Global Blarney from the Goracle

An article by the Sun-Times about the differences in views between Al Gore and the scientists.
The whole article can be found here :
Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny
It was written by or attributed to James M. Taylor who is senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute.

"June 30, 2007
BY JAMES M. TAYLOR
In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science.
We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth."
Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse.

If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming.

A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science.
Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.

Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them.
Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims.

For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame.
Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported,
"Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and
that global warming was to blame."

Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame.
Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming,
researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit.
Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes.
Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established
between global warming and tornadoes.

Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes.
However, hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past.
Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27, that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast
has declined in the past 40 years. Hurricane scientists reported in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters
that global warming enhances wind shear, which will prevent a significant increase in future hurricane activity.

Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts.
However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports,
"Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet.
But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland,
with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades
were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming.
Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades.
More recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the
British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences,
that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003.
And the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during the remainder of the century.

Each of these cases provides an opportunity for Gore to lead by example in his call for an end to the distortion of science. Will he rise to the occasion? Only time will tell."

Read the Whole Thing
Larry Everett

Why they deny the Holocaust

I would like to take this time to wish all our Jewish friends all over the world a happy Hanukkah.
This article was in the Los Angeles Times :
***********************************************************************
On top of nearly constant anti-Semitic propaganda, much of the Muslim world hasn't even heard of it.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
Ayann Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant who served in the parliament of the Netherlands until earlier this year, is the author of "Infidel," an autobiography to be published in February.

ONE DAY IN 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn't.

In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course. It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.

In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe.

I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Read the Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

Is Society Requiring Us to Be Old ?

This article is from Dr. Helen. She is a forensic psychologist in Knoxville, Tennessee and the lovely wife of Glenn Reynolds. Glenn is an attorny and law professor in Knoxville Tennessee. He is also the the instapundit, one of the best bloggers on the web.
Her thoughts on aging :

...
I found this quote from a 94 year old woman on the PBS site advertising their documentary, "Living Old" about how people cope with aging in America. I haven't seen the documentary and perhaps I don't want to; from what I can gather, aging in America sucks.

But not just for the physical reasons one associates with age such as illness, limited mobility, nursing home stays etc. but mainly because of the psychological ones: the loss of one's work, the way one is treated in society and the prejudice and dismissal that others often have for those who are older. It would be easy to say that other people's opinions of us don't really matter as we age, but in truth, they do, unless you live as a hermit which as far as I can tell, doesn't add to the well-being of the elderly.

I have always wondered why people tend to try and put those who are older in boxes--perhaps it is fear, denial or stupidity, or maybe just plain selfishness and prejudice. How many times do you hear people say, "Oh, so-and-so is just like that because they are old." I have and I can tell you that it makes me mad as hell. Does being old mean that people no longer have opinions, desires, the need for autonomy, longing, dreams, needs? Of course not. People are still themselves, just with a few more birthdays than some. Big deal.

But apparently, it is a big deal and it starts early. Jennifer Anniston is now referred to as "looking good for her age." She's 37. Mention Brad Pitt and people pop up with quips such as "he looked better before he got old." He's 42. Sure, these are stars and have to look good etc. for their roles, but talk to other people 37 and older and you hear a lot of the same complaints about the general society.
...

There's more on her site. Click on the link and give her a read. Also, read the comments. There's some good stuff there by various contributers.
Read The Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

Cornel Nistorescu - Ode to America (Cintarea Americii)

This was published by Academia Exchange and written by Cornel Nistorescu, the managing editor of the Romanian newspaper "Evenimentul Zilei" ("News of the Day"). A partial transcript was sent to me.(hat tip to Mo's Kiva)
I can find no logical place to break this article so... I'm posting the whole thing. If the author objects, I'll take it down. Meanwhile, click on the Title at the top or the RtWT at the end of this article to go to this short essay.

Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colours of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!".

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different tv channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Silvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together. The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert. I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests. I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds or thousands of people. How on earth were they able to sacrifice for their fellow humans? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles!

Read the Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

Sometimes We Need to Fight

We've been at war with islamo-fascism since the seventh century. They were finally stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
Gates of Vienna
The world would be like Saudi Arabia if they weren't.

Islamo-fascists are exploding all over the world and the pacifists are telling us we need to understand the root cause. After all, all cultures are equal.
The Christians had to go through the enlightenment before a relative peace could be achieved. Islam needs to have its' own enlightenment but it's not going to happen this century. They have fourteen-hundred years of culture and Koranic indoctrination to overcome. It's not going to be easy and a lot of people are going to die. Appeasement and/or surrender is not an option. We're in it for the long haul.

...
On Tuesday, 11 September 2001, eight and a half years after bombing the World Trade Center killing six and injuring 1042, the islamists finally dropped the towers right on top of the monument built in memory of the people who died in the 1993 bombing.
Great Dreams
...
On Thursday, 12 October 2000, The U.S.S. Cole was bombed. Seventeen young lives were taken while docked at the port of Yemen to take on fuel.
Photo Page:
Allisons Heart
...
On Friday morning, 8 August 1998 at 10:30 AM local Kenyan time, (03:30 EST), bombs ripped through American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Approximately 220 people died and 5000 injured.

The Marines first hand account :
Angelfire

The U.S. Embassy bombing and the American response :
Institute for Counter-Terrorism
...
On 25 June 1996, islamo-fascists bombed the Khobar Towers at Dharan, Saudi Arabia. Nineteen dead and over 500 U.S. wounded.
Defenselink
...
On 26 February 1993, at 12:17 PM, Islamists bombed the World Trade Center the first time. Six dead, 1042 injured.
Wikipedia
...
On 23 October 1983 Islamists bombed the U.S. contingent of the Multinational Force compound at Beirut International Airport. They took out over a company of Marines. 241 dead.
Defenselink

The left wing moonbats are trying to tell me that fighting back only makes things worse. We did nothing for almost ten years and that certainly didn't help.
Surrender is better ? I don't think so. I'm not going to invite a mass murderer or a serial killer into my home. I'm old enough to remember Tojo, Hitler, and Stalin. What would this world be like if we hadn't fought back ? For one thing, the ovens at Auchwitz, and many other places, would still be running at full bore. When they were through with the Jews and the mentally deficient I'm sure they would have found other "undesirables".
There is no need to bring politics into the discussion of why we fight. The mass graves found in Iraq is enough. We don't need another reason nor is there a better one. To see what I mean, click on this link and be prepared to puke.
Iraqi Mass Graves

"Never Forget !" seems to have been all but forgotten.
---Larry Everett

Slideshow of Iraq

You'll need to have Macromedia Flash player installed. Flash is a free utility. If you don't have it you can download it Here.
Turn the sound on also. It's a part of the presentation. Just click on the link below, or the title, and the slideshow will open in a new window.
Until Then
---Larry Everett

Terrorists, A Wildcat, and a Stick

Hezbollah, after having their collective asses handed to them, have decided to negotiate with the Israelis for the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, mediated by Lebanon. Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanon with their terrorism and now want to draw the country into a conflict they have caused by their proxy war, staged from bases in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah negotiated through Germany for the first Israeli prisoner swap. We can see how well that went.

The terrorists didn't expect the response they got from the Israelis. Israel, after decades of their citizens being blown up, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered, after decades of having missles, loaded with shrapnel, being shot at them indiscriminately, after having everyone on their borders declare openly and often they want the Jooos eradicated, they have responded. Unlike the pullback in 1983 that left the terrorists in place and able to declare a victory, this time the terrorists are in a fight for their lives. They didn't expect what is happening right now. Israel fighting back with gusto.

The Israelis pulled out of Gaza and got shot in the ass for their effort. They pulled out of the West Bank and got shot in the ass. They pulled out of Golan and got shot in the ass. They pulled out of southern Lebanon and ... well, you know the rest. Nothing has changed.

This time, the terrorists are getting what they have worked very hard for. A regional war that no-one wins.

I think one of the morals to this story is this :

One shouldn't poke a big cat in the ass with a stick
---Larry Everett.

United Nations Help Terrorist Abduct Israelis

David Kopel has a post up at The Volokh Conspiracy detailing the complicity and/or help in the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. He also points out the "well-established record of collaboration with Hezbollah in the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers". The United Nations isn't the solution to the worlds problems. They are a large part of the problem.
The United States donates billions of dollars to this distructive (dis)organization that, in return, trashes everything this country stands for. I think we should relocate Turtle Bay to another country where they will be more comfortable with their anti-Americanism. Belgium is one suggestion. France, another. Saudi Arabia would be even better.
Siberia, Russia would be my choice. If they want to stay in the United States, Amchitka Island, at the West end of the Aleutians would be O.K. with me.
Let another country have the thousands of buffoons that come here with their anti-American agenda and who do not have to follow the laws of this country. I'm sure the U.N. staff will be happier with the freedoms offered in another country.
I have posted here only the opening paragraphs of Kopel post. There are more details in the article

After Hezbollah's kidnapping of a pair of Israeli soldiers spurred an Israeli counter-attack, many critics of Israel actions have suggested that the United Nations can serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah. To the contrary, the United Nations has a well-established record of collaboration with Hezbollah in the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been deployed since 1978, not long after Israel first entered Lebanon in pursuit of PLO terrorists. UNIFIL was created pursuant to Security Council Resolution 425, for the purpose of "confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area." Quite obviously UNFIL has utterly failed to achieve the Security Council's objectives, either before or after Israel's 2000 complete withdrawal from Lebanon. One reason is that UNIFIL does not interdict Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Instead, UNIFIL allows Hezbollah to set up positions next to UNFIL units, in effect using UNIFIL as human shields against Israeli counterstrikes. (Aluf Benn, Israel accuses UN of collaborating with Hezbollah," Haaretz, Sept. 11, 2005.)

UNIFIL's most notorious collaboration with terrorists involved the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli soldiers, and the subsequent cover-up...

Read the Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

Photos not seen in the Mainstream Media(MSM)

Photos of the conflict in the middle east you won't see in the Mainstream Media from the Free Republic
---Larry Everett

Eminent Domain - Imminent Disaster

Evan Coyne Maloney at Brain-Terminal points to an article at Free-Market News Network titled, EMINENT DOMAIN BUYBACK MORE COSTLY.
Here's the short version :

a)The Caffe Appassionato in Seattle, Washington had it's property confiscated by the city to make way for a mono-rail extension they had planned.

b)Seattle confiscates the property of Talki Hong Lee, the owner who immigrated from Korea.

c)The city paid Mr. Talki $600,000 for the property.

d)The mono-rail extension plans go belly up.

e)Seattle want to sell the property back to Mr. Talki but the value has increased $70,000 in the year the city owned it, so the city wants more than they paid for it.

This is how we do things here. Welcome to America Mr. Talki.
---Larry Everett

Bad Hare Day

This brings to mind the time a rabbit swam out to attack President Carter and a boatload of his handlers while fishing.
The article is from Aftenposten, a Norwegian news site, and can be found HERE
---Larry Everett

Angry hare attacked dogsled
A large and unusually bold hare was apparently so irritated when a dogsled team entered its territory that it went on the attack, in an otherwise peaceful forested area of northern Norway.
Dogs are better known for chasing hares. It was the other way around in northern Norway last weekend.

PHOTO: JON SUPER/SCANPIX

Wenche Offerdal, who was driving the dogsled team in the Reisadalen area of Troms County, had never seen anything like it.

She told newspaper Nordlys that she and her team of huskies met the hare while travelling between Saraelv and Seima Saturday evening. The hare appeared fully grown and quite aggressive.

"It was sitting 10 meters from the trail and I figured it would run off, and even that the dogs would go after it," Offerdal said. "I was wrong."

Instead, the hare came running towards the dogsled team, which came to a halt. Then the fearless hare jumped right into the middle of team.

That prompted the lead dog to turn around, which left the hare surrounded by the huskies. The hare's odds worsened when another dogsled came up behind Offerdal's. That left one hare facing 13 dogs.

"It was an absurd situation," Offerdal told Nordlys. "The dogs were completely perplexed. The hare stared at them and they stared back, like they were all frozen."

Suddenly the hare seemed to reconsider its position, and leaped out of the ring, hitting a few of the dogs over their noses with its paws on its way.

"It was an enormous leap, the hare landed outside the ring of dogs and ran off into the woods," Offerdal said.

Aftenposten English Web Desk
Nina Berglund/NTB

Read the Whole Thing

Which is Worse. Washington D.C. or Iraq ?

John Hinderaker, one of the guys at Powerline, has posted some interesting statistics on the casualties in Iraq.

...the violent death rate in Iraq is lower than that in a number of American cities, including Washington, D.C. And, while the terrorists have killed far too many innocent Iraqis, civilian deaths in Iraq from 2003 to the present are only one-sixth the civilian deaths in Iraq during the period from 1988 to 1991. (So much for being "better off under Saddam.")

Here's the money quote.

A total of 2,471 servicemembers have died in Iraq from 2003 to the present, a period of a little over three years. That total is almost exactly one third of the number of military personnel who died on active duty from 1980 to 1982, a comparable time period when no wars were being fought. Until very recently, our armed forces lost servicemen at a greater rate than we have experienced in Iraq, due solely to accidental death.

The article referenced is at How Bad is Iraq ?. Click the links here and give Powerline a read.

Gatewaypundit has much more on the same subject with charts and links. The article is here at So, How Bad Are Things in Iraq Really?. Drop by, follow the links, and don't forget to read the comments. In blogging, comments are where it's at. Much good information is offered by the commentors. Sometimes you have to wade through some garbage to get to the good stuff but, that's blogging.

Newsmax is a news service that can be a bit over the top on some things but I think this is a good article on the same subject.

"I began to ask myself the question, if you were a civilian in Iraq, how could you tolerate that level of violence," he said. "What really is the level of violence?"

Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King (Rep. Steve King, R-IA - Larry) said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it's significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation's capital.

"It's 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.," King told Crowley (Monica Crowley of Westwood one radio - Larry).

Other American cities with higher violent civilian death rates than Iraq include:

# Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000

# Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000

# Atlanta - 34.9 per 100,000

# St. Louis - 31.4 per 100,000

The American city with the highest civilian death rate was New Orleans before Katrina - with a staggering 53.1 deaths per 100,000 - almost twice the death rate in Iraq.

The whole article is Iraq Less Violent than Washington, D.C.. Just click on the link.
---Larry Everett

Hall of Heros

Patriotfiles has a very good presentation of some very good people. Anything I have to say about them wouldn't be enough. Check it out at Hall of Heros
---Larry Everett

No To "America" and "Americans"

The Editorials&Opinion section of the Detroit News covers the story about the Michigan Education Assessment Program that requires that the word "America" and "Americans" be expunged from all curricula and ordered teachers not to use the words.
The article was written by Michael Warren who is an Oakland County Circuit Court judge, a former member of the State Board of Education and a board member of the Michigan Center for Civic Education.
---Larry Everett

No to America
What a state social studies consultant is telling educators in e-mails about using "America" and "Americans" in tests and courses:

"I have promised teachers that we would delete the use of American [when we are really ONLY referring to the United States] from the GLCEs (grade level content expectations) so that everything is consistent and correct as soon as it was feasible."
"It is ethnocentric for the United States to claim the entire hemisphere."
-- Karen Todorov, Michigan Department of Education

Keep 'America' in Michigan schools

State bureaucrats want to do what Stalin, Osama could only dream about
Michael Warren

Censoring the word "America" from our own schools is something Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has done it without a whimper.

In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the "America" and "American" from our public schools. Even though the word "America" appears in the department's own civics and government benchmarks, the department's style protocol for the Michigan Education Assessment Program requires that "America" and "Americans" be expunged from our testing and grade level expectations. Last week, the department ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.

We're all 'North Americans'

The Department of Education asserts that "Americans" includes Mexicans, Canadians and others in the Western Hemisphere, so referring to U.S. residents as Americans is inappropriate. In the department's view, "America" happens to include South, Central and North America. Accordingly, when referring to the colonial period, the state bureaucracy requires teachers to refer to "the colonies of North America" or "North Americans." After the American Revolution, the nation is called the United States (not of America).

The state's edict would be laughable if it were not so disgraceful. Instead of focusing on better teaching methods and educational resources to help our hard-working teachers and parents, the Department of Education spends its energy on confusing, misleading, historically inaccurate and counterproductive wordplay.

One can only imagine how teachers struggle to meet the semantic dictates of an educational bureaucracy gone awry. According to the department, before the American Revolution, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were North Americans. But so were the French colonists in the Louisiana Territory, the Spanish settlers in Mexico and the British colonists in Canada -- not to mention the Native Americans.

No 'American' Revolution?

After the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers no longer qualified as North Americans, but apparently the British, Spanish, French and Native Americans did. What people in the United States are to be called after the Revolution is not clear, so long as they are not referred to as Americans.

Although the style protocol does not require educators to change formal titles such as "America the Beautiful," the students will apparently now believe the song is about a hemisphere and not a nation. The American Revolution is now the North American Revolution. Little did the writers of the Contract with America in 1994 realize that they were making an agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Voice of America obviously is broadcasting the inspirational messages of Brazil and Belize across the globe.

'Internationally friendly'

The Michigan Department of Education considers the dictate "internationally friendly." Why being friendly to an international audience or perspective is important in teaching and learning American history is incomprehensible.

That we would sacrifice our language to the altar of internationalism is a betrayal to the American spirit. Indeed, the whole idea of America is to be a beacon of light, a shining city on the hill, which inspires the rest of the world.

The word "America" is the most important word of all in learning about the history of the United States and our civics. America is an inspiration and an aspiration for generations of souls who strove, and continue to strive, for freedom and liberty.

Ideals matter...

There is much more that may get your blood pressure up, so...Read the Whole Thing.

UPDATE :
A followup article from the Michigan Department of Education by Martin Ackley, Public Information Officer.

State is not Removing "America" from Classroom Instruction in Michigan

May 24, 2006

LANSING -The Michigan Department of Education is not taking the word “America” or “American” out of the classrooms of Michigan.

In an opinion piece crafted by Michael Warren in today’s Detroit News, the former State Board of Education member incorrectly states that the Michigan Department of Education has “ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.”

No such edict has gone out to school teachers across Michigan, nor will one, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. He explained that an independent association of Social Studies educators has discussed the issue of official U.S. documents or titles, but that any recommendations regarding changes in school curriculum have not even made it to his desk for review.

Inasmuch, Flanagan emphatically stated that, if such a recommendation ever came to his desk, it would be stopped in its tracks.

“We are not seeking to do away with the terms ‘America’ or ‘American’ from classroom instruction,” Flanagan said. “It’s not going to happen. I consider myself an American. We live in the United States of America. We are citizens of the United States of America. But the vernacular is that we’re Americans.”

These curriculum associations consist of curriculum content supervisors who represent diverse views and opinions.

“These are advisory groups,” Flanagan said. “The conversations and internal communications between members of an independent association have been misconstrued as Department of Education policy. This is not a Department of Education policy, nor will it ever be our policy while I’m here. I would never approve the removal of ‘America’ or ‘American’ from our classrooms. Not on my watch.”

That is the The Whole Thing

Moral Clarity on Campus

"Three Duke lacrosse players were accused of brutally assaulting
and raping an exotic dancer at a party on March 13"

Mohammad Taheri-azar, 25-year-old Iranian graduate of the University of North Carolina rented an SUV in March and drove it into "The Pit", an informal, outside gathering place used by U.N.C. students.
***
Mary Katharine Ham has an article at the Town Hall website comparing the treatment of the accused by the press, the public, and by their own schools.
---Larry Everett

"I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role-models, Muhammad Atta."
--Mohammad Taheri-azar


"Do you remember Taheri-azar? The 25-year-old Iranian graduate of the University of North Carolina rented an SUV in March and drove it into The Pit, a campus gathering place for UNC students. He accelerated into the standard college crowd of preachers, smokers, gawkers, and cause-hawkers. He hit nine people and injured six. None died, much to Taheri-azars chagrin.

He told the press and the judge and anyone who would listen that he was seeking vengeance for the deaths of Muslims at the hands of bigoted Westerners in a post-9/11 world. He told everyone that he had intended to kill, had premeditated the killing. He even told the 911 dispatcher, just minutes after he had used a group of UNC co-eds as jack stands.

He was immediately arrested and charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury with intent to kill.

A couple weeks later, just eight miles down the road in the city of Durham, three Duke lacrosse players were accused of brutally assaulting and raping an exotic dancer at a party on March 13.

There were not dozens of witnesses to the crime; there was not an overabundance of physical evidence; the boys did not confess and turn themselves in; they did not announce to 911 dispatchers that the rape was premeditated and that they felt like their "white privilege" entitled them to certain liberties with those of other races and socio-economic classes.

It was weeks before any lacrosse player was charged with a crime, by which time, the results of DNA tests administered to the entire team had come back revealing no matches at all.

Now, let's compare the treatment of the accused in each case by local officials, the press, and the local community. I think the results are reflective of a bit of a priority problem in the moral clarity department..."

Read the Whole Thing

Teaching Islam in Public Schools

Yesterday, 22May2006, I posted about the state of education in Saudi Arabia. This is a followup to that post about the state of education in the United States.
This article can be read in the Issues & Insights section of Investor's Business Daily Stop by and give them a read. There's more there than business news.
---Larry Everett

"Investor's Business Daily
Issues & Insights
Teaching Johnny About Islam

Posted 5/19/2006

Education: In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . .

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

...

"Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."

So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who've never met a culture or religion they didn't like — with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.

In the California course on world religions, Christianity is not presented equally. It's covered in just two days and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples. In contrast, Islam gets a pass from critical review. Even jihad is presented as an "internal personal struggle to do one's best to resist temptation," and not holy war.

The ed consultant's name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she's not a Christian scholar. She's a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington." He found that for years Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. Her husband still teaches there.

So what? By infiltrating our public school system, the Saudis hope to make Islam more widely accepted while converting impressionable American youth to their radical cause. Recall that John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," was a product of the California school system. What's next, field trips to Mecca?

This case is critical not just to our culture but our national security. It should be brought before the Supreme Court, which has outlawed prayer in school. Let's see what it says about practicing Islam in class. It will be a good test for the bench's two new conservative justices.

Read the Whole Thing

Saudi Arabian Textbooks

I don't put much stock into anything the Washington Post prints without verification, but occasionaly they have something interesting to write. This article is about the "revised" textbooks the Saudis are using in their schools. The religion of peace(ma).
I'll post the first few entries but click on the link for the rest. Fair use and all that.
---Larry Everett

"This is a Saudi textbook. (After the intolerance was removed.)

By Nina Shea
Sunday, May 21, 2006; Page B01

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true...

FIRST GRADE

" Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

FOURTH GRADE

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."

FIFTH GRADE

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."

SIXTH GRADE

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."

EIGHTH GRADE

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

Take a few deep breaths and Read the Whole Thing

Two Cents on the Nickel

Anti-christian rumblings are happening all over the country so this event is no surprise. The surprise came when I saw that it happened in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. I lived and worked in Texas for two decades And I considered it part of the bible belt. Texans were serious about their religion. I see things are changing there also. For reference, Colleyville is halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth and a little north.
The name of the school is Liberty Elementary School. I see a bit of irony in that. The ACLU chimes in with its' two cents about the nickel.
---Larry Everett

"Coin image omits 'In God We Trust'
By JESSAMY BROWN
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

A Keller school district parent said political correctness has run amok at her daughter's elementary school, where the principal chose to omit the words "In God We Trust" from an oversize coin depicted on the yearbook cover.

Janet Travis, principal of Liberty Elementary School in Colleyville, wanted to avoid offending students of different religions, a district spokesman said. Students were given stickers with the words that could be affixed to the book if they so chose.

Debi Ackerman of North Richland Hills said she is offended by the omission. It's yet another example of a politically correct culture that is removing Christian references from all public places, she said.

"I think it's really ridiculous," said Ackerman, whose daughter Tawni, 10, took the book home Thursday afternoon. "Now it has come to this. ... When is it going to end?"

She likened the situation to retailers that use "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" in their displays and advertising.

"First, we can't say 'Christmas' trees. It's 'holiday' trees. Then it's 'holiday' decorations," Ackerman said. "It just doesn't make any sense to me."..."

The article gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective. So...Read the Whole Thing

VDH - Countering Anti-Americanism

Private Papers
www.victorhanson.com

*May 19, 2006**
Victor Davis Hanson writes another must-read piece for the National Review Online. I am posting the first few paragraphs without comment. There's none needed. Hanson says it all.
HANSON FOR PRESIDENT !
---Larry Everett

"**Anti-Anti-Americanism**
Dealing with the crazy world after Iraq.
by Victor Davis Hanson
/National Review Online/

How does the United States deal with a corrupt world in which we are
blamed even for the good we do, while others are praised when they do wrong or remain indifferent to suffering?

We are accused of unilateral and preemptory bullying of the madman Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose reactors that will be used to "wipe out" the
"one-bomb" state of Israel were supplied by Swiss, German, and Russian profit-minded businessmen. No one thinks to chastise those who sold Iran the capability of destroying Israel.

Here in the United States we worry whether we are tough enough with the Gulf sheikdoms in promoting human rights and democratic reform.
Meanwhile China simply offers them cash for oil, no questions asked.
Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez pose as anti-Western zealots to Western naifs. The one has never held an election; the other tries his best to end the democracy that brought him to power. Meanwhile our fretting elites, back from Europe or South America, write ever more books on why George Bush and the Americans are not liked.

Hamas screams that we are mean for our logical suggestion that free
American taxpayers will not subsidize such killers and terrorists. Those in the Middle East whine about Islamophobia, but keep silent that there is not allowed a Sunni mosque in Iran or a Christian church in Saudi Arabia. An entire book could be written about the imams and theocrats in Iran, Egypt, the West Bank, Pakistan, and the Gulf States who in safety issue fatwas and death pronouncements against Americans in Iraq and any who deal with the "infidel," and yet send their spoiled children to private schools in Britain and the United States, paid for by their own blackmail money from corrupt governments..."

As usual, Read the Whole Thing

Muslims Want It All

Muslims that have emigrated to Eurabia demand the european countries change their laws to reflect the culture and Sharia Law of the muslims.
Divine Salamis BBS is a Swedish Billboard. The writer, MKSheppard, says the translator can't give his/her name because of a real risk of being put in jail. They don't have the freedom of speech we in the U.S. enjoy.
The writer put much effort into this translation and asked that it be distributed by anyone who wants to. It's a long one but well worth the read.
This is happening in every country in Europe and some parts of the United States and Canada. Comming soon to a town near you if we don't wake up and smell the coffee.
The lede :

Found this translation and accompanying note on the internet:

I was first made aware of this item when I read Update on the Swedish Muslims’ Demands it has a link to this the list in Swedish since many people don't speak Swedish I've translated it for your benefit.

Due to certain Swedish laws and attitudes I'd rather be anonymous, so I've asked a handful of people to spread this translation. I am presenting this translation without any comments whatsoever, you can make up your own mind:

"An open letter to all Swedish political parties that are participating in this years election.

Hello!

If we are to succeed in engaging Swedish muslims so that they will participate in the election in September 2006, we should take note of the following demands and wishes from the Muslim minority in Sweden.

I have not seen clear signals from all parties as to whether they'll accept such wishes. We want to see the most important demands as a part of the political programs. Otherwise there is the risk that the majority of the muslims will remain on their couches on election day.

Muslims are fed up with broken election promises, and therefore they wish concrete suggestions to show that we care. It won't hurt if our elected representatives or new candidates would set aside an hour to read our open letter that is sent to all established parties.

Kind regards

Mahmoud Aldebe"

Read The Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)

Today, Tuesday, April 25 is Yom HaShoah. Holocaust Day in Hebrew. It began last night.
Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has a post reminding us of the Holocaust. When the barbarity perpetrated against the Jews, and others considered "undesirable" by the Nazis, was ended by the second World War, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief and said, "Never Again". "Never" seems to have a short time span. With the Islamisist openly advocating the distruction and complete annihilation of the Jews and Israel the world sighs, "Who Cares ?".
I care !
Pamela also cares. Stop by her place and catch up on a little history.
If you don't care the Jews are being hunted around the world, or, if you don't care if Christians are being killed for nothing other than being Christians, if you don't care that there is an open season on anyone who isn't muslim, there will be no-one left to care when they come for you.
Pamela has posted photographs from those days of darkness so be warned. They are graphic and disturbing. Using the street vernacular, they are enough to make you puke... and they should. THAT we will remember.
---Larry Everett

Asking few questions makes a difference

Ali has a blog named "AFreeIraqi" and has posted what I think is an important message to all of us. Especially the doom and gloom folks on the left.
I'm posting the whole article as it is too good to break up. Ali will be notified I used his complete article. If there is a problem, I'll take it down.
Please visit Ali at AFreeIraqi and the other Iraqi bloggers in the blogrol on the left of this page for the news you won't hear from our Main Stream Media(MSM).
---Larry Everett

"Thursday, April 21, 2005
Asking few questions makes a difference.

There's a change of mentality that started to occur in Iraq even before the 9th of April, but toppling Saddam marked a surge in the change process that made it transfere into an active form and spread wider than before.

I think one of the main problems in Arab-Muslim communities is that the vast majority from the illiterate to even highly educated people do not ask enough questions. On the other hand, I've noticed (mainly through blogging ) that westerns in general and Americans in particular always have so many questions to ask and rarely settle with one point of view and accept it as the truth.

But an important question here is, why Arabs and Muslims do not care a lot about searching for answers?
In my mind there are two major reasons; one comes from Islam and one comes from Arab traditions. For Muslims, like most religious people anywhere there's a general belief that all questions have been answered already, and I think that the main difference here between west and east is just the fact that religious people form a higher percentage of the population in the Arab Muslim world than they do in the west.

In Islam the Sunnis have always had all the answers in the Koran and Hadeeth and all you have to do is dig them out, although "some will always remain unrevealed until judgment day". For the She'at, it's the Koran and the heritage of Mohammed and his dynasty down to the twelfth Imam, Al Mehdi.
Every time western scientists announce a scientific discovery, Muslim scholars kill themselves searching for a verse in the Koran that can be twisted to match it and then say, "Hey, we had it all the time and we didn't know!" and we have books and TV shows dedicated for showing how all these great inventions were mentioned in a way in the Koran, but we just didn't care to search harder!

'True Muslims' believe that Mohammed knew *everything*, and I've argued with many friends of mine many times about this point. I asked if they thought Mohammed knew how to manufacture a computer or to build space shuttle for example, and the answer was "absolutely". But he could not reveal all his knowledge to the people at that time because they wouldn't have understood it.

This makes one wonders why he was given such a useless knowledge in the first place! Most Muslims don't bother to answer this question and just think that Mohammed is perfect (which by the way is NOT mentioned anywhere in the Koran) and therefore he must know everything.

I asked if Mohammed knew the future and again I got the same answer. But what then makes God superior to Mohammed? The answer was a faked Hadeeth that does not address the question but it does state that Mohammed had this ability. And questioning that Hadeeth would be unacceptable for most Muslims because the Hadeeth is a basic corner of today's' belief for most Muslims and they simply can't imagine themselves abandoning it.

So all questions were answered already including the ones that have not been asked yet, so what's the point of seeking knowledge from another source! They don't know 1/million of what Mohammed and his descendants had and these not here to ask them. But they did left us what can give us some answers.

That's why those who study Islam are called scientists, and in some sects like Wahabism they're considered the only scientists. You hear the word scholars describing these people but the literal AND the actual translation (from Muslims point of view) would be "scientists".

This is why most Muslims' search in other fields of knowledge like medicine was always a 'blind' one in my mind. Because it did not improve or alter these researchers general understanding of life as a whole. I know many fellow Iraqi physicians, and very good ones in fact, who their knowledge did not make them any less superstitious or any more rational in their lives than illiterate people.

As for Arabs, they have too much pride in themselves and their traditions that makes it difficult for them to ask for others' help.

Anyhow, something happened in Iraq over the past years that I only noticed when I looked more into the Arab street and then I saw how much we have truly moved ahead of them.
Now the religious beliefs have not been shaken or dismissed but still what happened made their effect much less than it was before and I know that inside most Iraqis, those beliefs are not as holy and unquestionable as they were before. They may not admit it or even notice it but it shows in the way they have changed their atittude towards many issues.

In my trip to Jordan last September I had some casual conversations with people their and I tried to find out if what we see on Arab TVs is actually representative of how average Arabs think.
Well, they 'surprised' me with how much they know and how much they want to tell me about Iraq! They had everything figured out and had no place for any questions except for things like prices of goods, and even that they knew it was all "very expensive" and wouldn't believe anyone who tells them otherwise.

In Iraq these days such mentality can be found among Sadrists and Ba'athists while the majority of Iraqis have more questions than answers. On most of the times I was in a political discussion with friends or even strangers we seemed to race each other to say, "What do you think will happen? Will this thing or that work? Who do you think is behind this issue and why?" and such questions. We all seemed to search for a better understanding by scanning others' opinions than to just impose our facts.

I believe this change started before the war when Iraqis started to lose trust in their leadership, even the 'trust' of the helpless who is afraid to question or can't see a hope in doing that. I look at the invasion of Kuwait as the start point for such a change.

I see Iraq at that time, like most Arab/Muslim nations now, like a ship led by a blind deaf and brutal sailor that managed to keep the ship safe by the fact that all ships with real sailors managed to avoid hitting his ship while he was leading the ship without having any course or plan depending only on his intuition.

Unless a disaster happened, passengers would not even dare to complain. Most of them actually trusted the sailor out of fear, helplessness and because everyone said he was smart and they could not believe that such a strong calm elegantly dressed person had no clue what he was doing. He must have a plan, any plan as it simply can't be possible that someone reached the top without having some worthy qualifications.

But in Iraq the disaster happened and the passengers discovered that their sailor was actually a blind deaf and stupid piece of shit, and many of them revolted. And while he managed to crush the revolt he could not control their minds anymore. They saw his truth and this made them scared and worried about their future in this ship. Many decide to leave it before it finally sinks. Those who couldn't or didn't want to for one reason or another started to look for answers, and they looked outside their ship.

Before that time we used to get our news from the Iraqi media mainly. After that, the vast majority of Iraqis started to listen to Monte Carlo radio, BBC and VOA to try and find out what's going to happen to them. Even Ba'athists and Arab nationalists were doing that, as they realized that their fate was going to be decided outside Iraq by powers that have decided not to avoid a conflict with the mad leader anymore and were just waiting for the right moment to get rid of him once and for all.

After Saddam was toppled most Iraqis took a sigh of relief, "Now finally someone sane is going to run things here". They did think of America as a sane power totally replacing a mad one, at least for a while. I say they were relieved not just because they got rid of Saddam, as that meant incridible joy not relief. But It's been also a relief because it was scary to think that your fate is in the hands of an insane man while you can't do anything and you're not even used to such a huge responsibility.

But the Americans did not want to replace Saddam. They did not want to run things the way they wanted without sharing the responsibility with the people, even if they thought their management could fix things and even if this was for a transitional phase.
An iron evil fist was gone but it was not replaced by an "iron good fist" as many Iraqis wished, and things collapsed in a place that has been ruled with extreme force for decades when people were given freedom.

This is one of the main reasons why many Iraqis were and still are disappointed with America. No, these Iraqis do not hate America as most like to think, they're just disappointed with her for not fitting the image they had in their minds; the just tyrant that should've taken full responsibility for some time until they could find their own just tyrant who would make their life much better without forcing them to share a burden and a responsibility they never thought it was among their duties as citizens.

In the same sense, many Iraqis looked for the January elections to bring the long awaited Iraqi savior even if it meant many saviors not just one. They saw the advantage of multiple leaders/democacry and welcomed it but did not expect that these leaders would have so many differences and find a huge difficulty in agreeing on a common major goal.

Thus, Iraqis are brought back again to the same point where they have to ask questions and keep an eye on events. And with time and through these changes, it has become obvious to an increasing number of Iraqis that they can never go back to that idle state were they left everything to whoever in charge and instead they're gradually seeing how important their role in making their lives better, and I have no doubt that soon most Iraqis will find that not only they have a role they should play but that this role is in fact the main one."

Read the Whole Blog

John Kerry - Communist Gunrunner

MSNBC has the transcript of an interview by Tim Russert with John Francois. In it he says, among other things, that he was running covert operations to deliver guns to the Khmer Rouge. We were supporting a Maost organization in Cambodia ? Kerry is incapable of telling the truth. If you think I'm slanting his conversation, check it out yourselves. Just left click on the link or on the title at the top.
---Larry Everett

MR. STEVE GARDNER: John Kerry claims that he spent Christmas in 1968 in Cambodia, and that is categorically a lie. Not in December, not in January, we were never in Cambodia on a secret mission ever.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Now, the New York Daily News editorial wrote an editorial, and it said this. "As for Kerry, he might ask why the Swifties' attacks have been effective. The answer is his propensity to exaggerate. ... It's looking more likely that he exaggerated, if not worse, when he claimed through the years that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve '68. He said the memory was `seared' into him, but it's now clear Kerry was elsewhere, at least at that time. He has yet to explain. Until he does, the Swifties will have a powerful weapon in their arsenal."

And they refer, Senator, to a speech on the floor in which you said that you were there, that the president of the United States was saying you were not there, that there were troops in Cambodia. You have the memory seared in you. In a letter to the Boston Herald, you remember spending Christmas Eve '68 five miles across the Cambodian border. You told The Washington Post you have a lucky hat given to you by a CIA guy "as we went in for a special mission to Cambodia." Were you in Cambodia Christmas Eve, 1968?

SEN. KERRY: We were right on the border, Tim. What I explained to people and I told this any number of times, did I go into Cambodia on a mission? Yes, I did go into Cambodia on a mission. Was it on that night? No, it was not on that night. But we were right on the Cambodian border that night. We were ambushed there, as a matter of fact. And that is a matter of record, and we went into the rec-- you know, it's part of the Navy records. It's been documented by the other guys who were on my boat. And Steve Gardner, frankly, doesn't know where we were. It wasn't his job, and, you know, he wasn't involved in that. But we did go five miles into Cambodia. It was on another day. I jumbled the two together, but we were five miles into Cambodia. We went up on a mission with CIA agents--I believe they were CIA agents--CIA Special Ops guys. I even have some photographs of it, and I can document it. And it has been documented.

MR. RUSSERT: You'll release those photographs?

SEN. KERRY: I think they were shown. I gave them to the campaign, but...

MR. RUSSERT: And you have a hat that the CIA agent gave you?

SEN. KERRY: I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, "I'm the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia." We went out of Ha Tien, which is right in Vietnam. We went north up into the border. And I have some photographs of that, and that's what we did. So, you know, the two were jumbled together, but we were on the Cambodian border on Christmas Eve, absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Nixon was president-elect, not president, at that particular time. He wasn't sworn in until...

SEN. KERRY: In 1968, he wasn't sworn in yet.

MR. RUSSERT: But he was president-elect, not president.

SEN. KERRY: That's correct.

The People Have Won

This is from Mohammed and Omar at Iraq the Model, two of three Iraqi brothers blogging on the elections in their country. On the left of this page are more Iraqi bloggers. Check them out. What the mainstream media(MSM) are writing and what the Iraqis are writing is a study in contrasts. Gloom and doom from the media and the left wing barking moonbats. I'm reproducing the whole thing here breaking the fair use rule but I'm sure the guys won't mind. I'll E-mail them just in case they do.
---Larry Everett

The people have won
We would love to share what we did this morning with the whole world, we can't describe the feelings we've been through but we'll try to share as much as we can with you.
We woke up this morning one hour before the alarm clock was supposed to ring. As a matter of fact, we barely slept at all last night out of excitement and anxiety.

The first thing we saw this morning on our way to the voting center was a convoy of the Iraqi army vehicles patrolling the street, the soldiers were cheering the people marching towards their voting centers then one of the soldiers chanted "vote for Allawi" less than a hundred meters, the convoy stopped and the captain in charge yelled at the soldier who did that and said:
"You're a member of the military institution and you have absolutely no right to support any political entity or interfere with the people's choice. This is Iraq's army, not Allawi's".
This was a good sign indeed and the young officer's statement was met by applause from the people on the street.
The streets were completely empty except for the Iraqi and the coalition forces ' patrols, and of course kids seizing the chance to play soccer!

We had all kinds of feelings in our minds while we were on our way to the ballot box except one feeling that never came to us, that was fear.
We could smell pride in the atmosphere this morning; everyone we saw was holding up his blue tipped finger with broad smiles on the faces while walking out of the center.

I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that.
From the early hours of the morning, People filled the street to the voting center in my neighborhood; youths, elders, women and men. Women's turn out was higher by the way. And by 11 am the boxes where I live were almost full!
Anyone watching that scene cannot but have tears of happiness, hope, pride and triumph.

The sounds of explosions and gunfire were clearly heard, some were far away but some were close enough to make the windows of the center shake but no one seemed to care about them as if the people weren't hearing these sounds at all.
I saw an old woman that I thought would get startled by the loud sound of a close explosion but she didn't seem to care, instead she was busy verifying her voting station's location as she found out that her name wasn't listed in this center.

How can I describe it!? Take my eyes and look through them my friends, you have supported the day of Iraq's freedom and today, Iraqis have proven that they're not going to disappoint their country or their friends.

Is there a bigger victory than this? I believe not.

I still recall the first group of comments that came to this blog 14 months ago when many of the readers asked "The Model?"… "Model for what?"
Take a look today to meet the model of courage and human desire to achieve freedom; people walking across the fire to cast their votes.

Could any model match this one!? Could any bravery match the Iraqis'!?
Let the remaining tyrants of the world learn the lesson from this day.

The media is reporting only explosions and suicide attacks that killed and injured many Iraqis s far but this hasn't stopped the Iraqis from marching towards their voting stations with more determination. Iraqis have truly raced the sun.

I walked forward to my station, cast my vote and then headed to the box, where I wanted to stand as long as I could, then I moved to mark my finger with ink, I dipped it deep as if I was poking the eyes of all the world's tyrants.
I put the paper in the box and with it, there were tears that I couldn't hold; I was trembling with joy and I felt like I wanted to hug the box but the supervisor smiled at me and said "brother, would you please move ahead, the people are waiting for their turn".

Yes brothers, proceed and fill the box!
These are stories that will be written on the brightest pages of history.

It was hard for us to leave the center but we were happy because we were sure that we will stand here in front of the box again and again and again.
Today, there's no voice louder than that of freedom.

No more confusion about what the people want, they have said their word and they said it loud and the world has got to respct and support the people's will.

God bless your brave steps sons of Iraq and God bless the defenders of freedom.

Aasha Al-Iraq….Aasha Al-Iraq….Aasha Al-Iraq.

Mohammed and Omar.

Old Dog, Old Tricks

The guys at Power Line have an article up about CBS using discredited documents to air a piece about the Republicans wanting to reinstate the military draft. This comes three weeks after using fake documents to push another story that proved false.
The first rule of holes is this : "When you find yourself in a hole... quit digging". CBS apparently doesn't know the rule, they're now using a backhoe.
---Larry Everett

"Old dog, old tricks
Ratherbiased.com (whose site is down now) and Little Green Footballs detail how CBS News last night used discredited documents to attack President Bush:" ...[Read the Whole Thing]

Sister Kerry

John Kerry has said he will build an international coalition in the fight against terrorism. Meanwhile he says our allies are a "coalition of the coerced and bribed". Words like those aren't a good way to win friends and influence people. Now, Kerry's sister Diana is helping spread that message to our international friends.
---Larry Everett

[snipped]
"Sister Kerry
From the October 4, 2004 issue: The candidate's sibling causes a stir overseas--and at home.
by Katherine Mangu-Ward
10/04/2004, Volume 010, Issue 04

EVERY MAN with presidential aspirations has a black sheep in the family. Heck, George W. Bush has been the black sheep in his family from time to time. John Kerry is no exception. After decades of living abroad--most recently in Indonesia--Diana Kerry, John's younger sister, has returned to the fold. And last week she put her foot squarely in John Kerry's mouth.

As the head of Americans Overseas for Kerry, Diana Kerry is a campaign official. And she was speaking in that capacity when, in reference to the invasion of Iraq, she said, "Australia has kept faith with the U.S., and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels."

The Weekend Australian's Roy Eccleston, who broke the story, added: "Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for Republican George W. Bush, Ms. Kerry said: 'The most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta--I would have to say that.'" She also mentioned the October 2002 bombing of two Bali nightclubs, in which many of the victims were young Australians.

Alert readers, including Amanda Sokolski on this magazine's website, quickly picked up on errors in Ms. Kerry's timeline. The Bali bombing took place long before Australia got mixed up with those nasty Americans and their "wanton disregard for international law." And the September 9 attack on the Australian embassy was perpetrated by Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's Southeast Asia franchise, which has considered Australia a target since well

before the Iraq war. Evidently, the details of this timeline were blurry for Ms. Kerry, who has been busy shuttling around the globe on her brother's behalf for the last several months.

So who is Diana Kerry? A lifelong expat drama instructor and translator, she's now in charge of scooping up as many votes as possible from the more than 4 million Americans living abroad--including 100,000 in Australia. As part of this effort, she has recently tried her hand at blogging. A post on the official campaign blog introduces Diana and explains her project: "Nothing is more important to me than international understanding," she says. Bolstering her credentials, Ms. Kerry reminisces about "a State Dinner in Hanoi at which I joined John some years ago--one of only three women present. The affection and regard that the Vietnamese held for him in his work to restore diplomatic relations was very moving."

On the Americans Overseas for Kerry blog, one finds a long thread accusing the Pentagon of deliberately blocking voter registration overseas. Writes Ms. Kerry: "I was outraged to read that the Bush Administration has chosen to block access to [the] Federal Voter Assistance Program website for U.S. citizens residing in at least 25 countries around the world. . . . The Pentagon has been engaged in a growing practice of denying vital voter registration information to U.S. voters over the past several months."

The charges against the Pentagon are repeated on another (unofficial) blog aimed at overseas Democrats--in fact, such complaints are a staple of the bulletin boards and official notices on such sites. Luke Robinson, a London-based website designer, lightly floats Ms. Kerry's conspiracy theory over at the site he moderates, ExpatsAgainstBush.org: "I wonder if this could be due to any perceived Democratic bias in the expat voting population this year? No, that would be too far into tinfoil hat territory."
[snipped][Read the Whole Thing]

Beldars Challenge

Beldar offers a challenge to anyone that can debunk any allegation by the Swift Boat Veterans. He's a lawyer so of course he lays out some ground rules.
---Larry Everett
[snipped]

"A challenge to those who claim that the SwiftVets' allegations have been "debunked" or are "unsubstantiated"
Hence my challenge for the weekend to my readers — you're probably a minority, as these things go, but I know from my comments pages that you're out there — who may agree with the NYT or Mr. Sullivan:

Can you identify even one specific and material SwiftVets allegation that you believe to have been fully "debunked" or fully proven to be "unsubstantiated"?

Some ground rules for this challenge that I think are not unreasonable:

By "specific," I mean to exclude sweeping conclusions like "John Kerry wasn't as big a hero as he's made out." By material, I mean to exclude trivia like "the VC soldier John Kerry shot was in a uniform instead of in a loincloth." And I ask that if you're to make an honest effort to meet my challenge, you provide quotes and links, both to the SwiftVets' allegations and to the evidence that you offer to show debunking or lack of substantiation.

If you rely on documents — for example, Larry Thurlow's Bronze Star citation as support for the proposition that he and Kerry were under enemy fire after PCF 3 was struck by a mine — then to reach "debunked" status, you ought to show that there are no contrary eyewitness accounts to those documents, nor other contrary documents. Otherwise, you've merely established that a dispute exists — what lawyers would call a "genuine issue of fact" that must be resolved by a judgment call as to which side has the greater weight of the credible evidence.

Saying your side has the greater weight of the evidence isn't "debunking" or showing that something is "unsubstantiated," it's saying that your side ought to ultimately prevail on the factual dispute, and that's a very different kettle of fish. To use a converse example by way of illustration: I would argue that the "Christmas in Cambodia" story repeatedly told by Sen. Kerry has indeed been thoroughly debunked and proved unsubstantiated — that is, there simply is no credible evidence from which any rational factfinder could conclude that Kerry's claim to have spent Christmas 1968 several miles inside Cambodia, under friendly fire and on a secret mission, was truthful."
[snipped]Read the Whole Thing

Looking for American Failure

Mark Steyn has this piece in the Chicago Sun-Times about John Kerry's attack on Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi.
---Larry Everett

Kerry's looking for American failure -- and he's it
September 26, 2004
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
[snipped]
But last week he did it again. Ayad Allawi, the first prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq, was in Washington to give a joint address to Congress. A tough, stocky, bullet-headed optimist, Iraq's interim leader delivered a simple, elegant and moving speech, which made three basic points:

''First, we are succeeding in Iraq. [Applause] It's a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding . . .

''The second message is quite simple and one that I would like to deliver directly from my people to yours: Thank you, America [Applause] . . .

''Third, I stand here today as the prime minister of a country emerging finally from dark ages of violence, aggression, corruption and greed . . . Well over a million Iraqis were murdered or are missing . . .''

Kerry didn't show up for Allawi's visit to Washington -- he was in Ohio again, which is evidently becoming the proverbial Vietnam-type quagmire for him. Nonetheless, barely had the prime minister finished than the absentee senator did a daytime version of his midnight ramble and barged his way onto the air to insist that he knew better than Iraq's head of government what was going on in the country. One question from his accompanying press corps was especially choice:

''Prime Minister Allawi told Congress today that democracy was taking hold in Iraq and that the terrorists there were on the defensive. Is he living in the same fantasyland as the president?''

It would be nice to think this was a somewhat crude attempt at irony, but given America's Ratherized media this seems unlikely. Just for the record, Allawi is not living in a fantasyland. He's living in Iraq, and he begins his day with a dangerous commute across Baghdad's ''Green Zone.'' John Kerry's regular commute, by contrast, is from his wife's beach compound at Nantucket to his wife's 15th century English barn reconstructed as a ski lodge in Idaho. Nonetheless, he's the expert on Iraq and the guy living there 24/7 is the fantasist, and he's happy to assure us the prime minister doesn't know what he's talking about. It's all going to hell, forget about those January elections, etc.

What a small, graceless man Kerry is. The nature of adversarial politics in a democratic society makes George W. Bush his opponent. But it was entirely Kerry's choice to expand the field, to put himself on the other side of Allawi and the Iraqi people. Given his frequent boasts that he knows how to reach out to America's allies, it's remarkable how often he feels the need to insult them: Britain, Australia, and now free Iraq. But, because this pampered cipher has floundered for 18 months to find any rationale for his candidacy other than his indestructible belief in his own indispensability, Kerry finds himself a month before the election with no platform to run on other than American defeat. He has decided to co-opt the jihadist death-cult, the Baathist dead-enders, the suicide bombers and other misfits and run as the candidate of American failure. This would be shameful if he weren't so laughably inept at it.
[snipped]

Read the Whole Thing

Burning Books at Borders

Charles Johnson, the proprietor of Little Green Footballs has posted a disturbing article about Borders Books hiding, destroying, or otherwise making unavailable, books the union doesn't agree with politically. He has linked to a discussion by union members on how to avoid selling certain books they don't like. This, to me, is the equivalent of book burning. If you feel the same way, let your views be known to Borders Union or a local Borders bookstore if you have one. If organizations are "burning" books you don't like, it won't be long before someone will be "burning" books you do like. Censorship is not, and shouldn't be, a part of this great country we call America. History, from the burning of the library at Alexandria, Egypt to "Crystalnacht," the "Night of the Shattered Glass" in Nazi Germany, to the state of the moslem world today, should have taught us that suppressing dissenting views is dangerous, deadly, and, counterproductive to a free society.
Charles opines, and I agree, this page is to hot for Borders to leave up and will disappear soon so he has posted a link to a Google cache that has retained the page. This is the link to that cache : Neandertals in Fancy Suits. (Borders title, not mine)
If you don't like the message Borders is sending, PLEASE, let them know respectfully. No one listens to barking moonbats ranting and raving, except, maybe, other barking moonbats.
Visit LGF and Read the Whole Thing
---Larry Everett

The First Rathergate

The forged memos aren't the first time Dan Ra^ther has fabricated a story, been proven wrong, and stood behind the story in spite of the facts. He has hurt a lot of people with his fabrications and got away with it. Now we have web loggers, (bloggers), that WILL fact check the lame stream media and they don't like it. Anne Morse has the story.
---Larry Everett

"September 15, 2004, 5:52 a.m.
The First Rathergate
The CBS anchor’s precarious relationship with the truth.

By Anne Morse

Critics are calling the media scandal over the Jerry Killian forgeries "Rathergate." But to thousands of Vietnam veterans, the real Rathergate took place 16 years ago when Dan Rather successfully foisted a fraud onto the American people. Then, unlike now, there was no blogosphere to expose him.

On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.

"I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for," said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather's gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.

"You're telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?" Rather asked.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did."

Steve arrived home "in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs" knowing that "combat had made him different," Rather intoned. "He asked for help; that's unusual, many vets don't. They hold back until they explode."

Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.

Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, "Sergeant Call." "He died in my arms," Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.

Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a "fighting sergeant" who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. "Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely," Bradley said. "That is sick."

"You've got to be angry about it," Rather replied. "I'm suicidal about it," Bradley responded.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.

The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.

The truth was uncovered by B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran and author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (with Glenna Whitley). Burkett discovered that only one of the vets had actually served in combat. Steve Southards, who'd claimed to be a 16-year-old Navy SEAL assassin, had actually served as an equipment repairman stationed far from combat. Later transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Steve spent most of his time in the brig for repeatedly going AWOL.

And George Gruel, who claimed he was traumatized by the sight of his friend being chopped to pieces by a propeller? Navy records reveal that a propeller accident did take place on the Ticonderoga when Gruel was aboard — but that he wasn't around when it happened. During Gruel's tour, the ship had been converted to an antisubmarine warfare carrier which operated, not on "secret mission" along the Vietnam coast, but on training missions off the California coastline. Nevertheless, Burkett notes, Gruel receives $1,952 a month from the Veterans Administration for "psychological trauma" related to an event he only heard about.

Mikal Rice — the anguished vet who claimed to have cradled his dying buddy in his arms — actually spent his tour as a guard with an MP company at Cam Ranh Bay. He never saw combat. Neither did Terry Bradley, who was not the "fighting sergeant" he'd claimed to be. Instead, military records reveal he served as an ammo handler in the 25th Infantry Division and spent nearly a year in the stockade for being AWOL. That's good news for the hundreds of Vietnamese civilians Bradley claimed to have slaughtered. But it doesn't say much for Dan Rather's credibility.

As Burkett notes, the records of all of these vets were easily checkable through Freedom of Information Act requests of their military records — something Rather and his producers simply didn't bother to do. They accepted at face value the lurid tales of atrocities committed in Vietnam and the stories of criminal behavior, drug addiction, and despair at home."

[snipped]

"Burkett, who did check the records of the vets Rather interviewed, shared his discoveries with CBS. So did Thomas Turnage, then administrator of the Veterans Administration, who was appalled by Rather's use of bogus statistics on the rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness among Vietnam veterans — statistics that can also be easily checked. Rather initially refused to comment, and CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said, "The producers stand behind their story. They had enough proof of who they are." For his part, CBS president Howard Stringer defended the network with irrelevancies. "Your criticisms were not shared by a vast majority of our viewers," he sniffed, adding that "CBS News and its affiliates received acclaim from most quarters . . . In sum, this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."[Read the Whole Thing]

Rathergate Unhinged

ABC News posts that two document experts were consulted on the Killian memos by CBS about President Bush's National Guard service before the airing of the "60 Minutes" broadcast. An excerpt from that article is posted below. Below that is a posting by Bill Dyer, the proprietor of the web log Beldar Blog. It is "The online journal of a crusty, longwinded trial lawyer, bemused observer of politics, and internet dilettante". He has some deep feelings about this and an excerpt is below the ABC piece.
---Larry Everett

"By Brian Ross
ABCNEWS.com

Sept. 14, 2004 — Two of the document experts hired by CBS News say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of a report citing documents that questioned George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

The authenticity of the documents in the report by CBS News' 60 Minutes II has been widely questioned. The documents were allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.

But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush's National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.

"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News."

[snipped]

"A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. She said she expressed her concerns to CBS before the 60 Minutes II broadcast.

"I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."

A third examiner hired by CBS for its story, Marcel Matley, appeared on CBS Evening News last Friday and was described as saying the document was real.

According to The Washington Post, Matley said he examined only the signature attributed to Killian and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves."Read the Whole Thing

Beldar expresses his legal opinion and personal outrage in a manner not to be misunderstood.

"Dan Rather was complicit in defrauding the American public in an attempt to defeat a sitting President. Rather must be fired now. Congress should subpoena CBS News' lawyers and all documentation of their advice.

I try to be fair-minded. I try not to reach snap judgments. I try to "see the other side." I try not to overstate. But in this post, I will express opinions that are as blunt and as strongly felt as any I've ever stated in my life. Nothing in this post is sarcasm or snark. This is as serious as a heart attack — and it's no longer funny to me, but a national disgrace and a national tragedy."[Read the Whole Thing]