Now we know who Deep Throat is: W. Mark Felt, a former associate director at the FBI. While the information he supplied to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during Watergate helped bring down Richard Nixon‘s Presidency, now we will begin to see the other side of the story…
...the other side which cost the lives of MILLIONS. The other side which would have never come out, were it not for today’s bloggers.
Felt is 91 now, he’s probably very close to death. Maybe he didn’t want to go to his grave with this secret. And it’s been said his family wanted to financially benefit from the story too. Hopefully, Woodward & Bernstein and the WaPo will help out...but I doubt it.

Now, the world will finally discover the significance of the Watergate scandal not just for the United States...but for the entire world, and it will be a prime example of the consequences for all the decisions we make in our lives.
Gloat while you can, MSM.

Tomorrow is the 60th Anniverary of V-E Day. WE WON!
During his visit to the Baltic States (of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), President Bush acknowledged that we messed up in allowing the Soviets to impose its will on Eastern Europe following World War II:

“We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability. We have learned our lesson; no one’s liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others.”

In so doing, the President made himself an example to another certain world leader who chose to criticize the United States in the last few days:

“No good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries in this region. The interests of Russia and all nations are served by the growth of freedom that leads to prosperity and peace.”

Hey Pooty...are you listening?

On this day in 1975, North Vietnamese troops entered the capital of South Vietnam and captured it, ending a 29-year civil war.
It is also a sad day for America, as our august Congress essentially abandoned the South Vietnamese to their fate by refusing to fund their efforts to fight off the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. We evacuated our diplomatic and military personnel left there after the 1973 withdrawal of our troops, and took along what Vietnamese civilians we could (hence the photo).
Those on the left would have you believe that Iraq is another Vietnam (as they did with Desert Storm): “because of Vietnam we’re no good, we’re evil, all Communists and Islamists are good, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.”
To which I say, BS!

POPE BENEDICT XVI

As I told some of my Catholic friends today...I feel somewhat unreal about this, but they understood it was not in a bad way at all. May the Roman Catholic Church go forward into the future, unafraid, with this man at the helm. A lot of Christians of all denominations will be praying for you, Your Holiness.

UPDATE: You too can e-mail the Pope!

The Battle of Iwo Jima began sixty years ago today. There is no doubt in my heart that this photo, taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal four days into the assault as the Americans reached the summit of Mount Suribachi, is the defining moment for the Armed Forces of the United States..and for all of World War II. It speaks volumes all by itself.

So do these quotations:

“Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue”—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, 1945

“As long as Americans cherish the memory of those who served at Iwo Jima, and grasp the crucial lesson they offer all free societies, the totalitarians will never win.”—Arthur Herman, 2005

REMEMBER.

We need, from time to time, reminders of those we have fought before, to remember what they were like (and still ARE) so that we can fight our current enemies with the same vigilence and vigor.

This is such a reminder. Go ye and read it.

Sixty years ago today, the forces of the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and were horrified to discover what had taken place there: the systematic extermination by the Nazis of Jews, Gypsies, gays, lesbians, Soviet POW’s, and anyone else who did not fit in to the Nazi Scheme of Things.
Of course, Auschwitz was not the only place where this took place. All told, TWELVE MILLION people were exterminated...half of them were Jews.

Let that number sink into your mind...and you must wonder whether anything has been learned from the Shoah/Holocaust, given the surge in anti-Semitism coming from other countries and the constant pressure on Israel to give the Palestinians a state...the same Palestinians whose Hamas factions already show mimicry of Nazi behavior.

NEVER AGAIN, I say. NEVER AGAIN!

...of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month, it is time to remember the heroic sacrifices our Veterans made throughout history and today. Senator Zell Miller couldn’t have put it better:

“Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
“For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
“It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
“It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
“It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.”

AMEN. And THANK YOU!

I was at work on that fateful day for about a half-hour when word of the attack came down by way of word of mouth. The net was frozen, and no one was able to access it and no one could get any work done for the entire day. Most of us were just sitting around trying to make sense of it all. After noon our bosses just told everyone to go home, and so I did.
When I got home I turned it onto CBS and watched Dan Rather warning everyone about the graphic footage and language. Yes, I heard the lady screaming “Jesus F***ing Christ!” and it was NOT censored. The first and only words out of my mouth were YOU SONS OF BITCHES! After that I didn’t say much for the next couple of days or so, I was as stunned as everyone else.
Then when President Bush visited the ruins and got on top of that pile with the bullhorn, I knew something was gonna be done about it, and right then and there a lot of things fell into place as to why things happened the way they did after the 2000 election: God just wanted for George W. Bush to be there leading us when this happened. Then we went into Afghanistan and made the Taliban surrender power. And that was the beginning.
In November 2002 I saw Ground Zero in New York City; I was with my girlfriend at the time and we had just completed a tour of Ellis Island and after we left the ferry back to Manhattan, we made it a point to go there. First stop was the Sphere, which had survived the attack and was damaged, but it still survived. It was in Battery Park, and from there it was a five-block walk north to Ground Zero.
We stood there in total silence for about twenty minutes. The rubble had been cleared and though it looked like a pit, it was a National Scar. I don’t fully recall if I cried...but I know I didn’t have any words for just seeing Ground Zero with my own eyes. And it hit me in the gut, filling me with a terrible resolve to fight this Evil. If I couldn’t fight it with my body, I’d sure fight it with my words and spirit, which is one of the reasons I started blogging. While the Terrorists took the World Trade Center away from us, they’ll NEVER take away my heart and determination to call a spade a spade and to call Evil by its name. It was a powerful remembrance indeed.

This war is going to take a long time, this isn’t going to be done within a single term even if we capture Osama bin Laden, what’s happened so far pales to what might occur...and we MUST do everything in our power to stop it from reaching us here.
Men like President Bush and Vice President Cheney are providing the stalwart fortitude to make the decisions in the best interests of protecting the American People, no matter who we are: Republicans and Democrats, men, women and children, straights and GLBTs, the cowboys and the hippies and the Rebels and the Yanks! He is protecting us ALL. That is why we must re-elect George W. Bush as our President!

LET US ALWAYS REMEMBER.

I Pledge Allegiance
to the Flag of the
United States of America,
And to the REPUBLIC
For which it stands,
One Nation, under God,
Indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice For All!

228 Years and Counting!

1911-2004
REST IN PEACE

“It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons...The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.” -- Ronald Reagan, 1986

I so remember my very first vote for President in 1980. It was on an absentee ballot (I was away at college) and I was grinning ear to ear the entire day!
When Ronald Reagan was elected it lifted my spirits and my optimism that held for quite a long time, even through the darkest times in my life (in 1988, when my marriage began its death throes). When it came to my country I always looked to President Reagan for inspiration and hope.
And now, he’s really gone. I think the country needed the ten years to prepare for this. I’m glad he wrote that letter about the “sunset” of his life and got us ready. I cried quite a few times when he published it, and I’m crying again now because he’s been called Home to where he is whole again.
Thank you, God, for sending us Ronald Wilson Reagan to be there and to lead us when we so needed it. Thank you, God, for giving him his oratorical gifts to help us with words of comfort and hope in times of tragedy. He will always live on in my heart and the hearts of millions not just here in America, but around the world. Thank God because of a man like President Reagan, we continue to be FREE.

“In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.” -- Ronald Reagan, 1994

Twenty-five years ago, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. As Prime Minister, Thatcher privatized many British industries which had been nationalized after the end of World War II and started the British down the road to a free market economy.
Margaret Thatcher was a stalwart champion for the Free World (with Ronald Reagan and George Bush) and for her country’s part, helped bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Back in 1982, she sent the Royal Navy to the Falkland Islands to take them back from Argentina. Result: when they got there the Brits promptly kicked Argentina’s ass!
To this day, she remains steadfast in her support of freedom and democracy as a member of the House of Lords...and in reality, a real Lady!
Aside from President Bush and his father, if there were any other leader I’d like to meet, it’d be this Iron Lady. To that I raise my glass and say, THANK YOU LADY THATCHER!

I decided this year to quietly mark the 40th anniversary of JFK’s assassination by not commenting on the raging conspiracy controversy many people still consider a possibility.
But what if JFK had lived? Well he’d be what, 87 now? Sounds about right. I found two speeches he was supposed to deliver on November 22, 1963: one at the Trade Mart in Dallas, the other to the Texas Democratic State Committee in Austin.
Read them carefully, and then wonder if he hit onto something that sounds so familiar today.

“The beginning of the end of war lies in remembrance.”
—Herman Wouk, “War and Remembrance”

Today is Veterans Day. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, the Armistice brought World War I to an end. It is celebrated in other countries (Canada, the UK, and France come to mind) as “Remembrance Day.”
These brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day, even when they aren’t in the line of enemy fire, ensure the freedoms we have in the USA. I couldn’t be more grateful to those who wear the uniform of our country.
And you should be, too.

I asked Amritas, the master of linguistics that he is, about the origins of the word ”hibakusha”:

hi- = -ed (passive marker)
baku = explode (cf. genbaku ‘atom-explode’, short for genshi bakudan ‘atom bomb’ [bakudan ‘bomb’ < baku- 'explode' + dan 'projectile')
-sha = person

So it literally means something like 'the [atom-]bombed people'. And yes, it refers to survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As I figured.
Most sci-fi novels I’ve read in my lifetime have referred to nukes as “the Fire” (capitalization deliberate). I most certainly don’t want to put the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki down in any way, because they indeed hold a special place in our history...one which I pray will never be repeated.
When the Bombs went off, hundreds of thousands of people took their dying breath and into the atmosphere it went, and it got irradiated along the way. Like Caesar’s Dying Breath, we’ve breathed in those dying molecules.
My dad was in about three dozen tests back in 1958 when he was in the Navy. Think of those who assumed the “kiss your ass goodbye” position on the decks of the Navy ships at Eniwetok, or those who marched toward Ground Zero in Nevada...their legacy is with us now, as are those who were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were the first.
Every day we live without using those nuclear weapons is a victory and we survive. Wouldn’t that make us all “survivors of the Fire?”

Just a thought.