12/31/2004
Radio Blogger has a great fisking of E.J. Dionne’s latest screed. If the Democrats take this one to heart the Republicans will be in power for a long long time!!
Talk about burying the lead. Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert doesn’t bother to get around to his point until the 14th paragraph. In that paragraph he manages to convey the latest meme from the left: “what were doing in South Asia isn’t enough”.
What this means is that we’re the supportive community. All of us. This catastrophe would at least have a silver lining if it moved the people of the United States and other nations toward a wiser, more genuinely cooperative international posture.
William Faulkner, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
That’s what Faulkner believed. We’ll see.
Apparently $350 Million in donations from the government, and millions in NGO (Non Governmental Organizations) donations isn’t enough for Mr. Herbert.
12/30/2004
Many on the left have tried to blame the tragedy in South Asia on our extravagant Lifestyles. Or criticize us for not giving enough. Now, Denver’s own Pius Kamau has joined the chorus in his latest column. Here is a quote to give you an idea where he is coming from.
With such weather and blessed with wealth beyond all measure, we do what we like, with little consideration of the environmental implications of our actions. No one asks: What are the consequences of my extravagant life?
I read this and immediately thought “oh no here we go again”. Heh, I was right, he blamed America. Well, lets go over his column and correct some of his mis-statements.
12/28/2004
Tom Shales must be blind and deaf. In his year end review of the MSM he comes up with this little jewel.
Tireless press critics during war or peacetime, the conservatives were handed a valuable new weapon when CBS News fumbled a report detailing the president’s shoddy record as a member of the National Guard back in Texas. The report was attacked virtually the moment it aired on “60 Minutes”; documents used to bolster the allegations were condemned by conservative critics as phony and forged, though no forging has yet been proved.
How much more proof does this guy need? Every document expert contacted has said that they are fake, even Rather has admitted that he was duped (yeah right, willingly maybe). Looks to me like the guys at Fraters were right, to quote Saint Paul:
Arrogant media bias being practiced by the person assigned by a MSM institution to report on media bias. It makes one nostalgic for Brian Lambert, wherever he is today.
Hat Tip: Fraters Libertas
Brendan Miniter, in this mornings Opinion Journal, covers the possibility of Bush facing the Nixon curse. What’s the Nixon curse? It’s described as a Presidents second term being lackluster and mired in scandal. Miniter rightly points out that big media, on the hunt for scandal will attack even a hint of scandal and try to link it to the Oval Office even when there is no link.
It doesn’t matter now whether the corruption (and any bureaucracy as large as the federal government contains corruption) actually leads to the Oval Office. The knives are out and, electoral mandates notwithstanding, presidents are most vulnerable after they have a first term record to pick through.
What Miniter doesn’t point out is the effect the new media will have on any MSM or Democrat attempt to soil the Presidents second term. If the Rather gate scandal taught us anything, it taught us that there are thousands of people out there monitoring the MSM. These people are more than willing to shoot down any made up evidence. Rather gate also taught us the power that we in the new media have to influence events in Washington.
This power is very delicate though. Blogs, and their influence can disappear just as quickly as they appeared if we are not careful in wielding this new found power. One of the mistakes that MSM has made –which I believe will eventually lead to its downfall– is not disclosing their biases. I have a feeling that this will be an interesting four years for all of us.
12/27/2004
Hugh’s new book Blog is due to be released soon. I ordered a copy from Amazon and it should be shipped mid January. From the reviews by Powerline, Instapundit, and others, it sounds like good reading.
12/26/2004
Never Truer Words Have Been Spoken
Executive Mansion,
Washington,
November 21, 1864.Mrs. Bixby,
Boston, Massachusetts:DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
This letter was sent to Mrs. Bixby in November of 1864. As I read these words I realized that they are just as important today. To all of you who have lost a loved one, may God bless you and your families this Christmas Season. In the words of Abraham Lincoln “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
12/24/2004
None of us are stangers to suffering, I’m certainly not. What we don’t often realize, What’s so hard to realize sometimes is that the suffering we endure — whether it’s financial problems, marital problems, or in my case, a painful long term illness — is for the glory of God.
John 9
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?â€
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,†said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
2nd Corinthians 12:8-9
8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.â€
So that the work of God might be displayed in his life? God’s power is made perfect in weakness? What a difficult thing to grasp sometimes. There have been times over the last two years where I have wished that He could have used someone else’s life to show his work. But, I have been reading “A Step Further” by Joni Eareckson Tada. Joni was parylized in 1967. She has no feeling or movement from the shoulders down. In her book she talks about struggling with this also. 1st Corinthians 6:19-20 says:
1st Corinthians 6:19-20
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
This means that we all were bought at a price –the Cross– Therefore our body, our lives are not our own. God can and will use our suffering for his glory.
What believers and non-believers alike can take comfort from is that in our pain God is there to comfort us. 1nd Corinthians 1:3-5 says
2nd Corinthians 1:3-5
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
Merry Christmas to all of you. This will be my last post until the 26th. See you then.
12/22/2004
First a note to the idiot who left a comment on this post, and you know who you are. Yes, I deleted your comment, for several reasons. First of all you didn’t even have the guts to leave a real name or real email address. Then you sit there and hurl personal insults and profanity throughout your entire comment. I will not leave a baseless profane comment up on my blog.
For the rest of my readers, I’m sorry but I am instituting a comment policy. I pay for this website so the First ammendment protects my right to free speech on this blog, not yours.
Any comments that violate these simple rules will be deleted, no questions asked.
12/21/2004
Yep, the big 30. I guess it’s normal to look at your life when you hit these big ones. you know 21, 30, 40, 50, 60….. Or it could be that I’ve been through a lot over the last two years. What does it all come down to? I am certainly not where I imagined I would be when I pictured my life fifteen years ago, or even 5 years ago. In many respects though, I am more fortunate than I could have ever imagined.
12/20/2004
This guy is a real winner. He’s wasting a good part of an $11 million dollar fortune to try to prove that the 9-11 attacks were perpetrated by the US government. With explosives inside the building no less. Never mind the millions of people that saw 19 Al - Qaeda operatives fly the planes into the Twin towers, Pentagon, and a PA field. This guy was definitely at the back of the line when God handed out brains.
Hat Tip: Dog Snot Diaries
12/19/2004
Congratulations to the gents at Powerline for being named blog of the year (subscription required). They definately earned it with their leg work on the Rather Gate story. Well done indeed!!
La Shawn, who is one of the best conservative bloggers around, has put up a post about the roots of Kwanzaa and why all Christians should stay away from this pagan holiday rooted in 60’s radicalism. Go check it out, it’s well worth the read.
12/16/2004
Ok, here is my long awaited Christmas post. Let me start of by asking what does Christmas mean to you? Really stop and think about it. Does it mean giving and receiving presents? Or spending time with family? My goal with this post is to completely turn these ideas upside down.
I, as a kid, used to think that it was all about the magic of Santa and receiving presents. Then I started working, and driving truck. It became a day off to get caught up on laundry and paperwork. Yes, I knew Jesus as my Lord and Savior, but I did my thing at Christmas. As I grew older, in my mid to late twenties I spent many a Christmas night going back to the lot where my truck was parked to catch up on paperwork so that I could go back to work the next morning.
12/15/2004
I’d like to welcome Girl In Right to the friends of the alliance. As I can attest it’s always good to have a doctor around!
Another Idiot in San Fransisco
I told you last week about Mark Morford and his outrageous Bush hating liberalism. Well, it seems the San Fransisco Chronicle employs at least one other extremist, this ones name is Harley Sorensen. Sorensen’s idea of a hero is pretty messed up. Mr. Sorensen thinks that deserters are heroes.
But not all young people are eager to die for Mr. Bush. Military recruiters are having difficulty finding enough cannon fodder to fill their quotas. More significantly, men and women already in uniform are rebelling. They’re refusing to fight for Mr. Bush and his secret ambitions. They’re deserting by the thousands. According to “60 Minutes” last week (quoting the Pentagon), more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the beginning of Mr. Bush’s war.
That’s an amazing number. And it offers hope that perhaps not all our young people are locked into caveman mentality. At least 5,500 of them have advanced to the level of thinking demonstrated at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945.
Nuremberg is where the Nazi war criminals of World War II were tried. Their common defense was that they were just following orders. The court refused that defense, suggesting that soldiers never have an obligation to follow illegal orders.
Aware of that thinking, at least 5,500 of our troops have decided to desert rather than take part in senseless killing.
In the eyes of many, Mr. Bush’s war against the people of Iraq is absolutely illegal. When one country attacks another, destroys it, and kills its people, without overt provocation, that constitutes an illegal war.
5,500, please. I don’t really believe that’s an accurate number as far as active duty AWOL’s. But, I can’t find any numbers to dispute it. Regardless of the numbers, Sorensen didn’t need to resort to throwing out mean spirited Micheal Moore logic when talking about Bush or the rest of the troops. To call the war on terror or the war in Iraq illegal Sorensen is implying that the President and hundreds of thousands of troops are war criminals. So, right about now your saying: “okay, so the the guys a loopy kool aid drinking lefty, but where does he call deserters heroes?”. Right after the above statement. In fact here it is:
Now, if you’ve been overly influenced by Mr. Bush’s clever propaganda, you might declare these deserters “traitors.” But if you haven’t been taken in by the Bush machine, you might call them heroes in the finest tradition of the United States. They are putting their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor at stake to serve the cause of Right rather than the ambitions of the current president.
Mr. Sorensen’s views are despicable. However, there are two things that we would all do well to remember. Mr. Sorensen has the right to express his views. There have been hundreds of thousands of men and women since the founding of this country who have paid with their lives so that he can. The second is, this is another good example of someone that the left needs to disown if they ever want to return to power.
12/14/2004
David Limbaugh has a column in Townhall.com about the discovery of the God Gene, VMAT2. The Doctor that found this gene believes that there is no God. How does the good doctor explain religion? Those with VMAT2 — the God gene — apparently have freer-flowing mood-altering chemicals in their brains, making them more inclined toward spiritual beliefs. Environmental influences, such as growing up in a religious family have little to no effect on our beliefs.
I don’t have enough faith to not believe in God. I know, your sitting there asking huh? Well, how can you look at the structure of DNA. How can you look at a newborn or a child still in the womb or the stars and say there is no God. That, it seems to me, would take a greater leap of faith than believing in a loving and powerful God who created it all.
12/13/2004
It has now been revealed that former fugitive, and Clinton friend Marc Rich was involved in the Oil For Food scandal.
Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq’s suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.
And a U.S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts.
Now, the $10,000 dollar question is: How much did Bill and Hillary know about this, and when did they know it? Bill Clinton seems to be involved directly or at arms length in many scandals. We have China gate where Bill and Al sold Nucular secrets to China for campaign donations, there is the Rose law firm scandal, the Marc Rich pardon, and of course the ever famous Monica mess. Now, we have Marc Rich involved in unscam.
Were Bill and Hillary involved in this, did they know that unscam was going on and didn’t do anything about it. If so, they’re guilty of bilking the U.S. taxpayers out of millions of dollars.
I think it’s time for the blogosphere to kick into high gear and move this story, and these questions to the forefront. You, the readers and my fellow bloggers can do it.
I’d like to welcome Flight Pundit to the friends of the alliance. He’s a great writter and it’s well worth making him a daily stop as you read up on the daily happenings.
12/12/2004
Cal Thomas Hits The Nail On The Head
Cal Thomas hits the nail on the head in his latest column in the Washington Times. Here are a couple of key graphs.
…The United Nations does not serve the interests of the United States or the objectives of democracies. The oil-for-food scandal, in which billions of dollars were misappropriated in Iraq, exposed a corrupt bureaucracy, rotting from the head. In the United Nations, the United States is opposed by dictatorial regimes that are treated as our equals…
…Paul Weyrich, who heads the conservative Free Congress Foundation, writes in his Web commentary, “The U.N. now is dominated by nations of the Third World whose values are so distant from our own that they won’t even object to the genocide occurring in the Sudan.”
Mr. Weyrich says he opposes any form of “world government” because, “It would only mean that a cabal who hates our religions and our way of life could gang up on the U.S.A. No good could possibly come from such an institution.”
Mr. Weyrich is not an isolationist. He believes some sort of association of nations can be useful but should consist only of democracies. Democracies don’t start wars against each other and are likelier to care for the poor and needy than nations that create most of the poor and needy.
What does the United States get for its money? We pay 22 percent of the U.N. budget, but get 100 percent of the grief from nations who hate us and what we stand for. The League of Nations failed for many of the same reasons the U.N. is failing. The League and the U.N. are based on a flawed philosophy that believes humans are basically good. There is ample contemporary and historical evidence to the contrary…
Go Read the whole thing.
12/10/2004
There has been much said about Daschle v Thune and South Dakota politics taking money from the Thune Campaign. Now I want to put my two cents in, and let you know where I’m coming from.
First of all, I want to say that I have never, and probably will never take a contribution from any candidate or party in order to get their message out, and if I do it will be in big banner headlines at the top of this blog. No, I haven’t been offered contributions and would probably shy away from them to avoid being seen as a mouthpiece for the party. I am an unashamed conservative Christian and therefor will always be slanted to that side of the aisle.
I believe that as a blogger, as an independent editorial voice that we shouldn’t even take contributions. What happens if I take a contribution for the Republican candidate in 2008. I end up being beholden to them to support their policies, if I don’t like one of their policies I can’t criticize it. I DON’T WANT THAT!! I want to be able to say, for instance, that I dont agree with Bush’s immagration policy (I don’t, but that’s for a different post).
One other thing that you, my readers need to understand is my blog is an editorial voice, not news. My blog cannot and will not be a news page. It was never designed to be. It’s where I express my opinions on things that cross my radar screen, a personal editorial page if you will.
Now, onto the most worrisome of the problems with the discovery of the South Dakota blogs funding. Regulation, yep, some idiot in the FEC (Federal Elections commision) has decided that we need to be regulated.
Beginning next year, the F.E.C. will institute new rules on the restricted uses of the Internet as it relates to political speech.
“I think those questions are going to have to be asked and answered,†said Lillian BeVier, a First Amendment expert at the University of Virginia. “It’s going to be an issue and it should be an issue.â€
That is a direct violation of my first amendment rights. We have proven that we can change things with the power of our combined voices, let’s do it. Call your representative, get a blog here or here and write about it.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
12/9/2004
In a great open letter to Pablo Paredes who refused to board his ship bound for the Arabian Gulf, Smash points out just why coward deserters deserve absolutely no respect.
You did, however, manage to f$&# [Edited For Content — TR] up your own future. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Navy isn’t just going to let you go easily. They’re going to put you on trial for desertion. You will probably end up spending a year or longer in military prison, doing hard labor. And how do you think your fellow prisoners will respond to you? Do you think they’ll respect your decision to shirk your duty? Of course, you will also be reduced in rank to E-1, forfeit all of your pay, be dishonorably discharged, and lose eligibility for the GI bill and any veteran’s benefits you might have otherwise claimed.
To your credit, you’ve stood up before the cameras and said that you are prepared to accept the consequences for your actions. We’ll see about that.
Did your new friends at Veterans for Peace and the (deceptively named) San Diego Military Counseling Project tell you the rest of the story? Did they mention that even after you are released from the brig, you would have a permanent federal criminal record as a convicted felon? How do you think that will look when you try to apply for work? What employer would want to hire someone who refuses to honor his commitments? You also told the reporters that your wife is behind you “1,000 percent.†How long do you think she will stick around, when you can’t get a decent job?
A man’s word is his bond, Pedro – and yours just dropped to junk status.
When you were planning your dramatic “statement,†did you think for a minute about how this would affect your shipmates? You are a fire control technician on the Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile system. The Navy doesn’t have a bunch of spare FCs sitting in cold storage. Your ship is going to the Arabian Gulf, and will have to pass through the “threat arcs†of Iran’s Silkworm anti-ship missiles – and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly buddy-buddy with the mullahs these days. The Sea Sparrow is a critical point-defense system for your ship. So your job isn’t one that the Navy can afford to shrug off – somebody else is going to have to do it.
One of two things is going to happen. Either your shipmates are going to have to pull extra shifts to cover for your absence, or – more likely – somebody from another ship is going to get emergency orders to take your place in the coming days. Maybe that person is married; maybe he even has kids.
And you pulled this little stunt just in time for Christmas.
No man is an island, Pedro. Your actions will have consequences far beyond what you intended. Did you think about that? Is all of this really worth screwing over your fellow sailors? Are you really so self-absorbed? What part of “One Team, One Fight” did you not understand?
The best that you can hope to achieve by continuing along the course you have chosen is for your life to become a cautionary tale – a warning to others to avoid the siren call of blind self-righteousness.
Moore, Rall, and Maureen Dowd All Rolled Into One
I listned to Hugh’s show tonight while the guest host read an op-ed piece by Mark Morford of the San Fransisco Chronicle. At first I thought “surely Morford’s being sarcastic, playing to the stereotypes the rest of America sees in San Fransisco. Surely there is no one else as blatantly ridiculous in an I hate America sort of way as Michael Moore, Ted Rall, and Maureen Dowd”. Then I began to read some of his archives and was horrified to see that Morford is far worse than any of the three previously mentioned, he’s all three rolled into one. He has the hatred of Michael Moore, the meanness and utter stupidity of Ted Rall, and the sarcasm of Maureen Dowd. Take his November 5th column for example. It’s titled “Hello, Uranus Got Any Room? Must. Move. Away. Cannot Endure More Bush. Soul About To Implode. Right? Not so Fast.”. I was drawn to this one by the not so fast ending to the title in hopes that he would try to make the case that Bush was actually good for America… WRONG!!! Mr. Morford stops just short of calling for armed revolution.
And one of the most stirring e-mails I received during the outpouring of grief the day after the election was from a young female reader, “an artist, an intellectual and a Jew” who’s been living in Mexico and who now says she’s so enraged and saddened by the election’s ugly outcome that she’s preparing to return to the States ASAP, just so she can help, so she can join the resistance, keep the right-wingers from coming after our souls. Now, that’s patriotism.
The bottom line: Don’t disband the newfound army just because one ugly battle was lost. Mourn, commiserate, lick wounds, lick each other, drink heavily, spit out your stale gum of disappointment and pop in a fresh clove of laughter and spiritual heat and then regroup and sober up and take an even deeper breath and watch in hot wet spiritually emboldened amusement as the cosmic circus unfolds.
It’s far from over. The tunnel is just a little darker — and longer — than we imagined.
No, it’s not snowing now. These pictures are from a little over a week ago. But, I thought it was interesting how I caught the individual snowflakes in the frame.
Damascus Road has moved to his new digs, go check it out and update your links appropriatly. He still has some template changes coming so bear with him.
12/8/2004
The Next John Kerry or Lookin for 15 Minutes of Fame
Jimmy Massey of Waynesville N.C. spent twelve years in the Corps, now he’s turned his back on them. In fact Jimmy Massey is in Canada this week testifying on behalf of deserter and coward Jeremy Hinzman in Hinzman’s bid for asylum in Canada.
I went back and googled Massey’s name and found an article written by anti war activist Paul Rockwell back in May. It reads like Kerry’s 1971 testimony in front of Congress.
Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn’t see any humanitarian support.
Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?
A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there’s many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That’s the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn’t slow down. So we lit them up.
Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?
A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn’t destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: “Why did you kill my brother? We didn’t do anything wrong.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.
You know it seems as intent as the media has been to crucify the war and war effort, we would have heard about some of this stuff. The only incidence of mis treatment I’ve heard of to date was Abu Ghraib.
12/7/2004
Dems Cash in on Presidents Mandate
Just a few weeks ago the Democrats and those in the MSM were claiming that the results of the election did not a mandate make. These same Democrats spent last weekend doing their collective best to cash in on that “non-mandate”. Brendan Miniter has another piece on opinionjournal.com tackling that very issue. Here is quite possibly the best part of the article.
There have been many interesting twists and turns as this bill wound its way to this compromise. Not least was the spectacle over the weekend of Democrats–who only weeks ago were claiming that George W. Bush had no popular mandate–rushing to invoke the president’s name and cash in on his political capital to get the intelligence bill passed. In the process they tried to strip out the very provisions the White House wrote into the bill.
Go read the whole thing, it’s great as usual.