Sunday, May 25, 2008

Memorial Day

This is Memorial Day Weekend. It's another three-day holiday weekend. But it's also more.


This is a time set aside to remember those who made our freedom possible, including those who lost their lives in that effort.


We need to remember what these men and women have done for us — and are doing for us now. Here is something extra to help us remember.


We all should be grateful for what the U.S. military has done, especially throughout the last century. And we should express that to our fighting men, past and present.

It's Memorial Day. Thank a serviceman. Thank a veteran.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Armed Forces Day

Today, Saturday, May 17, is Armed Forces Day. It's a good day to thank a veteran:

A Veteran - whether active duty, retired, National Guard, or Reservist....is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a check payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life".

That is an honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

— Author Unknown courtesy of BlackFive


And don't let anyone pretend our soldiers are barbarians, Nazis, or whatever else. Look at what our soldiers have actually done.
Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. We have gone there to help people. What has France done?


As this suggests, America's performance in the last hundred years or so has been due to a combination of the American fighting man and American government policy. Here's a good summary of how the two have played out (courtesy of Mullings):
In February [of 2003] Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on MTV to discuss the US position with regard to our becoming an imperial power. A viewer in Norway asked why Europeans consider the US to be the "Satan of contemporary politics." Here's a portion of what the Secretary said:
Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II.

And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, "Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us"? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul.

And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead.

And that is the kind of nation we are.

We all should be grateful for what the U.S. military has done, especially throughout the last century. And we should express that to our fighting men, past and present.

It's Armed Forces Day. Thank a veteran.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Can Someone Explain This To Me?

Perhaps someone can explain this to me: Why is it

• racist that the voters of one candidate's race prefer that candidate by a 3:2 margin, but

• not racist that the voters of another candidate's race prefer that candidate by a 10:1 (or 17:1) margin

It seems to me this comparison is the reflection of clear partisanship and/or racism on the part of the reporters, editors, and publishers pushing it.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Voter ID Requirements Are Constitutional


The United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is not unconstitutional to require voters to show they are the persons in whose names they wish to vote, before being allowed to do so.


This decision should affect the current appeal of the New Mexico federal judge's ruling that Albuquerque's voter ID ordinance was unconstitutional. It may also, with a lot of public pressure, get the New Mexico legislature to pass a legitimate voter ID law in place of the pretense they passed last year.


I have said before, and say again here — anyone who opposes voter ID requirements is actively supporting vote fraud.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Lesbians Sue Lesbians Over "Lesbians"

People from the Greek island of Lesbos have filed suit against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece. It wants to force the Community not to use the islanders' name in their organizational name.

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.

"The Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece could not be reached for comment."

I still don't understand why these women insist on not using "gay" to identify themselves, and insist on using a different word.