The pilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb, has died. He lived a good long life, he was 92 when he died. Unfortunately for him when he followed his nation’s orders he made himself one of the biggest targets of the anti-war left ever. In death he feared that he was going to become a target of protesters and vandalism. So he decided to make one more sacrifice for his country and requested that he be buried without a gravestone so that there wouldn’t a rallying cry for leftist agitation. God willing I hope this man is now safely in Heaven, where he belongs.
Torre is a Dodger. Maybe Mattingly will tag along to get some more seasoning under the tutelage of one of the greatest managers ever.
It is a sad fact about the country we live in that the President of the United States has to remind his opposition that we are still at war.
President Bush compared Congress’ Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.
Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks by: dragging out and possibly jeopardizing confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programs.
“Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation. “This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader. … It’s no time for Congress to weaken our ability to intercept information from terrorists about potential attacks on the United States of America. And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaida terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
This is absolutely true and my only regret is that he has waited so long to make this point. He needs to be out there every day explaining the progress that we are making in the War on Terror so that the population won’t get lackadaisical and allow the democrats to succeed in surrendering. That is their aim. They are going to push for higher taxes “to pay for the war”, they are going to highlight any setbacks on the war front, they are going to continue to undermine any and all progress we make in Iraq and elsewhere because they think that is their best chance for election.
One area where they are putting a full court press on Bush’s prosecution of this war is with the President’s nomination of Mukasey for AG. The democrats have been asking ridiculous questions about confidential information regarding the techniques we are using to get information from the terrorists. If the president isn’t even allowed to decide how best to fight this war how on Earth are we expected to make any serious gains? Forceful questioning of men who would gladly die to kill twenty children at school won’t keep me up at night. Making them think they’re within a camel’s whisker of drowning seems fitting to me. Especially when that fear leads to actionable intelligence that is used to save civilians and our military men and women.
One of the biggest fronts in the War on Terror that could possibly catch on fire is with Iran. They are already supplying Shiite militias with EFPs, explosively formed penetrators, that have been used to destabilize Iraq and kill our soldiers. But are things changing for the better with Iran? According to Reuters we are seeing a downward trend in the number of these troop killers coming into Iraq. What could have caused this?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Iraqis that were working to undermine democracy have been changing their minds in droves in recent months. The Sunnis have rejected al Qaeda and now maybe the Shiites are rejecting Iran. This would be some really great news if this were the reason why violence has come down and I do think that this has a big thing to do with the reduction of arms coming in from Iran’s Quds Force.
But I think that the main reason why the Iranians have changed their stripes dates back to the Israeli’s strike deep within Syria that took at a nascent nuclear weapons facility. This show of force definitely did not go unnoticed by the Iranians because Syria is their terrorist baby brother. Couple this capability with the escalating threats from America, i.e. President Bush and his administration, and you have a docile thugocracy. My guess is that they are biding their time so they can either affect the presidential election next year or wait until Ms. Clinton ascends to the presidency to renew their demonic mission.
Or they could just decide to continue to fight their wars with proxies like Hezbollah. AP is reporting this:
Israel alleges that Hezbollah militants in Lebanon have rearmed with new long-range rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv and tripled their arsenal of land-to-sea missiles since last summer’s war, the United Nations secretary-general said in a report Wednesday.
This is Iran’s MO; they fund terrorist groups to do their dirty work. Hezbollah and the rest spin their web of destruction all the while destabilizing the Middle East expanding the reach of Iran’s power. It is a brilliant gambit by the Iranians because they have many compliant Westerners who are more willing to blame America before they even think of putting down the messianic terroristas. Even if one of the useful idiot’s family members dies they will eventually come back to the flock and blame imperialistic America for pushing these poor goat herders into their horrible situation in the first place. If we would have more forcefully supported the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the one that we all hoped was a harbinger of greater democracy in the region, maybe Israel and the other democracies in the region wouldn’t be in such a perilous position.
Enough about apocalyptic predictions surrounding the eternal hot spot that is the Middle East, let’s talk about something more cheery like subsidies for big farm. YEAH!
Victor David Hanson, the agrarian classicist, has a piece out today called Please, Not Another Farm Bill. Here’s the most important part:
The farm subsidy program currently in place pays out over $7 billion directly to larger farmers for a few select crops like corn, cotton, rice, soy and wheat. But it pays nothing to most other — often smaller — farmers of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet the former group of farmers is hardly in more need of welfare than the latter. And soy or rice isn’t more critical to the American diet than fresh fruit and vegetables.
Federal farm bills originated in Depression-era America when commodity prices crashed, forcing tens of millions of bankrupt small farmers to turn to the federal government to survive.
But that’s ancient history. Today’s corporate farm is about as similar to a 1930s homestead as a massive air-conditioned tractor combine is to a team of horses.
In the last two years, both farmland and produce prices have soared. They are likely to remain high as newly affluent populations in India, China and much of Asia have the cash to import American food on a massive scale.
These farm giveaway bills are always justified by promising to ensure Americans inexpensive food, the survival of family farmers, and national agricultural independence. But the opposite has occurred. Consumer food prices are rising each year. There have never been fewer family farmers. And in terms of gross sales, the nation is importing almost as much food as it exports.
I don’t like any subsidies. But I especially don’t like the ones that are given out to the most able among us. One of the biggest mistakes I think we make is giving subsidies out to companies because it significantly increases the prices we pay for the subsidized goods. Sugar, for example, is significantly subsidized and, if I remember correctly, quadruples the price we pay for it. Take away subsidies and allow countries to specialize in what they do best (i.e. effectively, efficiently, which means cheaply) and everyone will be better off.
Yesterday everyone was better off who was in the stock market. Nary a word was uttered about it though. Today the opposite is true for both how well everyone faired in the market and the amount of words spoken about it. I have four stories highlighted that deals with this but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. See, the market fluctuates everyday. And going down a couple percentage points doesn’t mean that much. Neither does an increase of a couple points. I think that there are a lot of people who want to see the market take a tumble. The liberals want it to tumble because it would improve their election outlook, foreigners want it to tumble because it would improve the democrat’s election outlook, and our enemies want it to to tumble because it would improve the democrat’s election outlook. So here are the links in rapid fire: STOCKS TUMBLE, OIL AND GOLD FALL, BANKS EARNINGS DOWN, and FED PUMPS $41 BILLION INTO ECONOMY! AHHHHHHHHHHH!
BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Iran’s economy is too liquid, must be some of the fluid in Ahmadinejad’s head sloshing around.
Venezuelan students clash with police because Hugo is just too good to them.
More buttressing of Hillary at NY Times.
Mom gets hit called out on her because she wasn’t generous enough for son’s liking.
I’m not one of the most influential conservatives, sigh.
BigT
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