Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

The political left loves to depict its ideas as "new" — a practice which is itself centuries old on the left, as are the ideas themselves.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

The American media have no problem being ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge. Yet, when it's a war, there is no "our" team, not on American TV. Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of snippy 4.3s -- for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah, insufficient menu options at Gitmo.

Mark Steyn - July 30, 2006

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

How many times do Democrats have to tell us they want to raise the price of gas for the average American before the average American believes them? Is it more or less than the number of times Democrats tell us they want to surrender in the war on terrorism?

It's as if a switch goes off in people's brains telling them: The Democrats can't be saying they want to destroy the lives of people who drive cars because my father was a Democrat, and the Democrats can't be this stupid!

Ann Coulter

Quote of the day - Ayman al-Zawahri

“The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires ... . It is a Jihad for God’s sake and will last until (our) religion prevails...from Spain to Iraq. We will attack everywhere.”

Ayman al-Zawahri

Diana Irey; Washington County Commissioner; District 12 congressional candidate

I just discovered that there is a candidate opposing John Murtha in his reelection bid.



Her name is Diana Irey and she is a County Commissioner in Washington County, PA.

District 12

She has served Washington County in this capacity for 10 years.


Here is an interview with a local Pittsburgh TV statiion.

H/T Free Republic.



I was reminded of Ms. Irey when Blonde Sagacity posted a general item about attractive Republicans outnumbering attractive Democrats. Diana Irey is the proof.

If Murtha were a prominent Republican opposed by an attractive female Democrat with Irey's credentials, the MSM/DNC would have generated so much publicity that there already would be statues erected in her likeness.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

It's easy to fly in a guy in a suit to hold a meeting. Half the fellows inside the Beltway have Middle East "peace plans" named after them. Bush flew in himself a year or two back to announce his "road map." Before that it was Cheney, who flew in with the Cheney plan, which was a plan to open up a road map back to the last plan, which would get us back to "Tenet," which would get us back to "Mitchell," which would get us back to "Wye River," which would get us back to "Oslo," which would get us back to Kansas.

Mark Steyn July 16, 2006

Quote of the day - C. S. Lewis

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

If nude scenes are essential to movie plots, why isn't their absence from old classics felt as a shortcoming? And if "realism" demands nudity, why do we only see beautiful young women in the raw? Why don't we see more fat old men naked?

Joe Sobran

The Rick Santorum campaign; Doubleday field; Tommy John

PA Senator Rick Santorum campaigned near Landisburg, PA at the Doubleday "field of dreams" fantasy camp on Saturday. Campaigning with Santorum and providing his endorsement was former Dodger and Yankee great, Tommy John.

They were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of rural Pennsylvanians.

Tommy John pointed out that when one professes to be a Christian, he is subject to increased attacks and scrutiny. People are always trying to "poke holes in your story," he said. This was John's experience in baseball and has become the norm in modern politics.

speaking here is former state representative Alan Egolf




Time to get tough



The Santorum family





After some comments, Rick took some batting practice from Tommy John.




Hillary is on the ground between Rick and the player in Gray



A long drive




Rick's wife Karen talks with my wife about education and children's issues

Karen is a successful author who has written on family and Christian issues.







Despite all of the national issues and MSM/DNC attempts to unseat Santorum, campaigns come down to events like this one. Numerous events per day, seven days a week from now through November.

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

Ayn Rand

Ko Yong Hi, Jong Chol - increased Google traffic.

There have been numerous Google searches today seeking information on Ko Yong Hi. I do not know who is initiating the searches or why, only that many searchers are finding this post of mine from February 2005.

It is unusual that I receive google traffic from anyone looking up Ko Yong Hi. Ko is a key figure in North Korean internal politics, as the natural mother of Kim Jong Il's second son, Jong-Chol. There have been succession rumors regarding the North Korean leadership for almost 2 years.

I could find no news about Ko today.

Do the Google searchers know something that the rest of us don't?

------------------------------------------------------

update -

It seems that I was wasting my time seeking information at MSM/DNC sites like CBS, MSNBC or BBC. The Captain has posted the answer to my question. Kim Jong Il has remarried, thus apparently sparking Google inquiries regarding his deceased wife.

Quote of the day - Hussein Massawi

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Hussein Massawi, Hezbollah "leader"

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

I love cheap watches. For no other product are the cheapest versions just as effective for their basic purpose as versions costing ten or a hundred times as much.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Jesse Helms

The New York Times and The Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves.

Jesse Helms

Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary; Ayn Rand - Apollo and Dionysus; William Safire

Today is the 37th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.



This anniversary reminds me of two things:

1) Ayn Rand wrote an article in late 1969 entitled "Apollo and Dionysus." She compared the Apollo 11 flight to Woodstock and examined the opposing philosophies that brought about the moon landing and the mudfest in New York. This article is the definitive piece in response to the endless MSM/DNC romanticizing of Woodstock (and of the '60's in general). The article later appeared in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.



2) In 1999, William Safire published the text of a speech that he had written for President Nixon shortly before the Apollo 11 mission. Safire was given the duty to prepare a speech in the event that the mission failed. I don't have the url anymore, but I saved the article containing the speech when it was first published seven years ago. The article describes the speech and the circumstances under which it was written. I enjoy "what if" scenarios, especially when the historical figures involved developed such detailed scenarios:

Disaster Never Came

"Fate has ordained," a saddened President was prepared to say, "that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay to rest in peace."

That was the opening line of a speech to the nation that I drafted for Richard Nixon 30 years ago this week, as Apollo XI was about to land on the moon.

NASA's liaison with the White House, the astronaut Frank Borman, had called me to say "You want to be thinking of some alternative posture for the President in the event of mishaps." When that failed to register, he laid it out more plainly: "Like what to do for the widows."

The most dangerous part of the trip was not landing the little module on the moon, but in launching it back up to the mother ship. If that failed, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could not be rescued. Mission Control would have to "close down communications" and, as the world agonized, let the doomed astronauts starve to death or commit suicide.

Nixon aides H. R. Haldeman and Peter Flanigan told me to plan for that tragic contingency. On July 18, 1969, I recommended that "in event of moon disaster . . . the President should telephone each of the widows-to-be" and after NASA cut off contact "a clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to 'the deepest of the deep,' concluding with the Lord's Prayer." A draft Presidential speech was included.

I haven't thought about that macabre planning for three decades. Like most adults, I remembered the exhilarating "MEN WALK ON MOON" headline, the phone call of congratulations to "Tranquillity base" -- and that historic weekend's dark counterpoint at Chappaquiddick, which ended the dynastic potential of the brother of the President who launched the Apollo journey.

Last week, however, Jim Mann of The Los Angeles Times wrote a piece headed "The Story of a Tragedy That Was Not to Be." He was digging through the National Archives last year, researching his book on China policy, "About Face." He found our moon disaster contingency plan, and published it the week before the anniversary along with the never-needed speech draft.

"These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, know there is no hope for their recovery," the President would have had to say. "But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

. . .

"In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

"Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these were the first, and will remain foremost in our hearts.

"For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

For 17 years afterward, we took space triumph for granted. Terrible risks were largely ignored -- until the Challenger spacecraft blew up for all to see in classrooms and living rooms.

No disaster speech was on hand for President Reagan to deliver in the stunned aftermath. His writer, Peggy Noonan, rose to the occasion with a moving address written at white heat, concluding with the words of the sonnet by James Gillespie Magee in farewell to the courageous crew who "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

Time and chance happeneth to us all. Armstrong and Aldrin are alive and well; the third man to walk the moon, Pete Conrad, was killed last week when, like Lawrence of Arabia, he ran his motorcycle into a ditch. But the point is not the quirkiness of Fate: our charge today is to value the goal of discovery that drives questing humans to take great risks.

A personal note. At historic moments, speechwriters turn to poets. The final line of the undelivered salute evoked the cadence of the patriotic poet Rupert Brooke, who died in the Royal Navy in World War I:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

Quote of the day - Ronald Reagan

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Jan 16, 1984

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Ann Coulter

The MSM/DNC Lebanon-Katrina strategy

We are all familiar with the MSM/DNC's strategy so far for dealing with this week's fighting in Lebanon and Israel. "We need a cease fire; It is George Bush' fault; We need UN troops, etc. etc." These memes are old and are trotted out every time anything happens anywhere. [Soon the MSM/DNC will be calling for more gun control and higher taxes.]

But the MSM/DNC needs a new meme. It needs some strategy that will catch the imaginations of the viewers and add yet one more nit at which to pick regarding President Bush.

The strategy may have already started. We have heard much discussion regarding the evacuation of the 25,000 so-called "Americans" in Lebanon. We know that it is difficult to evacuate all of them right away. It is safe to presume that many of them will be stuck there for an extended period of time.

Once enough time has passed, the MSM/DNC will begin its Katrinize the Lebanese situation. The MSM/DNC will begin airing complaints from those who attack the administration for failing to carry out the evacuations fast enough. Human horror stories will emerge of Americans desparate to escape, going without food or water, unable to feed their children.

Congressmen will hold hearings into the swiftness of the evacuation effort. We will hear comparisons with Michael Brown and FEMA. MSM/DNC will renew its efforts to obtain the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Hosts of little-viewed cable TV shows will demand to know how we could rush to war against Iraq but fail to rescue our own citizens. The words "failed rescue effort" will become inseparable. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

If we predict the strategy now - if we warn enough people that we are about to be deluged in another MSM/DNC endless barrage of inanity - the strategy may lose its effectiveness. We must talk about it before the MSM/DNC seizes the issue. What good is the blogosphere if we can't pre-empt these memes? These memes are as inane and predictable as they are dishonest. We should take the opportunity while we still have it.

One other point has been made by Debbie Schlussel. Most of the so-called "Americans" living in Lebanon are Hezbollah supporters:

Most of them are Shiite Muslims, many of whom hold dual U.S. and Lebanese citizenship. Many are anchor babies born here to Muslims in the U.S. illegally. Some are illegal aliens who became citizens through rubber-stamping Citizenship and Immigration Services (and its INS predecessor) coupled with political pressure by spineless politicians.

Whenever the MSM/DNC begins calling some rogue group "Americans," it is time to reevaluate the issue. It takes more than the ability to slip into this country and outwit the immigration enforcement services to become an "American." One cannot claim the status of an "American" while supporting a group dedicated to America's destruction:

Many of the 7,000 plus Detroiters in Lebanon are active in Dearborn's Bint Jbeil cultural center (the Lebanese American Heritage Club also features mostly Hezbollah fans). Bint Jbeil is a Hezbollah-dominated city in the South of Lebanon, a frequent destination of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who is very at home there. Bint Jbeil is a frequent source of shellings on Northern Israel.

Bint Jbeil natives now living in our country so strongly support Hezbollah that they got Republican Congressman Joe Knollenberg (and his then top staffer, Paul Welday) and then-U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham to give Hezbollah forces in Southern about $86 million of our tax money, no strings.

Given this information, and the fact that several Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese U.S. citizens from Dearborn have been indicted and/or convicted of laundering money to Hezbollah, is it a good idea to rush to bring 25,000 such persons back to the U.S. at a time when Hezbollah is at war against our strongest U.S. ally? Does the fact, that Hezbollah numerous times--and especially now--has announced veiled and not-so-veiled intentions to attack Americans on U.S. soil, make the case to quickly bring these terror-sympathizing Americans back to U.S. soil? Many are individuals whose activity should have mandated prosecution and jail-time.

H/T Debbie Schlussel

The MSM/DNC has many ways of opposing America. The most clever such way is to redefine the concept of "American" until it loses all meaning. Calling for the rescue of terror supporters (and blaming a President for being too slow about it) while defining those supporters as "American" is one more step along the path toward making our heritage meaningless.

------------------------
update - Michelle Malkin posts a good summary of Hezbollah activity in the U.S.

Here is one more prediction. Under pressure from the MSM/DNC, we will end up transporting, among the evacuees, hundreds of hard core Hezbollah operatives from Lebanon to the U.S.
---------------------------------------------
Atlas posts more detail on the Hezbollah presence in the United States.

More Hillary Hypocrisy

Matt Lewis has the story of Hillary's Ohio campaign statement that she would never repeat in Iowa or Georgia - at least not this year.

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man

And all the time — such is the tragi-comedy of our situation — we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

TWA flight 800 - ten year anniversary

Today is the tenth anniversary of the destruction of TWA flight 800 near Long Island.





There have been many theories as to what happened. The government eventually provided some explanation that no one can remember. One thing that the establishment agrees upon is that the crash was definitely not caused by terrorism, despite bomb powder found on a seat cover and numerous eyewitnesses. I remember the bomb powder story coming out in the mainstream press in September 1996, only to be quickly retracted later that day or the next day.

I think that Al Qaeda became frustrated in the 1990's because we continuously characterized their airline attacks as accidents. 9-11 was partially the result of bin Laden's desire to create an attack that could not be mistaken for an accident.



I also believe that if, on 9-11, only one plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, the government would have characterized the attack as an accident. Try to imagine the official response from the government and the MSM/DNC in that scenario. Those who pointed out the presence of multiple arab travelers on the plane and numerous cell phone calls from passengers in the moments before the crash would be dismissed as paranoid conspiracy theorists. Afghanistan would today be ruled by the Taliban and Iraq would be ruled by Saddam Hussein. There would have been no crackdown on domestic terrorists. And there would have been many additional unexplained airline crashes in the United States ever since.

Remember also, the MSM/DNC game plan as it relates to terrorist attacks that occured prior to 2001 (and how we can combat that game plan):

For the benefit of the left and the MSM/DNC, here is a chronology:

(1) Global terrorism occurred many times over the past thirty or more years.

(2) We began to fight back, including the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

(3) The MSM/DNC began a relentless campaign to reverse the order of ## 1 and 2 in the minds of the public. That is a very difficult task. Judging from the last election, this strategy has worked with only 47% of the voters.

previous anniversaries down the memory hole - TWA flight 847, Achille Lauro, African embassy bombings.

Creating more conservatives

Leftists are fond of saying that whenever we fight back against the terrorists, we are "only creating more Osama's."

Maybe the same leftists should consider the effect of their own vitriol, non sequitors, personal attacks, election fraud, terror justifications and other assorted political tactics in this country. They end up only creating more conservatives.

Here is part of a sign-off post from a conservative frequent commenter/guest blogger at Blonde Sagacity who is leaving the country to fight with the military overseas and can no longer take part in our political/blog wars:

I came to this blog with an open mind, thinking I simply had a difference of opinion with liberals. I leave thinking you are all sheep or possibly communists, and having heard your ideas (or lack there of) in your own words, truly wish bad things to happen to you. You are more dangerous to this country than Islamofacism.

Keep showing your true leftist colors, you are creating more of us every day.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran [the Wright Brothers, Scientific American]

"[A]n article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, three years after Kitty Hawk,
insisted that the airplane was a "hoax" perpetrated by a
pair of "bicycle mechanics." By then Wilbur and Orville
Wright had made flights of up to a half hour, covering
24 miles, but no newspaper would send reporters or
photographers. Most people didn't know -- and didn't care
to believe -- that a momentous new era in human history
had arrived. They said it couldn't be done! So then,
naturally, they had to say it hadn't been done!"

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

During all the time the Great Men were shuttling back and forth, a kind of toxic globalization occurred: The Palestinian "movement" (insofar as there ever was a genuine nationalist movement) became infected and eventually annexed by hard-core Islamism and the Palestinians' most depraved terror techniques were exported to every corner of the world. You can build a "security fence" in the region, but what we might call Palestinianism has leapt the psychological fence and incubated in radicalized Muslim communities worldwide: It's not just Palestinians but also Yorkshiremen who now blow themselves up on public transit.

Mark Steyn - July 16, 2006

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

Ayn Rand

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

President Bush says that it is "unrealistic" to think that we can deport 12 million illegal immigrants. It is also unrealistic to think that we can catch all murderers, but does that mean that we should de-criminalize murder? Or turn loose the murderers we do catch?

Thomas Sowell

100,000

This blog surpassed 100,000 hits this morning. The 100,000th visit was from Dublin, Ireland. I cannot tell what site referred him to this blog.

Here are links to some of my favorite posts from the past couple of years:

The end of Europe.

Hillary Clinton's college thesis - the Rosetta Stone.

The Clinton-China scandal.

Islamic conquest of India.

Absalom Weaver's speech.

Price controls cause shortages.

Joe McCarthy.

"Anything we do . . . anything we see."

MSM/DNC

Categories of MSM/DNC bias.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

Their (New York Times') reaction to al-Zarqawi's death was to lower the U.S. flag at the Times building to half-staff. (Ha ha — just kidding! Everybody knows there aren't any American flags at The New York Times.)

Ann Coulter - July 12, 2006

Quote of the day - Will Durant

Civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.

Will Durant - [writing of the Islamic conquest of India]

The 7-11 bombings - Mumbai, Matunga - courtesy of the RoP

Today's bombings in India place the war in its global context. Islam is at war with everyone. Islam has been at war with everyone for about 14 centuries - long before George Bush became president or liberated Iraq. Even before America began supporting Israel.

I will update this post later tonight with lengthy quotes from Will Durant's history of India and the Orient, in which he describes the Islamic attacks upon and brutalization of the ancient Hindu civilization in India at the dawn of the last millenium. Today's events are no surprise to anyone who knows anything about the history of Islam.
----------------
Afternoon update - Atlas has more. Follow her links.
----------------------------------------------------
11:30 PM update

As promised, here is a description of a portion of the Muslim conquest of India 1000 years ago. This passage was written by Will Durant in 1935. Keep in mind the following:

- Durant was an atheist, having abandoned Christianity several years before.

- This passage was written before George Bush became President. This passage, written by a well-credentialed liberal, was not written for the purpose of helping Bush in any political battle.

- This passage predates the modern state of Israel and the mideast wars that followed Isreal's founding.

The point is that no bias related to any of our current political battles influenced the research or writing of this passage. This passage should provide fresh perspective on the current war. We hope that by fighting this war now, we can escape the fate of the Hindus:

The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within. The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhims and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited Conquest; and at last it came.

The first Moslem attack was a passing raid upon Multan, in the western Punjab (664 A.D.). Similar raids occurred at the convenience of the invaders during the next
three centuries, with the result that the Moslems established themselves in the Indus valley about the same time that their Arab co-religionists in the West were fighting the battle of Tours (732 A.D.) for the mastery of Europe. But the real Moslem conquest of India did not come till the turn of the first millenium after Christ.

In the year 997 a Turkish chieftan by the name of Mahmud became of Sultan of the little state of Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan. Mahmud knew that his throne was
young and poor, and saw that India, across the border, was old and rich; the conclusion was obvious. Pretending a holy zeal for destroying Hindu idolatry, he swept across the frontier with a force inspired by a pious aspiration for booty. He met the unprepared Hindus at Bhimnagar, slaughtered them, pillaged their cities, destroyed their temples, and carried away the accumulated treasures of centuries. . . . . Each winter Mahmud descended into India, filled his treasure chest with spoils, and amused his men with full freedom to pillage and kill; each spring he returned to his capital richer than before. At Mathura (on the Jumna) he took from the temple its statues of gold encrusted with precious stones, and emptied its coffers of a vast quantity of gold, silver and jewelry; he expressed his admiration for the architecture of the great shrine, judged that its duplication would cost one hundred million dinars and the labor of 200 years, and then ordered it to be soaked with naptha and burnt to the ground. Six years later he sacked another opulent city of northern India, Somnath, killed all its 50,000 inhabitants, and dragged its wealth to Ghazni. In the end he became, perhaps, the richest king that history has ever known. Sometimes he spared the population of the ravaged cities, and took them home to be sold as slaves; but so great was the number of such captives that after some years no one could be found to offer more than a few shillings for a slave. Before every important engagement Mahmud knelt in prayer, and asked the blessing of God upon his arms. He reigned for a third of a century; and when he died, full of years and honors, Moslem historians ranked him as the greatest monarch of his time and one of the greatest sovereigns of any age.

Seeing the canonization that success had brought to this magnificent thief, other Moslem rulers profited by his example, though none succeeded in bettering his instruction. In 1186 the Ghuri, a Turkish tribe of Afghanistan, invaded India, captured the city of Delhi, destroyed its temples, confiscated its wealth, and settled down in its palaces to establish the Sultanate of Delhi - - - an alien despotism fastened upon northern India for three centuries, and checked only by assassination and revolt. The first of these bloody sultans, Kutb-d Din Aibak, was a normal specimen of his kind - fanatical, ferocious and merciless. His gifts, as the Mohammedan historian tells us, "were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands." [citation omitted.] In one victory of this warrior . . . . "50,000 men came under the collar of slavery, and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus." [citation omitted]. Another sultan, Balban, punished rebels and brigands by casting them under the feet of elephants, or removing their skins, stuffing these with straw and hanging them from the gates of Delhi.

Will Durant, "Our Oriental Heritage," pp. 459-461, 1935

The chapter goes on and on with similar stories of brutality and slaughter at the hands of the RoP. There will be more to follow about those incidents here at this blog.

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a "wandering to find home," why should we not look forward to the arrival?

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

The human capacity to abuse laws and institutions is so common that reform should never be undertaken without asking the question: "But how will it be perverted?"

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

Meanwhile, across the borders pour not primarily suicide bombers or suitcase nukes, though they will come in the end, but ideology - fierce, glamorous and implacable.

Mark Steyn - July 11, 2005

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

Al Gore defended the gas tax [proposed 26 cent increase in 1993], vowing that it was "absolutely not coming out" of the energy bill regardless of "how much trouble it causes the entire package." The important thing was to force Americans to stop their infernal car-driving, no matter how much it cost.

Ann Coulter

MSNBC map of Islam in Europe, Eurabia, Dhimmitude

In light of today's one year anniversary of the London Tube and bus bombings, this interactive map from MSNBC might provide a little insight into the future of terrorism in Europe.

The map contains some factual errors and I think understates the number/percentage of muslims in the various countries. As Debbie Schlussel wrote 4 years ago:

With few controls on immigration, there are now between 5 and 10 million Muslim Arabs in that country of 60 million. The range in numbers of Muslims there is so vast because nobody knows for sure exactly how many there are. One thing is for sure: in the next 50 to 100 years-maybe sooner-France will become a Muslim nation. Demographics dictate it.

The map also fails to take into account the heavy weighting of muslims in the younger generations. But at least the map's notes propertly attribute last fall's rioting in France to muslims instead of "African-Americans".

Previous - map of Islam in Africa.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

This is the beginning of a long existential struggle, for Britain and the west. It’s hard not to be moved by the sight of Londoners calmly going about their business as usual in the face of terrorism. But, if the political class goes about business as usual, that’s not a stiff upper lip but a death wish.

Mark Steyn - July 8, 2005 - writing of the terrorist tube and bus bombings a day earlier.

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

Does it tell you something about our times when a representative of the Taliban is welcome on the Yale University campus but representatives of our own military forces are not?

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.

Ayn Rand

North Korean missile test; expecting the MSM/DNC spin

As a result of today's launch of long range missiles by North Korea, I expect the usual MSM/DNC spin blaming George W. Bush.

Check out my post from May 2, 2005 for the best response to this spin and some history from 1998.

Also, don't forget who sold the technology to North Korea's ally, China, in exchange for campaign contributions.

The Captain posts updates.

Vicksburg anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the surrender of Vicksburg during the Civil War. Vicksburg -

the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, surrenders to Gen. Grant and the Army of the West after a six week siege. With the Union now in control of the Mississippi, the Confederacy is effectively split in two, cut off from its western allies.

The History Place posted this photo.







143 years ago today

Quote of the day - David Horowitz

We are in the midst of two wars – a war with fanatical religious terrorists (I know it’s hard for lefties to relate to this) and a domestic political war more savage than in any comparable context since the American Civil War – worse by far than Vietnam because the paranoia and hate directed at this Administration comes from leaders of the Democratic Party and the “establishment” media not just crackpots.

David Horowitz - July 3, 2006

Classics of Conservatism - Part XVII - Herman Dinsmore - All the News that Fits

Click here and here for previous editions of Classics of Conservatism.

This month's edition of "Classics of Conservatism" is topical, as it provides background into the history of bias at the New York Times. The blogswarm that now engulfs the Times and has MSM/DNC apologists scrambling to defend the indefensible relates only to the tip of the iceberg.

Herman Dinsmore was a Times employee for 34 years, including 9 years as international editor. In 1969, he drew on his years of experience to chronicle the Times' bias and misleading reporting on a number of issues.



Much of what we think we know of Vietnam is the result of years of NYT propaganda that has found its way into the history books because the historians naturally looked to the "paper of record" when compiling their stories. Dinsmore's book exposed the journalistic malpractice that contributes to that "history" and allows us to rethink this and other episodes.

Dinsmore also writes extensively about the Warren report and how the Times blindly accepted its conclusions despite its obvious flaws.

I cannot remember much of the book (and the other subjects it explores), as it has been more than 17 years since I read it. But I believe that simple "bias" is no longer enough to explain the decades of 5th column activities by the Times and the rest of the MSM/DNC.

In 1969, Dinsmore's book was only one isolated voice being drowned out by the MSM/DNC chorus. Today, it seems almost quaint and unexceptional, given all that we know about the NYT and the new media's power to expose it. But the real value of "All the News that Fits" is the confidence is gives us in our own observations as we uncover the true depths of New York Times' and MSM/DNC perfidy.
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update - photos from today's protest at the Times' office in Washington D.C. - H/T Michelle Malkin

New York Times, Bill Keller, Swift program, Axis Sally, protest July 10

I have very little to add to the uproar/blogswarm that has engulfed the New York Times since the Times' revelation of U.S. Secrets, including the SWIFT program. Ann Coulter has compared the Times to Axis Sally and other WWII traitors.

Michelle Malkin writes of a protest planned for July 10, 2006.

The blogswarm has forced the Times to backpeddle. The SWIFT program was secret before it was not secret. H/T Michelle Malkin.

For a detailed description of Axis Sally's activities, check out Sally's attacks on American morale and Sally's exaggerated predictions of American combat casaulties that earned her a 12 year prison sentence. As I wrote here:

If we can force a little history into the mainstream discussion and rescue the concept of "treason" from the memory hole, we won't have to stand by helplessly while taxpayer funded professors tell their audiences how to commit acts of terror.

The same is true for newspapers who provide intelligence to Al Qaeda.
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update - protest today outside the New York Times offices in Washington D.C.
H/T Michelle Malkin.

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

If we could know which of us, darling, would be the first to go, who would be first to breast the swelling tide and step alone upon the other side - if we could know!

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

The same kind of inspired jurisprudence conjuring trick that detected in the emanations of the penumbra how the Framers of the U.S Constitution cannily anticipated a need for partial-birth abortion and gay marriage has now effectively found a right to jihad -- or, if you're a female suicide bomber about to board an Israeli bus, a woman's right to Jews.

Mark Steyn

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Most political leaders are wolves in shepherds' clothing.

Joe Sobran