Punishing the Victims

Why does this keep happening?

Once again the loony and violent Left has again destroyed free speech. It's on another campus, this time the University of California at Berkeley.

As always, it's a conservative speaker being blocked because, as always, the Left can't stand for anyone to speak or think anything that differs from their prejudices and opinions and demands. Just like the Nazis that, for a time, blocked Martin Luther King's fair housing march in Skokie, Illinois some 50 years ago.

Why do we let violent thugs set the agenda and violate the rights of everyone else?

Clearly, we need to start teaching history and civics again. Then, at least, they will have heard about the rights we have as Americans — the rights they're trashing.

Two Views of Islam

In recent years there has been a lot of bad blood between the Muslims and the infidels or kuffar (unbelievers). They feel that we have been attacking them, and we are equally disturbed by their efforts to turn our cities into Islamic enclaves and "no-go" zones, and by their terror attacks. Each side considers the other's legal system as invalid, improper, worthless, and terrible. Of course, it's more complicated than that, but that gives the flavor of the dispute.

With all this, it should not be surprising that derogatory things have been said on both sides. Like this one about Muslims and their Sharia Law. Some — especially the more sensitive or perpetually offended among us — would find this description rather harsh.

But that's not harsh at all compared to what they say about themselves. Like this.

This strikes me as an explicit admission, by those most heavily steeped in Islam and most knowledgeable about it, that Islam makes no sense on its own terms. That also fits with the violence and intimidation the Imams are preaching. It's what appeals to those who know they are being dumped on and respond by striking out with any actions through which they can claim some form of dominance — "honor killings", thuggery, terror attacks, jihadism.

That Western "1400 years" view is also not harsh compared to what Muslims say about us (non-Muslims), or what they intend for us. It's the same as they intended, and implemented, for every group of people they ever encountered. It was a simple mantra: "Convert or die." And once they got past that immediate threat, they learned their problems were just beginning: "If you try to leave, we will kill you." It was all a part of, and a follow-on, to the only way Islam has ever spread — conquest.

How does this problem get solved? I'm not sure, but I do look forward a world like that described in this story.

The Russian Conspiracy Theory

A far-Left portion of the Democrats has been pushing the idea that the election of President Donald Trump is somehow illegitimate because of claimed Russian interference — "Russian hacking" — of the presidential election. But just what is it the Russians are accused of having done? Not interfering in the actual voting or the vote counting, though that's what they would like to have you think. No. It's charged that the Russians changed the election results by releasing information that made the Democrats look bad. That is, they changed the election results through advertising. (Advertising executives wish they could be that effective!)

Let's step back and take a bit longer view. The main thing that has the Democrats disturbed is that they didn't win. After all, they know they are the ones who represent reality, reason, compassion, and all things good and true. They know there is no legitimate reason why people would oppose them. That being the case, the opposition must have some nefarious reason to oppose them and their policies. There's simply no other possibility.

They are especially disturbed when the opposition is successful. In effect, then, here is what really has the Democratic Left riled up. Stated succinctly,

That's right. It's their own string of failures that has them becoming so rabid.

This is just another reflection of something that's been true for roughly fifty years. It's a truism. If you understand these two statements, you understand nearly all of American politics.

      Conservatives think liberals are wrong.

      Liberals think conservatives are evil.

This was true before, but increasingly more so in the past thirty years.

A Politician Makes Sense on Immigration

This politician makes more sense on immigration in under a minute and a half than other politicians have in a number of years. Watch the video from C-SPAN here.

This really needs to go viral.

I would also like it if President Trump would run it with a tag saying "I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message"!

I guess the Left and the Right can agree on immigration after all.

I should slao note that what is now being decried as a radical departure in immigration policy and "an assault on American values" was the mainstream policy of both major political parties in past years and as recently as early last month.

Historical Ignorance on Display

This showed up on the internet (here, for example). A friend picked it up and e-mailed it to me because it was so far off the wall.

The Berlin Wall?!!? The level of historical ignorance is apalling. Rather like the folks that think the Civil War was fought against Germany, or those that think the Civil War is what we fought in from 1941 to 1945. In this particular case, the historical wall is identified to the wrong dictator, from the wrong country, in the wrong decade. Could the "Occupy Democrats" be any more historically ignorant?

Actually, they probably could. The Left always keeps surprising me with how ignorant and unschooled they are. I suspect that's a side effect of the fact that history is barely taught any more at all.

There's another ignorance issue as well. These people want to pretend that the Nazis and other fascists (and their descendant successors) were and are right wing. But that's just DUMB. That's most obvious for the Nazis. The full name of the Nazi Party was (in German) the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. That translates into English as the National-Socialist German Workers' Party. Note the second word in the party's name — Socialist. That's right — the Nazis were and are left wing, NOT right wing.

A WD-40 Ad from 1964

This is a genuine Ad from 1964 when WD-40 was first released.

Their Ad department sure had a delightful way with words.

A New Vision Will Govern Our Land

Yesterday, the United States of America received a new President. His inaugural address was not partisan. And in it, President Trump showed himself not to be an ordinary politician.

The Albuquerque Journal reported on yesterday's inauguration this way.

And now we begin a new era.

The Will to Win

This was received from an Air Force colleague, who had received it from a Marine friend. It's worth passing on.

Unless you are willing to be as unreasonable and as brutal, as your enemy, do not engage him in a conflict -- because he will win.

An old leatherneck says it better. Here's what the WWII veteran said right after overhearing someone say that "You can't bomb an ideology.":

The hell you can't, because we did it. These Muslims are no different than the [Imperial] Japanese. The Japs had their suicide bombers too. And we stopped them. What it takes is the resolve and will to use a level of brutality and violence that your generations can't stomach. And until you can, this shit won't stop. It took us on the beaches with bullets, clearing out caves with flame throwers, and men like LeMay burning down their cities, killing people by the tens of thousands. And then it took 2 atom bombs on top of it. Plus we had to bomb the shit out of German cities to get them to quit fighting. But, if that was what it took to win, we were willing to do it. Until you are willing to do the same...well I hope you enjoy this shit, because it ain't going to stop!

Back then, we had leadership, resolve, resources and determination. Today we're afraid to hurt people's feelings .... and worry about which bathroom to piss in!!!

On one thing, though, I must disagree. "These Muslims" ARE different from the Japanese of World War II. The Japanese fighters were soldiers — uniformed soldiers, with a code of conduct enforced by their superiors and their military structure. They acted as a military force. Compare that to "these Muslims" who lack honor, think committing rape is normal and acceptable behavior, and prefer to attack civilian non-combatant targets — right down to beheading a woman for the "crime" of going to the market by herself. In other words, this is what "these Muslims" are like.

This is the new reality, as we've all seen. We ignore it at our peril.

Reflections on Pearl Harbor

Today marks 75 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that brought the United States into World War II. That makes it a good time to reflect on that attack. And the best way to do that may be through some contemporary analysis reported in the 1985 book Reflections on Pearl Harbor by William H. Ewing, now out of print.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was appointed as Commander of the Pacific Fleet in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. The story I have read is that President Franklin Roosevelt reached him while he was attending a concert on the day of the attack, and appointed him that day to his new post.

Transportation, in particular, was not as rapid then as it is now. It apparently took more than two weeks for Admiral Nimitz to arrive at his new post. What happened very shortly after his arrival is described in an excerpt from Reflections On Pearl Harbor by William H. Ewing, reported online in 2011.

When Nimitz landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941, there was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

Afterwards, someone asked him, ‘Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?’ Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone: ‘The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.

Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one: The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk, we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is on top of the ground in storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, or God was taking care of America.

I have read elsewhere that the Japanese chose to attack on a Sunday morning to insure the maximum number of capital ships would be in port and at anchor (see Mistake number one above) and that preparedness in their other attack locations would be similarly degraded. This may suggest the "double-edged sword" nature of so many decisions. It may also relate to the Pearl Harbor attack being a late addition (approved by Emperor Hirohita on November 5) as part of the broader attack that opened World War II's Pacific War.

There was also what might be called Mistake number four: Either through a failure of intelligence or the Japanese need to proceed with their overall attack as planned regardless of inopportune circumstances at a single location (especially that of a late addition to the plan), all the US aircraft carriers were at sea at the time of the attack. Thus the carriers, which had to be the number one target of Admiral Yamamoto's attack plan, were preserved and able to successfully prosecute the Pacific War. After all, the Japanese attack demonstrated (if a demonstration was needed) the effectiveness of aircraft carriers.

All this provides a different window on the Pearl Harbor attack, and should be food for thought on today's 75th anniversary of that attack.

Worth Passing On

Reflections on the Election

Before Election Day, everything seemed so clear. Hillary Clinton would be elected president and Donald Trump would be exiled to the wastelands and never heard from again. But then Election Day came, and everyone's expectations were turned upside down.

That caused Shock. Consternation. Horror. The Hillary partisans in the blue cities reacted badly. And that brought about some immediate aftereffects.

Another quick side effect was in the financial markets, where the market futures took an immediate dive. The market gurus said the financial markets would be devastated and would never recover. But we know how that turned out.

There was one more thing that apparently passed unnoticed on election night. A glass ceiling was shattered — just not the one the Left expected. It was the one shattered by Kellyanne Conway.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Now the election is over and we're done with all those political comercials filling all the radio and television broadcast time. And now we will see over the coming weeks the unfolding of a new era. We'll just have to see how different it is from the old one.

These Speak For Themselves

This speaks for itself. And it shows who is guilty of rank hypocrisy.

This one speaks to the kinds of people who are for and against one of the presidential candidates.

It's also notable that the haters leave the area of any rally they have a complete trashy mess, while the supporters leave a clean field.

Do you really want to put the country in the hands of more people who are dishonest, act like kindergarden children, and can't even pick up after themselves? I'd rather vote for some actual legitimate human beings.

An Interesting Coincidence — Or Is It?

Bataan survivor Dwight Cable, formerly a Sergeantt in the 515th Coast Artillery (Anti-Air) of the New Mexico National Guard, died last month as previously noted. But there is a coincidence that's not noted in the Albuquerque Journal article about Dwight, or in his obituary — one that makes one wonder if there are ever really any coincidences.

Dwight was born at home, in an apartment at 5622 S Ellis Avenue in Chicago IL on December 16, 1916. (Babies were normally born at home, not in hospitals, in those years.) That apartment was right across the street from the west stands of the University of Chicago's Stagg Field, home of one of the founding members of the Big Ten Conference. (The Chicago Maroons dominated that conference until the University dropped its football team after the 1939 season.) That apartment building has long since been torn down.

The Nuclear Energy sculpture at the University of Chicago

The importance of the Stagg Field Stands in Dwight's story is that a squash court in the space under them was the location of the first man-made self-sustaining controlled nuclear reaction — the first operational nuclear reactor, which went "critical" on December 2, 1942. Henry Moore’s “Nuclear Energy” sculpture now stands on the exact spot. (This article provides more information.) Producing that self-sustaining nuclear reaction was a key step in the development of the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6^th & 9^th of 1945, respectively.

The Prisoner of War camp commandants in Japan had standing orders that, when the Allied invasion of the home islands began, they were to kill all the prisoners. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II, avoided the need for an invasion and thus saved the lives of Dwight and the other POWs being held in Japan. So the research carried out across the street from Dwight's birthplace came to be used "across the street" from his internment camp — a use that saved his life.

Another coincidence. The apartments where Dwight was born were eventually torn down and replaced by a University of Chicago laboratory building, the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. A laboratory in that building was used by one of Dwight's nephews. As best as that nephew could determine, the location of his laboratory was at the very location (though in the basement) of the apartment where Dwight was born. It really is a small world.

9/11/2001 -- Never Forget!

Our own generation's "day which will live in infamy."

It's the day we were attacked by uncivilized barbarians. We saw some of what they caused.

Their successors are even less civilized than they were. We hadn't thought that possible.

No, we must never forget!

And we must especially think on these things today, on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 Attack.

Another Bataan Survivor Has Died

New Mexico honors its Bataan survivors. It always has, ever since they were rescued at the end of World War II. Here is the latest example, a story printed in the Albuquerque Journal yesterday (Friday, August 26).

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Bataan Death March survivor dies in Oregon
By Charles D. Brunt / Journal Staff Writer
Thursday, August 25th, 2016 at 11:44pm

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Dwight Raymond Cable, a Bataan Death March survivor who joined the New Mexico National Guard’s 200th Coast Artillery Regiment while stationed here as a research scientist with the Soil Conservation Service in April 1941, died in his sleep Aug. 12 in Eugene, Ore., his nephew, Gary Cable of Peralta, said Wednesday. Dwight Cable was 99.

The Chicago native grew up in Tucson and attended the University of Arizona before graduating from the University of Idaho and going to work for the Soil Conservation Service, now known as the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. Eight months before Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, which triggered America’s direct involvement in World War II, Cable joined the New Mexico National Guard and soon shipped out to the Philippines.

In April 1942, Japanese captors marched about 78,000 prisoners of war – 12,000 Americans and 66,000 Filipinos – for six days on the Bataan Peninsula on the Philippine island of Luzon to a prisoner-of-war camp known as Camp O’Donnell. Many were denied food, water or medical care, and some were stabbed or bayoneted along the 65-mile route.

Dwight Raymond Cable, who was in New Mexico National Guard’s 200th Coast Artillery Regiment, is shown in 2002. He died Aug. 12. (Courtesy of Gary Cable)	Dwight Raymond Cable, a sergeant during World War II, is shown in 1941 shortly after joining the Army. Cable died Aug. 12 in Eugene, Ore., at age 99. (Courtesy of Gary Cable)

Among the American defenders of Bataan were Cable and some 1,800 soldiers from New Mexico, many with the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery Regiments. About half of them did not survive the war.

Cable, who was a company clerk with C Battery of the 515th Coast Artillery Regiment when captured, was sent on a “hell ship” to a POW prison camp near Shinjuku, Japan, where more than 2,300 other American POWs were held. His capture was first reported to the International Committee of the Red Cross on May 7, 1942, and the last report was made on Oct. 15, 1945. Based on those reports, he was imprisoned for at least 3½ years before being liberated by U.S. forces.

Gary Cable said his uncle’s only comment on his POW experience was: “You had to keep your sense of humor. Those that didn’t, didn’t make it.”

“What I remember most about Dwight was his dry sense of humor,” Gary Cable said. “He was once hiking with my parents in the mountains near Ouray, Colo. My mother was interested in learning about the plants they saw, and asked Dwight to identify them for her – including by scientific name. It took her a while to realize he was giving her the same scientific name for every plant she pointed to.”

Dwight Cable’s younger brother, Lowell Dean Cable, went into Normandy via Omaha Beach on the day after D-Day. His older brother, Donovan Chambers Cable, tried to join the military as well but was medically disqualified from contributing to the war effort.

After the war, Cable went back to work for the Soil Conservation Service and later for the U.S. Forest Service. He wrote more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers and articles on native desert grasses and other plants. He was an avid hiker, outdoorsman and nature photographer.

Even after he retired and moved to Eugene, Ore., his family sent him a “care package” every year for his birthday, filled with items like biscochitos and a bag of red chile pods.

A memorial service will be held in Eugene on Dec. 16, which would have been Cable’s 100th birthday, his nephew said.

With Cable’s passing, only 13 former members of the New Mexico National Guard’s 200th and 515th Coast Artillery Regiments who survived the Bataan Death March are still living, according to the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Foundation of New Mexico. Seven of them reside in New Mexico.

Hiroshima — It Had To Be Done

Seventy-one years ago today, an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima. That was the day World War II in the Pacific began to end.

In late May, just a little over two months ago, President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima — the first U.S. president to do so. That visit reopened some of the discussion over whether the atomic bombs should have been dropped on Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki.

Veterans of the war were pretty clear about that. One said, “I was there. I saw firsthand what kind of fortifications the Japanese had. We would probably still be there fighting if we hadn’t dropped the bomb. I don’t regret that decision for one minute.” The comment from another was “It had to be done; otherwise, that war would have gone on and on. Those bombs, they stopped the war.”

The bottom line is this: This was the day the war finally began to end. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6th. Nagasaki was bombed on August 9th. The Japanese empeeror announced his country's surrender on August 15th. And then the war was over.

Independence Day!

How often have you heard it said "Freedom isn't free!"? Here's something of a meditation on the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence, from the late Paul Harvey, that gives additional meaning to this phrase. Early on, he notes that "All others of the world's revolutions, before and since, were initiated by men who had nothing to lose. ... Our founders had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. Except one thing." The video is at Paul Harvey: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor. It's ten minutes long, but that's a really worthwhile ten minutes. Go spend the time. You'll be glad you did.

Happy Fourth of July!
Happy Independence Day!

Teddy Roosevelt on Immigrants

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an American in 1907

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. .. .There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.'
      — Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

Some Things I Find Interesting

Here are some images I find interesting. First is a proposal for our southern (and western) border.

These are just a little off the wall. But good.

As noted before, dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is a pretty dangerous chemical.

Here's an interesting question.

And then, inevitably for this year, there's politics. I think I agree with this guy.

Here are a couple of examples from this year's campaign.

And this one is good, no matter how you slice it.

LBJ Changes His Mind on the Civil Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been introduced by the Republicans in the 1950s, but had been decisively voted down by the Democrats. Same thing for anti-lynching legislation. So why did LBJ change his mind in 1964 — and get enough Democrats to go along with the Republicans to get it passed? LBJ explained in his own comments:

These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.

So it should be no surprise that with all the "help" provided by the Democrats, blacks and the poor are worse off than ever. A commenter on this notes "Given the ultra-racist history of the Democrat party, it is simply impossible for me to believe that no one in the party understood this would happen. This was done on purpose and by design. Black Americans were solidly Republican before LBJ's administration." And I would note that included that famous Republican, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.