ONE

Home stretch.

Failure IS an option

And maybe the lesser of the bad options--for there seem to be no good options.

The Congress has, a few hours ago, passed legislation for spending in the amount of $8.5¹⁴ to up to $1¹⁵ and perhaps more. To restore the banking industry and dwindling credit availability. And ultimately allow failed policies to remain in effect.


Throughout this year I've grown increasingly aware that our society has made too many bad decisions and is perfectly capable of collapse.

One blogger opined this week that, should this bill pass, people should stop paying their mortgages and use the money to purchase food and/or gold (I'd add guns and ammo) as those commodities will have real worth even as the value of the home falls. After the default simply wait for the government to arrange a new and lower cost mortgage. After all, the government isn't going to come around and evict you, right?

But, as I understand this mess, it was the government that coerced lenders to make loans to people that could not pay. And even though the alarm was raised the snouts remained greedily in the troughs
with compensation packages that boggle the mind.

In the 70s and 80's I wondered at the glut of attorneys that our schools were graduating--what were they all to do?

Now I know.

Wouldn't it be a bitter irony to find that the first country founded on the Rule of Law, this Great Experiment, were to fail and fall because of lawyers?

Please--please don't entertain the thought that it couldn't happen. When my maternal grandfather (b 1889) came to live out his senescence in my childhood home we acquired many things--some fine furniture and such--but what fascinated me was a pre-WWI encyclopedia and the maps of the world held my highest attention. Even a 1988 map of Eurasia would not show the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkan states or the many breakaway countries of the former Soviet Union.

What might the future look like? Anarchy or a strong man (or men). Divisions of the land by those that produce food and fuel from those that can't? Military coup?

California--the richest state in our country--is ready to go begging for a bailout from the federal government to meet state government workers' salaries. If denied California will have to lay off teachers and other state employees.

Imagine if this were to happen in your state. Schools would maintain a minimum staff to warehouse children for the day (or they could stay at home with their laid off parent). What if we couldn't pay our emergency personnel, our firefighters, our police?

While the Kroger still has some canned goods and staples it will be the armed man who gets and protects his food.

or

We can have the right man in charge--to tell us we have to be patriotic and tighten our belts, a man who will ensure that we all will be employed by his State and there will be enough to go around after it is confiscated from the wealthy. And we'll accept that because we will have no choice.

And then...

We can pray for that military coup.

New Power

Please watch--less than 11 minutes
(link)

There is a new power at work and it's being used by both sides.

On the left it is dominated by short, buzz-word dominated, vicious, false or distorted attacks. These are usually short enough to be writ (in large letters) on a protest sign but derived from a million pages of convoluted disinformation about how the world should work.

The right trends to a greater depth of analysis (despite a generation taught to believe Archie Bunker was the archetype Conservative) but is based on ideas that can be presented in short and simple phrases--phrases like the Ten Commandments and the Biblical injunction that man shall have dominion over the world. Hard work should reap rewards. The best way to avoid war is to be the strongest of nations. Trust but verify. Even something as basic as life is better than death.

The new power is more citizen-based than ever before. It doesn't require the massive amounts of money to present as it would on TV but it does reach an audience. Just go to YouTube and enter "iran holocaust bomb" and watch the hit counter over the next few days.

Seven Years Gone

Looking back at last year's 9.11 post I recognize there are some things very much missing that I don't wish to omit this year:

Gratitude. Gratitude to George W. Bush and the military and intelligence agencies that have protected me and mine.

Pride. Pride in the fact that we took body and head (and wallet) shots and we stood up and took the fight to them. Pride that our young are so willing to sacrifice.

I also want to include a special shout out to class-mates Ingrid and Janet whom I've recently reconnected with after so many years. They were there--with me--in the first of the moments described below.

The following is an edited and updated repost from a year ago titled

Moments

Are these what have come to define my life?

No. Not just the attack of September 11, 2001.

November 22, 1963: It was two weeks to the day after my 9th birthday. The principal broke in on Mr. DiPietro's 4th grade classroom loudspeaker to announce an assembly--not in the auditorium/gymnasium but in the front courtyard. When the school had gathered with the flag overhead we were told that President Kennedy had been shot and later pronounced dead. The flag was lowered to half-staff and we had early dismissal. I walked the half-mile home in a childish state of bewilderment. Minutes later my sister, a senior in H.S., came home and burst into tears.

It was my first encounter with evil.
_____________________________________

The following 16 years saw me facing mostly the petty evils of childhood's transition to young adulthood. There were other assassinations--Dr. King followed by Robert Kennedy--and other far-away evils--the massacre at My Lai (all this in the first half of 1968, BTW) and the Munich Olympics massacre of 1972--but they were far-away events.

November 4, 1979: I was with Manny's band in a week long engagement at a supper club in Pennsylvania. I returned to my hotel room well-pleased after getting a fine deal on a pair of Nunn Bush dress loafers (PA has no sales tax on apparel) when I flipped on the TV to learn of the Embassy takeover.

I was just days away from attaining the quarter-century mark when 'students' attacked and captured the US embassy in Tehran. By this time I had shed the teenage liberalism inspired by the antiwar movement and understood better what was at stake. This was an act of war and that peanut farmer better do something and quickly.

But no. As the US fell deeper into our national malaise one failed rescue attempt was mounted but it would take an election to end the 444 days of nightmare.

In hindsight I wonder if the stated hatred of Carter for giving safe haven to the Shah had less to do with the timing of the hostages' release--Inauguration Day, 1981--than some less-than-veiled threats of the incoming administration's intentions.
__________________________________________

My "antennae of evil" is now well lit.

The following years see the outrages that define the last 25 years. From the airplane hijack related execution of my fellow Marylander Robert Stethem to the cruise ship hijack and subsequent murder by throwing overboard in his frikkin wheelchair of Leon Klinghoffer. Near simultaneous bombings at airports in Vienna, Austria and Rome, Italy.

The first Intifada as I begin my international career. Four years on and the first World Trade Center attack takes place on Friday (Muslim 'sabbath'), February 26, 1993. I don't learn of it until my ship reaches port in San Juan and I open the local paper at a Hooters while waiting for my wings order.
__________________________________________

The next years feature the debacle in Mogadishu ('93), Bosnia ('93-'96), Khobar Towers bombing ('96), embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya ('98) and the USS Cole in October, 2000.

Moments after moments.

Moments upon moments
___________________________________________

September 11, 2001, is still more vivid to me than the births of my children.

How fucking sick is that?

I roused before 7 A.M. and fixed breakfast (oatmeal) for the turnettes and turnson. The Queen of Seoul dropped the twins at kindergartren on her way to work and I was alone with our son. It was an absolutely glorious, cloudless late-summer day in the northeast.

8:51 A.M. My morning radio show reports an airplane has struck the WTC. I turn on the TV.

(I remember that a rather large military plane flew into the Empire State building in fog during WWII.)

I call Q of S at work and tell her to get close to a TV.

A fraction of an hour later witness the 2nd plane hitting the north tower.

This is now intentional. This is now an assault--a deliberate attack.

I can't sit. I pace the living room glancing at the TV. Thankfully the turnson is preoccupied with his toys as I fret.

Then the Pentagon and reports of the downing of United Flight 93. (Initial reports were that we, US assets, shot down that plane at Shanksville. I don't doubt those initial reports nor do I blame my government for the action or the subsequent spin. This informed opinion in no way diminishes the incredible respect and regard I hold for the heroes on that flight.)

My eyes are leaking. They're not tears of sadness. They are tears of unrequited rage. I want to strip down, to don the blue woad and give my war cry. I desperately want to hit something but I have to be responsible for my not-quite-2 year old son.

Then come the images on TV that forever burn on the internal screen of my permanently scarred psyche. This evil, this abomination that could make my brothers and sisters choose to fall rather than be cremated alive.



Local radio reports that parents are picking kids up from schools. So I pack the turnson into his stroller and walk the half-mile to the turnettes' elementary in an adult state of contemplation on the nature and scope of evil.

Terror is fearing for your own life. Horror is the very human response to witnessing other people's terror.

Six Seven years later I want to hit something. My eyes are still leaking tears of impotent rage. God help me.

TWO

In 61 days we will go to the polls and determine if Gramsci's long march has been successful.

We will learn whether the generations of our people educated since 1968 in moral relativism, political correctness, and multiculturalism have abandoned the principals and responsibilities of citizens in exchange for a new nomenclatura who have planned for this moment for a very long time.
We know now that the first CND (ban the bomb) groups were Soviet funded and the long march continued through the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the greens, et al.

We've allowed the chattering classes to continuously distract us and misdirect us and evade the issues.


We've allowed a good and honorable president to be vilified. His real record has been almost obliterated. Once there was a loyal opposition--no more.

The Anointed One of 2000's loss is the greatest gift to this year's Anointed One as it generated the famous BDS that has infected and is now mobilizing the susceptible to vote against anything remotely Bushesque. In point of fact, BDS is the only known syndrome that is contagious through TVs and computer monitors--it is also the only syndrome where the original target (G. W. Bush) of the condition can be retargeted in a matter of hours.

So now we witness The Maverick (I think that's a marketing ploy that McCain approves of) who in truth is The Moderate (very difficult term in this political climate) versus a far-left Progressive who has used issues of race and class (just look up community organizing) to rise to the national stage.

Symbols Matter

Maybe they think anyone old enough to recall the symbol portrayed here is in late-stage Alzheimers--a drooling old fool that can't connect two thoughts.

Maybe they thought no one would notice... or care.

In the world of politics and (inter)nationalism there has only ever been one meaning for this icon.

It is at the top of the 'artwork' decorating the outside of Pepsi Center for the Democratic National Convention.



No red, white and blue. No Stars and Stripes. No eagles or unfinished pyramids... No US icons at all.

Just that blood-red star.

Chicago Style

Do you believe our (US) Fourth Estate is somehow 'in the tank' for O? Some, even in the MSM, are reporting that it seems so.

Personally... I find it difficult to believe that all in mainstream media are in thrall to the Pied Piper of Hyde Park.

There are critics and mild exposes but it is mind boggling that the MSM refuses to report information that is so readily available. Is it possible that our Freedom of the Press could be bought, co-opted or coerced?

This question is, of course, rhetorical. The next is not.

Can there be any other explanation?


Allegedly fair and balanced Fox News Channel cast a special report on 18 August titled Presidential Character & Conduct 2008: Barack Obama. It skipped over a bit.

O's maternal grandparents were communists. His Kenyan father was a communist.

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."

His mother seems to have been... a rebellious young woman.

Who, while being raised by his grandparents in Hawaii, steered a 13-14 year old boy into the mentorship of CPUSA (Communist Party USA) member Frank Marshall Davis--A man who had fled Chicago in 1954 for the then US territory before being caught in an FBI gauntlet? O spent 1975--1979 absorbing this man's poetry and thought.

Upon graduation from that bastion of clear thought Columbia University (the school that hosted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September) O went to work as a 'community organizer' in Chicago for one of the shakedown gangs advocacy groups founded by communist Saul Alinsky. There's an awful lot to read about Alinsky if one knows where to look including Hillary Rodham Clinton's Wellesley thesis.

Off to Boston to get a bit more than street cred O gets to be editor of the Harvard Law Review without ever publishing a single paper of his own.

Then back to Chitown with a prestigious degree for more... organizing. Let me be very clear--organizing means getting wealth from them that has to them that don't. He worked for the Woods Fund from '93--'01. Business, industry and government taxpayers are the source of money to fund Jeremiah Wright's Trinity school and Rezko's urban housing projects (condemned on completion).

O went on to head the Chicago Annenberg Challenge along with Pentagon bomber William Ayers. The records of that foundation are in the University of Illinois at Chicago library but have not been released for study. As these papers are the only record of O ever running anything there are people who believe they have a right to examine them.

But when the shoe is on the other foot... Republican candidate for the open US senate seat in 2004 Jack Ryan had made public the divorce records with ex-wife actress Jeri Ryan but the custody records were sealed by request of both parties. In June of that year the Chicago Tribune and WLS TV requested that the custody records be released and a willing judge overturned what had been a settled case. The details were sufficiently sordid that Ryan dropped his candidacy and... well... O was a shoe-in.

If literally hundreds--maybe thousands--of us on the blogs can ferret out the words and associations and intent of O why is the MSM mute? In 1996 details of illegal Chinese and Indonesian donations to the Clinton campaign were readily reported. In 1998 Drudge broke the story of the blue dress and it was all over network news.

Now the silence is deafening.

Common Sense--the Video

A video pamphlet


Well said.

I would have included a bit about the transnational insanity of the global warmish nutballs but this does hit the nail.

Why is 20 July not a national day of remembrance?

Today will pass, like many other summer Sundays, unmarked and unobserved for the date it represents. And yet it is, perhaps, a date that should be remembered as humankind's most marked achievement.

We rightly honor our fallen who carried out their duty on Memorial Day. We salute those who served on Veterans Day.

But July 20th is hardly noticed.

The following was first posted 28 September 2007.

We did it.

Quick trip to the market and back to try and eke some more brain music out of this Steinway.

Mundane. Not blogworthy.

So...something must be percolating--I mean, I think I have an idea of what's compelling and what's not.

Sometimes you see and don't notice. Sometimes you do.

What I noticed was that handicap parking spots are proliferating. The ones threatening fines if you park there without the special license plates or the rear-view mirror hangie thing. I'm pretty sure there would be no more than two for that size store 25 years ago. There are easily a dozen today (filled btw). Ten or fifteen years from now...?

---

Have you ever had the experience of standing on line at a movie box office and finding that, except for one other parent with a child, every person was 50 or older. I never had before. Add in that it's rated PG and there was no advertising budget yet the majority of seats were filled for a matinee on a glorious first day of autumn.

Turnson will be eight next week. I wanted a father-son day. The twin tween turnettes are soon to be twelve, and I have become a great big doofus (only slightly less retarded than their little brother) in their eyes.

I had planned to take him fishing with his brand new Ugly Stik. But Saturday evening I heard about a film on a weekend radio chat show that changed my plans--especially because it was playing in only one venue and only until Thursday. It was Sunday or wait for the video release. And it was playing in the sole surviving movie palace in the region.

OK. Show of hands. How many of you have heard or read about In the Shadow of the Moon? The Ron Howard film...the winner of the 2007 People's Choice Award at Sundance...the film that documents mankind's greatest technological achievement?

So in a fit of nostalgia for myself and for the sake of Turnson's understanding of our family we leave the beautiful sunshine to sit in a dark place for 90 minutes. Because my living father was there in early days at Canaveral doing engineering work--telemetry and guidance.

Dad is typically taciturn; much of his long life holds memories that don't bear saying out loud--the kind of memories of an impoverished southern family with too many children and too much responsibilty shouldered by the older boys. He's the only surviving male. When he speaks about the past it's more often about running 'shine to the mills or terrapin hunting with his father. Turnson won't get the story of the fisrt decade of the Space Program from his Grampa.

The curtains drew (yeah! curtains) and Turnson asked if this was going to be a play.

Wait for it, son.

The show started with a piece of film archived for 45 years by this movie house--turns out JFK made a short subject for limited distribution to select theaters on the Bill of Rights. He would be the last president to address the nation on film.

In the Shadow of the Moon begins with narration. It's the simple narrative of the living men that went there, did that, and got a patch instead of a t-shirt. Told in their words and nothing but real images and clips, the story unfolds at its own pace.

The Soviets beat us to get to space first, of course. Gagarin was undoubtedly a hero. But four weeks later we shot Alan Shephard into space for fifteen minutes. That's what we called them then--space shots.

The race was on

JFK challenges the US to land a man on the moon before the decade was out. Because we could. But also because one of the oldest military doctrines is take and hold the high ground.

Little of the film relates the Mercury and Gemini missions. This is the story of Apollo, specifically Apollo 8-17. Apollo 8-10 reached lunar orbit. Told by the men that did it.

from ABC.com-

In all of time, only 24 human beings have flown to or around the moon, looked back, and seen Earth as a small blue sphere in the blackness of space.

Their numbers are dwindling. Of the 12 who walked on the moon's surface, only nine are alive today, and the youngest is 71.

Yeah, baby--we're definately aging when the young heroes of Apollo are seniors. It means lots more handicap parking.

See this movie. Buy it when the DVD is released. Apollo 11 launched 15 July 1969 from what was by then called Cape Kennedy. Thousands watched from the ground but tens of millions watched on live TV.

Here's a taste.

My September 11 post Moments described how sometimes I view my life by those evil events--going all the way back to JFK's assassination when I was nine.

Well...September 11 tends to be a black day of the soul for me and I wasn't really thinking about some of the great events that have also marked me.

1969

A wild ride, indeed. Summer, especially so. August had the most. Manson Family, Chappaquiddick, Woodstock.

On the evening of July 20, my local rock band opened a concert at the big civic center (no matter how big the headline act was, it always started with a local band). Delaney, Bonnie and Friends (with Traffic's Dave Mason) performed and then it was time for the headliner--Blind Faith.

Backstage was a bit oif a madhouse. Roadcrews and performers waiting their turn.

I was fourteen.

A few minutes into Blind Faith's performance there was an announcement. It was decided that Delaney, Bonnie et al would fill in while the headliners broke for something special.

I was still backstage and a makeshift table with a rabbit-eared 13 inch set was placed in front of the concrete stairs. Way better than crowding around--it was 'stadium seating' on the fly.

When the images began I had the urge to fiddle with the antennae, but the picture was as good as it was going to get. Next to me sat Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker was directly behind him. Try to understand--these musicians were heroes to me--this was the most exciting night of my life so far. Sharing this moment of pride in the US accomplishment with superstars from the UK was bliss. I said to myself, "We did it."

When the weight of those first words spoken from the surface of another celestial body were understood everyone erupted in handshaking and backslapping. There was a chorus of American and North of England accents shouting, "WE DID IT!", and I kept the thought to myself that, "No Eric--we, the US, did in fact DO IT."

Juvenile, huh? Yah, well, 14... not much perspective.

---

Near the end of In the Shadow of the Moon the narrative relates that on the world tour of the Apollo 11 crew that wherever they went--Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia--they heard over and over those words, not "Congratulation, men, you did it.", but rather, "We did it."

After all, Neil Armstrong did say, "...One giant leap for mankind."

On the short walk to the car, Turnson asks, "Why haven't we ever gone back?"

Is Set

Flashpoint was the beginning. Or maybe what seemed to be the beginning.

It is now a year and a half since the incident that sparked weeks of civil disobedience. In the weeks following, the National Guard had been called upon to restore order. And order was restored. But not without deep resentment by the Guardsmen and women.

It is now January of 2011. The northern tier of the country is suffering more deaths from cold than in many decades and the winter is still young. Poor nutrition adds to the mortality rate. Children and the elderly are hit hardest.
************************

Of those, in the past, that believed in a second American Revolution most were committed to a Marxist ideal.

Those have fallen by the wayside. The new rebels intend a return to the recent past--affordable energy and abundant food. And decent jobs.

The new rebels are a small minority. Just like the first one.

The vast majority hold protests for increased food-stamps, health care and Section 8 housing.

The public's dependence on government has never been so urgent.

The government, since the last election cycle, has taken over responsibility for most services previously held by the private sector. Food, fuel and medical distribution lies solely in the hands of the authorities with the exception of the few that can barter for them. Print and broadcast media have been co-opted. TV and radio programming is a mix of English and Spanish.

Food stamps and TV have become the 'bread and circuses' that the new empire uses to keep the populace placated and 'in line'.

The prisons have been emptied of those jailed for their crimes and refilled with a new class of criminal--those that have spoken or acted against the New State.

The internet is now heavily monitored. Pornography--especially 'gay' porn--is readily available but dissenting opinion is... not so much.

As written in Isaiah 11.11 there will arise a remnant from scattered places.

The remnant--those who are willing to sacrifice for a return to the values of America v.1-- use the O.T. from Genesis to Malachi for the codes to communicate on the monitored internet. Their number is unknown but is estimated to be just a few hundred thousand.

They are the latter day Essenes--perhaps doomed to die out but whose message may, one bright day, prevail.
*******************

Eighteen years earlier, in 1993, young Army and Air Force officers, none higher than captain; young Navy and Marine officers had begun talking and emailing with concerns over the direction the armed forces were headed in the wake of the so-called Peace Dividend and the clear lack of commitment from the new administration.

Mostly concerned with their individual and shared futures they committed to toeing the politically correct lines to all but each other. Their sole focus was to advance through the ranks so that they could eventually make a difference.

This was in no way blind ambition. This was to be a bulwark for freedom and the protection of the nation if ever one was needed.

Their ranks swelled after 9/11. In the crucible of Afghanistan and Iraq more came to be trusted and it was in these places that sergeants were first recruited.

After the elections of '06 and the governmental failures on immigration and energy their traffic and their focus changed. Most had participated in war gaming and adapted the urban fighting skills honed in Iraq to an imaginary nation that looks a lot like the US.

They had come to an extraordinary conclusion--that the most likely outcome of past and predicted future events was either anarchy or virtual dictatorship.

Not all of the original 93ers are still in uniform. Some have made the ultimate sacrifice in distant lands, some the penultimate and now wear prostheses and appliances. Some have simply left the military. These living veterans have become some of the most important people in the struggle as they live it now. These provide the liaison to the rebel citizens. These taught the instruments of tradecraft and how to develop the simple but effective codes that the rebels now use.

Some have entered law enforcement and using the same 'go along to get along' methods earlier perfected in uniform while still performing their duties in exemplary fashion they have advanced to high positions.

Some have taken skills they learned while serving to advance in other fields--most notably telecommunications. Telecom is the high ground in this coup.

Of the original 93ers, none hold a rank below full Colonel or Navy Captain. There are more than a few Generals and an Admiral. All the ranks below are newer recruits and all have been thoroughly vetted.

FOUR

This 232nd anniversary of the publication of our Declaration of Independence bears some reflection.

Having only recently attained adulthood, 1976 was a memorable celebration. The tall ships in New York harbor and the community parades and displays were joyous even in the midst of a fuel crunch and a nation reeling from disastrous retreat in Viet Nam.

No Fourth of July celebration has come close since but every Birthday of the Great Experiment is another miracle to celebrate what the inspired Founders wrought.

Personally I feel more awe than pride. What we have accomplished, our freedom and prosperity, our gifts and charity to a suffering world, the strengths that we have hewn to--all due to the clarity of thought rendered by the Fathers and held true by those that followed.

This Document is divided into three sections.
The general declaration

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There is more to this section but the focus of this post has to do with a few parts of the second section--the Grievances.

Tyranny is not solely in the hands of kings and dictators. Sometimes it may fall to an unexpected place.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The good people of Louisiana had decided that a person guilty of the rape of a child deserves to no longer live. Justice Kennedy, siding with the predictable liberal justices, found that evolving standards of decency should prevent the execution of the death warrant.

The same justice held that foreign, non-state combatants captured on foreign soil and held abroad should enjoy habeas corpus rights in US courts. A finding that another justice declared would endanger American lives.

Tyranny may also emanate from special interest groups.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Substitute he for they where they are the coalition of environmental groups and activist judges that have prevented us from exploiting the resources we need to maintain and grow.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

We find ourselves quite in the opposite predicament now. The relevant words here are " obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners".

Make no mistake that the unlimited immigration we've now been facing for many years is a tyranny, as well.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Here I mean the growth of the federal government, the unknowable tax code, imposed social security--the veritable multitude of New Offices that eat out our substance.
*******************************

The final portion of the Declaration is meant to stand as the legal and formal statement of intent to nationhood.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Before we end up refreshing the Tree of Liberty with blood we need to read and understand this precious document and find the grievances that have crept back in our society.

And fix them.

Happy Independence Day

Four months to go.

The Stage

Readers:

I did not with foresight begin this as a meme, a thread. And yet, beginning with A Perfect Storm, it becomes one.
____________________________________

Europe. Sooner than you think.

Union transport workers strike and sympathizers from various other unions join in solidarity. Fuel and food deliveries are virtually frozen. Brussels (EU capital) demands an immediate end to the strike but truckers remain adamant.

Grocery shelves are emptying and fresh produce is rotting on farms and in warehouses. Folks living near producers are bartering for foodstuffs but city dwellers are becoming agitated.

Afghanistan. Sooner than you think.

Coalition forces are ordered to withdraw from the south as the Taliban reclaims cities and provinces. Recently released detainees from Guantanamo serve as inspiration and evidence of the weakness of the West.

Iraq. Sooner than you think.

As US forces are ordered to abandon Iraq, Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi army reclaim Basra and Sadr City while the formerly defeated al Qaida in Iraq resurfaces to control al Anbar Province and Mosul in the north. Any Iraqis accused of aiding coalition forces, along with their immediate families, are publicly beheaded.

Iran. Sooner than you think.

Iran successfully tests a fission bomb while separately testing missile launches to targets in Indian Ocean. European leaders protest but the Mullahs remain defiant.

US. Sooner than you think.

By 1930 hours in the evening of the day of the Flashpoint protest almost every American knows of the death of twelve citizens at the hands of Capitol police. The initial shock is turning to anger. People meet on street corners commiserating that they share the same difficulties that spurred the protesters' actions along with their feelings of rage and helplessness to alter their condition.

At 2100 the president delivers a hastily prepared address to the nation.

"I stand here today... with the greatest sorrow in my heart. Twelve of our citizens... no... our brothers and sisters... today lost their lives in a brutal... and unnecessary confrontation with the Capitol police.

"I need every American to know... that this government... united for the first time in sixteen years... has been working tirelessly... with business and industry... with the leaders of every state... with clergy... with grassroots community groups... to end the divisiveness... of the previous administration.

"I know there are hardships. I sense your frustration. And that is why... I am asking every American... to join in our struggle. Become active within your communities... join a food bank... organize a neighborhood cleanup... we can make America better... for all of us... and for our children."

This is later found to be the least watched presidential address in decades.

D.C. Metro Police spokeswoman Dana Peters promises to investigate the shootings and prosecute any officers who unlawfully discharged firearms at the protesters. The Department of Justice is quietly directed to investigate the backgrounds of the victims to determine if they had any past acts or affiliations that might be exploited to the government's advantage. The idea of mass suicide by cop is quickly shelved.

Across the country roving bands of young to middle-aged men take to the streets after dark. Those fortunate enough to have gas in their tanks drive with friends in SUVs and pickups looking for a target for their rage. Almost simultaneously police station windows from Spokane to Charlotte are smashed with bricks and rocks and the police response is quick and effective--immediate internment.

Those that evade the police find their 'cool'. They may be returning to their homes but the fire they felt earlier is not extinguished--only tamped for the moment. They now realize that the fight must be smarter.

Hundreds of thousands of men and women look to the 'net for information and guidance. By 0100 a video with an accompanying text message, first uploaded at 2311, has gone viral. By 0130 the video hosting service has pulled it but the text portion has been copied and continues to spread like a prairie fire by email.

Your first duty is to stay free. Preserve your freedom. That's what America is and always has been about.

Your enemy is not the police. We may succeed in enlisting their aid but not by targeting them.

Same for the National Guard if and when they are called in.

We know that you may feel angry at the gas station or the oil company. We know that you might be mad at the grocer or the big Ag corporations.

None of these are responsible for where we find ourselves.

That is not to say that government alone is responsible. There are others that must be held accountable.
********************

If you feel the need to take action the best way to preserve your freedom is to remain anonymous. Get a ski mask--there are cameras everywhere. Wear gloves.

Disable the cameras wherever you can. Put a sliding ladder in the back of your truck--that's fairly innocuous. Wire cutters are fine for cutting the cable connection but a large bolt cutter against the lens socket will permanently disable it.

For tomorrow night. Action taken anywhere needs a large diversion somewhere else. Fire at an abandoned warehouse may give a cell the opportunity to ransack and destroy the records and computers at a local Social Security or Welfare office. Soft targets, so to speak. But federal.
****************

Lastly, for any hackers--I know you're nightowls--stop the Pentagon hacks! We need the private emails and files of the worst of the Senate and House.

We can't afford to merely bring down this president--we need to force a change in that party--a change we can live with.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have now read this. So have analysts from China, Russia, Israel, Iran and various European countries passed to them from various fellow travelers. And the alphabet agencies of the US, of course.
********************

The Stage is greater than one can see. There are wings and trapdoors. There are unseen producers and directors, assistants, lighting what is meant to be seen and not aiming the camera at what is dross. Lastly, there is the god of the stage--the writer of the bill--ensuring that there is an outcome certain.

Flashpoint

Ruby Ridge August, 1992.

Some public outrage over the disproportionate actions of the government but, after all, those must have been strange people to want to live in the back-woods of northern Idaho.

Waco April, 1993.

Shock and horror as satellite transmission of the blaze was beamed live to our TVs. Everybody felt bad for the children but--hey--that David Koresh was a kook.

YFZ Ranch Raid April, 2008.

(The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
Hundreds of children forcibly removed from the only homes they knew. The courts hash it out and the families are reunited but we sure learned a lot about that crazy Warren Jeffs.

One might get the impression that I'm relating a series of events in chronological order. Now I need to reverse it.

L.A. Riots April-May, 1992.

Following the acquittal of the police charged in the video-taped beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles erupted in some of the worst rioting in US history.

Why?

Because to the sizable African-American population of L.A., Rodney King was like any other individual in that community. Exacerbating factors: the authorities (police) on the video were white and the trial venue was moved to a mostly white community but that is not the point I'm getting to.

Washington D.C. Sooner than you think.

A large protest of middle-class working people is held to demand government action on the food and fuel crisis coupled with the heavy burden of taxation. The crowd goes unanswered by those in power. Initially regular police are in position to maintain order but as the crowd's agitation grows, more police are sent in riot gear.

Tensions rise and the pheromone of fear and aggression spreads through the area affecting protesters and police, alike. To the mob, without the real members of the legislative and executive branches, the police are the face of the government. For some, the threat of deadly force is not enough to back down and flee--they can't face the thought of returning to their cold and hungry families.

And, of course, this is all playing out on live TV and the web.

The predictable and preventable becomes the inevitable. A young officer, early to arrive on the scene and not one of the better protected in riot gear draws his sidearm.

One of the mob yells, "gun", but the other police nearby don't know that the warning came from the crowd--it's the standard warning police shout when encountering a firearm.

The shooting starts and it is all over very quickly. A dozen citizen bodies are on the ground and the mob falls back to be peaceably detained and subsequently dispersed.

Later, the forensic investigation reveals the officers that discharged their weapons and they are arraigned. Later, the government and media spin machine goes to work, finding something wrong with the slain individuals. Something conspiratorial or insidious.

But that is all later.

Right now...right now more than a million citizens are watching in real time and in horror. Between the 24/7 cable news and the web more than 20 million will have seen the primary events within 30 minutes and by 7:30 everyone in the US knows that a dozen protesters just like them were gunned down.

Does my little tale have any merit? You have to be the judge of that.

Because the above is a simple retelling of the events of

Boston March 5th, 1775. (The Boston Massacre)

(updated for the 21st century)

(And yes, that mob was protesting over money.)

Sold Out

I think that's a fair assessment of what the bare majority of the Supreme Court has rendered in giving Habeas Corpus rights to Gitmo detainees. The decision flies in the face of hundreds of years of precedence, defies common sense, and in practice will tie up our legal system for years. Might as well just let 'em go.

There is that second meaning of the phrase--as in when you drive up to the pump and find the station is sold out. Or to the grocery and find no corn. Or when you look to congress for some leadership with the good of the US in mind.

Going...going...gone (and the hammer drops).

UPDATE

(Slip Opinion)

OCTOBER TERM, 2007

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has beenrepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BOUMEDIENE ET AL. v. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 06–1195. Argued December 5, 2007—Decided June 12, 2008*

Here is the entire ruling followed by the dissenting opinions of John Roberts and Antonin Scalia.

A Perfect Storm

And it's been brewing for a long time.

The Founding Fathers understood that throwing off the tyranny of a monarch could, without a carefully crafted constitution, easily be replaced by the tyranny of the masses.

Yet the masses can never hold power--it must be concentrated. But a populace can be manipulated into believing that they have a say in decisions that affect them. Or that somehow a system can work in greater fairness.

(personal note--My blogging has fallen off in frequency these past few months as a growing sense of doom great change has overcome me.)

I am an avid reader (and occasional commenter) at the excellent Gates of Vienna that is mostly focused on political happenings in Western Europe, Scandinavia and the UK. In a guest essay (more of a book review) I came across this quote from one of the earliest planners of the European Union:

The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow. — Jean Monnet, Memoir

Chilling words to me for two reasons. The EU by any measure is a socialist, near borderless entity with a managed capitalist economy and because I regard Monnet's reference to the sovereign nations of the past as meaning he concluded the US to be one, as well, especially in light of the organized world of tomorrow.

I've believed in the inherent goodness of my country for a long time and I've believed equally that our government mostly gets it right because people are smart enough (mostly) to vote the better candidate into office. The 2006 mid-term elections shook that belief for a while until I realized that it was a vote driven by anger and frustration largely fanned by a complicit media and a highly organized and motivated DNC.

Maybe the country will turn this all around and throw the rascals responsible for our current misery out. But it's looking less and less likely to me. JB Williams at the New Media Journal has a fine piece today highlighting the stupidity of voters and the socialists progressive members of Congress.

Then there's the candidate:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

I'm trying to get the full understanding of that statement. Aren't OPEC nations already having a say in how I drive my car? And countries to our south that send their (literally) unwashed to pick and process our spinach and tomatoes have made sure that I can't eat as much as I want.

Obama knows most of us (the "productive") are taxed. And most of us are reasonably self-moderating in food consumption and have been forced to limit our driving. He has to know that. So what is he really saying? I ask this because it sounds to me that under his leadership there would be a supranational body that will determine from where and to whence resources flow. Like the EU.

Unlike the EU which has been working since 1958's Treaty of Rome to this very day's Irish Referendum (the last nation to allow its citizens a direct vote on the subject) this great change is to happen in less than a decade. If Obama wins and the Democrats retain their majority in congress it could happen in a year.

What could such an immense change trigger for us? We may (collectively) be stupid enough to pull the same levers in November but what will be the result when families with $100K incomes must start living like families with $35K incomes?

An equally important question arises. Are those who have organized for so very long in hopes of reaching this dream--have they not anticipated what kind of reaction might ensue? Or are there already plans and alliances with authorities?

What started in Spain has now spread throughout Europe as those that transport the food and goods cannot now afford to deliver them. Media are careful to use the word "protest" but when someone is killed and a truck is firebombed the word "riot" comes across as more accurate.

Yeah. I'm speculating that such a drastic change might provoke otherwise peaceable folks to "protest".

Five to go

Umm. Barrack Hussein Obama is a staunch supporter of Israel. At AIPAC.

Golly. He pretends he has a sack vis a vis Iran.

There's a world of difference between community organizing in Chicago and global affairs.

But large-scale community organizing has worked for Obama.

Saul Alinsky. Look him up. This communist taught Chitown how to organize and recruit voters. The Reverend Wright and Father Pflager, as well as Obama, are studious adherents of Alinsky.

Pflager, as of June 4th, has been suspended by the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago. Both Wright and Pflager have received large-scale state and federal taxpayer money.

Wright, recently retired from Trinity Church of Christ, is set to move into his new 1.2 M$ home in a gated community that has a demographic of <2% minority (black). Retirement. Life's sweetest reward.

Meanwhile, in the news the msm deems not fit to print, Obama's real estate buddy and contributor, Syrian-born Antoin Rezco is convicted of multiple (16) felonies.

Clinton's cohorts were jailed after he came to office.

We're off to a great start.

These links are important.

Maggie's Farm has some fact checking.

And more.

Economic Equality

These are the two words that loudly leapt from the TV screen at Obama's May 31st presser about his decision to leave the Trinity congregation and comments regarding what his "faith" leads him to believe.




There is nothing in the Book of God about economic equality. Nothing in scripture. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

The parable related in Matthew 20.1-16 regarding vineyard workers receiving equal pay for unequal work could possibly be construed as a scriptural recommendation for economic equality. Of course, the meaning of this story is that whether you come to God in the first hour or the eleventh hour, the reward is the same.

Economic equality. If I were asked to reduce the works of Marx and Engels to two words...

Memorial Day Post

ASIDE FROM MY GRANDPA, my mother's Da, I've had no immediate family that have served. My uncle Paul enlisted in the Army Air Force in WWII and brother-in-law Gerry acquitted himself honorably in VN.

My dad (b 1917) tried to enlist in '42 and subsequent years but was deemed too necessary in civvy street work. (He later worked with Air Force and eventually NASA as a radar and guidance system engineer).

Granpa Philip came to live with us when I was in my mid-teens. He was a victim by that time of what would be later termed as Alzheimer's but in the '60s was referred to as senile dementia--he was not crazed--he simply could not remember the most basic things. When asked his address, for instance, he would state a location he lived at 40 years previous.

As a young child (before onset of Alzheimer's) my experience of him was that he was more than a little stiff and formal. He had achieved significant success in the business community of (at that time) one of the ten largest cities in the US. He had little patience for the precocious son of his only daughter, Grace.

His wife, Grace's mother and my granma, passed not long after Mom's birth in 1918 of the global pandemic remembered as "the Spanish Flu". By all family accounts, he was a doting father to his only daughter.

(My Mom, Grace Ellen, would have turned 90 last Friday, May 23rd. She passed in '03. We miss you, Mom.)

Granpa Philip was orphaned in childhood, he and his brother were both hospitalized in a sanitorium for TB where his brother succumbed. He went on to attend a fine military prep school/academy--McDonough--which I attended, also.

As previously stated he was uncomfortably stiff and formal--there were no grandfatherly conversations with the grandson. Visits were short and perfunctory--family duty more than anything else--consequently I never got to really know him.

So long after his passing in 1973 this fills me with a sadness hard to express. He was a man of honor, a Silver Star recipient, and could have been a greater influence and inspiration were he more comfortable around a young boy.

Juvenile disappointments aside--it's with great pride and humility that I post the few words, crucial key words from the official records of how he is remembered:

Name: Philip Crawford McIntyre
Race: white
Address: 2307 Harlem Ave., Baltimore
Birth Place: Baltimore, Md.
Birth Date: 16 Sep 1889
Comment: NG 1 lt Inf; USA 9/4/18 capt Inf, Co F 5 Md. Inf; Co F 115 Inf; 3 Off Tng School Camp McClellan Ala. 1/4/18; Co F 115 Inf 5/15/18, Hon disch 6/26/19, Overseas 6/15/18 to 5/24/19, Center Sector; Meuse-Argonne, War Dept Citation for Gallantry in Action In the Bois de la Grande Montagne, France, Oct. 10, 1918. While in command of Company F, 115th Infantry, and upon learning that one of his scouts was seriously wounded and lying exposed to enemy fire, he crawled forward under violent enemy machine-gun fire to the side of the wounded man. Being unable to move the wounded man without assistance he crawled back to the line, secured the assistance of a member of his company and returned with great difficulty to the wounded man and together with the help of the soldier carried the wounded man to shelter, AEF Citation for Gallantry in Action For gallantry in action October 9, 1918, in establishing and holding a line of resistance against a superior force of the enemy, 29 Div Citation for Gallantry in Action Displayed remarkable courage and leadership, October 8th, 1918, in the fighting east of the Meuse, when he led his company in the face of heavy machine gun and artillery fire, in order to protect the flank of his regiment which was being turned by attack.

_______________________

Today, the only living memories of Philip are guarded by my sister and me. She is the caretaker of his Silver Star. We have both honored his memory by using elements of his name in the naming of our sons.

So just about a month before Armistice Day (11 November) Philip is credited with heroism under fire. In the same year he gained a daughter and lost a wife. He wasn't some fresh-faced kid when he went to Europe to fight in a war in which we had no direct stake--he turned 30 in France. This was the first "modern" war. Use of deadly mustard and chlorine gas, first use of air power, first widescale use of machine guns, tanks, battleships, aimed artillary smarter than the previous cannon.

Trenches.

Cold, muddy and bloody trenches. Horse-drawn wagons carrying munitions forward and corpses back next to doughboys barely able to read their enlistment papers slogging through the dirt roads of rural France. A local population with which you don't even share language that has even less understanding of the situation than you do. Shell shock. Forward tent hospitals where the main remedy for limb wounds was amputation. "Sawbones" becomes slang for physician.

Not to discount the Spanish-American war of 1898, the only generation truly knowing the horrors of war extant by the time of our commitment in Europe were in their 70's and older. They were the veterans of our War Between the States. America had never before committed to largescale warfighting on foreign soil. It was a new territory but one in which we'd become all too familiar with as that century progressed.

For all those who have fallen in battle.

For all those who have returned with the memories.

For all those that proudly serve today.

Today, I'm remembering.

(salute)

Comment to Coulter

This is just a copy of what I left on Ann Coulter's piece today.

Ann-

45 years of education marxist indoctrination have finally paid off. A globalist, Lansky trained, Chitown pol has a shot at the most important job in the world and he's poised to take on an opponent despised by many conservatives for his attacks on free speech (McCain-Feingold) and national sovereignty (McCain-Kennedy).

I don't have to be happy with my choice this November but I know the candidate that will sell us out sooner and I have to hold my nose on the climate change believer McCain and vote for him barring some miraculous sea change at the convention.

It saddens me deeply when I read statements at sites like this that new media has made such significant inroads that it can have a major impact on the efforts of the main stream media--if that were so we'd be seeing a matchup between Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson--but power must be recognized and our voices here are still much smaller than what reaches the masses. And the masses are ignorant and apathetic, judging from my workplace experience.

Our unique and wonderful system never believed that its own vaunted values of free speech could imperil it. It inherently believed that a free press would argue all sides and a literate public could make informed choices. I see, in this day, that has failed us. The curtain is falling on this act. If there is to be a next act it may be bloody and highly partisan.

6

Six months to the (I previously thought would be the most important of our times) election.

But the events of the previous six months since I started this little blog and the history of the last several years coupled with society's inability to maintain a reality-based worldview have led me to this untenable point--that our civilization has made sufficiently bad decisions that we may be in inevitable decline.

It pierces me that for all the enemies we have without that our greatest are within. There are the PLAYERS, the Players, and we, ourselves.

The greed of the speculators has more to do with the massive increases in food and fuel costs than real supply and demand. The greed and machinations of the money-changers have more to do with the fall of the US dollar than market factors. Our legislators and courts have undermined reasonable efforts to secure prosperity and peace. And we, the people, must share the blame, also.

Few ask, "Is it possible for our civilization to decline?"

The answer shouts from history, "Yes, all have."

And why?

Forces from without, forces from within, and a lack of will.

Craven

A few days ago--April 9th--as the Olympic torch was being relayed hustled through the obfuscated streets of San Francisco (the route had been changed at the last moment to confound protesters) a torch bearer with the audacity to display a small Tibetan flag had the torch seized by a contingent of Chinese paramilitary that have been 'escorting' the torch everywhere it goes.

Majora Carter moments after

Some may argue that San Francisco is not really a part of the US but freedom of expression is traditionally practiced there (unless it is pro-Christian or anti-gay). But with a heavy SFPD presence why would the Chinese boys in light blue be allowed to waylay Ms. Carter's harmless act of support for Tibet? Are we that deep in China's pocket?

A Google search for [Olympic torch assault] revealed this from Istanbul.

April 3rd

The accompanying headline to the above:

Istanbul, Turkey 4/3/2008 Police detained at least six Muslims on Thursday at an anti-China protest during the Olympic torch ceremony near one of Turkey's most famous tourist destinations.

(scratching head) Muslims?!? In 98% Muslim Turkey?!? That's tantamount to describing any particular six people in Vatican City as Catholics.

April 7th

From the UK Daily Mail

The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns - it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives.

What would those Victorian masters of old have made of the fact that Chinese security men were on the streets of London this week, ordering our own police about and fighting running battles with British protesters while bewildered athletes carried the Olympic torch on its relay through the capital?

It was a brazen display of how confident China has become of its new place in the world, just as the British Government's failure to take a firm stand on Chinese abuses of human rights shows how craven we have become.

I would dearly love to bitchslap the Limey writer that penned keyboarded the above sentence... but the experience related above in the City by the Bay illustrates clearly that it is so.

It's a first

Come on! This is as funny as it gets.

from the London Daily Mail

Two primary schools have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents.

Up to 90 gathered at the schools to complain about the books which are aimed at pupils as young as five.

One story, titled King & King, is a fairytale about a prince who turns down three princesses before marrying one of their brothers. Another named And Tango Makes Three features two male penguins who fall in love at a New York zoo.

I guess what is somewhat bothering me is that no other alleged followers of The Book showed up and that this is written of as solely religious.

I believe that some persons may be born homosexual. I also believe that some are born hetero/homo that may be influenced by powerful pheromones at a critical and decisive time in their early pre and pubescent lives. These factors are beyond control of decision making parts of our minds--both are strictly biological.

Homosexuality is contraindicative of the continuance of society. That doesn't mean that it can't be countenanced--just that it must never be normative and must never be allowed as normative.

That the UK is allowing promoting five year olds to read books without understanding the social repercussions of homosexuality is shameful and counterproductive to society in general.

I need to say that the shameful series Girls Gone wild is less shameful that Society Gone wild.

Venture

It's been said that every great movement eventually becomes a business. Then over time a racket.


Richard Branson, left, Elon Musk, the co-founder of Paypal, center, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister

From the International Herald Tribune

What he wanted to know was whether his high-powered visitors, among them Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, thought global warming threatened the planet.

Branson does - and so did most of his guests. So on this recent weekend on his private hideaway in the crystalline waters between the islands of Tortola and Anegada, they tried to figure out what to do about it and perhaps get richer in the process.

Some of them, like Page, carbon-consciously jet-pooled in from Silicon Valley, where the financiers who bankrolled the Web boom of the 1990s have started chasing the new "New New Thing": green power. In an era of $100-plus oil, venture capitalists like Vinod Khosla, another invitee, are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into young companies that cook up biofuels and harness the power of the sun.

I have nothing against these or most other rich people. Most earned their rewards honestly through endeavor and risk taking. I also have nothing against conservation and new means to meet our energy needs.

Over and over and--over again--science is revealing that the hysteria over Climate Change is unwarranted. There is compelling historical evidence that it is natural and not one, not one piece of empirical evidence that mankind has an effect on climate. The so-called evidence of warming is produced from computer models--none of which is immune to GIGO--and ground based thermometers.

Billions have already been spent on ethanol production and vehicles and now the scientific community is questioning whether it is any cleaner in the long run while we also see food prices spike.

So let the inventors and the innovators and the investors put their creativity and capital to work.

But in the meantime we have the petroleum we need to be self sufficient here in America and Canada and Mexico.

The men at the above meeting brainstormed ways to move forward. There will be paper trails to satisfy the SEC and all the other agencies. They have the money to do so and I wish them well.

But from where is the money coming that is funding all opposition to our drilling for our own oil and refining it?

seven

I'm no expert on the subject of Chinese history but I recently read that China experienced something referred to as a 'soft' dark age for half a millenium that only ended about 40 years ago. A variety of reasons are given but the one that sticks out is (drum roll) bad decisions.

The very idea of societal collapse is about as hard for us to imagine as the idea of a religious war. Yet world history reveals that both have occurred and recurred. Plague, war, environmental destruction can all be factors beyond a single society's control but bad decisions--that all too human failing--may be the ubiquitous one.

It sounded like a good idea at the time...

The Social Security Act of 1935 and its subsequent offspring Medicare et al (1965) will be our bad decision within one more generation. It is unsustainable, and what's worse... everybody knows it.

from wiki

Societal collapse occurs in one of two ways:

1. Its adaptive capacity is reduced by a sharp increase in population or social complexity, leading to a destabilization of social institutions and eventual massive shifts in population and social dynamics.

Never mind the second way for now--it doesn't apply.

A sharp increase in population. Indeed, we're fairly concentrated on the increase by immigration but we, along with Europe and Japan, are facing something that is new to the world--a population in which the mean age continues to rise.

There is a concept in physics called Energy Returned on Energy Invested or ERoEI. Build a nuclear power plant or open a new oil field and the energy invested pales compared to the energy returned. But when the ratio approaches 1:1 then the game is not worth the candle, so to speak.

I think this is a useful concept in thinking about workers in society. There will come a point at which the workforce will fall to 50% with the remaining 50% as retirees, children, and the unemployable. The solution so far has been to seek masses of immigrants which simply poses other sets of problems.

This begs the question--what will the American worker do? The worker who with a decent wage was able to stride forward in life who now finds that his or her good-paying job cannot meet his or her expenses because of government confiscation for redistribution?

Perhaps it's now time to revisit some American history. Let us not forget that for all the talk of liberty and justice, of natural rights endowed by our Creator, our beloved revolution was sparked by one issue that united us all--keeping the majority of what we earn.

Hitting the Fan

In the shadow of our perpetual election coverage and 24/7 news cycle the latest UBL message is not achieving the attention it clearly deserves.

So bent... there is no reckoning the moral equivalence of AQ attacks with the publication of editorial cartoons in defense of Free Speech.

bin Laden:

Although our tragedy in your killing of our women and children is a very great one, it paled when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings.

This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.

Incendiary device

A detailed background and timeline can be found at wiki.

Kurt Westergaard has been in hiding--frequently changing safe houses. Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent were arrested last month for plotting to assassinate him.

The good folks over at The Jawa Report believe this may be an old tape and that UBL may be dead.

I don't know if that makes a difference. Muslims in Europe general seem to have rather short fuses.

We mark five years in Iraq. Others mark the date, as well. Here is bin Laden's closing statements:

In closing, I tell you: if there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.

And it is amazing and to make light of others that you talk about tolerance and peace at a time when your soldiers perpetrate murder even against the weak and oppressed in our countries.

Then came your publishing of these drawings, which came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role.

And all of that is confirmation on your part of the continuation of the way as well as a testing of the Muslims in their religion: is the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) more beloved to them than themselves and their wealth?

The answer is what you see, not what you hear, and may our mothers be bereaved of us if we fail to help the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

And peace be upon he who follows the guidance.

These are our sons.
Or maybe our younger brothers

They are expressing their grief for their murdered friends in Israel's Thursday school massacre.

It's a painfully private picture. I would not see myself so exposed. It would be death inside to see my own son suffering such. Yet I'm about to wail, privately.

The gunman was in custody in an Israeli lockup until two months ago. Some will posit that experience led him to murder helpless students in their classes.

Surely that will help ease the pain of the families of these eight slaughtered youths.

Useless Buggers, or

Why the UN should be relocated to a domed island and cut off from the rest of the planet

In this latest debacle of the Climate Change^TM folly crisis we now learn that even if Mother Earth's oceans don't boil away into outer space we can blame good old CC for all sorts of human strife.

Ignoring all historic and paleontologic records of the fact that climate change is the constant, that even in the last two millenia there have been greater warmings and coolings and shiftings of rainfall, WE MUST DO SOMETHING AND RIGHT QUICK OR PEOPLE WILL SUFFER.

Which ignores another constant--people have been suffering, starving and migrating all throughout history.

From AFP

Climate change a new factor in global tensions: EU

March 7, 2008

The risks of climate change have turned from a threat to reality impacting the conflict in Darfur, migration from flood-prone Bangladesh and hopes for stability in the Middle East, according to a new EU report.

The EU's opinion of us

Africa is adjudged to be particularly vulnerable.

"Already today climate change is having a major impact on the conflict in and around Darfur," it states.

Oh... So it's not Arab enslavement and butchery. It's the climate, stupid.

The UN predicts there will be millions of "environmental migrants" by 2020 which may in turn "increase conflicts in transit and destination areas," says the report.

"transit and destination areas". Where the citizens of such areas are not exactly thrilled that they get to support people with limited employment skills, can't speak the native language and cannot help but to be a financial burden.

I get it now. Millions are fleeing corruption-rife regimes in which human life is devalued and where gainful employment is nigh on impossible because of the climate.

Newsflash

"CLIMATE" has another definition at least according to the Oxford dictionary:

• the prevailing trend of public opinion or of another aspect of public life : the current economic climate.

Let us take a moment and imagine a paradigm shift in world leadership away from the dictators of third world hellholes and hapless first world pseudo-intellectuals. Let us take a moment and focus on a climate change that actually could be accomplished by mankind--to change the climate of corruption that is the single common and inescapable factor for the third world.

tic

tic

tic

tic

Alas, no. It is much easier to focus on imaginary anthropomorphic global warming and how the population of the earth can be manipulated into believing the necessity of massive economic redistribution and acceptance of mass migrations than on changing leadership imperatives.

Eight

The Emperor's new Clothes
Like the old tale--Obama is beginning to appear naked and wanting to those that care to view him objectively.

Unfortunately, there is a clear lack of objectivity among American voters today; it's as if they've taken off their glasses.

Obama's message of 'change' seems geared toward 18 to 27 year olds who have little experience of the real world and expectations of perpetual parental largesse.

We'll just have to wait and see what our brothers and sisters will decide.

al-Obama

Take it up the *ss, America

Obama, who art in D.C. hallowed be thy name.

Thy prez be won, thy policies be done in Georgia as it is in Michigan.

Give us this day our daily healthcare and forgive our successes as we forgive the excesses of others.

Lead us into third world nations but deliver us from evil corporations.

For thine seeketh power and glory, election without end.

Amen.

Reprint #1

Hey!

My 21st century journalist hero, Mark Steyn, does it all the time. When relevant, he reprints his articles from various posts.

This is not to compare myself to him. It's merely to present the fact that he has established a precedent for doing so.

My first experience at blogging was an invitation to post at RR. It was after a spirited commenting session at which my humor was appreciated by some other participants. In my experience, sometimes humor is the lubricant that allows others to follow into more serious aspects of what one is trying to communicate.

So this is a reposting of my second ever contribution at RR.
__________________________________________

PEACE QUEEN DISSED AT WALTER REED

IMAGINE JOAN BAEZ'S SURPRISE
at being uninvited to perform for the recuperating heroes at Walter Reed Hospital.

"I have always been an advocate for nonviolence and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago" she wrote. "I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, four days before the concert, I was not 'approved' by the Army to take part. Strange irony."

Oh, strange irony, indeed.

Yes, Joan, your peace at any cost--even the cost of those victims otherwise undefended by those that lie on gurneys before you--doesn't go over that well with the men and women who understand the cost of freedom.

Read it all here:
___________________

I'm new here (thanks RT) and I'm not going to bore anyone with my CV--I hope you may come to know me by what I consider important to post and comment on.

The above story about performing for our injured and recuperating in a hospital does take me back to a time and place I've revisited many times in my mind but have been unable to express; not for lacking in words and the ability to generally string them together to form a cogent statement but because of the profound emotional response it still churns up from my gut.

At university in the early '70s I earned my living expenses by playing and singing in an area band. It was much easier and more lucrative to work weekend nights at various venues than many of my classmates that struggled to earn a buck waitering and doing other menial jobs, and it had some other perks for a young bucko. We did free performances from time to time if it could further the band's career and sometimes because it was the right thing to do.

My city had (still has), as most mid to large cities, a V.A. hospital. Trauma medicine then was very different than today (thank God). There was an adjunct facility several blocks from the main hospital. This facility warehoused the men that were broken beyond healing--the quadriplegics and double amputees--those never to be rehabilitated.

It was an era I think many here remember well.

A good friend of the band, a young man that lent his van and his willingness to hump the heavy equipment we used in those days, found himself warehoused in the above mentioned facility. We visited from time to time, and as Christmas approached (with the break that comes with it) we decided to give a free performance for the men stuck in such a place in the Season of Joy.

So we set our gear up in the small auditorium and commenced to rock and roll for young men our own age who would never get to experience the kinds of lives we knew were in store for us. Remember--we were used to playing for the young and carefree in the local nightclubs; how naive we were then!

Bobby was a huge Beatles fan--maybe that's what endeared us to him in the first place (as we covered a lot of their hit songs). So in the course of our set we played his favorite, "Baby You Can Drive My Car".

The hall wasn't dimmed like most performance venues. Perhaps adequate light was needed for those minding the men on their gurneys and wheelchairs.

So it wasn't difficult, at the end of that song, to see Bobby's arm beneath the sheet on his gurney struggling to lift an inch and falling, lift an inch and falling, in the loudest applause I ever heard.



¶ Posted by turn 5/02/2007 02:25:00 PM

Media complicity?

Damned writers' strike is over but it'll be weeks before any intelligent shows return (with the exception of Jericho).

Thankful I have OnDemand service from a major cable provider. Watched the 1994 movie The Professional starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and a very young Natalie Portman tonight. At the end, The character Leon, played by Reno, detonates his belt of explosives to kill the thoroughly despicable nemesis, Stansfield, played by Oldman.

The movie was released June 26th, 1994.

From Wikipedia:

Although use of suicide attacks has occurred throughout history — with Samson's suicidal destruction of a Philistine temple (as recounted in the Book of Judges), the legendary Swiss hero Arnold von Winkelried, and the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II — its main notoriety as a specific kind of attack began in the 1980s and involved explosives deliberately carried to the target either on the person or in a civilian vehicle and delivered by surprise. Following the success of a 1983 truck bombing of two barracks buildings in Beirut that killed 300 and helped drive American and French Multinational Force troops from Lebanon, it spread to insurgent groups like the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, Palestinian groups like Hamas, and Al-Qaeda. Suicide bombings are now mostly associated with jihad, which involves holy war against non-Muslims.

During this time the number of suicide attacks has grown rapidly, from an average of 4.7/year in the 1980s to 180/year in the first half of the 00s,[1] and from 81 suicide attacks in 2001 to 460 in 2005.[2] Particularly hard-hit by attacks have been military and civilian targets in Sri Lanka during Sri Lankan Civil War, Israeli targets in Israel since 1994, and Iraqis since the US-led invasion of that country in 2003.

Throughout the movie Reno wears a woven skullcap.



Media complicity?

Well...he has a sense of humor

Truman played piano, Clinton blew the sax
John McCain cannot sing, here we have the facts.

Gladio

Italian word for sword.

A Western (read OSS/CIA) scheme for 'stay behind' covert operatives in the event of a Soviet takeover of Europe.

OK. Sounds good to me. The CCCP didn't exactly shine as an example of the progress of humanity what with killing an estimated 3⁷ people. (That's 30 million for the math challenged.)

The simple fact that the Soviets indeed did co-opt Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania shouldn't necessarily be alarming to...erm ...say Italy or France (both of which have had huge communist parties).

What is it with ideologies that devalue human life? What will they ultimately win? Why is it necessary to promote atheism (more accurately anti Judeo-Christian)?

I'm going to try to answer these questions in the context of the ongoing socialist and Islamic struggles for the world. The entire world.

Socialists cannot envision any authority larger than the state. The state must be foremost and people exist only for the benefit of the state. Islam is not much different except that it features an abstract deity--Allah--and demands allegence to the umma (community). The willingness to blow people to smithereens, even their co-religionists, well describes the value they place on life.

History teaches us that Jews and Christians have not always been the mostly tolerant people that we are today. We learned how to get along and not force others to our point of view. This is because we have an overriding belief that free will is bestowed by our Creator--His greatest gift of all.

Satan's (real or figurative) greatest goal is not to lead us to temptation. It is to end free will--the freedom to choose righteousness. Therefore, socialism and Islam are the dual faces of the despiser. So it is no great leap that to further their goal it is necessary to despise those that love freedom.

Here's an example from a useful tool named Peter Chamberlain in Gladio – Death Plan For Democracy

The use of proxy mercenary forces to terrorize nations into submitting to US political demands has been the cornerstone of American foreign policy since at least the era of the Berlin Wall, and it still is.

"Terrorism - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or to coerce, esp. for political purposes."

According to this definition from Dictionary.com, the government of the United States of America is the primary source of state terrorism in the world.

In Europe, the American government actively sought to eliminate political opposition to its fascist world plans through the use of open violent repression and covert terroristic "false flag" attacks upon popular patriotic resistance movements and their leaders. Using ultra right-wing homegrown fascists, in both Europe and America, secret paramilitary militias were created, called "Stay Behind" forces at the end of World War II. Since then, the CIA activated these groups to successfully quash anti-American liberal and social democratic popular resistance movements. The agency denies this, but the series of exposes of their network in Europe since 1990 have proven the professed denials to be false.

Terrorists? Us?

Virginia author John Stanton writes about a recent speech:

Putin recognizes that only The State has the authority to wield power to protect the national interest, play referee when financial markets convulse, and ensure that a nation’s infrastructure, its culture, its people and its security come first. After all, those are the critical components of The State.

Notice the capitalized 'The State'? Stanton gives reverence to 'The State' similar to others printing the word 'God'.

Socialism is alive and actively seeking the one-world government it has always demanded; for as long as there is a free nation anywhere, the hordes that yearn for freedom will leave their enslavement and flock to that place where they can breathe freedom.

Islam, as preached and practiced, offers the same but with five prayer breaks per day.

Pass me that gladio.