AN EMAIL FROM MY MOM THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE TELLING ME TO WEAR A SWEATER

Everyone is making a big deal about French fries now being called liberty
fries or patriot fries. And one occasionally hears mentioned the WWI
frankfurter and sauerkraut changes to hot dog and liberty cabbage,
respectively; but what about the WWI change in Britain of German Shepherd to
Alsatian? Worth a comment on your page?

IVY IDIOCY

Far above Cayuga's waters,

There lies an awful smell.

Some say it's Cayuga's waters.

We know it's Cornell.

DICK MORRIS PUTS HIS OWN FOOT IN HIS MOUTH

        I generally like Dick Morris, but in his March 5^th column, he makes a lulu of an error.

Remember the domino theory? It posited that if Vietnam fell, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore would be next. Then the Philippines and Indonesia. Soon we'd be fighting in San Francisco.

It was wrong. Vietnam fell . . . and nothing happened.

        Wrong, Dick. The theory was right. When Saigon fell in 1975, it was the beginning of a sad story, as much as the end of one. Cambodia fell into the bloody clutches of the Khmer Rouge. Laos fell into Communist tyranny as well. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the region as the totalitarian regimes were installed.
hellish states ever made.

        Liberals, then as now, could not see the catastrophe that would arise from their triumph. George McGovern, who also opposed granting asylum to refugees fleeing the Communists after the fall of Saigon, nodded approvingly as the dominoes fell. "Cambodians would be better off if we stopped all aid to them and let them work things out in their own way."


        Then Representative (now Senator) Chris Dodd declared, "The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is not guns but peace, and the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now."

        Dodd's gift resulted in four years that would see 31% of Cambodia's population murdered.

        And what caused the fall of South Vietnam, nearly two years after our troops left and the subsequent chaos? It was triggered by liberal Democrats in Congress felt that the way to peace was unilateral disarmament and surrender.

        We followed the path suggested by George McGovern, Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd over a quarter of a century ago. The result of appeasing the bloodthirsty is more blood. They were wrong then. They are wrong now. The difference is that too many Americans have learned from their folly to repeat the same mistakes.

I'M BACK!

        Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. I had a major project that just ended last week. I spent the rest of the time recovering.

WHEN I CALLED HIM A RACIAL ARSONIST, I WAS JUST BEING METAPHORICAL.

        Al Sharpton's HQ was damaged by an electrical fire. The good news is that nobody was killed or seriously hurt, although one man had to be treated for
smoke inhalation. The bad news is, 'nobody hurt' includes Sharpton.

        While I normally refrain from wishing a horrible fiery death to my fellow man, Sharpton would be high on my shortlist of people who
have earned a Willy Pete makeover. The fire this time had no casualties. The same can not be said of
the previous Sharpton associated blaze, which the not-so-good Reverend ignited with his incendiary rhetoric.

        Well, according to what the alleged Reverend supposedly preaches, he'll get flames enough in the end.

ROTTEN IN DENMARK.

        Another display of European contempt for Jews and Jewish suffering.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Parents of more than 100 Danish scouts were outraged over a game of tag at a scout camp in which children acted as Jews wearing yellow Stars of David and tried to escape from adults pretending to be Nazis.

        Next is the 'suicide bomber game,' where they get to stick nails and shrapnel into the other kids. Looks like the Danes are flushing their moral superiority away.

"JUST GIMME THE HALO. I ALREADY GOT A PURPLE HEART."

        Bill Maudlin cartoonist laureate of the greatest generation died at
age 81. He twice won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning and was awarded the Legion of Merit by the Army for his work.

        In his memory, I offer a 21 gun salute.

        RIP Willie and Joe.

MEMO TO CANADIANS

        I think you're looking for this guy! I know our names are similar, but Major General James Wolfe, conqueror of Quebec is probably the one you want, judging from the disappointed Google hits I've been getting from the .ca domain!

GOLD MEDAL HYPOCRITES

        I don't want to sound like a racist. I want to have every word from my lips or my keyboard to be full of love. But when I read articles like this...

Islamic extremist groups reportedly have threatened to bomb the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens if security is assigned to a consortium that includes Israeli companies.         In addition, Arab nations are threatening to boycott the Olympics if the SAIC Team gets the security contract for the Games, according to the Greek newspaper Avriani.

        The reason why Israel has so much knowledge about counter-terror is all the terror from the damn Arabs and Islamofascists. And why do the Olympics, the games
of peace need that expertise?


        TBECAUSE OF DAMN ARAB LOVE OF TERROR!


        These Olympic athletes were murdered by ARAB TERRORISTS!

		The 11 Israeli athletes mur- dered by Fatah terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games.

        Here is where I will sound racist and I do not care anymore. The Arabs want complete freedom of consequences for all their actions. They support terror organizations, then whine when their citizens/subjects receive added scrutiny at border checkpoints. The violate cease fires and shriek shrilly at the return fire. They send out homicide bombers and are shocked when their targets send attack choppers and tanks seek to avenge the murdered. They whip their rabble up into bloodthirsty frenzies for wars of extermination against a neighbor and then drop the refugees who are the consequences of their defeat into the laps of others.


        Let them boycott. Let them throw dung at another symbol of shared humanity. The UN, the noble goddess of freedom. has become tyranny's syphilitic strumpet. The terror loving Arabs have desecrated the Olympics before in order to attack the Jews. I doubt their absence from pique will impoverish the games too much.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON KICKS 'BUT!'

        Excellent essay today by VDH on the equivocation that masks spinelessness.

KIPLING ON KOREA

DANE-GELD
A.D. 980-1016

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,

    To call upon a neighbour and to say:—

“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,

    Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

    And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

    And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

    To puff and look important and to say:—

“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

    We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

    But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

    You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

    For fear they should succumb and go astray,

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

    You will find it better policy to says:—

“We never pay any one Dane-geld,

    No matter how trifling the cost,

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

    And the nation that plays it is lost!”

BULGER COLLAPSE!

        Must have been a crummy last couple of days for U-Mass
President William Bulger. The Commonwealth's former Speaker of the House had been
deposed
by victims of his brother, James 'Whitey' Bulger.
Howie Carr rubbed more salt into the wound with his radio show. His guest, Indiana congressman Dan Burton announced that THREE Congressional committees will be coming to town to ask more uncomfortable questions of the former
Senate President about his brother's relationship with the FBI and State House.
The last time Burton was in Beantown asking about Whitey, Billy, who many believed used his brother's street muscle to compliment his political power, took the fifth. The firestorm may have been better than the
questions that would have been asked.


        Small wonder he collapsed during a service for the late Globe sportswriter Will McDonough.

PARVE FOR THE COURSE!

        Do not trief-l with these consumers!

NOBODY EVER BUILT A STATUE TO A CRITIC!

          My first review is up at Blogcritics.

SHYSTER, SHYSTER & FLYWHEEL

        Kudos to Senator Bill Frist. The newly installed Senate Majority Leader was doing his normal non-senatorial activity, saving lives. He came upon a scene of a traffic accident and along, with a number of medical professionals, cared for the injured. Frist performed triage. According to Capt. Ken Kronheim of the Broward County Fire and Rescue Department, "He was instrumental in helping us sort out the critical patients."

        The survivors were loaded into ambulances, which Senator John Edwards promptly chased.

        Yeah. It was a cheap shot. But I'm much nicer than Doug Denver who declared...

GOP Senators stop at car accidents and render aid.         DNC Senators swim from car accidents and let young women drown.

        Hat tip to Insignificant Thoughts.


        Even less charitable was Opinionjournal. "In fairness to the Democrats, we should point out that they too have a physician-lawmaker, Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington state, a psychiatrist. McDermott has been known to administer not only aid but comfort."

        So, John Edwards is throwing his hat into the ring. Listening to the daytime talk radio in town I noticed the hosts and listeners focuses on his wealth, not how he earned his $14 million dollars.

There are material reasons, as well, for Republicans to go after trial lawyers: the large corporations that generally support Republicans are frequently subject to lawsuits that exact damage awards in the millions of dollars. Small businesses fear trial lawyers even more. A sizable judgment against a Fortune 500 company at most knocks down its stock price; but it can drive a small business into bankruptcy. The National Federation of Independent Business, the main small-business group instrumental in crafting the president's tax cut, is equally involved in guiding tort-reform initiatives.

        The writer falls into the fallacious liberal meme that Republican means rich. Big corporations (Like Enron and Global Crossing) have been giving more to the Democrats. Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that "In the 2000 election cycle, for example, big business gave 42 percent of its largess to the party and its candidates."

        The small business donors are finding the GOP more attuned to their needs, especially on the issue of not feeding the plaintiff's bar, a major client of the Democrats.

        Now is the time to push for tort reform, when communities are losing their doctors. (Doctors, unable to by the legislative Theodens from their shyster Grimas are resorting to the desperate tactic of saying, "If you want the gall bladder out, ask James Freaking Sokolov to do it!" And it's not just in the Mountaineer state. Even in the echo chamber of the New York Times opinion pages, concern is being voiced. An agressive push on the issue is what is needed.

        Getting back to Frist, John Hawkins must have a cast iron stomach to be able to wade through the DU sewer. Here's some of the fantasies being spewed in the fewer swamp...

"I nominate him for "Emergenc y Surgeon General"....jesus, a couple years ago he supposedly rescued a Capitol cop who had been shot...??? WTF? This guy is really Superman. He miraculously appears whenever someone is injured....gimme a f*ckin' break.."         If they can get away with killing Wellstone Two nobodies should be no sweat for KKKarl Rove and co."         "IF it's true ( I doubt it) BFD the man is a freaking doctor. that's what doctors are supposed to do. Of course , being a republican it would be amaing if he did the right ."

        Keep up the hate and paranoia, folks. It'll make your political immolation all the more delicious.

ANOTHER GOOD ONE GONE

        Hall of fame coach Sid Gillman is dead, according to the NFL. He was a pioneering coach in both the AFL and the NFL. His San Diego Chargers won the AFL with a (pun intended) electrifying passing game.

HAPPY NEW BEERS!

        Gonna go to Kaiju Big Battel tonight, with some friends. I'll try to write it up for Blogcritics. I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. Hopefully that bottle of 151 won't disappear like it has the last couple of years. (2 point ref)

DRAFT FEARS ON TAP

        Charles Rangel (D-NY) the very liberal Harlem Congressman has been the first to bring up the D-word. Of course, being a liberal Democrat, cynical political calculus and not honorable strategic thinking is behind the pronouncement.

        Some observers, including Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Jack H. Jacobs have warned our troops are being spread too thin. As Colonel Jacobs noted on MSNBC.com.

[O]ur military force is only a fraction of what we had a decade ago - and nothing near what is required to fight. We have only about a million men and women under arms in the entire active service, but we have commitments as geographically diverse as Bosnia, Korea, Iraq and homeland defense. With numbers like these, the United States will find it difficult to amass decisive and overwhelming military force to combat any but the least significant of threats, and we require all the technological edge we can get. We rely very heavily on National Guard and reserve augmentation of active units, but we have no system of National Service.

        I fear a draft may be necessary. And I'm scared as hell that it will come through. Now don't get me wrong. Even back in the day when I was a prime demographic for the draft, during the Persian Gulf War, I had no qualms about serving if called upon. I was not sure I'd survive boot camp, but that's another matter. While all my friends were talking about fleeing to Canada or bragging about their flat feet, I was thinking of enlisting in the Navy if called upon.
John Stryker, after slamming Rangel's motives, points out the basic problem with reinstating the draft.

A draft will weaken and diminish the military, because anyone with the least amount of talent, skill or money will be able to legally dodge the draft, leaving only the worst this society has to offer to fill our ranks. Right now, we have the most powerful military force this world has ever seen and it's manned solely by volunteers.         (Emphasis in the original)

        Even though America may need the manpower, the draft is still a bad idea.
After the Vietnam War, the armed forces were a hollow shell because of the unpopularity of the draft. Because the armed forces had to lower their standards, the 70s became a time when they were beset by low retention, poor morale, racial tension, inefficiency, poor equipment, combat unreadiness and rife crime and drug abuse. It took Reagan to cure that.

        Even if those loopholes Stryker described are closed, do we WANT the slackers, faux bohos, pierced idiots, Barbie dolls, PC androids and other assorted nitwits from the college campuses in the Armed forces? After the 60s, the liberals took over the educational institutions, leaving the armed forces to the conservatives (despite some busybody oversight attempts).

        The results? Universities are increasingly expensive PC farces where standards are constantly lowered and ignorance and arrogance are as common in the faculty as in the student body. Free inquiry and free speech have been crushed by the quasi-totalitarian party line. And every day we read new stories of the 'dumbing down of America.' The parents who can, or who care, flee the public schools for pricey private schools or home schooling. Meanwhile the teachers unions fight viciously and rapaciously to keep their monopoly and ensuring the ignorance of those they live off of.

        Meanwhile, the US military is a colorblind meritocracy, with proactive thinkers and an efficiency and strength that even they underestimate!

        As tempting as it is to see the Berkley Yahoos getting very acquainted with the underclass and proles on the confidence course, let's not mess up a good thing.

PULLING A BONER

        When will I learn? I was posting a comment on Free Republic about Spike Lee's firm making ads for Pepsi. I wanted to be acerbic and imply that Lee's presence would hurt Pepsi's business. However, given my propensity for typos... No. Read it for yourself.

SIGN OF THE TIME

        I was in Harvard Square Saturday- I had walked from my Brookline apartment, seeking to see something other than the same four walls. While there, I noticed on the Hudson News side of JFK street a sign urging motorists to 'Honk to say No to War in Iraq.' The sign (complete with stick, making it look like a leftover from some demo or another' was taped to a lamppost.

        Now this was in ultra liberal Cambridge, on the last Saturday before Christmas. And you know how Boston drivers are, especially in jaywalker territory like Harvard Square. So you will also know why it was so remarkable that nary a beep could be heard. And in the time it took to enjoy a pot of Moroccan Mint at TeaLuxe, someone tore the sign down and pitched it into the trash.