What keeps you up at night?
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Lashed to vehicle in Afghanistan, wounded SAS soldier fought on
DESPITE being shot twice during an ambush in Afghanistan, an SAS soldier lashed himself to the front of his patrol vehicle so he wouldn't be left behind if he passed out from loss of blood and kept on fighting.The Digger is expected to be recommended for a high level bravery award.
Suffering from serious upper body wounds, the soldier struggled on to the front of his SAS long range patrol vehicle (LRPV) and, under heavy fire, used a rope to attach himself firmly between the vehicle's bull bar and radiator.
Once he was secured, and there was no chance that he would fall off if he fainted, he picked up his rifle and resumed firing at the enemy during a two-hour fighting withdrawal.
SAS troops and their special forces comrades from the Commando Regiment are well aware of the slow and painful death that awaits them if they are captured by the Taliban.
The Digger, who cannot be identified, faded in and out of consciousness, emptying several magazines as volleys of enemy rounds and rocket propelled grenades, rained down around him.
He was finally evacuated from the battle field at high speed still lashed to the front of the LRPV.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?
Monday, October 20, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Obama's 95% Illusion
One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today.It's a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he's also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of "tax cut."
For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals...
They came, they saw, then left the Afghan war without a single mission
GERMANY has admitted its Special Forces have spent three years in Afghanistan without doing a single mission, and are now going to be withdrawn.
More than 100 soldiers from the elite Kommando Spezialkrafte regiment, or KSK, are set to leave the war-torn country after their foreign minister revealed they had never left their bases on an operation.
The KSK troops were originally sent to Afghanistan to lead counter-terrorist operations.
But Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, admitted they had not been deployed "a single time" in the last three years, despite a desperate shortage of Special Forces units in the country.
Troops from Britain's Special Boat Service and the SAS work round the clock, across Afghanistan, alongside US navy Seals and Delta Force, to target terrorists, arrest drug lords and rescue hostages.
The KSK were part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which spearheads the international hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A Vote For Obama is a Vote For Civility
Hi undecided voters! Yes, we know what you're probably thinking: "hey, it's those two smirking hipster assholes in the 'Sarah Palin Is a C---' t shirts." We also realize that you probably find our brand of narcissistic street theater loathsome and tedious. In fact, we're pretty sure that after eight years of putting up with our shit, you're just about fed up with the screeching tantrums, and inane Bush-is-Hitler art installations, and incessant firehose of profane hate-vomit. Who wouldn't? No rational human being could be blamed for wanting us to just shut the fuck up, finish our bottled water, and go away. Luckily, there's an easy way you can make that happen: vote for Barack Obama.Think about it. With Barack Obama in office, assholes like us will fade into a distant unpleasant memory. Don't get us wrong, we'll still be hanging around, probably as junior staffers in some federal arts agency. But you have our word on it -- we'll be practically invisible. No more C-word t shirts, no more intersection blockades, no more vandalism until the next election cycle. Nosirree, we'll be timid and well-behaved and quiet as church mice, working away on grant proposals. We think you will also be pleased to know that under Obama, negative news stories and the steady flow of shitty anti-American war movies will virtually disappear overnight.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Dirndls, oom-pah, sausages? Oktoberfest in Iraq
Dirndl-clad waitresses deliver frothy beers, the brass band has the oom-pah music in full drive and there are sausages on the grill.Welcome to Iraq?
It may still be a far cry from the Oktoberfest party in Munich, Germany, that draws in 6 million people each year. But Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq is looking to cash in on the relative peace it is enjoying with new investment and — despite the challenge of attracting foreigners to one of the world's most dangerous countries — perhaps the beginnings of a tourism industry.
In Irbil, a city 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Baghdad, German beer house owner Gunter Voelker wants to dispel the notion that Iraq isn't a holiday destination. In the north, at least, beer is bringing people together.
"It is good to have an area here in Iraq where we can make this festival in peace with friends," said Volker, whose restaurant, the Deutscher Hof Erbil, ended its three-night celebration of the famed German beer festival early Sunday.
"We can make this festival with Iraqi people, Turkish people, Kurdish people, American people, German people, with (people from) all over the world in peace and in a real good mood."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin
The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey's witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin's cadences and charm, she can't capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
PDS: Palin Derangement Syndrome
Fortunately, someone was on hand to document those Southern Californians who turned out Saturday to let the world see their suffering.
Here's a sample:
For the whole thing, go here:
http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20081004
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
[Video] Obama Youth (Part 2)
If you missed it, here's another chance to watch it.
For more information:
'Obama Youth' video emerges on YouTube
&
New video of 'Obama Youth' marching in military uniforms causes stir
Specialist Joe Gibson - A Ranger You Should Know
Gibson grabbed the muzzle of the terrorist's rifle as the terrorist began to fire. Gibson wrestled the terrorist to the ground and gained positional control. He struggled and later stripped the terrorist of his weapon.After stripping the terrorist of the weapon, the terrorist gripped Gibson's rifle. Without the ability to use a firearm, Gibson engaged the enemy with his hands.
"Then he ripped off my helmet and all my (night vision) optics, so I couldn't see all that well," recalled Gibson.
The terrorist then began to reach for something hiding in his clothing.
"I stopped him 'cause I thought maybe he was grabbing a knife to attack me with," said Gibson.
The terrorist was reaching for the detonator to his suicide vest. The terrorist screamed "bomb!" in English.
"I thought at that moment that I was probably going to die," explained Gibson.
As Gibson worked to stop the terrorist from detonating his vest, the terrorist had maneuvered into a position that was cutting off Gibson's circulation.
Gibson, in an effort to save himself, began to hit the terrorist as hard as he could. His blows rendered the terrorist unconscious.
"I got my weapon into his stomach and fired," said Gibson. "And he came back to conscious after that, I knew I got him. I stood up and neutralized him."
[Video] Stop sharia law in Britain
Monday, October 6, 2008
The End Of An Era
From where I sit, the United States government has embarked on two pieces of social engineering in the last few years. One was to make oil expensive as expensive as possible to drive people to greater use of alternative energy sources - because anything less would be irresponsible and destructive to the environment. The other was to enshrine home ownership (i.e., easy-to-obtain mortgages) as a new American right - because anything less would be unequal and racist.None of us voted on these decisions - indeed, neither was even spoken about directly, much less debated. But nevertheless, both became national policy… and both have sparked national, now international, crises. Then, once they became crises, both were blamed on ‘greedy capitalism’, instead of what they really were: legislative interference into market forces.
Fine. We’ve been through this before, and no doubt we will see similar, government-induced crises again - inevitably accompanied by Administration officials and our elected representatives pointing at everyone but themselves.
But what makes this particular economic crisis so appalling, at least from this vantage point, is the sheer scumminess, corruption, short-sightedness and general incompetence of everyone involved. At least in the business world, especially in the take-no-prisoners world of high-tech that kind of venality and ineptitude either gets you fired or kills the company; by comparison, in Washington, it puts you in charge of the recovery effort.
Friday, October 3, 2008
[Video] Obama Kids: Sing for Change (Pyongyang Remix)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama
Here's a brief description:
In THE BREAKTHROUGH, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential campaign and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power.