The US has so far pledged a "stingy" $35 million to the rescue effort for the incredible disaster which has struck Indonesia. That doesn't count the cost of getting the goods to Indonesia and doesn't take into account the fact that we will certainly follow the initial pledge with far more assistance, monetary and otherwise.

In fact, a small charity organization in this county has somehow managed to raise 1.6 million dollars to send. The figure boggles my mind--this isn't NYC or LA. We're a rural county in a state in which tax dollars from the counties go to support a dying city. This effort gives credence to President Bush's vision of faith-based giving. Interestingly, $1.6 million far exceeds the amount thus far pledged by either France or the UN.....And that's just from one rural county in the US. Take it from there.

Before you criticize the US, read more about US relief efforts.

Now that I'm back, and now that I've had something to say about the incredible tragedy in Indonesia, I have something else to get off my chest.

The administration has taken a great deal of heat over the issue of armoring Humvees. Time to look at some facts.

First: Repeat after me "A Humvee is not a tank. It is not an amored reconnaisance vehicle. It is not an amored troop carrier."

The Humvee is the replacement for the venerable "Truck, 1/4 ton, M151". You know it as the "Jeep".

When the military decided it was time to replace the Jeep, a number of firms responded with proposals and the military decided on the design set forth by AM General, a firm with a long record of successful military vehicles. It was dubbed the High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). That was the project name, so it would have retained the name regardless of which design was chosen. The military likes pronounce-able acronyms, so it's referred to as the "Humvee".

It's much larger than the Jeep, so it was deemed that the chassis could replace a number of existing vehicles. It could function not only as a battlefield sedan a la Jeep, but as an ambulance, artillery caisson, etc. As an aside, the damn thing is so big that the Berlin Brigade had to keep their Jeeps since the Humvee was to large to squeeze through the alleys they had to patrol along the now defunct Berlin Wall.

Here's what the Army has to say about what it replaces:

Provide a common light tactical vehicle capability. Replaced the quarter-ton jeep, M718A1 ambulance, half-ton Mule, 1.25-ton Gamma Goat, and M792 ambulance

Whoever wrote this for the Army is apparently unaware that the Gamma Goat replaced the Mule years ago and was itself replaced in the 80s, but we won't quibble. The point is, the Humvee has always been intended to function as a soft skinned vehicle.

The sole exception was a variant intended for Military Police. Durng peacetime the main function of MPs (at least as far as I was concerned when I was in the Army) is to harass law-abiding soldiers and run detention facilities. During wartime, however, their mission expands. Detention facility MPs maintain such facilities as required, but also maintain POW facilities and law enforcement MPs retain those responsibilities, but also pick up the additional mission of convey escort. It was specifically for convoy escort duty that the military ordered a lightly amored version of the Humvee, some with machine guns in remotely controlled turrets.

Let's recap. The Humvee replaces the Jeep and two ambulances, none of which have ever been amored or could be amored. Bear in mind that the Jeep was a rag top. You can't armor a canvas roof.

As it turns out, you can armor a Humvee--to a point (apparently the "level three" armor is so heavy that the soldiers have to be very careful about opening the doors lest they rip the hinges out). Nobody anticipated that the nature of this war would require turning Humvees into miniature tanks, so we went into the war with the things configured just as we had planned to take them into war with a near-technological equal, the Soviet Union.

So now we've recognized the need for a better protected Humvee, and we're on it. But to say we went to war with an unprepared vehicle is sophistry.

Don't get me wrong. As an old soldier myself, I'm up for anything that can keep our troops safe, but nonetheless, I find it unfair to criticize the administration for decisions that the military made years ago and is now reevaluating.

Haven't posted much lately--Lots of reasons, non sinister.

Prior to the election I was on a mission. I just simply could not countenance the thought of Kerry presidency, so I was energized. I'm as pleased as I can be with the election results, but I've lost that pre-election energy.

And too, the "holiday season" becomes a consuming event in itself. Preparing for the holidays and remaining functional through them (including a visit from six nephews and nieces who had been traveling in a van for most of the week...) could turn a steel I-beam into a limp noodle.

I'd comment on the tragedy in Indonesia, but its scope defies my puny ability to place an event into words. I did go on a bit of a verbal tirade this morning re. The UN moron's comment that we're "stingy". As it turns out, we're ponying up $35 million in aid, which doesn't take into account the cost of getting that aid there. The actual cost of the effort far exceeds $35 million and as always includes the possibility that one of the aircraft we send there could go down in the effort. The loss of an aircraft and its crew would certainly be infinitesimal in a tragedy that seems destined to claim in excess of 100,000 lives, but it adds to it nonetheless. And bear in mind that the $35 million figure is only for what we are sending this week. As time goes on we most certainly will continue to provide aid far in excess of the initial $35 million. And, as it turns out, our $35 million initial package far exceeds that offered by two of our biggest critics--The UN and France-- as well as that offered by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. All three have pledged relief efforts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, the combined amount of all three's pledges barely breaks the $1 million dollar mark. One Socialist (among many) in the UN disagrees with our reluctance to tax ourselves to death and uses a tragedy of incredible scope as his bully pulpet. What a jerk.

Got a newsletter from my chapter of the Special Forces Association today. There's an item in there that I want to pass along. I know few people read this blog (and fewer read it a second time...), but if one or two people read this and take action, it'll be worth it.

I don't have the slightest idea how "pings" and "trackbacks" and so forth work, but I'll provide a gratuitous list of links to some of my favorite blogs in hopes of generating some extra traffic.

At any rate, someone got word from the Medical Family Assistance Center (MFAC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that they are need of calling cards for the wounded troops. I've poked around and gather that they could also use breakaway pants (to fit over casts) and small, poly-filled pillows which the soldiers use to prop up injured limbs; but apparently their number one need at this point is calling cards (phone--not the paper ones dinosaurs like me remember).

The government provides internet hookups, local phone service and DSN (official military) phone service, but soldiers must pay for long-distance calls. Maybe unfair, but it's easy to see that things could get seriously out of hand if they simply allowed soldiers to run up phone bills.

As long as they continue to have them on hand, the MFAC gives the cards to the soldiers as needed. With the holiday season all but upon us, let's make sure that they continue to have those cards on hand. Remember that the soldiers at Walter Reed tend to be the most severely wounded and some of them may be staying there for a long time.

Here's the address:

Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001


Gratuitus list of links:

James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
Captain's Quarters
A Little More to the Right
Cut on the Bias
Electric Venom
Cold Fury
Michelle Malkin
PowerLine
The Diplomad
Chief Wiggles
SGT Hook

That'll do for now.

I'm not sure how to describe Democratic Underground. Cesspool comes readily to mind. Hate--Overriding hate. That also comes to mind as a descriptor.

Go there and look at the comments on posts. It really defies comprehension. Hatred reigns supreme under the guise of presumed moral and intellectual superiority.

Lest you have any doubts, check out their "Hate Mailbag". While there may be a real email or two thrown in there, it's pretty obvious that the emails are largely contrived. There is just no way that so many dumbasses could email a moderated page (which removes all postings favorable to the administration and bans the authors) in a short period of time. It's clearly fiction written up to make conservatives (particularly the so-called "religious right") look bad. And given the habituates of that page, I imagine they eat it up.

I have a question that's been weighing heavily on my mind for a while now. Unfortunately, I'll never know the real answer, and I likely won't understand at all any explanations that I'm given.

But here's the question: Why is Bill Clinton still afforded revered status by Democrats?

The Democratic party has suffered one resounding defeat after another since the day Clinton waltzed into the Oval Office. The ONLY people to benefit from Clinton's presidency have been Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Yes, he managed to win reelection (by fewer votes than Bush enjoyed in his reelection), but he spent his second term with a Congress that he handed back to the Republicans.

It seems that he's regarded as a genius, but his only real genius is in self-promotion. In retrospect he accomplished little in his tenure other than to burst the Reagan economic bubble, present us with the largest tax increase in history and get a few bills passed which were long in style and short in substance. Midnight basketball, anyone?

To give him some credit, in between photo ops and podium thumping speeches, he did manage to score an intern and get some unusual cigar action.

I'm told that Bill is incredibly intelligent (but so what, if it's an undisciplined intellect?). If he was, indeed, one of our most intelligent presidents, he shares honors with Richard Nixon. Nixon was one of the top three presidents in IQ, but is reviled because he resigned in disgrace--a step Clinton would have taken in he had any honor whatsoever. Nevermind that Nixon got us out of an unpopular war which his Democrat predecessor had gotten us neck-deep into.

Remember the "crime bill"? The Republicans voted to extend debate on the bill for a few more days. It's Republican trait to want to understand things before we vote on them. Knee-jerk emotional decisions are Democrat territory. At any rate, it was voted to extend debate. The bill wasn't voted down. Clinton appeared on TV, chewed his bottom lip for a while and pounded the podium as though he expected to drive it into the stage. He had a figure, I don't know how it was derived, but he announced that "X" number of children would die every day that the bill languished in Congress. Thoroughly cowed, the Republicans rushed back to DC and immediately passed the bill. Clinton took that opportunity to take a vacation on Martha's Vineyard, staying at the home of yet another wealthy Friend of Bill. The "crime bill" laid on his desk, waiting for his signature, for another week while he yucked it up in Martha's Vineyard. Wonder how many children died that week...

I digress a bit. Some of the above are my own reasons for relegating the Clinton presidency to the executive dustbin. But the original question remains. Clinton has led a period of time which is historic in the defeats that the Democratic Party has suffered. Simply put, he's the worst thing that has happened to the party in decades. Possibly ever. Yet he remains revered.

I'm utterly baffled.

There are all sorts of personalities in the "blogosphere". You have the studiousness of Powerline, you have the personal reflections of James Lileks, you have the intense investigative bent of Little Green Footballs, you have the incredible hatred reflected in Daily Kos who famously said of civilian security guards who were killed in Iraq "Screw 'em". Then you have Wonkette.

Wonkette generally manages to be humorous, despite being far enough left that she holds in contempt anyone who disagrees with her. But she crossed a line today. And I guarantee that she won't be held accountable for it. Racism is apparently ok as long as it's expressed as a part of "the good fight" between liberal and conservative.

Here, in part, is Wonkette's view of the highly accomplished "minority" people who hold high level positions in the Bush administration.

Well, maybe now they'll stop using that twisted fragment of metal from the second tower as the Cabinet meeting "talking stick." But why does the Cabinet need any more symbolism? They already have a woman and some brown people on there.

"Some brown people". Nice.

I'd be a lot less dismissive if I were the Wonkette.

But I'm not.

Yeah, I know that the election is over, but I'm not giving up yet. I grew beyond weary of hearing about "War hero John Kerry". The guy who got three scratches, none of which merited a single night in sick bay, and used them as an excuse to bail on his "Band of Brothers".

Senator Kerry, here is a REAL hero.

Not an arrogant, self-promoting blueblood...

From Michelle Malkin we find something that to me is far more telling than the pseudo "IQ Rating" cooked up by some left wing hate monger.

The "Generosity Index" has been calculated by the Catalog for Philanthropy for seven years now. It rates states by comparing the differential between income and charitable contributions.

The dry, official version is here at the Catalog for Philanthropy. From Michelle Malkin's blog we have the jazzed up, color coded version. Scroll down and see how long it takes to come to a Blue State...

Update: It's not easy to read here, but if you click on it you can read the states.

The post election hatred is really something to keep track of. Just astonishing.

But what's really fun is to watch the left twist and spin as they find new reasons to denigrate the right. Right up to 2 November the Republican party was "the party of the rich". Check back for yourself. There was all of the "pro business" rhetoric, ignoring the fact that business keeps people employed. There was the oft repeated canard that Republican tax cuts were only for the rich, which ignores the fact that in a progressive tax system the rich get taxed proportionally more, so their taxes get cut proportionally more as well. On and on it went--the "class warfare" that has so often been spoken of.

And now, post-election, the whole meme has been stood on its head. Turns out the Republican party isn't the party of the rich after all. We're all dumbass Southerners.

Someone decided that average income per state directly correlates to average IQ for each state. An interesting theory that has a shred of validity and myriad flaws. Smarter people do tend to make higher incomes, but you can only make comparisons on a regional basis. The smartest guy in the world, residing in Montana, might not make as much as an NYC garbage collector. But then again, he can buy a house with many acres of land for less per year than the NYC resident pays for his apartment.

So which are we...The party of the rich or the party of economic underachievers? Pick one, guys.

Via Little Green Footballs : Oh, we're just so sorry. Never mind it's our damn country and most of us voted for Bush.

Following a close-fought election emotions run high. We all know that. I expect over the top rhetoric from a small percentage of each side. But it gets ridiculous.

Jane Smiley writes an article that is just so beyond the pale that I have to wonder if she doesn't need to have a serious talk with the nearest psychological professional on an emergency basis.

Some non-contiguous excerpts separated by elipses:

I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush...The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.)...[ed.--nice comment on your relatives, Jane. Guess you're a lot better than them. After all, they're still trapped in Li'l Ole Missouri while you make your name on Slate]

The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862—Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in
front of their wives and children. [ed.--Red Forces??? The attackers became what were known as "Dixiecrats". The Democrats who almost derailed the Republican pushed "Civil Rights Bill of 1964". Most definitely Blue Staters.]

There's more--lots more, but I won't bother. Her hatred is all consuming. Never mind that nobody knew what the hell a "Red State" was in 1862, mostly because there was no such division. Her ignorance is exceeded only by her hate. And while I don't for one second want to diminish Quantrill's Raid, the worst civilian massacre in American history took place on 9/11/2001. As Robert Byrd would say in his oh-so quaint style of speech: "A fie on you, Jane, a fie on you for forgetting that the worst slaughter of innocent Americans ocurred on 9/11/2001, not in 1862".

It took way longer than it should have, but Americans accept persons of all stripes into our country and culture. The real intolerant ones are the radical Islamicists who think that the entire balance of the world should either convert or be slaughtered.

Not a lot of Kerry/Edwards signs around here, so it took me a while to take real notice. The tagline is "For a stronger America". Just my usual curiosity, but how is Kerry's "global test"--asking France "pretty please" every time we want to disrupt a potential terrorist threat going to make us a "stronger America"?

It just doesn't stop. I've been writing that Kerry will simply say anything, anything in his race to gain the office that he simply believes should be his because he's John Kerry, dammit.

And now he has people in Florida making phone calls claiming that retired General Norman Schwartkopf is endorsing him.

Problem is, Gen. Schwartzkopf doesn't endorse him. At all.

From Drudge, via Powerline:

TAMPA, FL – Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf today issued the following statement:"The Democratic National Committee is making fraudulent phone calls claiming that I have endorsed Senator Kerry. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I
demand that they stop immediately."

If this isn't bottom-feeding politics, I don't know what is. They're lying. Absolutely lying, just to get a liar elected.

Some last minute advice:

If you really think that "looters" stuffed 380 tons (760,000 lbs.) of explosives in their pockets and ran off with them under the noses of US troops, don't vote. You don't have sufficient intellect to be making decisions that important.

If you're not outraged by the fact that Kerry lied repeatedly and loudly about meeting with the "entire UN Security Council", don't vote. You're a vacuum.

If you're not offended by Kerry's blanket condemnation of every service member in Vietnam, don't vote. You have no soul.

If you don't have serious issues with the fact that Kerry won't release his service records (and admitted to it the other night), don't vote. You don't have the intellectual curiosity to make an informed decision.

If you shrug off his flip flops, his votes for then against, don't vote. You have no command of issues, you're simply a reflexive Democrat.

If you don't care that he blames ski slope spills on "that 'SOB'" who was there to protect him and he blames girly baseball throws on the guy waiting to catch the ball, don't vote. You don't care that he can't say "I f***ed up" like a real man would.

And if you don't find the two Johns' hair utterly ridiculous, well, go ahead and vote and I'll try not to laugh at the way you dress.

And a reminder for John "Three Scratches and I'm Outta Here" Kerry: This is what a REAL war hero looks like.

I have lots of questions for John Forbes Kerry, but I have one that interests me in particular. Especially since it's such a minor item, particularly for someone who makes such a huge deal of his wartime service.

Senator Kerry, why have you continually refused to sign Standard Form 180 to allow full release of your military records for public scrutiny? You continually refer to your service, with such statements as "Reporting for duty" and others ad infinitum. You have REPEATEDLY made an issue of your service, and have even belittled the president by contrasting your (truncated) war theater service with the president's stateside service. Yet you utterly refuse to allow public access to your full military records. Just what are you hiding? You're hiding something--anyone with an IQ surpassing the idiot level knows that you are. Some don't care. The rest of us want to know. Were you given a "Less Than Honorable" discharge because of the way you consorted with the enemy in Paris following your release from active duty? Or were you cashiered because you failed to complete your obligations?--much as you charge the president of failing to do.

John Kerry, you talk about honesty. You claim that your mother's last words to you were "Integrity, integrity, integrity" (we'll ignore that this is an obvious lie unless Kerry is actually so cynical as to have provided his mother with a script on her deathbed. Hmmm......). Ok, Johnny. Integrity. Honesty. Sign the damn form. Unless you have something to hide, of course...................................

I don't want to go off the deep end yet, but it looks more and more like this whole missing explosives issue is an effort on the part of certain people in the UN to undermine Bush.

I don't get it. Kerry lies to us like we're commoners who simply don't matter, yet the big topic is a false issue. The explosives were removed before OIF ever began. While the UN was in charge, in fact.

Here's a good article on the situation.

Another example for "war hero" John Kerry of what a real war hero is.

This may be the most tampered with election in US history.

Kerry's sister actually went to Australia and delivered political speeches urging Australians to vote against the incumbent, John Howard. If Howard, a Bush ally were rejected by Australian voters that would undermine Bush. Blatant cynicism, to interject yourself in another countries politics in hopes of boosting your own political campaign.

The Manchester (England) Guardian, a far left newspaper, made a bufoonish and ultimately self-defeating attempt to influence the election here by passing out the names and addresses of Ohio voters to its readers.

The Democrats are ALREADY filing suits regarding the election.

Now, via Powerline , we discover that the UN itself may be meddling in the election. It's no secret that the UNs head clown, Koffi Annan doesn't like Bush (or the US, for that matter). But this is beyond the pale.

This is just mind-boggling. In one week we have three stories. First that Kerry has repeatedly referred to his alleged meeting with the UN Security Councilin an effort to undercut Bush and now we find out theat the meeting never ocurred and Kerry has lied to us repeatedly in a big way. Second we find out that Kerry's activities with the VVAW aided and abetted Hanoi, we looked upon favorably by Hanoi, and there may even have been cooperation between VVAW and Hanoi. This is generally referred to as treason. The third story is almost a non-starter. Some explosives are missing in Iraq, but it appears that they were hidden before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, in other words while the UN was still running the show.

Now which story is getting the most press? That Kerry's campaign is based on an outright lie, that Kerry may damn well have sold out his country, or a shaky story involving explosives that may not have been there in the first place?

That's right, boys and girls. The story that can be twisted to make Bush look bad is the one that prouted wings.

Please don't hand me the crap that main stream media aren't biased.

El Dorko bicycles in traffic, cell phone glued to his ear and helmet dangling from the bike. But at least he looks good.........

Kerry's contempt for his countrymen is blatantly obvious.

He lies to us reflexively, because we just don't matter. All that matters is that he obtain the office to which he simply feels he's entitled.

His contempt for his fellow veterans is well documented. As is his contempt for America and its citizens. Upon his return from a three month jaunt in Vietnam he completely turned on his comrades and his country.

He turned on his fellow servicemen and accused them-all of them-of rape, mutilation, plunder, murder and more, in the manner of "Jenghis" Khan.

He turned on his country and met with enemy delegations in Paris twice. He apparently had a third trip on the books but cancelled it after a falling out with his partner in VVAW.

Lest you doubt that his actions did not provide aid to the enemy, consider that his phtograph hangs in the Hall Of Heros in the Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. And it goes further. Hat tip to Powerline for the link.

Would "Traitor" be too strong a word to apply to The Man Who Would be President?

Seems that the media have decided to lay a smokescreen over Kerry's HUGE lie by making a great deal of the case of the missing explosives.

Besides the obvious issue of directing attention away from Kerry's lies, there is an obvious problem with this story. To wit, the story may be utterly false. The explosives may well have disappeared before US troops even entered Iraq. Newspeople embedded with US troops during the invasion report that the explosives were not there when troops entered the facility. Thanks to Powerline for the link.

The Iraqis had more than enough time while we hemmed and hawed and consulted with Kerry's beloved UN to move and/or hide the explosives in question as well as all sorts of other things they didn't want us to find. One would think that a convey of trucks sufficient to move 380 tons of explosives could hardly have escaped notice once hostilities had begun.

Another reminder for Mr. Kerry about what constitutes a real war hero.

Jumping ship on your buddies after three minor wounds, none of which required a day in the hospital, doesn't cut it.

Here is a real hero.

Ok, so John Kerry's a liar. He didn't really attend the signing of the truce after the first Gulf War like he said he did, but so what? His memories of Christmas in Cambodia that were "Seared....Seared" into his memory might be a bit off, but so what? Some of the after-action reports involving his performance in Vietnam may have been written by him and may involve some fabrications. Big deal. He lied about his meeting with North Vietnamese in Paris, keeping it secret for a year and then shoveling it under the heap of history and claiming he never kept it secret....I could go on and on. No big news here.

But John Kerry is a liar of the first order. He lied to us about all of the above and more. Big things.

Things like this one: The very linchpin of his foreign policy stance is based on an absolute lie. Despite his continued claims of having met with the UN Security Council on several occasions, he never met with them. Ever.

First, here's the article.

Now, you may wonder why it all matters. All politicians lie, you say. Here's an excellent analysis of his lie and what it encompasses. Oh, and bear in mind that while he speaks of meeting with the German delegation to the Security Council in 2002---ummm, Germany was not a member of the UN Security Council in that year.

There's been a dull roar in the blogosphere over the weekend concerning a news story which is to break in the Washington Times on Monday, 25 October.

Well, the story has been posted. It's just one more example of how Kerry will say ANYTHING to become president. During the second debate Kerry made a huge point of saying that he had met with "every member" of the UN Security Council prior to voting on Iraq. From the story:

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council.

"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

The problem is that once again, John Kerry lied. Read the article here.

Missed the debate, so I can't really comment on it as yet. Turned the news on and immediately I caught Larry King interviewing Paul Begala and Ann Coulter (whew--beauty and brains are DEFINITELY NOT mutually exclusive).

Anyway....

Begala was apparently talking about Bin Laden and said something to the effect that we couldn't catch him in Tora Bora even with the 10th Mountain Division, "the finest mountain division in the world".

Umm, Paul, the 10th retains the "mountain" designation only as a matter of unit heritage. Just as the 101st retains the "airborne" designation. The 101st is not an airborne division. Hasn't been since the mid-late '60s. But they retain the designation for purposes of unit heritage. The 10th was deactivated back in WWII because they sustained such horrific casualties that they could no longer exist as a division. As a true mountain division they were given high risk missions requiring mountain skills and they performed those missions heroically (Bob Dole was in the 10th and sustained injuries that haunt him to this day, such as his withered arm). But they were devastated in the process and deactivated.

The 10th was reactivated some years ago as a "light" division. Not a mountain division. But as a matter of unit heritage, the patches were issued with the "mountain" tab.

I'm not sure if they campaigned in Tora Bora, to be honest. I know that the 101st did. But even if the 10th did, Begala's comment is still utterly uninformed. They are not mountain troops.

To the best of my knowledge, the only real mountain troops extant in the US Army is my old unit, the 10th Special Forces Group.

I have neither the energy nor the temperament right now to post anything insightful or fact-filled about the debate tonight.

I can only say that I thought Edwards came off like a petulant child.

And it was classless of him (but what do you expect?) to drag Cheney's daughter into the debate and make her a topic.

More tomorrow--maybe.

Another installment in the "True Hero" series.

This guy didn't abandon his friends after three bandaids. In fact, what this guy gave for his friends boggles the mind. If I could meet just one Medal of Honor recipient, it would be Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez. But he passed away a few years ago at the relatively young age of 63, finally succumbing to the wounds inflicted on him that terrible day when he shone brighter than any star in the heavens.

http://www.psywarrior.com/benavidez.html

http://www.mishalov.com/Benavidez.html

Post number two in real American Heroes. Real heroes. Guys who fought to save their buddies, and bled. Some died.

But none of them seated themselves in front of congress and called their erstwhile comrades "war criminals".

We start with Roger Donlon, the first Green Beret to be awarded a MOH. CPT Donlon could have sat down at any point and nobody would have blamed him. He was shot full of holes. But he refused to give up, he refused to leave his men. He's a hero.

http://www.sfalx.com/moh/donlon_roger_SF.htm

In response to John "HEY, I SERVED IN VIETNAM (but bailed after a couple of minor wounds)" Kerry, I've decided to present a series of real heroes.

Am I being fair? Well, Kerry decided to make his truncated military service a centerpiece of his campaign, so deal with it.

Here's a current hero. A member of our forces who served in Afghanistan and I believe Iraq, who believes not only in winning hearts and minds, but who actually cares for people. He has campaigned for children in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has ongoing campaigns which have resulted in thousands of pounds of relief materials being shipped to children in those countries. All this in addition to the daily grind of working hard in a military stretched to its limit.

I think that Chief Wiggles deserves a huge hand, and any support that you can give him.

Can't believe I missed this, particularly after my rant about Nazi death camps (and those who would compare Bush to Hitler) the other day, but Jeff at A Little More to the Right caught a huge Kerry mistatement.

Kerry has an obsession with having "been" places. He claims to have been at the signing of the treaty with Iraq after the first gulf war, although he was actually in Boston at the time and was never sighted at the signing. Doesn't show up in any photos of ther ceremony, either. That's pretty telling.

During the debate Kerry claimed to have visited KGB Headquarters in Treblinka Square. Here's the transcript.

KERRY: Well, let me just say quickly that I've had an extraordinary experience of watching up close and personal that transition in Russia, because I was there right after the transformation. And I was probably one of the first senators,
along with Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, a former senator, go down into the KGB underneath Treblinka Square and see reams of files with names in them.

Problem is, KGB headquarters is located in Lubyanka Square.

Treblinka was a notorious Nazi death camp.

Much is made of Bush's malapropisms. But this was a mistake on a grand scale.

Just got alerted to another SwiftVet ad which will be playing in PA, NM and NV. This one features the wives of POWs.

The Kerry supporters will just never get this, but a lot of people cannot ever forgive his behavior after he bailed on his "buddies" following three minor wounds, none of which required hospitalization.

He proceded to seat himself in front of congress, wearing his Navy uniform and a haircut that didn't approach being regulation, and in that impossible Brahman accent he had at the time (I never heard "Ghengis" pronounced with a soft "G" before) he denounced every American serving in Vietnam as a criminal. He denounced sons, husbands, and fathers as criminals.

I was three years too young to go to Vietnam, but I ended up in a branch of the Army reknowned for careerists. Many, many of my friends served honorably in Vietnam. Guys who mentored me, who pulled me out of a mudhole that had swallowed me to my waist and was threatening to finish the task, much to my discomfit. Guys who carried me off of a drop zone after a jump gone badly wrong that left several of us in the hospital. Guys who said the right things to ease my frustration when we got called to report at 2:30 in the morning and nobody seemed to know what the hell was going on. John Kerry called my comrades, my friends, murderers.

Now he wants the distinction of being the first American president whose photo hangs in a museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), in a room reserved for those who helped the communists win the war.

Anyway, here's the ad.

Oh, and I don't like his policies, either.

Well, it's not a military draft, but interestingly, Kerry does seem to be calling for a sort of mandatory national service.

I won't even ask how he plans to pay four years' college tuition for everyone who completes two years' service. Or how he plans to pay the stipends that will be necessary so that these volunteers can eat and wear clothing.

Post number two in the "Kerry will say or do anything" series.

Again, I'm well behind everyone else, but this is an issue that deserves to be kept close to the surface. It shows just how venial Price John is. And how he will say anything in his effort to obtain an office that he thinks he's simply entitled to.

Last week Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ilyad Allawi visited the US. This guy not only has our trust, but he's stepped into what may well be the most dangerous job on the planet. He's a true Iraqi patriot. Anyone else with any different motivations would work things from behind the scenes or from a cave somewhere. A man with no motives other than self-promotion would not be in Allawi's position right now. Quite honestly, he may very well not live to see the first elections.

So what's Kerry's reaction to his visit? Kerry calls him a liar. And Kerry's number one advisor, Joe Lockhart, calls him a puppet.

I don't care whether or not you agree with the war in Iraq, for a public figure to insult an ally like that is completely bereft of class.

And some people actually want this guy as our president...

I guess maybe Kerry can only speak well of the French. At least if he's elected Franco-American relations will improve.

Big deal.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is anything that John Kerry won't say or do in his pursuit of the presidency. I honestly think that he simply believes that he's entitled to the position for no other reason than the fact that he's John Kerry, ergo anything goes.

As I pointed out, long after many others in the "blogosphere", the whole draft thing is an utter canard. He invented an issue that doesn't exist and is making a huge deal of it. He hints darkly that if Bush is reelected a resurrection of the draft will necessarily ensue. And his surrogates Max Cleland and Fritz Hollings have gone a step further and flatly said that it WILL ensue.

And now there's an email circulating, primarily amongst college students. Here's the text via Powerline:

YOU HAVE BEEN DRAFTED!

http://action.rockthevote.org/ctt.asp?u=906763&l=4476

This is not a real draft, but a real one may happen soon if the current situation doesn't improve.
As it is, our military is stretched almost to the
breaking point trying to maintain troop levels in Iraq and around the world.
If Pakistan, North Korea or other nations begin to pose new military threats, how would we expect to meet the demand for troops?
Did you know that:
* It would only take two to three days for Congress and the President to authorize a draft and set the Selective Service System's plans in motion?
* Twenty-year-olds would be the first to be inducted?
* Women are very likely to be included in the next draft?
It's up to us to educate ourselves. In the
event of a draft, we won't have much time to form an opinion. And with just 34 days left until the election and only a few days left before many state registration deadlines, we need to take a stand now by registering to vote:
http://action.rockthevote.org/ctt.asp?u=906763&l=4476
Copy this URL into your web browser to get the facts about a potential draft, and to find out what you can do:
http://action.rockthevote.org/ctt.asp?u=906763&l=4476
Sincerely,Rock
The VoteandAlliance For Security

http://www.rockthevote.com/draft/

Not surprisingly, there's no link for feedback on the "Rock the Vote" page. They know it's an utter lie and don't want to be outed on their own page.

Here's the official Selective Service position on Kerry's bald-faced lie. And yes, that's what it is by now. A lie.

Yet another post bemoaning the utter lack of civility on the left. Got this item from A Little More to the Right via Electric Venom.

What is is with those people? Like I said earlier, "Fuck Bush" seems to be a standalone statement, no explaination or discussion required.

And now we have this. I have no citations for it, but apparently a Painters' Union has stepped in to offer compensation to the father, so it would appear that this is genuine.

Hope Smiley there on the left is real proud of himself...

Fucking punk.

Michelle Malkin addresses Kerry's draft scare tactic and points out that the administration is opposed to the idea.

I just can't stop posting tonight, I'm finding too much good stuff. Of course it's all other peoples' material, but I'll freely admit that I'm not the deepest thinker around.

Anyway, in the wake of all of the Abu Ghraib hoopla, I thought all of the military haters and Bush haters out there would like to see photos of even more US atrocities in Iraq.

Got this story via the Little Green Footballs weblog, one of the better ones.

I'll resist the urge to editorialize and just let the story speak for itself.

John Kerry Smeared a Hero: My Dad

What a canard. Kerry is scaring little old ladies in West Palm Beach by insinuating that if Bush is reelected, reinstitution of the draft will follow. An out and out canard.

There are currently two people in Congress who are talking about reinstituting the draft-Charles Rangel and Fritz Hollings. Neither of these gentlemen have ever been mistaken for Republicans.

Rep. Rangel has introduced a bill in the house and Sen. Hollings has introduced a bill in the Senate.

So the only people talking about the draft are Democrats, yet Kerry darkly hints that reelecting a Republican administration will lead to reinstatement of the draft. Is there anything this guy won't say?

UPDATE: I guess it wasn't enough to scare elderly women in Palm Beach. Seems Kerry surrogates Howard Dean and Max Cleland are doing the college circuit threatening college kids with the draft if they vote for Bush.

I've spent a lot of time bemoaning the absolute lack of civility and intolerance for any discussion on the part of Kerry (anyone but Bush?) supporters.

I know a certain internet chat room where people can spend hours discussing miosis, mitosis, base pairs, kreb's cycle, genetics, molecular biology--you name it. Yet as soon as politics come up the atmosphere degrades to infantile. "Fuck Bush" gets repeated over and over, as if it's an intelligent, productive statement. Challenging them to actually discuss issues is an invitation to further derogatory comments. All of these supposedly intelligent people, yet "Fuck Bush" is considered a legitimate and unassailable statement.

I thought it was just me, then I caught this link from Captains Quarters. Someone might be tempted to invoke Godwin's Law, but it ain't the same. This is pure, unadulterated (by the way, that common phrase is redundant) hatred. This stuff isn't legitimate disagreement, it's people looking for someone to hate and finding Bush in their sights.

Here it is.

Nice, convenient analogies for people who simply want to hate Bush, but simplistic to the point of gross stupidity. I've visited two Nazi concentration camps and one Nazi death camp. Specifically; Dachau, Bad Toelz (a satellite of Dachau) and Auschwitz. Most people probably have no idea since studying history interferes with their X-Box time, so I'll make it easy--Auschwitz was the death camp. Big time. Dachau and its satellite were labor camps. Not much difference in the end. You either walked from the train into the gas chamber or worked yourself to death over a few months. Either way you ended up in the crematorium. Anyway--to compare Bush's actions and policies to the Nazis is stupid at the very least. To actually believe it? You need professional help.

Go to Auschwitz some time. The museum as it were. First you visit underground chambers in which the Nazis performed their first experiments with poison gas on Soviet and Polish prisoners. The experiments were a resounding success. What sort of people were they for Chrissake? Their mothers must be so proud...

Then you go above ground to a hall of exhibits. They have glassed-in rooms full of luggage which was taken from the arrivals. Then they have glassed-in rooms full of the clothing taken from them. Then rooms full of wigs and such taken from the arrivals. You look at these exhibits knowing that this was the act of leaders who were utterly insane. And who somehow managed to persuade large numbers of people to follow them into the realm of absolute insanity. This isn't making fun of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

We know the things that came out of it--lampshades made of human skin, soap made from human tissue, grotesque experiments in human survival...

Then you get to a glassed-in room in which resides a mountain, and I mean a mountain, of children's shoes. Thousands and thousands of shoes which were taken from children who were then ushered into gas chambers.

You want to compare Bush to Hitler?? You've got a very long way to go. You only expose your own ignorance (and hatred) by that analogy.

Well, the end of the "assault weapons" ban draws near. A typical Clintonian ban which favors style over actual substance.

You see--assault weapons are capable of fully automatic fire. That's the definition. Sorry. But the "assault weapons" ban simply banned a number of firearms based on cosmetics. Fully automatic weapons have been illegal in the states for some years now. There are still some in private possession, since the law against fully automatic weapons was "grandfathered", but the ban on "assault weapons" had no effect since "assault weapons" are no longer legally obtainable in the US. In other words, ban something that's already banned. Typical Clintonian language.

I might also add that although possession of machine guns and assault weapons was permissable for a while as long as the possessor had a Class 3 Federal License, no legally owned machine gun (assault weapon) has ever been used in an illegal act in the US. Yeah, Al Capone used them, but he didn't get them at the local sporting goods store. It's a true fact, inconvenient to Dianne Feinstein who is just full of self righteousness over the expiriation of the ban, but that's our history. No crime has ever been comitted with a legally owned machine gun.

On to the "assault weapons". By definition an assault weapon is a shortened rifle (carbine, perhaps) which is capable full-auto fire. You know what that means. The M-16A2 sort of stretches the definition. It has no full-auto mode, but it has a three round burst mode. In other words every time you pull the trigger it goes full auto, but only for three rounds. Wanna call that an assault weapon? I won't argue, at least not too much.

BUT--A semi-auto rifle IS NOT an assault weapon. With one (stretching it) exception, every characteristic that congress set out as defining an "assault weapon" was purely cosmetic. One characteristic was a bayonette lug. This would enable a bayonette to be attached to the rifle. When is the last time any of us have heard of bayonettes being a huge crime problem??? There are millions of M1 rifles in this country (and they're semi-autos----quake in fear) and many of those owners also own bayonettes. Yet there seems to be no national crime wave involving M1 bayonettes. After that the only possible functional objection to "assault weapons" is magazine capacity. Hmmm. I can't get 30-round magazines anymore, but I can easily buy 50 ten-round magazines. Fire ten rounds, drop the mag, slap another in and resume fire. Not all that inconvenient. Don't know about you, but I can keep up one hell of a rate of fire with ten-round magazines.

They make a point of being able to fire grenades from the muzzles of certain weapons. Holy shit!! Not for literally 50 years now. Rifle-launched grenades were WWII relics by the time we went into Korea. They were totally eliminated by the late 50's in favor of the M79 grenade launcher. Lanching one of those old grenades required an adapter and an M1 Garand, which is still around as it doesn't have the cosmetic features that make it an "assault weapon". Oops--it has bayonette lug, but it's very long, so it can't be an assault weapon despite the fact that its length makes it more lethal with a bayonette.

The ban is based on purely cosmetic features. Not functionality. It's been bullshit from Day 1.

Fact is, "assault weapons" barely register on the scales of what sort of weapons are used in US crimes. They're not a menace on the streets, and never have been. More people are beaten to death each year with toilet seats than are gunned down by assault weapons.

And as far as terrorists, you'd have to live in a fantasy world to think that they're going to shop at Bob's Guns for pretend assault weapons when the Soviets have salted the planet with millions of AK-47s--real assault weapons. Consider, too, that the worst ever act of terrorism utilized box cutters and airliners.

I grow weary. Have to go.

The entire basis of Prince John's campaign:

I'm disinclined to keep slamming John Kerry just for sport. But there are points to be made, so I'm not doing this for sport. I'm making points. In fact, I don't think I've ever slammed him just for sport, in stark contrast to the left which exudes simple hatred for Bush. They avoid coherent discussion of policy differences, they simply hate. They get a primal fix from their hatred. It's gut level and has nothing to do with intellect.

Anyway, I came across a news item the other day that really fixed an idea in my mind. It was there, anyway, but this cemented it.

Kerry has provided lots of photo opportunities of his "sporting" life. But they're all solitary sorts of pursuits. He rides his motorcycle, he goes jet skiing, he snowboards (he doesn't just ski--he's way too hip for that--he snowboards. He's down with it, Daddy-O). But he doesn't play softball, he doesn't go out in a johnboat with his buddies Red and Stump for a morning of fishing (probably doesn't have any buddies who want to spend a morning with him anyway, but...). Doesn't even take his wife Moneybags--oops, I meant Theresa--snowboarding with him. Total loner.

But back to the original thought. Remember when he fell whilst snowboarding last winter? Classy guy would have said "I fell". I've never been on a snowboard, but I've eaten a pickup truck load of snow in my skiing career. I've probably fallen 10,000 times. I've gone end-over-end, once pulled off a glove to find it filled with blood, all that stuff. It happens. But when Prince John fell, he immediately blamed it on a Secret Service guy who was there to protect him, and would have protected him with his own life even though the very thought of President Kerry probably gives him a case of the trots. Not one to leave well enough alone, Kerry had to continue to call the Secret Service agent a "son of a bitch". You remember the quote: "I don't fall". Everybody falls, John. Even you. Then he called his sworn protector a "son of a bitch". A real class act you are, Prince John.

Well the news item that got me going tonight is here

Seems Kerry threw a wild pitch as the guest of honor at a baseball game and basically blamed the wild pitch on the catcher: He was really nervous, so I held back, Prince John says.

Is Prince John ever going to just say "I fell", or "My throw sucked", or is it always going to be someone else's fault? And if that's the case (and we all know it is...), do we want this guy in the White House? Bush may not be everyone's dream president, but a guy who blames bad throws and caught edges on everyone else??? Wake up, guys.

My second post of the day. How like me--don't post at all for two months, then post twice in an hour's time.

Anyway, more required reading. Amidst the incredible hate, shrillness, accusations and lies (and that's just from the Democrats) accompanying this election, how about a well-written, well-researched, dispassionate evaluation of the controversy surrounding Bush's National Guard service as well as a bit of dispassionate commentary on Kerry's service.

Keep reading. The link to the article will come...

There's so much crap out there that it's refreshing to read something that lays out the facts. Good and bad.

There's another web site that cites a "desperate need for F-102 pilots to fly the dangerous reconnaissance missions so vital to troops [in Vietnam]", inferring that Bush avoided that duty. That shit doesn't fly (so to speak). It's a bald-faced lie perpetrated by someone who simply hates, but doesn't think. If you want to make an argument against the man, fine, but make it factual. The F-102 was developed to make radar guided missile intercepts of Soviet bombers. We had a limited number of F-102s in Vietnam which were mainly used to escort B-52s until we realized there was almost no threat to them from enemy aircraft. A few F-102s were used in a ground attack role, but the results didn't justify their use. There was NEVER a reconnaissance version of the F-102. It was built to perform radar intercepts and that's the only thing it ever did well. And even that's a matter of opinion. The F-102 was well known for being every bit as lethal to its pilots as it would have been to Soviet bombers. Its accident rate was fully three times that of anything currently flying with the exception of the AV-8. And while the AV-8 is acknowledged to be an extremely dangerous aircraft, the F-102 still exceeded the AV-8's accident rate by a number of points.

So let us celebrate the season of pure, unfounded hate by looking at some facts:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml

Wrote the following as an email reply to a friend who sent me a film clip of a US aircraft deploying a smart bomb over Falujah. His email identified the sircraft as an F-16. I've seen the same clip identified as coming from an FA-18 also. I suppose someone could look at the heads up display and identify the aircraft, but it's not that important. Whatever it was, it dropped a bomb right into the drawers of a bunch of bad guys running down the street.

Got to thinking about my reply and I like it more and more, so here it is for your amusement. And if it offends you, and it undoubtedly will offend someone, too bad.

Here goes:
********************************************************************
Good stuff. I like to know my tax dollars are going to good use.

There are also films floating around that purport to be gun camera films from an Apache and an AC-130. Both supposedly filmed in Afghanistan. The Apache one was verified by one of the news networks. It caused some controversy because they hit someone and he was still moving, so they hit him again. Fuck it. I was a combat soldier and I know that if you want to see your family for Christmas you don't turn your back on a wounded man. There are also web sites whining about the Apache gunning down farmers, but the news people reported that the "farmers" were growing rocket propelled grenades and were loading them on a truck when the helicopters hit them.

The AC-130 film is great. It's a huge file--the kind you download while you go to bed, but what a film. They hit some cars--lot's of secondary explosions. The cars are obviously loaded with munitions. These guys weren't headed to the mosque for a night of bingo. Next they hit a hole in the ground and guys spill out of it like ants. And they literally follow guys and hunt them down with the aircraft. It's an awesome demonstration of our combat technology.

As far as us swatting down 13th century fanatics with 21st century hardware, fuck them. Their culture and religion kept them 800 years behind us and then they decided to fuck with us anyway. Too bad. They could have been content with beating their women and screwing their camels, but they had to stick their dicks in a wringer.

I wasn't always for the invasion of Iraq, but with what we've seen now (especially the "childrens' prison") I think it was due. Our invasion of Iraq was hardly "unilateral", with some 65 other countries joining us. Of course now they're bailing out one by one as terrorists catch people and threaten to saw their heads off. Once again the US is going to do the heavy lifting and keep the rest of the world safe so that they can hold us in contempt.
********************************************************************

That's it, boys and girls. And like I said, if you're offended--tough shit.

The administration, backed by oral statements by Secretary Rumsfeld, has released documents saying that they specifically prohibited torture, in a number of forms, in US facilities where we held Muslim detanies.

Get over it, guys and girls. Whether or not you agree with our invasion of Irag, and acknowledging that some GIs have done some bad things to Iraqi prisoners, we've done a pretty good job of prosecuting this war. We haven't crashed B-52s into downtown Baghdad. And we haven't made a practice of sawing hostages' heads off with knives. Some few people made asses of themselves in Abhu Ghraib, and we're throwing a national fit about it. The Iraqi response, in spite of the fact that we're having spasms about a few embarrassing pictures, is to kidnap civilians and literally saw their heads off(do you get my point?--this ain't the axe or the guillotine. We're talking about sawing a head off with a sheath knife). It's not proportional. Not even close.

Well, they've kidnapped another American. This time they say they're going to treat him the way we treat Iraqi prisoners. God, I hope they do.

Problem is we know they won't....

I'm ranting now. No surprise there.

Seems the Pope had words with President Bush over the incidents in the Iraqi prison. Big Hairy Deal, boys and girls. Yes, some people got out of line and did things they shouldn't have done. And we've already begun the process of pulling them out and administering punishment. But this rises to the point where the world leader of the Catholic Church should admonish our president for the actions of a few very low level military people?

I was raised Catholic and even went to a Catholic college. But I'm not blind. The Pope is so feeble he can't even make it through a mass, yet he refuses to step down. He's so feeble he can't deliver a sermon, yet he takes our president to task for what are really minor incidents. I have to wonder if he has any idea of how murderous Saddam's regime was. And the Islamic response to embarrasing photos of Iraqi prisoners was to saw a man's head off. Hardly tit-for-tat. Any comments on that, John Paul?

I did not support the war in Iraq at the outset. I figured that their problems were just that--their problems. But much has come to the surface since that war began. First and foremost, who can possibly not support our efforts since they liberated that childrens' prison? If for no other reason, I can say that we did the right thing when I saw that. Children held in a prison. I'll say no more, because if you don't understand me by now, you never will.

As far as WMDs, the smart money says that they were evacuated from Iraq during our grace period--when we said "You have X days to comply"--and are now being infiltrated back into the country. There was a gas attack on US soldiers three weeks ago or so, but the media glossed over it because it went against their model that our invasion was unfounded.

Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering, Lynddie England, the lightening rod in the Iraqi "abuse" case, is a functional idiot.

I always suspected this when I was in the Army, but apparently you don't have to excell on the military entrance tests to become a military policeman.

Got married out of the blue at age 19 and ran around town telling everyone "Guess what I just did..." Not a promising sign. Divorced two years later-what a surprise.

He mother describes her as "headstrong" and cites as an example a time when a tornado came through and Lynndie danced around outside while everyone else took refuge in the cellar. That's not "headstrong", lady--that's stupid.

I came away from basic training with the knowledge that there are certain things that are unacceptable when dealing with prisoners. And I didn't receive the further advanced training that an MP receives. Now she says she did it because she was "told" to. The Army makes a HUGE point in basic training that some orders can be illegal and you MUST refuse to obey them. I know that's difficult in practice, but this stuff goes beyond that. It didn't occur in the heat of combat. It was cold, calculated humiliation of the detainees. And she participated.

She's now claiming that this was all part of a "psychological operation". My 11-year old would know better than to do things that will only inflame your adversary. Nobody ordered that stuff as part of a psychological operation. One more lie that's going to come back and smack her in the face, but she's not intelligent enough to realize it.

And while all of this was going on, she was busy getting pregnant. Another real smart move. Just great, Lynndie. Keep your defective genetic line going...

I'm posting off the cuff--no references, no citations. But I need to get this out.

A few US troops in Iraq did some stupid things with Iraqi detainees (prisoners, if you prefer). They humiliated the detainees. Took pictures with them in humiliating poses. What they did is against US regulations, and a violation of the Geneva Accords, which the US never signed but agreed in principal to abide by. And we always have abided by the Geneva Accords, except in isolated incidents where junior leaders, out of the control of their seniors, have managed to create a tiny number of incidents.

Let's keep things in perspective. Abuse of prisoners goes back almost to the dawn of warfare--or at least as far back as people began taking prisoners.

Allied prisoners suffered abuses in Germany. And far worse abuses at the hands of the Japanese. The Koreans were hardly benevalent in their treatment of UN prisoners. We have all heard stories of the treatment of prisoners at the hands of the North Vietnamese. The most notorious prison in the US Civil War, Andersonville, was overseen by an Austrian immigrant.

Now, all of this is not meant to point fingers at others, but to make the point that the US doesn't hold a monopoly on abuse of prisoners. But we stretch the definition of "abuse". Yes, our people humiliated some prisoners. But you want abuse??? Keep trying.

Abuse is taking a knife and sawing the head off of a hostage. The Iraqis just did that, claiming it was "retaliation" for our "abuse" of Iraqi prisoners. That's tit-for-tat? Some people take embarrassing pictures of detainees and you retaliate by sawing a guy's head off with a knife?

They didn't hack his head off with an ax or a guillotine--They sawed it off with a knife. That action alone must have required a sub-human to carry out. I saw a film of that being done to a Soviet prisoner in Afghanistan. I won't elaborate.

The United States is currently involved in the exercise of pretty damn near disembowling itself, all over the humiliation of Iraqi detainees. It is right, and a measure of our own strength that we prosecute those responsible for this and take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again. But to raise this to the level that some want to raise it is absurd.

Some people did things to embarrass detainees. Those detainees being people who may well have participated in attacks on US forces. Or who quite frankly may be indistinguishable in our eyes from others who attacked US forces. A guard absolutely should not take that knowledge into his or her dealings with detainees, but it happens. It's human nature. Imagine--My best friend just got killed in a ambush, now I have to be civil to you and lead you to the shower. You step out of line and I may just club the shit out of you---but that never happened. Instead a few prisoners were "humiliated".

Big deal.

Seems Kerry had a bit of a meltdown recently over reports that he threw his Vietnam medals over the Whitehouse fence as did other veterans opposed to the war. The crux of the issue is that while he claims to have thrown them over the fence, he also has them in a frame in his senate office. The simple question is "Did you throw them over the fence or not?" He can't or won't answer that question. He has lots to say when he's asked, but he doesn't answer the question. Takes a bit of time and patience to sort through his ramblings, but I think his answer is that he threw his ribbons (which represent medals) over the fence, but kept his medals. Fine. Then just come out and say it in that many words.

I'm rapidly coming to the opinion that the man has a lot to hide.

The question about the medals/ribbon incident culminated in Kerry attacking Bush (that's what he does best, having no actual principles of his own) over Bush's National Guard record and the alleged missed drills.

I spent time in the National Guard myself. In fact, I sort of did my military career in reverse (no surprise to those who know me). I enjoyed the National Guard a bit too much and ended up converting to active duty, and I'd be there today if I hadn't ended up donating my knees and back to the USA.

Not long after I converted to active duty I started getting letters from the National Guard claiming missed drills, overpayment of parachute pay--you name it. None of it was true, but I had one hell of a row with them and it all came to an abrupt halt when I wrote a letter to the commandant of military records and asked for a precise enumeration of what I owed and why. I never received a reply to that letter, but I never got another letter asking for repayment, either.

Given that, it's no surprise whatsoever to me that some of Bush's drills can't be accounted for.

My challenge to Senator John Forbes Kerry is to find an actual issue and take a stand on it.

Here's the link for the whole story: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/26/125135.shtml

Personally, I can't wait for the election to be over. I'm sick to death of the meanness, the screeching, the utter bullshit. The Kerry supporters seem to see no need to be reasonable or rational. They simply shout you down and fling names if you try and discuss things like an adult. A wonderful friend of mine, someone whom I respect very much, has gotten herself so worked up that she told me the other day I was forbidden to even use the name George Bush in her presence.

Hell, an otherwise intelligent PhD told me "at least Kerry's a self-made man". Self-made? John FORBES Kerry? Scion of the the Forbes family of banking renown? Kerry was born to wealth and has managed to marry quite well, more than once. Say what you want about him, but at least keep it reasonably believable.

Maybe the Democrats realize they have a miserable candidate and are upset and frustrated. I understand, but don't take it out on me. Ain't my fault your candidate has more positions than Marilyn Chambers.

Having gotten that off my chest, here's some required reading:

http://www.nashvillewebreview.com/

More to come soon. I've been out of this for a while. Lots of reasons, none of which matter. But I'll be back.

My inner child is six years old!

Look what I can do! I can walk, I can run, I can
read! I like to do stuff, and there's a whole
big world out there to do it in. Just so long
as I can take my blankie and my Mommy and my
three best friends with me, of course.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm really not picking on Howard Dean for any particular reason. It's just that he's making the most news of any of the Democrat candidates. A standout among morons, as it were.

Here's the latest:

"I believe too many people in my party for too long caved in out of fear for high poll ratings, have been terrified by [talk radio host] Rush Limbaugh and all those people, beating up on unions, 'Yes, sir, we are afraid to stand up to the right wing,'" Dean said.

Now I'm no fan of governance by poll, but what he's saying here is that he feels that he knows better than the average American. In other words, "Polls be damned, I know what's right for you". We rule by majority, and he's saying the majority are wrong. And why is Limbaugh so terrifying? Is it because his opinions resonate with a lot of people?

Well at least Howie has cemented the 13-year old internet (DeaN is SoOo KeWl) chatter vote. Maybe he can work on appealing to people with functioning intellects next.

Well, John Geoghan was killed in his jail cell. Geoghan was something of the poster child for pedophile priests. His case was particularly odious (if there are degrees of odiousness in child-molestation), involving almost 150 victims and exposing Bernard Law's practice of sweeping molestation cases under the rug and simply reassigning accused priests to new parishes. Presumably fresh hunting grounds.

I'm of two minds concerning Geoghan's death. Part of me says "Die, asshole", but another part of me would have liked to have seen him spend the next 20 years married to some guy nicknamed "Tripod".

Until the next rant...

Saw something yesterday that struck me. A "Howard Dean in 2004" bumper sticker.

Up until yesterday I thought Howie only appealed to adolescent girls who chatted on the internet using lines like "PeEps, tHaT Is SO KeWl"

Guess he's worked his way up to driving age girls, now.

Not since Al Gore have the Democrats managed to field such a pathetic lot of candidates. Petty, mean little men all.

You can see Howie and the rest at www.ninedwarfs.com

This morning's conversation:

Her: Do you want some breakfast?
Me: No thanks, I don't care for anything right now.

Her: Would you like a bagel?
Me: No, thanks

Her: Would you like a biscuit?
Me: No.....Thank you.

Her: Would you like a muffin?
Me: No.

Her: Do you want some coffee?
Me: No, thank you. I told you that I don't care for anything right now.

Her: Well excuse me.....Fine.

IS IT ME??????

Just a quick entry to illustrate those little lapses of thought that we all have, and that I tend to have with distressing regularly.

The basement is finished. Carpet, drywall, suspended ceiling--all that stuff. The yellow dog sleeps down here, and she frolics about the room regularly.

The boys spent the night down here for the big sleepover. At some point one of the guys broke out a bag of "Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans" and they sampled them. As I was picking up the other night I spotted one of the beans on the floor. In a moment of supreme absence of thought I picked it up and popped it into my mouth. I can tell you what flavor it was. It was Labrador Retriever flavor. Hair and all.

It took a good four fingers of scotch to rid myself of that taste.

Brutal weekend, but I may have discovered the ultimate gadget.

The weekend started at 5:30 Friday morning. Spent the entire day mowing, trimming, raking, cleaning--you name it. Got out of the shower and was buttoning my shirt as the first of the boys arrived for the sleepover birthday party at 6:00 PM. Partied, fed them, kept them busy--hit the rack at 1:30 while they slouched watching Harry Potter. Thought they'd wind down. No such luck. They passed out around dawn. Got them up a few hours later, cooked breakfast and eventually sent them on their way. The rest of the day was a blur, though I do seem to remember cooking chicken for supper.

Sunday was Student Ambassadors. We all gathered at a mall close to the city and the group took a dry run getting on the metro and going down to the harbor. Meanwhile I'm stuck in the mall for three hours. Being somewhat tenuosly housebroken this was not fun. Although I did get an Orange Julius, a real treat since I probably get one every three years or so. Eventually found a Brookstone store. Toys for big boys. Bunch of crap mostly--hammers that unfold to become screwdrivers, that sort of stuff. But the massaging chairs were sort of fun. And there I found what has got to be the ultimate gadget.

A steak pager. Yep. Stick the probe in the meat, put it on the grill and clip the receiver to your belt. When the meat hits temperature, it pages you.

What's next?

Just a few miscellaneous ravings.

I’ve tried two different methods of sidestepping reality over the last two nights. The first was hitting the rack at 7:00 and the second was getting completely wasted. Of the two, the second is vastly superior in terms of just not giving a damn, but I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea for long-term usage. Flopping on the bed as soon as you get home eliminates the need to deal with people, but it provides way too much time for brooding. Both leave you feeling guilty in the morning, though.

I’m making iced tea in my cubicle by making tea in the lunchroom and dumping ice in it. The Chinese woman in the cubicle across from mine is giving me dirty looks. I don’t think she approves.

Looking at the paper I see that Liberia wants us to intervene in their problems and that Iranian ex-pats are demonstrating in DC, asking us to intervene for regime change in Iran. I guess everyone wants us to solve their problems so they can get back to hating us. I remember that when we went into Haiti, some guy appeared on TV saying it was about time the US intervened in Haiti, why did it take us so long, the whole thing. The guy was Haitian, of course. He was well dressed, articulate, obviously intelligent, and living in DC. This guy couldn’t even stay in his own country and work on its problems, yet he found it perfectly fine to go on TV and excoriate us for not dealing with his country’s problems sooner. To the whole lot I say “Screw you”.

The concept of free speech has gotten quite a workout lately. Lots of misperceptions out there. If Susan Sarandon and the Dixie Chicks say things that people don’t want to hear, people don’t have to listen. Dropping the Dixie Chicks from your playlist doesn’t infringe on their right to free speech. They can still run around and say anything they like. They just won’t make as much money as if they had kept their mouths shut. And that’s their real problem. Now we have Barbara Boxer calling some radio executive a “nazi” for pulling the Dixie Chicks’ songs. Well, no one has ever accused Barbara Boxer of being intelligent, so one isn’t surprised.

Now that the left is running around boo-hooing about their right to free speech, let’s discuss the right to keep and bear arms. Oh, they don’t want to talk about that. They want me to keep my mouth shut. But what about my right to free speech?

Why does the right thing so often have to be painful?

Lots of happenings, from the wild to the depressing.

On the wild side I came home the other day to discover than an industrious bird had built a nest in the paper box over the course of the day. Thing is I didn't discover it until I stuck my hand in the box and the bird came exploding out. Don't know which of us was more startled.

On the depressing side, I learned that a girl I dated in high school died the other week. Cancer. Now I haven't seen her in 25 years, it's not that emotional a thing, it's just that this death isn't as abstract as someone I never met. Another young person goes down to cancer and there's a connection, no matter how slight.

This brings me to one of my favorite rants. The people out there just demanding a cure for AIDS, an optional disease if there ever was one, and yet people die of cancers every day for no good reason.

Had a surreal experience on the drive home. Some kid was somehow making bubbles the size of grapefruits and they were blowing out across the road. I drove through a cloud of these bubbles. It was sort of neat in a way. reminded me of a Disney ride or some such.

Well, 12:30 AM and here I sit as usual. It's a very strange, confused way to live. Can't sleep at night, feel like hell in the morning. There's no compelling reason to go to bed. She actually marks down her available nights on the calendar. There were two this week, but she was too tired both nights. The next week is marked off limits on the calendar, then she goes away for another week and a half, to arrive home right in time for another week or so of off-limits. So I'm basically screwed (well, not screwed) for the next month. And she wonders why I don't bother to go upstairs when she does.

I'm not really sure what just happened. Why it came crashing down out of the blue like that. I only know that running to the bathroom at work and crying isn't going to enhance my reputation as a big, tough former Special Forces guy. Christ. I've gotten over plenty before. I've gotten over a woman or two. But I just can't, can't get over her. It's killing me, but I just can't. Christ. I have to go again.

Baseball and Being a “Nice Guy”


There are a couple of essays here, but I’ll just lay it all down once as a single incoherent jumble of thoughts.

I’m told I’m a “nice guy”. Ok... That and a couple of bucks will get me a cup of coffee. By itself, the only thing being a nice guy has ever gotten me is kicked in the balls.

Jesus, what a baseball season. Not to mince words (not that I ever do), but damn, our team was wretched. There was individual talent on the team, but it was squandered in the interest of constantly starting and playing guys who just were not up to it. Yesterday, the last freaking game of the year, and the manager admits to me that he starts and plays some of the guys (as opposed to keeping them on the bench and substituting them in for the last inning or so of the game) simply because their fathers give him a hard time if he doesn’t. See? Back to the “nice guy” thing again. I back off and let the manager do his job, and my kid subs all season despite that fact that he’s a far better player than some of the starters.

Then there are stupid fans. The official team whiner got hit by a throw as he slid into third. Rather than gut it out for a couple of seconds and hold onto the bag, he decides to launch into histrionics (as is his wont) and rolls around. Needless to say, the third baseman tagged the base and he was out. Well, one of the mothers (her ex is a pretty cool guy, I think I now know why he’s her “ex”) starts screaming at the umpire. I listened for a few then finally turned and snapped at her that the runner was out, the call was correct. Some guy with her, looked like her father but who knows, yells sat me and tells me to shut up. Told the tough guy if he felt froggy to jump on over. He declined. The tough guys always do.

I’ve gotten way too mellow over the last eight or ten years. Everyone likes me now. They all think that I’m a nice guy. Ten years ago people loved me or hated me. Mostly hated, but at least there was passion one-way or the other. Now I’m just “a nice guy”.

This is hyperbole, of course, but this is what being a “nice guy” amounts to:

“Wow, Jim, you’re such a nice guy. I really like you. Why don’t you come over to my place tonight?……………….That way you can baby-sit my Chihuahua while my boyfriend and I go upstairs and fuck like minks”.

Nice guys truly do finish last.

Just maybe there’s some truth to it.

I was at Little League practice, hanging out with a couple of other fathers (the few that actually show up) and inevitably the talk turned to kids these days. It was maintained, and I agreed, that they just don’t have the heart that we did. They don’t care as much, they don’t play as hard…all that.

But then I had to wonder. Our fathers said the same thing about us, and theirs said it about them. Maybe it’s just perception. Well, right on cue onto the field walks one of the more worthless members of the team and he proceeds to go to the bench and just hang out. He watched for a while, then when one of the guys fouled a ball off the field he retrieved it and picked the stitching out of it for a while. I finally asked if he was going to get on the field with the rest of his team. “No,” he said, “I just had an hour of batting practice and pitching lessons and I’m just too tired”.

Maybe the fathers were right after all.

I used to think that I was capable of being a callous bastard. I've revised that opinion. I'm not so bad after all. I'm getting lessons from a real master now. But look out, I'm a quick learner...

The quality of mercy goes untested in the household. Celebrated Memorial Day by transplanting shrubs. "Comeon," I implored "I'm a veteran for Chrissake. A disabled one at that". But my piteous cries touched her heart not at all.

The red-winged blackbirds are moving through now. I've always liked them. I like a splash of color on a black background. Now they remind me of things. Something forever gone. Something I want back but frustratingly, I don't know how to . I don't know whether to sit and watch them or shoot the bastards.

Petty bureaucrats, petty bullshit.

I think "bureaucrat" is about the worst epithet that you can call someone. Almost as bad a "senator" or "President Clinton".

Had to get a Maryland state inspection done on the truck the other day. Turns out the tires are slightly larger than what some deskbound asshole in Annapolis thinks they ought to be. No big deal, I have another set at the house. Told the mechanic I had them. He said I'd have to put them on. I told him I could do that, but I'd switch them right back as soon as I got it home. Did he still need me to put the smaller ones on? "Yep". Moron. So I have to change tires for ten fucking minutes so this asshole can see them. The larger tires don't affect anything. They don't rub, they don't alter the ride height, they don't even affect the speedometer reading according to the bullshit radar sign I have to drive past each morning. Christ. Is it me?

I'm in a fucking mood today.

I think I'm just too caustic for general consumption. I called in an order to the local deli today after having done so yesterday as well (peer pressure from coworkers). When I got there the guy said "You use the same name every time". I asked him what the fuck he expected.

I think that people don't always believe my last name. It's a bit unusual, although there is an actor with the same name.

Anyway, I get to the deli and end up standing behind two guys in suits. Turns out they're administrative judges. I didn't know there was a courthouse around here. But anyway, one of these guys smells like ten motherfuckers. All I can think is someone like that should have a clue as to basic hygeine.

Ok. Back to work.

Had to go to the local nature park on Sunday for a meeting. Some sort of Earth Day celebration was going on. Lots of sandals, beards to hide weak chins, tie-dyed shirts, Volvos--that sort of stuff. I took immense pleasure in roaring past them in the Redneckmobile. Gunned it a few times as I went past just to entertain them.

Well, spring marches on. I think I particularly like spring. I like watching the earth awaken from its winter slumber.

The serviceberries have bloomed and are now dropping their petals in white showers. Right on cue, the dogwoods and redbuds have stepped in to take up as the serviceberries fade.

The mayapples have appeared in their dense stands, looking like little umbrellas for woodland fairies. The wild violets have appeared and soon firepink and trillium will be along. Purple nettle is showing in the yet to be plowed fields as well.

Even the skunk cabbage has its virtues, appearing lush and green in low, wet spots.

More and more birds have appeared. I have yet to waken to the shouting of a house finch, but that’s not far off.

The bumblebees have appeared in great force this year and appear larger than in the past. As usual they bumble about (hence the name?) and make a minor nuisance of themselves as one tries to work around them. Less to my liking, the first hornets appeared yesterday. They like the front of the house where the brick absorbs the morning sun and radiates heat throughout the day. Unfortunately they often view my presence as threatening, resulting in a bit of drama and some of my more interesting vocabulary.

Other flying things have appeared, benign but annoying. Little unseen things that light long enough to make you scratch, then dart off to light on another spot.

The days grow longer and I grow more and more restless at work, taking time out to walk to the front and gaze out the windows for a few moments. I need a trip to the cabin. Soon.

Hell, I was going to write something tonight, but I'm just not in the mood. Had an ok day. Didn't even have a fight with the wife, mostly because she worked the better part of the day. Just too many defeats and disappointments lately. Fuck it.

Well, the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade made a combat jump into Iraq. This whole thing has been making me half crazy, and now this. Sitting here, knowing I'm too old and broken to participate, is very difficult.

War provides a strange dichotomy for soldiers. Contrary to popular belief, soldiers are not war mongers. We simply constitute the cadre of the willing. Those who know that a nation must posses an armed force and are willing to serve in that force. But soldiers don't crave war for the simple reason that it is the soldier who suffers in war, not the politicians.

But yet, it remains without a doubt an exciting adventure. By and large if you join the Army to become a paratrooper, you're not one who is content to watch others get their adrenaline rushes. You crave it as well.

And there's the frustration of training for years to do a job and never actually doing it. Soldiers want to apply their skills. This probably seems a bit odd, but therein is another sort of dichotomy. Soldiers don't enjoy the thought of killing, but yet yearn for the rush of achieving victory. You actually intellectually separate the idea of defeating an enemy from the thought of actually killing other humans. And when it comes down to cooly selecting and killing an individual enemy soldier, somehow the mind is able to isolate that which is done as a matter of duty and allow you to do that, even though you would never countenance the idea of killing another person off of the battlefield.

Independent of its official date, spring has arrived.

Though I rue the passing of winter-I genuinely like winter and snow-spring brings with it its own joys. It is a time of awakening and renewal. The first bits of green begin to push up through the earth. The firs display bright green tips on their branches, indicating new growth. The scars left by winter begin to even out and disappear (the potholes are, of course, a different matter).

Spring is the beauty of fresh life emerging from the ground and the promise of summer coming. Soon insects will begin to emerge, scuttling through the forest litter on their frenetic missions, trout will begin snapping at caddis larvae (and hopefully my lures as well) and birds will begin serenading us in the morning. The ground will begin to warm up, emitting its dank odor of dirt and decaying leaves. Buds will burst into flower, attracting insects to transport their pollen from plant to plant, ensuring another generation. The dogwoods and redbuds will splash the still leafless landscape with white and magenta.

Soon enough we segue into summer, with its long days and warm evenings. Days spent drifting on the lake in the canoe, the red dust of the baseball field and the smoke of barbecues. Sweet white corn and fresh local cantaloupes. But that’s for another, later day.