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