gandalf23

hmmmm….seems that Michael Moore is registered to vote in two states. Last time I checked, that was a no-no.

from the smoking gun:

“JUNE 28–Prior to last week’s Washington, D.C. premiere of “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore denied that the new documentary represents his de facto endorsement of John Kerry. “I am an Independent,” the filmmaker told reporters. “I’m not a member of the Democratic party.”

Which is not exactly correct.

New York City Board of Elections records show that Moore, 50, registered to vote in Gotham in 1992, checking off “Democratic” as his party affiliation (below you’ll find a copy of his original registration form). He listed his address as the swanky Upper West Side building where he owns a multimillion dollar condominium (Moore’s office is on West 57th Street). The filmmaker’s New York registration remains active, though he has not voted since an October 2001 Democratic runoff election.

Now here’s the good part: Moore is simultaneously registered to vote in Michigan, where registrants aren’t even given the option of party affiliation (so he’s not an Independent there either). According to Antrim County records, Moore registered last April from his lakefront spread in northern Michigan, where he reportedly splits his time, but has yet to vote in Michigan. He transferred his drivers license to Michigan from New York around the same time, though Moore has a Volkswagen Beetle registered from his Manhattan home.

We’re sure this is some kind of innocent mix-up, that Moore forgot to cancel his New York registration before signing up in Michigan. Though, as a New York City voter, TSG can tell you it’s hard not to realize you are registered, since a voter’s mailbox is regularly bombarded with candidate mail, official voter guides, and Board of Election notices about upcoming elections and reminders about the location of your polling place.“

Iraq is now sovereign.

WooHOOO!

Here’s how President Bush found out, while seated next to British PM Tony Blair at the NATO meetings this morning.

When you raise that sword over your head I want you to remember one thing. Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun is not alone as he kneels before you. Every Marine who has ever worn the uniform is there with him, and when you strike him you are striking all of us. If you think the Marines were tough on you when they were cleaning out Fallujah a few weeks ago you haven’t seen anything yet. If you want to know what it feels like to have the Wrath of God called down upon you then go ahead and do it. We are not Turkish truck drivers, or Pakistani laborers, or independent contractors hoping to find work in your country. We are the United States Marines, and we will be coming for you.

Semper Fi!

Capitalism is the uequal distribution of wealth. socialism is the equal distribution of poverty…except for the ruling elite, who are enriched regardless.

Pictures are up from the 3 gun match at TacPro.

Here they are

I’m in the first one, somewhere at the back.

This is an old comic, but it still cracks me up every time I read it:

lol

Seems that some folks are upset about some Egyptian Palestinian homes being destroyed in the Gaza strip. According to Israel, the homes were destroyed because the folks inside were attacking them or building bombs in them. Sounds reasonable to me, we routinely knock down crack houses and meth labs here.

Anyway, so some people are getting their panties all in a bunch over this. Ok, fine. But what is their solution to the problem? Is it to plee for the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Syrians Palestinians to stop the violence? To stop making bombs and attacking Israel?

Nope.

They want to boycott Caterpillar.

That’s right, boycott Caterpillar. You know, the folks who make big earth moving equipment. Like eeeeeevil bulldozers, which the Israeli army bought and used to tear down the homes.

I love this line, from their website:

“These bulldozers are retrofitted specifically for the purpose of conducting illegal acts.”

What are they retrofitting the bulldozers with? Special Baby-Skewering Spikes (TM)?

By their own literature they say that Caterpillar is NOT selling the bulldozers to the Israelis, the US Government is buying them and giving them to Israel.

“A number of factors have brought diverse groups together to hold Caterpillar responsible for its sales to the Israeli Army.

…

US taxpayers, not the Israeli government directly, are paying Caterpillar for these bulldozers. The funds to buy the bulldozers comes from the US government. The US government is actually buying this equipment”

SO WHAT IS THERE TO PROTEST CATERPILLAR ABOUT?

Gah!

These people are idiots!

It seems to me that Kerry is ineligable to become President of the United States due to Article 3 of Amendment 14 of the United States Constitution.

“3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Kerry was an “an officer of the United States” and certainly he “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. ” Interestingly, this makes him ineligable for Senator, too.

A few weeks ago the US Olympic Comittee (?) sent a memo to all the US athletes telling them not to show off (wave the flag as they stand on the winner platform thingy, run/cycle/swim/skate a victory lap) or show pride in America as that could cause problems in Athens.

Needless to say this did not go over well with many Americans, including me.

I don’t see how waving the flag after winning an event will harm the country’s already-battered public image or provoke crowd hosility.

Anyway, a site I visit frequently had some moron leave this in the comments section of an article on the issue:

Let’s hope somebody shows that fascist fuck-face George Bush somethingin this Olympics.

FUCK the Olympics. Fuck George Bush. I hope our team gets their asses kicked because I want no glory going to that goddamn son-of-a-bitch fascist fuck in the White House. Yeah, it’s not the Olympic athlete’s fault, but fuck them for the cause.

Iraq was illegal. No ties to al-Qaeda. Bush is a murdering mother-fucker and I hope he gets his ass handed to him. Then all you conservative fucks can go about cleaning your pop guns and continuing to hate minorities and those who dare oppose Bush.

And FUCK NASCAR too.

Neil

Wow. What a complete asshole.

“I want the team from my country to lose so that the government I don’t like so much will not get the “glory”.”

First off, WTF? Since when does the performance of athletes in the Olympics have _anything_ to do with the leaders of their government? Are you confusing present-day USA with Cold War-era USSR maybe?

Neil, do you only cheer on athletes from countries whose governments you approve of? Does their grace or competence (or lack thereof) not stir something in your soul?

Did you not cheer for Nadia Comaneech? Did you not cheer for the little Turkish weightlifter? Did you not cheer for Eddie the Eagle? Or the Jamacain bobsled team? Or the dirt poor Nigerian marathon runners? Or the Japanese gymnast who dismounted onto a broken fucking leg?

‘Cause that’s what the Olympics is all about, people coming together from all over the world to push the limits of the human body. It’s not about politics, it’s not about wealth, it’s about who can run the fastest, who can jump the highest, who can skate the gracefullest, who can endure the longest. It’s about what a properly motivated and skilled individual (or team) can do.

As for the rest of Neil’s post, “Iraq was illegal. “, yup, you’re correct. Iraq, under Saddam Hussein was illegal, he’d flagrantlly violated what any decent person would consider the law. He killed thousands or millions of his own people, tortured anyone who got in his way, unleashed horrible monsters he called his sons on the women of his country.

Or did you mean that the US intervention in Iraq was illegal? I wasn’t aware that we broke any US laws. What laws did we break?

And FUCK NASCAR too.

As Thrakazog says to the Tick, when the Tick calls him Susan, “How juvenile!”

I found this over here.

A comment left there sums up my feeling for this letter:

“Chaplain Unger wrote “The anti-war movement gave rise to the moral superiority of non-involvement and non- commitment… don’t commit to your county, don’t commit to your spouse, and don’t commit to your kids, church, or community. Don’t commit to cleaning up your own mess or any cause that demands any more from you than rhetoric.” and most importantly he said “Commitment is love acted out.”

IMHO he nailed the fundamental difference between the liberals and the rest of us in America; those who look for someone else to blame while yelling about injustice, who look for someone else to carry the load and the easy way out, and those who quietly accept responsiblity for their choices and actions, and are willing to work, sacrifice, postpone gratification, all for the love of family and country.”

Here’s LCDR Unger’s letter:

30 May 2004

Dear Friends,

This is my third letter from Iraq. I have been working myself into the right mood to do this. Today is the day. In my last two letters I have leaned toward being as upbeat as possible. This time will be different; today I want to talk about Memorial Day, but I will start off by giving my perspective on the Abu Ghraib prison problem.

First off, the investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib began back in January. That is why the first court martial was ready for trial in May. The senior people here knew about the investigation; the rest of us didn’t. By the time the media “broke” the story, the investigation was almost done and the soldiers who had committed the abuses had already been rotated home.

Second, I (we) don’t see all the news coverage that you in the states see. I do see some Fox News and CNN. Fox editorializes toward the right wing; CNN is the voice of the anti-war movement. I wonder that if CNN had been around in 1942 we might all be speaking German and Japanese. I can tell you this, everything I have heard on CNN is so biased, negative, and out-of-touch that I will never watch CNN for the rest of my life. That being said, when the rest of us found out about the abuses we were shocked and sickened. I think maybe more so than people back home because we are here; these are the people I see every day.

The people I see every day who are going out to fix: schools, hospitals, reservoirs, power plants, and sewer systems. They do these things risking sniper fire and hidden explosives. These soldiers are not a handful of bad apples like those at Abu Ghraib, these soldiers number into the thousands. Now think for a second, how much have you seen about that on the news? I believe Abu Ghraib should have been reported, but when I see the fixation of the media on the actions of a few, when the courage shown in reconstruction and the restraint shown in combat by thousands of our people is never shown, I believe this is inexcusable. For the real story of what our people are doing here, go to w.cjtf7.com/index.htm. Click on Coalition News and then Humanitarian Efforts.

Third, what happened on that cell block of Abu Ghraib is what happens when leadership is not out walking around. That is true in the military or in college dorms. I haven’t seen it reported in the news, but other soldiers turned in the soldiers who did this. If the dirt bags that committed those abuses had been turned loose among the troops here it would’ve been ugly. I haven’t heard any comments about them coming from soldiers that didn’t express a hope that they would get the maximum punishment. A few leaders need to get demoted too.

As per the “outrage”, if you were “outraged” by this, good. I was. However, I would like to ask Arab governments and our own media elites, “Were you just as outraged by what happened under Saddam? If so, you didn’t show it.”

Here is what people need to understand: the interrogation of prisoners of war is a little tougher than what the typical thug gets by the local police. I went to Survival, Evasion, Rescue, and Escape (SERE) School back in 1995. I am more proud of completing that course than anything I have ever done. Also, I would never do it again. After playing hide and seek with “bad guys” in California in March, we all got caught, knocked around, froze, went hungry, sleep deprived, threatened with worse, and then interrogated. Here’s the deal: when interrogation is done correctly, people don’t break so much as they leak. (The purpose of SERE is to teach you how not to leak. That is the classified part of the school.) The interrogator wants them to leak in a way so that the prisoner doesn’t even know he is leaking. When someone breaks, as opposed to leaking, they usually give out a data dump of gibberish and then physiologically shuts down. A good interrogator avoids that. If you hurt them or scare them too badly, they quit leaking. Interrogators ask the same question about ten times, ten different ways. Disoriented people leak and they don’t even know it.

What most Americans think of when they think of POWs being interrogated is what they remember of our pilots in North Vietnam. The abuse our people went through in Vietnam wasn’t to get intelligence; it was to exploit them for propaganda purposes. I mention this to put the term “abuse” in context. When a terrorist here in Iraq or jaywalkers back in the states report jailhouse “abuse,” what does it mean? When we catch a guy red-handed restocking his weapons stock and question him, withholding his TV privileges isn’t enough. He won’t be happy, but neither will he be destroyed or scared for life. He will tell his buddies, “I didn’t tell them anything.” In fact he will have told us a lot.

As I said, I had to work myself into a mindset to talk about this. To work around horror without out letting the horror seep into your soul is a spiritual battle. This week I worked with a National Guard soldier who had to clean up after a convoy of civilian aid workers were killed when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off on the road into Baghdad. He is a carpenter in civilian life, but this week he was out on a highway picking up arms and legs while watching out for snipers. He was cleaning up after monsters. Some other young Americans were put in charge of guarding monsters and then became monsters.

Care of the soul is serious business. That is part of the reason why I became a Navy Chaplain. The other reason is the people. The folks I have known in the military are more interesting to be around than anybody else I know. This leads me to Memorial Day. Earlier this month I went to Camp Cooke at Taji. (To lend perspective, Taji is really north Baghdad; I am in west Baghdad.) The 39th Brigade (Arkansas National Guard) is stationed there. I didn’t know any of them, but I wanted to see my home-state Guard here in Iraq. So I badgered my way into flying up there for two days. They are stationed in the old Iraqi army air defense school. Unlike downtowhdan Bagd, the old air
defense school was turned into rubble. It is getting better, but it was like living in a junkyard. Their first month in Iraq was tough. These soldiers patrol the roughest part of Baghdad. While I was there, the Chaplain of the 39th told me this story: One of the old troopers who came was a 52 year-old Sgt. who had already done his 20+ years and had retired. But his son was in the 39th, and when the father found out they were coming over here, he re-enlisted. On their first week in country, Camp Cooke was attacked by rockets and the first rocket that landed killed the father. I was born in 1958 and came of age when the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement were both in full swing. It has taken me years to put this into words, but I believe that as bad as that war was, the legacy of the anti-war movement was worse. The anti- war movement gave rise to the moral superiority of non-involvement and non-commitment.

While that may have worked to help draft-dodgers sleep at night, it’s not much of a strategy of how to go through life. Taken to its logical conclusion the message is: don’t commit to your county, don’t commit to your spouse, and don’t commit to your kids, church, or community. Don’t commit to cleaning up your own mess or any cause that demands any more from you than rhetoric. This was the mindset in which our country was firmly stuck. Until 9/11, some woke up. Kids came down and joined the service. To the dismay of some of their teachers, parents, and the media elites, they came down here and raised their hand in front of the flag. And they are still coming to the shock of the non-committers. The Marines have more enlisting than their two boot camps can handle. And we are all here together for Memorial Day 2004. Old National Guardsmen, grandfathers, and single moms, Texans and Mexicans, Surfers and Rednecks. A few weeks ago an Illinois National Guardsman, mother of three, was hit six times, saved by her body armor, but lost part of her nose. She stayed on her 50 caliber, firing on the bad guys, protecting the convoy. She said she was thinking of her kids and the guys she was with. Commitment is love acted out. It is sad that the non- committers missed that. They and their moral high-ground haven’t been near a mass grave. The kids I see and eat with every day still want to help this country, in spite of getting shot at while doing it That is love acted out. You either get it, or you don’t.

During my time in Iraq I won’t be able to see any of the Biblical sites that are here. But a few weeks ago in Taji I got to stand on some holy ground, where a father died when he went to war just to be with his son.

Sincerely yours,
Steven P. Unger
LCDR, CHC, USN
Multi National Corps-Iraq

Good stories are not uncommon, but rarely reported.

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.