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The Compassion of U.S. Soldiers at Work

Last Friday I posted about how the distinction between who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, might be confusing to George Galloway; but to reasonable folk, the distinction should be clear.

He and the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Bill Maher appear to equate us to the terrorists; and the terrorists to being freedom fighters. You tell me what's what and who's who.

If anyone can find a New Mexico newspaper/media report on the status of Rhma, please let me know. I ran a Google search to see if any local papers picked up on it, and came up zilch.

[Update] Sadr residence seeing improvements made.

[Update II] Moving tributes to our military and their families can be found at GCS Distributing.

In Whom Do We Trust?

Religious persecution again: Lawsuit filed to remove crosses from the logo of (get this) "The City of the Crosses". Citizens sound off. More.


Las Cruces City Logo.

These costly lawsuits of intolerance from the militant secularists, isn't really about "Separation of Church and State". The issue shouldn't be about Constitutional interpretation, because I think it's very clear already. We live in a country that is about freedom of religion; not freedom from. It's that simple. The government is not endorsing a single church, simply because we have references to God or Christianity. If Christian symbols and references appear in our popular lexicon overwhelmingly over other religions.......if we swear upon the holy bible in court......if the 10 Commandments appear on government buildings and not the 5 Pillars of Islam......well, this is only natural, given that our country was founded upon religious immigrants who were overwhelmingly Christian. Our national heritage and traditions stem from Christianity. It doesn't exclude the possibility that one day, who knows? With the passage of time, other religious symbols from other religions might also be embraced on government buildings; or city's made with an Islamic or Buddhist name. Why should that offend me? And even if it does, that's my problem; not society's.

It is not proselytizing when a city is named "Sacramento" which is a religious reference to the Sacrament, a Christian rite that mediates divine grace. Since when is it a GOD-given, excuse me, "CONSTITUTIONALLY AMERICAN-given right not to be offended by anything? And that's really the crux of the issue: it's not about religion per se. It's about individuals who are taking advantage of Constitutional interpretation to carry out their own personal grievances and vendettas, that have nothing to do with looking out for national interests and what's good for the country.

To analogize: I hate looking at tattooes and piercings. Does that give me the right to impose my personal affront onto the rest of society? What if there were an article in the Constitution that mentioned the government shall not endorse any one method of bodily mutilations, such as piercings and tattooes. Conveniently ignoring the fact that our ancestors came over here to escape from tattoo and piercings persecution, and meant for a country that would accept all forms and styles of piercings and tattoo art without endorsing one type...such as lip-plates. And what if I, being the body art bigot that I am, decide to take issue of some government building that featured a statue of someone with a lip plate because it makes those without lip plates feel unwelcomed or excluded? So I decide to sue the city, simply because something I find personally offensive, conveniently finds alliance with an interpretation of the Constitution. It's not about diversity and multicultural acceptance. It's about selfish intolerance. It's about shutting down diversity. Since when is it a right to not be excluded from something? If I am a girl, I don't expect to be able to join the Boy Scouts; if I'm a white social worker, I shouldn't demand to be let into The National Association of Black Social Workers organization.

Over a week ago, I posted on the secularist extremists and their ally, the ACLU, and how the Los Angeles County Seal is in danger of having it's Seal altered at the estimated cost of $700,000, all because a tiny cross appears on it. That cross symbolizes the Missionaries that came here over a hundred years ago. Just because it is rooted in religion, does not mean that we should eradicate the historic signficance of it because of religious bigotry and intolerance. It does us harm. Not good. Immgirants flock to this country because of our religious freedom. Muslims don't come to this country because of our persecution and shuttind down of religion from public expression.

I'm not religious, as I've said before; yet I find beauty and comfort in images of angels, the hope that the image of a cross represents; the goodwill and cheerfulness that accompanies the Christmas Season. How culturally impoverished would our nation be, should we banish religious expression from the public square; the Crusade that the ACLU and secular extremists are bent upon is misguided at best; destructive to the very fabric of our being, at worst. Who are the blind devotees of fanaticism, here?

While researching an urban legend, I found this of interest.
I don't have the time to give it the attention it deserves. You can see a picture of this cross in my 9/11 post.

and finally, I received the following in an e-mail foward from a good friend:

I received this from Marie Rollins and thought it an interesting idea - you might too:

WRITE THIS ON THE BACK OF ALL OF YOUR ENVELOPES


You may have heard in the news that a couple of Post Offices in Texas have
been forced to take down small posters that say, "IN GOD WE TRUST".

The law, they say, is being violated.

Anyway, it's been proposed on a radio station show

that we should all begin writing "IN GOD WE 'TRUST "

on the back of all our mail. After all, that is our

national motto, and it's on all the money we use

to buy those stamps. I think it is a wonderful idea.


We must take back our nation from all those people who
think that anything that offends them should be removed.


If you like this idea, please pass it on and DO IT. The idea of writing or
stamping "IN GOD WE TRUST" on our envelopes ! sounds good to me.

I'M HAVING MY STAMP MADE TODAY!

It has been reported that 86% of Americans believe

in God. Therefore, I have a hard time understanding

why there is such a fuss about having "In God We Trust" on our money, and
having God in the Pledge of Allegiance.



Could it be that WE just need to take action

and tell the 14% to "sit down and shut up"?



If you agree with this, pass this on

A Perfect Tribute to Our Military and Their Families

The best and brightest of America. Without them, we would not be here today.


Hat tip to Argghhh!!! and The Neo Con Blogger(TM). I've seen this piece before, but I can't remember where. It brought me to tears both times.

More on the Media Disaster

I mentioned yesterday about the Times-Picayune article that covers point by point all the over-exaggerations, rumors, and media hysteria that accompanied the coverage of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Well, today the Los Angeles Times has picked up on it, and makes its own criticism of how the media coverage magnified the chaotic distortions, eagerly spinning the nation and the world out of control through its rumor mill.

[Update] Hugh Hewitt finds vindication over the slow-plodding journalism of the MSM. And get a load of this from Radioblogger

.

[Update II] The New York Times finally plods along, reporting on yesterday's news.

Politicized Blonde Joke

I was sitting at the counter in a diner recently, next to a blonde liberal Democrat who was engrossed in reading her New York Times. I noticed the front page headline blared: "12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed in Iraq."

She shook her head at the sad news as she read the article.

Then, suddenly she turned and asked, "How many is a brazilian?"


The original version can be found at Sister Toldja.

What's in a Number?

CJ at A Soldier's Perspective alerted me to this fine commentary yesterday, on the crowd numbers at the anti-war rallies over the weekend.

Because it's 1am and I want to go to bed, I'll just cut-and-paste part of my comment from there, here:

It's something that I subconsciously knew, and thought of, but didn't formulate it into any concrete terms [I'm referring to the touted numbers who showed]. Thank you!

I was at a protest rally this past saturday in downtown Los Angeles. And there were all sorts of fringe groups out there sporting all sorts of signs that had nothing to do with the Iraq war.

And if someone is out there counting heads, not all of us standing around were there to support their cause(s). Some of us were just passersby....some of us were counter-protesting....and others, like myself, were just pointing and taking pictures of the moonbats all gathered in one place.


The numbers never really concerned me, as the media and liberal supporters seemed to fluff up the number of moonbats who showed up to answer the call of their nature,
while conservative scoffers seemed to reject and minimize those numbers as inflated. I could care less.

Liberals seem to make the most noise, all the time. Their numbers don't worry me. They are always out protesting this or that, and their numbers came out before the war as well as this past weekend, post-war, in large numbers. And they were patting themselves on the back, back then as well. That show of presence, and the bashing from the media on television and in print, make total strangers I run into in Los Angeles assume they can denigrate OUR President, in my presence, and I'd be ok with that. So when they encounter someone who actually supports the President, they look at me as if I'm some sort of myth; that Bush supporters are only something they've read about but never met before. Here in LA, there's almost an assumption that the whole world hates Bush, creating an environment in which LA liberals think they can trash the President, and you'd be in total agreement and not challenge them on it. This happens quite frequently.

So it's with this mentality, that it's no wonder that November 5th, two thousand-and-four, half the country was floored when President Bush was given political capital to spend in a 2nd term of leadership to set the agenda and steer our course. You see, our numbers showed up when numbers really counted: at the ballot box. 59 million votes makes a louder noise, louder impact than all the anti-war protests combined. So let the liberal Bush-bashers continue to rant and rave, expending energy and straining their vocal chords until they turn blue in the face.....or red.


More Cindy Shenanigans, splotched all over the blogosphere....eeny, meeny, miney.......moe!

[Update] More from Christopher Hitchens also noting the varied agenda of those at these protest marches. Hat tip: California Conservative.

[Update II] Upon further reflection, I'd like to add that even though many of the protestors out there had other agendas, I do admit that most are probably united under the umbrella of being opposed to this war and this Administration which backs it. So yes, those numbers, however many actually showed up, were out there protesting against the war. They might have been out there taking the opportunity to push their own individual causes, but it would seem unlikely that if you went up to any of them and asked, "do you support the war?" that any of them would say "yes".

[Update III] My friend Mark refuses to allow himself to associate and keep company with chopped liver, so I link you now to his post on the topic at hand, posing the question: "has allowing the fringe elements to swell the ranks fo their anti-war cause hurt or helped Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war movement?"

Now that the hysteria has calmed after the storm.....

It's important that everyone read this, straight out of the Times-Picayune; especially those armchair first responders who wanted to point blame when all the facts were not yet in; and those idiot reporters who are slapping themselves on the back over such excellent news coverage and journalistic integrity because, God, we know they had no part in adding to the mass hysteria but were just calling it like they saw it.

Wonder if all those foreign countries who snickered at us under their breaths will now point and laugh at us over this; or, if they will curse and mutter out loud that they donated so much of their money in relief aid, feeling tricked now that we know the body count was highly exaggerated, and is not going to number in the 10,000 deaths-range.

Hat tip to The Dennis Prager Show.


[Update] Barbra Streisand noses in. Go to Gateway Pundit.

[Update II] More aftermath news from Ex-Donkey on MIA special forces dolphins.

Capping off the Weekend

Interesting way to kill some time. (Use your mousekey). Probably a way to thrill your time away, if you're a moonbat lib. Someone should send Dubbya the link. I know I'd be flattered. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars. I think this might be the original version.

And if you just ate, I suggest you don't click onto this link as your after-dinner mint: Breasts not Bombs. The actual content is not as exciting as the sound of the title; compliments of Grouchy Old Cripple (Just follow his link). I did notice one of their members at the D.C. rally. Don't remember whose photo link and don't care to look it up for ya.
Remember:
is your best friend.


Protein Wisdom on Anatomy of an anti-war puff piece. To compliment it, here's an excerpt from The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies blog:


Hassan: I really don’t understand these people. They say they want war to cease, and they encourage the Terrorists to win it. They say they want peace, and they wish the dictator and the radicals to reign on us. They say they are progressive and seculars, and they allow the fundamentalists to massacre us. They say they promote liberties and they want ours to vanish. They say they demonstrate for the Iraqi people and their actions are aimed at plunging the Iraqi people under terror and oppression. What on earth do they want with us?

Air-drop leaflets of that piece to those "peace" protestors in D.C. Hat tip: Medved Fanblog.

By the way, I'm curious to know if anyone does not see my profile and set of links along the rightside margin, at the top rather than at the bottom of the page. I ask, because when I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, it looks normal; but if I open up Internet Explorer, it flickers a moment with my profile and blogroll, then it idsappearsa and is found at the bottom, after the last post appears. I thought I solved the problem a few days ago when Michael Whitt suggested that it was my Michael Yon banner. Reducing the size helped. Now it's happened again, and I think it's the size and position of the photos in my pictures post from Saturday's Los Angeles rally. If you'd care to leave me a comment on what you are seeing in your browser, or any suggestions, it'd be greatly appreciated.

I'd adjust the size of the photos in that post to experiment and see, but blogger's been acting up and it's a royal pain in the rear end to move the pix around. I'm going to bed.

Turn on the Tube NOW

A Soldier's Perspective tips us off to CSPAN televising the pro-military family rally in D.C. I'm watching it now! So stop what you are doing, get off the damn computer and go watch fellow patriots who have a different understanding of what it means to support our troops from the kind of defeatist and self-hating brand of patriotism that our other fellow Americans are expressing and which is being widely covered by MSM!!!

California Conservative has put up more photos out of San Francisco.....some [sarcasm]classy pro-American[/sarcasm] signs there, yessiree.


[Update] Gateway Pundit also mentions the CSPAN broadcast. Also, more moonbat photos and commentary.


[Update II] Flopping Aces with a nice roundup of photos.

More from EU ROTA. My fave, there.

[Update III] Some photos of the pro-military families rally at Jeff's blog.

[Update IV] Baldilocks has some photos up of protests at Broadway and Olympic in Los Angeles (mine were downtown on Los Angeles and Temple).

Some nice, obscene photos here. I can feel the hate.

[Update V] And now from the Moonbats themselves:

Daily Kos with blog and photos. who says they don't have taste in humor? AfterDowningStreet.org.

Pilfered from some guy's post at Democratic Underground. There's plenty more over there for pillaging if you can stand the smell.

The Moonbats Answer the Call-to-Arms

As I posted earlier, I accidentally stumbled upon the Los Angeles "Peace" protest, which the LA Times said drew around 15,000. I don't know how many were actually there protesting, and how many were just gawkers, like myself. I did quickly identify the Protest Warriors by their trademark signs. I was told by one of these brave souls that about 20 of them were there to protest the protestors. Just 20 in a sea of thousands.


I arrived on the tail end of it, in the latter part of the afternoon. But there was still a sizable crowd and much ranting on the microphone and from the podium.

Originally, after work, I had decided to drive out to Little Tokyo to pick up food and a monthly subscription I have at a Japanese bookstore. While walking from an ATM, I noticed quite a bit of police presence on 2nd Street...then a few strays with signs, and passed a guy wearing a t-shirt that read "1900 dead....How many more?". I identified the epicenter of this dissent, quickly doubled back 3 blocks for my digital camera in the car, and decided food and my magazine could wait. I headed over to the noise.

Some of the most laughable signs were those tying Bush-blame to Katrina....my favorite being a t-shirt that read, "Make levees, not war."

Not sure exactly what area I was in....it was out toward City Hall. I think we were on Los Angeles Street, and the road was blocked off. Anyway, I'll let the pix speak for themselves:

A college Republican voices his sarcasm.

















A lone pair of Protest Warriors trail a gang of Che Guaverra fans....one of them had a flag with that bastard's infamous image on it.



















I was aiming my camera at the sign in the back...then my camera drifted to that pretty girl in the foreground....so I ended up snapshotting half-and-half.

There were some other pretty girls- your stereotypical pot-smoking, liberal peaceniks; their vulgar signs and moonbat sloganeering were a major turn-off, though.


Political Teen has a video of Cindy Sheehan's speech in DC.

Michelle Malkin has photos and comments.

California Conservative weighs in. Freedom Eden blogs on Gold Star Mother's Day and the exploitation by Cindy Shenanigans of that status name recognition.

Global Cop From D.C. is live photo-blogging. My favorite.



Oh, look! It's Kanye West! Still Stuck on stupid...

Someone Pass Me the Thesaurus!

California Conservative points this out..... As I'm sure you're all aware, The magical, mystery Cindy Sheehan bus tour is descending upon Washington D.C. today. You can read about it here. Oh wait...."Demonstrator" sounds so....unsym...pathetic. So 3 hours later, Yahoo replaces "Demonstrators" with "Anti-War Mothers". Same article, altered headline. I'm not exactly trying to point out bias; just how our choice of words can color perception and influence interpretation. Oh wait...that does demonstrate bias, doesn't it? Like "bomber"/"terrorist"/"freedom fighter".




(Click onto the jpg image to magnify)


I just got back from downtown Little Tokyo and had no idea that there were anti-war protests going on blocks away closer to City Hall. I assume to coincide with the Sheehanites flocking out to Washington DC. I took pix and will post 'em up this weekend.

Moral Clarity: Terrorism is Not the Answer

Could it really be so childishly simplisitc? Can the situation be painted in such stark contrasts of black and white?

When terrorists use children as human shields, tell me where the moral ambiguity is in all this?

When terrorists murder a child then booby trap the body with explosives, who is the villain in this war?

When terrorists launch a homicide car bomb to explode while soldiers are passing out candy to children, tell me, who are the ones on the side of the Iraqi people? And who are the ones murdering innocent Iraqi men, women, and children?

When terrorists grow so desperate as to kidnap and force innocents into playing the despicable role of homicide bomber, targeting mosques, who are the infidels and who are the true Muslims serving God? The answer should be clear. The truth, crystal clear.

Who are the real evil-doers and who are the true holy warriors.....warriors with halos that are screwed on so straight and tight, that only the morally blind would fail to see the obvious?

Who are the ones building schools, mosques, playgrounds, sewage systems, and overall, just making an effort to make life better by helping Iraqis construct a new life for their people? Who are the ones trying to make a positive difference, and who are the ones leaving a negative impact? Who sends a positive message of prosperity for the future of Iraq, and who offers a bleak vision of misery and death?

Moral relativism has no place here. It is unwelcomed and offensive.

And when Hollyweird liberals the likes of Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand, Cindy Sheehan, Jane Fonda, Jeanine Garafalo, Martin Sheen, Bette Midler, Phil Donahue, and all the rest of those blame-America-first-why-do-they-hate-us-whining Hollywood do-gooders talk of hating violence, war is not the answer, babies being killed...blah, blah, blah.....why are they saying it to us, and not being pro-actively involved in saying it to them, the real enemies of humanity?

It's funny how these liberals claim to be on the side of protecting the Iraqis, when under their management, more of this would still be happening. The compassion of liberal do-gooders would endorse more Saddamy upon the people of Iraq.

Their idea of what constitutes a human rights scandal is this.

They often express anti-American sentiments (different from criticism on America), yet don't you dare ever question their patriotism. After all, dissent by it's very nature is patriotic and American, right?

How is your moral compass working?

It is clear who is on the side of the Iraqi people and who is on the side of evil. It is clear to many hopeful Iraqis as well.








Is it clear to you?






You're either on the side of the terrorists or on the side of civilization. There is no fence to sit your ass on...no neutral sidelines in this struggle.

The choice is a chance for freedom or enslavement to 13th century culture that has spawned the kind of intolerance and religious perversion that we see here today.



More recent good news:

Nawroz Boys' School Gets Supplies

Iraqi, U.S. Soldiers Bring Hope to Community

Iraqis Clear in Desire for Freedom, General Says

And positive soldier stories:

Shiite Muslim Marine fights the war on terrorism

Hispanic immigrant serves proudly in Iraq

and Michael Yon's latest:

Battle For Mosul III: Prelude

Also:

Nice flash presentation from The Fourth Rail charting recent military successes in western provinces, from August 27th through September 17th. Hat tip: Ex-Donkey.


Support the Troops Weekend: Sept 23-26th.

Looks like some Iraqis have been "Sheehanitized"

Well, Cindy Sheehan is still at it. It should culminate this Saturday when she marches onto Washington. Didn't Billy Jack and George Galloway already beat her to it? (Video debate here between Galloway and Hitchens on the war in Iraq. Or try here).

Why is it that pacifists are so obnoxiously vocal and in some instances, so violent and abusive in getting their message of peace across? I realize they don't have a monopoly on foul language and violent tempers, but, they certainly are large shareholders of it. Someone should go around and hand out pacifiers to these bellicose pacifists and put a plug in their bawling behavior. Where was their pacifism when this was happening? It wasn't pacifism that ended it; it was moral violence in removing Saddam that ended his reign of terror.
Read this account of one military wife who attended one of these "Bring them Home Now Tour" rallies.

Check out this morning's LA Times article on Cindy Sheehan having an Iraqi Audience that is willing to listen to her drivel with a straight face.

Key paragraph:

Forty years ago, during the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh and his top deputies kept a close eye on U.S. public opinion and the antiwar movement. Now on the streets of Baghdad, Najaf and Mosul, even ordinary Iraqis have heard of Cindy Sheehan and formed opinions about her and her movement.



Apparently television and newspapers such as Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Al Sharqiya, are reporting on the Sheehan march for this saturday; and Iraqis are very much aware of the anti-war movement in the U.S. I'm sure the terrorists are as well.

People on the Left of this seem to take offense if there is any suggestion of being anti-Patriotic or anti-American. Freedom to dissent is very American, they say. I agree, to a degree. But I also feel there is a responsible and an irresponsible manner in which to engage in disagreement. The kind advocated by the likes of Jane Fonda pretending to take aim from behind a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery gun for a North Vietnamese war propaganda photo-op; Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry (who likened Ho Chi Minh to George Washington) when he called his fellow American soldiers "baby killers" as he testified falsehoods before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971, because, as he put it, back then he was "an angry young man"; and Senator Dick Durban on Gitmo, earning himself the top spot in Al Jazeera news headlines for a couple of weeks, and without substantiated proof, successfully poured fuel onto an already inflamed Arab world. It is this kind of reckless behavior that I deem irresponsible and ultimately gives aid and comfort to the enemy. The anti-war peace activists are proud of themselves over Vietnam; yet they, 60 Minutes, and Jane Fonda did not come away from it, learning the right lessons of Vietnam. It's funny (no...not really) how Jane Fonda goes in front of the 60 Minutes camera right around the time her new book, "My Life So Far", comes out, to apologize, not for her actions during a time of war (she still says she's proud she went to Vietnam), but for how her actions might have hurt soldiers, inadvertently. She takes no personal responsiblity, though, for the likelihood that her anti-war propaganda actions might have gotten soldiers killed, by prolonging the North Vietnamese resistance, and resulted in POWs brutalized further. And just a mere month or so ago, she had planned an anti-Iraq war tour in a bus fueled by vegetable oil; she has since canceled the spring tour, stating she didn't want to steal the limelight away from Cindy Sheehan. Riiiiiiiight. (The truth: she saw what a losing strategy Cindy Sheehan was engaged in....oh, and doesn't Hanoistan Jane have a movie coming out? What impeccable timing and planning....).

They don't acknowledge that abandoning our allies over there resulted in a million Vietnam refugees, a quarter of whom died from drowning and victimization by pirates. Those who did not flee were engaged in a bloodbath. A fifth of the Cambodian population was slaughtered by the Communists.


Former North Vietnamase colonel Bui Tin, wrote a book about how even though the Viet Cong knew they were losing the war after the Tet Offensive, news of the anti-war movement in the U.S. gave them the morale and fortitude needed for them to hang in there, and wade it out.

"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9am to follow the growth of the anti-war movement." He wrote that visits to Hanoi by the likes of Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, gave them confidence that they should keep fighting even while losing horribly on the battlefield.

So what major battle have we lost in Iraq? Where have American and Coalition Forces been routed? And yet the media makes it sound like we are losing horribly with soldiers dropping like flies when all MSM ever prefers to focus on is tragedy news and anything negative. Is it any wonder morale for the war is low here at home, even while most soldiers serving over there don't feel like we are losing; are highly motivated; and re-enlistment rates are at an all-time high?


More from the LA Times article:

To some Iraqis, Sheehan's stand at Bush's ranch and her continuing opposition to the war make her a hero. "The president doesn't have the credibility to face the mother of the U.S. soldier who was killed in a war that many in the U.S. say was a fatal mistake," columnist Muthana Tabaqchali wrote in the Iraqi daily Azzaman, which the U.S. Embassy considers hostile to the American mission in Iraq. "Sheehan was a lady who stood like a lioness with her lofty staff in front of the president," he wrote. "She collected all her strength and motherhood to face the strongest president in the world to tell him enough!" Others, however, view her with cynicism. "This might be a part of a political game, like when pictures of prisoners' abuses in Abu Ghraib prison were published, just to harm President Bush's reputation," said Hameed Shabak, 35, a Mosul resident. In front of the Faqma ice cream shop in Baghdad's Karada district, Fathel Saad, a silver-haired professor of philosophy and theology at Babel College south of Baghdad, debated a friend about Sheehan while finishing up an ice cream cone. "I think she is misguided," Saad said. "What the Americans have given Iraq is the greatest gift: the freedom to think." His friend, schoolteacher Fares Mukhlis, disagreed. "This is a brave woman standing up for her principles that are correct," he said. Nabeal Mohammed Younis, a professor of political science at Baghdad University, recalled seeing Sheehan's image on Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel, while having lunch at a Baghdad hotel with colleagues. "We said that this woman is not very different from the women in Iraq who've lost their sons," Younis recalled. "We started talking about Cindy Sheehan and started to distinguish between how the women are affected by the war and how the men are affected." With thousands of Iraqis killed in violence since the March 2003 invasion and with the legacy of Saddam Hussein's tyranny still haunting them, Iraqis are inclined to sympathize with a grieving mother, regardless of their political views, Younis said. "Most of them are with her and share her misery for losing her son," he said. Sheehan's plight, as well as the news of thousands of Americans voicing concern about the troubles in Iraq, helped Haqqi Fathulla, a 33-year-old Mosul resident, feel personally connected to Americans. "The stand of this woman emphasizes the fact that there are no hostilities between Iraqi and American people," he said.

"Dont get stuck on stupid, reporters!"

First heard this on Laura Ingraham this morning. And now I see the bloggers have also caught onto this and run with it: Political Teen has the video. Hat Tip: Ex-Donkey.

Transcript and audio at Radioblogger. Laura Ingraham and company were joking and being serious about it, that Lt. General Honore should take over as White House Spokesman (no offense to Scott McClellan).

Why was the reporting on Hurricane Katrina the way it was? It's the stupid, stupid.

Does your stance on abortion ring Hallow? How Easy would it be for me to Ween you away from your position?

Check out this pro-abortion photo at Ex-Donkey. Absolutely disgusting.

However.....if that were Michael Moore in there, wearing that, I'd definitely convert over to being pro-partial birth aborting his ass....oh, wait...that would be his fat face, I'd be seeing...ah well...Everything that farts out of his mouth stinks like sh*t anyway; so how is anyone supposed to tell the difference?

Actually....how old is Michael al Moor? Is it too late to abort him now?

Arrr, international Talk like a Pirate Day Gar.

Ahoy, i knew it was "Talk Like a Pirate Day" today, and should have blogged about it. A pence for an old man o'de sea?

Aye, ok....last year while dri'in' t' work, Me was listenin' t' Hugh Hewitt (one o' my fa'orite talk radio hosts) and it was "talk like a pirate day". He had one o' the funniest programs that day. He kept hangin' up on callers who war tryin' t' discuss serious politics. But if they warn't talkin' like a pirate, he'd cut 'em short no matter how important the substance o' what they wanted t' say, seemed t' be. Some had horrible pirate impersonations, and he'd hang up on those. Some would try t' just talk like a pirate at first hello, then get their talkin' points out in their regular 'oices, and he'd hang up on them as well.

So, the memory o' that was such fun, I went int' work talkin' like a pirate. As some o' you might know, I work at a gymnastics club. The kids got a real kick out o' it.

Tis' silly fun. Aye.


Ahoy, one o' the team kids said I sounded Irish.

It was kind o' rough durin' the first class. Me have this one tiny 6 year old, real cute and talented, and I was warned that she's been ha'in' problems because her parents be in the process o' gettin' a di'orce. Sure enough, she had a couple o' moments whar she'd burst int' tears because she was sufferin' some sort o' separation anxiety. Me was afraid my pirate-talkin' would alienate her....me bein' the alien. But I was told that when we split up int' groups (6 kids per instructor), t' take her with me because she felt comfortable around me.

Aye.

Blogger Mateys: Aargghhh!!! Sister Toldjah

Ahoy, helpful links (e'en though Talk Like a Pirate Day is pretty much o'er): A pence for an old man o'de sea?

About Talk Like a Pirate Day

Pirate Speak Translator

Why are right-of-center, conservative bloggers so damn cool? Because they just Aarrgh!


Top 25 things to say at the office during Pirate Day:

25> "No cover sheet on your expense report? Prepare yerself to be walking the plank, matey."

24> "Hop to it, dogs: Thar be leftover catering booty in the break room for plunderin'."

23> "Sixteen men an' a copier mess -- yo, ho, ho and a bottle of toner."

22> "Avast, men! Get a telescope full of the doubloons on *that* vessel."

21> "I'll be keelhaulin' the next one of ye what leaves ye filthy Tupperware in the break room sink!"

20> "Arrr, matey, have your parrot call my parrot and we'll one day partake of noontime grub together."

19> "No, Bob Dess, I will not 'shiver your timbers.' I will, however, call my attorney."

18> "To arms, me lads! The spoils of the snack machine shall be ours, to each in a fortieth share!"

17> "Me cell phone fell deep into Davy Jones' locker Nobody flush... I'll go get me hook."

16> "Save that last donut for me, unless ya care to feel the cold steel of my hook hand up yer arse, matey."

15> "Be that a peg leg, or arrr ye just happy to cast yer eyes upon me?"

14> "Fax ahoy, mateys!"

13> "Avast! A Team Builders meeting off our schedule's port bow! Scuttle yer productivity, mateys, and prepare to be bored-ed!"

12> "No increase in me pay? Arrr, boss, let me tell ye where ye can store that hook!"

11> "Hold that elevator, ye whoreson bilge rat!"

10> "Ye bent my ear with yer lubberly questions WITHOUT tryin a reboot first? Arrr! It's the plank for you, ye mangy cur... and thank ye for calling Microsoft Tech Support!"

9> "Arrr, load the Canon, wench, and collate me copies!"

8> "Avast, ya scurvy knave! Brave be ye, for certain, but arrr ye willin' ta die fer that parking spot?"

7> "Twenty paces past the Magic Fountain of Water... bear ye left past the Chamber of Meetings... and a minute's voyage down the Great Carpeted Hallway... the unisex bathroom'll be on yer port side."

6> "Aye, if it's a large treasure chest and amazin' booty ye seek, fix yer gaze upon the receptionist."

5> "Boss, I'll be borrowin' a coupla doubloons from petty cash fer some Ho Ho's and a bottle of rum."

4> "Aaaarrrrrghhh! Who among us floated the air mead?"

3> "Arrr! I've arrr!anged for Arrr!lene in arrr!chives to send up that arrr!ticle on arrr!bitration."

2> "Avast, ye demon copy machine! Taste the wrath of my arse!"

1> "Arrr, I have made note of yer demands and I have but one question for ye: Will ye be wantin' slivers o' potato fried in the popular French style with that?"

See?...............BS.

I just watched a repeat segment of "Life in Baghdad", a CBS 60 Minutes segment. It bothered me. Not because I don't appreciate the perspective that was presented; but because of

1. The imbalance in all of 60 Minutes reporting regarding Iraq...which is all anti-war and anti-Bush. I know, because I watch 60 Minutes pretty religiously. All of the segments on our military are drawn out in such a way as to suck the sails right out from anyone who is "pro-war".

and

2. Because these repeat broadcasts are "out of context", in that they are yesterday's news. If I happened to be a casual viewer, flipping through channels, I might not know that this is a repeat from a year ago.

Since I had difficulties finding the video on the 60 Minutes page (all I found was this statement: "Our West Coast viewers will also get a look at life in Baghdad, not for America's soldiers but for the citizens of that capital city"). This was hosted by Scott Pelley. I ran a google search and discovered that "Life in Baghdad" is credited to Josh Howard and Mary Murphy , two nominees for the 26th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards. They also happened to be 2 of the 3 executives asked to resign after the Dan Ra^ther Memogate scandal was broken by the Pajamahadeen Brigade. It's funny because their names were not mentioned in the closing credits for the piece; I didn't pay attention to the beginning of the segment, whether they were credited or not; nor do I remember Ed Bradley announcing the date this piece originally aired.


Ok....upon further digging, this piece was originally on 60 Minutes II. And I found this blog post, which would place the date that the segment originally aired, to be October 6, 2004...about a month before the 2004 Election. Nice timing.

And today, running that story again is like recycling old news and making it appear like current event; that the tragic life in Baghdad has not changed one iota in the past year; without any progress having been made. The segment is about "life in Baghdad"....but I think your average viewer may get the impression that it's "life in Iraq", where there is nothing but death and destruction everywhere with Iraqis completely alienated from Americans. My understanding is that the insurgency problem is concentrated mostly in 3 of the 16 provinces (it's 16 isn't it?). Of course, tragedy TV will focus on the 3.

This is similar to another story I remember them running: the one about the lack of body armor protecting our troops. I couldn't find the 60 Minutes video, but here's this on the site. At the time of the re-airing, I did not pay as close attention...just rolled my eyes and I'm not sure that I even watched the entire thing again. But I don't think they provided the viewer with an update since their story last aired; I could be mistaken and wish I knew for certain. But they certainly didn't report on this, which is another example of the bias that infests MSM. I first came across the story on one of the milblogs. Our soldiers do deserve the best equipment available, by the way, and every effort should be made to protect our military men and women.

60 Minutes wouldn't be so bad if it ran a story on something like this or this or this or this and still more this and this. Or how about this to provide a counterbalance to their "breaking" Abu Ghraib? When they only report on one side of the coin, it creates a distorted picture of what's really going on. And then they feign shock that anyone could dare accuse them and the mainstream as a whole, as being liberally biased? Puh-lease......

"You pull our troops out now!"

From New Orleans, that is. Yup. "Pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans." Must be a quagmire or something. But I'm not the Moonbat that said it. She is:

"One thing that truly troubled me about my visit to Louisiana was the level of the military presence there. I imagined before that if the military had to be used in a CONUS (Continental US) operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied. I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me. Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests."


"I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest."

Also, PebblePie links to GOP Vixen, regarding Cindy Sheehan calling the terrorists in Iraq "Freedom Fighters". Key quote:

" The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine, in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents."

Freedom Fighters, huh? Um...yeah, right. Around 80% of these insurgents...excuse me TERRORISTS.....are paid, foreign fighters. And the rest are pretty much former Baathists and Saddam loyalists. Most Iraqis seem pretty much fed up with them. They don't offer Iraqis any kind of future, whatsoever. Who are the ones building schools, hospitals, mosques, and trying to make life better for Iraqis? There should be no question which side of the fence we should all be sitting on.

It would seem that Cindy Sheehan is still amongst us, and has not gone home.

Hat tip: Ex-Donkey Blog, Freedom Eden, Sweetness & Light (by way of Patterico's Pontifications). And others blogging on it: nygirl, Stop the ACLU
(follow the link trail).

"Will you give me a foot-rub? And wash my feet while you are at it, please? I'm getting a kick out of sticking my foot in my mouth and getting media attention for it."








Aah....good times.

"C'mon...bite, damn you! Bite!!!"

Heheh...bias is beautiful: ABC's Dean Reynolds interviews Hurricane victim. In the exchange, Reynolds appears to be baiting Connie London, the person he's interviewing, fishing for criticism against President Bush and the "slow" federal response. You can go to Pajama Hadin for the full transcript, which has more than the video clip provides. Or go here for more. It's worth reading, since the clip is incomplete.

And Roger Simon asks, "Am I the only one who likes Bush more every time he is excessively attacked by the mainstream media?"

The more he is hated by those I am strongly in disagreement with, the more I feel like he must be doing something right. Hat tip: Gaypatriot.

Curses!

This morning I tried printing out my last post and everything turned into gobbledegook. Michael Whitt suggested I go into my template, which did in fact mysteriously change. So I replaced it with an older version of my template. But even though it showed up in my preview window, when I'd try to republish the template, it still came out scrambled. So finally I got it to work when I re-edited that last post I tried to publish this morning. Weird.

Anyway, thank goodness I had the foresight to copy a version of my template in the event of something like this. All I had to do was cut and paste that in. It isn't quite 100% up-to-date, so be patient as I add in some of my more recent links. If you see yours missing, or want to be added to my blogroll, let me know.

So this is what's meant by "If it's on the internet, it must be true."

Go here.


Ok...now that you are there, use the search function and type in "conservativism".

Now type in "liberalism". (Ok, if you want to be lazy about it, go ahead and click my links).


OMG! LIBERAL BIAS in the internet!!!


Hat tip to Dennis Prager for mentioning about this on air. He also mentioned this.


Also, check this CAIR attempt at doctoring a photo: at Jihad Watch.













This is the normal photo.





What's changed?




















Bad photoshop job.




Hmm....I think this photo has got to be in direct competition with the Reuters one for photo o fthe week. Credit Little Green Footballs for the link.....plus one.