Yes, this country has absorbed huge migrations of illiterate peasants in the past -- notably Italian immigrants at the turn of the last century. But also notably, half of them went back. We got the good ones. America was not yet a welfare state guaranteeing room and board to the luckless, the lazy and the incompetent from cradle to grave. -- Ann Coulter
Saddam Should Have Thought Twice: Saddam may have just made the biggest mistake of his life...
Here is the relevant text of the latest UN resolution...
"8. Decides further that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or the IAEA or of any Member State taking action to uphold any Council resolution."
Today, Iraq deliberately violated that part of the UN resolution...
"U.S. and British warplanes bombed a radar site in southern Iraq Friday after Iraq fired at warplanes patrolling a no-fly zone, the Pentagon said.
...President Bush and other U.S. officials have said they believe that Iraq's firing on coalition planes patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones would violate the latest U.N. resolution."
Hold on to your hats folks, I think we're about to go to war.
"Iraq fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns at American and British warplanes patrolling a "no-fly" zone Friday -- a move the U.S. considers to be a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.
A material breach must be reported to the Security Council for new debate and could be used as possible justification for U.S.-led military action to remove Saddam's government.
State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said the United States had the option of reporting the Iraqi firing to the Security Council but had not decided whether to do so."
If they decide not to reconvene the UN Security Council, GWB must be 100% confident that Iraq is going to breach the resolution in December when our troops will be better positioned. Personally, I'd still like to see us call Saddam on this one. Zero Tolerance should mean zero tolerance...
***Update #2***: Iraq's violations continue but it looks as if we're not going to call them on it at the UN Security Council...yet. From Yahoo...
"U.S. and British warplanes on Sunday attacked air defense targets in a northern "no-fly" zone of Iraq in response to what the U.S. military said were attempts to shoot down the aircraft. Rumsfeld said those continuing attempts violated the U.N. resolution, but he stopped short of suggesting the United States would carry the issue to the Security Council.
"The resolution addresses the subject and it's up to the Security Council and member states to make the conclusion on what is, or is not, in material breech. My impression is that they will look for a pattern of behavior."
"... And yet they don't get it. All of these folks who think we need to understand the point of view of the terrorists and rethink our strategies - they don't get it. If they walked up to Ahmed-the-Islamaic-Jihadist, the conversation might go something like this:
Ahmed: Hello.
Joe-Liberal: Hello there oppressed multi-ethnic villager. My name is Joe and I want you to know that, as an American citizen, I understand your plight. I want to understand your point of view and feel your pain as my government and the government of Israel have oppressed you and your children.
Ahmed: Excuse me, did you say you were American?
Joe-Liberal: Yes, and I understand that-
*BAM*
Ahmed: Hey! Hey! I just killed an American! Ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay. *throws candy to small children*"
If you liked that little quip, make sure to bookmark Dever's page so you can go back there and listen to his internet radio show every Thursday. I've listened to it and it's actually pretty good...
Where I Stand: Rather than write an editorial this week, I decided to state my position on a lot of the major issues of the day along with a brief explanation so people can see where at least one Conservative stands on the issues. (Cont)
The Democratic Underground Post Of The Day: This quote about the war on terrorism from the Democratic Underground by someone called ElementaryPenguin, was so mind-bogglingly idiotic, I felt the need to give it a post of its own. This just blew me away...
ElementaryPenguin:"You don't get it, do ya, dukota?? The only real war presently being waged is between the haves and the have-nots - those who have a formal military representing their interests - and those who do not! Assuming that you are a member of the American public who does NOT belong to the Carlyle Group, or any other large defense contractor, is not an American Oil company executive, a major media executive, or are among the wealthiest 1/2 of 1 percent of Americans - you fall decidedly into the HAVE NOT (cannon fodder) category. It isn't groups like Al-Qaida that are your primary enemy, my friend, it is the Bush Crime Family Evil Empire War Machine - the one that has taken over your government through a ruthlessly planned and executed coup de'tat, that is in position to cause you infinitely more harm!! The 21st century appears to be boiling down to a final, Armageddon-like confrontation between the high-tech weaponery of the world's most powerful fossil fuel pushers -and the rest of the relatively primative, "defenseless" mankind, who comprise its vast majority. "
No wonder so many Democrats are ready to give up on the war on terrorism, they need to save their strength to fight the real enemy, the "Bush Crime Family Evil Empire War Machine."
You know something funny? When I read Counterpunch, Bartcop, Warbloggerwatch, The Yellow Times, Buzzflash, Maureen Dowd, Ted Rall, etc -- I get the feeling that if you asked them off the record, they'd agree with this nut for the most part. Ok, ok, they probably wouldn't be quite as rabid, but they all seem a lot more concerned about George Bush than the people who want to kill us all.
Seriously, go check out some of these web pages and see how many articles they have about actually winning the war on terrorism and about the threat terrorists present to our nation and how many articles they have that are dedicated to attacking the "fascist", "racist", "imperialist", "warmongering", Bush administration "Nazis". Notice who they seem to be desperately afraid of (George Bush) and who they sort of shrug their shoulders about (al-Queda, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the rest of the global terrorist network). If you say that the left isn't serious about the war on terrorism, expect to get a huffy reaction similar to the one Tom Daschle gave on the floor of the Senate a few weeks before the election. But the truth is, if you look at these left-wing websites and the overwhelming majority of left-wing columnists (w/ a handful of exceptions), they don't seem all that concerned about terrorism. I think that's more than a case of misplaced priorities, I think that's a shame.
A Ridiculous Anti-Gun Decision: A Florida jury has awarded a widow of a teacher 1.2 million dollars from a gun distributor after her husband was shot and killed by a teenager. What's the rational behind this ridiculous decision? Well according to the jury, the gun company distributed a gun that was "unsafe, defective and lacked features that would have prevented a minor from using it."
Here's a few questions for the idiotarians on the jury...
Which features does a knife have that "would have prevented a minor from using it?" If this kid had stabbed his teacher to death with a knife, should the knife manufacturer have been held responsible? What if the kid had deliberately ran the teacher down with a car or beaten him to death with a bat, should their manufacturers be sued because they didn't have features that "would have prevented a minor from using it?"
Oh but it gets better....
"The jury didn't find any liability for Nathanial Brazill, who pulled the trigger. Brazill stole the unloaded gun and bullets from a cookie tin stashed away in a dresser drawer of family friend Elmore McCray."
The jury is apparently from some bizarro world where gun manufacturers are held responsible for murders while the people who pull the trigger are treated as blameless. Hopefully, the judges reviewing this when it's appealed won't be residents of cloud cuckooland as well and this oddball verdict will be overturned on appeal.
Don't Mess With Veterans And Keep Your Political Correctness To Yourself
Don't Mess With Veterans And Keep Your Political Correctness To Yourself: On Monday, I wrote about how, "the city of San Pedro and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn (were) blocking the showing of the film "Tora, Tora, Tora" on Pearl Harbor Day because it "would have been insensitive to the Japanese-American community."
Hahn in particular was tossing out politically correct nonsense like it was going out of style. Here's a perfect example...
"I wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community,” Hahn said. “Dec. 7 is a tough day, especially for the second and third generations of Japanese-Americans. Why do we want to do something that makes it more difficult?”
Well a lot of people wrote about this and a gaggle of radio talkshow hosts have apparently weighed in as well and Hahn is backing off at about a hundred miles hour. Just look at these quotes from Hahn in an article in today's LA Daily News...
"I am very upset," said Councilwoman Hahn, who now says veterans were mistreated by officials from the Warner Grande. "We found it wasn't booked.
"This group, in my opinion, was treated unfairly by a city employee of a city facility ... I think there needs to be some disciplinary action, to send a message to all city employees: We cannot treat different groups differently."
Suddenly we now have, "Councilwoman Hahn, champion of veterans who have been mistreated by government!" It wouldn't surprise me if she showed up at the show on Pearl Harbor day just to show those, "political correct government bureaucrats that they can't push veterans around when Janice Hahn is on the case" (yes, the city caved and is the show is on).
When it was all said and done, political correctness lost, veterans won, the American public showed they still cared, and the politicians involved were willing to weasel dance like their lives depended on it rather than get on the wrong side of the voters. In case there was ever any doubt, this story proves that not only can "you fight city hall," you can beat them in a knock-out if you're in the right and you can get your story out there.
U.N. Protects Sea Horses, Ignores Sea Monkeys: (2002-11-14) -- The United Nations voted this week to protect Sea Horses, and several other species, but again ignored the plight of the Sea Monkey.
"We're not asking for much," said an unnamed Sea Monkey, whose cranial stalks give the appearance of a crown. "We just want some affirmation that we matter. And, we want the U.N. to make it illegal to flush our people down the toilet when the water starts to smell."
The Sea Monkey, standing with his wife and two children in front of their small castle, said humans who buy Sea Monkeys are often disappointed by how small they are and how much they look like ordinary brine shrimp.
"Some blame the magazine ads for building false expectations," he said, "but I think it's intolerance and racism of the worst sort. It's just the kind of thing that the United Nations was created to prevent."
If you liked this piece of satire by Scott Ott, check out more of his work at Scrappleface.
The Best Quotes From Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince'
The Best Quotes From Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince': In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a book on statecraft and the wielding of power called 'The Prince.' This almost 500 year old book which has just over 100 pages, has as much relevant information about foreign policy in it as you'll find on the shelves of your local bookstore. While not everything Machiavelli said can be directly applied to the situations we're dealing with today, a surprising amount of it can as long as you apply it to foreign policy. So read and enjoy... (Cont)
Politics Shouldn't Be A Lifetime Job: In America, becoming a Senator or congressman has become nothing more than just another job. That's because once someone gets into office, it's extraordinarily difficult to get rid of them. How bad is it? David Garrow cites a few statistics from the last election...
"In New Jersey, only one of 13 Congressional races was won with less than 60 percent of the vote. In New York State, it was only three of 29, while in Ohio it was only three of 18. In California, only Gary Condit's House seat was considered up for grabs; of the state's other 52 seats, 49 of them were won by a candidate who received 60 percent or more of the vote. Of Florida's 25 Congressional seats, only two were decided by anything closer than 60-40, notwithstanding a competitive race for governor. In Illinois only two of 19 races were tighter than 60-40. Michigan featured just two Congressional contests out of 15 that were closer than 60-40, while its gubernatorial winner won by only 51 percent of the vote. This pattern was seen all over the country.
The final tally was depressing indeed: only 39 of 435 House races were won with less than 55 percent of the vote. Even of the 49 races not involving an incumbent, 35 were won with 55 percent of the vote or more. Yet at the same time, real political competition was occurring just a few ballot lines away in the nation's gubernatorial elections and in many Senate races.
Why? Because those races could not be manipulated by redistricting to ensure a particular outcome. In 36 gubernatorial contests, only three were won by upward of 60 percent of the vote (in Colorado, Nebraska and Nevada) and 23 of the 36 races were won with less than 55 percent of the vote. Indeed, 20 of the 36 statehouses shifted from one party to another."
Although Farrow claims that the elections in the Senate featured "real political competition", that's not true. There were only 10 out of 34 races that had outcomes that were ever in doubt before the election. There are a variety of reasons why races in neither house tend to be competitive: gerrymandering, fund raising and name recognition advantages for incumbents, seniority rules enabling incumbents to bring home more bacon, etc.
To make a long story short, winning a seat in Congress means that in most cases you have a lifetime job. The situation isn't much different in the Senate where a horde of fossils have had seats for decades. Just look at this list of Senators who have been in office 25 YEARS or more...
Strom Thurmond -- Serving Since 1956
Robert Byrd -- Serving Since 1958
Edward Kennedy -- Serving Since 1962
Daniel K. Inouye -- Serving Since 1963
Ernest F. Hollings -- Serving Since 1966
Ted Stevens -- Serving Since 1968
Jessie Helms -- Serving Since 1973
Pete Domenici -- Serving Since 1973
Joseph Biden -- Serving Since 1973
Patrick Leahy - Serving Since 1975
Paul Sarbanes -- Serving Since 1977
Richard Lugar -- Serving Since 1977
Orrin Hatch -- Serving Since 1977
It's not healthy for our country to have people of either party making the position of Senator or congressman into just another job. Furthermore, it's not as if any of these people isn't EASILY replaceable. There are governors, mayors, state legislators, successful businessmen, and community leaders in every state of the union who would be capable of stepping up to fill these positions. So why not let them do so?
We need new faces & news ideas in Congress and there are at least two ways to do it. One is suggested by the article: take redistricting away from the politicians away from the politicians and draw districts based on a non-partisan basis. That will increase the number of competitive districts in the House dramatically. We also need to implement term limits. Perhaps 12 years for the Senate and 8 years for the house. That would help keep our politicians in touch and help keep America going strong.
The Smiling Bali Bomber: You're looking at the smiling face of the man who helped plant bombs that killed nearly 200 people at a nightclub in Bali. That cheerful grin isn't just a recent development either. Here are a few details from the article.
"Smiling and waving at reporters, a fresh-faced Indonesian who has admitted being one of the Bali bombers, on Wednesday told of his delight at the attacks and said he went sightseeing in the days before the blasts.
...Police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said Amrozi was not in Bali when the bombs exploded on the night of October 12, ripping through part of the famous Kuta Beach tourist district and killing nearly 200 people, many of them foreign tourists.
His work done, Amrozi had already gone back to his home village in East Java.
"After he was there, he heard on the radio there had been a bomb explosion in Bali. He said he felt delighted that his bomb had successfully exploded in Bali," Bachtiar told a news conference.
"He was certainly happy with the explosion, and hoped it was in accordance with the objective that had been hoped for."
The bombers wanted to kill as many Americans as possible, Amrozi has previously said, although Australians bore the brunt of the deaths among foreign tourists.
Aussies, Americans, we're all kaffirs right? It's not like he was killing Muslims so who cares? Apparently not Amrozi. He's cheerful now, he was probably cheerful when he went sightseeing the day before the bombing, and I'm sure he was happy as a clam when he planted the bomb at the nightclub. But he did offer an apology -- to his family -- he's sorry for getting them into this. But to the families of the people he killed? He had nothing to say to them.
Interestingly enough, SMH reveals an interesting comment by Amrozi that Reuters apparently didn't think was newsworthy...
"At one point, the Javanese mechanic pointed to Western journalists and said in Indonesian: "Those are the sorts of people that I wanted to kill."
After that comment, I think there are some poignant questions that need to be asked. For instance, "what did those reporters do to Amrozi to make him want to kill them?" They must have done something right? Isn't that the line of reasoning we've heard from some the anti-war crowd? Also, there are plenty of people in the anti-war left who have pointed out that America's foreign policy is to blame for the terrorists who want to kill us. So, "what is the foreign policy of the news agencies these reporters work for that has made this man want to kill them?" Noam Chomsky, Susan Sarandon, Woody Harrelson and the rest of the anti-war left, where are you on this one? We need you to ask all those tough questions to those Western reporters...
Saddam Says "Yes": There was some hope that Saddam would reject the UN resolution since the Iraqi 'Parliament' unanimously voted it down. But, apparently Saddam ordered them to reject the resolution and then accepted it because he thought it would give the impression that he was willing to cooperate with UN over the objections of his people. I doubt that even the left-wing European press will buy into that sort of thing but maybe Saddam is playing to the captive audiences in other Middle Eastern nations who'll be spoon-fed his missive with a positive spin via government controlled presses.
All of this is for show anyway. I don't think the Bush administration has any intentions of leaving Saddam in power no matter what happens nor should they. It also looks like Saddam is simply playing for time judging by the letter sent to the UN...
"We are eager to see them [the inspectors] perform their duties in accordance with international law," Al-Douri said. "We are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable."
In a letter from Baghdad accepting the terms, said Al-Douri, "We try to explain our position saying Iraq will not have mass destruction weapons. So we are not worried about the inspectors when they will be back in the country. Iraq is clean."
Of course, when the time comes, if Iraq claims they have no weapons of mass destruction, they'll be in breach of the UN Resolution when the inspectors almost immediately find something. There are actually a few possible triggers to an attack if you read through the resolution...
-- The first was saying "no" to the resolution. That was low-hanging fruit for Saddam and he has picked it.
-- Iraq has until Dec. 8th to provide the UN Security Council with a list of all the WMD & related dispersal systems they have. This is a biggie since Iraq is still to this day claiming that they don't have any weapons of mass destruction.
-- At the latest, UN inspectors have to start doing inspections in Iraq by Dec. 23rd. But Hans Blix says he's going to have an inspection team in Iraq by Nov. 18th (although when they'll actually start inspections is anyone's guess at this point). Then if Iraq impedes the inspectors who I'm sure will be given excellent info by US intelligence in any way, shape, or form then the Iraqis have violated the resolution. If the inspectors find anything that Iraq hasn't declared, then Iraq has violated the resolution.
-- Also, the inspectors have the right to remove Iraqis of interest and their family from Iraq for interviews. Here is the relevant text,
"further decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi Government"
If Iraq's government tries to stop them, they're triggering an invasion.
-- Part 8 of resolution can be read to forbid Iraq from firing on US/British planes enforcing the no fly zone. Here's the text...
"Decides further that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or the IAEA or of any Member State taking action to uphold any Council resolution."
If the Iraqis shoot at our planes again, they're triggering an invasion.
I actually would have liked to have seen an even tougher resolution that forbade Iraq from illegally trading oil, demanded they turn all terrorists within the country over to the UN, etc. But I have confidence that the Bush admin would have never signed on to this resolution if they thought there was any chance that Iraq was going to actually comply. My guess is that things will come to a head sometime in December and we'll be invading in late Dec - January.
We've already decided that Saddam has to go, so at this point we're just killing time until Iraq steps over the line on this resolution. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we dispense with this charade and get down to business, the better.
Detention Camp Waver: As all readers of Right Wing News know, there are definitely perks to being a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Here is another one...a detention camp waver created by RWN reader James Corbett...
If you're being rounded up like a common member of the Democratic Underground and taken to one of Ashcroft's internment camps, just flash this card and you'll be whisked away to one of our many luxury suites on the lost island of Atlantis where you'll sip Dom Perignon with Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham while one of our many Britney Spears clones gives you a back rub. Being a member of the VRWC is sweet indeed...
Its Just A Book!: This sort of thing just annoys me to no end...
"The ministry of The Jesus Party will host an Anti-Harry Potter Conference in the theatre room at the Ramada Inn at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14.
The Rev. Douglas Taylor, the ministry's director, extended an open invitation to concerned parents, school board members, teachers, librarians, bookstore owners, clergy and anyone who may have opposing views concerning the Harry Potter phenomenon.
The Jesus Party held a book-cutting in Kennedy Park last November on the eve of the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" movie debut. Taylor thought that it would be appropriate to once again rise to the occasion and hold a sequel to his Potter protest.
This week's anti-Potter event will take place on the eve of the release of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." A video produced by Jeremiah Films called "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged" will be shown on a giant screen."
Who are these people trying to reach with this sort of thing? I'm a Christian Conservative and even I think they're fruit loops. Oh and is a "book cutting" supposed to be better than a "book burning?" You know, it's not as if they can't just make more books. And out of all the things these people could protest, how did they pull Harry Potter out of a hat? I can imagine that conversation...
Rev. Douglas Taylor: We need to figure out something to protest....
Random Deacon From The Church: Ehr...why?
Rev. Douglas Taylor: It just seems like the right thing to do...
Random Deacon From The Church: Well how about starvation in Zimbabwe? Maybe we could do a can drive and figure out how to ship the food over there?
Rev. Douglas Taylor: No, I don't think that's it...
Random Deacon From The Church: Well what about the oppression of Christians in Saudi Arabia? I think it's terrible that they...
Rev. Douglas Taylor: I've got it! We'll protest Harry Potter!
Random Deacon From The Church: Uh...you mean the children's book? I understand that it might be upsetting that they're going to be deviating from the book more this time around than in the last movie but I hardly think that's a reason to protest.
Rev. Douglas Taylor: No, no -- the book is a tool of Satan! It promotes witchcraft!
Random Deacon From The Church: You know, I've been meaning to tell you -- I'm going to switching to that church over on Main street. You know the big one? So...
Rev. Douglas Taylor: We'll cut the book into little pieces! That'll show them all! BWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!!!
Random Deacon From The Church: (Backing out the door) Yeah Doug -- I'll see you around OK? Maybe at the grocery store?
Rev. Douglas Taylor: SNIP SNIP!! Little tiny pieces! SNIP SNIP!!
Come on, give the rest of us Christian Conservatives a break and stop running around and chopping up popular children's books. Find something better to do with your time.
Memo To All Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Members:
To: All members of the VRWC
From: VRWC VP Tom Delay
Concerning: Celebration Time!
It's been a great week to be a member of the VRWC! We won the elections, killed Saddam Hussein and replaced him with a cyborg double, and we just signed a deal with a deal with Ecuador that will guarantee we have enough child labor to build cheap handguns for every man, woman, and child in the United States. It doesn't get much better than that!
Since we won the election, I thought now would be a good time to let everyone know about a few exciting projects we have coming up...
-- We're planning to assassinate Simpsons creator Matt Groening for taking our theme song and giving it to the "Stonecutters." No one else takes credit for fixing the Oscars, no one!
-- Our science division has now modified a Predator drone to fire hundreds of rolls of toilet paper per minute. We're planning to "roll" the UN, followed by Yassir Arafat's compound, and then last but not least Cynthia McKinney's house. If you have any other suggestions, please drop them in the suggestion box next to the glass jar containing Osama Bin Laden's head.
-- We have yet to come up with a mind-control ray that can defeat those accursed tinfoil hats, but the science division hope to have something by the end of the year.
There are also a couple of concerns I felt that we needed to address...
-- We need to clone a woman other than Britney Spears people. The latest numbers from the lab show we have 1.6 Britney Spears clones for every male member. Haven't you guys heard of Jennifer Lopez, Anna Kournikova, Mariah Carey, Jeri Ryan, or Lucy Liu? There has to be another woman out there worth cloning!
-- Whoever has been "borrowing" saucer #3 and zooming those folks out in the mountains of Tennessee needs to stop goofing around before someone gets something on tape. It's all fun and games until the Weekly World News does another story and Donald Rumsfeld makes us put the saucers back in storage!
Last but not least...
The party at the island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle is on this week-end and yes the Star Trek style holosuites are finally online! We also finally caught a sasquatch, in fact, we think he's the LAST sasquatch! Our specially trained Britney Spears clones will be slicing and dicing him up and serving him with a delicious wine sauce while we watch members of al-Queda and Hamas battle to the death in a gladiator arena for our amusement. Be there or be square for the hottest VRWC party of the year!
Political Correctness Run Amuck: Uh-oh, political correctness is rearing it's ugly head again. This time we have the city of San Pedro and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn blocking the showing of the film "Tora, Tora, Tora" on Pearl Harbor Day because it "would have been insensitive to the Japanese-American community." They're trying to spin this away by now claiming that the theater is booked, etc, etc, but here's a snippet from the article that I believe highlights their real motivation...
"I wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community,” Hahn said. “Dec. 7 is a tough day, especially for the second and third generations of Japanese-Americans. Why do we want to do something that makes it more difficult?”...
...(V)olunteers said, city officials told them two weeks ago that the event couldn’t be held because it might be offensive to members of the Japanese-American community.
...Hahn, who was asked to intervene on the museum’s behalf to show the film on Dec. 7, said that after talking with Japanese-American friends, including state Assemblyman George Nakano, D-Torrance, she agreed with the city’s concerns.
...Hahn said she’s taken lots of heat for the decision, but still thinks the program would be inappropriate on the anniversary of the attack.
“People here lost their property, they lost their families, right here in San Pedro,” she said of the local Japanese-American community. “My father was a veteran of the war, and I was raised to be very supportive of veterans. I just wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community.”
Here we are on the day after Veterans Day reading about a City Councilwoman who is opposed showing a movie that even according to the article "is considered one of the most accurate depictions of events leading up to the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor" because she thinks it might be insensitive to Japanese-Americans.
The first problem with this is that she's talking about "Japanese-Americans." "Japanese-Americans" don't exist. There are Americans and people who are not Americans. The moment you become an American, the country you came from becomes irrelevant. Whether your ancestors came over on the Mayflower or you just became citizens five minutes ago, you are an American, no better and no worse than the rest of us. So whether your ancestors lived in Japan during WW2, in America, or eleswhere, if you're an American now, YOUR people were bombed at Pearl Harbor.
Furthermore, if someone else seeing a movie like "Tora, Tora, Tora" on Pearl Harbor Day of all days offends you, then you're just too sensitive. Maybe Hahn and the other people with her PC mentality should be more worried about offending vets who fought for our country and the people that support them than some undoubtedly infinitesimal subset of Americans with Japanese ancestry who might be offended by "Tora, Tora, Tora."
Helpful Hints For Democrats -- How To Win In 2004: After spending almost an entire week listening to the pitiful mewling of Democrats across the web about their losses in the 2002 elections, I've decided to help them out. I'm sure a lot of Conservatives will be very angry at me for giving the left lots of great advice, but it's the right thing to do. Here are the key things the left can do to take back the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2004.
1) Stand For Something: If the left had really talked up their great ideas in 2002 they would have energized their base and won huge. That's why the left can't afford to make the same mistake this time around. They've got to push reparations, demand a total ban on handguns, outlaw SUVS to raise fuel efficency, call for America to sign up for Kyoto, ask for socialized medicine, & send more congressmen and senators to Baghdad speak out against this filthy war. Replacing Gephardt with Nancy Pelosi was a great start, now they need to remove Daschle and put a real liberal fighter like Robert Byrd or Kennedy in charge of the Dems in the Senate. That would give Americans a real liberal agenda to vote for.
2) Tell The Truth About The GOP Menace: Did the GOP kill Carnahan, Wellstone, & Ron Brown and rig the elections in 2002? Judging by a lot of popular left-wing pages on the web, a significant part of the Democrat's base thinks so. That's why the left needs more leaders who'll put the word out about this sort of thing! It's not enough to have people like Ted Rall & Gore Vidal pushing these theories, the left needs John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and other Democratic leaders getting these conspiracies in front of the American people!
3) Al Gore in 2004!!!: Al Gore won in 2000 and the left needs to give him another shot to take out Bush in 2004. Just running Gore will energize the base and the American people will turn out in droves to right the wrongs of the 2000 election! Especially since Gore is now voting his conscience on the war and has gotten all "cool" now. He's going on Saturday Night Live you know and he just did Futurama! That's exactly what an Alpha Male would do!
4) Give The GOP Enough Rope To Hang Themselves: Left-wingers all know that if the GOP gets what they want, America will become a police state/theocracy/third world country by 2002. That's why the left should simply abstain on every vote. Then no one can blame the left for getting in the way of the way of the GOP agenda in 2004 and no one can hold the left responsible for what happens. That is political akido at its best!
As a Conservative, I certainly hope the left doesn't throw us into that briar patch...ehr...do all these things for the next two years or it'll be a huge sweep for the Democrats in 2004!
Contest Winners: I did a contest for webmasters on Friday. I asked them to guess the last two people I had interviewed. The answers were Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Milloy of Junk Science. Any webmaster who got one of my interviewees right, got a link on the main blog today. The winners were...
Kevin Holtsberry of Ideas, Inc & Tom Veal of Stromata. Do me a favor and give both their pages a look. I'd like to see both of them pick up at least a couple hundred hits.
The Steven Milloy interview is not going to be ready today. We did the interview by phone and unfortunately parts of it are fading out which is making it very difficult to transcribe. I'm should be to finish writing it up by tomorrow night and then I'll either see if I can talk Mr. Milloy into a giving me a bit more info on certain subjects or I'll go with what I have -- if I have enough. The interview was VERY educational so I definitely want to get this out to RWN's readers ASAP.
Happy Veterans Day: Something about Veterans Day always reminds me of Ronald Reagan. Maybe it's that a lot of words and concepts I associate with Reagan are also associated in my mind with our military and our veterans. Patriotism, strength, duty, honor, & love of country immediately come to mind when I think of Reagan or the people that have served our nation all the way from the Revolutionary War to the war in Afghanistan. To the veterans that have fought for our country and to those that continue to do so -- when Reagan said the following, he could have been talking directly to you...
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done"
Everyone who's served in the US military can genuinely say they've done their part to preserve "the last best hope of man on earth" and I for one sincerely appreciate it. To all the veterans out there who have served our country -- RWN salutes you!
New Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Membership Cards: After I welcomed Michele from a Small Victory to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, she came up with the idea of creating a VRWC membership card. You can see what some of them look like here.
Well today, one of our readers named James Corbett offered up a couple of smaller, alternate designs for VRWC cards.
These membership cards will get you into the Republican National convention, onto skull island (where we keep the clones, the aliens in jars, and the black helicopters), and these cards will keep you out of the detention camps we're setting up next month for all the liberals using provision A12B of the Patriot Act....
Wait a second...Kissenger is beeping me...one second....what? No...there's no reason why...but you said...no there's no need to send a Predator to hover over my apartment until I take out the trash I've got it, I've got it. Ok, I was just "kidding" about the detention camps -- OR WAS I? MUHUHAHAHAHAHAH -- d@mn -- Kissenger is beeping me again -- It was all a big joke. Forget about it......
The Latest Line From The Democrats: In Paul Krugman's Friday editorial he touches on a theme that I've heard repeatedly from Democrats since the election...
"It's not just Sept. 11. As Jonathan Chait points out in The New Republic, the Republicans also have a huge structural advantage. They can spend far more money getting their message out; when it comes to free publicity, some of the major broadcast media are simply biased in favor of the Republicans, while the rest tend to blur differences between the parties.
But that's the way it is. Democrats should complain as loudly about the real conservative bias of the media as the Republicans complain about its entirely mythical liberal bias; that will help them get their substantive message across. But first they have to have a message.
....Talk radio and Fox News let the hard right get its message out to its supporters, while those who oppose the juggernaut stay home because they don't get the sense that the Democrats offer a real alternative.
To have a chance of breaking through the wall of media blur and distraction, the Democrats have to get the public's attention — which means they have to stand for something."
I really like how Krugman blames the media for not getting the Dems message out while simultaneously complaining that the Dems don't have a message. Moreover, isn't it kind of ironic for a left-wing editorial writer with a regular gig in the New York Times to complain that the Dems have no way to get publicity?
Yes, the right has Fox News and talk radio (and within a few years, the population on the internet will be large enough to make a trifecta) -- but the left has ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, almost every paper in the country except the Washington Times. Would Krugman and the rest of the left be willing to trade?
Interviewed Again: Laurence Simon from Amish Tech Support did an interview with me last night. It was short and kind of strange but I think it reads well. Give it a look and tell me what you think.
I Am More Frightened By The Repuke Nazis Than I Am Of Saddam Hussein
I Am More Frightened By The Repuke Nazis Than I Am Of Saddam Hussein: I keep waiting to get tired of reading posts from people at the Democratic Underground who've been driven around the bend by the GOP's wins in the last election but it hasn't happened yet. So here's one more episode of ACPOTI (Anyone Can Post On The Internet) featuring the kooks from the Democratic Underground (Cont)...
An Interview With Victor Davis Hanson: I'm a huge fan of Victor Davis Hanson's work. Not only do I consistently link his columns, I've recently read his brilliant book "Carnage and Culture." That's why I was thrilled that he agreed to do an interview via email with RWN. Read and enjoy...
