Saddam Hussein Executed for War Crimes

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

What he faces now is the ultimate judgment – with the testimony coming from the blood of his innocent victims.

DISCLOSURE: This posting just may be too esoteric – but any fans of
Patrick McGoohan’s cult classiv 1967 TV series THE PRISONER will get the connection immediately.

I ran across this old TIME cover on a site taking note of Ford’s passing.

Something about it caught my attention….

Was TIME trying to tell us something? Be seeing you!

Read on for more info on the series. It’s STILL worth watching, and trying to figure out – some even think it has relevance to the evolution or devolution (As in Devo? Never mind…that’s another trip.) of current life.
Continue reading →

Blast off on Search for Another Earth

This is a neat project from the Euros…apparently they still have the potential to get themselves positively organized…although they may not exercise it very often these days.

The hunt for alien life took on a new urgency yesterday with the launch of a spacecraft designed to search out Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars. The Corot (pronounced “Coreau”) mission to scan the skies for new worlds blasted off on a Russian Soyuz 2-1B rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, said Igor Panarin, a Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman.

The hunt for alien life took on a new urgency yesterday with the launch of a spacecraft designed to search out Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.

Click on image for larger view.

The Corot (pronounced “Coreau”) mission to scan the skies for new worlds blasted off on a Russian Soyuz 2-1B rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, said Igor Panarin, a Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman.

Moving us towards space is always a good thing IMHO.

Ford’s State Funeral to Begin Friday

Gerald R. Ford will be mourned in the rare and solemn spectacle of a state funeral crafted to honor his reverence for Congress, the institution that launched him to the presidency. Ceremonies begin Friday in a California church, and end five days later with Ford’s entombment on a hillside near his Grand Rapids, Mich., presidential museum.

What’s to say…Pres. Ford had impeccable character, and was a true gentleman.

The Chief could quibble with some of his policies…but admittedly, given the times, he had a TOUGH row to hoe, for sure. I don’t think the libs ever can quite get over the Nixon pardon, which was a good move.

On a more disparaging note, his posthumously released letter about Iraq policy shows at least, what could charitably called “poor situational awareness”, and does a dis-service to the nation.

Maybe this is uncharitable of meto say so, but hey, there it is.

Iraq prepares for rapid Saddam execution

Iraq was preparing for the rapid execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein, with the US-backed government eager to bring his chapter in the country’s bloody history to an end.

A good example – off the dude without years of forced delays and appeals. Of course Iraq isn’t stuck with the ACLU either. (Sigh.)

Bush caved to pressure on troops

The phony concept, invented during the days of Robert Strange McNamara and the LBJ administration, that it was desirable to fight a war “on the cheap”, without building and maintaining a force adequate to dominate the battlefield decisively, seems to be taking a major body blow – and high time it is too!

Not only did he get the gospel of military adequacy preached to him from the usual suspect “retired generals”, but the current J.C.S (Joint Chiefs of Staff) sang the same tune when he met with them. After repeated assertions to the press that all forces requested by the Generals on the ground would be provided – Bush has virtually painted himself into a corner on this one. Better late than never!

President Bush only acceded to a jump in the number of U.S. Army and Marine Corps ground troops after intense pressure from senior officers, active and retired, including the Joint Chiefs, defense sources said.

Mr. Bush, who announced Wednesday that he will increase an active force that now stands at 1.4 million personnel, this month heard about the stressed Army and Marines Corps from a group of retired officers at the Pentagon. But the deal-clincher came when he traveled to the Pentagon and met with the six-member Joint Chiefs inside the super-secret “tank.”

There, the commander in chief listened to a request for more combat forces from Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, and Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, said defense sources briefed on the meeting.

Issue ads allowed in election run-up

Dang! Seems like some judges here actually read the Constitution…and amazingly enough, decided to follow it!

Political groups have a constitutional right to run issue ads that include the name of a candidate for office even in the contentious days before an election, a panel of federal judges ruled yesterday in the first major dent in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. Under that law, ads that interest groups ran 60 days before an election or 30 days before a primary were assumed to be aimed at influencing voters if they mentioned a candidate for federal office.

The small but potentially deep change creates an exception to what had been considered a near-blanket rule. “A free-speech interest is too substantial here,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, who said the government didn’t justify such a broad ban.

DUH! “…free-speech interest is too substantial here…” Wonder what their first clue was: must have been the bit about “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” Actually following the Constitution? What a concept!

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20061220-092735-9159r

Even the NY Slimes is admitting that the war in Iraq might not be the worst thing we might have to deal with over there.

Will the entire Middle East descend into chaos? On Dec. 16, David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, presented a scenario whereby the Middle East became engulfed in a series of regional wars, resulting in the fall of most of the existing states and something close to anarchy in much of the region. His column has caused considerable comment because the destructive unwinding of the existing order he describes seems totally plausible and, perhaps, even probable — hence the analogy to the Thirty Years War.

This answering piece in the Washington Times has some ideas for avoiding that sort of outcome. It’s worth taking a look at – as far as the Chief is concerned, it has reason.

reference:After The Fall – David Brooks

Avoiding a Thirty Years War

Even the NY Slimes is admitting that the war in Iraq might not be the worst thing we might have to deal with over there.

Will the entire Middle East descend into chaos? On Dec. 16, David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, presented a scenario whereby the Middle East became engulfed in a series of regional wars, resulting in the fall of most of the existing states and something close to anarchy in much of the region. His column has caused considerable comment because the destructive unwinding of the existing order he describes seems totally plausible and, perhaps, even probable — hence the analogy to the Thirty Years War.

This answering piece in the Washington Times has some ideas for avoiding that sort of outcome. It’s worth taking a look at – as far as the Chief is concerned, it has reason.

reference:After The Fall – David Brooks

What Freedom Of Religion Means To Muslims

By Saudi law, infidels (that is to say, Christians and Jews) are forbidden to practice their religions in public – or even to pray in private with the aid of a bible (third item, “The Daily Blade,” November 17, 2006). The only religious right accorded to infidels in Saudi Arabia is the right to convert to Islam.

Meanwhile, Muslims in the U.S. falsely claim religious discrimination when they are expected to use private areas for prayer and contemplation that airports have set aside for this purpose – just like everyone else – or when they are expected to remove the pieces of cloth obscuring their faces when taking photos for drivers’ licenses or when testifying in court.

AH yes – our ALLIES (!?) the Saudis…with friends like these, why have enemies?

Solar Opposites: Forecasts for Sun’s Activity Disagree Wildly

DISCLAIMER: The Chief has a science degree, and teaches HS science, and has participated in research that was worthy of peer-reviewed publication with citation, so don’t think I’m an anti-science luddite – au contrair…

The U.S.-led panel charged with predicting the intensity of the next cycle of sunspot activity will have to resolve highly divergent predictions issued this year by two leading solar forecasting modelers, according to solar experts at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

While some scientists are predicting a weak cycle, others are predicting a cycle that would be the most intense solar activity yet recorded.

As an active HAM radio operator (RadioActive…get it?), the Chief is very interested in this sort of thing, which directly impinges on short-wave radio propagation.

Aside from that, this sounds a cautionary note (or rather SHOULD sound such a note!) to those envirowackos who want to dismantle industrial civilization in order to “save the planet” based on data modeling that is a LOT more specious and tentative (severe understatement alert!) than the solar data that’s the subject of this piece.

By the way, if we still are trying to figure out how the sun works (which we are), how can those of the AlGore ilk RATIONALLY expect us to believe that THEY have the whole deal figured out on the past, present, and future of global climate – and that we’re on the road to hell, and it’s all our fault!

Hello? This concept is not really that difficult to grasp guys: The energy input from the sun affects our climate so hugely, that anything we can do to change it at this point is virtually non-existent – unless your brain is loosened up by liberal quantities of experimental recreational pharmaceutical products.

Democrats: Let’s Save Some Lives

Democrat and author Orson Scott Card has a point of view that is closely related to the one noted in the previous posting from Blackfive.

Now – if the Donks can get past their own anti-Bush jihad attitude – there may be some hope of something positive happening:

From this moment on, if we come to defeat in Iraq, it will not be President Bush’s fault. It will be, completely and exclusively, the fault of the Democratic Party. And it is the responsibility of the Democratic Party — or at least the saner members of that party — to speak up and do all they can to prevent that defeat.

Here is the message that must be sent to the Iraqi people — and to all the pro-democracy heroes in every nation in the Muslim world, who take their lives in their hands by standing against the Islamo-fascists: “America will not let you down.”

Send that message. Because failing to send it, now, loud and clear, sends the opposite message: America will let you down. America has let you down. America cannot be trusted. So if you want to be on the winning side, you must join Al Qaeda or the ayatollahs.

And if that message is allowed to become the firm belief of people throughout the world, then we will look back nostalgically on the “Iraq War” as a holiday.

Tell it like it is!

ROE – Rules of Endangerment

Any questions about why the Iraq front of the War on Islamofascism isn’t going as well as it should be, check this one out via Blackfive.

Read it and weep – BUT – THERE IS A REAL SOLUTION:

For all the hope of America that we will be safe, no one has ever said, “I can’t wait until our soldiers charge in there and kick ass!” When people say that our soldiers aren’t doing anything over here, that we need to come home, they never bring up that we don’t do anything because of all the pressure THEY THEMSELVES HAVE PUT ON US.

The movement against the war has TWO sides. One, that soldiers should come home because they can’t make a difference and this is a mistake. Two, soldiers over there are unable to do the job, and when they try, they kill the wrong people, torture prisoners, and dishonor themselves.

You have the finest army in the world, America. Best equipped, highly trained, and already established on the ground in Iraq. If the people at home stopped merely wishing things would get better, and tell us to make them better no matter what, it would. We are ready to fight, are you?

Some back to basics is in order here:
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? – 1 Corinthians 14:8

Birds of a Feather Flock Together at Holocaust Denial-fest

Iran and it’s neo-Nazi President Ahm-mad-on-a-jihad Ahmadinejad are currently engrossed (emphasis on gross!) in their gala conference concerning the non-occurrence of the Holocaust. There are some other rocks turned over that have found some supporters from unexpected (but not unsurprising) sources.

ITEM:
Ex-Klan Chief At Holocaust Conference
Yep, there he is…scum from bottom of the Louisiana bayous: David Duke, representing the KKK viewpoint to the biggest collection of anti-semitism since the Nurnberg rallies of the 1930’s.

Iran hosted Holocaust deniers from around the world on Monday in a conference debating whether the World War II genocide of Jews took place, a meeting that Israel’s prime minister condemned as a “sick phenomenon.” The 67 participants from 30 countries included former U.S. Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

ITEM:
KKK’s David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conference questioning the Holocaust came to an end Tuesday, but not before hearing former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke say that gas chambers were not used to kill Jews. “The Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and cover up the crimes of Israel,” Duke told a gathering of nearly 70 “researchers” in Tehran at Ahmadinejad’s invitation.

Researchers? Yeah…like Dr. Mengele was a medical researcher.

Another thought…with the liked of David Duke with his KKK, neo-Nazi, and other connections of that ilk hooking up with Islamofascism…the documentable connections between McVey and al Qaida in the Oklahoma City bombing, seem to look not at all unlikely.

Of course the latter-day Fuhrer of Iran got his 2 cents worth in:
Iran president says Israel’s days are numbered

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday told delegates at an international conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel’s days were numbered. Ahmadinejad, who has sparked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in World War Two as a “myth” and calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, launched another verbal attack on the Jewish state.

“Thanks to people’s wishes and God’s will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want,” he said. “Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out,” he added.

Apparently significant parts of the US Establishment is either stupid, blind, or consciously amoral as it refuses to take this seriously. This is perfectly illustrated by the outcome of “statesman” James Baker’s ISG (Iraq Surrender Group) which recommends negotiation with Iran, to supposedly help us bring peace to Iraq.

This is nothing more or less than a revival of Chamberlain’s 1938 version of “Peace in Our Time” (…oh yeah…don’t consider what happens to the Czechs…nothing to see, move along folks…). The rest was history, as the emboldened 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Society figured they could pull it off again with Poland…resulting in WW-II, when even the feckless Chamberlain and his Frog allies across the Channel realized that they couldn’t just sit back and let Germany annex Europe by default. One senses that there is a rapidly approaching threshold when a similar response will be the only way to deal with this geopolitical cancer.

The world response to this exercise in “historical scholarship” has evoked a reaction that the Iranian high muckety-muck mullahs don’t much care for apparently:

ITEM:
Iran defiant as anger mounts over Holocaust forum

Iran has pressed on with a controversial Holocaust conference as international outrage mounted over its hosting of “revisionist” historians who cast doubt on the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II. British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday slammed the conference as “shocking beyond belief”, a sentiment echoed by his Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Iran said that the aim of the conference was to find answers to questions about the Holocaust from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described it as a “myth” and cast doubt on the scale of the slaughter. Papers delivered Tuesday by participants from countries ranging from Austria to Indonesia included “A Challenge to the Official Holocaust Story”, and “Holocaust, the Achilles Heel of a Primordial Jewish Trojan”.

Where are the Crusades now that we REALLY need them? DEUS VULT!

Why Newt Is Right

This TCS piece ties global strategic think-tanking to recent criticized remarks of Newt Gingrich who noted to the discomfiture of the moonbat left:

This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear of biological weapons.

Newt’s calling a spade a spade here.

And, my prediction to you is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment, but I think that the national security threat of losing an American city to a nuclear weapon, or losing several million Americans to a biological attack is so real that we need to proactively, now, develop the appropriate rules of engagement.

Sort of reminds the Chief of Churchill, and a few political allies like Oliver Locker-Lampson warning about the Nazis in the EARLY 1930’s to no avail – only to have the truth of their cautionary admonitions

Blair: Britain must keep nuclear deterrent

PART of this is good for Britain…assuming it continues:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday the country needs to maintain a nuclear arsenal to deter threats that may emerge in coming decades.

Blair released plans to replace the fleet of Vanguard submarines, which carry Trident nuclear missiles, the Daily Mail reported. Designing and building the new submarines would cost an estimated 20 billion pounds (almost $40 billion).

Just when it looks like the EngSoc government is rediscovering some testosterone…there’s still an aspect of genuflection to the moonbats in this:

Blair’s white paper, which was approved by the Cabinet, said the number of nuclear missiles would be cut from 200 to 160. He also said that the submarine fleet might be cut from four to three.

Oh well. Half a loaf beats no loaf.

IRS taxation of online game virtual assets inevitable

If you are a hard-core player of virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, Second Life, EverQuest or There, IRS form 1099 may someday soon take on a new meaning for you.

That’s because game publishers may well in the not-too-distant future have to send the forms–which individuals receive when earning nonemployee income from companies or institutions–to virtual world players engaging in transactions for valuable items like Ultima Online castles, EverQuest weapons or Second Life currency, even when those players don’t convert the assets into cash.

Wow! Just imagine the possibilities…why stop with the IRS? HUD could step in to regulate Sim City, Homeland Security could take over the franchises of the Tom Clancy Rainbow Six and similar virtual operations, DoD taking over the Military FPS, RTS, and other geopolitical strategic efforts like Iron Hearts II, etc.

Finally the worst of all…BATF…Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms…would HAVE to move in and impose strict background checks and permitting for such hallowed virtual weapons as rocket launchers, plasma rifles, etc…right up to the dreaded BFG 9000 itself!

Just imagine the possibilities for this whole new realm of bureaucratic jobs (and the administrative empires that would go with them!). Phew! What a thought!

NASA Says It Will Set Up Polar Moon Camp

NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it’s going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there.

Unveiling the agency’s bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon’s poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.

This is way cool. The Chief may even still be around to see it, if they don’t fall off their schedule too much.

Daschle says he won’t run in 2008

Former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle said he has decided against a run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

Awwwwww. Looks like Tom got clubbed by the cluebat of reality for once. Like he REALLY would/could have had a chance anyway…NOT!

Sailor pleads guilty to espionage

A sailor accused of stealing a Navy laptop and peddling its classified contents to an undisclosed foreign government pleaded guilty this morning to espionage, desertion and other charges. Petty Officer 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann, 22, of Salem, Ore., faces a sentence of life in prison without parole, a dishonorable discharge from the Navy and forfeiture of all pay.

THe above noted penalties are far too easy. We need to start hanging these turkeys and be done with them once and for all. He’s a disgrace to his uniform, and to the Navy.

Rope. Tree. Traitor. Some assembly required.

Iran: Parliament shortens Ahmadinejad’s term

The Iranian parliament voted on Sunday to unite the presidential elections with the upcoming parliamentary ones, this according to the official Iranian news agency. The proposal, which passed with a surprising 80 percent majority, may cut the term of sitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by 18 months.

The bill must still be ratified by the Iranian constitutional committee, which is headed by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad’s arch-rival, a fact which many see as indicative that the bill will indeed be authorized.

Interesting report. This could be good, or it could be bad. On the one hand, it may well indicate that Ahm-mad-on-a-jihad Ahmadinejad’s star is waning…but on the other hand might this encourage him to accelerate his effort to force events in the direction believed to encourage the return of the “12th Imam” from his sojourn in a well.

DIVERSITY DOUBLE-TALKIVY’S ‘INCLUSION’ EXCLUDES MILITARY

Marine being harrassed at Columbia University? Hey – there’s a wholesale lot of moonbats there…what else would one expect.

F.E.T.E.

Yikes! Too much stuff, too little time definitely can lead to a temporary blog hiatus!