#1
I love your titles, Zenster! Sure, fasting must be rough, but coming up with a pork recipe and a grabby title every day for a month sure is a bitch!
1-2 Pounds Boneless Veal or Pork Cutlets (center cut loin pork chops are good)
2 Large Eggs
1-2 Cups Fresh White Breadcrumbs (crusts removed)
½ -1 Stick Butter
1-2 TBS Water
½ -1 Cup White flour
½ TSP Salt
¼ - ½ TSP Ground white pepper
1 Lemon
Optional:
Non-Pareil Capers
Preparation:
Bring the meat and eggs to room temperature. Mix the flour, salt and white pepper. Pound the chops or cutlets with a tenderizing hammer. For thick cuts, use the serrated face. For thinner pieces, use the flat face or side of the hammer. If cobbling together small pieces, fold into cling wrap and use gentle blows with the hammers smooth face to join them together. The final portions should be about the size of your hand and one quarter of an inch thick.
Dredge both sides of the cutlets in the flour mixture and place them on waxed paper to rest. Remove all crusts from the white bread (2 slices per serving) and use a food processor to shred into them into medium size crumbs. Have the breadcrumbs ready in their own pie tin or shallow plate. Dredge the cutlets in the flour mixture for a second time. Break the eggs into another pie plate, add the water and beat until creamy. Dredge the cutlets a third time and allow to rest for at least five minutes before proceding.
Take each cutlet and drag it through the egg wash before coating it with the breadcrumbs. Lay the egg-washed cutlet onto the breadcrumbs and scatter more of them across the upturned face. Gently press them into the flour and egg paste, making sure to coat the edges as well. Build up a substantial layer of the crumbs on each cutlet. Lay each coated portion aside on the wax paper and allow them to rest for at least ten to fifteen minutes. This is critical in order to let the coating adhere properly so it does not break up while frying.
While the cutlets finish resting, preheat a large skillet over low heat. Melt half the butter in the pan and wait for it to begin foaming. Temporarily raise the heat to high so the pan does not cool off when introducing the meat. Place the cutlets in the pan and continue until all of the cutlets are frying. Gently move each one slightly back and forth as you place them in the pan to assure that they do not stick down.
Decrease the heat to medium-low. Watch closely to avoid scorching the meat. Turn each cutlet only once as soon as it is a golden brown underneath. Add more butter as needed. Finish frying them and place each one on a platter covered with paper towels to drain and rest for three minutes. Garnishing with wedges of lemon. Capers may also be served with this dish.
Notes: The German word schnitzel means cutlet or also shred. This refers to how a single portion can actually be made out of several small pieces or shreds of meat. While tenderizing the meat, individual pieces can be smeared together with the hammer and formed into one large serving.
Fresh breadcrumbs are the secret to this fabulous Austrian dish. Unlike regular dried crumbs, they will not absorb as much grease and tend to yield a much lighter crust.
5-10 Peeled and Parboiled Potatoes
1-3 Yellow Onions (minced fine)
½ Pound of Cooked Ham
½ - 1 Stick Butter
¼ - ½ Tsp Ground Black Pepper
Salt to taste
Options:
Shredded or minced leftover beef is also traditional
Grated Monterey Jack or Tilsit
Preparation:
While warming a large skillet over low heat chop the potatoes into very small dice. Melt butter in the pan and add the potatoes. Increase the heat to medium low and cut the onions into small dice, then and add to the pan. Cube the ham and add after the onions have become soft and transparent. Add salt and pepper to taste and continue cooking the mixture. Add extra butter if the pan dries out and avoid stirring the pan too much. Let a nice crust form and try to turn over the pans contents in only one or two pieces. The hash is finished when the potatoes are browned.
If desired, garnish with the grated cheese and top with poached or fried eggs.
Note: This dish is a great way to use all types of leftover meats.
10-15 Peeled and Parboiled Red or White Potatoes
1 Cup Sauerkraut (drained)
½ -1 Pound of Smoked Bratwurst or Polish Sausage (sliced into coins)
½ - 1 Stick Butter
¼ - ½ Tsp Ground Black Pepper
Salt to taste
Preparation:
While warming a large skillet over low heat, slice the potatoes into large coins. Melt butter in the pan and add the potatoes. Increase the heat to medium low and cut the sausages into coins, then and add them to the pan. Drain the sauerkraut and wring it out in a tea towel or layers of paper towels. Once the meat has begun to brown, stir in the sauerkraut with the potatoes and sausage. Add salt and pepper to taste and continue cooking the mixture. Add extra butter if the pan dries out and avoid stirring the pan too much. Let a nice crust form and try to turn over the pans contents in only one or two pieces. The hash is finished when the potatoes are browned.
The furor over Kim Jong Ils missile tests and nuclear brinksmanship obscures the real threat: the prospect of North Koreas catastrophic collapse. How the regime ends could determine the balance of power in Asia for decades. The likely winner? China More
#1
"Andrei Lankov, a professor of history at South Koreas Kookmin University, in Seoul, says that under different circumstances Kim might have actually become the successful Hollywood film producer that regime propaganda claims he already is."
Only a man who has never seen "Pulgasari" could write these words.
#2
Army Special Forces Colonel David Maxwell told me. On one day, a semi-starving population of 23 million people would be Kim Jong Ils responsibility; on the next, it would be the U.S. militarys, which would have to work out an arrangement with the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (among others) about how to manage the crisis. --
The Chicoms can't feed their people now, why is it ours instead of the SorKs?
The El Lay Times has hosed it by allowing this OpEd piece, lol. The Official Dhimmi Line is that Bush didn't talk enough - and now it's Dire Something or Other that he must immediately begin jabbering and appointing envoys and raiding the cookie jar to soothe Kimmie's Savage Breast. Something like that - as with all Dhimmi Memes, it's a work in progress. This piece sorta rocks, heh. Kim Jong Il may think he's earned respect by testing a nuke; Bush needs to show him he's earned the top spot on Washington's hit list.
After pursuing atomic weaponry for the better part of a generation, it now appears that North Korea has finally clawed its way into the "nuclear club." And that means that the global strategic game has changed forever. North Korea, which was barely tolerable to the major Asian powers back when it was merely a potential troublemaker, is now a real and present danger. The time for negotiations is over. Now it's about containment and deterrence.
Assuming Monday's underground explosion is deemed to have been a successful nuclear test, North Korea is now the world's ninth nuclear power. Although its leaders may think that translates automatically into regional strength and increased global respect, it's time to show them what they've really won: unflinching international scrutiny and a spot at the top of Washington's list of nuclear targets.
Kim Jong Il has entered a new era, one in which his pattern of brinksmanship, instead of extracting aid from his neighbors, risks provoking a nuclear holocaust. It is critical that Washington and other powers make crystal clear the responsibilities that come with North Korea's decision: A nuclear power must not bluff, must not provoke and must not make threats lightly. In contrast to the ambiguous behavior and bellicose rhetoric they've displayed in the past, North Korean leaders must now avoid steps that could lead to miscalculation and unintentional conflict.
As long as Pyongyang's weapons capability was in doubt, the world could avoid answering the tough questions: Can we really live with a nuclear North Korea? How can we deter a country we don't really understand?
The United States must ensure that North Korea's leaders understand the full force of our commitment to defend our Asian allies. President Bush's statement that the United States will hold North Korea accountable for its actions is a good first step. However, it took the United States years of face-to-face talks with the Soviet Union and China to work out a stable relationship based on mutual deterrence. Washington will have to find ways to ensure that Pyongyang does not overreach or miscalculate with its nuclear capability.
However distasteful the Bush administration finds direct talks with North Korea, the president should nonetheless dispatch a personal envoy to Pyongyang with a clear message: Any attempt to use its nuclear arsenal offensively will bring immediate, disastrous and possibly nuclear consequences. Further, Kim needs to understand that any future North Korean missile tests that are not announced or that are aimed at or over U.S., South Korean or Japanese territory might warrant a U.S. nuclear response. That's because it would be impossible for any American leader to be sure that such "tests" were not the first signs of a nuclear attack.
This envoy would not be empowered to negotiate. The six-party talks were moribund before and should be declared dead. The envoy's job would be merely to deliver an unambiguous, sober message about Pyongyang's new responsibilities. The Bush administration will undoubtedly try to step up the economic and political pressure on Pyongyang to disarm. But the naval blockade that it is contemplating is unlikely to succeed either in forcing North Korea to reverse course or in preventing it from exporting its nuclear weapons should it choose to do so.
Fortunately, the fear that Pyongyang will try to export its nuclear weapons is not terribly realistic. Although it's true that North Korea has sold missiles to Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Yemen, it's unlikely Kim would be rash enough to sell his nuclear jewels to the highest bidder, knowing that the world could trace any nuclear bomb back to him by its radioactive signature. Just in case, however, the envoy should make clear that any export of nuclear weapons or materials would force the United States to reevaluate whether attacking North Korea, however horrific, would be preferable to allowing it to proliferate.
Other financial sanctions against North Korea may be in the offing, but China is now even less likely to risk the collapse of a nuclear North Korea, for fear that the weapons might fall into the hands of North Korean military elements that are even less responsive to Chinese interests than Kim is.
Having watched the U.S. accept China, India and Pakistan as nuclear powers, Kim probably reasons that he will eventually be an accepted and respected member of the nuclear club if only he waits long enough. (Tehran's calculations are probably the same.) But he might be whistling past the graveyard. China and India are each a billion people strong too big to ignore or antagonize. Pakistan, while smaller, is only accepted because it's seen by Bush as indispensable to the global war on terrorism. Had Al Qaeda never attacked the U.S., Pakistan might well be high on the list of states deemed ripe by the Bush administration for regime change though its nuclear weapons would have forestalled a U.S. invasion.
Pyongyang enjoys no such clout. It's an economic basket case; no American businesses are panting to get in, and even South Koreans will be forced to rethink their engagement policies. The only interest the world can have now with North Korea is in avoiding Armageddon.
#1
We need to accelerate our withdrawal of ground forces from SK.
Ideally, we can get Japan on board for whatever we need to do after that. The election of Abe as new PM is a good sign.
If the regime does not fall due to sanctions and whatever else we are doing to them behind the scenes (interdiction of exports, blocking of financial transactions, etc.)we need to start bombing regime and WMD targets in NK. It is critical to demonstrate that we are not deterred by Kimmies nukes.
SK is now essentially allied with NK and we need to start viewing them as an adversary. The biggest flaw in much of the post-test analysis is the idea that they are our allies.
SK become spoiled under the US security umbrella. If not for the US military, those ingrates would be eating grass soup right now with their Northern brethren. However, nationalism and the leftward policy drift that comes with outsourcing security to the US military (see western Europe) plus a uniquely Korean level of selfishness (unlike the Germans, they have no interest in funding reunification) and corruption (they bought a Nobel peace prize for the Sunshine policy) have made SK de facto allies of Kim.
I do not want to hear the excuse about how NK can take out Seoul with its artillery. SK chose where to build and, in doing so, made a conscious decision to give Kim undue influence over their policy. I understand the evacuation routes and procedures for the capital are well designed. If SK had cooperated with the US in undermining Kimmies regime they may never have had to use them. Unfortunately they are now at the poing where civil defense drills would be a good idea.
We simply have to tell Kimmie something along the lines of,
"Kimmie, here's the facts, straight up and with no bluster - grow up and act responsibly or we will erase your country and there's nothing you, the Chinese, or the Russkies can do about it. If we catch you exporting this stuff, we'll nuke you into the next millenia. If you launch a missile without letting us know that it's a test well beforehand, we'll nuke you till the glow won't die down until the year ten thousand. If you even look sideways at any of your neighbors or our allies we'll nuke you till there's nothing left of your country except ten thousand feet of ocean above it. You've chosen to become a nuclear power. Now you have to act responsibly like a nuclear power. Grow up and deal with that fact or face the inevitable consequences. Thanks. Have a nice day. Buh-bye."
#4
The LAT is correct. We should speak directly to the Norks. But we don't have to go to the espense of sending an envoy to Pyongyang. Ideally we should have John Bolton or Rummy or Condi send out a press release on PR Newswire with the target sheet for Nork in the event there is detonation of a nuclear weapon in malice anywhere in the world from any origin. The press release should make clear that we would not launch until we were confident that fallout would not be carried over SoKor. It should also make clear that there would be no living mammal remaining in North Korean territory and that we do not know when North Korean territory would again be habitable.
We should leave troops in SoKor to show our intention to honor our fallout pledge. But those troops should only have enough transit capacity to boggy back to Japan in the event the Norks come south.
#5
Move all US troops down to and no further north than Juksansong, and I might agree with US troops remaining in South Korea. Otherwise, pull all US troops out of South Korea unless and until the SKors start showing a backbone about Kimmie and his bloody regime.
#6
I knew a Korean ROK Marine MSgt in Vietnam. He said he had lots of relatives in NKor, but that he didn't think very highly of them because they didn't try to defect. Apparently the entire family, both branches in NKor and SKor hate Kim and his father with a passion. He felt that reunification was bad, that the NKoreans were "unworthy" of being free. He hated the north more than he hated the Japanese, who had killed his father for some trivial reason. I don't think the south is all that enamoured with the north, or what's going on up there. I also believe they'll stand and fight to the last person if the north invades. An invasion would set both countries back 50 years. The south could survive that, but the regression to the north would result in stone-age living conditions.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/10/2006 19:30 Comments ||
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#7
OP: Interesting perspective.
How exactly can NK be set back 50 years though. they were probably far better off in 1956 than now. Maybe 100,000 years.
I dont mean to belabor the point I have made before, but I was trained in the Army as a nuclear-target analyst. A yield of 550-800 tons (.55-.8 KT) is not too small by any means as an achievable yield. It does not require a lot of fissionable material, either, which is one factor militating against the hoax conclusion. If the test was a proof of concept test rather than one intended to validate an actual warhead, then it makes sense for the DPRK to use as little nuclear material as possible. They dont get the stuff very easily.
Its also worth pointing out that an atomic bomb of .6KT or so is no city flattener, but would work quite spectacuarly as a terrorist weapon. If detonated on the ground or from the top of a building, it would also result in serious fallout, increasing the terror effect and the number of deaths. Further, it would contaminate the terrain at and near ground zero for a long time. Cleanup and decontamination would be lengthy and very expensive. Imagine such a weapon being detonated in an American harbor.
Using the US Geological Survey figure of 4.2 magnitude body wave of the seismic shock, giving a 1 KT achieved yield, actually buttresses the case that this test was not a fizzle, in my view. For battlefield purposes, say, against the South Korean or US forces on the peninsula, a 1 KT device is more usable than a 20 KT bomb. A 1 KT weapon is smaller, thus easier to conceal, and can be designed to be fired from existing artillery pieces, whether cannons or rockets. A Nagasaki-yield weapon would be of little military utility in fighting against South Korea or American forces. And you much more easily can get from a tested 0.6-1.0 KT proof-of-concept device to a usable terror weapon of the same yield, than from a test of a much larger yielding device. rtwt.
Posted by: Phil ||
10/10/2006 00:21 ||
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#1
I'd be interested to hear a nuclear bomb engineer's read on how easy/hard it is to build a bomb of this size.
The Davy Crockett was developed to give U.S. Army units an effective nuclear capability against potentially larger units of Soviet armored forces. The Davy Crockett was designed in the late 1950's primarily for frontline use by the U.S. infantry in Europe against Soviet troop formations.
The weapon system used a spin-stabilized, unguided rocket fired from a recoilless rifle. It's 51-pound nuclear warhead had an explosive yield of 0.18 kilotons (equivalent to 18 tons of TNT, with an added radiation effect).
The Davy Crockett's warhead was launched from either a 120-millimeter (M-28) or 155-millimeter (M-29) recoilless rifle. The 155 millimeter version, which became the standard issue, had a maximum range of 2.49 miles and could be fired from either a ground tripod mount or from a specially designed jeep mount. The system was deployed with U.S. Army from 1961 to 1971, and over 2,100 were produced.
The heavy version was transported by either an armored personnel carrier or a large truck. The light version was generally carried on and fired from an Army jeep, but could be carried for a short distance and fired by a 3-man team. The W-54 nuclear warhead in a projectile was launched by the Davy Crockett and had a subkiloton yield. The projectile was 30 inches long, 11 inches in diameter, and weighed 76 pounds. The l55 mm launcher had a maximum range of 13,000 feet, and the 120 mm could reach a distance of 6,561 feet.
#4
RWV---0.18 kilotons yield equals 180 tons, not 18 tons.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/10/2006 1:57 Comments ||
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#5
Correct, AP, not that you'd know the difference if you were close....;-)
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/10/2006 6:47 Comments ||
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#6
#2 Information on the 'Davy Crockett' can be found at:
Goes back a few years, but the long standing joke among Crockett crews was ... "get to the jeep fast as you can," as the kill radius encompasses the launch site in pretty short order.
#8
The point is not that you cannot get a yield that low. Of course you can. The point is that a) it's harder to do than building Nagasaki-type weapons, and b) Kim has no clear motivation to do it.
It's theoretically possible that NK is building compact, low-yield bombs for the terrorist market. But first they'd have to learn how to build the simpler type.
But, OK, let's say that Kim bought AQ Khan's Complete Junior Bombmaker Kit (with real neutron action!), so he has no need to take the baby steps everyone else did.
What's his motivation for building a low yield weapon? The terrorist market? That's plausible, but if you're going to do that, you're going to want to keep it dark. You don't go announcing it to the blabbermouth Chinese.
I admit to not being an expert on the psychology of crazed dwarf Commie dictators with bad hair, but logic suggests that if he's going to pour large portions of his pathetic GDP into a bomb, he's going to want a Big Bomb. He wants a bomb like the other big kids have, so they won't laugh at him and pick on him and send baggy old Secretaries of State to dance with him, but hot young ones.
Alternatively, he may believe it's a matter of national pride. He may believe that the people will think, "By Golly, we may be eating grass, but our scientists can make a really big bang!" He may be right about that, after fifty years of indoctrination. But for these purposes, too, smaller is not better.
#9
I admit to not being an expert on the psychology of crazed dwarf Commie dictators with bad hair, but logic suggests that if he's going to pour large portions of his pathetic GDP into a bomb, he's going to want a Big Bomb. He wants a bomb like the other big kids have, so they won't laugh at him and pick on him and send baggy old Secretaries of State to dance with him, but hot young ones.
That's some nifty scribbling there, Angie! You made my morning. Your whole post was fun.
#10
Angie: Rev. Sensing's point was that they do have a motivation to do it if they want to go to war with South Korea. It would make a much better warhead for a MLRS-type system than a chemical explosive warhead.
What the intent was is a separate and unanswered question. But Sensing's reasonable extrapolations don't hold if we really find no traces of radioactive byproducts at all.
#12
Actually, if you know what its all about, you know there will be no proof either way of nuclear activity until enough time passes for outgassing and the winds to blow from the test site over non-NKor for testing.
#13
Assuming they have decent filtering systems, that's true OS.
We'll see what transpires. But so many are taking the claim of a successful nuclear reaction at face value that IMO it's worth emphasizing that so far there's no evidence that actually happened.
#14
I read it could take up to 72 hours for the downwind reports.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/10/2006 19:15 Comments ||
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#15
And then there's the political decision to be made about what to say and what to do. What are the implications of a US say nothing, do nothing scenario?
#1
The Norkies may "want Seoul", as opposed to the unversal anarchy = "chaos" desired by Radical Islam, but the Norkies' Chicom masters want SOUTH KOREA + espec JAPAN. The Chicoms at last check have NOT given up their ambitions for Chinese-centric, Commie-centric East Asian-Pacific hegemony, nor to replace the USA in same - means China STILL wants Chinese-controlled/dominated PROXY-BUFFER STATES = OFFSHORE ECON/TRADE ZONES. Muslim reporters whom have interviewed Osama all claim that Osama does have "suitcase nukes" and other WMD devices, and more importantly intends to use them in attacks against the USA-West, espec the USA. MOVIE > based on a TRUE STORY? > Iff a HS? student can dev a WORKING, LIGHTWEIGHT, MAN-PORTABLE NUKE DEVICE CAPABLE OF THREATENING LOCAL TOWNS IN THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA/OHIO VALLEY, a SUITCASE NUKE then is a serious threat, espec given various Media-Net reports of Radical Iran = North Korea, etal. using AIRLINERS TO TRANSPORT NUKE TECHS/MATERIALS, EVEN WHOLE MISSLES.
#3
This is probably the least likely of all scenarios.
Permit me to provide an analogy. In 1976, USSR pilot Viktor Belenko defected to Japan with his MIG-25 Foxbat jet fighter. When the CIA took apart the plane's avonics they found copies of our integrated circuits on the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards). According to legend, closer examination revealed that the microprocessors (possibly an East German copy of Zilog's Z80 MCPU called the "ÊP1858ÂÌ1"), were a direct lift from American designs.
Even more important was the fact that all of the line widths (a critical dimension that defines conductor size on a given chip), on this chip copy were four times the size of the original. This permitted Soviet microelectronics designers to reverse engineer the existing design without having to achieve the rather daunting task of equaling its level of miniaturization.
Remember that a chip with larger transistors and overall structural geometry will consume much greater amounts of electrical power. Yes, the larger scale design is less sensitive to occluding defects on the lithography masks (the slide-like glass plates used for projecting patterns that image complex layer structures), but the device has a much lower chip-per-wafer yield and is power-hungry to boot. At the time, this did not matter to Soviet designers as their aircraft represented the triumph of brute force over sophistication. A pattern that persists even to this day.
The reason for mentioning this is that if the Soviet Union, with its far more advanced military-industrial complex, could not match the exacting tolerances required to build a microprocessor chip to correct scale, what are the chances of poorly developed North Korea being able to achieve the extremely challenging dimensional controls necessary to create components for a suitcase nuclear device?
This is no small issue. A suitcase nuclear bomb represents several different pinnacles in mechanical forming, electronic fabrication and systems integration. As mechanical and electronic component sizes shrink, the demands upon physical tolerances, needed power stability, device reliability and timing requirements all increase proportionately, if not geometrically.
It is doubtful in the extreme that resource-starved North Korea could possibly master all of the exceptionally demanding tasks needed to produce one of these highly miniaturized devices. As noted at the linked article:
"The idea of the Norks creating some sort of suitcase bomb is absurd. They don't have the technology and it's not what they want. In fact, they can't even miniaturize to achieve a somewhat easier goal, mating a bomb to a working missile. And they want that bomb to yield large, not small, results."
Furthermore, as the same article notes:
"North Korea wants a weapon that can knock out Hawaii, or Anchorage, or LA, so that they can have a free hand in attacking the South. It's an offshoot of the old chicom doctrine, "defending Taiwan isn't worth Los Angeles." People are confusing the Nork ideology with that of jihadists. Islamists want a bomb to generate damage, destruction, and casaulties. Their goal is chaos. The North's goal is Seoul.
As to our response? I still maintain that brief but decisive military intervention may be required. The situation is well-described by the article, too:
"Of course the idea that the Nokors are "working" on the city-killer raises issues of its own. If this is true, the longer America waits for Kim to set up the worse its position becomes. It's in some sense analogous to waiting for a hostile who has just had a misfire clear his weapon and reload -- except this time with a .458 Weatherby Magnum in place of .22 short.
#4
In yesterday's "Breaking News" thread about the first test somebody commented that these tests were demonstrations for a customer. I am more convinced of that than before. Kimmy has two exports, and two only: missiles and nuclear tech. The missiles go to Pakland; the nukes go to the highest bidder.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/10/2006 9:43 Comments ||
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I don't care how many times I hear it, I refuse to believe that significant numbers of conservatives will stay home in November and thereby assist the Democratic Party to regain control of Congress.
Democrats and the Old Media have been working hard to create this perception for several months, citing poll after poll to support their claims. It reminds me of the exit poll manipulation orchestrated by the Old Media and Democrat operatives in 2004 to create the GOP-deflating perception that John Kerry was winning big.
But with the unveiling of the Foley scandal, there is an even bigger spring to their step kind of like their perverse, gleeful reaction to problems with the delayed federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
Before Foley I gave conservatives more credit than to believe they would sit this election out over their disillusionment with Republicans concerning immigration and domestic spending. My confidence remains after Foley as well, despite push polling and other techniques designed to discourage conservative turnout.
Conservatives are generally rational creatures and sophisticated enough to understand that the national interest will not be served by turning national security over to a party wholly incapable of safeguarding it for the sake of punishing Republicans.
To the argument of some conservatives that losing the election will result in the nation eventually returning to its conservative roots, I say "nonsense." We can't afford the luxury, during time of war and incalculable threats to our national security, our culture, our freedom and our sovereignty, of taking our ball and going home for a few critical years.
I do not believe conservatives will deliver control to the party of tax and spend because Republicans haven't done enough to curb domestic spending. My assessment is reinforced by news that the Bush tax cuts have unleashed a robust economy and explosive federal revenues that have reduced the deficit to 2 percent of GDP, lower than the 2.7 percent average of the last 40 years.
I don't believe conservatives will conspire to assign control over immigration to the wide-open-border Democrats, notwithstanding the Republicans' tardy and so far inadequate response to the immigration problem. My assessment is reinforced by news that Congress passed a measure to erect a 700-mile border fence. Conservative angst forced recalcitrant politicians to act. This is how you get results not by replacing a highly imperfect party with an incomparably egregious one.
And I especially don't believe social conservatives, because of their disappointment with Republicans over Foley, will turn to a militantly secular Democratic leadership to protect Washington pages from sexual predators. My assessment is reinforced by the immediate resignation of Foley and the Republican leadership's initiation of comprehensive investigations into the matter, promising full accountability for culpable Republicans.
My optimism that conservatives will not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good and stay home in November is further enhanced by Democrats recently overplaying their hand on the Foley scandal.
Though they boasted for the longest time that they could trounce Republicans in November by a substantive debate on the issues, they've been studiously avoiding such a debate and resorting only to attacking Bush and scandalmongering. But now that they think the Foley affair is tainting the entire Republican Party, Nancy Pelosi has gotten cocky enough to unveil her agenda for the first 100 hours of her speakership.
She'd better hope that she hasn't triggered a true national debate on the issues and unwittingly nationalized the congressional elections, something the Republicans hadn't managed to pull off.
Can you imagine the Democrats winning a debate over national security when they've vigorously opposed almost every tool President Bush has tried to use to prosecute the war on terror? How would they gain from a true debate over Iraq when Democrats still don't have a plan and can't even decide whether they favor withdrawal, "timetables" or "benchmarks"?
Can you imagine Democrats prevailing on a values debate where it would be emphasized that they actively promote the radical homosexual agenda and castigate one of the finest institutional exemplars of traditional values in our nation's history the Boy Scouts for their moral refusal to permit homosexuals to be scoutmasters? Does Nancy Pelosi truly support the National American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) or just proudly march in parades with them and receive 90 percent approval from their ACLU enablers? Inquiring minds surely want to know.
It is time for conservatives to ignore the Democrat and Old Media propaganda and vote in even greater numbers in November. If Democrats and the Old Media keep reporting that conservatives are going to stay home, they might be in store for the upset of their lives on Election Day just maybe.
#4
agree! The current media bias reminds me of the run up to the war. I remember noticing how the media had pulled out all stops and was completely willing to shed any pretence of their objectivity in an effort to stop the war. They failed - but the damage was done to their reputation. Many Americans who were previously clueless became aware that their local news station was not to be trusted as it once was. With each election, each incident, they reveal themselves even more. Now they are at the point where people just get a good laugh out of their twisting, turning and desperate attempts to spin bad news into good. While it does get them votes and plays to a certain population, their credibility has been unrepairably damaged. It's called "good will" in the business world. They are pissing it away like drunks unable to make it to the pot. The end result is that people are disgusted and will not forget it once the night is over.
#5
I am still waiting for the recount headlines from Florida. I mean enough of them went down and counted the votes (about a dozen times) but I have yet to see an above the fold headline: "Bush Really Won!" I too can't see conservatives breaking ranks and voting for Donks. The ONLY way they can win is if we conservatives fail to vote and I will do my part.
#6
I'm not that worried. There's far too many people who may be ticked at the GOP, but no amount of mad will be enough to make me vote for America's true enemies.
Remember, voting for a democrat is an act of treason.
#9
Bottom line, we've got a first pass the post system. A vote for anything other than one of the big two is thrown away. But of course, those of you thinking of doing such a thing for symbolic purposes, "to send a message," already know that. But realize that voting for any other than the party you want to send a message to, is to vote for the other party. In 2004 key states went Republican by few enough votes that there were questions raised. It could just as easily have gone the other way, if enough people were or weren't sending messages. And if Kerry had indeed won, where would the War on Terror be now?
#10
Right, TW. Sending a message may help you feel good - well, better - but it's what elected Slick Willie in the first place. All those who voted for Ross; had they voted for Bush I ....
Use your head to vote, not your .... emotions.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/10/2006 22:08 Comments ||
Top||
Lesbian entertainer Rosie O'Donnell generated headlines when she declared that "radical Christianity" was "just as threatening as radical Islam " That's completely absurd, of course, as demonstrated by the violent Islamic reaction to the Pope's simple historical observation about violent Jihad. But it's not a unique view.
It's a stupid view — "stupid" in this case being used not in a name-calling sense, but as a mere guage of the statement's intellectual content.
Don't forget the April 17 column by James Reston, Jr. on the "American Inquisition," in which he alleged that President Bush's Christian faith required that dissenters to the war on terrorism be treated as heretics. Reston, a journalist and author, is the son of the famous former New York Times editor James Reston.
Yasss... I can recall when Reston the Elder was burned at the stake... Ummm... No. Maybe I can't.
America is "seized with collective paranoia," he wrote in USA Today, and Bush is using the terrorism problem as a "powerful deterrent to dissent and a useful tool for consolidating political power." He said this "American inquisition" uses "secret police" instead of the "Holy Brotherhood" but the result is still the same.
We're five years into a war againt people who chop infidels' heads off, who kidnap theaters and schools full of people, including little kiddies, and kill them. They've announced over and over their antipathy to everything we stand for, to include drinking beer and bowling. But to subgeniuses like Reston it's all about domestic politix and collective paranoia. I don't like standing close to people with that sort of thought process. I'm always afraid I'll step in the end result of their mental masturbation.
If this is the case, it's a strange kind of inquisition, in which Reston writes such articles for the most widely circulated paper in the country. Why isn't this heretic in prison?
My guess is that it's because he's beneath the notice of the latter day Torquemadas.
Suggesting that America today resembles a theocratic state, he explained, "How different is this really from the spying that went on in the Spanish Inquisition? Suspect words or acts do not change that much with time. In Inquisitional Spain, neighbors were supposed to report a suspicious neighbor to the Holy Office. Now, symbolic words or actions are detected electronically." More recently, during an interview on National Public Radio, Reston asserted that U.S. officials have misrepresented the concept of the Islamic caliphate as a threatening stance by Arabs.
I'm waiting to hear him describe how there's really nothing wrong with chopping infidels' heads off.
Such views are treated as wisdom by the major media. During an appearance on Face the Nation, November 27, 2005, Reston declared that "on September the 16th, we had-just five days after September 11th, Bush proclaimed his crusades." He implied that Bush intended this to be a Christian crusade. In fact, Bush's statement was, "This crusade, this war on terrorism is gonna take awhile. And the American people must be patient. I'm gonna be patient." Clearly, he meant "crusade" in the sense of a military campaign against terrorism. He did not advocate, as Ann Coulter did, that America go into these countries and forcibly convert the people into Christians. There was no religious connotation to the statement at all.
This is what's known as a deliberate misinterpretation to further one's own ends. The Moose limbs made the same deliberate misinterpretation, and for the same reason. Curiously, the Christian "crusade" could also be defined as a "holy war" — or "jihad."
In fact, Bush has been criticized for not insisting on enough Western-style rights in Afghanistan and Iraq, where U.S. experts have played a role in their adoption of new constitutions. Both countries, despite U.S. influence, still recognize Islamic law as supreme.
The greatest gift we could have given both countries would have been to impose our constitution on them. To hell with letting them try to write their own from scratch.
Rather than Bush making Muslims angry with his rhetoric, writers like James Reston, Jr. have done so by exaggerating and distorting what Bush said. Bush has repeatedly insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that Islam is a religion of peace.
That's a patently goofy statement that I've heard approximately 24 times too many by now. Bush is also backing away from its repetition, which is how he's come to discover the concept of Islamist fascism, which is not a goofy concept. The next step will be to acknowledge, in a loud, clear voice, that we are in fact at war with the takfir ideology, its adherents and practitioners.
Reviewing one of Reston's books, Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, historian Michael Pedrotty declared, "Reston apparently desired to avoid a Western bias in his account, and in this he has certainly succeeded. If anything, he seems to prefer his Muslim subjects, and his treatment of the Christians as a whole is generally pejorative in tone. The Christians are the aggressors in his drama, they are less civilized, less religious, more greedy, and more savage."
That's been a pretty regular theme for the past 50 years or so in lit'rature, whether it's in revisionist history or in potboilers like Shogun. The assumption is that the Mysterious East or the Frozen North or the Noble Savage is better than us crassly commercial Westerners. This attitude never bothers to explain why they drop like flies from things like cholera and we don't.
Reston is a hack writer whose Fragile Innocence, about coping with a terrible medical condition that afflicted his disabled child, was widely praised. His theme was that his child had a right to a decent quality of life. It's just tragic that, in the great struggle between Islam and the West, he fails to see that all of our lives are at risk.
It's indicative of a lack of imagination. Just ignore him. Come the caliphate somebody'll kill him for Islamic fun.
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Lesbian entertainer Rosie O'Donnell generated headlines when she declared that "radical Christianity" was "just as threatening as radical Islam
" That's completely absurd, of course, as demonstrated by the violent Islamic reaction to the Pope's simple historical observation about violent Jihad. But it's not a unique view.
