#1
Jacques Chirac, the French president, claimed Africans will flood the world if more is not done to improve the continents economy. He said that almost half of the 950 million people living on the African continent were under the age of 17, adding that the population would more than double by the middle of the century. If we do not develop Africa, if we do not make available the necessary resources to bring about this development, these people will flood the world.
One must wonder if Chirac even understands that the vast majority of foreign aid to Africa is absorbed by its corrupt governmental infrastructure. Money sent to Africa may as well be burnt for heat at home.
It appears to be taken for granted by the UN that we will sit back, bleed to death and accept all these millions to flood our countries. It is presented like a natural disaster, as if the massive population growth cannot be stopped by the nations in question, and the ensuing migration cannot be limited by Western countries.
Besides the obvious tactic of severely limiting or halting immigration, there are other important measures that could both stem the flood of imigrants and improve life in the Third World.
For many years now I have advocated that pre-pubescent African females be given subdermal implants of long term contraceptives (e.g., Norplant). Breaking young African women free from an endless cycle of pregnancy and frequently fatal child bearing would allow them to pursue careers or higher education. Most importantly, it would stop them from being mired in family life before they even turn twenty years-old.
Slowing population growth would help reduce the impact of famines, diminishing natural resources and the corrupt government infrastructure. This in turn would help break the stranglehold that African males have on the system. The dismal track record of sub-Saharan African men must finally be held to accounts. While the AIDS virus is assisting with this noxious task, too many African women are being forced to pay the price along with the men.
There is a significant element of blackmail here. A group of African leaders told the European Union that they needed to get huge amounts of money to limit mass migration from their countries, which is a tacit admission that they can control this mass movement of people if they want to.
There are many possible alternatives to simply drowning in a flood of foreign immigration. Tyrants like Robert Mugabe have proven the worthlessness of throwing money at these problems to make them go away. Financial aid serves no purpose in such a corrupt environment. New methods like the social engineering I suggest above must be brought into play.
#5
Unless one of three things happens, a massive sustained increase in food aid, Africans learning how to farm, or a miracle, I cannot imagine Africa's population increasing, let along doubling by the middle of the century. The miracle would probably be something along the lines of a return to colonialism, although I doubt if the Europeans are up to it anymore.
With enemies like Democratic Senate Majority Harry Reid, the terrorists don't need friends. Yesterday, all by his lonesome, Reid ran up the white flag in the War on Terror - at least in the Iraqi theater.
"This war is lost," he said. "[The troop] surge is not accomplishing anything." And in the dark recesses of some damp cave, Osama bin Laden broke into a wide grin - even as Tehran's mullahs swapped high-fives.
Can't you just hear them: Hang tough, guys, it's only a matter of time here in Iraq - and then it's back to the Big Apple.
Meanwhile, Reid himself won't call for an immediate pull-out.
So must U.S. troops continue to fight and die for this lost cause?
He's even helping to ensure their loss - by refusing to provide them with sufficient funding to win. And by setting a deadline for their mission, which the enemy can simply wait out. You'd almost think he was working for anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - or maybe Osama himself.
Yes, it's OK for an elected official to be pessimistic about Iraq and to dislike the White House's handling of the war. But - again - what kind of a message will terrorists draw from Reid's bald declaration of defeat?
Just imagine if Reid and his fellow Dems had taken a different approach. Imagine if they had insisted - repeatedly, from Day One - that America is united in this war, that it will fight as long as it takes, until every last terrorist is defeated.
That, indeed, the enemy has no chance of winning. What would the bad guys conclude? That they must keep fighting? Or give up themselves on a hopeless cause? Certainly the outcome in Iraq, at this point, is not clear. But if Reid & Co. force U.S. troops to cut and run prematurely, they will guarantee America's defeat.
In that case, it will be Reid and his pals who will bear the blame
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 07:36 ||
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#1
Isn't this the same guy who refused to meet with General Petraeus who was going to brief the Congress on how the war is really going?
Statement of a loser--A complete loser. This guy makes the hair on my neck stand every time I hear him utter some drively nonsense. What a political animal. These losers get elected. What is the brain dead process that is used by voters?
#7
Remember Senator. If you cause the troops to come back in defeat again, they just might be angry enough to enable "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." clause of their oath.
#8
Aside from the naked political calculation that a loss in the war equals a victory for the Democrats, I can only conclude this stuff is the result of a psychopathology. These are the guys who pay for fat women in spiked heels to trample them in their offices. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it is no way to conduct foreign policy let alone a war.
#9
Petraeus should state in his meetings that the war is definetely not lost and that these kind of pronouncements before even being briefed by the General are not helpful to the soldiers in the field.
#10
Reid and the rest of the loser dhemmicrats are vested in the war being lost. However, they do not have the balls to pull funding from the troops with 2008 elections coming up. They just want the current administration to suffer a death by a thousand cuts while risking nothing.
#11
This guy is the Lord Haw Haw of modern times. William Joyce (one of the Lord Haw Haws) was executed for treason. Can Reid at least be impeached? Is there not some law against being an idiot?
NRS 306.020 Public officers subject to recall from office; contents of petition for recall.
1. Every public officer in the State of Nevada is subject to recall from office by the registered voters of the State or of the county, district or municipality from which he was elected, as provided in Section 9 of Article 2 of the Constitution of the State of Nevada and this chapter. A public officer who is appointed to an elective office is subject to recall in the same manner as provided for an officer who is elected to that office.
2. The petition must, in addition to setting forth the reason why the recall is demanded:
(a) Contain the residence addresses of the signers and the date that the petition was signed;
(b) Contain a statement of the minimum number of signatures necessary to the validity of the petition;
(c) Contain at the top of each page and immediately above the signature line, in at least 10-point bold type, the words Recall Petition;
(d) Include the date that a notice of intent was filed; and
(e) Have the designation: Signatures of registered voters seeking the recall of ................ (name of public officer for whom recall is sought) on each page if the petition contains more than one page.
(Added to NRS by 1960, 282; A 1963, 1385; 1969, 197; 1971, 159; 1975, 1166; 1981, 22; 1987, 698; 1989, 1062)
With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate--we must respect Mr. Cho's privacy rights and personal autonomy--but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.
The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who'd been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who'd shot him, "An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it." It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him. Too bad nobody moved.
In its own way the VT massacre is part of the tempering process the nation must undergo before it is prepared to tackle the real threat to its existence posed by Islamic terrorists. Let these deaths not be in vain. Let this nation need little more tempering.
If you need a good cry, the Marine Corps has put together the Jason Dunham story. Mail the link to all your friends.
Dunham was a poster Marine - his physical fitness test scores perfect and his military correspondence studies complete. During his previous assignment guarding nuclear submarines in Kings Bay, Ga., the muscular, athletic Dunham and a handful of security force company Marines won Kings Bays 2004 Super Squad, a team competition of endurance and tactics.
Editor's note: Tom Plate, former editor of the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times, is a professor of communication and policy studies at UCLA. He is author of a new book, "Confessions of an American Media Man."
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Most days, it is not at all hard to feel proud to be an American. But on days such as this, it is very difficult.
The pain that the parents of the slain students feel hits deep into everyone's hearts. At the University of California, Los Angeles, students are talking about little else. It is not that they feel especially vulnerable because they are students at a major university, as is Virginia Tech, but because they are (to be blunt) citizens of High Noon America.
"High Noon" is a famous film. The 1952 Western told the story of a town marshal (played by the superstar actor Gary Cooper) who is forced to eliminate a gang of killers by himself. They are eventually gunned down.
The use of guns is often the American technique of choice for all kinds of conflict resolution. Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.
Not all of us are so proud and triumphant about the gun-guarantee clause. The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much.
Let me explain. Some misguided people will focus on the fact that the 23-year-old student who killed his classmates and others at Virginia Tech was ethnically Korean. This is one of those observations that's 99.99 percent irrelevant. What are we to make of the fact that he is Korean? Ban Ki-moon is also Korean! Our brilliant new United Nations secretary general has not only never fired a gun, it looks like he may have just put together a peace formula for civil war-wracked Sudan -- a formula that escaped his predecessor.
So let's just disregard all the hoopla about the race of the student responsible for the slayings. These students were not killed by a Korean, they were killed by a 9 mm handgun and a .22-caliber handgun.
In the nineties, the Los Angeles Times courageously endorsed an all-but-complete ban on privately owned guns, in an effort to greatly reduce their availability. By the time the series of editorials had concluded, the newspaper had received more angry letters and fiery faxes from the well-armed U.S. gun lobby than on any other issue during my privileged six-year tenure as the newspaper's editorial page editor.
But the paper, by the way, also received more supportive letters than on any other issue about which it editorialized during that era. The common sense of ordinary citizens told them that whatever Americans were and are good for, carrying around guns like costume jewelry was not on our Mature List of Notable Cultural Accomplishments.
"Guns don't kill people," goes the gun lobby's absurd mantra. Far fewer guns in America would logically result in far fewer deaths from people pulling the trigger. The probability of the Virginia Tech gun massacre happening would have been greatly reduced if guns weren't so easily available to ordinary citizens.
Foreigners sometimes believe that celebrities in America are more often the targets of gun violence than the rest of us. Not true. Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common. They're not. All of us are targets because with so many guns swishing around our culture, no one is immune -- not even us non-celebrities.
When the great pop composer and legendary member of the Beatles John Lennon was shot in 1980 in New York, many in the foreign press tabbed it a war on celebrities. Now, some in the media will declare a war on students or some-such. This is all misplaced. The correct target of our concern needs to be guns. America has more than it can possibly handle. How many can our society handle? My opinion is: as close to zero as possible.
Last month, I was robbed at 10 in the evening in the alley behind my home. As I was carrying groceries inside, a man with a gun approached me where my car was parked. The gun he carried featured one of those red-dot laser beams, which he pointed right at my head.
Because I'm anything but a James Bond type, I quickly complied with all of his requests. Perhaps because of my rapid response (it is called surrender), he chose not to shoot me; but he just as easily could have. What was to stop him?
This occurred in Beverly Hills, a low-crime area dotted with upscale boutiques, restaurants and businesses -- a city best known perhaps for its glamour and celebrity sightings.
Oh, and police tell me the armed robber definitely was not Korean. Not that I would have known one way or the other: Basically the only thing I saw or can remember was the gun, with the red dot, pointed right at my head.
A near-death experience does focus the mind. We need to get rid of our guns.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 20:04 ||
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#1
forgot to add: this would be the first b*tch to cry "lawsuit" if he were not completely protected by the police from the consequences of his disarmament campaign. Perhaps he could do the "introductory knocks" on the confiscation tour?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 20:10 Comments ||
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#2
Geeeze, where to start with this disgusting specimen of invertebrate?
The use of guns is often the American technique of choice for all kinds of conflict resolution.
Guess why, you insensate moron: It's because they work. An enemy falls down and does not get back up again. This is how numerous wars were fought and won in case that happened to escape your notice.
Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.
Without a gun to defend the other rights they often vanish with astonishing rapidity. Just ask the Soviet Russians or communist Chinese.
Not all of us are so proud and triumphant about the gun-guarantee clause.
Not all of us resemble jellyfish either.
Let me explain. Some misguided people will focus on the fact that the 23-year-old student who killed his classmates and others at Virginia Tech was ethnically Korean. This is one of those observations that's 99.99 percent irrelevant.
Horseshit! Guess what, Cho's lack of American heritage may well have played a part. Unaccustomed to life in the states, Cho was more susceptible to feelings of alienation and less well-prepared to deal with them when they arose. The guy's total lack of friends should have triggered concern in his parents but evidently did not. This in no way excused the "go back to China" taunting that should have gotten hammered by teachers who let it slide. They will have to deal with their own heavy consciences regarding this. None of it changes how what Cho did was wrong and the fact that he knew that it was wrong.
So let's just disregard all the hoopla about the race of the student responsible for the slayings. These students were not killed by a Korean, they were killed by a 9 mm handgun and a .22-caliber handgun.
Sure enough, the guns jumped up into the air all by themselves and fired bullets into all those students without the least human intervention. What unmitigated balderdash!
Gah! Nearly every sentence this useful idiot writes is the focal point for another rant. I'll stop here.
#3
Hey, Plate? You don't have to like the rights conferred by the Constitution, and you sure as Hell don't have to stay here. The rest of us DO like those rights, however, so if you want to live in a gun-free society, I suggest you move.
Posted by: Mac ||
04/20/2007 20:53 Comments ||
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#4
You first asshole. Try to take mine and I'll put a .308 hollowpoint through your thick skull.
#6
What little childish minds like Mr. Plate don't seem to grasp, is that the 'militia' clause is the basis of what he and others erroneously refer to as the 'draft'. It is the selective activation of the federal militia. Take away that clause and a 'draft' become involuntary servitude per the 13th Amendment. Not only will you disarm the law abiding public who use their lawful weapons in self defense in far greater numbers to stop violence against themselves, their families, and others, but it will also disarm the nation. However, then again, I'm sure Mr. Plate believes he's one of the chosen to rule us all.
#7
Sounds like "Rosie can have/carry a gun but no one else can" controversy from years back - and is he Mr.Plate willing to pay the degree of higher public taxation needed in order to have his level of third-party, "perfect" absolutist-totalitarian protection, WHERE CRIMINALS HAVE NO RIGHTS BUT NEITHER DOES THE VICTIM, i.e. TOM PLATE HIMSELF AND HIS? AND - DRUM ROLL PLEASE - THE ANSWER EVERY TIME IS "NO". All this article shows, once again, is that EQUALISM IS UNEQUAL, UNIVERSAL REGULATION IS FOR EVERYONE BUT NOT FOR RULING-SOCIAL ELITES. Its for FDR whom didn't kill scores of millions of his own people before WW2 to lay down America's guns, but NOT for Stalin whom did kill scores of millions of his own people before WW2 to lay down the USSR's guns.
*SOUTH PARK >Radical Enviro activists whom DON'T LIVE/WORK IN THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST, AND NEVER WILL, ARE DEMANDING THAT THE AMAZON BASIN BE UN-TOUCHED = UN-DEVELOPED, ERGO ITS MOSTLY POOR ANDOR UN-MODERN INDIGENS PEOPLES WILL BE BE DENIED "PROGRESS" OR MODERNITY, i.e. DENIED THE VERY SAME EQUALITY = "PROGRESS" [LEFTY] RADICALS PROCLAIM TO WANT FOR INDIGENOUS INHABITANTS IN AMAZON AND EVERYWHERE.
One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.
Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke and rub shoulders everyday with people who responsibly carry firearms -- and are far safer than they would be in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C., where such permits are difficult or impossible to obtain.
The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.
Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.
In recent years, however, armed Americans -- not on-duty police officers -- have successfully prevented a number of attempted mass murders. Evidence from Israel, where many teachers have weapons and have stopped serious terror attacks, has been documented. Supporting, though contrary, evidence from Great Britain, where strict gun controls have led to violent crime rates far higher than ours, is also common knowledge.
So Virginians asked their legislators to change the university's "concealed carry" policy to exempt people 21 years of age or older who have passed background checks and taken training classes. The university, however, lobbied against that bill, and a top administrator subsequently praised the legislature for blocking the measure.
The logic behind this attitude baffles me, but I suspect it has to do with a basic difference in worldviews. Some people think that power should exist only at the top, and everybody else should rely on "the authorities" for protection.
Despite such attitudes, average Americans have always made up the front line against crime. Through programs like Neighborhood Watch and Amber Alert, we are stopping and catching criminals daily. Normal people tackled "shoe bomber" Richard Reid as he was trying to blow up an airliner. It was a truck driver who found the D.C. snipers. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that civilians use firearms to prevent at least a half million crimes annually.
When people capable of performing acts of heroism are discouraged or denied the opportunity, our society is all the poorer. And from the selfless examples of the passengers on Flight 93 on 9/11 to Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students earlier this week, we know what extraordinary acts of heroism ordinary citizens are capable of.
Many other universities have been swayed by an anti-gun, anti-self defense ideology. I respect their right to hold those views, but I challenge their decision to deny Americans the right to protect themselves on their campuses -- and then proudly advertise that fact to any and all.
Whenever I've seen one of those "Gun-free Zone" signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I've always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don't mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 15:54 ||
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#2
"Whenever I've seen one of those "Gun-free Zone" signs, especially outside of a school filled with our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, I've always wondered exactly who these signs are directed at. Obviously, they don't mean much to the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago."
They obviously are directed precisely at "the sort of man who murdered 32 people just a few days ago."
They're telling him where his easiest targets are. Courtesy of the government.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/20/2007 17:36 Comments ||
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#3
Gun-Free Zones are only that to delusional people. The Virginia Tech administration needs to be taken to task and fired for their totally failed policy that cost 32 decent young people their lives.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/20/2007 18:06 Comments ||
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#4
It was citizens going to the trunk of their cars, grabbing their hunting rifles, and firing back that prevented Charles Whitman from killing a lot more people.
When I went to university, students drove drove on campus with hunting rifles and shotguns displayed on window racks. Even more kept them locked in the trunk of their cars as we were not supposed to have them in dorm rooms. Never a campus shooting, though quite a few small (and some not so small) bombs went off in the quad during finals. Different era, different set of concerns.
As an aside, during autopsy it was learned Whitman had a brain tumor. I wounder if anything similar will be found with Cho.
Posted by: ed ||
04/20/2007 18:19 Comments ||
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#5
UT is now a "gun-free" zone, at least for the non-criminals.
The church of global free trade, which rules American politics with infallible pretensions, may have finally met its Martin Luther. An unlikely dissenter has come forward with a revised understanding of globalization that argues for thorough reformation. This man knows the global trading system from the inside because he is a respected veteran of multinational business. His ideas contain an explosive message: that what established authorities teach Americans about global trade is simply wrong--disastrously wrong for the United States. Rest at the link. Seems reasonable to me
#1
The problem with his thesis is the axiom of growth.
Once America had accomplished most of the growth it needed, both physically and individually, it reaches a point of diminishing returns. That is, while it may be great to have a two-car garage with two cars in it, how many people would work extra hard to have a four-car garage with four cars in it?
Granted, some would. But it enters into the realm of "marginality" for most people. And the same rule applies both to corporations and to nations.
At the corporate level, how come only a few corporations still want to build "the tallest skyscraper in the world", anymore? Again, the law of diminishing returns. The only real purpose is ego and advertising.
Nationally, it is already hard to sell a manned space program in the US, as a national prerogative. But in turn, corporations now see big benefits in starting their own space programs.
In the long run this will mean that the government will still do space projects, but the big money will be not in discovery, but profit.
Internationally, many other nations have been backwaters for years, but the US is willing to spin off much of our heavy industry to them because we just can't do it as efficiently as they can. That is, nobody in their right mind pays a unionist $50/hr minimum for little more than minimum wage work.
However, if you look at the other nations that have taken over our industries, you see an interesting phenomenon. While they do have boom times for a while, all too quickly their industry reaches its own point of diminishing returns, and the businesses move on to the next country.
Post WWII it was Japan. Then Korea. Then Taiwan. And it continues to move. However the prosperity it created remains behind and finds new purpose.
Even if you look at the US, you see that *if* there is a decline in prosperity, it is mostly due to increases in taxes and inflation. While it can be said that we have "lost 10 million good paying jobs" overseas, many of these were $50/hr jobs that could not be sustained over time.
And our unemployment is low. So the vast majority of people got acceptable jobs, even if they have to work harder and be more educated to get the big bucks.
So what is the future of globalization? Most likely there will be a leveling off of employment standards in the world--not from the top down, but from the bottom up.
Increasing prosperity will have to mean increasing diversity in products and services. That is, why go to another country when you can get the same product next door at a lower price?
Eventually, free trade will keep improving things until there is equanimity. As I discovered when I was in Germany way back when, a dollar in the US would buy just about as much as a Deutsche Mark in Germany, even though their exchange rate was 3.44DM to the dollar. It only mattered if you lived in Germany, yet was paid in dollars, or visa versa.
There was still a lot of trade, but in either country, the only thing you noticed was foreign products available on the shelves.
#2
Unlike anthropogenetic global warming, there really is a consensus among economists that free trade, even if other countries are protectionist benefits all who participate. It's about the only thing upon which they do agree, over 90% of them.
#3
The CFR says the US is at risk of 50% nuclear terror detonation occurring in next 10 years. Does fifty percent [50%] mean anything in Clintonian Capitalist = Socialist, Fascist = Communist, etal. anti-Unitarian Unitarian, etc. America = Amerika, where CAPITALIST = DE-REGULATED/LIMITED COMMUNIST-SOCIALIST, and FASCIST = LIMITED COMMUNIST type of SOCIALIST AMERICAN = AMERIKAN!? Iff WOT > Limited Communist
vz [Full] Communist, Limited SOcialist vz [full] SOcialist, ................................@etal.,TOMATO vz TOMATOE, IS STILL ONLY 50%??? DON'T THINK SO.
Michelle Malkin is collecting letters to Sen. Harry Reid. Here's one:
Senator Reid: When you say we've lost in Iraq, I don't think you understand the effect of your words. The Iraqis I speak with are the good guys here, fighting to build a stable government. They hear what you say, but they don't understand it. They don't know about the political game, they don't know about a Presidential veto, and they don't know about party politics.
But they do know that if they help us, they are noticed by terrorists and extremists. They decide to help us if they think we can protect them from those terrorists. They tell us where caches of weapons are hidden. They call and report small groups of men who are strangers to the neighborhood, men that look the same to us, but are obvious to them as a foreign suicide cell.
To be brief, your words are killing us. Your statements make the Iraqis afraid to help us for fear we'll leave them unprotected in the future. They don't report a cache, and its weapons blow up my friends in a convoy. They don't report a foreign fighter, and that fighter sends a mortar onto my base. Your statements are noticed, and they have an effect.
Finally, you are mistaken when you say we are losing. We are winning, I see it every day. However, we will win with fewer casualties if you help us. Will you?
Respectfully,
LT Jason Nichols, USN
MNF-I, Baghdad
More at the link, and a link there to still more.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/20/2007 11:47 ||
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Good move Harry [/sarcasm off]
Hope keeping the Kos Kiddies and neo-marxist loud mouths happy is worth it. Nothing like politicizing the average grunt and the military. History is replete with fatal moves like this. Teach them that the only ones they can count on for their lives is their buddies. Cause that's who'll they'll die for. Who's going to die for you Harry? If you think I'll get between you and them, you are sadly mistaken. As imperfect as they may be, they at least have a sense of duty and honor and a commitment to a nation and not a party of self serving political hacks.
#2
Reid knows the effect of his words. He doesn't care. His strategy is to make George Bush look bad regardless of any negative consequences in Iraq or anywhere else as long as he can gain some kind of political advantage from it. He is a reckless and dangerous man but that is typical of the Democrat party. The irony is that Democrats have always been far more likely to get us involved in wars partly because they encourage our enemies with their witlessness but partly because they don't care who dies. Check it out: WWII, Roosevelt, DEM; Korea, Truman, DEM; Vietnam, Johnson, DEM; Failed hostage rescue attempt, Carter, DEM; Bosnia, Clinton, DEM; Kosovo, Clinton, DEM; Somalia, Clinton, DEM. Did you ever hear Republicans saying these wars were lost while we still had troops on the battlefield?
#3
Great. Nobody likes me anymore.
So are you happy now, Nancy?
Can I have my testicles back? Please?
Posted by: Senator Harry Reid ||
04/20/2007 12:42 Comments ||
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#4
Ooops. I forgot the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy, DEM. Kennedy's fans credit him with averting nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis but what if he'd been a little more decisive at the Bay of Pigs?
The classic example is Roosevelt, however revered he may be, who did nothing while Hitler rearmed Germany in violation of treaties signed after WWI. Blame Chamberlain if you want but Roosevelt stood by and did nothing. He could have nipped WWII in the bud. While it's easy to say such things with the advantage of hindsight, the disturbing part is that it seems to be a Democrat tradition and they look to be carrying on with it in regards to Iran. We could nip that situation in the bud with decisive action now but the question is, will we?
#6
Right, Mossilini. It might have been better if we had stayed out of that one especially considering all the gratitude we get from the French. The Germans went mad after WWI and might not have if we hadn't forced French terms on them. The French might even be nicer today if more of them were speaking German.
#7
Every military service member needs to write to their hometown newspapers. Entire units need to sit down and compose letters home. What editor who is not an utter fool would reject publishing such letters?
Letters signed by 20 or 30 soldiers or Marines are almost guaranteed to be published and prominently.
And yes, such letters to the editor are read by the public. And the response to such letter would cause any politician criticized to tremble about the knees.
#9
To be really fair to J. F. Kennedy, he inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower Administration. He was a new, young President who listened to bad advice from his advisers.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/20/2007 18:36 Comments ||
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#10
Where did you come up with the 'Ike gave the Bay of Pigs problem to JFK', DB? Cuban Ex-Pats had the most to do with this one. (And the bad advice was mostly from his brother Robert.)
LT Nichols makes his points while maintaining his dignity. I would have loaded my letter with many *&%^&XX
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/20/2007 21:13 Comments ||
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#12
As said times before, post 9-11 many Net-savy mil servicemembers professed to have no probs iff Dubya-USA's strategy in ME is to empower pro-democracy movements or Govts in Rogue nations while destroying Radical Islam on battleground of Amer's choosing. This included getting rid of Saddam. What the servicemembers don't want are THE REASONS = SPONSORS OF ISLAMIST TERROR NOT BEING DEALT WITH OR RESOLVED. The 2006 elex was a VOTE TO CHANGE LEADERS-STRATEGIES FOR VICTORY, NOT for defeat, pull-out, withdrawal, dis-engagement or redeployment, etc, i.e WAS A VOTE TO DEFEAT IFF NOT KILL RADICAL ISLAM ONCE AND FOR ALL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Dubya is entrenching US influence + pro-democracy/capitalism movements all around Radical Iran, the world-acknowledged main sponsor of overt Muslim Terror, besides the ME + Muslim World, and all but officially daring Moud to do something, "to make Dubya's day" as Dirt Harry would say, to attack the USA + US Allies in ME-World. It is for Moud-Mullahs =Radical Iran to decide how to react, i.e. whether to save their own local power for as long as possible, versus to save = empower Radical Islam's agenda by attacking Amer wid new 9-11 or greater Terror events, i.e. "save" the Islamist agenda from entrenching, "Creeping America" by throwing the whole world into war and geopol chaos.
We know a lot more now than we did on Monday. And we know for sure that Cho Seung-Hui had a problem with America. Today, of course, we are being bombarded by the contents of a package sent by the killer to the folks at NBC: videos, photos, writings, and ramblings all disturbing and in their own way telling. . . .
The writer goes into detail on some of Cho's writings. It sounds like the same sort of stuff you find on a lot of "progressive" blogs.
Envy, deep and powerful, comes through it all. Resentment against our society. Christianity, capitalism, and sports all take their hits. This was a man who hated the American regime our very way of life. And he took a Muslim name to register his discontent Ismail, the preferred Arab spelling of Ishmael, Abrahams first son, the disinherited son who took second place to the wealthy Isaac.
Do I blame Islam for Cho Seung-Hui? No. He was a curse on Islam, not the other way around. Do I blame films such as Super Size Me for his extreme and bizarre attitudes toward the eating habits of a good many Americans? No again. Do I blame the New York Times and its obsession with wealth-inequality for his hatred of rich kids? No, once more.
But I will go this far: There is a rising tide of resentment in our country against the so-called rich, and Christianity, and a Big Mac with fries. Talk-show hosts, op-ed writers, documentarians, and authors of all stripes take part in it. They speak to psychologically healthy audiences, although the bent and wicked are listening in too.
Cho Seung-Hui, it seems to this writer and radio host, was exposed to all of it. He gulped the resentment in the air, chewed it over in the dark corners of his soul, and then released it in a torrent of rage. He alone is responsible for his actions, but our society can either stir up hatred or pour oil on troubled waters. Unfortunately weve gotten better at the former and worse at the latter.
Its like poisonous mercury in the ocean. For some reason, a number of fish pick it up but never purge it. The poison grows in concentration, until the life is irreparably lost.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/20/2007 10:49 ||
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#3
TU - I don't disagree with his premise that there's a pervasive bias against Christianity, et al, among the MSM, academia, and so-called-elites. I just think that trying to link that to the actions of a sick fuck like Cho doesn't work.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 16:12 Comments ||
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Frank, I respect your viewpoint here, but I can't help but wonder: there's so much America-bashing and God-bashing among our cultural elite, and they're so apocalyptic about it (random examples here, here, and here). If I'm a sicko like Cho, and I see the cultural elite agreeing with my dark impulses, might I consider it a validation? Maybe he would've done what he did anyway, but if he was on the edge, so to speak, might that validation have been the one thing that overcame whatever remaining self-restraint might otherwise have held him back?
Posted by: Mike ||
04/20/2007 17:08 Comments ||
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very possibly, Mike. I just think that only those "pre-disposed" would do such a pre-planned blasphemy. The poisonous environment can't be discredited as a factor, I agree. One side here is seriously deranged, and advocating things, without suffering the consequences. Our side should try (and I'm not entirely successful, myself, you might, possiblysurely have noticed) to do better. That's one reason, IMHO, that the mods are looking at comments (like Sinse's today. See "sinktrap") so much. I understand Sinse's frustration, but there's "acceptable" and "not", and here, Fred and his Myrmidon Mods makes the rulez :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 17:39 Comments ||
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#6
(and I'm not entirely successful, myself, you might, possiblysurely have noticed)
Bah! Frank, you ridicule with the best of them. That certainly counts for something in this humor-impaired world. Plus, I'm confident that had you the opportunity to design the Three Gorges Dam, flyash would have been a primary ingredient in all aggregate compounds. Prove me wrong!
#7
LOL - I stick to what I know.... the Chinese Dam is a catastrophe-in-waiting, geographic and weather influences (water!) will overcome Chinese cost-cutting, material-shaving neo-communism..
/Joe M, shift-key-challenged
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2007 22:55 Comments ||
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Did your children celebrate Lenin's birthday in school last week?
Don't answer "no" right away.
The first Earth Day "teach-in" was celebrated on April 22, 1970, to protest the Vietnam War, pollution, and littering -- and to commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of one of history's most notorious villains.
As the father of communism, the deaths of tens of millions of people can be laid at that Soviet dictator's doorstep. That now forgotten fact about Earth Day's origins should place your child's sudden enthusiasm for recycling, saving the panda bears and energy efficient light bulbs in a new, well, light.
Like the Marxist philosophy that inspired it, today's environmental movement has become, for its most ardent proponents, an ersatz religion. As Joseph Brean recently observed, "in its myths of the Fall and the Apocalypse, its saints and heretics, its iconography and tithing, its reliance on prophecy, even its schisms -- the green movement now exhibits the same psychology of compliance as religion."
In a widely disseminated 2003 speech, Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton called environmentalism "the religion of choice for urban atheists" and "a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths."
Catholics should be concerned. Next time you hear about the latest sacrifices being demanded of us by environmentalists and their friends in politics and show biz (who rarely practice what they preach ) don't just shrug and say "What harm could it do?"
"What harm could it do" is most assuredly NOT the standard by which Catholics are called to live.
Assuredly, Christians are compelled by their Creator to be good stewards of the earth; the very first book of the Bible makes that clear.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
"The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religions respect for the integrity of creation." (#2415)
For radical environmentalists, though, "dominion" is a bad word. Catholic teachings that equate care of the earth with the right to private property go against everything they believe. You see, environmentalists hail mostly from wealthy First World nations. They're really concerned less with "saving the planet" than assuaging their guilt about their own relative affluence. They do this through the "ritual" of recycling, buying carbon offset "indulgences" and following other environmental "commandments."
Recently Cardinal Pell of Australia was asked to comment on fellow Cardinal Giacomo Biffi's controversial declaration that the coming Anti-Christ would be a "pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."
Pell responded that "there are some forms of deep-green ecology that are deeply pagan and deeply hostile to the special and central place of human beings and especially to Christianity. But as Christians, we must have a reverence for nature."
However, the media "have been warning us of global warming, and that's alternated with warnings of the coming ice age. There have been gigantic climatic changes in the past and I think almost entirely they're beyond human control."
"You see," Pell added wisely, "people without religion are often looking for something to fear."
That millions may fall prey to a seductive New Age faith that seems based on good intentions (and "irrefutable science" that seems to change weekly) is a much greater danger than the remote possibility that polar bears are doomed to extinction. (As a matter of fact, and contrary to mainstream news reports, their numbers have increased, not decreased, in the past few years...)
Your child's immortal soul is infinitely more important than the size of his "carbon footprint", or yours.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/20/2007 06:19 ||
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"They're really concerned less with "saving the planet" than assuaging their guilt about their own relative affluence."
Is this opinion piece over the top? Consider this. The dogma of Environmental fringe groups, represented by the Green political party, is based on Anti-Consumerism. Make no mistake; this is code for Anti-Capitalism. In recent years they have made a concerted effort to interchange the word Conservationist with Environmentalist. It is their attempt to blur the lines of those that believe humans have a responsibility to be stewards of the environment and those that insist that Mother Earth bestows rights to humans, flora, and fauna equally. This Marxist ideology assigns guilt to those that believe in private property ownership and personal responsibility. In their mind, their visions will only come to fruition when traditional values are broken and replaced by a Government run Utopia.
#5
The environmental movement is a luxury movement. It is the product of idle minds who can afford to deal in bullshit rather than have to fight on a daily basis for their very existence.
One major war, pandemic or worldwide depression will take this shit off the rails pronto. Until then we are going to be forced to call it the crap it is.
. . . There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Sheng-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won't help. . . .
The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean "not obviously and vividly offensive." The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was "troubled"; he clearly had "issues"; it would have been good if someone had "reached out"; it's too bad America doesn't have better "support services." They don't use direct, clear words, because if they're blunt, they're implicated.
The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.
The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.
One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups? . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/20/2007 06:11 ||
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Not in Congress, Peggy, not in Congress.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/20/2007 6:57 Comments ||
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#3
Paula Zahn is a little too self-righteous in what she does--whatever you call it.
The shooter was deranged and a nut. His plug should have been pulled long ago.
Has anyone asked what role the popular media (LL-MSM) has in such events? Cho cited the Columbine narcissistic little bastards. What did he send his manifesto to the media, NBC? Little loser bastards have a way to get their 15 minutes of fame or infamy. The media gives it to them.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
With enemies like Democratic Senate Majority Harry Reid, the terrorists don't need friends. Yesterday, all by his lonesome, Reid ran up the white flag in the War on Terror - at least in the Iraqi theater. 
He's even helping to ensure their loss - by refusing to provide them with sufficient funding to win. And by setting a deadline for their mission, which the enemy can simply wait out. You'd almost think he was working for anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - or maybe Osama himself. 
