The safari story of Cuddles

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles, along for the company. One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that he's lost.. Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch. The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!" Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here?" Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew!", says the leopard, "That was close! That old poodle nearly had me!" Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine! Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?", but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says. "Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard! Moral of this story.... Don't mess with old farts... age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience.

Hey Dave!

(and you have to imagine this being said in the worst Leftist voice) "How's that recruiting going, you chickenhawk-bushco-killbot-rethuglican?"

Answer: Pretty damn well!

The Army National Guard reached its congressionally authorized end strength of 350,000 Citizen-Soldiers on March 30, six months earlier than originally projected, Army Guard officials have reported.

"The strength of the Guard has been the amazing levels of retention among members of deployed units, surpassing all expectations," said Lt. Col. Diana Craun, the Army Guard’s deputy chief for strength maintenance.

"Retention is highest among units that have returned from deployments, and retention is an essential element in end strength," she added.

It is the first time that the Army Guard has been at full strength since 1999, Craun said. Officials had projected that the Army Guard would reach 350,000 troops by Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year.

(emphasis mine)

If the troops didn't believe in what they were doing, they would not be re-enlisting. If the troops felt that they were losing the war in Iraq, they would not be re-enlisting. If the troops felt the way the Democrat American Communist Party claimed they did, they would not be re-enlisting.

Keep that in mind the next time some brain-dead halfwit Leftist (redundancy alert!) starts babbling about how they "support the troops" but want to pull out of Iraq right now.

I'm sorry, what?

I know I've been out of the loop for a while, but what? What the hell is this?

[...]citing the media embargo of a Rasmussen poll “finding that 61% of self-identifying Democrats either believe George Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance or are not sure if he did or not”

Just what the hell is going on here? I know that the Left and the Democrat American Communist Party is the home to complete foaming at the mouth moonbats, but I never thought that they would prove my claim right so easily!

I want you all to think about this: Over two thirds of self-identifying Dimocrats either know or aren't sure that George W. Bush, the President of the United States, either knew about September 11th before it happened or actually had a hand in it.

What. The. FUCK?

This is sheer insanity, folks. This is the equivalent of someone attempting to claim that aliens are taking over all the large breasted redheads in an attempt to control men the world over. Not that I would blame the aliens, mind you, large-breasted redheads being what they are. But it's still nuts. Lunacy. Insanity. Sheer, total and complete mental breakdown. The absence of any kind of logical thought.

And these people vote.

God help the country.

UPDATE: Via RWN, here's the link to the Rasmussen Poll that has the numbers.

Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.

Overall, 22% of all voters believe the President knew about the attacks in advance. A slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance.

Folks, this here poll is proof positive that there is something well and truly fucked up in the heads of a quarter of Americans.

Miranda rights and WRONGS

In Washington State, it is perfectly legal for a *minor*, even a mentally handicap minor, to be questioned by police without a parent, or representative of, present. If they want an attorney present they need to ask for one.

I am aghast by this, especially since I do not think that any child, shy of a seasoned criminal, is going to think to ask, especially if they are being accused...

We've all heard the phase...

..."wiped off the map" before, and most of the time it's hyperbole.

Not so with Greensburg, Kansas.

Think this guy got teased at all when he was young?

Bam

You learn something new every day. In this case, it's not so new, but it needs to be repeated.

We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels. Meanwhile, more than 90,000 direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere, carried out in America, Asia, and Europe between 1812 and 1961, with excellent chemical methods (accuracy better than 3%), were arbitrarily rejected. These measurements had been published in 175 technical papers. For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine,nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time. From among this treasure of excellent data (ranging up to 550 ppmv of measured CO2 levels), the founders of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (Callendar 1949, Callendar 1958, and Keeling 1986) selected only a tiny fraction of the data and doctored it, to select out the low concentraions and reject the high values—all in order to set a falsely low pre-industrial average CO2 concentration of 280 ppmv as in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century. This manipulation has been discussed several times since the 1950s (Fonsel et al. 1956, Jaworowski et al. 1992b, and Slocum 1955), and more recently and in-depth by Beck 2007.

Print that out and pass it around at the next eco-freak convention.

Very nice

Nice 'n clever:



Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo - Yahoo! News

Here's Akon

Michelle Malkin: Rapper molests girl on stage (graphic warning)

Akon will perform at Live Earth



Those wacky Leftists.

BUMP!

Hot Air

What does Al think about this? What does Tipper think???

Dealing with Frustration

RD, I know you are frustrated. Believe me, the crap I read in the news these days sickens me as well. But let us keep things in perspective. I'll concede that Republicans in congress could show more spine and that the President could come out every single day and attempt to correct the record on a meriad of issues, but 1) Congressional Repubicans and President Bush are a mere handful of people. 2) They can not possibly correct the record of utter bullshit pumped out continuously by several 24 hour cable news broadcasts, numerous free network TV news and entertainment programs, Musicians, Pop Culture Icons, Movies, Magazines, thousands of newspapers, and the members of almost every college campus faculty in these United States or propaganda from sources outside our borders.

That we have done as well as we have is proof of the quality of our message, because it sure as hell isn't widespread distribution of our message. People have to actively hunt for info on blogs, they have to actually turn on a radio and scan the dial to find talk radio. Word of mouth is our greatest strength. A few individuals who share our ideological leanings give it their all to make a difference, but you can't expect them to perform miracles. We are dwarfed by the Democrat Media. If they don't want something to be reported, they simply ignore it and it dies. We could harp on it from now until the end of time, but without a comparable megaphone our message will go relatively unheard.

It's literally amazing the amount of utter lies the Democrat Media gets away with pushing on a daily basis. Remember when the Rs filibustering the previous incarnation of the Donk Iraq Surrender legislation were accused of attempting to END DEBATE?! The Democrat Media stood reality on it's head and people bought it. They've made Iraq into a wholely different beast on TV screens than it is on the ground. The Donks cry 'civil war' (as if on que from al Qaeda) and the Democrat Media acts like al Qaeda in Iraq is a figment of Republican imaginations. The Democrat Media has fully retarded a majority of the voting public. They've dropped all pretense of fair play and will rationalize any and all attacks on Republicans. And that is all they do - attack Republicans.

Our elected representatives are human, prone to error and weakness same as the rest of us. Elected Republicans stood their ground against an onslaught the likes would have crippled the DNC in 1/10,000th the potency. If they are tired of fighting, I can't say I blame them. I don't even really believe you do, honestly. I think you feel the exact same way from what I read. At some point, "fuck you" should be the response to these imbicile leftist assholes. Forget the constant perfectly worded refutations, they don't listen to them anyway. We've been trying to leave Iraq better than we entered it for years now and they won't even engage us on the merits of those efforts. You STILL hear how we didn't really liberate them, we just wanted their oil. Nevermind that we haven't taken a damn drop of it from them. Never mind that we facilitated the election of a slate of representatives according to a ratified constitution - some bombs went off and some people got killed. It's all for nothing. We did it for the oil. You can't argue with shit like that. It's moronic. It's not based on reason or a honest desire to right wrongs, uncover truth, or ascertain reality. It's just meant to get Bush, get Republicans, get POWER! That's all it's ever been about.

How fucking stupid does one have to be to sit and listen to a multi-millionaire leftist with his own private jet and 10,000 square foot home tell you that you should cut back on the amount of energy you use AND AGREE WITH THEM?! People will either wake the fuck up, or they won't. Hopefully they do it before Democrats get enough of their precious power to effectively treat internet communication the way their Chinese counterparts have.

Losing the Information War

To be blunt, one reason conservatives look like the minority is because other than talk radio, we lose in the war of words. Another reason is that the conservative leadership allows themselves to be silenced.

When President Bush speaks out without a Washington D.C. scriptwriter, he connects with people. Like this, for example:

Bush signed the veto with a pen given to him by Robert Derga, the father of Marine Corps Reserve Cpl. Dustin Derga, who was killed in Iraq on May 8, 2005. The elder Derga spoke with Bush two weeks ago at a meeting the president had with military families at the White House.

Derga asked Bush to promise to use the pen in his veto. On Tuesday, Derga contacted the White House to remind Bush to use the pen, and so he did. The 24-year-old Dustin Derga served with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 25th Marines from Columbus, Ohio. The five-year Marine reservist and fire team leader was killed by an armor-piercing round in Anbar Province.

One of the things that has hurt Bush the most is his refusal to respond to the slime and hysterics that the Democrat American Communist Party throws at him. And the Democrat American Communist Party, seeing that they can say whatever they want, have come forth with libel and outright lies contantly repeated. It's sickening. What's worse is the fact that the Republicans aren't calling them on it. For g-d's sake, all they have to do is look around the blogosphere for some of the most complete refutations of the Leftist bullshit, but they can't be bothered. They're spineless.

The Army isn't helping itself out either. Via Malkin:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

If you're having a war of ideas, then you need to get your side of the story out there. The military is slowly preventing this. Much bad juju will ensue, because it's been the military itself who has plainly stated that we should not leave Iraq.

Why in the name of all that's holy would the military want to silence that? My command knows that I blog about politics. They also know that should OPSEC be involved, I cannot and will not blog about it. That should be all that's required.

Feh. You know, I'm getting really tired of defending people who won't stand up for themselves. The military, congresscritters, the President, all of 'em. Thank God Bush ain't running in 2008.

no Hilary Clinton

I think y'all might get a kick out of this website. NO HILARY CLINTON

Rosie, you IGNORANT WHORE!

Pardon me, but I need to let the RCOB clear right now.....

O’DONNELL: Wait, can I just say something? Why do people enlist in the Army?

RICKI LAKE: Because of a ineducation (sic), and they're poor.

O’DONNELL: Thank you.

LAKE: And that’s the only way to get one.

O’DONNELL: The vast majority– Yes, Elisabeth. It’s true!

This fucking cunt (and her cunt friend, RICKI LAKE) called our soldiers poor, dumb idiots on NATIONAL FUCKING TELEVISION! And she still has a job!

I gave up around ten thousand dollars a year when I joined the military! I guess I'm one of those pennyless idiots who only joined up because I was jus' too po' to pay mah rent on the 'ol doublewide! If I wanted to make money, I suppose I could always get a job on TV trying to figure out just who the baby's daddy is, but I don't feel like metaphorically dropping trou and exposing myself on national TV just to make a buck. I cannot understand how such a brainless fucking pile of toxic shit can get paid to spew her crap on national television.

Rosie, you fat, infected, pus-spewing cankersore on the anus of humanity, let me be the first, but certainly not the last military member to tell you "Go Fuck Yourself. Do humanity a favor and choke to death on a damn doughnut already. Just. Fucking. Die."

I normally don't have that opinion about public figures, but I have rarely seen anyone as foul and witless as Rosie the Lard-brained Shitstain.

Raging_Dave's Quote of the Day

That's right, I'm shamelessly ripping this concept off from SondraK and using it for my own advantage.

What? It's not like it's patented, is it? I never saw a ® or a © or even a ™ sign, so I'm stealing it, baybee!

Well, unless Sondra decides that she needs to kick my ass for my theft. Then it's all over, 'cause she's kickin' like dat.

So anyways, the quote:

We live in an era where nobody wears bras, casual sex is OK, women take pride in being in shape, female celebrities show off their private parts when they're leaving limos, and bars show softcore porn scenes at 12:30 at night and nobody bats an eyelash. I want to know what's next. Women heading out for dinner topless? Where do we go from here?

I'm figuring that going out to dinner while topless and having sex while the waiter lays out the caviar and champagne seems a good bet. But that's just me, and I'm kinda twisted. Oh, and Sondra? Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery, right?

Dude! Bummer!

News flash for any and all who may or may not be living with the rest of the world:

Pot is still a drug, and it's still bad.

One compound, cannabidiol, or CBD, made people more relaxed. But even small doses of another component, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produced temporary psychotic symptoms in people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors said.

The results, to be presented at an international mental health conference in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, provides physical evidence of the drug's damaging influence on the human brain.

Anyone ever been around pot smokers for a while? This isn't exactly News. This is like wacking yourself in the head with a hammer and waiting for someone to tell you "Hey, you know, that's bad for you!" before you finally stop.

Doctors at Yale University in the U.S. tested the impact of THC on 150 healthy volunteers and 13 people with stable schizophrenia. Nearly half of the healthy subjects experienced psychotic symptoms when given the drug.

While the doctors expected to see marijuana improve the conditions of their schizophrenic subjects since their patients reported that the drug calmed them they found that the reverse was true.

Again, not exactly news. I wonder if anyone has done a study regarding the two main political groups in this country. We could make it go like this: Go to an anti-war protest, and do a survey on how many people use pot. Then go to a pro-war rally, and ask the same question.

Hell, you already know what the answers would be, don't you?

Look, TCH affects the brain, that's a fact. THC is also fat soluble, which is why it hangs around the body longer than nicotine or alcohol, which are both water soluble. Guess which organ in your body is composed of about 2/3 fat?

That's right, your brain.

Marijunana affects short term memory, cognitive thinking abilities, motor reflexes, everything. And yet people still think that the stuff is safe for you. It's not. People compare pot to alcohol in terms of health effects, and that's not a real comparison. Alcohol gets flushed out of your system within about 24 hours, given that you drink water and not more hooch. But THC is in your system for a much longer time, because you can't flush it out with water. So the active chemical which affects you is in your system for a longer period, and the total effect is cumulative if you continue smoking weed.

I've spent more than my fair share of time around pot smokers, and I'd rather deal with drunks any day of the week. But to be fair, I'd rather not deal with any of them.

Make your own!

You know you want to! If you email me a really creative one, I might just put it up.

Has the world gone plum crazy?

Oakland, California:

"There is definitely a balance," said Officer Roland Holmgren, department spokesman. "This thing had potential — who knows where the suspects were going to take the situation? But by no stretch of the imagination are we agreeing with or justifying what the owner did."

"We’re not saying that we want citizens to go out there and arm themselves and take the law into their own hands. We want citizens to be good witnesses, to be good report-takers and to identify suspects."

Yes, it has.

Oakland Pizzeria Owner "Tragically" Shoots Armed Robber

Uberloco crazy insane.

slurpie anyone?

I found this while I was cruising the web...

http://www.komotv.com/hotlinks

Give 2 The Troops

If you want to send a check to help Sharon Crary buy a Slurpee machine for the 82nd Airborn Unit in Bagdad; Write a check to “Give 2 The Troops” (or G2TT), specify “Slurpee” in the memo line, and mail it to: Give To The Troops; Albany Group, P.O. Box 2405, Albany, Oregon, 97321

Arrrrrgh.

I finally had a weekend off. And I took it. I did my chores, mowed the lawn, and then didn't do a damn thing.

And I'm still not recovered from the grind of the past month. Doesn't look like I'll get a chance to recover any time in the future, either.

Anyways, since I've been slacking, here's a post by John Cross over at Drumwaster's place, which takes several "arguments" we've heard the Left make, and shreds them.

Hooah!

By the way, many of the Congresscritters currently infesting Capitol Hill, who whine and cry that we need more troops, are the very same ones who cut the military in half during Clinton's tenure. So frankly, I don't want to hear it from them.

Fire "melting" steel

"But I do believe it is the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel."

-- Rosie



And NOW: For the second time in history...

A stretch of highway near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed Sunday after a gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames.

Looks like an "inside job".

Fire from crash collapses Calif. freeway - Yahoo! News

UPDATE" More and better questions here.

A failure in Generalship

This is a long but powerful article that dear old dad sent me. The link is below. I tried to edit it, but was unable to find anything that I could.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

Subject: FULL ARTICLE--A FAILURE IN GENERALSHIP--LT. COL. P. YINGLING, U.S.
ARMY, IRAQ--ARMED FORCES JOURNAL, MAY 07

A failure in generalship
BY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING

ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master's degree in political science from
the University of Chicago. The views expressed here are the author's and do
not necessarily reflect those of the Army or the Defense Department.

"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."
- Frederick the Great

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

The Responsibilities of Generalship

Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.

The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required. When the ends of policy are small, the statesman can prosecute a conflict without asking the public for great sacrifice. Global conflicts such as World War II require the full mobilization of entire societies to provide the men and materiel necessary for the successful prosecution of war. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.

Popular passions are necessary for the successful prosecution of war, but cannot be sufficient. To prevail, generals must provide policymakers and the public with a correct estimation of strategic probabilities. The general is responsible for estimating the likelihood of success in applying force to achieve the aims of policy. The general describes both the means necessary for the successful prosecution of war and the ways in which the nation will employ those means. If the policymaker desires ends for which the means he provides are insufficient, the general is responsible for advising the statesman of this incongruence. The statesman must then scale back the ends of policy or mobilize popular passions to provide greater means. If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results.

However much it is influenced by passion and probability, war is ultimately an instrument of policy and its conduct is the responsibility of policymakers. War is a social activity undertaken on behalf of the nation; Augustine counsels us that the only purpose of war is to achieve a better peace. The choice of making war to achieve a better peace is inherently a value judgment in which the statesman must decide those interests and beliefs worth killing and dying for. The military man is no better qualified than the common citizen to make such judgments. He must therefore confine his input to his area of expertise — the estimation of strategic probabilities.

The correct estimation of strategic possibilities can be further subdivided into the preparation for war and the conduct of war. Preparation for war consists in the raising, arming, equipping and training of forces. The conduct of war consists of both planning for the use of those forces and directing those forces in operations.

To prepare forces for war, the general must visualize the conditions of future combat. To raise military forces properly, the general must visualize the quality and quantity of forces needed in the next war. To arm and equip military forces properly, the general must visualize the materiel requirements of future engagements. To train military forces properly, the general must visualize the human demands on future battlefields, and replicate those conditions in peacetime exercises. Of course, not even the most skilled general can visualize precisely how future wars will be fought. According to British military historian and soldier Sir Michael Howard, "In structuring and preparing an army for war, you can be clear that you will not get it precisely right, but the important thing is not to be too far wrong, so that you can put it right quickly."

The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past. Following World War I, French generals committed this error, assuming that the next war would involve static battles dominated by firepower and fixed fortifications. Throughout the interwar years, French generals raised, equipped, armed and trained the French military to fight the last war. In stark contrast, German generals spent the interwar years attempting to break the stalemate created by firepower and fortifications. They developed a new form of war — the blitzkrieg — that integrated mobility, firepower and decentralized tactics. The German Army did not get this new form of warfare precisely right. After the 1939 conquest of Poland, the German Army undertook a critical self-examination of its operations. However, German generals did not get it too far wrong either, and in less than a year had adapted their tactics for the invasion of France.

After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands. Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future. Policymakers, especially elected representatives, face powerful incentives to focus on near-term challenges that are of immediate concern to the public. Generating military capability is the labor of decades. If the general waits until the public and its elected representatives are immediately concerned with national security threats before finding his voice, he has waited too long. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.

Failing to visualize future battlefields represents a lapse in professional competence, but seeing those fields clearly and saying nothing is an even more serious lapse in professional character. Moral courage is often inversely proportional to popularity and this observation in nowhere more true than in the profession of arms. The history of military innovation is littered with the truncated careers of reformers who saw gathering threats clearly and advocated change boldly. A military professional must possess both the physical courage to face the hazards of battle and the moral courage to withstand the barbs of public scorn. On and off the battlefield, courage is the first characteristic of generalship.

Failures of Generalship in Vietnam

America's defeat in Vietnam is the most egregious failure in the history of American arms. America's general officer corps refused to prepare the Army to fight unconventional wars, despite ample indications that such preparations were in order. Having failed to prepare for such wars, America's generals sent our forces into battle without a coherent plan for victory. Unprepared for war and lacking a coherent strategy, America lost the war and the lives of more than 58,000 service members.

Following World War II, there were ample indicators that America's enemies would turn to insurgency to negate our advantages in firepower and mobility. The French experiences in Indochina and Algeria offered object lessons to Western armies facing unconventional foes. These lessons were not lost on the more astute members of America's political class. In 1961, President Kennedy warned of "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by evading and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him." In response to these threats, Kennedy undertook a comprehensive program to prepare America's armed forces for counterinsurgency.

Despite the experience of their allies and the urging of their president, America's generals failed to prepare their forces for counterinsurgency. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker assured his young president, "Any good soldier can handle guerrillas." Despite Kennedy's guidance to the contrary, the Army viewed the conflict in Vietnam in conventional terms. As late as 1964, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated flatly that "the essence of the problem in Vietnam is military." While the Army made minor organizational adjustments at the urging of the president, the generals clung to what Andrew Krepinevich has called "the Army concept," a vision of warfare focused on the destruction of the enemy's forces.

Having failed to visualize accurately the conditions of combat in Vietnam, America's generals prosecuted the war in conventional terms. The U.S. military embarked on a graduated attrition strategy intended to compel North Vietnam to accept a negotiated peace. The U.S. undertook modest efforts at innovation in Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), spearheaded by the State Department's "Blowtorch" Bob Kromer, was a serious effort to address the political and economic causes of the insurgency. The Marine Corps' Combined Action Program (CAP) was an innovative approach to population security. However, these efforts are best described as too little, too late. Innovations such as CORDS and CAP never received the resources necessary to make a large-scale difference. The U.S. military grudgingly accepted these innovations late in the war, after the American public's commitment to the conflict began to wane.

America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson estimated in 1965 that victory would require as many as 700,000 troops for up to five years. Commandant of the Marine Corps Wallace Greene made a similar estimate on troop levels. As President Johnson incrementally escalated the war, neither man made his views known to the president or Congress. President Johnson made a concerted effort to conceal the costs and consequences of Vietnam from the public, but such duplicity required the passive consent of America's generals.

Having participated in the deception of the American people during the war, the Army chose after the war to deceive itself. In "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife," John Nagl argued that instead of learning from defeat, the Army after Vietnam focused its energies on the kind of wars it knew how to win — high-technology conventional wars. An essential contribution to this strategy of denial was the publication of "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War," by Col. Harry Summers. Summers, a faculty member of the U.S. Army War College, argued that the Army had erred by not focusing enough on conventional warfare in Vietnam, a lesson the Army was happy to hear. Despite having been recently defeated by an insurgency, the Army slashed training and resources devoted to counterinsurgency.

By the early 1990s, the Army's focus on conventional war-fighting appeared to have been vindicated. During the 1980s, the U.S. military benefited from the largest peacetime military buildup in the nation's history. High-technology equipment dramatically increased the mobility and lethality of our ground forces. The Army's National Training Center honed the Army's conventional war-fighting skills to a razor's edge. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the demise of the Soviet Union and the futility of direct confrontation with the U.S. Despite the fact the U.S. supported insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola to hasten the Soviet Union's demise, the U.S. military gave little thought to counterinsurgency throughout the 1990s. America's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past — state-on-state conflicts against conventional forces. America's swift defeat of the Iraqi Army, the world's fourth-largest, in 1991 seemed to confirm the wisdom of the U.S. military's post-Vietnam reforms. But the military learned the wrong lessons from Operation Desert Storm. It continued to prepare for the last war, while its future enemies prepared for a new kind of war.

Failures of Generalship in Iraq

America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq.

Despite paying lip service to "transformation" throughout the 1990s, America's armed forces failed to change in significant ways after the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In "The Sling and the Stone," T.X. Hammes argues that the Defense Department's transformation strategy focuses almost exclusively on high-technology conventional wars. The doctrine, organizations, equipment and training of the U.S. military confirm this observation. The armed forces fought the global war on terrorism for the first five years with a counterinsurgency doctrine last revised in the Reagan administration. Despite engaging in numerous stability operations throughout the 1990s, the armed forces did little to bolster their capabilities for civic reconstruction and security force development. Procurement priorities during the 1990s followed the Cold War model, with significant funding devoted to new fighter aircraft and artillery systems. The most commonly used tactical scenarios in both schools and training centers replicated high-intensity interstate conflict. At the dawn of the 21st century, the U.S. is fighting brutal, adaptive insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, while our armed forces have spent the preceding decade having done little to prepare for such conflicts.

Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." The ISG noted that "on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." Population security is the most important measure of effectiveness in counterinsurgency. For more than three years, America's generals continued to insist that the U.S. was making progress in Iraq. However, for Iraqi civilians, each year from 2003 onward was more deadly than the one preceding it. For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq. Moreover, America's generals have not explained clearly the larger strategic risks of committing so large a portion of the nation's deployable land power to a single theater of operations.

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.

The Generals We Need

The most insightful examination of failed generalship comes from J.F.C. Fuller's "Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure." Fuller was a British major general who saw action in the first attempts at armored warfare in World War I. He found three common characteristics in great generals — courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness.

The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. An understanding of the larger aspects of war is essential to great generalship. However, a survey of Army three- and four-star generals shows that only 25 percent hold advanced degrees from civilian institutions in the social sciences or humanities. Counterinsurgency theory holds that proficiency in foreign languages is essential to success, yet only one in four of the Army's senior generals speaks another language. While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.

Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.

If America desires creative intelligence and moral courage in its general officer corps, it must create a system that rewards these qualities. Congress can create such incentives by exercising its proper oversight function in three areas. First, Congress must change the system for selecting general officers. Second, oversight committees must apply increased scrutiny over generating the necessary means and pursuing appropriate ways for applying America's military power. Third, the Senate must hold accountable through its confirmation powers those officers who fail to achieve the aims of policy at an acceptable cost in blood and treasure.

To improve the creative intelligence of our generals, Congress must change the officer promotion system in ways that reward adaptation and intellectual achievement. Congress should require the armed services to implement 360-degree evaluations for field-grade and flag officers. Junior officers and noncommissioned officers are often the first to adapt because they bear the brunt of failed tactics most directly. They are also less wed to organizational norms and less influenced by organizational taboos. Junior leaders have valuable insights regarding the effectiveness of their leaders, but the current promotion system excludes these judgments. Incorporating subordinate and peer reviews into promotion decisions for senior leaders would produce officers more willing to adapt to changing circumstances, and less likely to conform to outmoded practices.

Congress should also modify the officer promotion system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership.

To reward moral courage in our general officers, Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility. Some of the answers will be shocking, which is perhaps why Congress has not asked and the generals have not told. Congress must ask for a candid assessment of the money and manpower required over the next generation to prevail in the Long War. The money required to prevail may place fiscal constraints on popular domestic priorities. The quantity and quality of manpower required may call into question the viability of the all-volunteer military. Congress must re-examine the allocation of existing resources, and demand that procurement priorities reflect the most likely threats we will face. Congress must be equally rigorous in ensuring that the ways of war contribute to conflict termination consistent with the aims of national policy. If our operations produce more enemies than they defeat, no amount of force is sufficient to prevail. Current oversight efforts have proved inadequate, allowing the executive branch, the services and lobbyists to present information that is sometimes incomplete, inaccurate or self-serving. Exercising adequate oversight will require members of Congress to develop the expertise necessary to ask the right questions and display the courage to follow the truth wherever it leads them.

Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.

Mortal Danger

This article began with Frederick the Great's admonition to his officers to focus their energies on the larger aspects of war. The Prussian monarch's innovations had made his army the terror of Europe, but he knew that his adversaries were learning and adapting. Frederick feared that his generals would master his system of war without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war, and in doing so would place Prussia's security at risk. These fears would prove prophetic. At the Battle of Valmy in 1792, Frederick's successors were checked by France's ragtag citizen army. In the fourteen years that followed, Prussia's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like those of the past. In 1806, the Prussian Army marched lockstep into defeat and disaster at the hands of Napoleon at Jena. Frederick's prophecy had come to pass; Prussia became a French vassal.

Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.

There's this thingy on the intarweb

Called the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat. (The insane left-wing robot who hates you!) You can see it over at the Grouchy Old Cripple's place, on the left hand sidebar. You push a button, and it'll spout out a phrase like "If you aren't furious about the imperialism of this Boy King, then you are a Rechimplicker goon of Laura Bush. Capitalists!!! Defense of Marriage Act, indeed!!!"

What makes it so damn funny is that it sounds just like the moonbats. It's only funny because it's TRUE, right?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'll let Sondra K take over from here. Just look at the stunning brainlessness, and remember that these people supposedly are Americans.

bullying and kids who snap

Almost every man I know was bullied in School. How serious the bullying was has more of an effect on some than others. Usually it was physical.

Here are a few statistics to think about...

According to the Virginia Youth Violence Project, published by the Curry School of Education in March of 2001, in the year 97-98 35 children were murdered at school, but 2,717 children were murdered outside of school.

More children died of the flu and pneumonia than are killed at school. Every day dozens of kids are killed in car accidents.

School shootings are a rare phenomenon and cause a startling misconception that youth violence is on the rise, when it is in fact on the decline.

This report also states that "fear clouds an objective, rational analysis of the problem." According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center's report on school violence published in 2002 the rate of nonfatal violent crimes at school declined from 48 per 1,000 students in 1992 to 33 per 1000 in 1999, and the rate of more serious violent crimes such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault was 7 out of every 1000 students while at school or going to and from school.

This report also states that "bullying continues to be a serious problem, particularly in middle schools".

According to Bullystoppers.com 80% of adolescents reported being bullied during school, 90% of fourth through eighth graders report being victims of bullying, and most bullying is verbal.

According to atruimsoc.org "recent study, 77% of the students said they had been bullied.
And 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe (bad) reactions to the abuse". This study also said "peaks in the sixth through eight grades" and states that "282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month".

According to Carmen D. McDowell in his analysis on Washington State School District Policies in 2002 "The widespread reporting of bullying in schools by students is in direct contrast to reports of bullying that make it into school safety and crime reports collected at the federal level" due to the fact that "very few bullying incidents in schools are reported as crimes".

Looking at these statistics, I say we support our school in, and enforce our expectations of our schools to have no tolerance for physical bullying. If we do this, then we will be protecting our future and preventing further Columbines!

I don't buy Newsweek

I haven't for a long while, and when they ran the false story about the guards in Gitmo flushing a Koran down the toilet, it simply reaffirmed my choice to not support that "journalism". And yes, that's "journalism" in scare quotes, because what Newsweek provides is outright propaganda for the Left, not actual journalism.

Case in point? The perfect takedown by Cap'n Jim on a Newsweek article about guns. I can't excerpt any one part. You've got to read the whole thing.

And by the way, Jim also has the notification of Chicago's gun grabbers doing what they do best - violating the 2nd Amendment, shitting all over civil rights, and acting like the damn communists they are.

An elderly first-generation Chicago resident was recently paid a visit by an Illinois State Police trooper. After asking to come inside the man's home, the trooper asked if the man owned a gun - to which he replied yes. The trooper then directed the individual to surrender the firearm. The man complied with the officer's demand and the trooper left with the gun. And the story gets better...

The gun in question was purchased legally by the man in the 1970s shortly after he became a U.S. citizen. When Chicago's infamous gun registration scheme went into effect in the early 1980s, the man registered the firearm as per the requirement. However, over the years, the fellow apparently forgot to re-register the firearm, and forgot to renew his Illinois FOID Card.

If you want to see what the Democrat American Communist Party plan for America truly is, all you have to do is look at the cities they control.

Fucking anti-American communists.

We should post this at the borders

Over at Dhimmi Watch, a commenter named "sounder" wrote one of the better comments I've seen. The post was about muslim children to threw a temper tantrum over a class on farm life, because they didn't want to hear about pigs.

The comment, in it's entirety:

Dear Immigrant:

When you come to my country, from the sh*thole called home, and are welcomed here with a chance to improve your lives, then my country is the standard of measurement, not yours!

Don't bring your (unwanted) standards here.

Practice your religion as you wish as a peaceful, PRIVATE matter. Blend in or GO HOME.

If you don't like ham, toss it in the trash.

Furthermore, don't ever expect me to change "the system" for you. You change to my system or again, GO HOME. I'm not tailoring my life around you. You adjust to me and the majotity.

You want to bring your religious customs here and impose them on me, then that's a HATE crime on your part against me.

Remember my country is the standard now. Your country has the standard you ran
away from. You don't like mine, GO HOME.

I'm sick and tired of watching my customs, values, traditions, religion,religious symbols and the sense of comfort and well being that these things bring, those that we have toiled and died for, being usurped and washed away because some immigrant couldn't stand his own country any longer so came here to change mine.

If you are a guest in my home, live by my rules. If I'm a guest in your home, I'll live by yours. But damn it, I'm not selling my country to you.

If you want to take away or alter what I hold dear, then you are commiting HATE against me.

Lets put the PC Bullsh*t, where it belongs, in the trash, or we'll be submitting to someone elses way of life.

Let's put the self loathing, cultural sell out, spineless, PC crowd in their place for once, those who would condemn me and my countrymen for refusing to sell our souls to another culture or religion or for resisting becoming the sh*thole of a country these people came from.

It's time to stand up and demand our own rights for a change. If I'm called a bigot or islamophobe for doing so, then so be it. I'm not caving in without a good fight and I am not going to be the one to do all the accomodating!

Immigrant, you accomodate or GO HOME!

Yup.

What a crazy world we live in

When it's a Democrat who's making the speech that the President should be giving.

But even if today that political solution was found, we cannot rationally think
that our terrorist enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq will simply vanish.

Al Qaeda is not mass murdering civilians on the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenues. Its aim in Iraq is not to get a seat at
the political table.

It wants to blow up the table—along with everyone seated at it. Al Qaeda wants to destroy any prospect for democracy in Iraq, and it will not be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. It must be fought and defeated through force of arms. And there can be no withdrawal, no redeployment from this reality.

Found via Captain's Quarters. And it is worth reading the whole thing.

Bingo

Via Hot Air.

These politicians don’t support the troops or anything that they are doing. The troops want a victory in Iraq. If nothing else to say that our friends, our comrades who fought beside us and never made it home, did not die in vain. I dont know many Marines like myself, who haven’t had a friend or brother die. Most know several, sometimes too many, who never made it home to the freedom of our great country. And that is a shame. To say that these great men who died for our country did it all for nothing is a travesty and does no honor to their memories.

I am not saying that Republicans are any better, personally I feel that our political party system needs a serious renovation. The way both parties have used the troops as a bargaining tool is personally sickening to me. Using human life as a chip to cash in for political power is disgusting. And thats what they are all doing. It just seems that as of right now the Republicans are the lesser evil in the political nightmare of the war.

I've been watching the train-wreck of a Congress with something approaching horror mixed with nausea. I don't know whether to scream myself hoarse or just vomit for hours on end. There is a real war going on, with real people and real consequences, and yet all Congress can think about is how much pork they can pull out of our tax dollars, or how many seats they can win by using the military as nothing more but political pawns, and if millions of Iraqis have to die, well a sixty-seat majority in Congress is worth it to them!

What's worse, is that with each craven statement they make, more people will die. The terrorists know that if they kill enough people in spectacular fashion, the Democrat American Communist Party will fold like a house of cards and run away, JUST LIKE THEY'VE DONE IN THE PAST. It seems that while modern Americans cannot learn from history to save their lives, the enemy can, and does learn. All they have to do is look at who is in power, and what they've done in the past. Run away. Surrender. Run away. Surrender. Capitulate, give up, and abandon allies.

That's all the Democrat American Communist Party is good for.

So the Senate passed the surrender bill tonight. Bush had damn well better veto it, otherwise more people will die and nobody in their right mind will trust this country at all. And do you know who will do the dying? Not just the Iraqis who are trying to get their country going without allowing Iran to take over.

No, it'll be Americans as well. Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen, who will face the onslaught of terrorists hellbent on driving America out of Iraq even quicker, since they already know that they Democrat American Communist Party will do their bidding! And once they're in control of Iraq, and have another base of operations, they'll go after us in our own country. New York City will have to deal with a lot more than what happened on September 11th.

And the fact that there are people out there advocating for our surrender, who just happen to be MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, well, it makes me want to puke. If the people of this country are so craven, such a sniveling pack of cowards and opportunists, then I really wonder if this country is worth defending at all?

If we beg for our own defeat, and willingly accept the death of people who we've told we would protect, what are we good for?

If we surrender at the mere thought of a challenge, and refuse to defend ourselves, do we deserve to exist as a country?

Why should I defend people who refuse to defend themselves?

It's true

Hillary hates the military. The thought of that harpy in charge of the troops should scare the wits out of anyone with half a brain.

If you have daughters

Or you know some impressionable young women, print this out and give it to them. Yes, it's that important.

Still catching up with the news

The Supreme Court upheld a ban on partial-birth abortions. The shrieks of the abortion-on-demand harridans can be heard the country over.

Here's my take on it - there is nothing in the Constitution than mentions abortions. For that matter, there's nothing in the Constitution that mentions medical procedures period.

As such, the Constitution has nothing to do with it. Period. End of story. You don't have a constitutional right to drive, do you? No, you don't. The Constitution has nothing to do with that either.

Therefore, the government has the ability to legislate abortion. And if they want to ban partial birth abortion, good on them. I personally am against stabbing a baby in the back of the head with a needle attached to a vacume hose and then sucking it's brain out, right before you cut it in half so that it can be removed with ease. And I won't vote for any candidate who doesn't have a problem with it.

"Follow follow follow follow...

...follow the yellow brick road..."

To Oz.

Or Reuters.

Whatever.

Oh dear lord...

So let me get this straight - no matter what, Dingy Harry Reid will not listen to General Petraeus if the general reports progress in Iraq.

I really don't know if there's enough words in the English language to describe just what I want to say to that fucking cowardly shitstain. But, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, right?


And,



And finally,


When Harry the worthless fucknozzle finally kicks the bucket, thus helping increase the collective IQ of the planet with his absence, I will be more than happy to piss on his grave. He shouldn't be in Congress, he should be in jail FOR TREASON.

And the rest of the Democrat American Communist Party shouldn't be far behind.

UPDATE: Here's a few tasty quotes from that miserable shitstain Reid, if you haven't gotten enough.

BASH: You talked several times about General Petraeus. You know that he is here in town. He was at the White House today, sitting with the president in the Oval Office and the president said that he wants to make it clear that Washington should not be telling him, General Petraeus, a commander on the ground in Iraq, what to do, particularly, the president was talking about Democrats in Congress.

He also said that General Petraeus is going to come to the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working. Will you believe him when he says that?

REID: No, I don't believe him, because it's not happening. All you have to do is look at the facts.

Right. That worthless pile of maggot-filled crap Reid actually thinks he knows the situation in Iraq better than the General who's in charge. Oh, and he basically stated that the General was a liar right off.

BeeYOUteeful.

That corrupt, lying slimebag Reid is just another example of how the Democrat American Communist Party hates the military and is actively working for an American military defeat in the Middle East. All they care about is power, and they'll drag this country straight down to hell in order to get it. It doesn't matter of they're lords of a smoking ruin that used to be a country, so long as THEY are the lords. They don't care about the country, they only care about being in charge of it.

If I ever have a chance, I'm going to kick that gutless coward Reid's scrotum so hard that his shriveled, useless testicles pop out his nostrils.

Dunno if you've seen this

But you need to. Because the military knows: The media is not your friend.

That's right, beeyotches. We know who our friends are. And by god, we remember.

I wish I was surprised

I really do. But I've written before that the Democrat American Communist Party hates the military. Loathes it. Can't stand it.

Uh huh.

The commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, returns to Washington this week, but last week Pelosi’s office said “scheduling conflicts” prevented him from briefing House members. Two days later, the members-only meeting was scheduled, but the episode brings to mind the fact that Pelosi and other top House Democrats skipped a Pentagon videoconference with Petraeus on March 8.

If you want any more proof that the Democrat American Communist Party doesn't really give a shit about the War on Terror, except as a way to score political points, the fact that they CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO ATTEND A BRIEFING ON IRAQ ought to clue you in.

KEERIST on a crutch!

Treason. The Democrat American Communist Party are traitors.

A day late and a dollar short

when it comes to me remarking on Dingy Harry Reid's comments about how "The war is lost".

I must admit, I haven't blogged on it much because my personal comments when I first read his remarks would have melted your moniters and left blisters on your CPU. Now that I've calmed down a bit, I can give you a small idea of how I feel.

Harry Reid should be tried for treason, for aiding and comforting the enemy. And when he's found guilty, he should be hung from the neck until dead.

Now, before anyone tries to day "But Dave, blah blah blah" just keep in mind that the Democrat American Communist Party is conforming to the terrorist playbook word for word. I don't care of they're doing it on purpose or not. A smart person would look at their actions, say to themself "Self, we seem to be doing just what the terrorists want us to do" and change their course of actions.

The American Communist Party isn't doing that. It's like they're reading straight out of Al Queda's plans and putting them into action. And while I often say that Congresscritters have an ambient room-temp IQ, there has to be a few people smart enough to tap them on the shoulder and say "Uh, senator, perhaps you need to rethink what you're going".

So what all of this tells me is that the Democrat American Communist Party knows the damage that they're doing, and they don't care because political victory is more important to them than the survival of this nation. They have tied the War on Terror to President Bush, and in order to hurt the President, they're going to lose the war.

It's Viet Nam all over again, in the sense that the Democrat American Communist Party is working for all it's worth to ensure an American military defeat.

And that, my friends, is treason. Dingy Harry Reid needs to be charged with it. Expelled out of the country, or hung for his actions.

There, I managed to type all of this without calling Reid a smeared shit-stain on the discarded underwear of humanity.

Oops.

Just lovely

Once in power, the American Communist Party starts to stick it's fingers everywhere.

Washington —- The House passed legislation Friday aimed at restraining compensation for corporate executives by letting shareholders take an annual advisory vote on their pay.

Shareholder advocates believe that "say on pay" votes would discourage boards of directors from approving lavish compensation packages for top executives.

"The CEOs don't own the company," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the bill's chief sponsor, said during the debate. "The shareholders own the company" and deserve an opportunity to speak out on management's pay, he said.

You're right, Bawney Fwank, the CEO's don't own the company. They're simple the ones who are IN CHARGE OF RUNNING THE COMPANY AND MAKING SHAREHOLDERS MONEY!

The GOC has his own suggestion, and I think it's a good one.

Limit CEO pay? Let's limit congressional pay. Bastards!

Sounds good to me. Let's start cutting the pay of all those bastards on Capitol Hill. Every last corrupt son-of-a-bitch who's currently sitting in Congress, let's take 25% right off the top. They vote themselves a pay raise every year, don't they? So why don't we take Bawney Fwank's suggestion and apply it to our representatives?

Fair is fair, right?

By the way, the GOC is where I got my latest desktop picture.

Professor threatens herself

What a bizarre world we inhabit.

Sheriff's investigators arrested and charged a Calhoun Community College instructor (Penelope Blankenship) with making a terrorist threat against herself following the Virginia Tech massacre.

She's accused of leaving threatening voice mail messages against herself. The messages made reference to Monday's Virginia Tech massacre, saying "you next," according to a campus police report.

Campus police also received a threatening phone call in connection with the same incident.

The caller was initially identified as a former student of Blankenship's, but further investigation indicated that the calls came from Blankenship herself, through Calhoun's switchboard to campus security and to her own voice mail, investigators said.

Irony: Blankenship is a Criminal Justice instructor.

More irony, from the Calhoun CC website:



Showing the students how to print a suspect? LOL

And lastly, just a bit more irony from Blankenship's RateMyProfessor.com page:



"Experience", indeed. As for sharing stories, she'll have a doozie for next semester.

AP Wire | 04/21/2007 | Calhoun instructor accused of threatening voice mail

Pant Gasp Wheeze

Just got done with a HAZMAT class. Day-um. My brain is cooked. I have an event tonight, then military crap all this weekend. I may just get a day to myself sometime NEXT weekend, if I'm lucky.

So pardon me if I haven't posted much. I haven't had time to sit down, much less get online. So, in the spirit of giving you all at least one thing to look at, here's my offering: Never be afraid to say what you feel.

Only in America?

Not

Lamenting America

The Philadelphia Inquirer must have had an internal contest to ferret out the best weeper among its editorial staff. Excerpting:

Obviously we need to work on our behavior and international image.

This piece should be called "Ode to Self-Loathing" : Editorial | Letter to South Korea | Inquirer | 04/20/2007

We are dismayed that you worry about a misdirected backlash against your citizens who have emigrated here. Most of us would like to think America is better than that. But we also recall that, after 9/11, some ignorant people attacked Sikh Americans in the preposterous belief that their turbans marked them as members of al-Qaeda.

"Misdirected backlash"

Remember when thousands marched in Seoul to advocate throwing the US military out of South Korea after some soldiers in an American military vehicle accidentally struck and killed some Korean schoolgirls?

Dave

This one will make you nuts.

A Star for Forest

Well-deserved, in my opinion.

Forest Whitaker gets Walk of Fame star

What will happen if the Left gets their way.

Via Michelle Malkin.

My friend Sadeq, who has worked hard for years to make his home nice for his wife and children, lost all his possessions, but fortunately not his family, when a terrorist drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the garage beneath his Baghdad apartment house and detonated it while he was at work. We took up a collection to help him, but being the ever-classy guy he is, Sadeq refused to accept the money, even when I tried stuffing it into his pocket. A year before his home was destroyed, Sadeq was wounded by a sectarian killer who brutally shot him in the back. Still, Sadeq continues working tirelessly to build a future for his family. But there likely will be no future for either him or his family if the American Left and Democratic Party succeed in affecting a premature troop withdrawal from Iraq. Because of his history of working for American companies, Sadeq will likely be hunted down and murdered by terrorists if Iraq is abandoned before law and order is established.

My dearest friend, (more of a brother to me), Amin, has been very lucky. Smart, brave, loyal and cool under pressure, at the height of Iraq's violence he stared down death many times and survived. Since the Bush security plan has significantly quieted Baghdad's streets, I fear much less for his life. But if the American Left and the Democratic Party get their way and Iraq is abandoned, I am almost certain that he will be quickly hunted down and killed.

Go read the whole thing: Hypocrisy has a Human Price.

Ouch

Mrs. du Toit had a few words for an asshatted reporter in the White House Press Corps. Tim placed his bet yesterday on how long it would take before a Democrat American Communist tried to use the tragedy as an excuse for gun control.

Well Tim, how does "less than 24 hours" strike you?

Oh, by the way - the shooter? Not even a US Citizen.

The police department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on Tuesday morning identified the gunman who killed at least 30 people Monday as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old undergraduate senior majoring in English.

Cho, who is thought to have killed himself at the end of the shooting rampage in Norris Hall, was a South Korean national and resident alien from Centreville, Va., about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C. in Fairfax County and adjacent to Dulles Airport and the Manassas Civil War battlefields.

(emphasis mine)

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you're a US citizen, it's illegal to possess a weapon in America, right? So tell me just how all the gun-control laws in this case helped prevent the tragedy? This guy wasn't supposed to have a gun in the first place, and yet still got one. Tell me how more laws would help? It looks like there are exceptions to a resident alien owning a firearm, but none of those exceptions look like they apply to Cho.

Anywho, go read the Mrs.

I've been busy

If my wife and I didn't have meals together as often as possible, she might be putting out "Missing Person" flyers around the neighborhood. I vaguely remember what my bed looks like.

But sometimes it's worth it.


Some of you military types may recognize that photo. For those who aren't military, that is a funeral detail firing team at "Present Arms". In short, we're saluting with our rifles.

The funeral was for a Gulf War vet, who died rather young. He was the brother of a fellow NCO at my unit, and it was an honor to give him his final sendoff.

I've also been ass deep in other jobs as well. So if I don't post very often, forgive me.

Gun Rights Flashback

YouTube - Suzanne Hupp on gun control

Gun Control at VT

Here it is:

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
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Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
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Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit. Some gun owners questioned the university's authority, while the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police came out against the presence of guns on campus.
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In June, Tech's governing board approved a violence prevention policy reiterating its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus facilities.

My God.

Gun bill gets shot down by panel - Roanoke.com

Place your bets

How long before a Congressional Democrat cites the shootings at Virginia Tech as justification for "gun control"?

Tick...tock...tick...tock...