Some News - National and International

Update to the post about Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters. It seems the accused killers had invaded two other homes previously while the families slept snug in their bed. These two monsters first linked up while at the same drug treatment center. Which makes one wonder if any rehabilitation actually happened or they were just released. Naturally gun sales are up in the formerly sleepy town as reality has brutally destroyed their cozy world view.

Russia under Tsar Vladimir Putin continues to exhibit the small man syndrome. In a move to strengthen the Russian grasp on minerals and hence extorting even more money from other countries in classic robber-baron style, even though Russia still has much of Siberia to exploit; a Russian submersible is planning on dropping a titanium capsule with a Russian flag in it to lay claim to a majority of the Arctic Sea. John Kerry's favorite organization and administer of the Global Test, the UN, has previously rejected these Russian claims. And we thought the previous Cold War was cold, wait until countries with interests in the Arctic like Canada and Denmark mobilize to secure their interests.

And it seems Hollywood is all fired up to give the American viewing audience Deer Hunter Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part Infinity this upcoming movie season. The VietNam vet, due to the conflict being perceived as lost and My Lai, had become enshrined in Hollywood as a deranged loser just waiting to explode like Rambo. Now they want to extend that allegory into Iraq with these movies, even though it is the terrorists who are the true psychopathic monsters just as they were in VietNam. While Lt. Calley and his men at My Lai was played over and over, the murder of thousands of civilians at Hue during Tet was not even a blip on the American scene. And Scott Thomas Beauchamp is helping with this agenda. I am reminded of Joker from the book 'Short Timers' that became Full Metal Jacket when talking about Beauchamp except for one thing - Hasford could write one of the blackest comedies about war, Beauchamp can't write the label on a soup can.

Meanwhile one pilot is dead and another wounded at the annual EAA gathering at Oshkosh Wisconsin. Two P-51D Mustangs collided while landing, one veering wildy back into the air and clipping the tail of the other Mustang. Meanwhile earlier this month saw the destruction of yet another civilian owned P-51D Mustang named Lou IV. For an account of the accident, Bill Rheinschild probably gives the best explanation on how John McKittrick probably met his fate. After 50 hours dual instruction in his $1.8million dollar plane McKittrick was on his first solo when he bounced the tail wheel and tried to correct it. Unfortunately a -D model Mustang with its original tail lacks enough rudder control when the tail is down to adequately correct the torque generated by the spinning propellor, so the Mustang ground looped to the left killing McKittrick. This is probably what also happened at Oshkosh with the added factor of another Mustang in formation landing. The accident board will make the final determination. Remember the deceased and their families.

P.S. Look through Hasford's site to see how The New Republic shreds his work. From the review: 'Death, so obsessively meted out, becomes a bore.' Yet they published Beauchamp. Absofreakingly hilarious.

That Is Not A Plus-Size Can

Attention everyone who has cans of chili, hash, dog food, and other meat products from Castleberry, you may want to give them a thorogh check.

The full list of recalled products can be found over at the FDA web-site. So please go through your shelves and pantries to make sure none of these items are found. Dispose carefully since it seems some cans are so full of the botulism toxin they are bursting. Castleberry's phone number is 1-888-203-8446 if you want to get a refund.

There are still contaminated cans out there as the CNN article relates, so you might want to avoid these products for the foreseeable future as a matter of safety. Remember if a can is bulging, do not buy and also report it. If you find one in your house, do not eat it and throw it away. I remember my parents advice when I saw a dented can and thought it might be bad, they told me that is okay but you should never buy a bulging can or eat from one. Dang how my parents are so wise.

And if you find a can that has burst in your pantry, get out the gloves and soap&water. Remove the offending can and toss while wearing protective gear. Then scrub where the can leaked. And clean up the cans that might have been touched by whatever leaked out of the burst can.

Oh yeah, this would be a good time to look at your emergency supplies to make sure none have gone past their best by date. Better to find out now than when you need it right?

Suffer the Innocents

The Connecticut Board of Pardons and Parole is in furious damage control mode due this heinous crime. Mr. Robert Farr does not understand how this could happen since the suspects did not have violent records before this.

What is 'this?' A woman and her daughter are followed back to their house by two men. Those men proceed to take the woman, her two daughters, and the husband hostage with a 3 a.m. home assault. The assailants later force the woman to go to a bank and withdraw $15,000 from the bank. The bank employees at first balked until the woman told them she and her family were being held hostage. On the way back home things like gasoline were bought.

The woman Jennifer Hawke-Petit was repaid by being raped, beaten with a bat, thrown down the stairs, and tied up before eventually being strangled. The daughters, Hayley[17] and Michaela[11], were also allegedly raped, tied to their beds, and then gasoline fueled fires were set in their bedrooms. The father, Dr. William Petit Jr, somehow managed to escape the house though he now lays in a hospital with head injuries.

The bank employees called the police when they learned what was happening. The two assailants were arrested after they had rammed several police crusiers with the Petit's stolen car. The two men are now facing charges of: assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, arson, larceny and risk of injury to children. More charges are pending.

"I know the public consensus is they should be fried tomorrow," Prosecutor Michael Dearington said.

I will go further and suggest those on the parole boards who kept putting these guys out after serving just over half their time for each conviction should be locked up for gross negligence and accessories before the fact for these horrendous murders. The two assailants have made crime a career with each having more than 20 burglaries to their record. The parole boards should have never let these guys out on parole. The excuse of them never being violent does not wash when there is such a string of burglaries, when released these two kept going back to what they knew best - to rob people inside their homes of all their possessions. Under these circumstances the death of an innocent became almost a certainty, just a matter of time and bad luck for the innocent.

Now a father lies in the hospital gravely injured and burdened with the deaths of his wife and two daughters. Remember him and all who knew this family in your prayers.

News article source.

Modern Socialist - Brief Description of One

For your edification, how things have not changed over the course of years when it comes to being the very model of a modern socialist.

Count Erskyll said nothing for a moment. He was opposed to the use of force. Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.
But, at the same time, he was opposed to authoritarianism, except, of course, when necessary for the real good of the people. And he did not like rulers who called themselves Lords-Master. Good democratic rulers called themselves Servants of the People. So he relapsed into silence and stared at the viewscreens.

'A Slave is a Slave,' Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction April 1962. Author: H Beam Piper.

Crime News

"He was well done."
Well this is certainly good news in the war on crime. A mother and son, when confronted with a male youth attacking a 7 year old boy, reacted vigorously to rescue the boy. Some of the methods however are unique, Linda Rhodes went to assist her son in apprehending the suspect by using a long barbeque fork and jabbing him in the rear. Deshaun Ridge was arrested by police.

Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department, told MyFOXdfw.com. "These people are heroes."

Gangsta Mom
This story is not so jovial. The term soccer mom has become a suburban cliche, so this just shocks me. A mother, Eva Daley, took her son and seven other youths to a skate park. These yutes your honor belong to the Latin Marijuana Smokers gang and they had a score to settle with a 13 year old named Jose 'Bobby' Cano. After this visit to the skate park, Cano was dead due to multiple stab wounds. Flabbergasted I am and wonder how this could happen. But alas in southern California its not so strange as the article relates.

Similar cases have surfaced in recent months. In a community outside Los Angeles, a 37-year-old mother drove her son's friends to a rival gang member's home for a drive-by shooting, police said. The mother was charged with assault.
In October, police arrested a 42-year-old woman suspected of driving her two sons and three others in an SUV to a Los Angeles neighborhood to scrawl it with graffiti. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

If convicted, Daley could get 25 to life on what she is charged.

The Clinton Files

As Harry Reid leads the Democrat Senators down a well paved road along with a few Republicans, lets break away to look at some Presidential aspirants - The Hillary and Bill Show which they hope will be the sequel to the wildly popular eight year run of The Bill and Hillary Show.

Some obviously do not remember those eight years with joy in their hearts as Judicial Watch is suing the National Archives for Hillary's date planner and other records under the Freedom of Information Act. Good luck in this quest, lets recall that the Rose Law Firm books mysteriously appeared in the White House only after Ken Starr's investigation wrapped up.

Others are running for the nomination along with Hillary. One hopeful being John Edwards, one term Senator and VP candidate for John Kerry. But I am not sure this is how Mr. Edwards really wants to set himself apart as his wife Elizabeth says he will be more responsive to women's rights than Hillary. I am not sure how to read this but after the $400 hair-over along with his primping in a woman's compact, the conclusion is pretty darn clear - Hillary is more of a man than John Edwards. Take some advice John, drop the expensive spa makeovers and keep your wife away from reporters.

As for William Jefferson Clinton himself, even as he stumps for his wife on the campaign trail, his past will not let him go. Right Wing News has this post on a prostitution ring in Las Vegas. It seems Esperanza Brooks, a cheerleader coach, has been running on the side a call girl ring since her husband the car salesman has had a slumping career. As part of her sales pitch for her girls, Ms. Brown would drop the names of several clients. She told undercover officers her clientele list included Shaquille O'Neal and Bill Clinton. Is there truth in what she says? Probably not but it is a good pitch to make others pony up more money, after all if Bill Clinton has used their services it must be good. I do not think either Clinton really wants that as Bill's legacy but there you have it since the man admitted to lying under oath in regards to physical relations with Monica Lewinsky.

Is This Fair?

The Miami Herald has this story about Erik Botta going on his fifth war deployment. It is thought provoking on the surface, but when one digs deeper things do not adequately add up due to incorrect information or paucity of needed data.

First thing that caught my attention was the article calls Botta a SGT or E-5, but the picture shows him as a Specialist or E-4. Looking at the ribbon rack, the picture is old- missing the National Defense Service Medal and the Global War on Terror to name two he should have. I guess the editors went for the eye grabbing picture of Botta in his Greens before the flag without noticing its out of date.

Botta is possibly on the hook with the GI Bill if he says he wants out right now. If the Army did grant his request to separate before he completed his eight year commitment, then he might have to repay the benefits he garnered from the GI Bill. That could be pretty pricey.

Fears of loss of their house should be baseless since Botta would be protected under the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act of 1940. Unless there are extenuating circumstances Botta's lawyer is not saying, like perhaps that house is ineligible for protection. Or that Botta has already been through the courts seeking relief and as a rare case been denied such protection. We don't know.

Fear of loss of job is also a non-issue due to Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994. Sikorski is not going to fire one employee and risk all of its government contracts, unless Botta's employment has some strange stipulations like he is in an apprentice program between his college and Sikorski and hence is not a Sikorski employee. Or maybe Botta has not been with Sikorski long enough to be termed an invested employee.

They bring up this deployment adversely impacting his education. Speaking as someone who did a two week deployment to Italy with 70 hours notice and only a week before finals, I got my college professors to either give the finals early or delayed them until my return. So this argument really does not hold water unless his college really hates to cut any slack to anyone, even in service of national defense.

Botta has already gotten a 287 day deferment on this deployment due to intervention of Sen Bill Nelson, which means he knew this day was coming and should have planned accordingly - like not take summer courses and not jumped jobs from Pratt&Whitney to Sikorski. His last deployment is almost three years in the past. If he had done this fifth deployment as scheduled; then Botta would be in his last year of enlistment, his First Sergeant would have done the retention interview, Botta would have said he was not interested in re-enlisting because of his schooling and employment, and he would have been placed at the bottom of the call up list because his Date of Separation was so close.

The AOL version of this story has other details that make interesting reading. Botta's four past deployments do not even constitute 365 days overseas. Which makes really silly the contention this deployment constitutes unlawful custody - how praytell when Botta asked to be placed on active duty after voluntarily joining the Army Reserve before 911 - and not a fair distribution of exposure to the risks of combat. There are too many currently in the AOR who are on their third one year deployment for this to be germane, but I guess ambulance chasing lawyers will try any hook.

As a final thought on this matter; when Botta got his deferment last year, I wonder how the poor soldier who was tasked to fill Botta's spot at the last minute felt about his or her life being turned upside down? Perhaps they should sue Botta for unlawful custody?

You Have Been Declared Optional

Imagine in the Afterlife there sits Sir Winston Churchill ensconced in a comfortable chair slowly perusing and absorbing a book no longer extent on Earth, a history lost with the third burning of the Library of Alexandria. On a fine Victorian table next to the most august Winston sits a sifter always half full along with several of his favorite cigars.

As Sir Winston reads with rapt attention an account of the Battle of Thermopylae written by an Athenian veteran, a throat is softly cleared to draw him from his studies. Looking up from the Greek words that he now fully understands, Sir Winston notes his visitor, who appears most comely in appearance with just a bit of what some would call fey laying softly on the features.

Without further prompting from Sir Winston, the paige offers up an archaic looking telegram. The voice is just as ethereal as the visage and of a pleasing note. "Sir Winston, we thought you might wish to be informed of some matters on Earth directly relating to you."

Sir Winston takes the telegram in a beefy hand and starts to read, furrows form on his forehead as he struggles to comprehend what is written in the telegram. Even though it is written in the Queen's own English, Sir Winston finds it difficult to understand the message's import. Then he does understand and his colour becomes a most alarming red as he balls into a crumpled mass the telegram and tosses it into a wastebasket.

Erupting from the chair with a vigor contrasting markedly to his aged appearance, the Sir Winston of old emerges full of all of his oratory skills. He walks briskly out of his private study while giving verbal vent to his feelings.

"Never has so much been robbed from so many by so few than by this."

The paige plucks from the wastebasket the offending message, smooths out the crumbled paper, and reads the words that have set off the great Sir Winston Churchill.

To: Sir Winston Churchill
From: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
Subject: Revisions to Curriculum

In order to modernise and streamline the curricula for 11 to 14 year old children, in consultation with experts in the various fields, certain items have been dropped or labeled as optional in the teaching of these various subjects.

In the science curricula, more time will be allocated to studying current issues such as genetically modified food and the perils involved with the improper use of drugs such as alcohol and cannabis.

The mathematics curricula will be similarly overhauled to make it more relevant. More emphasis will be placed on how to figure credit card interest rates and personal finance while algebra, linear equations, and ratios will continue to be taught.

History will be similarly modified from present syllabus. Whilst both World Wars will be taught along with other key events and figures crucial to understanding history, some items will be dropped or made optional to allow teachers enough time to address more recent events such as the threat of global warming.

It is because of the revisions in the history curricula that you are receiving this message. Along with Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Mahatma Gandhi, your part in the weave of English history has been re-classified as optional.

Yours most sincerely,
Ed Balls, Schools Secretary

Scanning it once more, the paige merely nods before tucking it away in a pocket. "Yes we knew this would set him off."

Hat-tip: Michelle Malkin.
Sources:The Sun Online.
ABC News Australia

Asad's New Palace

I am only half-jesting with the above title. I would really think Asad and his henchmen would feel right at home at this place just recently back in the news.

Masyaf castle located in Syria has just recently been excavated and partially restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. What makes this castle infamous is its former ruler, the Old Man of the Mountain, who was the leader of the Assasins sect.

The man who ordered the assassination of Hariri would fit right in, but I bet he would feel a mite nervous considering the fate of the Assassins. They are extinct and only a footnote duly noted by scholars of the Crusades. Which is where the Ba'athist tyranny of Asad deserves to follow - an extinct footnote.

And please do read the article. While it does talk about the killer reputation of the Assassins, from other sources more fueled by drug induced delirium, as killers who almost got Saladin and their castle redoubt. It also relates how Rashid Al-Din Sinan also tried to spread the belief system of one sect of Islam called Nizari Ismail of which modern adherents take the Aga Khan as their spiritual leader.

Learn Nothing Democrats

Not content with having their posteriors royally kicked by previous failed attempts at forcing President Bush into a withdrawl timetable for Iraq, today Pelosi tried it again.

Like the emergency funding bill that took over 100 days and a veto before passage and Feingold's attempt to force an unrealistic April withdrawl deadline, President Bush promises to veto this if it gets passed by the Senate.

What passed today in the House by 223 Yeas to 201 Nays is a withdrawl from Iraq by April 2008. The meat, well actually call it the tofu, of the bill attempts to please the Cindy Sheehan wing of the Democrat Party and the Blue Dog wing of the Democrat Party by being deliberately vague on how big the residual force is to be once a majority of American combat power is pulled out along with Coaliton forces by that aribitrary deadline.

Four Republicans voted for this pull-out in the House while ten Democrats voted against it. Looking at an article in CQ, the Republicans came off light as they were expecting 17 defections over this.

Rep. John Shadegg in his speech against this bill alludes to something that should have set off alarm bells in the Democrats forcing this to a vote. This very vagueness by Democrats too cowardly to state up front they want the US to lose and millions of Iraqis to die as their country is ripped apart by Syria, Iran, and Turkey harkens back to another protracted struggle that the United States struggled to find an honorable solution and all the country got was anguish and millions murdered.

That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. ... Section 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the Congress.

The new resolution is much like the one I quoted above in that it gives the President broad lattitude in his actions as Commander in Chief. But unlike this earlier resolution, this Democrat controlled Congress is not willing to step forward as a previous Congress did, revoke the laws President Bush has used to topple Saddam Hussein, and help install a democratic government in Iraq.

If I did not consider this bill a recipe for suicide I would urge the Senate to pass it and President Bush to sign it, and then use its very vagueness to run a skeer right through the yellow livers of all those who voted for it.

In case anyone is interested to know what resolution I am quoting from, please go here. Santayana I think had Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their minions in mind when he coined his quote. All because these people are too focused on their little pictures while muttering Tip O'Neil's famous mantra of 'All politics is local.'

Say What?

I just stumbled across this article. Overall it is pretty good while missing a few hilarious tid-bits.

Every time a C-17 uses this assault strip at Camp Shelby, the plane's jet-blast effect upon landing and taxing blows all of the runway marker signs against the fences. I am assured by friends involved they are feverishly working on resolving this issue before something truly comical happens, like the Adjutant General getting smacked by a sign. Or something very serious, like one of the signs getting sucked into an engine.

But the howler in this article is buried at the end when the writer talks about what this assault strip can handle.

The runway can accommodate up to four aircraft, C-17 bombers, and helicopters.

I thought the C-17 was a transport, not a bomber. Someone needs to get fact-checked I think.

News Roundup

One can not have a quick look at the news without noting the passing of Lady Bird Johnson at the age of 94.

"I would have given anything to help her and there was nothing I could do to help her," Johnson said.
Johnson asked Kennedy, whose clothes were splattered with the blood of her husband, the slain president, if she could call for someone to assist her.
Johnson reported that Kennedy replied, "'I want them to see what they have done to Jack.'"

On a more positive note, the space shuttle OV-105 Endeavour is being prepped for a mission twenty years delayed when OV-99 Challenger exploded 70 seconds after lift-off. Along with being a mission to the International Space Station; Endeavour will be carrying another teacher into space, Barbara Morgan. God speed Endeavour.

The budget defecit is shrinking faster than President Bush expected this past February, by September it will have shrunk to $205 billion. But Congress is wanting to extensively expand programs while repealing tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, President Bush is threatening to use his veto power to kill these massive increases in spending.

If we do not hear of an Osama bint Laden tape within the next two to four weeks, I think the United States can declare a 'mission accomplished.' I can say this after reading that Osama's fourth son has married a British divorcee. If this does not raise Osama from whatever moldering grave he lies in, nothing will. Especially when the divorcee, Jane Felix-Brown, is 51 and Omar is only 27.

And it seems the Big Dig in Boston has turned into a Big Can of Worms. The massive concrete ceiling panels that fell and killed a couple in 2006 were the result of widespread complacency and mis-understanding it seems from all involved in the project according to the NTSB. But I really want to know who all the people are who gave the OK on using ceiling panels in the Big Dig that are more massive than other such panels that used the suspect epoxy, there lies the true culprit it seems. The United States has seen such a tragedy before in Kansas City, where one design item was changed from continuous support rods to one set of rods supporting one walkway and then running a different set of rods through the same box to support the walkway beneath, thereby increasing the load born by the boxes and hastening the tragic failure that killed many people.

Why Dems Don't Like The Surge

It came to me today the reason, the real reason, why such supporters of the underdog like progressive Democrats really want the surge to fail.

If the surge works, then Baghdad's murder rate will drop below that of such American cities as New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.

No wonder they get their knickers all twisted up. Success in Baghdad just might cause some people to wonder how come in these violent cities there are neighborhoods where cops fear to tread. And why such things as gun control and being responsive to the needs of the convicted have failed miserably.

Not A Hobby Horse

Things in the stewpot called the Beltway just got spicier. Jeane Palfrey continues to have the spotlight on her amidst the controversy of her 'escort' service and whom it serviced.

Her lawyer has not helped things by proving how technologically incompetent he is along with being too trusting. How can I say that, after the brouhaha on 20/20 that netted one guy, Tobias, it seemed the mysterious list of 15,000 customers had vanished back into the shadows.

Montgomery Blair Sibley, Palfrey's attorney, had released to 54 organizations CDs that had all the phone numbers after a July 6 ruling allowed it. They were supposedly encrypted to prevent disclosure of certain information. When the encryption codes of the Blu-Ray DVD have been cracked and an iPhone has been cracked to activate without signing onto AT&T, this beggers the question of how technologically competent Sibley is. Or did he get swindled by another Beltway Bandit company used to selling garbage to the US Government? These organizations were also supposed to have signed an agreement to keep certain things from being published, but alas Sibley's trust was going to be violated by one organization. Which leads us to now, Palfrey's phone records are now available online; put there by Palfrey and Sibley. Good luck getting to them, seems the server is swamped.

This release has caught one more person it its far flung net, Louisiana's other Senator - Vitter[R] has announced he had used Palfrey's services before becoming a Senator and that the matter is now closed.

I predict the feeding frenzy has only started since Monday July 9th was the first full day the phone records were online.

Rewarding Mutiny

This is not cheerful news. National Hurricane Center Director Bill Proenza has gone on leave and Ed Rappaport has been announced as interim director.

As I blogged earlier, 23 members of the NHC signed a letter in protest of Bill Proenza and his campaign to get the QuikSCAT satellite replaced which they described as something that called into question the accuracy of their forecast.

Hello, if there is a degradation of 16% in some of your forecasts then there IS a degradation. And considering how many lives and billions of dollars are at risk with these forecasts you at the NHC should be yelling more loudly to get the satellite replaced since it has lasted longer than planned for.

As for NOAA to put Porenza on leave while their investigation which has barely started, before this manifesto was published, how gutless to reward insubordination. I really do hope Congress under Klein and Landrieu investigate this matter. Something stinks here.

I Will Hold My Breath! *sniff*

Oh geez....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi[D-CA] is facing a very troubling development as it seems Cindy "moral authority" Sheehan is going to run against Nancy "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," Pelosi for the House seat Pelosi currently occupies.

Next year it will be the mother of all battles, Cindy Sheehan on one side and Nancy Pelosi on the other. If Nancy Pelosi and others do not try to impeach President Bush that is.

You know this could be a win-win for anyone not a Democrat. If Pelosi and Conyers do try and impeach President Bush, it will look far more ridiculous than well the Clinton misfire. If they do not impeach President Bush, whomever occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave will have to contend with either a battered Nancy Pelosi still as Speaker or a completely unhinged neophyte with no power named Cindy Sheehan. And I better stock up on popcorn.

Pope Benedict XVI Allows Tridentine Mass

On July 7th, Pope Benedict XVI eased the restrictions on priests performing a Latin Mass, called the Tridentine Mass. This has caused some consternation and outcry, so lets look at things.

As Catholic News Services story indicates, the 1962 missal is the only allowed version. The Vatican II liturgy will be used for such Holy Days as Easter since they must be conducted with the parish. Unless a group requests a Tridentine Mass, even then it will be limited to one Tridentine Mass on a Sunday and the readings can still be proclaimed in the local language using an approved Lectionary.

What brings up this whole point is the Anti-Defamation League is saying this is a "body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations" by allowing the Tridentine Mass since the Tridentine Easter Mass calls for the conversion of Jews. And the Simon Wiesenthal Center has also entered the fray against the easing of the restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass for same reason.

There is only one problem with their argument. The 1962 Missal for the Tridentine Mass, approved by Pope Pius XII, has excised the prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. Fordham has online a side by side translation of the Latin 1962 Mass and I can not find a call for the conversion of Jews. If someone finds it in there, let me know. Until then the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center are causing the body-blow to Catholic-Jewish relations via ignorance.

PS: If anyone wants to read some really hateful and/or insane rantings, then read the comments on the AOL copy of the AP story. Yow.

How politics can warp anything like history.



This is an open post, commentary on what is wrong with this very welcome.
Versus some real Schoolhouse Rock.


Hat-Tip to Wordsmith.

Mutiny at NHC

This is not something that will warm one's cockles, whatever cockles are. :)

It seems the staff of the National Hurricane Center have firmly planted a knife in the back of their new director Bill Proenza.

While NOAA in Washington DC was dispatching an investigative team to Florida to find facts in regards to Proenza's stewardship of NHC and Proenza himself was out of town; 23 of the staff signed a document calling for Proenza to be removed, saying he was causing the center to lose focus while the hurricane season was heating up. How freaking courageous these people are, fearful of breaking federal law they agree to this document away from the center and then rush it to a local newspaper. All the while Proenza is being investigated remember and those results are not in.

Recently Proenza cast doubt on the viability of a weather sattelite called QuikSCAT that was launched in 1999 and was expected to last only five years. Well its three years later and still no replacement is in sight. Proenza said there was a risk in some circumnstances of a 16% degredation in forecast accuracy if QuikSCAT stopped working.

In their document calling for Proenza's ouster the signatories make the case that Proenza's statements on the demise of QuickSCAT casts doubt on the quality of their forecasts.

The interesting thing is, two of the guys who are now calling for Proenza's ouster, Rick Knabb and Hugh Cobb, last year spoke about how the demise of QuikSCAT could be detrimental.

“When QuikSCAT is gone, it will be like going back seven years in tropical cyclone analysis,” said Rick Knabb, a senior hurricane specialist at the hurricane center.
“QuikSCAT is our bread and butter,” said Hugh Cobb, another hurricane forecaster.

This raises questions about their honesty in this matter. Is the loss of QuikSCAT a danger to the forecast models or isn't it? What profit do they gain from Proenza's ouster? Some say it is because Proenza is an outsider from NWS Southern Region and no one inside NHC was promoted to replace Max Mayfield. QuikSCAT could be their tool of choice to oust Proenze because he dared to publically voice concerns that the veterans of NHC never dared voice so vocally while in reality they do it out of pure spite. Well by putting their names on that document, they have certainly shown just how loyal they are; which means even if Proenza does get the boot the new boss won't trust these people even if promoted from within NHC.

I am reminded of the adage of winning the battle but losing the war. I think that is what is going to happen with the NHC staffers. They are not doing just service to the public who pays their salaries and depends upon them to give the best forecasts possible.

Movies!

Spent the 4th of July watching two movies at the cineplex. Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers.

Bruce Willis once again reprises his role as an NYPD cop caught in the gears of someone else's evil machinations. This time the fate of the whole nation hangs in the balance as John McClane and his new reluctant hacker parter Matt take on the bad guys who are hacking the nation's infrastructure. We also get introduced to Lucy Gennaro ne McClane, John's aggravatingly headstrong daughter who in the movie goes from being just a hostage to a serious chip off the McClain block. Hacker Matt also grows during this movie, his little world is getting trashed throughout the movie and he valiantly rallies to adapt. Even the FBI cyber-geek trying to figure things out shows he has the brass to do the right thing when needed.

One scene is probably the best part of the movie when John and Matt discuss being the hero. McClane bitterly recounts how you get a pat on the back and then nothing. So Matt asks him why he does it and John says 'because someone has to do it and I am the only one there.' At the end of the movie, not only is John McClane a hero again, Matt and Lucy are too.

Transformers I had serious reservations that it was going to suck some rotten eggs. Bumblebee as a Camaro? Megatron can't transform into giant gun? What's going on? Shia Lebouf did a fine job as Sam, sometime loser geek who's family claim to fame seems to be all in the past. Megan Fox plays the girl in high school Sam has fallen in love with, she turns into a princess who can take care of herself. Bernie Mac makes a comic cameo appearance as Bobbie Bolivia, used car salesman where Sam and his Dad find Bumblebee disguised as a rusty yellow 85 Camaro. Bumblebee can only communicate through his radio and he seems to know the correct song to play to reflect the mood of the scene; like Sam and Mikaela on Lookout Point so we hear 'Sexual Healing' on the radio. (; The Autobots trying to hide from Sam's parents while Sam looks for an item in the house that will lead the Autobots to the All Spark is priceless.

Jon Voight plays a very capable Secretary of Defense who knows how to use a shotgun while trying to figure out what wiped out a US base in Qatar. Was a nice touch showing the US military as good guys when a rag-tag team of American servicemen escape the Decepticon attack in Qatar and they manage to save one of the local boys. One scene that had alot of people rolling in the aisles was when the American Captain is trying to call the Pentagon to report their survival over a civilian cell-phone even as a small Decipticon scorpion attacks them, he has to deal with a guy in India asking for a charge card and would the Captain like a new phone plan.

It seems the DoD went all out to support the making of this movie. So get to see A-10s in action and F-22s. Some airmen even got on film. Found this quote from an Army vet of Iraq via the Air Force News Agency to describe how he felt seeing this movie.

"Military people will get a lot out of this movie because of how realistic they depicted the way it is in the field, the way we all work together, and the equipment we use," said Army Sgt. Charles Eggleston, a Walter Reed patient. "The whole thing was action packed and I loved seeing the A-10 'bringing the rain' the way they always came to help us out while I was in Iraq. Some of my fellow Soldiers and I were talking about it's funny that with all the movies out there, it took a movie about alien robots invading the planet to get the military stuff right."

Yeah I liked the movie. Big quibble is all the Autobots like Bumblebee, Ratchet, and Jazz are GM products, but it seems the movie company had a tie-in deal with GM for it. So Bumblebee spends most of the movie as the 2008 prototype Camaro while Jazz is a Solstice and Ratchet is a rescue H2. But after awhile I did not care as the movie carried me away with its plot, characters, and humour.

Update: the name is McClane and not McClain. So changed it. Proofreading is a virtue. :)

Irony Meter Broke, Ordering New One

While the BBC and certain people bask in the release of a reporter, three Israeli soldiers are still missing in the hands of their enemies even while a prisoner swap to Fatah goes ahead.

There has been a suggestion of deploying an international force into restive Gaza. Needless to say Hamas is not terribly enthused about it.

Haniyeh said during a tour of a home in Gaza City that belongs to the estate of Yasser Arafat. "We are able to solve our problems."

Yep, they are able to solve their own problems; with AK-47, M-16, RPG, and other means of violent problem solving.

"I proposed an international force in Gaza" to Sarkozy to ensure the elections can be held peacefully, Abbas said. "Elections necessitate a certain stability in security."

Right, it was these 'peaceful' elections that resulted in Hamas taking charge of the Palestinian Authority, who is to say it will work better this time?

"Any force that enters the Gaza Strip will be dealt with as an occupation force," Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, said in a statement. "We will receive them with rockets and mortars."

Well if such an international force is sent they will know how it feels to be Israeli.

A real howler in the whole article is from Sarkozy in France.

"We want your victory. You are the guarantor of peace," Sarkozy told Abbas, according to his spokesman David Martinon.

Or in English, we want Fatah to win because you are not as bad as Hamas. Uh hello, Fatah is PLO-lite, still killer of Jews and anyone else that gets in their way. Unfortunately too many in the West have jumped onto the bandwagon of supporting Fatah as a counter-balance to Hamas.

But Fatah can not allow Sakorzy and the West to out do it in crazyness. I wont comment and will let the statement stand on its own.

"If they want to talk, they must recognize the legitimate bodies of the Palestinians and dismantle their bloody militias. Hamas wants to take the Palestinians many centuries back. They want to impose their own version of Islam on the Palestinians, but they know nothing about Islam. They are ignorant people who claim to serve Islam."

We Knew It Was A Bad Law

I had been pondering what to write as this year's 4th of July post. Thought of researching July 4, 1945. Instead the July issue of the NRA's American Rifleman reminded me of something I had written about just after the madman Cho killed 32 people. This is far more important than a trip down history lane such as a drummer boy playing 'World Turned Upside Down' as Cornwallis surrendered to Washington since it concerns the future of this Republic.

Sen. Lautenberg's assualt upon the Constitution has a bill number: S.1237. It has twelve co-sponsors: Clinton, Akaka, Schumer, Dodd, Feinstein, Levin, Reed, Menendez, Leiberman, Durbin, Kennedy, and Mikulski.

There is a similar bill in the House: HR. 2074 introduced by Rep. Peter T. King[NY]. He has seven co-sponsors: Mike Ferguson, Patrick Kennedy, Charles Rangel, James Walsh, Vito Fossella, Michael McCaul, and Christopher Shays.

Both bills are bottled up in their respective committees at the moment. And hopefully they will die there. But that is the reason for this post, to ensure these bills get killed least they become law.

To sound alarmist, these bills do gut the Constitution in regards to the 2nd Amendment. How can I say this, look at the bills.

From the Senate version: the AG can deny/revoke any one's right to own firearms and not reveal what lead to this determination if its in the interest of national security.

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 923(f)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the first sentence the following: `However, if the denial or revocation is pursuant to subsection
(d)(1)(H) or (e)(3), any information upon which the Attorney General relied for this determination may be withheld from the petitioner, if the Attorney General determines that disclosure of the information would likely compromise national security.'.
(2) SUMMARIES- Section 923(f)(3) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the third sentence the following: `With respect to any information withheld from the aggrieved party under paragraph (1), the United States may submit, and the court may rely upon, summaries or redacted versions of documents containing information the disclosure of which the Attorney General has determined would likely compromise national security.'.

Anyone for Star Chambers meeting in secure rooms at Justice Department to determine who is a threat? Using evidence that the DoJ can refuse to reveal in court. All at the discretion of the Attorney General. Where is the oversight?

The House version has similar language in it.

(1) in the 1st sentence of paragraph (1), by inserting `except that if the denial or revocation is based on a determination under subsection (b)(8) or (d)(2), then any information which the Attorney
General relied on for the determination may be withheld from the petitioner if the Attorney General determines that disclosure of the information would likely compromise national security' before the period; and

(2) in paragraph (2), by adding at the end the following: `In responding to any petition for review of a denial or revocation based on a determination under section 843(b)(8) or (d)(2), the United States may submit, and the court may rely on, summaries or redacted versions of documents containing information the disclosure of which the Attorney General has determined would likely compromise national security.'.

While celebrating this July 4th, remember all the freedoms and responsibilities those patriots fought and died for can be lost without a shot. These bills are such a threat.

I Got Rated

Putting this post back to yesterday since I want to keep my post on Launtenberg's gun grab at top for the 4th. Thanks BlackFive.


This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
dead (5x) bomb (4x) kill (1x)

Gee.

Car Bomb Tech Support

I am reading up on the attempted car attack at Glasgow's airport. Luckily no one but the attackers seem to be injured. There are reports the attackers gave up the game early on when one got out to light the car afire.

This has caused me to wonder what would happen if these Charlies had some kind of car bomb tech support akin to OnStar. I magine it would go something like this:

Tech Support: "Ishnallah, how may I help you?"
Caller: "My car bomb, son of the camel it is, refuses to detonate!"
TS: "Allah Ackbar! Have you tried to connect the wires by hand to the detonator?"
C: "No."
TS: "Try that."
C: "Which wires?"
TS: "Connect the green wire to the post with the + sign. Wait, is this an American or British car?"
C: "American infidel junk!"
TS: "Allah be praised, connect green wire to the + sign."
C: "Yes, doing that. Alla h be pra...." *sszzztt* .... dial tone
TS: "Allah Ackbar! Another problem solved!"

Daughters of Lillith

Kathy Ainsworth[L] was considered to be a very nice and religious young lady. She was well liked and taught children in the 5th grade. Ahlam Tamini[R] comes from the other side of the world, the West Bank of Israel where she was a journalist. What links these two young women who seemed to have everything within their grasp, is the focus of their short lives - hatred of Jews.

Kathy was your typical Southern lady caught up in the turbulent times of a racially divided Mississippi in the 1960s. The Ku Klux Klan was active in the state against black Americans, white Americans who came down to support their brothers and sisters who happened to be black, and the Jewish congregations in Meridian and Jackson whom the KKK thought was the instigators of integration. After several bombings of synagogues and an attack on a rabbi, local police and the FBI decided to set a trap. Author Jack Nelson covered this story in his book Terror in the Night. So it was one night in 1968 that Kathy Ainsworth was sucked into this battle between the forces of order and the forces of hate. The trap was sprung on the suspected bomber whom informants working for the FBI had lured him in. By the time the last gunshot was fired, Thomas A. Tarrants III lay gravely wounded in the car while his partner in the attempted bombing, Kathy Ainsworth, lay dead beside him.

Ahlam Tamini is a native of Jordan, lived in Ramallah, studied at Bir Zeit, and was already a journalist by the age of 20. Her claim to infamy occurred on August 9th, 2001, when she acted as the guide for an Islamic suicide bomber in Jerusalem. Their target was a Sbarro pizza place crowded with women and young children. As the echo of the explosion faded away to be replaced by screams of anguish and pain, fifteen lay dead and another 130 wounded to one degree or another. Among those dead were children. Tamini was sentenced to sixteen life terms for her part in this hideous attack.

What brings this whole post together is the fact HBO is airing a documentary on Arabs in Israeli jails. The face HBO decided to put on this documentary belongs to none other than Ahlam Tamini, the killer of children. Hat-tip to LGF and Solomina for bringing to my attention this. Would HBO or its subsidiaries ever do a show about the actions of the KKK in Mississippi with that smiling picture of Kathy to entice people to watch? I doubt it very much, so why do it with this piece? Answers need to be found.

Dead Again

The glorious immigration reform bill, touted by Kennedy, Bush, and McCain [drats one horseman shy], has died again in the Senate. It fell 14 votes short needed for cloture and to be rammed through the Senate without adequate debate.

The backers say there is no chance that immigration reform will be brought back up for consideration until after the 2008 elections. My advice, considering how they tried to back-channel this to passage, watch them like a hawk watches a mouse hole.

Hatshepsut Found?

Stay tuned for on Wednesday our favorite Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass is going to announce if they have found Hatshepsut's mummy. Quick recap in the 18th Dynasty a Pharaoh died leaving only a minor son to follow him so Hatshepsut was made regent. Well she took up the two crowns of Egypt along with crook&flail to become the first female Pharaoh. Then rapidly after her death her successor Tuthmosis III set about wiping out all traces of her rule. The most prominent monuments left of her rule is one obelisk standing and Deir al-Bahri.

Dr. Hawass is going to comment on the mystery of the two female mummies that had been found in KV-60. KV-60 was first excavated in 1903 by Howard Carter, then again in 1906, and and again in 1989 after being re-discovered. One of the mummies is thought to be Hatshepsut's nurse - in the article she is named Sitre In while Dr. Week's Theban Mapping Project site names her Sit-Ra, possibly called In. One mummy was left in situ according to Dr. Week's while the other is in the Cairo Museum, but now it seems both are in the Cairo Museum.

It shall be interesting to see what emerges from this news conference.

Well can I saw how unimpressed I was with this 'exciting' discovery. The unknown obese mummy in KV60 is missing a molar. Examination of a molar contained in a little box with Hatshepsut's name, recovered in a cache of royal mummies in 1881, concluded it was an almost perfect match of the mummy's missing molar. Dr. Hawass, next time wait until the DNA tests are in.

An Observation

War is the violent application of diplomacy to make the other guy stop.

Are we clear now?

Courage

I am simply amazed at this story. This should be a 'Drama in Real Life' story in Readers' Digest.

A man, Chris Everhart, was camping with his three sons in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia when a black bear came into their camp and started to drag their cooler back into the forest. Six year old Logan Everhart then hurled a shovel at the bear so the bear turned and came back. Here is the courageous part and shows how much love a father has for his children. Chris picked up a piece wood from the firewood pile and threw it at the bear. Think about that and ask yourself, would you without hesitation do the same thing and possibly sacrificing yourself for your child? The Divine must have been looking out for Chris and his family as the log hit the bear in the head and killed it.

Of course such a heroic deed must not go unpunished. In an act proving the legal bureaucrat is not a natural creature possessing a heart, Chris Everhart was ticketed for not securing his campsite. You heard me right, they are saying it's Chris' fault for provoking the bear. I hope when this gets to court, it is laughed out as being insane. If he did fail to secure his site, then he already paid a price far greater than any fine.

I say if since in Utah an 11 year old boy, Sam Ives, was dragged from his tent screaming and killed by a black bear. His family says there was no food in the child's tent that could have attracted a bear. And for an example of provoking a bear, an American tourist was killed in Romania by a bear irritated by the flashes and a pack of dogs.

More on the Middle East

If anyone has wondered what would have happened if the crime gangs had taken over Chicago, one just has to look at Gaza and the West Bank.

Giving Abbas of Fatah more money is just repeating what has been tried before and failed. Perhaps time to break the paradigm and let Fatah go under at the bloody hands of Hamas if they can't defend themselves. Terrorists killing terrorists should be a win-win for the whole world as it removes killers from the gene pool. All that is being done now is perpetuating the slow bleed strategy, that some feel is better than full out war, that will in all liklihood result in more deaths than a rapid war against just Hamas.

After thirty years UNIFIL has suffered its first ever fatalities as two Spanish peacekeepers are killed in a roadside bomb that wounds others. One has to wonder which terrorist group is trying to clear the field before starting something along Israel's northern border.

The three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by terrorists last year remain missing, keep them in one's prayers.

And off in Iraq, Saddam's relative Chemical Ali has been sentenced to hanging for using chemical weapons to kill Kurds. I just hope this hanging is kept off the cell-phone cameras and Al-Sadr thugs are kept out also.

Been Tag'd. Oh My!

Thank you Myrtus for tagging me with this meme. Let see how it goes.

1. Name your favorite band and singer. (The singer can’t be from the band).
Band: The Bangles I think will always be my favorite.
Singer: Ishtar [Eti Zach] Alabina right now holds that honour.

2. Favorite historical politician (domestic)? (Historical = Dead)
A tie really.
Teddy Roosevelt - 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.'
Ronald Reagan - 'Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!'

3. Favorite historical politician (International)?
Lady Margaret Thatcher

4. You’re giving a Hollywood pitch (25 words or less) about your Blog — GO
Stop viewing everything through your prejudices. Think!

5. Other than where you live now, what city do you like?
Vieste, Italy

6. Favorite modern politician? (In office now)
None of the Above. They are politicians after all, not statesmen.

7. Are you a Wilsonian Idealist or Nixonian Realist in foreign policy?
Mix of both.

8. Favorite obscure movie?
Planet of the Vampires - Italian science fiction movie directed by Mario Bava in 1965 that inspired Alien.

9. What is your favorite restaurant?
Benihana - where I learned to use chopsticks.

10. Choose a music video on YouTube. Why that one?

This is the ending music of the Record of Lodoss Wars 13 episode series. Why pick it? The song is about how the personalities and destinies of Parn [the human hero] and Deedlit [elven heroine] become interwined by their shared experiences saving their homeland from the forces of evil. One of the lyrics when translated says 'Our falling in love was destiny.' Deedlit's love started out as fascination with the selfless antics of Parn which deepen as the story progresses because of how selfless and courageous Parn acts. While Parn's love started out much slower and more cluelessly [see Deedlit get mad at confused Parn when she asks him for a dance and all he has eyes for is heroic King Kashue] until Parn sees how even his nemesis Ashram has found love in the arms of Pirotess, thus when it comes time to for Parn to save Lodoss he does it for a more personal reason - the woman he loves [Deedlit] is in peril and he risks his very life to save her immortal life. So at the end it is Parn and Deedlit riding off into the sunset in search of their lost companion Woodchuck as their other companions settle down to their tasks in rebuilding Lodoss.

Of course the opening music is all about Deedlit's love of Parn also. Lyrics like 'Romantic in ways that almost tear at my heart / I am your prisoner / Io Sono Prigioniera /Tonight you have gently bound me up within your arms, my love' really leave no doubt about it. But this tag only allows me to pick one video. :)

Ishtar - C'est La Vie

Enjoy the music. Though some are so into their little preconceptions, they can't emerge from their holes.

The Flag - What It Means

OUR FLAG WAVED SO BEAUTIFUL

ON THE RAISING OF OLD GLORY AT

MOOSBURG--(Stalag VIIA) GERMANY

APRIL 29, 1945

Tanks rumble in the night

And we sensed freedom was coming.

How soon it would happen

We did not know,

But our faith told us all would be right.

Then with the rising of the sun

Our freedom thundered in on that beautiful April

Of cold sunshine and breeze

We listened to token gunfire beyond the trees

And knew liberation was not far away.

Our forces had given an ultimatum

For the Germans to free us all,

But they held onto our freedom

And did not reply

It was then came up the war cry

That sent our army forward

Into Moosburg, barbred wire prison town,

Where anxious village square, church steeple,

And flag pole flying the sinister swastika.

Was disrupted by one lone rifleman

Firing as though to say

I shall hold for one last moment their freedom.

With the exchange of angry fire,

Shooting ceased and we at the gate rejoiced

In loud hurrahs.

And then, quiet came in our hearts,

As men cried and fell down on their knees

Thanking God for their liberation,

Burned in my mind forever

Will always be the picture of our flags

Going slowly up that flag pole --

Weaving so gently in the breeze.

R.H. Owen, POW

Stalag Luft III at Sagan & Stalag 7A at Moosburg, Germany

Country Boy Infantry 'The Blue Devils' 88th Infantry Division 1944-1945. Carey E. Ashcraft. Self Published. Pg. 3

Nature picture

Politically Correct Suicide

Mike at Mike's America has blogged about the problems UCLA has in accommodating the various diverse groups who wish to have their own graduation ceremony. Mainly identity politics has run amok and instead of 'out of many one' we are seeing 'many but separate.'

A friend earlier today showed me the newest issue of GX, Guard Experience, which talks about what is happening with the Army National Guard, its citizen-soldiers, and their families. Strangely I have not found an online link to this magazine, just indirect ones like this recruiting link. One article, title eludes me now, made my jaw drop. It deals the the California Army National Guard and hence the tie in with UCLA's problems.

It seems there is a move afoot to make the California Army Guard units reflect more closely the demographics of their communities. Since only 25% of the force is Hispanic while the overall community is more than 32% Hispanic. Officials want this to change since the number of Hispanics in California since the last census has risen by over 57%.

There are a few problems with this rise in the Hispanic population and this plan to address it.

• How many are legal immigrants to the United States, naturalized, or born here in that 57% rise? Bet the percentage of Californians of Hispanic ancestry drops a few percentage points once we toss out all the illegals and felons.
• Unit cohesion above the platoon/company level. To meet these demographically mandated goals, will we see pure Hispanic and pure Anglo units in the same battalion, regiment, or even division? If so, will English be enforced as the lingua franca? If not, then we can kiss cohesion above the platoon level goodbye unless there are enough bilingual personnel. This in an Army that is trying to generate enough speakers of Arabic, Dari, and Farsi to name three critical languages.
• Competence. That is going to be another question. If this is forced down the throat of the Army Guard, will they be picky in the quality of recruits if they have to meet these arbitrary quotas. Sub-par recruits do make it out of Basic Training and AIT, though rarely. The question arises, once they reach their units and are shown to be under-achievers will their units discharge them or keep them on the rolls just to keep their percentage up?
• Loyalty is another hot button item. Recruiters desperate to get recruits may just sign up some with questionable backgrounds. Who is to say, like the Del Monte plant where illegals were using the Social Security cards of deceased Americans or even false ones, the same could not happen with recruits. So we get illegals in a military unit. Will they hold true allegiance to the state of California and the United States? Or covertly serve another country?
• And most troubling of all, will recruiters and unit commanders have to turn away qualified applicants because they are not Hispanic and hence would drive that unit's ethnic ratio below that of the community it is in? Bet some have forgotten Bakke vs the State of California.

If the Army Guard continues to fail to meet these ratios there would be one last gasp for the multiculturals in their quest to make the Guard reflect the general population. Institute a state mandated service period of say two years and by fiat assign a percentage to the Army Guard to keep them at the pre-assigned quota levels.

This is plain and simple a bad idea that needs to be stopped now before the California Army National Guard is destroyed.

News Round Up

Pinch Paisley at BlackFive posts the obituary of a real American hero: Brig. General Robin Olds has passed away.

Meanwhile the transformation of Gaza into Hamastan continues apace as they loot PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat's home and acquire even more weapons from Fatah/Palestinian Authority security posts.

In images replayed repeatedly on Palestinian television, a bloodied Samid al-Madhun is dragged by masked Hamas gunmen through the streets and kicked by a mob shouting “dog” before the Hamas men fire dozens of rounds into his body.

The two state solution is dead, as dead as Samid al-Madhun. Now we get to see who squashes Hamas, Israel or Egypt who both share borders with this murderous regime. Who know, they might flip a coin to see who does it. Just keep Jimmy 'I Love Hamas' Carter out unless he wants to be a human shield.

Non-state recognized irregular forces have violated once again the 1953 Hague Convention in regards to religious sites by blowing up yet another Sunni mosque in Basra Iraq. But since these are non-recognized irregular military forces, the Hague does not apply to them. So under the Geneva Conventions said forces will be subject to summary execution wherever they are found. I wish.

Also in Iraq, an F-16 Fighting Falcon, aka Viper, has crashed. All that is known is the pilot belongs to the 180th Fighter Wing OHANG based in Toledo, OH. Crank up the prayers.

Meanwhile Head Inquisitor Mike Nifong is braying and weeping about 'my community has suffered enough' as he prepares to resign. Too little too late Mikey. You lead a witch hunt that tarred three innocent men. You need to have your life destroyed and the thing is, it is your actions that will lead to this destruction - by denying three men justice in a rush to get a hot-button issue re-elect you as District Attorney of Durham County.

And finally way up in orbit. The new solar array has been deployed. Most of the crashed Russian computers have been rebooted. The tear in the TPS on one of the OMS' has been repaired. And NASA astronaut Williams now has the record for longest duration for a woman in space.

The Witching Hour

Since this is post 666 and I am talking about an abomination that it seems will soon shamble from its grave, I have to post the perfect music video to describe my feelings on the matter.




Can you guess what I am talking about and whom I think are vampires?

Che is Dead

... long live Che ...

It seems there is no monstrous idea or person that some will not keep trotting out as heroes.

So here is La Prensa reporting that Venezuela is heaping the laurels and praise upon the murderous corpse of Che. Che the monster. Che the butcher of little children during castro's bloody revolution in Cuba.

All this praise from Chavez and even the ailing castro does is try to hide the Maoist Che was. That he apparently ended up in Bolivia leading a small band of terrorists after falling from the graces of castro's Cuba.

For such a great leader of men and of the Revolution, someone who said he died as a man; it took a sixteen man Special Forces team only four months to train up a Bolivian battalion to capture and kill Che. Some great leader.

Some may fret that the killing of Che made him a martyr for the cause. I tend to disagree. Che's death was needed to stop the export of violent Communist revolution to South America. Just imagine if he had toppled a country named for the one real liberator of South America and then proceeded to send out more violent revolutionaries to other countries? Save Allende in Chile and Ortega in Nicaragua, there was no toying with revolutionary communism in South/Central America until Chavez muscled his way into dictatorial power.

Perhaps Chavez, as he shuts down opposition press and floats blimps to watch his citizens, should learn these other lessons of Che's death.

Flag Day

Never Forget

Middle East Meltdown - The Remix

Amidst all the Paris Hilton coverage, in case you missed it, mighty things have been happening in Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.

First, the three missing Israeli soldiers that sparked two wars are still missing. Olmert is still the Israeli Prime Minister though there is a new President - Shimon Peres. Who knows maybe something will change.

In Lebanon an anti-Syrian PM was killed in a car bomb blast along with nine others. The UN has concluded Syria is shipping arms to terrorists in Lebanon. Also receiving almost no media coverage, the Lebanese government has violently engaged Islamic terrorists in two Palestinian refugee camps. Note - why are there Palestinian refugee camps after 59 years? The refugee/dislocated camps of a war ravaged Europe did not last 1/10th this time.

Meanwhile in Gaza it seems we are seeing the birth of a three-state solution as the terrorist group Hamas routs and exterminates the rival Fatah terrorist organization in Gaza. How can I say this? When a Fatah official flees his house in Gaza dressed as a woman [Did Eichman flee to Arengtina dressed as a woman? No. So what is it with these Islamic terrorists who don women's clothing at the first hint of trouble?] to seek sanctuary at a hospital only to be betrayed and have his head blown off, I would say Hamas is ascending. Once Hamas finishes its final solution on Fatah, then the people of Gaza will truly have the government they voted for and Israel will have the cause belli to wipe out the canker called Gaza once Hamas ups its attacks on Israel. Some optimists hope the Arab League will roll in, like on a white Arabian stallion, and save Gaza from destruction; I am not holding my breath. Meanwhile the Fatah controlled West Bank is being very quiet while becoming the only territory Fatah and the Palestinian Authority controls.

I hope everyone who gushed about how giving the Arab refugees from the creation of the UN mandated state of Isreal a state will cause them to grow up will now shut the freak up since the Arabs have proven completely incapable of anything except killing each other. But I doubt it, they will just scream louder, hoping to drown out the wailing and lamentations of the survivors of their folly.

GitS: Solid State Society

Anime Monday on SciFi Channel delivered a movie I have been waiting to be released on DVD. Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society. This is the third movie based off of Masamune Shirow's, at the time ground breaking, cyber-political manga that dealt with technology and the question of what it truly means to be 'human'.

Note: A ghost is what makes a human a human in the age of fully cyberized bodies. Each ghost is different and unique, nor did it seem could an artificial ghost come into existence.

The path to this latest movie can be traced back to that original manga. Why do I say this? It is very simple. In the manga, one of the adversaries Section 9 faced in the eight US issues was called the Puppeteer. The first movie directed by Mamoru Oshii dealt with the Pupepeteer, an artificial ghost that was created by a Japanese ministry for data mining and information manipulaton, who seeks asylum inside Section 9. At then end of this movie, we are treated to seeing Major Kusanagi in the cyberized body of a child and telling Batou that the 'Net is wide.' Then we are treated to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series in which we encounter another iteration called the Laughing Man, a ghost who seemingly walks through barriers and possesses people to carry out his cause. We were next treated with a second movie called Innocence which lifted one story thread from the original manga about multiple dubbing of ghosts from children into gynoids who go beserk killing their masters while dealing with the vanishing of the character Major Motoko Kusanagi from the manga and the first movie. For season two of Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii takes up the baton in shaping this story arc that centers around refugees, terrorism, and political corruption.

Now we get to the third movie which is called Solid State Society. Unlike the previous two movies, the character designs stem from the TV series. The plot is also woven from the threads of the TV series with the refugee problem, political empire building, and seperatists. But the woof of this loom though comes directly from the original manga. Major Kusanagi has made herself a free-lance agent because she thinks she can better solve crimes that way, so she is missing from Section 9. Again Section 9 finds itself with a mystery dealing with missing children. A mysterious Puppeteer is seemingly manipulating everything that Section 9 finds. And what of the climatic ending in which Major Kusanagi comes out of the shadows in the nick of time to save Togusa and face down the Puppeteer, the climatic scene is lifted almost perfectly from the first movie and the manga.

• Kusanagi diving into a dieing brain to wrest the last secrets out, Batou trying to help her, and using a Smart-Tank's AI for cyber back-up.
• In the manga, Motoko dives into the shattered cybernetic body of the Puppeteer in the rain assisted by Batou and Aramaki.

This time there is no dark rainy night on a remote location for the battle as in the first movie, this one is fought on a floor in which hundreds of children are being brainwashed to become productive citizens. And at the end of this the third movie, we see an adult Kusanagi staring pensively out at a night-time city scape saying the the 'Net is wide' before Batou puts an arm around her shoulder. Then the movie ends as Batou updates Kusanagi on the identity of the Puppeteer. For fairness here is someone who liked Solid State Society.

In other words, Oshii and those who wrote this movie have plowed the same ground again and frankly this is getting boring. There is so much more to Ghost in the Shell than the Puppeteer case, but it seems some are fixated on it. Which is a shame since Shirow has written Ghost in the Shell 2:Man-Machine Interface which covers some of Kusanagi's free-lance work after she split from Section 9 at the end of the first manga. Then there is Ghost in the Shell 1.5:Human Processor Error which follows Section 9 as it handles cases like walking corpses with cyber implants without the leadership of Major Kusanagi.

After finally watching this movie, I have serious doubts I will purchase the DVD. Which is saying something since I do like Shirow's body of work, though sometimes his art can be a bit too 'wet' for many people's tastes. Or trying to read the footnotes he puts on pages of the manga to explain things.

One final quibble aimed purely at SciFi. This movie came on at 11PM Eastern and ended at 1:30AM Eastern. Which should be way past any child's bedtime and Ghost in the Shell has never been aimed for children. So why in one scene showing one of the politicians laying in bed being serviced by a bevy of cute teen-age gynoid girls in skimpy attire did SciFi blur one of their derrieres? It makes no sense, especially when at the end we see the Puppeteer shoot his own brains out and we get to see up close and personal his left eye hanging out its socket while also viewing the ruin of his jaw from the self-inflicted gunshot wound?

Updates: I added a lot of links for those who are like Kusanagi and like to dive the 'Net which indeed is vast and wide. Plus rewrote some areas. Still not sure if I cleared things up or mucked them up even further. Also added at the top a picture of someone dressed up as Major Motoko Kusanagi - the brain in a very nice tin can.

Triangulating and Twisting

David Ignatius writes a provocative article arguing how the battle in Iraq is being lost. But when you parse it for its main thesis and strip away the emotionalism, it boils down to making the soldiers less visible so as not to provoke the radicals while extolling the swift violent action of elite units in taking asymmetrical warfare to the enemy.

If we took Ignatius' idea and applied it to a major US metropolitan area - pull the normal police out and depend upon SWAT to handle things - it would not be long before such areas would descend into anarchy as others rush in to fill the power vacuum left by the absence of the regular police force. SWAT would not be able to handle the overload.

Am I comparing apples to oranges with this analogy? No. Until the local police are sorted out from the spies in the their midst's, American and Iraqi military forces are operating in the role of the regular police. To cede the neighborhood battlefield to the forces of anarchy will lead to an explosion of anarchy. General Petraeus's strategy is to deny such ascendancy to the likes of the Mahdi Army by stepping up the street presence. It is akin to the police sweeping a known bad neighborhood with extra forces to clear it of the bad elements.

Ignatius' argument falls flat because it means surrendering the streets of Baghdad to the forces of anarchy. He is endorsing Murtha's redeployment plan, a plan for defeat.


Looking in paragraph eight, we find there are people willing to thwart a faster victory over the murdering thugs for specious grounds that only lawyers could understand. The US could have severely hampered the terrorists bomb making capabilities it turns out back in 2004. But the CIA General Counsel demurred by saying they lacked authority for the operation.
You would think George Tenet would have been keen to get President Bush to sign an Executive Order allowing this just to cover his posterior while currying favor, but apparently Tenet never had any fire in his belly to fight this war and the idea languished. What was the idea? Booby-trap detonators so they would explode in the hands of the bomb-makers, thus preventing bomb attacks by winnowing the ranks of the technically competent bomb-makers.
So how many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians have died because the CIA was too chicken to carry the war to the enemy. That is another millstone around Tenet's tenure at the CIA.

A-kon Slideshow

If the above fails to play, click on this link.
Enjoy the show. :)

Nature's Beauty

Saturday has been such a beautiful day, I had to get outside to enjoy it. Brought along the camera and snapped a few pictures, including this one. Hope you enjoy.

Atlantis in Orbit

Right on time last night, the Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis(OV-104) lifted off into a beautiful clear sky to become the 250th manned mission to orbit and 118th Shuttle mission. This mission is to add more power to the International Space Station via a 17.5 ton truss and 240ft solar arrays to support further experiments.

For a bit of human interest there is STS-117 crew member Clayton Anderson. He was until recently part of the STS-118 crew. Astronaut Sunita Williams stay aboard the ISS was looking to extend from six months to nine months if this was not done during the Atlantis mission. Which explains the location of Anderson's name on the mission patch. Even with Anderson arriving aboard STS-117, Williams will have set the longest stay by a female astronaut by the time she comes back with the STS-117 crew.

Wake up for the crew is just a few minutes away as I blog this. This day will be spent by the crew closing in on the ISS and doing a post-liftoff inspection of the orbiter to ensure there is no damage from foam separation.

Marine Receives Navy Cross

Camp Pendelton, CA. 4 June 2007.

Corporal Jason S. Clairday was awarded posthumeously yesterday the second highest decoration an American servicemember can receive, the Navy Cross, for his actions while leading his squad during a firefight in Fallujah on 12 Dec 2004.

The battle between insurgents and Clairday's unit erupted while the Marines were doing a security sweep. Shortly after his squad came under fire, Clairday jumped onto the roof of the house to rescue a wounded Marine. He opened fire on the insurgents and pounded them with grenades as he tried to save the Marine. Clairday then led an assault into the house, according to the citation. He retreated from the doorway after being shot in both legs. Moments later, he re-entered the home and took the lead position, throwing grenades and unloading rounds from his rifle.
“He single-handedly attacked the insurgents and received mortal wounds,” the citation states. The note goes on to say that thanks to Clairday's efforts, the Marines had enough time to call in reinforcements and defeat the enemy.

Corporal Clairday is survived by his wife Sarah, mother Cindy McCullough, and Brenda Ingram whom Clairday thought of as a second mother. I will end this post with what Brenda posted in the comments.

Yes, Semper Fi does say it all. I am the Brenda Ingram mentioned in the article. I am proud of Jason and it does not suprise me about his actions of that day. What does suprise me is how some people think I should feel about this war and the Marine Corps. I have only the highest respect and love for our Marine Corps. Jason did what he needed to do that day for himself and his brothers. He will always be our (his family and Marine Corps brothers ) hero. Support our troops---without them we could not speak English this freely.

Semper Fi indeed.

Atlantis Mission

At 7:38PM Eastern Time, the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch for a mission to the International Space Station. May the crew have a safe and successful mission.

Clowns err Clones on the Hill

Suffice to say Michelle Malkin is blogging like a woman possessed over the stupid pet tricks some august Senators are reduced to in their attempt to push forward this truly Sisyphean 'immigration' bill. Go read her comments, I really can not top them except to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who are willing to trade national security for political expediency deserve neither."

Project A-kon 18 photos

Okay, I just finished uploading 41 pictures I took at A-kon this weekend. They can be found over at Photobucket. Enjoy the pictures. :)

Now I have to scoot and take care of many errands. Will post about the Con later.

On The Road

Well next few days will be in Dallas, TX attending Projecy A-kon. So I will be knee deep in anime fans. Taking a break from the Democrats 'reality' based politics to view some actual fantasy. If I manage to get connection, will try to post some pictures. If not see you Monday.

Everyone have a safe weekend.