Friday, April 18, 2008
Face of Defense: Soldier ‘Pays It Forward’ to Help Others
“I’ve had some ups and downs being of Islam faith, especially during 9/11, because many people tried to categorize all Muslims with the ones who carried out those attacks,” said Atlas, who is now married with three children. “I think I’ve been able to change those beliefs in many of the people I have come across by giving Islamic cultural awareness classes and letting them know what we do and what we believe, as opposed to what they have seen on TV.”
The command sergeant major of Task Force 12 here saw the opportunity presented by Atlas’ willingness to explain his faith. The soldiers who attended that class got more information about Islamic cultures and now are able tell their friends the difference between a regular person of Islamic faith and an Islamic extremist...
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America Supports You: Actor Honored for Exceptional Public Service
For his contributions to the men and women of the armed forces, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England presented Ben Stein with the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Exceptional Public Service Award during a ceremony at the Pentagon. [snip]
“My work is incredibly trivial and unimportant compared with their work,” Stein said. “My whole 63 years, [what I’ve done is] not as important as what a man or a woman going out on patrol in Basra or Ar Ramadi or An Nasiriyah does in five minutes, maybe five seconds.”
One of his latest public acts of gratitude to the military is the book “The Real Stars.” It’s an answer to a question Stein, who has a home in Malibu, Calif., hears frequently regarding living among the real stars. His answer to askers is that he doesn’t live among the real stars, but highly paid entertainers.
[cool dude]
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Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots
For everyone who thinks the US foreign policy has had no effect, consider this: In the summerof 2003, prior to my posting to Iraq, I went to Kuwait to cover its national elections. The shorthand as I wrote on July 4, 2003, was this:
There are about 2.1 million people here, of whom about 1 million are citizens but only about 120,000 of those are permitted to vote. No women are among them. Got that? 2003. 2.1 million people. No women could vote. Pretty typical of the Persian Gulf States back in the day.
Since that time, women have been granted the right to vote in Kuwait (as well as most of the other countries) and, more that than, women have been appointed Ministers of Cabinet-level Departments. I bring this up because on Friday I was invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony of a career Foreign Service Officer to be the new US Ambassador to Kuwait.
The new Ambassador's name is: Deborah K. Jones.
Five years ago, the suggestion that the United States - or any other nation - would dare to send a female Ambassador to a Gulf State would have been laughable...
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Carter's confusion
When Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, he no doubt believed he could reason with him because he also no doubt believed that the Fuhrer -- whatever his grievances or ambitions -- was a reasonable man like himself. What this leaves out is ideology. Hitler's ideas inspired millions to fight and die for the glory of the Third Reich. And Marxist/ Leninist/ Stalinist/Maoist ideology inspired millions to fight and die for the illusion of a communist utopia.
The ideology of Hamas derives from something more enduring than Mein Kampf, Das Kapital and the sayings of Chairman Mao. It is rooted in a 1,400-year-old religion. Hamas proudly proclaims that "the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration." Hamas leaders promise their followers not just rewards here on Earth but in the next world as well -- a selling point neither Nazism nor communism could offer. [snip]
Does Carter sincerely think he can convince Mashaal to reject such ideas and embrace the Carter Center's kumbaya mission of "waging peace and building hope?'' Does he really believe he can change Mashaal's mind, much less open his heart?
If so, Carter is as clueless now as he was almost 30 years ago when, on his watch as president, the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran, seized America's embassy, held our diplomats hostage and sat back to watch Carter do nothing effective in response.
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North American Union: Conspiracy or Cover-Up?
By definition, conspiracies are usually secret. There's nothing secret about right-wingers organizing to criticize the Clintons and their goals, and there's nothing secret about plans to morph the United States into a North American Union.
To see what the elites are planning, you don't have peek through keyholes or plant a spy under the table. Just read their published reports. The report explains that the three SPP amigos at Waco "committed their governments" to "Building a North American Community" by 2010 with a common "outer security perimeter," "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico," allowing Mexican trucks "unlimited access," "totalization" of illegal immigrants into the U.S. Social Security system, and "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution. [snip]
The elites, however, must be feeling the heat. Following the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change the name of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the fourth annual SPP meeting to be held in New Orleans on April 21 will now be called the North American Leaders Summit, and the promoters of the TransTexas Corridor are trying to change its name to "regional loop."
The white paper explains that SPP's "design" is for the executive branch to exercise full "authority" to "enforce and execute" whatever is decided by a three-nation agreement of "civil service professionals" as though it were "law." That means evading treaty ratification and even congressional legislation and oversight...
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World's Oldest Tree Rewrites Climate History, Challenges Global Warming
The world's oldest tree has been found in Sweden, a tenacious spruce that first took root just after the end of the last ice age, more than 9,500 years ago.
The tree has rewritten the history of the climate in the region, revealing that it was much warmer at that time and the ice had disappeared earlier than thought. [...]
It had been thought that this region was still in the grip of the ice age but the tree shows it was much warmer, even than today, [Prof Leif Kullman at Umeå University] says.
“The summers 9,500 years ago were warmer than today...
So, as a result of this find, we now know that summers in Sweden were warmer than today...even after all that awful carbon dioxide that man has released into the atmosphere in the past couple of centuries.
Yes, I'm sure media will be all over this story in the coming days...
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Time Tramples Iwo Jima Image to Push 'War on Global Warming'
In our nation's history, there are few images more heroic, more sacred in a civil sense, than that of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. Time has now twisted, and enlisted, that image for its "war on global warming."
"People trust us to make decisions. We're experts in what we do. So I thought, you know what, if we really feel strongly about something let's just say so."
Time editor Rick Stengel, making his regular Thursday appearance on Morning Joe to tout the week's cover story, naturally thought it was a wonderful idea. He also explained why Time decided to editorialize in favor of a "massive" effort to combat global warming.
View video here.
['tramples' strikes me as an overreaction, but the media war is certainly continuing - and I thought professional journalists were supposed to inform so that we could reach our own decisions. guess not]
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UPDATE:
Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover
[ok, perhaps I was wrong on 'trampled' being excessive...]
The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree. The cover story by Bryan Walsh calls green “the new red, white and blue.” [snip]
According to the American Veterans Center (AVC), Mates served in the 3rd Marine Division and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, landing on Feb. 24, 1945. [snip]
“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates said. “Whoever did it is going to hell. Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was erroneous and disrespectful.
“The second world war we knew was there,” Mates said. “There’s a big discussion. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.”
Lt. John Keith Wells, the leader of the platoon that raised the flags on Mt. Suribachi and co-author of “Give Me Fifty Marines Not Afraid to Die: Iwo Jima” wasn’t impressed with Time’s efforts.
“That global warming is the biggest joke I’ve ever known,” Wells told the Business & Media Institute. “[W]e’ll stick a dadgum tree up somebody’s rear if they want that and think that’s going to cure something.”
[you have to admit 'the greatest generation' retains its eloquence... I stand corrected: those Time guys are weenies {green weenies?}]
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A Special Report from BMI: Global Warming Censored
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ECONOMIC HYSTERIA
The focus of the gloomy economic news is on a "credit crisis" or "financial crisis." Yet postwar U.S. financial crises have never resulted in economic disaster:
• Think of the savings & loan (S&L) crisis of 1986-1995 -- a period that also saw Black Monday (Oct. 19, 1987), when Dow stocks fell 22.6 percent.An April 6 New York Times piece ("Almost as if The Sky Were Falling," on stock prices) claimed that the "focal point for the stock market's difficulties" is that "banks have been reluctant to lend money to one another, or to anyone else." However:
• The S&L crisis lasted from 1986 to 1995, and was undoubtedly the worst U.S. financial crisis since World War II.
• Yet the real economy grew by 2.9 percent a year over that period.
• If banks have been reluctant to lend money to one another, then interest rates on such loans wouldn't have fallen to 2.6 percent from 5.3 percent a year earlier.Some papers can't get anything right, says Reynolds.
• And if banks were reluctant to lend to "anyone else," then bank loans wouldn't have increased by 8 percent (as Fed data say they have) since last August, when the mortgage crisis first emerged.
[some papers don't want to get it right]
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Back to the Future
March marked the 25th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s speech that launched the Strategic Defense Initiative program, one that hoped to create a defensive space shield from incoming nuclear missiles. From nearly the moment that President Reagan’s nationally televised speech ended that March 23rd night, he faced derision and ridicule from the left.
Like many visionaries, President Reagan had his detractors, especially in the press. Some referred to SDI as “fantasy,” the stuff of Buck Rogers. Some even began calling the president “Ray guns.” [snip]
Perhaps the most sublime weapon ever created by humankind, the Pentagon's ray gun featured on the March 2 episode of “60 Minutes” does not kill. Instead, the Active Denial System zaps humans with a 100,000-watt ray that, when used as intended, leaves its targets in retreat, unharmed, and in some instances laughing...
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