Archive for November, 2009
Happy Birthday, Marines!
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Two days away from the end of the competition, and on the 234th Birthday of the Marine Corps, the Marine team stands about $2000 away from our goal. We’ve worked hard, but we’re coming into the home stretch. I’d like to issue a challenge to all of you: let’s see if we can push the Marine team over the top today. With your help, I know we can do this.
I can’t think of any better way to honor the memories of the brave young men and women who have given their lives defending American ideals than to ensure that their fellow Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen are taken care of.
Let’s do it, people!
Below the fold, I’ll be posting a roundup of Marine team Birthday posts. Keep checking back – it will be updated throughout the day.
Mind Numbed Robot ponders the meaning of “Semper Fidelis”:
“…the Marine Corps has never experienced a mutiny. Marines in England were revered for their loyalty to the crown, just as United States Marines are now revered for their downright fanatical dedication to each other, their service, and their country. Using Latin to characterize this quality represents its legitimization–its codification. Significantly, for Marines at least, it also provides a caste–a group that is separate and unique from any other–a group that has no desire to be like any other.
What is left unsaid in the motto is also notable. The phrase is “Always faithful.” It isn’t “Sometimes Faithful.” Nor is it “Usually Faithful,” but always. It is not negotiable. It is not relative, but absolute.“
Jules takes a stroll through Hahvahd Yahd and finds a few surprises:
It’s always easy to poke fun at the World’s Greatest University across the Charles, all the more so in recent decades as, like much of academia, it sank in a wretched swamp of America-bashing leftism while continuing to survey the world down its superior nose.
Did you know that Harvard can now boast no fewer than 16 Medals of Honor among its alums? Thanks to the efforts of some veterans who have long treasured their university’s military traditions and dug into military records and Harvard archives, the university can claim the highest known number outside the service academies.
Courtesy of Dr. Melissa, Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com gives a shout out to his fellow Marines.
No Sheeples has General Conway’s Birthday message.
From Cassandra again:
The Marines have given a lot for us. Ercille has thoughts on how you can pay it forward. Bonus points for the dynamite Arty photos!
Speaking of which, the C-Square has page after page of wonderful photos of Marines doing what Marines do best. “Just keep scrolling”, as the saying goes.
Remember The Kelo Decision? This Is What Happened Next…
Monday, November 9th, 2009The Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney is reporting that the property Pfizer took in eminent domain is going to not be used after all:
The private homes that New London, Conn., took away from Suzette Kelo and her neighbors have been torn down. Their former site is a wasteland of fields of weeds, a monument to the power of eminent domain.
But now Pfizer, the drug company whose neighboring research facility had been the original cause of the homes’ seizure, has just announced that it is closing up shop in New London.
To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost. Five justices found this redevelopment met the constitutional hurdle of “public use.”
So this absolute statist atrocity of a law, was confirmed, ultimately, for no reason. People are out of their homes and the property has gone fallow. Great.
In Honor Of The Marines
Monday, November 9th, 2009Tomorrow is the Marine Corps Birthday. One of the traditions we keep to in the Corps is the Commandant’s Birthday message – it is played at every Marine Corps Ball and at any place where Marines gather all over the world. This is last year’s message from the Commandant and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. It makes the point that Marines have been at the forefront of the war on terror for over a quarter of a century:
The Marine team is within sight of our 35K goal, but we need your help to get there! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the birth of our Corps than to boost the Marine team to its first victory ever.
Valour IT provides adaptive technology to help severely wounded vets recover faster, establish a support system, and regain their independence. Since the program began, every single dollar raised by Valour IT has been used to provide:
· 4,100+ voice activated laptops
· over 30 Wii systems
· and nearly 100 handheld GPS devices to wounded vets at:
Balboa Naval Hospital
Naval Hospital, Camp Pendleton
Brooke Army Medical Center
Robert E. Bush Naval Hospital
Madigan RMC
Walter Reed AMC
National Naval MC (Bethesda)
and VA centers nationwide.
The men and women of the United States military have given their all to defend the values we Americans hold dear. For the price of a few sixpacks of beer or some dip and chips, you can tell them that you honor their sacrifices and their service. Please give generously. They did:
GO MARINES!!!
Trusting The Government To Take Care Of You: H1N1 Debacle
Monday, November 9th, 2009So you might die if you don’t get the vaccine. It’s a National Emergency. And yet, the government is flopping around. Jennifer LaRue of the Washington Post:
A poll released Friday by the Harvard School of Public Health found that two-thirds of parents and high-risk adults who want H1N1 vaccinations for themselves or their families have been unable to get it. It’s incredibly frustrating to be doing what we think we’re supposed to be doing — taking responsibility for our health and following government exhortations to get ourselves vaccinated — only to have our efforts thwarted by lack of supply.
But to me the most unsettling aspect of the whole mess is that nobody seems to be in charge. The right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing, and straight answers are hard to come by. And as this report notes, much of the advice out there for avoiding H1N1 flu is confusing and even off-putting.
Now, I bet Jennifer is all for socialized medicine. In fact, I bet government run health care sounds good to the very people complaining about vaccine shortages.
This disconnect is what disturbs me. The government has shown itself to be a terrible steward already. The corruption, the waste. And yet, here we have Congress putting together a health care plan when it can’t deliver a stupid vaccine on time.
Unemployment Numbers: Another Reality Check
Friday, November 6th, 2009This is unsurprising:
You don’t create jobs by making the bureaucracy bigger. You pull resources from the private sector making job creation impossible.
President Obama is making all this worse by creating complete instability. No one knows what he is going to do next. So, businesses hoard cash. Business continue hiring freezes even as business seems to turn a bit. Basically, the whole country is in a holding pattern.
If Cap and Trade and Health Care passes, small businesses and their owners will have to cough up any excess cash they’re hoarding to supplement government fantasy programs. They know this. If Card Check passes, big businesses, mostly in the south, know that they will have to fend off threats of unionization and the financial mess that creates.
Instability everywhere does not foster a business and therefore, a job creating environment. It doesn’t look like President Obama or Congress intend to shift directions, so joblessness it is!
President Obama And His Hasan Problem–UPDATED
Friday, November 6th, 2009How does a man weened on politically correct thought, race grievance, and collective versus individual responsibility deal with this:
American born
Muslim man
Soldier
Psychiatrist
Murderer
Terrorist
Here was the President’s response:
President Obama gave a shout out before his statements about the rampage at Ft. Hood. Does that seem dissonant to you? Bookworm calls it “frightening insensitivity“.
Robert George of NBC in Chicago writes:
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur.
As more uncomfortable information comes out, information President Obama probably knew even yesterday, it will raise more questions. For example, the killer yelled “Allahu Akbar” while he shot his fellow soldiers. In addition, Hasan gave a weird presentation on the Koran during Grand Rounds. Jimmie Bise of Sundries Shack, said on Twitter:
It is this simple: 12 people were murdered yesterday by a man who holds political views the MSM has guaranteed us aren’t dangerous.
And when Jake Tapper just asked Robert Gibbs when an attack becomes a terrorist attack, the response, according to David Almacy also reporting on Twitter was this:
In an answer to @jaketapper, Robert Gibbs just said that he doesn’t have the theoretical background to define “terrorist attack.” Wow.
When faced with the uncomfortable facts, President Obama and his administration are having a collective psychic break. Reality is not conforming to the fantasy they’ve built.
So far, it seems that this killing spree, this terrorist attack, could have been prevented. This man’s radical Islamist views were widely known. He did not hide them. He did not hide that he didn’t want to go to Iraq. He did not hide that he disagreed with America’s wars. He did not hide his frustration about President Obama. He even praised evil–beheadings and terrorism.
Since it’s politically incorrect to “profile” for terrorists or look for threats proactively, how is one to prevent such events? President Obama’s answer has been to pretend. If he ignores threats, they will go away. But they’re not going away. Neither individual or group or State-sponsoring terrorists are going away. And pretending they don’t exist or aren’t serious and deadly is liable to get a man killed. Or many men.
And so, President Obama’s decision to make light of the Ft. Hood killings by burying the story into a pre-planned press-conference makes sense. This act of terrorism revealed all the lies liberals tell themselves and tell others. There are two choices in this situation, then: One, admit the lie and speak the truth. Or two, continue the delusion.
President Obama has chosen to continue the delusion. If he can, and the mainstream media continues to aid and abet him, he’ll reframe this “unfortunate incident” as the actions of one “troubled individual” who should have “received help sooner.” And it looks like he’ll get help in that regard.
But for normal people, this attack was a terrorist attack by a Muslim man schooled in hate-filled ideology. Hasan would have rather killed his fellow soldiers rather than go to an Islamic nation and help his own country find justice there. That is, Hasan was a Muslim first, and a radical one at that, and a countryman second. And because no one can name Islamism evil, because that might make someone uncomfortable, what is there to say?
So the President and his press people fumble around, trying to find some politically correct verbiage to describe evil. And they can’t. What this man did was wrong and heinous. There are no excuses. He was an individual and he’s responsible. He was an educated doctor, a psychiatrist, and enlightenment did not prevent the taint of radical ideology. And he was also a murderer who intended not just to kill, but terrorize.
He is everything President Obama wants to pretend doesn’t exist. Well. America can’t afford to indulge President Obama and his liberal minions their p.c. fantasies. It gets citizens killed. The Ft. Hood massacre was a reality-check.
Updated:
Michelle Malkin reports that Hasan had “extra weapons training”.
Michael Goldfarb on Obama searching for the “real cause” of the massacre.
Updated:
Shrinkwrapped discusses the psychology:
When the immediate reaction of Islamic spokesmen is to warn everyone of Islamophobia, they too are supporting the projection and externalization that is the hallmark of radical Islam and the “lone, psychiatrically deranged” paranoid.
Every effort should be made to resolutely maintain a posture that specifically and emphatically denies the use of projection and externalization to the radical Islamists. Groups like CAIR should be confronted by our MSM and government on a regular basis to expose their use of such psychological processes for all to see. Whenever a “lone, psychiatrically deranged” individual commits an atrocity, we must be alert to attempts to shift the psychological impetus for the attack from the attacker to the surround. It is an unhappy reality that confronting a paranoid’s projection and externalization does not work in a therapeutic context. It either convinces the paranoid that you are part of the persecutory conspiracy or, if accepted and internalized, leads to significant depression. However, we cannot treat terror as a therapeutic situation. When Muslims support, in their speech and writing, convictions that reflect the use of projection and externalization, they must be considered potential dangers to the community. This requires a form of “racial profiling” but the alternative is to wait for an atrocity of such significant proportions that “lone, psychiatrically deranged” non-Muslims begin to take things into their own hands.
Podcast: David Almacy Refutes Obama White House Claims About Government Website
Thursday, November 5th, 2009David Almacy now of Edleman Public Relations as Senior Vice President for Digital Affairs and formerly White House Internet and E Communications Office Director of Media Affairs for President Bush, spoke with me about the White House’s claim that the website the Obama team received was archaic and out-of-date. This simply was not true. As part of the “smoothest transition in history”, President Bush had a brand new website ready for whichever new administration took office.
Evidently, it wasn’t good enough for the Obama team and they used more taxpayer money to recreate another website even though the website was new in January, 2009. David says at his personal blog Capital Gig:
Many stories have reported that President Obama’s team inherited an “old proprietary CMS which has been used by WhiteHouse.gov since the Bush Administration” built and executed by GDIT. However, that isn’t true. As I mentioned earlier, President Bush’s website, CMS Tool and all, was taken offline at 12:00 PM ET on January 20, 2009, President Obama’s Inauguration Day, and ultimately sent to NARA.
President George W. Bush is the first digital president, meaning that he is the first to have his entire presidency captured online via WhiteHouse.gov in the form of transcripts, photos, video and audio. However, Web 2.0 and social media was just gearing up around the time I left the White House in May 2007.
Clearly, the campaign had a huge impact on the growth of the Internet through social media and rapid programming advancements (WordPress 2.8.5 is now available already? I just upgraded to 2.8.4 two weeks ago!) but many of the tools that are being used today either weren’t available to us or hadn’t been tested or matured to the point that we could utilize them effectively within the E-Gov guidelines, privacy policies, security procedures and budgetary limitations that often presented challenges.
My bigger question as a taxpayer is how much did all this new-fangled stuff the President came up with cost? This administration acts as though they’re spending their own money. It seems that they forget that taxpayers have to pay for all their tech indulgences. But then, their tech solutions don’t feel like government solutions. They feel like Obama solutions–that is, the purpose to help put Obama in a good light not connect people with the office of the Presidency.
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
Texas Democrats Really Are Republicans!
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009From the Texas GOP:
Austin – The Republican Party of Texas is pleased to welcome several Democratic officeholders who switched parties today and became Republicans. Today in Hardin County, seven Democrats announced that they are switching parties to become Republicans. The new Republicans include Sheriff Ed Cain, County Judge Billy Caraway and Precinct 4 Commissioner Bobby Franklin. And at noon Tuesday in Palo Pinto County, Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace Bobby Hart switched his party affiliation and became a Republican. Three other Palo Pinto County Democratic officeholders indicated a strong interest in switching parties. The Republican Party of Texas has been working to build Republican strength at the local level, by working with county parties, recruiting candidates for the GOP primary and by recruiting conservative Democrats to switch parties.
“The wave of Republican strength continues to build,” said Republican Party of Texas Chairman Cathie Adams. “Americans are simply fed up with the Washington Democrats’ failing leftwing policies and government power grabs. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey Tuesday prove that Republicans are gaining momentum as the voters tell Democrats ‘Enough is enough!.’ We welcome these newly minted Republicans and anyone else who will stand with us for more freedom, lower taxes and smaller government.”
There are more party switches to come, as more conservative Texas Democrats make the choice to become Republicans. Dozens of Democrats across Texas are known to be considering switching or are already in the process of doing so. There is no similar movement of Republican officeholders leaving the Party. “
Podcast: Election Day Wrap-Up With John Hawkins
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
