Joe Gringo

Get Your Bumper Stickers Here

2010-02-12T18:48:00Z

Just click the image and it will take you to a site where you can download the full size PDF version. You can then print your own bumper sticker with it.

Today in History....February 12

2010-02-12T18:46:00Z

On this day in . . .

* 1554, a year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady
Jane Grey is beheaded for treason

* 1818, Chile officially proclaimed its independence, more than seven
years after initially renouncing Spanish rule

* 1879, the first artificial ice rink in North America opens at
Gilmore's Park in New York City

* 1908, the first round-the-world automobile race began in New York. (It
ended in Paris the following July with the drivers of the American car,
a Thomas Flyer, declared the winners over teams from Germany and Italy.)

* 1912, Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, abdicated, marking the end of
the Qing Dynasty

* 1915, the cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington
D.C.

* 1924, Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States
to deliver a political speech on radio

* 1940, the radio play "The Adventures of Superman" debuted with Bud
Collyer as the Man of Steel

* 1959, the redesigned Lincoln penny, with an image of the Lincoln
Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side, went into
circulation

* 1973, Operation Homecoming began as the first release of American
prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place

* 1997 the highest-ranking official to flee communist North Korea, Hwang
Jang Yop, asked for political asylum at South Korea's consulate in
Beijing. ALSO: The Clinton administration gave permission to 10 U.S.
news organizations to open bureaus in Cuba

* 1998, a federal judge threw out President Clinton's new line-item veto
authority

* 1999, the Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton of perjury and
obstruction of justice; Clinton told Americans he was "profoundly sorry"
for what he'd said and done in the Monica Lewinsky affair that triggered
it all.

* 2002, former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay expressed "profound sadness"
about the collapse of the energy giant, but refused to testify at a
Senate hearing. ALSO: Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic went
on trial in The Hague, accused of war crimes. AND: Pakistan charged
three men in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi (they and a fourth man were later
convicted of Pearl's murder).

* 2003, the U.N. nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of
international treaties, sending the dispute to the Security Council.
India conducted its fourth missile test of 2003, firing a supersonic
cruise missile capable of hitting major cities in Pakistan

* 2006, a powerful winter storm blankets the Northeastern United States
dumping 1 to 2 feet of snow from Washington D.C. to Boston,
Massachusetts. The storm dumps a record 26.9 inches of snow in New York
City

The Only Thing To Change With The Obama Administration Is The Rules

2010-02-11T18:48:00Z

VDH writes on "The New Commandments" :

1. Savvy Americans ~~always see through the fraud in the end and do the right thing~~ are infantile and don’t know what’s good for them.

2. Democracy is ~~finally working again~~ in decline and the people are ungovernable.

3. The filibuster is ~~a much-needed check on the Bush-Cheney steamrolling nexus~~ evil.

4. Bloggers and pundits ~~overwhelmingly support much-needed progressive change~~ are a D.C. echo chamber we should ignore.

5. Congress ~~has become a Culture of Corruption~~ is full of hard-working servants who more than earn the perks they sometime receive.

6. Americans and their politicians ~~should listen to brave voices of dissent within the intelligence community~~ must support in bipartisan fashion their government’s policies against terrorism.

7. Bipartisanship is ~~simply caving to Republican obstructionism~~ a way to get the country moving again.

8. Trying KSM in New York is ~~proof of the resiliency of the American system~~ problematic.

9. Guantanamo Bay will be shut down ~~a year from the inauguration~~ sometime, perhaps, in the future.

10. Deficits are ~~proof of the reckless Bush-Cheney fiscal policies~~ necessary stimuli designed to move our country in a fairer and more equitable direction.

11. Wall Street bankers are ~~greedy fat cats~~ savvy businessmen whom we don’t begrudge.

12. C-Span ~~should air health-care debates~~ ~~should never be allowed to air insider horse-trading~~ will air bipartisan exchanges with the president.

Today in History....February 9

2010-02-09T15:58:00Z

On this day in . . .

* 1775, during the American Revolutionary War: British Parliament
declares Massachusetts in rebellion

* 1825, after no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral
votes, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy
Adams President of the United States

* 1861, during the American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the
Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the
Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.

* 1870, the U.S. Weather Bureau established

* 1889, the United States Department of Agriculture is established as a
Cabinet-level agency

* 1895, William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon
comes to be referred to as volleyball

* 1920, under the terms of the Spitsbergen Treaty, international
diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago
Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized

* 1942, daylight-saving "War Time" went into effect in the United
States, with clocks turned one hour forward. ALSO: During World War II:
Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to
discuss American military strategy in the war

* 1943, the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific
ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces

* 1945, during World War II: The Battle of the Atlantic --- HMS Venturer
sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of
submarine-to-submarine combat

* 1950, in a speech in Wheeling, W. Va., Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis.,
charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists

* 1960, Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame

* 1964, The Beatles made their first live American television appearance
on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CBS

* 1965, the first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam

* 1969, first test flight of the Boeing 747

* 1971, the crew of Apollo 14 returned to Earth after man's third
landing on the moon

* 1996, the Irish Republican Army declares the end of its 18 month
ceasefire shortly followed by the explosion of a large bomb in London's
Canary Wharf

* 1997, Best Products closed the last of its stores, a victim of the
diminishing allure of the catalog showroom concept of retailing

* 1999, the Senate began closed-door deliberations in President Bill
Clinton's impeachment trial, even though members from both parties
acknowledged that the two-thirds margin for conviction could not be
attained

* 2000, hackers stepped up their "denial of service" attacks on popular
Internet sites, zeroing in on such targets as ETrade and ZDNet,
inconveniencing millions of Web users and unnerving Wall Street

* 2005, a new postage stamp honoring President Ronald Reagan was issued
in ceremonies across the country

* 2006, President Bush defended U.S. surveillance efforts, saying spy
work helped thwart terrorists plotting to use shoe bombs to hijack an
airliner and crash it into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast

* 2009, Alex Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs,
telling ESPN he had used steroids while with the Texas Rangers for three
years

Appeasement Fails

2010-02-08T19:26:00Z

The Obama administration's appeasement policy has backfired. War with Iran is coming; and the Obama administration deserves much, if not most, of the blame. The administration misread Iranian intentions, just as Britain and France misread Nazi Germany's intentions in the years leading up to World War II; and, just as appeasement of Hitler made war with Germany inevitable, appeasement of Ahmadinejad and the atomic ayataollahs is making war with Islamonazi Iran inevitable.

Islamonazi Iran, a nation the administration had hoped to "engage" (appease and align with in a Grand Bargain) is marching toward nuclear power--and nuclear war.

Read all about it here.

And click here for another telling report on Iranian intentions, which are clearly warlike. As if to underscore this point, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday the destruction of Israel was "imminent." Analysts believe Iran is preparing a sneak attack on the Jewish State, using Iran's Islamonazi terrorist proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, and, also, possibly, Iran's secular but steadily Islamizing ally, Syria. Coordinated terrorist attacks on overseas U.S. targets--and the U.S. homeland--are also likely. [Israeli leaders are vigilant, and will take any and all necessary measures--using any and all necessary weapons--to prevent a second Holocaust. They understand that "international law is not a suicide pact," as a leading authority on anticipatory self-defense has so eloquently explained--here--in the Jewish Press.]

Lending more insight to this potentially horriific scenario, media stud Andrew Breitbart writes .. Iran anniversary 'punch' will stun West

Allowing Islamonazi Iran an additional year to acquire atomic arms, treating alien, Islamonazi terrorists and war criminals like common criminals--entitled to civilian court trials, public defenders, and plea bargains--and tacitly endorsing Islamonazi core concepts, such as the notion that sharia unites the world's Muslims to a degree that transcends all other legal systems and national boundaries, and customs (e.g. burqa wearing) are all part of the same, perfidious and potentially catastrophic policy. There are fundamentally no meaningful differences between Obama's approaches to Iran, terrorism, and "the Muslim world." To pretend that these are separate issues, neatly compartmentalized, is to play into the hands of the Islamonazi-appeasing administration--and the Islamonazi foe that muses openly about a world without America and Israel.

The Other Annointed One

2010-02-08T19:14:00Z

A repost from 2 years ago....a quick exercise in re-charging the batteries.

Whoever hopes for this so good great in this world and in this earth, his wisdom is but folly. -- St. Augustine

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Islamonazi president of Iran, looks out on the Muslim Umma, or nation, and what does he see? The Caliphate, dissolved in 1924, is now a distant memory. Ever since, Islam has been leaderless, rudderless. Everywhere, Muslim populations suffer under the depredations of their autocratic Muslim rulers. Sunnis hate Shiites, Shiites hate Sunnis, and both mistrust Sufis. The Umma is chopped up into rump nation-states, most of them created by European colonial powers in the period following World War I. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Muslims labor under occupation by a coalition of mainly Christian nations, led by the Great Satan. In Palestine, Muslims seem helpless in the face of Israeli power and their own monumental incompetence. Even in Europe, the Muslims form a community of bottom feeders, a permanent underclass valued for its manual labor but loathed for its inability to assimilate. The backwardness, general poverty, division and failure of the Umma has made it the laughingstock of the world.

At the same time, Ahmadinejad believes that he has been anointed as a prophet of the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah prophesied to appear at the end of time and usher in a millennium of peace based on universal adherence to Islam. No doubt Ahmadinejad has memorized the 8th Century prophecy attributed to the 6th Shi’a Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq: “Before the appearance of the one who will rise, peace be upon him, the people will be reprimanded for their acts of disobedience by a fire that will appear in the sky and a redness that will cover the sky. It will swallow up Baghdad, and will swallow up Kufa. Their blood will be shed and houses destroyed. Death will occur amid their people and a fear will come over the people of Iraq from which they shall have no rest.” To Ahmadinejad, the current agony in Iraq must appear to be irrefutable confirmation of the prophecy, driving him deeper into his apocalyptic fantasy of an imminent eschatological denouement.

Given his role as the Mahdi’s John the Baptist, Ahmadinejad feels a heavy responsibility to begin preparing the world for the arrival of the “perfect human being.” He will start with the Umma, which must be restored to unanimity of purpose. But how to begin? Ahmadinejad is well-read in history and he is a master of human psychology. He knows that nothing galvanizes identity and generates unanimity like the threat of the Other, the Stranger. He decides that the nearest historical parallel is the Weimar Republic, when the nation of Germany, like the Umma today, lay prostrate and humiliated before the world. He concludes that the Other then can be the Other now, with perhaps the same power to generate social consensus and the unity that flows from it. By immolating the Other, perhaps Ahmadinejad, like Hitler before him, can refound a culture that has grown weak and defeated. He cold-cranks the scapegoating mechanism and discovers to his pleasure that the lubricant coating its wheels and levers retains its original viscosity. To his great surprise, he also finds that many fellow-workers, some from quite unexpected and formerly hostile places, have enthusiastically joined him in restarting the ancient engine, leaving only one question:

Will it turn over?

Today in History....February 8

2010-02-08T16:20:00Z

On this day in . . .

* 1692, a doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggests
that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering
from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials

* 1837, Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United
States chosen by the United States Senate

* 1904, the Russo-Japanese War, a conflict over control of Manchuria and
Korea, began as Japanese forces attacked Port Arthur

* 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated

* 1915, D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and controversial silent movie
epic about the Civil War, "The Birth of a Nation," premiered in Los
Angeles

* 1924, the first execution by gas in the United States took place at
the Nevada State Prison in Carson City as Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant
convicted of murder, was put to death

* 1960, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issued an
Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the
House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name
"Mountbatten-Windsor". ALSO: Work began on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,
located on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles

* 1963, travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States
citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy administration

* 1971, the NASDAQ stock market index debuts

* 1974, after 84 days in space, the crew of the first American space
station Skylab return to Earth

* 1978, the deliberations of the Senate were broadcast on radio for the
first time as members opened debate on the Panama Canal treaties

* 1993, General Motors sues NBC after Dateline NBC allegedly rigs two
crashes intended to demonstrate that some GM pickups can easily catch
fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the next day

* 1996, the massive Internet collaboration "24 Hours in Cyberspace"
takes place. It was billed as the "largest collaborative Internet event
ever", involving thousands of photographers from all over the world,
including 150 of the world's top photojournalists

* 2000, Internet vandals continued an unprecedented campaign of
electronic assaults against the biggest names in cyberspace, disrupting
access for consumers to popular Web sites including eBay, Amazon.com and
CNN.com

* 2002, the Taliban's foreign minister (Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil)
turned himself in to authorities in Afghanistan

* 2003, Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched in support of 9,000 oil
workers fired for leading a two-month strike against President Hugo
Chavez

* 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas announced a cease-fire at a summit in Egypt

* 2006, President Bush condemned deadly rioting by practitioners of that
"religion of peace" which was sparked by cartoons of Muhammad, as he
urged foreign leaders to halt the spreading violence

The HopeandChange Shuffle, Part 1

2009-12-31T20:38:00Z

A million, 500 million, a billion, trillion, quintillion, bazillion, cuatro-cinco-seis gazillion, nork-killion, captainawesome-illion......what's money nowadays....just print baby, print.

Here we go.......da-da da-da da da....da da! ........The estimated cost of the planned civilian court trial in New York City of Al Qaeda war criminals--enemy combatants captured abroad--is now $100 million. Shiite.....in Obamaspeak, $100 mill ain't jack.

Click here for the story. h/t to CHINA CONFIDENTIAL

The obscene trial is an obvious security nightmare. A great deal of media attention has been given to plans for safeguarding lower Manhattan, the presumed location of the trial, against terrorist attack. More below.

Missing from the national discussion of the Obama administration's disgraceful decision is the threat to other Manhattan locations--the possibilities, for example, of car-bomb attacks on crowded Midtown streets or in poorly protected, Upper East Side, high-rise apartment building parking garages, suicide bombers on subway trains or buses, and Mumbai-style swarming attacks on restaurants and stores, schools and nursing homes, and other soft targets elsewhere on the island or in the city's other boroughs.

Suburban cities and towns--and commuter rail lines--will also be targets. The Islamonazi enemy can be expected to go to any and all possible lengths to carry out the most vicious acts of revenge and hostage-taking on U.S. soil with a focus on the New York metropolitan area.

In other words, the Obama administration, which refers to terrorist attacks as "manmade disasters," is creating a manmade catastrophe.

It is up to the U.S. Congress to prevent it from happening.

POSTSCRIPT: Nearly 60% of U.S. voters favor waterboarding the captured Islamonazi terrorist--a young, Al Qaeda-connected man from an affluent Nigerian family--who tried to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. Click here for the story. Obama has referred to the enemy alien as a "suspect."

PPS: Did KSM also confess to being involved in the bombing of TWA Flight 800? Click here for that story.

On Obama's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

2009-12-11T16:18:00Z

Click here for a brilliant analysis of a seemingly good speech....except for the blame GW Bush angle.......get over it, you've been President for over 13 months now.....t-i-r-e-s-o-m-e!

ODD....No...... Really, Really Odd

2009-12-08T19:08:00Z

Obama's "Non-Religious" White House Christmas and No Christmas Gifts for his Kids

He is off the wall. Mad with power. Even if you think this, if you are President of the United States, you don't say it. Read this story and then consider the gala event he held at the White House for Ramadan; Atlas Shrugs covered it here. And remember Obama's cancellation of the national day of prayer.

Obama Plan 'Non-Religious Christmas' at WH FOX

President Obama and the First Family were planning a “non-religious
Christmas,” according to Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. Ms. Rogers reportedly told a gathering of former social secretaries that the Obamas did not intend on putting the Nativity scene on display – a longtime East Room tradition.

Here's the rest......

President One and Done

2009-11-14T14:42:00Z

Obama has thrown just about everyone under the bus....now's it looks like he's thrown himself under it.

President Barak Hussein Obama has just given the terrorists a gift.

An unparalleled legal nightmare:

Whatever the case, if it actually makes its way before a jury, it promises to be a trial like no other in memory, an extraordinary clash involving the morality of torture, due process rights of foreign terrorist operatives, and the ability of civilian courts to handle national security cases.

Mr. Mohammed and his four co-defendants in military custody have admitted their active involvement in plotting the Sept. 11 attacks and have boasted of their success in killing 3,000 people.

Once the Justice Department brings formal terrorism charges against him, Mr. Mohammed could seek to enter a guilty plea, just as he has tried to do in military custody.

But legal analysts were not convinced that he would go that route and said that he might instead seek to martyr himself in the eyes of Muslim extremists through a grand and lengthy trial.

“There’s reason to believe he will try to take advantage of a public platform — more public than Guantánamo afforded him — to publicize his jihadist views,” said David H. Laufman, a Washington lawyer and former federal terrorism prosecutor.

In fact, one question will be how a judge will prevent a trial from turning into a forum on the American war on terrorism, including the Bush administration’s interrogation policies. Terrorism defendants in lesser-known trials have given rambling speeches condemning the government.

Click here to read the entire article.

Would I Be An Evil Religous Terrorist If I....

2009-11-13T17:42:00Z

....grabbed a machine gun, ran into a synagogue or a mosque, yelled "HAIL MARY", and began to murder in cold blood innocent Jews and/or Muslims?

Nah, I'd just be labeled by the MSM as having a dad day and having just snapped a bit.

Oh, but wait, let's think about that for a bit.....actually the MSM would label me a religous zealot and call for the Pope and all the Bishops to authorize an investigation into my church, the Phoenix Diocese and all the teachings of the Catholic church, ask for my ex-communication and get ready to be tarred and feathered and then executed.

Okay, now let's take a Muslim in our military, Nidal Hasan, a Major no less, who dreams of jihad against Christians and Jews (especially the American kind) ponders and applauds the slicing off the heads of infidels, premeditates the murder of his fellow soldiers then heinously guns down 44 of them while yelling the jihadi battle cry "Allahu Akbar", killing 13 soldiers and we get the MSM tripping over themselves desperately trying to label this terrorist as anything but a terrorist. More like it was the US Military's fault for creating this monster.

Now we've come to learn that that 'political correctness' prevented officials from taking action and is still being used as a crutch in explaining the rampage after the fact. Investigators would have been "crucified" over First Amendment rights if they had launched a full-scale probe into e-mails Fort Hood massacre suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly sent to a radical imam, a government investigator told Fox News.

Imagine if a white guy was trading emails with the KKK or the leader of the Aryan Nation? You couldn't say court martial fast enough.
With which this comes to mind on another subject.....if the Pelosi-Reid Health Care bill goes through, who will go to jail first...... those Americans who refuse, or can't pay for their healthcare from this pathetic bill or Nidal Hasan?

Anyway, Mark Shea, utterly disgusted with the press, and offended by the rank “truthiness” by which they and the government prefer to run, unleashes the dogs of hell:

One thing you can give our media Chattering Classes: They are utterly consistent. After Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on a roomful of defenseless people in Fort Hood, it was absolutely assured that we would immediately be told that this outrage had nothing to do with his Islamic faith and that it was not an act of terror. Then, as time went on and the bleedin’ obvious became bleedin’ obvious, we would spend all weekend enduring TV pundits scratching the $200 haircuts on their 88-cent heads and pondering the question of whether there might be some remote connection between Islamic belief and a guy who praises Muslim suicide bombers as heroes and martyrs, sits under the teaching of a Radical Islamic imam who praises his act of slaughter as heroic, uses his authority as a psychiatrist to proselytize vulnerable patients with Islamic agitprop, and dresses in traditional Muslim garb and shouts “Allahu akbar!” as he guns down his prey.

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

Quote of the Day

2009-10-28T18:25:00Z

“As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, but that America gave him the White House based on the same credentials.”
-Marcus, A Soldier’s Perspective

An Article You Don't Want To Hear About....But You Sort Of Have To Read It

2009-10-23T19:46:00Z

I've been extrememly light on blogging and posting the past 6-8 months, as well as commenting on fellow bloggers' sites, accept my apologies, been therapeutic I guess, but am always connected with what's happening.....guess you could say I'm ramping up for 2010!

Here's an article by smart guy, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a former White House speech writer and writes a weekly column for Forbes, Peter Long dubbed "Armageddon Time", He interviews VDH and Robert Baer that will come out in its entirety next week, I'm not one of those who thinks Armageddon is just around the corner, but coming from these 2 gents, this is a bit alarming, don't miss a word, here's a snippet:

Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian; Robert Baer a former CIA field officer. Both have studied the Middle East for decades, traveled to the area repeatedly in recent years and written about the region extensively. And both have become convinced that we may be facing a cataclysm.

Hanson and Baer each presented his analysis during an interview this past week. Although they differ on certain matters, they agree on five observations. The first: If not already capable of doing so, Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons in mere months.

Baer noted that Iran's scientific and technical capacity is impressive. The country may very well be able to produce enough enriched uranium for several nuclear weapons on its own. If not, Iran can obtain enriched uranium in other ways. "The Iranians are very good at procuring banned materials very easily," said Baer. "They are very close [to having what they need to produce weapons]. They could move very quickly."

How quickly?

"Six months, a year."

The second observation: The Iranians have no interest in running a bluff. Once able to produce nuclear weapons, they will almost certainly do so.

"We see Iran as the power in the region," Hanson said. "But when Iran looks at the region, it sees danger everywhere." In Iraq, a democratic government has achieved stability, which can only incite the dissident movement in Iran. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran's client, has failed in its attempt to capture control of the country, finding itself contained and marginalized instead. The Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and the emirates look upon Iran, a Shia state, with sectarian hostility.

"The Iranians, think, 'My gosh, we are in an unstable position,' " Hanson said. "'Maybe a bomb or two will allow us to do what Pakistan has done. Maybe it will allow us to achieve some autonomy.'"

The third observation: As the Iranians scramble to produce nuclear weapons, the Obama administration appears too feckless, inexperienced or deluded to stop them.

Already, the administration has committed two errors. Last summer, when millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest their country's corrupt presidential election, it failed to encourage the protesters, merely looking on. "Obama could have said to the Iranian people, 'We support your legitimate concerns over constitutional government,'" Hanson argued. "Instead he was saying, 'Let's wait and see who wins.' It did not look good."

Then last month the Obama administration announced that the U.S. no longer planned to deploy anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. These emplacements, which the Bush administration had promised, would have protected Eastern Europe against long-range missiles from Iran. The Obama administration canceled the anti-missile defenses to please Russia, hoping that Russia would pressure Iran in return. "Russia is never going to help," Hanson said. "Tension in the Gulf would raise oil prices, helping Russia. Anything that causes the United States problems, Putin is for."

What options does the administration still possess? "We could get the Europeans to immediately stop exporting gas to Iran," Hanson explained. "We could have some kind of blockade of the Persian Gulf. We are talking about very serious things. But they would put pressure on Iran, ostracizing it." Will President Obama pursue such options? Does he possess the political will? Hanson and Baer doubted it. "We have a president who likes to be liked," Hanson said.

The fourth observation: Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran.

"The Israelis have some bunker busters," Baer said. "They could take out some sites underground. They could set the Iranian nuclear program back years." Would the Israelis be willing to accept the risks a military strike would entail? "This is just 65 years after the Holocaust," Hanson said. "My God, we are talking about 6 million people who were executed while the world watched, and now we have a person [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran] who is promising to do it again."

What is the probability that Israel will strike Iran within the next six months?

"Forty-nine percent," said Baer.

"I would say 50-50," Hanson replied.

The final observation: Iran would retaliate.

"Iran's deterrent doctrine is to strike back everywhere it can," Baer explained. "We should expect the worst." Iran would attack American supply lines in Iraq and command Hezbollah to start a civil war in Lebanon. It would fire surface-to-surface missiles at every oil facility within range, wreaking devastation in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states while removing millions of barrels of oil a day from the world markets. The economy of the entire globe would suffer a paroxysm. The Middle East could descend into chaos. The U.S. would experience the worst crisis in decades.

After the assassination 95 years ago of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the great powers of Europe engaged in meaningless diplomatic maneuvers. "Austria has sent a bullying and humiliating ultimatum to Serbia, who cannot possibly comply with it," British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith confided in a letter. "[W]e are in measurable, or at least imaginable, distance of a real Armageddon."

A big nation attempting to humiliate a small nation in a way the small nation simply cannot accept. Unseriousness among great powers. A gathering sense of impending catastrophe. Once again, it may be Armageddon time.

Today in History....October 15

2009-10-19T01:23:00Z

On this day in ...

* 1764, Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined
Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

* 1783, the Montgolfier brothers Hot air balloon: first human ascent by
Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier, (tethered balloon)

* 1815, Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the
Atlantic Ocean

* 1860, 11-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to
presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his
appearance by letting his whiskers grow

* 1863 during the American Civil War: The CSS H. L. Hunley, the first
submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor,
Horace L. Hunley

* 1878, the Edison Electric Light Company begins operation

* 1888, the "From Hell" letter sent by Jack the Ripper is received by
the investigators

* 1894, the Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying

* 1917, Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who had spied for the Germans, was
executed by a French firing squad outside Paris

* 1928, the airship, the Graf Zeppelin completes its first
trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey

* 1938, the District of Columbia formally adopts a design for its flag

* 1945, the former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed

* 1946, Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, ym"sh, poisoned himself hours
before he was to have been executed

* 1966, President Johnson signed a bill creating the Department of
Transportation

* 1976, in the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential
nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off
in Houston

* 1989, Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the
NHL

* 1990, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was named the recipient of
the Nobel Peace Prize

* 1991, after facing s exual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, the
Senate confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the
Supreme Court, 52-48

* 1997, the first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in
ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), exactly 50 years and 1 day after Chuck
Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere

* 2002, Iraqis turned out for a national referendum on whether Saddam
Hussein should remain their president for another seven years; Saddam
won with a reported 100 percent of the votes cast

* 2004, the FDA ordered that all antidepressants carry strong warnings
that they "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in
children who take them. ALSO: Several thousand people opposed to gay
marriage gathered on the National Mall in Washington to call for a
constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a
woman

* 2005, a riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National
Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested

Reaction To His Awesomeness' Nobel Peace Prize Annointment

2009-10-09T15:14:00Z

From AoSHQ

How stupid to the Tony and Emmy Award people feel this morning for not giving one of their prizes to Obama? When it comes to Mr. Wonderful actual accomplishments don't matter.
The only logical answer is they are racists.

Look for other groups to get on board.

Fearless prediction...Obama will be named the MVP of the World Series and the Super Bowl. He will win an Oscar and be named Homecoming King and Queen at several high schools and colleges across the country.

Oh and remember the university that wouldn't give him a lousy honorary degree....right here in good 'ol land of the racists in Arizona..... because he hadn't done anything yet? I can only imagine how stupid and racist they feel today. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I heard people chanting "Boy" during his commencement speech.

"BREAKING: Obama named Motor Trend's Car of the Year!"

I see an ESPY just around the corner for Obama.

This just in.....

Obama has just won the Heisman.

Just received word that Barry won the Stanley Cup...

As Obama was driving to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, he accidentally won the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Obama threw 984 touchdowns and rushed for 3.8 brazilian yards, leading the Kenyan Unicorns to their first Super Bowl victory. Well done, Captain Awesome.

While you were getting another cup of coffee, Obama won the Tour de France

The Vast Emptiness of Barack Obama

2009-10-07T15:08:00Z

h/t The Anchoress

The cruelest, most violent Samurai in Japan decides he wants to become enlightened. He bursts into the home of an esteemed Zen Master and demands that the Master teach him how to become enlightened.

The Zen Master looks deeply into his eyes and says, “No. You are a dirty, vicious Samurai. I will not teach you.”

Enraged, the Samurai yanks out his sword and places it right at the Zen Master’s neck. He hollers, “Do you have any idea who I am? I am the cruelest Samurai in the world. I can cut your throat and not blink an eye.”

Without skipping a beat, the Master calmly responds, “Do you have any idea who I am? I can let you slit my throat and not blink an eye.”

The Samurai falls to his knees, sobbing, overcome by the presence of a man mightier than his sword.

I get the impression that President Obama would like very much to say to those Americans and traditional allies who are not falling for him, “Do you know who I am?”

I wish he would, because the response would be: “Do you know who you are?”

This piece by Robin of Berkeley, which includes the Zen story, describes an America that is holding its collective breath, and wondering just who it actually elected back in November of 2008.

One senses that the nation is not alone in wondering, that perhaps President Obama himself has no clue who he is, not as an American man, and not as The American President. For decades Obama has gotten by on elegance, a retiring demeanor and the ability to make people see their reflections in him. The first two are gifts; that last is a symptom of a vast emptiness, for a mirror may have width, but not depth.

If Barack Obama, who has made a great secret of his past, truly understood who he is, and who The American President is on the world stage, he would never have journeyed to Copenhagen to have his hat handed to him.

Raised off the mainland, living for a time as a “Jakarta street kid” in Indonesia (where, he told the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff -before the remark was scrubbed- that the Muslim call to prayer was “the prettiest sound,” in the world), Obama is an American President who is not particularly American in character or disposition. He seems not to really understand Americans, or their way -which is a way peculiar to the rest of the word, at once shallow and heroic, capable of great materialism and breathtaking self-sacrifice.

There is nothing wrong with thinking a call to prayer a beautiful thing, but someone thought Obama had revealed too much of himself in that remark, and so it has been stricken from the public record, like so much of Obama’s past. And a man without a past, like an amnesiac, is a man who knows nothing about himself, or the world in which he moves.

The American mind is a duality of sorts. A country founded by displaced nobles and built by the strongest and most resourceful commoners from around the globe, America’s can-do attitude is one that doesn’t mind looking out for the little guy, as long as his own share is a fair one, and his options are open. The American mind is constantly dreaming; even her most newly-arrived immigrants dream, because until very recently all dreams were pronounced “welcome,” and the greatest restrictions were the ones you put upon yourself, or allowed others to put upon you. The dreaming made us exceptional; the dreams made us indispensable.

Bot does Obama understand those dreams? If he does not, then in truth he does not understand the people he undertook to govern. He appears to have decided that “governing” could be accomplished with an endless campaign, meant to entertain a nation enthralled with hucksterism and side-shows; that notion betrays, in meaningful measure, a disdain for the people who placed their trust in him, with their vote.

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
— The Art of Warfare

Whether he meant to entertain or to rule like a monarch, Obama seems now petrified to actually lead. One senses that this unformed man is at war with himself; what to do – play to the handlers and their agenda, or cast them aside, grasp both sides of the podium, swallow hard, and play to history?

The Office of the Presidency can either make a man great, or break him, but it will not allow him to coast and remain undefined.

But a lack of definition is what Obama has cultivated throughout adult life. From what little we know of his college days to his Inaugural speech, others have defined Obama for him, going mostly by what they saw – which was usually a reflection of themselves. He has kept himself safely tucked away, voting “present,” both early and often.

The forced definition of the American Presidency is sitting very uncomfortably with Barack Obama. There is nowhere to hide; there are no further personae to be invented and presented. The Jekyll and Hyde who has been singing endless encores of “This is the Moment” to America for nearly three years, has finally come upon a real moment, an authentic crossroad: he must now materialize into a defined entity with a known vector. Will that entity choose to define himself by a willingness to help a nation of free and energetic dreamers sustain the most exceptional and productive dream in history? Or will it choose to remain the poorly-marked outline of an aching, light-consuming void, delivering nothing but silence?

Until Barak Obama decides who he is, we cannot know him, and he cannot know America. And until he knows America, he cannot begin to understand the good-faith majority of us, who are longing not for a god, not for a king, but for a president worthy of our trust.

The voluntarily dissolved American press may be willing to throw the country away for the sake of protecting and hiding a single man whose glories they mistake for their own, but like Obama, his elitist minions do not know who we are.

They never have. Working from outdated templates, all the incurious press have ever known of us are the media-drawn caricatures that they, in their laziness, mistake for a genuine likeness.

But because they do not know us, in the end they will not be able to defeat us.

Q: “Do you know who we are? We are the government that can take away your liberty, your dreams, your very American-ness.”

A: If you knew who we were, you would know that is impossible.

Even if a thing looks like victory on the surface, an unknown opponent can never be defeated. One greater than we, and greater than this crew currently in power in the world, taught that long ago.

We Americans may not know President Obama, but we know ourselves; we know who we are. That gives us a distinct advantage over those in government know neither us, nor themselves.

Barack Obama, who has expressed ambivalence about the notion of victory, needs to first win the battle within himself, if he is to help America dare to shake off a threatening nightmare and begin, again, to dream.

If he can do that, he will be great. If he cannot, his own defeat will be a bitter, deep, personal and lasting thing.

Today in History....October 7

2009-10-07T15:07:00Z

On this day in ...

* 1582, because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this
day is skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain

* 1826, the Granite Railway begins operations as the first chartered
railway in the U.S.

* 1858, the fifth debate between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham
Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Galesburg

* 1916, in the most lopsided victory in college football history,
Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222-0 in Atlanta

* 1919, KLM of the Netherlands was founded. It is the oldest airline
still operating under its original name

* 1922, the first radio network -- of sorts -- debuted. It was a network
of just two stations. WJZ in Newark, NJ teamed with WGY in Schenectady,
NY to bring the World Series game direct from the Polo Grounds in New
York. Columnist Grantland Rice was behind the microphone for that
broadcast

* 1944, during World War II: Uprising at Birkenau concentration camp,
Jews burn down crematoria

* 1949, the Republic of East Germany was formed

* 1959, a U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly
rigged TV quiz shows

* 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican
opponent Richard M. Nixon held their second televised debate, in
Washington, D.C.

* 1963, John F. Kennedy signs ratification for Partial Test Ban Treaty

* 1985, the "Achille Lauro" is hijacked by Palestine Liberation
Organization. The hijackers, who killed an elderly Jewish American
tourist, surrendered two days after taking the ship.

* 1998, the Justice Department sued Visa and MasterCard, the nation's
largest credit card networks, on grounds they were restraining
competition and limiting consumers' choices. (A judge later ruled that
the Visa and MasterCard associations had to allow their member banks to
issue other credit cards.)

* 1999, American Home Products Corp. resolved one of the biggest product
liability cases ever by agreeing to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle
claims that the fen-phen diet drug combination caused dangerous heart
valve problems

* 2003, California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold
Schwarzenegger their new governor

* 2008, the misery worsened on Wall Street, as the Dow lost more than
500 points and all the major indexes slid more than 5 percent

Charles Barkley Channels His Inner Jimmy Carter

2009-10-05T18:21:00Z

Chuck....what happened???

h/t GatewayPundit

Charles Barkley agrees with Jimmy. Obama critics are racists.
The Politico reported, via FOX Nation:

More Barkley: “You can see a lot this stuff going on with President Obama right now. Everybody is going crazy talking about his spending. It's so funny, he's not spending any more money than George Bush did, and there was not this hatred and animosity toward him."

”And he didn't take over in the middle of a recession and with two monstrous wars going on. George Bush spent like crazy. But there is some animosity that is racially motivated toward Barack, and it's sad.”

Charles Barkley is a bit off on his numbers.

Barack Obama will likely triple the federal budget deficit his first year in office...
Something George Bush never did.

Today in History....October 5

2009-10-05T18:19:00Z

On this day in ...

* 1864, the Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a
cyclone; 60,000 die

* 1892, the Dalton Gang, notorious for its train robberies, was
practically wiped out while attempting to rob a pair of banks in
Coffeyville, Kan.

* 1905, Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles in
39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908

* 1914, World War I first aerial combat resulting in a kill

* 1921, the World Series was carried on radio for the first time as
Newark, N.J., station WJZ (later WABC) relayed a telephoned play-by-play
account of the first game from the Polo Grounds, where the New York
Giants were facing the New York Yankees, to a studio announcer who
repeated the information on the air. (Although the Yankees won the
opener, 3-0, the Giants won the series, 5-3.)

* 1931, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon completed the first nonstop
flight across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in Washington state some 41
hours after leaving Japan

* 1937, President Roosevelt called for a "quarantine" of aggressor
nations

* 1947, President Harry S. Truman delivered the first televised White
House address as he spoke on the world food crisis

* 1955, a stage adaptation of "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Frances
Goodrich and Albert Hackett opened at the Cort Theatre in New York

* 1970, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded

* 1974, American David Kunst completes the first round-the-world
journey on foot, taking four years and 21 pairs of shoes to complete the
14,500-mile journey across the land masses of four continents. He was
accompanied by his brother, John, but in 1972 John Kunst was shot to
death by bandits in Afghanistan and David was wounded. After returning
home to Minnesota to recuperate, Kunsk traveled back to Afghanistan and
continued his global journey with another brother, Peter. Peter had to
drop out later for health reasons, and David Kunst completed his trek
alone, returning to Waseca on October 5, 1974

* 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution granting honorary
American citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with
saving about 100,000 Hungarians, most of them Jews, from the Nazis,
ym"sh, during World War II

* 2001, Barry Bonds set a new mark for homeruns in a single season,
hitting numbers 71 and 72, but San Francisco was eliminated from the
playoffs with an 11-10 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers (His
"accomplishments" remain under investigation)

* 2005, defying the White House, senators voted 90-9 to approve an
amendment that would prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody