Ethereal Trades

What you won't see in todays' news...

Bobco

Our Guys...

The somber task of honoring the fallen

In recent weeks, military and civilian contract crews have loaded scores of these caskets onto planes departing the U.S. military area of Kuwait International Airport, south of Kuwait City. And the rituals are repeated over and over again.

"The way everyone salutes with such emotion and intensity and respect. The families would be proud to see their sons and daughters saluted like that," says Tami Silicio, a contract employee from the Seattle area who works the night shift at the cargo terminal.

For U.S. troops, April has been the worst month of this war, with at least 94 service members killed by hostile fire.

"So far this month, almost every night we send them home," Silicio said. "... It's tough. Very tough."

Interesting Statistics... and the Numbers Don't Lie

It's no wonder the United States did not garner the support from other countries that we thought we should. The graph below shows the economic impact that a few of our allies would have suffered had they openly supported our fight against the Iraqi regime. Billions would have been lost in arms sales...

As the flash presentation above shows, Saddam was the Weapon of Mass Destruction. There are many of us that are still waiting for an accounting of the overwhelming amounts of chemical and biological agents that have yet to be found, and there is so much desert to search. Case in point: the Russian fighter jet discovered buried in the same desert.

The graph is courtesy of The Dissident Frogman of France, the featured website on the left below.

A poem by Judge Roy Moore

The following is a poem written by Chief Justice Roy Moore from Alabama.
Judge Moore was recently sued by the ACLU for displaying the
Ten Commandments in his courtroom.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

America the Beautiful, or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims' pride; I'm glad they'll never see.
Babies piled in dumpsters, Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty, your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly poisoned by cocaine,
Choosing to indulge their lusts, when God has said abstain.
From sea to shining sea, our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God's love and a need to always pray.

So many worldly preachers tell lies about our Rock,
Saying God is going broke so they can fleece the flock.
We've kept God in our temples, how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool, and Heaven is His throne.

We've voted in a government that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges who throw reason out the door,
Too soft to place a killer in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby before he leaves the womb.
You think that God's not angry, that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God, from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do, but stem this evil tide?
If we who are His children, will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face and mend our evil way:

Then God will hear from Heaven and forgive us of our sins,
He'll heal our sickly land and those who live within.
But, America the Beautiful, if you don't then you will see,
A sad but Holy God withdraw His hand from Thee.

~Judge Roy Moore

WMD III

Go to Google ...

Type in "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" (without the quotes, of course..)

Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button...

Read the page...
--
Link provided by:

Jodie E Crouch III
Asst. Network Administrator
ShreveNet, Inc

No WMD?

BILL O’REILLY ENCOUNTERS THE NO-WEENIE ZONE

...thanks to Glenn Reynolds at MSNBC Tech

The Blogosphere is buzzing in response to Bill O’Reilly’s whiny complaints about the Internet. The problem with the Net, according to this Man Of The People, is that there aren’t enough bosses to protect the interests of famous people:

Nearly everyday, there’s something written on the Internet about me that’s flat out untrue. And I’m not alone. Nearly every famous person in the country’s under siege. . . .

The reason these net people get away with all kinds of stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous, but it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming.

Well boo-freakin’-hoo. O’Reilly’s schtick is as a tribune of the people against the powerful, but when people start writing about him, well, it seems they need to be brought into line, pronto. And O’Reilly demonstrates that he’s no paragon of fairness himself by first ignoring that the particular report he’s complaining about came from a newspaper (the San Francisco Chronicle) and not from “the Internet,” and then somehow managing to tie bad comments about his underperforming radio show to child molestation. Excuse me? Does this guy have an editor? Because it doesn’t show.

O’Reilly’s comments, unsurprisingly, aren’t playing very well on the Internet. If you follow this link it will take you to the Technorati Link Cosmos page that collects blog entries that link to O’Reilly’s screed. The responses aren’t very positive. James Lileks writes:

People who do not work for major media outlets are writing things without corporate or governmental restraints. This, of course, is dangerous. It’s what the Internet is becoming. Also, Iran.

Lileks is right about Iran. (Read this article about how Iranian bloggers are giving the mullahs fits. This one, too.) And although O’Reilly is no mullah, his frustration sounds a lot like what we’ve heard from them — this is just people writing what they think! There’s nobody to control them! It’s madness, I tell you!

Welcome to the real no-spin zone, Bill. Your whining sounds a lot like what we’re hearing from those European bureaucrats who are trying to bring the Internet under control because it’s a threat to their position. Is that the company you want to keep?

I predict that this dumb piece of O’Reilly’s, inconsequential as it is on its own, marks the beginning of the end. Not because, as Andrea Harris writes, “That sound you hear is the sound of thousands of “right-wing” bloggers changing their tv channel from Fox News to ... anything else.” But because this embarrassing “who are these little people to criticize the likes of me” bit indicates that O’Reilly has lost touch with the common man, and started to identify with the “famous people.” Hey, that was Donahue’s schtick. And we all know what happened to him.

-----------------------

Read Glenn Reynolds on a daily basis!

'Peace' with Iraq

There has been too much controversy over the fact that Weapons of Mass Destruction have not yet been found in Iraq by either the United Nations Inspection Team or the U.S. Military Forces currently operating in post-war Iraq. I say post because the brunt of it is over, and all that remains is to stay and fight till the Iraqi people can adjust and create a stable government without Saddam's influence.

The original Banner on the war, provided by the Dissedent Frogman in France, was posted back in February when France's government was busy squirming out of any involvement in the world situation at the time and crying foul along with Russia and Germany.

The new banner is also courtesy of the Frogman and reflects a very real invironment that was changed by the U.S. and other countries getting involved. There were many more reasons to be in Iraq, the mere chance that the weapons were there minor compared to the fact that Saddam had already tested and used them on his own people, killing thousands, and keeping the rest under the restrictive thumb of an oppressive regime.

Ask a returning soldier if they are glad to have been there and if they were ever thanked by the local people who lived in the nightmare, and who continue to struggle to reorganize a nation after so many years. We continue to stay and protect and aid and support the emerging government, and even that has its long term rewards and immediate gratification when hands are shaken and tears are shed with joy of liberation.

I'm not saying that there will be no more American deaths at the hands of those bent on continuing terrorism, or those who can not fanthom a free Iraq and are bent on remaining loyal to the misguided "Jihad" of a twisted religious doctrine. I am saying that WMD are not the only reasons we are in Iraq.

The original banner follows:
----------------------------
Saturday February 15, 2003Thousands are walking in the streets. Demonstrating for 'Peace' with Iraq. In Iraq, there are thousands who can't walk Saddam gave them 'Peace' You walked for your own peace. You walked for Saddam's peace. Not for hers. Not for his. This is the price of your 'peace'. I can't afford it. I won't buy it. It's yours.

-----------------------------
I guess I've still got a bit of the "60's kid" in me, but I've grown older and wiser and am still no sucker for politicians who would bend the truth to suit the coming election or their own personal agenda. As a new friend recently wrote:

Peace!

Bobco

Love him or hate him...

... but this is right on target.

By Rush Limbaugh:

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving the country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11.

Well, I just can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country.

If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry.

And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough. Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the dangers.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don't you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It's just really sad.

Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing. Make sense? (This is very true, Plus they have cut health benefits).

However, our own U.S. Congress just voted themselves a raise, and many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month, and most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They also do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, you may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed you in harm's way receive a pension of $15,000 per month. I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this?" If this doesn't seem fair to you, it is time to forward this to as many people as you can.

If you're interested there is more...

This must be a campaign issue in 2004. Keep it going. SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth the read. It's short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. Our Senators and Congressmen do not pay into Social Security. Many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan. In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die, except it may increase from time to time for cost of living
adjustments. For example, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000 -- that's Seven Million, Eight Hundred Thousand), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives. This is calculated on an average life span for each.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $00.00. These little perks they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Fund--our tax dollars at work! From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into -- every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer) --we can expect to get an average $1,000 per month after retirement. Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

And that change would be to jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us and then watch how fast they would fix it.

War Stories...

BAGHDAD (April 11) - Marine Cpl. James Lis, 21 years old, is worried that for the rest of his life he'll be haunted by the image: A clean-shaven, twentysomething Iraqi in a white shirt, lying wounded in an alleyway and reaching for his rifle -- just as Cpl. Lis pumped two shots into his head.

"Every time I close my eyes I see that guy's brains pop out of that guy's head," Cpl. Lis, from Shreveport, La., told his platoon mates Thursday, as they sat in a circle in the ruins of the Iraqi Oil Ministry's employee cafeteria. "That's a picture in my head that I will never be able to get rid of."

For Marine infantrymen now occupying the eastern half of the Iraqi capital, the worst fighting is probably over. But they're just beginning to cope with the psychological aftershocks of having faced death and inflicted it.

One lesson the military learned from painful experience with post-traumatic stress disorder after Vietnam is that troops may come home more mentally intact if, as soon as possible, they talk to each other about what they've gone through. In infantry school, Marine officers are taught to encourage their troops to talk about their experiences after battles. So, platoon by platoon, many Marines in Iraq are starting to hold informal group-therapy sessions -- "critical incident debriefings" in military parlance -- in which they share their feelings about what they've seen and what they've done.

"The touchy-feely stuff -- that's no joke," Second Lt. Isaac Moore told the platoon he commands in Lima Company of the First Marine Division, Seventh Regiment, Third Battalion. "If you keep picturing this guy and you shot him in the head, you've got to talk about that.

"Though a few had been shot at in Somalia, none of the 47 Marines of Lt. Moore's Second Platoon had seen any real combat before arriving in Iraq. Even during the war's first weeks, it seemed unlikely that they'd have to test their mettle. Iraqi forces always ran away before the platoon arrived. The platoon's first scrape was a minor encounter three weeks ago near Zubayr in which somebody took a few shots at the Marines, who returned fire for 40 minutes to no practical effect. No one on either side was hurt.

As they moved into Baghdad, however, the platoon ran into an escalating series of firefights with pro-regime militants armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The fiercest was a battle Tuesday in the shell of a large building under construction in the city's southeast. The platoon began taking sniper fire, and the Marines soon found themselves shooting at enemy fighters just a few feet away, in a maze of pillars and open staircases.

It's a fight that has left deep marks on the young men. That's what Lt. Moore wanted them to talk about. So as they relaxed on cushions stripped off Oil Ministry sofas and awaited orders to patrol the city for Fedayeen holdouts and foreign suicide squads, the lieutenant invited each Marine to tell the platoon what he experienced, and how he felt about it.

Cpl. Anthony Antista, 29, from Monrovia, Calif., initially celebrated after he shot dead two Iraqi paramilitary men in a corner of the building site. But the exhilaration instantly gave way to guilt, especially for having felt glad that he had taken lives. "Hey, I shot two people," he told his comrades immediately after the fight.

The rest of the platoon brushed him off. He persisted: "I shot two people." They thought he was bragging. What he was really doing, he said, was trying to find someone who might understand how bad he felt.

It's an issue that was still on his mind two days later. "I can't share my pain with you because you don't accept that I killed two guys," Cpl. Antista told his comrades. To emphasize his point, he removed the magazine from his rifle, emptied the round from the firing chamber and acted out the encounter. He showed how he raised his rifle and fired. Then he sat on the ground and demonstrated how the Iraqis slumped when the rounds hit them."

The life just flowed right out of them," he said in a pained voice. "They were like Jell-O."

Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre, 28, from Vallejo, Calif., faced off with an Iraqi fighter whose eyeglasses and face reminded him of one of his own Marines, Lance Cpl. Lance Carmouche, a 21-year-old machine gunner from Beaumont, Texas. The sergeant, the platoon's senior noncommissioned officer, took two shots as the Iraqi popped up from behind a low wall five feet away. He wasn't sure whether he hit the man, but the sergeant saw his body later."

Now every time I see Lance Cpl. Carmouche, I think of him," Sgt. St. Pierre told his men. A few minutes later in the fight, Sgt. St. Pierre found four Iraqi men in a small enclosed area. Three were apparently dead, but one, wounded, reached for his weapon. The staff sergeant shot him between the shoulder blades. The man again reached for his rifle, this time more slowly. The staff sergeant shot him in the back of the head.

When the gunfire quieted, the staff sergeant "eye-thumped" the Iraqi's body, to make sure he was really dead. The process involved poking the man in the eye with a rifle muzzle, the theory being that no man alive can avoid scrunching up his face in response to such a provocation.

It was an "eerie feeling," the staff sergeant recalled, "like I just did what the Lord in the Bible says not to do." But he added, "we did nothing wrong. They made no attempt to surrender, and we put them down."

Lt. Moore, 26, tried to comfort his troops by relating his own experience as a hunter, growing up in Wasilla, Alaska. He shot his first caribou at the age of seven or eight, he told them. It was thrilling to see the animal fall. When he got closer, however, he saw the caribou was still alive, convulsing in pain. The boy was unsure whether he was supposed to feel good or bad.

Over years of hunting caribou, bear and other animals, he grew accustomed to eye-thumping and death. So when Lt. Moore looked down from a staircase in the building in Baghdad and saw three Iraqis below, he didn't hesitate. The men had been wounded by a burst of machine-gun fire, but they were still moving. The lieutenant shot one man point-blank in the head and watched the results; the next man was twitching and got the same treatment."

It's gross, but here's the thing," the lieutenant told his Marines. "That queasy feeling -- I don't get that at all."

Keep in mind, he continued, the kind of die-hards they are fighting. To illustrate his point, Lt. Moore told them about something that had happened earlier in the day: A man who had escaped from one of Saddam Hussein's prisons after 13 years walked back to Baghdad to look for his family and somehow got past Marine guards at the Oil Ministry. The Marines found him curled up asleep in a corner. The man, Lt. Moore recounted, had acid and electric-shock burns on his legs.

The people who did that to the prisoner, the lieutenant said, are the sort of people the Marines were killing. "This is not somebody you need to worry about killing," he assured his troops. "When you stand outside the Pearly Gates or whatever you believe in, you're not going to be looked at any differently for what you did here."

Cpl. Lis, however, couldn't shake it off so easily. A genial jokester with a sand-colored buzz cut, the corporal has had the platoon's closest brushes with death in Iraq. He recounted them, one after another, for his fellow troops. On Wednesday, when the Marines seized the Oil Ministry, Cpl. Lis climbed to the roof to take a look at downtown Baghdad. A bullet heading towards his face missed him only because it hit the narrow metal rail in front of him.

At one point during the gunfight at the construction site, Cpl. Lis threw a hand grenade at an enemy fighter, only to have the Iraqi throw it back at Cpl. Juan Nielsen, a 26-year-old from Los Angeles. The grenade exploded, sending small pieces of metal shrapnel into Cpl. Nielsen's outer left ear -- a painful, but minor wound that turned out to be the only American casualty of the fight.

Later, Cpl. Lis saw a pineapple-shaped Iraqi grenade land less than eight feet in front of him, and two others -- Sgt. Timothy Wolkow, 26, from Huntington Beach, Calif., and Cpl. Dustin Soudan, 21, from Girard, Pa. Cpl. Lis yelled at the others to get down, and they crouched, covering their heads as it exploded. None of them were injured.

Then there was the moment that he worries will always haunt him: He saw the young Iraqi in the white shirt lying on his back, his right arm extended above his head, where a rifle lay. Another rifle was near his left arm. When the man moved his right arm toward the rifle, Sgt. Wolkow shot him. The man started moving again, and this time both Marines shot him in the head, Cpl. Lis firing twice.

Then Cpl. Lis performed the eye-thump ritual on the man. "It's the sickest feeling I've ever had in my life," he said at the therapy session.

Sgt. Wolkow had a more fleeting reaction. "As much as I love the Marine Corps and want to kill people, for a few seconds there was a kind of eerie feeling," after the first time he shot the man, he said. "It went away, and I shot the guy some more."

------------------------------------------------------------

submitted by John Daniel...

Jihad??

Submitted by Kathy & Herm

Who's Smarter? by Cindy Osborne

Thanks to Mike Benish for this article via MeowMomaGin.........

The Hollywood group is at it again. Holding anti-war rallies, screaming about the Bush Administration, running ads in major newspapers, defaming the President and his Cabinet every chance they get, to anyone and everyone who will listen. They publicly defile them and call them names like "stupid" , "morons", and "idiots". Jessica Lange went so far as to tell a crowd in Spain that she hates President Bush and is embarrassed to be an American.

So, just how ignorant are these people who are running the country? Let's look at the biographies of these "stupid", "ignorant" , "moronic" leaders, and then at the celebrities who are castigating them:

President George W. Bush: Received a Bachelors Degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard. He began his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy industry until 1986. He was elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In a historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas Governor to beelected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998 winning 68.6 percent of the vote. In 1998 Governor Bush won 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, 27 percent of the African-American vote, 27 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of women. He won more Texas counties, 240 of 254, than any modern republican other than Richard Nixon in 1972 and is the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the heavily Hispanic and Democratic border counties of El Paso, Cameron and Hidalgo. (Someone began circulating a false story about his I.Q. being lower than any other President. If you believed it, you might want to go to URBANLEGENDS.COM and see the truth.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice: Earned her Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her Master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. (Note: Rice enrolled at the University of Denver at the age of 15, graduating at 19 with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science (Cum Laude). She earned a Master's Degree at the University of Notre Dame and a Doctorate from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies. Both of her advanced degrees are also in Political Science.) She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, and the University of Notre Dame in 1995. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military. She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. She was a Founding Board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco. Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Al abama, she resides in Washington, D.C.

So who are these celebrities? What is their education? What is their experience in affairs of State or in National Security? While I will defend to the death their right to express their opinions, I think that if they are going to call into question the intelligence of our leaders, we should also have all the facts on their educations and background:

Barbra Streisand: Completed high school Career: Singing and acting

Larry Hagman: Attended Bard College for one year. Career: Acting

=====================================================

While comparing the education and experience of these two groups, we should also remember that President Bush and his cabinet are briefed daily, even hourly, on the War on Terror and threats to our security. They are privy to information gathered around the world concerning the Middle East, the threats to America, the intentions of terrorists and terrorist-supporting governments. They are in constant communication with the CIA, the FBI, Interpol, NATO, The United Nations, our own military, and that of our allies around the world. We cannot simply believe that we have full knowledge of the threats because we watch CNN!! We cannot believe that we are in any way as informed as our leaders.

These celebrities have no intelligence-gathering agents, no fact-finding groups, no insight into the minds of those who would destroy our country. They only have a deep seated hatred for all things Republican. By nature, and no one knows quite why, the Hollywood elitists detest Conservative views and anything that supports or uplifts the United States of America. The silence was deafening from the Left when Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory outside of Khartoum, or when he attacked the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and 1999. He bombed Serbia itself to get Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo, and not a single peace rally was held. When our Rangers were ambushed in Somalia and 18 young American lives were lost, not a peep was heard from Hollywood. Yet now, after our nation has been attacked on its own soil, after 3,000 Americans were killed, by freedom-hating terrorists, while going about their routine lives, they want to hold rallies against the war. Why the change? Because an honest, God-fearing Republican sits in the White House.

Another irony is that in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was in office, the Hollywood group aligned themselves with disarmament groups like SANE, FREEZE and PEACE ACTION, urging our own government to disarm and freeze the manufacturing of any further nuclear weapons, in order to promote world peace. It is curious that now, even after we have heard all the evidence that Saddam Hussein has chemical, biological and is very close to obtaining nuclear weapons, their is no cry from this group for HIM to disarm. They believe we should leave him alone in his quest for these weapons of mass destruction, even though it is certain that these deadly weapons will eventually be used against us in our own cities.

So why the hype out of Hollywood? Could these celebrities believe that since they draw such astronomical salaries, they are entitled to also determine the course of our Nation? That they can make viable decisions concerning war and peace? Did Michael Moore have the backing of the Nation when he recently thanked France, on our behalf, for being a "good enough friend to tell us we were wrong"? I know for certain he was not speaking for me. Does Sean Penn fancy himself a Diplomat, in going to Iraq when we are just weeks away from war? Does he believe that his High School Diploma gives him the knowledge (and the right) to go to a country that is controlled by a maniacal dictator, and speak on behalf of the American people? Or is it the fact that he pulls in more money per year than the average American worker will see in a lifetime? Does his bank account give him clout?

The ultimate irony is that many of these celebrities have made a shambles of their own lives, with drug abuse, alcoholism, numerous marriages and divorces, scrapes with the law, publicized temper tantrums, etc. How dare they pretend to know what is best for an entire nation! What is even more bizarre is how many people in this country will listen and accept their views, simply because they liked them in a certain movie, or have fond memories of an old television sitcom!

It is time for us, as citizens of the United States, to educate ourselves about the world around us. If future generations are going to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers bequeathed us, if they are ever to know peace in their own country and their world, to live without fear of terrorism striking in their own cities, we must assure that this nation remains strong. We must make certain that those who would destroy us are made aware of the severe consequences that will befall them.

Yes, it is a wonderful dream to sit down with dictators and terrorists and join hands, singing Cumbaya and talking of world peace. But it is not real. We did not stop Adolph Hitler from taking over the entire continent of Europe by simply talking to him. We sent our best and brightest, with the strength and determination that this Country is known for, and defeated the Nazi regime. President John F. Kennedy did not stop the Soviet ships from unloading their nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 with mere words. He stopped them with action, and threat of immediate war if the ships did not turn around. We did not end the Cold War with conferences. It ended with the strong belief of President Ronald Reagan... PEACE through STRENGTH.

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"This article is interesting and very true, even more so since the war has already started. It was obviously written a few weeks earlier, even before the Dixie Chicks opened their big mouthes!"

...submitted by MeowMomaGin@aol.com

French Fried - Bon Jour...

"I just love the French. They taste like chicken!"
--- Hannibal Lecter

"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
---David Letterman

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure"
---Jacques Chirac, President of France

"As far as France is concerned, you're right."
---Rush Limbaugh

1   To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2   A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3   A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4   A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5   A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6   A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7   A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8   A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 KJV

Altered States II...

Submitted by the Reverend Allan Conkling Jr., San Antonio, Tx. in response to a forwarded email.

Maybe we ought to listen to what the French are saying....

Sorry, but I don't agree with this email (posted below). Our valiant US soldiers who died did so to liberate France - get it Liberate. Now if liberate means a country is only being free to say those things that the US wants them to say then they aren't very liberated are they? Funny I thought in democracy we were free- even encouraged - to exercise free speech and hold varying opinions. Those who would be so arrogant as to vilify or berate another country (or individuals within this country for that matter) for holding a different viewpoint are no better than the leadership of Iraq.

Get with the program!

We (and 350,000 of our US troops - our brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and children) are being used by the Bush administration to lever a hostile take-over of an oil rich country to serve our (and Bush/Cheny's) own selfish interests.

Small wonder we are so hated in the world.

In the school of global politics Bush gets an F in diplomacy.

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Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re:Earthquake In France
Date: 3/11/2003 11:07:11 AM Pacific Standard Time

Today it was reported that a severe earthquake has occurred in central France. The severity was measured in excess of 10 on the Richter Scale. The cause was the 56,681 dead American soldiers buried in French soil rolling over in their graves. According to the American Battle Monuments Commission there are 26,255 Yankee dead from World War I buried in 4 cemeteries in France. There are 30,426 American dead from World War II buried in 6 cemeteries in France. These 56,681 brave American heroes died in their youth to liberate a country which is guilty of shameful unspeakable behavior in the 21st century. May the United States of America never forget their sacrifice as we find ways to forcefully deal with the Godforsaken turncoat country of France!

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An anonymous soldier who has already crossed the Kuwaiti boarder into Iraq on our initial push toward Baghdad said it best. "Freedom has a whole different flavor for those who have had to fight to taste it."

Bobco

Altered States...

It's not too difficult to gauge the sentiment of grass roots America by the proliferation of numerous faxes that are making their rounds. It is difficult to gauge our own personal feelings as we view such tripe. Some are less tasteful than others but contain a common theme that leaves out those of us with more reserved opinions.

The fact that lives will certainly be lost on both sides is troubling. The fact that the general Iraqi public are gripped by the fear that America will not be able to intervene before Saddam takes out their oil, their families, and likely other lives of those deemed sympathetic to our aims in the region, as well as the possibility that he (Saddam) will follow through on his threat to use the very weapons he claims no longer exist.

The most troubling aspect of all this is the callous degradation of all Iraqi people with various racial slurs. As if they were all responsible for the state of their nation... and that stands to reason as all nations, including America, take offense to being lumped in a single minded group, supposedly representative of the feelings of ALL Americans. There are many groups who have become more outspoken regarding the validity of OUR claims that, eventually, Saddam will utilize his hidden weapons again, and not just on his own people this time. The fact that there is a "real and present danger" to our security, as well as the security of other nations on the European continent does not take into account that not all people in that nation (or ours) hold the same political views and aspirations as their current leaders .

I certainly understand the sentiment, but, our fear that we will again be hit by another terrorist attack similar to the events of 9/11 or worse, weigh heavily in our decision process as to our overall support for our government. But what I do not understand is how America, and the racial tension between peoples in our history have taught us nothing, that there are no absolutes when we judge all peoples of another country or religion of any nation or people by the actions of a few.

We should be the first to remember slavery and the lessons learned (and are still learning) in the disparity between the truth and our own fears of anything different than ourselves. We should be the first to remember:

That there are Americans of all nationalities, and should not be judged by the color of their skin or the God of their choice.

The shame of America in dealing with compassion for all those Muslim Americans who have been tortured by the recent actions of others in their faith, as their interpretation of the same Koran differ from those who, in their own birthlands, have been brainwashed at an early age that we are the enemy, just as many of us were taught that other races on our own soil are somehow less in humanity than we are. Less deserving of compassion, more deserving of our anger over the actions of a few.

If we are doing what is honorable and the best thing for our country and the world, regardless of the atrocities that have yet to be committed in the name of future world peace and security, we should remember first that as Americans we will answer historically for the hate in our hearts for those trapped and imprisoned by their own governments' policies and the powers that will not be changed by death when speaking out against them.

I support our efforts as a country, appreciate the gravity of the tough decisions being made by those whom we've entrusted those decisions, and detest the prejudice that we apply to all peoples of any nation that we are at odds with... I'm sure not all the French people have forgotten our contribution during WWII, and support our cause.

Likewise, the Iraqi people who are stuck in an impossible situation do not deserve to slighted, called offensive names, or otherwise treated less than we would want ourselves to be treated.

Remembering the Golden Rule,

Bobco

The Roots of Evil, part I :: Les Racines du Mal, chapitre I

The following post is brought to you courtesy of the Dissedent Frogman of France... (one of my Daily Habits) and it proves that not all of the French people believe as the press would have you believe, and that those who do have been taught as we have in other areas of our core belief systems.

To further edify my most esteemed American and worldwide audience and also to clear up the misunderstandings of the French who, like me, always felt like there was something wrong in what they were taught at school even though they couldn't really dot the i's, I'd like to offer the following passage of the Vincent Teacher's book published by Bordas, as quoted by Jean-François Revel in his book "The Useless Knowledge" (Chapter XI "The treachery of the teachers" - Ed. Grasset).

Be advised that the teacher's book is nothing less than the manual destined to guide the teachers, civil servants of the Ministry of Education, in their duty.

« "We'll demonstrate that there are two camps in the world:
- One is imperialist and antidemocratic (USA)
- The other is anti-imperialist and democratic (USSR),

and we'll precise their goals:
- World domination by crushing the anti-imperialist camp (USA)
- Struggle against imperialism and fascism, reinforcement of democracy (USSR)." »

Don't feel like disgorging yet?

Okay, grab a doggy bag, a toilet bowl or your stepmother's sleeping bag 'cause I'm going to tell you when this book was published.

Ready?

Okay.

1980.

1-9-8-0.

Go get a glass of water, wipe up your mouth. Sorry for the annoyance.

This is a literal translation. The author really put USA and USSR between parentheses. Probably to make sure that no teacher slips up, fairly innocently or by straight duplicity I guess. You know how those enemies of the People are.

It helps to understand a lot about the situation nowadays right?

All right. For every action, there's a reaction.

Reaction:

- Friendly advice to Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and the (unfortunately) numerous Eastern Europe countries who learned the hard way how tragically and excessively wrong this French teacher's manual is: stay away from the European Union at all cost and choose the imperialist anti-democratic camp.
It's all right. Britain already does.

- Grim plea to the United States: test the MoaB over France. And pave it. The British need more parking.

- Firm injunction to the Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese, etc. political "educators": destroy all your Vincent Teacher's book (Bordas ed.) within a week. Else... face the MoaBlix.

- Warm consolation and a pat on my back: it feels so good to learn that I wasn't that paranoid finally. But of course, now I'm wondering if I was paranoid enough which somehow invalidates the first statement. That's the trouble with paranoia.
Now all I need is a smoke grenade, a gas mask and a helicopter. (Cheers to Bill Watterson).

And possibly a Green Card. Heh.

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Internationally yours,

Bobco

SADDAM'S SOLDIERS SURRENDER

Mar 9 2003

Mike Hamilton reports from Camp Coyote in Kuwait

TERRIFIED Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces - because they thought the war had already started.

The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested their weapons during a routine exercise.

The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender.

submitted by Noggie CNoggie