America Under Attack

Where Do We Go From Here?

2008-11-08T22:45:00.003-05:00

Okay, so the Republican party has been handed yet another wake-up call by America, admonishing them for trying to play to the left in an effort to steal Democrat voters. If one thing should be absolutely, perfectly clear by now, it is that liberal Democrats are going to vote for liberal Democrats, not liberal Republicans. If they have to choose between the two, they are going to vote the way they have voted for a century, with the party they're comfortable with, not with the party they have argued against, campaigned against and voted against. Playing to the Democrats in an effort to win them over is as futile and ridiculous as spitting into the wind.

So now what? Well, for one thing, we've seen a glimpse of the future, of the excitement and energy that could be behind our campaign when we pick the right candidate. McCain's advisers are trying to rehabilitate his image after the loss by blaming Sarah Palin for his loss. Anyone with half a brain could've seen this coming of course, it's straight out of the Democrats' playbook. "She's too much of a right-wing extremist, she doesn't have the same values as most of America, etc." The mainstream media may be more than willing to listen to these sniveling, backstabbing cowards but the Republican party, if they ever hope to see majority status again, should turn a deaf ear to them. Sarah Palin gave John McCain a fighting chance and anyone who isn't in the tank for McCain knows it. But, that's the distant future, there's other things to be done first.

The first thing that must be done is the conservatives in this country must be reminded that they were not defeated in this election, their values were not rejected and their principles were not cast aside. Yes, the Democrats strengthened their majority in the House and the Senate and yes, they managed to take the White House away from us as well, giving them an express lane through which to drive Socialism into the living rooms of every family in America. So be it, there's nothing we can do about it now and there was little that could have been done about it without the Republican leadership learning a lesson it seems they must learn every eight to twelve years. The election is over and it is time for conservatives to join together, to speak louder than before, to make themselves heard and seen and impossible to ignore.

We must be prepared to face down the critics, the pundits, the talking heads in the media, allowing our party leadership to listen to these voices has just handed total control of this country to the most liberal (in fact Socialist) group of politicians ever assembled in this country. We must be prepared to call, e-mail or fax our representatives and senators on a daily basis if need be, no matter what their party affiliation, just to let them know we are watching and they will be held accountable. We must be louder than the know-it-all pundits and "experts" that advised us to move farther to the left. We must be louder and more insistent and more aggressive than ever if we are to give the Democrats a moments pause before they plunge us headlong into the abyss.

We must organize, focus our energy into one battle at a time, bolstering the few conservatives remaining in Washington and encouraging some of the "moderates" to side with the conservatives when it matters. We are going to have to pick and choose our battles, we can't waste what little political capital we have remaining squabbling over something that nobody really cares about anyways. We must start with the issues that we know in our hearts we can win on. We must force these issues into the minds of the American people on a daily basis, remind them that just because Bush is on his way out, all is not well on the home front. There are lots and lots of opportunities out there that simply weren't explored by the McCain campaign that I think we can use to our advantage for 2010. Remember, the Democrats are in constant campaign mode, meaning they aren't going to stick their necks out too far if they think there's a chance they're going to lose their heads over it.

I know you're disheartened, we all are. It's been a tough four years, even longer for many of us. It seems that no matter how much public support the conservative position on the issues holds, nobody is willing to take up the cross. President Bush has been largely to blame for this but he's on his way out and it's time for us to shake off the losses of 2006 and 2008. So we dropped the ball, time to brush ourselves off and get back into the game. If we've learned nothing else from the last two elections, it is what happens when conservatives decide to just stay home rather than get out and vote for someone they have some disagreements with. But whose fault is it that these people are in the national spotlight to begin with? It is ours.

All politics is local. That phrase has been around forever and it has never been more true than it is today. Having a strong national party starts with your local elections, county elections and state elections. This is where we really need to focus on our recruiting, think of these elections (particularily the state level) as the college level in football terms. This is where we get to see who has potential in the big show and who is going to go into broadcasting (ala Kirk Herbstreit). We need to band together to lift up the conservative candidates for every election, better organize our online fundraising efforts and better utilize the tools we have at our hands. Things like podcasts, text messaging, e-mail and RSS feeds and even YouTube can be great ways to get our message out. I know that there are many conservative bloggers and organizations doing this but we need a more focused, concentrated effort from the GOP as well.

We need to be educating the public, insulating them from further lies and attacks from the left. The reason so many people bought into Obama's mantra about hope and change, change and hope, is that nobody had absolutely any idea who he was, what he was talking about and what was coming if he was elected. True, there was a lot of Bush fatigue out there, a lot of people eager to avenge the last two presidential elections and a great deal of war weariness as well but I don't think these were the major reasons we lost. Yes, they are the reasons many people gave when asked why they were supporting Obama but the energy and enthusiasm injected into the campaign by Sarah Palin disproved the lie. People didn't just want to swap out parties in the White House, they wanted to change politics in D.C. for the good of the country.

Okay, so what do we do? How do we educate the American people about the issues and build on the areas where we have the support of the public? We do everything we can to get our message out there. We write letters to the editor, leave fliers and pamphlettes on bulletin boards, send mass e-mails and texts, call in to talk shows, whatever we can do to get the word out. We talk to our friends, our families, our co-workers (use your judgement, I don't want anyone getting fired for discussing politics on company time). We do everything in our power to remind people of the issues that are yet to be resolved in this country, issues like illegal immigration, partial birth abortion, energy independence, the sanctity of marriage and the war on terror. On all of these issues, we enjoy the support of the majority of Americans, as evidenced by many of the ballot initiatives and amendments passed by voters this election cycle.

We must also open the eyes of the people to exactly what and who they've elected to the highest office in the land. We must show them not only what Obama, Pelosi and Reid represent, we must tell them why the ideas they hold must be rejected. It isn't enough to point fingers and make rude noises every time Obama or Pelosi or Reid or Biden says something that hints at the fact that they are Socialists. We must tell people why it is that they are not only wrong, but dangerous for this country. We must get as many people as we are able to care, even just a little, about the day to day operations of this country, not just when it's time for elections. Many people will refuse to listen, many people simply will not take the time or the energy to listen because they feel defeated or overwhelmed or because it is inconvenient. But some will listen, and it is the ones who can be reached that we must focus on.

The task before us is enormous, the odds are against us, the mainstream media is against us and much of society is against us. We face challenges among union members who, like the United Mine Workers of America, choose to support Democratic candidates who have vowed to close the very coal mines where they work. We face challenges in schools and universities where, through the NEA and the teachers' unions, liberalism and Socialism have become enshrined and conservative voices are shouted down and drowned out. We even face challenges in our own party, where too many members of our leadership choose to listen to the voices of the media and the Washington insiders rather than the voices of the people. Corporate America has even fallen prey to the left, buying into the whole "green" theology, affirmative action and diversity training. Despite these challenges, we must perservere.

I am but one humble blogger and alone, I can do nothing. I implore you, if you are reading this message and if you love your country, pass it along. If one person reads this and posts it, and two others read it and post it, and two others, before long you've got an army of people ready and willing to engage. Copy this and paste it into an e-mail or post it to your own blog and then pass it along, of course adding your own e-mail address or URL to the list as you go. I hope that from time to time, someone will send it back to me or e-mail me the current list so we can put together a list of those who will stand up for this country, those who refuse to let our Republic go quietly into the night. Once that list is compiled, I will send out letters to the editor that you can sign your name to and print or e-mail to your local media outlets. I will also track stories relating to the five issues that I've outlined above and post the names of our politicians and where they stand on those issues. These are to be circulated as well.

We can win this fight if we band together. The Democrats are cowards by nature, only showing their true nature when they think that nobody is looking. If we keep the lights on them, if we continue to expose them for what they truly are, we can force them to take shelter in the "center", the way cockroaches run for the cabinets when the lights are turned on. If we can delay them for just two years and put up real conservative candidates for the House and the Senate, we can take this country back. We can save America.

So, who's with me?

Michael A. Stone (Ohio)
conservativerevolutionhq@gmail.com
http://nukethelibs.blogspot.com (America Under Attack)

Thoughts of the Day

2008-11-05T10:39:00.002-05:00

"Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. " - Samuel Adams

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. " - Thomas Jefferson

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. " - Thomas Jefferson

Voting Is NOT A Civic Duty...

2008-11-04T09:36:00.002-05:00

As part of being an American citizen, we are often admonished that we have a civic duty to vote. I contend that this is absolute hogwash! We do not have a duty to vote, we have the responsibility to keep ourselves informed on the candidates and the issues and the privilege to vote and to become engaged in the political process. The country will continue to march on if you don't vote, you just won't have a say in what happens to you or the country.

Not that anyone is listening. Think about the issue of immigration. Over 80% of Americans favor enforcing our borders yet neither major candidate has made this an issue. The Wall Street bailout that a majority of Americans opposed passed easily because everyone on tv said that it had to. John McCain is kind of listening to you when you say we need to secure more domestic sources of oil, Sarah Palin hears you though. Barack Obama and Joe Biden might as well be telling you to go piss up a rope. Oh, and on jobs and energy, Barack Obama wants to bankrupt the coal industry to save us all from the evils of pollution. He'd trade a "carbon tax" for the livelihood of millions of Americans who work in the coal mines and the industries that support the coal industry, all in the name of environmentalism. Great.

Well, today's the day when America decides which direction we are going to take. Are we going to take a hard left turn and convert our Republic into a Socialist Republic state? Are we going to take a chance with a freshman senator who has never done anything besides get himself elected to the Senate and run for president? The media says yes but what do you say America?

This election is all about Obama. It is an up or down vote on him, McCain is just going to be either the benefactor of this vote or the roadkill on Obama's path to power. What do you say, America? What's it going to be?

I guess in about twelve to eighteen hours, we'll have an idea.

Bite Sized Information

2008-10-31T15:16:00.002-05:00

I'm often amazed at the things in politics that really should matter to people but never seem to. It's almost as if only the most trivial, meaningless things ever really appeal to anybody, whether it inspires them to support or oppose a candidate. Anything that might require any sort of thought, anything that might take some time to understand gets swept aside by the masses in favor of bite sized tidbits of pointless information. If it can't be summed up in a sentence of no greater length than five words, people never seem to hold on to it.

I'm starting to rethink this whole democracy thing (well, technically a representative republic but who's paying attention anyways?).

But, since people seem to want very small, simple pieces of information to wrap their feeble, atrophied minds around, here is a list of reasons not to vote for Barack Hussein Obama:

1. He's a Marxist (socialist, communist, etc. Take your pick).
2. He will destroy the Constitution.
3. He will hurt this country.
4. He hangs with terrorists.
5. He hangs with other Marxists (socialists, communists, etc.)
6. He hangs with racists.
7. Joe Biden says there will be an international crisis. (I apologize for the length of that one.)
8. Hillary Clinton says he's against gun owners' rights.
9. He wants to share your wealth.
10. The New York Times endorsed him.

I think most of those are short and simple enough for most people to grasp (I hope). Now, here's a list of reasons to vote for John McCain:

1. Sarah Palin
2. John McCain is old.
3. John McCain is not Barack Obama.
4. Sarah Palin is not Joe Biden.
5. John McCain is not Joe Biden.
6. John McCain is a war hero.
7. John McCain loves America.
8. John McCain is cool with guns (mostly).
9. Sarah Palin is a better shot than Michelle Obama.
10. John McCain is not a Marxist.

I hope my answers were short enough for ya. Hopefully this will serve as a useful guide when you go to cast your vote.

Be well America!

Also posted on my myspace.

Through The Rabbit Hole

2008-10-27T10:39:00.003-05:00

Do you ever get the feeling that you're watching the entire world turn absolutely insane? That everyone and everything around you is just completely backwards and upside down and any minute, you expect to see a hookah smoking caterpillar, a cat that can turn invisible and a white rabbit with a pocket watch? This is what I feel like when I watch the news or talk to people about the things going on in our country and our world today.

I'm sick and tired of people acting like the sole purpose of elected officials is to go out and take as much money as they can get their hands on and give it to whatever group, companies or pet projects they deem worthy. People must think politicians are like Santa Claus, every 2, 4 or 6 years, they vote for them and since they were nice enough to vote for them, Santa will come down their chimney and plop a big, fat wad of cash in their stocking.

If you'd have told me a year ago that gas prices and illegal immigrants were NOT going to be an issue in this presidential election, if you'd have told me that the party that is largely responsible for the biggest financial disaster since 1929 was going to be rewarded with an increased majority in the Senate, the House and the White House and if you'd have told me that nobody would care about Obama's associations with William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Frank Marshall Davis and a horde of other Marxist (and sometimes racist) agitators, I'd have said you were crazy. Maybe I'm the one that's crazy.

Here we are, just 8 days from the election that I am certain is going to fundamentally change our country forever. We are standing on the precipice of socialism and a select few of us are trying to hold the line but there aren't enough. While the majority of the country slept, got drunk, stoned or were just too busy fornicating to pay attention, the Socialists took over the Democratic Party. While the same majority was out doing whatever it was they wanted to do, this same Democratic Party took over both houses of Congress. And now, this same clueless majority is rushing headlong into disaster while seeking salvation at the hands of the very people that caused the problems that sent them running to begin with. Like I said, insanity.

Before someone accuses me of being me a Republican Party mouthpiece, I'd like to assure you that I've been just as critical of them as I have of the Democrats. There's no such thing as an infallible party or a squeaky clean politician, it's why I support Federalism and limited government. The more power we vest in elected officials, the more involved government becomes in business, the more money is going to be thrust into the grubby little palms of these politicians, whether they seek it or not. Corruption exists everywhere in politics, not solely in one party or the other.

The Republicans are paying the price for abandoning their principles (or at least the principles that they claimed to have) and as a result, we are going to pay the price as well. Politicians measure gains and losses in terms of seats and states. When they lose, they have no idea what happened so they conclude that the other side just played a better game than they did. Oh, too bad, we'll get 'em next time, good game. Unfortunately, the game they are playing has real stakes and real lives are going to be affected and it's all because they "played a bad game".

Maybe I'm overreacting, I certainly hope that's the case. If I am, great, it's only a premature panic attack resulting from my paranoia and anxiety about the destruction of the last remnants of capitalism and Republicanism (or Federalism, whichever you prefer) that this country possessed. But what if I'm not overreacting? If I'm not, we are going to see changes in this country that are more radical, more unlike anything we've ever seen seen the Revolutionary War. In fact, the last time the world saw anything like what is coming for us was when Castro took over Cuba, or Chairman Mao took over China or perhaps the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (remember how all of those worked out?).

But, we get the government we deserve. Those of you who weren't paying attention, thanks. Here's to you, the ignorant masses who are rushing at breakneck speed towards the destruction of all the freedoms that you've been given. Here's to the spoiled children and grandchildren of patriots, men who fought and suffered and died to preserve our freedoms from those tyrants who would see us subjugated and oppressed. Here's to the pampered, arrogant, ignorant, self flagellating, pseudo-intellectual masses who are going to take the country they were given and sign it away on November 4, 2008.

It's been a good run, America, but all good things must come to an end. Unless... Unless the people rise up, no... WAKE UP, and demand a return to the Constitution. The people have a chance to do the right thing, to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough". John McCain isn't perfect by a LONG shot, but maybe, just maybe, if we can keep the Marxists in the House and the Senate at bay by denying them the White House, maybe we can save the ship. But we don't have much time. We're short on buckets, we're taking on water three times faster than we can bail it out and people are more interested in draining their beer bottles than in bailing water.

So, are you gonna grab a bucket or pretend there's nothing wrong?

(also published on my myspace at http://www.myspace.com/fishermanandy)

Keeping My Perspective

2008-07-29T09:56:00.006-05:00

It's been a busy, crazy summer! First a camping trip with the family (me, my wife, my stepdaughter, mother-in-law and my two nephews), then job hunting (found a replacement job that I start on August 18 after a whole ten minutes of searching!) and fighting with my college (I want that in-state tuition rate, darn it!) and now a trip back to Missouri to visit my side of the family. It's been a pretty eventful summer to say the least but it's been one that has helped me keep my priorities in order.

Watching the election unfold is like watching a really slow-moving train wreck. The media can't help but feel these tingly sensations whenever Barack Hussein Obama speaks (and it was a male anchor to boot!), John McCain's campaign probably couldn't get him elected to be the dog warden of his local county, let alone the leader of the free world, and Barack Hussein Obama is out there campaigning in Berlin! It's enough to drive a person crazy - if you forget what really, really matters, that is.

My stepfather has one of the more entertaining outlooks on things. He's been stocking up on firearms in preparation for the day President Obama decides to confiscate all firearms. He says the street value on guns at that point will go through the roof. He's always been someone with a rather unique perspective on life anyhow, I really shouldn't be surprised at all by this. I just can't imagine actually selling a gun and then having less guns than what you started with. More guns has always been my goal, not less.

Speaking of more guns, I have a brand new gun that I haven't even seen yet. My stepdad did some wheeling and dealing for me and turned an old Gewehr 88 into a brand new Hi-Point 9mm carbine with a BSA red dot scope. The gun looks pretty much like this one:

No comments about being shot by an ugly gun or anything like that. It may not be a looker but I've shot the Hi-Point carbines before and they are real tack-drivers. Whatever you're pointing at gets a brand new hole in it. Every time. Even without the red dot scope. The iron sights on the carbines are excellent, even someone who has never fired a gun before could punch the bullseye out of a target with them. Also, the Hi-Points are some of the best reviewed "bargain basement" guns of all time. They get a bad rap for being popular with the street thugs because of their low sticker price but hey, that means that people like me can afford them too, right? Not everyone has the cash for a Kimber or a Wilson Combat.

Anyhow, when I get the gun, I'll get some pictures of me and the family killing some fruit and some paper targets with it and I'll post them. I'll let you know what I think of the gun too.

Well, that's pretty much all I know for right now. Until next time, remember that no matter who wins the white house in November, no matter what happens in this country during this life, we've got the ultimate victory in the next life. Keep your heads up and keep doing what's right leading by example, it's all that we can do.

Stay safe and exercise your Second Amendment Rights!!!

Late Memorial Day Post

2008-05-29T08:00:00.003-05:00

As some people may have noticed, I didn't do a Memorial Day post. I was honestly and truly just too busy to get one written, what with the yard work and the cookout and playing with my nephews and all. At first, it kinda bothered me that I didn't get one written but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that I was doing exactly what those who fought and died sacrificed so much for. I was enjoying the freedoms that they fought for, the freedoms for which so many people have paid the ultimate price. Because of them, I was able to enjoy the cookout, the kids, the beautiful weather and the joy of spending time with my family without the fear of terrorism or the burden of tyranny. I said a quick word of thanks to all the brave men and women who made that possible and went back to playing badminton with my nephews.

American Accent Quiz

2008-05-12T23:46:00.001-05:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Interestingly enough, I am from Missouri and I live in Ohio... both locations are listed in the results... lol... And I've done radio commercials!

Big Announcement...

2008-05-12T22:37:00.002-05:00

Yours truly is enrolling in college at the age of 28 (well, okay, I'll be 29 by then but who's counting!). After years of soul searching and wondering what I want to do when I grow up, I've decided to do what I think I've always known I wanted to do... I'm going to be a history teacher.

I'm enrolling in a 2+2 program (a transfer program, 2 years at a community college then transferring to West Liberty State College) that is geared towards earning a bachelor's degree but I'm probably going to get my master's degree. Who knows, I might just keep going back... but I'm determined to finish what I've started here.

Anyhow, I've got just about all of my paperwork in order and will soon be putting together the financial aid, etc. Good times... lol.

Wish me luck!

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T18:28:00.002-05:00

Mother's Day is a special day set aside to honor that special breed of woman, the kind that doesn't mind putting all of her wants and needs on the backburner for others. The sort of woman who is constantly worried about the needs of her family while hardly ever taking her own needs into account. These are truly spectacular women, a special breed of woman that loves unconditionally and forgives and forgets almost all slights or wrongs against her. It is for this reason that we observe Mother's Day, an occasion to thank them for their love, their selflessness and the many sacrifices that they make on our behalf.

To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day and God Bless you all!

Sparks from the Anvil: ‘Asalaam alaikum,’ (Peace be with you)

2008-05-10T20:36:00.003-05:00

This post should be required reading for anyone who wonders what we're doing in Iraq, why we're there or whether we should stay or leave. Excellent finds on Wordsmith's part. Once you read the entire post, you should feel much better about our presence in Iraq. If only the MSM would do their job and report these events as diligently as they report on the horrors of war and our missteps and failures in Iraq.

A Meeting With The Devil

2008-05-10T15:31:00.003-05:00

So, by now, I'm sure everyone knows about Jimmah Carter's meeting with the terrorist and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. While anyone oblivious to the fact that Jimmah Carter is a foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid anti-Semite and America hater would find this meeting to be bizarre and out of character for a former president, considering that the current administration asked repeatedly for him to call off the meeting. Showing his usual regard for America and her allies, Jimmah Carter gleefully met with a known terrorist to discuss "peace". Informants working for me that were involved in the meeting have turned over a transcript of the meeting. In the interest of full disclosure and open, honest dialogue, I am posting it for you. Enjoy!

Jimmy Carter (JC): Hello, Mr. Mashaal, thank you for meeting with me to discuss the issue of real, lasting peace in the Middle East.

Khaled Mashaal (KM): Mr. Carter, thank you for coming to meet with me. As you know, I am a dedicated warrior in the fight for peace in my homeland. I appreciate your efforts.

JC: Thank you, and I appreciate yours as well. I think that, to clear the air a bit, we should start off with a declaration, a mission statement of sorts. People think that you're just an evil, mean-spirited terrorist and it clouds their judgement, prevents them from seeing all of your efforts in the cause of peace. So, to eliminate this perception, I think we should start by declaring our love of Jews and all of humankind. Repeat after me, "I love Jews."

KM: I love juice.

JC: No, not juice, Jews. I love Jews.

KM: I love juice, and all of humankind. Can we move along please?

JC: Mr. Mashaal, I believe you still said that you love juice. Can you just try it again, one more time? I love Jews.

KM: It's my accent, that's what you're hearing. I've repeated your stupid mission statement, can we move on to talking about peace now?

JC: Well... okay... I suppose. Now that we've declared our love of Jews and all of humankind, I have arranged a tremendous photo op for you. Something to show that we're making true progress here. I brought along a Jew and I thought if we could get a picture of you two together (Jew steps out from behind a curtain)...

KM: Abdul! A Jew! (gunshots, the Jew falls down dead) Excellent shooting, and thank you for the gift, Mr. Carter. What a wonderful way to start off our peace conference!

JC: Mr. Mashaal, you weren't supposed to shoot him!

KM: Oh, of course not! It was to be a beheading and now I've ruined everything! I am so sorry, Mr. Carter. I can be so impulsive sometimes. Perhaps if we could go find another Jew...

JC: No, you were supposed to HUG him, not KILL him! That was going to be the big photo op to show everyone how smart I am for meeting with you!

KM: Hug a Jew? Why would I do that?

JC: To show everyone how committed you are to the peace process!

KM: I am! When we kill all the Jews, there will be peace! I can't be seen hugging any Jews, I have an image to uphold here! Do you have any idea how many weapons I receive from Iran and Syria? How much money they send to me for killing these Jews?

JC: Mr. Mashaal, if there's going to be any peace, we need to stop the killing!

KM: And we will, when all the Jews are dead! Then, Mr. Carter, we will stop and there will be a huge celebration and if you could help us with this, you will have a seat of honor at the celebration!

JC: I don't think you understand the meaning of peace, Mr. Mashaal...

KM: Mr. Carter, I don't think you understand what we're doing here. We are warriors for peace, Mr. Carter. Allah and the prophet Muhammad have commanded us to rid the world of these vermin and then we will have a paradise on earth.

JC: Then why did you meet with me, Mr. Mashaal?

KM: I thought you wanted to discuss true peace, Mr. Carter, but all you keep talking about is this nonsense about hugging Jews and not killing them. If you don't mind, I have a shipment of rockets and mortars coming in and I have to deliver some bomb vests to our martyrs.

JC: (sigh) Good day, Mr. Mashaal.

KM: And a good day to you, Mr. Carter (under his breath), you crazy old man.

The Primary And The Mountain State

2008-05-08T20:10:00.003-05:00

Living right across the river from West Virginia, I get to hear a lot about what goes on inside the mountain state. All of our media outlets are stations that cover West Virginia from the television stations to the radio stations and even the newspapers (yes, some people still read newspapers these days!). We do most of our shopping in West Virginia and when we "go to town", go out to eat or anything of the sort, it's over the river and through the woods we go. Lately, some other people have been spotted in West Virginia.

Hillary Clinton and the rest of family (they truly do put the "fun" in dysfunctional) have been touring the state, building as much support as possible for Tuesday's primary. Barrack Hussein Obama has his recruiters out in full force, including Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Quincy Wilson, former Weirton, WV and WVU running back and current Cincinnati Bengals RB. The next few days certainly prove to be interesting for anyone in and around the state of West Virginia.

Hillary Clinton is predicted to win big in West Virginia, something that I believe to be 100% accurate. She has a huge following among working class people (particularly working class whites that comprise the majority of WV voters) that will serve her well in Tuesday's vote. A landslide victory Tuesday should take some of the wind out of the sails of those calling for her to step aside and allow Barrack Hussein Obama to assume his post as the "rightful" heir to the Democratic throne.

The Democrats are experiencing a nearly unprecedented amount of turmoil over these elections because, although the policy differences between the two candidates are slim to none (they are both Marxists who will do everything they can to advance the cause of socialism), the emotional side of the race is tremendous. Who deserves the nomination? Is it the (half) black man or the white woman? Which minority type has the biggest claim to the throne of power? Do they cater to the feminists or to the black community, both historically significant sources of Democrat power. Both candidates have a checkered past with ties to rather unsavory, sordid individuals (BHO with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, Hillary with the Chinese and a certain lascivious former president). Both have financial scandals haunting their records (from real estate deals, no less!). Both have a history of supporting extreme left-wing causes that a reasonable person would deem unpatriotic. None of these things really matter to the Democratic base.

When it's all boiled down to its essence, it is the continuation of identity politics (long a staple for Marxists everywhere - it was prescribed in "The Communist Manifesto") to it's most logical conclusion. The only thing that would make this any more amusing while following the same logic would be for one candidate to announce a Hispanic running mate and for another to announce an Asian running mate. Let's see, BHO could choose Bill Richardson and Hillary could choose one of the many Chinese campaign donors that have contributed to her White House bid. Or perhaps they could both announce running mates that are "undocumented migrant workers". We're all Americans anyways, right? True, it is unorthodox for a candidate to announce a running mate prior to locking up the nomination in the primaries but hey, this election has a rather unique quality to it anyhow. I say to hell with tradition, just do what feels right (or more likely, whatever is most politically expedient).

Let's sit back and enjoy the fun! Just remember that at the end of the election, when all the votes have been suppressed, er... counted, we are all going to lose and America will have yet another President that is unworthy of the office and heedless of the Constitution or the rights and freedoms set aside for the people of this once-great nation.

Better luck next cycle, America.

I Think I'm Back Now...

2008-05-03T20:02:00.002-05:00

The aforementioned black cloud has passed, thank God, and things are really looking up for me and my family. For those of you who stopped in to check on me or who prayed for me, I appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Things are going extremely well for me at work. I'm still loving my job and it's even better than I thought it would be. And I'm darned good at my job too, if I do say so myself... lol.

Can the Democratic primaries be any more fun to watch? There's just something beautiful about watching a couple of liberal Marxists tear each other's throats out on national television, isn't there? I love it!

John McCain... well, I guess someone has to run, right? I just can't believe he's our best hope in this election... Oh well, I suppose there's always 2012. Hopefully.

Spring is in full swing, which means lots and lots of mowing for me! I'll keep you posted on how that goes. I have 3 1/2 acres to take care of... and it grows fast!

Get out and enjoy some of this beautiful weather! God Bless

Okay, So It's Been A While...

2008-01-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay... I've had a lot happen to me lately and it's somewhat disrupted my computer access. I apologize for the non-existent posts and I promise to remedy the situation ASAP.

In the meantime, I could care less about the upcoming election. I know it's un-American of me but there just isn't anyone who gets me excited. I like all the Republican candidates as much as I despise all of the Democrat candidates but there's no one Republican standout... nobody that makes me jump up and down and want to run to the polls.

I've started a new job that I absolutely love! I do customer service for an online travel site (not the one with the gnome!) and even though I've only been on the phones for a little over a week, I'm really getting the hang of it quite nicely. Plus, I'm working with a couple of friends of mine from a previous job and I've met quite a lot of new friends at work. All in all, a pretty good deal.

Things are going well for me. There's just one little dark cloud hanging over my head that will probably go away pretty soon. I don't want to get into it on here but just pray for me if you would. Anyhow, that's about it for now. I'll try to keep you updated as often as possible!

Mexican Gun Control

2007-10-24T22:14:00.001-05:00

One of the very few newsletters that I get in my e-mail is the Stratfor Terrorism Intelligence Report. It's been a while since I've done a post based on one of their reports but I had to pass this one along. Here is the latest "Terrorism Report" from Stratfor.com:

Mexico: Dynamics of the Gun Trade
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

The number of drug-related killings in Mexico in 2007 already has surpassed 2,000, an increase of 300 over the same period last year, according to statistics reported by Mexican media outlets. Moreover, sources familiar with the issue say police officials in some jurisdictions have been purposely underreporting drug-related homicides, suggesting that the real body count is even higher.

In addition to the Mexican drug cartels that engage in torture and killings (at times involving beheadings), armed criminal gangs are notorious kidnappers -- prompting some to call Mexico the "kidnapping capital of the world." This has resulted in a boom for armored car manufacturers and security companies, given that most wealthy people living in the country own armored vehicles, and many employ executive protection teams to provide security for themselves, their families and their homes. Additionally, heavily armed criminal gangs regularly commit armed robberies, muggings and express kidnappings.

The one constant in these violent crimes is guns. Mexico's robust gun culture stretches back to revolutions, counterrevolutions and revolutionary bandits such as Pancho Villa. Because of this culture, guns are common in Mexico -- despite strict gun-control laws and licensing procedures. This demand for guns has created an illicit market that not only is intimately related to the U.S. market for illegal narcotics but also, in many ways, mirrors the dynamics of that market. Drugs flow north and guns flow south -- resulting in handsome profits for those willing to run the risks.
Mexican Laws

Similar to the U.S. Constitution, the 1917 Mexican Constitution guarantees Mexico's inhabitants the right to have "arms of any kind in their possession for their protection and legitimate defense." However, the constitution includes many caveats on private citizens' ownership of guns, prohibiting those "expressly forbidden by law" and those "the nation may reserve for the exclusive use of the army, navy or national guard." Furthermore, Mexican law calls for long prison terms for violators.

Mexico, then, has some of the world's strictest gun-control laws -- making guns difficult to obtain legally. Average citizens who want to purchase guns for self-defense or recreational purposes must first get approval from the government. Then, because there are no private-sector gun stores in the country, they must buy weapons through the Defense Department's Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). In accordance with Mexican law, the UCAM carefully limits the calibers of guns it sells. For example, it does not sell handguns larger than a .380 or .38 Special. Also, under Mexican law, popular handguns such as .357 magnum revolvers and 9 mm pistols are exclusively reserved for the armed forces.

Regardless of these efforts, the illicit arms market has been thriving for decades -- not only because firearm laws are not evenly enforced but also because criminals have found a way to circumvent efforts to stem the flow of guns. Moreover, not all illegal guns are in the hands of cartel members and street criminals. A healthy percentage of them are purchased by affluent Mexicans who are not satisfied with the selection of calibers available through the UCAM. Sources say it is not at all unusual to find Mexicans who own prohibited .357 magnum revolvers or .45 caliber pistols for self-defense against kidnappers and armed robbers. In addition to ballistic considerations, Latin machismo is also a factor -- some Mexican men want to own and carry powerful, large-caliber pistols.

The Mechanics of the Gun Trade

This mixture of the historical Mexican gun culture, machismo, strong desire for guns, lax enforcement of gun laws, official corruption and a raging cartel war has created a high demand for illegal guns. Guns sold on the black market in Mexico can fetch as much as 300 percent of their normal market value -- a profit margin similar to that of the cocaine trafficked by the cartels. The laws of economics dictate that where there is a strong demand -- and a considerable profit margin -- entrepreneurs will devise ways to meet that demand. Of course, the illicit markets are no different from the legitimate economy in this respect, and a number of players have emerged to help supply Mexico's appetite for illicit weaponry.

Millions of Mexicans reside (legally and otherwise) in the United States, and the two countries conduct a staggering amount of commerce (legal and otherwise) across the border. In this context, then, when one considers that there are more gun stores in a typical small town in Texas than there are in all of Mexico City, it should come as no surprise that a large number of the weapons found on the illicit arms market in Mexico originated in the United States. In fact, Mexican officials say that as much as 90 percent of the illegal weapons they seize are of U.S. origin.

The most obvious players in the gun trade are the cartels themselves, which not only have the financial resources to buy guns in the United States but also are in a position to receive guns in trade for narcotics from their distribution contacts north of the border. The traditional pattern for cartel operations over the past few decades has been to smuggle drugs north over the border and return with money and guns -- many times over the same routes and by the same conveyances. In addition to the problem of the notoriously corrupt Mexican customs officials, efforts to stem the flow of guns into Mexico also have been hampered by technological limitations. For example, until recently, Mexican authorities lacked X-ray equipment to inspect vehicles entering the country, and this inspection capacity still remains limited.

The cartels also obtain weapons from contacts along their supply networks in South and Central America, where substantial quantities of military ordnance have been shipped over decades to supply insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. Explosives from domestic Mexican sources also are widely available and are generally less expensive than guns.

Aside from the cartels, other criminal syndicates are dedicated to the arms trade. These groups can range from small mom-and-pop operations involving a few individuals who obtain weapons from family members residing in the United States or Central America to large organizations with complex networks that buy dozens or hundreds of weapons at a time.

As in other criminal enterprises in Mexico, such as drug smuggling or kidnapping, it is not unusual to find police officers and military personnel involved in the illegal arms trade. On Sept. 12, three high-ranking police commanders from Baja California and Baja California Sur states were arrested by U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents in Phoenix for illegally purchasing weapons at a gun show. (U.S. law prohibits foreigners from buying weapons.) Over the past few years, several Mexican government officials have been arrested on both sides of the border for participating in the arms trade. .

Although it is illegal for Mexican nationals to buy guns in the United States and for Americans to haul guns to Mexico, entrepreneurs have found a variety of ways to skirt such laws. Perhaps one of the least recognized ploys is plain old document fraud. Fake documents -- which are easily obtained along the border -- range in quality (and price) from poorly rendered counterfeits to genuine documents obtained with the assistance of corrupt government officials. Using such documents, a Mexican citizen can pose as a U.S. citizen and pass the required background checks to buy guns -- unless, that is, the prospective gun buyer was foolish enough to assume the identity of an American with a criminal record.

Perhaps the most common way to purchase guns is by using a "straw-man" buyer (sometimes in combination with document fraud). That is, paying a person with a clean record who has legal standing to buy the gun. This also is a tried-and-true tactic used by criminals in the United States who are ineligible to purchase guns due to prior convictions. The "straw man" in these cases often is a girlfriend or other associate who is paid to buy a gun for them. Also, with so many family relations spanning the border, it is easy for a Mexican citizen to ask an American relative to purchase a gun or guns on their behalf.

While document fraud and straw-man purchases can be used to bypass the law and fool respectable gun dealers, not all gun dealers are respectable. Some will falsify their sales records in order to sell guns to people they know are not legally permitted to have them -- especially if the guns are being sold at a premium price. ATF does conduct audits of gun dealers, but even after a steep decline in the number of federal firearms dealers over the past decade, there still are not enough inspectors to regularly audit the records of the more than 50,000 federal firearms license holders. This lack of oversight and the temptation of easy money cause some dealers to break the law knowingly.

Guns also can be obtained for the Mexican black market through theft. The cartels traditionally have tasked groups of young street thugs in the United States with stealing items (such as pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles) for the cartels to use or resell in Mexico. Now, intelligence reports suggest that these thugs have begun to rob gun stores in towns along the border. One such group is the Gulf cartel-related "Zetitas" (little Zetas), which is active in the Texas cities of Houston, Laredo and San Antonio, as well as other places.

A cartel connection is suspected when the weapons and ammunition stolen are popular with the cartels, such as assault rifles and FN Five-Seven pistols. The FN Five-Seven and the FN P-90 personal defense weapon shoot a 5.7 x 28 mm round that has been shown to penetrate body armor, as well as vehicle doors and windows. Because of this, they recently have become very popular with cartel enforcers, who have begun to call the weapons matapolicias -- police killers. Several police officials have been killed with these guns this year -- though officers also have been killed with .357 magnum revolvers, .45-caliber pistols and AK-47- or M-16-style assault rifles. Still, due to the rising popularity of the 5.7 x 28 mm weapons among cartel gunmen, many of these somewhat esoteric (and excellently manufactured) weapons are acquired in the United States and end up south of the border. Any time one of these weapons is connected to a crime on either side of the border, a cartel link should be considered.

FN Five-Seven

The gun problem in Mexico is similar to the drug problem in the United States in that it is extremely difficult to reduce the supply of the illicit items without first reducing the demand. Any small reduction in the supply leads to an increase in price, which further stimulates efforts to provide a supply. Therefore, as long as the demand for such weapons persists, people will continue to find creative ways to meet that demand and make a profit. With that demand being fed, at least in part, by drug cartels that are warring for control of drug trafficking routes into the United States, the two problems of drugs and guns will continue to be deeply intertwined.

**You mean all those gun control laws don't work?

Would the Ron Paul People Stop?

2007-10-19T13:16:00.000-05:00

Look, there's a lot that I like about Ron Paul but the guy is just... weird. Worse than that, he is a member of the "Bush Lied" crowd. I was reading about his positions on his website and he states that we are spread so thin that they are talking of reinstating the draft because there aren't enough troops to protect America. He talks about how we have troops in 130 different nations around the world. Where does Dr. Paul suppose our enemies are going to come from? They're going to have to make the trip across oceans and/or continents to get here. Wouldn't it be nice to have some forces to engage them before they make it here? There's a reason why there hasn't been a war fought on this soil in years.

Ron Paul is right about a lot of things. He is wrong on defense.

Gun Collecting On A Budget

2007-10-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

I love guns and for those that know me or have read more than one or two of my posts, this should come as no surprise. The problem I have is that with as much as I love guns, I don't have the budget to drop $1,500 or more on something nice and wonderful like a Kimber Pro Raptor II or a Colt Gold Cup 1911 (carried by the likes of Jimmyb!). What is one to do then?

Kimber Pro Raptor II

Colt Gold Cup

Well, fortunately, there are a variety of options out there for would-be gun collectors that find themselves either a bit short on cash or unable to justify spending $1,500 - $2,000 on a pistol to their wife. There are C&R (curio and relic) guns that sell for under $200 and look cool at the same time. Guns like the CZ-52, 7.62 Nagant revolver and the CZ-82 firing the venerable 9mm Makarov are all examples of C&R guns that sell for around $200 and under at J&G Sales! Ammunition can be a bit tricky to find for some of these guns unless you're willing to shoot military surplus but you can't beat the price. I'll post some photos...

CZ-52 (7.62x25/.30 Tokarev)

CZ-82 (9mm Makarov)

7.62 Nagant Revolver

Also, there are very affordable pistols out there if one knows where to look. My own personal collection recently grew to include a Sterling Arms .25 ACP that I acquired on the cheap. There are other firearms out there that are also very affordable like Bryco-Jennings models and the like. They aren't pretty, they aren't sleek, but they go bang.

Also, I encourage people to look into Hi-Point firearms. I have found them reliable and best of all, very affordable. They aren't pretty like the Kimbers and the Colts but again, they go bang and they are much more friendly to your wallet. It's easier to tell your wife you spent $200 on a pistol than $2,000 when you're living on a budget.

Hi-Point (I think these are both in .45 ACP, they also come in 9mm, .40 S&W and .380 ACP)

The point is that low-budget gun lovers should take heart. There are places to find affordable firearms if you look hard enough. Sure, they may not be of the same quality as a Kimber, Wilson Combat or a Colt but they go bang and remember, the first rule of a gunfight is to bring a gun. So buy yourself one or two of these affordable little guns (and maybe one for the wife too!) and practice with it. Remember, a gun you may only need once is a gun you should fire often.

Things That Just Don't Make Sense...

2007-10-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on the way home from work, I was listening to Sean Hannity and a caller said something that struck me as absolutely ridiculous. He was calling for a return of the "Fairness Doctrine" in order to counter the "Republican monopoly" on talk radio. He said the only way to protect our freedom of speech was to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. This set my little hampster wheel to spinning as I considered the ramifications of what he was saying. Boiled down to its essentials, his argument was that in order to preserve our freedom of speech, we must let the government decide who can say what and place limits on the thoughts that can be expressed and monitor who gets how much time on the air... as opposed to letting the station owners, program directors and the free market decide. In order to preserve our freedoms, we must surrender them to the government? This is exactly the type of liberal thought process that I constantly rail against.

Gun Control: If passing laws against killing people wasn't enough to stop them from doing it, what makes them think outlawing firearms is going to change anything? In England, they outlawed just about every firearm known to man and made it illegal to use the few remaining firearms in self-defense (and in the process, did away with the concept of self-defense entirely). As a consequence, home invasions have skyrocketed and innocent civilians find themselves being held hostage by intruders with lead pipes, knives and baseball bats. It is no surprise to me that when Australia started down that path, they saw similar results. The only people who feel safer when law-abiding citizens are disarmed are the thugs and predators that seek to prey upon them.

Socialized Medicine: So, we've looked around the world, saw all the wonders of other nations Socialized healthcare (long waits to see doctors, people packed into emergency rooms, seven month waits for MRI's, etc.) and we've decided that we want a piece of that action? Government can't do anything efficiently or compassionately and yet we want to place them in charge of an industry where efficiency and compassion are of extreme importance?

Anyhow, just some random thoughts for everyone (and a way to let you know I'm still alive). Until next time, take care!

I've Been Saying It For Years...

2007-08-29T13:46:00.000-05:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that U.S. political power in Iraq is "collapsing," and that there will soon be a power vacuum in that country. He said Iran is "prepared to fill the gap," along with its "friend" Saudi Arabia and other neighbors, and with the help of the Iraqi people. This goes to support what I've been saying about the true nature of the conflict in Iraq since the beginning of the "insurgency", that it isn't an Iraqi insurgency we are fighting, it is a war with Iran being fought on Iraqi soil. I've said this for about three years now and now that Ahmadinejad is confirming it, the MSM is acting like they didn't hear him say it at all. Go figure.

I've been discussing Iran for a long, long time now. I've posted pictures of their military installations, their nuclear facilities and discussed the best methods for dealing with Iran should they continue with their nuclear weapons program. Iran is the major source of instability in the Middle East and they are the main sponsors of terrorism around the world. Iran is conducting military operations against the United States (perpetrating acts of war against our country) and sending funding and weapons to terror groups in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere around the globe. Iran is actively seeking nuclear weapons to "drive Israel into the ocean" and "blast them from the map" and we've intercepted missile shipments to Iran from North Korea in the past. And people say we aren't at war with Iran? We have been for years, nobody knew it but them!

There's something else to this story though, a dark undercurrent that the MSM will never touch on and something overlooked by many bloggers and alternative news sources. None of Iran's goals or ambitions would be possible without another enemy of the United States (or potentially two enemies of our country). During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union never fought each other directly, they always waged their war by proxy. We would fight each other by supplying weapons and money to different third world nations around the globe and allowing them to obliterate each other. The winner was the superpower that controlled the most puppet regimes in the far corners of the earth. The losers were the people living in those countries who were faced with endless wars, genocide and constantly changing leadership as one faction would wrest control of power from the other, just to lose it later.

Since the "end" of the Cold War, Russia has remained the largest proliferator of nuclear weapons on the planet. It isn't just nuclear weapons, missiles and warheads they've been selling, they've been hawking the know-how, reactors, nuclear materials and components as well. If it wasn't for Russia, Iran wouldn't have the nuclear program that they've got already. When the Cold War ended, we were the only ones that stopped fighting, the Russians have continued cultivating influence with nations that hate the United States and they have contined supplying them with weapons, components and expertise. I've never been a fan of Vladimir Putin and I've always suspected him of continuing the policies of the Soviet Union and even of attempting to revive it.

China, North Korea and Iran are all examples of Russian proxies that are hostile to the United States and soon, all of them will be nuclear powers. Around the Middle East, two pieces of Russian military hardware have become the symbols of terrorism: the RPG and the Kalashnikov rifle. Russian tanks and MiG fighter jets are the standard pieces of military hardware for rogue nations around the planet. Russia has made tons of money by supplying military hardware and scientific materials and expertise to the highest bidder, regardless of their intent. The question is, is it all part of a plan or is it just the byproduct of their lack of scruples with regard to who they sell their equipment to?

In any event, we have a situation with Iran that we must deal with. We are at war with Iran, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, whether they'll admit it or not. Even France's president has said that they consider the nuclear ambitions of Iran to be among the most pressing crisis we face. Can you believe it? A French President with some backbone! If we must confront Iran, and Iran is the major player in Iraq, then shouldn't more people be joining us in Iraq? Wouldn't that send a major signal to the Iranians? Just something for consideration. Now we see where all of the harping and nagging and protesting and negative reporting on the war in Iraq leaves us... Just imagine if they had joined the good guys, called for MORE nations to support our effort in Iraq, called for MORE young people to enlist and called for MORE sanctions against terrorist nations like Iran from the very beginning!

From The Bath House To The Bathroom

2007-08-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Larry Craig (R-ID), a U.S. Senator, was arrested for attempting to have a gay encounter in a men's bathroom with an undercover cop. Senator Craig pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, paid a $500 fine and thought that was that until the story broke in the media. Now, he's backpeddling on his plea and saying that he is not gay and never has been and that he's never had sex with another man in a bathroom or anywhere else for that matter. Sure, I'll buy that.

I don't know why he's denying it now, he was obviously arrested for something and unless he was asking the undercover cop in the stall next to him for some toilet paper, I don't see any other reason for one man to have any kind of interaction with another man in the bathroom. I just can't fathom even speaking to another guy in the bathroom, let alone rubbing his foot with yours and sticking your hand under the stall. I just don't know how he'd be so well versed in all of this gay "code language" if he wasn't gay.

In the end, he's taking the totally wrong steps in dealing with this problem. He should just change parties (become a Democrat), divorce his wife, move to San Francisco and declare himself a "Gay-American" whose rights to having a consentual sexual encounter in a bathroom were violated by the Minneapolis Police Department. Instantly, the negative press would go away and overnight, he'd have more supporters than he would ever know what to do with. He'd be a hero overnight and would replace Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader.

What's more troubling to me than what Senator Craig did is the attempt by the gay community to turn the entire world into their own personal bath house. Public restrooms should not be places for a sexual encounter, gay or otherwise. Public places of any kind should not be used for this purpose yet we all know of places that you either don't go or you don't go by yourself because they have become a congregating place for homosexuals. The Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri used to be that way. Quite frankly, the silence in the media is deafening. If it was heterosexual men gathering in places and harrassing women, the uproar in the media would be unbelievable. These places would be shut down overnight and massive jail sentences would be handed out.

We have enough to worry about in this world without worrying about being accosted by some homosexual in the bathroom looking for a good time. Good for the Minneapolis Police Department and shame on Larry Craig.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

2007-08-27T12:52:00.000-05:00

Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick pleads guilty to charges stemming from his involvement in a dogfighting ring. Keith Olbermann, on Sunday Night Football last night, suggested that the best way to handle his situation is to give him as brief of a stay in prison as possible and let him get back to being a quarterback in the NFL. As usual, Keith Olbermann is an ass. First of all, the NFL should be tossing out their thugs and criminals (Adam "Pac-Man" Jones, etc.), not giving them the Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan treatment. These people are being paid millions of dollars to play a sport that millions of Americans play for free, it is not too much to expect them to behave like civilized people rather than ghetto thugs who struck it rich.

I'm tired of these celebrities expecting special treatment and receiving it simply for being famous. Especially when many of them are famous mostly for being famous to begin with. I say you revoke his contract, make him pay most of it back, ban him from football and let the courts determine how much time he spends in jail. For those who are concerned about what poor Michael Vick is going to do for a living when he gets out of jail, he went to college, didn't he? Perhaps making an example of him will cause the next generation of would-be thugs to take notice and not squander the opportunities they are given.

Alberto Gonzales steps down as Attorney General. It's a shame, he was crucified in the media for attempting to defend the people of this great nation from terrorists. How dare he!

Iraqi factions reach an agreement and President Bush hails agreement as progress toward power sharing. Damnit! Those Iraqis can't start agreeing with each other now, with defeat (victory to the Democrats and Al-Qaeda) so close at hand. More good news coming out of Iraq, talk about the Democrats having a really big problem, eh? Granted, it wasn't a perfect agreement and it doesn't mean that all the Iraqis are going to be sitting around campfires, holding hands and singing but it's a great start.

Over the weekend, President Bush's remarks about the lessons we should have learned from Vietnam and how to apply those lessons in Iraq were disected and analyzed all over the media. Some people said he opened up a can of worms, that he never should have compared the two, etc. Why not? People (Democrats) have been doing just that and hoping for the same outcome since the start of the war. They've been blissfully throwing the term around for years, harping about how the war is "unwinnable" and saying that we should get out as soon as possible. Now that we are turning the corner and we are seeing real progress coming out of Iraq, it's suddenly unfashionable to compare the two wars?

And what of the consequences of an early withdrawal? If you think our retreat from Vietnam was a disaster for the Vietnamese people, you haven't seen anything yet. An entire nation of relatively moderate, modern Arabs being plunged under the thumb of an Islamic theocracy, another safe haven for al Qaeda, ethnic cleansing and a convenient launchpad for attacks on other nations in the Middle East are just a few of the consequences if we leave Iraq now. Also, we'll be surrenduring more oil reserves to the Iranians and making them the chief power player in the region. Our credibility there and throughout the world will be shot.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts for the day. When I get a router and have the internet on my own computer (rather than relying on my mother-in-law's computer for internet access), I'll be publishing much more frequently. I'll also be able to stop over to other people's pages. Until then, take care!

Random Thoughts

2007-08-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

There are several topics I'm going to touch on today, just a collection of items from the news and different thoughts I've been having.

First on the list is the woman charged with beating her child in Wal-Mart. Apparently, this woman was placed on lifetime probation after killing her 3 year old daughter. She was punching her 10 year old son in a Wal-Mart until he was bloody, then she took him out to her car and continued beating him until police arrived. What the hell was this woman doing with custody of any child to begin with? She killed one of her kids and she was allowed to keep more?

9 Guatemalans charged in L.A. for Alleged Role in Prostitution Ring. Yes, the contributions of immigrants continue...

Mary Winkler free after serving 67 days for killing husband: If a man killed his wife and only served 67 days in jail, there'd be riots in the streets. Is this an example of the double-standard that exists in our legal system?

File this one under bizarre - South Carolina inmate files $63 Billion lawsuit against Michael Vick, claiming ties to Al-Qaeda. Look, I'm no fan of Michael Vick (it goes back to his Virginia Tech days) but I have a hard time taking these allegations seriously. $63 Billion for stealing two pit bulls and selling them on e-Bay? Allrighty then...

Vladimir Putin poses shirtless on fishing trip: This is just wrong... very, very wrong.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt..."

Speaking of Right Said Fred, I want to compare a couple of pics... tell me if there's a resemblance.

Right Said Fred...

Vladimir Putin...

Okay, enough of that. Time to get serious. U.S. to put Iranian Revolutionary Guard on list of Terrorist Organizations. Personally, I disagree with this move. Governments do not commit acts of terror, they commit acts of war. Placing Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations is a move to increase pressure on Iran and discourage other contries from trading with Iran, but if they are committing terrorist acts, particularily in Iraq against U.S. and coalition forces, these are acts of war and should be deemed as such. We must not seperate the acts of the Revolutionary Guard Corps from the government and that's exactly what this move seems to do. Bottom line, if Iranian forces are engaging U.S. and coalition forces, we are at war with Iran already. End of story.

Hugo Chavez wants to change law to allow indefinite elections: Imagine that, a Socialist dictator wants to be president for life! Who'd have thunk such a thing possible? Yet another example of why we must head off Socialism here at home or risk the same fate as these other Nations.

Anyhow, that's all for now. I'm working on a post (in my head) covering the Republican presidential candidates, their positions (when they go on the record with them) and who I like and who I don't. Until next time, keep fighting the good fight.

Solutions...

2007-08-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

These days, lots of people talk about the problems this country is facing but few people ever give a whole lot of details on exactly what they'd like to do about them. Those that do offer solutions are crucified in the media if those solutions are anything other than to throw money at them and make government even bigger. Well, I think the odds of me ever being crucified in the news media are pretty small so here are some of my suggestions on ways to fix various problems that are facing this country.

Immigration: This one is a no-brainer. Do exactly what the people want done. Put up a meaningful fence and deport the illegals that are already here. I don't want to hear anything about how much it would cost or how time consuming it would be to do it. According to the FBI and ICE, we lost a net $70 billion to illegal aliens in 1997. That's after their "contributions", after the taxes they paid, etc. That $70 billion would go a long ways towards building the fence and sending them home. And think, when's the last time anything actually got cheaper? That $70 billion from 1997 was probably $75 or $80 billion in 2006. The continued savings each year would definitely cover the upkeep on the border fence and the payroll for the border agents necessary to maintain our border. Speaking of the "contributions" from "undocumented migrant workers", here are some of their contributions (again, the source is the FBI and ICE):

CRIME
95 % of Warrants in LOS ANGELES are for ILLEGAL ALIENS
83 % of Warrants for MURDER in Phoenix Arizona are FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS
86 % of Warrants for MURDER in Albuquerque New Mexico are for ILLEGAL ALIENS
75 % of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque are ILLEGAL ALIENS
24.9 % OF ALL INMATES in California detention centers are Mexican Nationals here ILLEGALLY
40.1 % of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican Nationals here ILLEGALLY
29 % (630,000) Convicted ILLEGAL ALIENS felons fill our state and federal prisons at the cost of $1.5 Billion Annually
53 % Plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas
are perpertrated by ILLEGAL ALIENS
50 % Plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are ILLEGAL ALIENS
71 % Plus of all apprehended Cars stolden in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by ILLEGAL ALIENS or "Transport Coyotes "
47 % of cited / stopped Drivers in California have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle of that 47 %, over 92 % were ILLEGAL ALIENS
63 % of cited / stopped Drivers in Arizona have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle of that 63 %, over 97 % are ILLEGAL ALIENS
66 % of cited / stopped Drivers in New Mexico have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle Of that 66 %, over 98 % were ILLEGAL ALIENS

BIRTHS
380,000 Plus "ANCHOR BABIES" were born in the U.S. in 2005 to ILLEGAL ALIEN PARENTS, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S. Citizens 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid for by American taxpayers.
66 % OF all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid by taxpayers

HOUSING
300,000 plus illegal aliens in Los Angeles Country are living in garages
Nearly 60 % of all occupants of HUD properties in the United States are illegal aliens.
TV & RADIO STATIONS
14 out of 31 TV stations in L.C. are Spanish only16 out of 28 TV stations in Phoenix are Spanish only
15 out of 24 TV stations in Albuquerque are Spanish only 21 radio stations in Los Angeles are Spanish only
17 radio stations in Los Angeles are Spanish only 17 radio stations in Albuquerque are Spanish only

SCHOOLS
34% plus of Arizona students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens and 24% plus are non-English speaking
39% plus of California students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens and 42% plus are non-English speaking
In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak English - 3.9 million speak Spanish

SOCIAL SERVICES
43 % of all Food Stamps issued are to illegal aliens
41 % of all Unemployment Checks in the United States are to illegal aliens
58 % of all Welfare payments in the United States are issued to illegal aliens
Less than 2 % of illegal aliens are picking crops but 41 % are on welfare

POPULATION
Over 70% of the U.S. annual population growth (and over 90% of CA, FL, and NY) results from immigration

EMPLOYER PROFITS
The estimated profit to U.S. corporations and businesses employing illegal aliens in 2005 was more than 2.36 trillion

TAXES
62 % of all "undocumented immigrants" in the U.S. are working for cash and not paying taxes, predominantly illegal aliens are working without a green card
The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 (last known calculation by Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University) was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), $70 Billion per year. [What are the 2006 costs?]
The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average illegal alien is $55,000 cost to the American taxpayer in a 5-year span. You personally pay $11,000 every year to illegal aliens.

That should put to rest all of the debate about the "benefits" of illegals in this country. Let's take some of the money that we're shelling out to them, build the fence and send them home. As for the jobs that "nobody" wants to do... take away the welfare and watch how quickly those vacancies are filled. Stop paying people to not work and they'll go to work.

Oil Prices: This one is easy too. Open up the billions of barrels of oil in ANWR and elsewhere within this country, fast track legislation to allow the oil companies to build new refineries (like on abandoned US military bases, perhaps?) and pass a national gasoline standard. One standard, rather than the dozens or so that are out there, will simplify production and increase supply. I don't care if you mandate the highest grade of gasoline out there, if all the refineries only have to make two or three types of fuel, costs will come down. Granted, I'm not entirely sure the oil companies would support these steps, why mess with a good thing, right? Still, those are the steps I'd take.

What about the coming "oil shortage"? So what? Use the oil until it runs out, the free market is already working, voluntarily, on alternative fuels and sources of energy. When we run out of oil, we'll really have to get serious about them, won't we?

Terrorism: Contrary to what Barack Obama thinks, we can't just go around invading FRIENDLY countries in the search for terrorists. This isn't very smart, especially when one of your criticisms of the Bush administration is that he isolated us from our friends, right Mr. Obama? No, to deal with terrorism, you'd have to kill every single terrorist in the world. This would be an insanely time-consuming and expensive process, not to mention you'd have to start cremating the bodies because you wouldn't have time to bury them all unless you resorted to mass graves. The only answer for stopping terrorism is for the American people to remain vigilant, be prepared to take matters into their own hands to stop an attack and for us to stop as many terrorists as possible from entering the country.

This means blocking people from certain countries from entering the United States, it means screening (carefully) people entering our country from all other nations and monitoring them closely when they're here. There's no 100% sure way to stop all terrorist attacks from happening. It just isn't humanly possible. What we can do is to be as prepared for them as possible. The Israelis have this down to a science. As far as combating them abroad goes, we just have to keep on keeping on. Destroy their state sponsors and those that harbor them, destroy their training camps, eliminate their leadership and cease their weapons. That's about the only thing we can do.

Taxes: Honestly, I'm not certain whether to go with the flat tax or some variant of the VAT. Both have their merits, both have their problems. Before we decide on either of them, we need to eliminate the progressive income tax or risk being double-taxed. At this point, I'm leaning more towards a flat tax than a VAT for the sheer simplicity of it.

Anyhow, those are the big issues I'm tackling today. Let me know what you think!

Ain't Life Funny?

2007-08-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

I have some major catching up to do, both with my blogging and in reading everyone else's. My political blogging is just going to have to wait because I'd like to explain my extended absence from the blogosphere. It's not because I feel like I must explain myself, I think it's because I need to decompress, take a moment and process everything, before I can really get back to serious blogging.

We moved to Missouri in February seeking a better life for our family. My stepdaughter was enrolled in the middle school in Marshall, I found a job that I absolutely loved at the local radio station and my beautiful and ever-loving wife found a job working at the "hab center", a very large school and residential community for the mentally disabled, autistic, etc. Things were going great and I couldn't be happier.

Those of you who read my last post and checked out the pics will remember a girl named Haley. Haley was Jenny's best friend in Marshall and the girl hasn't exactly led an easy life. She's got two alcoholic parents, one who tries to do his best and one who could really care less. Guess which one she lives with... her mother, the woman who habitually passes out on every porch in the neighborhood. Her dad is a good guy but a restraining order bars him from speaking with Haley's mother and Haley uses that to her advantage. Whenever she wants to do something, she plays one side against the other and just sneaks off in between.

Haley has picked up some very bad habits and she hangs out with some people that I absolutely refuse to let Jenny be around. I won't even let Jenny wave to these dirtbags or even look in their general direction. Through Haley, Jenny met some "undocumented migrant workers" who lived around the corner from where we lived. Jenny took a liking to a few of them (apparently they're good looking and they thought Jenny was mighty fine as well) and went to great lengths to sneak over to their house. Without going into great detail, I'm just going to say that things happened, much fighting ensued, there was yelling and grounding and crying and everything. Still, none of this dampened Jenny's resolve to go visit them.

I can only tolerate so much and I can't keep an eye on her 24/7. I have to work and I have to sleep. My absence from the blogosphere can be summed up by explaining that I was constantly keeping tabs on her, what she was doing, where she was heading off to, who she was with, etc. My wife kept telling me I was being overly paranoid but I don't believe there is any such thing. When it comes to 15 year old girls, you can never, ever, be too careful. Especially with a bunch of oversexed "undocumented migrant workers" serving as a powerful distraction and a lure to her. After struggling with this for several months, I came to a decision that was extremely difficult and painful for me: we were moving back to Ohio.

True, Jenny had many more opportunities in Missouri (much better schools, she was the star of her softball team and the high school coach had his eye on her, etc.), and it's also true that I absolutely loved my job at KMMO. Selling advertising, writing the commercials, scheduling them, etc. was right up my alley. My boss and co-workers and I all got along wonderfully and I did a good job. People loved my commercials and I could sell people that nobody had been able to sell to in years. I'm not bragging, that's just the way it was.

But, there was a dark shadow hanging over everything. There was no way that Janna could continue working at the hab center for two reasons. First, they wanted her to work 20 hour shifts five or six days a week. There's no way anyone can keep up that kind of pace for very long so I made her resign. It's a good thing too, because she never could have continued working with Jenny running off the way she was. It was bad enough with Janna at home - Jenny would wait for Janna to get on the computer or take a nap or something and off she'd go. If Janna was working, there'd be no need to sneak around, she'd be over there all the time. There was no way we could live like that.

So, I'm back in Ohio now. I'm returning to my old job (they were excited to have me back) and searching for a place to live. We're staying with my mother-in-law until we find a place. Jenny has a lot more people around here to keep tabs on her and things are so spread out that taking off and walking somewhere is out of the question. Luckily, none of her friends are driving... yet. Her boyfriend gets his license in October. He's a good kid named Glendon, he's in the marching band in high school and him and Jenny have "dated" off and on since the first grade. I'm not naive enough to think that just because he's a good kid, I don't have to worry about becoming a grandpa at 28... but at least he's not an undocumented migrant worker.

Spring Fever

2007-04-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

I love this time of year. Today, it was sunny and around 85-90 degrees (my desktop weather thingamajig says 85 @ 4:15 but in the sun it was warmer than that today). My wife has volunteered to help keep me busy on days like this by assigning me to lawn & garden duty. A short time back I began the project of digging a garden for my wife - with a shovel. No tiller, no fancy mechanical doodads of any kind, just a shovel and strong back (and a lot of blisters on my hands). Today, that garden is finished and the seeds have been planted.

The garden is 12x12 (give or take) with an extra appendage for some watermelons and cantaloupes up at the top left hand side. You can kind of see it in this pic. I know it doesn't sound like a very big garden but when you do it all by hand, it's plenty big enough. We've got green beans, carrots, cabbage, corn, cucumbers and we're going to buy tomato plants either tomorrow or Tuesday. Not a bad garden for just a little backyard plot. Also, I have some little planters that we're going to use for strawberries and later on this year, I have a place picked out for a pumpkin patch. I've been busy.

Yesterday was pretty much the same as today (sans NASCAR) but cooler. We had my cousins Kimber, Ginger and Skyler and their friend Tyler, over for most of the day. Jenny (my stepdaughter for those of you who are fairly new) had her friend Haley over as well. All of the kids are between 15 and 12 (or somewhere around there). Adults? Just me and my wife. Yeah, it was crazy.

Skyler and Tyler helped us in the garden and Skyler also picked up some of the sticks and debris in the back yard and mowed a bit. For someone so young and in good shape, the kid has no stomach for work. I worked circles around him while he complained of being tired. He's a good kid, he's just as lazy as I was at his age.

Yesterday evening, Tyler and Kimber went rollerskating, Ginger had gone to a friend's house and Haley, Jenny and Skyler went to the carnival. Haley makes me nervous. She's seen and done way too much for a girl that's only 15. She's a sweetheart but she hasn't had the best role models and she needs a LOT of supervision and reinforcement. We've sort of adopted her, meaning she now gets the same lectures and treatment as Jenny (which I think she actually appreciates). (Here we go, GREEN, WHITE, CHECKERED at Talladega! Jimmy Johnson jumped out.... OH... Tony.... CRAP!) Stupid way to end a race. We should have another restart. If you didn't watch it, there was a wreck, Jeff Gordon wins by default.

Haley, Skyler and Jenny (doesn't he look thrilled?)

Haley and Janna (Mrs. Nightcrawler)

Haley and Jenny

Anyhow, working backwards, I now arrive at Friday night. Now, I don't drink very often at all. As a matter of fact, it's been several years since I've had more than one or two beers in a sitting. Monday night, me and my friend Chris (who is in the Air Force and is getting ready to be deployed over to Dubai) and our wives went over to my friend Ed's house. We played poker and drank a little and I worked my way up to a nice, gentle buzz. That was Monday, this is Friday now:

This is early in the night

My lovely wife enjoying a Coors Light

A bit later on in the evening... (I think I was singing)

Even later in the evening... (notice the laid-back posture)

And finally...

Me demonstrating how intoxicated I was... "A lil' bit!" The yellow liquid in the cup is Jose Cuervo Margarita mix. I worked my way through almost 2 gallons of the stuff that night.

Anyhow, that was my weekend, how was yours?

I Love Mail!

2007-04-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

I don't normally post e-mails that my friends send to me because I value my friends even when I don't agree with them. However, I thought that his response to my previous post about the Virginia Tech tragedy warranted a mention on this site. This e-mail is from one of my longtime friends (and a liberal) named David. I did a post about how much I enjoyed playing chess with him a while back, a challenge I miss now that I no longer work with him. Without further ado, here is the e-mail in its entirety:

"Mike: I went to your blog, certain that I would find a Virgina Tech rant and you did not disappoint. In fact, what I expected to be your response, was pretty much what was there. More people with guns would not mean less of this sort of thing, but more shootings. How many times more likely would an armed person resort to his or her weapon when drunk or pissed off at someone in an argument that would have never reached such violent levels without being strapped? I guess 30,000 gun deaths a year are not near enough for those who love their guns more then human life. A rifle can be used for hunting, but a handgun is used for killing. 15 round clips make mass killing easier for the nuts and used to be outlawed until Bush let the Assault Weapons Ban expire. Years ago, while living in Florida, I emerged from a Daytona Outlet Mall on Volusia Ave just seconds after a young man was shot; I heard two pops and found him laying in the parking lot - he had been hit in the neck. I tried to clamp down on the wound and stop the bleeding, but he was dead in about 2 minutes and I was covered in his blood, which even managed to soak my socks. It is something I will never forget, as I'm sure the survivors of Virgina Tech will not. I found your NRA talking points (Pat Buchanan was spouting them on MSNBC yesterday) to be tasteless and stupid; more people with guns would mean more shootings.

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people."

The tone of the e-mail was surprisingly smug and condescending, considering that Dave and I had always gotten along pretty well. I must say that I felt the name-calling was a bit out of line. Still, no hard feelings here. Let's commence with the retort, shall we?

1. I'm glad I didn't disappoint you, although I'd hardly call my VT post a "rant". My rants are much better than that.

2. I'm also glad that you found what you expected to find. I'd have hated for you to come here and be totally and utterly surprised by what you found. For example, if I'd had a major brain-fart and joined the chorus of gun-banners out there.

3. Your claim that more guns would mean more shootings is completely phony. The same argument has been made in each and every state that has considered allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed weapon. In each and every case, careful examinations of the track record of other states that allow concealed carry, as well as the crime rates within that same state after the passage of concealed carry laws, have shown that crime actually decreases when people are allowed to defend themselves. Imagine that, when you let people fight back, criminals leave them alone! Who'd have thunk it?

4. How many times less likely is someone going to be to draw a weapon in anger when he knows that any number of people around him can also draw THEIR weapons and put a hasty end to his hissy fit? I know you haven't spent a whole lot of time at the shooting range but us gun-toters aren't the hate-filled, blood-lusting death-dealers that you liberals take us for. As a matter of fact, some of the nicest people I've ever met are acquaintances I've met at the range.

5. I'd like to see a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths. If you would, sort them by the number of deaths that were suicides, police shootings, criminal shootings, accidents and self-defense shootings. Then, weed out the police shootings, suicides and self-defense shootings. Take the remaining number and break them down into pistol, rifle and shotgun deaths. Then, get back to me. In the meantime, look up how many deaths are caused by automobiles, how many people are raped, beaten or even killed by attackers who are unarmed or armed with weapons like a knife, baseball bat or some other close-range weapon. Imagine if the victims would have had a pistol with which to defend themselves. They wouldn't need to worry about whether or not their own raw strength and will to survive would be enough to fend off the attacker and save them. Think about crimes against the elderly, crimes like home invasions where anything at all could happen to them and the presence of a pistol or other firearm could be their only prayer for survival.

6. Believe it or not but the VT tragedy was not the first shooting on a college campus. August 1, 1966 was a horrible day for another college in the south - The University of Texas in Austin. Charles Whitman lugged a sawed-off shotgun, an M1 carbine, a Remington 700 with 4x Leupold scope (he was bat-shit crazy but he had good taste) and several handguns up to the clock tower and began picking people off... with his deer rifle. He didn't have a 15 round magazine in his rifle but he managed to kill 15 (actually 16 or 17 if you count the deaths associated with the shootings) people. There's something called reloading, a process in which a gun's magazine can be replenished (or replaced if the magazine is detachable) with fresh ammunition. And another note, if I'm in a fight for my life against an assailant who is determined to kill me and I have a choice between 10 rounds and 15, I'm taking the 15 every time. You always hope you never have to fire, or if you do, that you only need to fire once. However, life comes with no guarantees and having another 14 shots in case that first one misses is a great comfort. Furthermore, 15 round magazines were never illegal, it was just illegal to import or produce new ones made after the ban went into effect. They could still be found easily enough but the only place they've ever been illegal is California (and D.C. of course - the 2nd Amendment has virtually been revoked in our nation's capitol).

7. While I appreciate your story about the person getting shot, I don't find it particularily relevant to your point. You state that you heard two pops, obviously the shooter didn't need the other 13. And a shotgun wouldn't have left him in any better shape, nor would a .30-06 firing a ballistic silvertip. In any event, the story was sad but has little to do with real debate.

8. I don't take talking points from anyone. I dislike Pat Buchanan, I don't watch any MSM news except the local news and I've even stopped listening to or watching any opinion shows. This includes Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. So as to whether or not I take my cues from some talking head in the media, I most certainly do not.

9. It is true that people with guns kill people. So do people with hands, feet, cars, bats, knives, ropes, lamps, crowbars, ice picks, nail files, screwdrivers, hammers, bricks, rocks, locks in socks or any other object that happens to be laying nearby. The hope is that the other people with guns (the good guys) will kill the bad guy before he kills too many good guys. If the good guys have the means and the freedom to defend themselves and other good guys, they are more likely to do so.

10. So, simply put: I found your comments in regards to my post to be stupid, ignorant and completely lacking in logic and reason. No hard feelings, I had fun writing this post.

Virginia Tech...

2007-04-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, my heart goes out to the families of each and every one of the victims. No family deserves this kind of tragedy. But there are lessons to be learned from this, if only we are willing to learn.

1. Tell your loved ones every day how much you love and appreciate them. Even in the safest of places, tragedy can strike and the next time you see them could be the last.

2. The only real protection against predators is to take the responsibility for your safety and that of those around you into your own hands. Our law enforcement officers are the best in the world but there are only so many of them. There are over 300 million people in the United States now. Even if 10% of our population were in law enforcement, there would be over 270 million people for the 30 million to protect.

3. We need to take the safety and security of our families seriously because someone doesn't have to be a highly trained member of a terrorist organization to inflict massive casualties.

The anti-gun leftists are already crying that this should be a wake-up call telling us we need more gun control legislation. I'm pretty sure that it is illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia to kill people. I'm pretty sure that it is illegal to use a firearm to wound people or even to fire at them with the intent to frighten them. Someone who is willing to break these laws will not be bothered by new gun laws and regulations. "But if there were no guns, he wouldn't have been able to kill these kids!" Not in the way he did it. Perhaps he would have had to pursue another route, such as manufacturing explosives and placing bombs all around the school. Perhaps he would have been forced to make dozens of Molatov cocktails and burn his victims to death. If someone wants to kill people badly enough, you aren't going to pass any laws that will prevent it. Even in prison people are killed every day despite the best efforts of our corrections officers.

Rather than depriving innocent, law-abiding citizens of the right and ability to defend themselves, why not make it easier for people to do so? Instead of setting up large concentrations of defenseless prey, we should be teaching our children to protect themselves and we should be taking the steps to protect them from the wolves among us. What if there would have been several students who were discretely armed? What if just one or two students would have had a concealed weapon that they could have used to defend themselves and their classmates? What if there would have been a teacher or two on that floor of the building with the proper tools to end such a slaughter?

Perhaps things wouldn't have turned out differently but I doubt it. I think that if people have the tools to defend themselves and those around them and if they have been properly trained in the use of these tools should they be called upon to use them, they will use them to great effect. It is true, although unfortunate, that it is in our nature to kill. It is equally true that it is in our nature to defend our lives and the lives of our fellow men and women if we are able. If we are not defenseless, if we are not deprived of the tools necessary to protect ourselves, we will do so.

These are the lessons we can learn from the Virginia Tech shootings. Let's hope we pay attention.

While I've Been Gone

2007-04-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened since I blogged last. Let's run through some of these events together:

My wife has become a shooter! Last weekend my family went over to my uncle's house where he has his own personal shooting range. On a whim, I asked my wife if she'd like to come along and surprisingly, she said yes! Even better, when we got there, I actually convinced her to shoot my Marlin Model 60 (a .22 semi-automatic rifle, for those of you who don't shoot) because I knew it wouldn't scare her. She did pretty well with that.

My stepdad brought his EAA Witness 10mm pistol, .44 Ruger Blackhawk (single action revolver), .357 Smith & Wesson (a really sweet pistol with rubber grips!), a Chinese SKS (semi-automatic rifle complete with stripper clips) and tons of ammo. My uncle and cousin brought out their .30-.30 (Winchester Model 94 lever action with scope) and 12 ga. single shot shotgun. My other cousin Spencer brought his Springfield XD in .40 S&W. In addition to my Model 60, I also brought out my CVA Bobcat .50 caplock muzzleloader. With that many guns and that many people, a good time was bound to happen (and it did!).

Yours truly with the .30-.30 (it was very cold that day)

My wife with the .30-30. In the background, you can see my sister-in-law and my stepdad. She was working up the nerve to fire the .44. Behind my wife is my 15 year old cousin, Skyler. It was his .30-.30 we were shooting.

As it turns out, My wife was a regular Annie Oakley. She got a major kick out of blowing up a couple of two liter bottles (they were filled with water and frozen so they'd blow up real nice when shot). I was surprised at how well she shot for a first-timer and I was ecstatic that she had such a good time. My wife's favorite gun was the .30-.30 but she had a good time with my brother's SKS as well. Me, I just liked them all. I love guns, even ugly guns and guns that aren't particularily well-made. As long as they are safe to fire, I'll shoot them and I'll enjoy it. Obviously some guns are less suited to certain tasks than others but as long as you know what guns are good for what purposes and you don't try to make them do things they aren't meant to do, there's no reason not to enjoy them all.

Don Imus got fired. I support CBS's decision to let him go. As a business, they are responsible for deciding who and what they are going to support. They are accountable to their shareholders and anything that could affect the bottom line must be paid close attention to. A talk show host calling the Rutger's Women's basketball team "nappy headed hoes" is certainly something for CBS's shareholders to pay attention to. I'm not worried about any First Amendment issues in this case because the government isn't involved in any aspect of it. The private sector has handled it all on their own and the system is working just fine. Via con dios Mr. Imus, I'm sure you'll be just fine. I doubt you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.

Alberto Gonzales is still defending the firing of those US Attorneys. What a bunch of bullshit this mess has turned out to be. Nancy Pelosi is in the midst of her "Rock The Jihad" tour, first Syria and now talk of her going to Iran? Is she going to be doing body shots with Osama bin Laden next? Oh well, more power to her. If she's happy kissing the asses of those who want to kill all the children she likes to talk about, I hope she has fun. Maybe Bush is sending her in secret to facilitate communications? I don't know but it's fun to speculate.

Anyhow, that's most of what's been happening and what's caught my attention. Leave a note!

Are We Losing The Will To Survive?

2007-03-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

A recent Wall Street Journal poll shows that 47% of Americans polled stated that they would not want America to take any action against Iran, even if they obtained nuclear weapons. Do these same 47% think that Iran is seeking nukes just to look at them? Do they not realize that Iran has plans for them, plans that involve the deaths of millions of people?

My thoughts on Iran can be summed up in a video:

Now, simply replace Kim Jong Il with his Iranian counterpart and you have it!

Speaking of members of the Film Actor's Guild (FAGs), Sean Penn has gone on another tirade. Thanks for your patriotism you moron. Is it any wonder that his most memorable and believable role was in "I Am Sam"? Stick with what you know retard!

A House Divided

2007-03-24T23:58:00.000-05:00

Poll after poll shows that Americans feel that their country is becoming more and more divided along political and ideological boundaries and I have to agree with their assessment. We are indeed becoming more and more divided but I fear the division may be more political than ideological for many Americans. Some level of division has always existed in this country (as well it should in any free society) and it has served us well throughout history. Rifts among the populace are not always negative because it indicates that people are paying attention to what is happening and even more important, they care about what is going on.

When our country was still a collection of British colonies, we were divided on the issue of our independence. Many people wanted to remain British subjects, many others wanted to become free and independent citizens of a new nation.

When the issues of State's Rights and Slavery were being debated on the national stage, we were again severely divided. This was the only point in our history where Americans openly took up arms against other Americans (unlike the bloody history of other countries). We managed to survive the War Between The States and we emerged from the test of wills a stronger (if less free) nation.

Before both World War I and World War II, we were divided about whether or not to get involved. Many Americans wanted to refrain from the battle while many others felt that we had an obligation to assist our allies across the pond.

In each of these instances, this division occurred because of a massive, passionate national debate over major issues. The real question today is not whether or not we are more divided as a nation than at any point since perhaps the days of the Civil Rights movement, nor should the question be whether or not this is a bad thing. The real question is "What is the issue?" This is the question that the Democrats don't want people thinking about.

The question facing our nation today is whether we are going to continue being a free, capitalist democracy or take a detour and proceed towards a Canadian or European-style Socialism. The Democrats don't want the debate being made public because they know that most well-educated, well-informed Americans will not choose Socialism. In order to keep their efforts hidden, they have used discreet tactics that do not involve the direct advice and consent of the public. They use the courts to force Socialism on us, they use the classroom to indoctrinate our children with the theology of secular humanism and they use our colleges and universities to ensure that our best and brightest (those that don't go into the military and a few that do) don't stray far from the path. When they are forced to resort to the ballot-box to pass their agenda, they hide behind lies and play on the emotions of the people by making their Socialist agenda "for the children".

When you hear people on the radio and television lamenting the divisions within our country, they are usually Democrats looking to silence the outrage of informed conservatives or weak-kneed populists pansies like Bill O'Reilly who just want everyone to love him. These yellow-bellied pansies are only helping the Socialists when they urge people to calm down. We don't need calm, rational debate, we need fiery passionate debates that set the blood of the American people on fire! If we try to remain calm and gently remind people that Socialism is evil and it will never work, we are going to lose. People don't turn to Socialism because it is logical, they turn to it because it makes them feel better about themselves. They do it "for the children", for the women, the minorities and for everyone else because they believe it is the right thing because it feels better than doing nothing.

The MSM isn't going to help us either. They're comprised exclusively of Socialists who want nothing more than for their agenda to become the mainstream. You can see it in their reporting, you can hear it in their broadcasts and you can see it on the faces of bastards like Keith Olberman and Jack Cafferty. The smug arrogance drips from their voices as they spew their liberal bias and bash conservatives and Republicans from behind their "news" desks. The New York Times publishes slanted story after slanted story, filthy lie after filthy lie and when they are called on it, they attack the character of anyone who would dare to question them.

Perhaps we have not yet reached the time for a militant response to the advance of Socialism but we can no longer afford to remain the silent majority. Rioting in the streets may not be the answer but rolling over and maintaining a stoic silence while our liberties are being stripped away will accomplish nothing. Simply having a numerical advantage or being secure in the knowledge that the facts support our beliefs are not enough. Numbers are irrelevant to the courts because many judges are appointed, not elected and the people don't get to vote on the verdicts that they pass. Even worse, the MSM either refuses to report on the vast majority of the decisions rendered, reports them only briefly and from a slanted viewpoint or slanders anyone who dares to criticize Socialist activist judges and their rulings.

These days, the term "class warfare" is almost passe. We've heard the term for so long that people have been desensitized to it and no longer give it any thought. Class warfare is at the heart of The Communist Manifesto and is the backbone of Socialism. Class warfare is behind the redistribution of wealth, it is behind the "gay rights" movement (which has nothing to do with rights at all but is rather about forcing mainstream acceptance of an alternative lifestyle) and it is behind virtually every issue confronting us today. The definition of the classes may change according to the issue but the gameplan is the same. Play one side against the other to weaken them both and in the process, destroy the social fabric that is in existence so that you can remake it in the image you want.

This process is too far along for us to stop it through civility and rational discourse. Politicians have figured out that if they adopt Socialist positions on the issues, they receive favorable treatment by the press. This helps them get re-elected and as a very wise blogger has pointed out, the chief job of a politician is to get re-elected. Thus, Socialism has infiltrated both the Republicans and Democrats with varying degrees of success. Socialists have infiltrated our religions and corrupted them to the point that many religions actually accept actions and lifestyles that are expressly forbidden in their religious documents and in the tenets of their faith. Socialists have infiltrated our schools, colleges and universities and turned them from places of education, where independent thinking is encouraged, to secular humanist seminaries where debate is silenced and anyone with conflicting thoughts or opinions is punished. Even worse, it has been going on for so long that many Americans have forgotten what our social norms and traditional values truly are.

It is true that a house divided cannot stand, but unity for the sake of unity is dangerous. It does no good to try to keep the house together when you ignore the raging fire burning within it. We must, as a country, decide what path we are to take. We must answer the question for ourselves before we begin worrying about any divisiveness that we are experiencing. Put out the fire before you begin fixing the roof.

Barack The Magic Negro

2007-03-22T09:04:00.000-05:00

Directions: Click Play then read post

Stolen from Youtube, music by Paul Shanklin.

Meet Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ. Rev. Wright is not only the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ but he is also the spiritual counsel to Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and someone named Common.

Rev. Wright is a follower and teacher of what is known as "liberation theology". On the surface, liberation theology sounds nice. I mean, who can argue against liberation? One of the founders of "liberation theology" was a man named Jim Cone. In his biography (linked above) from the University of Chicago, Dr. Cone is quoted as saying, "The turn to blackness was an even deeper conversion-experience than the turn to Jesus. Blackness opened my eyes to see African-American history and culture as one of the most insightful sources for knowing about God."

Come again? Blackness opened his eyes to see African-American history and culture as one of the most insightful sources for knowing about God? What about the Bible? What about the teachings of the man whom Dr. Cone (as a Christian) believed to be the son of God? No, it was "Blackness and African-American history and culture" that taught him about God. But wait, it gets better.

Dr. Cone condemned the post-Civil War black church for not embracing the ideology of Black Power and for not "accepting Black Power as a sociopolitical expression of the truth of the gospel". Which gospel would that have been found in? Matthew, Mark, Luke or maybe John? I can't seem to find Black Power mentioned in the Bible anywhere. Reading further, Dr. Cone exposes his Marxist, Socialist nature:

(from the biography) Dr. James Cone continues to envision the actuality of equality among people, challenging white and black churches alike to recognize U.S. capitalism's oppressive character through- out the world. In a timely question first written in 1977, but as effectively appropriate today, Cone asked, "What does black theology have to say about the fact that two-thirds of humanity is poor and that this poverty arises from the exploitation of poor nations by rich nations?" Influenced by a broad range of social critics and womanist theologians, Dr. Cone has expanded his race critique by asking pressing questions regarding the relationship of racism with not only classicism, but with sexism and ecological destruction as well.

So, not only does Dr. Cone embrace the ideology of black supremacy, but also the Socialist platforms of feminism, environmentalism and the exploitation of the poor by the rich. This rhetoric sounds like it was ctrl+c, ctrl+v'd directly from the Communist Party web site! Not surprising, since the Black Panther (and most other Black Power movements) were notoriously Communist or Socialist.

So now we know who Jim Cone is.

Another of the men that Rev. Wright likes to cite is Dwight Hopkins. I'm not going to go into depth on Dwight Hopkins like I did on Dr. Cone because it's all pretty much the same. Do you know what's missing? We don't have any anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish statements yet. Wait a minute, (from The American Thinker) one of the founders of the movement, Gustavo Gutierrez, has stated that the infidelities of the Jewish people made the Old Covenant [between the Jews and God] invalid." Pastor Wright is also a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi, an archenemy of Israel's and America and a firm supporter of terror groups. So, Pastor Wright supports a man who was visited by aliens on a mountain-top and hung out Gadaffi? Curiouser and Curiouser.

Pastor Wright's own words aren't very comforting either. "The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism." Right on! Like all those Jews blowing themselves up in Palestinian cafes and universities!

For more on Rev. Wright, read this glowing portrait of him from the Chicago Tribune. Pay special attention to the section that talks (admiringly) about him "...questioning the common sense of Scripture, objecting to mandatory prayer in schools..."

And this is the man that Barack Obama says "helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated." (Quote from the Chicago Tribune)

Picture courtesy of AcePilots.com.

Inside The Mind Of A Liberal

2007-03-21T10:19:00.000-05:00

Today, we're going to do a little experiment. We're going inside the mind of the enemy, we're going to see what makes a liberal tick. A better understanding of our enemy can give us a better grasp of how to deal with them more effectively.

The first thing to understand about liberals is that not all liberals are the same. Some of them have different motives than others. Generally speaking, you have two different types of liberal, the control type (motivated by power and the desire for control) and the submissive type (motivated out of the fear of uncertainty and the desire for safety). Sometimes the two will appear to be similar but they have different motivations for reaching the same conclusion.

The Control Type: This type of liberal sees the world around him as a disorganized, chaotic mess and he knows EXACTLY how to make it all better. He can fix everything, right down to the smallest little problem. He's always the smartest person in the room and anyone who disagrees with his ideas is merely doing so because they are beneath him. Their ideas matter very little to him (because he is superior to them, after all) so they are summarily dismissed without a second thought. Any so-called facts they try to present to him are insignificant because he knows he is right.

The Submissive Type: This type of liberal also sees the world as a disorganized, chaotic mess but doesn't necessarily know how to fix everything. Rather than take charge of the process, this type of liberal prefers to hand over complete power and control to the government (and to the control-type liberals) so that they can take of these things for them. The submissive liberal is impressed by the control-type liberal. He likes that none of the details are left out, that everything is accounted for. The fewer unknowns there are, the better it is for the submissive liberals because unknowns are frightening. The submissive-type liberal is encouraged and empowered by the control-type liberal's "compassion" and "attention to detail". After listening to the control-type liberals speak, the submissive liberal becomes a true believer and will go around professing the wisdom and virtue of their ideological gurus.

The Two Types Of Liberals And Their Views On Freedom

The Control-Type: The control-type liberal hates freedom because people don't make the decisions that he thinks they should make. He knows what is best for them and it irritates him that they are too ignorant to make the "correct" decision. The control-type liberal responds to this ignorance in two different ways. The first way is to simply remove the ability for the ignorant public to make "poor" decisions. He seeks to strip away all of the choices that he doesn't want them to have in order to leave them with a list of approved "choices" for them to make. By controlling the options that the public has, he can shape society to fit his vision. The second method of control that he has is to "educate" the people as to the choices that they ought to make. Older people are more difficult to "educate" because they already have developed their preferences and patterns of behavior so the education route is usually used on the young. He catches them early, indoctrinates them with his worldview and his perspective and trains them to believe that any viewpoints or opinions that conflict with this worldview are wrong and corrupt.

The Submissive Liberal: The submissive liberal hates freedom because of the unknown quantities involved. Who is going to look after those who would "fall through the cracks"? Who would take care of the poor and disadvantaged? Submissive liberals hate not knowing exactly who is going to be in charge of these tasks and therefore, they derive a great deal of comfort from the control-type liberals who are more than happy to step up and take control. They refuse to trust the private sector to handle these challenges because there is no guarantee that they will be taken care of. The government is the only agency that they entrust with these tasks because the government has the ability to acquire the resources necessary for the job and expects very little from the recipients of the programs. Whether or not these programs work is irrelevant to them, the fact that they exist is comforting enough to make it worth any cost. Even if they have to spend billions of dollars to help one or two families who genuinely need the assistance and actually benefit from them, they are willing to tolerate the millions of people who may receive benefits when they do not really need them. It is worth it to them for the peace of mind that they derive from knowing the programs are there.

The Two Types Of Liberals On Taxation

The Control-Type Liberal: The control-type liberal loves taxes because the tax code is designed to enable them to shape society by directing public funds to the "right" people. The redistribution of wealth is a vital component of liberalism because without that ability they cannot control the people. Typically, they seek to go after those people or groups they perceive as having too much money. These people are the wealthy individuals and the "evil" corporations (such as big oil and big tobacco) that have the nerve to amass large fortunes when there are so many people that have so little. Taxes are collected by the government and there are severe consequences for failing to pay these taxes. This enforceability is what the control-type liberal desires because it does not give the person the option avoid paying them.

The Submissive-Type Liberal: The submissive-type liberal loves taxes for a very similar reason. They are comforted that the control-type liberal has the power to go after these rich people and corporations and seize their assets in order to provide for these social welfare programs. Poor submissive liberals don't pay taxes but view the tax revenue collected from the rich as a way for them to get their "fare share". Wealthier submissive-type liberals gladly pony up their tax money in order to alleviate their guilt over their success. They hate the fact that they are doing so well when others are not and so paying these taxes is their good deed to society. They can say they are doing something to end poverty because they are forking over large amounts of their income to the government in order to combat it.

The Two Types Of Liberals And The Past Failures Of Socialism

The Control-Type Liberal: The control-type liberal is undaunted by the past failures of Socialism because they are not viewed as failures of the ideology but rather, failures of the individuals that were in charge. Remember, he is much smarter than any of those other people who have failed before and he would do things totally differently. Things just weren't managed properly or they just weren't smart enough or there just wasn't enough money spent to make the things happen that needed to happen. He would be different, he can do better.

The Submissive-Type Liberal: The submissive liberal is not concerned with the failure or success of the ideology but rather the existence of the programs. Sure, they'd like the programs to succeed but that isn't there first priority. Eliminating the failing programs is definitely not an option that is on the table. They'd rather keep the failing programs around and elect new control-type liberals to try to fix them than get rid of them altogether. Remember, liberalism is not a results-oriented philosophy, it is all about the appearances of doing something in order to eliminate guilt. The projects are what matter, not the results and the consequences.

There is much more that I could say but I think I've given you enough insight to be able to comprehend the nature of the liberal animal. Scary, isn't it?

Enough Already

2007-03-19T11:06:00.000-05:00

This is another Dan Trabue inspired post (thanks Dan!). Whilst perusing his blog, I read where he was reading a book about the economics of "enough". The basic premise of this philosophy is that only a certain amount of money buys happiness and everything else just buys misery. I believe the cap they put on the amount of money that buys happiness is around $10,000 per year. After more reading, I began to see how this philosophy was being extrapolated to justify Socialism.

Me being the anti-Socialist that I am, I decided that I cannot leave this alone. I can understand the thinking and the emotion behind these thoughts but I can also see the dark side. In "Enough", everything over what people need would be redistributed to the poor and downtrodden. Certainly nobody can argue against helping out the less fortunate, right? Well, nobody except an evil conservative like me, that is.

These types of philosophies are a dime a dozen. Some argue that Socialism didn't begin with Karl Marx but rather began in Britain well before Marxism. I would tend to argue that Socialist ideals have been around for as long as people have either had designs on other people's money or felt guilt over their own success. Certainly, one can find hints of Socialist policies even in the Bible. The difference being that in the Bible, the resources weren't handed over to the government but were instead transferred directly from one group of people to another.

The fatal flaw with most Socialist philosophies is the same flaw found in Communist philosophies because the two are shades of one another. Despite the claims of Socialists to the contrary, Socialism is simply a more user-friendly communism. The fatal flaw is that both philosophies fail to take into account basic human nature. They don't consider that people aren't satisfied with doing work for the benefit of others or solely for the benefit of the state. They don't consider the fact that people are inherently greedy animals that only work to improve their lives and the lives of their immediate families. If society benefits from the fruit of their labor, that's just peachy but if we don't immediately benefit from our work, we either won't work or won't be very productive. Even worse, both philosophies assume that this perceived greed is evil and immoral and must be eliminated.

Poverty isn't simply a condition that is forced onto most people. Poverty, in most cases, stems from some sort of character flaw or detrimental behavior on the part of the poor person. Whether that person lives in Africa (where the character flaw is more societal than individual) or in America (where the individual character flaws have become almost societal) or anywhere else, you can almost always point to at least one or more things that serve to keep the person poor. It may be poor money management, it may be an addiction or it may be that the person dropped out of school in the sixth grade to go to work. Some of the factors may not even be in the person's control, as in the case of mental disorders and physical disabilities, however these are most likely in the minority of cases.

For the majority of the "poverty-stricken", redistributing the wealth of productive members of society to them is only treating the symptoms, not the disease. Take, for example, the lottery winners who are broke again in a matter of but a couple of years. These people have had massive sums of money redirected to them yet they managed to squander it all and return to the poverty from whence they came. You can also see it in people who have good paying jobs but never seem to have anything to show for them. People who receive a large inheritance and blow it all. Everywhere you look there are examples of how the simple redistribution of wealth is not the answer.

I am certainly not going to argue that people shouldn't do what they can to help the poor and if you feel the conviction to give your "excess" wealth to the poor, by all means do it. My argument is that these things need to be an individual decision and not government policy and certainly not the basis for any macro-economic policy. Perhaps it makes me a bad Christian to say this but it is irresponsible to refuse to plan for the future when God has given you the means to do so. I certainly understand the wedge that money can drive between man and God but I also have seen the good that godly people can do with the money that God has given them without leaving them and their families unprepared for the future.

Should Christians depend on God for their sustenance? Certainly. But when part of the answer to that prayer comes in the form of a good job that leaves you and your family financially secure, don't simply throw it all away so that you'll have to keep going back to God. When he answers your prayer, sometimes you have to accept the answer, even if it's good for you.

Israel Affirms Hard Line On Palestinians

2007-03-19T00:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know he's not... But for just a split second, I thought he was flipping the bird to the Palestinians.

Threat Analysis - Iran (Part 2 - Checkmate)

2007-03-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

In part one of this series, I dealt with some of the locations and functions of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. I firmly believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear energy for destructive purposes and I do not believe we can afford to give them the benefit of the doubt in this instance. After all, the costs of being proven right are too extreme to even consider it. Still, even without a nuclear weapon, Iran still has the capability to inflict severe damage on the United States and our allies. They have acquired this capability through masterful planning and the cooperation of our enemies both foreign and domestic.

Iran has long been a major player in the Middle East. Through their funding of various terror groups and organizations (such as Hezbollah), Iran has managed to gain a controlling interest in Syria and the Palestinian Territory. During the brief war between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Syrian-made and Iranian-made rockets were fired repeatedly into Israel. Syria maintained control over Lebanon until recently, when they were practically forced to remove their military units by popular Lebanese sentiment. Unfortunately, Syria maintains a large amount of covert units and Hezbollah fighters (taking their orders from the leadership in Iran) ensure that Lebanon isn't completely out of the grasp of islamic radicals.

The Hezbollah Flag

Until fairly recently, Iraq stood between Iran and their puppets in Syria and Lebanon. The presence of the Sunni controlled government, headed by Saddam Hussein, proved a constant threat to the Iranians. Fortunately for the Iranians, we eliminated this threat when we invaded Iraq. This proved to be an amazing opportunity for the Iranians because now they have a chance to spread their influence from their border with Afghanistan in the East to the Mediterranean Sea. If they are successful, they will control over half of the world's known oil reserves. The constant howling of the Democrats that we should "pull out of Iraq now" is undoubtedly encouraging to them, as any pullout would leave Iraq primed and ready for Iran to swoop in and set up shop. Once Iran had established such an empire, it wouldn't be long before they would set their sights on Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia itself. Such an invasion would undoubtedly bring about a response from the West... Unless Iran possessed nuclear weapons and an effective delivery system.

I believe that the push for nuclear weapons isn't solely about the destruction of Israel, it's also a search for a nuclear umbrella to protect them from any retaliatory strikes should they seek to expand their territory. Iran knows that the weak-kneed Europeans would never take any action against an enemy who possessed nuclear weapons out of fear that they would use these weapons. They are also betting on the United States being too war-weary from Iraq and isolated from the cowardly Europeans to do anything about their expansionism. There could be an even darker side to the whole story however...

Iran has been doing everything in their power to cozy up to Hugo Chavez (whom we just happen to get approximately 1/4 of our oil from) and every other Latin American crackpot dictator that hates America. Iran is strenghtening their ties to Cuba (anybody remember the Cuban Missile Crisis???) as well. How much time before Iran expands their influence to most of South America and possibly even Mexico? They are like master chess players, positioning their pawns perfectly to take advantage of their enemy's weaknesses. When they complete their nuclear weapon and have the nuclear umbrella they are seeking, they will make their move to consolidate the new Persian empire. Once this is underway, they will join with their allies in South and Central America to cut off oil exports to the United States and our allies. This will practically destroy our economies and suffocate our ability to wage war. Without the oil to produce fuel for our military and lacking the domestic production capability to meet the need (thanks to the environmentalists), we will be sent into a tailspin.

The resulting recession and possible depression will deprive us of the capital necessary to start up new oil refineries and drill for domestic sources of oil. Red tape and bureacracy will intimidate and delay any corporation or company that might think of such an undertaking. In the meantime, Iran will be making their move around the globe. Afghanistan could fall to them, as well as Turkey, Egypt and all the Icky-stanks. They could make major moves into Africa, where there is no real power structure to oppose them. Without serious opposition from the West, Iran could find themselves in possession of the largest empire in history.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and millions of other Shia muslims believe that the Twelfth Imam will only return when the world sees that everything and everyone else has failed but Allah. In order for this realization to take place, there must be a great muslim leader (Ahmadinejad) to show the world the way. Any effort to oppose Ahmadinejad in his efforts will be viewed as the fulfillment of prophecy and will only convince the Shias of the need to follow their convictions. A Shia Hadith has Muhammad saying, "During the last times, my people will be afflicted with terrible and unprecedented calamities and misfortunes from their rulers, so much so that this vast earth will appear small to them. Persecution and injustice will engulf the earth. The believers will find no shelter to seek refuge from these tortures and injustices. At such a time, God will raise from my progeny a man who will establish peace and justice on this earth in the same way as it had been filled with injustice and distress." Ahmadinejad wants to be the progeny mentioned in this Hadith.

So, either way it goes, Ahmadinejad will view it as a win. If the West does not oppose him, he will see it as the fulfillment of prophecy (converting the world to Islam). If the West does oppose him, he will see it as the fulfillment of prophecy (the oppression and calamities, etc.) and view it as his duty to press forward. In any event, the destruction of Israel is almost assured if they are allowed to continue. In chess parlance, this would be called a "checkmate".

Threat Analysis - Iran (Part 1 - The Nuclear Threat)

2007-03-17T17:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, this turned out to be much longer than I had envisioned it so I'm going to break it up into segments.

Here is a Google Earth view of the Middle East. You'll notice that it doesn't seem like a very big place because... well... it isn't all that big. Things are very compact and close together. Our main subject, Iran, is situated on the right of the picture. Iran wants to eradicate Israel (situated in the top left corner of the picture).

In this picture, I've added a pin noting the location of the Bushehr Nuclear Facility. This facility is eight years behind schedule and also the subject of a recent news story:

Delayed Nuke Plant Bolsters Iran Resolve

Saturday, March 17, 2007 2:24 PM EDT

The Associated Press

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

BUSHEHR, Iran (AP) — For Iranians across the political spectrum, delays in construction of Iran's first nuclear reactor have become proof that they have to master their own nuclear technology and resist U.N. efforts to stop them. The reactor, already eight years behind schedule, is now snagged on what Iran calls a politically motivated business dispute with longtime ally Russia.

Frustrated Iranian officials says the dispute has made them even more determined to pursue every part of the cycle that can produce either reactor fuel or fissile material for a warhead. Iran also says it wants even more than before to be able to build its own nuclear reactors without outside help.

"The pattern of Russia's behavior has strengthened Iran's determination to obtain the full technology to build nuclear power plants and end its dependence," conservative lawmaker Kazem Jalali told the Associated Press on Saturday.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of intending to develop nuclear weapons. The top five powers at the U.N., plus Germany, have drawn up new sanctions to punish Iran for rejecting U.N. demands for a halt in uranium enrichment, a key process that can produce fuel for a reactor or the material for a nuclear warhead.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, and necessary in a country where energy consumption threatens to outstrip the supply of usable oil and gas.

The disputed reactor outside the southern city of Bushehr is not part of Iran's dispute with the U.N. Security Council; the reactor itself has no potential military use.

But Russia announced this month that construction would be delayed at least two months because Iran had failed to make monthly payments since January. It said the delay could cause "irreversible" damage to the project.

Because of the building delay, Russia indefinitely put off the delivery of enriched uranium fuel it had promised to provide Iran in March.

Iran, which denied falling behind in payments, was furious, convinced Russia was pressuring the country to bend to the U.N.

"This (Russian decision) shows that there is no such thing as a guarantee to deliver nuclear fuel," top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said last week.

Due to have started working in 1999, the Bushehr reactor stands 95 percent complete, Iranian officials say. The facility, with its cream-colored reactor dome, overlooks the Persian Gulf and is heavily guarded, ringed with anti-aircraft guns and radar stations, with troops blocking roads leading to the site.

Construction began in 1974 with help from then-West Germany. Work was interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power.

Iraq bombed the plant during its 1980-88 war with Iran. When Iran tried to resume the project after the war, the Germans refused to help. Iran signed deals with Argentina, Spain and other countries, only to see the deals canceled under U.S. pressure.

So Iran turned to Russia, signing a $1 billion dollar contract to build the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant in 1995. That contract envisaged the reactor coming on stream in July 1999.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization publicly complained Tuesday that Russia has postponed the launch five times. "Even if the project is launched in September 2007, it will be eight years and three months behind schedule," it said.

"The world has kept us waiting for more than three decades and spending several billion dollars more than any other nuclear power plant would cost without getting electricity," said political analyst Saeed Leilaz.

Iranian lawmakers are pushing for the country to ensure it not need to rely on anyone. "Russia has never been and will never be a reliable partner," said Rasoul Sediqi Bonabi, a nuclear scientist and independent lawmaker.

Iran succeeded last year in enriching uranium for the first time at its enrichment facility outside the central city of Natanz. Now it is expanding the program to bring it up to a scale to produce fuel.

At the same time, it is seeking to obtain technology to build and design nuclear power plants.
"We hope we will be among countries possessing technology to build nuclear power plants in the next few years," said Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
Iran is already building a 40-megawat heavy water reactor in Arak, central Iran, based on domestic technology. It is preparing to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in southwestern Iran.

Reformist lawmaker Noureddin Pirmoazzen said Iran's reactor ambitions will no doubt worry the West, though not as much as the enrichment program.

"Any efforts by Iran to achieve nuclear proficiency will be opposed by the United States and other nuclear powers even if it is technology to build nuclear power plants," he said.

The above photo is from the AP...

A closer look at the facility from Google Earth... The reactor Dome is near the water on the left side of the picture. I've placed a number of yellow pins in this picture indicating the location of key military locations around Bushehr. In the north, you have a naval base, air base and numerous radar and SAM batteries (including a Hawk missile battery). There's also a couple of islands off the coast with some oil and gas refineries (Khark Island and Kharkoo Island I think) that hold a Hawk missile battery.

There are other nuclear sites around Iran such as:

Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility

The Arak Heavy Water Reactor

And the Bonab Nuclear Facility. In addition to these sites, Iran has multiple uranium mines and other enrichment facilities that I did not list. All of these photos are to show the nuclear capability of Iran, a country that has vowed to "drive Israel into the sea". As of yet, Iran does not have nuclear weapons but time is ticking. Every second that goes by is another second closer to the eradication of millions of people.

Confession Is Good For The Soul

2007-03-16T20:21:00.000-05:00

So, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to a slew of things including:

-Masterminding the 9/11 attacks
-Masterminding the 93 WTC attack
-Masterminding the Bali night club bombing
-Masterminding the attack on US troops in Kuwait
-The beheading of Daniel Pearl (with his blessed right arm, no less!)
-The assassination of JFK
-The assassination of Abraham Lincoln
-The assassination of William McKinley

And...

-Being the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby!

Okay, maybe not all of those were true but I'm reasonably sure he may be the father of Anna Nicole's baby... at least as sure as everyone else.

Been A Long Time

2007-03-14T11:46:00.000-05:00

Before I get to the subject of this post, I'd like to give you all an update. Me and my family have relocated to Missouri and things are going very well. My dear wife still has bouts of homesickness but she's dealing with it fairly well. My stepdaughter is doing well in her new school and she has already made a bunch of new friends. My wife is working in the MASSIVE habilitation center here in Marshall (it's a complete community for people with mental handicaps like retardation, autism and other problems). The hab center has over 850 employees and several hundred "consumers" as they're called. They even have their own cemetary and hospital on site. I have a job that I haven't started yet at the local radio station (KMMO) selling advertising and other products and services via telephone. Once our paychecks start rolling in, we should be doing very well for ourselves indeed.

Several things have happened around the country and around the world since my last post. The Democrats have taken the House and Senate and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are emerging as the front runners for the Democrats in the race for '08. Ol' Crazy (Ahmadinijad) in Iran is STILL plodding ahead with his nuclear weapons program, Kim Jong Il is still plodding along with his nuclear weapons program (although we have agreed to talk with both countries... that'll stop 'em!) and the war is still going on in Iraq. Speaking of Iraq, the Democrats are now wanting to debate the Iraq war in the Senate.

It's funny to me that the Democrats are wanting to pull out of Iraq now after all of the successes we've had. Sure, we've had some setbacks and things aren't going terribly well but they could be much, much worse. The Democrats like to point out that there were "no connections between Saddam Hussein and September 11", something I've argued in the past, and that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq when we went in. Well, they're there now and if the Democrats really want to fight terrorism like they say they do, they should be arguing for even more troops in Iraq. Wait... they DID argue for more troops in Iraq before they began arguing against them!

There's also a big to-do about the firing of 8 US attorneys by the Bush administration. Big whoop. Clinton fired almost ALL of them when he took office. The only difference is the timing. He was smart enough to do it at the BEGINNING of his term, not near the end. This is something that was in the works for two years before they were fired. It's routine housecleaning, just a bit delayed. No surprise as this administration has tried from the start to get along with everyone and has succeeded in getting along with no one as a result.

Anyhow, I will try my best to get caught up on all of my favorites and to post more often.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...

2006-08-26T10:31:00.000-05:00

How many of us have ever thought about the Second Amendment? I mean really, really thought about it. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you ever had to do what our founders did? How would you go about fighting back against a tyrannical or oppressive government? Where would you start?

I've been doing a lot of shooting lately and you can't help but feel a little stronger, a little more empowered by the tool in your hands. The control you exercise over your breathing, the zone you enter when you look through your sights at the target, the clean break of a good trigger, the sound, the recoil... It's a magical experience. Seeing your shot hit (roughly) where you were aiming, watching your target react to the shot, you feel much more confident, much more sure of yourself. I have a gun, I can shoot back, I am not a slave to anyone.

We advocates of the Second Amendment have always touted it as a means to fight back against an oppressive government but most people have absolutely no idea how. This is probably a good thing, since coming up with just such a plan is practically treason and could probably get you arrested. If not arrested, at least on a dozen watch lists. I doubt most people who own guns have the fortitude to do what our founders had to do, let alone the organization. Who would lead the movement? How would they recruit without being infiltrated by federal agents and shut down? How would they arm their members? How would they operate against such a powerful entity? Who is going to take up arms against other Americans?

There are hundreds of questions that most gun owners probably never think of. Everyone that I've talked to seems to think that if the government ever goes looking to confiscate people's guns, they'll just pack up and head for the hills. Yeah, nice thought but impractical. How many people can actually leave civilization and live off of the land for the rest of their lives? Eventually, you're going to run out of supplies and you'll have to return to replenish them. Even the pioneers had to visit the trading post to get more gunpowder and bullets. Unless you are an expert forager and trapper, you're going to have to shoot your food. Of course, we're assuming the government doesn't come looking for you or that they can't find you. Odds are, if they want you, they'll find you.

Running for the hills and making like Jim Bridger isn't an option for most people. After the first day or two, we'd give up and come back to civilization. What then? We'd probably surrender our arms and go back to our lives as subjects instead of citizens. We'd wish that we had some way to fight back and hate ourselves for not putting up more of a fight. We'll tell our children about the good old days when we used to be able to own pistols, rifles and shotguns. We'll show them pictures of the guns that we had, the targets we used to shoot at and the fun we had with our fathers. In the end, these things will become part of our history but few people will feel any real connection with them. Like forty-niners, carpet-baggers and train-robbers, gun owners will be something that people hear about but seldom think about.

How many of you have a plan? How many of you have talked about these things with your friends?

How Do You Think They've Scored?

2006-08-08T17:12:00.000-05:00

**The following is reprinted from the Congressional Record. It details a list of 45 goals of the Communists in America. As you read this list, I want you to keep score as to how many of these goals they've achieved or are close to achieving. The next post will be more on this topic.**

Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963 .

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

**Are you scared yet?**

Things That Go Bump In The Night

2006-07-27T20:43:00.000-05:00

I am by no means a coward but it seems that lately, the list of things that keep me lying awake at night continues to grow every day. Some of these things merely bother me, others are almost terrifying to ponder. Perhaps I am paranoid but that doesn't mean that there isn't anything to worry about, right? Let's take a look at the list of some of the things that frighten (or at least trouble) me (in order of concern to me):

1.) The rise of Socialism and leftist thought around the world. Many of the other items on this list would be extremely easy to solve if the United States wasn't the only major power on the planet that hadn't given itself over to Socialism, Communism or some form leftist thought. The dominance of Socialist thought around the world is perhaps the single greatest threat to the planet.

2.) The radicalization of the Left in America. America has had leftists since there were leftists to be had but they weren't always such staunch supporters of our enemies. With the exception of people like Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and other KGB operatives, most leftists in America's past were loyal Americans, they just happened to support Marxist ideals. They were a sort of patriotic leftists, people that still had an America-first mindset but wanted America to be a Socialist country. Examples that jump immediately to mind are Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Woodrow Wilson would be another good example. Today's leftists are becoming increasingly anti-American and are more willing to support anyone who opposes this country including al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas.

3.) Free Trade Agreements/Free Trade Area of the Americas/CAFTA. Although I am a free-trade/free-market capitalist these agreements really don't sit well with me. The thing about free trade agreements that bothers me is that they have a way of becoming law, or at least heavily influencing laws in the countries they affect. One of the things that bothers me about such organizations and agreements is that the people who oversee such agreements, the "enforcers", are in no way accountable to anyone. There is no mechanism to prevent corporations or governments from buying out these overseers and using them to manipulate markets in their favor. I am much more in favor of simple agreements between nations, arrangements which are negotiated directly between the two parties with no such overseer. I don't think that we need trade organizations enforce these agreements, nor do I have any faith in the enforcement mechanisms built into these organizations. About the only country that can be counted on to adhere to the agreements is the United States. I don't see where they benefit us at all and I can see a great deal of potential for harm in them. My objections to these organizations are similar to my objections over the Kyoto Protocols/Kyoto Accords or whatever name you want to call them. Simple fact is, they had nothing to do with the environment. It was all a ploy to "level the playing field" in favor of other nations over the United States.

4.) Terrorism. This is a pretty simple, straightforward worry. They are bad people that need to be exterminated. We need to stop them from breeding new generations of terrorists if we are ever going to win. More frightening than the terrorists themselves is the reaction to them from most of the world (including many within the United States). So many people refuse to see the terrorists for what they are and it is this refusal that may ultimately allow the terrorists to succeed in their apocolyptic ambitions. So, in a way, number 4 takes us back to numbers 1 and 2.

Anyways, that's my list of things that scare the bejeezus out of me. Share your concerns or comment on my list!

Appeasing The Devil

2006-07-24T20:58:00.000-05:00

I've been following the war between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon very closely and I'm disappointed by what I'm seeing and hearing. I don't think anyone really understands what's going on or how to deal with it. Case in point - Kofi Annan, along with most of Europe, is already looking for someone to appease. They want a cease-fire for the sake of a cease-fire. Nevermind that only one side is going to honor that cease-fire. Nevermind that the only thing such a cease-fire is going to accomplish is to allow Hezbollah to regroup and rearm. No, none of that matters a bit to Kofi and his crowd of appeasers. The only thing that matters to them is that they broker a "peace" at any cost.

We've had 50 years of "peace". Does anyone remember a time, not that long ago, when Yassir Arafat was kickin' it with President Clinton? Does anyone remember the sweet deal that was offered to Arafat (95% of the demands he made were granted)? In case you've forgotten, he never even took this offer to the Palestinian people. He acted like the offer had never even been made. Shortly following this generous offer, Yassir Arafat gave us the Intifada and over 1,000 Israelis were killed. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and now they're being fired upon from southern Lebanon. They withdrew from the West Bank and they were fired upon from the West Bank. They withdrew from Gaza and were fired upon from Gaza. Every time the attempt is made to appease the terrorists, it results in the deaths of more Israelis.

I heard Condi talking about a cease-fire that includes the withdrawal of Hezbollah to a line 20 km North of the Israeli-Lebanese border. In my humble opinion, not good enough. What is that going to accomplish? Does anyone think they (Hezbollah) are going to abide by any such agreement? Even if the Lebanese army is present, does anyone think they are going to challenge Hezbollah? Truth be told, they would probably end up supporting Hezbollah's activities. Any cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah intact is, in my view, a failure. Even if Hezbollah signs an unconditional surrender and agrees to disband, nothing is going to change because the cause of the disease hasn't been addressed.

As long as Iran and Syria are willing to throw money and weapons into the hands of Islamic radicals, Israel and the rest of the world are in danger. Disbanding Hezbollah changes nothing. Do you really think these radicals (terrorists) are going to pack up and go home? Do you think they are going to take up honest jobs and become family men? Not a chance. They will simply start up a new terrorist organization or simply reconstitute Hezbollah in defiance of the agreement. What do they care, they've got nothing to lose. They delight in the loss of life that retaliation causes. They practically flock to Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda for the chance to become martyrs and to die for the cause of jihad. Going after the terrorist groups is simply swatting at the mosquitoes and ignoring the stagnant water where they spawn. You must go after the funding and you must go after the source of their weapons. You must go after Iran and Syria.

Iran and Syria are like arsonists, running around and setting a bunch of wildfires. If we are going to put out the fires, we need to stop the arsonists. They can start a lot more fires than we are capable of dealing with if we don't address them directly. Can Isreal defeat Hezbollah? Sure, but they won't. Nobody has the cajones to do what is needed. Israel is taking the first steps, we need to let them know that we will be with them every step of the way. The "world community" needs to recognize what is at stake and join us... or at least get out of the way.

Update And A Theory

2006-07-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

Quick update before I get into some very unsettling news. We didn't move to Kansas City. Instead, we moved 1 1/2 miles South of where we lived and are now staying with the Mother-in-law. I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest so I haven't really had a good chance to update until recently.

About an hour ago, it was reported that we have confirmation that the missile test-fired by North Korea was aimed at Hawaii. A missile, fired on July 4 and aimed at Hawaii. I'm not so sure that this was a test-fire. Here's my theory:

North Korea fired a live missile. We couldn't launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea without risking a confrontation with China. We had to allow the missile to fly long enough so that the trajectory could be determined before we destroyed it. This would give us some leverage with China and Russia who have thus far backed North Korea. I believe everyone in positions of power knows what happened and we are likely to see some very somber diplomats in the coming days. Anyhow, we allowed the missile to fly for 40 seconds and then we destroyed it. That's my theory. Do I believe the missile was live? Absolutely.

What do you think? Am I totally off-base here?

Respect

2006-06-13T00:35:00.000-05:00

In my humble opinion, you can't have a discussion on immigration without bringing up the subject of respect. No, not respect for the rights of these "migrant workers", respect for the rights of the American citizens that live on the border. Men, women and children who can't leave their homes at times because of the massive number of criminals trespassing on their property. Livestock owners who have their cattle killed or injured, people whose cars and homes are broken into and the taxpayers who are forced to shell out the cash to deal with these criminals. Remember, it is not for our government to be concerned with the well-being of citizens of other nations until they have first seen to the well-being of our own.

I was thinking, we never seemed to have much of a problem with illegal immigration until fairly recently (the last 30 years or so). Why is that? In the past, we undoubtedly had more open borders than we do today yet we didn't see the mass exodus of people crossing it. Surely some of this can be answered by pointing to the rise in Socialism in Mexico creating a climate where work is hard to find and feeding a family is next to impossible. How ironic that people who live in a country that is everything the Democrats want America to be have to come here in order to feed their family, isn't it? This has to be part of the answer but I don't believe it is the entire answer.

In the past, when you trespassed on a man's land, you were taking your life into your own hands. More correctly, you were placing your life in his hands. As a land owner, he had the right to detain you, by force if necessary, or take other means to remove you from his property. He didn't have to rely on the Border Patrol, he didn't have to allow you to pass through his property. Step foot on his property and you could expect to be challenged; resist and you could expect to be perforated.

Today, were a landowner to challenge an illegal alien that was trespassing on his property, said landowner would be sued, arrested and treated as a criminal. His weapons would be seized and his property could end up finding its way into the hands of the very people he was trying to defend it from. Don't think it could happen? Think again, it already has.

I'm not advocating a "shoot first and ask questions later" approach to border control here. What I'm arguing for is giving landowners the right to defend their land, their homes and their families from people who shouldn't even be in the country, let alone on their property. How can we expect people to honor and respect the laws of this country if they won't even respect the rights of its citizens? It doesn't take a whole lot of research to uncover the amount of damage these trespassers cause each year. They intimidate these law-abiding Americans, trespass on their land, frighten their children and destroy their property. They leave tons of garbage lying around, they steal anything they can get their hands on and destroy the fences that ranchers and homeowners erect.

I understand that the conditions in Mexico are deplorable but whose fault is it? I understand that many Mexicans would not be able to survive without the money they receive from relatives who are working (illegally) in the United States. The question I pose is, "Should Americans have to bear the cost of corruption and Socialism in Mexico?" The answer is a resounding no. We don't get to vote in their elections, we don't have a say in the type of government they have and we don't have a voice in their economic policy decisions. So far, the only plan that Vicente Fox has come up with for dealing with the poverty-stricken people of his country is to send them to our country. This is unacceptable.

We need to do three things regarding immigration reform:

1. Seal the border. This is the most important step. Without this step, nothing else matters.

2. Give landowners the right to defend their property from trespassers. This includes legal protection and the acknowledgement of their right to use any force necessary to stop these trespassers.

3. Use any means available to us to force Mexico to adopt a more business-friendly, pro-growth and pro-capitalist agenda. This would include trade sanctions, embargoes and stopping any immigration at all from Mexico. If they are unwilling to take the necessary steps to allow their people to provide for themselves, we should not be bearing the cost.

Respect is not something that happens naturally. We respect the property rights and the rights of others because of the consequences, not out of a natural reaction between humans. We respect poisonous snakes because of the venom they possess. Our government respects the people because (thanks to the Second Amendment) we possess the means to fight back against tyranny. I'm guessing that if we put some teeth into our immigration policy, if we empower law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their property, we'll see a lot more respect in the future.

Just Wanted To Say...

2006-06-10T18:46:00.000-05:00

WOOOHOOOO!!! One less terrorist to worry about. When I got the news, I was elated. Zarqawi has been a thorn in Iraq's side for far too long. Now, that thorn has been removed. What does it all mean? It means that he won't be devising any strategies or recruiting any suicide bombers, that's what it means.

I've seen a lot of talk about possible successors and such but I don't think it'll happen in time. He was too big of a component for someone to just step in and take his place. It'd be like if Erwin Rommel had been killed before the United States invaded North Africa. Could the Nazis have fielded another tank commander in the region, sure. Would he have been the equal to Rommel? No way.

On a more personal note: I'm getting ready for my relocation back to KC. My family and I are going out there to do some recon next weekend, then we'll be back to pack up and move. It's likely that I won't be able to post much until around July 9th so if I don't get to talk to you, just know that I'll catch up as soon as possible.

UPDATE!!! Some nifty videos I found on YouTube (Sorry Tyler, couldn't let you upstage me!)

From My Perspective

2006-06-01T01:28:00.000-05:00

I have to tell you that I've really been enjoying the ongoing debate about Iran. It hasn't been as much of an open and shut case with some of my readers (Dan) as I hoped but that's okay. I'm getting around to sealing the deal.

Fact: Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons.
Fact: Iran has stated openly that they want to wipe Israel off the face of the planet.
Fact: We have a very short amount of time left to decide what to do about it.
Fact: The U.N. is powerless to stop them because they have given the power to nations that have an interest in ensuring that Iran gets the nuclear weapons they seek.
Fact: Iran has stated that they will continue to defy the IAEA by enriching uranium no matter the cost.
Fact: Iran has a religious justification behind launching a nuclear strike against Israel. Not only do they believe it is justified, they believe it is for the greater good to cause the Apocolypse and bring about the return of the 12th Imam.
Fact: If Iran succeeds in obtaining a nuclear weapon, millions of people will die.

So here we have it. A rogue nation is determined to obtain and use a nuclear weapon. They cannot be talked down from this decision because they are driven by a religious zeal that few Westerners can understand. Hardships and consequences resulting from this decision are a badge of honor for them not a cause for concern. These are people that will gut their own children, stuff their lifeless bodies with explosives and detonate them in shopping malls, cafes and on buses. What difference does it make to them if we place economic sanctions on their country, the time is coming when such things won't matter anyways. So, what are we gonna do about it? Let's look at this very carefully:

There is no question that Iran's government is the rightful government. Their president was elected by the people in an election whose results were (more or less) uncontested by anyone. Governments rule by the consent of the governed. Therefore, actions taken by the government must be construed as having the consent of the people of the country. Responsibility for these actions is shared between the government and the governed.

The majority of the United Nations wants Iran to halt its enrichment of uranium before they reach weapons-grade uranium. Iran has stated flatly that they will not cease their enrichment efforts because they believe they have a right to proceed. The United States is the founding nation, as well as the host nation, for the U.N. The United Nations was founded through Woodrow Wilson's dreams of an international body capable of dealing with such situations in order to prevent the type of large-scale wars that we saw in World War I and II. As the founder of this idea, it is our responsibility to oversee it and to make sure that it continues to function properly. When it fails, it is our responsibility to diagnose the problem and remedy it. When such a remedy is a long time coming or not feasible in sufficient time to deal with a problem like the one we have right now, it becomes our responsibility to deal with the problem. Why us? Because we Americans have the most free, democratic and morally straight government on the planet and if anyone has the moral authority to deal with such a situation, it is us.

Israel is our friend and our ally. We have a duty to protect them from harm when we have the means. In this case, we have the means, we need only the willpower to execute our duty.

The government of Iran has a responsibility to protect its citizens from harm. They know the consequences of the actions they are engaged in. They know that we cannot allow them to proceed on their current course. The people of Iran have a responsibility to ensure that the government they place in charge of their country exercises the best judgement possible. Errors in judgement and the consequences incurred by the actions of the government are the responsibility of the people. This means that any actions we take in order to put an end to Iran's nuclear weapons program leave our hands clean, provided we adhere to the treaties we have signed and the standards of warfare we have established independently. In every case, our military takes every precaution to avoid civilian casualties. We have not, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, targeted civilians. If civilians are killed or injured, it is an unfortunate coincidence, not an intentional act. The blood of any civilians who are killed is indeed on the hands of the people of Iran, not ours. It is their actions that have caused this, not ours.

As a society, we must believe in our own right to exist and we must defend that right above all other interests. We must place this right above anything else, especially over considerations of casualties that would be suffered by another country. Israel, our friend and ally, also has a right to exist. We have a duty to defend their right to exist just as fiercely as we defend our own. In an increasingly dangerous world, you need all the friends you can get. Allowing several million of them to be slaughtered is not sound advice. The moment we lose the will to defend our right to exist, or that of our allies, we will cease to exist. America is the cornerstone of freedom and democracy around the globe, lose the cornerstone and the entire structure collapses.

Just as America is the cornerstone of freedom and democracy, our friends and allies comprise other parts of the building. Allow these parts to be destroyed and you are soon left with a solitary slab, a reminder of what once was. What good is a foundation without anything built on top of it? What good is a building without a solid foundation? The fate of each and the purpose of each rests on the survival of the whole.

Just as we must defend our right to exist, we must know - without a doubt - that the values that we stand for, and the values of those that stand with us, are superior to the values of our foes. These values are central to who we are as a nation and if we allow them to be eroded, if we begin to believe that we are no more just or good than our enemies, we have lost. Likewise, we cannot project these same values on those who do not share them. We cannot believe, against all evidence, that our enemies share the same values that we hold dear. If they do, let them prove it and gain our trust. Let them stand with us against those that do not. If they do not share our values, let us view them in their true form and deal with them accordingly. Moral relativism has no place in discussions of national security and the survival of our values.

For those struggling with the religious aspect of such discussions, allow me to put you at ease. The Bible lays out, in exacting detail, how to deal with our enemies on a national level. The Bible has two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament, just as our nation has two parts, the national and the local. In the Old Testament, God himself was the leader of the Jews. He was personally responsible for the survival of Israel as a nation and for the well-being of the people. He taught the Israelites how to govern, how to make war and how to make peace. He taught them how to craft laws that were fair and how to deal with those who broke these laws. He taught them how to fight and how to farm. God was Commander-in-Chief.

Jesus had an entirely different role. Jesus was sent to us not as the new Commander-in-Chief but as the ultimate sacrifice, our personal pathway to salvation. Where God had dealt with the details of running a country and defending it from attack, Jesus dealt with running households, settling disputes between neighbors and leading families into the kingdom of Heaven. The New Testament is not a replacement for the Old Testament, it is a continuation of it. The two, when combined, give us a complete picture. Just as you cannot have a nation with no families, you cannot have a virtuous people existing inside of an evil country. Before long, they will clash and one or the other must prevail. With the Bible, we have the framework for a just society that is compatible with a Christian lifestyle. Not all of the old laws still apply, it is true, but many of them remain consistent. We saw something similar in this country. The Articles of Confederation predated the Constitution. Some of the ideas in the Articles of Confederation were discarded with the arrival of the Constitution but others remained. Thus it is with the Old and New Testament.

The Old Testament dealt as extensively with warfare as it did with laws and instructions for the people. In the Old Testament, we see the first recorded Special Forces mission (Gideon and his army of 300, for example). We see instructions on dealing with prisoners of war, the spoils of war and for crafting treaties after the war. God didn't shy away from exercising lethal force in defense of the Israelites when it was needed, neither should we. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time for everything under the sun. When it is time to kill, we should do so with purpose but when that time has passed, let us be ready to make peace.

For those who believe Christians cannot or should not participate in the military, I remind you that King David, ancestor of Jesus, was a warrior-king. Many of the holiest men in the Old Testament were warriors, summoned by God to defend their country and smite their enemies. In the New Testament, soldiers were among the favorite converts of Jesus and the disciples and never once were they told they had to lay down their weapons if they were to enter into Heaven. Jesus emphasized service to others in his ministry and the soldiers of today certainly embody this spirit through their many works. Sometimes they are called to kill but they are also called to heal, to teach and to feed. I find no inconsistency there. If you still must abstain from military service because you can't bear the thought of taking the life of another, that is perfectly okay. These personal convictions should not, however, give you cause to label those who choose military service as evil, nor should you label the actions taken in defense of your country as evil. Just as the killing of men, women, children and beasts in the Old Testament was necessary and even ordered by God, it is sometimes necessary in today's world. The fact that it is unsavory and horrible does not make it evil. Is it good? I wouldn't say it is pleasing to God but I wouldn't call it evil either.

So, if there is to be war, let us venture into this war with a clean conscience, knowing that we have taken all prudent steps to prevent it and that we will continue to take steps to limit the damage we do. The blood is not on our hands but still we exercise the mercy to kill only those that we must, despite having the ability and even the justification to kill many, many more. In this way, we demonstrate mercy and grace, just as God has demonstrated them with us.

Peter Carried A Sword

2006-05-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

To those pacifists that think Jesus commanded his followers to be the doormats of the world, I offer Peter. Peter carried a sword... and used it too. When the Romans moved to arrest Jesus, Peter attacked them and cut the ear off of one of the soldiers. It is true that Jesus healed the soldier's ear but I'm not so sure it was done entirely out of mercy.

Granted, I'm sure Jesus understood the soldier was only doing his job. Without the soldiers, Jesus would not have been able to fulfill his part of God's plan. In order for Jesus to be brought before Pontius Pilate and subsequently crucified, He first had to be arrested. Judas, Pilate and the Roman soldiers were all carrying out their role in God's plan. Jesus knew this and understood this, even if Peter did not.

Let's look at some of the other reasons Jesus would've healed the Roman. Peter played a crucial role in establishing the early churches and counseling the leaders and the congregations. When Peter attacked the soldier, he committed a crime punishable by death. By healing the soldier, Jesus removed the evidence of the attack and very likely silenced the soldier. Who would believe that after a piece of his ear was removed, Jesus could heal it as if nothing had ever happened? Also, such a gesture probably spared Peter's life (I'm sure the soldier was glad to have his ear intact). All of these things ensured that Peter would be able to play his part in God's plan.

Another thing to consider... What if the soldier told his wife, children and grandchildren about this man, Jesus, who healed him with just a touch? What if later in life, they learned more about Him and became Christians? The Bible doesn't tell us what happened to this man and his family but I've often wondered about them.

There is one more thing to consider. What was Peter doing with a sword if Jesus would never have approved the use of lethal force in defending ourselves? Surely if Jesus objected to him having a sword, Peter would have been rid of it. When you travel with the Son of God, what need have you of a sword? Could it be that with roving bandits and those who would do bodily harm to Jesus and the disciples, Jesus understood the need for protection?

A soft answer may turn away wrath but does it turn away those who have no interest in your answer? Turning the other cheek from a slap is much easier than turning the other cheek from the stroke of a sword. I think that much of what Jesus said needs to be put into its proper context. Surely He would never have wanted a nation to allow the murder of millions of people. Remember, just as Jesus advised us to love our neighbors, He extolled the virtue of laying your life down for another. In today's military, that's exactly what we are doing. We are laying our lives on the line for those who are not in a position to defend themselves. True, we cannot be everywhere we'd like to be. The situation in Darfur is horrendous but our troops must go where they are needed most.

For those who only see America as a bully, I encourage you to remove your blinders. If we were the bullies you believe us to be, we wouldn't be encouraging these people to take charge of their own governments. We wouldn't want democracy, we'd want a "benevolent dictator", someone who would do our bidding without any input from the people. Listen to the words of our troops, they are sacrificing their lives in the hopes of providing a better life for the Iraqi's and Afghans. They aren't hoping to colonize these countries and they aren't looting and plundering the people of these countries. They are building schools and hospitals, curing the sick and helping out in as many ways as they can.

I think Jesus would approve.

Enrichment For Peaceful Purposes?

2006-05-29T00:55:00.000-05:00

H/T to filou of Views On World Affairs for this story: Highly Enriched Uranium Found In Iran.

While you're there, browse the other stories on this highly insightful blog. Report back if you still believe Iran is only seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (this means you, Dan!).

Final Salute

2006-05-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

H/T to Mike's America for the link.

Click here to watch the presentation. You don't want to miss it.

Memorial Day

2006-05-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

(There will be no debate on this post. Comments are open but any comments that I don't like or that I feel are inappropriate for the spirit of this post WILL be deleted.)

The right to exist. It is the most basic right that we have as human beings. It is also the most essential tie that binds people together. Pre-historic man formed civilizations largely for the protection afforded by greater numbers. In these primitive civilizations, the strongest and most able-bodied assumed the role of hunters and of defenders. It became their responsibility to protect the settlement from attack and, when called upon, to take the fight to the settlements of their rivals.

Many things have changed since man first used to learn sticks and stones to make tools. The spears and clubs sported by the first warriors have been replaced with a dazzling array of firearms, machinery and technology. While most of the warriors throughout history have been men, many of them are now women. Wars were once fought over prime hunting grounds, farmland and water access, now they are mostly about self-defense or the defense of others. It was rare in ancient times to find people of one civilization who were willing to sacrifice their lives for another civilization, now such things are commonplace (among certain civilizations). Despite all of these changes, the most basic mission for our soldiers remains - defend our right to exist.

Monday, May 29 is a day we have set aside in remembrance of those brave men (and women) who throughout our history have fought to defend our right to exist. This Memorial Day, I hope we all remain focused on the true meaning of the day. The three day weekend is nice, the cookouts and camping trips are fun but let's remember why we have the luxuries that we enjoy. If you or a member of your family is a soldier, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you know a soldier or a veteran or the widow of one, thank them for their sacrifice. If you know a wife or husband of a soldier who is deployed, invite them to your cookout if they don't have plans. Find a way to thank them like mowing their grass, painting their house, shopping for them or watching their kids. Remember, if it weren't for these courageous men and women, we wouldn't be here at all.

God bless America and God bless the men and women of our armed forces.

Laying Out The Case Against Iran (Part 3)

2006-05-26T12:34:00.000-05:00

In the previous post, I outlined some of Iran's nuclear weapons delivery capabilities. In this post, I am going to discuss the consequences of a strike against Iran.

Dan Trabue isn't stupid. Misguided perhaps but not stupid. He's absolutely right when he says that there will be repercussions to any strike on Iran. He is equally correct when he states that attacks on Iran will breed anti-American sentiment and could spawn yet more terrorists. I want everyone to understand that those statements are 100% correct. Currently, there is a large amount of pro-American and pro-western sentiment in Iran and that would be destroyed the moment the first bomb struck its target. Whether or not any civilians are killed, attacking Iran will unite the Iranians, including the large dissident population and cause them to rally around the government. When attacked, political disputes and differences of opinion tend to be cast aside. Remember the days immediately following September 11, 2001?

We must weigh the consequences of taking direct action against the consequences of doing nothing. If we give it time, there is a possibility that the dissidents within Iran can muster enough strength to challenge the mullahs. It may even be possible that they wrest control of the government from them. That would be a wonderful outcome, giving us the desired effects without us being directly responsible for the death of a single Iranian. Then again, there's a very, very strong possibility that they will fail or that they will not be able to mobilize before Iran is in possession of a nuclear weapon. We are on a time limit and time is not our ally in this case.

If we attack Iran, it will set back the reform movement by decades. After we strike, there is a possibility that the reform movement could be sought out and eradicated under "national security" concerns. The elimination of key components of the reform movement would be a devastating blow, one which they may never recover from. Thousands of people would be arrested and possibly executed, people who have been leaking valuable intelligence to us from within Iran. We can expect a massive sweep designed to expose any intelligence assets we have in place. These assests would then be eliminated, leaving us blind to the actions of the Iranian government. These actions would discourage anyone from assisting us in the future.

Inaction has its own set of consequences. Currently, we have a lot of allies and a lot of people within striking distance of Iran. Afghanistan could be one possible target, as could Iraq. I personally think a nuclear strike on Iraq is less likely than one against Israel or Afghanistan but you can't count anything out. Of course Israel is on the list, as is Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, U.A.E., Qatar, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon and the "Icky-stans". When the Shahab-4 is finished, it is possible that portions of Eastern Europe could also be attacked. With the acquisition of solid-fuel missiles like the North Korean No Dong missile (I am assuming that these missiles will be of higher quality than the Iranian prototype due to increased testing and the data that I've seen), they could threaten France, Germany and Spain as well. Given enough time, they could even develop a prototype capable of striking the United States. I doubt that will happen because I don't think the Iranians are that patient but it is a possibility.

A possible scenario would go something like this: Iran strikes Israel and targets in Europe (Spain, England, France and Germany). North Korea strikes Japan and the United States (including Hawaii) and quite possibly South Korea. Why would North Korea cooperate with them? A new strategic alliance between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Think about it... with nuclear strikes on the current powers, the new alliance would become the gatekeepers of power in the post-nuclear world. Think it's far-fetched? You're betting your life on it.

Here is a more likely scenario. Israel becomes a radioactive crater. Millions are dead. Israel's counter-attack leaves millions dead in Iran. An all-out war erupts between Muslims and Westerners.

Millions of people dead, wars, nuclear fallout and permanent damage to the environment around the globe.

Which is the lesser evil?

Laying Out The Case Against Iran (Part 2)

2006-05-26T00:37:00.000-05:00

In the previous post, I dealt with the intentions of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In this post, I'm going to deal with the issue of capability.

Previously, it was disclosed that Iran may have purchased 18 BM-25 missiles from North Korea. I'd like to lead with this fact since it illustrates perfectly the direction of Iran's military buildup. Why would a nation spend the kind of money it takes to purchase 18 nuclear missiles if it didn't intend to mount nuclear warheads on them? That wouldn't make any sense. Also, because they currently do not have nuclear warheads in their possession, we must assume the only way for them to acquire them is to either (a.) buy them or (b.) build them. Now, Iran is fighting to hold onto their uranium enrichment capabilities while claiming that they are seeking nuclear power for peaceful purposes. With 18 nuclear missiles waiting for warheads?

"In September 2003, the IAEA discovered that Iran had produced polonium-210, a radioisotope with a half-life of 138 days. Iran conducted Po-210 production experiments in the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) between 1989 and 1993 by irradiating bismuth metal. One of the best-known uses for Po-210 is as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons. It also has civilian applications, such as in nuclear batteries. However, the IAEA considers the applications of Po-210-based nuclear batteries to be limited. Iran has said that the experiments were part of a study on neutron sources, but has been unable to provide documentation supporting this purported intent.

There have also been reports that Iran has sought deuterium gas from Russia. According to an intelligence report citing Russian sources that was circulated at the IAEA in July 2004, Iranian middlemen negotiated with companies in Russia to purchase deuterium gas after failing to produce it domestically. Deuterium gas is used, in conjunction with tritium, to boost the yield of fission bombs. Deuterium and tritium are hydrogen isotopes that release neutrons and energy when they fuse together in thermonuclear explosions.

In addition, the French intelligence services have reported that Iran has sought items useful for nuclear tests and simulation, including documentation on flash radiography equipment and pulse generators. Iran has also tried to purchase machines that can be used to fashion shapes of uranium or plutonium metal, such as isostatic presses and vacuum furnaces. And according to a May 2003 media report, a Swede of Iranian origin arranged the purchase of 44 high-voltage switches for Iran from Behlke Electronic GmbH, a German company. The switches, which were reportedly seized by German customs agents, could be used to trigger nuclear weapons.

Finally, if Iran received the same package of nuclear goods from the Khan network as did Libya—an eventuality that is widely suspected—then it could have received the same Chinese-origin bomb design. China is believed to have supplied Pakistan with a tested nuclear bomb design in the early 1980s. It is reportedly this design that the Khan network resold to Libya, along with documents in Chinese containing detailed instructions on how to manufacture parts for and assemble an implosion-type device." (Source: Iranwatch.org)

Iran has 3 nuclear-capable missiles that we are aware of. They have the Scud-B, Scud-C and the Shahab-3. The Shahab-4 is currently being developed and tested, when completed it will be nuclear-capable and possess a potential range of 1,800-2,000 km. The payload is supposed to be about 1,000 kg, enough to accomodate a fairly large warhead. Some sources say it is possible that they could increase the range by adding more fuel but this will decrease the payload of the missile. Accuracy is not said to be great but with a nuclear warhead, who needs pin-point accuracy?

So, we've addressed Iran's intent, now we've taken a peek at their capabilities. In the next post, we'll take a look at the areas currently being threatened.

Terrorism Alert!

2006-05-25T00:56:00.000-05:00

H/T to Gayle for this story.

Watch both of these videos. I believe it is critical for each and every one of us to understand the consequences of our open borders. This should frighten and alarm you:

http://www.krgv.com/video/news/7497

http://www.krgv.com/video/news/7508

Now let's talk about amnesty.

Laying Out The Case Against Iran (Part 1)

2006-05-23T00:43:00.000-05:00

*Much of this information is coming from Iranwatch.org but some of it will be drawn from news reports and various other outlets. If you have any questions about the veracity of the information provided in this article and I have not provided a source, ask me about it and I shall provide you with the source.

Under what terms should a nation use pre-emptive force against another nation? This is the question that has been haunting the United States since 2003 and once again, we find ourselves debating the use of force against a nation that has yet to attack us. Such considerations must not be taken lightly and before the people give their consent, we must be assured that such an action is necessary to protect the American people and our interests.

Perhaps the first consideration in such a debate should be the intent of the nation in question. The president of Iran has issued many statements that are worthy of our attention in this regard. Let's take a look at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member the ultra-conservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity [OSU] Between Universities and Theological Seminaries. The OSU was established by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomeini’s key collaborators, to organise Islamist students against the rapidly growing Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). When the idea of storming the American embassy in Tehran was raised by the OSU, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time. **
With the start of the Iraq war in 1980, Ahmadinejad rushed to the western fronts to fight against the enemy and voluntarily joined special forces of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1986. He served in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps intelligence and security apparatus. **
Ahmadinejad was a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, stationed at Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. This was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ "Extra-territorial Operations" -- mounting attacks beyond Iran’s borders. His work in the Revolutionary Guards was related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and abroad. He personally participated in covert operations around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. **
With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He directed assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack. He was reported to have been involved in planning an attempt on the life of Salman Rushdie.
Ahmadinejad returned to Elm-o Sanaat University to teach in 1997 and became a member of the scientific board of the Civil Engineering College of University of Science and Technology. He carried out several scientific, cultural, political and social activities. He also worked with Ansar-i Hizbullah [Followers of the Party of God], the violent Islamic vigilante group. **
In April 2003 Ahmadinejad was appointed mayor of Tehran by the capital's municipal council, which is dominated by the hard-line Islamic Iran Developers Coalition (Etelaf-i Abadgaran-i Iran-i Islami). In some of Ahmadinejad's public statements, he has appeared to identify himself as a Developer. He lives a very Spartan lifestyle and that's how he projected himself. **
As Mayor, he reversed many of the policies of previous moderate and reformist mayors, placing serious religious emphasis on the activites of the cultural centers by turning them into prayer halls during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. He closed fast-food restaurants and required male city employees to have beards and wear long sleeves. He instituted the separation of elevators of men and women in the municiple offices. He also suggested the burial of the bodies of martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war in major city squares of Tehran. **

** - (Source: GlobalSecurity.org)

As you can see, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a very serious person with a long history of supporting some radical Islamic groups. He is a true believer, someone who has an unflinching loyalty to the most radical, hard-line groups in Iran. He is NOT your normal politican by any means, we have no reason to doubt him when he speaks. And what has he been saying?

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," (CNN.com)

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets," he said. "(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."
"If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel," Ahmadinejad said.
"Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?" (CNN.com)

Iran's new president created a sense of outrage in the west yesterday by describing Israel as a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the face of the earth". (The Guardian, Thursday October 27, 2005)

He has made more peaceful comments but when weighed against the evidence, it is difficult to lend any weight to them. Time and again, he insists that Iran's nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, civilian energy uses and the like. However, if you consider some of the military buildup he has overseen, these comments quickly lose credibility. Consider this excerpt of an interview with Uzi Rubin (courtesy of Iranwatch.org)

..."The German magazine Bild published an article in January saying that Iran bought 18 missiles, known as the BM-25, from North Korea. The missile in question would be better than the Shahab-3. It is a replication or variation of the old Soviet SS-N-6, a submarine launched ballistic missile. "

..."But remember the BM-25. This is a nuclear missile. It was designed as a nuclear missile and there is no other warhead for this than a nuclear warhead. So, if the reports are true, Iran has its hands on at least two nuclear capable missiles with sufficient diameters for the type of nuclear weapons that the Soviets had in the 1960s. The diameter of the BM-25, I think, is 1.5 meters. "

If Iran's nuclear program was ONLY for peaceful purposes, why purchase a missile whose only purpose is to be fitted with a NUCLEAR WARHEAD? This certainly strikes a major blow to the "peaceful use" argument he has put forward. So, we have a country seeking a nuclear program, purchasing missiles designed to deliver a nuclear warhead (only), and making statements that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the map".

What are we to make of their intent?

Natanz, Iran - Nuke Site

2006-05-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

Intel On Iran

2006-05-22T07:46:00.000-05:00

Here are some pics from Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Reactor site and some of the SAM sites surrounding it. For good measure, I threw in a pic of an Iranian fighter (a MIG-29 perhaps?) touching down. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what the strange thing in the water is, what kind of fighter jet is landing, etc. FYI, the buildings between the SAM sites are radar sites.

Join The War For Oil!

2006-05-22T02:44:00.000-05:00

I saw this and couldn't resist! Check my sidebar for the link if you're interested in joining the War For Oil! H/T FIAR.

Got Posts?

2006-05-20T10:24:00.000-05:00

If you want to know what I've been writing, check out Blog America (where yours truly is a contributing blogger). I've written a couple of posts there and rather than re-post them here, I'll just direct you over there. Go on, check it out!

Hectic!

2006-05-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

Spring has sprung and with it comes a wave of new chores that need to be done. We have yards to maintain (literally acres of grass to be trimmed and mowed!) in addition to our normal chores. My wife has had two carpal tunnel surgeries, effectively eliminating her role as dishwasher and severely limiting her activities around the house. My stepdaughter has been in the hospital a few times with some nasty infections (requiring six prescriptions within a one week span!) that nearly earned her a stay in the hospital. On top of all this, I still gotta work, find an apartment and a job in Kansas City, MO (yes, that's where we're moving to) and attempt to hold onto the thin shred of sanity I have left. Sorry that I haven't been keeping up on my blog, I'm just trying to keep my head above water here.

The first full week of July, that's when we're moving. I've already put in my notice at work and made a countdown thingy out of a bunch of Post-its. Each day when I go in, I tear another one off. Tomorrow, I'm down to around 36 working days left. Probably less. When that last week arrives, I doubt I'll have the fortitude or "stick-to-it-iveness" to stay at work. My last day, when I walk out that door, the only reason I'll have to look back is my wonderful co-workers. I'll miss them tremendously. Still, it'll be the end of one chapter of my life and the beginning of another. Hopefully, this next chapter will be filled with more promise and prosperity than this one.

My thoughts on current world affairs haven't changed much. I still think the U.N. is useless and that we're wasting our time in seeking their help in dealing with Iran. I think Dan Trabue is either a lunatic or incredibly naive. His little tirade about the "Golden Rule" in dealing with Iran is pure Utopianism. To think that a bunch of wackjobs are going to treat you the way you treat them is to invite them to raise the temperature of certain parts of the world to 10,000 degrees. Dan may think it's no big deal because the first ones to get nuked are just a bunch of Jews but I happen to disagree. Israel has been a staunch ally of ours and a valued asset in the Middle East. I'd hate to see all of them vaporized.

Dan also probably doesn't mind the prospect of a nuclear war because it will mean millions of people will die. Since people are polluting the environment and destroying all of the trees and spotted owls and various gnat species, killing a few million of them off would be a blessing in his book. If it destroys the U.S. economy and thrusts most of the world back into the Dark Ages, all the better from his standpoint. Well Dan, I've found a nice padded room for you with all kinds of nice people who'll take care of you. We're sending a car over to get you. Don't bother packing, we'll handle all of that for you.

I still think we should shut the door on any and all trade with China. I think we should be expanding relations with India and Pakistan. I think that Indonesia, Malaysia and other parts of the world would be much better places to get cheap manufactured goods than our biggest enemy. Why should we enrich China and give them the means to destroy us when we can send that business to countries less inclined and less able to oppose our interests throughout the world? It doesn't make sense.

I think that if Republicans think they're going to win in elections this fall by acting like a bunch of Democrats, the Democrats will win back the House and Senate. If people want to vote for someone who acts and talks like a Democrat, they'll vote for a Democrat. It's about time we ditched all of these spineless pansies in the Republican party and elected some people with a backbone.

I think that we're very close to reaching the point where we can hand off control over Iraq to the Iraqi military. Things are going extremely well over there. Now, if only we could infiltrate the MSM and eliminate the propaganda arm of al Qaeda, we'd be on the right track.

I think Glenn Beck's television show is nowhere near as good as his radio program.

I think it's time for bed...

What To Do About Iran

2006-04-23T22:35:00.000-05:00

As most of my long-time readers know (all one or two of you), I've been harping on Iran for a long, long time. They have been the focus of the majority of my concern for a couple of years now. Now that we are nearing the fateful hour when we are going to be forced into deciding whether we should allow Iran to join the nuclear club or if we are going to take pre-emptive action against them, the mainstream media has joined the bandwagon. Thanks for showing up guys but you're a little too late. Had you shown up a year or so ago, perhaps we (the United States of America) could've gotten the ball rolling a bit sooner. Now, we're forced to debate sanctions while Iran is on the precipice of attaining nuclear weapons. I guess you were busy with the Bush National Guard story (which proved to be bogus) or the Koran-flushing story (also bogus). I understand, you've got your priorities.

This post isn't about the media so I'm going to get off of their cases for the time being. This post is about solutions. What are we going to do now that Iran has made it clear that they intend to continue defying the "World Community" at any cost? Some people (Democrats) will tell us that we should do nothing. Sit back, take it easy and let the United Nations handle the "diplomatic process". Instead of worrying about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, we should be focusing on something more politically advantageous to the Democrats like passing an amnesty for the illegal aliens (oops, I mean undocumented workers) or about how Bush is working with Exxon Mobile to keep gas prices high. Nuclear Schmuclear, it's time for higher taxes and more entitlements! Well, predictably, I disagree with them.

I think that IF (it's a big if) we can get sanctions passed against Iran in the UN, we should go for it. It's better than nothing but I don't see them accomplishing anything. Sanctions aren't going to stop the Iranians from enriching their uranium to weapons-grade and using their weapons to eradicate Israel. They may make the process more painful for the Iranians and make the Iranian government even more unpopular than they are but they will not stop them. China and Russia are going to oppose any sanctions or military action through the UN against Iran because they have their own interests to protect. Russia sees a wealthy country that is looking to purchase any high-tech weaponry they can get their hands on. Did anyone notice the large shipment of anti-aircraft missiles headed for Iran (that Iran says aren't theirs)? China (as I've noted before) sees a country that can take some of the pressure off of Beijing by tying up our military and keeping our nukes pointed away from them. Thus, they used A.Q. Khan as a proxy to deliver nuclear weapons technology to the Iranians. Why? It's all about Taiwan.

Many people say that we shouldn't worry about Iran because Israel will deal with them. They say we should just sit back and allow Israel to take out the Iranian nuclear weapons program. That would be okay as long as you don't mind the massive war that such an action would provoke. Every Arab or Muslim nation around the world would be mobilized against Israel in an instant. The death toll would be immense on both sides. I have little doubt that the Israelis would win but at what cost? I think the world practically expects the United States to be the ones to act. There's still going to be a backlash against us but I think it would be much less than the backlash against Israel.

So, let's look at our options. Option one: Foment a revolt within Iran and provide military, diplomatic and financial support. This can't be a Bay of Pigs, we have to stand by it. If this is the option that we use, we need to already have a government-in-exile ready to be moved in. We need to shop our options around amongst the Iranian people to ensure that this government will have sufficient popular support. We should also have a militia ready to go and attempt to coordinate their actions with precision strikes of our own. We should establish air superiority over Iran, eliminate their air power and SAM systems and devote much of our time to providing close-air support to the militia. This means that we'll have to take control of the Persian Gulf coast of Iran. Our air power will then be able to move in from the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. This gives us an enormous advantage by forcing them to defend their airspace on three sides. I'm pretty sure we have the superior air force, it shouldn't take us too long to decimate their air power.

Once we have established air superiority, we can strike Iran's armor and infantry units. Of course, we will pay particular attention to their command and control structure (Generals and the like). Any significant mobilizations of their military can be scattered by a few well-placed bombs. This will allow the revolt to mobilize and the revolutionaries to move more freely throughout the country. In addition, our air superiority will allow us to monitor movement into and out of the country. If the mullahs or their president tries to make a run for it, we can nail them. Once the mullahs are out of power, we can instill our government-in-exile, officially recognize them and begin diplomatic relations with them.

I'm glossing over some aspects of the plan because I do not know what we've already accomplished so far towards this end. Perhaps we've already done much of what I talked about, perhaps not. If we have, the time to deploy is fast approaching. If we haven't, I doubt we have time to implement such a strategy. Any revolt would have to be completely organic, stemming from the large amount of displeasure with the government among the younger generation of Iranians. Frankly, I doubt this will occur as there is still a fair level of nationalism among Iranians. They are proud of the technological achievments of their government, even if they are upset over the lack of academic freedom and the human rights abuses their government has committed. Any attack on Iran is bound to galvanize them around their government and discourage any revolutionaries from making a move. Overall analysis: Success is only likely if we've already paved the way.

Option Two: Direct Involvement. This means implementing the military phase from option one and following it with a ground force. This is the most unpleasant option as it carries the highest risk of American casualties, another occupation of a foreign, Islamic country and more claims of "blood for oil". The goal must be regime change with a focus on recovering the various elements of Iran's nuclear weapons program and spiriting them out of the country. Overall analysis: Not good.

Option Three: Fire and Forget. In this option, we go in fast, hit their nuclear weapons facilities and get out. Maybe we strike the leadership, maybe we don't. Either way, it is absolutely vital that we take out as much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure as possible. We accomplish this through cruise missile strikes, conventional bombs and tactical nukes. Yes Senator Kerry, I said tactical nukes. Unlike conventional nuclear weapons, tactical nukes are designed to burrow deep into the ground before detonating, thereby destroying any underground bunkers and facilities but exposing the surface to extremely limited amounts of radiation. In many instances, there will be almost no detectable radiation at the surface. In other words, shut your pie hole Kerry and Kennedy!

Under Option Three, regime change isn't necessary, there's minimal levels of troop commitment and only a moderate level of danger to our pilots. It is a very attractive option but in order for it to work, we must obliterate Iran's nuclear facilities. Cosmetic damage or minor delays won't cut it. We have to make sure that we take it out and set them back by years or decades. Of the three options, this is my favorite. Why? Because, if need be, we can repeat it. We get do-overs with this option. Overall analysis: Doable but success will be difficult to measure.

So, which option do you like best?

Return of the Mack!

2006-04-20T09:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, the time for moping around is over. After an extended hiatus, I've decided that it is time to return to the blogosphere. Things are looking up for me and my family. We've found some promising leads both in housing and in employment so I'm feeling better about those aspects of the move. There are some aspects of the move that will only be resolved by time so I'm going to allow things to run their course. I'm sure that we will be able to deal with most of these issues when the proper time arises so I'm not terribly concerned about them right now.

As I type this, I'm watching presidents Bush and Hu Jintao (I think I spelled it right, I'm too lazy to Google it right this second) on the White House lawn. Did anyone else see the Chinese woman screaming at them? Interesting that in her home country, she'd probably never be seen from again, isn't it? These talks should be rather interesting for a variety of reasons.

Currency: There is no way that China is going to float it's currency. Their weak currency means that Chinese goods are dirt cheap. If they were to allow the value of their currency to rise to normal levels, the market for Chinese goods would dry up as the market seeks another source of cheap products. Little of that production would move back to the states. Most of it would go to China's competitors in Asia like Malaysia and Indonesia. In my opinion, this would be a good thing. For one, it would move American capital to nations more in tune with our strategic interests (or at least less opposed to them or less able to interfere with them). For another, if this process repeats itself enough times, the global standard of living would slowly start to rise. When this happens, global wages and costs would begin to equalize and/or stabilize. If we can accomplish this, we will see less outsourcing except in cases where a certain nation has a degree of expertise in a particular field (think of India with their scientific and technical expertise).

Iran: China created and encouraged the nuclear programs in Pakistan and North Korea with the intent to create nuclear "hot spots" in order to distract us away from China and occupy our military resources elsewhere. Every nuke we point at North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and other countries is a nuke that is pointed away from China. Remember, China sees an upcoming confrontation with Taiwan (whom we support militarily). The last thing they want is for the full weight of American nuclear power to be brought to bear on them. Thus, they decided that the more nuclear allies (or enemies of the U.S.) there are around the globe, the better off they're going to be when this time comes. This is another reason I support shifting our trade away from China and towards other nations (such as India) that are proven to be better friends of the United States.

Also, my wife and I have been following the immigration debate very closely. My wife used to be a firm Hillary Clinton supporter. After her "faces of America" speech, my wife vowed that she would never vote for her, not even if she were the only candidate running for office. Quite a dramatic shift for my wife, a life-long Democrat (by tradition). It makes me wonder just how many other Democrats saw that speech and thought the same thing.

Of course, Ted "The Swimmer" Kennedy had to get in on the act. I saw portions of his speech in front of the illegal immigration supporters. I noticed he had a translator there. Funny, he was suspended from Harvard for hiring someone to take a Spanish exam for him. Could it be the same person? Just a thought.

I don't think I've made it a mystery when it comes to my stance on immigration. Build the wall (use the "12 million" illegals that are in this country to build it for all I care), make it a felony to enter this country illegally and deport anyone you catch without the proper identification. I laugh at the amnesty proposal going through the Senate right now. How are we supposed to verify how long an illegal has been in this country? The term "undocumented worker" should tell us, at the very least, that we have no documentation on them. Are we going to take their word on it? How many people do you think will say they just arrived in this country within the last day or two? Even if you catch them a yard from the border, they'll tell you they were just camping or hiking. If you're interested in this story, you might want to visit The American Resistance.

Anyhow, I'm back now and I have a LOT of reading to do. Please let me know if there's a post of yours that you'd like my opinion on.

Where Have I Been?

2006-03-22T11:05:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have noticed a serious decline in my posting and commenting recently. I apologize for this but there is a reason. Allow me to explain:

When I first moved into the sales department where I work, I made quite a bit of money. Foolishly, I squandered it on stupid things instead of investing in my future. I still had a thing or two to learn about money, it seems. Anyhow, I wasn't concerned about the future thanks to the newfound prosperity that I was enjoying. Things were moving along fine when suddenly, it all came to an end. My employer (who shall remain nameless) slashed commissions on policies over 6 months old, a cut that cost me over $20,000 a year. That's a big hit.

Things were only going to get worse. A year goes by and it is announced that another cut was going to occur. This cut was supposed to be more mild, and it was, but it effectively did away with any and all commissions that I would make on policies sold. I went from being in one of the highest income brackets in the area to just a little over the federal poverty line in a matter of two years. As you can imagine, this has had some significant impact on my families standard of living. What to do?

In most circumstances, I would simply walk away and find another job. Here's the crux of the problem: there are none. The area that I am in is the poorest in the state of Ohio and one of the poorest in the nation. Only small pockets of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky (and of course Mississippi - the whole state) are as or more poor than this area. Jobs are in short supply around here, especially for someone with my set of skills and abilities. I am not a factory worker or a coal miner by any stretch of the imagination. Not that there's anything wrong with those professions but they just aren't for me.

I grew up in Kansas City, Mo in an area that enjoys a significant level of prosperity and economic growth. I moved out here to be with my wife and her daughter and attempted to scrape out a living as best I could. I've been here for 6 years now and I am no further ahead than the day I moved here. I'm 26 (27 in June) and I have no desire to spend the rest of my life renting my home and living paycheck to paycheck. I'm not going to work my entire life to end up with nothing. So, you can imagine the choice that now faces me and my family. Stay and starve or move and have the potential for prosperity.

For me, it's no big deal. My wife is looking forward to the move. My stepdaughter... not so much excited about it. She is the only thing I'm concerned about at this time. How will the move affect her? Will she adjust to a school that is literally 100 times larger than the school she is currently attending? How will she handle being separated from her extended family and friends? These are the questions I am thinking about. These are the thoughts that keep me preoccupied and disinclined to do much blogging.

We have decided to move but haven't told my wife's family yet. I can only imagine the level of guilt that is going to be leveled at my wife by her mother. It is going to be surreal. The only thing we can do is make our case as clearly as possible and leave it at that. People don't have to like it, they are free to think what they will. We are going to do what we have to do to thrive and prosper and if it means moving almost a thousand miles away to Kansas City, then so be it.

It is the power of economics at work.

Studying The Classics

2006-03-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, I started the "virtual classroom" that I mentioned. You can click the title of this post to get there or check my sidebar for the link. My first post is on Socrates, with a link to The Apology of Socrates at the end of the post. Give it a read and when you're finished, tell me what you think.

I will edit that post from time to time, posting important sections of the text to stir conversation.

Alan Dershowitz on Preemption

2006-03-09T08:15:00.000-05:00

Some of the people reading this may know who Alan Dershowitz is but most probably don't. To sum him up in as few words as possible, he's a professor at Harvard Law who specializes in civil liberties and criminal law. In other words, he's someone I don't often agree with. Well, every dog has his day and his day has arrived! Alan Dershowitz has written a new book called Preemption, A Knife That Cuts Both Ways (published by W. W. Norton).

Tony Blankley did a review of his book for the Washington Times. For certain readers of mine who might wish to know what a Harvard Law professor thinks about the doctrine of preemption, I would think this would be a most enlightening read. From Tony Blankley's op-ed:

"The premise of his book is that in this age of terror, there is a potential need for such devices as profiling, preventive detention, anticipatory mass inoculation, prior restrainst of dangerous speech, targeted extrajudicial executions of terrorists and preemptive military action, including full-scale preventive war."

Very interesting, considering that the argument has been made that such things would be illegal, non?

Teaching the classics

2006-03-09T00:42:00.000-05:00

I have been toying with the idea of starting up another blog where we can discuss all of the things that should be taught in our schools instead of "mental mapping". Things like Plato's Republic, Aquinas's Seven Proofs, Descartes, Pascale, Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, Hobbes, Locke and even Nietzsche. I think that a study of the foundation of our society and our culture is vital if it is to continue.

What do you think? Would you be interested in participating in such discussions and examinations of the classics?

IranFocus.com

2006-03-09T00:37:00.000-05:00

A valuable tool in my research of Iran has been Iranfocus.com. This site provides in-depth coverage of Iran and plenty of links to keep you up to date on all of their nefarious activities. Give it a read, you may even want to bookmark it.

Time To Pull The Trigger?

2006-03-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

Looking around the world, I notice a lot of unrest and upheaval out there. Depending on where you look there are different causes but nowhere in the world is there more upheaval than in the Middle East. If we dig even deeper into the chaos and unrest in the Middle East, we find that the vast majority of the chaos is being instigated by Iran. From the "cartoon" protests to car bombings and assassinations in Iraq, Iran is stirring things up throughout the region.

They know what they are doing. The Iranian government is using this unrest as a smokescreen, seeking to hide behind it while they continue their nuclear development program. They are hoping that the various riots and explosions will keep their ambitions from being front page news. Notice how every time the pressure gets ratcheted up on Iran, something else happens somewhere in the Middle East? It is no coincidence.

I think we've allowed this to go on for far too long. From the moment we discovered the links between Iran and the "insurgency" in Iraq, we should have been making very loud, very unpleasant noises in their direction. These noises should have been coupled with lots of guns being pointed at them and a good many threats that they will be used if this behavior continues. Sadly, it may now be too late to start all that. Iran has committed themselves to their current course of action and now we must consider our next step.

I say we should begin launching decapitation strikes, aimed at the clerics who pull the strings and the puppet of a president that gets all the press. They both need to go. Killing the president will do no good if the clerics are still in power. Puppets are a dime a dozen in the Islamic world, they'll just get another one and make him president. Killing the clerics without killing the president would also be futile, he's fully committed to their vision of apocalyptic destruction in the quest to bring back the 12th Imam.

Iran has a strong middle class and an upper class that doesn't necessarily appreciate the lunatic mullahs and their jihad. I am certain that we can cobble together a democratic government from these people and if not, at least we won't have another government fomenting hatred and terrorism around the globe. I think it is past time to pull the trigger but, better late than never.

Election Fixin' The Appalachian Way

2006-03-03T12:31:00.000-05:00

This is great stuff! Using booze, cigarettes and pork rinds to buy votes! God bless America!

New York Times Misses The Point Again

2006-03-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

The New York Times published an article today about the U.S. nuclear deal with India that completely misses the mark. The nuclear deal struck with India does give them a free pass on building more nuclear weapons but the deal sends a greater message to two other countries. Care to guess who they are? Iran and Russia.

John Loftus at IntelligenceSummit.org tells us that the deal does significant damage to Iranian ambitions of obtaining a nuclear weapon. He appears on the John Batchelor show every night and last night, he offered some amazing insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of the deal. During his interview with John Batchelor, Loftus told the audience that Iran was actively seeking Russian engineers to build their nuclear reactors. By opening up the Indian market to nuclear development, we are robbing Iran of this resource. Instead of infuriating the West by sending engineers to Iran to build nuclear reactors, Russia can now send them to India and stay perfectly within the good graces of the U.S. and other Western nations. There is plenty of money to be made for Russia and at the same time, Russia will be helping on of our strategic partners in a vital corner of the world.

Loftus also reminds us that watching the Iranian's delivery systems capability is just as important as their nuclear development. Building a nuke only enhances their power if they are able to deploy the nuke outside of their own territory. China has long envisioned using Iran to develop the Shahab-3 missile for use by North Korea.

My opinion: We should use whatever means available to us to abort or delay development and production of the Shahab-3. Currently, many intelligence sources believe the Shahab-3 to be capable of striking central european countries and possibly Paris and London. I have no doubts that if this capability is fully developed and nuclear warheads are produced that are usable by the Shahab-3, Iran will not hesitate to use them.

More on this story as information comes in.

The Battles We Face

2006-03-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

Looking around the globe, I see many battles that our country is facing today and many more that we will be forced to face in the future. Many of these battles are absolutely vital to the maintenance of freedom and stability around the world. Unfortunately, we have a media that can't see the forest for the trees and is driven by an agenda of their own. They play politics with their reporting and they fail to understand the true depth and severity of the threats that we face. If this ignorance existed in a vacuum it would be humorous but the fact that the ignorance of the press contributes to the ignorance of the American people and people around the world makes this a very troubling scenario.

Let's start with Iran:

The press fails to understand the motives of the Iranian government and the radical Islam that propels it inevitably towards the Apocalypse.
The press fails to explain that Iran is the chief instigator behind most of the bombings and unrest in Iraq. They are using Iraq as a distraction, a shield to hide behind while they feverishly work to acquire nuclear weapons.
The press fails to illustrate the tentacles of Iranian influence that extend throughout much of the Middle East, Europe and Asia. They fail to show how nations like Russia and China are working behind the scenes to support Iran, hoping to gain an ally in the Middle East.
The press fails to explain the Iranian interest in continued unrest in Iraq as well as the financial and material support they lend to the "insurgency". Many of these mosque bombings have messages that the press is oblivious to because they don't understand the conflict that exists between Shia and Sunni muslims.
The press fails to explain the makeup of the Iraqi "insurgency" due to their own colored view of the war. They think the "insurgency" is comprised of everyday Iraqis that represent the mainstream of Iraqi thought (if you look at how they report on the subject). The fact that a great many "insurgents" carry foreign passports from nations like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia escapes mention.
The press fails to understand the true danger of a nuclear Iran and the nuclear hell that would be unleashed if their ambitions are realized.

Let's look at Iraq next:

The press fails to report the substantial progress being made by the Iraqi military and police forces. During the most recent elections, Iraqi forces handled nearly ALL of the security around the country and they did a wonderful job.
The press fails to report the mindset of most Iraqis, people who are tired of the violence and who do not support the "insurgency".
The press fails to report on the gratitude that most Iraqis feel towards the United States for liberating them from Saddam Hussein.
The press fails to report on the reasons why a full blown civil war has NOT erupted in Iraq. Many of the leading clerics among Shiite and Sunni muslims have been working overtime to prevent civil war. Many times, they work ALONGSIDE one another in a highly combustible atmosphere. These clerics want a peaceful Iraq, they want problems solved through public discussion, debate and through the political process. As hard as Iran is working to start a fire in Iraq, they are working twice as hard to extinguish it.

About the Islamic world in general:

The press fails to accurately report the many Muslims that do NOT support the terrorists. They fail to explain the true reason behind the silence of most Muslims when it comes to the the extremists among them: fear. Many governments in the Islamic world either support these radicals or are too afraid of them to take action against them. Those that do should be praised as loudly and as often as possible. Pakistan immediately comes to mind as does Afghanistan.
The press fails to report on the great division among Muslims today and the causes of this division. Saudi Wahabism and Iranian agitation are to blame for most of the terrorism in the world today. Both have political as well as religious motives, neither have been accurately reported on.

Moving beyond the War on Terror, I see a struggle for the future of freedom and democracy in America. I see misguided people with (for the most part) good intentions supporting very anti-American ideals. I see people who knowingly and unknowingly support Socialism and even Communism based on emotion rather than logic. I see an education system that is tearing itself apart due to increasingly liberal administrations and school boards. "Outcome-based" educations, social promotions and other ridiculous ideas are doing nothing to restore the faith of the people in our public education system. I see college professors preaching ridiculous, anti-semitic and anti-American messages from the pulpit of the (state funded) classroom and administrators who are either too intimidated to remove them or are sympathetic to their causes.

I see people who are guilt-stricken beyond reason at the success of this country. I see people who despise progress (usually operating under the guise of being "progressives") protesting trade agreements that promote growth not only in this country but in countries around the world. These trade agreements cement relations between countries that help to guarantee our safety and security. They form alliances and help us develop common interests with nations that might otherwise become our enemies or allies to our enemies. Those arguing for isolationism in the age of the global economy are either insane, uneducated in the needs of our country if we are going to compete in the global marketplace or actively seeking to destroy our economy and our country.

At the same time, I see people rejecting the notion of borders entirely, advocating the issuing of Constitutional rights, government entitlements and other benefits to those who infiltrate our country illegaly. They care very little for the security concerns of our country, placing the interests of Mexico (where Vicente Fox is slashing government liabilities by sending them off to the United States) above the interests of America. This is provoking a culture war as many Mexican immigrants refuse to "Americanize", insisting that America should conform to their "needs" instead of them conforming to our society. My opinion, if you're going to move to America and benefit from all that we have to offer, it is your duty to assimilate, to some degree, into the society into which you are moving.

There are things that give me hope.

It seems that China is having a devil of a time censoring the flow of information into their country via the internet. Computer users in China are using secure, underground networks to browse the real internet, circumventing the "official" internet that is available to them. The government shuts these proxies down as quickly as they discover them but new ones are being set up at a faster rate than they can shut them down. I take great pleasure in noting that most of the work is being done in America for the benefit of the people of China.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are struggling against their brutal, violent histories in an attempt to modernize their countries and join the rest of the civilized world in the 21st century.

Things in Iraq look bleak today but so far, they've avoided an all-out civil war, opting instead for unity in the face of terror. Schools are still being built, hospitals are still opening their doors to treat the wounded and new businesses are spring up all over the country, offering jobs and income to the people. The Iraqi stock market is functioning, Iraqi radio stations invite Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to discuss their problems with each other instead of fighting it out in the streets. Each election produces higher and higher voter turnouts with increasing participation from almost every faction within Iraq.

More and more scrutiny is being placed on Iran as people begin to discover the threat posed by them. The debate is turning to intervention as opposed to continued diplomacy, even in some of the more "erudite" circles. All but the most naive are coming to accept the use of force in stopping Iran's march towards the bomb.

Younger Americans are turning their backs on the mainstream media, opting to get their information from non-traditional sources instead. The average CBS News viewer is practically eligible for retirement. The New York Times continues to lose readers as it marches steadily leftward. Most Americans (upwards of 70%) support closing our border with Mexico and preventing people from entering our country illegaly.

The "Dubai" story demonstrates that the people are still concerned with our national security, even if the information they were being fed proves inaccurate. By contrast, few people beyond the media really cared about Dick Cheney's hunting accident.

Canada is privatizing portions of its healthcare system, a move which should steal some of the thunder from proponents of socialized medicine. Canada also seems to be moving slightly to the right (or at least back to the center) politically as the people seek to reinforce their relationship with America.

The people are getting a better look at exactly how much support the U.S. is getting from the U.A.E. Sometimes it's good to take another look at the generosity and support from your friends because it helps you appreciate them all over again.

There are many things that trouble me around the world. Fortunately, there are many other things that cause me to believe that good will prevail.

Geopolitical Intelligence Report From Stratfor.com

2006-02-28T22:27:00.000-05:00

Of Mosques, Oil Fields and Ports

By George Friedman

Last week was dominated by three apparently discrete events. The al-Askariyah mosque -- a significant Shiite shrine in As Samarra, Iraq -- was bombed, triggering intensifying violence between Shiite and Sunni groups. A group linked to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for attacking a major oil facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. And a furor broke out in the United States over the proposed purchase, by a government-owned United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm, of a British company that operates a number of important American ports. Apart from the fact that all of these incidents involve Muslims, the stories don't appear to be linked. They are.

All three stories are commentaries on three things. First, they are measures of the current state of the U.S.-jihadist war. Second, they are measures of the Bush administration's strategy of splitting the Islamic world against itself, along its natural fault lines, and using that split to contain and control the radical Islamist threat against the United States. And finally, they are the measure of U.S. President George W. Bush's ability to manage public perceptions of his plans and operations.

The Fault Lines in Iraq

Begin with the bombing of al-Askariyah, or "the Golden Mosque," in As Samarra.

After the failures of U.S. intelligence and operations in Iraq in spring 2003, the United States adopted a long-term strategy of using the natural split between the country's Shiite and Sunni populations to first stabilize its own position, and then improve it. During the first phase, Washington tilted heavily toward the Shia, doing everything possible to assure that there would be no Shiite rising to accompany that of the Sunnis. Since the Shia had no love for the Sunni minority, given their experiences under Saddam Hussein's anti-Shiite regime, this was not overly difficult. In addition, the Shia were able to take advantage of the U.S.-Sunni war to shape and dominate post-Hussein politics. The Shia and Americans suited each other.

In the second phase of this policy, the United States reached out to the Sunnis, trying to draw them into a Shiite-Kurdish government. Washington had two goals: One was a Sunni counterweight to the Shia. Whatever it had promised the Shia, Washington did not simply want to hand Iraq over to them, out of fear that the country would become an Iranian satellite state. The second goal was to exploit fault lines within the Sunni community itself, in order to manipulate the balance of power in favor of the United States.

By the time this phase of the policy was being implemented -- at the end of the first battle of Al Fallujah, in 2004 -- the U.S.-Sunni war had developed a new dimension, consisting of jihadists. These were Sunnis, but differed from the Iraqi Sunnis in a number of critical ways. First, many were foreigners who lacked roots in Iraq. Second, the Sunni community in Iraq was multidimensional; Sunnis had been the backbone of support for Hussein's regime, which had been far more secular than Islamist. The jihadists, of course, were radical Islamists. Thus, there was the potential for yet another rift; the stronger the jihadists grew, the greater the risk to the traditional leadership of Iraq's Sunnis. The jihadists might increase their influence within the community, marginalizing the old leadership.

The U.S. success in manipulating this split reached a high point in December 2005, with Iraq's national elections. The jihadists opposed Sunni participation in the election, but the Sunni leadership participated anyway. The jihadists threatened the leadership but could not strike; as foreigners, they depended on local Sunni communities to sustain and protect them. If they alienated the Sunni leadership without destroying them, the jihadists would in turn be destroyed.

Thus, after the disaster in December, the jihadists embarked on a different course. Rather than focusing on American forces or Shiite collaborators, the goal was to trigger a civil war between the Shia and Sunnis. The brilliantly timed attack on the Golden Mosque, much like the 9/11 attacks, was intended to ignite a war. There would be an event that the Shia could not ignore and to which they would respond with maximum violence, preferably against the Sunnis as a whole. In an all-out civil war, the Sunni leadership would not be able to dispense with the jihadists, or so the jihadists hoped. Their own position would be cemented and the Americans would be trapped in a country torn by civil war.

The Sunni leadership, of course, understands the situation. If the Sunnis protect the jihadists who carried out the attack -- and we are convinced they were jihadists -- they will be in a civil war they cannot win. Given their numbers compared to the Shiite majority, the Sunnis -- if they were to break with the Shia -- eventually would have to come back to the table and make some sort of a deal. The jihadists are betting that the terms the Shia would impose would be so harsh that the Sunnis would prefer civil war. The United States has an interest in limiting what terms the Shia can impose, and the Iraqi Shia themselves understand that if there is civil war, they will need Iran's help. Getting caught between the United States and Iran is not in their interest.

There is, interestingly, the possibility of what passes for peace in Iraq embedded in all of this. The jihadists, marginalized and desperate due to American maneuvers, have tossed up a "Hail Mary" in the hope of disrupting the works. It is certainly possible that the maneuver will work. But a more reasonable assumption is that the bombing of the Golden Mosque achieves merely a shift in the time frame the Sunnis thought they had for negotiations. What might have taken months now could take much less. Certainly, the Sunnis have been forced to a decision point.

Attempt at Strategic Attack

The al Qaeda attack against the Abqaiq facility has similar roots.

Prior to 2003, the Saudi position on al Qaeda was one of benign neglect. The Saudi regime tried to limit both its exposure to the American war against the jihadists, and to intelligence cooperation with the United States, out of fear of the consequences from al Qaeda. After the invasion of Iraq, however, and the realization that the United States was rampaging just to the north, the Saudis shifted their position, and significant intelligence cooperation began. There were two consequences of this shift: One, the United States was receiving Saudi intelligence and became much more effective than before in blocking al Qaeda attacks and disrupting their operations; and two, the jihadists went to war against the Saudi regime, launching a series of strikes and counterstrikes over the next two years. The United States had split the Saudi government off from the jihadists, and the Saudis absorbed the price of collaboration.

Al Qaeda has been relatively quiet in Saudi Arabia since June 2004. It had appeared to many observers that al Qaeda was finished in Saudi Arabia. Thus, just as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's faction in Iraq had to assert itself or be marginalized, the al Qaeda faction in Saudi Arabia had to demonstrate its continued capability to mount operations -- however dangerous and difficult that task might be. It was Hail Mary time in the kingdom as well. The result was the Feb. 24 attack against Abqaiq, a critical oil processing facility.

This was intended to be a strategic attack. A strategic attack differs from a tactical attack in several ways:

1. It shifts the political equation dramatically by demonstrating capabilities.

2. It involves a strike against a target or resource that, if destroyed, changes the economic or political scene definitively.

3. It requires a substantial commitment of resources.

The Sept. 11 strikes amounted to a strategic attack; a suicide bombing by jihadists in Iraq normally does not. The Abqaiq operation was an attempt at a strategic attack. It was designed to be a shocking demonstration of al Qaeda's continued capabilities -- and to massively affect world oil supplies. Such an operation would involve a great deal of planning and, we suspect, a substantial proportion of trained and available al Qaeda personnel in Saudi Arabia (as opposed to sympathizers).

But the strike was a fiasco. Rather than demonstrating al Qaeda's capabilities in Saudi Arabia, the attackers barely penetrated the first security cordon before they were gunned down by security forces. Certainly, they demonstrated that al Qaeda still has operatives who are willing to attempt a strategic attack, but they failed to demonstrate that they still have the ability to actually execute one. Special operations are always difficult, but it now appears that either the group had been penetrated by Saudi security from the beginning, or the cell was not trained in the arts that al Qaeda previously dominated. All three cars used in the strike appear to have been identified and destroyed before there was any possibility they could reach their targets inside the Abqaiq compound.

In Iraq, two divisions in the Muslim world revealed themselves and were manipulated. The first was the Sunni-Shiite split, the second was the rift between the jihadists and mainstream Sunnis. In Saudi Arabia, the split was between, on one side, the state apparatus and the leaders of the royal family -- who had lost their ability to remain neutral in the face of the Iraq invasion, U.S. bellicosity and the fear of a U.S.-Iranian entente over Iraq -- and an increasingly radicalized faction of the religious establishment that was supporting al Qaeda. Within the kingdom, the latter could not withstand the weight of the former, and the result showed itself last week, with a feeble al Qaeda effort that was followed by bombastic rhetoric.

The Debate on the Ports Deal

The third dimension in all of this became apparent with the ports issue. Washington has tried to draw a line between Muslim states that have cooperated with the United States in due course -- regardless of what their earlier behavior might have been like -- and those states that it still doesn't trust. It distinguishes in this way between, for example, Syria and Kuwait. The former has always been seen as hostile to the United States, the latter has been a mainstay of American strategy since its liberation by the United States in 1991. The rest of the Muslim world is distributed along a continuum between these poles.

Washington's only hope for something approaching a satisfactory outcome in Iraq was to work with factions it never would have spoken to prior to 2003. Its hope for a satisfactory outcome in the global war with the jihadists was in getting Saudi intelligence to work with the United States. That also required actions and compromises that would not have been made before 2003. Finally, in order to reshape the Muslim world, the United States needed to have relations with countries that did not have immaculate records but which, on the whole and for a variety of reasons, now found it in their interest to work with Washington.

For Saudi Arabia, the motivating factor was fear. For the UAE, it was greed. To be more fair, the UAE is something like a Switzerland: Its business is business, and it tilts its politics in such a way that business is likely to be good. The Islamic world is a complex place, and there are many players. If the United States is to be successful, it must divide, manipulate and conquer that world along the lines of its complexity. The Sunni-Shiite fault line is one axis, but the division between countries that are motivated by mercenary considerations, as opposed to those that have more complex motives, is another.

The UAE wants to do business, and it is good at it. One of its businesses is managing ports. Purchasing a British company in the same industry is a natural thing to do in business; the fact that the purchase in question would give the UAE company oversight of ports in the United States is another attraction of the deal. The attraction is not that the UAE could facilitate the movement of al Qaeda operatives into the United States; that is not what the UAE is after, since it would be bad for business. What it is after is the profits that come from doing the business.

Now, some argue that this business deal will make it easier for al Qaeda operatives to get into the United States. We find that doubtful. Al Qaeda operatives -- the real ones, not the wannabes -- if they are out there, will get into the United States just fine by a number of means. And if they try to slip a bomb into a container ship, it won't be one sent from a Muslim country -- the level of scrutiny there is too high. It would be from a place and under a flag that no one would suspect for a moment, like Denmark. At any rate, given what it means to "operate a port," the risk to the United States from having a British company manage its ports is about the same as that from the UAE: Has anyone noticed that holding a British passport these days is no guarantee of loyalty to Western ideals?

The Administration's Strategy

The point here is not to argue the merits of the Dubai ports deal, but rather to place the business deal in the context of the U.S. grand strategy. That strategy is, again, to split the Islamic world into its component parts, induce divisions by manipulating differences, and to create coalitions based on particular needs. This is, currently, about the only strategy the United States has going for it -- and if it can't use commercial relations as an inducement in the Muslim world, that is quite a weapon to lose.

The problem has become political, and stunningly so. One of the most recent opinion polls, by CBS, has placed Bush's approval rating at 34 percent -- a fairly shocking decline, and clearly attributable to the port issue. As we have noted in the past, each party has a core constituency of about 35-37 percent. When support falls significantly below this level, a president loses his ability to govern.

The Republican coalition consists of three parts: social conservatives, economic conservatives and business interests, and national security conservatives. The port deal has apparently hit the national security conservatives in Bush's coalition hard. They were already shaky over the administration's personnel policies in the military and the question of whether he had a clear strategy in Iraq, even as they supported the invasion.

Another part of the national security faction consists of those who believe that the Muslim world as a whole is, in the end, united against the United States, and that it poses a clear and present danger. Bush used to own this faction, but the debate over the ports has generated serious doubts among this faction about Bush's general policy. In their eyes, he appears inconsistent and potentially hypocritical. Economic conservatives might love the ports deal, and so might conservatives of the "realpolitik" variety, but those who buy into the view that there is a general danger of terrorism emanating from all Muslim countries are appalled -- and it is showing in the polls.

If Bush sinks much lower, he will breaks into territory from which it would be impossible for a presidency to recover. He is approaching this territory with three years left in his presidency. It is the second time that he has probed this region: The first was immediately after Hurricane Katrina. He is now down deeper in the polls, and it is cutting into his core constituency.

In effect, Bush's strategy and his domestic politics have intersected with potential fratricidal force. The fact is that the U.S. strategy of dividing the Muslim world and playing one part off against the other is a defensible and sophisticated strategy -- even if does not, in the end, turn out to be successful (and who can tell about that?) This is not the strategy the United States started with; the strategy emerged out of the failures in Iraq in 2003. But whatever its origins, it is the strategy that is being used, and it is not a foolish strategy.

The problem is that the political coalition has eroded to the point that Bush needs all of his factions, and this policy -- particularly because of the visceral nature of the ports issue -- is cutting into the heart of his coalition. The general problem is this: The administration has provided no framework for understanding the connection between a destroyed mosque dome in As Samarra, an attack against a crucial oil facility in Saudi Arabia, and the UAE buyout of a British ports-management firm. Rather than being discussed in the light of a single, integrated strategy, these appear to be random, disparate and uncoordinated events. The reality of the administration's strategy and the reality of its politics are colliding. Bush will backtrack on the ports issue, and the UAE will probably drop the matter. But what is not clear is whether the damage done to the strategy and the politics can be undone. The numbers are just getting very low.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

Meet Frederic Bastiat

2006-02-26T20:55:00.000-05:00

Claude Frédéric Bastiat (June 30, 1801 - December 24, 1850) was a French classical liberal author and economist. He and I go way back to my high school days when I was searching for my political identity. I discovered him through some of my own research, brought about by a reference made to him by my Philosophy teacher. Like most people, I found out about Bastiat through his work The Law.

In The Law, Bastiat argues that we are all given three basic rights by God, those rights being Life, faculties and production. Since we were given these by God, he reasoned we had an inherent right to defend them, by force if need be. He reasoned that governments were formed by individuals to protect the rights of all individuals.

You could say that he was saying the collective body of individuals banded together to protect the individuals through the strength of their numbers. The purpose of government was to protect the Life, liberty and property of others. He acknowledged that government could become warped when the people sought to use it to do that which they could not legally do themselves. He had a lack of confidence in government that I identified with and a disdain of Socialism that made perfect sense to me.

Some great quotes from Bastiat, courtesy of Wikipedia:

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"—from The Law

"Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."—from The Law

"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."—from The Law

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."—from Government

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."—from The Law

"It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion—whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government—at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty."—from The Law

If you haven't done so, please take the time to read The Law. I find it to be an incredibly enlightening work that sums up my ideas on government very nicely.

Bad Medicine

2006-02-24T01:17:00.000-05:00

One subject the left (whether Socialist, Communist or just plain liberal) has always been enamored with is socialized health care. You may have heard it referred to as universal health care, Hillary-care or some other such name that may or may not contain the word "social". Some people get a bit squeamish about that word, especially when they are trying to avoid the appearance of being a Socialist. They've decided that discretion is the better part of valor.

For those people who are not homeowners or who do not pay taxes, universal health care may seem like a great idea. Free health care for everybody, all you have to do is show up! Well, for them, it is a great deal because those who do not pay taxes will be forced to pay their share in addition to their own. But, in the grand scheme of things, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody's got to pay the tab and I suspect that tab will be more than anyone cares to think about. If the estimates are correct, such a program will bankrupt our treasury and put a major drain on our economy that we may be unable to recover from.

I suspect that one of the reasons the left is so keen on universal health care is that it creates a situation where taxes will have to be raised. No amount of economic growth, no increases in spending are going to meet the need that a program like this would create. If you look around the world at the various examples that we have to study, several things remain consistent. The quality of the care is poorer, the availability of specialists and special equipment is pathetic and the costs are horrendous.

When comparing our health care system to those found elsewhere, it becomes clear that our system produces a much higher quality product. It may be true that a certain percentage of our population is without health care but I take issue with the number of "uninsured" people the politicians claim. A good portion of the "uninsured" are actually self-insured, people who choose to pay out of pocket for their health care. Others are younger people who are in good health so they see no need to purchase coverage. The numbers are also loaded up with people who were uninsured for one day - a single day out of 365 - and were counted as being uninsured for the entire year.

When these people are factored out of the 44 million figure that the media is so fond of, you end up with between 5 and 10 million. At times, this number may be as low as 2 million or as high as 15 million depending on exactly when you conduct your survey. Few people remain without health coverage for any extended period of time so you are going to have some fluctuations in the numbers. In any event, you are dealing with a relatively small percentage of the population as a whole. Bankrupting our nation to insure 8-10% of the population is not sound fiscal policy. There are many more efficient ways of spending taxpayer money. It is rather disingenuous of the media to throw around that 44 million figure but it sells more newspapers than 2 million or 5 million.

Perhaps there's another reason behind the push to socialize our health care system, a darker and more sinister reason. Once our government assumes control of the health care industry, they are going to want to regulate almost everything in order to control costs. They're going to regulate junk food, fast food, "big tobacco", alcohol and... firearms. The groundwork has already been laid for the government to go after the left's equivalent of the holy grail through lawsuits and even the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. They lost all future government funding for studies on firearms due to their slanted findings and their dismissal of any evidence that showed firearms to be a benefit to society. The CDC wanted to label firearms and firearm violence an "epidemic". The pieces to the puzzle have all been laid out, you just have to put them together.

Decades of lawsuits aimed at specific industries will serve as the springboard for the regulations. These lawsuits have been based on, and often produced their own, research that proclaims the products of these industries to be health hazards. In many of these cases (like big tobacco) it has been shown that there was an intentional effort to hide the effects of smoking. Lawsuits against "Big Mac" and the firearms industry are alleging negligence and liability for damages despite the fact that the products, when used appropriately, are perfectly safe. Any harm done comes from the misuse of the products, not any defect in their manufacture. These lawsuits are designed to do nothing more than bankrupt these companies and drive them out of business altogether.

Does anyone honestly believe that with all of these lawsuits and all of this "research", the government will refuse to intervene? They will use "public health and welfare" arguments to extract massive punitive fines from specific, targeted industries and companies. Under this increased financial pressure, many businesses would be forced to close and many jobs would be lost. This is going to have very undesirable economic consequences that will likely put a tremendous amount of strain on our treasury.

Even worse, industries (like the gun industry) that run afoul of the left will face penalties harsh enough to force them to close their doors. Equally terrible is the level of extortion such a system would promote. Companies that don't want to be fined out of existence would be forced to pay massive settlements or make large campaign contributions (bribes) to key politicians in order to be spared. True, this is already happening today but the scale would be much more massive if these things come to pass.

The amount of money spent on health care each year continues to grow. Some estimates predict that in the not-too-distant future, health care expenditures will account for 25% of our GDP. That is under our current health care system, you can expect that figure to double if we implement any sort of universal health care system. That is a boat-load of money being spent on health care that will not be spent on other sectors of the economy. It will be a rough storm to weather under our current system. I fear it would be unbearable under a socialized health care system.

Why would such a system exert so much pressure on our economy? Why would the quality of our health care suffer? Why would the availability of specialists and equipment become a serious problem? There are two main reasons for this: Psychology and Economics. There will be no escaping the inevitable reactions that will ripple throughout our country.

When people perceive something to be free, they use more of it. People who get free gas to heat their homes will keep their thermostats higher in the winter than those who pay for their gas. If cable were free, nobody would settle for the basic package. Without any sort of cost to inhibit consumption, consumption will approach or reach maximum levels almost every time. I can think of no examples where this rule does not apply. Does anyone think that things would be any different in the health care field? Not if they look at the evidence that currently exist.

In our country, those who receive "free" medical treatment through the government are many times more likely to go to the doctor when they don't need to than those who must pay out of pocket for their health care. Even those with low co-pays will make many more trips to the doctor than those with higher co-pays. If we make health care "free" to everyone, everyone is going to use it even when they don't need to. Why not? It's free.

Pharmaceutical companies will take a beating as well. Currently, drug companies spend billions of dollars each year researching new drugs and improving existing drugs. They do this because there is lots of money to be made, mostly in the United States. Other countries use their leverage and buying power to demand lower prices for prescription drugs. The drug makers acquiesce, for the most part, because they can recoup their losses through their U.S. sales. Were we to socialize our health care system, we would not be able to negotiate the same deals. The drug makers would either have to raise everyone's prices worldwide or face tremendous losses that are unsustainable.

If you think other countries dislike us now, imagine if we are to blame for doubling or tripling their prescription drug costs! I doubt that is going to foster a whole lot of good will towards our country. In the end, it would probably be in the best interest of the drug makers because it would allow them to charge countries like Canada more for their drugs but I doubt Canada (or anyone else) is going to appreciate that.

The end result would be that spending on research and development of new drugs would decrease dramatically, perhaps grinding to a halt. Without the incentive of profit, drug makers wouldn't be inclined to create new drugs. The production of existing drugs would suffer as well. Consider the flu vaccine shortage of last year. Government intervention in the market depressed prices to the point that only a couple of companies continued to manufacture the vaccines. When the largest manufacturer of the vaccines had to throw out a batch of their vaccine, there were no other supplies to replace them. Government involvement destroyed the competition that ordinarily would have allowed us to go on about our business without any interruption.

We would likely see a shortage of doctors and nurses. State or federal government-run facilities are not going to pay as well as privately funded hospitals. Less pay means less desire to be a doctor or a nurse, especially in a society where there are hundreds of other jobs people can take to make the same amount of money or more. Some people would still become doctors because they want to be doctors but I doubt it would be enough to fill the need. Our supply of nurses would be even more depleted than it is now. This would increase delays in treatment and make timely trips to the doctor a thing of the past. We already see this happening in health care today due to Medicare and Medicaid. The repeat customers are called "frequent flyers" and are often on a first-name basis with the staff of the hospitals they attend.

Addiction to prescription drugs would likely increase dramatically if the drugs were made available at no cost to the public. If the pharmacies are going to be handing out Percocet and Vicodin and the people aren't going to have to worry about paying for them, it is reasonable to assume that a large number of people will be waiting to take advantage of the offer. Obtaining prescriptions isn't much of a problem now, I doubt it will be made any more difficult under a socialized health care system.

The solution: Health savings accounts (HSA's). Let the people become directly responsible for their health care. The office visit charges will go down, charges for MRI's and other procedures will stabilize and become more reasonable and availability will not be an issue. It may take some getting used to at first after growing accustomed to PPO's and HMO's but I think in the long run, it is the only viable alternative.

The Jerk Beat Me To It!

2006-02-24T01:13:00.000-05:00

I wanted to be the lone conservative in the blogosphere standing up for the "Dubai" deal but Mike at Mike's America beat me to it. He posted a very nice piece about the flack going around in regards to this deal. You really should check it out.

I will revisit some of the reasons I support this deal in my Bastiat post. Bonus points to the first person who can tell me what one of those reasons are based upon my reference to Bastiat. No Google-ing or searching of any kind allowed!

Break Out Your Guns!!!

2006-02-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

A preview of the next 3 posts I'm going to be doing:

1.) Why the "Dubai" deal is good for America

2.) Why Socialized Health Care is bad for America

3.) Meet Frederic Bastiat

Do your homework and get your arguments polished! The first post (not sure which of the three I'm going to do first) might be up tonight around 1 AM. See ya in the comments!

When The Left Left America Behind

2006-02-18T01:27:00.000-05:00

Recently, I chronicled how the left has supported or sympathized with nearly every enemy our country has faced over the last 75 years or more. Before that, I chronicled the close ties the Democrats have maintained with the Socialists and Communists and went into some detail as to when and why this happened. In this post, I'm going to revisit those themes with some additional insights.

To say that today's Democrats are different from the Democrats of FDR's time would be a gross understatement. Even going back to the Democratic Party of JFK or LBJ, one notices stark differences between the two parties. The Democrats of old were Socialists and/or Communists to be sure but they were Americans first. They were not afraid to oppose the Soviet Union in the name of American interests, be they economic or strategic (although the agreements reached at Yalta amounted to a tremendous blunder). To them, politics stopped at the water's edge.

Today's Democrats hold no such loyalty to this country and lack the desire and the necessary backbone to defend our interests. They identify more with other countries than they do their own. They are willing to compromise American interests and advance the interests of other nations in order to promote their ideology. This is not treason in their eyes because they truly believe that we would be better off if we were more like the countries they identify with, namely France, Germany and Great Britain. They see their actions as noble or even heroic, even as they sell their own country up the river.

In all fairness, it must seem horribly frustrating to them, watching the rest of the world implement these marvelously "progressive" ideas while America sits on the sidelines. Beautiful, heart-warming ideas like "free" health care, unemployment benefits that have no deadlines or cut-off dates, government run "safe zones" where junkies can go to shoot up with clean needles and so on. It must be horribly disappointing for them to be living in a country that, for the most part, rejects such ideas. How backward, uninformed and unenlightened we must seem to them.

For years, they were doing so well. FDR's "New Deal" was a nice start towards Socialism, as were his public works projects. The icing on the cake under his administration was Social Security since few things appeal to the left like government managed retirement plans. LBJ extended entitlements when he declared a "War on Poverty". Now, we had Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare checks (not to mention gub'ment cheese!). Things were certainly humming right along and would have been perfect if not for a conflict in a little place called Vietnam. Vietnam was to be a turning point for the American left, one that would see LBJ stripped of his place of honor among them that he worked so hard to establish.

Most of the modern left was young during the Vietnam War, either college-age or younger. Their generation had the highest percentage of high school graduates going on to college that we had ever seen. Some of this may have been to avoid the draft but much of it was because of the roaring economy we lived in and the newfound prosperity of many Americans. Then, as now, academe was dominated by Communists and Socialists (especially on the left coast), many of them being professors. These were card-carrying members of the Communist Party, regular visitors to the Communist Party bookstores and totally enamored with the ideology of Marxism. It didn't take them long to appreciate the windfall of fresh, young minds and soon, they were teaching the "joys" of Communism to more students than ever.

The professors found their students to be extremely receptive to their Marxist rhetoric, this receptiveness enhanced by a counter culture that was beginning to break through to the mainstream. Jack Keouac and Allen Ginsberg had produced the Beatniks and now, these Beatniks were giving us the drug culture and the hippie culture and both were making strong inroads into pop culture via singers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie. The drug culture, helped along by pop culture spread beyond the college campuses as did the hippie movement. Of course, having a motto like "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" and preaching "free love" couldn't hurt either. Nothing like free sex, good drugs and great music to get the attention of the youngsters!

Anyhow, these youngsters spent much of their time listening to Communist propaganda, reading Communist propaganda and indulging in the decadence of the hippy movement. They heard all about the evils of capitalism and the imperialistic nature of America. When the U.S. became more involved in the war in Vietnam, they viewed it as another example of American colonialism and they despised it. They were very sympathetic to the North Vietnamese due to their shared ideology. Their country was killing fellow Communists and this upset them mightily.

Thus, the age of the liberal activist was born. The students had the zeal of the convert and, recalling the stories of the revolutions in Russia and China, likened themselves to these revolutionaries. They each saw themselves as the next Lenin, Stalin or Chairman Mao. In this way, they developed an enormous sense of kinship with the North Vietnamese. This sense of kinship compelled them to put an end to the Vietnam War. History tells us of what happened next. Who can forget the protests, the sit-ins and the riots? The confrontation between the government and the anti-war protestors reached critical mass at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.

Those killed at Kent State became martyrs for the cause. This event propelled the anti-war movement into the international spotlight in a way few could have imagined. Colorful characters soon emerged, celebrities like Jane Fonda and former servicemen like John F. Kerry who told horrifying stories of abuses committed against the North Vietnamese. Some of these people, like John Kerry, used the anti-war movement to fuel their political aspirations. Others found politics almost by accident (or wanted people to think as much) through their activism. The hippie movement was much more than just an anti-war movement, encompassing environmentalism, agrarianism (who do you think was going to grow all of that pot?), "social justice", sexual experimentation and other counter-cultural causes. One by one, they acquired new causes to fight for, growing their political base the entire time.

As the young hippies became older ones, they began to shed the tie dyed shirts and sandals in order to further their professional careers (besides, by this time, they had fallen out of style!). One thing they did not shed was their ideology, this they were determined to hold onto. Many hippies went into government and law. Others went back into education, both as "professional students" and as educators. Those who became educators now sought to "enlighten" their students as they were themselves enlightened.

By this time, they had severed most, if not all of their ties to traditional America. The America of their youth left them enraged and ashamed. They were now bent on reshaping America and molding it into the image of the countries that they so admired. No more would America be an imperialistic nation, no more would it use the tyrrany of the majority to oppress athiests, gays, minorities, women or the poor. They would champion their causes, fight their battles and, in return, earn their votes and their loyalty. They discovered the usefulness of the courts in overturning the will of the majority or having judges dictate from the bench what could never be passed at the ballot box. Where class warfare failed to generate the reaction they hoped for, they used fear tactics. "Those Republicans will take away your Social Security and your Medicaid" they told the older members of the population. They discovered that geriatrics could move quite well when they thought their Social Security checks were being threatened.

If it seems that today's leftists are drifting aimlessly, searching for a direction, it is probably due to the fact that they have, in fact, lost their way. In their success, they had become the establishment that they railed against in their youth. The Communists that they had once sought to emulate had collapsed under the economic pressures of competing with the West and trying to support their large populations. They had also lost credibility when news of their rampant human rights violations became public knowledge. The formerly agrarian hippies sold out to corporate America and Hollywood alike. They became the middle and upper class that Karl Marx had sought to eliminate in "The Communist Manifesto". The women that were supposed to be independent and have little use for men wanted families and children of their own. In short, human nature caused them to betray their once sacred beliefs.

The Left left America behind in their youth and now, it seems America is leaving them behind. Long live the revolution of the prolitariat!

What's Really Behind The Anti-Gun Agenda

2006-02-16T01:54:00.000-05:00

It's 1:53 AM so if this post seems to wander aimlessly for a bit, that's probably the reason. I was lying in bed next to my wife and, like many nights, I couldn't sleep. I've been doing a lot of research on gun ownership and how it impacts crime rates. To me, the findings of numerous studies only proves what I've always known: an increase in the number of armed civilians means a decrease in crime. Here are some of the stats that I've turned up, many of them courtesy of John R. Lott:

101,537 U.S. residents died in accidents of all types in 2004. Less than 1% of those (700) involved firearms. The most common deadly accidents involved motor vehicles, falls and poisonings (72%)

Firearms are involved in less than 2% of accidental fatalities among children.

Accidental firearm-related fatalities declined by 13% between 2002 and 2003 despite increased gun ownership.

A study by criminologist Gary Kleck showed that robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all.

On the whole, the total violent crime rate of Right To Carry states is lower than other states. Total violent crime is 27% lower, murder is 32% lower, robbery is 45% lower and aggravated assault is 20% lower.

The states with the least gun control laws have the lowest crime rates.

From 1977 to 1999, when states passed Right To Carry laws, multiple-victim public shootings fell by 60% and deaths and injuries caused by them fell 78%. Right To Carry laws were the ONLY laws that had any noticeable effect on these types of attacks.

When these attacks (MVPS) happened in Right To Carry states, they overwhelmingly happened in the special places within those states where concealed handguns were banned.

Each year, Americans use guns defensively more than 2 million times. This is much lower than the number of crimes committed by criminals wielding guns.

25% of school shootings to date were stopped by citizens with guns BEFORE police could arrive.

The nations with the highest homicide rates have gun bans. Russia's ban on guns goes back to the Communist Revolution and they've always had a much higher murder rate than the U.S.

In the five years prior to Washington D.C.'s gun ban, the per-capita murder rate fell by 27%. After the gun ban, it climbed by 30% over five years. Robberies increased by 60% during that same time frame and burglaries increased by 56%.

In Washington, D.C., the rate of firearms deaths per 100,000 citizens was 80.6. For our troops in Iraq, it was 60 per 100,000. (Should we pull out of D.C.?)

Every major study ever conducted in a serious, scientific manner has shown that the only group of individuals that benefit from increased gun regulation is criminals. The group of people most adversely affected by gun bans and increased regulation is women. Elderly people are also high on the list. The reason for this is simple: Anyone willing to commit a violent crime is willing to break a gun law in order to do it. Law-abiding citizens, by definition, lose the ability to resist or fight back against criminals when their guns are taken away.

A study done by an "independent" group of scientists, partially funded by the Center for Disease Control, attempted to discover the impact that gun legislation had on crime rates. The end result was that more study needed to be done. This study took place because a previous study came to the same conclusion. In both cases, no evidence could be found to support the idea that gun regulations and/or bans actually reduced crime rates. In both studies, evidence was found that gun regulations and/or bans increased crime rates virtually every time they were implemented. Apparently, the studies need to continue until someone can find evidence that crime rates are reduced by such legislation. So far, none has surfaced.

What does all of this mean? What could possibly be driving the anti-gun agenda in the face of such overwhelming evidence that their actions are doing more harm than good? The answer: A desire to force people, through legislation, to behave in a manner inconsistent with human nature. The reason these people continue their fight, despite mounds of evidence showing the futility of their efforts, is that they want to force into being a utopian society. They view the mere existence of firearms as an impediment to their vision of (to use Aldus Huxley's words) "a brave new world".

Individual anti-gunners may have their own motives but the overall agenda is the same worldwide. They view the presence of firearms, not the violent nature of the bad seeds of humanity, as the source of all that is wrong with the world. As proof, I offer you Great Britain. Across the pond, firearms are virtually non-existent these days. The British government, along with significant portions of the population, bought into this view of humanity. Take away the tools of destruction and people will cease to destroy each other. The weapons are the enabler but they are also the root of the problem. If people do not have access to weapons, they will be forced to stop preying upon one another. As a result, home invasions have reached epidemic proportions in the U.K. and homeowners find themselves defenseless in the presence of their invaders. Similar results have been seen in virtually every other nation where such ideas have become law.

Human beings can be very violent, deadly creatures. We have a long history of killing one another that predates firearms. Going back to pre-historic times, we see cave drawings depicting battles between groups of people. When more advanced weapons are unavailable, humans will make do with whatever is at hand. If we don't have a gun, we'll settle for a knife. If no knife is available, a club or rock will do nicely. If none of these are available, we'll resort to using our bare hands to destroy one another. It is important to note that the more primitive the weapons become, the more the odds favor the stronger combatant who is rarely the victim. It is for this reason that women especially should take an interest in firearms. When faced with a much stronger assailant, having a gun can mean the difference between a woman being a survivor or the contents of a body bag.

No amount of legislation will ever stop the predators among us from preying on the weak and defenseless. The presence of a firearm in the hands of the weak, however, can prevent the weak from being defenseless.

The Russian Option Is A Horrible Option

2006-02-14T09:46:00.000-05:00

In the debate about what to do with Iran and their nuclear ambitions, an option has surfaced that most of the world is rather excited about. Russia has graciously offered to process the nuclear fuel for Iran, ship it to them and then take back the spent fuel rods. The claim is that this process will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons because they won't retain ownership of the nuclear material long enough to enrich it to weapons grade. I feel that this idea is as misguided as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's idea to give North Korea a light-water nuclear reactor. Everyone said that they would not be able to develop nuclear weapons from the materials we gave them. Now, North Korea has nuclear weapons. Everyone was wrong.

If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear technology, nothing will stop them from developing a weapon. That is the entire purpose behind the program, they aren't going to abandon it that easily. Russia would be shortening the length of time it will take for them to develop a weapon by handling the first half of the process for them. Iran will not have to focus on producing the fuel, they will just have to wait for Russia to send it to them and then refine it from there. I see no good coming of such a plan.

Also, does anyone have any idea what Russia plans on doing with all of the spent fuel rods? Where are they going to store them? More importantly, who are they going to sell them to? You know it's going to happen, there is no way Russia is going to sit on all of that potential cash and not put it to work. Besides, the Russian government doesn't run Russia, the mob does, along with various rogue generals. Who is to say that Iran won't be able to buy off some general who would then hijack the fuel rods and sell them back to Iran? I don't think that Russia is stable enough or free enough from corruption to handle such an undertaking.

In any event, I am not very enthusiastic about the Russian option. I think it will only speed up the military confrontation with Iran that I think is inevitable.

Being "Presidential"

2006-02-12T18:53:00.000-05:00

Recently, I mentioned that I think President Bush is intentionally keeping some of the connections between pre-war Iraq and Al Qaeda secret. Why would he do that? Wouldn't it be in his interest to disclose as many of the ties between the two as possible? Maybe and maybe not. Think about it, if he were to come out and highlight many of the links between the two groups, all of the attention would be focused on his arguments and away from the war on terror. He would be accused of politicizing the war and attempting to destroy the legacy of his predecessor. It would ignite its own political firestorm that would prevent him from doing anything other than dealing with the hundreds of questions from reporters concerning his claims. Say goodbye to the rest of whatever agenda he has.

There is another reason to avoid the subject. There is something of an "ex-president's club" and a code of conduct between current presidents and former presidents. Former presidents are, to current presidents, beyond reproach. It is strictly hands off. Sure, they may talk about the way "things were handled in the past" and make other indirect references to blunders of their predecessors but to come out and openly criticize a former president is taboo. This mindset meshes well with Bush's "New Tone" theory and he has adhered rather strictly to this code of conduct.

It is my opinion that shying away from the facts in order to protect the legacy of a former president is ridiculous. Consider these facts:

-In 1993, Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, bombed the World Trade Center. Yousef had first been apprehended in 1992 when he entered the US on an Iraqi passport.

-Mohammad Salameh, one of the co-conspirators of the '93 WTC bombing, made 46 phone calls to Iraq, most of them to his uncle who is a KNOWN TERRORIST.

-An Iraqi living in Baghdad (Abdul Rahman Yasin) but born in the US obtained an American passport from the US embassy in Amman, Jordan. Yasin was later indicted in the WTC bombing.

-Ramzi Yousef is a Pakistani Baluch, an ethnic group with extensive ties to Saddam Hussein. Hussein's regime called upon the Baluch to commit numerous acts of terrorism against Iran, meaning that he (Yousef) would have had numerous ties to Iraqi Intelligence personnel. As such, it is very likely that he was an Iraqi agent.

-04/08/01 - Mohamed Atta and Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat, met in Prague.

-There are also reports of various contacts between Iraqis and the al Qaeda terrorist network, notably a 1998 visit to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan by Saddam Hussein's deputy head of military intelligence at the time, Faruq al-Hijazi. In congressional testimony in March, CIA Director George Tenet noted that Iraq has "had contacts with al Qaeda," adding that "the two sides mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is possible." (Wall Street Journal 09/05/02)

-Hussain Hasham Al-Hussaini was positively identified as John Doe #2 (later the FBI announced there was NO John Doe #2) by witnesses who saw him drinking with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. Hussain Hasham Al-Hussaini was an Iraqi soldier and Republican Guard member. He was also recruited into elite unit 999 of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (tasked with clandestine overseas operations). He was spotted climbing out of the Ryder truck and in the driver's seat of the Chevrolet truck that the feds spent quite some time looking for. Remember that truck? First they were looking for a brown Chevy, then they changed it to a Dodge and then, there was no pickup at all. Interesting...

-Terry Nichols spent a great deal of time in the Phillipines where a member of Abu Sayyef saw him meeting with Ramzi Yousef. Remember Ramzi Yousef?

-Prior to the OKC bombing, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer pulled over a brown Chevy Blazer with some Middle Eastern men inside. After the bombing, he ran the plate and it came back that it was taken from a rental vehicle and was tied to two Pakistanis, one from Nohor, Pakistan (the location of one of bin Laden's training camps).

There is much more evidence that I did not post here due to time and space constraints. I don't want to make this post too painful and tedious to read. Still, I have provided numerous links between Iraq, Al Qaeda and the WTC and OKC attacks.

Perhaps the government is concerned about civil unrest should these facts become common knowledge. Perhaps they fear that the people will be so enraged that the government allowed these ties to go unchecked and that because of this, over 3,000 people died on 9/11. Still, I think the people deserve to know the truth and I think it is cowardly of Bush to play along with the cover-up.

The Cartoon Riots

2006-02-09T02:20:00.000-05:00

Below is Stratfor.com's take on the "Cartoon Riots":

The Cartoon Backlash: Redefining Alignments
By George Friedman

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. We just couldn't help but open with that -- with apologies to Shakespeare. Nonetheless, there is something exceedingly odd in the notion that Denmark -- which has made a national religion of not being offensive to anyone -- could become the focal point of Muslim rage. The sight of the Danish and Norwegian embassies being burned in Damascus -- and Scandinavians in general being warned to leave Islamic countries -- has an aura of the surreal: Nobody gets mad at Denmark or Norway. Yet, death threats are now being hurled against the Danes and Norwegians as though they were mad-dog friends of Dick Cheney. History has its interesting moments.

At the same time, the matter is not to be dismissed lightly. The explosion in the Muslim world over the publication of 12 cartoons by a minor Danish newspaper -- cartoons that first appeared back in September -- has, remarkably, redefined the geopolitical matrix of the U.S.-jihadist war. Or, to be more precise, it has set in motion something that appears to be redefining that matrix. We do not mean here simply a clash of civilizations, although that is undoubtedly part of it. Rather, we mean that alignments within the Islamic world and within the West appear to be in flux in some very important ways.

Let's begin with the obvious: the debate over the cartoons. There is a prohibition in Islam against making images of the Prophet Mohammed. There also is a prohibition against ridiculing the Prophet. Thus, a cartoon that ridicules the Prophet violates two fundamental rules simultaneously. Muslims around the world were deeply offended by these cartoons.

It must be emphatically pointed out that the Muslim rejection of the cartoons does not derive from a universalistic view that one should respect religions. The criticism does not derive from a secularist view that holds all religions in equal indifference and requires "sensitivity" not on account of theologies, but in order to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. The Muslim view is theological: The Prophet Mohammed is not to be ridiculed or portrayed. But violating the sensibilities of other religions is not taboo. Therefore, Muslims frequently, in action, print and speech, do and say things about other religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism -- that followers of these religions would find defamatory. The Taliban, for example, were not concerned about the views among other religions when they destroyed the famous Buddhas in Bamiyan. The Muslim demand is honest and authentic: It is for respect for Islam, not a general secular respect for all beliefs as if they were all equal.

The response from the West, and from Europe in particular, has been to frame the question as a matter of free speech. European newspapers, wishing to show solidarity with the Danes, have reprinted the cartoons, further infuriating the Muslims. European liberalism has a more complex profile than Islamic rage over insults. In many countries, it is illegal to incite racial hatred. It is difficult to imagine that the defenders of these cartoons would sit by quietly if a racially defamatory cartoon were published. Or, imagine the reception among liberal Europeans -- or on any American campus -- if a professor published a book purporting to prove that women were intellectually inferior to men. (The mere suggestion of such a thing, by the president of Harvard in a recent speech, led to calls for his resignation.)

In terms of the dialogue over the cartoons, there is enough to amuse even the most jaded observers. The sight of Muslims arguing the need for greater sensitivity among others, and of advocates of laws against racial hatred demanding absolute free speech, is truly marvelous to behold. There is, of course, one minor difference between the two sides: The Muslims are threatening to kill people who offend them and are burning embassies -- in essence, holding entire nations responsible for the actions of a few of their citizens. The European liberals are merely making speeches. They are not threatening to kill critics of the modern secular state. That also distinguishes the Muslims from, say, Christians in the United States who have been affronted by National Endowment for the Arts grants.

These are not trivial distinctions. But what is important is this: The controversy over the cartoons involves issues so fundamental to the two sides that neither can give in. The Muslims cannot accept visual satire involving the Prophet. Nor can the Europeans accept that Muslims can, using the threat of force, dictate what can be published. Core values are at stake, and that translates into geopolitics.

In one sense, there is nothing new or interesting in intellectual inconsistency or dishonesty. Nor is there very much new about Muslims -- or at least radical ones -- threatening to kill people who offend them. What is new is the breadth of the Muslim response and the fact that it is directed obsessively not against the United States, but against European states.

One of the primary features of the U.S.-jihadist war has been that each side has tried to divide the other along a pre-existing fault line. For the United States, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the manipulation of Sunni-Shiite tensions has been evident. For the jihadists, and even more for non-jihadist Muslims caught up in the war, the tension between the United States and Europe has been a critical fault line to manipulate. It is significant, then, that the cartoon affair threatens to overwhelm both the Euro-American split and the Sunni-Shiite split. It is, paradoxically, an affair that unifies as well as divides.

The Fissures in the West

It is dangerous and difficult to speak of the "European position" -- there really isn't one. But there is a Franco-German position that generally has been taken to be the European position. More precisely, there is the elite Franco-German position that The New York Times refers to whenever it mentions "Europe." That is the Europe that we mean now.

In the European view, then, the United States massively overreacted to 9/11. Apart from the criticism of Iraq, the Europeans believe that the United States failed to appreciate al Qaeda's relative isolation within the Islamic world and, by reshaping its relations with the Islamic world over 9/11, caused more damage. Indeed, this view goes, the United States increased the power of al Qaeda and added unnecessarily to the threat it presents. Implicit in the European criticisms -- particularly from the French -- was the view that American cowboy insensitivity to the Muslim world not only increased the danger after 9/11, but effectively precipitated 9/11. From excessive support for Israel to support for Egypt and Jordan, the United States alienated the Muslims. In other words, 9/11 was the result of a lack of sophistication and poor policy decisions by the United States -- and the response to the 9/11 attacks was simply over the top.

Now an affair has blown up that not only did not involve the United States, but also did not involve a state decision. The decision to publish the offending cartoons was that of a Danish private citizen. The Islamic response has been to hold the entire state responsible. As the cartoons were republished, it was not the publications printing them that were viewed as responsible, but the states in which they were published. There were attacks on embassies, gunmen in EU offices at Gaza, threats of another 9/11 in Europe.

From a psychological standpoint, this drives home to the Europeans an argument that the Bush administration has been making from the beginning -- that the threat from Muslim extremists is not really a response to anything, but a constantly present danger that can be triggered by anything or nothing. European states cannot control what private publications publish. That means that, like it or not, they are hostage to Islamic perceptions. The threat, therefore, is not under their control. And thus, even if the actions or policies of the United States did precipitate 9/11, the Europeans are no more immune to the threat than the Americans are.

This combines with the Paris riots last November and the generally deteriorating relationships between Muslims in Europe and the dominant populations. The pictures of demonstrators in London, threatening the city with another 9/11, touch extremely sensitive nerves. It becomes increasingly difficult for Europeans to distinguish between their own relationship with the Islamic world and the American relationship with the Islamic world. A sense of shared fate emerges, driving the Americans and Europeans closer together. At a time when pressing issues like Iranian nuclear weapons are on the table, this increases Washington's freedom of action. Put another way, the Muslim strategy of splitting the United States and Europe -- and using Europe to constrain the United States -- was heavily damaged by the Muslim response to the cartoons.

The Intra-Ummah Divide

But so too was the split between Sunni and Shia. Tensions between these two communities have always been substantial. Theological differences aside, both international friction and internal friction have been severe. The Iran-Iraq war, current near-civil war in Iraq, tensions between Sunnis and Shia in the Gulf states, all point to the obvious: These two communities are, while both Muslim, mistrustful of one another. Shiite Iran has long viewed Sunni Saudi Arabia as the corrupt tool of the United States, while radical Sunnis saw Iran as collaborating with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cartoons are the one thing that both communities -- not only in the Middle East but also in the wider Muslim world -- must agree about. Neither side can afford to allow any give in this affair and still hope to maintain any credibility in the Islamic world. Each community -- and each state that is dominated by one community or another -- must work to establish (or maintain) its Islamic credentials. A case in point is the violence against Danish and Norwegian diplomatic offices in Syria (and later, in Lebanon and Iran) -- which undoubtedly occurred with Syrian government involvement. Syria is ruled by Alawites, a Shiite sect. Syria -- aligned with Iran -- is home to a major Sunni community; there is another in Lebanon. The cartoons provided what was essentially a secular regime the opportunity to take the lead in a religious matter, by permitting the attacks on the embassies. This helped consolidate the regime's position, however temporarily.

Indeed, the Sunni and Shiite communities appear to be competing with each other as to which is more offended. The Shiite Iranian-Syrian bloc has taken the lead in violence, but the Sunni community has been quite vigorous as well. The cartoons are being turned into a test of authenticity for Muslims. To the degree that Muslims are prepared to tolerate or even move past this issue, they are being attacked as being willing to tolerate the Prophet's defamation. The cartoons are forcing a radicalization of parts of the Muslim community that are uneasy with the passions of the moment.

Beneficiaries on Both Sides

The processes under way in the West and within the Islamic world are naturally interacting. The attacks on embassies, and threats against lives, that are based on nationality alone are radicalizing the Western perspective of Islam. The unwillingness of Western governments to punish or curtail the distribution of the cartoons is taken as a sign of the real feelings of the West. The situation is constantly compressing each community, even as they are divided.

One might say that all this is inevitable. After all, what other response would there be, on either side? But this is where the odd part begins: The cartoons actually were published in September, and -- though they drew some complaints, even at the diplomatic level -- didn't come close to sparking riots. Events unfolded slowly: The objections of a Muslim cleric in Denmark upon the initial publication by Jyllands-Posten eventually prompted leaders of the Islamic Faith Community to travel to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon in December, purposely "to stir up attitudes against Denmark and the Danes" in response to the cartoons. As is now obvious, attitudes have certainly been stirred.

There are beneficiaries. It is important to note here that the fact that someone benefits from something does not mean that he was responsible for it. (We say this because in the past, when we have noted the beneficiaries of an event or situation, the not-so-bright bulbs in some quarters took to assuming that we meant the beneficiaries deliberately engineered the event.)

Still, there are two clear beneficiaries. One is the United States: The cartoon affair is serving to further narrow the rift between the Bush administration's view of the Islamic world and that of many Europeans. Between the Paris riots last year, the religiously motivated murder of a Dutch filmmaker and the "blame Denmark" campaign, European patience is wearing thin. The other beneficiary is Iran. As Iran moves toward a confrontation with the United States over nuclear weapons, this helps to rally the Muslim world to its side: Iran wants to be viewed as the defender of Islam, and Sunnis who have raised questions about its flirtations with the United States in Iraq are now seeing Iran as the leader in outrage against Europe.

The cartoons have changed the dynamics both within Europe and the Islamic world, and between them. That is not to say the furor will not die down in due course, but it will take a long time for the bad feelings to dissipate. This has created a serious barrier between moderate Muslims and Europeans who were opposed to the United States. They were the ones most likely to be willing to collaborate, and the current uproar makes that collaboration much more difficult.

It's hard to believe that a few cartoons could be that significant, but these are.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

We Hear You (An Open Letter To The Democrats)

2006-02-08T01:53:00.000-05:00

With the exception of my (since deleted) Super Bowl post and my video posts (also deleted), my posts have all revolved around a central theme: The threats that we face and how the Democrats plan to deal with them. There was a bit of a spat between Hamel, DarkSaturos and Dan Trabue that I found very informative and entertaining. Perhaps I could have ended this little exchange before its natural conclusion but I chose instead to prolong it. It suited my purposes nicely.

That debate went off on some pretty wild tangents and ventured into territory that it didn't need to go into. Old Testament law? I feel that was a bit unnecessary. There are two simple questions that need to be asked and answered: Why were we attacked and what are we going to do about it? Everything else is immaterial. The answers that I gleaned from reading the responses were very insightful and informative. Now, I am going to provide my own analysis of those answers. I feel that they embodied the opinion of the Democratic Party and thus were worthy of analysis.

We'll start with the first question:

Q: Why were we attacked?
A: Because of the size and strength of our military. We are so strong and powerful that we intimidate other nations and other people around the world. We would be much safer if we kept a lower profile and a smaller military.

Analysis: One thing I have come to know about our enemies is that they are very vocal. Because they are always campaigning for support from other Muslims, they talk... a lot. Unlike Western politicians, Al Qaeda and other extremist groups don't leave a whole lot of questions about their motives. They enjoy talking about them as a matter of fact. All you have to do is listen to them to find out why we were attacked and why they hate us.

It's funny, in all of the statements they've made, I've never heard them say, "Your military is too strong so you must suffer!" Usually their reasons are more along the lines of "You are friends and supporters of the Jews so you will die!" When they aren't threatening to kill us because we are "Jew lovers", they are threatening to kill us for being "infidels". They accuse us of contaminating the Middle East with our presence, nevermind that we were asked to intervene. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the Kuwaitis asked us to help them expel his forces. The Saudis wanted us in their country to protect them from any possible invasion. We were being good neighbors.

Despite these facts, Al Qaeda and other Islamic "extremists" accuse us of defiling their holy land (ever notice how many 'holy sites' they have?). They accuse Western society of being depraved and sinful. They openly seek religious purity both in their world and abroad. That is why they attacked us.

It does no good to assign motives to them that you think they have while simultaneously ignoring the words that they say. They do not use empty rhetoric and they don't make stump speeches full of empty threats and false promises. They mean every threat they make. All you have to do is listen and they'll tell you everything that you need to know.

On to the second question:

Q: What are we going to do in response to the threat posed by terrorists?
A: Try not to be so intimidating and try to keep as low a profile as possible in hopes that they will leave us alone. We will respond to each individual attack as they occur but only within our borders. We will allow the United Nations to handle everything outside of our country. We will sign onto the International Criminal Court so that all of the human rights abuses we commit can be dealt with by the world community.

Analysis: So, what you're saying (in essence) is that we're going to try to hide... after running away? Also, you believe that by agreeing to let foreign governments try Americans for war crimes, this will somehow convince the terrorists to leave us alone? Do you also believe that the World Trade Center would have been spared if we would have signed the Kyoto Treaty? This is nothing more than inserting the same recycled agenda items and claiming that they are part of some strategy for winning the war on terror. The problem is, nowhere do you mention actually defeating the terrorists! You think that you can placate the terrorists by retreating and acquiescing to their demands and at the same time, silence the American people by giving them enough handouts to make them forget. Neither of these situations are feasible and both are dangerous.

Let up on the terrorists and we will be attacked on our soil. We cannot go back to treating terrorism like a series of isolated crimes. In criminal investigations, you are usually two steps behind the criminals. Typically, the crimes have already been committed before the investigation begins because the crime triggers the investigation. We cannot allow this to happen in the age of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. For every step we lose on the terrorists, hundreds or thousands of people could die. Is that a gamble you want to sell to the American people? Is it a risk you're willing to take?

All of the entitlement programs in the world aren't going to mean a thing if your constituents are dead. You can't combat terrorism with an increse in the minimum wage. You can't rebuild a building with food stamps. You can "save" Social Security all you want and it won't matter because there won't be anyone left to collect the checks. People are really going to need the universal health care to cure their radiation poisoning, anthrax infections and injuries sustained in the subsequent attacks.

This is a new age in American politics. People aren't just looking for a free lunch anymore, they want to be protected. They want to know that their children's schools aren't going to become the next front in the war on terror. You like to say that your message didn't get out in 2000. You say it didn't get out in 2004. I'm here to tell you that you're message DID get out. We hear you loud and clear, we just don't like what you have to say. We would prefer to have our soldiers fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq so that our police, firefighters and school teachers don't have to fight them here at home. Learn this, understand this fact and maybe... MAYBE... you can begin restoring the nation's trust in your ability to protect us.

Protecting our country from attack is the first job of our government. If you can't do that, nothing else matters. We hear you, do you hear us?

New Enemies Lead Trail To Old Ones

2006-02-05T02:46:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the mainstream media unwittingly does this country a favor. Recently, the media highlighted Cindy Sheehan's visit to Hugo Chavez, complete with pictures of them laughing together and embracing one another. This photo-op came just days after Chavez was linked to another leftist celebrity, Harry Belafonte. Why was media coverage of these two moonbats kissing up to Hugo Chavez a good thing for our country? Because it removes all doubt about who these people are and what we as a country are up against. Let me explain:

Have you ever played the game "Six Degrees Of Separation"? It's where you try to link two seemingly unconnected people through other people. It is possible, and incredibly easy, to connect the Democratic Party to nearly every known enemy of the United States of America and we don't even need all six names! You can even link them to almost every past enemy that we've faced in the last 75 years. Here's the list of enemies:

Nazi Germany
The Soviet Union
Cuba (USSR sycophant)
Iran
Saddam Hussein
(North) Vietnam
Fascist Italy under Mussolini
Mexico (we're being invaded by both military and civilian forces from Mexico)
Venezuela (If Hugo Chavez is a friend, who needs enemies!)
Al Qaeda
The Palestinians (They are actively engaged in acts of war against an ally of ours!)
North Korea

Are you ready to play? Disclaimer: I'm not going to follow the traditional pattern, I'm going to display EVERY link between them that I can think of. Here goes:

Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte adore Hugo Chavez. The Democrats adore Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte and echo their statements whenever they get a chance. Hugo Chavez has stated that he is, in the near future, going to welcome both Hamas and Iran to his country and establish relations with them. Both Hamas and Iran are hostile towards U.S. interests due to our support of Israel. It seems this support conflicts with their STATED goal of annihilating the Israelis and anyone else of Jewish descent. Hamas and Iran have both in the past either provided or expressed their support for Al Qaeda.

Saddam Hussein sent money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and pledged his assistance in eradicating the nation of Israel. Saddam Hussein had illegal deals with UN officials, France, Russia and Germany, apparently in exchange for their support in technology and their votes in the UN. The Democrats continue to assert that France, Germany and Russia are our friends, that we should have gained their permission before invading Iraq and that the only legitimate vehicle for such an attack was the UN, which was by and large corrupt and taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein provided money and assistance to known members of Al Qaeda and sought their assistance openly through speeches and Islamic rhetoric.

Back to Hugo Chavez... Hugo Chavez has stated that he loves Fidel Castro like a brother. Fidel Castro, if you'll remember, had nuclear missiles pointed at the United States. He acquired these nuclear missiles from Kruschev, leader of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had many spies living in this country and working in very strategic locations. One of these men was Alger Hiss who worked in the State Department under Roosevelt and Truman and he was also Secretary General to the founding charter of the United Nations. Remember them? Alger Hiss was tried as a spy but never convicted under those charges. At the first trial, his character witnesses included Adlai Stevenson (a future Democratic presidential candidate), Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter (liberal justice and Democrat appointee), and former Democratic presidential candidate John W. Davis. After a lengthy investigation and the revelation of the VENONA Project, it was confirmed that he was indeed a spy and he was convicted of perjury. Despite this, the New York Times and socialist elite (including Harvard) continued to defend him. Harvard still has an Alger Hiss chair in their law school. Roosevelt knew of the existence of Communists in his party and in the government. When confronted about it, he replied, "Some of my best friends are Communists!" He also referred to Joseph Stalin (credited with the deaths of as many as 60 million Russians) as "Uncle Joe".

Alger Hiss was not the only Communist in the Roosevelt/Truman adminstration. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here but I believe it was George Marshall who visited the Soviet forced labor camps and described them as a virtual "worker's paradise". He was very much taken with the Soviet government model. He was also taken with a certain Chinese communist named Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung), proclaiming, "I believe he is someone we can do business with". George Marshall was credited with the "Containment Strategy" for dealing with the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II and played a crucial role at the Yalta Conference.

Joseph Stalin (who attended Yalta with Roosevelt and Churchill) was a Marxist. Well, Marxist, Communist (he himself preferred Socialist) whatever you want to call it. Adolf Hitler was another prominent Socialist of the time. Prior to World War II, many of Adolf Hitler's Socialist reforms were praised by Democrats in America. The main difference between National Socialism and Fascism (as practiced by Mussolini, ally of Hitler) was the issue of racial purity. Mussolini only cared about the State. Many of these reforms included limiting profits, abolishing rents and generally increasing social benefits. Some of these Socialist reforms can be seen in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal". They can also be seen in Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives. When FDR proposed the New Deal, one critic was Huey Long, Democratic governor of Louisiana. He accused FDR of not going far enough in the New Deal and being too stingy with the benefits and entitlements.

George Marshall (as noted above) supported Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung) in his rise to power. This led to China becoming a Communist country and thus, ideologically opposed to the United States. With the aid of, and directly due to the interference of, Communist China, North Korea became a Communist state, as did North Vietnam. In our efforts to support the democratic regimes in the southern half of both countries, we went to war. The United Nations led the effort in Korea which resulted in the creation of a North and South Korea. Technically, we are still at war with North Korea and skirmishes still happen between US and North Korean forces. In Vietnam, the United States acted outside of the United Nations. Due to an intense media onslaught and the efforts of protestors like John Kerry and Jane Fonda, we pulled out of Vietnam, effectively snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. John Kerry, as some people may remember, is now a respected (by some) Democrat serving in the Senate.

Another prominent Socialist today is Vicente Fox, leader of Mexico. Vicente Fox is currently sending hordes of Mexicans across our border because he can no longer afford to provide for them. The burden of Socialism in Mexico is so great that he can no longer afford to take care of everyone. Now, we have hordes of illegal aliens crossing into our nation into places like California. California is governed (for the most part) by Democrats who wish to give these illegals full social benefits including drivers licenses, Social Security and welfare benefits. They (the Democrats) vehemently oppose any effort to stem the tide of illegals entering into our country despite the fact that not all of the illegals are necessarily Mexicans. Not even the fact that members of the Mexican military are escorting drug shipments into our country and firing on our Border Patrol agents will change their mind.

There... I've done it... I've linked the Democrats to virtually every enemy that our country has faced or is facing througout the last 75 years! I could have strengthened my arguments even more but come on, isn't this post long enough already? I'm just glad that the media has provided us with all of the tools to trace these routes from the Democrats and their friends to our enemies.

Same Playbook, Different A.O.E. Member

2006-02-03T01:18:00.000-05:00

I heard a fascinating interview tonight on the John Batchelor Show. John was interviewing George Friedman from Stratfor.com and they were talking about Iran. Long-time readers know that I am keenly interested in Iran's attempt to develop nuclear weapons. After hearing this interview, I feel much more at ease... kinda.

George's take on Iran goes something like this:

Iran knows that they will NEVER be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. For them to attempt to do so would be suicide because it would force Israel to attack them. Israel probably lacks the means to use conventional weapons to put an end to Iran's nuclear ambitions so they would be forced to go nuclear. That wouldn't be a pretty picture for the current regime in Tehran or anyone within a 500 mile radius of them. The fact that the United States doesn't want Israel launching nuclear attacks on Iran means that if they were to develop a nuclear weapon, the United States would be forced to strike. We have the capability to obliterate Iran's nuclear program within a few hours of the "GO" signal and undoubtedly are prepared for such an attack.

We needn't worry too much about implementing those plans because it seems Iran is playing a different game. We should be pretty familiar with the rules by now, North Korea has been playing this game for years. Iran is looking to use the threat of developing a nuclear weapon to draw attention to itself in order to reclaim the role of leader among Islamic revolutionaries. If the Useless Nations level sanctions on them through the (in)Security Council, all the better. The hope of the Iranian leadership is that such a move will provoke an "us against the West" mentality among Iranians, thus sparking a sense of nationalism and causing them to temporarily forget the democratic reforms so many Iranians have been pushing for. But why go to all of this trouble? Iran's goals are threefold:

1. Reclaim the leadership of the Islamic revolution that has been held by al Qaeda for years now.
2. Establish Iran as a regional power both for their own security and for the influence they would wield regionally.
3. Gain the credibility and power necessary to influence the future of Iraq in coming years.

In essence, Iran is using the threat of developing a nuclear weapon (ala North Korea) to fulfill the dream once held by Saddam Hussein. They are using a different approach than he did but the end result is the same. It is the quest for Arab unification (with Iran at the helm) and nationalism embodied in the Arab League. If you have not yet done so, I strongly suggest reading the article about Eurabia that I have linked on my sidebar. You can also get there by clicking the link above. It will shed a great deal of light on European-Middle Eastern relations as well as the current situation in Iran.

Let's just hope that the people of Iran do not lose their desire for democratic reform and that they find some way to cast off the shackles of oppression so that their desires might bear fruit.

I Called It!

2006-02-01T01:12:00.000-05:00

Longtime readers of my blog weren't surprised when Samuel Alito Jr. was nominated to the SCOTUS, I name-dropped him for the vacancy that was filled by John Roberts. I think I have since deleted that post because the links were moved or altered and no longer worked. In any event, I liked Alito from the moment I was introduced to him (via the internet and Washington Times). His judicial philosophy (from what I've heard and read) suit me just fine, even better if he truly is a Scalia clone.

I enjoyed his confirmation hearing and hearing Teddy Kennedy absolutely lose it. I enjoyed listening to Robert Byrd chastise the Democrats for their (mis)behavior during the confirmation hearings. Byrd cited massive amounts of e-mails from his constituents (in a blue state turned red) who were upset at they way they carried on. IF this is true, it shows the power the people still wield over their elected representatives when they choose to get involved. Even if the story is bogus, his move was proof that the people still wield power over the government they elect. Either way, I am happy with the results.

Anyhow, a little post-appointment celebratory gunfire (full-auto of course) is in order. Feel free to grab your BAR, M60, M-16, SAW or Thompson sub-machine gun and join in!