Former CSM of Landstuhl on Obama

Taken from (here).

The former Command Sergeant Major of Landstuhl from 2003 to 2005 released this statement today regarding Senator Obama's decision to not visit wounded soldiers in Landstuhl:

Having spent two years as the Command Sergeant Major at Landstuhl Hospital, I am always grateful for the attention that facility receives from members of Congress. There is no more important work done by the United States Army than to care for those who have been wounded in the service [of] our country. While Americans troops remain engaged in two hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a steady stream of casualties to the hospital, and a steady stream of visitors who wish to meet with those troops and thank them for their service.

Senator Obama has explained his decision to cancel a scheduled visit there by blaming the military, which would not allow one of his political advisers to join him in a tour of the facility. Why Senator Obama felt he needed an adviser with him to visit U.S. troops is unclear, but if Senator Obama isn't comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief.

Governor vetoes climate change curriculum

Full story (here).

California public students will stick to reading, writing and arithmetic, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided as he vetoed a bill late Friday that would have required climate change be added to schools' curriculum.

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would have required future science textbooks to include climate change as a subject.

In January, the state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, by a 26-13 vote. Only two Republicans supported the proposal.

In his veto statement, Schwarzenegger said he supported education that spotlights the dangers of climate change. However, the Republican governor said he was opposed to educational mandates from Sacramento.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

Full story (here).

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

A Soldier's View of Barack in Iraq

Full post (here).

Since he obviously knew in advance that's what they'd tell him, and since he didn't care to talk to the troops (we're told by the Left that the troops are horrified, shocked, forced to commit atrocities with tears in their eyes, distraught, burned out, fed up with losing, etc) and find out how they feel, and was barely in country long enough to need a shower and a change of clothes, we can only call this for what it is.

A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign.

In comparison, I've seen four star generals and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this base. They each held an all ranks call, met with and briefed the personnel, and took questions on every subject from tour length to uniform design to rules of engagement to weapon choice to long term policy, from the newest airmen to the senior NCO with TEN 120-180 day tours since Sep 11. It's very clear they want to know what the troops think, and to keep them informed of events. It's equally clear mister Obama does not.

(Video) Obama: I Would Not Support the Surge

NY Times Refuses to run McCain Op-Ed

Last week, the NY Times printed an op-ed on Iraq by Barack Obama.

This week, John McCain submitted his own op-ed on the Iraq and the NY Times refused to run it.

The whole story can be found (here).

Here is the refused McCain op-ed in its entirety:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

(Video) Pat Condell: Islam is not a victim

Soldiers recount deadly attack on Afghanistan outpost

Full story (here).

Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.

It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.

That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.

That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.

Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.

After maybe two hours of intense combat, some of the soldiers’ guns seized up because they expelled so many rounds so quickly. Insurgent bullets and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades filled the air. So many RPGs were fired at the soldiers that they wondered how the insurgents had so many.

That was July 13. That was when Stafford was blown out of a fighting position by an RPG, survived a grenade blast and had the tail of an RPG strike his helmet.

That was the day nine Chosen Company soldiers died.

It was just days before the unit was scheduled to leave the base.

Mr. Spielberg, tear down this wall

Full article (here).

The conventional wisdom is that Hollywood has never before been so gaga over any candidate as she is now for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. In addition to raking in Oprah-level campaign cash, Mr. Obama is making Sen. John McCain, despite the Republican's comedic turns on "Saturday Night Live" and in "The Wedding Crashers," look like an out-of-it grandfather.

While it is true that the ratio of Obama-to-McCain bumper stickers in West L.A. is about 250-to-1, there are untold closet Republicans in the entertainment industry who dare not advertise their beliefs in movie studio parking lots. (Unfortunately, car keying is a tactic wielded liberally by the self-described "tolerant.")

But in this land of superficiality and augmented assets, the inconvenient truth is that, in Hollywood, absolute conformity to the Democratic Party is a well-constructed facade. The environment is not so much unfavorable to the Grand Old Party as it is utterly totalitarian. There's simply no lifestyle choice that receives a worse response at dinner parties.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Sizzles in Fallujah

Full story (here).

Only a short time ago the city of Fallujah served as stronghold for insurgents. Daily skirmishes, improvised explosive device detonations and public unease made operating a business in the city very difficult.

Today, with improved security throughout the region, the low price of 4,000 dinar, or $3.50, will purchase a full meal at the recently established Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Hey Al Dubat area of the city.

The KFC is the first to open for business in the city. Before improved conditions in the city, insurgents threatened business owners, demanding money to support acts of terrorism.

After a quick visit to the Fallujah Business Center during routine operations July 16, Marines with Regimental Combat Team 1’s Security Platoon and with Information Operations, talked with employees at the franchise to evaluate its success.

“We stopped to check up on the KFC to see how things were going,” said 1st Lt. Michael C. Bryant, platoon commander with Battery M, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, RCT 1. ”You can tell that the area is returning to normal, especially when you see fast food places in the area doing so well.”

A Nobel Peace Prize Loser

Full story (here).

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.
During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.
She had an ulterior motive...
She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German).
Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).
She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely.
Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.
Most of course had been gassed.
Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.
Last year Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize....
She LOST.
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Check it out: www.irenasendler.org

(Video) The Obama Iraq Documentary

Quiet Iraq streets leave soldiers yearning for Afghanistan

Full story (here).

Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war -- in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.

With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle.

"I've heard it a lot since I got here," said 2nd Lt. Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who arrived in Iraq about a week ago.

Soldiers who have experienced combat stress note that it is usually young soldiers on their first tour who most want to get on the battlefield. They say it is hard to communicate the horrors of war to those who have not actually experienced it.

"These kids are just being young," said Sgt. Christopher Janis, who is only 23 but is on his third tour in Iraq. "They say they want to get into battle until they do, and then they won't want it anymore."

That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it's the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias.

The Iron Timetable

This is from an editorial from the Washington Post (of all places).

BARACK OBAMA yesterday accused President Bush and Sen. John McCain of rigidity on Iraq: "They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down." Mr. Obama then confirmed his own foolish consistency. Early last year, when the war was at its peak, the Democratic candidate proposed a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. combat forces in slightly more than a year. Yesterday, with bloodshed at its lowest level since the war began, Mr. Obama endorsed the same plan. After hinting earlier this month that he might "refine" his Iraq strategy after visiting the country and listening to commanders, Mr. Obama appears to have decided that sticking to his arbitrary, 16-month timetable is more important than adjusting to the dramatic changes in Iraq.

Full article (here).

The most beautiful wedding of the year

Full story (here).

The walk down the aisle yesterday was only a matter of yards. Yet for Martyn Compton it meant everything. Indeed, his determination to make the distance was matched only by that of the beautiful young woman he was about to marry.

And when he falteringly held out his hand for her to slip the gold ring on his finger, they both finally fulfilled the dream they had fought desperately against all the odds to make a reality.

It was so nearly destroyed when, two years ago, Martyn, a Lance-Corporal in the Household Cavalry, was badly burned in an ambush in Afghanistan. Suffering from 70 per cent burns, he was in a coma for three months.

When he regained consciousness, his once handsome face and honed body were ravaged. His eyelids had been fused inside out and he had lost his ears, nose and hair. He was told he might never walk, nor use his arms, again.

His catastrophic injuries came to represent the tragic cost of British troops being sent to the Middle East, and his heroism in overcoming them made headlines around the world.

(Video) Karachi Kids

Last week, the kids in this documentary trailer were in the news when they were returned to the US from Pakistan.



The full film can be found at http://karachikids.com/.

Obama says he used "poor phrasing" on Jerusalem

Full article (here).

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said on Sunday he used "poor phrasing" in a speech supporting Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel.

"You know, the truth is that this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech. And we immediately tried to correct the interpretation that was given," he said in an interview aired on Sunday on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria -- GPS."

"The point we were simply making was, is that we don't want barbed wire running through Jerusalem, similar to the way it was prior to the '67 war, that it is possible for us to create a Jerusalem that is cohesive and coherent," Obama said.

Obama's campaign has issued similar clarifications since the candidate's speech to pro-Israel lobby group after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination early last month.

In the speech, Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that if elected president in November, he would work for peace with a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," the Illinois senator said. Palestinian leaders reacted with anger and dismay.

Election Humor

An email from Ireland to the brethren in the States...a point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

'We, in Ireland , can't figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States .

On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can't keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now...On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate Mc terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What in Lords name are ye lads thinking over there in the colonies??

(Video) Barak Obama on Speaking English

Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'

Full article (here).

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".

New Cars in California Must Display Global Warming Score

Full article (here).

California is making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores, figures that take into account emissions from vehicle use and fuel production.

The law requiring the labels goes into effect at the start of next year for all 2009 model cars, though its expected the labels will be popping up on cars in the coming months.

The labeling law forces cars for sale to display a global warming score, on a scale of one to 10, which is based on how vehicles in the same model year compare to one another. The higher the score, the cleaner a car is. The score takes into account emissions related to production of fuel for each vehicle as well as the direct emissions from vehicles.

The score will be displayed next to the already-required smog score, which also rates cars one to 10 for how many smog-forming emissions they emit. For both scores, an average vehicle will have a score of five.

Freedom

Happy Independence Day!

Full post (here).

The history of civilization shows time and time again how decent, sophisticated city dwellers amass wealth through cooperation and the division of labor -- only to be victimized by ruthless gangs of raping, looting cutthroats who couldn't make a fruit basket, sweeping down on them, murdering them and carting away the loot, to return a few years later, forever, ad infinitum. Vikings, Mongols, desperadoes of every stripe -- they are a cancer on humanity, but there they are and there they have always been.

If civilization is worth having -- and it is -- then it has to be defended, because the restraining virtues of justice, compassion and respect for laws are products of that civilizing force and completely unknown to those who would do it harm.

Therefore, since I believe in this civilization, in its laws, science, art and medicine, I believe we must be prepared to defend it against what I feel no embarrassment for calling the Forces of Darkness. Those forces could be raiders on horseback, jackbooted Nazi murderers, ecstatic human bombs, or some kid blowing away a shopkeeper.

Plasma, LCDs blamed for accelerating global warming

Full story (here).

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming.

Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs.

But this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost.

The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions cutting agreement.

Lt. Mark: Golf Marines KIA

This came to me via e-mail. Lt. Mark is a friend of my brother-in law.

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:30:03 -0700
Subject: Golf Marines KIA

Friends and Family,

I realize I have been out of touch for quite some time now, but I have not had access to the internet until very recently. Since my last writing, Golf company has moved out into our AO and has begun conducting operations. This deployment has already had its share of highs and lows, but the Marines are responding well to all of the challenges of operating in a unique environment such as this one.

It's been a tough week for Golf company. We have had seven Marines Killed In Action this week as a result of three separate events. To put this in perspective, Golf only lost three Marines during the last deployment to Iraq. The Marines are back to work and are doing fine.

Of our fallen brothers, one was a Navy corpsman, two were Privates First Class, two were Lance Corporals, one was a Sergeant, and one was a Captain. The Captain was a helicopter pilot who was attached to the company to talk to pilots when they fly overhead in support of our units on the ground. Marines who do this job are called Forward Air Controllers (FACs). The Doc (Navy Corpsman) was new to Golf Company and I didn't know him well, other than that he was a good doc and liked working with Marines. One of the PFCs was a polish immigrant with a PhD in medicine who was on his first deployment with Golf. The other was another Marine on his first deployment who I knew by professional ability only. The two lance corporals, Andrew Whitacre and Layton Crass, were both in my platoon last year. I knew one from when I was in 3d platoon before I got shot and one from Weapons platoon when I returned. They were both excellent Marines who played an important role in their platoons and will be difficult to replace. The sergeant, Michael Washington, was also one of my Marines when I was the platoon commander for 3d platoon. He was 20 years old and had been meritoriously promoted to both Corporal and Sergeant. He was extremely talented and was one of only nine squad leaders in the company. The captain, Eric Terhune- or "D-Ring" to all of us, was part of my Fire Support Team (FiST) during the workup. He was a good man who was willing to do anything for the company. He chose to go on far more patrols than was required for his job because he cared about the company and about the mission. They were all good men and good Marines.

Five of the Marines died in the way we all hope not to. Lance Corporal Whitacre and Captain Terhune died 'fighting deaths' in an engagement where they repeatedly exposed themselves to enemy small arms fire, medium machine guns, and rockets at close range so that they could engage the enemy and allow other Marines in their squad to maneuver. They did this after charging across 100 yards of open field against dug-in, prepared enemy fighting positions. They died bravely and sacrificed themselves so that others might live, and they will always be remembered for that. There are Marines in the platoon who are alive today because of the selfless actions of LCpl Whitacre and Capt Terhune. There is no doubt about that.

It is always tough when we lose Marines, both for personal and professional reasons. It is important that this doesn't overshadow the success that those Marines died to achieve. LCpl Whitacre and Captain Terhune died while fighting in what ended up being a significant tactical victory for the platoon and the company. They both played a critical role in this success. Everyone on the battlefield knows the Marines won that fight, and success in this engagement has given Marines control of the area. While I'm sure this offers little comfort to the families and friends of the fallen, the success from that day will save Marines' lives in the future and allow for progress in this area. They died accomplishing the mission, which is more important than any one of us individually.

The Marines are doing as well as they can do. It always takes a day or two for everything to return to normal. And for some it never really does. The company is doing fine and will continue to do good work and to positively influence this AO. Of this I have no doubt.

To end on a positive note, I'll share something that will make the Marines on this list proud. During the engagement, one of our Lance Corporals was shot in his trigger finger but continued to fight. He continued moving under fire and firing his weapon as he closed the distance with the enemy. He played an important part in the fight, especially after he was wounded. When the fight finally ended and they returned to base, the squad was unable to find the wounded Marine and get him treatment for his finger. When they finally found him, they found him sitting alone cleaning his weapon. With his 9 fingers that still worked. Trying not to get blood all over the parts he had cleaned. Pretty incredible. He was far more concerned about needing to go back out and fight with his squad than he was about losing a finger. He did not understand what was remarkable about this, which says more about it than I can in writing. Also on a positive note, another Marine from the squad had a confirmed kill on an enemy combatant at close range with a headshot with a 40mm grenade from his M203 grenade launcher. It turns out that this surface presents a hard enough target to cause the grenade to detonate. This is really exciting for Marines, but I realize it probably makes it sound like there is something wrong with us to everyone else on this list. I don't really care. It's the business we're in and it's a job well done. Again, you only get the honest opinions from me in these emails.

That's about all that's going on here. I'll try to put something out in the near future to keep you all aware of what's going on. Thanks for the continued support. As always, send updates.

Always Faithful,

Mark

Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

Full story (here).

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.