Public Outcry Brings Resolutions Involving Flag-Folding Ceremony, Monument Cap

H/T Proud Infidel:

Allie Martin
OneNewsNow.com
October 31, 2007

Officials with the Veterans Administration (VA) have clarified a directive limiting the use of a religious recitation at flag-folding ceremonies during military funerals. And a replica of the cap on the Washington Monument will be rebuilt so a God-honoring phrase is visible. The founder of the American Family Association (AFA) credits public outcry in both cases.

Last month, a senior VA official told directors of the agency's 125 cemeteries not to distribute or post non-government handouts on "The Meaning of Each Fold of an Honor Guard Funeral Flag."

The memo also said the handout should not be recited at graveside services by cemetery workers or by VA-sponsored volunteer honor guards. The recitations include references to "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" and to "the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

Public outcry was swift, with more than 200,000 emails sent to the VA. Now a VA spokesperson says volunteer honor guards may recite any text requested by next of kin.

Good work my friends, your emails, letters, faxes and phone calls have had the result we demanded: that the bureaucrats not be allowed to make these decisions but instead the decision should reside with the families. Congratulations on a job well done!

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Web Reconnaissance for 10/31/2007

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.


In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Camelot' Star Robert Goulet Dies at 73 - Robert Goulet was in good spirits as he waited for a lung transplant, even telling doctors before they inserted a breathing tube, "Just watch my vocal cords," his wife said. (READ MORE)

Mukasey Losing Democrats' Backing - Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey told Senate Democrats yesterday that a kind of simulated drowning known as waterboarding is "repugnant to me," but he said he does not know whether the interrogation tactic violates U.S. laws against torture. (READ MORE)

Clinton's Foes Go on the Attack - PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 30 -- With just over two months until the first primary contest, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic rivals aggressively challenged their party's front-runner here Tuesday night, accusing her of being dishonest and of emboldening President Bush to declare war against Iran. (READ MORE)

U.S. and Pakistan: A Frayed Alliance - Five years ago, elite Pakistani troops stationed near the border with Afghanistan began receiving hundreds of pairs of U.S.-made night-vision goggles that would enable them to see and fight al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in the dark. The sophisticated goggles, supplied by the Bush administration at... (READ MORE)

Intelligence Budget Disclosure Is Hailed - The Democratic chairman and ranking Republican member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday praised the administration's declassification of the $43.5 billion budget total for national intelligence programs, calling it a useful step toward enhanced accountability. (READ MORE)

New Charter Would Widen Chavez's Reach - BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 30 -- Under a new constitution being considered in Venezuela, the workday would be slashed from eight hours to six, so workers would have sufficient time for "personal development." But while Venezuelans might have more leisure time, the constitution would also ensure that President Hugo Chavez could toil far into the future. (READ MORE)

Iraq Set to Lift Contractors' Immunity - The Iraqi parliament is poised to pass its first significant piece of legislation since the lawmakers went on summer recess — a bill to remove immunity from expatriate security companies working there. (READ MORE)

Answers Sought on TB Flier - Senators are demanding answers about why a Mexican national infected with a contagious form of tuberculosis was allowed to cross the U.S. border 76 times and whether government officials were told not to discuss the case outside their departments. (READ MORE)

FAA Fines Minister $28,000 - The Rev. Sam Childers, a Pennsylvania missionary who operates the orphanage for victims of the war in Sudan's Darfur region and elsewhere in Africa, is in a fight with federal aviation officials over a $28,000 fine for some supplies he tried to send to his shelter. (READ MORE)

O'Malley Links Tax Cuts, Health Coverage to Slots - Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday warned that if his plan to legalize slot machines is rejected, he will not cut property taxes, freeze college tuition, increase spending on school construction or expand health care coverage. (READ MORE)

McCain Caters to GOP Voters - Sen. John McCain has quietly been piling up flip-flops, including ditching his long-held support for the Law of the Sea convention and telling bloggers he now opposes the DREAM Act to legalize illegal alien students. (READ MORE)

Officials: Boy Started California Fire - A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week, authorities said yesterday. (READ MORE)

The Kingdom - King Abdullah caused an uproar ahead of a visit to Britain this week by scolding his hosts about terrorism. But as long as the Saudi monarch has raised the subject, by all means let's debate the kingdom's role in promoting radical Islam. In a BBC interview Monday, King Abdullah said that "most countries are not taking this issue [terrorism] too seriously… (READ MORE)

From the Front:
From an Anthropological Perspective: Tribal Genealogy - Another project I am working on as part of trying to understand who are the stakeholders in this area is tribal genealogy. That information is largely understand by many people here but is not necessarily understood by Americans. Last night I was priviledged to spend a few hours at a Sheik's house and he explained his tribe's genealogy. The section pictured here shows his lineage going back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and before. Elaborate trees (this one stands from floor to over my head) are symbols to visitors of the Sheik's legitimate claim to authority. (READ MORE)

ON Point: The “Concerned Citizens”- The Locals Join Up - It may have taken four years, but the Iraqi people are finally taking the lead in the reconstruction of their own country. The combination of the extra American troops brought in through The Surge strategy, accompanied by the Iraqi revulsion to the brutality of Al-qada-Iraq and others is producing a resurgence of Iraqi local pride that may provide the tipping point in the war. OnPoint examines 1 - an area in the Diyala River Valley (north of Baghdad), 2 - a suburb in Baghdad, and 3 - talked with Coalition spokesman Maj Gen Kevin Bergner about the current conditions in Iraq: Reconciliation begins in Muqdadiya... (READ MORE)

Jason's Iraq Vacation: Typical Situation - The sensory overload was making my head spin, but I had to get control of the situation, so I stepped back for a second and just kinda laughed to myself. This is typical, I thought to myself. A typical meeting with a typical Iraqi self-appointed bigshot. A few posts ago I wrote about the green sewer trench that has taken on a life of its own. Well, this trench is about to overflow and fill our little camp with its green goodness. (READ MORE)

Yellowhammering Afghanistan: There shura are a lot of people here - We attended our first shura today. Actually, it was the second one for me, but the last time I was working with the police on perimeter security and never got to go into the actual shura itself, so this was the first one I attended. The shura is like a town hall meeting in which everyone - every male anyway - in a given area attends. This shura was in Dih Yak, one of our districts in Ghazni province. Village elders from throughout Dih Yak were there as were representatives from Parliament and the Ghazni governor. The Dih Yak sub-governor was there as one might expect. (READ MORE)


On the Web:
Orin Kerr: Speaking Ruth to Power - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently gave an address on the role of dissenting opinions that included a remarkable explanation for her dissent last term in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber. That case involved a statute regulating when discrimination claims must be filed; the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the lawsuit in that case was filed too late. Justice Ginsburg dissented, and she took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the bench. In her address, Justice Ginsburg explains that the purpose of her dissent was "to attract immediate public attention and to propel legislative change." She then explains how the other branches responded: (READ MORE)

Benjamin Civiletti, et al: Surveillance Sanity - Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to target al Qaeda communications into and out of the country. Mr. Bush concluded that this was essential for protecting the country, that using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would not permit the necessary speed and agility, and that he had the constitutional power to authorize such surveillance without court orders to defend the country. Since the program became public in 2006, Congress has been asserting appropriate oversight. Few of those who learned the details of the program have criticized its necessity. Instead, critics argued that if the president found FISA inadequate, he should have gone to Congress and gotten the changes necessary to allow the program to proceed under court orders. (READ MORE)

Austin Bay: A Diplomacy of Neighborhoods - Diplomats, pack your duffel bags. And I mean duffel bags, not garment bags. While you're at it, get a pair of boots. I also recommend several pair of work gloves and work pants with lots of pockets for cameras, extra batteries, sunglasses and your global cell phone. Twenty-first century diplomacy isn't an office job. It is a demanding and, at times, a dangerous trade, one that requires accepting deprivation, running physical risks and hanging out in bad neighborhoods. (READ MORE)

Ed Feulner: Maneuvering Against Missile Defense - There’s simply no pleasing some people. In the 1990s, Congress decided it was time for the United States to build a missile-defense system. This was a reasonable -- even overdue -- step. After all, we’d been completely defenseless against any sort of missile attack since the missile had been invented. But not everybody liked the idea. For example, in 2000 the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report that questioned the technical feasibility of a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. (READ MORE)

Mike S. Adams: Brave Newark World - The University of Delaware has just become one of the most Orwellian campuses in America. Students in its residence halls are now being subjected to a re-education program that is actually dubbed - in the university’s own tax-payer funded materials - as “treatment” for students who have incorrect attitudes and beliefs. Delaware now requires nearly 7,000 students in its residence halls to adopt specific public university-approved (read: government-approved) views on issues ranging from race, to sexuality, to philosophy. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (see www.TheFire.org) is calling for the total dismantling of the program. (READ MORE)

Jacob Sullum: $23,000-a-Barrel Oil - When does oil cost $13,000 a barrel? When you spill it in Prince William Sound. That's how much Exxon paid after one of its tankers ran aground on Bligh Reef near the southern coast of Alaska in 1989, spilling 258,000 barrels of oil. The company spent more than $3.4 billion on clean-up costs, fines and compensation payments. Yet, in 1994, a federal jury in Anchorage said Exxon should cough up another $5 billion in punitive damages, a number that an appeals court eventually cut in half. (READ MORE)

John Stossel: Utahns Can Vote for School Choice Tuesday - Next Tuesday, Utah voters go to the polls to decide if their state will become the first in the nation to offer school vouchers statewide. Referendum 1 would make all public-school kids eligible for vouchers worth from $500 to $3,000 a year, depending on family income. Parents could then use the vouchers to send their children to private schools. What a great idea. Finally, parents will have choices that wealthy parents have always had. The resulting competition would create better private schools and even improve the government schools. (READ MORE)

Walter E. Williams: Are the Poor Getting Poorer? - People who want more government income redistribution programs often sell their agenda with the lament, "The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer," but how about some evidence and you decide? I think the rich are getting richer, and so are the poor. According to the most recent census, about 35 million Americans live in poverty. Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Rector, using several government reports, gives us some insights about these people in his paper: "Understanding Poverty and Economic Inequality in the United States". (READ MORE)

Brent Bozell III: "Peace" Movement Passe? - If the "peace" movement holds a protest and no one in the press covers it, does it still exist? If Americans are sick of the war, they're also sick of the "antiwar." Even the media have grown antiwar-weary. Rallies on Oct. 27 drew only perfunctory news mentions. The peaceniks have become a bipartisan political problem, now that the Democrats who control Congress haven't dared to placate the radicals by cutting off money for the troops. Cindy Sheehan is threatening to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But suddenly -- surprise, surprise -- the media aren't interested in Sheehan's new crusade. (READ MORE)

Carl Horowitz: The Jena Defendants: Is Thuggery a New Right? - "You think we brought thousands to Jena. You wait 'til we go to D.C. and bring the whole country, because there's Jenas all over America. There's Jenas in New York. There's Jenas in Atlanta. There's Jenas in Florida. There's Jenas all over Texas." -- Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking in Jena, Louisiana, September 20, 2007 Times had been tough for a while for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other self-proclaimed civil-rights spokesmen. Their attempt to sway public opinion in the hopes of railroading into prison three white Duke University lacrosse players on phony rape charges backfired badly this spring. (READ MORE)

Janice Shaw Crouse: The Softer Side of Hillary - The media have made much of Senator Hillary Clinton’s new campaign to show her “softer side” and her more feminine self. The comics have had a heyday questioning whether she even has a softer, more feminine side. Cynics like me recognize that this is a calculated effort to win the presidency. With her current support pretty much limited to single women (who are already in her party’s camp anyway and, alas for her, tend to vote in limited numbers), Hillary has to reach out to married mothers if she wants to “expand her territory” (to use the latest fad in Evangelical lingo, since so much of the married mother vote is religious). (READ MORE)

Jerry Bowyer: Hawks, Doves, Vultures, and Chicken Littles - Editor's note: this piece originally appeared on the National Review Online. My e-mail inbox is usually near full these days. That’s what happens when people are confused about the markets. But necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, and I’ve used this deluge to improve my computer filing system. Rather then let my e-mails stack up on top of each other, I now place them in specially marked folders, according to their economic species. Herewith, my folder headings and cataloguing criteria: (READ MORE)

GayPatriot: Paul Krugman Proved A Fool By British Islamists - Paul Krugman, New York Times’ resident Bush Hater & Appeaser (and man, that’s quite an accomplishment) wrote a widely discussed piece on Monday: Fearing Fear Itself. It features all of the now-routine liberal rhetoric designed to undercut and de-legitimize our war effort and our American government itself. But the key line of the piece was this: "For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism - it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination." (READ MORE)

Ian Schwatrz: (Video) Hillary Asked About National Archives Records, Obama Pounces - Tim Russert asked Hillary if she would release her national security records that her husband locked away until at least 2012. Hillary, of course spinned her answer and joked about how the National Archives has more important things to worry about and how it takes for them to get through things. However, Russert would have none of it and asked her again. Obama took this as a chance to blast Hillary as being apart the same old, same old Washington crowd. He added that if a candidate was really interested in change they would be an “open, transparent, accountable” leader. (READ MORE)

Allahpundit: Ron Rosenbaum: LA Times is sitting on a major sex scandal involving a “leading” candidate - When the news is slow, we turn to rumor. I linked this in the debate thread last night but it’s interesting enough to warrant its own thread, especially on a dull morning. Let’s see if we can apply some collective intelligence. The only clues are that it involves a “leading” candidate and this: "Now, as I say it’s a rumor; I haven’t seen the supporting evidence. But the person who told me said it offhandedly as if everyone in his world knew about it. And if you look close enough you can find hints of something impending, something potentially derailing to this candidate in the reporting of the campaign." (READ MORE)

Bryan Preston: FIRE: U of Delaware student indoctrination teaches that all white people are racist Updated - You can’t make this stuff up: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has found a program that would make the most totalitarian Communist proud of its hard left bias, its heavy handedness and gall. “The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a ‘treatment’ for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs.” (READ MORE)

Dymphna: Georgetown's School of Foreign Service Presents Its Hallowe'en Horror Movie - You can’t say Georgetown University isn’t predictable. The nursery for future State Department Hive Workers never strays far from its text, no matter how far it may stray from home. Thus The Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Qatar has a film series for its faculty this term. And for a Hallowe’en trick-or-treat party they are showing The Situation, purportedly a look at the situation in Iraq post-Saddam. Given what we know about our State Department workers’ general sentiments about things American, the emotional tenor of this film should come as no surprise. (READ MORE)

Don Surber: A journalist learns - After dissing milbloggers, CJR blogger praises bloggers - Remember this passage defending Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp from critics of his fabrications? “How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.)” Milbloggers actually are in the military. Most have rotated through Iraq or Afghanistan and several times. They know their ammo, their vehicles and their terrain. They can spot fake from half a world away. (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: Madrid Mastermind Walks - The Spanish court trying the remaining suspects in the deadly Madrid bombings convicted the actual perpetrators today, sentencing them to gaudy terms that wind up being no more than 40 years each. The man who planned the attacks, and whose voice could be heard on wiretaps bragging about it, won an acquittal: "One of the accused masterminds of the 2004 Madrid terror bombings was acquitted of all charges today by a Spanish court in the culmination to a politically divisive trial over Europe's worst Islamic militant terror attack." (READ MORE)

Jay Tea: Troubled Waters - This article about the practice of waterboarding has generated a lot of discussion about the practice, as well as just what defines "torture" and how it should be regulated or banned by our government. My first reaction was surprise. I'd never had any real problems with waterboarding, as I understood it worked by simulating drowning. To my mind, "torture" has to involve an element of severe pain or bodily injury -- and as I understood it, the experience of waterboarding tricked the subconscious into thinking one was drowning -- but NOT ACTUALLY DROWNING. According to the article, though, it actually involves a partial drowning -- water in the lungs and all that. (READ MORE)

Bill Roggio: Suicide bomber kills seven outside military headquarters in Rawalpindi - As the Pakistani government has negotiated another cease-fire with the Taliban in the settled district of Swat in the Northwest Frontier Province, the terrorists conducted another suicide strike in the heart of President Pervez Musharraf's seat of power. A suicide bomber detonated his vest outside of the Pakistani army headquarters in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi. Seven were killed, including two police officers, and another 14 were reported wounded in the strike. The suicide bomber struck as Musharraf was conducting talks with his senior leaders. "The blast happened at a police checkpost a less than a kilometre (half a mile) from where Musharraf was holding talks with top government officials about a spate of attacks, including a recent bid to kill Benazir Bhutto," AFP reported. (READ MORE)

The Oxford Medievalist: Welcome to the University of Delaware. Check Your Brain at the Door - Not satisfied with the comparatively simple liberal re-education of students that happens on most U.S. college campuses, the University of Delaware conducts a comprehensive, aggressive and quite blatant indoctrination program reminiscent of something out of Orwell's 1984. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a non-profit organization dealing with civil liberties in academia, the University's own materials describe the program as "treatment" for students' incorrect attitudes and beliefs: "The university’s views are forced on students through a comprehensive manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training sessions to “sustainability” door decorations. Students living in the university’s eight housing complexes are required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs)." (READ MORE)

Michelle Malkin: Who cares about voter fraud, anymore? ACORN guilty pleas ignored - Remember last fall, when every last moonbat was decrying voter fraud preemptively? Remember Diebold Derangement Syndrome? After the Dems won, of course, voter fraud dropped from their political radar screen. And boy, would they love for the rest of us to fuhgeddaboudit. Yesterday, three elections hoaxers who worked for the far Left group ACORN pleaded guilty in Seattle for their role in the biggest election fraud scheme in Washington state history (READ MORE)

Jules Crittenden: Surrenderists Mull A Truce - While they work on a new abandonment strategy. Of course, there are a few deadenders: "WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are debating whether to approve up to $70 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, only a down payment on President Bush’s $196 billion war spending request but enough to keep the wars afloat for several more months." I’d suggest it’s more likely to spare Democrats another painful veto humiliation, not to mention a vote that may well indicate significant defections. Better just to let it go quietly. (READ MORE)

McQ: The Democratic Halloween Debate - Well I watched a debate - naturally it was the Democratic debate - and I only watched it because there were going to be some promised fireworks. And, to an extent, there were. As an aside, my wife, who obviously knows I’m a political junkie, always questioned why I didn’t watch these things. I had various excuses, but last night, sitting together watching this one she said, "now I know why you don’t watch. They irritate the hell out of you don’t they"? Uh, yeah. 2 hours of one-sided, unanswered crap - well, except when they were attacking Hillary, and then she got some rebuttal time. In fact the most used 6 words during the debate were "George Bush, Dick Cheney and Senator Clinton" because they were the ones under constant attack. (READ MORE)

Dan Riehl: What Was Missing In The Democrat Debate - So I watched the Democrat debate tonight in its entirety, just taking it in. Is there an industry they wouldn't attack? From Hedge Funds, Defense, the Airlines, Insurance companies and, of course, the Oil Companies, it seems they all have investigations, regulations, or some restrictions in mind, assuming they flat out don't just want to do away with it completely? Not once did I hear anything even remotely referencing the individual and certainly nothing that might challenge one. Apparently people can't become Doctors ... unless the government pays their tuition - and the trend discussed was free college for all at the government's expense. (READ MORE)

Right Wing Nut House: No "Slam Dunk" Medal of Freedom Winners - Ever since George Tenet won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the award seems to have lost some of its luster. It’s much like the Nobel Peace Prize; once you have given the award to someone who exhibits the exact opposite qualities that should be recognized, all credibility in the prize is lost. In the case of the mis-named Peace Prize, you can point to several recipients in the last quarter century who have been named champions of peace but were actually murderers and thugs. Yassar Arafat comes immediately to mind. Then there were to enablers of murderous thugs like Kofi Anan and Jimmy Carter. The moral universe inhabited by the Nobel Committee is not the same one you and I live in. They have forever cheapened an award that at one time, was recognized as a singular honor. (READ MORE)

John Hawkins: The Top 6 Attacks On Hillary At Last Night's Debate - Last night, I suffered through another hideous Democratic debate which featured 2 hours of socialists talking about how rotten everything is in this country, followed by each of them blaming every bad thing that's happening on Bush -- and then they all promised to fix each problem with either massive new spending, a huge increase in government power, or some combination thereof. After the debate, I took a little tour around the National Review blogs and was absolutely amazed to find them saying that Hillary won the debate. In my opinion, she delivered the single worst performance of any top tier candidate, on either side, so far this year. (READ MORE)

ROFASix: How Different It Might Have Been - My previous post on Ron Paul got me musing on what our world might be like now had Ron Paul sparked an examination by Americans as to the road we were on in 1988 and we had changed our course thereafter. What would it be like if America embraced her core principles and avoided international interventionism then, as Paul proposes we do from now on? It is, as politicians like to say, a 'hypothetical' and I do em' even though politicians won't. The difference being bloggers don't have to stroke voters like politicians do. Some will argue that failing to follow our interventionist policies of the late 1980s might have meant we would have lost the Cold War. I doubt it. It might only have changed the timeline of events, not the outcome. (READ MORE)

ShrinkWrapped: "If Wishes Were Horses..." - The last several days have treated us to a number of articles and posts that examine the tendency of so many people to blur the distinction between reality and fantasy. On Friday, Peggy Noonan suggested that the New Republic editors could only buy Scott Thomas Beauchamp's fantasies because the closest they had ever come to the military was through the lens of anti-war movies. During the fabled 60s and 70s, movies which depicted the military reliably took as reality the left-wing point of view that the military took ordinary young men (hereinafter referred to as "victims") and turned them into amoral killers and torturers. On Saturday, Mark Steyn suggested that conspiracy theorists have ongoing difficulties separating fantasy from reality: (READ MORE)

Smooth Stone: What is Machsom Watch? - The she-pigs at Machsom Watch love to tour Hebron and other parts of the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel with groups of Israelis and non-Israelis, against the Jews of Hebron by giving false, warped presentations. Furthermore, the she-pigs at Machsom Watch act with the cooperation of Palestinian interlopers and marauders in order to undermine the operations of the Israel Defence Forces, whose purpose is to defend the citizens of Israel against palestinian murderers. In fact, the actions perpetrated by the she-pigs at Machsom Watch are racist actions that aim to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Hebron of all of its Jewish citizens. (READ MORE)

Some Soldier's Mom: It's Not About You - I read this websitePostSecret where people send in their deepest (and sometimes darkest) secrets on post cards. (Docturned me on to the site a few years ago.) The site has spawned a number of books... and to tell the truth, I am sometimes shocked! by the secrets people send in -- to the point that every once in a while I wonder whether people are making things up just to see if they can get on the website. This week's secrets include the one shown above. I wonder if it's the same Mom I wrote to here? If not, I'd like to address this Mom here: Dear Madam, Makes you feel like a failure as a mother?? Oh give me a break lady! Did you raise him/her to live YOUR dream or did you raise your child to live HIS/HERS?? So, let me enlighten you:
IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. (READ MORE)

Warner Todd Huston: Fire All Government Workers - We conservatives are fond of wanting to oust everyone in office and for wanting to “vote the scoundrels out.” But, I’d like to add one more level to the throw-them-out-of-government genera. Let’s fire every government worker from the smallest village receptionist or sewer worker to the staffers of the highest Senator and every menial clerk and recalcitrant paper shuffler in between. It’s not just pique at the famous laziness of a government worker and it’s not just the fact that the only reason they got their jobs is because they are pals with one politician or another. It’s not just that they are better paid than just about any real American in the private sector — whether they deserve it or not — and it’s not because they are impossible to fire, nor is it because they get a better pension and health care than anyone who really contributes to society… well, OK, it is because of that stuff. All that stuff and more. (READ MORE)

THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS: Nicolas Sarkozy and me - The Chirac Broadcasting System, desperate to boost its own failing ratings due to hostility towards many things Americans support, decided to run a sensationalist promo attacking Nicolas Sarkozy. The buildup to the interview was a clip meant to make it look like he stormed out of an interview. Granted, this is not as bad as “fake but accurate” memos, or fake footage of cars exploding, but it is still typical leftist dishonesty. The truth is Mr. Sarkozy was very busy, and did not want his scheduler booking that interview on that day. Then, to compound the problem, the interviewer asked stupid questions. (READ MORE)

Wolf Pangloss: Media Cheerleaders for Despair - In a 4GW like the Counterjihad the world is fighting against Al Qaeda and the other Caliphate gangs, the media are the the means of attack. We cannot afford to have a media with no regard for the obligations of good citizenship. They will amplify the enemy’s message and muffle our own. And yet that is what we have. How did it get this bad? There are no more Ernie Pyles telling the stories of American grunts from the perspective of the foxhole. Though Geraldo Rivera and other television news stars embedded with American troops in the charge to Baghdad in 2003, reporting positively on the initial blitzkrieg that seized the land with remarkably little bloodshed for a war of conquest, that changed quickly. (READ MORE)

Meryl Yourish: Hamas to Israel: We’re going to keep on killing - The democratically-elected government of the Palestinian terrortories[sic] is declaring its intention to murder large numbers of Israelis and, indeed, to start an “offensive war” with Israel (like they’re not already doing that). “Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’ military wing, has said that the movement will strike in the heart of Israel in the near future, a senior Hamas member said Tuesday. The man, Sheikh Ahmed Hamdan from the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, said that he recently met with Deif in his hiding place, and heard from him that Hamas will soon replace its defensive fighting policy with an offensive one. According to Hamdan, ‘The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, plans to begin its attack against the Israeli occupation in the coming weeks, and will not settle for the defensive policy.’” (READ MORE)

Michael Kraft: The Holy Land Foundation: Misinformation about Material Support - In the recent trial of the Holy Land Foundation and some of the other trials of groups or persons charged with providing for foreign terrorist organizations, a frequent assertion made on behalf of the defendants is that the contributions were for humanitarian purposes, not terrorist attacks. This theme was stretched to its limits by Professor David Cole of Georgetown University, a prolific defender of groups accused of violating the 1996 law (the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support to groups designated by the Secretary of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In a Washington Post op-ed article ““Anti-Terrorism on Trial” printed Wednesday, October 24, Prof. Cole seriously misrepresents the Material Support provisions of claiming that “for all practical purposes the law imposes guilt by association.” (READ MORE)

Democracy Project: Lawyers Should Do No Harm - The first rule of medicine is Do No Harm. The same should apply to lawyers. There are gradations of circumstances in which this rule comes into play. Cut off a gangrenous toe to save a leg is not a harm. Cutting off a terrorist from destroying thousands of lives is not a harm. Two former U.S. Attorney Generals and a former Director of the CIA and FBI, serving Democrat and Republican administrations, speak to that in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Surveillance Sanity.” (READ MORE)

Blue Star Chronicles: A Liberal Mother’s Son Joins the Military and She Doesn’t Have a Clue - I came so close to not reading this story. Its gotten to the point that reading about what people like this think of our military infuriates me so bad that I can almost literally feel my blood pressure going up as I read it. When I saw the title of the blog post over at The Pirate’s Cove I pulled my eyes away, but then had a compulsion to go back and read it. Sure enough, I found myself getting aggravated, but then I actually come close to feeling sorry for this woman because she really and truly doesn’t get it. She has written an article that exposes her contempt for and embarrassment by the choices her son has made and, interestingly, it seems to be more about her than about her son. (READ MORE)

Confederate Yankee: An Eye For Detail - I had every intention of letting "Cheney Flag-gate" go uncommented upon as a non-story. Vice President Cheney went pheasant hunting at an exclusive preserve in Dutchess County, New York yesterday, and the hunt itself left only pheasants hitting the ground. It was a local interest story for the most part, until a sharp-eyed photographer and a self-promoting blowhard turned this local interest story into a national non-story when it was discovered that the inside of the back door of a garage at the hunt club was draped in a Confederate battle flag. There is precisely no evidence that Cheney or anyone on his staff saw the flag, but that didn't keep the Daily News from running straight to Al Sharpton. The story ended in lots of hot air being spit by a man in love with the sound of his own voice, and many people fruitlessly wishing they had a way to somehow blame the Vice President. I only mention this story at all because of the eye for detail it reveals in our media. Consider this a "teachable moment" for media fact-checkers. (READ MORE)

Dafydd: Hajj Podge - Hajj is the pilgrimage all good Moslems must undertake during the lunar month of Dhu’l Hijja, sometime during their lives. The journey to Mecca is the fifth of the five pillars of Islam, after professing that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet; praying five times every day; giving charity to the poor; and fasting during Ramadan. Every year, millions of the faithful travel to Mecca, walk seven times around the Kabah and sacrifice an animal to God, in honor of the patriarch Ibrahim. And every year, it seems that brainless Hollywood weirdos must perform their own Hajj to the America-hating dictator du jour. The most recent pilgrim is 37 year old "supermodel" and violent harridan Naomi Campbell: (READ MORE)

Lawhawk: MSNBC Hysterics Over Mosul Dam - MSNBC has a video report and accompanying story on the situation with the Mosul Dam, which is located in Northern Iraq. The dam was built in the early 1980s by Saddam Hussein. “Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager.” (READ MORE)

Have an interesting post or know of a "must read?" Then send a trackback here and let us all know about it. Or you can send me an email with a link to the post and I'll update the Recon.

Lying About The 44 Blocks

When Tom Burnett Sr. came out against the Flight 93 Memorial, the press asked architect Paul Murdoch if there were really going to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists). Murdoch acknowledged 43 of the blocks, but denied knowing about a 44th:

[T]here are 40 inscribed marble panels listing the names of the passengers and crew at the gateway to the Sacred Ground, where their remains still rest.

There is then an opening in the wall, Mr. Murdoch said, and three additional panels, which would include the date, Sept. 11, 2001.

"Where the other one is being fabricated, I don't know," he said.

Yes he does. Paul Murdoch is fully aware of the large dedicatory glass block at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway:



Man and child stand in front of the 44th block, which forms the railing at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway. The glass block will be inscribed: "A field of honor forever." This Walkway provides visitors with their first view of the inside of the giant crescent. (From the Entry Portal page of the original design PDFs. Click pic for wider view.)

The flight path

The Entry Portal Walkway is built along the flight path. It signifies, in Paul Murdoch's own description, the terrorists

The forty translucent blocks that run horizontally through the left hand section of wall (closest to the impact crater) will be inscribed with the names of the forty murdered heroes. The three on the right will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. (From the Sacred Ground Plaza page of the original design PDF's. Click pic for larger image. The alternating white and gray depicts the zig zag layout of the translucent blocks.)

Challenged by the father of one of our murdered heroes, Murdoch told a desperate lie, feigning ignorance of one of the most prominent features of his own design: the huge glass block that dedicates the entire site. This should have been the end of his hijack attempt, but Murdoch's deception was abetted by both the Memorial Project and the press.

The abettors

"That has been disproved so many times," download 3, p. 146.)

"The windows in the visitor center are not on the flight path," Rawls replied. He never said they were all the same size, and he never said there are no other panes of glass in the Memorial. Reinbold's silly dodges do not contradict Rawls' 44 glass blocks claim in any way.

The press was also in on the deception. Kecia Bal, the reporter who quoted Hayworth's dismissal of the 44 blocks claim had already verified the block count for herself. Mr. Rawls had John Reynolds

Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley at joanne_hanley@nps.gov
click here to email Joanne Hanley

Project Manager Jeff Reinbold at jeff_reinbold@nps.gov
click here to email Jeff Reinbold

Chief Ranger Jill Hawk (who conducted the phony internal investigation) at jill_hawk@nps.gov
click here to email Jill Hawk

Park Service spokesman Phil Sheridan at Phil_Sheridan@nps.gov
click here to email Phil Sheridan

Director, Northeast sector of Park Service (oversees Memorial Project) Mary Bomar at mary_bomar@nps.gov
click here to email Mary Bomar

Communications officer, National Park Service Gary Gaumer at Gerry_Gaumer@nps.gov
click here to email Gerry Gaumer

To emailing all of them at once:
click here to email all of the above

Be respectful, use your own words, but clearly send the message that you agree with Tom Burnett, Sr., that they should respect his wishes that his son's name should be kept off the memorial, and that a more appropriate memorial should be constructed on the crash site; one that doesn't memorialize the terrorists because in Flight 93 National Memorial Act, Pub. L. No. 107-226, the purpose of the memorial is spelled out: it is to honor the passengers and crew of the flight, and the last section of the law excludes the terrorists from the definition of passengers and crew.

If you need more to write about, watch this movie.

If you want to join the growing list of bloggers:

1. in objecting to planting an Islamic symbol instead of an American one on the crash site,
2. in objecting to its pointing to Mecca and the terrorists' intended target,
3. in objecting to dishonoring the memory of the people who fought the terrorists on Flight 93
4. in pointing out how Paul Murdoch cleverly and symbolically cast the passenger and crew out of the Islamic heavens in the design while the terrorists are inside the Islamic heavens
5. in pointing out how the date and the site are dedicated to the terrorists
6. in pointing out the numerous redundant mosque design features
7. in pointing out the terrorist memorializing features
8. and post along with us on Wednesdays,

please contact caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com with your website url. She will, in turn, add you to the email list, send you the blogroll code (if you want to put it in your sidebar), and will send you the prewritten text to post. You should receive the email from Cao a day or two prior to the Wednesday it should be posted, and tracked back to Cao's blog and Error Theory, if your blog has that capability. This will help us track who in the blogroll is posting the blogburst.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst





Trackbacked/linked by:
Halloween Terrorist, GWOT and US Terrorism Policy Update from Pros and Cons

Wednesday Hero - Lance Cpl. Nicholas R. Anderson

Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas R. Anderson
21 years old from Sauk City, Wisconsin
1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force
March 13, 2006


Lance Cpl. Nicholas Anderson lost his life after the Humvee he was riding in rolled over as a group of Marines pursued a suspicious vehicle near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He suffered head injuries in the crash and died as he was being transported to a hospital.

Nicholas Anderson joined the Marines in January 2005 and began a six-month tour of Afghanistan two months ago with the 3rd Marines Weapons Platoon, his father, James Anderson said.

"I just know that he died fighting for what he believed in," he said. "He wanted to be a Marine and even though it was a major risk he just wanted to go."

James Anderson said his son, a 2003 Sauk Prairie High School graduate, enjoyed riding his motorcycle, lifting weights, going fishing and hanging out with friends.

He joined the Wisconsin Army National Guard when he was 18, but an injured shoulder forced him to drop out. He then enlisted in the Marines.

"I was very nervous when he first joined the Marines because two words jumped into my head: Afghanistan and Iraq," his father said. "I just supported him and prayed that it would end before he had to go over."

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

On The Air

I'll be on with Andrea Shea-King tonight at 9:00 pm EDT to discuss the recent ruling by the National Cemetery Administration as well as a host of other topics. With so much going on in the world you never know what we'll talk about....rest assured it won't be about Brittney's recent wardrobe malfunction.

To listen in click on the link below:

We've got a couple of guests joining us tonight -- from 9 to 9:30 it's Paul Kengor, author of THE JUDGE: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand, a new book on Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor. Kengor will tell us the issues presidential candidates have taken and how their
advisors need to direct them towards a winning campaign; such as Judge Clark with President Reagan.

“There is no candidate – none – in the history of presidential politics as radical as Hillary Clinton on abortion; she must be defeated,” says Kengor.

“That said, Rudy Giuliani is not the answer, though he may be a lesser of two evils on the issue of abortion. A pro-choice Republican president robs Republicans of the moral and rhetorical leadership that the presidents have provided on the abortion issue, especially under four terms of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Rudy’s advisors need to inform him on the Republican platform.”

Kengor will divulge William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor’s insight on the 2008 Presidential race.


And then at 9:30 we'll talk with Richard S. Lowry, author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles about a story the mainstream press DID NOT cover: Members of the Iraqi Army in Besmaya collected a donation for the San Diego, Calif., fire victims at the Besmaya Range Complex in a moving ceremony to support Besmaya's San Diego residents.

Iraqi Army Col. Abbass, the commander of the complex, presented a gift of $1,000 to U.S. Army Col. Darel Maxfield, Besmaya Range Complex officer in charge, Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq, to send to the fire victims in California. The money was collected from Iraqi officers and enlisted soldiers in Besmaya.

I'll be sharing hosting duties with Andrea again tonight, we'll be busy....!!! Also on tap for discussion -- the National Cemetary Commission's decidion to halt Flag Folding recitations at our national cemetaries, and the Valour IT competition -- it's heating up!!!

Flag-Folding Ceremony UPDATE!

Fox news is reporting that several congressmen have asked the Veteran's Adminstration to reconsider its blanket ban on the Flag Folding Ceremony at National Cemetaries:

A group of congressmen has asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to reconsider its ban on the flag-folding ceremony at military funerals after the agency decided last month to streamline burials at federal cemeteries.

"The flag folding recitation is a longstanding tradition which brings comfort to the living and honor to the deceased," Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., writes in his letter Tuesday signed by 11 other congressmen. "The recitations accompanying each fold pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families, the nation they proudly serve, and the beliefs that they hold dear."

Veterans Affairs made the new policy decision last month, after a complaint was filed to the White House, said Rees Lloyd, a member of the American Legion's Memorial Honor Detail for services at Riverside National Cemetery in California.

"To me, it's a slap in the face for every veteran, every member of the Memorial Honor Detail and every family of the deceased veteran," Lloyd said.

At issue are secondary meanings attached to the folding of the flag. As the honor guard makes the 13 folds — traditionally representing the original colonies — they recite "the first fold of our flag is a symbol of life, the second fold is a symbol of our belief in the eternal life, etc."

A complaint about the recitation for the 11th fold — "in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" — garnered a complaint and prompted the ban.

In a Sept. 27 memo, the National Cemetery Administration halted the ceremony. It was an effort to create uniform services throughout the military graveyard system, spokesman Mike Nacincik said.

But it's caused a furor among veterans. Members of the American Legion have been flooding national headquarters since the decision, according to Ramona Joyce, an organization spokeswoman.

"We definitely think is a matter left up to the families," she said. "It's a nice ceremony; we've been doing it for years. Our honor guards have been doing it.

"It's respectful and it's something the family should be able to choose to have done if they so wish for their veteran," Joyce said.

Nacincik said the 13-fold recital is not part of the U.S. Flag Code and is not government-approved.

"The entirety of this issue is an absurdity that shows political correctness and secular cleansing run amok," Lloyd said. "This is about families of deceased veterans putting to rest their loved ones. No one should interfere with their choices."

The 12th fold recitation is geared to Christians, saying the fold "represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost."

In the Legion's burning ceremony for the dignified disposal of unserviceable flags, a chaplain invokes the name of God with lines like "as they yield their substance to the fire, may your holy light spread over us and bring our hearts renewed devotion to God and country," Joyce said.
"When we got back from the war, we didn't ask for a whole lot," said Bobby Castillo, 85, a World War II Navy veteran. "We just want to give our veterans the respect they deserve. No one has ever complained to us about it. I just don't understand."

Lloyd and Castillo are part of a 16-member detail that have performed military honors at more than 1,400 services. They were preparing to read the flag-folding remarks at the Riverside cemetery when graveyard staff stopped them.

Charlie Waters, parliamentarian for the American Legion of California, said he's advising memorial honor details to ignore the edict.

"This is nuts," Waters told the Press-Enterprise by telephone from Fresno. "There are 26 million veterans in this country and they're not going to take us all to prison."

Nacincik said that while the flag-folding narrative includes references to God that the government does not endorse, the main reason for the new rules is uniformity.

"We are looking at consistency," Nacincik said. "We think that's important."

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller of Temple Beth El said he understands the ban.

"It is a perfect example of government choosing to ignore religion in order to avoid offending some religions," Miller said. "To me, ignoring religion in general is just as problematic as endorsing any one religion."

Shuler's letter urged Veterans Affairs to change its mind.

"Please reconsider the policy and allow the Memorial Honor Detail volunteers to perform the traditional flag-folding recitation if requested by the family of the deceased," he wrote.

Lloyd said the honor guard would decide whether to defy the ban next Tuesday, when it will serve at more military funerals.

"We are going to abide by the wishes of the families," Lloyd said. "Not some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. Period."

UPDATE
Rep Shuler's letter follows:

Rep. Shuler Leads Call for End to VA Policy Banning Traditional Flag-Folding Recitations

The Honorable Gordon H. Mansfield
Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420

Dear Acting Secretary Mansfield:

We are writing to express our concern regarding recently announced policies banning the traditional flag-folding recitations by Memorial Honor Detail volunteers.

The flag folding recitation is a longstanding tradition which brings comfort to the living and honor to the deceased. The recitations accompanying each fold pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families, the nation they proudly serve, and the beliefs that they hold dear.

As our nation loses 1,500 World War II veterans every day, we feel it is vital to ensure that the final rites for these American heroes be permitted to include the freedoms of speech and religious expression enshrined in our Constitution and defended by their service.

We ask that you please reconsider the policy and allow the Memorial Honor Detail volunteers to perform the traditional flag-folding recitation if requested by the family of the deceased. If you have any questions regarding this issue, please contact Sean O’Brien in Congressman Shuler’s office at (202) 225-6401.

Sincerely,
Rep. Chris Carney (D-PA), Brad Ellsworth (D-IN), Baron Hill (D-IN), Tim Holden (D-PA), Nick Lampson (D-TX), Jim Marshall (D-GA), Jim Matheson (D-UT), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), Mike Ross (D-AR) Gene Taylor (D-MS), and John Tanner (D-TN).

What no Republicans?

Trackbacked/Linked by:
H&I* Fires, 31 OCT 2007 from Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys.

Web Reconnaissance for 10/30/2007

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.


In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Immunity Jeopardizes Iraq Probe - Potential prosecution of Blackwater guards allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians last month may have been compromised because the guards received immunity for statements they made to State Department officials investigating the incident, federal law enforcement officials... (READ MORE)

Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger of Deadly Collapse - AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq -- The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers... (READ MORE)

Fake FEMA Briefing Costs Official New Assignment - The Federal Emergency Management Agency's director of external communications was denied a post as senior spokesman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell yesterday, becoming the highest-ranking casualty of a fake news conference staged by FEMA last week to publicize its response... (READ MORE)

Cuba's Waning System of Block-Watchers - CAMAGUEY, Cuba -- Children swarmed the table outside Blanca Peleaz's concrete home in this central Cuban city. There were cakes and cookies, gooey frosting and candy speckles, rare abundance in a place where food shortages are the norm. (READ MORE)

Protests Welcome Back Assembly - Hundreds of anti-tax demonstrators greeted lawmakers on their return yesterday for a special General Assembly session to consider Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to increase taxes and legalize slot machines to cut the state's $1.7 billion budget shortfall. (READ MORE)

U.S. Officials Visit Cole Bomber - U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen visited a Yemeni man convicted in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in his prison cell yesterday, three days after he was seen greeting relatives in his house. (READ MORE)

U.N. Envoy to Probe Deadly Force by U.S. - The U.N. specialist on illegal executions plans to probe the use of deadly force by U.S. troops and military contractors in Iraq when he visits the United States next spring. (READ MORE)

N. Korean Reveals Childhood Torture - In a testimony to stunned journalists yesterday, Mr. Shin, the first North Korean defector to the South who was born in the North's notorious gulag, revealed a nightmarish world in which inmates and their children suffer lifetime incarceration, are kept ignorant of outside society and undergo forms of torture that are medieval in their barbarism. (READ MORE)

Iraqi Rebuilding Stalled Despite Recent Calm - Despite declining violence in Iraq, the shaky state of security is still impeding the nation's $100 billion recovery and rebuilding effort, a new report said today. (READ MORE)

Hillary Backed Lab of Donor - Lawmakers, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have taken thousands in campaign cash from an embattled Nobel-prize winning scientist while earmarking federal money for his New York lab. (READ MORE)


From the Front:
Yellowhammering Afghanistan: BOOM! - Being an artillery guy, I'm kind of partial to explosions. We don't get to see many of them in the nation-building missions we're doing today. So when one of our district teams made arrangements to destroy some mortar and rocket rounds taken from the Taliban and the Afghan National Police, I exercised my rank and made sure I was along for the ride. 1LT Plowden Dickson and his team was assessing an Afghan National Police observation post when he discovered many of the mortar and RPG rounds the police were using were rusted, damaged and generally unsafe. He convinced the police chief to destroy them for the protection of his men. (READ MORE)

This War and Me: What DO I send - If you have been following along with me the past week, you have noticed I mentioned some things NOT to send. It started out as mindless, humorous ranting but it is honestly about things we are in abundance of. So, I have received several comments and emails asking what we DO need. I received a comment from Debi M, with Soldiers' Angels and wanted to pretty much plagiarize her list of things we do need/want. I also wanted to say that it is not that we don't ever need the items on my list. I was targeting the individuals that want to send things too. We do receive candy, sun block, chap stick, soaps and razors, etc. We have a few large groups, like Soldiers' Angels that sends many boxes. (READ MORE)

Michael Yon: The Perfect Evil: Coming to Roost - Iraq is looking better month by month. But at the current rate, surely we shall fail in Afghanistan: A great deal of flak came in for my 2006 reporting from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, that on-the-ground reporting is proving correct nearly to the letter. The following three-part report summarizing my observations and experiences in Afghanistan more than a year ago, warned of the growing threat of a narco-fueled Taliban increasingly able to challenge a national government overgrown with incompetency and choked with corruption. (READ MORE)

Northern Disclosure: Me, I'm just PROUD! - Home truly is where the heart is and mine is right here with our family. I am home on my R & R and it is wonderful! My wife truly is Wonder Woman, since I have been playing guns with my friends in the desert she has moved houses, reared a 4 year old monkey boy all while being pregnant. I was pretty sure that she was amazing before but now I am truly convinced. (READ MORE)

On Point: Ramadi: Building on Success - This month last year I was embedded in Ramadi with 1st Battalion 6th Marines as they kicked in doors, fought insurgents, and began to clear the city block by block. It cost the lives of a lot of good Marines, most under age 25, but their efforts and sacrifice convinced a few local citizens that the Marines understood the difference between “Iraqi’s” and “Al-Quada” – and so the charismatic Sheik Sattar Abu Risha formed the Sons of Anbar, and began co-operating with LtCol William Jurney’s young Marines. What a difference a year makes. (READ MORE)


On the Web:
Bret Stephens: Amazonian Swindle - Ecuador has a huge environmental problem courtesy of Big Oil. Since 1990, there have been at least 800 recorded oil spills in the country, including 117 in the first nine months of 2006 alone. Their cumulative volume easily exceeds three million gallons. Scores of spills have never been cleaned up, posing severe health risks for the local population. Rainfall in the area is said to smell like car exhaust. mall wonder, then, that when actress Daryl Hannah ventured into the Ecuadorean Amazon in June to have herself photographed dipping her hand into a lake of black sludge, she characterized the situation as "potentially the biggest environmental case ever." Only one problem: The supposed villain in the plot, Texaco--now merged with Chevron--ceased operations in Ecuador in 1990. (READ MORE)

Pete Du Pont: Inconvenient Tax Truths - Nobel Peace laureate Al Gore believes global warming is "an inconvenient truth." Here are some economic truths that America's liberal leadership finds too inconvenient to support. Tax rate reductions increase tax revenues. This truth has been proved at both state and federal levels, including by President Bush's 2003 tax cuts on income, capital gains and dividends. Those reductions have raised federal tax receipts by $785 billion, the largest four-year revenue increase in U.S. history. In fiscal 2007, which ended last month, the government took in 6.7% more tax revenues than in 2006. (READ MORE)

Dennis Prager: The Left and the Term "Islamo-Fascism" - Last week, at universities around America, the conservative activist David Horowitz organized "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." The week featured a guest speaker, the showing of the documentary, "Obsession," about radical Islam, and related activities. As one of those speakers -- at the University of California at Santa Barbara -- I was particularly interested in the controversy Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week engendered as well as in the larger question of whether the term "Islamo-Fascism" is valid. (READ MORE)

Thomas Sowell: Political "Solutions" - It is remarkable how many political "solutions" today are dealing with problems created by previous political "solutions." Three examples that come to mind immediately are the housing market crisis, the wildfires in southern California, and the water shortages in the west. Congress and the Bush administration are currently vying with each other to come up with a solution to the housing crisis, brought on by widespread defaults on home mortgage loans -- especially defaults by those who took out risky "subprime" loans. (READ MORE)

Bill Murchison: Fall Of The Religious Right? - I don't see glee oozing from between every comma in David Kirkpatrick's New York Times magazine article this past weekend on the "evangelical crackup." He's a good reporter, whose coverage of conservatives I regard as generally well balanced. On the other hand, it isn't hard to visualize street dancing and fireworks displays outside Clinton headquarters. Kirkpatrick's focus is on the glug-glug sound as evangelical enthusiasm for conservatives and Republicans drains from the tub. No one can predict, for certain, the speed or volume of the drainage. (READ MORE)

Bill Steigerwald: Behind the California Wildfires with Dr. Reese - As several of Southern California's wind-whipped wildfires still burned on Thursday, we called conservation biologist and forest researcher Dr. Reese Halter to learn more about the 20 fires that had destroyed 2,000 homes, forced the evacuation of more than 500,000 people and left at least eight dead. Halter, the author of "Wild Weather: The Truth Behind Global Warming," is the founder and president of Global Forest Science (globalforestscience.org), a forest conservation and research institute that helps private landholders, governments and corporations around the world "make better ecological decisions." He was in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs. (READ MORE)

Rich Lowry: Barack Obama on Barack Obama - When it comes to self-reflection, Barack Obama is an overachiever. At age 46, he has already written two memoirs when most people in public life -- sometime at the end of their career -- will be lucky to write one. So far, what Obama seems set to get out of his presidential campaign is yet another memoir -- this one an agonized, deeply personal account of how his campaign went nowhere despite all the media hoopla, crowds and fundraising. It turns out that voters aren't as interested in Barack Obama as Barack Obama is. (READ MORE)

John Boehner: Pelosi-Rangel Really Is ‘Mother of all Tax Hikes’ - WASHINGTON - American families are feeling te crunch of spiking energy costs, runaway college tuition, ever-burdensome home mortgages and steadily rising prices for consumer goods. These and other cost-of-living increases are eating away at the family budget — making every dollar earned and saved even more valuable. The very last thing families need is to see more of their paycheck confiscated by Congress. (READ MORE)

John McCaslin: Conquering America - The Mexican government apparently has no problem with its citizens penetrating the U.S. border by the millions. In fact, it's been written that increasing the number of Mexicans working illegally in America is among Mexico's highest foreign-policy objectives. Yet now comes congressional testimony from Jess T. Ford, the Government Accountability Office's director of international affairs and trade, that "Mexican sensitivity about its national sovereignty" has made it difficult for the two countries to coordinate counternarcotics activities. (READ MORE)

Humbled Infidel: Help Spread The Good News Happening In Iraq - Our Troops Have Our Backs - Let's Have Their Backs - Since the “Surge” of troops was completed in June of this year, violence throughout Iraq has reduced dramatically. The combination of additional troops, and more importantly a new counter-insurgency strategy, are undeniably responsible for the reduction. Below you will see FACTS about the dramatic drop in violence. We have broken them down to the “Surge Focus” (June-October 2007) and to “One Year Focus.” Visit this site weekly to get the latest data. We also plan to add data about political and economic progress. (READ MORE)

Wolf Pangloss: 4GW Jihad and the role of the World Media - 4GW Jihad as it is currently practiced is characterized most often by recording photogenic megaviolence, then propagating the recordings to media channels that primarily serve the Muslim populace, for recruiting, radicalization and morale-building purposes, and secondarily the non-Muslim populace to propagandize against its own government and military. This is not ideal for the Jihadists, as they would prefer killing infidels to fooling them or demoralizing them, but it will do until they can advance to more sophisticated and impersonal methods of killing than beheading a kuffir with a dull knife. But it is good enough for their long-term plans. F. G. Hoffman described it well in his talk at the Boyd 2007 Conference. (READ MORE)

Kim Priestap: Rangel's Tax Plan a Return to Carternomics? - James Pethokoukis at US News & World Report writes that Charlie Rangel's tax plan could actually send tax rates to even higher levels than they were under Carter. He quotes Lawrence Lindsay: "Until very recently, there had been a growing bipartisan consensus, acknowledged at least implicitly, that you cannot run a high-tax [economic] regime and be competitive. The great unspoken fact is that [Rangel's 4.6 percentage-point surtax on high incomes] only looks like a restoration of [Clinton's tax rates]." (READ MORE)

Lorie Byrd: Errors of Omission - I only have a minute to comment on the following right now, so if any other Wizbang bloggers want to jump in on this one, please do. Bluto has posted the full text of the email Glenn Greenwald received from Colonel Steven A. Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for General Petraeus, with the portions that Greenwald omitted from his post characterizing the email as "bizarre" highlighted. Interesting is what Greenwald chose to include in the post, and what he chose to omit. In his original post describing the email as bizarre, Greenwald said: (READ MORE)

A Soldiers Mind: Training For Trauma - I remember well the training I went through to become a Paramedic. After 3 months of classroom work, we spent 3 months in our clinicals, working in various areas of hospitals, such as the Emergency Room, Surgery, Obstetrics, a Burn Unit, Neonatal ICU and Cardiac Care. For my Emergency Department rotation, I was fortunate to do my 2 weeks of ER clinicals in one of the busiest Level 1 Trauma Centers in the state of Kansas, where the most severely injured patients from all over the state were sent. The time we spent in the Emergency Department prepared us for what we would face, as we went into jobs working as Paramedics on various ambulance services. It was time well spent. Without that type of training, we’d have had no clue what we would be facing out in the field. The training allowed us to have hands on experience with actual patients and allowed us to practice and hone our skills that we’d been learning in the classroom. (READ MORE)

Dafydd: Does Kagan Read Big Lizards, or Does Big Lizards Anticipate Kagan? - Actually neither; Frederick W. Kagan has been making this same point for weeks now -- that we've already won the first Iraq battle against al-Qaeda, giving us encouragement as we tackle the second against the Iran-controlled Shiite militias. But he makes the argument very forcefully in an opinion piece in the current Weekly Standard. Kagan, recall, was a co-author along with Gen. Jack Keane and Maj. Daniel Dwyer of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, which most argue was the impetus behind President George W. Bush deciding to scrap the previous strategy we were using in Iraq and choose a counterinsurgency strategy (and a new general) instead. The link above is actually to a Power Point presentation on the strategy (masquerading as a PDF file) that I particularly like: Just set the zoom to "Fit page" and keep pressing the Page Down key to progress through the "slides." (READ MORE)

Big Dog: Response to Wildfires by Military not Hampered by Deployments - It did not take long for people to blame George Bush for the wildfires in California because of his [past] opposition to global warming and because of a general hatred of the man. People compare the response to the wildfires with the response to Katrina and there are those who believe that the wealthier Californians made out better than the poor folk in New Orleans. The fact is, all response starts at the local level and then rapidly involves state resources. The local responders put their plans into effect quickly in California and the state rapidly became involved. The National Guard responded proactively by moving planes equipped to fight fires closer to the action by placing them on training missions until they were requested and the official request could be initiated. (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: Trench Warfare On The Hill - The year after winning majorities in both chambers of Congress, the Democrats still have little to show for its victory. The only major partisan goal they have achieved, a minimum-wage increase, had to latch onto Iraq war funding to get the votes to pass. Republicans have grown incensed by heavy-handed tactics such as Harry Reid's publicity-stunt all-nighter on Iraq in July, and the snap vote on the latest S-CHIP bill, which actually cost them one of the Republican moderates who had supported the previous bill: “In a closed-door meeting before the last vote on the children’s health care bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer appealed for the support of about 30 wavering Republican lawmakers. What he got instead was a tongue-lashing, participants said.” (READ MORE)

Dymphna: The Transatlantic Mystery - I think it’s more complicated than you say. As a first generation American I sometimes feel like a participant observer in the US. But that might have been my natural inclination anyway… people who write tend to have this “observing ego” that notices without let-up. The last two World Wars damaged Europe badly. John Derbyshire had a recent column in which he looked back on the many spinsters of his childhood in Britain. “Many” because the flower of British manhood had been obliterated and left entombed in Flanders Field. It was the same for France and Germany, and Spain to some extent in the ’30s. World War II was wash, rinse, repeat, but with far more damage to the infrastructure of things ancient, things which could not be restored. In fact, some of them ceased to exist even as cultural memories. (READ MORE)

GayPatriotWest: The Clintonite Responses of Some Readers (& Others) - A couple weeks ago, while I was driving in the Northeast, The Hill newspaper reported the response of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to allegations that the former First lady “listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents:” “Clinton’s spokesman panned the book [Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, detailing the allegations] but declined to discuss the allegation that Clinton had reviewed secretly recorded calls. ‘We don’t comment on books that are utter and complete failures,’ said Clinton’s press secretary, Philippe Reines.” How typical of the Clintons, attack the messenger without responding to the question. It seems that some of our critics have developed a similar strategy to deal with our points, attack us (as self-hating or motivated by currying favor with other conservatives) rather than respond to our arguments. (READ MORE)

Bill Roggio: Iraqi troops free tribal leaders kidnapped by Mahdi Army commander - Just 24 hours after the capture of 11 Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi Army has freed eight of the sheikhs. Meanwhile, Multinational Forces Iraq has identified the Mahdi Army commander responsible for the kidnappings and has begun to name other Mahdi Army leaders as being involved in criminal and insurgent activity. Iraqi soldiers conducted the raid in a yet-to-be-identified region near Baghdad, likely with the aid of US Special Forces and killed four of the kidnappers. "We have rescued eight of the hostages and are working to free the others. We killed four of the kidnappers," Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al Askari said. (READ MORE)

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