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Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.

calendar   Wednesday - February 28, 2007

Lost!

OK, Zoomies! We’re back again after a restful day punching holes in the center ring at the range. Today we’re gonna make it a little more difficult for you. All I’m going to tell you is that we’re over a huge USAF base next to a huge city and it’s somewhere overseas. Like, out of the country, dude. In fact, it’s so far out that if you call here from another USAF base in CONUS you have to dial 011-81-31175 and then the DSN number you wish to speak to.

So help me figure out where we are before I run into all kinds of badness like that British Airways pilot in the picture below who is about to be FUBAR by FOD. Let’s get this crate on the ground ASAP.

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(Click image for larger 1065x915 in popup window)
(Photo from Google Earth Desktop)

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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 03:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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The Kerry Vendetta

I look forward every day to an other page from James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal “Best Of The Web Today”. Taranto’s wit and sarcasm are almost as nasty as mine (he doesn’t use naughty adult words). Today, he digs out a precious moment in the life of John “F’ing” Kerry who allegedly served in Vietnam (no one knows for sure since his DD-214 has been kept hidden for decades and when finally made public appears to have been slightly “fudged”, if you know what I mean).

Today we learn that JFK (no relation to the guy who abandoned thousands of Cubans at the Bay Of Pigs) is a rather vindictive sort of fellow who is determined to hold a grudge forever and a day. In other words, he’s an asshole.

This latest public display of juvenile spite should serve as a reminder of how close (a few hundred thousand votes in Ohio) we came to being forced to endure a President whose only redeeming virtue is that he makes Jacques Chirac look handsome and sound intelligent. Mais, oui!

The Politics of Self-Pity

“A Senate hearing that began with glowing tributes to a St. Louis businessman and his qualifications to become ambassador to Belgium turned bitterly divisive Tuesday after he was criticized for supporting a controversial conservative group,” the Associated Press reports from Washington:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., grilled nominee Sam Fox about why he donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential race. . . . “Might I ask you what your opinion is with respect to the state of American politics as regards the politics of personal destruction?” Kerry asked near the end of the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Fox, one of the nation’s most generous contributors to Republican candidates and causes, said he shared Kerry’s concerns that politics “has become mean and destructive.”

Fox said he didn’t recall who asked him to give to the group and blamed partisans on both sides for contributing to so-called 527 groups that are not subject to conventional campaign finance rules.

“So is that your judgment that you would bring to the ambassadorship, that two wrongs make a right?” Kerry asked.

imageimageThis is the second time this week that “the politics of personal destruction” has come up; the first, as we noted Monday, was when Sen. Hillary Clinton, attempted to impose a rule that no one was to discuss the impeachment of her husband and the illicit sexual acts attendant to it.

Mrs. Clinton’s position on this makes a certain amount of practical sense. She is, after all, running for president, and the impeachment raised questions about the Clintons’ marriage, and about Mrs. Clinton’s character, that every voter ought to find troubling. Best for her if she can persuade her opponents, the media and everyone else that discussing her character is simply bad form. (Good luck!)

But why did Kerry spend more than half his allotted time badgering the prospective ambassador to Belgium about money he gave to a group that was mean to Kerry? This just seems small and pathetic. It’s akin to Mrs. Clinton’s lone “no” votes on the 2001 confirmations of Viet Dinh and Michael Chertoff to Justice Department posts. Dinh and Chertoff had both worked on Whitewater investigations.

Kerry no doubt genuinely feels the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth treated him unfairly. It’s even possible that they did; 40 years after the fact, we certainly can’t say for sure that their eyewitness accounts were true and Kerry’s was false. He also seems to feel that this cost him the presidency, which he deserved.

But life is unfair, and you don’t become president because you “deserve” to, but because the voters choose you. Maturity consists in significant part in the ability to accept loss and to rise above it. That Kerry is still wallowing in self-pity more than two years after the fact tells us something damning about his character.

(Excuse me, Senator Kerry but do you call that a salute? You must have served in the Navy if that’s the best you can do. Thumb pressed firmly against the hand and hand angled slightly downward, dumbass! Get it right next time!)


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 02:21 PM   
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Motivational Poster Of The Day

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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 02:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Motorvators •  
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Know your Guns

Now that the Skipper has fired a couple of thousand rounds from his new CMMG, I figure now would be a good time for a lesson in firearms identification.

Many people hear the term “Assault Weapon” and think they know what it means.  Do you?

Let let Officer Leroy Pyle give us an education, shall we?

Are we all clear now?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 01:59 PM   
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Newt’s Solution For Iraq

Newt Gingrich gave testimony today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he described his perception of the current world situation and offered up an 18-point plan to solve the Iraq problem (full text of his testimony here). I agree with most of the suggestions and I think he is taking the right approach to solving the problems in dealing with the insurgency in Iraq.

It’s only when he gets to points 17 and 18 that he loses me. Those two points require one thing: a cooperative Congress. President Bush never had a really cooperative Congress. When his own party was in power they indulged in pork barrel games with the budget, among other things. Bush could have over-ridden them but didn’t. I realize that but he never was in control of that crowd.

However, with Democrats in power now the chances of any bipartisan approach to just about anything is a complete impossibility. You might as well ask Osama Bin Laden to convert to Christianity as ask Nancy Pelosi to cooperate with George Bush. Ain’t gonna happen. The Democrats have been stubbornly fighting the administration for six full years. To ask them to play nice now will only get you a hearty laugh from the Donks. Fuggedaboutit.

Then again, perhaps Newt’s plan is being drawn up for implementation by the next President, one who could possibly get along better with Democrats in Congress - but that would require someone very familiar with the members of Congress and who perhaps knows from experience how to deal with them. I wonder if Newt has a certain former Speaker Of The House in mind for that job ...

It was very disappointing to have the President focus so much on 21, 500 more military personnel and so little on the reforms needed in all the other elements of the executive branch. The proposals for winning in Iraq outlined below follow from this analysis.

Key Steps to Victory in Iraq

imageimage1. Place General Petraeus in charge of the Iraq campaign and establish that the Ambassador is operating in support of the military commander.

2. Since General Petraeus will now have responsibility for victory in Iraq all elements of achieving victory are within his purview and he should report daily to the White House on anything significant which is not working or is needed

3. Create a deputy chief of staff to the President and appoint a retired four star general or admiral to manage Iraq implementation for the Commander in Chief on a daily basis.

4. Establish that the second briefing (after the daily intelligence brief) the President will get every day is from his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation.

5. Establish a War Cabinet which will meet once a week to review metrics of implementation and resolve failures and enforce decisions. The President should chair the War Cabinet personally and his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation should prepare the agenda for the weekly review and meeting.

6. Establish three plans: one for achieving victory with the help of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory with the passive acquiescence of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory even if the current Iraqi government is unhappy.  The third plan may involve very significant shifts in troops and resources away from Baghdad and a process of allowing the Iraqi central government to fend for itself if it refuses to cooperate.

7. Communicate clearly to Syria and Iran that the United States is determined to win in Iraq and that any further interference (such as the recent reports of sophisticated Iranian explosives being sent to Iraq to target Americans) will lead to direct and aggressive countermeasures.

8. Pour as many intelligence assets into the fight as needed to develop an overwhelming advantage in intelligence preparation of the battlefield.

9. Develop a commander’s capacity to spend money on local activities sufficient to enable every local American commander to have substantial leverage in dealing with local communities.

10. Establish a jobs corps or civil conservation corps of sufficient scale to bring unemployment for males under 30 below 10% (see the attached op-ed by Mayor Giuliani and myself on this topic).

11. Expand dramatically the integration of American purchasing power in buying from Iraqi firms pioneered by Assistant Secretary Paul Brinkley to maximize the rate of recovery of the Iraqi economy.

12. Expand the American Army and Marine Corps as much as needed to sustain the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan while also being prepared for other contingencies and maintaining a sustainable rhythm for the families and the force.

13. Demand a war budget for recapitalization of the military to continue modernization while defeating our enemies. The current national security budget is lower as a percentage of the economy than at any time from Pearl Harbor through the end of the Cold War.  It is less than half the level Truman sustained before the Korean War.

14. The State Department is too small, too undercapitalized and too untrained for the demands of the 21st century. There should be a 50% increase in the State Department budget and a profound rethinking of the culture and systems of the State Department so it can be an operationally effective system.

15. The Agency for International Development is hopelessly unsuited to the new requirements of economic assistance and development and should be rethought from the ground up. The Marshall Plan and Point Four were as important as NATO in containing the Soviet Empire. We do not have that capability today.

16. The President should issue executive orders where possible to reform the implementation system so it works with the speed and effectiveness required by the 21st century.

17. Where legislation is needed the President should collaborate with Congress in honestly reviewing the systems that are failing and developing new metrics, new structures and new strategies.

18. Under our Constitution it is impossible to have this scale of rethinking and reform without deep support from the legislative branch. Without Republican Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Democratic President Harry Truman could never have developed the containment policies that saved freedom and ultimately defeated the Soviet Empire.  The President should ask the bipartisan leaders of Congress to cooperate in establishing a joint Legislative-Executive working group on winning the war and should openly brief the legislative branch on the problems which are weakening the American system abroad. Only by educating and informing the Congress can we achieve the level of mutual understanding and mutual commitment that this long hard task will require.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 11:39 AM   
Filed Under: • IraqRepublicans •  
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Through The Looking Glass

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您去告訴上尉並且我們其餘的人將掩藏這裡和這裡


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 08:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Art-PhotographyFun-Stuff •  
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PETA Silliness

What would life be like nowadays without incredibly silly groups like PETA? It would be pretty darn boring, let me tell you. Where else can we see nekkid wenches protesting KFC or better yet someone dressing up as a big, fat, pink pig - in a country with a large Muslim population?

As if that isn’t enough they also bring us outstandingly beautiful Filipino actresses clad in nothing more than a few scraps of lettuce. I am reminded of the old McDonalds ad tune which listed the ingredients of a Big Mac - “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce ...”

Talk about a “Happy Meal”! Yum-yum .... I’ll have two to go. And send the pig to Iran ...  LOL

imageimageimage(Left) A member of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wears a pig costume while walking around Manila’s Chinatown as preparations began for the ‘Year of the Pig’.

(Right) Popular Filipino actress-model Alicia Mayer poses for a campaign advertisement for PETA clad only in fresh lettuce to promote vegetarianism.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 07:51 AM   
Filed Under: • AnimalsStoopid-People •  
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While You Slept …

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Finally, in the Absolutely Unbelievable News category we have this story from Pueblo, Colorado. Caution: incredible stupidity is involved.

Colorado Police: Infant Traded for Used Car
PUEBLO, Colo. - February 28, 2007, 12:12 AM EST

A woman was a accused of giving a 5-month-old boy to a couple in exchange for a down payment on a used car, police said Tuesday.

A tip led police Monday to Nicole Uribe, 23, who got a Dodge Intrepid as part of the deal with Jose-Juan Lerma, 47, and his wife, Irene, 27, authorities said. The baby was allegedly switched for $1,500, only $500 of which was for the down payment.

The couple was arrested Tuesday. The three are charged with suspicion of felony trafficking in children and were being held at the Pueblo jail under $50,000 bail each.

It was not clear if they had attained attorneys.

The baby was placed in a foster home, Police Sgt. Brett Wilson said. Wilson said all three were Mexican nationals and federal officials had been asked to investigate their immigration status.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 06:41 AM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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It’s Not About Ewe

It’s “Hump Day” and we’re halfway to the weekend, gang. Time to ease up and coast into the finish line. What better way than a humorous editorial from Tom Purcell? Tom is the only man I know who can take a story about gay sheep and turn it into a statement about our “voyeur nation”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. I’ll let him explain ...

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Mike Lane - Cagle Cartoons

A Wild and Woolly Affair
-- By Tom Purcell

imageimageBoy, are we a country with too much free time on our hands. Or should I say, what do a retired tennis pro, PETA, two research scientists and a herd of gay sheep have to do with each other? Plenty, according to the Toronto Star.

The paper reports that two researchers—Charles Roselli of Oregon Health and Science University and Fred Stormshak of Oregon State University—have been studying why eight percent of rams prefer to court other rams rather than ewes (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

The study had been proceeding quietly until fate intervened. You see, two university football players (you’re getting ahead of me here) were pulled over for speeding. They’d been drinking. They had, in the bed of their truck, something they’d swiped from the research center—a gay ram.

Once a story like that hit the wires, containing it was impossible. Pretty soon, people were asking questions about the research. Then animal-rights activists, gay-rights advocates and left-leaning bloggers raised a great hue and cry ("ewe" and cry?)

Former tennis star Martina Navratilova kicked off the frenzy. She wrote a letter to both universities demanding they pull the study’s funding. She said the research was “homophobic and cruel.” She said the money would be better spent promoting acceptance of all sexual preferences.

PETA had urged her to write the letter. PETA urged 14,000 other people to voice their complaints, too, and some of them protested and called the researchers Nazis. PETA said that encouraging one ram to mount another was—I’m not exaggerating here—tantamount to rape.

By this point, bizarre conspiracy theories were in full throttle. Some theorists said the researchers were really interested in breeding homosexuality out of humans (ewe-genics?). One credible newspaper, The Sunday Times of London, began printing such untruths (boy, was the wool pulled over its eyes) and later had to retract them.

The researchers finally cried foul. They said the purpose of their study was simply to determine which rams are likeliest to breed—useful knowledge to ranchers.

They said they weren’t trying to discourage homosexual behavior, anyway. They were simply trying to understand such behavior in rams. And if they were to find a biological cause, they argued, wouldn’t that promote compassion and acceptance for all beings that prefer the same sex?

Some of the attackers backed off—not because the researchers were convincing, but because it’s hard not to sympathize with two fellows whose career choice involves walking around with a clipboard and encouraging male sheep to get amorous with each other.

In any event, this incident is at once a sign of America’s greatness and, perhaps, a premonition that we may not be great for much longer.

Evil dictators are stifling freedom and torturing millions. Ethnic hatred and genocide are killing millions. Pestilence and disease are killing millions more. But we’re more attuned to things that don’t matter, such as “American Idol.”

And we’re at war. Western civilization is in a battle of wills with fanatics who hope to restore 6th-century values. They intend to get their hands on some frighteningly powerful bombs to make us bend to that will. Yet we worry more about Anna Nicole Smith.

And gay rams.

We have so much wealth and affluence, you see, we can fund university research studies of every kind. We can also fund touchy advocacy groups that use their means to cloud and confuse and obscure whatever is unpleasant to them.

America, to borrow from James Thurber, “has become consumed largely about small matters and ‘smally’ about great affairs.” We’re losing our ability to discern between what is and isn’t really important. That doesn’t bode well for a democracy.

Oh, well, at least the gay sheep story brought some needed levity. The Australians came up with the best headline:

“He’s Just Not That Into Ewe.”


Tom Purcell is a humor columnist nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons. For comments to Tom, please email him at Purcell@caglecartoons.com.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/28/2007 at 05:55 AM   
Filed Under: • EditorialsScience-Technology •  
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calendar   Tuesday - February 27, 2007

Happy Birthday To Me!

First, an apology to all of you Zoomies waiting on today’s “Lost”. I’m afraid there won’t be one today and for that I deeply apologize. It’ll be back tomorrow. I promise. The reason is I have something I ABSOLUTELY must do this afternoon. I hope you will understand.

Here’s the deal: I have been on a waiting list for nearly a year (since they were introduced) for a SIG-556 and with my birthday coming up in a few weeks I finally gave up and went shopping. I came out of the gun shop with the CMMG you see below. It cost durn near as much as the SIG would have cost ($1,200) and looks to be as good a quality even though it’s not made in Switzerland (actually made right here in Fayette, Missouri).

Now, I can tell from the nervous twitch in my right hand trigger finger that I really need to get to the firing range ASAP, if you know what I mean. So wish this old fart (58 years young in two weeks) a Happy Birthday and know that in a few minutes I will be breathing in the sweet smell of chordite and trying to sight this baby in as best as my tired old eyes can manage. For now though, I will sing you my happy song ....

Happy Birthday to me tune
Happy Birthday to me tune
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday tune
Happy Birthday to me ....  tune

(click the images for a larger 1200x900 images in popup window)

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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/27/2007 at 03:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Motivational Poster Of The Day

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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/27/2007 at 11:50 AM   
Filed Under: • Motorvators •  
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Recount

What can you say about a story like this? I’m sorry, I can’t think of a single thing to say - even if I could stop laughing and giggling insanely long enough to think or speak. The level of hypocrisy here is beyond my ability to measure - or understand. It must be this February heat wave (28°F outside in St. Louis this fine morning) getting to me, I suppose. Either way, I need a t-shirt with “Al Gore Melts Glaciers - Somebody Stop Him!” across the front. I’ll let you good folks decide what we need to put on the back ...

LOL


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Mike Keefe - The Denver Post


Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average
(Tennessee Center for Policy Research) - February 26, 2007

imageimageLast night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/27/2007 at 08:31 AM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesClimate-WeatherDemocrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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Invasion!

Memo to all the burrito-eating bastardos down Mexico way:

If you don’t like my fence then you can kiss my gringo mooning ! And I’ll be damned if I’m going to start being “sensitive to Mexico concerns”. Get your damn people out of my country and keep them out and then we’ll talk about “trespass”, you pathetic asswipes. Just be thankful we don’t build the fence a few thousand miles inside Mexico and run all you into South America.

Mexican Anger Over US Trespass
(BBC) - Friday, 23 February 2007, 16:02 GMT

Mexico’s Congress has condemned what it says is a border violation by US workers building a controversial barrier between the two countries. Legislators say workers and equipment building a section of the barrier have gone 10 metres (yards) into Mexico.

The alleged border violation comes ahead of a high-level meeting in the Canadian capital Ottawa. US, Mexican and Canadian foreign ministers are to discuss border security and trade issues.

Mexican legislators said they had photographs and video, taken on Monday, of the workers and heavy-duty construction equipment that showed them about 10 metres inside Mexico near the border city of Agua Prieta and the town of Douglas, Arizona.

The Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said she had complained to the US authorities and that the men and equipment had been withdrawn. In a statement, the US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said: “The US is sensitive to Mexican concerns… [and] has the deepest respect for the integrity of the sovereignty of Mexican soil”.

- More ...

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DAMN! They’re really starting to piss me off now ...

WHY?

I’m glad you asked ... because in four years of war in Iraq we have lost 3,157 American soldiers - but over the same time period illegal aliens have murdered over 8,000 American citizens right here at home. Is that what you call “homeland security”? If so, you’re dumber than a rock and I’m about to educate your stupid ass.  Listen up!

Our elected representatives in Washington sit back and watch illegal aliens kill law enforcement officers left and right and then send to prison border guards who shoot Mexican drug-runners operating illegally in our country?

While our politicians twiddle their thumbs in Washington and allow this invasion to proceed unhindered, more Americans are dying at the hands of illegal aliens than are being killed by Muslim terrorists every damned day.

While no government agencies specifically track crimes by illegal aliens, there have been some efforts to quantify the loss. Last December, Mac Johnson set out to investigate the number of homicides perpetrated by illegal aliens. Since the federal government would not provide any useful information, he contacted all 50 statehouses. Three months later, he had fewer than a dozen responses. Only one state, Vermont, provided any useful information.

He then set out to statistically estimate the number of murders by illegal aliens based on available crime data and conservative estimates of the actually number of illegal aliens in the country – which, of course, nobody really knows.

He found that between 1,806 and 2,510 people in the U.S. are murdered annually by illegal aliens. If he’s right, that would represent between 11 percent and 15 percent of all murders in the U.S.

In one study of a sample 55,000 illegal immigrants serving prison sentences in the U.S., it was discovered that they are responsible for over 400,000 arrests and over 700,000 felony crimes.

- WORLDNET DAILY: “Cop murder spotlights crisis of killer aliens”

And if that isn’t bad enough, not even our puppy dogs are safe from these criminals!

Go visit the Family Security Matters website for more information and for God’s sake, vote for some politicians who will stop this madness!

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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/27/2007 at 06:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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Pentagon Games

I’ve been mulling this over for a few days now and pondering what to think of it. Fortunately, Robert Tracinski at The Intellectual Activist prodded me with this interesting take on the matter in today’s TIA Daily.

The State Department has in recent years been filled with career “civil servants” with a decidedly Leftist bent but the Pentagon has remained loyal to its commander, The President. Now, that seems to be changing, first with top generals expressing lack of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld, leading ultimately to his ouster from office, and now they’re expressing their disdain for any planned attack on Iran.

They’re even going so far as to say they will resign if ordered to attack Iran. My advice to Secretary Of Defense Gates is simply to call them on the carpet and ask each one of the generals in question if he truly feels this way. If the general answers “yes”, the secretary should then politely tell the general “you’re fired, turn in your uniform and get the f**k out of my army.”

Then the general can go whine to foreign newspapers all he or she wants. You see, the unwritten rule for top-ranking officers is that you can disagree all you want privately but if you want to affect policy and take your grievances public then you can do so - from the outside: quit, then bark all you want. As a civilian, not as a military officer.

These military officers know this as sure as God made little green apples. It is a cornerstone of our Constitution that the military is under civilian management. Period. End of story. The military does not decide policy. For that matter, neither does the State Department. This madness has gone quite far enough and needs to stop ... now, before someone gets hurt.

Nowadays, it seems everyone wants to be a pundit and everyone has an opinion on how things should be done. That’s cool ... but there are rules that need to be followed. The first of which (and the most important) concerns something called “dirty laundry” - don’t air it out publicly. That is a lesson I have learned the hard way right here in the pages of this blog (don’t ask). It is a lesson the Dixie Chicks learned. It is also a lesson these generals will learn too - hopefully before they ruin their career ...

If You’re Not Using My Army, Do You Mind If I Borrow It?
-- by Robert Tracinski (TIA Daily)

imageimageThe war over the war extends to all areas of government. I recently saw an article (sorry, I couldn’t track down the link) indicating that a collection of State Department officials plans to resign in protest if Bush attacks Iran. Now the article below says that some Pentagon officials may do the same, in a “revolt of the generals.”

Aside from the basic problem of military officers attempting to dictate policy to their civilian leaders, the most repugnant aspect of this campaign is the claim that America should not attack Iran because we “don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on.”

America’s annual defense budget is in the neighborhood of $400 billion, while Iran’s military budget is $9 billion. If our generals can’t figure out a way to defeat an enemy that much smaller and weaker, then they ought to resign—not as a protest, but as a confession of professional incompetence.

The phenomenon of generals who don’t want to use the force they are tasked to wield—that is, generals who don’t want to perform their basic responsibility of fighting and defeating our enemies—is nothing new. President Lincoln is supposed to have written, to one overly cautious general, “If you are not using my army, do you mind if I borrow it?”

“US Generals ‘Will Quit’ If Bush Orders Iran Attack,” Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Times of London, February 25

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources….

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them….

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran.”…

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.

In the same issue of TIA Daily, Tracinski gave me one of the most memorable quotes of all time on another subject entirely. I just have to share this one with you ...

“Speaking of runaway trains, the global warming hysteria is gaining new steam as environmentalists realize that a Democratic Congress is willing to enact their agenda, while the Bush administration seems to have given up trying to stall global-warming legislation. Hollywood gave the juggernaut more energy Sunday night when it awarded Al Gore an Oscar for his role as televangelist for the First Church of the Warming Globe—Hollywood’s official new religion.”


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 02/27/2007 at 03:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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On: 07/28/23 10:37

The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We've Been Waiting For
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Tracked at head to the Momarms site
The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We’ve Been Waiting For
On: 03/14/23 11:20

Vietnam Homecoming
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On: 03/20/21 07:00

meaningless marching orders for a thousand travellers ... strife ahead ..
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Tracked at Casual Blog
[...] RTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPL [...]
On: 07/17/17 04:28

a small explanation
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Tracked at yerba mate gourd
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On: 07/09/17 03:07



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Allanspacer

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
  1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
  2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
  3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
  4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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