Blog Chez Jacq'

Murray's Ice Cream
4120 Pennsylvania
Kansas City, Missouri

Tuesday, 1 June 2004
7:00 PM or 1900 hours...

* National mobilization of all local Townhall groups under a single umbrella organization of national scope
* Become informed about GLSEN, http://glsen.traditionalvalues.org, and what they do to our children in our schools
* Terrorism Task Force

Clayton Cramer's Blog contains this intriguing post.

Peroutka for Prez

Just watched the Libertarian conventioneers nominate Badnarik [or whatever his name is] while rejecting Aaron Russo. Alas, I shall have to pass on the Libs this trip. If the election is not suspended for the sake of totalitarianism I shall then vote for the Constitution Party's candidate. It will probably have to be a write-in, though.

I know, Frank, we should all write-in "NOTA" [None of the Above]...

Charley Reese laments on the level of education in the United States today:

Here…is the geography test the 14-year-olds of that day [1910] were expected to pass.

1. What causes the difference in climate between Eastern and Western Washington?
   
2. Name 10 wild animals of Africa.
   
3. Tell some reasons why the people of Washington are interested in the Orient.
   
4. Name the five chief nations of Europe and give their capitals.
   
5. Name five important cities and five products of Canada.
   
6. Sketch a map of South America, locating three rivers and five capital cities.
   
7. What and where are the following: Liverpool, Panama, Suez, Ural, Liberia, Quebec, Pikes Peak, Yosemite, Danube and San Diego?
   
8. Name the five principal crops of the United States and tell the section where each is raised.
   
9. Describe the Nile and the country through which it flows.
   
10. Name the largest country of Asia, three important cities, three rivers and three important products.

That was about the easiest of the tests. One of the questions on the physiology test is: 'Trace a drop of blood from the time it enters the left ventricle until it returns to its starting point, and name the different valves and principal arteries and veins through it which passes.'

Reese closes saying:

Politicians have reimposed mandatory tests, but these tests reflect today's watered-down courses. In one state, students are considered to have passed if they can answer only 40 percent of the questions – which are, of course, true-false and multiple-choice questions. A monkey has a 50-50 chance of passing a true-false test.

The fundamental problem, I believe, is that true education is no longer valued, least of all by most students. Credentials, not knowledge, are the goal of the present system. That is a greater threat to America's future than all the terrorists in the world.

Where on earth is the left ventricle?

Here is the postscript to an amusing column by Michael Peirce:

Memorial Day weekend is upon us and the politicians are already outdoing each other using the sacrifice of soldiers in war to somehow justify attacking whatever foreign country is the enemy du Jour.

There are terror alerts all over the place and logic suggests that sooner or later some terrorist group or another will indeed perform the ridiculously easy task of killing a large number of Americans. This weekend would be a logical time for an attack – at least in the weird logic of political terror and assassination. The target of course, is rarely those responsible for the mess we’re in – it will be you and I and our families.

Our leaders are hopelessly inept; that so far the terrorists have been able to achieve little has been due to the fact that they too are fumblers. What successes they’ve had, such as turning Iraq into a terrorist hot spot, have been handed to them by Señor Bush and his merry band of crazed neo-conservatives and their liberal enablers.

With the borders wide open it must be accepted that sooner or latter even the most pathetically incompetent terrorist will manage to pull of some bloody stunt or another.

Then the politicians will claim that we should have listened to them, that we must attack yet more foreign countries, suspend even more civil liberties, and that all this is somehow the fault of those of us who do not support their outrageous and totally illogical invasion of Iraq.

Indeed, if enough Americans are killed it will become open season on Muslims and we’ll be treated to the bizarre spectacle of Senor Bush blathering about the "religion of peace" while his minions roam the streets in a killing rage, stomping all over those very immigrants that our "war leader" has encouraged to come here in such appalling numbers.

Will Americans have the sense to put the blame where it belongs? Probably not, but one can hope. A government that routinely involves itself in the affairs of other countries, one that conquers and occupies other countries, is setting America up for attack. When that same government refuses to defend the nation’s borders, knowing that there are terrorists out there with blood in their eyes and murder in their hearts, I say to you that government is guilty of criminal incompetence and yes, treason.

That government consists of two socialist parties called the Republicans and Democrats. They should be repudiated, they must be repudiated, or this erstwhile Republic of ours is doomed.

Thomas DiLorenzo

Much is made of the fact that Lincoln called slavery "wrong" in the Cooper Union speech, as though he was the only person in America – or the world – to do so at the time. (General Robert E. Lee not only condemned slavery on moral grounds but personally liberated the slaves his wife had inherited). But compare Lincoln to British, Spanish, Dutch and French statesmen of the era. All of these countries not only declared slavery to be morally wrong, but set it on a rapid course of peaceful extinction. Lincoln called it "wrong" but spoke out of both sides of his mouth by going so far, in his first inaugural address, to pledge his support of a proposed constitutional amendment, that had just passed both the House and Senate, that would have forever forbidden the federal government from interfering in southern slavery. On the day he was inaugurated he was perfectly willing to see southern slavery exist long past his own lifetime, for all he knew.

The Cooper Union speech is as good an example as any of why Murray Rothbard described Lincoln as a master politician and, as such, as a masterful "liar, conniver and manipulator." No wonder Hillary Clinton and her new neocon buddies adore him so much.

Peggy Noonan is an apt spokesman for the "New World Order":

"It's kind of crazy out there. So this might be a good time to say: Let's do our best as a people to catch and imprison terrorists. Let's get 'em. Let's make it our highest national priority. Let's find those who mean to end the lives of hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. Then, once it looks like all or most of the bad guys are captured, let's turn our national attention to studying how we could have done it better, more gently, more justly, more competently. But first the capture, then the criticism.

It is terrible for Mr. Mayfield that he was mistaken for a Madrid bomber. It's awful that he was arrested. He'll probably sue the government and win damages. But whatever he does, he's still alive, and the U.S. government has cleared him and apologized to him in front of the world. It is better to be alive and free after a false arrest than it is to be dead and maimed and the victim of a terror bomb. When you are dead it doesn't matter who apologizes. When you're dead you can sue nobody, though the trial lawyers association will probably change that eventually.

It is too bad Amnesty International is worried about possible U.S. insensitivity in apprehending potential terrorists. No doubt there has been and will be roughness. But mostly Amnesty is talking about this because they don't really like us, they don't know what time it is, they have to do something for a living, they think we're more competent than we are, and they still don't understand Sept. 11."

Thomas DiLorenzo:

"In George Will's Washington Post column mentioned below by Lew [Rockwell] and Chris Manion, Will gets his American history all backwards. He blames the adventure in Iraq on 'Jeffersonian democratic universalism.' Wrong, George. This is a Lincolnian idea -- fighting a war and killing thousands, supposedly in the name of 'all men are created equal,' including equal rights to democracy. Lincoln didn't believe this, of course, but Neocon High Priest Harry Jaffa has made this theory the centerpiece of his bizarre and ahistorical rendition of American history. All of his barking acolytes, many of whom are in or influential with the Bush administration, fall in line. Perpetual war for the perpetual global pursuit of democracy is derived for Lincoln, and hence from Hamilton, whose overblown reputation is fabricated even further by Will.

"As neocon Walter Berns writes in his book, Making Patriots, Lincoln is supposedly our 'national poet' whose political speeches about the alleged glories of democracy are supposed to inspire young Americans to join the military and kill foreigners by the thousands so that they (the foreigners) may enjoy good old American style 'democracy.' (See my LRC article, 'Making Cannon Fodder).

"The Hamiltonians were Federalists. When the Federalist Party dissolved, the Hamiltonians in American politics became Whigs, and then Republicans. So George Will, you cannot blame this mess on the Jeffersonians; it is pure Hamiltionian/Lincolnian ideology. The neocons keep quoting and citing Lincoln, not Jefferson, to 'justify' their crazed adventure in the Middle East.

"It was Hamilton who had such great confidence in a 'wise executive' and who favored governmental planning, central banking, protectionism, and corporate welfare. The Jeffersonians opposed all of this because they were the realists. The Hamiltonians were (and are) the statist utopians, inspired by Rousseau as much as anyone."

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir?:

"One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda 'summit' in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own."

Wonder if this fool forget his meds today. Just who does he think he is demanding President Bush's people resign?

---

Michael Barone described it as "incoherent screeching" on Thursday's Brit Hume show.

---

From the WSJ: Guilty Gore Goes Gaga

"It is now clear that Al Gore is insane," writes the New York Post's John Podhoretz. "I don't mean that his policy ideas are insane, though many of them are. I mean that based on his behavior, conduct, mien and tone over the past two days, there is every reason to believe that Albert Gore Jr., desperately needs help. I think he needs medication, and I think that if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times agrees. When he delivered a speech to the far-left outfit MoveOn.org yesterday, she writes, "Mr. Gore hollered so much, he made Howard Dean look like George Pataki." She says the erstwhile veep represents "the wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party."

Jim Lobe:

"On the eve of the Iraq war, the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page is another important source of neoconservative thinking, warned, 'before the U.S. can worry about rebuilding Iraq, it has to win militarily, and decisively so. As (Princeton University Orientalist) Bernard Lewis and other scholars have long noted, Arab cultures despise weakness in an adversary above all.'

Now, more than 15 months later -- with close to 90 percent of Iraqis, according to the latest survey, saying they consider U.S. troops to be 'occupiers' rather than 'liberators,' Kristol and Lehrman insist that 'decisive military victories in Iraq would be respected by Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds alike.' Sadr's militia must be rendered powerless, they wrote, while 'Fallujah must be conquered.'

Precisely how Fallujah or other towns and cities are to be 'conquered' without piling up horrendous civilian casualties that alienate people far beyond Iraq's borders is unclear. Kristol suggested last week that 'any site where Americans are attacked will be regarded as a combat zone,' a suggestion that curiously recalled what since 1982 has been cited by neoconservatives as 'Hama Rules,' although to make an entirely different point."

The neo-cons must be removed from the decision making circle.

Watching Zinni and Clancy on the Charlie Rose show tonight. Tony Zinni is saying our enemies are now amorphous while our military is structured to fight nation/states. I ordered the Clancy book on Zinni, Battle Ready, from Amazon last night. Will report after had a chance to read it.

A rational rant by Rusty Mason:

"Over the past year, I have been noticing a slight change in the attitudes of my conservative friends and relatives. Many suspicion that GW and them Republicans is messin' up. They see an unjust war and the massive growth of government under their boys' leadership and don't like it, not one bit, nosir."

A printable version of this "rant" is on my personal web page in the "War is Peace" section. Link corrected 5/26

You may wish to check Aaron Russo's blog listed on the left in the "Blogs of Note" list.

Lyn Nofziger muses:

"I see where the French have invited the Germans to join in the 60th anniversary celebration of D-Day. You will recall that that is the day--June 6, 1944--that allied troops swarmed on to the beaches of Normandy as the first step toward freeing the ungrateful French and the rest of Western Europe from the heel of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich.

And the now-peaceful Germans, led by the even more peaceful socialist, Gerhard Schroeder, have accepted.

There is a certain amount of irony in this.

To invite the defeated Germans to join with the French in celebrating the allied victory takes a certain amount of gall. For which the Gauls are noted.

For the Germans to accept may tell us how far they have fallen.

And then again it may not. It may be that they are not coming to lick the victor's hand. Indeed, it may be that the Germans have accepted the invitation in order to remind the French that they--the Germans--beat the heck out of them, occupied their country and made vassels of them until the Americans, Brits and troops from various parts of the British Empire ran them out of France and back across the Rhine.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the Americans French children today would undoubtedly be speaking German.

On the other hand, if it hadn't been for the resoluteness of an American president some 40 years after D-Day the Germans and the French and much of the rest of Europe might be speaking Russian. Unfortunately both the French and Germans seems to have forgotten these things."

Thanks Mr. N.

Dennis Prager:

The chanting of 'Allahu akbar' ('Allah is the greatest') by militant Muslims as they commit barbaric acts against innocents around the world is the greatest sin a human can commit.

The Nazis were as cruel, and so were the Communists. But they only sullied their own names (though in the case of the Communists not nearly enough), not the name of God. But the immense amount of evil being caused by those Muslims murdering and slaughtering innocents in the name of God is hurting God's reputation. That is probably one reason The New York Times, with its anti-Judeo-Christian agenda, recently decided to print "God" whenever militant Muslims say "Allah." Why allow only Allah to get a bad name, when the Times can give God a bad one, too?

This is a must read column.

Pete du Pont:

"The good news is that the world is not running out of oil. In spite of such predictions that it would--in the 1880s, after both world wars, by the wildly inaccurate but politically correct Club of Rome in 1972 and by today's pessimists--oil reserve estimates are increasing. Offshore drilling is producing oil that wasn't there a few decades ago. Alaska has untapped oil reserves; more oil is being found in Russia, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Technology is making products available from oil sands and liquids derived from natural gas.

In short, we have access to oil; what we need is the ability to refine it, and that is a major political problem. We need refinery construction incentives to keep our gasoline production process up with market demands. Price controls, more additive requirements, ethanol politics, increasing refinery construction regulations and the 50-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase John Kerry once endorsed would make things worse.

But failing to increase our refining capacity will make things much worse-- fewer trips to visit Mom at the hospital, shop at Staples or Wal-Mart, or see the kids at Christmas. The good news is that an inexpensive supply of gasoline has given us the opportunities we have enjoyed for half a century. We need to keep enjoying them."

Clayton Cramer's BLOG:
From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A ship carrying 4190 South Korean and Japanese cars sank after colliding with an oil tanker south of Singapore.

The only thing missing here is a freighter carrying fluorocarbons and another one carrying nuclear waste.

posted by Clayton at 14h25 04,05,24

WSJ Opinion:

"Thank you, John Kerry. The news that the Massachusetts Senator may delay accepting the Presidential nomination until several weeks beyond the Democratic Party's late-July Boston convention exposes two truths that the political class hates to admit.

The first is that the party conventions are now little more than free advertising vehicles. They long ago lost all political drama, but this year one of them may not even nominate a candidate. The next step would be for the media finally to agree not to cover them, though we probably won't because these week-long affairs have also become the equivalent of cardiologist conventions for the political press. We get to see old friends and eat well on expense accounts.

Even better, this Kerry trial balloon exposes campaign-finance limits as a monumental farce. The Kerry camp is considering this maneuver so it can keep raising and spending money as long as possible without having to abide by spending limits that kick in once a party formally nominates its candidate."

FOXNews.com: The conclusion of a column by John R. Lott, Jr.

"Everyone wants to take guns away from criminals. The problem is that if the law-abiding citizens obey the laws and the criminals don't, the rules create sitting ducks who cannot defend themselves. While the debate is hardly over, gun control is just another example of government planning that hasn't lived up to its billing. And like other types of government planning, eventually its failures become too overwhelming to ignore."

Jeff Jacoby:

"Strangely omitted from much of the anti-Patriot Act vehemence is any mention of 9/11. That is understandable: Ignore the context in which the law was enacted, and it becomes easier to demonize it as a freedom-menacing, privacy-stripping assault by Big Brother. But the Patriot Act wasn't passed in a vacuum. It came in the wake of a horrendous attack by foreign enemies who had been hiding within our borders. 9/11 awakened many Americans to the fact that we are at war with a fanatical enemy -- an enemy that will go on slaughtering civilians unless it is rooted out and destroyed."

True Mr. J. However, we must be sure to root 'em out while maintaining freedom. Otherwise our fanatical enemy wins.

the News Insider:

"Critics of the US war machine frequently cite US President Dwight Eisenhower's seminal speech in which he uncannily predicted the threat the 'US military industrial complex' would pose to America and the world. In 1961, Eisenhower, a retired US Army general who led the allied invasion of Germany in WWII, uttered these prescient words:

'...In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together...'

If only the citizenry had listened.

Alas, the social democrats (neo-Marxists) have insured the citizenry is not knowledgeable--of the truth--and alert only to what gummint can do for them.

A statist "friend" claims the lefties are the only ones who bring up Ike's warnings. It is truly sad how he defends the size and motives of gummint and sees not the shredding of our Constitution and the demise of freedom.

Dr. Eugene Mallove: New Energy Pioneer

'Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties, if it is desired greatly enough.'
--Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future

Imagine nuclear reactions taking place in an ordinary cup of water, producing limitless energy but no harmful radiation. Such is the promise of cold fusion, a hypothetical form of fusion which takes place at normal room temperature. Perhaps the greatest proponent of cold fusion was the late Dr. Eugene Mallove. In his Pulitzer-nominated book, Fire From Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor, Mallove declares:

'After reviewing mounting evidence from cold fusion experiments, I am persuaded that it provides a compelling indication that a new kind of nuclear process is at work. I would say that the evidence is overwhelmingly compelling that cold fusion is a real...'

Dr. Mallove worked tirelessly to educate people to the scientific validity of cold fusion and other new energy technologies. To this end, he published 52 issues of Infinite Energy magazine, a compendium of research into unconventional energy. He also traveled to conferences around the world, speaking with other energy researchers and raising funds for the New Energy Foundation.

His persistence has recently paid off. In March 2004, the Department of Energy decided to review over 15 years of cold fusion (or what they call 'low-energy nuclear reactions' - LENR) evidence/research. Dr. Mallove would have been quite pleased indeed.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the Eugene F. Mallove Memorial Family Fund should contact:
Sovereign Bank
73 West Street
Concord, NH 03301

Guide to fusion: "FUSION power offers the potential of an almost limitless source of energy for future generations but it also presents some formidable scientific and engineering challenges. It is called 'fusion' because it is based on fusing light nuclei such as hydrogen isotopes to release energy. The process is similar to that which powers the sun and other stars. Effective energy-producing fusions require that gas from a combination of isotopes of hydrogen - deuterium and tritium - is heated to very high temperatures (100 million degrees centigrade) and confined for at least one second. One way to achieve these conditions is to use magnetic confinement. The most promising configuration at present is the tokamak, a Russian word for a torus-shaped magnetic chamber. "

over the past 25 years ... adjusted for "inflation." See the web page



























I recall back in the mid-sixties when one could buy a gallon for $0.179 ... Bannister and Troost.

.

Although discussing the Democrat party, WND does proclaim:

"... the Republican Party, which, while not embracing evil and corruption as completely as the Democrat Party, nevertheless has largely forsaken its core principles of freedom, personal responsibility and limited government."

William S. Lind: "Some years ago, I asked an Army friend, a sergeant major in the medics, how he disciplined the many women in his unit. He laughed and said, 'We just let them do whatever they want.' When I expressed astonishment, he replied, 'Look, it just isn't worth it. Anytime you discipline a woman, she may try to get even by accusing you of "sexual harassment." And since, as a man, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent, your whole career is on the line. So we let 'em do whatever they want.'

This unpleasant reality of life in America's 'PC' Army may have relevance to the roles of female MPs in what went on in Abu Ghraib. At General Karpinski's level, the effect of the ideology of cultural Marxism, which defines women as 'victims' and men as 'oppressors,' was undoubtedly more subtle. If one of her male subordinates, say a colonel, or a peer, or even a superior officer, had raised issues that might have damaged the career of 'a senior Army woman,' his career would immediately have been in jeopardy. He would probably have been 'counseled,' and his concerns quietly suppressed. Even now, when asked her present status by the Washington Post, General Karpinski replies, 'I am still in the Army Reserves. I am still in command of the 800th Military Police Brigade.' Under the rules of cultural Marxism, because she is a woman, she remains untouchable; any man in her situation would by now have been relieved of command, at the very least. What happens to an Army full of women when women may not be disciplined? Exactly what we have seen at Abu Ghraib."

Henry Lamb's rant in WND makes much sense as usual:

The attack on Sept. 11, 2001, launched a war, a new kind of war that America must win. America has the superior armaments, strategies and tactics, but lacks the depth of purpose necessary to win. The enemy fights with second-hand weapons, ad hoc strategies and tactics – but the enemy has a depth of purpose beyond any enemy we've ever encountered.

Few remain in this generation who remember the ration books, the blackouts and the sacrifices required to unite America with a depth of purpose sufficient to defeat both Japan and Germany. Since those days, America's freedom has allowed the growth of ideas and philosophies that seek to divide the nation rather than to unite it.

Before the first bomb fell in Baghdad, anti-war organizations stoked up their public-relations machines to sway public opinion and create diversions and division among Americans. The flames of opposition to the war on terror are fanned by charges such as: "It's about oil"; or "Bush's revenge for Saddam's attempt to assassinate Bush Sr."; or "it's to reward Bush's corporate buddies."

These shortsighted diversions are often nothing more than efforts to exploit the war for political advantage. Organizations such as MoveOn.org and the Communist Party U.S.A. have as their single purpose the defeat of George Bush and the recapture of the White House by people more sympathetic to their socialist philosophy.

This war on terrorism is far more important than politics; it goes to the very core of America's freedom. The enemy will not change its purpose whether a Democrat or a Communist is elected president. The enemy joins the "anyone but Bush" crowd because, as during the Clinton years, the enemy could build its resources with relatively little harassment.

The war on terrorism is a long-term commitment that will require on-going sacrifices of blood and treasure. It must be fought on many fronts, perhaps simultaneously. Afghanistan and Iraq are but different battlefields in the same war. There may be more battlefields. But the war will not be won on the battlefield.

The war against terrorism will not be won until the victims of terror discover a better way to live. The most challenging task America faces is to help the victims of terror construct a system of self-governance that provides the individual freedom for people to pursue their own happiness. It will not be an easy process. The fanatics whose power is threatened will do all they can do to prevent the emergence of freedom in land they claim as their own.

The public decapitation of an American civilian is an act designed to destroy the purpose that empowers American resolve. There will be even more brutal acts by the terrorist fanatics. These acts should not lessen American resolve; they should unleash a rage that deepens our resolve, strengthens our determination of purpose and unifies every American in a common purpose – to rid the world of terrorism.

So, although the war is not authorized by the Constitution and although the Congress has shirked its duties for political advantage and promotion of social democracy, the American people must realize what's at stake.

Jude Wanniski has the insight to explain:

"After all, the neo-cons who cooked up the war with Iraq with the intent of setting up Chalabi as the new secular President are nothing if not resourceful. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which practically takes its orders from Perle and Wolfie, Friday denounced the raid on Chalabi's home. So did the Pentagon's hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council, which was supposed to have been the springboard for Chalabi's presidential goal. It all looks very fishy, as those who 'raided' Chalabi's home only walked off with papers they confiscated, leaving Chalabi free as a bird. Once he saw that nobody with political ambition could get anywhere in Iraq by being pro-American, he decided (with Perle's help, I'm sure) transformed himself over night into a bitter foe of everything American."

I arrived at the same conclusion after having read the editorial in the WSJ.

Separating School & State:

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

--H.L. Mencken

Is anyone happy with the public schools? It seems not. Those with no financial stake in the schools have translated their unhappiness into various reform proposals, such as charter schools or voucher plans. Those who do have a stake in the current system—the teachers’ union, for example—point to the schools’ bad condition as a reason for the government to appropriate more money. Whichever way they lean, people generally believe that the schools are not doing what they are supposed to be doing.

War is Peace: Colonel Bob lays it out clearly...

"This writer believes that Mr. Kerry will lose his bid for the Presidency, primarily because he has no underlying values other than self-serving values that he changes with the winds to satisfy the particular “market” to which he happens to be pandering at the time. Kerry’s self-serving opportunism began before Vietnam, but it matured in that setting. He wanted to show his “patriotic” side when Democrat Johnson was President, by his active involvement; but found that he could “make more ‘political’ money” after Republican Nixon was elected by being the poster boy for the so called “anti war” crowd. In fact he was not anti-war, he participated in it, and now he has the temerity to claim a perverted sort of “patriotism.” If it were not so disgusting and sickening it would be comical.

Kerry will not make it on his own, the only way he has a chance is to select Rodham-Clinton as his VP running mate. But, his lust for power will be his undoing because if they succeed, in so doing he would ultimately, likely suffer the same fate as the other fifty plus Clinton associates including Vincent Foster, who tried to walk away from them and are now “pushing up” daisies."

The main buzz around Washington these days is about cicadas. Or rather, it’s cicadas who for the first time in l7 years are providing the buzz.

The noisy--and ugly--little critters are all over the place, crawling out of the ground, flying around, mating, laying eggs, dying all in the space of a couple of weeks. Then they’ll disappear for another l7 years.

Come to think of it they would be a pretty good example for congress to follow.

Wall Street Journal:

"Wishful whitewashing. The Koran verse that's cited as 'unequivocal' actually bestows wiggle room. Here's how it fully reads: 'We laid it down for the Israelites,' meaning those who believe in one God, 'that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind.' Sadly, the clause starting with 'except' can be deployed by militant Muslims to fuel their jihads. That's precisely how Nicholas Berg's executioners justified their travesty.

Which means religion is no innocent bystander in the violence perpetrated by Muslims. Just as moderate Christians and Jews acknowledge the nasty side of their holy texts, modern Muslims ought to come clean about how our sacred script informs terror. One can argue that certain passages are being politically exploited--and, indeed, they are. The point is, however, that they couldn't be exploited if they didn't exist."

Watching John Gibson blathering on the teevee. He's interviewing some "democrat consultant" about the impact of Ralph Nader on the presidential vote this coming November. She's saying, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." Nonsense.

All this talk of "the lesser of two evils" flabbergasts me. Why on earth would one want to vote for evil? Many folks don't bother to vote because of that concern. Perhaps we should all vote--vote against evil. My friend, Frank B., believes that all of us who will not vote for any of the people running should go to the polls and write in "None of the Above."

Think about it, folks. If all those who are disgusted with the system and have refused to vote would actually cast their vote for "None of the Above" what would happen?

Thomas J. DiLorenzo:

"There is a version of Gresham's Law that applies to economic literature: Bad economics drives out the good. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that most people never seriously study economics but are nevertheless influenced by the economic commentaries of fellow economic ignoramuses. A case in point is the huge sales of two books written by the socialist documentary film maker Michael Moore: Stupid White Men and Downsize This! Both of these books proudly announce on their front covers that they were New York Times bestsellers. And both books simply rehash old myths about capitalism that have been proven wrong over and over again for decades."

Talk about stupid white men. But one can only expect ignorance from Neo-Marxists.

SSN is Military ID is Taxpayer ID is ...

"The Defense Department has proposed using U.S. Internal Revenue Service data to track down reservists with which they have lost contact.

The measure, which department officials say has been vetted by its lawyers, would allow the Pentagon to access the addresses for tens of thousands of people who still face active-duty recall, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported."

...reveals that:

"The number of esophageal cancer cases clearly followed the rise in intake of carbonated soft drinks, the researchers found.

But then...

The more coffee they drank, the more likely they were to have normal liver function, the researchers found."

Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily:

"The images published in the Globe will never go away. Copies of those two editions of the paper will be used by Islamist extremists as further 'proof' of abuses by American GIs -- abuses that never occurred.

The Globe has fanned the flames of anti-American hatred in the Islamic world against Americans in general and American military personnel specifically.

Piers Morgan was immediately relieved of his duties at the Daily Mirror once the London Daily Mirror recognized its error. Security personnel escorted him out of the building.

That's what should happen to Marty Baron. That's what should happen to his bosses at the Globe who have permitted this matter to fester for days. That's what should happen to their bosses in New York who have failed to step in and instruct their little sister paper on the lessons of responsible journalism.

Do I expect any of this to happen?

No. The editors of the Boston Globe are still looking for scapegoats -- blaming junior editors, blaming irresponsible city officials and local activists, blaming WorldNetDaily for exposing its fraud to the entire world.

So, it's up to you, the American people, to hold the owners of the Boston Globe and New York Times accountable."

We are trying, Joseph. We are trying.

One must acknowledge the Hellenic opinion:

"Both Kerry and Clinton learned to lie early and often, and have continued the practice because it has served both men very well. When Clinton was elected, I was the first to refer to him not by his name but as the draft-dodger. If Kerry wins the prize, he will be known in this space as the gigolo, or Mr. Flip-Flop. Better yet, the flip-flop gigolo."

Thanks, Taki.

Alexandra?

David Wilcock, the, uh, reincarnation of Edgar Casey:

".. what we think of as “real” should not be taken for granted. ... as for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, there can be little doubt powerful political forces are capable of manipulating popular opinion to the point that the mass public triumphantly shouts black really is white, war really is peace, ignorance is strength and freedom is slavery."

This article will cause one to think.

Vous ne voyez donc pas qu'il s'agit de la même chose?



Thanks to the Dissident Frogman.

Pat Buchanan:

"In the half century after Brown, the Supreme Court:

-- Declared pornography, naked dancing in beer halls and burning the American flag to be constitutionally protected speech.

-- Created new rights for criminals and new restrictions for prosecutors, and outlawed the death penalty for a generation.

-- Declared abortion a constitutional right of all women and ruled that states cannot protect babies from a grisly procedure that involves stabbing the child in the head with scissors when halfway out of the womb.

-- Ordered all state legislatures reapportioned on the basis of population alone.

-- Ordered VMI and the Citadel to end their 150-year-old all-male cadet corps traditions and stop saying grace before meals.

-- Abolished term limits on members of Congress enacted in popular referenda.

-- Forbade Arizona to make English the official language for state business and ordered California -- 60 percent of whose people had voted to end welfare to illegal aliens -- to restore welfare benefits.

-- Approved of race discrimination against white students to advance the 'compelling state interest' of 'diversity' in college.

-- Declared homosexual sodomy a constitutional right.

Today, we meekly await the court's judgment on whether we will have to legalize marriage between homosexuals. Were George III to return to life, he would roar with laughter at what a flock of sheep the descendants of the American rebels have become."

Those are only the highlights. Arghhh.

More insight from Col. Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret.

It’s a “mess” all right, and the “media” is right smack in the middle of it if not its engine. If “media” sources would stick to reporting rather than feeding the public what amounts to propaganda (the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person), the public could form a more accurate image events affecting this nation’s future.

Case in point: in a May 14th, 2004 Reuters story, “U.S. Tanks Thrust Into Cemetery in Iraq Holy City,” writer Suleiman al-Khalidi (now there’s a “western” name for you) describes the conflict between 30 year old Muslim Shi’ite cleric al-Sadr’s armed gang, which the article’s writer refers to as “Sadr’s Mehdi Army,” and U.S. forces. [The word “Mehdi” means generally, “divinely guided one,” or the “directed one,” so the Reuters reporter (probably Muslim) writer communicates to Cleric Sadr in “code” that he supports “them” because they are “divinely guided.”]

At one point al-Khalidi unequivocally states about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: “The affair has shredded U.S. credibility among Iraqis,” which is nonsense among thinking Iraqis, assuming “thinking Iraqis” is not an oxymoron, and which incidentally, is precisely what one would expect among supporters of the defunct regime. If he had written, “…Sadr’s Army” without the modifier “Mehdi” or “…among some Iraqis,” his report would have a bit of journalistic credibility. But those two and other examples in the article put it clearly into the “propaganda” category; it happens thousands of times a day around the world.

That would be fine if there was not a problem with the general public’s ability to discern substance from propaganda; and the “mainstream” media are experts at propaganda beginning with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister. It has become increasingly apparent that the “media” is using its journalistic “cover” to not only report but to persuade (read, propagandize) the public. This is evident every time a news story contains editorial commentary or reaches conclusions that are not necessarily in keeping with the facts. On the other hand, editorial, column or opinion page writers, such as the writer of this short commentary have an agenda, a goal to persuade readers in some direction.

In the instant case, the process is to study a given event’s facts and relate them to long standing, proven social principles, ethical values, moral imperatives, law and/or common sense and offer his analysis, opinion, conclusion and/or recommendation. In short he is an American who has defended it, enjoyed its benefits and who is working to preserve it and its great heritage for future generations.

Having noted that, Americans must keep their field of vision clear and focused. This nation is engaged in a struggle for its survival and there are evil forces both abroad and at home that seek its destruction and which are actively engaged in that enterprise. To the extent that the nation allows those external and internal forces to undermine its institutions of faith, family, community, economy and government it weakens its long-term prospects for survival. For that reason voluntary prayer in public schools and ball games, retention of long standing mottos that remind us of our roots such as, “In God we Trust,” “…under God,” and celebration of Christmas as a National Holiday are not only important, but are some of the vital elements of the national continuum.

As it stands, the U.S. Constitution tolerates Islam, but Islam (not just Islamic “fundamentalists”) inherently does not tolerate the Constitution of the United States. That is fact! Muslims can live and flourish in what many refer to as, “Christian” America, but “Christians,” “Jews,” any other religion, agnostics or atheists cannot live and flourish in any, repeat, any Islamic culture. In an Islamic culture it is “dictatorship” of the Muslim Clerics, or else.

For the pathetic dupes who would vote for John Kerry (thanks to media propaganda), a man who doesn’t have a clue about the middle east, whose real wartime record was to “fight” against his own country during the Vietnam War but who tries to paint himself as a wartime hero, and whose solution to terrorism would be to abrogate American sovereignty to the “international community,” get thine head out of the “dark place;” and for those rational Americans who are asleep, its time to “wake up and smell the coffee!”

Semper Fidelis

Reuters News Article:

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.

Calling women 'the least protected member of the Muslim family,' it spoke of the 'bitter experience' western Catholics had with Muslim husbands, especially if they married outside the Islamic world and later moved to his country of origin.

Where is the snake?

NEWSRADIO 1270 WFLA:

"Rush Limbaugh hosts the highest rated national radio talk show in America. He is known as the media pundit who reshaped the political landscape with his entertaining and informative brand of conservatism. Syndicated on 600 radio stations, Limbaugh has the most listened to talk show with 20 million people tuning in each week."

Mary Starrett

. . . is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. We must be certifiable because that's what we did in 2000 and it appears that's what we'll be doing again in 2004.

Republicans have controlled both the executive and legislative branches of government for most of Bush's last four years. That's the first time the Grand Old Party's been in charge to that degree for almost 50 years. You'd think that would be a slam-dunk for our side. No such luck. In the last four years we've watched as First Amendment, Second Amendment and Fourth Amendment guarantees have slowly been eroded.

We wanted to make sure the carnage of abortion stopped - so we voted for a Republican. The killing continues.

We longed for a president who'd stand up for our God-given Second Amendment rights. Instead we got a president who has systematically made keeping and bearing arms more difficult.

We voted for a Republican because we wanted a reigning-in of federal spending. We now have the most bloated federal budget in the history of the Republic. No longer the party of fiscal discipline, the R's have become de facto pig farmers with all the pork projects they've funded. That used to be something we pinned on the D's.

We voted for a Republican because we wanted better schools for our children. Instead we got the most intrusive federal program to date in a scheme called 'No Child Left (Alone) Behind'.

Yes, the GOP had a wonderful opportunity to get us back on track. They blew it.

Ms. Starrett has much to say. It's worth a read to discover her thinking. ‹grin›

Gun Control:

The right to bear arms is inherent in the right of self defense, defense of the family, and defense against tyranny, conferred on the individual and the community by our Creator to safeguard life, liberty, and property, as well as to help preserve the independence of the nation.

The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution; it may not properly be infringed upon or denied.

The Constitution Party upholds the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. We oppose attempts to prohibit ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens, and stand against all laws which would require the registration of guns or ammunition.

We emphasize that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them. In such circumstances, the peaceful citizen's protection against the criminal would be seriously jeopardized.

Semper Fi.

Clayton Cramer's BLOG

She sent a graduation announcement that included the statement that she was going to be looking for a work using her Physics degree that didn't involve making bombs. Not to worry; physics jobs in the Islamic States of America will be reserved for those not wearing a burkha.
posted by Clayton at 11:56 AM

Allahu Akbar

Geoff Metcalf cuts to the quick:

Leaders are responsible for the 'welfare, discipline and tactical deployment' of their troops. That is basic FM22-100 stuff. It is axiomatic. Commanders are godlike. They don't work for higher ranking staff officers, or any non-military anybody. A commander has ONE boss: The commander of the next higher command. A Company commander (a Captain) is not responsible or accountable to a Battalion Major who outranks him. He is responsible to and accountable to the Lieutenant Colonel who is HIS commander.

ANY 'Commander', at any level, who is told they have responsibility for, but not authority over their troops and doesn't have the stones to confront a superior, does not deserve to command.

While politicians and pundits are waxing poetic over the prison flap, the military had best focus on basic leadership.

FM22-100 (Army Leadership) states, "1-22. Character describes a person's inner strength, the BE of BE, KNOW, DO. Your character helps you know what is right; more than that, it links that knowledge to action. Character gives you the courage to do what is right regardless of the circumstances or the consequences."

Bush Facing Complaints from Conservatives:

'After three years of sweeping actions in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its ability to produce fresh policies,' the Washington Post reports.

'The centerpiece of President Bush's foreign policy -- the effort to transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy -- has been undermined by a deadly insurrection and broadcast photos of brutality by U.S. prison guards. On the domestic side, conservatives and former administration officials say the White House policy apparatus is moribund, with policies driven by political expediency or ideological pressure rather than by facts and expertise.'

In 'Righteous Anger: The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush,' Senior Fellow Doug Bandow writes: 'Despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn. Its spending policies have been irresponsible, and its trade strategies have been destructive. The president has been quite willing to sell out the national interest for perceived political gain, whether the votes sought are from seniors or farmers. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 encouraged the administration to push into law civil-liberties restrictions that should worry anyone, whether they are wielded by a Bush or a Clinton administration.'

Frank B. says we should write in "NOTA," "None Of The Above" in November. If [when] Aaron Russo attains the Libertarian Party nomination, he will be better than a "NOTA" vote.

Semper Fi.

Ann Coulter hits one out of the park:

"Last week, John S. Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, delivered a lecture during 'Ethics Week' of the Society of Professional Journalists. The speaker has not yet been announced for 'Abstinence Week' of the Society of Professional Whores."

Read the entire column.

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

Thanks to Ted A.

I do not always agree with Charley Reese, but this is by far the best column the old critter has written.

"The First Amendment gives us the right to speak and to write. It does not give anyone the right to command that others listen to or publish or distribute what he or she says or writes or produces.

The best way to understand the difference between a true right and a falsely claimed right is that a true right does not compel anyone else to do anything except leave us alone.

That's why it is wrong to say that people have a 'right to medical care.' To say this implies that someone else must be compelled to provide it. Medical care that is affordable is a desirable social goal, but it is not a right. Ditto education, housing, jobs and other economic benefits.

I have the right to write an opinion column. That right, however, does not impose an obligation on anyone to publish it or to read it. If a newspaper declines to publish my column, it is in no way abridging my First Amendment rights. Nor is it engaging in censorship (only the government can censor). It is instead exercising its right to choose what it will and won't publish at its own expense.

All true rights are essentially negative in that they prohibit others, mainly the government, from interfering in our personal lives. The right to keep and bear arms doesn't mean that we have to own guns or that anyone has to sell them to us. It simply means the government cannot prohibit us from owning a gun."

Exactly, Mr. Reese. I cannot commend this column more highly.

So, what shall we do about this demonic insanity?

Added 05/12 1230:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a member of the Armed Services Committee that has been investigating alleged Iraqi prison abuse, issued a statement Tuesday in which he said, "The beheading of an American by al Qaeda leaders, if confirmed, is a sick and terrible reminder of the evil we face in defending our nation against terror."

"Though it seems these despicable murderers attempted to excuse the brutal slaying of a civilian as a response to American action in Iraq, it is important to remember that these terrorists did not wait for an excuse to kill," Cornyn added. "Just as terrorists did not wait for a reason to kill thousands on 9/11, they will not wait before killing again. They must be, and they will be stopped."

"If there was any doubt as to the need to continue and win the fight against terror, it was erased with that video," Cornyn said.

Outspoken Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) said, "I am eagerly awaiting public apologies and condemnation from leaders in the Arab world expressing their own personal outrage at the barbaric murder of Nick Berg, an innocent civilian. And if such an apology is not forthcoming from the Arab world, their silence should be condemned by the civilized world."

WorldNetDaily:

"The Rev. Jesse Jackson told a conference on religions and cultures in Athens, Greece that the U.S. should remove American troops from Iraq and carry out a thorough investigation of human-rights violations in the war-torn country."

Joseph Farah:

Daniel Webster explained, "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

Farah's argument is cogent.

Americans have become their own worst enemy.

Certainly there are external foes to be feared and triumphed over. Certainly there are foreign threats. Certainly we live in a dangerous period of history – even if our people were unified and strong.

But we are not unified and strong. We no longer know who we are or what sets us apart.

There are a lot of folks who can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in America. There's a very simple answer. Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low. The reason for that is purely geographical. All our oil is in Alaska, Texas, Wyoming, California, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma. All our dipsticks are in Washington, D.C.

Thanks to Stan J.

James Webb:

"Combat in a guerrilla war requires constant moral judgments, in an environment with unending pressure, little sleep, and no second chances for yourself or the people you are leading when you guess wrong. Were we perfect? No. Were we worse than Americans in other wars, or our enemy in this one? Hardly."

He was there. Semper Fidelis.

Lyn Nofziger muses:

Hindsight being the great educator, I’m beginning to think that the key mistake George Bush has made in Iraq was to change the nature of the mission.

Initially our purpose was to depose and rid the world of Saddam Hussein because we thought he had or was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction that posed a serious danger to this nation.

That made sense, even though in the end we found none of the weapons the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, assured Bush that he had.

But all of sudden it wasn’t enough to have defeated Saddam’s armies and toppled his government and sent him into hiding. Bush decided we had to do more.

Having discovered something we knew all along, that Saddam was a cruel and sadistic dictator, President Bush, in a fit of idealism, decided that victory was not enough, that we should take the next step and impose a democracy on a theocratic and tribal people who had never known democracy and who, for the most part, seem either indifferent to or are actively opposed to the idea.

From a distance, anyway, it does not appear that democracy and islam are compatible. Bush, however, seemed and still seems determined to make them so. But at what cost to America in dead and wounded, in money and materiel, and in international prestige?. And at what cost to Bush himself in his standing with his fellow Americans?

Far from accepting the idea of an America-imposed democracy, many Iraqis are actively and bloodily opposing it. And their opposition has resulted not only in the almost daily deaths of some Americans and more Iraqis but also in the imprisoning of large numbers of Iraqis which in turn has led to the mistreatment of a relatively few of them.

And now it is the mistreatment of that small number that is threatening Bush’s standing in this country and America’s standing in the world. It has turned the moral high ground we were convinced we had into somthing approaching sinking sand.

In less than two months we are slated to turn the control and administration of Iraq over to an Iraqi government. Unfortunately we are also planning to keep most of our troops there, apparently to insure the stability of the new democratic Iraqi government.

To put it bluntly, however, it ain’t gonna work. You cannot give a democracy to a people who don’t understand it and won’t know what to do with it after they get it.

The best thing Bush can do now is declare “mission accomplished,” give the Iraqis back their country and leave. Let them figure out for themselves who’s going to rule and run their country.

Too bad it’s not going to happen.

Lyn is prescient—perhaps...

Random thoughts: "Australian economist Wolfgang Kasper has figured out the day on which the average citizen has earned money enough to pay his taxes, so that he can then begin earning money for himself instead of for the government. For Singapore, that date is March 31st, for the United States April 21st, for Germany July 1st and for Sweden August 5th."

Thomas E. Riicks:

"The emergence of sharp differences over U.S. strategy has set off a debate, a year after the United States ostensibly won a war in Iraq, about how to preserve that victory. The core question is how to end a festering insurrection that has stymied some reconstruction efforts, made many Iraqis feel less safe and created uncertainty about who actually will run the country after the scheduled turnover of sovereignty June 30."

Ricks is the military corrrespondent, uhn, reporter for the Washington Post. He authored an absorbing book, "Making the Corps," a few years ago. His read on what's happening in the military establishment is usually valuable.

Semper Fi.

Thank you to the Dissident Frogman

Memo on the Margin: Jude Wanniski shares the anguish and revulsion this Iraqi woman expresses:

"I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We�ll take our chances- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go."

Indeed, we should all listen to her words. The balance of her article is even more distressing.

Pat Buchanan:

"What Iraq demonstrates is that once the cost in blood starts to rise, Americans tend to tell their government that enough is enough, put the Wilsonian idealism back on the shelf, and let's get out.

If attacked, Americans fight ferociously. Unwise nations discover that. Threatened, as in the Cold War, we will persevere. But if our vital interests are not threatened, or our honor is not impugned, most of us are for staying out of wars.

That is our history and oldest tradition. It may be ridiculed as selfish old American isolationism, but that is who we are and that is how we came to be the last world power left standing on the bloodstained world stage after the horrific 20th century.

Americans will cheer globaloney. They just won't fight and die for it. Nor should they."

Thank you for your views, Mr. B.

Joe Sobran:

Bush’s “war on terror” has now turned into something he utterly failed to anticipate. The whole idea of attacking Iraq was to decapitate a supposed godfather of terrorism, but it now appears that Saddam, in his own way, was suppressing the forces the American victory has now unintentionally released.

The whole thing defies calculation, because there is no way of measuring Iraqi attitudes; and even if there were, those attitudes are no doubt fluid and volatile. The Bush administration naturally insists that most Iraqis welcome the U.S.-sponsored democracy-in-the-making, but we’ve heard this kind of official happy-talk too often.

One gets the impression, from every possible indication, that the United States is none too popular in the Muslim world, so it stands to reason that a U.S. defeat and occupation of a Muslim country has its work cut out for it when it comes to “winning hearts and minds” (another all-too-familiar phrase from the past). Most conquered people submit to raw force, but the U.S. isn’t prepared to administer the totalitarian cruelty it would take to finish the job.

Bush has not only let a very big genie out of the bottle, but has given him plenty of new energy.

> Should be on his website. Essentially, he's been disinvited from
> addressing the LP national convention due to his support on the
> war.

Not exactly.

Because of Boortz's support of the Republican Party's
leftist/Trotskyite/'neoconservative' foreign policy program, some
Libertarians are _trying_ to get him disinvited, so far
unsuccessfully.

There are a few Libertarians who have gone left with the GOP on the
war issue, and quite a few more who are willing to have Boortz speak
regardless of his alliance with the leftists on the war issue.

boortz.com:

"05/06/04 NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey Senator John Kerry, the recipient of three Purple Hearts, has signed a contract with Johnson & Johnson to endorse a new line of band-aids. The band-aids will be small purple hearts designed to cover minor, superficial wounds like Kerry suffered as a lieutenant in the Vietnam War. 'We're proud to be working with Senator Kerry,' said a Johnson & Johnson spokesperson. 'We plan to use actual shrapnel removed from his arm in our ad campaign to highlight the small size of our J&J Band-Aid brand Purple Heart bandages.' The doctor who treated Kerry at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, recently described the procedure used to treat the wound that won the senator his first Purple Heart. 'First, I located the wound with the aid of a magnifying glass,' said Dr. Louis Letson. 'Then, I used a pair of tweezers to extract the shrapnel, which measured approximately one centimeter in length and two to three millimeters in diameter. 'Finally, I covered the wound with one of those little round band-aids people use to cover corns on their toes.' The Band-Aid endorsement is not the first for Senator Kerry. It comes on the heels of two other high-profile endorsement deals Kerry has signed with Waffle House and Flip-Flops, Inc. ©2004 RealStupidNews.com

NH vote:

Repealing the 17th Amendment to the Constitution would have immediate benefits: It would eliminate the need for the huge Senate campaigns we have today; would make the role of state legislators far more important that it is today; and reduce the power and size of the federal government.

Alas, the "progressive" thought patterns still control.

Thanks to Dan R.

MOUNTAIN HOME, Idaho -- Seen in a photo released Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 by the U.S. Air Force, Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejects from the USAF Thunderbirds number six aircraft less than a second before it impacted the ground at an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho in September 2003.

Stricklin, who was not injured, ejected after both guiding the jet away from the crowd of more than 60,000 people and ensuring he couldn't save the aircraft.

This was only the second crash since the Air Force began using F-16 Falcons for its demonstration team in 1982. Nobody was injured in the crash. The Air Force blamed the incident on pilot error.

The Thunderbirds are based at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

(02/04/04 AP photo)

Here are just some pertinent snippets from an article by William L. Anderson of FSU, uhn, Frostburg State University, in Maryland:

War:

The great fear of the political classes and their allies is being irrelevant. Americans are discovering daily, for example, that the current war in Iraq not only was not necessary, but is increasingly becoming a liability to our own well-being (not to mention the well-being of the Iraqis). Yet, President George W. Bush and those who support the war insist that is being waged ultimately for our welfare — to 'protect' us from terrorism, although the clear signs are that it has made us even more vulnerable to attack by Muslims who are outraged at the conduct of the U.S. Armed Forces and are prepared to take out that rage on the rest of us.

Guns:

...the "gun control" argument is more about expanding and maintaining the monopoly on "public protection" that the police and political classes have established than about real public safety. For example, in Great Britain, it is illegal for individuals to protect themselves with what the authorities call an "offensive weapon" if they are bodily attacked by others. The upshot is that when burglars break into British homes (even when the owners are home), they simply stand back and permit the robbers to take what they want, given that if they fight back, they most likely will be sentenced to longer prison terms than the criminals themselves (if the police even catch the criminals, which is doubtful).

The British policy – what the political classes here would like us to have – does not exist out of ignorance or a misunderstanding of the nature of crime. Instead, it is a very deliberate reminder to law-abiding citizens that they must depend upon the political classes for everything, including protection, and should they seek to provide that protection themselves, they will be severely punished.

Semper Fi.

. Click to see the original painting from which this is cropped.

Former Military Colleagues reveal the hypocricy and declaim the character of John François Kerry:

"Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is 'unfit to be commander-in-chief.' They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

'What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension,' John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."

The paragraphs that seized my attention:

Also scheduled to be present at the event is Kerry's former commanding officer, Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard. Hibbard recently questioned whether Kerry deserved the first of his three Purple Hearts that he received in Vietnam. Hibbard doubted both the severity of the wound and whether it resulted from enemy fire.

"I've had thorns from a rose that were worse" than Kerry's wound for which he received a Purple Heart, Hibbard told the Boston Globe in April.

Mises article:

"Many people are unaware of it, but there has always been a Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Overlooked in scripture, he has been there nonetheless, waiting with rancid, baited breath to gallop across the world and leave his destructive hoof-prints in the rubble of Western civilization. He is, according to many government spokesmen and media pundits, the Horseman called 'Deflation.'"

Hmmm. Should you wish to gain an understanding of deflation--and inflation--this article is a must read.

VoxDay:

In Robert Heinlein's novel, "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress," the revolution-leading professor tells his fellow revolutionary a story of a government functionary:

'Manuel, once there was a man who held a political make-work job like so many here in this Directorate, shining brass cannon around a courthouse.'

'Why would courthouse have cannon?'

'Never mind. He did this for years. It fed him and let him save a bit, but he was not getting ahead in the world. So one day he quit his job, drew out his savings, bought a brass cannon - and went into business for himself.'

Day makes his point...

Mail to Col. Bob:

Ted Koppel's reading of the names of those killed in Iraq on the eve of the anniversary of the President's declaration that "major combat" operations were complete, cannot help but cause rational observers to wonder about his and ABC's motivation. On the one hand, the reading could be said to honor those who have made the ultimate commitment on behalf of the nation, a view held by Senator John McCain; and, on the other it is viewed as boldfaced leftist propaganda.

It is abundantly clear that the major networks, with the exception of Fox News slant their "news," (or is it views?) in favor of Candidate Kerry. Koppel's reading the names of those who have died in Iraq on the eve of the anniversary of the earlier declaration has a negative impact on the average, basically casual, observer. ABC knows that, and despite disclaimers to the contrary, the reading was a transparent attempt to create a public perception that the human cost of the war is spiraling out of control. As with much on the "left," nothing could be further from the truth.

Even the insensitive must agree that the loss of even one carries with it grief and emptiness for the families and loved ones. For those individual and collective losses, the nation is appreciative and grateful, and that is as it should be. In that regard, the Congress should become and remain appreciative and grateful to those who defend its freedom and security, reversing the decades of reneging on promises made to the veterans of WWII and Korea, Vietnam and Gulf I.

To provide a framework for perspective where the so-called “mainstream” media fails it is useful to examine some data. It was announced within the last few days that the death toll on America’s highways last year was 42,220. A major factor (approximately 50%) in those deaths involved the use of alcohol and illegal drugs. Despite those known facts there is no outrage in the media, no concern that the nation is “bogged down” in highway “slaughter,” no outrage at the hundreds of thousands of disabling injuries, no outrage at the effects on insurance premiums, no outrage at the economic loss, no demands for change, and no reading of the names of the dead on national television.

Many pass off highway deaths as the socially accepted cost of living in a modern, mobile and liberal society, where despite laws designed to penalize offenders, the guilty are more often than not, not held accountable; and despite a veil of civic respectability, the alcohol (drug) industry, (and the illegal drug industry) contribute sufficient funds to politicians and insurance companies and trial lawyers to quell social outrage.

But, instead, Ted Koppel, ABC and others in the media propaganda machine choose to politicize and consequently desecrate the 700 military members who have given their lives defending freedom and the security interests of the United States. To anyone with an ounce of discernment, it is evident that they wittingly or otherwise support the enemy abroad and at home.

What does Koppel’s recent reading do to honor of those who will die in the future? Aren’t they also worthy? Will he read the expanded list again just before the election? Mr. Koppel has stooped as low as a news broadcaster can stoop and should be ashamed, but the left has no shame, only an unquenchable thirst for power. Americans should eschew them; it is no wonder that ABC’s ratings continue to go down the drain, and should.

The inherent righteousness of the loss of a military member, or for that matter supporting civilian, who dies while serving the security interests of this Nation in Iraq (or elsewhere) is infinitely superior to the nonsensical deaths that occur at the rate of five per hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week on US highways, and of which over 50% involve the abuse of alcohol.

Until Mr. Koppel reads the names and televises the images on national television of those who die on US highways it puts the lie (with due respect to Senator McCain) into his, ABC’s, and the political left’s disingenuous arguments. Their not-so-subtle efforts are focused on unseating a President who, despite his “warts” provides the best opportunity among those running, for the nation’s survival. Everything else is rubbish.

Semper Fidelis

Copyright © 1 May 2004, by Robert L. Pappas. With proper attribution, this essay may be quoted and redistributed. It may not be used in any way, in conjunction with any advertisement without the author’s expressed written permission.

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Karen Kwiatkowski, Ike and Smedley Butler:

"The military industrial complex lobbies Congress on a daily basis, costs the taxpayer billions each year, chips away at the credibility of the United States as a force for justice and good will, exists in a hazy legal wasteland unaccountable to domestic or international law, and serves to embarrass the country periodically with overcharges, technology leaks to other countries, and human rights abuses.

Outsourcing contracts for everything from toilet paper to bullets to guards and interrogators have become the Soylent Green of the military industrial complex, an 'artificial nourishment whose actual ingredients are not known by the public.' The top 100 CEOs and Vice Presidents cheerfully move from government circles into defense industries, and sometimes back again.

This third-generation spawn of Smedley Butler's racketeers go where we pay them to go and do what they are told. They can hardly complain later that they were forced into anything, or misled by faulty intelligence, or didn't know what they were getting into. You see, it's all in their contracts. This makes them worth far more to Washington than our all-volunteer force of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines [That's Marines, Col. K].

When we consider the American military, we don't think about contracts or contractors, and we don't worry about the parasitical military industrial complex. Smedley Butler and Dwight D. Eisenhower thought we should. America at war, circa 2004, proves them to be not only patriots, but prophets as well."

Read more of LtCol Kwiatkowski's writings...

Jeff Jacoby:

"Today the Taliban dictatorship is gone and Afghanistan's 12 million women are free of its cruel fanaticism. For that they can thank the US military and its commander-in-chief -- the same commander-in-chief so stridently denounced on the Mall last week as an enemy of women.

It is surreal: We are at war with aggressors who would undo every gain women have made in the last 200 years, and the feminist left makes abortion its number one priority. Is the pro-choice movement really so frozen in Sept. 10 thinking? Do the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority really consider it more important to fight for partial-birth abortion than to fight for the liberal democratic values the Islamofascists aim to destroy? Don't they understand what it means when radical imams -- like the one in Geneva quoted by the Times -- are openly urging their followers to 'impose the will of Islam on the godless society of the West'?"

Pat Buchanan:

"America has a right to know if Kerry ever heard talk of assassinating U.S. senators, and, if so, what he did about it, and what were those philosophical differences that caused him to quit the VVAW so hastily in the middle of that meeting in Kansas City?"

"The 'Oil for Food' program that the United Nations started in 1996 to help the citizens of Iraq, is turning out to be the largest scandal in human history. Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell oil for purchasing food and medical supplies for Iraqi people in general. The first major flag that comes up is the fact the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, appointed a Swiss company that his son was a consultant at, a contract to review what was shipped to Iraq. No one brought up this huge conflict of interest. The Oil for Food program became a cash cow for the U.N. who received 2.2% commission on every barrel of oil sold, which accounts for over $1 billion dollars in revenue. French and Russian companies were also profiting in the amounts of $3.7 billion and $7.3 billion respectively. No wonder these countries vetoed every decision to take Saddam out of power. George Bush should rename the 'coalition of the willing', to the 'coalition of the honest.'

Source of the pics is discussed in an article appearing at billingsgazette.com.

"In March, the U.S. Army announced that six members of the 800th Military Police Brigade faced court martial for allegedly abusing about 20 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The charges included dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.

In addition to those criminal charges, the military has recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers who helped run the prison, including Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Brigade, a senior military official said Wednesday in Baghdad"

Ostensibly a soldier sent the pics to his family. He was not happy with the action taking place. CBS then broadcast the photos to the world.

"Canoe U." grad and resigned Marine officer John Schroder's opinion:

"... I believed in America, complete with all its monuments, holidays, parades, pledges, and even politicians. At 19, I swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Two years ago, Pat Tillman took that same oath. He took that oath because he felt it was his duty, and that is admirable. Unfortunately, the policy makers into whose hands he put his life, have not been nearly so admirable, but this is nothing new, it has been going on for centuries. In America, it has been going on at least since Lincoln. Pat Tillman's death, rather than inspiring to me, simply upsets me, because I do believe all the wonderful things being said and written about him. I just can no longer believe all the wonderful things that the Ministry of Propaganda tries to make me believe about America.

As a young officer, I once gave my Marines a class on rules of engagement prior to an exercise. Discussion eventually came around to whether or not torture could be acceptable in certain circumstances. My reply was simply that as soon as we starting doing that sort of thing, winning or losing no longer mattered, as we would be no better than the enemy we were trying to defeat. Memories of that class came back to me as pictures of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners came to light recently on CBS. This is but a small example, but for me, it is just one more reminder that fighting for America is the equivalent of being Kenneth Lay's lawyer: to defend either probably means having to check your morals at the door.

Many sports commentators have said that there will never be another Pat Tillman. This is sad on several levels, but most importantly because it implies that today’s America is no longer capable of producing honorable, stand-up, hard-working men of character. I can only guess, that like 9-11, Pat Tillman’s death will teach the wrong lesson. Whereas the war hawks will lament the death of a patriot, we should lament the fact that being a patriot now means unyielding devotion to an American ideal that is anything but."

Alas, the mistreatment of those prisoners will haunt us.

Semper Fi.