Bad day to be in Pakistan

From the USGS.

At what point can we declare war on the EU?

They want control of the internet? They can go play hide and go fuck yourself. Why in the name of all that is holy should this country allow a group of unelected beurocrats take control of the internet?

Old allies in world politics, representatives from the UK and US sat just feet away from each other, but all looked straight ahead as Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium.

If the USA allows a bunch of assholes to grab control of the internet, every politician in Washington DC should be hung from a lamp post. In fact, every citizen of this country, left or right, conservative or liberal, should be screaming mad and yelling at their political leaders right now. Just in case anyone has forgotten, the rest of the world doesn't have the same rules that we do.

There's no freedom of speech in the EU. Or in Asia. How would you like China or Iran to be in control of what you can or cannot say online?

Can you say good-bye, gun blogs?
Can you say good-bye, Gay and Lesbian websites?
Can you say good-bye, religious websites?
Can you say good-bye, freedom?

This grab isn't about the number of excuses that the rest of the world has given, it is about controlling information. The free flow of information is something that the EU, Iran, China, Cuba, and the rest of the petty tyrants and dictatorships want to control. Should the world try to wrest control of the internet from the USA, where free speech is guarnateed in the Constitution, then the USA should put the world on notice that any attempt to take control of the internet will be considered an act of war. In short, the USA should fight for the internet as it would fight for Florida or California. With brute force.

The rest of the world can't be trusted with the internet's gate keys. That might sound arrogant as hell, but when I see what happens in the rest of the world, it's just the plain truth. Perhaps when China stops restricting what can or cannot be put on Chinese websites, I won't worry so much.

Why can't we have a hunting season for trolls?

And spammers as well. Most of the goat-fucking pissants use proxy servers to spew their crap, which means that they go through servers in South America, Europe, Pacific Rim and the Caribbean. And as a result, most people simply block entries from those servers.

Guess which server I'm on? Seeing as how I'm in Puerto Rico.....

I say that spammers and trolls should be hung up by their toes and left to hang until dead. Or perhaps they should be skinned alive and tossed into the ocean for sharks to eat.

My two cents

On Harriet Miers.

I guess since everybody else has covered whether or not she's qualified, I don't need to bore anyone else with my opinion on that subject. However, on the whole issue I can say that I'm disappointed. I can think of several people who are more qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and I'm hardly an expert on legal matters. So if I can think of a few better examples, I know that actual lawyers and legal experts must be jumping up and down.

On the other hand, my wife holds the opinion that perhaps having someone on the Supreme Court who hasn't been detached from everyday life for years and years is a good thing. In her opinion, too many of the hoi palloi have been so detached from real life for so long that they no longer have much in common with the people they're supposed to legislate or sit on a bench for.

I guess the whole reason I haven't gotten too upset about the whole thing is because for me, the Supreme Court really doesn't have much legitimacy left. Kelo vs. New London, half the court using international law as a basis for ruling on US laws, and the acceptance of McCain-Feingold as constitutional has made me realize that the Supreme Court is by and large nothing more than another political entity, and deserves no more respect than your average junior grade politicians. Perhaps in time that will change, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime. In fact, in my lifetime, I see the general population of the USA ignoring the Supreme Court and it's decisions as much as they possibly can. With all due respect to Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy, I don't hold any of the other justices with much respect at all, and see no reason why I should live by the arbitrary rulings that I see coming out of the court at this time. Short of doing what I must to avoid being locked up, I plan on treating the SCOTUS rulings like I would the rulings of a local town councilman. So the addition of Harriet Miers does nothing more than raise my interest level a notch or two. Sort of like "Let's shake this bottle up and see what floats to the top" interest.

Anyways, that's my two cents.

TV Tower Wires Kill 400 Birds in One Night

Horror.

The deaths may spur the creation of a group to study the dangers communication towers pose to migrating birds, said specialists with the Department of Natural Resources.

Those will be some enthralling discussions.

Yahoo! News

They're NOT anti-war

Before I left for Egypt, I picked up a book to read on the plane flight over. I'd like to quote from it quickly, if I may.

At this point I must drag out my soapbox.
In the twentieth century Gregorian, in the United States of America, something called "revisionist history" became popular among "intellectuals". Revisionism appears to have been based on the notion that the living actors present on the spot never understood what they were doing or why, or how they were being manipulated, being mere puppets in the hands of unseen evil forces.
This may be true. I don't know.
But why are the people of the United States and their government always the villains in the eyes of the revisionists? Why can't our enemies-such as the king of Spain, and the kaiser, and Hitler, and Geronimo, and Villa, and Sandino, and Mao Tse-tung, and Jefferson Davis-why can't these each take a turn in the pillory? Why is it always our turn?
I am well aware that the revisionists maintain that William Randolph Hearst created the Spanish-American War to increase the circulation of his newspapers. I know, too, that various scholars and experts later asserted that the USS Maine, at dock in Havana harbor, was blown up (with loss of 226 American lives) by faceless villains whose purpose was to make Spain look bad and thereby to prepare the American people to accept a declaration of war against Spain.
Now look carefully at what I said. I said that I know that these things are asserted. I did not say that they are true.
It is unquestionably true that the United States, acting officially, was rude to the Spanish government concerning Spain's oppression of the Cuban people. It is also true that William Randolph Hearst used his newspapers to say any number of unpleasant things about the Spanish government. But Hearst was not the United States and he had no guns and no ships and no authority. What he did have was a loud voice and no respect for tyrants. Tyrants hate people like that.
Somehow those masochistic revisionists have turned the War of 1898 into a case of imperialistic aggression by the United States. How an imperialist war could result in the freeing of Cuba and the Philippines is never made clear. But revisionism always starts with the assumption that the United States is the villain. Once the revisionist historian proves this assumption (usually by circular logic) he is granted his Ph.D and is well on his way to a Nobel peace prize.

The book? "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" by Robert A. Heinlein.

Why do I bring this up now? Because of a Cristopher Hitchens piece in Slate that everyone needs to read.

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.

Some of the leading figures in this "movement," such as George Galloway and Michael Moore, are obnoxious enough to come right out and say that they support the Baathist-jihadist alliance. Others prefer to declare their sympathy in more surreptitious fashion. The easy way to tell what's going on is this: Just listen until they start to criticize such gangsters even a little, and then wait a few seconds before the speaker says that, bad as these people are, they were invented or created by the United States. That bad, huh? (You might think that such an accusationÂ?these thugs were cloned by the American empire for God's sakeÂ?would lead to instant condemnation. But if you thought that, gentle reader, you would be wrong.)

The people who protest against our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are not anti-war, they simply support the other side. Never forget that one simple fact.

For my Texas Readers

The West Houston Smoke and Powder Crawl, version IX is planned.

Cap'n Jim has the details.

As for me, I'm still working on getting a firearm down here in the People's Democratic Republic of Puerto Rico. Once I finally obtain one, I'll do my own celebration.

Crap, the things I miss

while I'm out soldiering. Iran is launching a satellite.

Go read Rivrdog's analysis of it. I can't add anything.

Media Blackout fbo Charles Schumer

Democrat wrongdoing hushed.

Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and it's his job to get Democrats elected in hopes of wresting Senate control from the GOP. Michael Steele is lieutenant governor of Maryland, and the DSCC, and along with most everyone else, expects Steele to run for the open seat of retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes.

Steele, an African American, is a rising star in a Republican party regularly accused of racial insensitivity if not outright racism, a party that thought so highly of him and his political future that it chose him to be the deputy permanent chairman of the 2004 Republican Convention.
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Apparently nothing frightens the DSCC more than an articulate and charismatic black American who also happens to be a Reagan conservative. How else to explain the behavior of two of Schumer's campaign committee members — research director Katie Barge and junior staffer Lauren Weiner — who dug for dirt using Steele's Social Security number, reportedly culled from court records, to fraudulently and illegally obtain his credit report?
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These were no naive, overzealous interns. Barge is a longtime Democratic operative who led the research unit for a liberal media watchdog group run by journalist David Brock. She led the opposition research team for failed Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. She knew the ropes and the rules.

Steele vs. Obama, VP Debate Night 2008.

Get your VCRs ready.

Investor's Business Daily

Jihad?

In Oklahoma???

Plamegate

Power Line popints out that Judith Miller had sources other than Scooty Libby and speculates that Joe Wilson's old lady's profession was well-known in DC.

One or two pictures

Just because I said I would. I'd love to have pictures that display some of the magnificant images that I saw, but you're SOL. I didn't bring my good camera because the dust and sand would have destroyed it. So I took my little POS camera, and it shows.

Ah well, that's life. Maybe in a few years I'll join the digital age. Until then, you have to deal with my little 35mm quirks.

Anyways.....



Welcome to camp. It's obviously much larger than this, but as I said I couldn't take many pictures there. If you look close, you can see a mosque in the back. For a better idea of where I was working......



Imagine a flat stretch of dust, with a few quanset huts and lots of conexes. That was home for three weeks. By the way, the yellowish tint in the pictures is not a mistake. That was the actual color of everything during the day. And the Chinook in the picture is participating in slingload excersises. I had to shrink the picture a bit to make it fit on the blog (and not kill the bandwidth), otherwise you'd be able to see it better.



This was the view of the camp from a Blackhawk helicopter. Believe it or not, that was my first time on a helicopter, and the pilot was putting the bird through all of it's paces. Intense is the only word I can think of to describe it.

Anyways, that's a small sample of what I saw. Half of my pictures didn't come out very well, which is a disappointment. But that's life in the analog age, I guess. The next time I go anywhere I'll get a digital camera.

Quick Andrew Sullivan Excerpt

The dude's a stone kook.

I have to say that, even after the last few years of amazement at the Bush administration's hostility to gay people, I never thought it would come to this. And this, I think is one key to unlocking the reason for Miers' nomination: it's Karl Rove's way of re-igniting the culture war, of once again using the gay issue to polarize the country, and rally his base. When these people are in a hole, they look to demonize a minority. The Southern strategy is back. But now, it's not blacks who are being used; it's gays.

Read on for the punchline.

The Corner on National Review Online

964

Bloated body watch:

The search for Hurricane Katrina victims has ended in Louisiana with a death toll at 964.

Falls short of 10,000, eh? Our American media couldn't get New Orleans right. Am I supposed to believe what they say about Iraq?

BREITBART.COM

The Democrat War Against Tom Delay

From the braying of the first Democrat, I asked them a very simple question: What, specifically, is Tom Delay accused of doing? As expected, they don't know. They can quote the Washington Post though. "190,000 Dollars!", "Laundered Corporate money!" and presumptions of donkey victory and GOP defeat abound. Let's start with that 190,000. The lie begins that Delay used a Texas Political Action Committee (TRMPAC) to distribute Eeeeeevil Corporate Cash to GOP candidates in Texas by "laundering it" (no mention of how he did this) through the Republican Naitonal State Elections Committee who then sent the same amount in SEVEN checks to Texas House candidates in the same amount. Eeeeevil right? Wrong. First, they had to make it seem like 190,000 just bounced along it's merry way through the money laundering scheme. To do this, they ignore the fact that the RNSEC sent a total of NINE checks to eight Texas House candidates for a total of $234,500. Bah-Bye "190,000". That does not include one of the checks (for 20,000) included in the 190,000 distributed to Texas House candidates cited by the Donks because it came from a seperate account. Which is key to the second part of the Democrat's shell game. NONE of the checks written to Texas House candidates came from the account from which the 190,000 that Democrats have cried "laundered!" about were written from the account that TRMPAC contributed to! So they had to first skew the number of checks that the RNSEC wrote to Texas House candidates in order to skew the amount donated and then completely gloss over the fact that the money sent to the RNSEC went into a different account and was NOT sent to Texas House candidates! OOOPS! Now for some pespective that the leftist press and their jackass handlers have denied you: On Oct. 31, 2002, the Texas Democratic party did essentially the same thing when it sent $75,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and received $75,000 back from the DNC the very same day. The study also reveals that Democrats transferred a total of approximately $11 million dollars in soft money from its national parties to fund Texas campaigns in 2002, compared to $5.2 million transferred by Republicans. Now for Ronnie Earle. Oh he's JUST a registered Democrat, right? Like that has no bearing on his purely partisan attack on Delay:

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman. A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said. ...
In his remarks, Earle likened DeLay to a bully and spoke about political corruption and the investigation involving DeLay, the House majority leader from Sugar Land, according to a transcript supplied by Earle. ...

So he's JUST a registered Democrat that JUST goes to Democrat fundraising events designed to "take control of the statre Legislature from the GOP" and now he's spun a pile of crap into what he thinks it's golden thread. And what would a Donkey prosecutor doing Donkey work be without the Donkey Press falling in line.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

The orginal charge of Conspiracy was based on 2003 laws that Desperate Jackass Earle tried to apply to 2002 events

Moments ago, from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:

ANDERSON: Joe, the fact that this is a separate grand jury relating to the same event that caused the first charges to be brought, is this an acknowledgement that the first charges, that maybe DeLay's team was right, the conspiracy charge didn't apply in that time?

JOE JOHNS: That's precisely the question. If you look the pleadings they did put out, it gives you a strong indication the law was changed in Texas in 2003, and that's when they put in conspiracy as applied to this count. So the suggestion is, just looking at it on its face, is that the attorneys for Tom DeLay are right, which certainly would be, if true, a big embarrassment for Ronnie Earle, Anderson.

OOOPS! What's a good little jackass to do!? The heat is on! The movie chronicling his mission from god needs a triumphant ending! You just trump up some new bogus charges! Make no mistake folks. The Democrats have NO AGENDA and as a result they have fallen back on trying to politically destroy their opponents in court. Their behavior is reckless and it makes them a danger to our country. Make sure to click the "destroy their opponents" link. Read about what they are accusing Frist of and how pathetic in light of Frist's actions that charge is.

Also posted at Curiouser and Curiouser

Operation Bright Star

Now that everything is said and done, I can tell you that I was in Egypt for three weeks participating in Operation Bright Star. OPSEC before I left was an issue, so I was instructed not to even mention it until everything was wrapped up. But anyways, that's where I was. In the desert.

By the way, anyone who says that Egypt is "sandy" can bite me. It wasn't sandy, it was dusty. The dust was everywhere. It got everywhere. You couldn't get rid of it. Before I hit the rack at night I would shake clouds of dust off of my uniform. You had to soak a handkerchief with water and tie it around your face before you rode in any vehicles just to avoid sucking dust into your lungs. I'm still coughing up brown crap. Although I did see sand at the airport before I left. Other than that, it was all dust.

I went over there with the expectation of doing the job that I had been trained for. Silly me. I was a logistician with no supply room, no computer or network, and no way to order parts or supplies. So I became an honorary mechanic, as well as being the all around gofer. Still learned quite a bit and got experience I wouldn't have dreamed of just sitting at my unit.

And no, I didn't see the pyramids or anything like that. There were a few people who had time to go on tours and see the tourist sites, but I wasn't one of them. I did manage to pick up a few gifts here and there, but for the most part I was confined to the site we were set up in.

I did manage to snap a few pictures, but due to OPSEC we weren't allowed to photograph any of the base we were at. So most of my pictures are rather non-descript. I did take my camera with me when I was on a Blackhawk helicopter, so once those are developed I'll be posting them. I should be taking them to a lab today or tonight, and scanning them in later.

In any case, I'm back! Once I recuperate a bit and do some laundry, I'll be back to blogging on a semi-regular basis. I see that the Left is up to their usual stupidity, so I'll have plenty to get pissed about.

Time to keep on keepin' on.

Good to be back

Just got back from the FTX today. After giving the (ahem) appropriate attention to the Raging Mrs. and enjoying a gin and tonic (in that order), I settled down to find out what has been happening while I've been incommunicado.

I'll fill you all in with the details once I've had a chance to settle down, do laundry, and have a bite to eat. So, most likely it'll be tomorrow.

See you then.