The Violence Worker!

Ted Kennedy Ill

All over the news is the story that Teddy Kennedy was taken to the Hospital for symptoms of a stroke.

I may disagree with Senator Kennedy on every possible subject, but I certainly wish him no harm.  I know that if this were Cheney or Bush, many on the left would be absolutely ecstatic.  I can't be that way.  Perhaps the worst I can say is that I hope he recovers but decides to retire. 

I pray that Senator Kennedy recovers fully. He's despicable in many ways, but I wish him no ill.

VW

Armed Forces Day 2008

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As Stupid As It Gets!

Scroll Down for an update.

Sometimes you read something and you blink, rub your eyes, do a double or even a triple take and keep staring at the letters knowing they have to change.  It can't possibly say what you thought is said so you keep re-reading it and re-reading it.  The message entering your brain from the words on the page or the screen conflicts with everything you know to be correct in such away that your next thought is to figure out if what you just read is some kind of lame attempt at humor. 

Then you realize the author is dead serious and your jaw immediately drops in astonishment.  You then shake your head in despair at the addled thought process that passes for punditry

From The Seattle Times Editorial Blog Contributor, Bruce Ramsey:

What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable. He wanted the German-speaking areas of Europe under German authority. He had just annexed Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.

Folks you read that right and it did not come from some neo-Nazi Nut job..  That came from the Seattle Times!

It well could be a neo-Nazi nut job because it is laden with pro-Palestinian Jew hatred, but I'm guessing this guy considers himself a "progressive".

Reading further:

In a few months, in early 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of what is now the Czech Republic—that is, territory that was not German. Then it was obvious that a deal with him was worthless. He made a promise and broke it within about six months. And so when Bush recalls the unnamed senator who, in September 1939, lamented that he had not been able to talk to Hitler, he hits an easy target. But the moment of September 1939 is nothing like today.

This is where Mr. Ramsey get's it wrong again.   At what point in time did madmen all of a sudden change and become reasonable?  It's idiocy such as this that makes my point when I say that the study of history is not about learning from our mistakes.  Even if we were naïve back then, surely we should have learned from our folly!

Ignorance on such a scale is unbelievable.  Mr. Ramsey is trying to justify the colossal failure of Chamberlain in order to justify the colossal ignorance and naivety of Barack Obama.

It boggles the mind.

VW

UPDATE:

Mr. Ramsey decided that the heat was a bit much and without any acknowledgment, amended his original assertion five minutes after I posted this and toned down the antisemitism.  He removed  the almost of his anti-Jew remarks.  The bold part are words he added.  I added the emphasis.

The narrative we're given about Munich is entirely in hindsight. We know what kind of man Hitler was, and that he started World War II in Europe. From the view of 1938, what Hitler was demanding at Munich was not unreasonable, according to the prevailing idea of the nation-state. His claim was that the German-speaking areas of Europe--and ones that thought of themselves as German --be under German authority. He had just annexed Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.

From the view of 1938.  Well thank heaven we have a view from 2008, 70 years later.  Bullies and Madmen still lie, cheat and keep secret agendas

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The Occasional Eloquence Of George W. Bush

Eloquence and President Bush are usually two mutually exclusive concepts.  Let's be honest.  Bush is not anyone's idea of an orator.  However, every now and then, Mr. Bush nails it.  Of course I'm talking about his speech at the Knesset today.  Speaking about President Ahmadinajahd, he said this:

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,” the president said.

When you have a regime bent upon conquest of their neighbors, negotiations are usually only done to buy themselves time.  Such was the case with Hitler's signature on the agreement negotiated by Neville Chamberlain.  History is replete with similar "agreements".

An "ingenious argument" will not change a bully's mind.  You can only negotiate with such people only from a position of strength.  They only understand brute force.  They understand that if you try and talk with nothing to back up your talk, they will win, you will lose and winning the larger battle will be that much more difficult.

If you try and buy off the bully by offering him something he values, that may work for the short haul, but soon, our bully will be back and asking for even more. 

Obama and the Democrats are howling because they say it's a mean and nasty thing to say, but Obama has indicated he will try and negotiate with terrorists.  If it didn't hit the mark, Obama wouldn't be squealing.

Everyone wants peace.  I don't want a false peace, giving away the store to bullies.  Negotiations haven't worked with North Korea and they won't work with Iran. 

I'm open, liberals.  Tell me what argument or deal Obama could make that will work with Hamas, Ahmadinajahd, or any other bully you choose. 

(Queue Jeopardy theme here)

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Is Anyone Surprised?

So the Breck Girl just endorsed Obama.  Really, is anyone surprised?  There is no love lost between Edwards and Hillary.  I never expected any other result.

The fact is that both Silky and Obama are both cut from the same extremist liberal cloth.

And no, I don't think Edwards is on the Veep short list for a number of reasons.  None the least of which is that Edwards already lost at that gig.

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One Bad Headline and One Bad Parent

Forgive me if this seems a bit flip, but I'm truly not trying to be insensitive about the horrible tragedy in China.  I can only imagine the the pain and suffering of thousands of dead and injured people as a result of the earthquake.

That said, here is a screen shot of Comcast's headline I saw when I logged on to get my email:

12,000 Dead; 18,000 Buried

It's almost as if they have some kind of quota to meet!

Is it just me or should the person who wrote that just isn't all that Comcastic?  Did they even read what they wrote?

The headline is one of those tragically funny kind of things.  I know what they were trying to say, but in their desire to keep it short, they really made a mess of it.

The second is a headline from that same picture above:  Man Fined for Buckling in Beer, Not Kid.

Now I like a good (and by good I mean like a good micro brew ale) beer every now and then.  I especially like the darker ales, but this guy needs his butt kicked up into his lungs. All I have to say on this is that I'm glad the cops caught him and fined him!  He deserved every bit of ot.

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Happy Mother's Day!

It was 19 years ago last month that my mother passed away at the relatively young age of 58 (about 6 weeks shy of her 59th Birthday on May 30).  She died from a stroke.  I flew in from South Korea on emergency leave, initially because she was to undergo surgery to clear her carotid artery.  The doctor said I should be there  because there was a 50/50 chance she wouldn't survive the surgery.  By the time I got there, she was in a coma.  She'd survived the surgery, but a few hours later, she suffered a massive stroke that hit the brain stem.

I was on crutches.  I'd broken my ankle in a rather nasty way.  I forget who picked me up at the airport.  We went straight to the hospital and I knew where intensive care was.  I come bursting through the door on my crutches and didn't stop at the desk.  The nurse figured out who I was real quick and just pointed.  I wheeled a turn on one crutch and headed for the room.  She was still alive and in a coma, but she knew I was there.  I could see the reaction in the myriad of electronic monitors and beeps.  She hung on until the next morning when she passed away quietly.  I was at her bedside when the monitor finally flat lined.

This is from a family portrait taken in January of 1989, just a few months before her passing

I'm the second of five; my older sister only survived a week.  That makes me the de facto oldest of four.  I have two younger sisters and a brother.

We were lucky to have a great Mother who brought us up to be good productive adults. I could type for hours and tell you some stories, some funny, some more poignant, but in the end, they would all sum up to one conclusion:

She was a wonderful Mom and we all love her and miss her.  We had a great time growing up.  I don't think you can write a greater tribute than that.

Happy Mother's day all. 

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Barack Obama - The Dan Quayle Of Democrats?

In 1992 in a Trenton, New Jersey classroom staged spelling bee, Vice-President Dan Quayle committed a small gaffe when he tried to correct then 12-year-old William Figueroa's already correct spelling of POTATO by telling young William that potato should be spelled with an "e".

The press , already convinced that the young Dan Quayle (he was 42 at the time) was an intellectual lightweight, ran with it.  It was a minor mistake. 

I consider myself a reasonably good speller.  I rely on spelling checkers to catch my typos more than my outright misspellings, but I do misspell things on occasion.  My main spelling nemesis is "judgment".  I am always spelling it with an "e" as in "judgEment".  Another spelling faux pas of mine is occasionally misspelling "occasional".  On occasion, I want to spell it with an extra "i" as in "occaIsional".

But Obama can say there are 57 states (he even stops to calculate the number of states) plus Alaska and Hawaii and the press says nothing.  He says that Roosevelt and Truman tried to negotiate with our enemies and he gets a pass.  Those and many other small mistakes have gotten a pass. 

In truth, I don't pay much attention to this kind of thing.  Campaigning for President is a tough gig.  You are going non-stop for 18 hours a day or more, sometimes through different time zones.  And at each and ever appearance, from the pancake breakfast with the local rotary club at 6 AM EST, to the 8 PM CST fund raiser dinner, you've got to be appear to be as fresh as you were at the start of your day.  With this kind of grueling schedule, how they remember their own name is beyond me.  On my last trip to Canada, I left the house at 3:30 AM PST, flew from Seattle to Toronto, rented a car and then drove the remaining 120 miles further east to Belleville, arriving about 7:30 PM EST (4:30 PST).  I'm telling you, making a speech at some formal dinner party would be the last thing on my "to do" list!

I do not believe for a second that Obama is stupid.  He's Harvard educated, etc.  However, I do believe he has an elitist attitude that he believes sets himself above the common person.  I think he feels like he can say just about anything and we mere mortals should just take it as gospel.

The problem is that if McCain made a similar mistake, every news network and outlet would be speculating about his age and mental agility and asking if his age is a factor. 

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Code Pink To Use The Nuclear Option

UPDATE May 9th, 2008:  Watch the fun!  Fox News has a Protest cam up and running 24/7 aimed at the Marine Recruiter's Office!  Go here and click on the link beside the picture.

UPDATE II May 9th, 2008:  This seems appropriate.

The Berserkeley chapter of Code Pink is at war with the US Marines.  Quite possibly, The USMC is a group of people that no one with any brains would want to pick a fight with.  OK, we are talking about Code Pink so I suppose that brains are not included in the equation by default.  Despite the fact that if the collective brain power of this group was dynamite, they wouldn't have enough to blow their noses, they are fighting the Marines on the streets of Berkeley.  And as you might expect, the gals of Code Pink are losing and the Marines haven't even fired a shot.  As a matter of fact, the Marines really haven't done a thing.  They've just sat by patiently and watched the circus while signing up more candidates than they'd originally hoped.

From Fox News:

"Ironically, it's actually helped us by putting our name out. We're now well known. And people know who we are, and where we are, and they come in to talk to us about enlisting. They've gotten us the publicity that we could've never afforded to pay for ourselves," Wheatcroft told FOXNews.com.

"Just in the last three weeks, 10 people came in looking to apply, looking to become Marine officers, and that's much higher than normal," he said.

Obviously, the Marines are winning and that fact hasn't gone unnoticed by the  Code Pink Brain Trust.  They are now going to bring in their big guns.  They've tried using grannies, daughters, noise and blocking the office, all with the effect of a fart in a hurricane.   They are now going to bring this to an end.  The Marines were given a chance to surrender, but now they've  hit the big red button.  That's right folks, Code Pink is about to  use their nuclear option!  They are going to use witchcraft!!  Oh the humanity!

Code Pink is now resorting to witchcraft to beef up the number of its supporters protesting Berkeley's controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center.

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

I can see those Marines cringing in the corner out of shear terror right now.  OK, may be not cringing - cowering...no, that's not it ...Standing and shuddering a little...no, that just doesn't seem right.

Oh!  Laughing their asses off!  That's what they will be doing!

Memo to the Code Pink Nutballs:

Good luck with that!

VW

I'm A Psychopath And I Hate Everyone...

But dammit, I'm happy!

There appears to be two "studies" out there that seek to explain the conservative mindset.  Of course they are done by left-wing extremists and frankly, they are right out of the Stalinists handbook.  Their sole purpose is to explain why we have no soul and why we are so happy about it.

The first comes from the fever swamp other wise known as the Daily Kos.  One of the Kos kiddies who quotes some nutcake columnist named Ed Martin at a nutcake liberal site called opednews.com.  Apparently Mr. Martin has decided that Bush fits the description of a psychopath.

The research of Dr. Hervey Cleckley and Dr. Robert Hare exploring the personality and character traits of psychopaths, when applied to George Bush, shows that he fits exactly the profile they developed for a classic psychopath. It's uncanny.

No, it's canned.  Mr. Martin is taking Bush and stuffing him into their definition.  Mind you, neither of these doctors have ever interviewed Mr. Bush nor has this idiot columnist.  No reputable psychologist would try and make such a serious diagnosis without some kind of interview.  It would be like a doctor trying to diagnose your rash from across the continent from someone else's description.  The doc might think you have measles and what you really have is an allergic reaction from some new laundry soap.  Check that.  In this case,  it's like faxing your symptoms to some editorial writer who then diagnoses your rash as measles.   

And how does that make me and you a psychopath?  It's so simple!  According to this asshat, op-ed hack:

Normal distribution would show the rate of psychopaths born to be evenly distributed among the population. But, as we have seen, there is an abnormal nimber(sic) of psychopaths among Republicans.  There just can't be that many more psychopaths born to Republicans than to anyone else.  It has to be learned behavior by people brought up as Republicans.  Their immersion in Republican culture and society naturally warps their minds and leads them to think that psychopathy is normal, ordinary behavior.  They've been taught that way of thinking as the highest ideal and that it is the only way to deal with the world.

The proof for this is the fact that Republicans agree with and support the leading psychopath of the nation, George Bush.  We could deal with and accept this had they come by their psychopathy naturally.  But, this adoption of psychopathy as a lifestyle, from the learned behavior of the psychopathy of Republicanism unnaturally increases the number of psychopaths to unacceptable, unnatural levels.

See how easy that was to extrapolate?   But the good news is that I'm happy about that.

I'm not going to quote the article, you can just go read it here.  Let me distill it for you.

I'm happy because the pain and suffering of other people doesn't bother me like it does the liberals.  I'm a hard hearted psychopath that hates poor people.

Cool, I can live with that!

Seriously, the scary part of this whole thing is that the time will come when they will start rounding us up and it will be with this kind of justification.

VW

Thanks to the Mad Pigeon for the extra exposure!

The Horror Of Stephen King

As you may have read elsewhere that Stephen King, the noted author of books in the horror genre, told a group of high school students:

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

and Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters simply replied:

Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen.

Apparently that statement didn't set right with Mr. King.  He said this in reply:

"That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt. Noel Sheppard says, “Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen.” I guess he feels ignorance and illiteracy are OK when the country needs cannon-fodder. I guess he also feels that the war in Iraq has nationwide approval. Well, it doesn’t have mine. It is a waste of national resources. . . and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded. I live in a national guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career—military or otherwise. If you agree, find Sheppard on the internet, and send him an email: “Hi, Noel—Stephen King says to shut up and I agree.”

Steve"

Well "Steve", Saying children should read is one thing, but trying to scare them into it with the "boogie man" called Army is another.  You might be a successful writer of scary stories, but that does not give you the moral authority to make such outrageous statements. 

Mr. Sheppard's never said that ignorance and illiteracy are OK and the military doesn't think so either.  I know that recruiting standards aren't as tight as they usually are.  That much is true, but part of that is because asshats like yourself do all they can to undermine the military's efforts. 

I don't give a damn if you live in a "National Guard" town.  I live in an Army and Air Force Town.  Your place of residency does not give a pass to impugn the men and women of our armed forces.  You don't support the troops.  It's difficult for me to think that you do when you call the ignorant illiterates.

By the way, Mr. King, I've never bought or read any of your books and it looks like I'm not going to buy one or read one any time soon.

VW

Iraq orders Boeing Jets

Iraq Airlines is ordering some Boeing jets; mostly 737-800, but after that deal is sealed, they'll announce for some 787s.  They also ordered some smaller jets from Canada's Bombardier.

From The Seattle PI:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq on Monday signed two deals worth $5 billion to buy 40 planes from Boeing and 10 planes from Canada's Bombardier to upgrade Iraqi Airways' aging fleet.

The deals were signed by Finance Minister Bayan Jabr in a ceremony attended by Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as U.S., British and Canadian diplomats.

The first Boeing plane will be delivered in 2013, Jabr said, while the Canadian company will start delivering the planes later this year.

A Boeing spokesman in Seattle, Peter Conte, said the firm order from Iraq was for 30 Boeing 737-800s worth $2.2 billion at list prices. He said Boeing and Iraq are still finalizing an additional order for 10 new 787s.

Over at the cesspool otherwise known as the Democratic Underground,  the kiddies are incensed.  Since most of the participants there still live in the mommies basement with their Linux machines, piles of Mountain Dew bottles and empty Dorito bags, it's not surprising why they say some of the things they do.  Like this little lad who calls him(it)self "FarCenter"

Considering that single country airlines are folding up all over the place, how does Iraq justify having an airline. 

If the Swiss can't afford it, and the Italians can't make a go of it, it surely isn't economic for Iraq.

There's genius for ya!  All over the place means two. 

What many people don't realize, including our heavily sugared and caffeinated DUmmie friends, Royal Jordanian already has a schedule.  I think it's on hold at the moment, but they've been flying in and out.  Also, the deliveries of these planes won't start tomorrow or even next month.  These planes are five years out!  You don't just walk into a show room and pick out a floor model.  Airplanes are custom made.

In that five years, the Iraqis will be ready more than ready and probably even be dealing with other airlines already operating. 

VW

The Smell Of Desperation

The Democrats are angry.  They are seething.  The Obamassiah's robes have been sullied by his association with the racism and demagoguery of Jeremiah Wright and they are looking for revenge.  They are now going to try and taint Senator McCain with problematic pastors.

There are a few pastors, some nationally known and with some extreme views of their own, that have endorsed McCain.  From Fox News:

If turnabout is fair play, then John McCain critics believe his association with controversial pastors should be held to the same scrutiny as Barack Obama’s ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

After all, they point out, one of McCain’s religious supporters, John Hagee, called the Roman Catholic Church “the great whore.”

Another, Rod Parsley, referred to Islam as a “false religion” that America was called on to destroy.

Indeed, let's use the same scrutiny.  Let's see, has McCain attended either of their churches for 20 years?  Is he even a member of these congregations?  Did either of these guys perform his marriage ceremony?  Did they baptize his children?  Has McCain said that any of these hucksters were his spiritual mentors?  Can either of these guys claim that they have had long and involved discussions concerning things spiritual with McCain over the years?

Obviously, the answer to all of these questions are a resounding no.  And obviously, when applied to Obama and Wright, the answer is a resounding yes.

A candidate can't always control who endorses him.  If we are going to apply the same standards, the terrorist organization Hamas has endorsed Obama.  Fair is fair Democrats!

Smell that smell?  It's the smell of Democrat desperation in the air and it's only May.

VW

Phishing For Pigeons

The Mad Pigeon got a hook with some bait thrown at him.  Them sneaky pigeons are not easy to catch and you certainly won't get them with a hook and a phony worm.

It seems that Pidge got an email, seemingly from the IRS, asking him to click on their link.  When he did, it was asking for more than just his name, rank and number of tail feathers.  He took the bait just far enough to expose the scam and then dropped it like the cagey (no pun intended) bird he is.

You need to be be aware of these scammers. The IRS will not send you an email asking you for any information.

Always delete emails from anyone asking you for your financial information just as fast as you can!

VW