Monday, April 30, 2007

Dead Nation Walking!


Dead Nation Walking!
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The end of the United States as a fifty state nation is within sight. Before many more decades have passed the United States will be considerably smaller than it is today.

Why do I say this?

One only has to consider the state of tension between the peoples of this country to understand we cannot remain as a single entity. Our differences are too great. Tensions have not been this great since the 1850’s just prior to the War Between the States, or…the American Civil War.

This time, however, I don’t expect a shooting war between the states who leave the union and those who stay. But the plain truth is, we cannot remain together as one nation and be as divided as we are along political, and cultural lines. Those lines have now become fault lines and threaten a great earthquake to drive us apart… if… we do not relieve the pressure.

The coming split will not be between the northern and southern states as it was in the 19th century. No… this time the split will be between liberal states and conservative states, between liberal neighbors and conservative neighbors, and liberal siblings and conservative siblings.

Christ, Himself, said: “A house divided cannot stand”. The United States is nothing if it is not a house divided. Hopelessly divided.

As I understand it, it would take an act fo Congress and possibly, an amendment to the current constitution to allow a state, or states, to leave the Union. I would encourage my congresspersons and Senators to support any such bill to come before their chamber.

The American people are hopelessly at odds. About half us want to disregard the constitution and become a socialist nation. The other, roughly half of us, are adamantly in support of the Constitution and believe we should return to the original intent of The Founders. These two camps are not in the mood for compromise, because there can be no compromise which would allow one, or the other, of those camps to co-exist with the other. For the “Originalists” to compromise with the “Socialist” would mean the demise of the “Originalist” states and vice –versa with the “Socialist” states. So, we are deadlocked.

When a nation of peoples finds itself in this position it can do one of two things: It can go to war (with each side trying to dominate the other, and/or wipe out the other), or the two sides can agree to go their seperate ways. They cannot stay together.

And that, dear reader, is exactly where the people of the United States find themselves today.

We are clearly a nation in decline. If we separate, maybe one of us can claw it’s way back to the top of the heap again. If we stay together we will continue the downward spiral to become a taudry "has-been" nation which is only a "shell" of it's former self.

Our politics are so diametrically opposed that there is no chance for compromise. Our form of government relies on compromise to exist. Compromise is now out of the question.

Now, this separation is not going to happen overnight. The breakup in the 1800’s began just prior to 1820 and finally came to fruition in 1861. So, we are talking about four decades of arguing back and forth over nearly everything. I don’t think it will take modern Americans 40 years to decide they cannot live with each other in the 21st century.

How did we come to this? Democracy and Freedom, dear reader. Democracy and Freedom.

Americans are NOT a homogeneous people. We come from all nations and all cultures. We have come to know, now, that you cannot continue to mix people of various cultures indefinitely without losing the American culture. The American culture has long since been buried in the cultures of foreign countries within our own borders. “Out of many One” no longer applies. The great melting pot is about to boil over.

Our Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag says: “…One nation, indivisible…”. We know that is not true. We have already divided once and we stand on the verge of doing it again.

If we have learned anything at all, from the earlier separation, it is not to force those who want to leave to stay. Those of us in the South still carry deep scars which have been passed down from generation to generation from the hot lead, cold steel, and the point of the bayonet used to force our ancestors to return to the Union. One hundred and forty-four years later and we STILL resent it. We have been forced to meld our Southern Culture with that of the states of the old Union and, given a legal chance, many Southern states would bolt the union again, as would a number of northern states.

Some states in the extreme north feel they have more in common with Canada than they do with the US and would certainly choose to align with the Canadians. The state of Texas, in the agreement to join with the United States, reserved the right to withdraw and once again become a separate country, the Republic of Texas. It is the only state, I am aware of, which has that agreement with the US.

I know this is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but… it behooves a people to keep a weather eye on the future. And the future does not hold many good things for the former world superpower, the United States of America.

Longstreet

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Ahmadinejad Should give Us All Nightmares!

(This article first ran in August of 2006!)
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Ahmadinejad Should give Us All Nightmares!
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We came across this article on the “Daily Mail” site and since it so vividly details the insanity of Iran’s leader, Ahmadinejad, we recommend it you. You’ll find it at:

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=401858&in_page_id=1787

We are facing an enemy, in Ahmadinejad, every bit as dangerous as Hitler and the Nazi party. At some point the US will have to deal with this man and with his insane plan to take the world into chaos. When that day comes, in the not too distant future, we will, as usual, be on our own. With the exception of Great Britain, we can expect no help from Europe, which will fold, like a cheap suit, at the first serious threat from Iran.

While the totally ineffective UN plays at placating Ahmadinejad, he grows stronger as he nears the realization of his dream of an Iranian Atom bomb.

If the US were blessed with forward thinking leaders, we would be building up our armed forces in preparation for this confrontation, which is just around the corner. But we cannot do so with the limp-wristed leaders we have in the Congress today.

The US “standing Army” should be doubled. Our Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corp need to be doubled in strength… and as quickly as possible. If that means reinstitution of the draft… then so be it. When war with Iran comes, it won’t be fought from 15,000 feet with smart bombs. It will be a slugfest in the air, on the sea, and on the land. It will not be contained in the Middle East. The continental US will be hit. We can count on it! Missiles launched from ships, lying off shore in international waters, can burst through our radar defenses and hit targets before we can react to stop them.

The US military is seriously weak at this point in our history. Shortsightedness, and a tendency to believe “we can all just get along”, has led the US into a “head in the sand” policy, which will come back to haunt us… and to hurt us.

The US needs a crash program, right now; to build up our military might to a state of readiness we reached in the midst of the Second World War. Although our leaders don’t want to admit it, we are facing the same intensity of danger as we did at the beginning of that war when our military was at one of its lowest ebbs.

When one looks at the threats to the security of the US today and compares it to the reaction of our leadership toward meeting that threat, if one has an ounce of sense, one must be seriously frightened. Our Congressional leadership is tooling along as if nothing in the world matters except who gets elected in November of 2008.

Well, I have news for Congress… and the White House. (It ought not be news to the Congress or the President, but it apparently is.) It is time to pay for all the years of relative peace we have enjoyed as a nation. It is time to go to war in a serious manner. “Pussyfooting” around, with Iran, as we have been doing with Iraq for the past four years, will only get us destroyed as a nation. We will only win a war with Iran by utterly destroying them. There will be no room for political correctness. There will be no call for “winning the hearts and minds” of the Iranians. We won’t have time! We’ll be fighting for our very existence!

In the meantime, I fully expect the US to continue along this fairy tale path, assured in it’s on ignorance, that we can talk our way, negotiate our way, out of war with Iran, until thousands of Americans lie dead, and irradiated, in the streets of our large east coast cities.

We have grown fat, and lazy, and extremely vulnerable. Unfortunately, I have come to believe that it will take a mushroom cloud over New York, Boston, or Washington DC to wake us up!

Suicide is a sorry way for a great nation to go!

Longstreet


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Friday, April 27, 2007

National Health Care. The Cure Worse Than the Disease!


(This article first ran in March of 2005!)
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National Health Insurance? No way!
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“National Health Insurance” is one of the primary tools used by a government to control her people. That alone is enough for me to be whole-heartedly against it.

Now, lets get something straight… I believe the Health Insurance Companies, in America, deserve what they get. They have been, in my opinion, abusing their subscribers for entirely too long. Rates have risen through the roof at an undeservedly fast pace. Sure, medical costs have gone up, but not at the percentages your insurance premiums have gone up. This has to stop. But National Health Care is a cure worse than the disease.

More government in our lives is more than just a little bit scary. Once National Healthcare is implemented, and don’t get me wrong, I believe some form will be, your life will be under the control of the administrators of that insurance.

For Instance, lets say you have an obesity problem. You have developed a heart problem as a result of the obesity. You need treatment for your heart. National Health Care says: “OK, we will not pay for the heart treatment until you lose weight”. Or, they provide all citizens with a chart, approved by the FDA, of the “Approved Foods” all citizens should eat. They make it clear that if you cannot show proof of having ingested those “approved” foods, on a regular basis, also decided by them, you Health Insurance is no good. You will not receive treatment.

Or, another example, you may be allowed to have one child only. It must be a boy. (See China.) If you choose to have another baby, after the approved ONE, the costs will come out of your pocket. Get the picture?

Now, this does not take into account the reduced quality of care we will receive from the medical community. Their hearts will not be it. After 8 years, or so, in medical school to learn their profession doctors will become “salaried government employees”. Need I say more?

The left is hell-bent on imposing such a system on the citizens of this country. That is another reason we must refuse them power, ever again, in the Congress. At least in numbers large enough to affect legislation.

National Health Care is a Socialist dream! It is also a Conservative’s worst nightmare.

We must be on our guard, for some form of National Health Care is about to raise its ugly head in the Nation’s legislature. It is time for conservatives to exercise their power and stop it in its tracks as we did the “Clinton Care” attempt in the ‘90s.

Lets get it done!

Longstreet


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The Southern Democrat/Republican


The Southern Democrat/Republican
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There is a time-honored tradition in the South of registering to vote as a Democrat but actually voting for the Republican presidential candidate.

It makes no sense any longer to do that.

Back when the Democrat party controlled the South, prior to the Civil War, and again immediately after the so-called Reconstruction, the South was solid democrat. Why, even the Klan, and the Night Riders, were created by democrats.

Southerners are big on family, family tradition, and personal, as well as family honor. And to the Southerner it just seemed dishonorable to forsake the political party of your fathers.

Then came the 1960’s when the Democrat Party adopted much of the Socialist Party’s platform. Southerners, never the bumbling idiots other regions of the county made them out to be, quickly realized that Socialism and Communism were, for the most part, one and the same. There was a mass migration of Southern Democrats away from the Democrat Party.

Unfortunately, the Socialist/Democrats control academia in America and when the Southerner sent his son, or daughter, away to college, they almost always came home as new socialist democrats. Not knowing the history of politics in the country, and certainly not taught a balanced history of politics in college, these young people came home as freshly minted socialists. It caused great concern for their families because Southerners know that Socialism and Christianity cannot co-exist. Some Southern families were driven apart never to re-unite.
Others simply accepted their child’s new found religion, socialism, and prayed regularly for their awakening before the fires of hell claimed their souls.

So… those young socialists are now the baby boomers with children of their own and, in some cases, grandchildren. They go to church every Sunday and worship and pray and… somehow… they do not see the marked irony in what they are doing. They are members of, and regularly attend, churches, which teach that Abortion is wrong, that Homosexuality is wrong, and… that it is the churches place to care for the poor and needy and not the government’s… and they continue to align themselves with the political party which supports these hellish ideas.

To make the problem ten times worse, many of the nation’s mainline churches have been hi-jacked by the same socialist who indoctrinated the baby boomer generation during their college years. Thus, all the trouble and turmoil in the Mainline Denominations today over the same issues the supported by the Democrat Party.

So, what we have, at least here in the Southland, is a dichotomy of the Southern family into two opposed divisions. And it has been this way since the democrats became the Socialist/Democrats in the 1960’s.

By and large, though, Southerners vote conservative. Every election since the Nixon Administration that has meant voting for the Republican candidate, or some third party candidate, who hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.

It was/is a difficult thing for a Southerner to cast a Republican ballot because the Republican Party is the party which imposed the so-called Reconstruction Era on our forefathers, which did far more damage to the South than the Civil War. But, when one considers that a large portion of Southerners see the Democrat Party as “The Party of Satan”, the Republicans don’t look so bad!

Longstreet


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Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Stalinist/Democrats and the American Inquisition!

The Stalinist/Democrats and the American Inquisition!
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Isn’t it interesting how President Bush’s approval ratings seem to, sort of, bottom out when the dems took power in the Congress? His rating is basically the same as it was last year at this time.

We have known for a very long time, and have reminded you of it often enough, that Democrats, when out of power, are funny… but when in power are dangerous. Now… the evidence is out there for all to see and Americans are beginning to remember why they threw them out a little over a decade ago!

Now, add to that... the constant drumbeat of assaults against the duly elected President of the US (and the Commander in Chief of the armed forces) in a time of war and Americans are beginning to draw back a bit as one who has inadvertently touched a hot stove.

Add to that... the rush to surrender to the enemies of the US, and the free world, and... the ridiculous display of ineptitude by the Speaker of the House as she attempted to meddle in foreign policy... and the picture becomes clearer.

Add to that... the fact that there are no hearings to discern if the Logan Act was, indeed, violated by the Speaker... and fuel is added to the embers of doubt beginning to grow into a flame.

The threat of, and the actual introduction of, Articles of Impeachment against the President, even though no “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” have been committed, is an obvious attempt to lambaste the Administration with innuendo, in an effective attempt to break the electorate’s trust, is simply a part of their Stalinist approach to governing.

When one considers the constant “Stalinist-type” investigations of everything The Administration does, or has done, or is attempting to do, the electorate is seriously fearing they have made a gross error in returning the Democrats to power!

And that, dear reader, is what the conservatives who stayed home, last November, and turned the Congress over to the Democrats, were hoping and praying would happen!

The Democrats are nothing… if they are not predictable. They exist for one reason, and one reason only: to acquire, and wield, power. Once IN power they will do whatever it takes to insure they will never be ousted from power again.

So… now the American electorate is beginning to question the wisdom of allowing the Democrats to control the US government.

Oh, it will get worse…much worse. In the words of Al Jolson: “You ain’t seen nothing, yet! Before the reign of the Stalinists/Democrats is over the country will suffer some major upheavals, some major setbacks in foreign policy, and national security will suffer some of its greatest trials.

Watch closely. Observe as power hungry leftists entwine themselves into every aspect of your life and the life of the nation. Watch as they milk the tax teat for every drop of your money they can squeeze out if it. Watch as they drag every serving member of the current administration up before their kangaroo courts in an on-going, never-ending, “Inquisition”… the likes of which has not been seen since the Spanish Inquisition! The punishment of the country for tossing them out on their ear, back in the nineties, has only just begun. They will teach Americans the cost of shunning the self appointed leaders of the nation… the Democrats. And to make it even worse… they will continue to commit all these atrocities in the name of “The American People”!

Longstreet




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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Is There Really an Energy Crisis? ... by Alan Caruba


Is There Really an Energy Crisis?
By Alan Caruba
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A little news item in an April 15 edition of my daily newspaper was headlined “Saudi Arabia proposes to boost oil production.” The increase was intended to “meet domestic and international demand while insuring ‘fair’ world prices”, said King Abdullah. Indeed, OPEC, the oil cartel, had twice cut production, “contributing,” said the news item, “to relative stability that has kept benchmark crude between $50 and $60 a barrel—down from the record highs of more than $78 a barrel last summer. Current prices are around 40% above 2004 levels.”

The world is not about to run out of oil, but the price is likely to remain where the Saudis and other oil producing nations want it, knowing that too high a price retards the billions that must be invested to find new reserves and then extract, transport and refine it. They know that the world is growing hungrier for oil as nations like China and India industrialize and become major economic centers.

The oil we use today is the result of careful decisions made a decade or two ago by the world’s greatest masters of risk, the oil companies whom we trust to keep the world’s economic engine running. If the price was less in the past, it is because fewer nations were competing for it and that it could be extracted from places less costly than deep oceans.

These days when I hear our politicians talk of “energy independence” while often refusing to allow our own reserves of oil and natural gas to be tapped, I am mindful that they are deceiving us.

This was clarified in an excellent policy analysis published recently by the Cato Institute. The authors are Eugene Gholz, an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and Daryl G. Press, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth University. It had six pages of footnotes as an indication of how thoroughly researched it was.

It’s title was “Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry About Oil.”

The authors of the Cato analysis assert that (1) the notion of ‘peak oil’ depletion of existing and future undiscovered reserves of oil is a myth. This is based on what they determined is “scant evidence and dubious models of how the oil market responds to scarcity.” That is very good news.

The report repeats what every Economics 101 student knows. (2) “Market forces, modified by the cartel behavior of OPEC, determine the key factors that affect oil supply and prices.” And now you know why a tiny news story about Saudi Arabia’s intention to pump more oil is an important indicator.

Perhaps the most important element of the Cato analysis is (3) the finding that the use of U.S. military power in the Middle East is counterproductive to our interests there. “Past efforts to increase stability in oil-producing areas by supporting dictators, policing violent regions, or spreading democracy have a dubious track record.”

“In fact, the United States has led 17 efforts at democratic nation building since 1900. Two of those cases, Iraq and Afghanistan, are still under way, though neither appears promising. Of the other 15 cases, only 4 resulted in democracies lasting 10 years or longer.”

What most Americans do not know is that the world’s major oil companies have wisely diversified their oil holdings to insure that any perturbation in the Middle East will not significantly impact the flow of oil to the world market. One of the regions where oil exists in abundance is Africa. Russia has huge amounts. The Pacific Basin is another and even the Gulf of Mexico still holds great promise of more oil. More reserves exist off our continental shelf on both coasts.

We will surely continue to be bombarded by self-serving politicians and others telling us that China poses a threat to the world oil market or that we have to dramatically reduce our use of oil, but the facts do not support these claims. Proposals to raise taxes on gas consumption only hide their greed for funding their many dubious “earmarked” projects.

The truth is to be found in the Cato analysis and elsewhere if you can resist being stampeded to drastically alter our economy by schemes such as federally subsidized ethanol production or the nonsense of wind and solar energy. The good news is that the bad news is wrong.


Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, is published by Merril Press.

© Alan Caruba, April 2007
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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Iran, Iraq, and Useful Idiots.

(This article first ran in September of 2005)
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Iran, Iraq, and Useful Idiots.
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Would it surprise anyone to learn that we are engaged in combat with Iran even now?

Rumors persist that Iran is secretly sending men and materiel across the porous border in southern Iraq. Coalition forces, including British forces have been working diligently to plugs the holes in that border and cut off the flow of so-called “insurgents”, bombs, and bomb making material across that border.

If the rumors are true, the war will soon widen into Iran.

We had thought the next invasion by US and coalition troops would be across the Iraq/Syria border. But more and more it is beginning to look as if our troops will be moving into Iran.

Iran is very unhappy with US troops in Iraq. Their “Theocracy” is threatened. The Mullahs will do, and apparently are doing, all in their power to entangle the US and Coalition forces in a “brushfire war” while banking on the political Left in the US to break the will of the American people to support the war in Iraq.

What Iran is not winning on the battlefield they ARE winning with the American Political Left.

The Anti-War Movement is playing right into the hands of the Mullahs in Iran. It is exactly what they had hoped for. It would seem their hope was not misplaced.

The North Vietnamese used the same tactics. The anti-war movement in the States was the best weapon the North Vietnamese had. Often referred to as “useful idiots”, the anti-war fanatics are responsible for prolonging the war in Iraq, just as they were for prolonging the war in Vietnam. The longer the war, the more casualties. How difficult is this to figure out. It’s elementary.

So, while the Anti-war movement protests, and their willing accomplices in the MSM report their every breath, more American troops die. The cycle continues until the will of the American people is broken.

It is a sad thing to watch a great nation commit suicide. All great nations throughout history have died by suicide. America is in the downward spiral towards that oft referred to “Dustbin of History”.

Who do we thank for our untimely demise?

The American Political Left. Who else?


Longstreet

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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Another Clinton Presidency? God Forbid!!!


(This article was first
published
in April of 2006)
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Another Clinton Presidency? God Forbid!!!

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“The Conservative Voice” has an article by Nathan Tabor, a political activist from here, in North Carolina, which raises many of the concerns Americans should have over the return of the Clintons to the Executive Mansion and the Office of President of the US.
Read the “spot on” article at:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/13573.html

I sincerely hope Americans learned their lesson as a result of the first Clinton debacle. Unfortunately, many did not.

If the Clintons DO manage to win, or in some other way regain, the White House… watch for the sale of hand guns, and long guns, to skyrocket, ammunition sales to skyrocket, and Militia Units to spring up all across the nation, just as they did during the first Clinton blot on history known as the Clinton Administration.

Conservatives (and America is far and away Conservative) do not trust those people and we already know our national security will be at risk as well as the security of our families.

The low morals they displayed for the world to see, in the nineties, shocked many Americans. They had read of such things but never expected to live to experience them, especially in a leader of the free world. Their lack of concern for anything other than their legacy, their image, and the satisfaction of their own carnal desire for money, fame, and sexual pleasure, was staggering. And Americans will be asked to forget all that as though it never happened.

I can think of no other husband and wife team quite like them… save for Juan and Evita Peron of Argentina.

Some hard decisions are going to have to be made between now and November of ’08. Conservatives need to be prepared for the fight of our lives. Frankly, I don’t see the leader the Conservatives will need to lead this fight.

Pray God, He provides us with one in time for the "Battle for America".

Longstreet



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Friday, April 20, 2007

Homeland Security in Tewksbury, NJ ... by Alan Caruba


Homeland Security in Tewksbury, NJ
By Alan Caruba
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New Jersey is not likely a target of terrorist plans, though I suppose as vulnerable as anywhere else, reaped approximately $1,481,990 recently from just one program administered by the Department of Homeland Security. Overall, DHS will provide $34.6 million in direct assistance nationwide this year and, since 2005, has disbursed more than $69.7 million in equipment and training.

Designed to help first responders such as law enforcement and emergency services by enabling them to purchase equipment, as my eye scanned three pages of cities and towns I noticed that the Neptune Township police will buy something called video detective. So did Glen Ridge where I was briefly editor of the local weekly. Neither my current hometown nor former one, both of which border Newark, received any grants. Newark received none, perhaps because the city bought a new garbage truck with a former grant.

Suffice it to say, Avon by the Sea, Chatham, Surf City, Perth Amboy, or Tewksbury are not likely to find themselves fighting or responding to terrorist attacks and please do not ask me how New Jersey Fish & Wildlife Law Enforcement got a piece of the action, purchasing night vision goggles.

I am happy to see my State’s first responders cash in on yet another federal government program. I am sure that people in other States feel pretty much the same. What’s a Homeland Security Department for if it can’t spread the money around? But is that security or politics?

In March, Michael Chertoff, the director of DHS, addressed the Northern Virginia Technology Council and, after reading his speech, I am very happy I am not Michael Chertoff. If ever an impossible job was created, it is his. Consider that he administers twenty-two existing “legacy systems and functions”, all cobbled together into one big bureaucracy whose purpose is to keep us alive.

Anyone familiar with even just one bureaucracy knows the insanity, insularity, and lethargy that exists when its public servants realize they barely have to pay any attention to Congress except at budget review time and almost never to the public.

Chertoff, a lean man who has earned the respect of everyone who has encountered him, including the many criminals and miscreants he sent to jail as a district attorney, defined five “overarching goals” for DHS.

(1) Protecting the nation from dangerous people. (2) Protecting the nation from dangerous cargo “or things coming into the country.” (3) Protecting and hardening our critical infrastructure. (4) Strengthening our emergency preparedness and response. And (5) “making sure that we have a fully-integrated and fully-unified department which is effectively managed…”

As to the last objective, I suspect it may well be sometime into the middle of this century before that happens, if ever. The children of current DHS personnel will possibly be the best candidates to replace them, having been raised listening to dinner table discussions about the need for full integration and unification of XYZ agency with ABC agency.

Chertoff does his best to keep fears of an Islamic cataclysm muted. When it became clear that England is a hotbed of Jihadist plans to kill the infidels of London’s Chelsea, Belgravia or Mayfair districts, he said that the problem in America is less severe. No pockets of radicals such as the poor Brits must ferret out.

However, Investor’s Business Daily on February 26 begged to differ noting that, “right across the Potomac from his office is the second-highest concentration of Muslims in the country. Baileys Crossroads, Virginia, is teeming with Islamic radicals just as hostile to the U.S. government as their counterparts in London.”

The article described Baileys Crossroads as “the heart of the Wahhabi corridor, which includes the safe houses where the (9/11) hijackers stayed and the mosque where they and dozens of other terrorists have worshipped.” It is home to the Virginia Jihad Network in an area locals now refer to as “northern Virginiastan.”

There are a number of comparable concentrations that include Dearborn, Michigan, Bridgeview, Illinois, and, in my home State, Jersey City. This long established hotbed of Islamism was not on the latest list of cities to receive a DHS grant to buy anything.

I hope and pray that DHS knows what it’s doing. I take some comfort knowing there has not been another attack in the United States like 9/11, but I am cynical enough to think that the Arabs are smart enough to know not to awaken Americans from their slumber until another time of their choosing.


Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, is published by Merril Press.

© Alan Caruba, April 2007
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Thursday, April 19, 2007

America’s Adoption of the Feminine Culture is Getting Us Killed!


America’s Adoption of the Feminine Culture is Getting Us Killed!
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One of the first reactions I received by, e-mail, after the Massacre at VT was an inquiry: “Why didn’t some of those people tackle the shooter and disarm him?” I answered that the will to resist, to fight back, has been bred out of our younger generation. That is why the war in Iraq is being de-funded by the Democrat Congress. They haven’t the will to resist.

For a long time now, I have thought that if we assigned genders to political parties then the Democrat Party would be female and the Republican Party would be male. Now, even those lines have been blurred. I am afraid both parties would now have to be labeled as female.

I mean, look at the current government’s response to danger: Throw both hands up, and/or cover your eyes with your hands. That is a female response. The masculine response is to lash out and neutralize the danger. That doesn’t happen anymore.

If you don’t think it can get any worse… wait ‘til after the 2008 election. The next President of this country is going to be Mrs. Bill Clinton. Unless there is an act of God… that is a given! If you want a feminine country… you’re about to have your wishes realized. Cat fights, scratching and clawing, and not one good haymaker thrown… at all. Pitiful! Absolutely pitiful!

But this is what America has come to. A castrated society, frightened of it’s own shadow, cowering behind the skirts of a female president!

Look, the GOP hasn’t a hope of a snowball in hell in the 2008 election with the candidates they currently have in the field. McCain, Giuliani and Romney haven’t even a chance against the REAL democrat.

Harry Truman once remarked: “if you give Americans a choice betwixt a fake Republican and a real Republican they choose the real Republican every time”! I submit… it works exactly the same way when reversed!

If we have learned anything, at all, from the massacre at Virginia Tech, it is: one, that you cannot rely on the police to protect you, and two: you’d damned well better be ready to protect yourself! That means owning, and being proficient in the use of, firearms. If you don’t have a gun, you had better get one… and you’d better learn to use it and… you had better be ready to use it.

Be ready to face action against you, in court, if, and when, you use your firearm. We have a “saying” down South… “It is better to have twelve men try me than to have six men carry me!”

The anti-gun lobby is going to come down HARD on the Democrat Congress for more gun control laws. Count on it. It’s as sure as sunrise tomorrow.

It is well to point out, for those of you who may have forgotten, nary a single gun was used in the greatest murder of Americans in history... the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93. Not a single gun was employed. No… it was a few box cutters. (That’s a razor blade with handles!)

Look there is something terribly wrong with a society, which will allow a single young man, with only two weapons, (both handguns, at that) to cower an entire community of 25,000 people! If we Americans don’t “suck it up” and begin acting like men again, we can expect more and more of this type of attack! Being politically correct when someone is threatening your life… is a death warrant! You fight back, and you fight back as though your life depended upon it… for it absolutely does!

The answer to this is not to take away people’s guns! The answer to this terrorism, domestic or foreign, is to toughen up! The perception of weakness is an open invitation to get your bell rung! And ring it they will!

If America doesn’t get a grip on itself and forsake the feminine culture we have adopted, and get back to the masculine culture we have forsaken, we are doomed as a free people. We resembled nothing less, these days, than a wounded animal surrounded by a pack of hyenas toying with us and snarling in for the occasional attack. This behavior by a “former” world super power is embarrassing to my generation! It ought to be embarrassing to you, as an American, too.

Longstreet


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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Dear GOP..........



Why You Should Own a Gun ... by: Alan Caruba

Why You Should Own a Gun
By Alan Caruba
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The murders on the Virginia Tech campus, the worst such rampage in our history, might have been mitigated if just one member of the faculty or a student had the means to return fire.

I have owned guns for decades. On rare occasions, I have had to “show” one of my guns to people with bad intentions. Not surprisingly, they changed their plans to take my money and do me some harm. The Virginia Tech murders confirm the value of empowering ordinary citizens to carry a concealed weapon.

On March 9 I learned of a ruling in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia in which Senior Judge Lawrence H. Silberman wrote an opinion, with Judge Thomas B. Griffith concurring, that restored the Second Amendment to the citizens of the District and, by extension, to every citizen of these United States. Not since 1976, had residents of the District had the right to defend themselves with force of arms.

Judge Silberman wrote, “In sum, the phrase ‘the right of the people’, when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.”

As Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, noted succinctly, “The right of self-preservation was understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government.”

That is precisely why the Second Amendment says, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Many States refused to ratify the proposed U.S. Constitution until this amendment and nine others were included. As Judge Silberman noted in his decision, the Second Amendment acknowledges “a right that pre-existed the Constitution” in the same way as freedom of speech.

Barely a week later in the Greenwich Village area of New York, David Garvin, carrying two semi-automatic firearms and a bag with 100 rounds of ammunition killed Alfredo Romero, a pizzeria employee, firing 15 rounds into him. Confronted by unarmed auxiliary police officers, Nicholas Todd Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik, he killed them as well. They were volunteer civilians who wear uniforms nearly identical to regular police. Finally, Garvin—a man with no psychiatric history—was shot dead by full-time police officers.

This is why police officers are always armed. I could not help wondering how that event would have been altered if any of his victims had been able to shoot back.

The Second Amendment Foundation notes that firearms are used defensively an estimated 2.5 million times every year, four times more than criminal uses. This represents some 2,575 lives protected and saved for every life lost to a gun. According to the national Safety Council, the loss of life to accidental firearm death is at its lowest point since records were begun nearly a hundred years ago.

In a nation where the rights conferred on individual Americans by the Second Amendment were just reaffirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, it’s worth considering that, as of November 1997, there were an estimated 129 million privately owned firearms in the nation.

Guess what? After September 11, 2001, the one thing a lot of people did was to go out and buy a gun. If a bunch of fanatical Muslims could hijack four commercial airlines, destroy the World Trade Center towers, fly one into the Pentagon, and intended to fly the other possibly into the White House or the Capitol building, a lot of people decided that being able to shoot people with similar intentions was a very good idea.

Since then we have seen numerous incidents of “instant Jihad syndrome” where some Islamist decided to kill infidels who were just out for an hour at the local mall or otherwise peacefully going about their lives. And, yes, there are still criminals who use firearms. Now, however, Americans are not bound by some gun-banning law to be nothing more than victims.

Responsible gun ownership is a good idea. And if this is the first time you have heard about the recent decision of the Court of Appeals, that’s because this story got buried by most mainline newspapers and by virtually all of the broadcast news media. No doubt this case will go to the Supreme Court at some point.

The writers of the U.S. Constitution understood the necessity for an armed citizenry. When only the government has guns, everyone else is just a slave. Gun-banners who would turn everyone’s life and liberty over to the care of an all-powerful, central government, don’t understand and don’t agree with that.

As gun law expert, John M. Synder, put it, “Gun rights are human rights. Gun rights equate with the right to defend life and, therefore, with the very right to life itself.”

For more information, visit
www.saf.org.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, is published by Merril Press.

© Alan Caruba, April 2007

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Monday, April 16, 2007

The Massacre at Virginia Tech Creates an Opening for Gun Control Activists!


The Massacre at Virginia Tech Creates an Opening for Gun Control Activists!
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At the risk of seeming crass, (in light of the event at Virginia Tech this week) I’d like to draw your attention to what will, in all likelihood, be a problem in the immediate future. Gun control.

The gun control nuts have been waiting for an emotional issue to use as the wedge to squeeze legislation through the Congress to "disarm America". The killings at Virginia Tech could well be that issue.

The gun control crowd has been unusually quiet in recent months. But, they have not gone away, nor will they. They have a goal and that goal is to take away your guns! If it takes using an event such as the awful, awful, killings at VT, then I do not expect they will hesitate.

There are many laws on the federal law books, which are what we call “Knee-Jerk Reaction Laws”. The use of public emotion to ram trough such legislation is nothing new. The 2nd Amendment, like any other part of our Constitution, is as vulnerable as ever to the “do-gooder’s” of the country who have the best intentions in the world. But, as we have reminded readers of this site, so often in the past, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
It's sad that we have to defend our constituional rights, especially after such a horrible episode as this, but such is the sorry state of affairs in the US these days.

If you are a gun owner, or even if you are not, beware of the actions of the liberals in Congress over the next few weeks and months. You might want to keep a close watch on your state legislatures as well. (As we folks in NC learned only a few days ago when our legislature passed a resolution apologizing for slavery… when 87% of the people of the state were against it!)

I’ve been around for a while now, and I have watched the various left-wing activists use such events to get their way. I have no doubts that I will be raked over the coals for having the temerity to say such a thing so soon after such a hurtful event as that at VT this week. But, dear reader, forewarned is forearmed! (No pun intended!)

There is nothing we can say that will ease the pain and suffering of the families of those young people murdered at Virginia Tech this week. Absolutely NOTHING. Our thoughts and our prayers are with them. May God, in his infinite mercy, give them peace.
Longstreet
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US… Stay the Hell Out of DARFUR!


US… Stay the Hell Out of DARFUR!
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There is absolutely no national interest for the United States in Darfur. None! Therefore there is absolutely no reason to insert ourselves, militarily, into that region and into that conflict. NONE!

Look, what they have there is essentially a war between some Arab (Muslim) Bedouins (or nomads) and farmers. Estimates have as many as 450,000 dead as a result of the on-going conflict.

Now, here is the rub… I can’t find a root cause for the on-going conflict there! It’s as though war has become a way of life and the attendant suffering, humiliation, starvation, and deprivation is, well, a part of that way of life.

What really beats me though is… some of the Democrats in Congress want to pull our military forces out of Iraq and send them to the Sudan, to Darfur, to be exact. For what??? We can do absolutely nothing there to stop the war. We can, of course, escalate the killing of the native peoples there, but little else. We certainly cannot bring a lasting peace there.

We should commit troops when the national interests of the US are involved. The Darfur mess, and it IS a mess, is not one of those situations.

The US cannot save Africa. The UN cannot save Africa. The EU cannot save Africa. Only Africa can save Africa. But, looking at Africa, objectively, one would have to admit that it is going to get a whole lot worse in Africa before it gets ANY better.

Remember our last foray into Africa to save Africans? Somalia. The “Back Hawk Down” incident cost the lives of 18 elite US troops… and at least 2,000 Somalia’s… in one firefight!

The point is... that if US troops are committed to Darfur, and once the first shot is fired, there will be a bloodbath. The Sudanese will be slaughtered. The left leaning, liberal world press, (including our own MSM) will take great delight in showing TV video, all over the world, of white American soldiers slaughtering black Sudanese.

Darfur, and all of Africa, should be off limits for the American military. Save, of course, for Black Ops and Special Forces operations. At least with those troops we have “plausible deniability”.

Looking back on it, maybe European colonization of Africa wasn’t so bad, after all!

Longstreet

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Whatever Happened to National Shame???


Whatever Happened to National Shame???
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The US has set out on one its most shameful exploits in the history of the country and nobody seems even to be embarrassed!

I refer, of course, to the surrender in Iraq!

Now… you can call it anything you like, redeployment, withdrawal, anything! But, the plain and simple truth is… what we are about to do in Iraq… is surrender! It is shameful, it is disgusting, it is deplorable, and it is finally, and foremost, COWARDLY!
The President of the United States ought to resign before giving such an order. And he WILL give the order. Of course, they’ll call it something else… some diplomatic term, but every mother’s son in the uniform of the US Military will know, in his heart, the Congress, their Commander in Chief, and worse, their COUNTRY, has sold them out!

Those of us who saw service during the Vietnam era carry a blot on our souls matched only in size by the distrust we have for our government. Let’s face it, the US government sold the US Military out in Vietnam and they are doing the same cussed thing to the world’s finest military AGAIN! How many times can a country shame its warriors and expect them to go, willingly, into harm’s way again, and again, and again?

The dishonor this will bring to our men and women, in uniform, will follow them the rest of their lives. Don’t believe me… talk to a Vietnam Vet!

I saw some figures the other day which did nor surprise me at all. If I remember correctly, the piece I read stated that 42% of the combat soldiers in Iraq today come from just 11 Southern States of the US. (It is not coincidental that there were 11 Confederate states.)

How can the men and women of a geographical area, which was defeated by the US, fight in such large numbers for the very country which defeated their ancestors who fought under a different flag? Because, dear reader, the defeat, at the hands of the US forces, was an honorable one! The Southern soldier took on a fledgling world superpower and gave the US the fight of its life for four years. Those Southern Cavaliers were finally defeated when they had nothing left with which to fight.

There is honor in that! Defeat at the hands of a superior enemy is honorable. Surrender is NEVER honorable!

Many of those rag tag southern warriors wanted to continue the fight as guerilla fighters and raiders… but their sainted leader Gen. Robert E. Lee asked them not to… and they chose to abide by his wishes. More Americans were killed in that four-year period than in all the other wars America has been involved in… up to the present day. In one battle alone, dear reader, 7,000 American men fell, killed in action … in 20 MINUTES!!!

It is the descendents of the men Lee lead at the forefront of the fight in Iraq today. These are the men raised in the South to know, and to understand, and to revere HONOR. And… you can believe they will leave Iraq shamed… shamed by the Congress, shamed by their Commander in Chief, and shamed by their country! The dishonor will follow them all the days of their lives.

We should all write the incoming crop of Democrats and insist that the Stars and Stripes be brought down from atop the Capitol Building’s dome. We should all write the President, the Commander in Chief, and insist that the flag atop the White House be taken down. Their actions have shamed those colors and those colors don’t deserve that kind of disgraceful treatment! Those colors do not deserve the shame of flying over buildings which house people with such low regard for their nation’s warriors and the families of the warriors lost in battle with their country’s enemies! Our government’s actions dishonor and shame the very men and women, dear reader, who guarantee their security.

The value of the service of any single member of the US Military, when weighted against the value to the country of the service of a Congressman, or Congresswoman, or Senator, is worth incalculably more!

I am barely restrained from obscenities as I write.

A few years back, I shook the hand of a member of my extended family when he announced that he had joined the US Army. I also told him, he now belonged to an elite brotherhood, a brotherhood his Dad and I, both, belonged to. I told him that no matter how long he lived; he would never forget the men he was about to serve with because they would always remain in his memory as his brothers in arms and… in honor. He is now on his second tour in Iraq.

Three times now, in my lifetime, I will have endured the indignity, as an American, of watching my “Brothers in Arms” and my relative’s, and loved ones, shamed and dishonored: in Vietnam, and… when ordered to “cut and run” in Somalia, and now… in Iraq.

Where does it end? HOW does it end? It ends, dear reader, in low self-esteem by the generations of Americans who will follow us. It makes it so much easier to bow the head, and bare the neck, for the chains of slavery, which will be draped around our limbs by the enemies of freedom. THAT is the ultimate end… and that is the ultimate price America will pay for disgracing her warriors as she has done, and is about to do… again.

I have to wonder how our National Leaders can look upon their reflections, in their respective mirrors, each morning, without blushing and bowing their heads. For it is a truth that they gaze upon the face of a coward!

Longstreet .....(This post originally ran in April of 2005...two years ago!)
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Saturday, April 14, 2007

Are We Running Out of Oil... Or NOT ?

(This post first ran in May of 2006!)
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Are We Running Out of Oil… Or Not???

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If one listens to the MSM one will believe that the world is going to run out of oil next week! Everything will come to a grinding halt. The economy will crash… everything will end! Typical “Chicken Little” stuff.

Well, I don’t believe it.

I haven’t gotten around to researching whether oil is a renewable resource or not. Some say yes… while others say it is not and, that the supply of oil is finite. I simply don’t know… yet. I haven’t researched it.

In the meantime I did find some interesting info over at the National Center for Policy Analysis. You can visit them and take a look at the info they have posted there which seems to bolster the fact that we are no where near depleting our oil supply. Visit them at:

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg/bg159/index.html#c

I gleaned some interesting tidbits such as:

"Oil shales may hold another 14,000 billion barrels of crude oil -- a 500 year supply."

Did that shock you?

Well check this out from the web site of the National Center for Policy Analysis:

“Scaremongers are fond of reminding us that the total amount of oil in the Earth is finite and cannot be replaced during the span of human life. This is true; yet estimates of the world’s total oil endowment have grown faster than humanity can pump petroleum out of the ground.
16The Growing Endowment of Oil.Estimates of the total amount of oil resources in the world grew throughout the 20th century [see Figure III].
In May 1920, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the world’s total endowment of oil amounted to 60 billion barrels.
17
In 1950, geologists estimated the world’s total oil endowment at around 600 billion barrels.
From 1970 through 1990, their estimates increased to between 1,500 and 2,000 billion barrels.
In 1994, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 billion barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-billion-barrel endowment.
By the year 2000, a total of 900 billion barrels of oil had been produced.
18 Total world oil production in 2000 was 25 billion barrels.19 If world oil consumption continues to increase at an average rate of 1.4 percent a year, and no further resources are discovered, the world’s oil supply will not be exhausted until the year 2056.”

There is much more info on this site. For instance:

Additional Petroleum Resources.The estimates above do not include unconventional oil resources. Conventional oil refers to oil that is pumped out of the ground with minimal processing; unconventional oil resources consist largely of tar sands and oil shales that require processing to extract liquid petroleum. Unconventional oil resources are very large. In the future, new technologies that allow extraction of these unconventional resources likely will increase the world’s reserves.
Oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add about 600 billion barrels to the world’s supply.
20
Rocks found in the three western states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone contain 1,500 billion barrels of oil.
21
Worldwide, the oil-shale resource base could easily be as large as 14,000 billion barrels — more than 500 years of oil supply at year 2000 production rates.
22
Unconventional oil resources are more expensive to extract and produce, but we can expect production costs to drop with time as improved technologies increase efficiency.

(From the National Center for policy Analysis)

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg/bg159/index.html#c

There is lots more info the inquiring mind can chew over on that site.

I suppose, if anything, this should give us all pause to re-think our Gas shortage. It is being sold by the MSM as a crude oil shortage when in fact we have plenty of crude. What we don’t have in the US is refineries! We need two or three times as many as we have and soon. But, unless Congress steps in and forces the EPA to back off some of it’s hamstringing rules so the petroleum industry can build new refineries thane we have only begun to feel the pinch at the pumps!



Longstreet


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Friday, April 13, 2007

Iran’s Great Inferiority Complex, Or… “Who is Iran Trying to Scare”?


Iran’s Great Inferiority Complex, Or… “Who is Iran Trying to Scare”?
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I once knew a kid back in grade school, who was always trying to play the bully. He was the loudest kid in the school. He was small in stature, but he was always threatening to “beat-up” anyone who did not do his bidding whenever, and however, demanded.

Then came the day he chose me as his target. As it turned out, he made a very bad choice. Never a “brave” youngster, I has been instructed by my father to “never start a fight”. But once it was started, my father carefully, and forcefully, instructed me that it was my duty to uphold the family honor by doing my dead level best to end it in my favor.

As it turned out nary a blow was struck between the bully and me. I’m still proud of my part in that confrontation… to this day. I simply made it clear that once the fight began it would be a fight to the end. I made it clear that only one of us would walk away. As I, too, was small in stature, I assured my would be assailant that should he defeat me, that day, he could look for more from me as soon as I was ablel… and… that I would continue to attack him every time the opportunity presented itself, even if it took years, and I would not quit until he was thoroughly thrashed to within an inch of his life. I assured him that if he managed to knock me to the ground, he had better be prepared to do whatever it took to keep me from getting up, because I would get up, and come right back at him until either I subdued him, or he totally incapacitated me. I further assured him that even if he managed to do that successfully, as soon as I was recovered, I would come looking for him and we would continue the fight. I convinced him that the only way to stop me would be to… take my life.

Apparently, my bully assailant was not prepared to commit murder. Plus, I supposed he figured I was the craziest person he had ever met in his entire life and his best course of action was to back away and chart his future course so that we never met again.

I had no further trouble with the schoolyard bully.

The secret to my walking away unhurt from that confrontation was… that I was entirely able to convince that young man that I meant every word that I said. The simple truth is… I did. And apparently he knew it… somewhere deep down in his psyche he knew I was drawing strength for a primordial urge for survival… my survival.

Now, why do I cite a story from my ancient past? Because we, (the US), are facing the schoolyard bully today. I am speaking, of course, of Ahmadinejad of Iran. The man is a bully of the first order. He has delusions of grandeur. Add to that his inferiority complex, a mile wide, and you have a walking time bomb. The man has convinced me that he is crazy. He has convinced me that he is totally willing to sacrifice his country, and his people, in a nuclear confrontation with Israel, and/or the United States, to deny what he is convinced is… his own inferiority to the remainder of the world. He also wants, desperately, to deny that his strings are being pulled by the Mad Mullahs of Iran.

The worrisome aspect of all this is… if the man is as crazy as I believe him to be, he will not hesitate to pull the nuclear trigger as soon as he obtains a working model. And, frankly, I do not believe Iran is as far from owning the BOMB as our leaders would have us believe.

Now, it isn’t that we don’t have experience with dealing with madmen on the world stage. They have a way of telling us, before hand, what they intend to do. We have a way of overlooking them… until it is too late. Then we have to go to war, costing the lives of thousands, or even millions, in order to defeat the madman. I give you Adolph Hitler as a prime example. Ahmadinejad displays exactly the same characteristics, as did Hitler.

Simply put, if we don’t subdue this man and his mad plans there will be a price to pay that could easily dwarf the death and destruction of the Second World War.

The US is preparing for just such a confrontation. Military assets are being propositioned in the immediate Persian Gulf area, and in the Indian Ocean, and neighboring countries in the region including Africa.

The “Elite” Iranian troops must be extremely nervous these days as they keep a close watch on the Iranian skies scanning for the cruise missiles to come streaking over the mountains and through the valleys of Iran to strike command and control centers of the Iranian military. With two US Carrier groups already in the Gulf and a third on the way, plus preparations being made for new sub basing, at Diego Garcia, of the type used for blue water, and even brown water, operations the US military is slowly but surely moving assets into place for what will be a lightening quick, and a deadly accurate, series of attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and their only petroleum processing plant.

I remain convinced, as you can see, that the attack is coming. For it simply makes no sense not to attack Iran. We can no longer allow a rogue nation to threaten the world and kill and maim millions of innocent people with nuclear weapons.

Mr. Ahmadinejad needs a serious attitude adjustment. Somewhere he has gotten the idea that he has frightened the US. Not so! He has only frightened the American Left. While our Speaker/President, and her shadow government, live in the delusion that they can “love” the Islamofacists of the world, into capitulation, those of us who deal in reality know what is real and what isn’t. Ahmadinejad’s threat is very real. We are convinced that he means to nuke Israel and the US just as soon as it is humanly possible for him to do that and no amount of talking, bowing and scraping, and kissing his feet, will make one iota of difference. The only way to stop the man and his mad plans is to remove him from this earth and destroy any means Iran may have to carry out such insane intentions against the “infidel world”.

The sooner the better.

Longstreet
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Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Great American Wuss!

(This post was published almost two years ago (in May of 2005). Yet, as I reviewed it, it seemed as fresh today as it did then. So, I present it again as something to think about.)
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The Great American Wuss.
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How long will it take, after a nuclear attack on one of our great American cities, before we capitulate to the enemy?

A loaded question you say. Well, of course it is. I intended it that way.

I follow a number of blogs, on the Internet, and a common thread I see running thru the fabric of many of the blogs is the “liberal lack of courage”. Their blatant siding with the enemies of the United States, plus, their desire to surrender to the enemy rather than lose a single life to an enemy attack, or, in a war to stop the enemy from taking over this country and turning it into Muslim Theocracy is perplexing, to say the least.

Why do they hate America so? (No, not the Muslims, the liberals!) What has America done to them, save allow them to grow up in security, and freedom, get an education, and a relatively good job, raise a family of their own (in safety), and send them to college, so they can earn a good living at a good job… and the cycle goes on and on.

Where, in all of this, lie the “seeds of hate” for the country which allows them all this? I cannot for the life of me find it. (Well, we all know that the college education with their “leftist professors” has a lot to do with it, but we’ve known this since the 30’s and the communist movement in America. Send your kid to college today and he, or she is going to be indoctrinated in socialism. That is a given. But, I’m getting away from the point of this blog post.)

I think we can all count on being hit again by terrorists…. in the US. Next time I expect a nuclear device, of some sort. Most likely in another large city, but not New York. The thing that worries me is the expected panic, and the expected rush to capitulate to the terrorist demands… prompted by the liberal whining and constant complaining that the current President Bush brought this all upon us.

I really hate to think that the US is becoming the biggest “wuss” on the planet, but if the trend continues, we will have become just that, and, we will not exist, as the US, a decade from that date.

We reared one generation of spineless brats…you know… the ones who marched, and demonstrated, in the streets in support of the communists in Viet Nam. Now that generation has reared another generation of kids, even farther to the left that they are, and the next generation, is, well, pathetic. They can neither read nor write, yet they have diplomas from prestigious universities. They are hopelessly narcissistic, with hugely inflated egos, and empty heads. When trouble comes, and it will, they fold like a tent in a windstorm.

Yes, when I look around and survey the mess we have made of the greatest county on the planet, you bet I worry!

Frankly, I don’t know if we can turn it around. I don’t not see the drive, the determination, to live free that preceding generations of Americans exuded. It simply isn’t there anymore. It has been bred out of American children. I’m afraid we would rather bow our heads, drop to our knees, and live as slaves rather than stand up like the Americans of old and fight back.

Sorry about the pessimism in this post, but I think it is good to hold a mirror up to the face of Americans every once in a while so we can see what we really look like.

It ain’t pretty!

Longstreet


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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The War on America’s Lawns ... by Alan Caruba


The War on America’s Lawns
By Alan Caruba
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I have lost track of when I first noticed that Greens were engaged in a war on chemicals, but it has been a long time. Almost any chemical, whether used in agriculture or for industrial purposes, and even chlorine which is vital to the purification of the water we drink continues to be under attack.

In the simpleminded view of the Greens, all chemicals are “toxic” and, therefore bad. Toxicity depends on the amount of any chemical to which one is exposed and we routinely use all kinds of chemicals to keep our homes and workplaces clean and safe. Chemicals are the building blocks of virtually everything we take for granted and enhance our lives in countless ways.

Recently I received a news release from the SafeLawns Foundation announcing it would “hold its launch rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on April 4.” A parade of “high profile doctors, scientists, activists and politicians” were to help kick off a campaign designed to “cause a quantum change in lawn care behavior.”

Among the activist speakers was a member of the Rachel Carson Council. It was Carson’s book, “Silent Spring”, that led eventually to the banning of DDT and the subsequent deaths from malaria for tens of millions of Africans unable to secure protection against the mosquitoes that spread the disease. Another speaker just happened to work for a company that sells so-called “organic” fertilizer. It was organically grown spinach that sickened many people earlier this year.

Among the things SafeLawns wants to do is ask universities and industries “to eliminate the use of lawn chemicals on their campus or headquarters lawns.” If you like weeds and dead grass, you’re going to love this.

Never content with giving people the freedom to make up their own minds, SafeLawns will ask States to participate in a “Safe Lawns Environmental Partnership” by passing legislation to “eliminate lawn care pesticides at day care and school grounds” similar to a law in Connecticut.

Real estate firms “will be offered the opportunity to participate in a Safe lawns Certification Program” so they may “inform buyers of organic lawns that are child and pet safe.” A healthy, well maintained lawn is far safer for children and pets than one that is not.

Anyone familiar with the ways such noble-sounding organizations function knows that this foundation is going to spend a lot of money to convince the public that “millions of tons of toxic materials…wasting enormous amounts of fossil fuels…in the name of having a beautiful lawn” is dangerous to their lives and must be banned.

State by state, city by city, town by town, lawn by lawn, the SafeLawns Foundation will do its best to insure that no one will be permitted to kill the many insects that destroy lawns and that the diseases that attack lawns along with many weed species will be allowed to thrive.

Does that make any sense to you? Do you know anyone who has ever died from having a healthy, green lawn?

The truth about healthy lawns will be ignored or suppressed by the SafeLawns Foundation, but you can read it here and, I hope, share it with everyone you know because, if this malicious and evil group has their way, America will be deprived of something very valuable.

Let’s begin with the way healthy, green lawns enhance the value of a homeowner’s property and thus the neighborhood in which comparable lawn care is practiced. For corporations whose headquarters are surrounded by well-tended lawns, the favorable impression this makes says they too are an asset to the community. In general, a healthy lawn increases the value of any property by up to six percent.

Turf grasses help cool temperatures, acting as exterior “air conditioners” at ground level. Moreover, they trap dust and smoke particles from the atmosphere, thus cleaning the air homeowners and others breathe. A university campus that has a lawn care program is contributing to health of students and, of course, adding to the natural beauty of their surroundings.

As we have seen in the recent fires in California, well-maintained wide lawns around a home can often provide an invaluable buffer area to retard fire from reaching a home or other structures.

Turf grasses have other, unseen benefits because they increase the infiltration of water and clean it as it passes so that underground water supplies are cleansed for use. After their application, chemicals used to enhance and maintain healthy grown, are either absorbed by turf grasses or later burned off by the sun and broken down by rain or other water applied to the lawn.

The suggestion that parents are harming their children by maintaining a healthy lawn is an ugly lie. What parent doesn’t instinctively know that a properly maintained lawn provides a cushioning floor where kids play? This is why cities have always striven to provide parks as an escape from concrete surfaces.

Lawns are great for absorbing noise and this is particularly true in urban areas. The serenity of a suburban street on which green lawns abound is testament to this.

Lawns play an essential role in cleaning the air as they generate lots of oxygen while absorbing the carbon dioxide (CO2) they need to prosper. A 50X50 lawn produces enough oxygen for a family of four.

There are many reasons why America’s beautiful green lawns should be a source of pride, but the SafeLawns Foundation wants to turn them into a source of fear.

Fear, created and maintained by deception, is the primary tool of so-called environmental groups. When they show up in your town, protest those lies, protect your lawns. They do a lot to protect you.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center,
www.anxietycenter.com. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, is published by Merril Press.

© Alan Caruba, April 2007
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Out of the Mouths of Babes!


Out of the Mouths of Babes!
_____________________

A few days ago, my grandchildren were visiting. I had a pre-set alarm on my cell phone set for a particular time, and… as luck would have, it my 5-year-old grandson was standing beside me when the alarm sounded. I removed the phone from its belt holster and flipped it open to shut off the alarm. As I did so, my grandson saw the Confederate Battle Flag wallpaper on the small screen of the phone. He admired it. So, I asked him if he knew what kind of flag that was. He gushed: “An American flag”! I was rocked back on my heels! For a few moments, I was speechless. Believe it or not, being speechless is something I am not accustomed to.

Now five-year-olds do not do “nuance”! For instance the same 5-year-old once told a fat lady he chanced to meet… “Lady, you sure are BIG!”

Point is: He was correct. The Confederate Battle Flag IS an American flag. He knows his grandfather well enough to know that if I have a flag on any of my possessions it will, undoubtedly, be an American flag.

As soon as he is old enough to comprehend he will be told about that flag, and what it truly represents, and about the war the South fought for Independence. He will most certainly be told of slavery in the United States and he will be told that the war was not fought to free the slaves and that the Emancipation Proclamation freed not a single slave. He will be educated in the history of the South… all of it… the good, the bad, and the ugly. He will have a tough time in school because he will know the truth, going in, and with his genes, he will certainly challenge his teachers when the revisionist history is dragged out and his class is prepared for indoctrination.

You see… my grandson is a special breed. He is a descendant of Confederate Soldiers on both his mother’s and his father’s sides of his family. He comes from stern stock. He is not easily dissuaded, even now.

He nailed it when he declared the Confederate Battle Flag an American flag. I assured him he was absolutely correct. The CBF is an American flag. Many brave Americans fought, bled, and died beneath that flag. It is due respect and honor.

Today that flag is dishonored as the flag of slavery. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That flag never flew over a slave ship. That flag never flew over slavery. It was a battlefield ensign. It was never a national flag of the Confederacy.
So the KKK used the CBF, you may argue. True, but they also marched under the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America… and… they marched under the Christian Flag as well. Why are those flags not reviled? Undoubtedly, the Confederate Battle Flag has been singled out because it is the one emblem, among them all, which stands for an American’s will to fight for what he believes in.

I know, I know… an Americans’ will to fight is an antiquated idea this day and time. That is one, among many, reasons I admire the people of the 1860’s. The Southern states believed the Constitution meant what it said… and, since they were only the first, and second,generations from their grandfathers who fought the Revolutionary War for Independence from Great Britain, they REALLY knew what it said. They knew the Constitution did not support a strong central government. But that is exactly what the federal government was forcing upon the people of the South… not to mention the northern states as well.

Remember the “taxation without representation” their grandfathers went to war against Great Britain about? By 1861 the Southern states were paying 75% of all the taxes going into the federal coffers! 75%!

If you still insist the war was fought over slavery… let me say that slavery became a part of the dispute when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Look, at the begining of the war only 8 % of Southerners owned slaves. That’s eight (8) percent. 92 % did not own slaves! Less than 5% of the Confederate soldiers owned slaves. 95 % of the Confederate soldiers did not own slaves and didn’t even know anyone who did!

Most Americans don’t know that the Constitution of the Confederate States of American made it illegal to import slaves. It also made it illegal to transport slaves across state lines for sale. Slavery was on the way out in the South.

Now think about this: the stars and stripes flew over slavery, NORTH and SOUTH, in the United States, from the moment the country was founded until the 13th amendment to the US constitution was passed… AFTER the Civil War! So, the US Flag DID fly over slavery while the Confederate Battle Flag did not! Yet the Confederate Battle Flag is singled out for all the shame heaped upon an ensign of slavery!

Yes, the Confederate Battle Flag IS an American Flag. It does not deserve the disrespect foisted upon it by those ignorant of its history and its purpose. It was a Soldier’s flag. It is flown today as a sign of respect, and long over due honor, for the valiant men in gray who fought beneath it’s colorful St Andrew’s Cross.

And finally, many of us, who fly that flag today, fly it as a not so subtle reminder to the ever growing, ever more powerful, federal government… that we will go this far and no farther! Now, what could be more American than that!

See, my grandson had it right!

Longstreet
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