Monday, August 25, 2008

Navy Petty Officer Mike Monsoor

A good friend (a retired Army colonel) sent this to me. It's worth spreading as much as we can.


PO2 (EOD2) Mike Monsoor, a Navy EOD Technician, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq, giving his life to save his fellow SEALs.

During Mike's funeral in San Diego, as his coffin was being moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, SEALs were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers route forming a column of twos, with the coffin moving up the center. As Mike's coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the wooden coffin.



The slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it. This was a fitting send-off for a warrior hero.

This should be front-page news instead of the crap we see every day.



Since the media won't make this news, we choose to make it news by posting it for you guys. I am proud of our military and the men and women who serve in it. They represent the highest and finest values of this country.

The media almost never reports this type thing. Please pass it on to a few of your friends...

God bless the men and women in our Military.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

An Engineer Says 'Enough'

James Taranto ran an item on Thomas Friedman's bizarre views on government regulation. He called the item Gas Heads to $19.84 a Gallon. The final sentence in that piece said

Such a massive exercise of government control over the economy is "cost effective" only in the sense that ignorance is strength and slavery is freedom.
He got a comment in response from reader Bruce Anderson (it's here — scroll down to "An Engineer Says 'Enough'") that I think deserves wider distribution. Bruce's comment is
Have you noticed that the people shouting loudest to make developing oil fields impossible, to tax gasoline to astronomical levels, and to have government subsidized "Manhattan Projects" to create the breakthroughs in solar, wind, waves, bio-mass, etc., are the same people who did not take the math, science and engineering courses in college? Despite their profound ignorance in these subjects, they are sure that creating enough pain will cause those of us who did grind away in these fields for all these years to suddenly have that amazing insight which will let us repeal the third law of thermodynamics. Their core belief is that genius comes forth when misery is piled sufficiently high. Why don't we announce the oil industry is going to build offshore "tire inflation" platforms and put some "auto tune-up centers" in ANWR for good measure, and just go about our business, with these airheads never the wiser?
There is a definite frustration inherent in technical decisions being made by the technically illiterate.

How Well McCain Did at Saddleback

It's been a week since the double interview at Saddleback, but Mark Hemingway's evaluation the next day is still the most accurate and succinct:

He did so well that the only way that the Obama campaign and the netroots can spin his performance is to accuse him of cheating and making up his life story.
The arrogance of the Left amazes me! They believe they are the elite, better than their opponents. Because they're better, they think the only way their opponents can beat them is by cheating. It's the only way they can comprehend it.

This degree of arrogance still amazes me — and I've been running into it from these people for 40 years!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Unbelievable!


“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation” (Barack Obama, 6/3/08)


“There are things that you can do individually though to save energy; making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.” (Barack Obama, Springfield, MO, 7/30/08) (“It’s probably not the best idea to take automotive advice from a limousine liberal.”)


“A poll last week revealed that 40% of Americans believe that Republicans are in control of Congress.” (Paul Weyrich, "Congressional Irresponsibility", 8/05/08)


"Jimmy Carter ended single-digit inflation. Maybe Obamanomics will end single-digit unemployment." (comment, Mark Van Zandt, Wall Street Journal online, 7/30/08)


“Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'”

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Nancy Pelosi, Tyrant (2)

As Politico very gently puts it, Nancy Pelosi is "encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill." I heard a Democrat Party operative on Hannity & Colmes this evening trying to spin that in words like "Ours is a 'big tent' party, and Speaker Pelosi was just expressing that it's appropriate for all our different points of view to be expressed."


Sorry, but I have to call BS on the operative's spin. Still, there are a couple of possible interpretations of the Pelosi advice. The one that's closer to the operative's spin is

Pelosi recognizes that a lot of her minions are vulnerable on this issue. Because of this vulnerability, they will be allowed to express their disagreement on this issue without being punished by the Speaker.
The less charitable interpretation is
Pelosi recognizes that a lot of her minions are vulnerable on this issue. Because of this vulnerability, they are being encouraged to say anything necessary to get re-elected so they can protect Pelosi's obstructionist agenda.
Personally, I don't think either option reflects at all well on Speaker Pelosi and her "Marie Antoinette" political strategy.


It appears Speaker Pelosi doesn't care what happens to the country and its people, so long as she (and maybe her party) can benefit. This is not just an assumption. Politico notes that "Even as they face heat from constituents during the August break, Democrats say they aren’t going to cave in to popular pressure." And "“There is no crisis on our side of the aisle,” a top House Democratic leadership aide said. “We have a plan, and we will stick to it.”" Translation: "We have our plan, and we don't care what you rubes think or say."


Meanwhile, President Bush reportedly believes there is no chance the Democrat Congress will take any action this year. That's apparently why the White House won't call Congress back into special session to deal with the energy issue. Personally, I think that's the wrong strategy. There was no chance the Republican Congress would take any action when Harry Truman called them back into special session in 1948. But Truman called them back anyway, they demonstrated their unwillingness to put the country's interests ahead of their own, and Truman spent the rest of the campaign headlining the "Do-Nothing Republican Congress" — and won re-election as a result. The Pelosi Congress makes the one in 1948 look activist. Based on their record so far, if called back, the Pelosi Congress would help sign its own death warrant.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Terror Attacks in India

India has an illegal alien problem. They're mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh. They come to India because they need to, because there is a LOT more opportunity in India than in their home countries.


But as guests, they stink! They expect Indian society to adapt to them rather than the other way around. They expect in India — as a matter of right — the same sort of deference for their religion and their ways that they would have in their home countries. It offends them that they are expected to respect the rights of others who don't share their religion, their sect. And it offends them that their Indian co-religionists do respect those rights.


And so these illegal alien racial and religious bigots take actions — again — to try to provoke attacks against their co-religionists — again. That's what appears to be behind the series of explosions in Bangalore and Ahmadabad a week ago. The illegal aliens, in other attacks, have identified their intent to "demolish the faith (Hinduism)" of the "infidels of India". And the style of the attacks was similar to that used in Iraq and elsewhere by al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups.


Yes, it's clear bigotry was the basis for the attacks. Both states targeted have elected, by large majorities, governments run by the Hindu nationalist BJP (the Bharatiya Janata Party). They were apparently targeted because the BJP governments can't be pushed around by these bigots the way many of the other state governments can.


The specifics of the attacks? I captured more about the Bangalore attacks (nine explosions, one dead, blogger reports here and here, NDTV reports here, here, and here, the last noting that Bangalore's IT sector now will get a lot more national security support) than about the Ahmadabad attacks (22 explosions, 42 dead). The Bangalore explosions were all, or nearly all, about the size of a pair of hand grenades. The Ahmadabad explosions included the first use of a car bomb in India. Similar attempts were made in Surat, where at least 19 bombs were found and disarmed. The cars used for the car bombs in both Ahmadabad and Surat were stolen where the attacks were apparently planned, in Mumbai. Additional unexploded bombs were found in both Bangalore and Ahmadabad, including on city buses and in/near shopping malls. And, as in Jaipur in May, among the later bombs was at least one at a hospital where victims of the earlier explosions would have been taken.


These people are barbarians. They must be stopped. They must be stopped because, as I have said before,

These extremists are not attacking only the US and its interests, or just the West and its interests — these extremists are attacking anyone and anything that is not Islamist, in their extremist version. The American press needs to recognize this, and report on these terrorist atrocities. And we all need to pay attention because, when these extremists have the ability, they will attack us, too.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Nancy Pelosi, Tyrant

Nancy Pelosi must be so proud! She managed to browbeat, bully, bludgeon, and bribe just enough of her underlings to win by just one (213-212) the vote to adjourn the House of Representatives for five weeks. Thus, she achieved her goal of making sure the House had no debate, had no vote, and took no action on anything that might help alleviate the current energy crisis.


This time the Republicans aren't taking it lying down. Even though Pelosi's minions shut off the lights and microphones, and ejected reporters from the areas where they normally interviewed Congressmen,

"This is the people's House," said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.). "This is not Pelosi's politiburo."

Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker's Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.

"You're not covering this, are you?" complained one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans "morons" for staying on the floor.

Update: The Capitol Police are now trying to kick reporters out of the press gallery above the floor, meaning we can't watch the Republicans anymore. But Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is now in the gallery talking to reporters, so the cops have held off for a minute. Clearly, Democrats don't want Republicans getting any press for this episode.

This is what the future may look like.
Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the dimly lit chamber is a "vision of the future by the Democrat Party: The lights are out, there's no power, and the air conditioning is gonna go off soon."
If Pelosi et al. have their way, this is the future of the country.


Sixty years ago, President Harry Truman ran against the "do-nothing Republican Congress" — and won. But that do-nothing Congress was positively activist compared with this Congress. This Congress, for what I've read is the first time ever, has reached this point in the year without either house having passed even one appropriations bill. If appropriations bills are not passed, there will be no money for government operations and the government will have to shut down.


And why is that? Apparently, because Pelosi and her Senate partner Harry Reid are so dead set on preventing any discussion of or vote on any proposal to end the Congressional ban on domestic energy development (refinery construction, offshore drilling, oil shale, nuclear energy, etc.) that they are willing to have their underlings shut down the appropriations process if that's what it takes to prevent any debate and vote on these issues. (That's why the appropriations committees have been shut down for weeks.) San Fran Nan's excuse?

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”
A free translation: Pelosi is so convinced she is right and everybody else is wrong that she is willing to shut down the government rather than allow a debate and vote she knows she will lose. Also that Pelosi and her friends want energy prices (especially gasoline prices) to go up — a lot — as a means of inducing conservation. And the economy — and the country — be damned.