They're certainly not the police, as anti-American journalists like Charles Blow would have you believe.
Topping the list for August, 2015, is Garland Tyree, a high-ranking Bloods gang member and admirer of terrorist Mutulu Shakur, who just used an assault rifle to shoot a firefighter on Staten Island.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/firefighter-shot-responding-to-long-island-incident-1439554041
Here's Tyree's long list of terror and crime. This is what the cops have to deal with on a daily basis. Don't expect Mr. Blow to deal honestly with this any time soon.
http://www.silive.com/northshore/index.ssf/2015/08/standoff_suspect_garland_tyree.html
Or just look Tyree up on Facebook.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Rabaul - the Unconquered
The Battle of Rabaul, also known by the Japanese as Operation R, was fought on the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea, in January and February 1942. It was a strategically significant defeat of Allied forces by Japan in the Pacific campaign of World War II.
When Japan surrendered in August 1945, it was found that there were still around 69,000 Japanese troops in Rabaul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rabaul_(1942)
Hudson Falls Central School District:
http://www.hfcsd.org/district.cfm?subpage=439
John A. Leary '36
Judge John A. Leary was born on May 4th, 1919, the second of four children born to John and Adelia Leary. He graduated from St. Mary’s Grammar School in 1932 and Hudson Falls High School in 1936. A graduate of Syracuse University with a BS degree, he went on to receive his LLB and JD from the Syracuse University College of Law. He began practicing law with the firm of Hart, Senior and Nichols of Utica, New York and subsequently returned to Hudson Falls where he practiced law for many years in an office over the present Evergreen Bank on Main Street.
From 1941 through 1945, Judge Leary was a carrier pilot in the United States Naval Air Force. During his tenure in the service, he was a two-time recipient of the Navy Cross and has shared his World War II experiences on a number of occasions with the students of Hudson Falls High School. From 1947 through 1949 he was a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Judge Leary has served the community as a Justice of the Peace and as a member of the Kingsbury Town Board and he has been the recipient of the Liberty Bell award. During his career, he has also served as county attorney, district attorney and the administrator of the Assigned Counsel Plan. He has served as a judge in Washington County Court, Surrogate Court, Family Court and State Supreme Court as assigned. Judge Leary retired in December of 1989. Judge Leary expressed tremendous pride in his Hudson Falls roots. The community was fortunate indeed to have another of its native sons return to the community that fostered his ideals. His interest in flying, originating during World War II, remained a constant - occasionally he could be seen taking off from Warren County Airport. He had three sons, two of whom are members of the area medical community and one who is an accomplished artist. Judge Leary passed away on October 8, 2003.
John Leary- Torpedo Bomber Pilot Midway was the turning point of the war. We had been at the Coral Sea where we lost the USS Lexington. The USS Yorktown was badly damaged, but in any event the Japanese did not continue to invade New Guinea or Australia. Days later, after Coral Sea, when we arrived at Pearl Harbor we thought we were going home because the Yorktown was so badly damaged. But Admiral Nimitz had other ideas and he outranked most of us. They put on civilian workers (to repair the damage) and when the Yorktown sailed 72 hours later it still had quite a few civilian workers still aboard repairing. They never mentioned their losses in the war. Yorktown was hit again at Midway and they did abandon ship, but she stayed afloat and looked like she could make it, so about 200 men went back on board and unfortunately they were still on it when it was taken down by a submarine. But the battle was won principally, I think from our intelligence, because we outmaneuvered and outsmarted the Japanese...from the island, the Marines were flying dive-bombers, which were outdated-the cockpit was made out of canvas, so they were a bit out of date. They had no diving flaps and they would dive beautifully, but there was no guarantee they would come back up. There were only six Dive Bomb Fighter (DBF) torpedo planes involved, they were based on the island, only one returned and on that one, both crewmen were dead. These were the only DBFs they had; they had only torpedo planes, DBDs . There top speed was ...one hundred mph if they were doing well. They were no match for the Japanese. They launched fifty and had three come back. The carriers all together, that is all they had at the end of the day. George Gay was the only one (to survive) he had a ringside seat to the whole battle. He was in a life raft, so he was hanging on to them. George was the only survivor. He was a pilot and everyone else had been killed, everybody. The Marines also had Brewster fighters, "Brewster Buffalos," they called them, I think they had 27. They lost all of those. They were just no comparison with the Japanese Zero. But with the help of God, the battle was won by the American carrier pilots, and we on Yorktown went over landed on USS Enterprise, some on USS Hornet. So we were holding our own. Later on we ended up at Guadalcanal, not too long after the Marines landed. They got into some open field and with one very short leave we went from Guadalcanal, I'm sure these gentlemen would know (points at Marines in room). The 1st Marines were at Guadalcanal and the 4th were at the north end on Bougainville and we ended up on Bougainville so we covered the Solomon Islands, all of them. And that cut the Japanese off because it destroyed their largest base at Rabaul Harbor, on New Britain. Rabaul had five Japanese airfields, a great harbor and we could hit it from Bougainville, and we did. The correspondent that wrote this article -he was correspondent with the Chicago Tribune- two things about him: number one, he “demoted” me from Lieutenant Commander to Lieutenant Junior Grade, and then he wrote the article in a spirit of a party-he just wanted to have a good time . Ex-athletes team up to sink twelve ships
“Lieutenant Commander John Leary, Hudson Falls, was one of a group of former college athletes whose teamwork helped to knock out twelve Japanese ships in last Thursday's attack at Rabaul Harbor, the Navy disclosed today. The official account issued at a South Pacific airbase said that Leary, a coxswain of the 1941 Syracuse University crew, dropped a 2000 pound bomb with great accuracy on a Japanese cargo ship. He made the run over the ship at mast head height, braving heavy anti-aircraft fire from the vessel. In the same attack Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Robert L. Reagan, 1941 catcher for the Harvard baseball team, demolished a Japanese vessel with a torpedo bomb and Lieutenant Junior Grade Bruce Bishop, star University of Tennessee quarterback, blew up a enemy patrol.”
I took more fellas in with me than I brought home that day, unfortunately. It was 1944 because that’s when they went in, on November 1st... [I was] about 23 or 24. It was the principal Japanese airbase. They had five Japanese airfields defending it. They had about 200 to 250 Japanese fighters there, which could have been interesting.
Hudson Falls man is aboard plane bombing Japanese cargo ship.
A short time ago, Mr. John Leary flew through a curtain of anti-aircraft machine gun fire to drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a Japanese cargo ship at Rabaul Harbor. Lieutenant Commander. Leary, 24, of Wright Street, this village, a U.S. Navy torpedo bomber pilot and section leader in a hard-hitting squadron, flew in at masthead level to skip bomb the enemy ship.” Those ships were reported by one of our submarines and they couldn’t do anything about it, because they had just finished up a patrol and were out of torpedoes. They followed these people with their naval escort into Rabaul harbor. They passed the word back to Pearl and they in turn got in contact with what they call Com-air South, or Command of the Air South. We were then called because we were the oldest outfit there [Bougainville], we were briefed, then set out somewhere around midnight, we hit them around dawn. We lost quite a few people, but the friends that I particularly had were in the troop transports.
We went up towards the Coral Sea on the U.S.S. Saratoga and two small carriers. One of the admirals came aboard, and he always wore a red cap. Well our carrier had duty that day, anti-sub duty. The Big DBF’s that had four large depth charges and all the sonar buoys and all that. The sea on that day was as smooth as a tabletop, and they made only 17 knots on a good day. So the captain of our ship, the air officer and the air group commander, recommended “catapulting” off the ship. Just that, put on a catapult and shot off the ship. But the admiral said ‘suppose the catapults are damaged?’. Still, he would have liked to see how they would work; well, none of us really wanted to do it. The first three planes went off, and they went down into the water and blew up, they never made it. The charges weren’t set properly. A good friend of mine flew the last one off the ship, a man named Gibble. He was older than most of us and was a professor at the university of Minnesota. Well, Bob (Gibble) made it, he sunk below the bow, but eventually pulled up. He went on his patrol and when he got back, Gibble was called to the deck, the captain’s deck and the admiral was going to question him. Now this was a three star admiral talking to a young lieutenant! Gibble didn’t blink an eye, he (the admiral) asked him "what did you do that the others failed to do"? Gibble looked at the admiral and said, “ I think that when they tried to climb, they pulled back on the stick.” (That’s the only way I ever heard of trying to climb was to pull back on the stick. Gibble said, with a touch of sarcasm, ”I just took the stick and held it off the water.” Normally he would have been shot right there, but the admiral didn’t say a damn word to him because the was in a bad bind. Gibble had the nerve to tell him he “held it off the water”. So our people were thrilled with him.
The Marines and Navy pilots all went to the same flight school, although some had selected the Corps and some the Navy. But they all went through the same training. Joe Foss ( leading ace of WWII, Joe Foss, the Marine pilot) and I, and Marion Carl, were in the same flight class. We’ve been friends over the years and Marion Carl ... was in charge of all investigations for the Marines until he retired, and he was murdered about a year ago. Someone broke into his house trying to rob them and attacked his wife, and he (Joe) tried to defend his wife, and he was killed. [I knew Joe Foss very well]...Joe sent me a story he wrote, an autobiography. He sent me a copy and I could hardly make out his signature. I called him and as it turned out that he had been in a little accident before that and had broken an arm and he was still trying to write with a broken arm. So Joe had let me know he had broken his arm. Joe was part Sioux -he was first president of the AFL, then governor of South Dakota.
When I came back finally, I had a couple of special projects. I was chief gunnery pilot for the Banshee, one of the first jets. One morning I went up for a test fire and a 20 millimeter shell exploded in the nose. The engines were in the back and when I pulled the trigger one of the 20’s jumped the gun, it wasn’t set right and blew the nose up. It was hard to tell who was screaming loudest, myself, or the Banshee! But it got down and landed all right. And they were very kind to me, the next morning they had a ceremony, I still have the medal. It’s bigger than this, but it has more things on it I can’t repeat here, but one of them was “enemy planes destroyed: none, ours: one”. When I got out, I had a year in law school and I finished that up. Then being an Irish Catholic of my generation, you only had three options, to be a priest, a farmer, or a cop. So I went into the FBI. I was banged up a bit but always made it back. I had two young fellas that were with me and I lost them both. My gunner was 18 years old, no 17, because it was his birthday the day he died. So, obviously he lied about his age to get in, and had a couple of bad days. There was a young man from around here, Randy Holmes, he hounded his parents to let him enlist because he was only 17. He went through apprentice seamen training, then he was ordered to the USS Oklahoma and he was in 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor. He was in it a couple days when it was bombed by the Japanese and capsized. [Editor's note Randy Jones was on the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and had only been in Pearl Harbor 2 weeks prior to that. Randy Holmes was from from Hudson Falls N.Y.] Interviewer (Matthew Rozell): He didn’t have much of a chance, did he? John Leary: No, no- he didn’t. Judge John Leary passed away on October 8, 2003.
When Japan surrendered in August 1945, it was found that there were still around 69,000 Japanese troops in Rabaul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rabaul_(1942)
Hudson Falls Central School District:
http://www.hfcsd.org/district.cfm?subpage=439
John A. Leary '36
Judge John A. Leary was born on May 4th, 1919, the second of four children born to John and Adelia Leary. He graduated from St. Mary’s Grammar School in 1932 and Hudson Falls High School in 1936. A graduate of Syracuse University with a BS degree, he went on to receive his LLB and JD from the Syracuse University College of Law. He began practicing law with the firm of Hart, Senior and Nichols of Utica, New York and subsequently returned to Hudson Falls where he practiced law for many years in an office over the present Evergreen Bank on Main Street.
From 1941 through 1945, Judge Leary was a carrier pilot in the United States Naval Air Force. During his tenure in the service, he was a two-time recipient of the Navy Cross and has shared his World War II experiences on a number of occasions with the students of Hudson Falls High School. From 1947 through 1949 he was a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Judge Leary has served the community as a Justice of the Peace and as a member of the Kingsbury Town Board and he has been the recipient of the Liberty Bell award. During his career, he has also served as county attorney, district attorney and the administrator of the Assigned Counsel Plan. He has served as a judge in Washington County Court, Surrogate Court, Family Court and State Supreme Court as assigned. Judge Leary retired in December of 1989. Judge Leary expressed tremendous pride in his Hudson Falls roots. The community was fortunate indeed to have another of its native sons return to the community that fostered his ideals. His interest in flying, originating during World War II, remained a constant - occasionally he could be seen taking off from Warren County Airport. He had three sons, two of whom are members of the area medical community and one who is an accomplished artist. Judge Leary passed away on October 8, 2003.
John Leary- Torpedo Bomber Pilot Midway was the turning point of the war. We had been at the Coral Sea where we lost the USS Lexington. The USS Yorktown was badly damaged, but in any event the Japanese did not continue to invade New Guinea or Australia. Days later, after Coral Sea, when we arrived at Pearl Harbor we thought we were going home because the Yorktown was so badly damaged. But Admiral Nimitz had other ideas and he outranked most of us. They put on civilian workers (to repair the damage) and when the Yorktown sailed 72 hours later it still had quite a few civilian workers still aboard repairing. They never mentioned their losses in the war. Yorktown was hit again at Midway and they did abandon ship, but she stayed afloat and looked like she could make it, so about 200 men went back on board and unfortunately they were still on it when it was taken down by a submarine. But the battle was won principally, I think from our intelligence, because we outmaneuvered and outsmarted the Japanese...from the island, the Marines were flying dive-bombers, which were outdated-the cockpit was made out of canvas, so they were a bit out of date. They had no diving flaps and they would dive beautifully, but there was no guarantee they would come back up. There were only six Dive Bomb Fighter (DBF) torpedo planes involved, they were based on the island, only one returned and on that one, both crewmen were dead. These were the only DBFs they had; they had only torpedo planes, DBDs . There top speed was ...one hundred mph if they were doing well. They were no match for the Japanese. They launched fifty and had three come back. The carriers all together, that is all they had at the end of the day. George Gay was the only one (to survive) he had a ringside seat to the whole battle. He was in a life raft, so he was hanging on to them. George was the only survivor. He was a pilot and everyone else had been killed, everybody. The Marines also had Brewster fighters, "Brewster Buffalos," they called them, I think they had 27. They lost all of those. They were just no comparison with the Japanese Zero. But with the help of God, the battle was won by the American carrier pilots, and we on Yorktown went over landed on USS Enterprise, some on USS Hornet. So we were holding our own. Later on we ended up at Guadalcanal, not too long after the Marines landed. They got into some open field and with one very short leave we went from Guadalcanal, I'm sure these gentlemen would know (points at Marines in room). The 1st Marines were at Guadalcanal and the 4th were at the north end on Bougainville and we ended up on Bougainville so we covered the Solomon Islands, all of them. And that cut the Japanese off because it destroyed their largest base at Rabaul Harbor, on New Britain. Rabaul had five Japanese airfields, a great harbor and we could hit it from Bougainville, and we did. The correspondent that wrote this article -he was correspondent with the Chicago Tribune- two things about him: number one, he “demoted” me from Lieutenant Commander to Lieutenant Junior Grade, and then he wrote the article in a spirit of a party-he just wanted to have a good time . Ex-athletes team up to sink twelve ships
“Lieutenant Commander John Leary, Hudson Falls, was one of a group of former college athletes whose teamwork helped to knock out twelve Japanese ships in last Thursday's attack at Rabaul Harbor, the Navy disclosed today. The official account issued at a South Pacific airbase said that Leary, a coxswain of the 1941 Syracuse University crew, dropped a 2000 pound bomb with great accuracy on a Japanese cargo ship. He made the run over the ship at mast head height, braving heavy anti-aircraft fire from the vessel. In the same attack Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Robert L. Reagan, 1941 catcher for the Harvard baseball team, demolished a Japanese vessel with a torpedo bomb and Lieutenant Junior Grade Bruce Bishop, star University of Tennessee quarterback, blew up a enemy patrol.”
I took more fellas in with me than I brought home that day, unfortunately. It was 1944 because that’s when they went in, on November 1st... [I was] about 23 or 24. It was the principal Japanese airbase. They had five Japanese airfields defending it. They had about 200 to 250 Japanese fighters there, which could have been interesting.
Hudson Falls man is aboard plane bombing Japanese cargo ship.
A short time ago, Mr. John Leary flew through a curtain of anti-aircraft machine gun fire to drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a Japanese cargo ship at Rabaul Harbor. Lieutenant Commander. Leary, 24, of Wright Street, this village, a U.S. Navy torpedo bomber pilot and section leader in a hard-hitting squadron, flew in at masthead level to skip bomb the enemy ship.” Those ships were reported by one of our submarines and they couldn’t do anything about it, because they had just finished up a patrol and were out of torpedoes. They followed these people with their naval escort into Rabaul harbor. They passed the word back to Pearl and they in turn got in contact with what they call Com-air South, or Command of the Air South. We were then called because we were the oldest outfit there [Bougainville], we were briefed, then set out somewhere around midnight, we hit them around dawn. We lost quite a few people, but the friends that I particularly had were in the troop transports.
We went up towards the Coral Sea on the U.S.S. Saratoga and two small carriers. One of the admirals came aboard, and he always wore a red cap. Well our carrier had duty that day, anti-sub duty. The Big DBF’s that had four large depth charges and all the sonar buoys and all that. The sea on that day was as smooth as a tabletop, and they made only 17 knots on a good day. So the captain of our ship, the air officer and the air group commander, recommended “catapulting” off the ship. Just that, put on a catapult and shot off the ship. But the admiral said ‘suppose the catapults are damaged?’. Still, he would have liked to see how they would work; well, none of us really wanted to do it. The first three planes went off, and they went down into the water and blew up, they never made it. The charges weren’t set properly. A good friend of mine flew the last one off the ship, a man named Gibble. He was older than most of us and was a professor at the university of Minnesota. Well, Bob (Gibble) made it, he sunk below the bow, but eventually pulled up. He went on his patrol and when he got back, Gibble was called to the deck, the captain’s deck and the admiral was going to question him. Now this was a three star admiral talking to a young lieutenant! Gibble didn’t blink an eye, he (the admiral) asked him "what did you do that the others failed to do"? Gibble looked at the admiral and said, “ I think that when they tried to climb, they pulled back on the stick.” (That’s the only way I ever heard of trying to climb was to pull back on the stick. Gibble said, with a touch of sarcasm, ”I just took the stick and held it off the water.” Normally he would have been shot right there, but the admiral didn’t say a damn word to him because the was in a bad bind. Gibble had the nerve to tell him he “held it off the water”. So our people were thrilled with him.
The Marines and Navy pilots all went to the same flight school, although some had selected the Corps and some the Navy. But they all went through the same training. Joe Foss ( leading ace of WWII, Joe Foss, the Marine pilot) and I, and Marion Carl, were in the same flight class. We’ve been friends over the years and Marion Carl ... was in charge of all investigations for the Marines until he retired, and he was murdered about a year ago. Someone broke into his house trying to rob them and attacked his wife, and he (Joe) tried to defend his wife, and he was killed. [I knew Joe Foss very well]...Joe sent me a story he wrote, an autobiography. He sent me a copy and I could hardly make out his signature. I called him and as it turned out that he had been in a little accident before that and had broken an arm and he was still trying to write with a broken arm. So Joe had let me know he had broken his arm. Joe was part Sioux -he was first president of the AFL, then governor of South Dakota.
When I came back finally, I had a couple of special projects. I was chief gunnery pilot for the Banshee, one of the first jets. One morning I went up for a test fire and a 20 millimeter shell exploded in the nose. The engines were in the back and when I pulled the trigger one of the 20’s jumped the gun, it wasn’t set right and blew the nose up. It was hard to tell who was screaming loudest, myself, or the Banshee! But it got down and landed all right. And they were very kind to me, the next morning they had a ceremony, I still have the medal. It’s bigger than this, but it has more things on it I can’t repeat here, but one of them was “enemy planes destroyed: none, ours: one”. When I got out, I had a year in law school and I finished that up. Then being an Irish Catholic of my generation, you only had three options, to be a priest, a farmer, or a cop. So I went into the FBI. I was banged up a bit but always made it back. I had two young fellas that were with me and I lost them both. My gunner was 18 years old, no 17, because it was his birthday the day he died. So, obviously he lied about his age to get in, and had a couple of bad days. There was a young man from around here, Randy Holmes, he hounded his parents to let him enlist because he was only 17. He went through apprentice seamen training, then he was ordered to the USS Oklahoma and he was in 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor. He was in it a couple days when it was bombed by the Japanese and capsized. [Editor's note Randy Jones was on the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and had only been in Pearl Harbor 2 weeks prior to that. Randy Holmes was from from Hudson Falls N.Y.] Interviewer (Matthew Rozell): He didn’t have much of a chance, did he? John Leary: No, no- he didn’t. Judge John Leary passed away on October 8, 2003.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
The Road to Solar Power Hell
"The road to [ solar power] hell is paved with good intentions" Grandma Honoragh and Karl Marx used to say.
The Obama energy plan falls into that category. We shouldn't put a straitjacket on our energy future. As Doug MacEachern suggests (AZ Republic 8/10), natural gas needs to remain an important part of that future. Take away natural gas, for example, and New England will freeze in the dark when winter rolls around. Just imagine what it will be like shoveling off the solar panels after one of those famous blizzards hits Boston. Sure new technology may make solar power practical, but new and practical alkylamine technology for CO2 removal is just as likely to make natural gas a completely clean fuel, and not just a "bridge to a renewable future."
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Hiroshima: Columbia's Anti-American Canards
Columbia journalism professor and ex-SDS president Todd Gitlin claims (NY Times 8/11/15) that the Soviet Union's entry into World War II made it unnecessary for the US to drop atomic bombs on Japan, also claiming without substantive evidence that an invasion of Japan would have cost "only" 100,000 American lives. Japan's horrific war that took 20,000,000 Chinese lives has been overshadowed by the Hiroshima debate and is now long forgotten. When the atomic bombs were dropped, Japan's largest armies were still a menace in China and Korea. Virtually no one remembers today that when the atom bombs were dropped, Japan's most brilliant general, Tomoyuki Yamashita, was still undefeated in the Philippines. He did not surrender until September of 1945. It would have taken months, if not years, of devastating fighting to subdue the Japanese armies in China, Korea, the Philippines and still scattered across the Pacific. Moreover, the Soviet Union had no maritime capability to invade the Japanese home islands. That would have been left to American forces. The invasion of the small island of Okinawa cost the US nearly 100,000 casualties. It's egregiously disingenuous to claim that the far bigger task of invading Japan's home islands would have cost "only" 100,000 American lives. In 1945 it was the responsibility of the US government to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible to save untold Chinese, Korean, American and, indeed, Japanese lives.
Gitlin's thoughts are really just more anti-American propaganda from the New York Times, Columbia University and the longtime fans of the old Soviet Union, which, in fact, as Hitler's original ally in the dismantling of Poland, was responsible for making World War II and the Holocaust a reality. All of the horror that followed Poland would have been avoided but for Stalin's original sin: his alliances with Hitler and Japan. Former SDS leader Gitlin should have explained why Stalin waited until August,1945, to declare war on Japan, instead pretending the Soviet Union's WWII perfidy never happened.
On the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, no one wants to talk about the Soviet Union's perfidy helping to start it.
====================
"My generation of the New Left — a generation that grew as the [Vietnam] war went on — relinquished any title to patriotism without much sense of loss. All that was left to the Left was to unearth righteous traditions and cultivate them in universities. The much-mocked political correctness of the next academic generations was a consolation prize. We lost — we squandered the politics — but won the textbooks."
-- Varieties of Patriotic Experience, Todd Gitlin, Professor & Chair, Ph.D. Program, Columbia Journalism School,
Gitlin's thoughts are really just more anti-American propaganda from the New York Times, Columbia University and the longtime fans of the old Soviet Union, which, in fact, as Hitler's original ally in the dismantling of Poland, was responsible for making World War II and the Holocaust a reality. All of the horror that followed Poland would have been avoided but for Stalin's original sin: his alliances with Hitler and Japan. Former SDS leader Gitlin should have explained why Stalin waited until August,1945, to declare war on Japan, instead pretending the Soviet Union's WWII perfidy never happened.
On the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, no one wants to talk about the Soviet Union's perfidy helping to start it.
====================
"My generation of the New Left — a generation that grew as the [Vietnam] war went on — relinquished any title to patriotism without much sense of loss. All that was left to the Left was to unearth righteous traditions and cultivate them in universities. The much-mocked political correctness of the next academic generations was a consolation prize. We lost — we squandered the politics — but won the textbooks."
-- Varieties of Patriotic Experience, Todd Gitlin, Professor & Chair, Ph.D. Program, Columbia Journalism School,
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Platitudes: Challenges Gender-Role Convention
"Vikander's UNCLE spy challenges gender-role convention"
-- Bill Goodykoontz.
Bill Goodykootz lost me before he even got to say hello. Gender-role convention: the latest addition to the category of annoying political clichés and platitudes. Vikander is an actor in a spy fantasy movie, for heavens sake. I'm not going to take my daughter to it to show her she can work for the CIA... that date might be saved for Zero Dark Thirty, which I can guarantee you wouldn't interest her now. She's really smart. I bought her a Carnegie-Mellon robot kit to spend the summer with. She put the robot together in an hour, played with it for an afternoon and spent the rest of the summer knitting and reading girls books.
Here's a much better lead and way of dealing with Vikander and the movie, sans cliches:
"It is 8.15am, and Alicia Vikander – possibly the hottest young actress in the world right now – walks into a cafe near her home in north London and orders a coffee and chia porridge. She is 15 minutes early for our meeting..."
"Next month sees the delayed opening of her first blockbuster, Guy Ritchie's reworking of the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In this kind of film, we're used to female characters who exist solely to be the love interest, but Vikander's impossibly glamorous East German car mechanic is central to the action, while the bad guys are led by the equally glamorous Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki." Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-man-from-uncles-alicia-vikander-the-worlds-hottest-young-actress-20150805-girabt.html
-- Bill Goodykoontz.
Bill Goodykootz lost me before he even got to say hello. Gender-role convention: the latest addition to the category of annoying political clichés and platitudes. Vikander is an actor in a spy fantasy movie, for heavens sake. I'm not going to take my daughter to it to show her she can work for the CIA... that date might be saved for Zero Dark Thirty, which I can guarantee you wouldn't interest her now. She's really smart. I bought her a Carnegie-Mellon robot kit to spend the summer with. She put the robot together in an hour, played with it for an afternoon and spent the rest of the summer knitting and reading girls books.
Here's a much better lead and way of dealing with Vikander and the movie, sans cliches:
"It is 8.15am, and Alicia Vikander – possibly the hottest young actress in the world right now – walks into a cafe near her home in north London and orders a coffee and chia porridge. She is 15 minutes early for our meeting..."
"Next month sees the delayed opening of her first blockbuster, Guy Ritchie's reworking of the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In this kind of film, we're used to female characters who exist solely to be the love interest, but Vikander's impossibly glamorous East German car mechanic is central to the action, while the bad guys are led by the equally glamorous Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki." Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-man-from-uncles-alicia-vikander-the-worlds-hottest-young-actress-20150805-girabt.html
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Ethnic Studies and Drunken Journalists
I agree with the Republic's Sunday (7/19/15) letter writer who says people who immigrate to the US need to abandon their foreign identities, just be Americans and learn to speak English. In that vein we need to immediately end all ethnic studies programs. We should start with the most egregious and widespread of these. We need to stop force feeding English literature to our public school children. For Heaven's sake Beowulf, and Shakespeare aren't even written in language that anyone speaks anymore.
The Divil made me say this... as my Gaelic speaking grandmother used to say. Her oldest son won the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and two DFCs in separate actions during America's darkest hours of World War II. Her oldest daughter was one of the US Navy's first women officers. Her children earned her the right celebrate St. Patrick's Day and speak any damn language she wanted.
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The eminent journalist Russell Baker of Pulitzer Prize and NY Times fame also once opined that "We should all stop parading [ethnic heritage] and just all be Americans." His column on this thought appeared while Baker was hosting the BBC's Masterpiece Theatre on US public television. His introduction was accompanied by imagery primarily of British icons including Union Jack flags and RAF Spitfire model aircraft. The background behind Mr. Baker during his introduction included the Union Jack flag of Britain's United Kingdom.
Baker like my uncle was a Navy aviator, but Baker was barely able to make it out of flight school. He managed to calm his nerves to pass his last chance flight test by spending a night with a prostitute, but claimed he was too drunk to perform (the "I didn't inhale defense"), confessed in his Pulitzer Prize wining autobiography, Growing Up.
The Divil made me say this... as my Gaelic speaking grandmother used to say. Her oldest son won the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and two DFCs in separate actions during America's darkest hours of World War II. Her oldest daughter was one of the US Navy's first women officers. Her children earned her the right celebrate St. Patrick's Day and speak any damn language she wanted.
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The eminent journalist Russell Baker of Pulitzer Prize and NY Times fame also once opined that "We should all stop parading [ethnic heritage] and just all be Americans." His column on this thought appeared while Baker was hosting the BBC's Masterpiece Theatre on US public television. His introduction was accompanied by imagery primarily of British icons including Union Jack flags and RAF Spitfire model aircraft. The background behind Mr. Baker during his introduction included the Union Jack flag of Britain's United Kingdom.
Baker like my uncle was a Navy aviator, but Baker was barely able to make it out of flight school. He managed to calm his nerves to pass his last chance flight test by spending a night with a prostitute, but claimed he was too drunk to perform (the "I didn't inhale defense"), confessed in his Pulitzer Prize wining autobiography, Growing Up.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Trumped: The Republic's Irish Problems
There's nothing like the drunk of the Irish.
Oh, wait. That's supposed to be "luck."
Well, never mind. A little drunken Irish bull will cover any mistake.
-- Linda Valdez, Editorial Writer, Arizona Republic, 3/17/2015
If you want an example of "progressive" hypocrisy, look no farther than the recent Clarence Page column published in the Arizona Republic/AZ Central (5/10/2015), denouncing "professional Muslim-baiter Pamela Geller." Page condemns Geller and others who "unfortunately think that the best way to respond to the intolerance of Muslim fanatics is to insult all Muslims." Unfortunately, Ms. Geller is just taking a page from the same playbook Mr. Page uses. Back on St. Patrick's Day some years ago in an essay published by the Arizona Republic, Mr. Page condemned all the Irish for the alleged sins of Irish gangs who formed "across the country to chase black workers away from the jobs on the next rung up the American success ladder." It's highly dubious that the America's small Irish minority was responsible for segregation and slavery in America, but Mr. Page playing the collective guilt card was especially egregious. And in light of his thoughts on Geller, especially hypocritical.
* * * * *
Mr. Page's Irish column was published in the Chicago Tribune, the Arizona Republic and other newspapers to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in 1998.
For a fair and balanced history of the American freedom in the US, see Pulitzer Prize-winning Eric Foner's:
The Story of American Freedom
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Also informative on who did what to whom:
The Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-society-for-diffusion-of-political.html
Ivy League Confederates
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/05/ivy-league-confederates-harvard-and.html
New York's Passion Play
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-york-citys-passion-play.html
The Assassination of Father Coyle
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-assassination-of-father-james-coyle.html
New York's Soldiers' Monuments
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-york-citys-soldiers-monuments.html
The Union's Irish Soldiers and Sailors
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-unions-irish-soldiers-and-sailors.html
Oh, wait. That's supposed to be "luck."
Well, never mind. A little drunken Irish bull will cover any mistake.
-- Linda Valdez, Editorial Writer, Arizona Republic, 3/17/2015
If you want an example of "progressive" hypocrisy, look no farther than the recent Clarence Page column published in the Arizona Republic/AZ Central (5/10/2015), denouncing "professional Muslim-baiter Pamela Geller." Page condemns Geller and others who "unfortunately think that the best way to respond to the intolerance of Muslim fanatics is to insult all Muslims." Unfortunately, Ms. Geller is just taking a page from the same playbook Mr. Page uses. Back on St. Patrick's Day some years ago in an essay published by the Arizona Republic, Mr. Page condemned all the Irish for the alleged sins of Irish gangs who formed "across the country to chase black workers away from the jobs on the next rung up the American success ladder." It's highly dubious that the America's small Irish minority was responsible for segregation and slavery in America, but Mr. Page playing the collective guilt card was especially egregious. And in light of his thoughts on Geller, especially hypocritical.
* * * * *
To date the Editorial and Opinion editors of the Arizona Republic, Phil Boas and Robert Leger, in keeping with the newspaper's ongoing Irish problem, have refused to print any complaint about or an apology for Mr. Page's hypocrisy.
Mr. Page's has refused to apologize for his collective guilt remarks, responding abusively to those who raise the issue, in a noble American tradition:
For a fair and balanced history of the American freedom in the US, see Pulitzer Prize-winning Eric Foner's:
The Story of American Freedom
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Also informative on who did what to whom:
The Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-society-for-diffusion-of-political.html
Ivy League Confederates
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/05/ivy-league-confederates-harvard-and.html
New York's Passion Play
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-york-citys-passion-play.html
The Assassination of Father Coyle
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-assassination-of-father-james-coyle.html
New York's Soldiers' Monuments
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-york-citys-soldiers-monuments.html
The Union's Irish Soldiers and Sailors
http://hidden-civil-war.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-unions-irish-soldiers-and-sailors.html
Friday, July 3, 2015
Reddit and Popular Cliches
Reddit’s Ellen Pao and Alexis Ohanian Explain Site Shut Down
http://time.com/3945718/reddit-moderator-shut-down/
How many currently popular clichés appear in Reddit's response. Here's three:
"I want to apologize to our community..." If you want to apologize to your community, why don't you just apologize.
“We handled the transition in a way..."
"we should have done a better job..."
http://time.com/3945718/reddit-moderator-shut-down/
How many currently popular clichés appear in Reddit's response. Here's three:
"I want to apologize to our community..." If you want to apologize to your community, why don't you just apologize.
“We handled the transition in a way..."
"we should have done a better job..."
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Drunken Journalists and the Light Rail
Help Phoenix SPJ congratulate Robert Leger on the Wells Memorial Key
"For his devotion to its principles and mission, Robert Leger [famous for his defense of the Republic's drunken Irish St. Patrick's Day quip - 3/2015] was honored by the Society of Professional Journalists with its highest honor: the Wells Memorial Key!
The Valley of the Sun chapter of SPJ invites members to quaff a few cold brews in Robert’s honor at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9 (that’s tonight!), at Angels Trumpet Ale House, 810 N. Second St. in downtown Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row Art District."
http://phoenixspj.org/2012/10/09/help-phoenix-spj-congratulate-robert-leger-on-the-wells-memorial-key/
Angels Trumpet Ale House is famous as the destination bar for Phoenix's notorious "No Pants Light Rail Ride." When asked about riding downtown on the light rail, my 12-year-old daughter says, "No Thanks. It's too creepy." No wonder.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/no-pants-light-rail-ride-a-field-guide-to-sundays-event-in-phoenix-6561401
The Valley of the Sun chapter of SPJ invites members to quaff a few cold brews in Robert’s honor at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9 (that’s tonight!), at Angels Trumpet Ale House, 810 N. Second St. in downtown Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row Art District."
http://phoenixspj.org/2012/10/09/help-phoenix-spj-congratulate-robert-leger-on-the-wells-memorial-key/
Angels Trumpet Ale House is famous as the destination bar for Phoenix's notorious "No Pants Light Rail Ride." When asked about riding downtown on the light rail, my 12-year-old daughter says, "No Thanks. It's too creepy." No wonder.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/no-pants-light-rail-ride-a-field-guide-to-sundays-event-in-phoenix-6561401
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Kristof Does Brian Williams
"That's me interviewing rebels in Sudan's Nuba Mountains. In my newsletter, I talk a bit about the challenges of reporting in a place with no electricity, phones, flights or taxis--as the government is dropping bombs on you." - Nicholas Kristof
Mr. Kristof shouldn't be suggesting he's having bombs dropped on him if that hasn't actually happened. A reporter should not say that he's being bombed because somewhere in the country he's in a bomb, which he's never even seen, has been dropped...allegedly. Brian Williams got fired for indulging in this sort of malarkey. Is there any proof that Kristof has had bombs dropped on him?
Mr. Kristof shouldn't be suggesting he's having bombs dropped on him if that hasn't actually happened. A reporter should not say that he's being bombed because somewhere in the country he's in a bomb, which he's never even seen, has been dropped...allegedly. Brian Williams got fired for indulging in this sort of malarkey. Is there any proof that Kristof has had bombs dropped on him?
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Is the Pope is a Red Diaper Baby
‘Jai Mahakali, Ayo Gorkhali!’
So much for Papal infallibility. According to the NY Times (6/21/2015), the Pope thinks the great powers did nil to stop the Holocaust. Seriously? How did the Pope miss the horrific fighting that went on in WWII and the reasons the fighting started. England, France, Poland and the US suffered 4,000,000 casualties fighting the Axis. The US alone had a million casualties.
In August, 1943, the first long-range bombing raid into central Europe, hundreds of miles south of Auschwitz, was a military disaster for the US. Flying out of recently captured airfields in North Africa 177 B-24 heavy bombers attacked the Ploesti oil refineries -- a 2,000 mile round trip, at the extreme limit of the bombers' capability. The Germans shot down 54 bombers with the loss of over 600 crewmen. Another 53 aircraft were heavily damaged. The US raid caused minimal damage to the oil refinery. The US never again attempted a low level mission against German air defenses, and concentrated its bombing campaign on closer more vulnerable strategic targets in central Germany and in support of the offensive in France where air power was needed to pin down German reinforcements and negate German superiority in armored weaponry.
England and France went to war with Germany to stop the German takeover in Poland. This was actually years before Auschwitz went into operation. The US, which in fact had virtually no army in 1939, began its undeclared war against Germany in support of Britain in 1940. In July of 1941, a US fleet and marines took over the occupation of Danish Iceland, freeing 25,000 British troops to fight in North Africa, equipped with American tanks and artillery. Severe US sanctions against Japan, levied to stop Japanese aggression in China, and US military aid to China, including the famous flying Tiger airmen, resulted in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and formal entry of the US into WWII. All through 1940 and 1941, the United States undertook an immense mobilization, creating from virtually nothing an Army and Navy capable of defeating the Axis. It wasn't until the second half of 1943 that the US was able to begin deploying the results of this astonishing industrial mobilization. The revolutionary long-range P-51 fighter wasn't deployed against the Luftwaffe over Germany until the winter of 1943-44, making a strategic bombing campaign against the German heartland militarily feasible. At that, strategic bombing was still so inaccurate that thousands of bombs had to be dropped to destroy important targets.
The real villain in this tragedy was the Soviet Union, which allied with Germany to carve up Poland. If the Soviet Union hadn't undercut England, France and Poland at the beginning of WWII, millions of lives would have been saved. Indeed even after the Soviet Union ended up on the Allies side, they halted their armies at the gates of Auschwitz for months and in close proximity to the death camp dropped not a bomb on it to stop the Nazis. The red diaper babies, of course, don't want to hear any of this. Not only was the Soviet Union an ally of Hitler in the division of Poland, but the Communist front organizations in the West, at the direction of Stalin, opposed US and Britain going to war over Poland. Among the Left's anti-war crowd: Bertrand Russell, the American Communist Party, and Pete Seeger, famous for the anti-war song Plow Under [Every fourth American boy].
"I will argue that if the Germans succeeded in sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them quarters, and invite the Commander in Chief to dine with the Prime Minister. Such behaviour would completely baffle them." -- Bertrand Russell
Who'd have thought the Pope is a red diaper baby.
By the way, doesn't the Pope care about the millions and millions of Chinese the Japanese killed during WWII.
Of course, after its perfidy in Poland, helping Hitler start World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union mounted a massive resistance when Hitler turned on his ally, aided by immense quantities of munitions, tanks, artillery, truck and aircraft from the United States. Indirectly at the very least the Red Army offensive that reached the gates of Auschwitz in late 1944 ended its operations. Nazi leader Himmler ordered extermination operations ended in November of 1944, as the Red Army approached. When Auschwitz was evacuated in January of 1945, the Allies offensive had so degraded Germany's transportation system that the Auschwitz inmates were marched to Germany by foot. 20,000 survived the march and were liberated by the British in the spring of 1945.
So much for Papal infallibility. According to the NY Times (6/21/2015), the Pope thinks the great powers did nil to stop the Holocaust. Seriously? How did the Pope miss the horrific fighting that went on in WWII and the reasons the fighting started. England, France, Poland and the US suffered 4,000,000 casualties fighting the Axis. The US alone had a million casualties.
In August, 1943, the first long-range bombing raid into central Europe, hundreds of miles south of Auschwitz, was a military disaster for the US. Flying out of recently captured airfields in North Africa 177 B-24 heavy bombers attacked the Ploesti oil refineries -- a 2,000 mile round trip, at the extreme limit of the bombers' capability. The Germans shot down 54 bombers with the loss of over 600 crewmen. Another 53 aircraft were heavily damaged. The US raid caused minimal damage to the oil refinery. The US never again attempted a low level mission against German air defenses, and concentrated its bombing campaign on closer more vulnerable strategic targets in central Germany and in support of the offensive in France where air power was needed to pin down German reinforcements and negate German superiority in armored weaponry.
England and France went to war with Germany to stop the German takeover in Poland. This was actually years before Auschwitz went into operation. The US, which in fact had virtually no army in 1939, began its undeclared war against Germany in support of Britain in 1940. In July of 1941, a US fleet and marines took over the occupation of Danish Iceland, freeing 25,000 British troops to fight in North Africa, equipped with American tanks and artillery. Severe US sanctions against Japan, levied to stop Japanese aggression in China, and US military aid to China, including the famous flying Tiger airmen, resulted in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and formal entry of the US into WWII. All through 1940 and 1941, the United States undertook an immense mobilization, creating from virtually nothing an Army and Navy capable of defeating the Axis. It wasn't until the second half of 1943 that the US was able to begin deploying the results of this astonishing industrial mobilization. The revolutionary long-range P-51 fighter wasn't deployed against the Luftwaffe over Germany until the winter of 1943-44, making a strategic bombing campaign against the German heartland militarily feasible. At that, strategic bombing was still so inaccurate that thousands of bombs had to be dropped to destroy important targets.
The real villain in this tragedy was the Soviet Union, which allied with Germany to carve up Poland. If the Soviet Union hadn't undercut England, France and Poland at the beginning of WWII, millions of lives would have been saved. Indeed even after the Soviet Union ended up on the Allies side, they halted their armies at the gates of Auschwitz for months and in close proximity to the death camp dropped not a bomb on it to stop the Nazis. The red diaper babies, of course, don't want to hear any of this. Not only was the Soviet Union an ally of Hitler in the division of Poland, but the Communist front organizations in the West, at the direction of Stalin, opposed US and Britain going to war over Poland. Among the Left's anti-war crowd: Bertrand Russell, the American Communist Party, and Pete Seeger, famous for the anti-war song Plow Under [Every fourth American boy].
"I will argue that if the Germans succeeded in sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them quarters, and invite the Commander in Chief to dine with the Prime Minister. Such behaviour would completely baffle them." -- Bertrand Russell
Who'd have thought the Pope is a red diaper baby.
By the way, doesn't the Pope care about the millions and millions of Chinese the Japanese killed during WWII.
Of course, after its perfidy in Poland, helping Hitler start World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union mounted a massive resistance when Hitler turned on his ally, aided by immense quantities of munitions, tanks, artillery, truck and aircraft from the United States. Indirectly at the very least the Red Army offensive that reached the gates of Auschwitz in late 1944 ended its operations. Nazi leader Himmler ordered extermination operations ended in November of 1944, as the Red Army approached. When Auschwitz was evacuated in January of 1945, the Allies offensive had so degraded Germany's transportation system that the Auschwitz inmates were marched to Germany by foot. 20,000 survived the march and were liberated by the British in the spring of 1945.
In the North Atlantic, in North Africa, at Stalingrad, on the beaches of Normandy, at Imphal, at Midway and Guadalcanal, at Bataan and Shanghai, the Axis came very close to defeating the "great" powers. US Marines fixing their bayonets for their desperate stand in the darkness on Edson's ridge. Ammunition gone, Gurkhas unsheathing their Kukris, to continue the fight hand-to-hand at the gateway to India; the Gurkhas' martyrdom on Hangman's Hill at Monte Cassino. Russian peasant snipers crawling through the rubble into the German lines. US paratroopers surrounded at Bastogne saying "Nuts" to Nazi demands for surrender. Wave after wave of US aircraft continuing to attack the Japanese fleet at Midway, sacrificing themselves again and again to clear the way for the last desperate attack, which finally won the battle. Today, many, some maliciously, forget the desperate hours of WWII and those who sacrificed their lives to stop Hitler, Tojo and their genocidal agenda.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Misrepresenting Racial Identities
Regarding Rachel Dolezal misrepresenting her racial identity (New York Times, 6/17/2015), while Ms. Dolezal's behavior appears to be that of a disturbed person, it's really not so unusual. For 150 years the New York Times and many otherwise reliable historians have portrayed the victims of the 1863 draft riots as black. In fact, thanks to Adrian Cook's scholarly The Armies of the Streets, we have long, but very quietly known, that the overwhelming majority of the riot dead were white "rioters" and bystanders, a disturbing number of the dangerous rebels women and children. The motivations for changing the racial identities of the riots' dead give rise to very interesting questions that have yet to be answered. The failure of otherwise ethical journalists and historians to object to the distortion of the identifies of the dead raises questions, too.
Draft Riots Death Map (red = "rioter", green = bystander):
Draft Riots Death Map (red = "rioter", green = bystander):

Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Child Abuse: Steve Benson
It is very sad that the Arizona Republic and its Steve Benson have joined in the "Progressive" left's vilification of the Duggar family and their children. Not liking someone's religion and politics is no excuse for violating the privacy of juvenile police records, as has happened egregiously in the case of the Duggar children. This sets a precedent that many will regret, and underscores the hypocrisy of the "Progressive" left.
* * * * *
Steve Benson doesn't get to leave comments here to opinions that the Arizona Republic refused to publish.
Moreover, he doesn't get to say the identities of the juveniles including the girls were legally obtained when they weren't. In any event, a decent man would not have further violated the children's privacy under any circumstances.
* * * * *
Steve Benson doesn't get to leave comments here to opinions that the Arizona Republic refused to publish.
Moreover, he doesn't get to say the identities of the juveniles including the girls were legally obtained when they weren't. In any event, a decent man would not have further violated the children's privacy under any circumstances.
Monday, June 1, 2015
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - 2.0
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a propaganda device used by Imperial fascist Japan at the beginning of World War II. Japan claimed that it was promoting Asian unity and prosperity, but the propaganda was really cover for Japan's racist, fascist agenda of subordinating Asia, its peoples and resources to the Japanese.
"Noting the military usefulness of the islets China is constructing in the disputed Spratly Islands [of the South China Sea], Adm. Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army’s general staff, said they would mainly enable China to provide “international public services,” including maritime search and rescue, disaster relief, and scientific research."
-- Adm. Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of Staff People's Liberation Army, Red China
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-military-official-defends-island-building-in-south-china-sea-1433045698
Red China's aggressive island building within the internationally recognized exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, the Philippines and other Asia countries is reminiscent of the Imperial fascist Japan's aggression during World War II. Especially when fascist Red China's aggression is portrayed as a benevolent form of Asian brotherly love.
What is particularly galling about this is for Red China to treat the U.S. as an unwelcome interloper when the U.S. objects to Red Chinese aggression. The U.S. is China's biggest trading partner, and commerce with the U.S. has fueled Red China's era of immense economic progress. Moreover, while the U.S. has legitimate economic and trading interests in the Western Pacific, since the days when Europeans fought wars to force opium on China, the U.S. has been a guarantor of East Asian freedom.
The U.S. entered World War II as a result of protecting China from Japanese aggression. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was direct result of America providing military aid to China and enforcing severe economic sanctions on Japan. America fought a long and bloody war to drive Japan out of China and Southeast Asia, costly in lives and resources. After its defeat of Japan, the U.S. voluntarily withdrew from all of the lands and seas it had conquered and ordered the defeated Japanese to do the same. Japan, the Philippines and South Korea were all granted their independence along with many other island nations.
Red China showed its gratitude by waging war against America in Korea and Vietnam, when the U.S. had no other agenda than maintaining those countries as independent democracies. The economic transformation of Red China hasn't changed much. Instead of a Red China spreading its hegemony across Asia via Maoist revolution, Red China has transformed itself into a corporate socialist state: fascism and The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - 2.0.
"Noting the military usefulness of the islets China is constructing in the disputed Spratly Islands [of the South China Sea], Adm. Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army’s general staff, said they would mainly enable China to provide “international public services,” including maritime search and rescue, disaster relief, and scientific research."
-- Adm. Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of Staff People's Liberation Army, Red China
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-military-official-defends-island-building-in-south-china-sea-1433045698
Red China's aggressive island building within the internationally recognized exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, the Philippines and other Asia countries is reminiscent of the Imperial fascist Japan's aggression during World War II. Especially when fascist Red China's aggression is portrayed as a benevolent form of Asian brotherly love.
What is particularly galling about this is for Red China to treat the U.S. as an unwelcome interloper when the U.S. objects to Red Chinese aggression. The U.S. is China's biggest trading partner, and commerce with the U.S. has fueled Red China's era of immense economic progress. Moreover, while the U.S. has legitimate economic and trading interests in the Western Pacific, since the days when Europeans fought wars to force opium on China, the U.S. has been a guarantor of East Asian freedom.
The U.S. entered World War II as a result of protecting China from Japanese aggression. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was direct result of America providing military aid to China and enforcing severe economic sanctions on Japan. America fought a long and bloody war to drive Japan out of China and Southeast Asia, costly in lives and resources. After its defeat of Japan, the U.S. voluntarily withdrew from all of the lands and seas it had conquered and ordered the defeated Japanese to do the same. Japan, the Philippines and South Korea were all granted their independence along with many other island nations.
Red China showed its gratitude by waging war against America in Korea and Vietnam, when the U.S. had no other agenda than maintaining those countries as independent democracies. The economic transformation of Red China hasn't changed much. Instead of a Red China spreading its hegemony across Asia via Maoist revolution, Red China has transformed itself into a corporate socialist state: fascism and The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - 2.0.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Why Hillary?
The AZ Republic's Phil Boas in his Sunday quip (5/31) seems to be arguing that Hillary Clinton should be president because of her gender. Hope beyond hope, I'd like a candidate with a long and distinguished record of serving the country, e.g., a Colin Powell. Mrs. Clinton's long record consists primarily of being the victim in America's longest running, raunchy political soap opera. In the Senate she voted to invade Iraq. Her tenure as Secretary of State was marred by feckless U.S. intervention in the debacle once known as the Arab Spring. Her State Department legacy includes Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and wife of neocon historian Robert Kagan. Ms. Nuland is famous for handing our cookies to demonstrators who overthrew the Ukrainian government and saying "Fuck the EU" when asked about having the European Union mediate Ukraine's problems.
Quo vadis, Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Quo vadis, Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Immigration: What's the Right Number
Immigration: what's the right number? Something I've never seen or heard in our discussion of immigration is what's the right number. There is a limit to the number of immigrants U.S. infrastructure can sustain, e.g., educations and health care. Some level of immigration is good for the U.S. economy, but it also has contributed to our problem of "inequality." The U.S. Congress has set the annual allowance for immigration at about 1,000,000 (although the mechanism for figuring this is so complicated who knows what the real number is). Good or bad for the economy, the allowance set by the U.S. Congress is very generous compared to the rest of the world, especially considering that the U.S. does not limit immigration to highly skilled and educated, employable people as many other countries do.
Nevertheless, without even proposing a change to the immigration allowances set by Congress, "immigration" activists demand that people who have circumvented the U.S. immigration system be given legal status and allowed to remain in the country. Anyone who disagrees is committing a crime against humanity, even though what the activists propose is a 1,000 percent increase to the allowance set by the U.S. Congress. This is not a rational basis for compromise: it's just pawn shop bartering.
Nevertheless, without even proposing a change to the immigration allowances set by Congress, "immigration" activists demand that people who have circumvented the U.S. immigration system be given legal status and allowed to remain in the country. Anyone who disagrees is committing a crime against humanity, even though what the activists propose is a 1,000 percent increase to the allowance set by the U.S. Congress. This is not a rational basis for compromise: it's just pawn shop bartering.
What we need from immigration activists is a proposal on what the right annual immigration number is for the U.S. For example, if 1,000,000 a year immigrants is the right number, then we'd close the door to all other immigration for ten years to accommodate the 10,000,000 undocumented immigrants believed to be in the U.S. today.
Give us a reasonable solution and number, and tell us how states like Arizona and New Mexico would be compensated for the unequal impact on their health care, education and law enforcement infrastructure, if you want to make a deal.
Why Johnny and Jose Can't Read
Why can't Johnny and Jose read? It is very true that our teachers are the Few, the Proud and the Underpaid, the fearless Marines of education holding out against overwhelming odds. There is another problem, though. Our education establishment stubbornly, pigheadedly, insists on treating English as cultural legacy, not as a communication technology. Too much time is devoted to the usage of "like and as" and to ancient Anglo-Saxon literature like Pride and Prejudice and Beowulf. Picture some poor immigrant kid from Sudan trying to make sense out of Pride and Prejudice, a story about rich English people who don't work, or a kid from Sonora trying to comprehend Beowulf, which isn't even written in an English language that anyone uses anymore, for heaven's sake. The leftwing ethnic studies crowd hasn't provided a solution, either: they've just provided an alternative biased cultural lesson. Stop treating English as cultural legacy and a political cause, and start treating it as a communication technology we all need to learn to use.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Why I Cancelled My Times Subscription
Didactic journalism. There are too many sententious morality lessons in The Times, often where the author or a new friend is the hero. Too often the morality lessons lapse into outright falsehood to spice things up. The last straw was Michael Powell's story about leaving the glitz of Super Bowl Phoenix for the unspoiled high school basketball of the Navajo reservation: the Navajo kids, though small, play fast with unmatched intensity and for the pure joy of the game. This is a dubious opinion since there are plenty of big, six-foot Navajo basketball players, and the other white, brown and black youngsters playing basketball in Arizona are extremely fast and intense, if not joyful.
Where Mr. Powell egregiously went astray was when he claimed that the Navajo teams do well until they go down to the Valley to play the Christian schools, which recruit giant players with holy fervor. The problem with this is that the Navajo schools don't, in fact, play the Valley Christian schools, and recruiting is illegal in Arizona high school basketball. It might happen but it's the "big time", big-enrollment high schools that play in Division 1 and Division II that might be guilty. The Navajo schools are small schools that play in Division III. This year in the state tournament Navajo competitor Chinle High School lost to Palo Verde Magnet, a public school from the poverty stricken Tucson Unified School District. The Division III state championship was won by Snowflake, a small public high school not far from the Navajo reservation.
As far as purity goes, it's worth noting that the state final game was played at the Gila River Arena, home of the Arizona Coyotes hockey team, sponsored by the Gila River Casinos -- a group of gambling casinos controlled by the Gila River Indian Community. The Navajo operate four casinos on their reservation, but have yet to acquire naming rights for a major Arizona sports venue.
All of the above and the fact that David Pogue the best tech writer in the business doesn't work there anymore.
Where Mr. Powell egregiously went astray was when he claimed that the Navajo teams do well until they go down to the Valley to play the Christian schools, which recruit giant players with holy fervor. The problem with this is that the Navajo schools don't, in fact, play the Valley Christian schools, and recruiting is illegal in Arizona high school basketball. It might happen but it's the "big time", big-enrollment high schools that play in Division 1 and Division II that might be guilty. The Navajo schools are small schools that play in Division III. This year in the state tournament Navajo competitor Chinle High School lost to Palo Verde Magnet, a public school from the poverty stricken Tucson Unified School District. The Division III state championship was won by Snowflake, a small public high school not far from the Navajo reservation.
As far as purity goes, it's worth noting that the state final game was played at the Gila River Arena, home of the Arizona Coyotes hockey team, sponsored by the Gila River Casinos -- a group of gambling casinos controlled by the Gila River Indian Community. The Navajo operate four casinos on their reservation, but have yet to acquire naming rights for a major Arizona sports venue.
All of the above and the fact that David Pogue the best tech writer in the business doesn't work there anymore.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Hating your customers
Is it surprising that profits are down for "Progressive" journalism? Hating America, your customers, isn't a smart business model... but that's predictable for a business where the featured cartoonists have as much brains in their heads as a Seattle football coach faced with a goal line choice.

They don't even know who the football fans are... sorry I don't have an action picture of the Super Bowl fans going wild after the big interception. This will have to do...
http://holycross-and-clarencethomas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-usual-suspects.html
Even the Fairest fans of Marissa Meyer were really into it... at least through the Katy Perry halftime show.
They don't even know who the football fans are... sorry I don't have an action picture of the Super Bowl fans going wild after the big interception. This will have to do...
http://holycross-and-clarencethomas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-usual-suspects.html
Even the Fairest fans of Marissa Meyer were really into it... at least through the Katy Perry halftime show.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Gun Violence: Progressives in Denial
Where was Progressive outrage when Cordell Jude, a black man, gunned down an unarmed Daniel Adkins, a mentally disabled Hispanic, outside a Phoenix Taco Bell. Progressives are in denial. The police aren't the problem. There are too many guns and too much gun violence in our cities. As the CDC study shows young black men are almost 25 times more likely to be killed by a gun than young white men, and it's not the police who are doing the shooting.
The problem was summed up neatly in a documentary about urban farming (of all places) "Growing Cities" by a young black interviewee who observed that working on the urban farm in New Orleans saved him from the world of:
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Don't get caught without your gun."
You can reform the police all you want and fire the incompetents in the Cleveland police department. But you won't make life safer for young black men until you admit what the problem is and find a way to address it: too many guns, too many guns in the wrong hands. Unfortunately for our country and especially young black men neither the NRA on the right nor the "progressives" on the left will admit to what the problem is.
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/stats_at-a_glance/hr_male.html
The problem was summed up neatly in a documentary about urban farming (of all places) "Growing Cities" by a young black interviewee who observed that working on the urban farm in New Orleans saved him from the world of:
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Don't get caught without your gun."
You can reform the police all you want and fire the incompetents in the Cleveland police department. But you won't make life safer for young black men until you admit what the problem is and find a way to address it: too many guns, too many guns in the wrong hands. Unfortunately for our country and especially young black men neither the NRA on the right nor the "progressives" on the left will admit to what the problem is.
"We doing this shit from Cleveland to LA..." - Tupac
Homicide Rates Among Persons Ages 10–24 Years, by Race/Ethnicity and Sex, United States, 2010
Homicide Rates Among Persons Ages 10–24 Years, by Race/Ethnicity and Sex, United States, 2010
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/stats_at-a_glance/hr_male.html
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Benson: Truth in Advertising
Steve Benson, the thin-skinned Arizona Republic cartoonist, bristles if you address him as "young man," protesting that he's a grandfather. Maybe he's just lucky or uses "Just for Men" because his Arizona Republic picture features plenty of dark hair for a granddad. Judge for yourself and let Steve know what you think.
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