More thoughts on the War(s)

The American Thinker has an article by Christopher G Adamo which neatly ties together two of the topics that have been occupying my attention of late. One, the fact that the true enemy in the war we are fighting is not “terrorism” but Islam.

From a strictly military perspective, Iraq represents a stunning victory for America. But as capably as American forces prevailed over Saddam Hussein on the field of battle, the post-war effort has been frustrating, to say the least. Endeavors to elevate Iraq’s new government to a modern version of the democratic process, despite seeming so close to the final goal, are regularly discouraged and stalled.

The reasons for this quandary are simple, yet fundamentally profound. In short, democracy (or any of its derivatives such as our own representative republic) cannot by itself create or uplift a culture. Rather, it will only succeed at reflecting it.

To the degree that democracy has succeeded in western civilization, it has done so as a result of an inherent regard for the rights of all, including the weak, which itself is rooted in the Judeo-Christian belief system undergirding that civilization. Among those cultures that do not inherently recognize such truths, democracy, if it is to succeed at all, must be introduced or imposed by an outside force.

Though such an assessment may sound arrogant and elitist, historical facts bear it out. President Bush has conceded as much with his inarguable assertion that America cannot presently leave Iraq, for fear that the country would quickly descend into chaos, followed by civil war. The result of which would be dominance by the strongest Muslim faction, with little hope of harmony or justice for any weaker factions.

As long as Middle Easterners embrace Islam the imposition of democracy will not solve the problem. As Mel Gibson’s character said in the movie The Patriot, “why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away?” As long as the great majority of persons in a Middle Eastern nation would voluntarily go to the polls and vote to impose a vicious, murderously oppressive 8th century religious code upon their society Democracy could actually be counterproductive. Remember, the theocracy in Iran was upheld by a free election.

The next point that Mr. Adamo makes is that the unchecked influx of illegal aliens pouring into the United States threatens to shatter the fabric of our shared idea of America.

Despite constant assertions from the White House and some in Congress, a common “desire for freedom and prosperity” is no unifying force that might automatically generate good Americans out of the invaders. And while many immigrants have historically aspired to the highest American ideals, those who trample its laws to seize its fruits, by definition, do not.
Nor should they be expected to yearn for assimilation into a culture that is increasingly treated with contempt by America’s own academic elites, is only selectively invoked as a tool by manipulative politicians, and is ultimately dismissed as a matter of complete irrelevance by economic pragmatists, and now the President.

Moreover, the illegal alien controversy is not merely a matter of post 9-11 security concerns, as is so wrongly asserted by many, including even some prominent conservatives. It was a problem long before that. This nation’s citizens are properly alarmed about an unchecked influx of invading hordes who make it unmistakably clear that they have absolutely no desire to be Americans.

Meanwhile, businesses profiting by paying substandard wages are perfectly willing to increase their margins while letting taxpayers make up the difference in benefits and services. So, the present situation (endorsed by Bush) will result in ever-escalating numbers with growing political clout, but no intention or incentive to ever assimilate into America’s vanishing “melting pot.”

The problem is not that a lot of people what to come here and work and become Americans. The problem is that a lot of people what to come here and work and remold America into a carbon copy of the nation which they left. That such a transformed America would offer as little opportunity as Mexico is lost on them.

Mexico is not poor because the land is poor. Before the US Civil War Mexico was the most prosperous nation in the Western Hemisphere. Its mineral and agricultural resources generated more wealth than the United States and Canada combined. Those resources have not been depleted. They are under utilized because of corrupt, inefficient socialistic government.

The truly sad thing is that the average Mexican citizen thinks that he is poor not because of an absence of Capitalism, but because of an excess of it. At a recent press conference Mexican President Vicente Fox was asked how long it would be before Mexico would be able to become prosperous enough that Mexicans would no longer seek to enter the US. He said that it would take generations to equalize the income differences between Mexico and America.

The difference in wealth between the two nations will never be equalized as long as Mexico’s governing class believes that prosperity results from government action. If the Mexican government would simply get out of the Mexican people’s way the transformation of the Mexican economy would begin almost overnight.

Our good friends!

From Iran Focus:

London, Mar. 07 – A Dubai-based company owned by the Iranian government has been used by Iran’s Ministry of Defence to procure a key component needed for production of nuclear bombs, Iran Focus has learnt.

Sources inside the Iranian government have informed Iran Focus that the Dubai-based Gulf Resources Development Corporation (GRDC) has smuggled sizeable quantities of a type of graphite known as ceramic matrix composite (CMC) from China to Iran.

Ceramic matrix composite is used in the construction of nuclear bombs and preservation of highly enriched uranium. Without CMC insulation, highly enriched uranium cannot be placed in a bomb structure because of high radiation.Although CMC is a dual-use item, international trading of CMC is prohibited for use in nuclear weapons under the Missile Technology Control Regime.

The Iranian Defence Ministry’s front company, Gulf Resources Development Corporation, set up its Dubai subsidiary in 1995. Iran has been using the Dubai-based company for over a decade to procure sensitive precursors for its secret military projects, taking advantage of the port’s lax controls, free tax, and convenient banking facilities.

GRDC is not the only Iranian front company operating in Dubai, according to the sources who spoke to Iran Focus. As early as March 1989, a firm owned by the Indian government was reported to have shipped 60 tons of thionyl chloride, which can be used to manufacture mustard gas and nerve agents, to Iran via Dubai. In later years, Iran used front companies in Dubai to illegally import centrifuge parts, sensitive computer components, encryption devices, and a range of blacklisted materials with military use.

The chief executive officer of GRDC, Raouf Mashayekh, is an Iranian national based in Dubai. He frequently visits Iran, according to the well-informed sources, for meetings with officials in Iran’s military industries, who are his clients. The sources identified the Ministry of Defence official responsible for the procurement of CMC as a “Mr. Tabatabai”.

Iran has recently mastered the technique of producing CMC indigenously, the sources said. Research on CMC is conducted in Malek Ashtar University of Technology, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Defence. The MoD is also using the heat-resistant graphite composite in its missile industry, the sources said.

Our good friends and allies in the war on Islamic terror the UAE! It is good to know how zelous they are in ensuring that their nation is kept far away from Islamofacisim and regimes which sponsor terror.

Why oh why did we not have the wisdom to allow them to manage the cargo terminals at our major sea ports? I guess we are just a bunch of paranoid nativist bigots.

I am so ashamed.

Washington Republicans may be waking up

From The Washington Times:

House conservatives yesterday issued a dire warning to President Bush and Republican leadership that they will pay a devastating political price if they proceed with a guest-worker program or anything resembling amnesty for illegal aliens before securing the borders and enforcing existing immigration laws.

"They will remember in November," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said of voters nationwide. "And many of those who have stood with our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many of them plan to be absent from the polls" this year when the entire House and one-third of the Senate is up for re-election.

Mr. Hayworth and more than a dozen other House Republicans pointed to polls that show overwhelming support for their strict-enforcement stance and advised Mr. Bush and GOP leaders in both chambers to "listen to the common sense of the American people."

One Republican, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, fired a warning shot specifically at Sen. John McCain. The Arizona Republican widely expected to be a 2008 presidential hopeful at that moment was holding a press conference across the Capitol with, among others, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

"Those elected officials who are insisting on a guest-worker program and diluting the efforts of border security and internal enforcement are telling the American people exactly whose side they are on," Mr. Rohrabacher said. "The American people now have that opportunity to make that determination, and they will. Senator McCain and others will find out about that, when they find their own career is short term."

At least someone has the sense to see the truth and the guts to tell it. The question is this, are there enough people out there in flyover country willing to let their votes depend on this one issue to make a real difference this November? I think that there may just be.

The question after that is, are there enough politicians who are aware of that fact? I’m not so sure of that. If Republicans suffer major loses this November it will not be Iraq or their profligate spending or any “scandal” that Democrats have attempted to manufacture. Republican loses will be the direct result of a sell out on the immigration issue.

A Modest Proposal

In the debate about illegal immigration which is currently raging in Washington and across the internet we hear that the logistical hurdles of deporting as many as 11 million illegals are simply insurmountable. George Will tells us:

Of the nation's illegal immigrants — estimated to be at least 11 million, a cohort larger than the combined populations of 12 states — 60 percent have been here at least five years. Most have roots in their communities. Their children born here are U.S. citizens. We are not going to take the draconian police measures necessary to deport 11 million people. They would fill 200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska — where, by the way, 26,000 Latinos live. And there are no plausible incentives to get the 11 million to board the buses.

I will forbear from reminding Mr. Will that Germany moved about that many people in just a few years while simultaneously fighting a war on two fronts. It will not be necessary to stage massive sweeps throughout the American heartland and round up all the illegals in one fell swoop. All we need to do is get control of the border and create disincentives to attempt to come here illegally and incentives to leave if you are already here.

Controlling the border is not terribly difficult. A combination of physical barriers (a fence) and patrols augmented with technology can effectively seal the border. I know that creating an impenetrable border is not possible; however changing the hundreds of thousands coming across into hundreds coming across is good enough.

Once the borders are taken care of it is only necessary to slowly-but-surely draw down the number of illegals who are already here. Several steps will be necessary to accomplish this.

One, the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution must be modified. Ratified on July 9, 1868 this amendment was created for one purpose only. To grant citizenship to freed slaves. What it wound up doing was make citizens of anyone who happened to be born in the USA. This allows illegal aliens to have a baby in the US which serves as an anchor, if fact they are called “anchor babies”, for the family. Because junior is an American citizen his parents and dependant siblings cannot be deported until he is eighteen. It must be made clear, either through a favorable Supreme Court ruling or another constitutional amendment, that the children of those who are in this nation illegally are not citizens.

Two, the reason that some foreigners come here is to take advantage of our social services safety net. Courts have ruled that illegal aliens must be eligible for all types of benefits as long as they are subject to taxation by the American government. Since the courts have dug in their heels on this a constitutional amendment would be necessary.

Three, most illegals come here to work and most of them send money home to Mexico. This must be stopped. Money transfers from illegals in the US to other nations must be intercepted and confiscated. Funds seized in this way can be used to defray the costs to American taxpayers associated with illegal immigration.

Four, businesses which knowingly hire illegal aliens must be harshly penalized. Fines will not do the job, at least not fines alone. For a first offense a fine equal to one year’s gross receipts. For a second offense 10 years in federal prison and confiscation of all business assets followed by their sale at auction. Funds raised in this manor will be used to defray the costs of illegal immigration to the US taxpayer.

Five, being in the US illegally must be made a felony with lengthy prison terms. Imprisoned illegals can be housed in facilities located near the border and be put to hard manual labor maintaining and improving the physical barriers placed along the border. Illegals that turn themselves in for deportation will not be prosecuted. Before being deported illegals that have turned themselves in will be investigated to be sure that they are not using deportation to flee justice for some other
crime(s).

By taking away their jobs and their welfare there will be little reason to come to or remain in the US. Will some slip through the cracks? Yes. There are some people who have committed murder and gotten away with it. The nation does not crumble because of this and it will not crumble because a few hundred or even a few thousand sneak through with false papers.

What will destroy the nation is to allow the rule of law to be mocked whenever enforcement becomes inconvenient. What will destroy us is to allow ourselves to be colonized by a hostile aliens who regard their presence here as a type of bloodless conquest. Aliens who despise us, our language and our culture; who retain loyalty to a filthy corrupt cesspool of a nation which, despite abundant natural resources and fertile land finds itself incapable of providing any opportunity to the vast majority of its citizens. A nation whose incompetent and corrupt government sucks billions of dollars out of the US economy using illegal aliens as a straw.

We have the chance to do something about this problem now. The population is awake to the issue and it is an election year. Right now Republicans in congress seem mesmerized by the prospect of millions of Hispanic votes. The hope that enough Hispanics will flock to the ranks of the Republican Party is a hope that will never be realized. It is a pipe dream in the original sense of the term, a drug induced hallucination with no basis in reality.

Will the Republican “leadership” emerge from its figurative opium fog in time to prevent disaster? I wouldn’t bet on it, but I’ve been wrong before.

FACT OF THE DAY

On 30 March 1296, King Edward I attacked the at-the-time-Scottish border town, Berwick-upon-Tweed, in his quest to gain control of Scotland from Robert the Bruce. Most of the town's residents were killed, even those fleeing to the churches. To read more about the amazing story of Robert The Bruce, see heritage.scotsman.com

Quote of the day

If you take a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you.
This is the principal difference between dogs and men.

-Mark Twain

Everyone needs a goal

If my readership continues to grow here I'll be able to close down my still and open up my very own Saloon. Any white trash girls who want to dance nekked send me an email, with picture (unless you're Paris Hilton, there are already enough nekked pictures of you floating around).

Another from the Highland Games

Here is another picture that I took at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games and Gathering of Scottish Clans.

This is Emily Dugas. She was with the late great Clandestine. Here is an archived webpage about the band if you want to get an idea of what they looked like.

Today's Gun Post

Born Again Redneck has an excellent post up called, “The history of gun control in America. It is one of the best synopsis of how America went from the almost utopian land where “the goal is that every man be armed” to the land of the Brady Law. Go over and take a look.

Anti-ACLU Thursday

From DiscovertheNetworks.org

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) characterizes itself as America's "guardian of liberty," ostensibly working to "defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." "We work," says the ACLU, "also to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including Native Americans and other people of color; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people; women; mental-health patients; prisoners; people with disabilities; and the poor.

"The ACLU was established in 1920. Its co-founder Roger Baldwin candidly stated, "I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the properties class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It all sums up into one single purpose -- the abolition of dog-eat-dog under which we live. I don't regret being part of the communist tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the communists wanted and I traveled the United Front road to get it."


The ACLU was founded by a Stalinist who understood exactly what that meant. It has not changed since then. To the ACLU the constitution is a suicide pact. That is its only real value to them.

Today they are attempting to undermine the security of the United States by aiding and abetting terrorists in their attempts to evade American justice:


On many occasions, the ACLU has publicly and proactively defended individuals accused of serious terrorism-related offenses. In 2003, for example, it held rallies on behalf of an Intel software engineer in Oregon named Maher Mofeid Hawash, whom U.S. officials were keeping in custody on suspicion that he had given material support to Taliban and al Qaeda forces fighting American troops in Afghanistan. In February 2004, Hawash was convicted of the aforementioned crimes and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The ACLU also came to the defense of the aforementioned Professor Sami Al-Arian. In an effort to thwart the government's investigation of Al-Arian's role in funding PIJ suicide bombings in Israel, the ACLU said that the search warrants authorizing an FBI raid of his home and offices were overly broad, and that the items seized as evidence should therefore be returned.


They are also involved up to their necks in the promotion of illegal immigration.


The ACLU's Immigration Task Force is a driving force behind the Open Borders Lobby. Among its current projects are: expanding anti-discrimination laws to require employers to hire illegal aliens; weakening sanctions against employers who hire illegal aliens; barring the INS from conducting inspections without a search warrant; requiring the INS to provide free legal counsel to illegal aliens; and ensuring illegal aliens' eligibility for welfare benefits. The ACLU has opposed all Justice Department proposals to fingerprint and track immigrants and foreign visitors to the United States, claiming that such measures "treat immigrant populations as a separate and quasi-criminal element of society." The ACLU also opposes a Justice Department initiative that would give local and state police the power to enforce immigration laws. "Local police should not be in the business of detaining or arresting law-abiding aliens based on their immigration status," says Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

The ACLU endorsed the 2002 Market Workers Justice Campaign of the activist coalition Communities in Solidarity with Immigrant Workers. This campaign called for increased wages and benefits for Korean and Latino immigrant workers, including those living illegally in the United States.Former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser attributes the concerns that many Americans have about illegal immigration to a "wave of anti-immigrant hysteria." According to the essay "Justice For Aliens" by Steven Shapiro of the New York Civil Liberties Union and Wade Henderson of the ACLU's D.C. office, the desire to limit immigration can be traced directly to "hostility motivated by nativism, racism, and red scare."


There are many other reasons to despise this organization of America-hating traitors. Their hatred of Christianity and Judaism, for example. For the straight scoop on this odious little group of misfits go over to Stop The ACLU . Those fine people have dedicated themselves to exposing and opposing that vile and wretched cabal

Sold Out!

From The Washington Times:

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner refused yesterday to rule out compromising with the Senate to expand the House border security bill to include a guest-worker program or provisions that opponents call "amnesty."

"Let's wait and see what the Senate can produce," he told reporters yesterday when asked whether House Republicans would reject the Senate Judiciary Committee's proposal to allow the estimated 12 million illegal aliens now in the U.S. to seek citizenship after paying a fine.

I guess this means that the fix is in. Our government is (once again) going to sell us out. I wish I could say that I was surprised.

America is being colonized by hostile aliens who retain loyalty to their nation and culture of origin. At the same time as they flock here to work because of the zero opportunity offered by the corrupt socialist economy of their homeland they despise our culture and language. If they gain legal status and then citizenship does anyone doubt that they will use their franchise to turn the United States into the same kind of socialist cesspool that Mexico is?

UPDATE:

Here is an interesting website with information about what the illegal aliens think of us. Go have a look.

Latest on the "Christian" Peacemaker Teams

From The American Thinker:

Out of the closet with hypocrisy intact

The distortions, the self deceptions and yes the lies surrounding the misnamed Christian Peacekeeper Teams’ hostages continues.

Fears that Iraqi captors might harm a Canadian hostage if they knew he was gay forced his partner to remain silent as loved ones called for an end to the ordeal, a director from the freed hostage’s aid group said Monday.

During his four months of captivity, James Loney’s sexuality was kept out of the media at the request of his family, said Doug Pritchard, co-director of the aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams.

‘’It’s a sad fact that around the world gays and lesbians are more vulnerable to attack than straights,’’ Pritchard said. ‘’When Jim was already in a vulnerable position we didn’t, nor did his family, want him exposed to further danger.’‘

And in some parts of the world, Mr. Pritchard, especially where your teams plop themselves to demonstrate their hatred for America and their love for the natives, homosexuals are really “more vulnerable to attack than straights.” In Iraq, for instance, they have more than attacks to fear.

In 2001, Amnesty International reported that Iraq’s constitution was amended to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. Although the constitution reverted back to the original 1969 document when Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003, the status of gay and lesbian rights remain unclear.

Given the rather prudent behavior of Loney’s family, the status of these rights is quite clear. Oh the hypocrisy of these non peace keepers! Ethel C. Fenig 3 28 06

Is there a stronger word than contempt? These people are so far beneath contempt that they would need the Hale Telescope to catch a glimpse of it.

I mean what do you do when there are literally no words in the language to express the depth of loathing that you feel for someone or something?

These wretched, ungrateful, treasonous, vile excuses for human beings. These towering poltroons. . . These LIBERALS.

Bumpersticker

I’m not a drug dealer. I’m an undocumented pharmacist!

John McCain is evil, part VII

From The Conservative Voice:

The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee approved
election-year immigration legislation Monday that is far different from what most Americans had in mind. The bill, which goes to the full senate, paves the way for millions of illegal workers to become US citizens without having to first leave the country and re-enter legally or pay a fine.

After days of protests led by left-wing groups masquerading as rank-and-file illegal aliens the Senate committee's GOP members folded like cheap cameras and voted to strip away proposed criminal penalties for residents found to be in this country illegally. The bill which passed the House of Representatives called for such penalties.

The panel's vote now allows the bill to go before the full Senate for debate on Tuesday. "All Americans wanted fairness and they got it this evening," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who played a pivotal
role in drafting the legislation along with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), approved
12-6.

Note that the traitor who sided with Ted Kennedy and made this abomination possible is none other than the evil John McCain. Who helped the evil traitor McCain? Why none other that little cornpone lickspittle Lindsay Graham, you know the funny looking little troll that always follows two steps behind McCain wearing his senatorial knee pads, in case McCain gets that “special feeling” and needs servicing.

This bill will have to go before the full Senate next. Given the absolute contemptible cowardice of the average senator I expect it to pass. This leave the House of Representatives as the only hope of killing this abortion before it becomes law.

There is no chance that the President will veto this steaming pile of feces. That might endanger his chances of swapping bodily fluids with Vicente Fox in the shower room at Camp David.

All we can do is call our House member and fraking order them to kill this thing when it goes to the conference committee. Leave the issue alive this November.

Hillbilly Ecosystem Banner

Thanks to the hard work of the talented White Trash Republican the Hillbilly Ecosystem has a banner!

As always if you want to join read the Hillbilly Ecosystem post. Figure out where you fit on the rating scale and display it on your blog. Grab one or more of the buttons and hotlink them back to the post and send me an email or leave a comment with your blog name, email address and URL. I'll add you to the blogroll that I'm creating.

24

Jack Bauer did rough up S4GF a little, but it was only to save her from Mel Gibson’s Needle O’Pain ™. It didn’t work. Julie Meyers was determined to get more video for her submission to the Faces of Death video series and Audrey looks like she can do better “pain faces” than William Shatner..

Chloe was able to use the Patriot Act to access S4GF’s entire sexual history and found that she had slept with Sid Blumenthal [pause to shudder] in a little no tell motel. S4GF said that it was only a mercy screw and she broke it off because he wasn’t Jack.

Chloe also was able to find out that Robocop had made several phone calls to Matta Hari. This voided her immunity deal (the “bad taste in men” clause; this is why Hillary Clinton can’t turn state’s evidence) so Jack was able to punch out her Federal Marshall bodyguard (I knew I liked him for a reason) and threaten to shoot her unless she came clean (I can't believe that I'm not going to do a bubble bath or hot tub joke here). Matta Hari gave up the fact that Robocop had told her to finger S4GF if she got caught. She also gave up the fact that the mystery schematics were for a natural gas distribution center (Edgar's death has closed off an entire avenue of jest in situations like this).

Meanwhile the Prior of the Ori has located two LAPD cops who would not hallow the Ori and killed them. With their police car to escort them they were able to get the canisters of nerve gas to the distribution center. After killing a few red shirt gas company employees the manager agreed to lower the gas pressure so that the nerve gas wouldn’t be deactivated by the high pressure.

Bacardi and Cola are up in the special CTU silent stealth chopper over the natural gas distribution center getting ready to fast rope to the roof. The warriors of the Ori don’t notice the helicopter hovering over the building so they are able to get in successfully.

Once inside they waste a couple of terrorist red shirts and find the control room. In the resulting shootout all the terrorists are killed except the Prior. As he flees he is able to trigger the release of the nerve gas, which will mix with the natural gas in the pipelines going out to the city. This will lead to the cleansing fire of the Ori purifying greater LA.

While all this is going on the “B” story with President Palmer’s brother (aka Shaft) is playing out. He has been forced off the road by the Evil Vice President’s (he probably teaches Sunday school and owns an assault rifle) ninja attack squad and is being hunted through the forest like a stag. Red Forman finds out that Shaft cleared the outer checkpoint a half hour ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Since it is only a 5 minute drive from there to the main complex his keen investigator’s mind figures out that something might be wrong. He takes off to search for Shaft.

He finds him, but gets into a firefight with the ninja attack squad. He gets a wounded Shaft into his Secret Service mobile and starts back to the president’s house.

Back at the gas company Jack sees the gas canisters opening up and finds out that nothing can stop the gas from going out to the city. Except blowing up the distribution center. He does this to good effect but as he is fleeing the explosion he sees the Prior trying to steal a police car. A fight ensues when the all consuming flames of the Ori wash over them.

We have to wait until next week to see if Jack still lives.

We are promised that next week we will find out that Mary Todd Weasel’s chief lady in waiting knows the whole truth. Seeing her tortured for information will make up for the light treatment that S4GF got.

A little light reading

It is nice to be able to bring a little light-hearted news to your attention.

From The Conservative Voice:

Events in recent months have shown that France is in the process of
committing national suicide.

The latest round of French violence centers on a law that would
allow French businesses to fire young workers within the first two years of employment without providing a reason. Current French employment law makes it prohibitively difficult for companies to terminate workers.

The high rate of youth unemployment was cited as a contributing factor to the Muslim riots in France last year. Given that unemployment among French young people stands at 23% with rates much higher for impoverished youth, the law is designed to open the door for greater opportunities for the young and inexperienced.

French youth don’t see it that way. They see the law as stripping away a “right” (permanent employment) to which they are “entitled.” This is, of course, all tied to the French system of cradle-to-grave socialism.

The problem is that in a world economy, neither France nor any other single nation makes the rules and the current rules of the global economy do not allow for non-competitive economies to win. The French economy is stagnant and the French are losing in the game of world economics. No amount of marching, rioting or burning of cars will change that.

Everyone who has any sympathy for France or its worthless socialist youth raise your hand.

Anyone? Anyone at all?

Oh well.

Less Evil Today

Despite what some people say my evil rating is lowering. Whacking around a bad character in an unintentionally funny TV show is good not evil.

I see your true colors. . .

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture, and they were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of protesters who said their event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep rally."

"Battle Cry for a Generation" is led by a 44-year-old Concord native, Ron Luce, who wants "God's instruction book" to guide young people away from the corrupting influence of popular culture.

Alright, let’s review the reaction of the city’s government:

That's bad news to Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who told counterprotesters at City Hall on Friday that while such fundamentalists may be small in number, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco."

Thank you Mr. Leno, that’s all we need to know.

I don’t need to comment on this. It stands on its own.

24 Tomorrow Night

A new episode of 24 airs tomorrow night. After last week's episode where not one single person died I hope that we get back to normal. After all it will have been more than an hour since Jack Bauer has killed anyone and he's bound to be getting twitchy.

We are also promised we'll get to see Jack beating the truth out of S4GF. That should be fun.

Other issues of interest: Julie Meyers is staging a takeover of CTU by DHS. Apparently she's bringing the entire Hurricane Katrina task force to run the search for the stolen nerve gas.

That ought to work out just great.

One question. Since the Prior of the Ori planned to take the gas back to Russia to force the Kremlin to hallow the Ori and the whole "gas the US" business is an afterthought how is it that he was able to put together such an elaborate plan? I mean they create diversions, attack CTU, arrange with Matta Hari to buy some super secret schematics to a target that will let them kill 200000 Americans. Talk about a "Plan B". What did the plan to use the gas in Moscow look like?

More on the "Christian" Peacemaker Teams

I found an excellent post on the hypocracy of the Christian Peacemaker Teams over on
Signal 94. Here's a sample, but you need to read the whole thing.

Looking at their operational areas, it is no surprise that they are for the most part active in areas of the world where the United States has a powerful (military) influence or where they can represent ecological interests. Only one country (Chechnya) does not fall into this pattern. Most of their web site is devoted to
"challenging the injustices of the occupation, and telling the stories of those forced to live under it

[snip]

It seems that the CPT haunts countries where the US can be blamed for all manner of mischief and the US military can bail them out if needed.

I can't say that these people are not true Christians. The Bible tells us not to attempt to judge another's heart. I can say that there is no scriptural foundation for what they are doing and that their actions appear to be those of a flock of moonbats using religion as a cover.

Today's Gun Post

The Born Again Redneck has a good post up about the Second Amendment. Here is a sample:

I've just spent a pleasant afternoon blowing plastic milk-jugs full of water to smithereens with our Mossberg 500 12 gauge. The hills are alive with the sound of gun-fire and I feel safer here than I ever did in San Francisco where our neighbors were all anti-gun and the only people with guns were criminals.

If one makes his bed. . .

From The Scotsman:

Yesterday, the row continued, as the Christian group to which Kember belongs, Christian Peacemaker Teams, insisted that other members did not wish to be rescued by soldiers if they were taken hostage in Iraq.

Most CPT activists have signed statements of commitment, making it clear they do not wish any military intervention should they be kidnapped by extremists while in the war-ravaged country.

The case has raised questions about whether the military should take action to help British citizens if they ignore safety warnings and get into trouble in Iraq.

It damn well should “raise questions” about whether the military should take action in these cases. I say that it should not. Why should a soldier risk his life to save some fool who doesn’t want to be saved in the first place?

I think the British government should round up those three ingrates and hand them back over to the terrorists in Iraq.

About Damn Time

From The Washington Times:

LONDON -- Freed peace activist Norman Kember gave qualified thanks yesterday to the soldiers who rescued him and two colleagues after 119 days of captivity in Iraq.

"I do not believe that a lasting peace is achieved by armed force," Mr. Kember said, "but I pay tribute to their courage and thank those who played a part in my rescue."

The brief statement by the retired physics professor appeared to be an attempt to quell the furor surrounding his failure -- and that of others in the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) organization -- to thank the soldiers who risked their lives in the three-month rescue effort.

Frankly, what good are thanks or praise from such people? I’d rather they be honest so that the whole world can know just what they are.

But wait, it gets better:

[Snip]

The three freed hostages refused to take part in a critical debriefing session with intelligence officers.

We wouldn't want to do anything to help keep other people from being kidnapped and tortured and murdered, would we?

[Snip]

"It is the ordinary people of Iraq that you should be talking to -- the people who have suffered so much over many years and still await the stable and just society that they deserve," Mr. Kember said yesterday.

Do these barking moonbats think that Saddam was going to build that “stable and just society”?

If there is ever to be a "stable and just society" in Iraq it will only be because of the efforts of nations like the United States and the United Kingdom and our other coalition partners and the service and sacrifice of our military.

Do these fools think that anything "stable and just" could have grown out of a Europe dominated by Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany? How "stable and just" would Asia be if it were part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere being ruled by Imperial Japan?

Little Jackie 'splains himself

From The Washington Times:

BRUSSELS -- French President Jacques Chirac yesterday defended his eyebrow-raising exit from an EU summit session, accusing the French head of Europe's employer union of insulting French pride by daring to speak in English.

An ardent defender of the French tongue, Mr. Chirac said he was stunned to hear English on the lips of the Frenchman in a speech at the two-day European
summit.

"I was deeply shocked that a Frenchman would speak at the council table in English," he told journalists, explaining for the first time his abrupt walkout when the summit opened on Thursday.

"That's the reason why the French delegation and myself left, so as not to have to listen to that," he added.

Well at least he had a good reason.

More Hillbilly Buttons

White Trash Republican has been hard at work designing more art for the Hillbilly Ecosystem. Here are two of the latest.


I think that Recluses and Moonshiners are all we have now.

La Belle France

Eugene Volokh notes an amusing incident at a recent EU summit where ". . .French President Chirac. . . walked out, followed by his Foreign, Finance and Europe ministers, leaving the 24 other European leaders stunned.... "

What was it that so offended Mr. Chirac?

A French businessman began giving a presentation in English, saying that it "was the language of business".

The Evil backs off a bit.

My rating is a little bit better. I guess the post about the Highland Games makes up for some of the firearms posting.

Our Allies

From The Washington Times:

Moscow had informants inside U.S. Central Command whose information on the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was relayed to dictator Saddam Hussein days before American troops ousted him from power, according to a Defense Department history released yesterday.
And, as U.S. troops encircled Baghdad in April, Russia's ambassador fed information from Moscow's intelligence service to Saddam's regime regarding U.S. troop movements.
The new disclosures show that Moscow was working against the Bush administration in private, as it opposed in public the U.S. desire for a United Nations Security Council resolution explicitly authorizing the invasion.

Is anyone surprised?

The report also says:

Saddam's misguided belief that he would stay in power in 2003 was fed by the support he got from France and Russia, his top aide, Tariq Aziz, told U.S. investigators.
"France and Russia each secure millions of dollars worth of trade and service contracts in Iraq, with the implied understanding that their political posture with regard to sanctions on Iraq would be pro-Iraqi," Mr. Aziz said. "In addition, the French wanted sanctions lifted to safeguard their trade and service contracts in Iraq."

Again, is anyone surprised?

It is good to know who your friends are, and who they aren’t

I look forward to the trial and execution of the traitor(s) inside US Central Command who were spying for Russia.

Another Hillbilly Button

Here's another button for the Hillbilly Ecosystem. As you know all roadsigns in hillbilly country have been peppered with buckshot.

The face of the enemy

From The Washington Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Senior Muslim clerics demanded yesterday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to "pull him into pieces."

In an unusual move, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned President Hamid Karzai yesterday seeking a "favorable resolution" of the case of Abdul Rahman. The 41-year-old former medical aid worker faces the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws for becoming a Christian.

His trial has fired passions in this Muslim nation and highlighted a conflict of values between the West and Islam, which forbids those born as Muslims from converting to other religions.

"Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

This case illustrates the difficulties of dealing with the Islamic world. The Koran is what it is and this is what it says. The great majority of the Afghan people are fundamentalist Muslims and letting this guy go free is as incomprehensible to them as Moloch worship (where parents burn their own infant children to death as a sacrifice to the god) is to the average Christian.

This is why, despite what anyone might say to the contrary, Islam is the enemy in this war. It is Islam that inspires Osama bin Laden and Islam that sends young Palestinians into crowded Israeli restaurants wearing suicide vests. As the 9/11 hijackers sat in the cockpits of their hijacked airliners and saw the towers of the World Trade Center growing large before them they cried out, “Allah is great”.

It was Islam that sent millions of average Muslims out into the streets to celebrate after the video footage of the Towers falling was shown on international cable news. It is Islam that inspires kidnappers to take innocent hostages in Iraq and saw their heads off on live TV.

It was young men whose minds had stewed in Islam who drove a boat laden with explosives into the USS Cole. It was a man in the grip of Islam who drove an SUV into a crowd of students at Chapel Hill.

Even though dictatorial Muslim governments have murdered more Muslims in the past few decades than all the Western/Crusader/Christian/Jewish forces have in all of history it is Islam that leads Muslims to support those governments and oppose any attempt to liberate their victims.

It is time, and past time, to start calling our enemy by its true name. We are not fighting a war on terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology or a nation. Imagine Churchill calling on the British people to fight and defeat Blitzkrieg or Roosevelt asking congress for a declaration of war on Surprise Attacks after Pearl Harbor.

I am not saying that our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow illegitimate unless we also invade Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I am saying that we need a long term strategy to eliminate Islam as an influence in the world. This can be done either by converting Muslims to another faith(s) or by reforming Islam into a non-malignant form.

We are sometimes told that reformation of Islam is something that can only come from within. I do not agree. Martin Luther found that it was impossible to reform the Roman Catholic Church from within. The unscriptural additions to Christianity that Luther objected to were what the hierarchy of the RCC at that time was most interested in protecting (because that was the source of their power).

In the same fashion imams who demand that nations be governed by their interpretation of the Koran will not willingly give up that power. Those who would reform Islam face an additional problem that Luther did not have to deal with. While Luther objected to those parts of Roman Catholic doctrine that had no foundation in the Bible, and could therefore appeal to the Bible for support the would-be Muslim reformer cannot do the same with the Koran.

The Koran, despite Mohammad’s pretensions to divine inspiration, is nothing more than the recorded sayings of a murdering, child molesting, highway robber who managed to form a really big gang and then order them to spread his “faith” at sword point. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar have more in common with the historical Mohammad than any of Islam’s moderates.

The fact is that it is the Islamofascists who can appeal to the Koran for support and the reformer who must twist meanings and import alien doctrines into the religion. This makes reform extremely problematic. In fact it may be impossible. This leaves one other option.

Conversion. If enough Muslims convert to another, non murderous, faith then the problem largely goes away. It is strange to think that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association may have more to do with winning the war than the United States Marine Corps.

The great problem with conversion as official policy is that the US government is constitutionally forbidden to engage in this kind of activity. If conversion is to be an answer, even a partial one, to the problem it will have to come from non-governmental organizations and persons. At any rate it cannot be counted on to have any significant impact. I’m not saying that it couldn’t, just that we cannot count on it.

Of course there is another thing that could work. Cattle prod every Muslim now living in the west back to the Middle East and place all of the oil fields under American control. Without their oil money and denied the ability to infiltrate Western nations the Global Jihad would be reduced to throwing rocks, at each other.

Is that a practical solution? Probably not. To the Roman Empire it would have been, but we are so mired in political correctness that we would never be able to summon the will.

This leaves us doing what we have been doing since the end of WWII. Just muddling through somehow. Historically Islam goes quiescent when faced with power that it can’t overcome. If we can somehow maintain the will to keep our forces in Iraq until they have a stable government and effective military (something that could take 10 or 15 years) it is likely that the jihad will go back underground for another generation or two.

FACT OF THE DAY

On 24 March 1603 the crowns of England and Scotland were united when Queen Elizabeth I of England was succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland. He ascended the throne of England as King James I. Read more on James at heritage.scotsman.com

Hillbilly Ecosystem Update

We have our first button. Anyone who wants to can grab this and put it up on their blog. Link it back to the Hillbilly Ecosystem post below. There are more buttons on the way.

I can't thank the Dowager Viscountess enough for her hard work on this. Drop by her blog and pay her a visit. Just remember to keep your feet off the furniture and bring your own beer.

Grandfather Mountain Highland Games

This lovely young woman is Jen Hamel. She sang and played guitar for the the high-energy traditional/contemporary Celtic group Clandestine. They are sadly disbanded, but they left 4 CDs behind. Their piper, EJ Jones has a website where you can order them. They were based in Texas and a pub called Mcgonigels Mucky Duck was where they got their start. After (actually slightly before) the breakup Jen moved to Asheville. I used to run into her on the street and in Jack of the Wood. She was conducting songwriters workshops and had a group called Moresby that played around the area. Then she sort of dropped out of sight (or at least my sight). I heard that she got married to a local club owner, but don't know how reliable that bit of intelligence is.

I took this picture at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games and Gathering of Scottish Clans in MacRae Meadows on Grandfather Mountain, NC about 5 years ago. The games are held in July (this year July 6-9). As you can see from the way she is dressed it was warm that day. It isn't always warm on the mountain in July. I can remember some games where it rained so hard that they had to cancel the music and some where it was so cold that you had to have a winter coat or a blanket.

I plan to post some more pictures from the games later on in connection with the Gathering of the Blogs.

The Moonbats Screech

The "Christian" Peacemaker Teams issued a statement regarding the rescue of their team members who had been captured and held hostage in Iraq by terrorist forces. You can read it here.

Notice first the absolute ingratitude of these leftist weasels. There is not one word of thanks for the US Military personnel who risked their lives to save these unworthy loons.

Remember if this group had their way Saddam Hussein would still be filling mass graves and his sons would still be raping adolescent girls and torturing athletes for failing to win gold medals in the Olympics.

These alpha hotels have more sympathy for and solidarity with, the murdering terrorists who tortured and murdered their own coworker, who want to restore a mass murdering sociopath to his throne, than they have for the American military. The same American military which freed that nation and is rebuilding it after three decades of deterioration and destruction at the hands of the monster that this group would see still in power.

These people call themselves Christians, but there is no scriptural basis for their doctrines. They have simply dressed up extreme leftist hatred of the West in pseudo religious garb. The next time any of these people get themselves captured by terrorists I hope the military just lets them rot.

Atomic Terrorism

From The Scotsman:

A BRITISH terror cell member planned to buy a nuclear bomb, while others plotted attacks on a shopping centre, nightclub and the power network, the Old
Bailey heard yesterday.

The details emerged on the second day of the prosecution's case against seven men accused of planning to carry out explosions using bombs made from ammonium nitrate fertiliser.

David Waters, QC, told the jury that Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire, was told about a "radio-isotope bomb" while he was in Pakistan.

Mr Waters said the plan was to buy the device from the Russian mafia in Belgium.

There never was any realistic chance that they could get a nuclear bomb on the black market. However this shows us what the terrorists would do if they got the chance.

Pakistan has the bomb. Since Saudi Arabia financed the Paki nuclear program it is highly likely that they have a few of the estimated 50-100 bombs that the Pakistani’s have produced. Both of these nations have radicalized populations that have more sympathy for Osama bin Laden than they do with their own governments.

Should either of those states be destabilized and toppled by Islamists it is a virtual certainty that at least one functioning nuclear device, not “dirty bomb”, but actual A-bomb, will find its way into terrorist hands.

Now Iran is far along in its nuclear program. That is another nation that would certainly supply terrorists with nuclear weapons, if they don’t just use them themselves. The US and Israel need to have plans to enter these nations and secure their nuclear weapons and nuclear materials on a moment’s notice.

I wonder if we do. I also wonder if Europe is even capable of understanding that this is their problem too. And if Europe is aware of the fact that they have a problem do they any longer have the will to do anything about it?

Tell me something else I don't already know

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world.Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them.When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well.But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's" Your Beer Personality?

Oops!

Our new friend at Christian Pundits tells us that the evil cult calling itself Westboro Baptist Chruch, you know the ones who picket military funerals, has ties to former Vice President Al Gore. She even has pictures! Go take a look.

Remember how pictures turned up of Jimmy Carter's wife with John Wayne Gasey and Jim Jones? Too bad the old wood block isn't going to run for president again.

The Hillbilly Ecosystem

I have been asked to elaborate on the rankings in the Hillbilly Ecosystem so after due consultation with the Dowager Viscountess at White Trash Republican here they are.

Anyone who wishes to participate in the Hillbilly Ecosystem may do so. We will use the honor system so just figure out where you belong on the scale and place that rating on your blog. Email me and I’ll create a blogroll for you to be a part of.

All levels are armed because. . . well, we're hillbillys.


Entry level:
Lightly Armed Welfare Queen
This is for blogs that have no linkage and the only traffic is from the blog owner, his/her real world friends and search engine pings. This is the only Hillbilly Ecosystem rank that is lightly armed since a welfare queen will not usually have more than an old H&R .32 around the house. She depends on her heavily armed white trash boyfriend (one of whom will always be living with her) for protection.


Middle Levels:
Heavily Armed Howling Drunk
This is for blogs that have a few links and are starting to get a handful of regular readers.
In real life the howling drunk is a manual laborer who’s only recreation, other than shooting at tin cans and poaching deer, is to tie one on every payday. You will often find them living with the welfare queen. Sometimes they father the unwed welfare mother’s children.

Heavily Armed Recluse
This blog is beginning to build a good collection of links, including at least one large or mid level blog will have them blogrolled. They are beginning to build a base of fans that read regularly and leave comments. They are like the retired hillbilly who lives alone in his cabin living off his Social Security and maybe a pension from the mill or the army (or both). This guy watches the TV news and reads the daily paper so he knows what is going on in the world.

Heavily Armed Truck Driver
This blog is beginning to get some notice. At least one of his posts has been linked to on other blogs and he is on over 15 blogrolls. In the world of the hillbilly truck driver is a good job. It pays well and allows one to see some of the world. You have enough money to marry the mother of your children and the kind of women you can attract will want to be married before having your kids. Of course this doesn’t mean that you won’t knock up a few welfare queens on the side (you are a hillbilly after all).

Heavily Armed Line Foreman
This blog is on at least 35 blogrolls and has become a known element in his end of the blogpool. More than half of his blog posts get comments. The line foreman has a position of responsibility in the mill. He supervises the work of other hillbillies. He makes enough money to drive a new car (4 door sedan) and can send his kids to the church school rather than public school. His wife will have had no children out of wedlock and will be some kind of professional. Perhaps a nurse or teacher or even beautician, something that requires a license.

Heavily Armed Moonshiner
This blog is on over 60 blogrolls and has more than 1000 hits per month. This blog is large and well known enough to attract spam and trolls (the price of success). The moonshiner is the quintessiential hillbilly entrepreneur. He operates his own business making good corn liquor (or likker as it is known in the hills). That this is against the law matters not one little bit. It just means that some of his profits have to go to the Sheriff.

Heavily Armed Saloon Keeper
This blog has more than 200 hits per day and is blogrolled on over 200 other blogs. Almost every post gets comments and the commentors know each other. This blog has reached the place of being a self sustaining presence on the web. People who don’t even read it know about it. The tavern keeper is, like the moonshiner, a hillbilly entrepreneur except that his saloon is legal. This means that the he has to pay taxes (this is in addition to what he has to pay the sheriff so that his patrons don’t all get pulled over for drunk driving right after they leave). If the law allows it he can even have nekkid white trash girls dancing on the tables. The saloon keeper has the potential to retire wealthy.


The Higher Levels:
Heavily Armed Plant Manager
This blog is getting big. It is a “large mammal” or “playful primate” in the TTLB system and has so many readers who comment that they know each other and have conversations with each other in the comment threads. We’re talking about more than 2000 hits per day here. If the blog owner wants he can make enough money to pay for beer and ammunition by selling advertising. He won’t be able to quit his day job though. In hillbilly towns the plant manager is one of the most important people. He ranks above the sheriff, preacher and mayor on the social scale. He and his wife drive new cars and his kids dress in fashion which is only a few years behind the big cities. His on-the-side girlfriend will be someone with a college degree who works with him at the mill.

Heavily Armed Mill Owner
This blog is big. It has reached “mortal human” status in the TTLB system. This blog has more than 1500 links and can get you a respectable second income. You are quoted on other blogs and the mega blogs link to you on a daily basis. In the hillbilly’s world the mill owner stands just below God. Even people who don’t work for him fear him because someone in their family or some friend will be in his employ. If you make him mad he can ruin you by letting it be known that “friends of his don’t trade with you”. He doesn’t just have girlfriends on the side; he has full blown mistresses, some in other states!

Heavily Armed $100,000,000 Lottery Winner
This blog is in the “higher being” category on TTLB. This blog generates more than $5000.00 per month from advertising. If your blog gets this big you can get a book deal for the asking. You can get on the Sunday morning news shows as a talking head pundit anytime you want and you will be asked (if you don’t already) to write a regular column in a news magazine or a newspaper. In the hillbilly’s most cherished dreams he will win a mega million dollar lottery. He can live in a house as nice as the mill owner’s without having to work another day in his life. He can have a 1000+ gun collection and have sex with as many of the nekkid white trash girls who dance at the saloon keeper’s bar as he wants to. In fact the saloon keeper who used to make him open up his wallet and show him money before pouring him a drink will call him sir and talk to him about business ventures he might be interested in. The plant manager will always look down his nose at him, but he could care less. He can finally tell that SOB to go piss up a rope like he always wanted to.

UPDATE:

Here is a link to a post with all of the Hillbilly Ecosystem graphics:

http://hillbillywhitetrash.blogspot.com/2006/04/hillbilly-graphics.html

Here is a link to a post with instructions for joining the Ecosystem:

http://hillbillywhitetrash.blogspot.com/2006/05/joining-ecosystem.html

If you have trouble with anything click on the "email Lemuel" link on my sidebar and send me a note and I'll try to help.

Bush Lied

In order for someone to lie they must say something which they know to be untrue. If Bush lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, that is if he said they were there when he knew for a fact that they weren't, the following must be true.

Bush must have had a source of intelligence about Iraq that the CIA and the DOD did not have.
Bush must have had a source of intelligence about Iraq that the intelligence services of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Israel did not have.
Bush must have had a source of intelligence about Iraq that Saddam Hussein's own top ranking generals did not have.

I call upon the Left to name, in detail, what this source of intelligence was. Did the president somehow personally manage recruit one of Saddam's sons to spy for him and then tell no one about it? How did he get the reports from this spy? Did the intelligence service of some other country like Liberia or perhaps Togo have a spy in Saddam's most inner circle and tell Bush about it in direct communications, bypassing diplomatic channels?

Perhaps the Left believes that Mr. Bush has psychic powers. A crystal ball perhaps, or does he stare into a bowl of water like Nostradamus? Or maybe he has a familiar spirit which appears to him in the form of a cat or small bird? Oh I know, he took Courtney Brown's mail order class in remote viewing.

The truth is that even Saddam's top generals thought that there was a stockpile of chemical weapons and were shocked when they failed to turn up after the war. One high ranking official in the Iraqi government has come forward to explain what happened. Just prior to the war there was a natural disaster in Syria. Saddam used relief efforts as a cover for moving his chemical weapons stockpile to Syria.

They existed and they still exist. To everyone on the Left and to far too many on the Right it is a settled fact that there were no Iraqi WMDs. This erroneous conventional wisdom may wind up giving Syria cover to give some of these chemical weapons to terrorists. Would it be possible for the Democrat Party (otherwise known as the Party of Treason) and its lapdog mainstream media to admit that the nerve gas which just killed 85000 people in the NYC subway came from Iraq by way of Syria when they have become totally invested in the idea that there was no Iraqi nerve gas to start with.

Since WMD in Syria could have only come from Iraq I suspect that the Democrat Party, the mainstream media, the CIA, the State Department, and parts of the DOD and DHS (all of which hate Bush and have attempted to undermine him in the past) would move heaven and earth to ensure that any investigation of where terrorists got WMD would point to anywhere except Syria.

Does Syria know this?

UPDATE

I added a link to a Powerline post about the movement of Saddam's WMD's to Syria.

24 commentary

Let’s see. Homeland Security is taking over CTU. Since CTU is a DOD operation it would take a literal act of Congress to move it between agencies, but that won’t stop the Evil Vice President (who we just know is behind the whole thing, I’ll bet he’s not just a Christian, but a Deacon in his church).

Speaking of the Evil Vice President lets talk about his most Evil Plot. Imposing martial law on LA. Now if you have terrorists running around LA with nerve gas and they want to kill as many people as possible how would you prevent them from doing that? Well, you might keep people off the streets and out of the theaters, shopping malls, restaurants, sports arenas, churches, and various workplaces. You might want to shut down traffic on the city streets and freeways to make it harder for the terrorists to move about and plant their nerve gas canisters. How can you do these things? Perhaps declare martial law and impose a curfew?

The truth is that kind of situation is why the law allows martial law in the first place. This particular plot point is, in its own way, one of the most ridiculous parts of the show to date.

Matta Hari fingered S4GF, also known as Audrey Raines, as the one who sold the super secret schematics to the Head Prior of the Ori. This is going to be good. Of course, the first thing that would occur to a normal human being was that the traitor in DOD was only using Audrey’s name. The first thing that will likely occur to Jack Bauer is exactly what kind of torture to apply to Audrey to get her to talk.

Evil Vice President (most likely an NRA life member) didn’t want President Palmer’s brother to hand over something to Red Foreman so he ordered his squad of ninja assassins (otherwise known as his Secret Service protective detail?) to kill him. So they overtake his car in a big black SUV and shoot out his tire then hunt him through the woods like a deer. Instead of say, setting up a roadblock and acting like just another layer of security at the presidential compound which he would have stopped for.

Oh well, that’s all for tonight.

Attention Tarheel Gun Nuts

This sounds like it's going to be a real party.

Grass Roots North Carolina, P.O. Box 10684, Raleigh, NC 27605 919-664-8565, www.grnc.org

GRNC Alert Hotline: (919) 562-4137

GRNC Update 03-20-06: GRNC's 1st Annual Full Auto Classic

Here's your opportunity to shoot exotic machine guns you've only read about... and to do it for the cause of freedom!

Shoot Machine Guns with John Ross, author of Unintended Consequences

To raise money for GRNC's "Remember in November" project-through which we distribute more than 80,000 voter guides covering all state and federal races across North Carolina-John Ross, Class III dealer and celebrated author of "Unintended Consequences," will bring dozens of machine guns for your shooting pleasure. How often has defending your rights been this much fun?

Only 150 Spots Available - Sign up now!

Event schedule: May 6, 9:00 AM to 7:30 PM 9:00-10:00 AM: GRNC annual meeting 10:00-11:30 AM: Seminar: Legislative Tactics for Gun Rights Advocates 11:30 AM-1:00 PM: Seminar: Media Management for Gun Rights Advocates 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM: Machine gun shoot (covered range: rain or shine) 12:00-2:00 PM: Kids' .22 match rifle (awards at 2:30) 2:00-4:00 PM: Steel plate "limited" class pistol match (awards at 4:30) 5:30-7:30 PM: Annual dinner w/ guest speaker Rep. Mark Hilton

Where: NC Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #10 range near Statesville, NC
Directions: Take I-77 to exit 45 (Barium Springs) (just south of Statesville exits). Head toward northbound on-ramp (follow signs to KOA Kampground) and turn right onto Dover Road. Follow this road about 1 mile and turn right on dirt road to range.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sign up online at: http://www.grnc.org/updates/full_auto_signup.htm

Coming up in the world

I am getting blogrolled by a good number of blogs and my per day hit counter is rising. This has caused both my TTLB rating and my Hillbilly rating to rise as well. I am now an adorable little rodent in the TTLB Ecosystem and a Heavily Armed Moonshiner in the Hillbilly Ecosystem.

If things keep going like this soon I'll be a marsupial and a saloon keeper, respectively.

Wish me luck.

24 tonight!

Less than half an hour till tonight's episode of 24! I hope it a more cheerful episode than last week's. Back to torturing and killing terrorists.

Crazy Howard

There is a poll up on the Daily Kos asking this question: "Do you approve of the way DNC Chairman Howard Dean is doing his job?"

Out of 5005 votes cast 86% of the respondents say "Yes", Howard Dean is going a good job.

I'm about 60% less worried about November now.

Not all preachers of hate wear turbans

I was checking out Stop the ACLU and saw this post by Jay. It seems that a Michigan congressman will soon introduce legislation to protect mourners at military funerals from protesters. This is inspired by the insane actions of “pastor” Fred Phelps and his pod-people followers at the Westboro Baptist Church.

In case you haven’t been following this story “pastor” Phelps has decided that God is punishing America for our arrogance and our tolerance of gays. The punishment is expressed through natural disasters like hurricane Katrina and by battlefield deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These nutjobs picket funerals of military personnel who have fallen in the war carrying signs with messages like “God Loves Dead Soldiers”, “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Die God Laughs”.

This cult has a website called, God Hates Fags. I went there and checked out their statement of faith. They claim to be Christians in the Calvinist tradition. They associate themselves with great men of faith like Martin Luther, John Knox, Augustine, Charles Spurgeon and, John Calvin.

They may have sound doctrine in their mouths, but they do not have it in their hearts. The message of both Old and New Testaments is the extraordinary lengths that God will go to seek and save sinners. From God reasoning with Cain over his rejected sacrifice to St. Steven’s dying prayer that God would “not lay this sin to their charge” about the men who were murdering him. The Bible paints a picture of a God who “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked”.

The true Christian sees the lost as a mission field to be harvested, not as enemies to be spit upon. Yes there are political agendas that must be opposed (special rights for gays and abortion on demand are two) and sometimes poking fun is the best way to make the point. However, the purpose, the bedrock fundamental purpose, of a Christian Church is to seek and save the lost, period.

You do not do this by going out of your way to make yourself as obnoxious as humanly possible. The only glimpse of Christ that many unbelievers will ever get is what he sees in the character of people who identify themselves as Christian. The only Bible many of the lost will ever read is what they read in the actions of those who identify themselves as Christian.

If you pervert your own actions supposedly done in the name of God then how are you different than Mohammad or Joseph Smith or Jim Jones?

Banned!

This from the Daily Times of Pakistan (hat tip: Michelle Malkin):

ISLAMABAD: The government has blocked all websites that carry caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) on the Internet, and the attorney general has been asked to explore legal avenues for implementing a global ban on these sites.

A three-member bench, consisting of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Javed Buttar and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, issued notices and directed the attorney general to inform the court next Monday as to how it could prevent access to such objectionable material on the internet worldwide. The bench was jointly hearing the petition of Dr Mohammad Imran Uppal and Maulvi Iqbal Haider, seeking a complete blockage of sites carrying the cartoons and their depictions.

[snip]

Advocate Qamar Afzal stated in his arguments that the availability of the caricatures on the Internet, which have hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims worldwide, should be declared “intellectual terrorism”. Maulvi Iqbal Haider stated that though the site had been blocked, the sacrilegious cartoons could still be accessed through various search engines. Advocate Ibrahim Satti, counsel for Iqbal Haider, also stated that an FIR on the availability of the sacrilegious material under blasphemy laws had not been registered by the concerned police station, despite the court’s orders.

Notice how they are not content with banning any site where the cartoons can be viewed from Pakistan. They want a worldwide ban. You and I shouldn’t be able to view the cartoons any more than a Pakistani should.

These are “moderate Muslims” and our allies in the GWOT (they also have the bomb).

This is another example of the massive sense of entitlement that Muslims walk around with. The entire rest of the world must shape itself to their desires and rewrite its laws and reorder its culture to avoid giving offense to Islam.

Apologies are owed.

I just checked my Asheville.com email account and found several emails in it. Most were spam, but three were from readers of this blog. One was sent back on March 5th. I just now saw these. I knew that the Asheville.com email service was slow, but this is ridiculous.

I created a new hotmail account and changed the email link at the left. If you have sent me an email and not received a reply that is the reason. Please resend it to the new address.

I apologize to White Trash Republican, FITS and Sgt. Gehlen especially.

The new email address is: lemuelcalhoon@hotmail.com

Tell me something I don't know

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from. And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics... Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Evil continues to grow

My Gematriculator evil rating continues to creep upward. It must be all the posting about firearms and Second Amendment issues.

Scottish Post

FACT OF THE DAY

On the 19th day of March 1813, Dr David Livingstone was born in Lanarkshire. The famous missionary and explorer was the first European to see the Zambezi River and the Victoria Falls in 1855. To read more about Dr Livingstone go to heritage.scotsman.com

From The Scotsman. In honor of the upcoming Gathering of the Blogs.

The LARK Program

This came via email.


THE LARK PROGRAM

Let's hope that this is true. This is a great letter.A Lady libertarian wrote a lot of letters to the White House complainingabout the treatment of captive insurgents (terrorists) being held inGuantanamo Bay.

She received back the following reply:

__________________________________________________

The White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. 20016Dear Concerned Citizen,Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of theTaliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heardloud and clear here in Washington. You'll be pleased to learn that, thanksto the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division ofthe Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals AcceptResponsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided toplace one terrorist under your personal care. Your personal detainee hasbeen selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard toyour residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be caredfor pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter ofcomplaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistantcaretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standardsof care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended inyour letter. Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hopethat your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem"will help him overcome these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct indescribing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand thatyou plan to offer counseling and home schooling.

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat andcan extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nailclippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills atyour next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety ofexplosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keepthose items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (exceptsexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is aparticularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violenttendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that hewill recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure you will come to enjoythe anonymity offered by the burka -- over time. Just remember that it isall part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" -- wasn'tthat how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like youkeep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care ofAhmed - and remember...we'll be watching.

Good luck!

Cordially, your friend,

Don Rumsfeld

Gun Control

Fits over at shootingthemessinger had one of those “why the hell didn’t I write that” posts up a few days ago. Blogger made his blog inaccesable right about that time so I waited until I could post a link that wouldn’t be a dead end to comment on it here.

His point, which I want to endorse and expand on here, is that the NRA and the 2nd Amendment community need to rethink their approach to defending our gun rights.

Fits says:

For many reasons, hunting continues to decline, while at the same time personal ownership of guns for self defense is skyrocketing.The firearms community has long been involved in an inner struggle between many hunters who feel that if you can't hunt with it, you shouldn't be allowed to own it, and those who take the 2nd Amendment seriously. With each passing year, the remaining hunters pay less and less of the bill to keep the major support organizations afloat, but groups such as the NRA continue to treat them as if their use for weapons remains the primary, and indeed most important one.

I would add the competition target shooters to the list of dead weight as well. You know the people I’m talking about. You see them at the range with their .22’s. They have their spotting scope set up and they’ll pop off a round and check the scope. The biggest part of them would be perfectly happy to lock their guns up at the gun club when they get through shooting and go home unarmed. I haven’t had any contact with the Asheville Rifle and Pistol Club for over 15 years, but back in the ‘80s we called them “the peers on the Nile” (the range is located on a river) because of their elitist attitude. Nothing that smacked of action shooting was allowed and they deeply frowned upon anything that looked “military”. Needless to say the leadership of this bunch had no problem with J. Warren Cassidy’s administration of the NRA.

Another thing that the 2nd Amendment community needs to look at is our relationship with the law enforcement community. Traditionally cops were strong defenders of the citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. They knew the horror that criminal violence could bring to honest citizens and they knew that they couldn’t be everywhere at once. For the frequent times that they couldn’t get there in time to do anything but call the ambulance, or the coroners van, and write the report they wanted the good people to have the means for effective self defense.

This is still the norm in most places with the street level police officer, but it is becoming increasingly rare in urban and suburban police administrations and in the leadership of the large police unions. While elected sheriffs and police chiefs in rural and small town Red State America still support citizen’s 2nd Amendment rights, even to the point of supporting “shall issue” concealed carry laws, Blue State upper level law enforcement is almost uniformly anti-gun.

The reason for this attitude in the leadership of the police unions, the FOP and the PBA, are those organizations’s domination by cops from big city departments. NYPD has more police officers than some entire states do. Police officers running for leadership positions in the union know that the political leadership of their cities is rabidly anti-gun so they can trade their organization’s support for strict gun control laws for higher wages and better benefit packages.

Police administrators in large cities take the same approach to gun control for the same reason. They hold their jobs at the pleasure of mayors and city counsels so they dance to the tune that those politicians call. Many of them also harbor political ambitions of their own and know that liberal urban electorates will not reward a pro-gun maverick at the polls.

Signs definitely indicate that the pro-gun attitude of the street cop are, or soon will be, beginning to change, at least in the Blue States. The reason for this is the aggressive screening process that departments, both urban and rural, are beginning to implement to weed out “undesirable” candidates. Of course one of the things that mark one as “undesirable” is liking firearms and thinking that average citizens have the right to own them and use them for self defense.

Officers are asked questions like, “would you rather read a news magazine like TIME or a gun magazine”, and “do you collect guns”. Wrong answers on enough of these questions means you have no career in law enforcement. I have a friend who has spent a big chunk of his adult life in law enforcement in bluest of the blue states New Jersey. He tells me that he knows a lot of cops who just lie on these tests. But he also tells me that a lot of the younger officers don’t need to lie.

They were born and raised in the urban Northeast and never hunted or plinked as children. They were brought up by left wing parents who took gun control as an article of faith. They spent their youths being given the anti-gun message in school and on television (name the last time you saw a pro-gun episode of a situation comedy). To them guns are things used by criminals to harm the innocent and by cops to stop the criminals. They take this attitude with them through the police academy, where it is reinforced, and out onto the streets.

Once working as police officers there is literally no job related upside to being pro-gun for them. Their union can get them a bigger raise if they support the Mayor’s latest gun buyback boondoggle and their departmental administration will make their life a living hell if they do something so dumb as to write a letter to a newspaper supporting something like concealed carry for citizens (the paper may not print the letter, but a copy of it will find its way onto the Chief’s desk). Even if their job related firearms training shows them that they love shooting and guns their badge will allow them to own as many weapons as they please and shoot anytime they please. They can carry 24/7 and keep a loaded gun at home for their wives and children to protect themselves with. So there is just no reason for them to oppose gun control laws.

The young cop, like his older brothers in blue, still sees the horrors of violent crime inflicted upon the innocent. Unlike his older brothers, though, he has been conditioned to see the answer as more cops on the street, more surveillance cameras, more prisons, more social programs and more gun control.

This changing police attitude to firearms in civilian hands was nowhere more evident than New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. When the Mayor ordered the police to confiscate firearms from the residents who remained in the city the department implemented the order with not one sign of reluctance. In a city in which law and order had broken down, where a substantial number of police officers failed to report for duty, some because they had fled (some in stolen cars) and some because they were out looting and others because they never really existed in the first place, the police took time out from catching the looters, rapists and murderers that were running wild and began to disarm elderly women.

They did this in violation of the Louisiana state Constitution and the United States Constitution, both of which have “keep and bear arms” written into them. They did this with zeal and with no apparent moral compunction. Then they lied about it. They denied doing what they had been caught on film doing. They lied to a federal judge when taken to court about it. They continued to lie until the Mayor and the Police Chief were threatened with jail for contempt of court.

I listen to conservative talk radio and NRA radio every day and I have yet to hear of any rank-and-file officer from New Orleans refusing to carry out this illegal order or expressing any regret for what his/her department did. Of course going public could cost one his job, but radio allows anonymity.

I do not think that the NRA and other pro-gun organizations should become reflexively anti-cop. However we should recognize, like the civil rights movement of the ‘60s did, that for the most part the police are on the other side. If the legislature of your state passes a law that makes it a crime to carry a loaded gun in your car and the cop who stops you at a sobriety checkpoint sees that you have one he will probably not say, “well the politicians had no right to pass that unconstitutional law so I’m going to look the other way”. What he will most likely do is arrest you on a weapons charge and take you to jail.