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June 30, 2006
A few thoughts on the SCOTUS Hamdan ruling
- Keep the detainees at Gitmo until hostilities end.
- Suggest new additions to the rules of engagement to the military ... un-uniformed illegal combatants? Take no prisoners.
- Hope that the President gets another SCOTUS pick before '08, since he doesn't get to pick the editors of the NYTimes
Posted by Darleen at 07:14 AM | Comments (3)
Arab Pal Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
Call the WAHHHHmbulance
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - In his first public comments since Israel began its Gaza Strip offensive, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Friday that Israel cannot "hijack" his government through retaliatory measures meant to win the freedom of a kidnapped soldier.Well, doah! Those Israeli troops poised at the border ready to fry your ass finally caught your attention that hundreds of rockets fired into Israel and the kidnapping of Shalit from inside of Israel is not acceptable.Though Haniyeh did not directly address Israel's demand that Hamas-linked militants hand over Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, he implied that the government would not trade him for eight Cabinet ministers and 56 other Hamas officials arrested Thursday. [...]
However, Haniyeh did say he was working hard to end the five-day-old crisis.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz called for leaders who have influence on the Hamas government to exert immediate pressure on it to release Shalit.Israel is making this difficult? Naw, couldn't have a thing to do with acts of war against Israel in the first place."The quicker this is done the better it will be. If the soldier will be returned and the Qassam (rocket) fire will be halted, we will also return our soldiers to their bases," Peretz was quoted as saying in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. [...]
Haniyeh said he was in contact with Arab, Muslim and European leaders to try to resolve the crisis, "but this Israeli military escalation complicates matters and makes it more difficult."
These are not the Jews you expected, eh?
Technorati: Israel, Gaza, Hamas
Posted by Darleen at 06:43 AM | Comments (1)
June 29, 2006
More in Israel's pushback against the Judenhass Arabs
The last few days has seen the Arabs of Gaza find out just what kind of whirlwind they inherit when they insist on pursuing their agenda of annihilation of the "Zionist Entity."
Personally, I think Israel has been quite restrained in their response to the ongoing acts of war that Hamas and its ilk has been engaging in since Israel totally disengaged from Gaza.
The latest has Israel actually rounding up and arresting members of the Hamas run "government".
An Israeli military official said a total of 64 Hamas officials were arrested in the early morning roundup. Of those, [Arab] Palestinian officials said seven are ministers in Hamas' 23-member Cabinet and 20 others are lawmakers in the 72-seat parliament.[Arab] Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer, parliament speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik and Religious Affairs Minister Nayef Rajoub, brother of former West Bank strongman Jibril Rajoub of the rival Fatah party, were among those rounded up.
Officials will be questioned and eventually indicted, the Israeli army and government officials said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the ministers and lawmakers were not taken as bargaining chips for Shalit's release, but because Israel holds Hamas responsible for attacks against it.
"The arrests of these Hamas officials ... is part of a campaign against a terrorist organization that has escalated its war of terror against Israeli civilians," Regev said.
Technorati: Israel, Gaza, Hamas
Posted by Darleen at 06:52 AM | Comments (1)
June 28, 2006
Tokyo Murtha's response
It looks like John Murtha (Cut-N-Run PA) has a press release concerning his "being misquoted" at the Miami conference he attended.
During the speech, I made a point that our international credibility was suffering, particularly due to our continued military presence in Iraq and that we were perceived as an occupying force. For illustrative purposes, I provided the example of a recent Pew Poll which indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. in Iraq a danger to world peace than consider Iran or North Korea a danger to world peace.DO note that he doesn't offer his quote in context, but only an explanation of what he "really" meant.
Where's the full text of his actual words? Is there audio somewhere?
If Murtha wants to offer an explanation of his speech, fine and good. He may be finally realizing his shoot-from-the-lip that underlines his Toykoist motives is not bringing this unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal of the 80's the kind of attention he craves. But he doesn't offer any more of a quote than was attributed to him by the Sun-Sentinel.
Let's say I'm a bit cynical about the "misquote" because the second half of Murtha's press release claims his quote about redeployment to places like "Okinawa" was also a misquote. Transcript
REP. MURTHA: Kuwait’s one that will take us. Qatar, we already have bases in Qatar. So Bahrain. All those countries are willing to take the United States. Now, Saudi Arabia won’t because they wanted us out of there in the first place. So—and we don’t have to be right there. We can go to Okinawa. We, we don’t have—we can redeploy there almost instantly. So that’s not—that’s, that’s a fallacy. That, that’s just a statement to rial up people to support a failed policy wrapped in illusion.Is this a "misquote?" or being "quoted out of context"?MR. RUSSERT: But it’d be tough to have a timely response from Okinawa.
REP. MURTHA: Well, it—you know, they—when I say Okinawa, I, I’m saying troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can fly from Okinawa very quickly. And—and—when they don’t know we’re coming. There’s no question about it. And, and where those airplanes won’t—came from I can’t tell you, but, but I’ll tell you one thing, it doesn’t take very long for them to get in with cruise missiles or with, with fighter aircraft or, or attack aircraft, it doesn’t take any time at all.
No. Sorry. Murtha undercuts any credibility to the first "misquote" by tacking on the second as "another occassion" of the same. And why should anyone believe Murtha was more circumspect in Miami about America's threat to peace then he was about "the wrongful coverup" in Haditha in the same speech?
Murtha's press release also includes a link to a website that features both his press release and an article entitled "SwiftBoat II?"
What is it about "Swiftboating" for the Left community? Last I checked, not one thing alleged in the book was disproved. Indeed, Kerry's* Christmas in Cambodia was just one point of incredulity uncovered equal to Murtha's "rapid deployment from Okinawa."
Chancuff, who pointed me to the press release in the comments here says
When I read that story I was puzzled. It just didn't sound like something Murtha would say.Really? Considering what Murtha has been saying since, at least, last November, it entirely was in character.
*515 days since he promised to fully release his military papers
Technorati: Murtha, Sun-Sentinel, Elizabeth Baier,
Posted by Darleen at 06:33 AM | Comments (9)
June 26, 2006
Guilty pleasures
Saw this tour when it hit Universal Ampitheater in 1997. Second row, center.
Wow.
Posted by Darleen at 06:20 AM | Comments (1)
June 25, 2006
'I'm scared of animals, but this is cool'
Time for some great laughs
Posted by Darleen at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)
Islamofascists slaughter Russian embassy workers
CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Sunday showing the killings of three Russian embassy workers abducted earlier this month in Iraq. A fourth also was said to have been killed. [...]Michelle Malkin has a link, and a warning, to the video.The 90-second video, posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs militant messages, showed the beheading of two blindfolded men and the shooting of a third.
In the footage, two men clad in black and wearing black ski masks shout "God is great!" before beheading the first man. Then one militant appears standing over the decapitated body of a second victim lying in a pool of blood, with the head placed on top of the body.
Anyone still question the threat posed by Islamists?
Anyone besides the usual suspects -- willful ignorance and apologia from Leftist cultists.
But, what the heck, it's in the Koran!!
UPDATE I know I shouldn't look, but it's kind of hard to resist. From Democrat Demon Underground
HuffleClawYep, nothing bad happens in the world that is not the fault of BOOOOOOSH! Almost as bad as that other Left boogeyman, the JOOOOOOOOS.
Sun Jun-25-06 06:46 PM
Response to Original message
10. hmmmm, i wonder if these bad guys are CIAl Qaeda ?
bush would LOVE for the russians to get involved in iraq.
Technorati: Islamofascism
Posted by Darleen at 04:52 PM | Comments (1)
I got nothing to add
Just.Wow.
Posted by Darleen at 12:27 PM | Comments (1)
Grandpa Simpson Toyko Murtha - at it again
Absofuckinglutely unbelievable
MIAMI — American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to an audience of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.What? What happened to Okinawa?Murtha was the guest speaker at a town hall meeting organized by Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, D-Miami, at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus. Meek's mother, former Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, was also on the panel. [...]
He said the more than 100,000 troops in Iraq should be pulled out immediately, and deployed to peripheral countries like Kuwait.
Murtha also has publicly said that the shooting of 24 Iraqis in November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, was wrongfully covered up.Which must be news to Major General Eldon Bargewell who reported last week that there was none.
"(The United States) became the target when Abu Ghraib came along," Murtha said.So the Islamofascists only targeted Americans after abuse (not torture) at Abu Ghraib? So exactly what was Clinton reacting to when he signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998?
Or does Murtha believe that Pissed-Off Presbyterians bombed Khobar Towers ten years ago today?
This is no longer innocent senility.
Technorati: Murtha, Islamofascism ,
Posted by Darleen at 11:51 AM | Comments (7)
June 23, 2006
Photoshopping the Times looselips
Strange how the non-outting of non-covert CIA employee Valerie Plame had the legacy media all a flutter. Yet, when it comes to actual classified, legal and working intelligence gathering programs aimed at our enemies... WELL, then!
National security be damned. There are Pulitzers to be won.(h/t JeffG)
Michelle Malkin suggests Photoshopping old WWII domestic posters and I offer three of my own:
Technorati: New York Times, Islamofascism , WWII Posters,
Posted by Darleen at 08:43 PM | Comments (5)
June 22, 2006
Their master's voice
First background. Histrionic, paranoiac response. Noting the irony of it all.
Technorati: Daily Kos, Jason Zengerle , Markos Moulitsas,
Posted by Darleen at 01:16 PM | Comments (1)
June 20, 2006
RoP Update: 'U.S. soldiers' bodies mutilated, booby-trapped'
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The bodies of two U.S. soldiers found in Iraq Monday night were mutilated and booby-trapped, military sources said Tuesday.And following in Zarqawi's methods of barbaric murderPfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker went missing after a Friday attack on a traffic control checkpoint in Yusufiya, 12 miles (20 km) south of Baghdad.
The sources said the two men had suffered severe trauma.
The bodies also had been desecrated, and a visual identification was impossible -- part of the reason DNA testing was being conducted to verify their identities, the sources said.
A tip from Iraqi civilians led officials to the bodies, military sources told CNN. The discovery was made about 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Not only were the bodies booby-trapped, but homemade bombs also lined the road leading to the victims, an apparent effort to complicate recovery efforts and target recovery teams, the sources said.
The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq killed two U.S. soldiers whom the group abducted last week, an insurgent umbrella group said in a Web statement posted Tuesday.Anyone from theThe statement, which could not be authenticated, said the two soldiers were "slaughtered," suggesting they had been beheaded by Abu Hamza al- Muhajer. The Arabic word used in the statement, "nahr," is used for the slaughtering of sheep by cutting the throat and has been used in past statements to refer to beheadings.
The claim of responsibility was posted on an Islamic militant Web site where insurgent groups regularly post statements.
Hello?
Posted by Darleen at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
Tragic news and repeating the question
From WaPo
BAGHDAD, July 20--Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi defense official.So much for "insurgents" being the equivalent of legitimate armed forces who deal in things like Geneva conventions.Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been "barbarically" killed and that there were traces of torture on their bodies.
In a second statement released Monday, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed to be holding four Russian diplomats abducted in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood in early June. Another Russian Embassy employee died in the attack. As conditions of the diplomats' release, the group demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and the release of "our brothers and sisters in Russian prisons."And everyone recalls the courageous fight by Chechnya Islamofascists in Beslan.
I repeat my one question to the anti-war advocates.
Do you at least acknowledge that the people we are fighting are evil?
more at
Stop the ACLU
Cathouse Chat
Michelle Malkin (good link roundup)
(h/t Allah)
Posted by Darleen at 06:42 AM | Comments (4)
June 19, 2006
BREAKING NEWS:
A new torture strategy has been uncovered just prior to being used at Gitmo. Sources claim it has already been tested on American civilians.
heh.
/humor
Posted by Darleen at 03:48 PM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2006
Another huh? Murtha moment
The thing that disturbed me and worries me about this whole thing is we can't get them to change direction. And I said over and over in debate, if you listen to any of it, in Beirut President Reagan changed direction, in Somalia President Clinton changed direction, and yet here, ....
The last time the meteors came, we thought the sky was on fire. Naturally, we blamed the Irish. We hanged more 'n a few.
After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians. The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat. And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda ... about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.
Technorati: John Murtha, Iraq, Cut and Run
Posted by Darleen at 08:41 AM | Comments (6)
June 17, 2006
Patriotism?? PFFFT who needs it!
Seems like li'l Natalie Maines has some issues
"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."(h/t Michelle Malkin)
Far be it from me to suggest Ms. Maines has let her sweet, sweet taste of fame incapacitate her from thinking any deeper thoughts than what new Urban Decay eyeshadow she should order from Sephora, but she (and fellow travelers) might like to muse on these words:
Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled "intellectuals" to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. "Warmongers" -- "Imperialists" -- "Hired killers in uniform" -- you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."Full context over the jump.What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.
I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.
Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics.
As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, and adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him -- which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon. . .but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard.Excerpt from Robert A. Heinlein, April 5, 1973, lecture at the Naval Academy.The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him.
Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.
Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled "intellectuals" to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. "Warmongers" -- "Imperialists" -- "Hired killers in uniform" -- you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.
I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.
Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics.
But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to talk about it -- as if it were something shameful or an irrational weakness.
But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.
A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.
To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go back to fundamentals. Take any breed of animal -- for example, tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.
Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?
We can answer part of that at once: Individually h. sapiens will NOT survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here would be 118 years old by then -- if still alive.
Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a half -- but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to die and get out of the way of younger people.
Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half of the question: Does homo sapiens AS A BREED have to die? The answer is: No, it is NOT unavoidable.
We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or otherwise.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.
We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest.
The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . .but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college -- and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child. . .and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger that the unit family -- an extended family, a herd, a tribe -- and take another look at that baboon on watch; he's at that moral level. I don't think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as "morality" or "duty" or "loyalty" -- but it is evident that baboons DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it "instinct" if you like -- but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.
But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don't have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons. . .but the leopard decides who graduates -- and there is no appeal from his decision. We don't have to understand the details to observe the outcome; Baboons behave morally -- for baboons.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called "patriotism."
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will NEVER die.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But that astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut Corps are graduates of this our school.
And let me add that James Forrestal was the FIRST high-ranking Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier. . .for they contend that THEIR actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel -- and they'll tell you that to your face.
I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war.
Yes -- and if pigs had wings, they could fly.
I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the Far East -- or Africa -- or the Middle East -- knows are certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In the past few years I have ben around the world three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes.
The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among the nations capable of waging total war -- while endless lesser wars break out here and there.
I won't belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not on place where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes -- else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism -- Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale's last words: "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, "The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed form time to time with the blood of patriots--" A submarine skipper giving the order "Take her DOWN!" while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, "The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who can go out there an WIN!"
Patriotism -- An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs you your life.
Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract expression "patriotism." Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words "Patriotism" reads "Women and children first!"
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on. . .as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.
I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and often have. I have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have on my side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain military service. My wife put in three years and a butt active duty in World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud -- very proud! -- of her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in uniform; they are a shining example to us men.
Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on "Women and children first" -- and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to extinction.
Possibly exctinction is the way we are headed. Great nations have died in the past; it can happen to us.
Nor am I certain how good our chances our. To me it seems self-evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on the skids. Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a matter of time. I don't know how deeply the rot has penetrated -- but it seems to me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty years. Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost its grip on a large percentage of our people.
I hope I am wrong. . .because if my fears are well grounded, I would not bet two cents on this nation's chance of lasting even to the end of this century.
But there is now way to force patriotism on anyone. Passing a law will not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so many billions of dollars.
You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You are going to a school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by precept and example. It is not enough to know what Charlie NOble does for a living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice the main brace and why -- nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation and ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These things are merely the working tools of your profession and could be learned elsewhere; they do not require "four years together by the Bay where the Severn joins the tide."
What you do have here is a tradition of service. Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: "Don't Give Up the Ship."
If you feel nothing, you don't belong here. But if it give you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the years. . .until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your own honored dead -- classmates, shipmates, friends -- read them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
The time has come for me to stop. I said that "Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck --
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free. . .and the train hit them.
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and did later, the tramp was killed -- and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband's behavior was heroic. . .but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
THIS is how a man dies.
This is how a MAN. . .lives!
"They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old age shall not wither them nor the years condemn; As the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them..."
-Tomb of the Scottish Unknown Soldier, Edinburgh
Technorati: Dixie Chicks, Dixie Natalie Maines, Patriotism
Posted by Darleen at 12:03 PM | Comments (1)
Thank you
to all those who have written to express their condolences upon the passing of my sister-in-law. She was always, even unto adulthood, a very sweet kid who never let her own limitations stand in the way of living her life on her terms.
I believe her passing this quickly in the midst of extraordinary and loving care was just the final version of her making a decision that she just wasn't going to stick around a hospital and linger.
She and her boyfriend of some twenty years lived fairly independently, surrounded by supportive and loving families, secure in their faith, traveling the city at will with their bus passes, and sometimes traveling afar with my in-laws.
She had a rich life and she will be missed.
The gold of life is not counted by the degrees earned or the job titles achieved. The gold of life is in the love you leave behind.
Posted by Darleen at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
Life continues
Her signs are up. She's making happy small talk with the staff, even attempts a little lunch.
Then she's gone.
Posted by Darleen at 08:37 PM | Comments (5)
Life interrupted
"I need you," he says, "She's back in ICU and this time ... "
My desk, covered with files, papers and the early morning flotsam of my work-a-day world has to be dealt with, in a flurry.
In a flurry, we toss the minimal into a duffle bag for the drive, with no idea of how long we'll be gone or what the next few hours or days will be. For two people, necessity and time forces me to admire just how lightly we can travel.
But he brings his dark suit, too.
All the flurry then the wait. The long drive where I can see the muscle jump along his jaw alternate with eyes ready to spill tears.
I carry a small, blue gem of calm inside, cut and polished through other emergencies, other vigils outside sterile rooms of machines that beep and hiss and hum. I wish I could just pass it over, but it is a gem we mine alone, its cut and clarity ours to fashion.
From somewhere she rallies, not much, but enough to hang on. Enough to wake and recognize those that have come to see her.
We arrive home late last night and crawl to bed, exhausted from the see-saw of flurry and wait. To awake this morning pleased the phone hasn't rung.
Which is life? Which is interruption?
I take out my gem and polish it anew.
Posted by Darleen at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2006
I declare this 'be a little sensative to moonbat' day -- UPDATED
... cuz the wailing and rending of clothing at the dashing of one of their most cherished dreams is over
WASHINGTON - Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won't be charged with any crimes in the investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said Tuesday, lifting a heavy burden from one of President Bush's most trusted advisers.Being smacked upside the head with reality can hurt, especially if some have spent so much time and energy on a Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory that is just ... well ... so much kerfuffle.
UPDATED: Meanwhile
Truthout.org -- the one publication to report, repeatedly, that Rove was definitely going to be indicted -- isn't buying it.I reached Truthout editor Marc Ash on his cel phone this morning. "I wasn't aware that he had said that," he said of Luskin's announcement, but insisted that Truthout was "absolutely" standing by its earlier reporting.
"We've done a lot of work on this story, we've talked to a lot of people," he said, "and some of the people who provided information for the story are absolutely in a position to know."
So if Truthout's reporting -- by correspondent Jason Leopold -- is correct, is Ruskin lying? "Robert Luskin's allegations are in the best interest of his client, not necessarily the press," Ash said. "I think that the information he is providing is directly contradicted by the information we have."
And after sampling the shock and paranoia on Delusional Underground, I feel this may be a great day to buy stock in pharmaceuticals.
Posted by Darleen at 06:29 AM | Comments (5)
Oh, lord, and we complain about drivers in Los Angeles
RAZDORI, RUSSIA - In most countries, only emergency vehicles, such as ambulances and fire engines, enjoy the heady power to exceed speed limits, run red lights, move against traffic, and compel other drivers to yield.But in Russia, an estimated 5,000 officials and, reportedly, many wealthy businessmen, now sport a blue flashing light with siren on their cars - the migalka - that entitles them to make up their own road rules. [...]
But the number of lesser officials with migalka rights has ballooned from just 30 in 1994 to more than 5,000 today in Moscow alone, say experts. Some Moscow thoroughfares now have a special reserved center lane where VIPs simply sail past traffic jams. But on some roads they often just charge down the middle, forcing other drivers onto the shoulders. "The way they drive makes everyone indignant, and it creates a very dangerous situation on the roads," says Mr. Ryzhkov.
Technorati: Russia
Posted by Darleen at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2006
Anti-Zionism is antisemitism
I found this picture on Powerline within an article on the indecent nutter George Galloway. George was media whoring at a "Rally for Justice" event, organized in the wake of a came-up-empty raid in London on two moslem brothers, attended by the tens. The little Judenhass shirt caught my attention. Simply:
Imagine someone saying that he seeks the destruction of Italy because he regards Italian national identity as racist. Further, imagine that this person constantly denies being anti-Italian, because he does not hate all Italians, only Italy and all those who believe Italy should exist.Now substitute "Jewish" for "Italian" and "Israel" for "Italy" and you understand the absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish.
Among the many lies that permeate the modern world, none is greater -- or easier to refute -- than the claim that Zionism is not an integral part of Judaism or the claim that anti-Zionism is unrelated to antisemitism. *
Technorati: Zionism, Anti- Zionism, Anti-semitism, Israel,
Posted by Darleen at 06:59 AM | Comments (10)
June 11, 2006
The KossKiddies do Vegas ...
...and Hot Air has a "mole" there covering it. The reports from the Left Cult front have been hilarious, and this latest is no exception. In regards to linguist (!!!) George Lakoff's speech about the differences between the ideas of Left and Right:
... he keeps pretending that conservatives believe things that Democrats wish they believed.Lakoff believes that conservatives operate from a "strict father" outlook as opposed to liberal "nurturing mother" model. Thus, conservatives
- Hate the poor, Love the rich
- believe that the mentally ill are evil and must be punished
- support NSA "wiretapping" because they believe in the "inherent goodness of government"
- are simplistic and don't grasp systemic and complex causation
But I guess he had to pad it a bit to justify his DNC consulting fees.
Technorati: Daily Kos, Yearly Kos,
Posted by Darleen at 06:21 PM | Comments (1)
Notes from the edge
I have my daily must-read blogs on rss feed, and this morning I'm not getting the "no posts for the past three days" blurb for Jeff Harrell. Good lord, that man could post about grass growing and I'd swoon at his prose. I kept starting to compose a response to his May 23 one, but it kept coming out too "lecturey" and not what I wanted to say, I disagree with you, but I understand and honor your thoughts and feelings.
Now, I don't for one minute buy that Jeff hasn't been writing all this time.
But that’s not why I stopped writing, is it? It couldn’t have been. I stopped long before last weekend.He hasn't been posting, true. But a word artist no more stops writing than a music composer or painter or sculpter stops their creating just because they turn away from their medium of choice for a time. While the muse may take a sabbatical, she is never far. Whether or not you pick up the paint brush or put fingers to the keyboard, her return will not be denied and she'll just fill up the empty spaces in your head until you let it spill out.
Look, here’s the deal: I think the world’s gone crazy. It’s happened slowly, so slowly that hardly anybody noticed. And for a long time, the only people who did notice were the people who always say the world’s going crazy, so who the hell cares what they think? But be that as it may, the world has gone cuh-rayzee.Dear, the world has "not gone crazy." The world is rarely sane. The world is a homeless schizophrenic who occassionally ends up in the hospital, raving and near death, gets back on meds, cleans up, feels great and, after a brief period, thinks the meds are the problem and tosses them aside.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Come on, people. I’m no more a fan of Wowie Zarqawi than anybody. I didn’t lose a single wink of sleep when I heard that he’d been killed by American bombs. Live by the sword, die by the GPS-guided cruise missile, I always say.For about six summers running, when my girls were little, I hosted Japanese exchange students. They had come to America for six weeks to stay with American families to hone their conversational English skills. It's not always easy; for the first couple of weeks you carry around your English/Japanese dictionary and the two of you will have your heads together over it as you point out the words to best express what you're trying to say. But you both have the same goal, to try and find those common words and phrases to best express what you truly mean.But justice? That’s not justice. That’s justified homicide. It’s an exigency of war, to be sure, and I’m certainly not saying that it was either morally or legally wrong to do it. But it ain’t justice, people. The day we start calling the summary execution of people by high-altitude precision bombing “justice,” we might as well just tear out all the pages from all the books that have been written in the past four centuries on the actual meaning of the term and start over.
Too much of the political commentary in contemporary America is people, innocently or deliberately, speaking past each other; just as if we were speaking two different languages. Especially if we are dealing with the legal "language" and moral "language." They overlap, but they are two different realms. It is actually a subject I have written about in depth from time to time on this blog.
"Justice" is a word that has both a legal and a moral dimension.
Jeff is correct that Zarqawi didn't receive legal justice. But morally? There are some behaviors so egregious, so heinous, that one morally forfeits their right to live.
Moral justice was served.
Jeff does make an excellent observation on security vs bureacracy via TSA. No arguments there. However, this kind of approach has been around for 30+ years. When hijack-fly-to-cuba stuff happened in the 70's, metal detectors were put in, hijacking faded away and everyone figured shuffling people through a metal detector was enough. Even that screening didn't exist prior to the 70's. I was five y/o in 1959 when I was with my parents to pick up my grandparents at LAX when they flew in from Hawaii. LAX was surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, the ocean in clear view, and we actually walked out onto the tarmac as the passengers came down the stairs rolled to the sides of the planes. Security at airports? You might as well ask why seatbelts were not even standard equipment on cars at the time.
The world was pretty much on its meds post WWII. Or just too exhausted. Okay, there were the demon voices jabbering across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe ... Berlin 1948/49, Hungary 1954, Czechoslovakia 1968 ... America especially tried to ignore the voices, tossing itself into boom times of family, suburbia, education and optimism.
But sanity and peace are not the norm. The struggle between idealism and reality is part of the human condition.
As the willingness on the part of the American people to set illegal immigrants as scapegoat for all our country’s problems has waned, it’s time once again to haul out that old tried-and-true, gay marriage.That only makes sense if one believes there is no sincerity or legitimacy on the part of people who argue that unchecked illegal immigration is a threat to the ideal of national sovereignty or that the redefinition of an important social institution is both radical and should not be up to judges.
Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is, how chilling, for a guy like me to feel like he’s the sanest person in the room? Have our standards fallen so low? Has the world gone so mad as all that?Time to retreat to the patio for a smoke and a ice cold drink, preferably one with lots of rum and an umbrella in it. Look out over landscape, tall trees, rooftops, anonymous cars moving from one destination to another. The people you know are down there ... the couples making love, the parents yelling for their kids to come in for dinner, the kids struggling over homework or asking to stay up past bedtime, the pimply-faced teen delivering pizza and the grandma sitting down to another dinner for one since her husband passed away. That's life in the micro, while so many of us chew ourselves up over life in the macro.
Take another drag, then a long cool sip, and when returning to the room remember some of the people are sincere, some are not, and the trick is to engage the first and ignore the latter.
And if you wish only to write about grass growing, Jeff?
I'll still be here to read it.
Posted by Darleen at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2006
Paradise blows
and other pithy observations from the still-dead Zarkman hizself. Holmes, DRINK WARNING!
Now, back in the madrassa when we studied the afterlife, I always wondered what would be the last thing to go through my head. I'm pretty sure now it was one of Mahmoud's anklebones. And if you're wondering if it was painless? Imagine a full-frontal 800 degree root canal while listening to a Neil Young record. But hey, I figure no big whoop, just the admission price to heaven's eternal ho sammich.
Posted by Darleen at 11:22 AM | Comments (1)
June 09, 2006
TGIF
Usual whacko weather in So. Cal.... last weekend saw 100+ degree weather and the last few days June gloom has ruled.
This week's primary election sees Republican moderate, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger facing far-left Democrat Phil Angelides in November. It promises to be an interesting summer.
I'll be writing both here and guest blogging at Rightwingsparkle. Fun times!
A couple of questions to you based on what I've seen in response in my stupid bitch post, can a woman be a misogynist? And what specifically do you find as evidence of said misogyny?
I'll be posting my own answers later.
Posted by Darleen at 07:02 AM | Comments (4)
June 08, 2006
al Zarqawi - the Airstrike Remix
Awesome. Thanks to Allah Pundit
Posted by Darleen at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - US military kills the bastard -- UPDATED
****scroll down for update****
I'm in California and this was wonderful news to hear on the clock radio that woke us up.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safehouse northeast of Baghdad, coalition officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.And it seems a lot of Iraqis are pretty happy at the news.Al-Zarqawi and several aides, including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles from Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, officials said.
"Al-Zarqawi was eliminated," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.
The U.S. military showed a picture of al-Zarqawi with his eyes closed and spots of blood behind him after he was killed by an air strike north of Baghdad.
"I hope his death will be a new page for Iraq," said baker Zuhair Yassin, 25. "He can burn in hell."Isa Younis, a 66-year-old retired teacher, said: "I thank God and the Iraqi government for this huge gift. I don't know how I'm going to celebrate but I know that this is the happiest day of my life."
"I'm overjoyed. God willing this will be the end of all terrorists. I hope Iraq can now begin to stabilize now this pig is dead," said Qeysar Ahmed, a Baghdad shop owner as he watched Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki make the announcement in a televised news conference accompanied by U.S. officials.
Of course, not everyone is happy. As Beth observes:
Michael Berg has got to be the biggest idiot on earth. Just a few minutes ago, he was on the phone with E.D. Hill on Fox News (God, I wish I had video of this lunacy), and said he’s “forgiven” Zarqawi, and sounded as though nothing had happened with Zarqawi’s death. Worse, he launched into a rant about how BUSH LIED and BUSH killed his son (so WTF did he have to forgive Zarqawi for?). ED Hill even challenged him, saying “there’s authenticated video showing him killing your son,” and he still said it was Bush. Unreal. And obviously, he couldn’t care less about the Iraqi people who have been slaughtered by Zarqawi and his allies–in fact, he basically denied it. Nevermind the fact that the Iraqi people are happy elated (to say the least) that Zarqawi is dead–it’s all about Booooosh! [...]But Beth, honey, don't ever question their patriotism.UPDATE: Fuck you, Kos Kidz. Nope, no linky from me. Find their stupidity yourselves. (“Whyyyy didn’t we capture him?” They can’t even spell Zarqawi’s name correctly, much less make the right call.) Oh, OK, here’s one:
Oh great, now Bush’s poll numbers will go up.And support for this pointless war will go up as well. Shit. by Phoenix Democrat on Thu Jun 08, 2006 at 12:34:15 AM PDTStupid moonbats.
Heh.
UPDATED -- Michael Medved had Michael Berg on in the first two segments of his show (12 pm PDT). I'm stunned by the moral confusion that Berg, a high school teacher and the Green Party Candidate for Congress in Delaware, revels in. He aggressively denies evil exists and I can see why he and his son so disagreed before Nick left for Iraq. I'm hoping a transcript will be available later but this exchange, IIRC, was jaw-dropping:
MEDVED: Let's say it's 9/12/01 and you could have gotten Bin Laden on the phone. What would you have said?
BERG: I would have asked he what he wanted.
MEDVED: and what if he said he wanted no more contact, of any kind, between the Islamic world and the West ever again.
BERG: I would have given it to him.
Absofuckinglutely amazing.
More at:
Technorati: al-Zarqawi, Iraq, Islamism
Posted by Darleen at 01:00 PM | Comments (15)
June 07, 2006
There yet may be hope for California
Meathead's pet "fuck the rich" Proposition 82 was rejected.
"I want to extend an invitation to our opposition, to those who voted against universal preschool, who have all said preschool is the right thing," Reiner said. "They might not agree with how we wanted to do it, but I'm here to ask them to help us -- come up with another way."Nice snarky spin, Meathead. We didn't reject preschool education, we rejected your blatant attempt at 1) yanking four-year-olds into a state school system that is already broken and rife with your brand of polemics 2) attempting to fund it solely through an appeal to class warfare.
You want to encourage preschool education? Try to make it easier on Californians to actually, you know, afford to live here, and give parents a lot more choice in having one parent stay home with the little ones.
And vouchers for K-12.
Technorati: California, Prop 82,
Posted by Darleen at 06:48 AM | Comments (7)
June 05, 2006
More Canadian crocodile news - UPDATED
***Updates at bottom***
WASHINGTON -- The arrest of 17 terrorism suspects in Canada is part of a continuing, multinational probe into suspected terrorist cells in at least seven countries, a US counterterrorism official confirmed yesterday.Of course, let the charges of a anti-moslem plot beginThe senior US law enforcement official said authorities are combing through evidence seized during raids in Canada this weekend to look for possible connections between the 17 suspects arrested Friday and at least 18 other Islamist militants who have been arrested in locations including the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark, and Sweden.
The investigation began as separate probes into what authorities believed were localized cells of militant Muslim young men, who shared an interest in radical ideology on the Internet in various countries and, to a lesser extent, in local mosques and training camps.
But over the past year, the counterterrorism authorities of those countries began to see connections among the cells, in part through electronic surveillance of phone calls and Internet correspondence, as well as ground surveillance of individual suspects, several US officials said in interviews yesterday.
Police planted evidence: Terrorists’ arrest in Toronto was a sting operationYes, all those peace-loving Islamists were framed* No evidence suspects planned to attack US
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The three tonnes of ammonium nitrate found with the Totonto terrorism suspects was planted by the police in an elaborate sting operation.
[...]
According to the Globe and Mail, defence lawyer Rocco Galati, who was representing some of the suspects, protested the intense security measures at the court. Galati later scoffed at the allegations. “I’ve seen fertiliser for the last eight years,” he said.Aly Hindy, a Toronto imam, said he knew several of the accused because they prayed at his mosque but said they were not terrorists. “The charges are to keep George Bush happy, that’s all,” he added sardonically. The Globe and Mail did not mention that all incriminating evidence had been planted on the suspects.
He had questions, as did Jacobs, about exactly how three tonnes of ammonium nitrate were "acquired" by the suspects. The Star has learned that when investigators monitoring the men found out about the alleged purchase of the fertilizer, they intervened before delivery, switching the potentially deadly material with a harmless substance.I suppose Edmunds would rather we assume the police/military are NOT out to help us and that they wish us HARM.Jacobs advised vigilance in seeing what comes out in court about how far police went. He said that the courts have been drawing a line past which law enforcement officers can't go without being seen as having induced the commission of a criminal offence. [...]
Michael Edmunds, administrator of the U of T's McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology, argues the public is already so influenced by television that people are receptive to the kind of message sent out by police on the weekend.
Unconsciously, receptive audiences for police actions are created by such TV shows as the Fox hit 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer. Viewers sympathize with Bauer, no matter what he has to do, because they want him to get the bad guys and protect the free world.
Edmunds argued that certain memes — or unspoken beliefs in any culture — are constantly being reinforced. Here, he said, the message was that police know what they are doing and they are protecting us.
"It's all global theatre, as Marshall McLuhan used to say. We assume the police want to help us and we assume it's good."
But never ever assume that Islamists want to establish a world-wide Caliphate, institute Sharia and make non-moslems second-class citizens, no matter what they write or how many weapons they acquire.
'Cuz that assumption would be profiling and Islamophobia.
UPDATE even the Ass. Press can't help its knee-jerk Islamist sympathy - get a load of the headline:
(hattip Annika)
UPDATE 2 More evidence that appeasing Islamists by Canadians didn't have any effect on the terrorist plot.
Sat, 27 May 2006: The Ontario division of Canada's largest union has voted to support an international campaign that is boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. [...]Ya think the three tons of ammonia nitrate just might clue these leftbots that Islamists hate 'em NOT because they are insufficiently antisemite, but because they are NOT moslem?The global campaign started last July and has been supported by many North American churches, 20 Quebec organizations, and others, Canadian Press said.
CUPE also condemned what they called Israel's "apartheid wall," saying it is illegal under international law.
UPDATE 3 Lies one tells to others are bad, the lies one tells to oneself are compounded by tragedy. Who is Toronto Police Chief Blair trying to fool?
Muhammad Alam, president of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, told a crowded hall where many Muslims expressed concern about the arrests."This is not about religion or faith," but about political and social situations around the world, he said.
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair agreed, saying the accused were motivated by an ideology based on politics and violence, not by faith.
Technorati: Canada, Islamo-fascism
Posted by Darleen at 07:36 AM | Comments (3)
June 04, 2006
God help me, I'm pro-choice, but THIS stupid bitch ...
***scroll down for update***
... confirms every snarky stereotype the pro-life side of aisle tosses around. Get out the cheese and crackers, friends, here's a case of whine:
The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.See, that's her first problem. Bush wasn't there to insert her diaphram for her.I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.
Dana then goes on to recount the horror, horror I tell you of trying to track down a Plan B prescription. Her own doctor doesn't give one (she wonders darkly about his motives and, of course, none of them would be legitimate to her anyways because, you know, since it all goes back to Boooooosh). The 72-hour clock for popping those Morning After pills is tick, tick, ticking away. How much time does our heroine spend looking for this holy grail, now out of reach due to an evil conservative plot? This is Friday, she makes three phone calls.
Three.
What's that, about 30 minutes out of one's day? Now, don't tell me that Dana wouldn't have spent most of Friday evening and Saturday to track down the perfect pair of shoes for a Sunday cocktail party. But why should she bother to put any more effort in getting a prescription to prevent a possible pregnancy than she used in making sure she practiced "safe sex?" Using the same exquisite decision-making powers, our heroine engages in a little fantasy
I figured I'd take my chances and hope for the best. After all, I'm 42. Isn't it likely my eggs are overripe, anyway? I thought so, especially since my best friend from college has been experiencing agonizing infertility problems at this age.No shit, Sherlock? I mean, you actually have unprotected sex and you got pregnant? Wow. What.are.the.odds? But hey, sister, don't let that make you wake up and take responsibility. There is always someone else to blame.Weeks later, the two drugstore pregnancy tests I took told a different story. Positive. I couldn't believe it.
I felt sick. Although I've always been in favor of abortion rights, this was a choice I had hoped never to have to make myself. When I realized the seriousness of my predicament, I became angry. I knew that Plan B, which could have prevented it, was supposed to have been available over the counter by now. But I also remembered hearing that conservative politics have held up its approval.Wait ... did I just hear horses screaming?
My anger propelled me to get to the bottom of the story.Hmmmm. Finally something outside of shoe buying actually keeps her attention for more than 30 minutes.
the FDA top brass overruled the advisory panel and gave the thumbs-down to over-the-counter sales of Plan B, requesting more data on how girls younger than 16 could use it safely without a doctor's supervision.Yes. Fuck those girls under 16 who are having sex, consenting or not, and THEIR health. Fuck it, if Plan B can be used by adult males in the exploitation of minor females. DANA MUST NOT BE INCONVENIENCED.Apparently, one of the concerns is that ready availability of Plan B could lead teenage girls to have premarital sex. Yet this concern -- valid or not -- wound up penalizing an over-the-hill married woman for having sex with her husband.
She then spends the second half of her whine recounting the "difficulty" in getting an abortion.
Calling doctors, I felt like a pariah when I asked whether they provided termination services. Finally, I decided to check the Planned Parenthood Web site to see whether its clinics performed abortions. [...] The hidden world of abortion services soon became even more subterranean.Using the phone made her feel icky (the yellow pages are chock full of abortion providers), she gets info off the internet from the PP site and the world of abortion is hidden?. God help Dana's employer if she's incharge of any kind of filing or record keeping.
I shuffled to the front door through a phalanx of umbrellaed protesters, who chanted loudly about Jesus and chided me not to go into that house of abortion.Let's leave aside Dana's problems with the US Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion and freedom of speech -- it made her feel bad (don't you just wonder if Dana's feelings about evil religious people extends to the abolitionist movement or Dr. Martin Luther King?) If she didn't want to conceive, she should have inserted her diaphram.All the while, I was thinking that if religion hadn't been allowed to seep into American politics the way it has, I wouldn't even be there. This all could have been stopped way before this baby was conceived if they had just let me have that damn pill.
Or better, since she says her family is completed and she desires no more children, why didn't she have her tubes tied?
Not since the creepy twat who "selectively aborted" two of her triplets because she didn't want to buy a mini-van and shop at Costco have I become so annoyed at such a shallow, irresponsible, deluded excuse for a woman blaming others for her choice in getting an abortion. She piled one irresponsibility upon the next and never once owns her own actions in her pity party.
Dana sings in one note -- me me me me me.
Sister, I won't take away your right to obtain an abortion. But grow up, BE a woman and own your own role in your immorality play.
Then shut the fuck up.
Technorati: Abortion
UPDATE Predictable fluff from Jill:
Forget the fact that nothing in her story souned especially convenient. We’re living in interesting times when wanting to have sex with your husband and also wanting to remain un-pregnant is “selfish.”Ah, the vagaries of youth compounded with a political faith that is, at best, morally confused. Dana faked reality and then shotguns everyone around her with blame. She gives less consideration in taking even the most minimal of steps to avoid pregnancy than she would to choosing a manicurist ... Yes, we live in interesting times when an allegedly adult female in her 40's has no clue that sex may cause pregnancy THEN believes when a perfect solution isn't delivered to her within 30 minutes like delicate slivers of sashimi on a translucent porcelain plate, it's all the fault of those icky religious people.
Dana is now claiming her three phones calls "panicked" her into idiocy
Myersville, Md.: Thanks for the honest article. Does Planned Parenthood distribute Plan B in Virginia or is it only available through MD offices? If not, is it because of Virginia's state laws regarding the distribution of birth control?Don't hire THIS female for any legal work! What would happen to a brief if she found her hairdresser had cancelled her appointment. Whooeee!Dana L.: I believe Planned Parenthood distributes Plan B nationwide. Unfortunately for me, in my panic that Friday, I didn't even think of calling them.
Posted by Darleen at 03:22 PM | Comments (48)
June 03, 2006
The crocodiles in Canada - UPDATED
Cotillion sister in Canada, Right Girl, alerted us by email this morning, and posts on the arrest of Islamist terrorists in Canada.
CSIS and the RCMP have arrested 12 male adults and 5 youths plotting acts of terrorism in Toronto. [...] Three tons of ammonium nitrate were seized in the raids last night. To put it into perspective, the spokesman from the RCMP advised that only one ton was used to destroy the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.CNN
The detained suspects are all men, Canadian residents "from a variety of backgrounds" and followers of a "dangerous ideology inspired by al Qaeda," said Luc Portelance, assistant director of operations for Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in a news conference.What is particularly telling about these home-grown Islamist terrorists with designs on killing fellow (but kaffir) Canadians is that Canada has had a history of appeasement to the radical moslems in their midst (the "multicultural" debacle of Quebec aside). Most recently it was Canada's largest retail bookstore pulling June's issue of Harper's Magazine because of an article on the "Muhammed cartoon" controversy. Recall, too, Canada's close brush with official Sharia, stymied only by Canadian citizens roused to its danger.The targets were all in Toronto, CNN's Jeanne Meserve reported at least one source as telling her.
Appeasement of Islamists doesn't work. Like feeding the crocodile, all it delays is one's own destruction when all other food has been exhausted.
America is condemned for taking point in this war, but if not us, who?
Feisty comments.
UPDATE LGF has a list of the names of the twelve adults arrested.
Canada's spy service admitted this week it couldn't track down many domestic terror suspects and warned the country faced an increasing threat from "home-grown terrorists" who had been assimilated into society.Commenter Brad thinks CSIS did this without American style "spying". I would be very interested to see if any "leaks" about Canadian surveillance program makes it to the media because of politics AND if they undercut the idea that the only "proper" way to find hidden terrorists is with crystal balls and Ouija boards.Jack Hooper, deputy director of operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the service was trying to keep track of "350 high-level targets" as well as 50 to 60 organizations thought to be linked to groups such as al-Qaeda.
UPDATE 12:57p Seems Canada is about teh spying
The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.Heh. (h/t Stop the ACLU)Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them. [...]
The investigation began back in 2004, when CSIS was monitoring Internet sites and tracing the paths of Canadians believed to have ties to international terrorist organizations. Local youths espousing fundamentalist views drew special attention, sources say.
Technorati: Canada, Islamo-fascism
Posted by Darleen at 10:56 AM | Comments (23)
Hand over that slab'o'seven layer chocolate cake ...
Life can't always be counting carbs, five-mile runs and the latest Getty Center exhibit. Sometimes the soul needs silly fun.
Last night I, and nine of my female co-workers, went to see Menopause: The Musical.
Make no mistake, this is not art. It barely qualifies as even having a plot (four archetypical women meet at a lingerie sale at Bloomingdale's and bond). It's more of a revue piece wherein 90 minutes fly by while watching four very talented women dance and sing to pop songs of the 50's - 70's. Songs with lyrics altered to reflect the theme of coping with "the change."
But before you roll your eyes, understand that this musical is playing to sold-out audiences and now I know why.
I laughed so hard and long during this production I cried off my eye makeup.
Belly laughs and chocolate cake help make life worth living.
I most heartedly recommend you make time to see this play when it comes to your area.
Technorati: Menopause: The Musical
Posted by Darleen at 09:40 AM | Comments (3)
June 02, 2006
Ordering a burger in a vegetarian restaurant - revisited
There are few things that will get on my last nerve faster than listening to someone bitch and moan about a situation they have complete control over. You don't like a particular show on television? Don't watch it. You don't like the rules of the Boy Scouts? Don't join or get your own group. Your boyfriend has slapped you around, yet again? Leave him, call the police and don't go back. Your spouse is cheating on you for the umpteenth time? Don't .......
Wait. Hold on there. "Let's not get hasty," sez Andrew Sullivan
Sitting with an old friend, Dan Savage, and a seventies icon, Erica Jong, talking about sex in front of a few hundred Upper East Side denizens is not something you do every day. ... For me the interesting point came when Dan and I agreed that moderate hypocrisy - especially in marriages - is often the best policy. Momogamy (sic) is very hard for men, straight or gay, and if one partner falters occasionally (and I don't mean regularly), sometimes discretion is perfectly acceptable. You could see Jong bridle at the thought of such dishonesty. But I think the post-seventies generation - those of us who grew up while our parents were having a sexual revolution - both appreciate the gains for sexual and emotional freedom, while being a little more aware of their potential hazards. An acceptance of mild hypocrisy as essential social and marital glue is not a revolutionary statement.Sully went off the rails quite a while back when the goal of getting same-sex couples to legally marry became his only raison d'etre. However, taking Sully at his word, he's not really interested in marriage.
No reasonable person is interested in stopping Sully or any other adult from hooking up however they please. Wanna play slap-n-tickle with person A on Monday/Wednesday and hide-the-salami with person B on Tuesday/Thursday? Go for it. Have fun.
But don't get married and don't tell married people that "Hey, it's a Generational thang, you old fart."
Trust makes or breaks a relationship. And trust is based on honesty between the partners. Entering an institution where monogamy is an essential expectation, and where one isn't sincere in keeping that expectation, is dishonest.
And let's face it, such cheerleading of a cafeteria approach to marriage is rarely advocated for the well-being of one's partner. It is a "get out of guilt free card" to be slapped down on the game board against the upset, grieving partner if the "indiscretion" is discovered.
Sully, put down your mom's edition of The Harrad Experiment, don't go into a vegetarian restaurant expecting them to serve you a hamburger and if you want the freedom to follow your little head wherever it leads, don't ask to get married.
(Ann Althouse via Jeff G)
Technorati: Same-sex Marriage
Posted by Darleen at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)
June 01, 2006
Slip of the tongue? Yeah, sure, uh huh
only when a Dem does it.
NEW YORK -- State Comptroller Alan Hevesi publicly apologized Thursday for a "beyond dumb" remark about "putting a bullet between the president's eyes."Refresh my memory, but as virulent as the anti-Clinton sentiments were from fringe rightwingers, I cannot recall ONE Republican elected official in any capacity calling for the President's assassination.Hevesi hastily called a mea culpa press conference hours after putting his foot in his mouth at the Queens College commencement.
(h/t Michelle Malkin)
Posted by Darleen at 01:13 PM | Comments (18)