Screw Mexico

Michelle Malkin tells why.

Nancy Pelosi's Nightmare Scenario - or "Who is John Galt?"

Nancy Pelosi just got back from Greenland where she led a Congressional delegation to investigate climate change.

Pelosi said she hoped Bush would be open to considering a "different way"
in the future. The California Democrat pointed to her delegation's weekend
stop in Greenland, "where we saw firsthand evidence that climate change is a
reality; there is just no denying it."

Oh we agree, climate change is a reality. For instance, I have noted that right around June 21 the weather turns rather warm. It's called "summer." Then around November 1 it starts to get really cool. That's called "winter." Climate change is real. I have been observing this personally myself for some years.

Then Pelosi issues this nonsensical non-sequitur:

"It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland — it was caused by the behavior of the rest of the world," she said.

What a flaming idiot. What a non-sequitur. Man's affect on the environment is so miniscule it cannot be measured. The myth of manmade Global Warming, however, will be the next avenue for leftists to seize control of the American economy.

I'm currently reading "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. It's a work of fiction, but in it Rand describes a coalition of incompetents and Washington bureaucrats who scheme to control industry and dole out resources to individuals, companies, areas and industries of the government's choosing. Bureaucrats simply appropriate businesses and production through various schemes, "for the public good." The effect is to cause highly productive entrepreneurs and industrialists to just close shop and give up. Whole industries shut down. Rand's heros, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden, call the bureaucrats what they are: looters.

The nightmare scenario that Pelosi now supports is just a real life case, similar to one in "Atlas Shrugged." It will enable global leftism to merely appropriate business and production and transfer resources as they see fit. It will punish the producers and reward the non-producers. It is just another looting scheme.

Memorial Day: Giving Thanks to Fallen Heros

Memorial Day is a time for quiet reflection on the many thousands of U.S. Armed Services personnel who have died in action for our country. Many scenes come to mind: the lattice of white crosses in military cemeteries, each adorned with a small American flag; the U.S.S. Arizona, sunk in Pearl Harbor with so many of its crew still entombed inside her, still bleeding oil after 65 years; the marble Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, reverently guarded day and night by their modern brothers. ...

Soldiers, sailors and aviators are buried in cemeteries all over America. A couple of years ago I attended the Memorial Day ceremonies in San Jose's Oak Hill Cemetery. There, Union soldiers from the Civil War are buried in their own section, with Spanish American War dead in the next section over; and there are also graves of doughboys from World War I and many dead from World War II, the Korean War and the Viet Nam War.

In a small cemetery near my home in Hollister, there is a section for military personnel from various wars, mainly World War II, Korea and Viet Nam. But there are a few Union veterans there too - as attested to by their tombstones with a shield.

If you want to truly understand the meaning and pathos of Memorial Day, go to your local cemetery and find the grave of a veteran. Note down his name and details and pin it on a wall somewhere visible in your home. It may be years since he died, since anyone has even spoken his name. Speak it aloud. He was real, he was loved and, but for the Grace of God, lie you.

My individual service man that I will remember was a young sailor named Steve Paul Leon who died during the Viet Nam War. He was close to me in age, a year younger than I am. We probably were both listening to Credence Clearwater and the Beatles back in the sixties. But he shipped out and died, barely 23 years of age. From the picture on his tombstone, you can see he was a handsome young man. How proud he looks in his Navy blues.

Hey Steve, I didn't know you, but God does. You are more than a monument in a grassy cemetery. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. You are not forgotten. I ask God to bless you and keep you and give you peace.

Major John McCrae: The Story of "In Flanders Fields"

I have always loved the poem "In Flanders Fields," written by Canadian officer John McCrae in World War I. (Flanders is a section of Belgium).  I found his story at the website of Arlington National Cemetery. Here it is.
---------------------------------

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:
"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.
-----------------------------------------------
Stogie again. Red poppies are flowers whose seeds can remain dormant for years, and are activated into germination when the earth is broken or turned. When the soldiers in Belgium began burying their dead, there was a lot of freshly turned earth. In a few days the fresh graves were ablaze with the red poppies, as if God Himself had decorated the graves.

Because of this, the red poppy became a symbol of Memorial Day and for many years was worn by many to remember the war dead. This is an old tradition we should work to revive.

Here is McCrae's famous and beautiful poem:

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

Maj. John McCrae (1872-1918)

.....

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

.....

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

......

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Spending the Weekend with Ayn Rand

I was wondering what to do with the long Memorial Day weekend this morning. I have read all of my good books and have only one in progress. Then it came to me: I can read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I started the book about 5 years ago and never finished it. I had previously read two of Rand's books, "Anthem" and "The Fountainhead," enjoying them both.

Now it's time to get started on Ayn Rand's real masterpiece. I will just start over from the beginning since it has been so long.

I go now, to fetch my second cup of coffee, my pipe and my book, to retire to my pastoral refuge in the backyard where I will sit, sip, smoke and savor, that is, savor the words of truth by Ayn Rand. I will emerge from my refuge even more sage and saintly then I am even now.

Eat your hearts out, liberals.

Al Qaeda Torture Manual Found In Iraq

Per the Jawa Report, an Al Qaeda torture manual was recently found in a safe house in Iraq. American troops found a man hanging by his arms from the ceiling where he was whipped daily.

The torture manual can be viewed at The Smoking Gun. The Gun reports:

Torture, Al-Qaeda Style
Drawings, tools seized from Iraq safe house in U.S. military raid MAY 24--In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Along with the images, which you'll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here.

Read the whole thing and view the pictures here. Of course, we cannot deny the moral equivalency of our own actions. Isn't it true that we sometimes use water-boarding on terrorist captives? And haven't we made them listen to Rock music and turned the air conditioner up too high? Yeah, right. Besides, we all know there are no Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Liberals and Paleocons told us so.

The Jawa Report also has recovered parts of a video of a 12 year old Muslim boy beheading a captive. The captive was a full grown man, and the beheading was coached by Taliban fighters who talked the 12 year old through it. The stills of the beheading are very bloody and graphic.

These animals are the ones we are fighting in our "unjust and immoral war," to quote Paleocon Mike Tuggle. What is a Paleocon, you ask? A species of invertebrates, mostly found in the Southern United States.

JFK Conspiracy Theory Body Slammed - Again

Powerline has reviewed a new book on the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John Fizgerald Kennedy. The book is "Reclaiming History" by Vincent Bugliosi. Bugliosi is the prosecutor who won convictions for the notorious Charles Manson gang who murdered Sharon Tate and several other people in 1969.

I read Gerald Posner's 1993 book on the same subject, "Case Closed" and found it to be an excellent refutation of the various conspiracy thories. Bugliosi's book is said to be even better. I have to read this book! The Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories are a pet peeve of mine. I have never believed anything but the following: Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, and he acted alone.

There is a university professor who put together a website that deals with all aspects of the Kennedy Assassination and refutes many of the conspiracy theories. It is "The Kennedy Assassination Page" by John McAdams. No matter what factoid of the assassination interests you, you can probably find a discussion of it here, e.g., the single bullet theory, the pristine bullet, the Grassy Knoll, the umbrella man, etc, etc. It is the best web reference going for this subject matter.

A conspiracist writes and I answer:

Burntoast:  You are ill informed. James Chaney the motorcycle cop riding closest to the Pres said that he saw JFK shot in the face. Jesse Curry who was the police chief came to accept the shot from the front--you can see his take on YouTube. Curry wrote a book calling attention to the TWO shells in the TSBD that DPD turned over to the FBI, also to the .45 caliber shell in the turf at Dealy. Prejudice is not intelligence!

My response:

Burntoast, you are the one who is misinformed.  I can't find a source for Chaney saying that; however, suppose he did.  No serious researcher would accept that as gospel without corroborating evidence, and there is none.  There is plenty of evidence to prove a rear, head shot, however, including Chaney's own testimony.  Per the JFK assassination page, here are the relevant testimonies of cops in the motorcade, including Chaney's:

Just prior to the shooting, two motorcycle policemen who had preceded the presidential limousine briefly slowed their cycles and waited for the slow-moving limousine to catch up with them. One was Officer Stavis “Steve” Ellis, who had just driven past the grassy knoll and turned around to face the President. "If there had been any shots fired from the grassy knoll," Ellis would state, "I couldn't have missed it since I was right even with that area when the shots were fired."

Ellis recalled:

During the shooting, my back or, more accurately, my left side was turned to the grassy knoll, but I was never more than about 100 feet from the spot where someone is supposed to have fired. Just an instant before, nobody was standing there, and I didn’t see anyone approaching. If a shot had come from that close to me, I would have known it. There was no shot fired from the grassy knoll. There were three shots fired, and all three came from back up toward the School Book Depository.

Motorcycle Officer William G. “Bill” Lumpkin had also turned around to face the President at the time the shots rang out. He recalled:

At the time [the shots were fired] I was facing east on Elm with the grassy knoll to my immediate left, and the corner of the stockade fence was less than 100 feet away. I saw nothing on that hill that looked in any way suspicious. I'm absolutely positive that there were only three shots, that they all came from back up Elm Street from the right rear of the President's limousine, and that no shot was fired from the grassy knoll. 

Officer James Chaney was riding a motorcycle only a few feet from the presidential limousine’s right rear fender, close enough for his uniform to be spattered with the President’s blood after the fatal head shot; Officer Douglas L. Jackson rode a motorcycle just to Chaney’s right. A shot from the grassy knoll would have come from the right of both men and passed directly in front of them. In a diary entry the evening of the assassination, Officer Jackson wrote, "I knew that the shooting was coming from my right rear [towards the Book Depository] and I looked back that way . . ."

“You did not see the person who fired the shot?” Officer Chaney was asked by ABC newsman Bill Lord within hours of the shooting. "No sir," Chaney replied, "it was back over my right shoulder."

As for Jesse Curry, he was the Chief of Police who was riding ahead of the motorcade. When the gunfire began, Curry thought the shots might have originated from the overpass in front of him. (He was undoubtedly hearing the echoes bouncing off the overpass.) However, Dealey Plaza is an echo chamber and many witnesses were confused as to the direction of the gunfire. Most of them, however, agree that there were three shots fired and that they came from the Texas School Book Depository.

It is therefore dishonest to claim that Curry "accepted the shot from the front,"  as if his initial, confused and mistaken impression constituted some sort of clear, irrefutable truth.  Balderdash.

As to the shells found in the TBSD, there were only three, all of the spent rounds from Oswald's rifle.  The spent .45 shell "found in Dealey Plaza" is a myth; it never happened. Go here and read it for yourself.

Jimmy Carter Mouths Off

Former President Jimmy Carter, quite possibly the worst president in American history, has a new candidate for Carter's crown: President George W. Bush. Carter stated that Bush is the worst president in history (read the article here), and here's why:

1. "We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

My Response: We are in a new kind of war and old models are obsolete. War methods and tactics must move with changing circumstances. Our enemy consists of religious fanatics who believe that God wants them to kill as many of us as possible, and that those Muslims who die in the attempt go straight to paradise. This enemy does not have standing armies and navies and engage in old-style campaigns; they have no discernible nation or government with which to negotiate; they are not going to issue formal declarations of war. They fight a guerilla war and target civilians. As 9/11 proved, we cannot wait until they attack us before we end the threat. We cannot afford to wait until a suitcase nuke obliterates Cleveland or a dirty bomb kills thousands in the New York subway.

As for pre-emptive war, it has long been established as a legitimate tactic to prevent aggression. The Brits and Canadians used it in the 19th century against a US merchant ship, the Caroline, who was about to ferry Canadian rebels and supplies to Canada to overthrow the Canadian government. The Canadian military attacked the ship, set it aflame and sent it over Niagara Falls. The American government protested but, upon hearing the facts of the situation, agreed that the attack was justified.

The Israelis bombed Iraq's nuclear power plant in the early 1980s (or therabouts) to prevent Iraq from developing nuclear weapons against Israel. They had a right, just as they now have a right to do the same to Iran, a country who has been attacking them through proxies and supplying arms and training to Hamas and other terrorists. Also, Iran has been openly promised that it will wipe Israel off the map. The danger to Israel is imminent, and an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities should begin at once.

2. Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.

Response: All of Carter's efforts, as that of Bill Clinton, to arrange a peace in Israel with the Palestinians were a complete failure. The reason is simple and obvious: Muslims do not want to peacefully coexist with Israel and no accommodation will ever appease them. All pretended talks to that effect were calculated so that the West would continue to pump in billions of dollars in aid to the so-called Palestinians. Muslims hate Jews with a white-hot passion, because their Prophet Muhammad hated Jews and murdered many, even commanding his followers to kill Jews wherever they are found. On his death bed, Muhammad commanded his followers not to allow any religion but Islam in Arabia. Most Muslims think that means Israel cannot be allowed to exist. There is no point at "negotiating" any further with people who will not negotiate in good faith.

As for Bush refuting "negotiated nuclear arms agreements," we have to assume he is referring to missile treaties with the Soviet Union that are no longer needed and are obsolete. The US is now building anti-missile defenses to protect Europe, Israel and the United States from attacks by extremist governments in North Korea and Iran. Thank God for that.

As for Bush refuting "negotiated agreemens on the environment," we have to assume he is talking about the so called Kyoto protocol, which our own Senate (under Bill Clinton's administration) voted unanimously to reject. The Kyoto protocol would have proven ruinous to our economy and would not have had any effect on the environment whatsoever. The protocol was merely a socialist scheme to reduce production, investment and jobs in the West by transferring them to India, China and Mexico. Only a complete fool would have signed that ruinously stupid agreement.

Jimmy Carter's latest jaw-flapping only serves to reinforce his role as America's worst president. Yes, Carter retains that crown after all these years. He will always be remembered as our double-digit inflation, moribund economy president who did little to nothing when Iran invaded our embassy and took our ambassador and staff hostage for over 400 days. Carter is a bad memory that most of us would just as soon forget.

A Paleocon's Assault on Truth and Reason

Mike Tuggle, a notorious palecon and member of the so-called "League of the South" has engaged me in debate in the post below entitled "GOP Debate: Ron Paul, The Ignominious Wimp." To avoid an endless debate with Mike always returning to the same refuted factoids, over and over again ad nauseum, I have given him the last word. Since his argument never changes, he can copy and paste it over and over and over again. I just don't have the time. However, feel free to put in your two cents at the page linked above.

Following 9/11, Mike opposed any war from the very start and is now constructing a rationale for his preconceived position. Honest seekers of truth first assemble facts and then draw a conclusion; Mike does it backwards. First he comes to a conclusion, then seeks selective facts to support it. A raging intellectual he's not.

Like most paleocons, Tuggle has adopted the arguments and worldview of the Far Left in arguing against the war in Iraq, e.g., "it's all our fault" because the CIA allegedly helped overthrow a Communist leader of Iran back in 1953, Mohammed Mossadegh. (Actually, to say that Mossadegh was "overthrown" is a stretch. The Shah asked for his resignation as Prime Minister and when Mossadegh refused, he was fired.)

Then there was the fact that Saddam Hussein spent money allowed him for medicines on war materials instead, which caused a lot of Iraqi children to die from want of the former. That was our fault too, because we should have allowed Saddam to do whatever he wanted following his invasion of Kuwait, his gassing of the Kurds, his attempt to assassinate former President Bush, etc. Really, what choice did Al Qaeda have but to fly planes into the Word Trade Center and the Pentagon? It most certainly wasn't because there is anything intrinsically aggressive or violent about Islam, they think. They must still be pissed off by that Mossadegh thing. Yeah, right.

Of course, Paleocons are profoundly ignorant of Islam, its history, beliefs, goals and methods. Knowledge might stir them from their comfortable lethargy in the face of Muslm aggression and violence.

I detest the Paleocon worldview. Paleconservatism is an ugly blend of the worse sides of conservatism and liberalism: antisemitism and racism combined with Marxist apologia for failed Communist leaders (all the fault of the CIA), heaped with rationalizations for Islamic mass murderers and topped off with appeasement and pacifism and scented with a strong whiff of marijuana. When you think of paleoconservatism, think of bald and bespectacled Lew Rockwell bumping uglies with Cindy Sheehan. It's an apt metaphor for Paleoconservatism: an extreme libertarian coupled with a rabid America hating leftist.

It's enough to gag a maggot.

Finished! "The Life of Mahomet"

I finished reading Sir William Muir's "Life of Mahomet" this week. The book was originally introduced in four volumes in 1861 with many references to source material. I bought the one volume version in paperback from Amazon.com, without all of the references. But the original is still available for the serious researcher.

There are so many people out there who are honestly ignorant about Islam and Muhammad, and I strongly advise them to educate themselves, since our lives and our civilization could well depend on it.

Muir's text is not an easy or fast read, but it is very interesting. Every time I finished a chapter I almost felt like brushing the desert sand off of my shirt and looking for a cold well of water, being careful not to step in a pile of camel dung as I did so.

I also read the appendix, which told of the difficulties of compiling the Coran and the Traditions of the Prophet, which were oral histories handed down for more than a century after the death of Muhammad before being written down. Sifting the massive number of histories for the most reliably authentic ones was a huge task. Muir describes the Muslim archivists and authors who strived to accomplish it, and which are the most reliable and complete.

Understanding of a complex subject does not come easy and requires work, but it can be rewarding and help you better understand what is going on in the world today.