The platoon leader in me knew we couldn’t shoot yet, and tugged at my brain like a giant anchor holding in place a battleship on full throttle. Escalation of force. Fuck. Rules of engagement. Double fuck. They haven’t technically dug anything yet, thus, haven’t begin emplacing anything. SGT Axel was ready, certainly, zeroing in on the two human silhouettes with a long-barreled machine gun of raw destruction, but the Iraq War has become so PC, so cluttered, so trigger-shy five years into the war, that any round fired – no matter how justified or understandable at the time of the incident – yields paperwork inquiries and scrutiny more fitting of a Senate Judiciary Committee report. Staff monkeys have found new purpose in this combat zone as Monday morning quarterbacks, conducting investigations with omnipotent spotlights to cut through the fog of war days after the storm passed. I’m not claiming that such retrospective studies are not healthy for a military unit, nor am I arguing that precision and restraint should not be fundamentals ingrained in every soldier fighting an insurgency. Part of what makes an American soldier an American soldier is that he fights with rules that sometimes hinder him, in an attempt to keep sight of the ideals and principles which led him to fight in the first place. That’s all gravy. I am stating, however, that the fact that these thoughts clouded my mind in a decisive moment of combat – and not just my mind, as it would turn out – proves that we are officially no longer on the offensive here. To repeat a new mantra of some of my NCOs, “Uncle Sam has gone soft.”
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
And this is why politicians should stay out of the war!
A Democrat Congressman working to undermine Columbia's government
A hard drive recovered from the computer of a killed Colombian guerrilla has offered more insights into the opposition of House Democrats to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia's most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia's elected and popular government.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Let me get this straight - - -
But, video of the faults of Islam - wwweeeellllllllll now, THAT'S a different story:
Web host suspends site planned for anti-Koran film
Source: Reuters
AMSTERDAM, March 23 (Reuters) - A U.S.-based web service, which Islam critic and Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders planned to use to show his film critical of the Koran, said on Saturday that it had inactivated the site due to complaints.
"This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy," the company said on the site www.fitnathemovie.com.
Amazing how persusaive violence and the threat of death can be. Inch by inch, the world surrends to the evil of Islamists.
The bravest man on earth this Easter Sunday.
Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim
VATICAN CITY -
Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.
An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel." As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.
Obama: 'Outrageously wrong' to reprint Hamas manifesto
Says 'I certainly wasn't in church' when defenseof terror appeared on 'Pastor's Page' of bulletin.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Huh, imagine that! The planet has been COOLING for the past 10 years.
Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.
Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"
She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."
Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"
Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it.
State of the christian church in Britain?? Under attack.
Canon Michael Ainsworth, a priest and colleague of mine just a couple of miles from my rectory in the City of London, was recently attacked in his churchyard by three youths. Michael suffered two black eyes, cuts and bruises. He was taken into hospital and his wife Janina, also a priest, said: "It's obvious that the attack on Michael does contain a religious element." It certainly is obvious: his attackers shouted, "You f------ priest!" as they beat him up.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Obama a Marxist mole??
In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama’s life
as a “secret smoker” and how he “went to great lengths to conceal the habit.”
But what about Obama’s secret political life? It turns out that Obama’s
childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist.
An important Anniversary
Palestinians appetite for violence.
According to the poll, of 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of Israel’s most prominent centers of religious Zionism and ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Mr. Shikaki said that result was the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
Is hatred just a natural part of the black preacher??
Friday, March 14, 2008
Who profits most from today's high oil prices?
CNN attributes most of the profits from gasoline to crude oil producers, and while that’s true CNN did leave another aspect out: Regulatory, usage and royalty fees paid to the government. Crude oil may be at $110/barrel right now, but it can cost as much as $70/barrel to actually get it.
And of that $40 per barrel, CNN attributes most of the profits from gasoline to crude oil producers, and while that’s true CNN did leave another aspect out: Regulatory, usage and royalty fees paid to the government. Crude oil may be at $110per barrel right now, but it can cost as much as $70 per barrel to actually get it.
"While Exxon made over $40 billion in 2007, a 60% increase from 2004, it paid over $100 billion in taxes and royalties."made over $40 billion in 2007, a 60% increase from 2004, it paid over $100 billion in taxes and royalties.
Read that sentence very closly, they paid governments MORE THAN DOUBLE what their profits were.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
From the mouth of Obama's preacher: "Hillary ain't never been called a nigger," he says at the climax.
Barack Obama’s controversial pastor and the church he’s served for 36 years may be in hot water over statements he has made from the pulpit in support of the Illinois senator’s run for the White House.The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. preaches that he follows the righteous path, but when it comes to the federal tax law, his Trinity United Church of Christ may have crossed the line.
Although Wright delivered what was billed as his final sermon last month on his path to retirement, prior to his departure he delivered commentary from the pulpit now being scrutinized in which he praised Obama.
The video of his sermon is mind boggling - a true racist bigot at work.
Update: Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. More words of wisdom from Obama's spiritual mentor.
Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11I think Obama has some explaining to do.
A closer look at McCain's record is more than a little disturbing.
The prevalent view of McCain is that he is a generally conservative figure with a few maverick stances and an unwavering authenticity. Nearly every liberal editorial board that has made a Republican endorsement has chosen McCain, and nearly all have offered variations on the same theme. "Voters may disagree with his policies, but few doubt his sincerity," editorialized The Boston Globe. "The Arizona senator's conservatism is, if not always to our liking, at least genuine," concluded the Los Angeles Times. This is the consensus: McCain's basically a right-winger, but at least you know where he stands.
Actually, this assessment gets McCain almost totally backward. He has diverged wildly and repeatedly from conservative orthodoxy, but he has also reinvented himself so completely that it has become nearly impossible to figure out what he really believes.
Just what about Clinton's claims of being experienced enough to lead the nation??
TIME decided to cut through the spin with a series that will take a closer look at the claims candidates make. As Senator Clinton is fond of saying, It's time to get real. We kick off the series by evaluating three of the achievements she mentions most often:
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Climate alarmists pose real threat to freedom
A WEEK ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will nevertheless be identical: the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality. What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its present strongest version, climate alarmism.
Bush: ‘Fairness Doctrine’ unfair
In Nashville today, during a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, President Bush said there’s nothing fair about the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that once required broadcasters to offer air time for competing ideologies.
The FCC got rid of it about 20 years ago. Now, some Democrats in Congress - long the target of popular conservative radio talk-show hosts - think it’s time to bring it back.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal
Sunday, March 09, 2008
68% of scients and engineers DISAGREE with the view that Global Warming is settled science.
Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll reported today. The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet.
A 99-per-cent majority believes the climate is changing. But 45 per cent blame both human and natural influences, and 68 per cent disagree with the popular statement that "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled."
Thursday, March 06, 2008
What oil shortage?
The World Has Plenty of Oil
By NANSEN G. SALERIMany energy analysts view the ongoing waltz of crude prices with the mystical $100 mark -- notwithstanding the dollar's anemia -- as another sign of the beginning of the end for the oil era. "[A]t the furthest out, it will be a crisis in 2008 to 2012," declares Matthew Simmons, the most vocal voice among the "neo-peak-oil" club. Tempering this pessimism only slightly is the viewpoint gaining ground among many industry leaders, who argue that daily production by 2030 of 100 million barrels will be difficult.
In fact, we are nowhere close to reaching a peak in global oil supplies.
More on Harvard's bending a knee to Islam.
What can a 19-year-old guy in jogging shorts do at Harvard that a rich Saudi sheik who sponsors terrorism can’t?
Get banned from the building.
Six times a week, Harvard kicks all the guys out of the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center at the request of the Harvard Islamic Society. This is to accommodate those female Muslim students whose faith won’t let them work out in front of men.
A look at what "change" means for Obama's foreign policy.
Obama's scary foreign policy.
by Alan W. Dowd
The centerpiece of his foreign policy has always been an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Reasonable people can and do disagree over whether it was right to invade in March 2003, but even some of the loudest critics of the war warn that withdrawing now could derail the fragile progress made during the surge and make a difficult but tenable situation worse.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Iran Marches Ahead Towards Nuclear Weapons
don't think the world will act.
Iran Marches Ahead Towards Nuclear Weapons
by Richard
Fernandez
Here’s a question: If Iran halted “its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure,” as the U.S. NIE concluded in late 2007, then why is the UN Security Council now preparing to “approve new sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment”?
Global Warming - a fraud. Why is this a suprise??
Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is 'Telling Us What to
Think' TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose
'the fraud of global warming.'
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Iranian military captured in Iraq.
U.S. captures Iranian special forces commander near Baghdad
BAGHDAD — The U.S.-led coalition has captured a senior Iranian operative who helped finance and equip Shi'ite militias.U.S. Army paratroopers detained the suspected senior leader of the Iranian-sponsored Special Groups network during an operation in Baghdad's Beida neighborhood on Feb. 27, Middle East Newsline reported.
Officials said the Special Groups was trained and equipped by Iran. They said the organization, believed to comprise a series of cells, introduced the Explosively-Formed Penetrator, designed to destroy U.S. — and other Western origin main battle tanks.
Illegals registering voters.
Legal or not, immigrants are getting political on campus
By Javier Erik Olvera
Jose Ruiz is like many college students. He's outspoken. He's politically active. And, most importantly, he wants to make sure as many people as possible hit the polls come Election Day. Why? Because he can't. Ruiz is an illegal immigrant.
Buoyed by Super Tuesday's record Latino voter turnout, a San Jose State University student group — made up of both legal and illegal residents — is planning a widespread, grass-roots campaign to register voters, especially those who can speak for them at the polls. "I don't need to live in the shadows anymore," said Ruiz, a 24-year-old San Jose State student whose mother brought him from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was a child.
No son, you don't need to live in the shadows anymore, you need to live in Mexico so you can make a difference in YOUR country, so you can change the political culture in YOUR country, so you can create jobs in YOUR country - not the US.
Obama takes his first real shot!
Well, these two issues caught up with him at a news conference Monday night:
Ask Tough Questions? Yes, They Can!
By Dana
MilbankTuesday, March 4, 2008
The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.
Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.
An additional link on the NAFTA story:
Obama, Canada, NAFTA and Some 'Straight Talk'
Is Obama Lying About NAFTAGate?
He certainly doesn’t seem to be telling the whole truth.
Obama quotes Che
Obama for Che Guevara?
By Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Those Che Guevara posters recently spotted in Obama's Houston campaign offices were not hung by a young volunteer who dug the cool looking dude's awesome guitar licks for the Smashing Pumpkins, nor by an older one who thought she remembered the groovy guy with the beret "hangin" with Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.
The campaign volunteer who hung the Che poster is named Maria Isabel (second photo above) and according to the Lone Star Times, she hung similar banners from her balcony at home. Apparently she's no "low-level" volunteer either. She serves as a campaign 'precinct captain" and the co-chair of the Houston Obama Leadership Team.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Obama's staffer solution to the Palestinian issue - Invade Israel
Samantha Power is the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide, and she has a professorship at Harvard (in something called "Global Leadership and Public Policy"). She is also a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama. This isn't an honorific: she has worked for Obama in Washington, she has campaigned for him around the country, and she doesn't hesitate to speak for him. This morning, the Washington Post has a piece on Obama's foreign policy team, identifying her (and retired Maj. Gen. Scott Garion) as "closest to Obama, part of a group-within-the-group that he regularly turns to for advice." Power and Garion "retain unlimited access to Obama." This morning's New York Times announces that Power has an "irresistable profile" and "she could very well end up in [Obama's] cabinet."
She also has a problem: a corpus of critical statements about Israel. These have been parsed by Noah Pollak at Commentary's blog Contentions, by Ed Lasky and Richard Baehr at American Thinker, and by Paul Mirengoff at Power Line.
It isn't too difficult to see all the red flags in this answer. Having placed Israel's leader on par with Yasser Arafat, she called for massive military intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, to impose a solution in defiance of Israel and its American supporters. Billions of dollars would be shifted from Israel's security to the upkeep of a "mammoth protection force" and a Palestinian state—all in the name of our "principles."
As Hillary fades, Obama will get a much closer look!
Obama's Militant Muslim Brother Abongo Is Luo Activist
Barack Obama stands behind Kezia (stepmother) in a Kenyan family shot. Included in the photo is brother Abongo "Roy" Obama who is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." "Abongo's new lifestyle has left him lean and clear-eyed, and at the wedding, he looked so dignified in his black African gown with white trim and matching cap that so me of our guests mistook him for my father," Obama wrote in Dreams From My Father.
Barack Obama's cousin Raila Odinga is accused of ethnic cleansing and is currently battling for power in Kenya.
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes - the devil is always in the details.
As I showed in a post last month, the top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of federal income taxes. The top 25% of taxpayers pay 86% of income taxes.
A man who's head is about to explode!!!
And then, of course, the "real world" can find them just as quickly.
And this one take me "RIGHT TO THE EDGE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Obama Eye Wear!!
That's right! The next President of the United States is so cool he deserves his own line of sunglasses. A percentage of the profits will go to the Barrack Obama campaign so besides advertising his name, you are also helping out financially. Also, in keeping with the Obama motto of goodwill, we hire the homeless and residents of a women's shelter to help us with our logo process (and we pay above minimum wage too!)
Right to the edge I tell ya, right to the frigging edge!!!
Obama the Rookie
Not quite sure America is ready to slide that far left all in one election.Obama: Sermon on Mount Justifies Same-Sex Unions
By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com
Editor in Chief March 03, 2008(CNSNews.com) -
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him "less Christian."
"I don't think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state," said Obama. "If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." (See video here) St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful.
Update: An updated story from WorldNetDaily
Obama ties same-sex issues to Jesus' Sermon on Mount
Democrat maintains famous speech by Christ 'more central than obscure passage in Romans'
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Obama the Cult
Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama!!