Merry New Year!
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December 31, 2006
December 29, 2006
Saddam Hussein Hanged
Reports coming in that Saddam Hussein has been hanged.
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U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday. |
Source: Reuters
BBC News is is reporting that the execution was filmed.
Iraqis are celebrating. Perhaps now they can begin a new chapter and start down the road to peace.
More info: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Drudge, Ace of Spades
*Update* Also hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.
*Update* Video from LiveLeak.com.
*Update* LiveLeak also has the full video of Saddam's hanging shot from a cell phone.
December 28, 2006
New Year's Eve, Dirty Bombs and You
In New York, it has become part of the annual New Year's celebration preparation to listen to local news stations hype every possible terrorist threat, especially the ubiquitous dirty bomb.
While I don't take any terror threats lightly, its evident that the MSM uses this type of hype to gain ratings.
So, with New Year's Eve just a few days away, even though the White House is reporting no major terrorist threats for the holiday, I thought Defense Tech's post on dirty bombs appropriate for the time of year.
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When you look at the amount of materials stolen or lost (some data are shown in the article's sidebar), we're talking about ounces and a few pounds at best of gamma emitters. No one's tracking the alpha/beta radioactive material out there (polonium anyone?). Still, not exactly enough for an improvised nuclear weapon, maybe enough to scare unknowledgable [sic] people. |
Dirty Bombs are an easy topic for television, and news. It's sexy… dirty, but it isn't want we need to focus on. Immigration, radical Imams and conventional bombs on our transit system are all higher on my list of concerns than dirty bombs.
December 27, 2006
President Gerald R. Ford, 1913 - 2006
Former President Gerald R. Ford died at 93 on Tuesday, December 26, 2006. After taking office upon Nixon's resignation he said:
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"My fellow Americans," Ford said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule." And, true to his reputation as unassuming Jerry, he added: "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers." |
Source: AP
For more information of President Ford, visit The White House.
December 24, 2006
Merry Christmas, Again!
So much for me taking a few days off from posting! Well, I'd once again like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a heartfelt thanks for stopping by to read once in a while.
I know there are many other blogs to read and free time is at a premium these days, so I want you to know it means a lot to me when you do stop by.
December 23, 2006
"Sir, this is Patton Talking"
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“Sir, this is Patton talking … You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You’re on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace …” — Prayer of Gen. George S. Patton, Dec. 23, 1944 |
Rich Lowry, of the National Review, writes of General Patton's prayer at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. The battle, which lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945, cost over 80,000 American lives and according to the Wikipeda article, the near 85,000 "German losses in the battle were critical in several respects: the last of the German reserves were now gone; the Luftwaffe had been broken; and the German army in the West was being pushed back. Most importantly, the Eastern Front was now ripe for the taking."
But Patton's prayer is important in another respect: believing in your fight. All of us, during this war against radical Islam, must realize that we either believe in our fight or we don't. And if we do, we have to realize that sometimes in war we have to pray for the death of our enemy. Lowry continues:
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Gen. Patton, who had been looking forward to thrusting toward the Saar region of Germany, instead had to relieve Bastogne. Earlier, he had badgered his chaplain to pray for optimal conditions for an offensive. The chaplain noted “that it isn’t a customary thing among men of my profession to pray for clear weather to kill fellow men.” Undeterred, Patton asked, “Are you teaching me theology or are you the chaplain of the Third Army?” Patton distributed a printed prayer for good weather to his troops and made his own appeal, noted above. The weather improved, and Patton wrote in his diary, “A clear, cold Christmas, lovely weather for killing Germans, which seems a bit queer seeing Whose birthday it is.” |
December 22, 2006
And the Winner Is...
Just in case there was still any question as to who won the midterm elections...
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"The first is that you aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost," Zawahri said, according to a full transcript obtained by ABC News. |
Source: ABCNews Blog
What One Dollar Will Buy
"All the News That's Fit to Print-Vol CLVI…, No. 53,798"
What one dollar will buy-They say you can learn a lot from sports--
"ATTACKS IN IRAQ AT RECORD LEVEL, PENTAGON FINDS"-New York Times, page 1, lead article, Tuesday, December 18, 2006-
"Hey, don't go the basket right now. It wouldn't be a good idea. I'm just letting you know." NY Knicks coach Isiah Thomas to Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony-New York Times, page D2, Tuesday, December 18, 2006-( The Nuggets were way ahead.)
"We had surrendered" Thomas says of the incident later, still smiling afterward, laughing one time-Brian Mahoney, Associated Press Basketball Writer, December 17, 2006-
Hasn't the U.S. sent many messages of surrender to Al Qeada? What did Isiah Thomas expect? The winners not to savor their victory? Not to want a big victory? As in, the biggest they can garner?
What do we expect Al Qeada to believe? Like, they're losing? Really?
Where did Americans get the idea that our surrender causes them who want Americans dead will spare you? And, your children?
-Zorroaster
December 20, 2006
Merry Christmas!
I'd like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season. You've made my work here fun and exciting and I hope to continue for a long time. I'm going to take a few days off for the holiday but that's not to say I won't be able to resist posting about something that comes up.
I'll be spending time with family and friends over the weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. I'd like to know what you guys are doing for the holidays. Spending time with your friends and family? Or just relaxing on your own? Leave a comment.
December 18, 2006
Celebrity Status
Britney parades around drunk with no underwear, Gwyneth bashes her homeland, others are getting DWI's in between rehab stints, but kids think this is the greatest!
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Children under 10 think being a celebrity is the "very best thing in the world" but do not think quite as much of God, a survey has revealed. The poll of just under 1,500 youngsters ranked "God" as their tenth favourite thing in the world, with celebrity, "good looks" and being rich at one, two and three respectively. |
Source: Daily Mail
What's most interesting is leaving out "killing" and "wars" from the list of the "very worst things in the world", the remaining items; drunks, bullies, illness, smoking, stealing, divorce and being fat, seem to be the characteristics celebrities uphold.
December 15, 2006
The Toys Our Children See
In a post regarding the inappropriate names of a line of Victoria's Secret makeup, a reader brought up the Bratz dolls and how the dolls resemble strippers and prostitutes.
In yesterday's New York Post, Kirsten Powers write about the doll section in FAO Schwarz.
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A 4-year-old girl was mesmerized by one of the dolls with the flowing cleavage. Next to her was another doll wearing just a black bra and panties, set on a mini sofa, with legs splayed. The girl's father mindlessly pulled her away, seemingly unconcerned. |
Michelle Malkin picked up the story and has a small photo of the dolls mentioned.
Unfortunately, this is only going to get worse until parents start letting these "toy" companies know these are not the products we want our children seeing in toy stores.
December 13, 2006
Peter Boyle: 1935 - 2006
Peter Boyle, the actor who played Ray Barone's father in Everybody Loved Raymond, died at the age of 71 today.
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Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, said his publicist, Jennifer Plante. |
I will always remember him for his role as Frankenstein's monster in Young Frankenstein.
From a Muslim Outlook: USAirways Imams
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch highlights an article by M. Zuhdi Jasser who, in his article From a Muslim outlook, imams have missed the point on flight behavior, examines the US Airways Imam controversy from a seldom-heard Muslim perspective.
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Alija Izetbegovic, former president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, once said he was never so close to God in his prayers as a Muslim as he was during his solitary confinement for 12 years as a political prisoner struggling for liberty under Josip Broz Tito's oppression. These imams would do well to learn from President Izetbegovic. He further understood the separation of religion and politics. He understood God teaches us in the Quran that our religion is based upon intention and that if we perceive that the public situation is not conducive to our congregational prayer, that a forgiving God will understand. |
Victimization can be an addictive state; it creates sympathy, deflects criticism and places the onus of change on the victimizer. And as M. Zuhdi Jasser points out, until the passion for victimization is surpassed by the passion for denouncing those who have hijacked his religion, Americans will never believe they are totally against it.
December 11, 2006
Eurotrash Trashing Our Subways
Apparently it has become popular for European vandals to come to New York and spray graffiti on our subways. According to the New York Daily News, up to 70% of the graffiti is perpetrated this way.
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They come from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway to spray-paint their murals and elaborate tags - called "pieces" - on trains, fully aware that the Transit Authority will scrub them clean within hours. The Euro-taggers don't care that New Yorkers won't see their work on the rails: their main goal is to take photographs and videos of their handiwork to bolster their reputations on the other side of the Atlantic |
I remember when you could barely find an unpainted spot on a subway car, including the seats, and now after we've managed to clean up considerably our money has to go to cleaning this up.
December 10, 2006
It’s the Apocalypse, Stupid
"Killer Asteroid-IT'S COMING OUR WAY-FIVE PLANS TO HEAD IT OFF"; Cover Story, Popular Mechanics Magazine-December 2006
According to Popular Mechanics (PM): "Asteroids and comets collided with the Earth many times in the past, changing the world's climate and causing species to go extinct. Are we due for another big hit?"
Now, PM says that in 2029 the asteroid "99942 Apophis" (the Destroyer) might come very close and then return to really, really hit Earth in 2036. And, some think that NASA can do something to avert that disaster.
Meanwhile, back on today's Planet Earth, in 2006 (but nearly 2007)-another "A" named AHMADINEJAD-Iran's president, seems to want the APOCALYPSE before 2029. Some say he's Allah-driven, working hard to make it happen.
Are there five plans to head him off?
-Zorroaster
December 09, 2006
A Survivor of Brazil’s Worst Air Disaster Tells Story
Just browsing the net on a lazy Saturday, I stumbled upon the story of Joe Sharkey, one of six survivors in Brazil's worst air disaster.
First, a little back story from Wikipedia.
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Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a Boeing 737-800 SFP, registration PR-GTD, on a scheduled passenger flight from Manaus, Brazil to Rio de Janeiro, with a planned stop in Brasília on September 29, 2006. While flying over the Amazon in Brazilian center-western state of Mato Grosso, it collided with an Embraer Legacy business jet and crashed in an area of dense rainforest vegetation, 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of the municipality of Peixoto de Azevedo. All 154 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing were killed, while the slightly damaged Embraer was able to land safely with its seven occupants uninjured. |
Joe Sharkey was one of the seven on the Embraer Legacy jet and he writes about his experience in The Sunday Times.
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We flew on smoothly with only the insistent drone of the engines. And then "Bang!" Up front, Henry Yandle said: "We've been hit!" The noise was not "Boom!" Nor did I hear any roar of an approaching plane. I have been on an aeroplane that has been struck by lightning. I have flown in many military jets. I have never heard anything like this. I heard just a big metallic bang, the sort of noise your car might make if your tyre rim thumped into a pothole. Accompanying it was a concussive jolt. The plane did not lose balance or shudder. When I raised the shade, my heart sank. A 4ft section of the wing tip was shorn off, with just a jagged edge remaining. I looked up at the cockpit and tried to read the pilots' body language. |
The rest of the story is amazing, as the pilots and passengers feel the wrath of the Brazilian people, being blamed for the crash.
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To my astonishment, the narrative as it played out in Brazil was this: fat-cat Americans in corporate jet, flying at incorrect altitude and ignoring air-traffic-control orders, kill 154 innocents in midair collision with Brazilian airliner over jungle. |
It is unfortunate that Sharkey takes a pop shot at the President, because with or without the Iraq War, the story still would have been "fat-cat Americans in corporate jet kill 154 innocents in midair".
December 08, 2006
Eliot Cohen: No Way to Win a War
Eliot Cohen's piece, No Way to Win a War, from Thursday's Wall Street Journal is, in my opinion, the best summary of why the Iraq Study Group is nothing more than political bubble-gum. Take this for instance:
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The commission members spent four days in Iraq, and with the exception of a one-day foray by former Marine Chuck Robb, they stayed in the Green Zone, that bubble of palaces and residences that has little to do with the real Iraq of Basra, Kirkuk, Ramadi, Baquba and Mosul. At the end, they had breakfast with the president and a few hours later posted their conclusions on the Internet for all the world to ponder. There is something of farce in all this, an invocation of wisdom from a cohesive Washington elite that does not exist, a desperate wish to believe in the gravitas and the statecraft of grave men (and women) who can sort out the mess in which the country finds itself. |
Four days? I can't even do my Christmas shopping in four days and these guys have come up with the solutions in that time. At that rate, we could send them around the world on weekend stops to solve other crises.
Certainly, a fresh look was -- is needed in Iraq. New people, new ideas, not with, as Cohen puts it, "a group composed, for the most part, of retired eminent public officials, most with limited or no expertise in the waging or study of war. It consists of individuals carefully selected with an eye to diverse partisan and other irrelevant personal characteristics".
December 07, 2006
Supporting John Bolton
John Bolton needs to be confirmed. We can't let him become the next sacrificial lamb.
Show your support by calling Congress.
Also, visit other sites supporting John Bolton:
Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Atlas Shrugs, Kim Priestap, Church and State
**Update** Unfortunately Bolton did not survive the slaughter. President Bush accepted John Bolton's resignation and this is truly a great loss. Today he said he would not grant the U.N any exit interviews.
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"You know, in many years of service in the federal government, I've seen a lot of newspaper stories that start out something like, 'In a wide-ranging exit interview, Mr. X said the following,'" Bolton replied. "I'm not going to give any wide-ranging exit interviews or even any exit interviews, because I think until I leave federal service, it's not my personal opinions that matter, it's the policy of the United States." |
Source: AP
This short comment pretty much sums up what he is all about.
An Interesting Comparison
After looking at the article, Iran hitting obstacles to enrichment, a reader noticed something very familiar and sent in this comparison.
Islamic Realistic Style
The AP caption reads: Dancers perform as they hold capsules of uranium hexaflouride, or UF6 gas during a ceremony in Mashhad, Iran's holiest city earlier this year.
Socialist Realistic Style
Above: Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is a 24 meter (78 feet) high sculpture made from stainless steel by Vera Mukhina in 1937. The sculpture is a typical example of the socialist realistic style, and was chosen to serve as the logo for the film studio Mosfilm. Originally created to crown the Soviet pavillion of the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, it was relocated to Moscow where it was placed just outside the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy.
Here is a definition of Socialist Realistic Style.
I will leave for you to define Islamic Realistic Style. I think communists might sue for copyrights. Do you know any good ambulance chasers?
Hat Tip: GK
Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
In remembrance, The Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7, 1941.
December 06, 2006
Giuliani Is Most Popular Politician
In a recent poll, former New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani topped a list of U.S. politicians as most popular. Surprisingly, Senator Clinton was ranked eighth of twenty and no so much a shock, Senator John Kerry was last.
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Quinnipiac's "thermometer reading," taken the week after the Nov. 7 election, asked voters to rate their feelings for 20 leaders on a scale of 0 to 100. Giuliani, a Republican, scored the highest at 64.2. Obama and McCain, who are also considering a 2008 campaign, finished next at 58.8 and 57.7. |
Source: CBS News
Secretary of Sate Condoleezza Rice ranked fourth and was the highest ranking woman in the poll.
December 05, 2006
Perseverance is Key
The article Like Truman and Churchill, by the indispensable Michael Barone, gave me a bit of a lift. It may do the same for you.
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Mr. Bush, like Truman and Churchill, seems determined not to concede defeat. And remember that for Truman on Korea and for Churchill after Dunkirk, no promising military courses were immediately apparent. Truman, after firing General Douglas MacArthur, had forsaken the threat - a nuclear attack - that his successor Dwight Eisenhower deployed to get the communists to agree to a truce. But Truman's perseverance despite his 22% job approval - much lower than Bush's - was essential in preserving the independence of South Korea, which now has the world's 14th-largest economy. Churchill, facing Hitler alone, could promise only "blood, toil, tears and sweat" until his enemies' mistakes - Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor - gave him the allies that made victory possible. Churchill's stubbornness prevented a Nazi victory in midsummer 1940. |
December 02, 2006
Gwyneth Paltrow Thinks You're an Uncultured Idiot
Via Drudge: GWYNETH PALTROW: 'British much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans'
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"I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America. People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner," she told "NS," the weekend magazine supplement of daily Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias on Saturday. "I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans," the 34-year-old added. |
Why? WHY?? Just shut up and be happy you've enjoyed a career that has made you a very wealthy person who has the luxury of living in the UK with all the fabulous dinner parties.
She forgot to mention that she'll be happy to take your uneducated, uncivilized American dollars. To quote Han Solo: Not this ship, sister.
**Update** This is not the first time Paltrow has done this. As always, Michelle Malkin has more details.
**Update** Paltrow's response.
December 01, 2006
Who Really Cares When it Comes to Charity?
It has arrived faster than I would have liked but the holidays are here. And even though Thanksgiving has become a blip on the Christmas radar, barely having a day of its own (this topic is for another day, and perhaps even another blogger), this time of year is for being thankful and for giving. So I'd like to discuss is the subject of a book by Arthur C. Brooks called Who Really Cares. I have not read the book yet, but I have heard interviews with the author and read excerpts. It is quite riveting.
Brooks is Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Nonprofit Studies Program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. His book examines the givers and non-givers in America. What types of people give to charity, whether that is giving money, time or blood and how do these people break down by political ideology. You'll be surprised with the results.
Brooks writes, "The conventional wisdom runs like this: Liberals are charitable because they advocate government redistribution of money in the name of social justice; conservatives are uncharitable because they oppose these policies". The aim of Who Really Cares is to dispel the stereotype that conservatives are selfish and money-hungry, hoarding their money letting the poor suffer. From the study, he does just that.
Bottom line:
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In 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more money to charity than households headed by a liberal ($1,600 to $1,227). This discrepancy is not simply an artifact of income differences; on the contrary, liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families gave more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich. |
And another paragraph I found striking:
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…young liberals-perhaps the most vocally dissatisfied political constituency in America today-are one of the least generous demographic groups out there. In 2004, self-described liberals younger than thirty belonged to one-third fewer organizations in their communities than young conservatives. In 2002, they were 12 percent less likely to give money to charities, and one-third less likely to give blood. Liberal young Americans in 2004 were also significantly less likely than the young conservatives to express a willingness to sacrifice for their loved ones: A lower percentage said they would prefer to suffer than let a loved one suffer, that they are not happy unless the loved one is happy, or that they would sacrifice their own wishes for those they love. |
Source: http://www.arthurbrooks.net/excerpt.html
I'll be reading this in the next few week, and if you choose to do the same or have already read it, I'd love to hear your comments.