Don't Know Much About History

The Civil War In Four Minutes.



CWCID: Tigerhawk

With Fans Like Hugo...

On the lighter side, Jack Fowler has this post at The Corner:

It All Comes Down to Baseball
Chavez Demands Pope Apologize for Indian Comments
Hugo must be a Tribe fan, po'ed that Benedict roots for the Padres and Cardinals.

Let's Row?

Mark Steyn provides an update on the efforts to build a pathetic memorial to the Flight 93 passengers:

"Five and a half years on, the only good news on the 9/11 memorials is that they're not (yet) Islamic Education Centers funded by Saudi princes. Nonetheless, Jonathan V Last's account of the Flight 93 memorial's "progress" makes very sobering reading. A combination of bureaucratic process and our contemporary culture's default mode of tasteful passivity has brought about something that's more or less the precise opposite of what Flight 93 embodies:

Part of the Bowl is designated "Wetlands": "The area will be its own kind of healing landscape, as it will be a habitat full of life. . . . Here visitors will be most aware of continuously connected living systems as the circular path literally bridges the hydrology of the Bowl."

The architects proclaimed that their plan was for a "living memorial" that "offers the visitor space for reflection, learning, social interaction, and healing."

All that plus wind chimes. A true Flight 93 memorial would honor courage, action and improvisation, but reflection, healing and wetlands are the best we can manage. Go to any Civil War memorial on any New England common, and marvel at how they managed to honor their dead without wetlands and wind chimes."

The Flight 93 passengers epitomized the national characteristics to which we used to aspire. When they recognized the dangerous situation they were in the passengers organized and attacked the hijackers in an attempt to save not only themselves but also their fellow countrymen.

Since we, as a nation, seem to be intent on removing anything resembling courage and self reliance from our national character, perhaps would should just raise a single flag pole on the memorial site and fly a white flag from it.

Not Fade Away

I believe it has long been a standing tradition for former U.S. presidents to gracefully leave the world stage after their time in office, to write their memoirs and to, above all, refrain from engaging in policy debates with or about the current president. This is how the United States, for over two hundred years, has shown the rest of the world that power can be peacefully transfered from one administration to another. And apparently, someone forgot to tell former President Carter.

While I once admired President Carter and actually met him on two occasions, I no longer find him or his opinions praiseworthy. Quite the contrary, Jimmy Carter now seems to be a bitter, old man who takes a great deal of money from questionable Arab contributors, makes anti-Semetic remarks and has recently said about President Bush "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." Carter went on to criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Camp David Accords ended all the problems of the Middle East - didn't they?

For someone who is going down in history as one of the worst U.S. presidents ever to be so critical of another president is just unseemly.

Heelllloooo Oooouuuutttt Thhhheeerrreeee.......

Is anybody out there even taking notice of our record setting stock markets? This news story definitely doesn't seem to be getting the attention that it deserves:

"The Dow Jones industrial average registered its 24th record close this year and the Standard & Poor's 500 index came within striking distance of its record high."

And the current Congress is trying their best to rescind the Bush tax cuts.

Unbelievable.

Tax cuts - they work every time they're tried. According to Ed Morrisey:

"The tax cuts sparked an economic expansion that continues to this day, one which has increased revenues to the federal government by 22% since their full implementation. The lower rates improved capital investment in the economy, created jobs and lowered unemployment to 4.5%, and expanded prosperity.

What has been the Democratic response? Not only to raise taxes back to the pre-expansion level, but to add even more federal spending on top of it. It envisions a 5% increase over FY 2007 spending just to start. That's the largest single-year increase since 2002, and it comes on the compounded increases of 3-4% year-on-year of the Republican Congresses of the Bush term. It represents a whopping 40% increase from FY 2000, when the budget came in at $2.1 trillion.

The current Congressional leadership doesn't want people to think that they're raising taxes. If not, where do they expect to get the money for the federal budget expansion? They will take capital out of the marketplace, where it creates and maintains jobs and production, and stick it into a federal system which burdens both -- creating an even greater need for federal spending on entitlements and welfare.

This budget shows that while Republicans spent like drunken sailors, they managed to avoid picking pockets like Fagan's ring of young thieves while doing so. The Democrats want to give us both."

Quote Of The Day

"The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage."
- Thucydides (471 BC - 400 BC)

The Fredralist Papers

Fred Thompson has issued another one of his position papers which will henceforth be know here as "The Fredralist Papers". This one is about that humorously titled piece of legislation "The Fairness Doctrine" - which is anything but.

"Insiders say it was the collapse of the radio station “Air America” that led to this attempt to retool the Fairness Doctrine as a form of de facto censorship. I guess the idea is that, if you can’t compete in the world of ideas, you pass a law that forces radio stations to air your views. In effect, it would force a lot of radio stations to drop some talk show hosts — because they would lose money providing equal airtime to people who can’t attract a market or advertisers.

The funny thing is that the success of the current crop of radio talk show hosts is due, in part, to a lot of people’s perception that broadcast television doesn’t give the views of their audience a fair shake. Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, since I dabble in radio myself, but this media used to be viewed as a kind of broadcast ghetto. The bicoastal elite had such a grip on the major newspapers and television networks; they pretty much ignored the hinterlands. It was media flyover country.

Now congressional leaders say they want to “level the playing field” there too — meaning they want to diminish the importance of conservative talk radio. In other words, they don’t trust the results of freedom and the marketplace. Why am I not surprised?"

Fred Thompson Daily Update

"Fred Thompson not only doesn't add cream or sugar to his coffee, he doesn't add water."

Dehumanizing The Enemy

Tigerhawk, always a thought provoking commentator, has outdone himself with a recent post entitled "On dehumanizing the enemy in war and the nature of victory".

This post as well as the comments to it are well worth your time.

Amnesty

I do not understand the united stance Congress and the White House have taken with regards to Immigration Reform. They are in the process of handing over sections of our country to people who came here illegally, are not citizens and do not belong here. Why are these people allowed to go to the "head of the line" just because they are here? Send them back to where they came from and let them apply for citizenship legally. Then secure the boarders and do not ever let this happen again.

How does our nation benefit by making these people citizens? Doesn’t this amnesty just encourage more illegal immigration? When will this idiocy end?

The politicians that are involved in this effort need to be held accountable for their actions. Any government that can not secure its own boarders and/or refuses to do so fails one of its principal reasons for existence and should be replaced – without exception.

Quote Of The Day

"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
- General William Tecumseh Sherman

So, How Were Your First 100 Hours?

Matt Drudge is reporting that Nancy Pelosi is threatening to change a House Rule which has been in effect, unaltered, since 1822. While it may be a little early in the news cycle to be overly critical, I think Speaker Pelosi may be finding out first hand how difficult it can truly be to actually govern.

PELOSI LOWERS THE BOOM
Wed May 16 2007 14:43:59 ET

After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority. The Democratic Leadership is threatening to change the current House Rules regarding the Republican right to the Motion to Recommit or the test of germaneness on the motion to recommit. This would be the first change to the germaneness rule since 1822. In protest, the House Republicans are going to call procedural motions every half hour. Developing...

Quote Of The Day - Mothers Day Edition

In honor of Mothers Day, you get a two for one Quote Of The Day.

What harried mother has never felt this way?

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."
- Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997)

And now, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"Sometimes when I look at my children I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin."
- Lillian Carter, mother of Jimmy and Billy

Miss Lillian, we wish you had stayed a virgin too.

Happy Mothers Day!

A Happy Mothers Day to all of you Mothers out there, female or not.

You know who you are.

Don't Bury Your Heads In The Sand

I tried to extract a quote from Mohammed’s post at Iraq The Model but just couldn’t do it. So, here is the post in its eloquent entirety:

"I had said it over and over again that some of us in Iraq and America are sending wrong messages to the terrorists and the dictators behind them; in fact I wasn't surprised when I saw Zawahiri appear on al-Jazeera to announce America's defeat, not long after Reid did.

Zawahiri claims al-Qaeda has won and Reid claims America has lost but I see only a war that's still ongoing and I see no victory for al-Qaeda or any other entity. On the contrary I see that al-Qaeda has the shortest stick.

We are going through a fierce war and sending more wrong messages could only further complicate an already complicated situation and create more mess that would be exploited by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for their own purposes—more iron-fist control on the peoples and treasures of the region and pushing the middle east to crises and confrontations with the world not forgetting spreading their dark, backward ideologies.

The American forces should stay in Iraq and yes, reinforcements should be sent if the situation required. Not only that, these forces should be prepared to expand their operations whenever and wherever necessary in the region to strike hard on the nests of evil that not only threaten the middle east but seeking to blackmail the whole world in the ugliest way through pursuing nuclear weapons in a feverish desire to destroy themselves along with everyone else. It's a delusional obsession with power derived from the false belief that only they possess absolute justice while denying the right to exist to anyone who disagrees with them.

We must keep fighting those criminals and tyrants until they realize that the freedom-loving peoples of the region are not alone. Freedom and living in dignity are the aspirations of all mankind and that's what unites us; not death and suicide. When freedom-lovers in other countries reach out for us they are working for the future of everyone tyrants and murderers like Ahmedinejad, Nesrallah, Assad and Qaddafi must realize that we are not their possessions to pass on to their sons or henchmen. We belong to the human civilization and that was the day we gave what we gave to our land and other civilizations. They can't take out our humanity with their ugly crimes and they can't force us to back off. The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so.

The cost of liberating Europe was enormous in blood and treasure and thereafter it took half a century of American military presence to protect Europe's nations from subsequent threats—now if that made sense during a cold war, and it did, then I don't understand why would anyone demand a pullout from Iraq (and maybe later the middle east) when the enemies are using every evil technique, from booby trapped dead animals to hijacked civilian aircrafts to kill us and destroy the human civilization.

Yes my friends, I will call for war just as powerfully the bad guys do and I must show them that I'm stronger than they are because those do not understand the language of civilization and reason. They understand only power, and with power they took over their countries and held their peoples hostages. Everything they accomplished was through absolute control over the assets of their nations through murder, torture, repression and intimidation.

The policy of the United States and her allies needs to adjust to make better use of the energy God-or nature or whatever you name it-blessed them with. We need to see a firm policy not afraid of making tough decisions replace the Byzantine debate of withdrawal. This became America's destiny the day it became a superpower. A destiny to show responsibility toward her own people and toward the world, and running away from this responsibility won't do any good.

Otherwise those who prefer to bury their heads in the dirt today will be cursed forever for abandoning their duty when they were most capable. I don't understand why someone who has all the tools for victory would refuse to fight the enemy that reminds us every day that it's evil with all the daily beheadings, torture and violations of all humane laws and values.

Some will keep on blaming America and her policies and they will consider anything America did and does wrong whether America stayed or left, fought or ran away, negotiated or boycotted. There will always be those who blame America for everything that goes wrong in this world but that doesn't mean America has to listen to them. America instead should listen to the spirit of America and what it stands for.

Reaping the fruit won't be today, it will be in the future after patience and great fighting."