Hey! Tomorrow is my li'l sister's Birthday!! Happy Birthday, Patty! Wish we could be there to help you celebrate with an Angry American rant on growing older. Well, actually I don’t have any rants against aging – I've seen the alternative, and it does not appeal to me at all...
(Belated Happy B.day to older bro John!!)
I've got to stop letting these rants fester so long. Not only does it get my blood pressure up, but I also wait till my issues aren't exactly current...
That being said, 2 not-so-current rants:
On the near-anniversary of Bush's 2003 SOTU address, journalists (WaPo's Glenn Kessler) & presidential candidates (Weasley Clark) are STILL claiming Bush said (esp. in the 2003 SOTU address) that Saddam Hussein was "an imminent threat", even though he NEVER did. These bozos have access to all speeches made by Bush AND his staff, and no one is EVER quoted as saying Saddam was an imminent threat. In fact, Bush said just the opposite in the 2003 SOTU address:
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein ... is not an option."
So how come, one year later, the Left STILL makes this claim? One thing they say is that, well – he implied it. Aaargh! No he didn't! Can't you read/hear? Just the opposite!! Unless Bush somehow has managed to reinvent the English language in such a way that by explicitly saying one thing you actually mean something opposite. That clever, devious Bush. Or is he the moronic, half-chimp buffoon? Make up your minds – or are the faces of the Eveel Dubya tied to the days of the week?
Thing is, Bush never said Saddam was "an imminent threat". That' the fact. But that's EXACTLY what the Left heard. Doesn't matter that the words weren't spoken, that's what they heard. That's what they wanted to hear, so that's what he said, period. I remember this kind of reasoning from my Psych 101 classes – this kind of transference of reality. It's a treatable condition, but it is an illness...
Next!
500 DEAD – U.S. BODY COUNT IN IRAQI WAR NOW TOPS 500!!!!! We must pull out, NOW!! OMYGOD – 500!! This is definitely Viet Nam all over again...
What a bunch of non-thinking twits the General Public (GP) must be if they fall for this spin by Big Media. Without even bothering to check to see if I'm right, I'll bet the Angry American Wife's paycheck that more than 500 US service men/women die in peacetime incidents in one year.
[Ed: She's still "in between jobs" – no risk!!]
How about this one? 2000 children died. Last year, 2000 kids died in this country in car accidents (according to those pushing new child-booster seat laws). Where is the outrage? Where is the press coverage? Shouldn't cars be outlawed or at least car manufacturers sued for producing, marketing, & selling such an unsafe product to the very people who have children (see every minivan commercial ever aired)? Or maybe kids shouldn't be allowed in cars between the time they fit in car seats and when they fit in seatbelts? You bet these are reeeedickyouless positions; see why the 500 number is just a ploy by Big Media to work sentiment against staying the course in Iraq?
And why would Big Media want the US to fail in Iraq (and there's not doubt pulling out would be an unequivocal failure)? Because then Bush would not be re-elected. Make no mistake – that is the goal of Big Media (with few exceptions, e.g., Fox): Get rid of Bush. Doesn't matter that their reporting of every bad incident (and almost none of the good) is undoubtedly encouraging more bad incidents. Doesn't matter if thousands of Americans and their allies die; in fact, that'd be great! Get rid of Bush. It's that simple, and they're hoping that we, the GP, are so simple that we'll follow along...
From the Palm Beach Post, January 7, 2004. A casual read finds this article fairly objective, but if you look for the "tone" of the piece, well,...
Fisking found [within these characters, in italics].
Former General Defends Invasion Of Iraq In Speech By Ron Hayes, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
In the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks led 150,000 American soldiers to war in Afghanistan and, later, Iraq.
Most of the soldiers are still there, but Franks, who retired last summer as head of U.S. Central Command, has traded his camouflage fatigues for a business suit and the lucrative lecture circuit. [You can almost hear the derision – while warmonger Franks sits in the lap of luxury, his troops are fighting & dying in Iraq & Afghanistan. It's an implicit criticism of the man. Obviously, he should not have retired, nor returned to the States until every fighting man & woman had come home also. Okay, so if he had to retire, he certainly has no right to be enjoying the fruits of his life-long career while our military is still deployed. That's what I mean by "tone".]
Tuesday afternoon, Franks opened the 2004 Speaker Series at The Society of the Four Arts with a few hoary jokes, a passionate defense of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, sentimental references to his grandchildren, a few swipes at the media and a declaration of friendship and respect for President Bush that cynics might have heard as a ringing non-endorsement endorsement.
"It's been five months since I retired," the four-star general began, "and I've learned that if you want a car to move you have to get in the front seat."
But he soon turned serious.
"On September 11, 2001, Americans recognized our vulnerability to attack from without, and every day since then the world has come to recognize what a superpower on steroids looks like," he said.
"Saddam Hussein had a bad holiday season," Franks said with a gleeful cackle, and "Osama bin Laden, dead or alive, is not today in Afghanistan planning the next attack." However, he offered no evidence to support that assertion. [And we expected him to what – pull out the evidence of Osama's hiding place at this speech? Remember, he's now retired – he can offer his opinions without evidence. Hell, that's what journalists do for a living.]
At one point, Franks criticized the media for its coverage, but later praised the policy of embedding journalists with troops in Iraq. "I do not believe we have had very much accurate reporting from Iraq since the embedded journalists left," he said. "More embedding right now would satisfy me."
As for his personal plans now that others are doing the fighting, Franks said, "Samuel Thomas (his grandson) will require a lot of knee-bouncing." [Again, tone. Implicitly faulting the man for being home while others do his dirty work. Note to Pentagon: Generals, Admirals, etc. are no longer to be permitted to retire or return stateside while any service man or woman who has every served under them is militarily deployed.]
And Franks is writing a book, as well as giving lectures. "The schedule is about the same," he quipped, "but the pay is a helluva lot better."
He was given a standing ovation. [And I just don't get it – don't those standing ovationers understand that this man KILLED people? That he was in charge of the ILLEGAL, UNJUSTIFIED raping of Iraq? That he personally supervised the looting of the Iraqi National Museum – oh wait...]
-----------End-----------------
And of course, maybe I just read too much into things...
Yes, Virginia, there is stifling of dissent – in your backyard!!
After the attacks of 9/11, the fear was that the Gov't was going too far with new laws to combat terror (i.e., the PATRIOT Act). Our civil liberties are at risk, was the battle cry from the Left – and I actually agree.
We do need to keep a careful watch on those who would protect us from ourselves, at the expense of our personal liberty. And with the Attorney General's office being in the hands of arch-conservative John Ashcroft, the Left knew it would be just a matter of time before any dissenting voice/opinion would be squelched, and said dissenter carted away, a la Big Brother.
But where are we finding dissenting opinions being suppressed?? On our college campuses, the one place we long-ago grads assumed was the very bastion of free, controversial speech (a good lot of us took advantage of the opportunity). The following is an excerpt from a link to another blog where... crap, who cares. Thing is, go read the whole thing:
"The administration not only closed down an anti-affirmative action bake sale but is threatening its sponsors with disciplinary action. According to a letter the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) sent to the William & Mary Board of Visitors, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Mark Constantine
accused Will Coggin [one of the sponsors] of “violating campus policy as stated in [W&M's] handbook,” although he failed to state what policy had been violated. Ignoring Coggin's repeated requests to specify the offense, Constantine replied on November 17 that “Referring to the Student Handbook at this point in time is counterproductive.” Subsequent e-mails to Vice President for Student Affairs W. Samuel Sadler also failed to produce a reason for the censorship.
"But perhaps most disturbing is William & Mary’s insolently sophomoric response to criticism of its suppression of open debate and free speech. In response to a polite but critical email he had sent, Curtis Crawford of Charlottesville received the following reply:
Dear Mr. Crawford, Some fool has sent me an e-mail and signed your name to it. You should do what you can to discover the identity of the person. He or she is doing real harm to your reputation. I will help you if I can. Tim Sullivan
"Timothy Sullivan is the president of William & Mary, but it appears that some fool has signed his name."
Don't feel bad, Virginia – you are not the only state with a village idiot. See this article in the Washington Times.
So it appears that Free Speech/First Amendment does not apply to the non-minority (i.e., white male) students. It appears that Whitey can be smacked down anytime he utters anything that might be found offensive to anyone – whoops!, any Minority anyone. How can this be tolerated? Look, I'm not being naïve here – these students were deliberately causing a scene in order to generate controversy. My question is, isn't the college campus the perfect place to begin this kind of hard, soul-searching reflection on controversial policies (in this case, Affirmative Action)? If not, then where?
Finally, for those of you on the waaaaaay Left – you are not permitted to choose when the First Amendment may be restricted. It applies to the United States as a whole – inclusive of even, *gasp!*, Whitey.
CEIBA, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Navy ships are vanishing from Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, ending an era when defense spending boosted Puerto Rico's economy and the U.S. territory was seen as a strategic asset.
The military has used the base for six decades to keep watch over the Caribbean, and as the outpost closes, with thousands of troops and civilians to leave by March 31, Puerto Rico is losing an economic powerhouse that employed more than 6,000 people and brought an estimated $300 million a year to the island...
(End of article quote)
So now where is Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson, or whoever the clueless twits were that insisted closing Vieques was the will of the Puerto Rican (PR) people? Who, of these enlightened elites, informed the unwashed masses of the economic impact (read "JOBS!!!!!") that the closure would have on the economy (both local & Island-wide)? Too busy making political hay (out of a situation that they have/had no business in, nor knowledge of) to worry about the potential consequences on local populace. Besides, if some of the uncouth locals must suffer to make the point that..., that..., that – what was the point? That the eveel Bush Empire was abusing the island and its people? No, that's not what the protestors' US supporters will claim was their purpose. The goal was to return the sovereignty of Vieques to PR, regardless of the value of the base to US military readiness.
Oh well – so PR doesn't want us there; we'll go elsewhere. Might not be as good for training, but we'll make due. But suddenly the locals realize that closing the bombing range (Vieques) eliminates the need for the rest of the base (Roosey Roads). "Can’t we have our cake and eat it, too?", they now ask. Sorry – no you can't. Don't you wish your friends in the US, who stood in solidarity with you during your protests, had hinted that this closing was inevitable if the protests were successful? Would've been nice, but when we're playing politics, we don't play nice. Why do I allege that we're "playing politics"? Vieques had been used as a bombing range for 60 years, inclusive of the time frame of 1992-1998. Plenty of PR activists wanted the US out of Vieques then, too. Where was Al & company then?
