After the Nidal Hasan killings our enemies at the New York Times were running articles about how, Heaven forbid we offend any Muslims by protesting the killings, as they’re so essential to all our military endeavors in Muslim countries. It is a myth that we need Muslims in our military in order to carry out military programs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This is a myth.
All politics is local politics: “Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my cousin against the stranger.”
When you’re Stone Age, the person from the next village is an interloper. Do you really think that- take someone like Nidal Hasan there (Please. Take him. Tie a couple stones around his neck, drop him in a pool.: He’s Muslim, Palestinian origin, American born. You think that someone like him goes and approaches Afghan tribesmen, and Miggles the Afghan tribesman is turning to his brethren and going, “By Golly, lads, he’s all right, boys! This fellow’s one of us!” No, ok? No. There is not so much difference in these tribesmen’s eyes, I would wager, between Nidal Hasan (*spit*), and a blonde, blue-eyed, cornfed American boy from Idaho who speaks Rosetta Stone Pashtun. They’re both representing “The Empire.”
All politics is local politics. Me and my cousin against the stranger. Nidal Hasan is the stranger just as much as any American is the stranger.
Anybody can learn Arabic. There’s, uh, no intelligence requirement for knowledge of the Arabic language. Or any language.
I read an editorial a while ago in, I think, the New York Times (*spit*), by a gay man who was serving as a translator in the military, and left the military, was forced out, or bounced, or something, and his point was that the military was losing a lot of talent by throwing out the gays. Big time I concur. Gay men are notoriously good at inserting themselves into disparate social situations; many of them have just the sort of delicate social and cultural antenna, the spy’s attention to nuance and “passing,” that are vital to intelligence work.
I worked once with a transsexual named, hee hee hee, Zoe, who had effed her way around the Arab world. You know the old Arab proverb, don’t you, who doesn’t: a woman for duty, a boy for paradise, and a goat for every day. I believe that Zoe, back when she was “Brian,” had been the “boy for paradise.” Bien entendu, Zoe wouldn’t touch the prospect of working in American intelligence with a ten foot pole because she deplored Dubya for all the obvious reasons.
I tell you this: For the right price Zoe would have worked for anyone. A couple of clever gay American men who are good with languages would be worth dozens of “Muslim Americans” when it comes to communications. The foreigners are not adding anything. They are detracting. They are security risks. Their loyalty is suspect. Moreover, we do not need them. Yankee go home.
It makes no sense that we are fighting two (count ‘em) two wars. We are committing 100,000 men to Afghanistan. How many men are in Iraq? 50,000? It makes no sense that we are fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ostensibly to squelch the terrorist threat against the United States, while we also seem to welcome Muslim immigrants with open arms. Please explain to me how this makes sense. There’s a terrorist threat against the US issuing from Muslim countries, so you say? Wait, what’s that sound? That faint strange music? Oh wait, just the passing of three thousand souls crossing the threshold of my consciousness. They make a funny noise as they pass. A screaming and a groaning, a heavy smell of fear, and one image only: a man whose morning began in the most banal possible way of shaving, of coffee, voluntarily leaping to his death to escape the burning death he knows (he’s seen) awaits him within.
It is not just the number, if you’re American and human. It’s the way these people died. Screaming, crying, cornered like prey. A few had the space and the time for a recitation of “The Lord is My Shepherd” and a voicemail. And all the voicemails said the same thing: I just want to let you know I love you, I just want to let you know I love you, over and over and over.
With apologies to Louis Carroll.
UDPATE: With further apologies to LEWIS Carroll.
Obama and his friend Al Gore
Were walking hand in hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
“If this were only cleared away,”
They said, “it would be grand!”
“If another federal stimulus
Were passed within the year.
Do you suppose,” Obama said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said his friend Al Gore,
And shed a bitter tear.
“O Liberals, come and join with us!”
Obama did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
The elder voters looked at him,
But never a word they said:
An elder voter winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To lose his damnfool head.
But four young Liberals hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their dreadlocks brushed, their piercings washed,
Their suits were tailored neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They wore flip-flops on their feet.
Four other Liberals followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
Obama and his friend Al Gore
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on their laurels
Conveniently low:
And all the little Liberals stood
And waited in a row.
“The time has come,” Obama said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Liberals cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us have ADD,
And all of us are fat!”
Al Gore handed out some grant applications.
They thanked him much for that.
“A burger bun,” Obama said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Mustard and ketchup besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Liberals dear,
We can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Liberals cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such coolness, that would be
A bogus thing to do!”
“Sasha’s new look,” Obama said.
“Did you see it on The View?”
Hello, I am here in the library. I have sent Lulu into hiding in a back corner of the children’s area with a forbidden stash of cheerios and strict instructions to keep them for all our sakes hidden. Good practice. For a while there the Gorgon Sister librarians (so embarrassing when they started offering me toothsome smiles and awkward greetings instead of fierce silences after I wrote the library a check: “Wilt thou lend me thy mare to ride but a mile?/ No, she’s lame going over a stile./ But if thou wilt her to me spare, thou shalt have money for thy mare./ Ho ho! Say you so? Money shall make my mare to go!”)
Yes, the Gorgon Sisters restricted library access to E-Harmony. The last thing they want is Christians breeding. I was too chicken to confront them over it, natch. Especially now I have the highly dubious honor of being in their good graces. Everybody always thinks I’m a liberal before I open my mouth. But I considered it, confronting them: “On what grounds? On what grounds? Indecency? Corruption of minors? The dangerous possibility of it leading to procreative sex within the confines of a Christian marriage???”
Lulu has seized a palm tree from a display and is walking around with it. I just took a photo.
My high-school sweetheart is fighting in Iraq. He is running every day and working on getting his run times down. He thinks the war is silly, suspects all wars are silly, and wants a blowjob. Such is the state of Western civilization in the twenty-first century. I have seen the best minds of my generation… pulverized by nihilism and obliterated in baseness.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Wars are never silly. Some are ill-conceived endeavors, as I believe are our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq: Everyone out. Afghanistan: Small team of trained killers who have the full go-ahead to do whatever it takes to root out and kill the bad guys.
Caption:
Q: Check out the low-class bimbo who snuck into the White House under false pretences.
A: Yeah. And who’s the chick in the sari?
Hah, hah, hah. More stand up: And I think that the current period in American history, the immediate post-Obama election period, shall be collectively labeled by future historians as The “There Goes the Neighborhood” Period. That would have made an awesome election headline, actually. “Obama Wins Historic Presidential Victory: There Goes the Neighborhood.”
(Chris Rock had a very funny sketch where he was saying that when a white person moves into a black neighborhood, black people say, “Here comes the neighborhood!”)
It’s clearer and clearer that more than anything the current administration is characterized by I.N.C.O.M.P.E.T.E.N.C.E. Which is a good thing, considering their priorities.
Sunday I was feeling rather down in the dumps and too sluggish for anything more than trash reading so I picked up the New York Times magazine. The interview, by some shrew, was of Senator Inhofe. The man, God bless him, is travelling to Copenhagen to serve as a sort of Lorax for the people at the Copenhagen conference. The Just-Another-New-York-Times-Shrew Interviewer told the senator she believes we should afford Khalid Sheik Fat Hairy Slob and his brethren all the privileges associated with American citizenship because “as Americans we should take the high road,” or some such thing. The only time I ever hear liberals invoke Americanism is in the service of America’s destruction. So.
Oh, also there was this article in the Times magazine- a real lap-slapper, cheered me right out of my funk, it did- about this terrible scourge affecting these (rich, self-absorbed) women: lackluster libidos. I think the article was called “Women Who Want to Want.” Awesome. They had this sex therapist who passed out raisins to her group therapy patients and asked them each to take a raisin and squish it, roll it around, smell it, and taste it. Yeah, right? No, I have no idea either how that relates to sex. But it’s so awesome that these women are paying someone to teach them how to make love to a raisin. I think the exercise would be a lot more effective if the raisin were a martini. Or a margarita with salt. Or a White Russian. Or quaaludes. I think you get my meaning. Or, even perhaps come to think of it, a man. Shudder to think. And sorry for the automatic jumping to conclusion that sex equals man, and not, say, transgendered mutant fish.
Then, further on in the article, the sex therapist (who herself ostensibly had no problems doing it) figured out this therapy. It came to her in yoga class, of course. Classic, right? She started taking up this mantra in her yoga class and began observing her breathing and repeating to herself over and over “I am a sensual woman, I am a sensual woman.” I always end up next to women like that whenever I go to a yoga class, and let me tell you it sucks. I pointedly clear my throat when they begin issuing little unseemly moans. Always to no avail.
Remember “My Best Friend’s Wedding”? Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and other box office formulas? Well, the Chinese, in typically awesomely humorless and blunt fashion called it in their translation, “Help! My Pretend Boyfriend is Gay!” Searingly funny, yes. But with rather a poignant undercurrent of truth. I think that this title would make a better name for “Sex and the City.” I can’t walk down a street in New York City without encountering a couple that brings to mind, “Help! My pretend boyfriend is gay!” Anyway, and that is what chanting the mantra, “I am a sensual woman, I am a sensual woman,” in yoga class brings to mind.
Personally, I didn’t really see how these zero-libido women had so much of a problem. It seemed to me their little problem gives them the tools to lead a fruitful, happy, productive life. No attacking your lover in a jealous rage. No alarmingly costly lingerie purchases.
Local genuinely crazy person sweating this computer. Gotta go.
Funny, though. Sex has become so ubiquitous, banal, dehumanized, and base. And at the same time unnaturally exalted. Could that have something to do with these women’s problem?
I am still here. Of the dozen or so readers who’ve looked at the blog, maybe a couple care, and maybe one of those couple like it.
Whereas every gesture, every chuckle, every glower I make, every thought I express, affects my daughter utterly, and that won’t always be true.
Also, there’s too much information. I’m trying to read The New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times every day, and failing, although not by much. It’s more useful to keep your ear to the ground, than to blather on about your opinions.
Companies are leaving the U.S. Americans, maybe me, will follow.
Did you see the photo of Obama carrying the GQ with himself on the cover? That’s his reading material.
This just out. The Health and Human Services Department’s U.S. Preventative Services Task Force newest studies show that much of what we have come to believe is the basis of sound medical care is actually over-rated and unnecessary. Who knew? (Chuck Schumer and Kathleen Sebelius.)
Doctors, for instance. There’s nothing mysterious or sacred that doctors do that couldn’t be done by a good old-fashioned bureaucrat. Some relative of Charlie Rangel’s, or something.
Antibiotics. Actually, studies show that people are administered far too many antibiotics and far too often. Especially to certain over-privileged segments of society who know who they are.
Plaster casts. Why in India they’d just tie your broken leg to a good strong stick with some rope. And you know what, with a lot of love, and local color, and packs of chattering children, and exotic spices. Stop being such a gringo. You need to move out of your comfort zone, as our statuesque First Lady (rumored to be next year’s draft pick for a certain, unnamed NFL team) puts it so graciously.
(Hah. Actually we’ll all be going to India for our medical care- to see U.S. trained doctors.)
Pap smears. Mammograms. Number one, only women need to get them (that should cut down some). Number two, you don’t need them like all the time. Maybe on special occasions: birthdays (that fall in leap years), 40th wedding anniversaries, events of that type of nature.
Medical attention: it’s really questionable whether it’s really worthwhile at all. The truly organic, holistic, back-to-the-earth approach is to consider disease as merely nature’s way of winnowing down the herd. Shouldn’t we accept nature’s plans for us, as righteous natives do all over the world?
I think we could learn a lot from people in developing countries on a whole host of issues, not just health care. The art of mutely suffering under a despotic government, for example. The whimsical strains of fanciful nihilism, for example, so charming chez the Eastern Europeans, that flower in a society mired in despair.
Child, I ain’t passed the bar, but I know a little bit.
Enough that you won’t illegally search my shit.
Jay-Z, 99 Problems
I actually did pass the bar, and I know a little bit. Enough that I’d like to try my hand at explaining a couple of the grand mysteries turning up in the papers these days. To me, they don’t seem very mysterious.
1) The Case of the Dramatic, Unexplained Pro-Life Surge Under Obama.
In the largest shift in sentiment since pollsters began asking about the topic in 1995, support dropped from 54 to 47 percent in one year.
“To explain this riddle,” said Miss Rosita Marple, with a twinkle in her eye, bringing her rocking chair to a standstill and pausing over her needlework (cross-stitch sampler: Down With the Marxist Pissant.), “Let’s play a game of ‘Which Would You Rather?’”
Which would you rather? The government prohibits abortion or the government provides and thereby authorizes (and the logical extension is eventually mandates) abortions.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out the other day that only about 13% of women who get abortions put it on their health insurance.
The Democrats, stymied on the abortion health reform issue, have suggested that women can get separate “abortion insurance.” Huh? Exhibit Nine Hundred of the Airtight Case that the Democrats are Insane.
2) The Case of the Missing Young Workers.
An article in the Times compares this recession with the two other periods since World War II when unemployment went above 8% (they’ve changed how they count unemployment, by the way).
There are fewer jobs for workers age 54 to 64 than when the cycle began, but that group has done much better than younger workers.
By contrast, younger workers were more likely to hold on to their jobs in the two previous downturns.
It is not clear why that pattern has changed.
Miss Rosita Marple, laying a finger aside of her nose, twittered. She laughed, that is. Not that she broadcast some half-wit scrambled internet message.
“Well,” she chuckled, “maybe that’s because younger workers are useless gits who don’t know shit these days because they have been Very. Badly. Educated. and they have Zero Character. Would you want them working for you?”
Two examples of the effects of cronyism, being badly educated, and natural stupidity within the past couple weeks:
1. 911 operator makes a mistake, sends firefighters to the wrong house. Ha ha, right? Two people died.
2. New York City Buildings Department workers mark the wrong house for demolition, authorizing the locks on the house cut. Junkies move in, steal and destroy.
The reason why companies are retaining or hiring older workers rather than younger workers is that plummeting standards, both educational standards and standards of comportment, moral standards, and diminised work ethic and loyalty have rendered younger workers less employable than their older counterparts.
Rosita being the exception that proves the rule.
When authorities do not protect people, people protect themselves.
I’m not starting some citizen militia here (yet). As a woman and a mother, I have a lot to fear from the breakdown of civilization (and I have about as much to fear from vigilante-ism as I do from terrorism.) Uh, who doesn’t? But as we see in countries where civilization has broken down, in an inverse formula to the Titanic’s gentlemen’s creed, women and children get it first.
There is a vacuum. An Islamist terrorist was ALLOWED to kill our TROOPS. The heads of the military and the commander-in-chief have made EXCUSES for him. He most certainly did not snap. “Snapping” is when one does something uncharacteristic. All the evidence shows that what he did was completely within character and absolutely consistent with his ideology- an ideology he wouldn’t shut up about.
People aren’t going to just sit around and wait to get killed. There is a vacuum. The message Americans are getting is that the authorities are not interested in protecting us from acts of terrorism. The other message we’re getting is that Muslims in official positions have not been vetted and that if they are terrorist threats that has been swept under the carpet. Another message we’re getting is from the half-hearted apologies of, uh, one Muslim organization I’ve seen so far. Other than that, silence (satisfied silence?) on the part of the Muslim community. No protests, no vigils, no impassioned condemnations.
The other message we’re getting is that American lives are worth little, that the lives of our troops- our friends, neighbors, sons, daughters, siblings, cousins, parents- are worth little.
What matters is the ideology of those in power and them promoting an ideology that they believe will keep them in power.
I am angry.
Cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it’s a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind
General George Casey, the Army’s top officer, has spoken:
Those dead and wounded in last Thursday’s attack gave their lives for Diversity [And Allah. -Ed.].
As tragic as it is when people, including 21 year-old girls who are pregnant, must sacrifice their lives to Diversity, this is the sacrifice that Diversity demands.
The real tragedy would have occurred had Diversity been stymied such that these people were walking around alive and whole today. Ah, that is where the real tragedy would be.
Diversity, you see, is a hungry death god and it must be fed. Regrettable, but, as Mao (who maybe is one of General Casey’s favorite philosophers too!) would have put it: The end justifies the means. Or, put another way, sometimes innocent people have to die.
General George Casey was actually being super-tolerant. He could have called them infidels. He didn’t, if you noticed.
The real tragedy, as General George Casey graciously informed us, would be if our military didn’t include within its ranks killer Islamist jihadists.
That would be the real tragedy.
The most effective way to satisfy the demands of Diversity would be to implement a sort of quota system where at least one tenth or something of US military were made up of killer Islamist jihadists.
Diversity demands it.
The Army could recruit them from the mosques or something. Come to think of it, maybe we could have battalions of them, and they just blow each other up. Oh wait, that wouldn’t be diversity, that would be segregation, wouldn’t it, shoot, sorry I’m new to this.
Sick thinking doesn’t come naturally to me.
Minute 4:46
The people waiting to cross the border start shouting, “Open up! Open up! Open the gate! Open the gate!”
Minute 5:44
The border guard calls his superior officer and asks for permission to stop checking passports at the border. The superior officer refuses.
Minute 6:10
The border guards, without authorization, open the gates.
Look at the people’s faces.
Ole! Ole, ole, ole!
Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
John Kennedy: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Do not expect a ceremony where Obama bestows a medal on Sergeant Kimberly Munley for her blazing courage, the grace under pressure that saved lives.
Do not expect Munley to be invited to the White House to meet Obama and the Missus.
Do not expect a photo op of Obama with Munley.
Compare Obama’s reaction to his friend’s arrest in Cambridge for disorderly conduct to Obama’s reaction to this slaughter.
Remember when Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) said of Obama’s Cairo speech: “I just don’t know whose side he’s on.”
Well, I do. I know whose side he’s on. And I think we’re getting a clearer and clearer idea.
Who was in Major Malik Nidal Hasan’s Chain of Command? Who Were His Commanding Officers? Who Made Him a Major?
Hasan was very vocal about his views, which were your typical Islamist terrorist views:
Col Terry Lee, a retired officer who worked with him at the military base in Texas, alleged Maj Hasan had angry confrontations with other officers over his views.
Maj Hasan was reportedly fighting orders to be deployed to Iraq at the end of the month, claiming that he was the victim of harassment and insults because of his Arab background and his faith.
“He was making outlandish comments condemning our foreign policy and claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans,” Col Lee told Fox News.
“He said Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place.” He said that Maj Hasan said he was “happy” when a US soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment centre in Arkansas in June. An American convert to Islam was accused of the shootings.
Col Lee alleged that other officers had told him that Maj Hasan had said “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Time Square” in New York.
He claimed he was aware that the major had been subject to “name calling” during heated arguments with other officers.
Federal law enforcement officials have said Maj Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.
How did anyone miss this?
As Ralph Peters writes:
Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.
But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Fort Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command,* either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Fort Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoom. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.
*In the print version Peters wrote “this maggot’s chain of command,” which I liked better.
While Hasan is certainly a hero to Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers, I would like to point out that Hasan was taken down by one, itty-bitty, American woman.
What is up with Lieutenant General Robert Cone?
He initially gave everybody wrong information:
“The shooter was killed. He was a soldier. We since then have apprehended two additional soldiers who are suspects, and I would go into the point that there were eyewitness accounts that there may have been more than one shooter.”
On the day of the shooting, ABC news reported:
Cone called the attack “a terrible tragedy, stunning.” He said the community was “absolutely devastated.”
. . .
Cone said the motive for the attack, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. CT, is unclear. While he said he could not rule out the incident as an act of terrorism, evidence does not support that theory.
Cone’s statement that the evidence does not support terrorism is patently false. It was patently false the moment that the gunman’s name was known.
This is not a “terrible tragedy.” This is war.
“As horrible as this was, I think it could have been much worse,” Cone said.
This man has a perspective on things that I would not expect to come from a Lieutenant-General in the US military: A tragedy, and it’s very sad, but come, come, now, it could have been much worse.
On Hero Kimberly Munley, Cone had this to say:
Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the post commander, praised Sergeant Munley on Friday for reacting so swiftly and without hesitation. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” General Cone told The Associated Press.
Aggression is unprovoked. See Merriam Webster. Munley’s performance was not aggressive, Munley’s performance was defensive. Hasan’s performance was aggressive, Hasan was the aggressor. He was the one shooting people. Munley shooting on Hasan was not an unprovoked attack. Not only was her shooting of Hasan provoked, it was defensive, and it was her duty.
So when Cone mischaracterizes Munley’s shooting of the gunman as “aggressive,” I ask myself why he does so.
43 American Lives, the Best of Our People, Our Soldiers, Sacrificed on the Altar of Allah and Political Correctness
I say 43 American lives sacrificed because when you’ve been shot in the stomach like one of the victims, a 19 year-old girl, your life is irredeemably changed forever, it’s been sacrificed.
That’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Getting fired upon and shot by a fellow soldier as you’re waiting for medical exams or attending a graduation ceremony. Having your mother or father or son or daughter shot, that’s post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nidal Malik Hasan had never even been deployed. Contrary to suggestion, he did not have post-traumatic stress disorder.
Of course, post-traumatic stress disorder is better than being dead. Thirteen people are dead.
It was a female soldier who shot Hasan. A female soldier who herself had been shot. What a hero. I would like to know her name.
The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base was on the way to have her car repaired when she heard a report over a police radio that someone was shooting people in a center where soldiers are processed before they are deployed abroad, authorities said on Friday.
As she pulled up to the center, the officer, Kimberly Munley, spotted the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.
Sergeant Munley bolted from her car and shot at Major Hasan. He turned toward her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and the gunmen went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.
Six months ago, federal authorities learned that Hasan was posting praise for Muslim suicide bombers on the internet. I listened to the incomparable Mark Steyn today, filling in for Rush Limbaugh, and according to him, also six months ago, May 2009, Hasan was promoted to Major. According to Steyn, the regular route to becoming a major takes about 9 years, but Hasan was fast-tracked and made Major in 6 or 7 years.
Why was he fast-tracked? Political correctness. Why wasn’t he investigated? Political correctness.
Why did he do it? Allahu akbar.
Obama has this to say:
“We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”
And his relatives said that American soldiers had harassed him for being a Muslim.
Remember the Grand Westchesterian Forced Relocation/ Social Engineering/ Wealth Distribution Experiment?
The Obama Administration forced Westchester to settle an anti-discrimination lawsuit by agreeing to spend its own money to build housing for blacks and Hispanics in parts of Westchester that the Obama Administration considered too white.
“This is historic, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire,” said Obama’s deputy secretary of housing and urban development.
It’s historic all right. We haven’t had much forced relocation/ social engineering/ wealth distribution round these parts (these parts being the United States of America). Goes with the whole “liberty” thing.
Residents of Westchester who were interviewed by the New York Times expressed reservations about the arrangement- purely out of concern as to whether it would truly serve the best interest of their new potential black and Hispanic neighbors, you understand:
Children are children, and they can be mean,” said Bill Ward, 54, an accountant. “If a child has less fancy clothing to wear, they’re going to be put outside the group.”
. . .
The housing plan is “a great idea” in theory, said Carol Kornheiser, 61, a market researcher. But she wondered how children from moderate-income families would cope with the signs of wealth all around them, including a high school parking lot dappled with expensive cars.
“I think it’s hard to be in a town where your kid doesn’t have what other kids have,” she said.
She also questioned whether modest earners could thrive in the suburbs if they could not afford a car or two for driving to work and ferrying children to play dates and sports practices.
“It’s hard to do the fetching,” she said. “You need two cars.”
County Executive Andrew Spano made a“rare and emotional appearance” before the County Legislature to urge them to ratify the “historic” agreement:
“Do not make us the symbol of racism . . . this is about African-Americans and Hispanics . . . I’m here to ask you to do the right thing . . .”
I am sure there was not a dry eye in the house.
Mr. Spano is no longer “here to ask you to do the right thing.”
It would seem that Mr. Spano’s fear of becoming a symbol of sorts has proved true. He’s become a symbol of what happens to politicians who force social engineering/ wealth distribution plans on voters who live in what is still, lest we forget, a democracy.
If Hoffman hadn’t had the backing of tons of big-name conservatives, one might have suspected him of being a stealth agent.
(I frankly suspect everyone of being a stealth agent, including myself sometimes- whose side am I on- but that’s a horse of a different color.)
So the upshot is a Democrat won the North Country for the first time since about the Civil War.
I feel very frustrated. Very very frustrated. I want limited government. Limited government has been proved the most natural, fruitful, productive, happiness-inducing form of government. When government leaves the people alone more, the people do better. I sound like Confucius.
In fact, Confucius would have espoused limited government. Limited government is the natural way. The people do their thing, and the government steps in when it comes to tasks like prosecuting thieves, killers, and the like. The government should not step in to tell us how to wipe our noses and our asses and which scientists we should believe. The government should not teach our children to worship it like a god. The government should be like a gardener who trims the rot, kills the pests, and allows the plant to grow and flourish. Unfortunately, this government has grown out of control, and the money tree is dying.
Sometimes the only way to destroy a parasite is for the host animal to die. And from the ashes rises the phoenix.
This is what Confucius had to say about government, apparently, from a quick internet search:
Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, “The requisites of government are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler.” Tzu Kung said, “If it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first?” “The military equipment,” said the Master. Tzu Kung again asked, “If it cannot be helped and one of the remaining two must be dispensed with, which of them should be foregone?” The Master answered, “Part with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of humanity; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.”
The people most definitely have no faith in their rulers.
Confucius also said:
“When a country is well governed, poverty and mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is poorly governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.”
If we are not in that state, we are near it.
I am frustrated because I read things like Michelle Malkin today. Michelle Malkin is a very passionate, courageous, and admirable person. I wholeheartedly agree that the Republican party- or somebody- should stand for “limited government principles.” I deeply and respectfully disagree with her definition of “limited government.”
Judges (many of whom are appointed, many of whom do not act like judges but like leftist ideologue bureaucrats) making decisions that affect personal freedoms is not limited government- and is not constitutional.
Ron Paul writes in “The Revolution: A Manifesto” (page 62, Grand Central Publishing, copyright 2008):
We have come to consider it normal for nine judges in Washington to decide on social policies that affect every neighborhood, family, and individual in America. One side of the debate hopes the nine will impose one set of values, and the other side favors a different set. The underlying premise- that this kind of monolith is desirable, or that no alternative is possible- is never examined, or at least not nearly as often as it should be. The Founding Fathers did not intend for every American neighborhood to be exactly the same- a totalitarian impulse if there ever was one- or that disputes over competing values should be decided by federal judges. This is the constitutional approach to deciding all issues that are not spelled out explicitly in our founding document: let neighbors and localities govern themselves.
The Doug Hoffman radio ad that I heard most frequently was paid for by the Campaign for Working Families (which super, super confusingly sounds a lot like the Working Families Party, which seems basically just ACORN as a political party, and which had me pricking up my ears and wrinkling my nose at the radio ad, and wondering, “Stealth agent? Stealth agent?”).
The ad featured a couple (heterosexual, presumably married, presumably high-school sweethearts who’d presumably only ever engaged in missionary-approved relations, presumably while staring doggedly into one another’s eyes and only ever thinking of each other- and presumably only then for the purposes of procreation) chatting about Doug Hoffman.
The ad starts out like this: “Do we really need another pro-abortion, pro-gay rights politician in Washington?”
I can understand being anti-abortion, I am Catholic after all, although I’m perhaps a bad Catholic (Rather be a bad Catholic than a good Protestant- what?).
I fail to understand being anti-gay rights. To whom does that appeal? Who can get all fired up about denying gays rights? Maybe this is a generational thing. (Check out the “Catholics for Marriage Equality God is Love” banner in this article on the Maine vote. More Bad Catholics Behaving Badly.)
But Doug Hoffman was presented first and foremost as a social conservative. Stacy McCain’s attitude seemed typical of Republicans (including Rush Limbaugh): “a bunch of elitist pro-choice Republicans can’t match the pro-life Catholic grandmas.”
“Grandmas” is the operative word.
Many young people are turned off by the anti-gay stance. Not because they’re starring in their own private Satyricon. Because they know people who are openly gay, who date, who want to get married. Because they know heterosexual people who do the same things that gays do. What is gay?
Gays to me seem one of those social categories that function like a canary in the coal mine as far as civil liberties go. I’m not crazy about gay male culture. (I can relate more to lesbians.) But an “anti gay rights” position gets my dander up.
It frustrates me that the social conservatives seem to also be the standard-bearers for the free-market and a return to the Constitution. Free-market principles have nothing to do with marriage and birth control, and the Constitution is silent on these issues.
Any return to Constitutional principles encompasses the Ron Paul approach (from page 63):
One-size-fits-all social policy, dicated by unelected judges from an imperial capital, is not the system Americans signed on for when they ratified the Constitution, and they have never formally sanctioned such a thing.
Or, approaching things another way, as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) put it, who, according to the New York Times (I know, I know) has “denounced the ‘homosexual agenda’ and said he favored the death penalty ‘for abortionists and other people who take life’”:
“[N]one of these things are important right now,” he said, compared with the “fiscal ruin” he sees the country facing.
“If you look historically, every great republic has died over fiscal issues,” he said. “That is the biggest moral issue of our time.”
I agree. That’s why I would have voted for Doug Hoffman.
Um, yeah, Obama is, um, really masculine. I’m sure the North Korean press writes gushing articles about how masculine Kim Jong-Il is too.
Holy cow. I had heard about this article from Rush Limbaugh (Who is, incidentally, very attractive. Soon I will be one of those women calling his show: “Hey Ruuuuushhhh. You look really hooooooot. You make my boyfriend soooo jealooouuus…”).
You have to read it to believe it, just a few paragraphs, lest you puke:
Does the White House feel like a frat house?
. . .
The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.
He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.
MWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! Choke. Splutter. Cough. Sigh of satisfaction.
Hmmm, a frat house isn’t exactly what comes to mind.
But, sure, whatever. Sure, the president is an “unabashed First Guy’s Guy.” Please ignore the aging drag queen on his day off who just emerged from that building.
Sure, I give it you. He’s really masculine.
And his wife is really feminine. And really desirable. Who hasn’t contemplated being trapped under a car and thought, “Boy, I wish I had a spouse who could lift a car off me one-handed?”
And the expression of his contempt for that which is “girly.” That right there is a sure indicator of his masculinity. Really masculine men wrinkle up their noses in disgust at things having to do with girls and go “yuck.”
Actually, I’m going to hand over my Ann Coulter/Joe the Plumber manuscript to whoever wrote this piece, because obviously all the glue-sniffing they do agrees with them, and they’re just off tripping the light on fanstastic flights of fancy.
To wit: the following “testerone-brimming personalities.”
Twinkletoes Emanuel, the ex-ballerina. Since when is it masculine to be a loathesome, bullying runt. I think the writer’s confusing bile with testosterone.
Remember, incidentally, what Rahm Emanuel’s father had to say when he became Chief of Staff:
“Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”
Right, and Fat Boy Gibbs, the White House Boss Hog. Both his whining and his combination fat ass/receding chin action are the latest thing in manliness.
As for Larry Summer, I guess they put him on the “testosterone-brimming” list because he made those remarks about women not having the same ”innate ability” or ”natural ability” as men in some fields.
Maureen Dowd, who’s really forced to stretch her literary non-talent as she’s too old to profitably sleep with her editors anymore, wrote some piece on this manliness non-phenomenon called the “Oval Man Cave,” in which she called the president, framing it as something Republicans would say of course, “a hand-wringing, Mom-jeans-wearing girly-boy.”
Many
a
true
word
is
said
in
jest.
Careful, Maureen, you self-hating loser. Your overlords might not think that little joke is a funny one.
Islamists, they’re just like us! I could totally relate to Rabia Sarwal. Yeah, I had this Jewish boyfriend once who made me eat Chinese food, play chess, drop acid, and listen to electronic music. Yes, all at once. Enraged by this imposition on my womanly virtue, this entrapment into a shameful violation of dear-held social norms, I…
(a) stabbed him in the neck while he was sleeping (taking care to hide all the phones beforehand)
(b) decided not to go out with him anymore
You know, it could be that Islamists are actually not just like us.
An otherwise excellent article in last Sunday’s New York Post examining the phenomenon notes: Barring terror attacks, independent Muslim expression of anti-Western sentiment seems to be more virulent in Europe.
Yeah, uh, that’s because there are more Muslims in Europe Eurabia. That could be why there’s also more Muslim expression of anti-Western sentiment. Just a thought.
