Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/24/2005 16:26 ||
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This is an enlargement of the lower right side of the dem-groupie's shirt, the last letters of "piece" "of" and "elephant". The alternating light and dark areas are shadows in shallow folds in the fabric. Note that the areas labeled "1" and "2" are indentical in apparent brightness, even though area "1" is in shadow and area "2". This effect, no apparent difference in brightness from shadowed to unshadowed areas, occurs throughout the lettering on the shirt.
While some of the letters are at varying angles, apparently following the contours of the shirt, not one of them is distorted by a change in contour within the letter. We can see from the surrounding areas of blue that there should be such changes of contour within the letters themselves. This is especially evident in the letter "a" in "are" at the beginning of the second line. This is crossed by an obvious fold but there is no distortion at all.
Here we go again. Maybe.
Some of the naysayers among us -- the hirsute dregs and burnt-out leftovers from the '60s and those who wish they were -- yearn for one more round of "Vietnam." There's a cult of wannabes among us who imagine that paradise will be one endless antiwar rally "for sex, drugs and revolution."
Others rally around the suicide craters of the war in Iraq as the focus of their hatred of George W. Bush. They don't necessarily have anything against the goal of making America safe from Islamist jihad, but they hate George W. more than they love their country. They endlessly pursue the loveless political orgasm. Dick Durbin, the goofy gnome of Illinois, comes to mind.
Still others only want attention, eager for the warmth of the spotlight and willing to settle for the shadow of others just to make the scene. Chuck Hagel, who wants to be John McCain when he grows up, comes to mind.
Chuck tells U.S. News & World Report magazine that he's confident that we're losing the war to make America safe from jihad, that things aren't getting better in Iraq, they're only getting worse. "The White House is completely disconnected from reality," he says. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along." Only Chuck is real.
Gallup says 6 in 10 Americans polled think it's time to start bringing the troops home, which is no surprise because Americans, to the everlasting credit to the home of the brave, don't like war. Abraham Lincoln learned that, and but for the gimmick of the Emancipation Proclamation (which was not really intended to free the slaves, and didn't), his war might have gone sour. Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson endured similar headaches. But large numbers of Americans also tell pollsters that they're not of a mind to cut and run, either. So go figure.
The Democrats and their acolytes in the media, a few old enough to remember and the others merely dreaming dreamy dreams, salivate at the prospect of monster antiwar parades down Pennsylvania Avenue, 1969 all over again. They're eager to crown Teddy, Chuck and Dick and their like-minded colleagues the heroes of the summer soldiers. They're terrified that the war in Iraq might actually end in success. Anyone who was in Vietnam knows this is bunk.
Douglas Wood, 64, an Australian engineer who was held by Islamist thugs in Iraq for seven weeks, does know what he's talking about. When the misbegotten legion of Allah held guns to his head he said, in a video message for George W.'s eyes, that the Americans ought to get out and leave Iraq to the tender mercies of the insurgents. Free at last, yesterday he told the world what he really thinks.
"Frankly, I'd like to apologize to both President Bush and Prime Minister [John] Howard [of Australia] for the things I said under duress. I actually believe that I am proof positive that the current policy of training the Iraqi army works, because it was the Iraqis who got me out."
A radio interviewer asked Don Rumsfeld the other day whether Chuck, Ted, Dick and the panicky old women of Washington are right, that all is lost. "On the political portion of it, that's obviously not the business of this department," he said, "but I can comment on it ... the election was held January 30. It took a number of weeks to put a government together. Not a number of years, but ... a group of people, with no experience in democracy at all, took a number of weeks ... a few months, to put together a government. ... This is amazing. This is historic. This is a gigantic step forward. This ought not to be dismissed or trivialized. This is a big deal. Can I guarantee anything in life? No, I can't. No one can. It's their country."
Our grandfathers, pressed down by the news of disasters from North Africa to the Philippines and all across the South Pacific in the winter of '42, would have cheered news like this as sent from heaven. But this is not your grandfather's country. What a bunch of spoiled brats we've become. We don't deserve the men and women we've sent to destroy the jihad.
US Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) represents the eastern half of the "thumb" of Michigan. And she has come up with a great idea: Changing the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution so that only citizens of the United States who can actually vote are counted for the purposes of Congressional apportionment.
The 14th Amendment is generally known as the "equal protection" Amendment as Section 1 states in part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States -- nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
But Rep. Miller's Amendment attaches to Section 2 which reads:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.
The effect of this language is that every ten years the Bureau of the Census counts everyone in residing in the United States - legally or illegally. The Census bureau then dutifully reports on how many "persons" are living here and where they are living. They then decide, based upon this number how the 435 Members of Congress get split up among the 50 states, apportioning them among the states. The problem arises because illegal aliens are "persons" for counting and apportionment purposes but, because they are in the US illegally, often find it inconvenient to cast votes in Federal elections.
Ms. Miller's resolution would change Amendment 14, Section 2 to read: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by counting the number of persons in each State who are citizens of the United States.
As of last this writing there are 23 co-sponsors of the resolution - none from California. Why? If apportionment is based upon citizens rather than persons then California would lose six seats. Texas, Florida and New York would lose one each.
Those nine Members of Congress would be re-distributed among the remaining states.
Here's why this is important. According to the CNN website recounting the results of the 2004 elections, there were 331,868 votes cast in the election in Michigan's 10th District (which is the eastern half of the Michigan "thumb"). Democrat Xavier Becerra won re-election in California's 31st District with only 110,411 votes. Why? Because there are so many illegal aliens in that portion of LA County who cannot vote.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/24/2005 07:28 ||
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How soon can we implement this? Good to see a strong idea coming out of my home state for a change. Gotta love the thumb.
#6
Good idea. And Good Luck! Wouldn't make much different here in Washington state where illegal aliens, felons, the dead and imaginary friends are allowed to Vote (so they would be counted even under this).
Max Boot
No wonder public support for the war is plummeting and finger-to-the-wind politicians are heading for the exits: All the headlines out of Iraq recently have been about the rebels' reign of terror. But, lest we build up the enemy into 10-foot-tall supermen, it's important to realize how weak they actually are. Most of the conditions that existed in previous wars won by guerrillas, from Algeria in the 1950s to Afghanistan in the 1980s, aren't present in Iraq.
The rebels lack a unifying organization, ideology and leader. There is no Iraqi Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro or Mao Tse-tung. The top militant is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has alienated most of the Iraqi population, even many Sunnis, with his indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Support for the insurgency is confined to a minority within a minority — a small portion of Sunni Arabs, who make up less than 20% of the population. The only prominent non-Sunni rebel, Muqtada Sadr, has quietly joined the political process. The 80% of the population that is Shiite and Kurdish is implacably opposed to the rebellion, which is why most of the terror has been confined to four of 18 provinces.
Unlike in successful guerrilla wars, the rebels in Iraq have not been able to control large chunks of "liberated" territory. The best they could do was to hold Fallouja for six months last year. Nor have they been able to stage successful large-scale attacks like the Viet Cong did. A major offensive against Abu Ghraib prison on April 2 ended without a single U.S. soldier killed or a single Iraqi prisoner freed, while an estimated 60 insurgents were slain.
The biggest weakness of the insurgency is that it is morphing from a war of national liberation into a revolutionary struggle against an elected government. That's a crucial difference. Since 1776, wars of national liberation have usually succeeded because nationalism is such a strong force. Revolutions against despots, from Czar Nicholas II to the shah of Iran, often succeed too, because there is no way to redress grievances within the political process. Successful uprisings against elected governments are much rarer because leaders with political legitimacy can more easily rally the population and accommodate aggrieved elements.
Look at Sri Lanka, the Philippines, El Salvador or Colombia, all fragile democracies that have endured major uprisings that recruited a larger percentage of the population and controlled more territory than the Iraqi rebels — without winning. Other democracies, such as Israel, Turkey and Britain, have also survived brutal insurgencies.
This does not mean that the Iraqi uprising will be quickly or easily defeated. Although most guerrilla movements fail in a democracy, a few thousand or even a few hundred dedicated killers can set off bombs indefinitely. And even if the Iraqi insurgents can't take over the entire country, they might be able to carve out a jihadist mini-state or spark all-out civil war.
The coalition military forces cannot hope to achieve a military victory in the near future. All they can do is provide breathing space for local institutions to take root so Iraqis can take over the fight for their own freedom.
So far, progress has been rapid on the political front and not-so-rapid in the deployment of security forces, which the coalition didn't emphasize until last year. We are finally seeing the emergence of some impressive Iraqi units, such as the Wolf Brigade commandos, who pursue insurgents all over the country, and the 302nd National Guard Battalion, which has pacified Haifa Street, a onetime insurgent stronghold in Baghdad.
The biggest advantage the insurgents still have, aside from their total disdain for human life, is that they can get reinforcements from abroad to make up for their heavy losses. The coalition needs to do a better job of policing the Syrian border and pressuring Damascus to crack down on the influx of jihadis.
But even if the border gets sealed, pacifying Iraq will be a long, hard slog that will ultimately be up to the Iraqis. The U.S. needs to show a little patience. If we don't cut and run prematurely, Iraqi democracy can survive its birth pangs.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
