Who Owns The Sky?

In Colorado, "every drop of water that hits the ground belongs to someone."

So says said Kevin Bommer, Colorado Municipal League lobbyist who is critical of new legislation giving homeowners the right to collect the rainwater that falls from their skies. **If** homeowners can prove that setting up a rainbarrel does not infringe on other water users' rights.

Because for years now, the rain falling from the clouds was private property. Does that mean that someone owned the sky over Colorado..?

"People are shocked that some developer or water provider owns the water that falls out of the sky," said Rep. Marsha Looper, a Republican from rural Calhan, southeast of Denver, who sponsored the legislation.

The New York Times carries an arresting article this week, "Its Now Legal To Catch A Raindrop In Colorado", reminding us rain-drenched city-dwellers on Canada's wet coast that it's a big world out there, and that our little corner of it is only a tiny drop in the ocean. The article also signals how laws based on science need constant updating if they are to remain soaked in justice:

A study in 2007 proved crucial to convincing Colorado lawmakers that rain catching would not rob water owners of their rights. It found that in an average year, 97 percent of the precipitation that fell in Douglas County, near Denver, never got anywhere near a stream. The water evaporated or was used by plants.

But the deeper questions about rain are what really gnawed at rain harvesters like Todd S. Anderson, a small-scale farmer just east of Durango. Mr. Anderson said catching rain was not just thrifty — he is so water conscious that he has not washed his truck in five years — but also morally correct because it used water that would otherwise be pumped from the ground.

Mr. Anderson, a former national park ranger who worked for years enforcing rules and laws, said:

“I’m conflicted between what’s right and what’s legal. And I hate that.”

When even the crooks live white guilt...

Nearly three dozen stolen computer monitors that were bound for schools and hospitals in the African country of Cameroon have been returned to a B.C. church group with an apology from the thieves.

The Kelowna church received the 31 monitors as a donation, but they were taken from the back of a pickup truck overnight on June 11.

Earlier this week, all but two of the monitors were returned to driveway where they were stolen, with a hand-printed note attached to one of the boxes.

"Sorry for the trouble, hope you forgive us," the note said. "Hope those kids in Africa enjoy."

The RCMP say they've accepted the apology and have closed their fil

B.C. thieves return Africa-bound computers with note: 'Hope you forgive us' | Macleans.ca - Canada - Features

But of course it's old news that most crooks have pretty much the same morality as everyone else, on one end of things; they're just a little less zealous about certain rivals' private property on the other. Send them to Africa, I say.

If your free-speech t-shirts are starting to wear...

Time to get involved in voting for your next one: Blazing Cat Fur: Vote for your favourite entries in the "Be Mean to Jennifer Lynch" T-Shirt Slogan Contest

Axes of Evil: Iranian State and American Left/State

Iranian security forces have left a mosque in downtown Tehran to meet and greet protestors against the recent election in Iran. The security forces greeted people with axes. One can view the result of one such greeting here. Warning: Graphic axe wound.

Bus loads of protesters were stopped and unloaded from their buses by "black-clad police" and literally herded. When the massing was sufficient, as the barely controllably distraught Tehran caller to CNN described first hand, hundreds of the regime's Basij thugs poured out of an adjoining mosque and commenced a massacre with axes, clubs, guns and gas.

American leftists seem to prefer hacking at Straw Men.
One can see the mind of such apologists at work at the Huffington Post.

The Republicans are faulting President Obama for not taking a "strong enough stand" in support of the freedom marchers in Iran. Yet if the Republican/Religious Right/Neoconservative agenda had come to full fruition over the last 35 years the Republicans would have plunged America into our own version of the misbegotten theocracy destroying Iran today. I know. As a former Religious Right leader I worked to make America "safe" for "Christian values" and dangerous to everyone else. Thankfully I, and those like me, failed.

Had we succeeded America would be another version of Iran. Instead of people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson having become marginalized they'd be sitting in Washington advising whomever was the next Republican president. Instead of environmental protection and new mileage standards for cars there would be new anti-gay laws on the books.

Rather than interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, i.e. Iran, which would make the Iran people hate us, our president is going to let things go without much comment. Enough of our arrogance and cultural imperialism. But rather than do nothing at all about the nature of the Iranian dictatorship, the weiner dialogue is off.

Update: Now it turns out that Obama's interference in Iranian internal affair has upset the Iranian government:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Barack Obama on Thursday of behaving like his predecessor toward Iran and said there was not much point in talking to Washington unless the U.S. president apologized.

[....]

"Do you want to speak with this tone? If that is your stance then what is left to talk about ... I hope you avoid interfering in Iran's affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it," he said....

From: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026735.php#respond

This last bit above is a monologue by a sadist. What does the sadist do when he bet up his partner? He feels bad. So, he then beats up the masochist for making him feel bad. It makes perfect sense if you're insane. Some people are insane, and some insane people are heads of state. It might well be a waste of time to write about this, but then again, it might lead some people to think about the possibility that it's true after all. If that, then coffee.

We're meeting for coffee and chit-chat this evening at VPL. You can come and join us for discussion too. Atrium at 7:00 p.m. outside Blenz.

Three pigs, no poke

I will return to active blogging soon; in the meantime, a visual metaphor for our times, to be precise, well, you name it:

If anyone knows how to buy one of these recent vintage Honda-cub style bikes in North America, let me know. Here's the original context:

From what I'd previously heard I expected Cambodia to be the "poor cousin" of Thailand, and in many respects that seems to be the case. Even at the border there were throngs of poor-looking Cambodians carting their wares in hand-wagons across to the large market on the Thai side.
[...]
The people in the lush and wet countryside live mostly in stilted wooden houses which line the roadside for miles on end. As far as one goes you hear "hello", mostly from under the houses where people seem to live during the day to escape the heat and the rain. The many small motorcycles are put to the utmost tests, often towing fairly large trailers loaded with goods or people - and even large wooden boats. Pigs are generally transported to market on the back of these motorcycles (on their backs with trotters facing the sky). By the time they're in transit these animals have usually stopped sqealing, but one still had some grunt in him and I thought I heard "Farang" as he passed me. The countryside through which I cycled is quite flat, and any hill seems to have some religious significance (although the stone sculptors are cutting up the hills at quite a rate).

Commercial Drive waking up?

American Psychopath

We like to think that all people are pretty much the same, given the right chances to be happy and decent. If someone is down, no real fault of his own, the system being what it is, one tends to make allowances, maybe help out a bit, do some good. Our president is bending over forward to be nice to some of the world's creepiest dictators on our behalf, appeasing people I would prefer to do less pleasant things to, and is generally sucking up for the sake of making things better for all concerned. He's bashing Israel, and he feels sad about the election in Iran where people have been disenfranchised and some murdered by their state. But, hey, can we talk? I think not all people are really as good as one would like to think. Give some people all they want and they still aren't satisfied. Why? Well, I went looking for an answer to the leftard bimbo who referred to me as "heart-dead" and the idiot who wrote that I'm a "Right wing religious bigot." This is the best I can do, and I leave the answer to the question posed in the comment section, if you really want to know. I'll confess I didn't get it on my own. I'd still be a better president than Obama. Only the lady in question below and her type wouldn't be. "Any ten people picked at random from the Cleveland phone book would be better than him." (Or so I recall that quotation.)

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing. She believed him to be her dream guy so much that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister..

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?

One can learn this kind of thinking, and then it becomes easier to deal with. It takes some professional interest. One would think those in charge of our foreign policy would care to know who and what they deal with. They could learn, sort of as a professional duty. So far, no signs of that. If we're forced to learn it ourselves, we'll find Obama to be less than The One.

If this goddess speaks....

I've often wondered if the lady on the radio on the London tube trains who says: "Mind the gap." is as good-looking as she sounds. I've always wanted to date the Columbia movies lady, too. I don't know if they're the same woman. Now I have some real doubts. I got curious and looked up Columbia Lady. Mind the Gap lady is next, I do think so.

Columbia Pictures: The Torch Lady

Columbia Pictures was founded in 1919 ....

The studio’s logo is Columbia, the female personification of America. It was designed in 1924 and the identity of the “Torch Lady” model was never conclusively determined (though more than a dozen women had claimed to be “it.”)

[....]

The current Torch Lady logo was designed in 1993 by Michael J. Deas, who was commissioned by Sony Pictures Entertainment to return the lady to her “classic” look.

Though people thought that actress Annette Bening was the model, it was actually a Louisiana homemaker and muralist named Jenny Joseph that modeled the Torch Lady for Deas. Rather than use her face, however, Deas drew a composite face made from several computer-generated features.

Link.

Some people think Obama is something good, and I have the hots for the Columbia babe. There's reality and there's Obama. Mind the gap.

Greg Felton, Zionist?

New Westminster/Burnaby News Leader: Backyard sharing a growing pastime:

“I gave them an area to use but they’ve widened it quite a bit,” she said, laughing at the eager gardeners she hosts. “They even put in raised beds, so they’re improving my garden.”

Laugh? We thought we'd die!

Yes, folks, those kookie-loonies in government are at it again, entertaining the silly-goosest ideas in our time. How funny! How droll. How clever they are. Obamously Hilaryous.

Martin Fletcher, " Iranian President Ahmadinejad celebrates win with show of brutality." Tehran: Times Online. 15 June 2009

Chanting Allahu akbar” — God is greatest — and “Ahmadi, we love you” the army of hardliners poured into central Tehran in a massive show of strength for President Ahmadinejad.[...]

Mr Ahmadinejad gave a surreal, Orwellian press conference.

He called his victory an “epic achievement” that made Iran’s brand of religious democracy, with its emphasis on ethics, a model for the world.

Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed the protests as unimportant, comparing the rioters to disappointed football supporters after a match. He said there was no evidence that he had stolen the election, and that his margin of victory — 28 per cent — was so great that it was absurd to question his legitimacy. “Don’t worry about it. Freedom prevails absolutely in our country,” he told incredulous foreign journalists.

[....]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6499534.ece

Funnier and funnier:
"Clinton Reverses: Israel on its Own With Iran," from Israel National News, June 14 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

...When asked if her new statement was official U.S. policy, Clinton dodged the question, "I think it is U.S. policy to the extent that we have alliances and understandings with a number of nations. I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that, were Israel to suffer a nuclear attack by Iran, there would be retaliation." Stephanopoulos pressed her: "By the United States?" But Clinton declined to commit: "Well, I think there would be retaliation.”

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026574.php

How are we going to stand any more of this wacky humor from our government? My gut aches already, and it's only been six months of this comedy.

Obama's Recipe for America or Palin Americana: To Serve Man.

I think fairly often about Sarah Palin as president, usually when I read or hear about some latest antic by Obama. I don't catch the Obama word on tv, like some recent piece from David Letterman. That guy has some audience left, and it's strange to me that we can have a country in which he's a success of any sort. He'd only be possible in a nation that elected Obama. Letterman attacked Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter on his tv show. That sort of thing doesn't surprise me anymore. It comes from a nation I don't recognize, and that nation used to be home. I remember America as hometown Palin. Television is a foreign country. Obamaland is The Twilight Zone. I remember my home. It was a nice place.

J. Robert Smith, "Still Open Season on Sarah Palin," American Thinker. June 12, 2009

[....]

East and left coast elites have a beau ideal, and that's President Barack Obama, the elegant, cosmopolitan, smooth apologist for America's foibles and mortal sins. The Big Spender and soon-to-be Debaser of the Dollar. The Savior of Detroit who's Amtraking automakers. The compassionate fellow who wants to ration healthcare. And the man who claimed he'd deny Miranda rights to terrorists, only to, well...

President Obama cleans up nicely, as they say. He talks the left's talk, and knows what fork to pick up at a five-star restaurant. He's an African-American JFK, which almost makes him the left's ultimate fantasy. The only thing he's not is gay. But even fantasies have limits.

Note that today's liberals -- or progressives, as they prefer -- never rhapsodize about the late Harry Truman, a gruff, unpolished Democratic pol who didn't give a damn about which fork he used at hoity-toity eateries -- if he ever entered any.

Truman regarded Uncle Joe Stalin as a windbag and mass murderer; he considered communism a sham and a great danger. And he initiated the long, hard Cold War that defeated the communists.

That's not what today's liberal admires in a leader: Resolve in defeating the nation's enemies. For liberals, like Pogo, the enemy is us. These descendants of Adlai Stevenson II see life as complicated -- a vast gray zone -- where truth is relative but most everything about America is absolutely wrong.

Palin is too much like Truman for liberal tastes, less the gruffness. She's a Main Streeter who's very comfortable in her skin. She doesn't put on airs, and doesn't aspire to do so. Her husband is a workingman whom she loves and is proud of; not an inconvenient truth, to steal a phrase. Ditto her son, Trig, born with Down Syndrome rather than aborted. Ditto her daughter, Bristol, who gave birth to an out-of-wedlock son.

Bristol has come out for abstinence among young people. Her honesty and courage is met with rolled eyes and sneers from jaded elites, reporters and liberal commentators. And bad jokes by a ratings-loser talk show host.

Surely, Bristol can't really want to help young people avoid her mistake. Her public stand is all about damage control and pre-emption. She's standing up to inoculate her mother from charges that the Palins talk the good talk about family values but walk a very different walk.

Imperfect creatures that we are, we are all bound to stray. Learning from, and making amends, for our mistakes are large parts of redemption. Bristol is admirably seeking redemption. Had she only chosen to condemn Gitmo and stump for same-sex marriage, then she'd have won plaudits from liberals.

Out-of-wedlock births are a Hollywood norm, and win the seal of approval from convention-hating lefties. Yet another reason to ridicule Bristol.

Governor Palin's conservatism is the sort that connects with the natural conservatism of a majority of Americans. Hers comes with no frills, no eloquent turns of phrase, no Shakespearian grandeur.

Hers is a hotdogs and hamburgers and cold beer conservatism. It's upbeat, reality-tested, everyday commonsense. Americans live it every day. They recognize it in Palin, and are attracted to her accordingly. Hence, liberals' fear.

Bless Palin's moose-shooting, hockey mom's heart. She wasted no time unloading both barrels at the hoary Letterman for his lurid jabs. The time has come for conservatives to start fighting back. Governor Palin is showing the way.

The saying goes that the best revenge is served cold. In this case, Sarah Palin needs to always bypass the elites and the mainstream media. She needs to take her case directly to hardworking Americans, whether in Auburn, New York, Joplin, Missouri or Macon, Georgia.

And in those towns and cities and suburbs across the nation, she needs to deliver this powerful, game-changing message: Americans don't have to be ashamed of, or apologize for, being Americans. Our traditional values, morals and beliefs are the nation's backbone and have made us great.

We have been a force for great good and freedom in a world often lacking in both. We may stumble and fall at times, but we pick ourselves up and move forward with hope and optimism and an unshakeable belief that, as Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, our best days are ahead of us.

Take this message to Americans and it won't be cynical comics or cynical elites who have the last laugh.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/still_open_season_on_sarah_pal.html

America will return.

Come on, be creative!

Obama Today | Following Barack Obama » Blog Archive » Sign Sotomayor’s “cast” - Engaging the World - America.gov

For What it's Worth...

We elected a Democratic Party president recently in the expectation that he would be a better president than George W. Bush. But, really, that's not why we elected Obama. We elected him because we had a chance to make history and feel really cool about it: electing the first "Black" president. What might we get? A Democrat.

Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae.

"Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living."

Ben-Peter Terpstra, "Obama-first mayors lead 14 of 15 most dangerous cities," American Thinker. June 10, 2009

When Mayor Giuliani, the feisty Italian-American Republican took charge of New York, he meant business. Crime went down, down, down.

Alas, today's big city mayor is more likely to be a soft-on-crime Democrat.

What do I mean? When Forbes magazine listed the 15 most dangerous cities in America - the political class ignored one embarrassingly obvious fact. Yes: 14 of the 15 mayors leading America's most dangerous cities are Obama-first leaders.

Here's the beef:

No. 15 Philadelphia, Pa. Mayor Michael Anthony "Mike" Nutter (Democrat)

No. 14 Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Patrick "Pat" McCrory (Republican)

No. 13 West Palm Beach, Fla. Mayor Lois J. Lois J. Frankel (Democrat)

No. 12 Baton Rouge, La. Mayor-President Melvin "Kip" Holden (Democrat)

No. 11 New Orleans, La. Mayor Clarence Ray Nagin, Jr. (Democrat)

No. 10 Baltimore, Md. Mayor Sheila Ann Dixon (Democrat)

No. 9 Nashville, Tenn. Mayor Karl Foster Dean (Democrat)

No. 8 Charleston, S.C. Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. (Democrat)

No. 7 Little Rock, Ark. Mayor Mark Stodola (Democrat)

No. 6 Orlando, Fla. Mayor John Hugh "Buddy" Dyer (Democrat)

No. 5 Stockton, Calif. Mayor Ann Johnston (Democrat)

No. 4 Las Vegas, Nev. Mayor Oscar Baylin Goodman (Democrat)

No. 3 Miami, Fla. Mayor Manny Diaz ("Independent,"Obama-first voter and 2008 DNC speaker)

No. 2 Memphis, Tenn. Mayor Willie W. Herenton (Democrat)

No. 1 Detroit, Mich. Mayor David Bing (Democrat)

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/obamafirst_mayors_lead_14_of_1.html

Cities with Democratic Party mayors. Is it good or bad or just the moon in Virgo? Let's take a seat and watch the show.


American Thinker comment, Posted by: Mac Fuller. June 10, 11:37 AM

EVIDENCE:
This information can be found in U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, published in August 2007, and was widely reported upon in August, September, and October 2008 prior to the presidential election.

POVERTY IN MAJOR U.S. CITIES -- TOP 10.

City and State / Percentage of People Below Poverty Level / "Leadership"

1. Detroit , MI 32.5% #1 on poverty rate list. Has not elected a Republican mayor since 1961.

2. Buffalo , NY 29.9% #2 on list, and hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954.

3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8% #3 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1984.

4. Cleveland , OH 27.0% #4 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1989.

5. Miami , FL 26.9% #5 on the poverty list. Has NEVER had a Republican mayor.

6. St. Louis , MO 26.8% #6 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1949.

7. El Paso , TX 26.4% #7 on the poverty list. Has NEVER had a Republican mayor.

8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2% #8 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1908.

9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1% #9 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1952.

10. Newark , NJ 24.2% #10 on the poverty list. No elected Republican since 1907.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/obamafirst_mayors_lead_14_of_1.html
How cool is it that we have as president a Democrat Super-Mayor?

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me
I've got to beware

Chorus:
Think it's time we
STOP! Hey
What's that sound
Everybody look what's going down ...

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/crosby-stills-and-nash-for-what-it-s-worth-lyrics.html

Short-lived Martys and the Eternal Cool People

If you geezers want to live a long time, the Danes have it figured out: get a young wife. It' Big Science, I tell ya. The Danes spent some good cash finding out that old guys who marry young women live longer than old guys who marry women their own age. And what could be cooler than hanging out at the bocce court with a babe in tow? You could be knocking over your mates like wooden pins at a lawn bowling tournament when you show up with your own Berlusconi babe. What about the old ladies? Give them a fulfilling occupation. Paradise.

If the meaning of your life is to live a long time: marry a younger woman.

Vail Beach said at June 7, 2009 07:12 PM: "My father, who recently passed away, thought my mom could make better-tasting ice water."

Bronco Bomber said at June 6, 2009 03:45 PM: "I made a huge mistake when I married my first wife. Not only is she older, but she is dumber than a mule. I am hoping to find a younger and smarter and better looking woman perhaps half my age next time. Wish me luck."

Men Married To Younger Women Live Longer

Many of my readers are looking for any edge they can find to extend their lives. They are willing to embrace scientific research results that suggest that a dietary practice or lifestyle choice will help them live long enough to still be around when rejuvenation therapies hit the market. I share this desire. With this thought in mind I have a tip for the guys: Danish men who marry women much younger than them live longer.

According to the research, if a man marries a woman 15 and 17 years his junior, his chances of dying early are cut by one fifth. Also, it suggests that men cut the risk of premature death by 11 percent if their wives are seven to nine years younger.

Another aspect highlighted by the study was that men who opted for older wives have an 11 percent higher chance of dying earlier.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006268.html

You can be like contestant number one whose father passed away recently, obviously meaning the father is dead, especially because his wife seemed to be about the father's age; or you can be like contestant number two, a man who still hopes to live a long time if only he can score a hottie. This is important for Danes. There aren't that many of them, and those there are don't seem to like Danes very much, if we can judge by the abortion rates, latest available to me, 2006. If Danes don't live a long time, there won't be any left at this rate:

2006

64984

15053

(15053)

year	live births	abortions, reported

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-denmark.html

If you're identical to me, then you too will find this part interesting:

Friedrich Engels, The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. "Preface to the Fourth Edition." (1891)

[Johann J.] Bachofen finds the proofs of these assertions in innumerable passages of ancient classical literature, which he collected with immense industry. According to him, the development from "hetaerism" to monogamy and from mother-right to father-right is accomplished, particularly among the Greeks, as the consequence of an advance in religious conceptions, introducing into the old hierarchy of the gods, representative of the old outlook, new divinities, representative of the new outlook, who push the former more and more into the background. Thus, according to Bachofen, it is not the development of men’s actual conditions of life, but the religious reflection of these conditions inside their heads, which has brought about the historical changes in the social position of the sexes in relation to each other. In accordance with this view, Bachofen interprets the Oresteia of Aschylus as the dramatic representation of the conflict between declining mother-right and the new father-right that arose and triumphed in the heroic age. For the sake of her paramour, AEgisthus, Clytemnestra slays her husband, Agamemnon, on his return from the Trojan War; but Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and herself, avenges his father’s murder by slaying his mother. For this act he is pursued by the Furies, the demonic guardians of mother-right, according to which matricide is the gravest and most inexpiable crime. But Apollo, who by the voice of his oracle had summoned Orestes to this deed, and Athena, who is called upon to give judgment – the two deities who here represent the new patriarchal order – take Orestes under their protection; Athena hears both sides. The whole matter of the dispute is briefly summed up in the debate which now takes place between Orestes and the Furies. Orestes contends that Clytemnestra has committed a double crime; she has slain her husband and thus she has also slain his father. Why should the Furies pursue him, and not her, seeing that she is by far the more guilty? The answer is striking: "She was not kin by blood to the man she slew."

The murder of a man not related by blood, even if he be the husband of the murderess, is expiable and does not concern the Furies; their office is solely to punish murder between blood relations, and of such murders the most grave and the most inexpiable, according to mother-right, is matricide. Apollo now comes forward in Orestes’ defense; Athena calls upon the Areopagites – the Athenian jurors – to vote; the votes for Orestes’ condemnation and for his acquittal are equal; Athena, as president, gives her vote for Orestes and acquits him. Father-right has triumphed over mother-right, the "gods of young descent," as the Furies themselves call them, have triumphed over the Furies; the latter then finally allow themselves to be persuaded to take up a new office in the service of the new order. [B]achofen believes at least as much as AEschylus did in the Furies, Apollo, and Athena; for, at bottom, he believes that the overthrow of mother-right by father-right was a miracle wrought during the Greek heroic age by these divinities.

I'm not so keen on Justiice. I'm usually happy to argue in favor of rational law instead. We have to make some choices in this life. We might like the idea of a Just Price, as Aquinas argues in favor of, or a Moral Economy, as E.P. Thompson wants. These would be fine things, I'm sure, just like a matriarchy, and justice by Furies. Believe me, there are innumerable cases I would love to judge with the Furies as my counsel. I'd like to have according to my needs rather than according to my abilities. And toss in a couple of babes for fun. But there is a matter of selection. Do we want geezers with babes, and Wise Latina matriarchs ruling us all fairly by intuition? We could live a long time, and maybe forever, so long as we can dump the old lady into the Supreme Court so she has something to do while we fool around and expand with the universe. I hear from those who know that it's a matter of "quality of life." Let's topple those Greeks and open abortion so the hotties are ready all the time and the old girls are bitchy with a good enough income not to mess up Paradise. What did Aeschylus know? He's a dead White male. Probably couldn't find a young wife.

Fewer and fewer people, getting older all the time, and being all the happier for it. I understand this is a quality I should like. Unfortunately for me, me being a Right Wing religious bigot, I'd settle for the best ice-water a woman can make. In fact, like Marty Pilletti, I think it'd be worth having over the other.

Radio Memories: Listening To D-Day

Every Sunday we take a small break from current events of the day to listen to echoes of days gone by, hoping to discover something about our own times through the crackling static and fading voices of radio’s earliest days… the days when radio, not television, shaped our understanding of the world, through radio drama, the theater of the mind.

Yesterday of course marked the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France, and I thought that this would make an ideal subject for this week’s Radio Memories post. The entire broadcast day from that fateful Tuesday in 1944 has survived; it makes for riveting listening today, letting us share the memory of a nation waking to the big news, holding its breath, checking their maps and saying a prayer for the success of the mission pursued by fathers, sons, brothers, family, friends and neighbors on the far-away beaches of Normandy.

Radio offered its listeners an intimacy that production circumstances deny television today. Most radio drama was broadcast live; actors would show up a few hours before air time to rehearse their performances in plays that had been written, often re-written, right up to the day of their broadcast. They could easily incorporate important stories of the day into their work, having characters comment on the news that the listeners themselves were following in-between their choice of radio theater, such as the war’s sudden beginning in the Pacific, the last days of war in Europe… and the beginning of the end: D-Day.

I've selected a trio of highlights to give a sense of how that day played out on radio. As you can imagine, regular programming was put largely on hold that day, as a flood of news bulletins tried to encapsulate history in the making.

We start with the noon broadcast of Kate Smith Speaks, a popular daily 15-minute chat show for women, hosted by the singer famous today for her stirring delivery of the unofficial US National Anthem, God Bless America. She puts her listeners thoughts into words as she offers a moving prayer for the troops overseas, "a prayer for victory".

Then comes a fifteen minute clip of CBS' six o'clock news broadcast, summing up the major news points of the invasion up to that time. (The time slot had yet to assume the daily compass point it was to offer for generations to come, displaced only recently by unsleeping cable networks and global online news resources.)

The final word goes to comedian Bob Hope. His Tuesday night variety show skirted the edges of prime time, broadcast as it was at a 10:00 pm time slot in those wartime days. It would have brought down the curtain on quite an emotional day for his listeners, and undoubtedly even more so for Hope.

Here was a man who devoted his legendary tireless energy towards criss-crossing the continent in order to entertain the troops. From May 1941 onward, he broadcast week after week from an airfield here, a training camp there; as we heard in an earlier Radio Memories post , he had even spent much of his 1943 "summer vacation" in-between radio seasons playing for the military stationed in the warzones of North Africa and Europe. And shortly after this Tuesday June 6th broadcast he was scheduled to begin his 1944 summer tour of the Pacific Theater. Had anyone met more American G.I.s, one-on-one, than Bob Hope? Shaken their hands, looked into their eyes, met their smiles with one of his own? Was there a single air base, naval base, or army camp that he didn't perform in during the war?

The disruptions of a news-heavy day of programming cut his usual Tuesday thirty minute show down to a mere six minutes, yet these six minutes broadcast on the sixth day of the sixth month of 1944 offer much heartening insight to the modern-day listener, plagued as we are with a world seemingly in decay, trying to imagine what it must have been like to experience a day when the world could be felt to be changing for the better.

In his three-minute introduction, Bob Hope reminds listeners of his day, and those finding his broadcast in our own time, what it was like to experience radio's coverage of the D-Day invasion:

Folks, this is Bob Hope speaking from a P-38 airfield out here near Van Nuys California. We looked forward to being with these men and doing our regular show here, but of course nobody feels like getting up and being funny on a night like this.
But we did want to go through with our plans and visit these fellas because these are the same kind of boys that are flying those 11,000 planes in our big effort.

What’s happened in these last few hours not one of us will ever forget. How could you forget. You sat up all night by the radio, and heard the bulletins and the flashes, the voices coming across from England, the commentators, the pilots returning from their greatest of all missions, newsboys yelling in the street… it seemed that one world was ending and a new world beginning. That history was closing one book and opening a new one.

And somehow we knew it had to be a better one. You sat there and dawn began to sneak in and you thought of the hundreds of thousands of kids you’d seen in camps the past two or three years; the kids who’d scream and whistle when they’d hear a gag in a song.

And now you could see them all again on 4,000 ships on the English Channel, tumbling out of thousands of planes over Normandy, and the occupied coast. In countless landing barges crashing the nazi gate and going out to do the job that’s the job of all of us.

The sun came up and you sat there looking at that huge black headline, that one great black word with the exclamation point: “Invasion”. The one word that the whole world has waited for.

That all of us had worked for.

We knew we’d wake up one morning and have to meet it face to face, the word in which America has invested everything these thirty long months, the efforts of millions of Americans building the planes and weapons, the men in the shipyards and the men who took the stuff across. Little kids buying war stamps and housewives straining bacon grease. Farmers working around the clock. Millions of young men sweating it out in camps and fighting the battles that paved the way for that headline this morning.

Now the investment is paid, for this generation and all generations to come.

And folks what a wonderful thing it is that no matter the price, the reward will be greater than the sacrifice. We hope that thought can go along with a prayer tonight, the prayer of a whole nation: God Bless those kids across the English Channel.

Previous Radio Memories posts:

Red Skelton: Vacations
Frontier Gentleman: Gambling Lady
Information Please: Guests Walter Duranty and John Gunther
The Aldrich Family: Cleaning The Furnace
Tom Mix, Terry and the Pirates VE Day broadcasts from May 8 1945
You Are There: The Capture Of John Wilkes Booth
Fort Laramie: War Correspondent
CBS Radio Workshop: Son Of Man
Great Gildersleeve: Easter Rabbits
Dimension X: Time And Time Again
An American In England: Women Of Britain
Cavalcade Of America: Bob Hope Reports
The March Of Time: Feb 10 1938 broadcast
Hear It Now: Coming Home From The Korean War
Escape: Vanishing Lady
Rogers Of The Gazette: Rewinding The Town Clock

Thought leader finds God for children.

Put away the gas oven, bury the chain saw in the yard, dump out the coffee pot of Drano: no more suicidal thoughts from you, it's all OK now. Life is finally worth living.

By Kyle Drennen, "Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: Obama Is ‘Sort of God’." Newsbusters.org. 5 June 2009

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC:

"I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

[....]

"He's going to bring all different sides together...Obama is trying to sort of tamper everything down. He doesn't even use the word terror. He uses extremism. He's all about let us reason together...He's the teacher. He is going to say, ‘now, children, stop fighting and quarreling with each other.’ And he has a kind of a moral authority that he – he can – he can do that." In response, Matthews wondered: "If there's a world election between him and Osama Bin Laden, he's running a good campaign." Thomas agreed: "Yes, he is."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/06/05/newsweek-s-evan-thomas-obama-sort-god

Dear reader, you might think that's the gushing nonsense of a fool, but let me hasten to explain that the speaker above is Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. Now you understand. And in case you don't, here's a bit more to clarify it all, this in case you are not one of Modernity's elite, not a thought leader.

Newsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence'....

Recently, the magazine's owner The Washington Post Company has stated the publication has been losing profit. The company overhauled the magazine in May, 2009, refocusing its content and using higher-quality paper, to target a smaller and more "elite audience" and to identify itself as a "thought leader". To sustain its level of journalism with a reduced guaranteed circulation, Newsweek plans to eventually increase prices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek

You slap my forehead, dear reader, and say, "But Dag, who is Evan Thomas?" Well, are you ever in luck. Evan Thomas (1951- ), Newsweek editor, is:

"[T]he grandson of the late Norman Thomas, a six-time Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America...."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Thomas

So now you know. And I know. And we know. Grandpa's ghost finally made it into the White House, and he's a sort of God.

Muslims driven to violence by -- whatever-- need protection from Americans

Robert Spencer, "Jihad Returns to America," FrontPageMagazine.com. June 04, 2009

Jihad came once again to American soil on Monday, when an American convert to Islam, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, began shooting at soldiers who were standing outside the Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Muhammad murdered Pvt. William Long, 23, and gravely wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18.

Muhammad was charged with capital murder and – in a departure from authorities’ practically reflexive dismissal of terrorism as a factor in virtually any act of violence by a Muslim -- sixteen counts of committing a terrorist act. Rather curiously, Muhammad has entered a not guilty plea, despite a prosecutor’s report that he had admitted shooting Private Long, and explained that he had done so “because of what they had done to Muslims in the past.” Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said of Muhammad’s act: “We believe that it’s associated with his disagreement over the military operations.”

Apparently “they” were the United States, and Muhammad considered this random shooting of two innocent young men to be an act of defensive jihad against a force he believed to be making war against the global Islamic community. Muhammad seems to have driven up to the Army-Navy Career Center intending to kill as many American military personnel as he could. Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said that Muhammad openly admitted that he “would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot.”

More: http://frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35094

At least our government is taking steps to protect us.

Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on Department of Justice’s Outreach and Enforcement Efforts to Protect American Muslims

Thursday, June 4, 2009

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released the following statement relating to President Obama’s historic speech today in Cairo, Egypt:

"The President's pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans. A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all of our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the voting booth.

"There are those who will continue to want to divide by fear - to pit our national security against our civil liberties - but that is a false choice. We have a solemn responsibility to protect our people while we also protect our principles."

http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090604.html

From: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090604.html

By "us" we assume we all know that means not "them" who are us.

Collin Binkley, "Wrong place, wrong time for OSU stabbing victim," The Lantern. June 4, 2009.

A female Ohio State student was trying to catch a bus to class Tuesday afternoon when she became the victim of a random stabbing... by 34-year-old Wael W. Kalash. Witnesses said Kalash had been walking up and down the street exhibiting "bizarre" behavior before the stabbing occurred.

"There's no connection between the victim and him other than she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, it was a completely random act," said Det. Jay Fulton of the Columbus Division of Police homicide unit.

Witnesses said that Kalash... walked up to the student and stabbed her once in the abdomen...
.
[....]

Neighbors of Kalash said he has a history of "strange behavior," and Fulton said he may be mentally ill.

"He didn't make a lot of sense when we tried to talk to him," Fulton said. "He exhibited a lot of signs of some mental instability or some mental issues."

http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2009/06/04/Campus/Wrong.Place.Wrong.Time.For.Osu.Stabbing.Victim-3746031.shtml

There are Muslims who are us, and they have to be protected, because otherwise they have to kill us for being upset, which is a bad thing to do to peace loving people. We have to protect Muslims from hostility by ... I don't know, maybe killing ourselves so they don't have to do it themselves.

Can anyone here read body language?

Obama bows down to King of Saudi Arabia

Then he sits and has a nice chat.

Obama has a nice time with king Abudulla of Jordan.

Obama shakes hands with ole homeboy, Chavez.

Here's the Israeli prime minister

Photo chosen by US Embassy, Belgium.

Righteous Victims Accord to Perpetrators

When I was a young guy I had a Catholic priest chasing after me for a while. I don't get it, but then, I miss a lot of things others take for normal. I told this fellow once, in a moment of frustration: "You should be ashamed of yourself." He got this hurt look in his eyes and told me he couldn't help it, and that he didn't think he'd go to Hell for his behavior. I told him he sure would: "How can you ever find forgiveness for this disgraceful lusting? Have you no shame? I'm a Protestant!"

He did leave me with a lasting impression, though, that I find interesting. He told me that religious people don't feel good about what they do; they feel good about what they don't do. "We would never do that!"

Francis Bok's autobiography Escape from Slavery: It's not about the victims, but the oppressor ... they only care if they can loathe the perpetrator.

Comment by Moh Foe: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026399.php#respond

Link to book blurb: http://iabolish.org/slavery_today/slave_experience/escape_from_slavery.html

The context, of course, is the Leftist/West's abandonment of victims who don't fit the template of the righteous as defined by and according to the Left Westerner. Murdered by jihadis? That's OK. Murdered by Communists? That's even good. But water-boarded by Republicans? Hell and Damnation.

It's a moralism gone to Hell long before the religious fanatic himself ever dies. Are Leftists evil? Only if you look at their behavior.

Notes on the loss of conservative values, anticipating the reckoning with reality to come...

Irresponsible Spending and Not Reigning in the HRC Voted Most Unconservative | ThePolitic.com
Blog readers vote on the top three unconservative things done by Canada's Conservative Party government:

*Massive increases in government spending and a return to deficit spending 27% (432 votes)
*Allowing the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal to continue unhindered 22% (341 votes)
*Giving billion dollar bailout packages to poorly run companies 21% (323 votes)

This last was a theme picked up in David Warren's latest offering:

Government bailouts are unlimited, more or less by definition. For were a government to say, "You may have $13.5 billion, but after you've blown that in, you're on your own," it might as well say, "You may have zero." Once the principle of fiscal accountability is abandoned, it is abandoned.
[...]
Yet oddly enough, the Conservative party may not even learn from the experience. This is because basically conservative people are so utterly disenfranchised, not only among the political classes but in the courts, the schools, the bureaucracies, and the media, as to be invisible. Twelve thousand of us could assemble on the lawn of Parliament to make a point about, say, unrestricted abortion, and it would be hardly even reported. It follows that a Conservative government could go down, and not even know what hit it.

Very few Canadians make as much as GM and Chrysler workers, or have pension plans as generous. Many of us don't have pension plans at all, beyond the chump change offered by our Nanny State. The autoworkers' plan is around $2 billion in the hole. It goes without saying that at least $2 billion of the bailout will go, directly or indirectly, to rescuing it.

That the government must deny this use of our money also goes without saying. But the plan will be rescued; and the person who thinks it will happen by a spontaneous miracle is naïve.

One of the proofs that Canadians are indeed rather stupid, is that we will stand for this sort of thing: that people who themselves face penury in old age, will agree to have their pockets picked to cover $70-an-hour auto-workers. And then actually vote at the next election for the politicians who robbed them. (For not all Canadians are basically conservative.)

Alas, until some conservatives take over the Conservative party, Canadians will be in no position to prove me wrong.

Meanwhile, on a related note, from China... Market Ticker comments:

Funny how Bloomberg, who ran this originally, edited the headline and removed it. Did someone in The Administration or Treasury call Bloomberg and complain?

Telegraph: In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner told politicians and academics in Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis. Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said: "Chinese assets are very safe." The comment provoked loud laughter from the audience of students.

Did someone here mention this before?

davidwarrenonline.com - ESSAYS ON OUR TIMES

I had suspected before that people do not retain what they read on computer screens as well as what they read in print. After my five-week experiment, I am quite sure of this. Partly for the wealth of physical associations in print reading, and partly from other causes, our memories favour the tangible. We confirm this point instinctively, every time we print out a long article.

This is a serious matter, for as any competent pedagogue could assure us, what is not retained was never adequately processed in the first place. So while the Internet provides a festival of information, it also subverts the comprehension of all things humane.

Ill Djuche

If we have a war against North Korea the question of interest is how Americans will see it. Will the world shrug and call it a fair game, and about time? How different will American and world, reaction be to a war waged by an Obama administration? We know in advance what we can expect from the kiddie-commies of the West. Here's a taste of that from American rich-kid Trotskyites:

Thursday, 28 May 2009
"Defend North Korea against imperialist threats."

THE government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) [North Korea] announced yesterday that it would ‘no longer be bound’ by the armistice that brought fighting in the Korean War to an end in 1953 and that ‘the Korean peninsula will go back to a state of war’.

This followed Tuesday’s decision by the South Korean regime to join the Proliferation Security Initiative, organised by United States imperialism. The US has declared that it will impose a naval blockade on North Korea, stopping and searching DPRK vessels.

Refusing to be put under siege in this way, the DPRK declared: ‘Any tiny hostile acts against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement of our sovereignty. We will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.’

[....]

The DPRK has every right to develop the weaponry necessary to defend itself against imperialism, including nuclear weapons and rockets.

[....]

The working class of the whole region must come to the defence of the DPRK and the workers of North Korea, and shut down the US bases, through mass political and industrial action.

The regime in Pyongyang, because of its counter-revolutionary Stalinist politics, is opposed to such a revolutionary mobilisation of the working class in the region.

The unification of Korea will be achieved only through the struggle for workers’ power in countries like Japan and the extension of the World Socialist Revolution, under the leadership of the Fourth International.

That was for a cheap laugh. We do have a serious problem, though, of Americans who would likely cheer a war against the world they could blame on their own homeland and on their own people. It is a commonplace to be what is, in effect, a traitor. Trotskyites are a joke, but what of the 20 year olds who live in the coastal areas of our nation who voted for Obama in the deluded expectation that he would somehow transform the world into Utopia with the wave of his hand? What is stronger? the hatred of our nation (and so many seem to think it is hateful, because that's what all the cool people say,) the love of "action" that gives bored suburban kids something immediately dramatic to think about, or the brainless conformity of the majority Obama supporters who will do what Obama says because he's cool? Will our nation's people engage in a war against North Korea-- on behalf of our nation?

This would be an Obama war. More, it would be a serious war. This would be a war that would require the efforts of the nation as a whole rather than technology and experts. What would happen if American kids had to be involved as a matter of retaining our nation's being?

Below we see not a hobby-commie like the Trotskyites but a fully committed lunatic. How will skate-boarding teen-agers react to a war against people like him on a massive scale?

Han Ho Suk,* Director Center for Korean Affairs, "N Korea Military Tactics In A War With US: A Strategy Of Massive Retaliations Against US Attacks." 4-24-2003.

North Korea has not only the military power but also the political will to wage total war against the United States.

(An English abstract of a paper)

1. North Korea Can Engage the US in Total War North Korea is one of the few nations that can engage in a total war with the United States.

[....]

North Korea, which can and is willing to face up to the sole military superpower of the world, cannot be called a weak nation. Nevertheless, Western press and analysts distort the truth and depict North Korea as an "impoverished" nation, starving and on the brink of imminent collapse. An impoverished, starving nation cannot face down a military superpower. Today few nations have military assets strong enough to challenge the US military.

[....]

In the morning of March 1, 2003, an American RC-132S spy plane, Cobra Ball, took off from a US airbase in Okinawa, and cruised along the East coast of North Korea collecting electronic signals. The US intelligence suspected that North Korea was about to test a long-range missile and the plane was there to monitor the suspected missile launch.

When the US plane reached a point about 193 km from the coast of North Korea, two MiG-29 and two MiG-21 fighter planes showed up unexpectedly. The North Korean planes approached within 16 m and signaled the US plane to follow them. The US pilot refused to follow the command and left the scene posthaste. The US plane was tailed by the hostiles for about 22 min but let the US spy plane go. There are two key points to be observed here.

First, the hostile planes waited for the US plane at the Uhrang airbase, located about 200 km from the point of air encounter. They knew that the US plane was coming. The North Korean planes flew 200 km to intercept the US plane. Did the US plane see them coming? If it did, why no evasive action? After intercepting the US plane, the hostile planes dogged it for 22 min. Why no American planes for the rescue? The US crew must have informed the base of the danger they were in, but no action was taken by the base. If Kim Jong Il had given the command, the MiGs would have shot down the US plane and returned to their base before the US could have scrambled war planes.

[....]

2. North Korea's Massive Retaliation Strategy

North Korea's war plan in case of an US attack is total war, not the 'low-intensity limited warfare' or 'regional conflict' talked about among the Western analysts. North Korea will mount a total war if attacked by the US.

[....]

3. c) North Korean soldiers are well indoctrinated

The US commanders admit that North Korean soldiers are highly motivated and loyal to Kim Jong Il, and that they will fight well in case of war.

[....]

North Korean soldiers are taught to fight to the bitter end. In September 1996, a North Korean submarine got stranded at Kangrung, South Korea, and its crew abandoned the ship. Eleven of the crew committed suicide and the rest fought to the last man except one who was captured. In June 1998, another submarine got caught in fishing nets at Sokcho and its crew killed themselves. Such is the fighting spirit of North Korean soldiers.

[....]

In September 1996, a North Korean submarine was stranded near Kang-nung and the crew were forced to abandon the ship and land on South Korea. The sub had two special forces agents who had finished a mission in South Korea and were picked up by the sub before the sub ran into a rock. The two men fought off an army of South Korean troops and remained at large for 50 days, during which they killed 11 of the pursuers.

[....]

MiG21s are North Korea's main workhorse. The MiG21 debuted in 1965 in Vietnam and proved itself as an effective attack fighter. In 1999, North Korea bought 40 MiG21s from Kazakhstan. During the Vietnam War, MiG17s shot down dozens of American planes. North Korea sent more than 200 pilots to fight in the Vietnam War. They were tasked to defend Hanoi and shot down scores of US planes. North Korea sent 25 pilots to Syria during the 3rd Arab-Israeli war of 1966, and 30 pilots to Egypt and Syria during the 4th Arab-Israeli war of 1973. In 1976, North Korea sent more than 40 pilots to Syria.

[....]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3099.htm

*Mr. Han Ho-seok, a pro-Pyongyang theoretician of reunification problems and director of the Center for Korean Affairs based in New York.
http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/0006B_Nam.html

A war against North Korea is a serious undertaking. America is not, contrary to much popular opinion, a warrior nation. We are a trading nation, and one should know from common sense it's better business to trade with than to kill ones business partners. Common sense is far less fun than meeting ones friends at a public and televised demonstration of ones deep moral outrage about... well, who cares? America is easy. Except this time it might be Obama to emote over rather than Bush. A war against North Korea might not be so easy as against the tiny shit-hole nations we've invaded in recent decades. How might our Left deal with that? Being a traitor to ones nation is small potatoes when there's nothing at stake. How deep is the corruption of our Left? Will they turn on their "ethnic" pretty boy? And what of the pose afterward? How will the Left justify a war against Korea in which likely millions of people will die? Who will they blame this time?

Jack Lee, "WAR WITH NORTH KOREA," Post Scripts. October 11, 2006

Third, North Korea's total war plan has two components: massive conventional warfare and weapons of mass destruction. If the US mounts a preemptive strike on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plants, North Korea will retaliate with weapons of mass destruction: North Korea will mount strategic nuclear attacks on the US targets. The US war planners know this and have drawn up their own nuclear war plan. In a nuclear exchange, there is no front or rear areas, no defensive positions or attack formations as in conventional warfare. Nuclear weapons are offensive weapons and there is no defense against nuclear attacks except retaliatory nuclear attacks. For this reason, North Korea's war plan is offensive in nature: North Korea's war plan goes beyond repulsing US attackers and calls for destruction of the United States.

NOTE: North Korea maintains the world's third largest arsenal of chemical weapons - which includes mustard gas, phosgene, sarin and V-agents. Along with these chemical agents, the DPRK also maintains an active biological weapons program and have developed a significant amount of anthrax, botulism, plague, and smallpox.

From GlobalSecurity.com North Korea's short-term blitzkrieg strategy envisions a successful surprise attack in the early phase of the war to occupy some or all of South Korea before the arrival of US reinforcements on the Korean Peninsula. North Korean ground forces, totaling some 1 million soldiers, are composed of some 170 divisions and brigades including infantry, artillery, tank, mechanized and special operation forces. Of the total, about 60 divisions and brigades are deployed south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line. North Korea possesses the world's fifth largest military and is the most militarized nation in proportion to population (estimated at 22 million. Military spending is $5.2 billion or 22.9% percent of North Korea’s GDP.

Most of North Korea's armored units consist of old Soviet built T-54 and T-55 tanks, some of those tanks are now approaching 50 years old. It's highly suspect how effective their numerically superior forces would be against a smaller, but better armored force used by ROK and US defenders. In Iraq, the U.S. 70 ton Abram's tanks (see photo left) were often outnumbered 5 to 1, yet quickly defeated the Iraqi's best MBT, the Russian built T-55 tank. Even the U.S. high speed Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, used to carry troops, obliterated the older and slower Iraqi tanks on contact, with it's 20 mm rapid fire cannon, using depleted uranium bullets that penetrated up to 5 inches of steel armor.

It's interesting to note than in 1998 the U.S. and Korean forces drew up a contingency plan called "War Plan 5027" that used preemptive strikes on North Korea in the event there were major signs of an imminent invasion by North Korea. North Korea reacted by drawing up its own war plan for preemptive strikes. Little has changed since this plan was created. Today, only the Second Infantry Division and the Seventh Air Force are committed to battle with the potential North Korean invaders. The rest of our forces, numbering only a few hundred, are in logistics, communications, and intelligence and small Navy and Marine Corps units. South Korean forces (ROK) number about 600,000, but fewer than 60% of this number could be considered fighting units, the rest are dedicated to support roles.

Recently declassified information indicated, the United States withdrew the last nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991. The initiative was a result of President George H. Bush's unilateral disarmament in September 1991 and the withdrawal involved approximately 60 artillery shells and 40 B61 bombs. Now that North Korea has nuclear weapons this unilateral decision appears short sighted, to say the least.

A war with North Korea at this time with our limited forces to resist an unlimited, total war, would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. However, as costly as this war might be in the beginning, even the most pessimistic analysts agree, the invasion would fail and it would result in the complete destruction of Kim Jung-il's government and probably the reunification of the two Koreas.

http://www.norcalblogs.com/post_scripts/2006/10/war_with_north.html

How would American traitors justify all they claim to be against? And if they find they can't, what are they going to think of themselves? Maybe they'll elect Obama as king to assuage their moral pain.