Joe Gringo

Today in History....July 23

Joe Gringo — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:49:48 GMT

On this day in …

* 1829, in the United States, William Austin Burt patents the Typographer, a precursor to the typewriter

* 1903, Ford Motor Company sells its first car

* 1914, Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding they allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When Serbia denies Austria-Hungarian demands, mobilization for World War I begins on July 28

* 1926, Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film

* 1929, fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words

* 1940, US Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles's declaration on the US non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

* 1942, during the Holocaust: The Treblinka extermination camp is opened

* 1945, French Marshal Henri Petain, who had headed the Vichy government during World War II, went on trial, charged with treason. (He was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted; Petain died in prison on this date in 1951.)

* 1952, General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser --- the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt

* 1962, Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal

* 1967, the 12th Street Riot: In Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly black inner city (43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned)

* 1968, the first and only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft took place when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers was taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel. ALSO: Glenville Shootout: In Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black terrorist organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurred. During the shootout, a riot began that lasted for five days

* 1972, the United States launches Landsat 1, first Earth-resources satellite

* 1977, a jury in Washington convicted 12 Hanafi Muslims, practitioners of that "religion of peace" of charges stemming from the hostage siege at three buildings the previous March

* 1998, scientists at the University of Hawaii announced they had turned out more than 50 carbon-copy mice with a cloning technique said to be more reliable than the one used to create Dolly the sheep

* 2007, in the first political debate of its kind, all eight Democratic Party contenders, appearing on CNN, fielded questions submitted by the public on the Internet video-sharing site YouTube. ALSO: Drew Carey was tapped to replace legend Bob Barker on the CBS daytime game show "The Price is Right."

Greetings From Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico

Joe Gringo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:01:35 GMT

The Mrs. and the Little Joe's have been there for 2.5 weeks now, I'll be there next week..............Joe Batch.

I take off time to time
With those crazy friends of mine
Head out on steel horses
With wheels and we ride

We burn up that road to old Mexico
Blend in with the desert
Just we amigos
And we roll.....

Fitting tune, "Cowboys Like Us", of course , George Strait, ......yah I know, they're my kids, not friends, but what the hay....

Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico this time of year is very green and beautiful, here's #'s 2 & 3 sitting up on La Cruz (The Cross) that overlooks the town of Tequila........

Here's Little Joe with his favorite weed, the 2nd highest mountain in Jalisco as well as an extinct volcano in background............

Joe Jr. is joe tree climber and although he just crossed over into the Boy Scouts from Webelos, he's already working on his Second Class Ranking. Future Eagle Scouter. See that big church in the background? It was built 478 years ago and the Mrs. and I were married there.

Someone lost a tooth after being there for 1 week.

Today in History....July 22

Joe Gringo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:13:11 GMT

On this day in …

* 1793 , Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico

* 1796, surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party

* 1864, during the American Civil War: Battle of Atlanta, outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill

* 1933, Wiley Post becomes first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes

* 1934, outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents

* 1937, the United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States

* 1942, the Nazis, ym"sh, began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp. ALSO: the United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands

* 1975, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee

* 1998, President Clinton, with Republican lawmakers at his side, signed a bill designed to mold the Internal Revenue Service into a friendlier, fairer tax collector.

* 2003, members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, whose actoins were almost as evil as their father's

Today in History....July 21

Joe Gringo — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:08:34 GMT

On this day in …

* 1861, the first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Va., resulting in a Confederate victory

* 1930, President Hoover signed an executive order establishing the Veterans Administration

* 1944, American forces landed on Guam during World War II

* 1949, the U.S. Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty

* 1954, the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into northern and southern entities

* 1955, during the Geneva summit, President Eisenhower presented his "open skies" proposal under which the U.S. and the Soviet Union would trade information on each other's military facilities

* 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin blasted off from the moon aboard the lunar module

* 1980, draft registration began in the United States for 19- and 20-year-old men

* 1996, dozens of memorial services were held across the country to remember the 230 people lost in the crash of TWA Flight 800

* 1998, the Pentagon said it found no evidence to support allegations in a CNN report that U.S. troops had used nerve gas during a 1970 operation in Laos designed to hunt down American defectors

* 2000, Special Counsel John C. Danforth concluded "with 100 percent certainty" that the federal government was innocent of wrongdoing in the siege that killed 80 members of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993. ALSO: Group of 8 leaders met for an economic summit on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where President Clinton also sought to soothe long-simmering tensions over the huge American military presence

* 2001, street battles raged for a second day in Genoa, Italy, site of a Group of Eight meeting, despite pleas for calm from protest leaders and global summit leaders alike

* 2005, terrorists attempt to attack the London transit system by planting bombs on three subways and on one bus; none of the bombs detonate completely. The attempted attack came exactly two weeks after terrorists killed 56 people, including themselves, and wounded 700 others in the largest attack on Great Britain since World War II. The previous attack also targeted three subways and one bus

* 2007, David Beckham made his debut with the Los Angeles Galaxy in front of a sellout crowd of 27,000. (Beckham got into the exhibition game in the 78th minute of Chelsea's 1-0 victory.) ALSO: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final volume of the wizard series by J.K. Rowling, went on sale

"I just hope these guys’ wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were," said Sgt. Jacob Walker. "They fought like warriors."

Joe Gringo — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:39:42 GMT

A Salute.

Last Sunday, 9 brave US Military men lost their lives.

Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.

Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."

This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.

h/t Black Five

Sunday 'toonage

Joe Gringo — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:04:17 GMT

for a bunch more, go check the always fine work at Flopping Aces.

Today in History....July 18

Joe Gringo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:03:56 GMT

On this day in …

* 64, a fire erupts in Rome, spreading rapidly throughout the market area in the center of the city. When the flames finally died out more than a week later, nearly two-thirds of Rome had been destroyed. Emperor Nero used the fire as an opportunity to rebuild Rome in a more orderly Greek style and began construction on a massive palace called the Domus Aureus. Some speculated that the emperor had ordered the burning of Rome to indulge his architectural tastes, but he was away in Antium when the conflagration began. According to later Roman historians, Nero blamed members of the mysterious Christian cult for the fire and launched the first Roman persecution of Christians in response

* 1918, during World War I, American and French forces launched a counteroffensive against the Germans during the Second Battle of the Marn

* 1932, the United States and Canada signed a treaty to develop the St. Lawrence Seaway

* 1936, the Spanish Civil War began

* 1940, the Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated President Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term in office

* 1969, a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard; passenger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned after being abandoned in the car for several hours. Kennedy making no attempt to rescue her

* 1984, a gunman opened fire at a McDonald's fast food restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police

* 1986, the world got its first look at the remains of the Titanic as videotapes of the British luxury liner, which sank in 1912, were released by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

* 1996, recovery efforts continued off Long Island, N.Y., for the bodies of the 230 people who died in the fiery crash of TWA Flight 800

* 2001, President Bush, en route to an economic summit in Italy, stopped over in Britain as he began his second trip to Europe in a month

* 2005, an unrepentant Eric Rudolph was sentenced in Birmingham, Ala., to life in prison for an abortion clinic bombing that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse

Today in History....July 17

Joe Gringo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:06:23 GMT

On this day in …

* 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States

* 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Spanish troops in Santiago, Cuba, surrendered to U.S. forces

* 1917, the British royal family adopted the name "Windsor"

* 1918, the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the Unterseeboot 55 with 5 lives lost

* 1936, an Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish civil war

* 1938, Douglas Corrigan, the last of the early glory-seeking fliers, took off from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn, ostentatiously pointed west. However, a few minutes later, he made a 180-degree turn and vanished into a cloudbank to the puzzlement of a few onlookers. Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin, Ireland, stepped out of his plane, and exclaimed, "Just got in from New York. Where am I?" He claimed that he lost his direction in the clouds and that his compass had malfunctioned. The authorities didn't buy the story and suspended his license, but Corrigan stuck to it to the amusement of the public on both sides of the Atlantic. By the time "Wrong Way" Corrigan and his crated plane returned to New York by ship, his license suspension had been lifted, he was a national celebrity, and a mob of autograph seekers met him on the gangway.

* 1945, during World War II: Potsdam Conference. At Potsdam, New York, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the three main Allied leaders, begin their final summit of the war. The meeting will end on August 2.

* 1955, Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California

* 1968, revolution in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif was overthrown and the Ba'ath Party installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President

* 1975, an Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower linkup of its kind

* 1979, Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled into exile in Miami

* 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Paris-bound Boeing 747, exploded and crashed off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people aboard

* 1997, the F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business

* 1998, a diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. ALSO: Nicholas II, last of the Romanov czars, was buried in Russia 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks. AND: A 23-foot-high tsunami hit the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, killing more than 2,000 people

* 2005, the Iraqi Special Tribunal filed its first criminal case against Saddam Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiite

* 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average crossed 14,000 for the first time before ending the day at 13,918.22

Today in History

Joe Gringo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:07:48 GMT

On this day in …

* 1661, the first bank notes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco

* 1790, the signing of the Residence Bill establishes a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia (seat of government)

* 1862, during the American Civil War: David G. Farragut becomes the first United States Navy rear admiral

* 1935, the first parking meters were installed, in Oklahoma City

* 1941, New York Yankees' Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his 56th consecutive game

* 1945, the Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico

* 1955, the original Disneyland park opens in Anaheim, California

* 1957, US Marine Major John Glenn flies a F8U Crusader supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds setting a new transcontinental speed record

* 1964, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

* 1965, the Mont Blanc Tunnel linking France with Italy opens

* 1969, the Apollo program: Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida and will become the first manned space mission to land on the moon

* 1973, the Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially-incriminating conversations

* 1979, Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein

* 1981, Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad becomes Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister until retired on October 31, 2003. Making him Asia's longest-serving political leaders (22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia)

* 2004, Millennium Park, considered the first and most ambitious architectural project in the early 21st century for Chicago, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley

* 2005, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K.Rowling released, selling over 9 million copies in the 24 hours after release

A Defender Of Islam

Joe Gringo — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:35:11 GMT

The Dalai Lama, who headed a medieval slave and serf state in Tibet before going into exile, has confirmed his apparent detachment from reality. Fox News reports:

The Dalai Lama said that "it's totally wrong, unfair" to call Islam a violent religion.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, appearing Sunday at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, offered a defense of Islam in response to a question about the rise of violent religious fundamentalism. He added that he has made a point of reaching out to Muslims since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Dalai Lama arrived at Lehigh on Thursday for a series of talks on a 600-year-old Buddhist text. He took a break Sunday to lecture on "Generating a Good Heart," and afterward took questions from Lehigh President Alice P. Gast that had been submitted in advance by the public.

Asked why so many Americans are depressed and anxious, he joked: "I'm the wrong person to ask. You should ask Americans." Then he answered that U.S. society is too competitive and that people always want "something more, something more, something more."

Click here to read the whole article.

Today in History....July 15

Joe Gringo — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:27:16 GMT

On this day in …
* 1799, the Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta, by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard

* 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders from aboard HMS Bellerophon

* 1870, during the Post-American-Civil-War Reconstruction: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union. ALSO: The Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire commence the Franco-Prussian War

* 1918, the Second Battle of the Marne, resulting in an Allied victory, began during World War I

* 1954, the first flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series

* 1955, 18 Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by 34 others

* 1959, the steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history

* 1971, President Nixon startled the country by announcing he would visit the People's Republic of China

* 1974, in Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'etat, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president

* 1976, a 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver as they were abducted near Chowchilla, Calif., by three gunmen and imprisoned in an underground cell. (The captives escaped unharmed.)

* 1979, Jimmy Carter gives his famous "malaise" speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."

* 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and for the possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. ALSO: The Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan gave the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three other suspects, all practitioners of that "religion of peace", in murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl

* 2007, The Philadelphia Phillies lost their 10,000th game, 10-2, to the visiting St. Louis Cardinals

Today in History....July 14

Joe Gringo — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:17:27 GMT

On this day in …

* 1789, during the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside

* 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the U.S. government

* 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry relayed to Japanese officials a letter from former President Fillmore, requesting trade relations

* 1881, outlaw William H. Bonney Jr., alias "Billy the Kid," was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, N.M.

* 1933, all German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed

* 1958, the army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy

* 1965, the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, sending back photographs of the planet

* 1966, eight student nurses were murdered by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory

* 1978, Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was convicted of treasonous espionage and anti-Soviet agitation, and sentenced to 13 years at hard labor. (Sharansky was released in 1986.)

* 2001, in a boost for President Bush's hopes to build a defense against ballistic missile attack, the Pentagon scored a hit with an interceptor that soared into space from a tiny Pacific isle and destroyed its target, a mock nuclear warhead

* 2003, Iraq's new governing council, in its first full day on the job, voted to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council and assert its right to represent Baghdad on the world stage

* 2005, U.S. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, ending a two-day stay in the hospital, pledged to continue working as long as his health permitted. (Rehnquist died in September 2005.)

* 2007, North Korea told the United States it had shut down its nuclear reactor, hours after a ship cruised into port loaded with oil promised in return for the country's pledge to disarm

Today in History....July 11

Joe Gringo — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:20:57 GMT

On this day in …

* 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by a congressional act that also created the U.S. Marine Band

* 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Weehawken, N.J.

* 1864, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early began an abortive invasion of Washington, D.C., turning back the next day

* 1934, President Roosevelt became the first chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal

* 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia

* 1980, ailing American hostage Richard I. Queen, freed by Iran after eight months of captivity by practitioners of that "religion of peace", left Tehran for Switzerland

* 1985, Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the first pitcher in Major League Baseball to strike out 4,000 batters as he fanned Danny Heep of the New York Mets

* 1988, nine people were killed when five terrorists, practitioners of that "religion of peace", attacked hundreds of tourists aboard a Greek cruise ship, the City of Poros, which was steaming toward a marina in suburban Athens

* 1995, the U.N.-designated "safe haven" of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces. ALSO: The United States normalized relations with Vietnam

* 1998, Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, a casualty of the Vietnam War, was laid to rest near his Missouri home, after the positive identification of his remains, which had been enshrined at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, Va.

* 2000, a Middle East summit hosted by President Clinton opened at Camp David between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, ym"sh. Barak offered to give Arafat 95% of he was asking, including, possibly, parts of Jerusalem. Arafat refused

Today in History....July 10

Joe Gringo — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:34:54 GMT

On this day in ...

• 988, the city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey

• 1212, the most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground

• 1796, Carl Friedrich Gauss discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers

• 1821, the United States takes possession of its newly-bought territory of Florida from Spain

• 1938, Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world

• 1940, during World War II: Vichy France government established. ALSO: The German Luftwaffe begin to hit British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though)

• 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong

• 1962, Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit

• 1985, bowing to pressure from irate customers, the Coca-Cola Co. said it would resume selling old-formula Coke, while continuing to sell New Coke

• 1991, Boris Yeltsin begins his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia

• 1992, in Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations

• 2007, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette, 57, died in an auto accident near Holly Springs, Miss.

Islamists Have The West Just Where They Want Us

Joe Gringo — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:34:42 GMT

Frank Gaffney, head of the Center For Security Policy, writes ...................Try a little thought experiment. What would have happened in this country during the Cold War if the Soviet Union successfully neutralized anti-communists opposed to the Kremlin's plans for world domination?

Of course, Moscow strove to discredit those in America and elsewhere who opposed its totalitarian agenda — especially after Sen. Joseph McCarthy's excesses made it fashionable to vilify patriots by accusing them of believing communists were "under every bed."

But what if the USSR and its ideological soul-mates in places like China, North Korea, Cuba, Eastern Europe and parts of Africa had been able to criminalize efforts to oppose their quest for the triumph of world communism? What if it had been an internationally prosecutable offense even to talk about the dangers inherent in communist rule and the need to resist it?

The short answer is that history might very well have come out differently. Had courageous anti-communists been unable accurately and forcefully to describe the nature of that time's enemy — and to work against the danger posed by its repressive, seditious program, the Cold War might well have been lost.

Flash forward to today. At the moment, another totalitarian ideology characterized by techniques and global ambitions strikingly similar to those of yesteryear's communists is on the march. It goes by varying names: "Islamofascism," "Islamism," "jihadism" or "radical," "extremist" or "political Islam." Unlike the communists, however, adherents to this ideology are making extraordinary strides in Western societies toward criminalizing those who dare oppose the Islamist end-state — the imposition of brutal Shariah Law on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Read the rest from Frank Gaffney......

Can't Speak A Language Other Than English? Shame On You, You Embarrass Obama.

Joe Gringo — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:22:35 GMT

So Michelle Obama has never been proud to be American before now, and Barack Obama just said yesterday, in his typical smug style, that he thinks Americans should be embarassed if they only speak English. This is our next First Couple? Aren't they campaigning for the White House of the United States of America?

What a couple ..........make that a couple of elitist snobs.

h/t Hugh Hewitt

Today in History....July 8

Joe Gringo — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:29:11 GMT

ON THIS DAY in ...

• 1775, the Olive Branch Petition -- a letter to King George III, from members of the Second Continental Congress, which, for the final time, appealed to their king to redress colonial grievances in order to avoid bloodshed -- is adopted by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies

• 1776, Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, in Philadelphia

• 1853, an expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese

• 1876, white supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, SC.

• 1889, the first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published

• 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetallism at that year's Democratic National Convention in Chicago

• 1919, President Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France

• 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22

• 1947, demolition work began in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations. ALSO: Reports are broadcast that a UFO has crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico

• 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea

• 1982, assassination attempt against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail, a small Shiite town in northern Iraq

• 1993, a jury in Boise, Idaho, acquitted Randy Weaver and a co-defendant of slaying a federal marshal in a shootout at a remote mountain cabin

Better Late Than Never

Joe Gringo — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:26:55 GMT

17 days ago on June 20 marked my 3rd year blogging here at Joe Gringo.

Just think, when I started 3 years ago, Barack Obama was a Freshman Senator in Illinois, and before that he cut his teeth as a Community Organizer in Chicago and State Legislator, little did we know that this type of world class experience can quite possibly get you to become the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world.

The left has gone bonkers man.

And........after 3 years and nearly 1,900 posts later, I still despise Hillary.

Happy 4th of July - Independence Day

Joe Gringo — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:51:07 GMT

As Michael Medved says...."To The Greatest Nation On God's Green Earth!".

The Audacity of Convenience......Obama Might ‘Refine’ Iraq Timeline

Joe Gringo — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:33:37 GMT

Obama sees the light now that our mighty military has kicked a** and in the process taking the last of the names. Hope? Change? Sure, all you gotta do is the 'ol flip flop.....again and again. Nice leadership, way to take a stand there Barry.
Obama has officially "entered John Kerry territory" as regards flip-flopping on Iraq positions.

Sounds like his new campaign slogan!

Ace writes...........

Maybe he'll say he decided to change his policies after a combat vet asked him to, which worked for him on his flag-pin flip-flop.

Senator Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot sustain a long-term military presence in Iraq, but added that he would be open to “refine my policies” about a timeline for withdrawing troops after meeting with American military commanders during a trip to Iraq later this month.
...
“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed,” he said. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”
...
“My 16-month timeline, if you examine everything that I’ve said, was always premised on making sure that our troops were safe,” he said. “I said that based on the information that we had received from our commanders that one to two brigades a month could be pulled out safely, from a logistical perspective. My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.”

Convenient, eh? But it is welcome, at least, that he finally is willing to publicly recognize that the safest, best, quickest method of withdrawal is now simply winning the fucking war. The pace of victory is amazing, and it seems well-nigh irreversible.

Meanwhile, three of his closest surrogates spin three different versions of what his current possibly is.

So, no one knows what the hell Obama's actual position is, except for Obama himself, and even that seems pretty unlikely.

More: AmSpec says Obama has officially "entered John Kerry territory" as regards flip-flopping on Iraq positions.

True... but John Kerry flipped to the left/defeatist side, whereas Obama has flipped closer to the right/McCain/victory side. That's important too.

Quagmire! So ABCNews headlines a blog post.

There will be only one relevant question now out of Obama’s trip now: Do you stand by your plan? Obama is unlikely to give a direct, yes-or-no answer -- and that’s where Sen. John McCain and his allies can and will pounce.
Obama has almost always built in some wiggle room into his proposal -- including promises to consult with commanders on the ground -- but surely not always. For point of reference, go to Obama’s own campaign Website:
“Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.”
That’s pretty unequivocal.
Obama’s migration to the political center has been well-documented, and is already a frame McCain is building around his candidacy. But Iraq -- this is qualitatively different, an issue that lives on a higher plane, since opposing the war was the rationale for his candidacy in the first place.

Yes, but so what? The Obama phenomenon is a cult of personality. His fanatical supporters are not voting for any particular set of policies; they're voting for the man, plain and simple, whatever his policies may have been or might one day evolve into.

Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Whatever HighFather says is good, is good.

It just doesn't matter. The liberal anger over Iraq has always been less about Iraq itself than their fury that they were no permitted a Liberal Veto that would trump the decision of the government and general public. They are anti-war, but they are especially anti-war-we-haven't-collectively-consented-to.

If Obama's on board with victory, then it's "our war" as far as liberals are concerned, and they make the necessary adjustments to suddenly support it. Just as Keith Olbermann didn't find it particularly difficult to deem the FISA telecom immunity Obama supported as a show of "strength," rather than, as it had previously been, "definitional fascism."

A bit more at Hot Air, including the expected -- but quite temporary -- DU freak out.

They will learn to love Iraq Victory. HighFather has now given them permission to do so.

Better still-- the actual victory parade will take place on his watch, most likely