University of Oklahoma - site of terrorism October '05

My family and I were at this football game - OU vs Kansas State - in Oct '05. In the 3rd quarter, a tremendous boom sounded outside but near our end of the stadium in the North endzone, 64 rows up. Everyone in that half of the stadium (probably 25,000 out of the 75,000 fans in the stadium) turned to see what the boom came from, and it shook the stadium. The official word is it was a 'pipe bomb' ... that's bogus. It was much more powerful than a pipe bomb. The "official" word is that the guy was a loner and depressed (sound familiar, Dallas 1963?), and committed suicide. I think it's bulls*@%. There's a lot more to that than they're talking about ("hmmm, I'm depressed and a loner .... but I'll summon up the energy to try and buy ammonium nitrate from feed stores in the area, and failing that, I'll just make a pipe bomb, strap it to my body, then walk over to close to the football stadium - during a game with 80,000 people inside - and then sit on a park bench by myself and blow myself up so no one will get hurt" ...... yeah, riiiiiiight! I think he was on his way into the stadium, but either lost his nerve, or else sat down to gather his nerve, and accidentally set off the bomb). And if he was lonely and depressed, that made him a ripe target to be 'recruited' by terrorists, which are undoubtedly on every campus in the country.

Just my opinion, but the official story doesn't have much of a ring of truth to it.
See Michelle Malkin for more.

Forensic Journalism

Thank God (uh-oh, now I've made Bill Maher mad!) for the blogosphere of citizen journalists. But with the unrelenting legions of media sleight-of-hand tricks (jacked up photos, staged photo shoots) and outright crimes (completely bogus claims of Israeli attacks against civilians), I think what's being done by the blogosphere to 'out' these crooked tales goes beyond citizen journalism to something I think is closer to forensic journalism. See examples at LGF, Michelle Malkin, and Powerline .

Bravo.

1960's JFK - smart; 2006 Dems - dumb

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK went on national TV and very clearly stated "Any attack on Americans and American soil will be met by a full, retaliatory response by the United States on Cuba and the Soviet Union." This put everyone on notice of what the ramifications would be of a missile strike on the U.S.
Likewise, President Bush should go on national TV and clearly state "Any largescale attack on American soil will be met by a full, retaliatory response by the United States on terror nations and their sponsers - specifically Iran and North Korea will cease to exist as nations.

The Democrats want to fight terror by inspecting more shipping containers and wanding more people at the airport. How "French Maginot Line" of them, always on the defense. Wars are won, and bad guys vanquished, with offense, not defense. But that only holds true for the last 4 thousand years ... maybe it'll be different this time ... riiiiiiiiiight.

Hollywood to NYTimes - "Take a memo"

Watch "Three Days of the Condor", and then try to tell me that the editor/owner of the NYTimes isn't running that paper's philosophy based upon the underlying timber of this 1970's movie's plot. Unfortunately, the Times answered the wrong question.
Ironically, the movie's final scene asks the liberal protagonist the defining quesion that separates the Liberal theoretical world from the Conservative's Practical worldview - the same question that still today is the lynchpin insoluble divide between Liberals and Conservatives - and the Liberal answer was non-existent, then as now.

Thirty years, and the Left still can't answer a simple question.

An excellent movie on the surface, and an even better examination of the Left's shifting sand bedrock. Watch the final scene between Robert Redford and Cliff Robertson, to see the question, the 'non-existent' answer, and the effect of this movie on the NY Times operating philosophy's current motivation.

Iran Student Movement

for those wishing to learn more - this was a gutsy reporter undercover.
Here

Steve Centanni

Our fellow American, Steve Centanni, and New Zealand-based cameraman Olaf Wiig are still missing, still no one knows who kidnapped them or a stated reason why (we know, of course, the underlying reason ... which ironically does not involve "reason"), and the MSM is running stories about killer bees and the 7th straight day of non-stop coverage about some child molesting pervert who hasn't even been charged yet in the JonBenet Ramsey case. We know what John Mark Karr ate on the plane, but we don't know anything about our kidnapped journalist after a week.

The MSM has previously lost their will to report unbiased news - now, apparently, they can't even discern what is news and what isn't news (and no, it doesn't matter what you think the definition of is is.

Link Michelle Malkin

Slip to 1935

I woke up, watched the news, and realized I had been transported back to 1935 .....

U.S. Reaction to Japan and Hitler = isolationism
According to Robert Dallek, the years 1934-37 were the high tide of isolationism in America. President Franklin Roosevelt "felt almost hopeless against the worldwide drift toward war. He remarked to William Bullitt, these "may be the last days of ... peace before a long chaos." (p. 122) Roosevelt was unwilling/unable to gather support to act and "allowed domestic and international constraints to limit him to a series of small actions." (p. 168)

Nye Committee

Sept. 1934 - Nye Committee (Sen. Gerald P. Nye of N. Dakota)
-findings used by writers and intellectuals and peace movement
- Charles Beard denounced "merchants of death"
- 1935 Walter Millis book "Road to War"
- Dorothy Detzer & Women's International League for peace and Freedom supported
Nye's investigation

summer 1935 - 1st Neutrality Act introduced
FDR opp'd, but Key Pittman allows it into For Rel Comm
FDR seeks discretionary bill but fails

Link

Gray Eagles

I've got an idea that could be titled "Gray Eagles" ... when someone (like my dad) is diagnosed with a terminal illness, you have the opportunity to join Gray Eagles, which is a US military organization that would train you as a sniper/marksman, then send you overseas to a hotspot, where you would be choppered or humvee'd into a firezone (a concession to your age and physical limitations against hiking in) where you could setup in an environment that our troops are in and provide sniper killzones/cover, allowing you an opportunity to make a farewell contribution to your country and strike a blow to the enemy jerkoffs who threaten your children.
- if you get killed in the process, so what? You've got terminal cancer anyway. At least you died in defense of your country, instead of helping some bumbling doc make his car payment on his wife's Hummer II .

Think of it - thousands of United States gray-headed citizens on the front lines of freedom, with an 800yd rifle/scope, with wisdom and perspective and a parent's instinct to protect your children, and no fear of death .... now that's a formidable force picture.

Obviously a whimsical notion (although the Army has raised the age limit for recruits from 35 to 42, and will likely raise it higher in the next few years), but maybe someone will take the coal lump and make a diamond out of it. Good Night.

Icky Sicky

is all I can say about the JonBenet Ramsey case, and the new suspect John Mark Carr. "Ick" to the Ramseys for placing their daughter in these child professional beauty contests, all cabareted and tarted up (not that that makes them criminals, it's just mildly disturbing, imo) and "Sick" to John Mark Carr, who is a very close human copy of Gollam (sp?) - Lord of the Rings miscreant. I don't think he committed this murder, but I'll be willingly to believe whatever it takes to get his mug off the TV 24/7.

The media has managed to squeeze a 30 minute news story into 6 days of airtime ... gag.

"The pavement was his enemy!"

In the early scenes of Twins the movie, a bandit on a motorcycle rides a motorcycle past Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is carrying a suitcase, and attempts to snatch the suitcase from Arnold's hand as he speeds by. But Arnold's grip is too strong (of course!) and the would-be thief is flung off of his motorcycle onto his back on the sidewalk, where he is bruised with the wind knocked out of him. His accomplice stops the motorcycle and begins to scream at Arnold for hurting his friend (nevermind that they were engaged in a crime), and Arnold replies - completely without guile - "it was not me. The pavement was his enemy!"
Likewise to the Lebanese Prime Minister whining complaints about Israel's raid in Lebanon to stop arms shipments from Syria to Hezbollah (which the Prime Minister promised/swore/pledged that he would prevent), condemning Israel for attempting to stop the arms shipment (Here ). He's sporting a pretty convincing wolfish grin behind the very unconvincing sheepskin mask.

Pretty Is as Pretty Does

Hi WC (Click Here),

I respectfully disagree. Being "poor and uneducated" is not an excuse for evil doing, and to try to make that excuse does disservice to the hundreds of millions of people all over the world who are poor and uneducated, yet do not run around hating and killing everything that looks different. The problem with the Muslim world - at least the 20% who hate (either actively or secretly) non-Muslims, which works out to about 400 MILLION Muslims - is not the condition of their surroundings, it's the condition of their souls.

I also disagree that once the oil money dries up (which it won't), that the Muslim world will revolt against its leaders. The Muslim world has been stuck in the same spot for a thousand years, hundreds and hundreds of years before oil was an issue, and there was no revolt, no cry for freedom, only cries for killing - one clan against the other. Your economic solution is based on a lynchpin belief that given a chance, most Muslims will choose Western aspirations, but history doesn't support that. The big problem is that the Islamic religion does not support or promote a thought pattern of creativity and 'live and let live'. The Muslim history has not been one of creating things that help the human condition (they're more focused on destruction) - creativity and benign interaction/coexistence is a byproduct of Judeo-Christian viewpoints of respect for law and responsibility for one's own actions. The proof - as we say in the Western world - is in the pudding.

Cellphones - Proof of Guilt

Citizens in Baghdad know where the bad guys are. They see them lurking and creeping in the night. They know where they hide. It doesn't take any courage to pull out a cellphone and report suspicious activities and terrorist whereabouts to the authorities. So to the extent that that is not happening, it's an indictment of the complicity of "ordinary innocents" in the nefarious evil doings of the terrorists.

Same goes with Lebanon. Guilt can be counted by the number of cellphones not used to distinguish between Right and Wrong.

Some will, some won't

Some peoples will fight for their freedom, some won't. Americans always have - we stood up to the British Empire in the birth of our nation, and we took control of our western frontier by killing or subduing one bad guy at a time. Ordinary citizens would form posses to track down killers and wildmen, and either kill them or bring them in for trial, and all at great peril to themselves. We took control of our destiny because it is in the American character. Some other peoples have not shown that same stuff.

Giving people the opportunity to fail is not an indictment of a "failed policy." A+ to those who sacrificed to present the opportunity. "F" for those that don't have the courage to seize the opportunity and fight for dignity, to fight for their families, to fight for themselves.

You get what you fight for.

Lebanon and Hezbollah - all for one, and one for all

Question: Does anyone in Lebanon have a cellphone? If a militant, "fringe group" of Presbyterians in south Texas began shipping into Houston 12,000 rockets and the requisite radar, antennas, and mobile launchers, and began installing them on apartment building rooftops and house rooftops, backyards, and garages, is it plausible to think that the Houston city government and the Texas state government wouldn't know about it? Is it plausible to think that citizens in those neighborhoods would have no idea that there were missiles and radar on their house roof? How ludicrous. Of course they would know. And once ordinary American citizens saw evidence of wrong doing and potential wrong doing, is it plausible to think that no one (out of tens of thousands of people) would report the activity and locations to the authorities? Again, ludicrous. But if no one did make a cellphone call to an entity of authority, what can one conclude except that the citizenry was in bed with the militant group, their silence a tacit blessing "we're with ya!"?

So shift that scenario to southern Lebanon, and explain to me how anyone can come to any conclusion except that the Lebanese "ordinary citizens" are solidly supporting Hezbollah? I understand the argument "ordinary citizens can't speak out, for fear of reprisals from the militants." But no one can make a cellphone call to the US embassy, the UN, the New York Times, the BBC, and say "uh, you might want to check out the 12,000 ROCKETS HEZBOLLAH IS SETTING UP IN LEBANON AS I SPEAK!!!!!" ???? Innocent my fanny

Israeli ceasefire possible explanation

there is some Western military opinion that Israel agreed to this cease-fire - which on the surface seems like a really stupid move on its part - because the Israeli military leadership concluded that its young soldiers were not up to snuff and needed more training, and perhaps by the time Round 2 rolls around, new Israeli political leadership would be in place with the stones to tackle the job full bore. "Delay and better prepare" is a theory, at least, that would explain the seemingly unexplainable.

Link to Michelle Malkin and Michael Yon

good information on her site the last few days Click here


Also, a link to Michael Yon site - new post about tenuous sitrep in Iraq Click here

Link to Michelle Malkin and Michael Yon