be Rebecca Cathrine.

REBECCA (Hebrew) Joined together

A boy, then Douglas Garret.

DOUGLAS (English) Thoughtful

I know that theres no serious connection between a persons name and what kind adult they turn out to be, but it's fun to play with. We are kind of a mind that it's going to be another girl, won't find out till maybe April, but we were both right twice before so who knows?

Rebecca was my mother's name. I like to think she's somewhere nice and smiling over her grandchildren, I hope so. Maybe there's a Guardian Angel position for her...........she would like that.

I believe there are....angels among us.

So.............um,.............You don't think she MEANT to lie do you?

Me too.

Bab's, recipient of the Hoisted by her own Petard Award. Hollywood Looney Left Catagory.

Example 43,213,456

And note this bit from his "publicist":

BUT NOW Eminem�s rep is fuming that those lyrics were not necessarily going to be included on one of his CDs.
�That was from an unfinished track that was lost or stolen,� the rapper�s rep told The Scoop. �It was not anything we released, and may not have ever been released at all.�

Not sorry they did it, just sorry they got caught.

Don't get me wrong - Eminem can write and sing whatever he wants. But if it results in a few less albums being sold, or a visit from the secret service - whose fault is that?

From Drudge. Aren't these the same knuckleheads that are sore we haven't gotten a constitution ratified and in place in Iraq like so, oh......the day before yesterday? Clue to the clueless, democracy is hard work, you don't always get what you want, horse trading is a reality and thumbing your nose at the situation in Iraq when those yardbirds can't even do it on their own is really funny.

Poor little EU, would you like some help on the big words?

For a bunch of would be world leaders, they seem mired in the second grade a long time. The though (dream) of some in Europe that they can unify to counter balance the US is a joke. They can"t even agree on the time of lunch, let alone the menu.

I suggest crow.

If you read the comments from my final post on Saturday about the televising of the 2003 SCCA Run-offs, you probably saw Ms Sondra K's post about her activities that day.

She attended the South Sound Toy Run.

Every year, thousands of northwest motorcycle riders get together to collect toys and money for the Salvation Army's Christmas drive.

I haven't attended a run for a couple of years, mostly due to time constraints. But I do give.

To the The USMC Toys for Tots program

You mean to tell me that you didn't know that Santa is a Marine, boy?

P.S. Mike the Marine, you get first crack at this guy.

Item #1

Mike the Marine has a blog. From the Halls to the Shores.

Byline: The inane ramblings of a US Marine who thinks he knows it all, is aware of the fact that he doesn't, and has difficulty telling between the two.

Glenn Reynolds quote: Let Mike the Marine win your hearts and minds, or he'll burn your damn village down.

Good stuff.

Item #2

I'm still trying to choose the song selection for this week. So much music, so little time.

But in the meantime, I would ask that you swing by Mr. Brent's 'The Ville' and listen to his new tune.

It is a hotstepping rock and roll instrumental that his band, The Shooting Gallery, recorded with Mr. Steve Freguson of NRBQ fame, entitled 'Ohio River Sludge'.

From now on, I will be giving out recommendations on a scale. Any good rock fan knows the phrase "Play it until your fingers bleed". So I will be awarding up to 5 Bleeding Fingers to songs I recomend (yes, I know this isn't that original, but what do you want).

My Soundboard Posts will always be 5's.

Ohio River Sludge gets a solid 4 Bleedin' Fingers. The reason I only gave it 4 is because, like Mr. Brent says, it is not yet CD quality.

Update: I have spent the last hour updating my horribly neglected blogroll. Mike is now on it, as well as a few mre new ones. If you're not there and want to be, let me know via e-mail.

If you stop by Emperor Misha's place frequently, you probably have seen his post late Friday linking to a post by LC & IB Denita Twodragons' who posts with a guy you've probably seen in the comments section, Ironbear, over at Who Tends the Fires. I have to say that I agree with what she wrote.

Especially this paragraph;
Any experienced blogger knows all-too-well that feeling of desperation, as all that is selfish and base and evil in this world screams at the top of its proverbial lungs, drowning out and swallowing up the quiet and humble stories that take place. That agonizing moment of doubt as jackasses with nothing better to do than question you to a fare-thee-well leave you momentarily wondering whether anything you do will have the effect you hope for, or are you just slaving away at the keyboard for nothing. You go to bed with a lump of doubt in your throat, so tired and worn out from just...plain..trying to be good. You read page after page of bombings and mass-murders, and watch as clueless idiots casually state that the dead brought it on themselves, completely ignorant and morally dead to the possibility that there are in fact victims in this world. Compassion is pass�. Self-defense is a dying dinosaur, defending your friends is becoming even more extinct. The police will make all crime go away. If you ban guns, criminals will behave by the law. Love your enemy, even as he is tearing apart your family. You had that rape coming to you because you were dressed wrong, you are being suspended from school because you dared to say the wrong word out loud, you are being sued because you had the audacity to shoot the burglar who was brutalizing your friend...

Is it all worth it...?

Now, I do not consider myself an experienced blogger just yet, (especially when I stop by folks like Ms. Michele's A Small Victory) but I have experienced thie feeling Ms. Denita described. In fact I hit that wall on Sunday night last week.

Did you all notice the results? I did what I do everytime I hit a wall. I put my head down and move forward. And I can guarantee you who is going to win that fight.

Blog on sisters, blog on brothers. (yes, that is a rip off from Mr. Hendix)

A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that would ban mind control weapons in space. Among the weapons that would be banned by the new measure are �psychotronic� devices that are �directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of ... mood management, or mind control.�

Dennis must have been slow to get this domain name. A cute parody site. www.kucinich.com. I think it's funny, but the funniest thing of all?

They aren't making this up................... Dennis really is crazy.

Update.......

I take it back,.....there is a funnier Kucinich site.

Only I doubt they think so.

More.......

Dr. David Leffler
Wappingers Falls, New York
Web: https://www.invinciblemilitary.org
Message:As a veteran and a military scientist, I endorse Dennis Kucinich because he interested in investigating alternatives to military action such as Invincible Defense Technology (IDT). The Department of Peace proposed by Dennis Kucinich would investigate new approaches such as this human resource-based technology for creating peace. IDT has been tried out in many war zones and conflict-prone areas with excellent results; the success has been scientifically validated and documented. Lt. Gen. Villamil, a former Ecuadorian Vice-Minister of Defense, used IDT to end Ecuador's war with Peru. Maj. Gen. Israni, editor of Combat Journal, argued that IDT could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Please visit https://www.invinciblemilitary.org to see what presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has done and is doing to investigate Invincible Defense Technology.

Jesus make it stop, my ribs hurt...................

Why the Hell hasn't somebody tossed a big rubber net over Dennis yet?

Found at my local IMC, the nitwit Lance Miller thinks he has found the answer to the "United States Conservative Agenda" in three sentences.

You can e-mail him with your suggestions if you like.

In North Korea.

No Questions? Good. Now Enjoy Your Stay

In the surreal world of North Korean tourism, you can feast on local delicacies served by glamorous lady comrades, watch an acrobatics show infused with Stalinist humor and climb a storied mountain covered with plaques and monuments celebrating the totalitarian Kim clan.

But be back indoors by the midnight curfew -- or face fines, questioning by authorities or, well, worse.

But that is where the 'excitement' part comes from.

By the media, to a Dem canidate

The Viking Pundit finds something untrue on John "those weren't MY medals" Kerry's website (go figure).

Did anyone catch the fact that Kerry stated that "he voted no" on the medicare bill. He stated this in Florida yesterday before thousands of people, not once, but at least 3 times that I counted. Of course, I realize he was against the bill. However, he did NOT vote at all.

Led there by The Innoperable One.

They don't even hide it anymore.

Hamas founder and spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin has told a German magazine that a Jewish state could be established in Europe. In interview excerpts slated for publication on Monday in Der Spiegel, Yassin opposed a two-state solution in which a Palestinian state would coexist next to Israel.

"That would not work," he said. "The Israelis claim 80 per cent of the territory and will only let us have 20 per cent. It would only be an interim solution."

It gets worse, the have the utter gall to demand all Israeli military actions cease immediately, yet want to reserve the option of killing Israeli's in the West bank and Gaza at whim.

Israeli officials have rejected an agreement between Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo to halt attacks on civilians inside Israel, but without declaring an end to attacks against soldiers or settlers in the territories.

The officials said the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will reject any cease-fire offer that does not include a complete halt of violence against all Israelis, and does not dismantle the Palestinian terror infrastructure in line with the demands of the road map peace plan.

So explain to me someone why this doesn't suggest that the Palestinian's supports in the west aren't at best incredibily stupid, or at worst, Jew hating pieces of shit? They don't even want peace, they say so openly. They want Israel destroyed, .......period.

The wall Israel is building looks more and more realistic doesn't it?

Another fellow who linked to the Pro Troop Rally post was Some Poor Schmuck.

And today we highlight this jem from last week.

But the UN should take over the fight in Iraq?

From the Washington Times:
108 nations decline to pursue terrorists

A U.N. monitoring committee complained yesterday that 108 nations have failed to file required reports on their actions in the war against terrorism, such as freezing assets and reporting the names of suspected terrorists.

Frustrated committee members said they are considering asking for a stronger Security Council resolution with "more teeth" to force compliance from member states.

Oh yeah, thats worked in the past.

They're workin' 9 to 5

(AP) The killers kept bankers' hours.

They showed up for work at the barley field at 9 a.m., trailed by backhoes and three buses filled with blindfolded men, women and children as young as 1.

At 5 p.m., the killers - officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party - went home to rest up for another day of slaughter.

Of course, according to left's moral relativism, it was all GHWB's fault. The barely restrained hostility of the 'International Community' threatening the US with sanctions if we drove on to Baghdad in '91 couldn't be responsible.

And in their minds, neither was Hussein.

Also found @ Some Poor Schmuck's blog

If you remember my post on Progressive Math last week, you'll find this hilarious. If you don't remember, click the link.

Despite freezing temperature, plus snowy and slushy conditions on the ground, about 50 stouthearted protesters rallied at the York County, PA prison and also at a distribution plant owned by the Caterpillar Corporation. The Convergence for Human Rights sponsored the event, which was held on Sat., Dec. 6, 2003, and endorsed by over 66 groups (www.october18.org).

"We are out here protesting the government's treatment of immigrants, the USA Patriot Act and the erosion of our rights since 9/11," said Keith Dobson of York, PA. He continued, "We are also here to protest Caterpillar profiting from people's misery by selling its bulldozers to Israel."

How many groups endorsed this event?

How many people showed up?

This is known as 'The World is with Us' equation.

In honor of the Doc's Tigers, I think this calls for the all new 'Corrie' play (click the links)

330C - 527 - 937C - D9 - D9 - hut - hut - hike

There might be a pic below.....

Geaux Tigers

I'm sure these were just misplaced. No reason for concern. Really.

Of course, according to the philosophy of some, we really shouldn't even start looking for these babies just yet. That's only allowable after one is detonated in Denver......

Well, wonder no more.

I remember.

On December 7th, 1941 this happened

Why did it happen?

Because the USA was imposing sanctions on Japan for doing things like this

That is live bayonet practice on civilians.

Sound familiar?

Editorial below

While looking for this photo I found many more horrible pics that beat the snot out of anything the media of today will release.

Here, here and here

Caution: these site contain pics of children hacked to death by wannabe 'Samurai', women with their hearts cut out for refusing gratify officers, a pic of a rape in progress taken by a japanese soldier, more pics of live bayonet practice and things worse that what I have just mentioned.

The people who have not learned from history want us to ignore September 11th, 2001 and blame ourselves for it occurance.

They do not see that because we were imposing sanctions on Iraq, that Hussein could have possibly been involved. They hate the USA and everything it stands for. It's wealth and opportunity. The freedom that we alone in the world have.

And they can, in my personal opinion, go fuck themselves. I did not train tirelessly in my youth so that I would be able to defend myself and my beliefs against any foe who would attempt to take them away, just to allow some piece of shit who doesn't have the balls to actually stand up for what they believe in give it away.

I wonder if they still talk to her in the Hallways at the Guardian?

To contemplate the thought processes of such individuals makes any decent person want to wash their hands until the slime of hypocritical hatred is swept away. But when whole sections of society peddle such lies, it's scarier still. And when carriers of the disease are shielded by those who govern us, you start to believe the lunatics have taken over the asylum: the EU's racism watchdog recently suppressed a report on the rise of anti-semitism because it concluded that Muslims were behind many incidents. What sort of world do we live in, when racism is "allowed" to be reported only if it comes from the white and the right? What about a stubborn, shimmering little thing called truth?

Jarjar would not approve of this piece. The Guardian has, as leftwing as it is, exhibited a touch of sanity on occasion. I'm sure they'll get over it as soon as they can.

That was very crude of me, and I suppose I should apologise, and I would, except...................it's parody! That means I have license to make up any lie, any slander, any insult I choose about public figures and you had better respect me for it. Just ask Tim (Hollywood revolutionary) Robins about it.

Oh, that's right, he's not talking to anyone now because he's being repressed. So repressed that he wears tux's and has millions in the bank, so distraught that he felt the need to fly down to Cuba and strike a deal with Castro to forment communist revolution in California. So heartbroken he's started righting Dennis Kucinich's speechs, so depressed, he's buying Philipino boys and flying then to Michael's Neverland ranch...................

Yeah, of course it's all bullshit. But that has never got in the way of a good oppurtunity to push an agenda now has it Timmy. I mean, Hell, that's how you do it right?

I am so tired of hateful personality disorders disguised as art. When actual fact is irrelevant to "truth" as portrayed by anyone. We all suffer. Fantasy is fantasy and should be labeled as such. Don't paint it in political dissent and put bows on it to push a lie.

If what Timmy believes is true, why is he still breathing?

Found via Cox and Forkum.

Hillary the first, Grand Dame of liberalism has just made a startling confession. This report from Drudge concludes with this bombshell.

"This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation worse off than when they found it."

My emphasis, well this sheds a whole new light on the 92 campaign now doesn't it? Bill was lying about Bush 41's record all along! Thanks for clearing that up your Hillaryness, and here from the rhetoric coming from you and your dem friends, I thought you were saying no republican president ever did anything good. Everytime there's a race for president your side starts bitching about how "THEY WILL ROLL BACK THE CLOCK ON A CENTURY OF PRORESS!"....

Stop the lies already, nobody has been put against a wall today, no one has been locked away for slandering Bush, and Social Security will go bust because idiot whiners and oppurtunists like you will not allow any corrections to save it. It will run out of money because you keep people too afraid to accept changes, and it keeps your fat pink ass in the Senate.

So what will you say in twenty years when the money runs out Hillary?

Ooops?

For today.

I'll be watching this

SCCA Valvoline Runoffs at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Ya ever been, Mark?

I've only run a GT-3 car like these a few times and, while fun, I liked my ITA/ITB class.

Turn on your Speed Channel now. Yeah the commentators won't stop flapping their lips so that you can hear the cars and two of those lip flappers are arguing, but it is still 'Must See TV'.

I see it, and how do I respond?

You know there is such a thing as so low, so beneath the dignity of a garbage crawling earthworm, that words almost fail to convey the repulsion. They aren't worth my time, much as the desire exists to make them feel the shame that their mothers never imprinted on them for doing the unspeakably vile. They won't get the satisfaction of my rage, just the reality of my contempt for their barren frigid little souls.

I want to think of something like this.

I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one - a small story about a big ship, and a refugee and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and stood up and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man."---------Ronald Reagan, from his Farewell Address.

I searched for the words of another for a while, someone great, grand, an esteemed man or woman of letters to give meaningful words to place here in tribute to a man who changed my universe. I failed, not to find them, but failed in that they were not my own, did not convey the honesty of my feelings on my Presidents time of twilight. I think that I'll use my own words, small and unequal to the task as they may be, to do Honor to the man. He would have wanted me to do that, to speak my own mind and stand behind my words with pride. He was my champion in a time when I needed one.

When WE needed one.

Untold millions of people will live, grow, and spend their lives in a world that may well have never existed if not for the vision of one man. The cold war is nothing but a footnote to some, ancient history to others, but not to me, not to those of us who held the line. I grew in a world terrified of the specter of a thermonuclear exchange, a world that considered the Soviets as giants, to be appeased and flattered for their sufference. A world where retreat was expected by learned men in Ivory Towers and who never would have dared to raise a hand in defense of the nation that bore them. Where Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines were thought to be cast offs by the "elite" of higher learning. Where the cold war wasn't a fight of survival, a battle to protect our very way of life, but a misunderstanding, a spat between moral equals who just weren't getting along and if we just backed down, the Soviets would see how peaceful we were and not push us again. This was the world that existed when his moment came.

He stood up on his feet like a man and said NO, no more retreats, no more backing down. We would make our stand as Americans, as freemen. Win or loose, we wouldn't go out with a whimper, but with a roar of defiance. And he said, we would win, because he knew us and had faith in our rightness, our just cause.

The man changed everything.

The cold war is safely over now, a memory. But I remember the fear that shadowed the thoughts of many people. The uncertainty of wether we were going to make it to the 21st. century as a free nation. The nightmares of surrender or incineration that some had. Because make no mistake, there was no middle ground with Stalin's progeny. Slave or minion were the choices they offered.

Looking back on the ashes of the Soviet Empire, some would like to forget who it was that drove in the stake. Who made a stand when learned fools said it was madness. Who stood like a man amid cringing refugees.

He offered hope to those who had none.
He gave the dream of freedom to those who had not known it.
He drove down the systemn that had the blood of tens of millions on it's hands.
He gave trust to a citizenry unused to being trusted.
He believed in us.
He nurtured us.
He was in essence, the best of our hopes, our dreams, given form in the vision of a simple man with a vision of "A Shining City on a Hill".

He was just a man, but he came to embody far more. I'll mourn him when he passes as if he were family, because to me he was. I miss him sometimes, I trust in the man who learned from him, but I still miss him. His smile was sincere, his affection for us real.

So I hope his dreams are peaceful, calm, because he's earned that in the hearts of the many millions who live free now. He's earned it in the eyes of his countrymen, no matter the fools. I hope his passing is gentle. His rest serene.

If there is a Saint Peter, I hope he says, "Hello, freedom man", we have been waiting for you.

My president, mine, he made history stand on it's head and those of us who supported him, loved him, share in a tiny, tiny, part of that. His critics can frown all they like. I'm unashamed of this.

We stand taller because he showed the way.

As a man, I didn't weep for my sister when she passed on. Not for my father. Not even for my mother, I was too old school, to...old fashioned to do anything but to weep inside my soul. I shed tears only once as a man, and that was at the birth of our first born child.

Somehow, I know that when my president passes, I'll find tears again.

The Dems are still whoring.

Sorry 'bout dat.

Anyway, it is raining here in Seattle (big surprise). But this rain has some sort of demon force winds behind it. I woke up yesterday to find about 10% of my neighbors roof in my front yard and the wind just hasn't died down. Over the last couple days, we have had sustained winds of 40mph with gusts of up to 70. And now the rain comes in.

I just drove home from work down 10 miles of Interstate 5, just south of Seattle. The average speed was about 40mph (as opposed to the normal 60+mph). Visibility was down to 100 to 150 feet with your high-beams on. Turning your wipers up to high just threw the water around on the glass without really making your windshield any clearer. Unless you count being able to see the sheets of water you were about to run into.

Man that was fun!

If I didn't need to get home and scarf some feed, I would have stayed out until the tank ran dry. I put in something with big beats, turned up the stereo, and tried not to smile too much.

I wish I had a video camera so I could show you some of the weather drama going on outside. I'd take pictures, but it is quite dark out. Oh well, at least the wind blew my leaves into the greenbelt across the street. Nature at work folks.

I hope you all have a good weekend, folks.

Quit checking out the man's ass.

This pic gratuitously stolen from Rog over at Curmdgeonly & Skeptical. Apparently, Rumsfeld arrived in france to deliver our list of demands or something. Otherwise, we nuke 'em 'til they glow, and then shoot 'em in the dark.

A question: Would anyone donate money to a fund set up to build Rumsfeld a 1911 that would be presented to him? Possibly on behalf of the Blogosphere.

Points out some more remarks by the "compassionate party".

Puggsly - do not follow this link if you have access to a lethal weapon nearby. Let's just say that these morons are, openly and proudly, celebrating what is happening to Ronald Reagan. Hateful stuff, indeed.

I don't want to ruin your weekend, but I think that this is something that needs to brought up.

Former President Ronald Reagan, who suffers from advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease, is now confined to a bed, rarely awake and unable to walk or talk, People magazine said in a report issued on Thursday.

"When he is awake, which is not that often, he can gaze at the trees outside the window," Davis said.

And let's hope that he sees only saluting Americans standing in the treeline.

Somebody out there has to have a way that people can send holiday wishes and good thoughts to Mrs. Nancy or her people. Does anyone know?

From an e-mail I recieved from Mollbot, I give you this link.

Storytime with the Mollbot

A State of Disobedience, a book by Tom Kratman

It is the story of the United States of the near future, after the election of a strongly left-wing President at a time when the Patriot Act and similar legislation has made that office more powerful than it has ever been. The President begins to move to extend the Executive Office's personal control over the organs of the Federal government, especially such agencies as Homeland Defense, the FBI, CIA, ATF, and EPA, among others. The President creates several other agencies as well, essentially as covers for building a Praetorian Guard for the Executive. One of the agencies' offices in Texas makes a fatal blunder while "investigating" a vocal anti-abortion group, and winds up bringing the Lone Star State to a boil. Outnumbered, outgunned and with little hope of winning a fight against the Federal Forces, Texas makes its stand anyway.

Take a look at his site to see the other book he bought too.

You have probably read about the pending closure of the brick and mortar portition of the Seattle IMC. Doc posted about it on Wednesday.

Well, with all the stories flying around, someone from the IMC decided to step out on the balcony and pull an Eva Peron. This should be read to the tune of "Don't cry for me Argentinaaaaa!" Please substitute 'Seattle' for 'Argentina'.

Now to more personal business. I have not gotten a response from either Moonbat #1 or #2 on the subject of the Friday Night Fights. My gauntlets are getting dirty from throwing them down so often.

But some peace weenie calling him/herself Elisabeth was so mentally bruised by the activity that she felt the need to pull a Rodney King/Reginald Denny "Can't we all just get along?"

Well, sorry Elisabeth, but there is no way I'm running from one (or two) of these guys.

I've even made up a 'Moonbat Tag'

I found this at the IMC. Take a read when you get a chance and then leave your answer in the comments.

Snippet,
Many Palestinians are blinded by the rhetoric of a small, vocal group of Palestinians who, from their luxury in America, Europe and even the Middle East, continue to argue rejection. These "coffee shop commandos" are good at telling the refugees that they must continue the struggle against Israel and Zionism, while screaming down Palestinian voices of reason. They are willing to fight to the last Palestinian. Not themselves, other Palestinians.

What's he got to hide?

Dean Wanted Records Sealed for Quarter Century

Whatever it is that Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean is trying to keep from the American public, the secret must be a beaut.

It turns out that the Vermont Democrat - who ordered his state records sealed for 10 years when he left the state's governorship earlier this year - initially wanted the telltale documents kept under lock and key till 2026 - just one year short of a quarter century.

Put your best guesses in the comments.

And it has hairy palms too.

Canadian civil servants have been condemned for inspecting sex shops and adult cinemas while apparently ignoring a flood of consumer complaints.

In the same time there were about 4,000 complaints and inquiries related to debt collectors last year, including 800 written, formal complaints.

One day, the Canadian Air Force will be fully funded and the Consumer and Business Services Department will have to hold a bake sale to buy their porn.

Found @ Samizdata

Now, Seattle rules the world!

West Virginia becomes last state to get a Starbucks store.

Some junkies ya just gotta love.

OK, so exactly what is the guy identified by the arrow thinking as he looks at Hillory? He seems a bit nauseous, like he might spew on his boots. Another possiblity is that he thinks he could snap her neck like a chicken, and get away with it. But, I could be wrong. I'm not a milblogger, I just support what those guys (and ladies) do to preserve my freedoms.

Let's see. You combine Monbiot, Galloway, and the Muslim association of Britain and you get......THIS.

Pretty damn funny.

Ahhh, already the ambulance chasers begin the run-up to having it all be the fault of the police.

The attorney for Nathaniel Jones' family said he believes the man would have died whether or not he had drugs in his system because of the prone position in which police placed him.

"I think with the enlarged heart and the ability not to breathe ... the pressure that's put on him at 350 pounds when he was laid down on his stomach, I think the lack of oxygen still would have probably generated a heart attack," attorney Kenneth Lawson told CNN's Paula Zahn on Wednesday night.

Yep. Forget the drugs. Forget the fact that cocaine is a well known cardiac toxin - causing irregular/erratic heart rhythms and even cardiac arrest. Forget the fact that this guy was morbidly obese.Forget the fact that he initiated the aggression. He just wouldn't have died if those mean old police would have not done their job.

The family, of course, agrees:

Members of Jones' family Wednesday denounced the officers' actions and said they could have restrained themselves. They called for an independent investigation.

Here's an idea. He would still be alive if he didn't have intoxicating levels of 3 different substances in his body. He would still be alive if he hadn't attacked police. He would still be alive if he didn't weigh 350 pounds on a 200 pound frame. He would still be alive if he had RESTRAINED himself. Classic "poor victim" syndrome. We overlook everything that the "victim" did to get himself killed, while being sure we take down the guys on the job. I think the police were remarkably restrained - they fought with this crazy junkie hand to hand trying to subdue him, rather than unloading on him. The fact that he was too fat to withstand the stress of the combat he initiated is no ones fault but his own. Perhaps the attorney for the family can also sue White Castle for contributing to his client's obesity.

As you can tell, this kind of crap makes me insane. Personal responsibility - try to be mature enough to take some.

Indeed.

Via The Mudville Gazette

But, of course, we can't believe this account of Bush's visit. Since, you know, it's only recounted by someone who was actually there.

Notice the "local time" the Captain was asked to be ready - 1600. Sort of blows the shit out of the "Bush forced soldiers to eat turkey at 5am for a photo-op" scenario, eh?

I'm going on holiday (actually a conference + holiday) to Scotland. I have a friend that will let me stay at his place in Glasgow. Number 5 Crown Circus or some such. Anyone ever been to Glasgow?

Heya Dave,

You up for some late night coat holding?

I don't know what I do to their cereberal cortexes, but I got another IMC'er so riled up that he has offered to be my punching bag.

If your stomach is easily turned and you don't want to follow the link, it went like this:
I've been kicking this guys ass all week on the IMC board. He comes along and calls me (and each of you) a chickenhawk. So I call him chickenshit and list out the reasons. He asks if I'm 'feeling froggy' and I let him know that I work swings.

I'm hoping for a Friday night meet at a rarely used football field near my work so that my commute home doesn't get screwed up.
I also hope he has insurance.

UPDATE: The original coward 'Mos Def' has raised his head up in this IMC post entitled 'The kill Analog Kid Movement begins'. Here, he not only proves that he is an anti-semetic coward, but also a homophobe.

I have offered in the original post to take both he and JCB on, in that order, in the same night. Still no takers.

What does a guy have to do around here to be able to give out ass whuppin's for Christmas.

Oh, THAT Bush!

If you have visited WorldNetDaily you have probably seem the 'Babes Against Bush' article.

I really have nothing to say about this, except that it won't be the first time in history that men have promised women something in return for that form of gratification and lied.

Sorry ladies, but some of your sisters are stupid (and not very attractive).

Looky, see this picture? She sued a group for ten million dollars to keep the unwashed masses from seeing it. Sniff her privacy is DESTROYED NOW, sniff,....whimper, whine, moan.......

Drudge was kind enough to point this out. The super rich aren't really human are they? I could care less about her personal life, where or how she lives, I just enjoy the fact that our seeing this picture pisses her off.

Some posters maybe? T-shirts?

Is the Kyoto Treaty Dying? Maybe, but it's supporters should consider this, if nations big and small are now rejecting it, it could be that the treaty was a BAD DEAL for everone envolved from the beginning. If you want perfection, try walking on water, if you want a deal, try using numbers and information that are real and is accurate. The treaty was a con game by single issue fanatics with no clue as to how badly it would hurt people to make it happen. Or worse, they just didn't care.

Everyone wants a clean enviroment, but the pet theory of global warming makes me remember the ice age theory in the seventies, then acid rain, nuclear winter and then this.........The theories change with the wind, chasing the junk science money train.

Color me skeptical.

We heard that boneheaded statement recently in the commentssection, that we are losing in Iraq. Pointedly absurd, as if the fact resistence merely exists is cause to hang our heads and just give up. This little bit of news puts the lie to that on several levels.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi political parties and coalition authorities are discussing the creation of a 1,000-member militia to bolster the U.S. military's fight against a guerrilla insurgency, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

The militia would be formed by uniting fighters from five Iraqi political parties under the joint leadership of the U.S. military and the emerging Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, American officials in Baghdad and Washington said on condition of anonymity.

They want more security, they want to end the resistence which is killing more Iraqi's than Americans. They want to work with our military and have a chance to govern themselves for once in their lives.

The current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite Muslim, said the idea of a joint militia was a good one. He said the country's five or so individual militias have won credibility for fighting Saddam's regime for more than 20 years, and could root out that regime's remnants now.

"At this stage, we should try to make use of any force, any tribal clan and any individual that can help," he said, adding that the militias should be centrally controlled, as the Americans have stipulated. "They will have a role to play in the fight against terrorism."

Look, this means better intelligence on the ground, better liason with the Iraqi population, and it give the Iraqi's access to firepower equal to the job. One other benefit is to rob the bastards of their claim to be just fighting America. They've already pissed that away mostly by the Red Cross and UN bombings, as well as attacks against various tribal groups. But this is the nail in that coffin. The Iraqi's want their country back, and they know that they won't get it as long as the rebel Baathists and their islamicist cannon fodder get in the way.

The Iraqi's plan to remove that obstacle. If that's losing, then , more please.

In reference to the Doc's post yesterday on the Nathaniel Jones case, this is why I have utter confidence and totally support the officers, their Chief and Cincy's Mayor.

This is a link to something I posted back in May about the murder of a local police officer. The circumstances are so similar, it is scary.

White officer/s being violently attacked by a black criminal under the influence of multiple narcotics, etc.

I am glad that the situations ended differently in the Cincy case.

Sorry folks, I took a dip in the IMC slime pool again to make some minor adjustments on a twit and now I want to share.

Someone is unhappy that we can take the battle to the enemy.

A quick analysis of the "Samarra Battle" and some peculiar aspects of same suggests the following scenario:

FIRST: The U.S. got its butt kicked during the month of November: Five helicopters knocked down; a cargo plane hit and forced to do an emergency landing; dozens of U.S. soldiers killed in ambushes; numerous car bombs and truck bombs. Dozens of Iraqi officials (working with the U.S.) and/or police officers assassinated; dozens of U.S. allies (Japanese, Italian, Spanish, British, etc.) killed. Sadam is nowhere in sight, but continues to issue communiques.

#1. Butt kicked? I seriously dounbt it. You are forgetting that the cargoplane was landing when it was it. 3 of the 5 helicoters were determined to have mechanical failures. Do you consider 8 'numerous'? No wonder you can call 10,000 people at the last D.C. ANSWER Hate America demonstration 50,000. When the foreign diplomats and forces refuse our security, they get what they gets. Notice that they are taking us up on our security offers now.

SECOND: Word comes down from the Pentagon- "We need a big victory and we need it NOW. Fake one if you have to."

THIRD: U.S. psychological warfare operatives go into action. They concoct a plan for a "great victory" brought to you by your sponsor: The same folks who brought you the Jessica Lynch "rescue" and cooked up the Jessica Lynch story of heroism.

#2 & #3 Pure speculation (fantasy) on your part.

FOURTH: U.S. troops enter a town. Heavily armored and "ready." U.S. troops allegedly "know" that an ambush is likely or imminent-- But this time the main "attackers" are U.S. special forces. NOTE the "fadeyeen uniforms" the attackers were alleged to have worn: Iraqi witnesses saw NO Iraqis walking around with such uniforms that day. Note also that part of the "fadeyeen uniform" involves wearing black or dark clothes with black ski mask-like headgear: How Convenient. Perfect for white special forces operatives pretending to be Iraqi.

#4 When you are in a war-zone, ambushes are always imminent. That is why is is called a war-zone. As for the fedeyeen wearing 'ski-masks'. They wear them for the same reason that the black bloc members do. So that they can raise a stink and them blend back in with the population.

FIFTH: The "massive attack" launched simultaneously on two different fronts resulted in NO deaths among the U.S. troops.

#5 If you had any knowledge of military activity, you would know that an ambush is 'a massivie attack launched simultaneously from two different fronts'. The fact that soldiers train to beat an ambush from a lightly armed enemy is the reason that there were no US casualties. Much to your dismay, I see.

SIXTH: Hospital personnel said they saw virtually NO dead fighters, only dead civilians, including women and children. The number of such was under a dozen.

#6 The fedeyeen are civilians, you dumbass.

SEVENTH: The U.S. produced NO dead bodies (this should have been easy to do if 54 Iraqi "fighters" died as the U.S. claimed). Not a single person has seen ANY of the "dozens" of Iraqi soldiers the U.S. said it captured. Where is the usual photo op after such a "great victory?" It should be easy to arrange one (showing Iraqi soldiers handcuffed and sitting on the ground, for example).

#7 Even if they did produce pics or video, you would still believe it was fake. Unlike the Saddam communiques that you mentioned in point #1. Those have to be real because it helps your argument.

CONCLUSION: The U.S. faked a "big victory" for world-wide propaganda consumption because U.S. troops got the shit kicked out of them during the month of November. The goal was to end the month having the world thinking about America's "big victory" instead of thinking about all the U.S. soldiers that died. The high number for enemy "dead" was essential: It was meant to "even the score" between the U.S. and Iraqi fighters in the minds of the consumers of western media. Brilliant.

Conclusion: You know little to nothing. You hate Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld so badly that you are willing to cheer as our troops are killed in a war-zone so that you seem 'in the right'. Go f*ck yourself.

With the delivery of the bad news from Russia about them not signing Kyoto, this news should make all the tofu-eating flower children of the forest double up on their daily yoga exercises.

Bush Signs Healthy Forests Legislation

Found at Blogs for Bush, who also linked to the Pro Troop Rally post.

He was even so kind as to snag the best Bush line on the subject,
"For decades, government policies have allowed large amounts of underbrush and small trees to collect at the base of our forests. The motivations of this approach were good. But our failure to maintain the forests has had dangerous consequences and devastating consequences. The uncontrolled growth, left by years of neglect, chokes off nutrients from trees and provides a breeding ground for insects and disease...... As we have seen this year and in other years, such policy creates the conditions for devastating wildfires. Today, about 190 million acres of forest and woodlands around the country are vulnerable to destruction. Overgrown brush and trees can serve as kindling, turning small fires into large, raging blazes that burn with such intensity that the trees literally explode."

A while back I posted about the Canadian Navy 'taking some time off' due to budget shortages.

I knew this couldn't be far off.

Canadian Air Force may vanish by 2013, study says
Military on verge of 'rapid collapse' if funding doesn't soar

And again, I would like to say 'You're Welcome' to every Canadian for their relative freedom, their socialized medicine programs, and their worry free world view that stems from being next door to the best and greatest military power the world has ever seen.

Canada, leading the world at being just north of America

I wonder if Hillary is behind this?

Democratic donor says he won't give more to state party

One of Washington's most generous Democratic donors says the state party won't get any more of his money because it is playing favorites for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And that'll be it, says Bergman, a supporter of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, "unless and until it stops supporting one good Democrat over another in party primaries."

As for my lead question, with an ass as big as Hillary's, it is hard to be behind anything.

Hey Doc, you can stop looking for that 'Cure for Cancer' thing. The hippies in Oregon have it all figured out

Medford to get healing labyrinth

Putting her energy into building a memorial labyrinth keeps Jenny Lee, 20, from feeling despair over the deaths of three Medford friends in 10 months, one of which occurred last week.

Lee is one of nearly 30 young adults in Medford working on Jacob’s Memorial Labyrinth, a 50-foot-diameter concrete and tile meditation path proposed for Medford.

Yep, being confused as to which direction I'm going is always comforting.

A good local idea that should go national.

County to charge inmates for jailing costs

Grants Pass, OR - Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel plans to begin billing inmates for room, board and other expenses.

Inmates will be charged $60 of the $63 a day it costs to keep them behind bars, Daniel said.

This is the correct interpretation of the 'paying your debt to society' ideal.

No wonder Jimmeh Cahtah wants to play 'Let's Make A Deal' with the guy.

Kim Jong-Il honored as a deity

You have to click on that link just to see the pic.

And if that is not enough for you, go to this Korea News Service page. About 2/3 of the way down the page (sorry, no permalinks) it tells about the bill that 'ol Kimmy Boy wants to send to America for "The total amount of human and material damage the U.S. imperialists have inflicted upon the South Korean people for nearly 60 years since their occupation of South Korea"

Total tab: $43,139,020,630,000

The sick part is that if Hillary or someone of her ilk (I'm looking your way, Dean) gets into the White House, even with a national debt, they probably pay it.

I am asking this question about my local Indymedia. They already have a corner on the market of being a nutball, but do they really need to connect themselves with NAMBLA (aka the little boy f*uckers).

David Sellinger who has used his authority to block access to the NAMBLA web site and other sites with NAMBLA in the title was told to remove the firewall and did so. A small win for freedom of speech.

Maybe I'll just back-off on my attempts to get inside. I really don't want to know what they're doing in there that bad.

that AK had such power?

Had nothing to do with it.

Or just another optical illusion?

This is pretty cool, but it made me nauseous. Er, more so than looking at a picture of all the Democratic candidates for the presidency usually does, that is.

Whoa! Someone might tell Jimmah that talking about dealing with Jews using the words "final solution" is just we wee bit, um, un-PC.

Remember - what people say on the "spur of the moment" very frequently reveals what lies at their core.

Since some of our commenters have expressed concern over the, um, "welfare" of the US economy, I thought I better add a little stock ticker into the mix.

After all, we would hate to miss the DJIA surging above the 10,000 mark, now wouldn't we?

UPDATE:

OK, so some of you non-browser updatin, no JAVA havin MoFos had trouble with the ticker. It has now been axed. Relegated to the "it was a good idea, but....." bin of history.

Jeff Jarvis,

: Howard Dean says he'd "break up" media companies. This is the worst of political pandering: Big media companies have been made into the boogeymen du jour and so he announces he'll go after them. No legal basis. No constitutional justification. Just because they're there.

He doesn't LIKE FOX News. Seems having the liberal CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS aren't enough, not even NPR and PBS are enough, no he simply must silence any hint of conservatism from the airwaves. He wraps it in a canard of anti-corparate populism, but it's the same jackboot that progressives always wield when challenged. He's a liar, a hypocrite, smalltime brownshirt aiming for the bigtime and only a fucking moron would believe otherwise.

The problem is, that the left knows exactly what he is, what he intends to do, and they are just fine with it. Sure put him in power, remember what happened the last time a socialist with a disdain for free expression came to power?

Something like this?

For those Dean supporters who find the comparison offensive? I suggest you look at your own behavior first, then go stick your head in an oven.

You asshat Dean supporters can dish it out, but you can't take it.

OK, let's contrast this behavior with this.

Remember the "haircut on the LAX tarmac" incident? Anyone doubt that this latest story is true?

I heard this interview on Monday and went looking and looking and looking for it. I finally found it at LGF. It is the transcript of Howard Dean's interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews. I know LGF covered this issue, but if you haven't read their post, please tell me what is wrong with what he said in this paragraph;

Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight. Let�s act now so we don�t have to have a confrontation which may result in force, which would be very disastrous in the case of North Korea and might be disastrous in the case of Iran.

Find it?

He said 'The Soviet Union' 5 times.

He wants to run my counrty and yet he hasn't figured out that The Soviet Union has been 'out of service' for over a decade.

And why hasn't the mainstream press picked this up? They made such a fuss over Bush's lack of travel outside the US in 2000, and yet this Sh*t-eating F*cknugget can't even give countries their proper names.

Read the entire thing. Just like a good novel, it'll make you want to laugh and cry.

With a very large sledgehammer.

Mr. du Toit posts a timely short essay on "Why an electoral college?"

Why is it timely? Because as the election in 2004 gets closer, you will hear this question asked over and over again and I want you to have the answers. That, and because I said so. Neener.

Key line:
We are not a democracy, we are a representative republic.

He linked to the Pro Troop Rally post, so he gets some linky love in return.

The Junk Yard Blog posted this on Monday.

So Much For That Whole Saudi/Bush Thing

He is talking about this NewsMax article that references the official Saudi Arabian press report that speaks of Hillary's trip to Afghanistan and Iraq and that it means that she will be running for presidential office. And that 'many' in the middle east have 'high hopes' of her victory.

Gee, I wonder why?

Oh, and NesMax included this snippet;
What the paper's editorial didn't say is that the Saudi royal family has pledged to give ex-President Clinton between $1 million and $20 million for his presidential library, according to a report by columnist Robert Novak last year.

University sponsored racism takes another path.

Sister Souljah was brought to the University of Louisville in Oct. as part of the Bank One Diversity Lecture Series. Bank One donated $50,000 to the university after some of the company"s representatives were found passing out racist t-shirts on campus. A committee of students, faculty and staff decided to earmark this money for programs addressing diversity.

Not everyone got a positive message from Sister Souljah"s lecture. Jill Adkins, a junior political science major who spoke on WHAS radio on Nov. 18 with Yates, felt very uncomfortable at the lecture. 'I respect African-Americans. I respect Asians. I respect all people. But I do not respect the fact that I came there for a diversity speech only to hear examples against white people. I had to sit there for two hours and listen to this speaker say nothing but hateful remarks. I felt hated,' Adkins said.

You were being hated Ms. Adkins. That woman gets paid to do so, so why should she stop.

Well, it's Wednesday. Only two more days to go. So here is something to make you chuckle. Unless you're a chuckle-head, then you can smirk.

John Buchanan - the independent journalist who broke the story of the Bush family's investment in Nazi Germany during World War II (see the New Hampshire Gazette, https://www.nhgazette.com), is going to run against Bush on the Republican ticket! Note he is NOT to be confused with Pat Buchanan the right-wing libertarian. John Buchanan has been endorsed by John McConnell, the founder of Earth Day and Minute for Peace. His platform is centered around ending corporate rule of the government and restoring a free media.

And as if that isn't enough to make you laugh your ass off, here is a link to his website, JohnBuchanan.org.

UPDATE: Holy crap, he's got a blog!

Sides hurting, must stop!

A "miracle baby" boy born in Bethlehem is drawing crowds by the thousands. Palestinians in the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus' birthplace have been thronging to the adjacent Aida refugee camp for a glimpse of the 11-day-old infant many are calling a "miracle baby."

The boy has gained attention for being born with a large birthmark across his cheek that roughly forms, in Arabic letters, the name of his uncle Ala, a Hamas militant killed by Israeli troops after he was alleged to have masterminded a bombing that killed 12 people on a Jerusalem bus in November 2002.

On a serious note, the "Aida refugee camp" is actually an apartment complex. And "refugee" = anyone who does not own land.

UPDATE: Attention all 'palestinians'! I have just noticed that one of my pancakes has a pattern that resembles Muhammed. You are all invited to come to my house and worship my "miracle pancake". Please do not mind the pile of bodies wearing Arafat's pattern of keffiyeh over there in the corner. They were not true Muslims and my pancake became angry.

If you can stand more, here is a satire piece from FrontPageMag.com, depicting a fictional report from professional fool, Sean Penn reporting from Iraq for the San Francisco Chronicle.

A snippet;
I bounded off the plane this morning at the Saddam Hussein Airport, which they now call Baghdad Airport. It’s a freakin shame to give such a marvelous facility such a crappy name. It is always so much more interesting to name a place after a person rather than for another place. The new regime here seems very grounded in the mundane. No sensibilities. But more about that later.

The first thing I noticed on the way to the hotel is how bumpy the roads are. They’re a freakin mess. I thought Bush was going to see to it that the infrastructure was repaired, but nothing has been done yet. I thought it was obvious that smooth roads would show the Iraqis that we care about them. It’s a freakin shame that nobody cares.

Why, with a "Lovya Dubya" love-in, of course.

Via GHR.

And a "liberal" to boot. I'm not sure that this "People's Republic" is exactly what our little leftists Utopian trolls have in mind, though.....

Hehe. "Garlic is not a perfume". Indeed.

get too excited about the US defeat in Iraq, perhaps you should go read this analysis (and follow the links).

Nothing like viewing the world through commie colored glasses to give you a distorted view of the world.......

More anti-war propagandist dishonesty? Or just plain stupidity? Sort of like getting La the state mixed up with LA the city, don't ya think?

And now for a new feature here at RNS. The Soundboard Posts.

Every week I will be posting a new musical selection of my choosing (provided I can make a decision as to which song I want to post in time to get it to the Doc for the upload). The posts and the downloads will only be available for two days until we see what this does to our bandwith.

For the unfamiliar I have two options for the download:
1. Right click on song and save target to folder or desktop.
2. Click directly on song to play.
Depending on your download speed, patience is a virtue.

I'll start off with my signature song. Originally from Rush's 'Signals' album, this version is from their llive album, the three disc extravaganza 'Different Stages'.

The studio version of this song really never cut it for me, but the live version, as it is with so many of their songs, really takes it up a notch.

So, here we go.
The Analog Kid - Rush

Lyrics below.

RUSH
The Analog Kid

A hot and windy August afternoon
Has the trees in constant motion
With a flash of silver leaves
As they're rocking in the breeze

The boy lies in the grass with one blade
Stuck between his teeth
A vague sensation quickens
In his young and restless heart
And a bright and nameless vision
Has him longing to depart

Chorus
You move me
You move me
With your buildings and your eyes
Autumn woods and winter skies
You move me
You move me
Open sea and city lights
Busy streets and dizzy heights
You call me
You call me

The fawn-eyed girl with sun-browned legs
Dances on the edge of his dream
And her voice rings in his ears
Like the music of the spheres

The boy lies in the grass, unmoving
Staring at the sky
His mother starts to call him
As a hawk goes soaring by
The boy pulls down his baseball cap
And covers up his eyes

Chorus

Too many hands on my time
Too many feelings
Too many things on my mind
When I leave I don't know
What I'm hoping to find
When I leave I don't know
What I'm leaving behind...

Something I forgot to post yesterday.

Mr. Brent at The Ville has posted some songs he has recorded with his band, The Shooting Gallery.

I have downloaded them and given them a listen or two (or three or four) and can tell you that my review will be quite favorable. Why don't y'all do the same and let him know what you think.

And I'm not talking in terms of always being first to hoist the white flag.

In continuation of posting links to those who linked to the Pro Troop Rally post, I present to you 'Spacecraft: Discussion of Spacecraft Design, Dynamics and Control, and News'

In this post, it is reported that SPOT-1, a french satellite that has had it orbit lowered to help it 'de-orbit' (in 15 years or so), was 'first spacecraft to fly with an attitude control flywheel supported by magnetic bearings'.

For some reason, I think that the Doc and this guy could have a wonderful conversation on the topic of the Van Allen Belt. But seriously, the guy has good posts on news and politics along with some learning possibilites for the rest of us who can't figure out the square root of the leading edge dynamic of a basketball.

If you do know the square root of the leading edge dynamic, please leave your answers in the comments.

UPDATE: The answer is not 42. I tried that. Oddly enough, 42 is the answer to the square root of the drag coefficient of a large flying office building containing an extremely disreputable cocktail party now heading into its fourth genration of party-goers.

Feels so good.

Dow Ends Up 117; Stocks Hit 18-Month High
Investors sent stocks surging Monday, propelling the Dow Jones industrials up more than 115 points and into the shadow of 10,000 after a pair of reports showed better-than-expected growth in the nation's manufacturing sector and construction spending.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 116.59 points, or 1.19 percent, at 9,899.05, its highest close since May 31, 2002. The S&P; 500 ended up 11.92 points, or 1.13 percent, at 1,070.12, which marked its highest point at any time since June 3, 2002, and its highest close since May 28, 2002. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index finished up 29.56 points, or 1.51 percent, at 1,989.82, its highest close since Jan. 15, 2002.

Of course, these numbers will drop down a bit, for re-adjustment. But so far, my timing is right on schedule. Late spring/early summer 10,000 party anyone?

And speaking of parties, hey France and Germany, how you doing with that 10% unemployment rate? Keeps going up, huh? National debt too? But you guys aren't even spending billions on fighting terrorism? That's too bad. Must be your welfare state. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Mr Greg Dyke, BBC General Director, is in need of a glass stomach.

"News organisations should be in the business of balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one side or the other. This is something which seemed to get lost in American reporting of the war,"

What Mr. Dyke does not see is that, his method of reporting isn't as 'unbiased' as he believes it to be. When you only report the bad news coming from the war zone, you are helping break down the morale of both the soldiers and those on the homefront. Which means that you are helping the enemy.

My diagnosis: His ideological differences with Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush combined with his preference to only publicize news stories that are demoralizing and his statements above leads me to believe that he is suffering from a severe case of Rectal Cranial Impaction that is proving to be contagious to those who read his agencies work.

Nurse: Jarjar, the doctor will see you now

And he wants to be President.

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich headlined a fund-raiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group with ties to the Mideast terrorist organization Hamas and an agenda for an Islamic USA.

CAIR announced its national fund-raising campaign had topped its goal of $1 million thanks in part to the standing-room-only banquet Saturday evening attended by more than 1,000 people, including Kucinich and Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.

And don't forget, if he gets in, he'll make the locations of our moon bases public.

In my impersonation of Mr. Taranto over at WSJ's Best of the Web;

"Free meal programs in big demand"

No kidding, maybe because they're FREE?

So how much rage can a millionare doctor have against Mr. Bush? This much?

Oh, please,......................spare me the theatrics. Let me share a little bit on rage. Rage is the burning anger that comes from deep inside, so dark and hot that it barely knows restraint. Dean has a hot headed temper and a talent for throwing tantrums, hardly the stuff of rage. He's lived a privilged live, the best schools, the best excuses to stay out of Vietnam, (his own admission), the best clothes cars and lifestyle. What in the Hell has he known of rage? His rage is the fiegned righteous indignation of a richman's realization that there are POOR people out there. Not that he wants to give them his money......he wants to give them ours. Typical limousine liberal horseshit. Cruising through life doing good works by beating up on people who have far less and work far harder than he does.

He wants rage, then how about this kind of rage? The rage of growing up poor white trash, of being thought inferior because you didn't have the "right" family? The rage of guarding your two brothers backs through the school years, because they were mentally retarded and easy targets for bullies and thugs? The rage of fighting everyday of the school year, alone and always outnumbered? The rage of having illness strip your family away from you, one painful horror at a time? The rage of having your own body fail you when you need to depend on your ability to work and feed your wife and kids? The rage of getting up everyday and biting down the pain, fighting back the urge to throw up because your spine is damaged and going to work is akin to being beaten in your mind? The rage of knowing that maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky you will still be able to walk in your retirement years?

Rage? He has no idea what true rage is. It burns white hot in your veins, giving you strength, but constantly battling your mind for control. Rage is a beast, a rampaging thing of darkness that you bury deep down inside until you can vent it in harmless fashions. Pouring it out in torrents of pain and frustration. I do it away from my wife and children, I don't want them to see it, don't want them to ever fear me. I know rage very well and I truely doubt Dean fits the profile.

Rage is born of trauma, emotional, physical, it's not a stage prop for a crowd of mouthbreathing college richkids. Not a reasonable plank to run a campaign on. It's a deadend in and of itself. Dean uses it like it has merit,..........it doesn't.

You control it, or it controls you. Dean's too stage managed to make me believe his rage is real.

Drudge.

UPdate,.........

Just to reassure,...I'm not unable to control it. Everyone has a dark side, I just know mine when I see it. The trick isn't to deny it's there, but to channel it as a resource. My wife, my kids need not fear me, I would end my own existence before allowing them harm. The reasoning mind over the instinctive brute is an age old battle, won most of the time by most people, but sadly, not by all. I just wished to allow a peek at what some turn away from, channeled correctly a man's rage is the source of strength and endurance when it would be all too easy to just quit.

Loved ones are perfectly safe as are innocent bystanders. But I truely am bearlike, in that if I percieved a threat to my family...........have you ever seen what a bear does to a deer carcass? Then the limits come off, the civilization, the reasoning,.......But I've made it through the first 44 years without loosing control, I don't intend to start now.

Drudge reports this.

NEW YORK � It's called the Segway Human Transporter, but the Pentagon is drafting the two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops.

The program is still in the research phase, so the self-balancing scooters aren't expected to report to boot camp anytime soon.

Obviously we aren't going to see a return on this tomorrow, but it raises some eyebrows. Not to replace human soldiers, but to assist them, kind of an expendable point man. But with large military lasers already developed and in testing, with computer power doubling every few years, materials science progressing, power sources...........How many decades before something like this makes it's debut?

No other nation as far as I know has nearly so many irons in the fire on military research. Not in variety or in levels of funding. It looks like we plan to own the battlefield in the 22nd century as well.

Works for me.

Well it seems our guys did even better than first reported, 54 "good" baathists now. Must have had to gather arms and legs and divide by four. It was nice of the AP to include this local yahoo.

"No one wants these Americans to enter this holy city. We don't want them to defile (it), and that's why this battle happened," said resident Mawlud Jassim. "Many Iraqis were killed and the Americans sustained big losses in lives and equipment."

First, this town is in the north, Saddam country, second I guess the Iraqi Minister of Disinformation had a cousin. Why tell a small lie, when you can sprinkle pixie dust and make Abrams tanks just disolve on cue, huh Mawlud? Run that last line by me again,....yeah, it sorta shreds your credibility somewhat doesn't it?

This is as absurd as if AP reporters had rushed into Remagen the day after the Allies took it, then lined up the Nazi loyalists for a good bitch session. OOOOh, they only killed civilians, but took loss's dumble the number of men involved doing it............right. Mawlud needs to seek out his brother Qay-luud and take a pill. The whole bottle actually, but I'm just mean.

"American forces opened fire randomly on passersby and on (people) in the marketplace," said Shaker, interviewed Monday at the town's general hospital.

Sure they did, people were just calmly walking by, going to market, just casually meandering by A FRIGGIN TANK BATTLE YOU BRAINLESS MORON! DO YOU THINK THEY DIDN"T NOTICE AND MAYBE LIKE TRY AND TAKE COVER?..........Not according to jerkweed, nope they just milled around waiting for our guys to gun them down. I know that wild exageration is a common arab practice, they don't consider it lying, just the start of a back and forth. But JEEBUS Christ they suck at the propaganda stuff. Little lies they could get away with, but these whoppers have no wieght outside the arab world, unless you are a lefty brain donor type.

Update....

From CNN, this interview with one of our men.

JONES: Well, what they attempted to do -- and we don't know if it's actually civilians. I called them all terrorists. If they're blocking the streets or if they're attempting to block the streets, then obviously they're not a civilian. They're some sort of combatant. They're helping out the terrorist projects with that. I'm a true believer of that. These guys were trying to throw vehicles in the way, taxi cabs, a couple of white pickup trucks and everything, to actually block the roads as we tried to egress out with the convoy.

We did have to -- we did have to ram some vehicles out of the way to get our people out, to get our people out of there safely and securely. But civilians in the area, you know something's going to happen as soon as you get in there and all the civilians basically clear out of the way. So if you go into a street or part of the city that's normally busy and there's nobody around, you'd better get your guns up and ready to go.

Pretty much as I suggested yesterday, the civilians in question had already cleared out and men in civilian attire were putting up barricades to try and trap our people. The Sgt. is quite right, you take an active role in the fight, you are a combatant, and a target. The civilian "witnesses" are never going to admit that they were part of it, that they are lying through their teeth.

So, Jarjar...............go fuck yourself.

So there is this thing called the "Blogosphere Eco-System' run by the NZ Bear. It measures the number of hits you get and delcares where you sit in the 'whole scheme of things'. I don't know where RNS sits, and frankly, I don't rightly care. We have some good folks who stop by and read and comment and that is just fine with me.

Well, it seems that there was a guy named Barry who had multiple blogs he listed under the auspice of 'The League of Liberals' and each of them had their own counter but also collected the hits off of all the other blogs. This gave him an unnaturally large amount of hits, you see. NZ Bear found out about this and became unhappy and stripped off all of Barry's other blogs, leaving only his main one "Rush Limbaughtomy".

I found all this out while visiting my favorite new left of center blog 'Speedkill'.

I have deduced that the left has come up with a new form of arithmetic called "Progressive Math" and have determined that the method Barry was using to count his hits is the say formula that International ANSWER uses to count the attendance of it's "Hate America" rallys.

What do you think?

I am currently trying to figure out the formula. As soon as I do I will update this post.

UPDATE: I believe that I have discovered the secret to 'Progressive Math'. Now, there are a number of differrent formulas out there that depend on the application. The 'Demonstration Formula' (which is what we will focus on today) is going to be different than say, the 'Blog Formula'.

But nevermind that, let's get down to the numbers. Now, I tried to be fair here, so no shooting the messenger. Besides, he shoots back.

Here is the basic formula:
A/BxC+D+ExF=G /(MxN/O+P/Q=R) = V

A = The number of people that you wanted to show up = 1,000,000
B = The number of people who actually showed up (this number is always rounded up to the nearest thousand) = 10,000
C = The number of speakers you had = 30
D = The number of times Bush was called a Nazi or Hitler by those speakers = 500
E = The number of signs declaring Bush is either a Nazi or Hitler = 6500
F = The number of speakers who included the name �Haliburton� in their speech = 20
G = The Whole number AKA the number of people who, if they had shown up, would have made you quite happy = 200,000

M = The average age of an ANSWER board member = 45
N = ANSWER board member�s self-appointed IQ = 200
O = The number of tables/stands that were selling �The Little Red Book� = 20
P = The number of �Little Red Books� the sold = 350
Q = The number of people who do not read past the first 10% of those books = 200
R = The Mean number (it is called this because it is mean to the Whole number) AKA The number of good looking women at the demonstration = 4

V = the number you tell the press

Please, if you feel that there is something I forgot to take into account, leave me a note in the comments. This is very important scientific research we are conducting here folks. All contributions will be taken into consideration.

Speaking of controvsial essays by Mr. du Toit, he goes and issues another one.

I'm only going to give you one line because it could prove to be that volatile,

"Frank Sinatra couldn't hold Harry Connick Jr.'s jockstrap."

While I tend to agree with what he says, the speaking of a bad word against ol' Blue Eyes around the wife will have me spending a night on the couch.

No Shit!

I prefer accuaracy, talent and perfection more so than style. Harry has more of the former (hence my preference for his music) and Frank has a lot more of the latter (hence the wife's preference for his music).

But that is just one music snob's opinion.

And yes, I just said my wife prefers style over substance. How the hell do you think I caught her eye?

And no, I'm not going to tell her I said that. If she finds out on her own, I'll deal with it. Otherwise, fuggetaboudit.

Are you an American between the ages of 18-25? Do you care more about what is going on with BenLo or Justin Timberlake's hair than what is going on in the country you live in?

Then do we have a website for you! Declare Yourself.com!

From the mind of Norman Lear comes something for those so apathetical towards politics that they're willing to believe whatever they're told by Drew Barrymore, they're first spokesperson.

Ms. Barrymore says that she used to be 'so uneducated about politics, that like, she didn't take part. And that was bad' (I can only paraphrase her from a quote I heard on Medved a while back. But I distinctly remember the "that like" and the "that was bad" parts).

Declare Yourself.com has sections for 'Voter Tools', How to file for an absentee ballot, A 'Register to Vote' section, a short film titled 'Let's Go Voting' starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn (it is described as 'exciting'), and a 'Get Informed' section that includes pages on the candidates, the parties, political news, and political organizations.

They'll be conducting a couple of college tours next year. One will feature poets and the other is a reading of the Declaration of Independance by a "Hollywood Star".

Oh Looky! They also have a blog! (I have to include this snippet)
The Declare Yourself campaign, dedicated to helping young people learn how to empower themselves politically -- how to register to vote, how to vote, how to learn about and stay on top of issues you care about, and how to make your elected officials accountable to you.

Now, while I do see the education of younger voters as a noble thing to do, if they don't give enough of a crap to, oh I don't know, ask their parental units about voting, then just why should they be peer pressured to do so? And Ms. Barrymore, it is called "24Hour News Channels" or something called "A Newspaper" or this neat invention you seem to have just found called "The Internet". OK Sweets?

This site should have finished the sentence. By going here for your info, you should 'Declare yourself ignorant'.

I spent part of Sunday night going through stories about the Bush visit to Iraq. As you can probably guess, I found very little news and quite a few accusations that 'he only did it a photo op'. I then went and looked for stories about Hillary's visits. Lots of news, very few accusations of 'playing politics'.

Here's what I did, I went to Google, typed in 'Bush Iraq Visit' and went into the first 3 pages. I stayed away from the 'non-mainstream' agencies like The Nation.

Here's some headlines that I found:
ABC News headline - Bush's Iraq visit a pre-election PR stunt

USA Today headline - Afterglow fading on Bush's PR coup in Iraq

Reuters headline - Aides Prodded Reluctant Bush on Iraq Trip

The rest of the stories included quips about how Bush never served in Vietnam, reminders of recent deaths in Iraq, and quotes from 'professionals' about Bush's 'Showboating'. One guy was accusing him of 'lying' to the American people about his whereabouts, CNN was complaining about not having been included in the press pool, while another guy was whining about how this was only done to overshadow Hillariy's visit to the ME.

Speaking of Hillary's visit, here are a dozen stroies I pulled off Google news. I entered "Hillary Afghanistan" and looked through 5 pages of news stories, again staying away from the 'non-mainstream' sites like WND and NewsMax.

New York Times (posted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Boston Globe
CNN
Newsday
MSNBC
New York Post #1
New York Post #2
New York Post #3

And even a couple Fox News stories,
Fox News #1
Fox News #2

Geez, if you go through the Hillary stories, you'd think that there was nothing but love coming out of her heart for our troops. That she is only doing this for them, not to flood the media with pics of her eating with a bunch of people dressed to blend into a sand dune.

Of course both visits were political. But I believe Bush's visit was a bit more sincere, whereas Hillary's was more transparent. If she does end up running next year, I can guarantee you that photos of those visits will end up in her campaign ads, just like ones from Bush's visit will end up in his.

But what I am trying to point out is this, where was the mainstream press and their accusations of a 'PR Scam'? How can these people honestly say that they are 'Reporting' 'The News' any longer?

They reported her word for word, even when those words were disparaging to the troops around her. Hell, even Lieberman could see the politics in her visits.

This is where High Blood Pressure comes from.

I know I took of the latter part of last week of in returning links to folks who helped spread the word of the Pro Troop Rally, but everyone was focusing on Thanksgiving and I was having a hard time finding something to link to.

Not today. I stopped by 'Just Some Poor Schmuck' and found his post about a horror emerging in South Africa as reported in The Spectator. Per usual, you aren't hearing any of the 'Human Rights' organizations crying about it.

South African farmers and their families are being slaughtered. The murders are accompanied by torture and rape. The sadism of the attacks suggests either dark perversion or systematic terror. Dr Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch has even suggested that the killing could be classified as genocide.

To explain the sadism, violence and the rape in the farm attacks, you need to understand only two things: the attacks are happening in an extremely violent country with very high unemployment, and the attackers are poor, ill-educated, fatherless, jobless, rootless young men � who happen to be black. South Africa�s murder rate is 58 per 100,000, perhaps the world�s highest. (The rate for England and Wales is 1.3.).

Please take caution before reading the whole thing. There are descriptions of very violent crimes that should not be read by the sqeamish.

Just another reason that the UN should be drop kicked off of America's shores and their land sold off to the highest bidder and the money used to fight terrorism or buy those who voted for Bush ice cream.

� The 114 members of the Non-aligned Movement voted against U.S. supported positions 78 percent of the time. This group includes all the world�s dictatorships and terrorist states. It considers Cuba�s Castro, Libya�s Gadhafi and Syria�s Assad heroes.
� The 22 members of the League of Arab States voted against U.S. supported positions 83 percent of the time.
� The 56 members of the Islamic Conference voted against U.S. supported positions 79 percent of the time.
� The 53 members of the African Union voted against U.S. supported positions 80 percent of the time.

And what about votes cast by the United States so-called European Union friends? These 15 weak-kneed allies collectively voted against the United States more than 50 percent of the time.

Let's see, we are the largest contributer of troops whenever they ask, we give out more 'foreign aid' than the rest of the world combined, we take in more refugees than any other country in the world, etc, etc.

And yet, as a group, they still want to see a mushroom over one of our major cities.

Found at Judicious Asininity

Remember Kim du Toit's essay from a couple weeks back that got a large number of people all worked up? Well, I attempted to try and add clarity to it by writing my own short essay about what I believed Mr. Kim was talking about.

Sadly, I suck at that. I got a beginning, a half-assed middle and no closing.

I tried to take the long weekend and flesh it out a bit more, but after an hour or so, I decided that it wasn't pertinent any longer and bagged it.

If you want, I have put it in the 'More' section of this post for you all to read. Read on, and if get the urge, let me know what you think.

A couple weeks back, Kim du Toit wrote an essay titled �The Wussification of the Western Male� to much applause. And condemnation. While I admit that I did agree with a great deal with what he said, I�m pretty sure that most of the folks who didn�t, either didn�t read the whole thing or couldn�t get past the analogies to see where he was going.

When was the last time you heard this word?

Gumption.

Go ahead and think about it for a while.

While you�re thinking, I�ll go through a couple of dictionaries that I have handy,

New American Webster of 1972 says it is a noun defined as �1. initiative, self reliance. 2. common sense�

Webster�s II New Riverside of 1996 says it is a noun defined as �initiative : enterprise�

Have you figured out where you last heard this word yet? I don�t rightly remember either. But keep trying to remember while you read.

Oh, and did you notice anything about the two definitions? Amazing what 24 years of �social engineering� does to people.

I don�t like to say this but, I believe that this word is slowly being phased out of the American language by the language police. To them, having gumption means that you can take care of things and that you don�t need help. And I believe that this ties in with what Kim wrote.

When I think of gumption, I think of a John Wayne character. I think of someone who is ready, willing and able to do what needs to be done. No matter the cost.

People with gumption know what is right and they are willing to stand up for it. They hope for the best but prepare for the worst. They know, deep in their hearts, that no ill shall come to those that they care about so long as they have breath.

They don�t waste their time yelling and screaming and you�ll never hear someone with gumption whine. They see �protests� or �demonstrations� as a waste of resources. They�ll rally behind something they support or write to the person who can best help them with their opinion. But gathering thousands of people together just to complain about something seems so useless as to be unnecessary. And if you do ever see a gathering of thousands of unhappy people with gumption, you�ll want to get out of the way. Because something is about to change.

Folks with gumption don�t go around blaming their problems on others. They look at the problem and figure out a way to fix it. Neither do they go around asking for a handout. At the very most, they�ll ask for the opportunity to work for what they need. And then they�ll follow through and do the work.

People with gumption get called �hard headed� or �old fashioned� and lately they have been called �hateful�. But this is where those with gumption are misjudged by those without. They may dislike someone, they may not respect them or their position, but they do not hate them. The only thing that people with gumption hate is evil. They believe that there really is such a concept as good and evil. Just like there is such a thing as right and wrong. And they don�t go treating that word lightly, throwing it at everyone they disagree with. They reserve it for those people who commit truly horrendous acts such as genocide or for ideas that preach hate.

I have stated in the past that my personal motto is this; �I take no sh*t, and I kiss no ass. Please treat me likewise and we�ll be fine�. This has served me well for thirty-plus years so far. I can usually spot someone who won�t treat me likewise at a distance and just steer clear of them. They aren�t worth my time. I don�t hate them, but I have no reason to respect them and by the way they conduct themselves, I have no reason to believe that they�ll give me one.

Sadly, I am seeing fewer and fewer people with gumption lately, especially in our leaders. Bush has some gumption. Laura, I think, has more. Rumsfeld has loads of gumption, and I believe that it is a big part of the reason why he is so hated. From what I�ve seen of Rice, she has a good deal of gumption as well. Did the ladies notice I put two women on my list of leaders with gumption? Gumption is sexy, gals.

Gumption is neither a male or female idea. The whole idea is being dependant only on oneself. Having a large number of self dependant women is a necessity to having a large number of self dependant men.

So, have you figured out where you last heard the word �gumption�? How old was the person who said it? Were they talking about someone?

Try using it sometime in the near future. Take notice of the reaction of those around you is.