The last Freedom Fighter Posting
This is the end of the road...Politics has no place where I am going.
-Bob
Fighting in the Heart of Liberal Madison for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This blog will focus on liberal hypocrisy and the small, but significant victories of the right at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
This is the end of the road...Politics has no place where I am going.
The anti-war referendum passed, yes, but the numbers are not all that impressive. With only 22,000 voting yes and a population of over 208,000, they barely got over 10 percent. In a referendum where it is change vs. a status quo, this shows that people, by in large, just don't care here in Madison. With voting the easiest way to express oneself, the anti-war folks really came up short.
Update: The Student Government has its own blog. Check it out!
The era of the Associated Students of Madison is over. ASM was a vain, bloated, corrupt and inefficient body that served no one but the resume-padding careerist hacks who profited from the corruption in which they wallowed.
ASM’s bureaucracy was a corpulent mess of groups with no checks and balances in the system whatsoever. ASM holds all power — there is no appeal beyond it. The Student Judiciary can punish ASM members who break the rules, but consequences are minimal at best and can be overturned by ASM.
(snip)
The current student-fee system is also out of control. There is no mechanism to even allow ASM to reject or reduce any budget. Countless money is wasted on organizations that provide no service to students. ASM’s twisted view of viewpoint-neutrality forced representatives into a position in which they could not say “no” to even the worst student organizations.
Candidates and groups have attempted reform for decades. Matt Modell fought vehemently for students’ rights against ASM oppression. Numerous candidates were elected last year on a reformist platform. However, these leaders have been blocked in their efforts for reform by the careerist resume-padders.This can no longer stand.
We will be writing a constitution that represents you. We will institute a streamlined government that strips away bureaucracy and petty infighting. We will enact major student fee reform, ensuring transparency and integrity in funding. We will guarantee clean, honest government that is competent and honest. And, at all times, we will take your feedback, opinions and input.
We have only one request. In your deck of cards, there is a joker card. If you are fed up with ASM’s garbage, if you don’t care about what ASM does, if you want a fresh organization that will work for your interests — pin the joker on your bag or your clothes.ASM has forfeited its right to be taken seriously. Atlas has shrugged — Student Government.
It was quite a scene earlier this evening as about 30 students met in the Rathskeller to mark their departure from the Associated Students of Madison once and for all. This comes a day after ASM once again screwed up an election.
“We are going to bring students in and involve them in the process.”
“There is no binding agreement that makes them the student government.”
“A Group that is not to the left and not to the right…some were involved in ASM, some were not”
“ASM is massively inefficient, its an staggeringly unworkable system, its bloated, and reform efforts over the past 20 years have failed. Things must proceed in a new direction. The new direction is Student Government capital S and capital G.”
There is a coup at UW Madison and it could not be more apparent. I am not a conspiracy theorist and I may begin to sound like Bill A., but it is apparent that something is happening behind the scenes and it is not pretty.
“It looks awfully shady,” SLAC member Ashok Kumar said. “The election that is asking the most money out of students — the most important election [is cancelled] … by the power invested in Tim Leonard.”
Citing “evident corruption and general incompetence” among other grievances against ASM, the group of students, including UW-Madison freshman and Dane County Board candidate David Lapidus, said they plan to meet tonight at the Rathskellar to formulate the new government.
ASM chair and UW-Madison senior Eric Varney said the movement would need signatures from 10 percent of the student body to get a new student government proposal put on the ballot. If the new government wins by a two-thirds majority, ASM will be forced to disband, but only if 10 percent of the student body votes.
The Last Helicopter…
To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the bodies of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed (to) live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's (Iran’s President) defiant rhetoric is based on a strategy known in Middle Eastern capitals as "waiting Bush out." "We are sure the U.S. will return to saner policies," says Manuchehr Motakki, Iran's new Foreign Minister.
Mr. Ahmadinejad believes that the world is heading for a clash of civilizations with the Middle East as the main battlefield. In that clash Iran will lead the Muslim world against the "Crusader-Zionist camp" led by America. Mr. Bush might have led the U.S. into "a brief moment of triumph." But the U.S. is a "sunset" (ofuli) power while Iran is a sunrise (tolu'ee) one and, once Mr. Bush is gone, a future president would admit defeat and order a retreat as all of Mr. Bush's predecessors have done since Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Ahmadinejad also notes that Iran has just "reached the Mediterranean" thanks to its strong presence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He used that message to convince Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to adopt a defiant position vis-à-vis the U.N. investigation of the murder of Rafiq Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon. His argument was that once Mr. Bush is gone, the U.N., too, will revert to its traditional lethargy. "They can pass resolutions until they are blue in the face," Mr. Ahmadinejad told a gathering of Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Arab leaders in Tehran last month.
I was mad last night after the socialists barged into the College Republican meeting and called everyone cowards, but after reading the Badger Herald this morning, I am furious.
Members of the UW Stop the War! movement attended the meeting to voice their support of the referendum. However, when Stop the War! member Chris Dols became too “disruptive,” two UW police officers asked him to leave.“It is a little hypocritical for them to publicly denounce Stop the War! when they won’t even debate us,” Dols said.
The overall opinion of the panelists was that they love the people of Iraq, and that the response from Americans has been overwhelmingly positive since returning home.
The dialogue went back and forth for a majority of the meeting on whether or not the troops should leave.No, it was more like:
“We are all for getting these soldiers out of harm’s way,” Dols said. “I want you and all your friends home.”
This was one of the only topics that the two sides agreed on during the meeting.
The College Republicans set up the “Vote No” panel to educate students on their views on the issue. Dols requested to be on the panel but was denied because he had views opposing the College Republicans’ stance.
Dols and his constituents came into the meeting and called the College Republicans “cowards” for not debating him, which set off a yelling match between the panelists and Dols.
Despite the differing opinions, Smith said she thought the meeting went well.
Tonight, the UW College Republicans were overrun by hippies. The CRs organized a "Vote No Panel" to get the facts out there about the anti-troop referendum that the City of Madison is holding next week. The panel was moderated by Madison's favorite radio personality, Vicki McKenna and included three Iraqi War Veterans.
Although all is well over at madison.com, I have decided to resurrect the original freedom fighter blog for two reasons. First, I am going to cross link to the madison.com site which should be good all around and second, because the layout is just so bad over there. I enjoy having a side bar!!!
The Madison Freedom Fighter has moved to bigger better location at madison.com. I'm the same ol' red headed conservative, only now I have a server where I can upload podcasts and stream video!
MFF Readers,
Well, after years of mocking them, I have joined the legions of Mac supporters across the US. Yesterday I bought the brand new IMac. As a life long PC user and Mac hater, it took me a while to get used to the idea of a Mac in my house hold. But I have to admit, it is AWESOME. I have a 20 inch screen and the entire unit is a thing of beauty.
One major line in the story is just wrong:
Healy, whom Davis described as “extremely apologetic” during Thursday’s meeting, said the Beacon believed and continues to believe its decision was well within its legal rights.
They allegedly wrote insulting remarks on the whiteboard attached to Brian Roberts’ door in Ogg Hall. Roberts is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender liaison, which gives him free housing in Ogg.
The four allegedly tore down pictures of two men without shirts kissing and other pictures from the liaison’s public bulletin board. One or more of the men also allegedly spit on the door of the liaison. Altogether, the four face 17 felony charges.
Roberts wrote those who live near him after the incident, “I hope that events like last nights will not happen in our community ever again, but if they should, I will continue to confront them and hope that my fellow housemates will be there to back me up.”
The Badger Herald has resorted yet again to attacking the Mendota Beacon in a negative light. The Beacon published a photo and the name of the alleged victim in the "hate crime" committed in December. Even though this individual sent out an e-mail to his floor IDing him as such, some believe his identity should be protected.
Perhaps most troubling to UW, Davis said, is what he called the questionable motives Anderson had for exposing the liaison's identity.
As many of you know, I was profiled for a cover story in the Isthmus last month. Well, Madison has responded...here's what they had to say and my response to each:
"I'm surprised this angry, contentious young man has such a bleeding heart for the Iraqi people." - Nicole Gruter, Menona
"...one look at Robert Thelen's pinched, angry-looking face should be enough to alert anyone that he is a rabid right-winger. Think about it: From Bill O'Reilly to Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh to Dick Cheney...there is a meanness in their persona..." - Keith Stephens, Monroe
"Robert Thelen III maintains that Bush won 'a landslide victory' in 2004. I think he needs to bone up on his math." - Charles Tranberg
"I was disappointed to see how slanted your story was. It's a shame that Thelen had to play the "limited-life experience" foil to Vogeler's hard-luck, blue-collar activist. Fortunately, Thelen doesn't seem the type to be driven from his cause so easily" - Zachary WyattThanks Zachary. I agree that the story was slanted, but I expected such from the Isthmus. The truth is, most of the anti-war folks in Madison are left-overs from the Vietnam era and the average pro-victory advocate is in college. BTW: this is one of two positive comments.
Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of National Review Online will be visiting Madison next week Wednesday. He will be discussing the lies spun by the MSM concerning Hurricane Katrina and other interesting topics.
A wave of pious indignation and table-thumping has spread across the nation's editorial pages over the freedom to search for Internet porn. Don't get me wrong: I think you do have the right to search for porn. But it is interesting to see what gets people's First Amendment gag reflex going. The Baltimore Sun, for example, warns that a "witch-hunt" for search-engine abusers might be around the corner if Google cooperates with the government.
In a new poll conducted by BBC, Iraqis and afghans are among the most optimistic about the future in the world.
Joining the Afghans and Iraqis in the optimistic category are Canadians who are bullish not only about their own finances (64 percent), but also about their country (63 percent).I guess the ability to vote and the new freedoms that America made possible in Iraq and Afganistan has given those people hope for the future. Interestingly, according to the poll, France and Italy are some of the most pessimistic countries. Perhaps socialism doesn't make people feel all that optimistic. I am sure the MSM will bury these results in the coming days. For them, any news is good news...but good news doesn't exist.
In Afghanistan, 70 percent of respondents said their own circumstances are improving, and 57 percent said the country overall is on the way up. In Iraq, 65 percent believe their personal life is getting better, and 56 percent are upbeat about the country's economy, the BBC reported
My page views just crossed the 20,000 mark. Thank you all for your support and your readership.
You are not going to hear it often from me, but I will give Democratic Governor Jim Doyle some props today. As you may have heard, he went to Iraq to visited the troops there . I know that some bloggers around the state may view this as a political stunt, but I believe it is well-intended. He really does care about the troops in Iraq and I believe he supports the mission and the war.
The governor has been a true supporter of the troops through out his administration. He seldom misses a send off and this visit and his words underlines that fact. This comes a day after an LA Times reporter called for anti-war advocates to stop supporting the troops. Politics and indictments aside, Governor Doyle did something good today.Wisconsin National Guard troops serving in the Middle East have "high morale, a very clear sense of mission, and a very clear belief that it can be accomplished," Gov. Jim Doyle said in a teleconference from Baghdad today.
Doyle, who arrived in Iraq this morning, said he was visiting the country
primarily to see Wisconsin National Guard troops and "to make sure they know
that we are supporting them."
(snip)
"There's no doubt the military feels they are on the right track," he said,
adding, "I'm not ready to declare what the foreign policy of the United States
should be."(emphasis added)
America's favorite anti-war mother, Cindy Sheehan just cannot seem to keep her mouth shut these days. Between speaking for up to 11,000 dollars an hour and endless TV interviews, she has found time to take a foriegn government sponsored trip to Venezuela.
We must stop the Iraq war, we must not let it happen again, said Sheehan, who has been arrested at least twice while demonstrating outside the White House.
Tuesday's march ended outside the armed forces headquarters, on an avenue usually reserved for military parades. "It's a peace route now," Sheehan said.
The story of the murder of three of the six young people, who had left after their nighttime exam at the Universidad Santa MarÃa to head home, seems to be taken straight out of post-Allende Chile, where the Office of National Intelligence (DINA) murdered defenseless citizens on the streets
Amnesty International has documented police intimidation of relatives of the victims of human rights violations committed by police and the failure to grant them protection or implement effective protection as well as the failure to investigate complaints of threats. Venezuelan human rights organizations have documented over 100 police killings in Guárico State in recent years. Many Venezuelan states have a similar history of police abuse.
Google, the world's most prolific search-engine and the creators of blogger.com (where this blog is located) and gmail has signed a deal with the Chinese government to provide searching in China.
GOOGLE will today cave in to pressure from the Chinese Government by launching a local website that strips out information not approved by the Communist authorities.
The company, whose motto is "Don't be evil", is launching a version of its site that restricts Chinese people from searching for information about Tibetan independence or the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
(snip)
Google is already subject to Chinese government censorship, which blocks search results returning undesired information. The country maintains a sophisticated system of internet monitoring known as "The Great Firewall of China" that restricts access to a range of Western sites.
The company estimates that about 1,000 categoriesagories are blocked by this filtering. No published list of barred terms exists, although the authorities are quick to complain if offending information becomes available.
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. "I guess the meaning of "universally accessible" is lost in translation from english to mandarin.
After months of blogging on how the anti-war left is against the troops, the truth has come out.
When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.So, our brave fighting men and women oversees are signing up as tools. Interesting.
I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.
(snip)
Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.
But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.
I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.
The term "South Park Republican" has thus become popular among a handful of pundits to describe young Americans who interpret the show's values as being parallel to their cause. They see themselves as being more populist and far less puritanical than many other conservative groups (e.g. the religious right). Trey and Matt say they are extremely grateful for the 15 half-hours of airtime that Comedy Central annually affords them because it gives them a "bullhorn to yell at America."
The phrase, "You know? I've learned something today..." is the trademark line, used in nearly every episode, to outline the South Park solution to the current moral crisis. South Park Republicans empathize with the characters' consideration of moral guidelines in their attempts to explain their surroundings and are extremely likely to support the "children's" decisions.
Half of the voting public is Republican. They watch R rated movies, enjoy a few drinks at happy hour, and even go to the occasional Wrestlemania. Hopefully, the South Park Republicans will shatter the unfair stereotype and set the record straight. As Cartman would say, That would be pretty sweet.
The Beacon is back and better than ever. The next generation of Beacon leadership did a great job in putting together this edition. Jenna is the new Managing Editor and Jeff Healy is the new Editor in Chief. Check it out.
Well, as I said yesterday, Michael Moore's influence is not as big as his head. Canada has gone to the right. They elected a pro-life, pro-business, pro-privatization, capitalist, with a foriegn policy more in-lined with Dubya than Chirac.
Canadians awarded Conservative Leader Stephen Harper with a minority government Monday, putting an end to more than 12 years of Liberal rule.
(snip)
With 94 per cent of the vote counted nationally, the Conservatives were at 36 per cent support, compared with 30 for the Liberals, 17 for the NDP, 11 for the Bloc, and four for the Green party.
Today, the Daily Cardinal, UW Madison's other daily newspaper, had two stories above the fold that really shouldn't be there.
In an attempt to raise awareness about animal cruelty, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals representatives held a public demonstration on State Street Friday, promoting vegetarianism through a nude activist painted in a butcher's diagram.Yes, animals have the same parts, but we are different. Animals eat each other. It is a fact of life. All of these evolutionists that believe that we are all animals should realize that fact.
Among a meat eating and leather clad audience, Michelle Cho, a PETA volunteer, said she wanted to use her body to demonstrate and make an important political statement. She posed on the sidewalk under a banner that read, All Animals Have the Same Parts-Have a Heart, Go Vegetarian.
She also urged for ethical farm treatment and said the animals subjected to farming are being deprived of feelings, friendship and animal bonding.Because they are food. I have lived around farmers my entire life and I think cows and other animals have it pretty well. They never starve and they are respected more than PETA understands. These farmers respect animals more than PETA does.
From July 1998 through the end of 2004, PETA killed over 12,400 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone.Well, PETA kills thousands of animals and also take away their reproductive rights. Where is the justice? Where is the animal equality? Like the PETA Protestor in the Cardinal said: "All Animals Have the Same Parts"!
Brad V. over at LIB wrote a great editorial for the Herald. Yes, the same newspaper I slammed last night does have SOME good opinion writers. In his piece, Brad likens the Seg Fee system to a sinking boat.
Change is essential to keeping this rickety ASM rowboat of state afloat. Fixing the hull we have is essential, since obtaining a new ship altogether — a different fee system — seems unlikely in the near future. Posting all budgetary information related to segregated fee budgets — itemized group requests, finalized allocations and past budgets — is a good first step towards a keel-haul of our student government, one that will get the leaks above the waterline so that they might be fixed.
Experiments with the advanced new device will start in July or August. If the experiments prove successful, China will become the first country in the world to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun", experts here said.
The project, dubbed EAST (experimental advanced superconducting Tokamak), isWhat is interesting is that there have been other Tokamak fusion devices created. The US Department of Energy has been funding one at Princeton for almost two decades.
being undertaken by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will require a total investment of nearly 300 million yuan (37 million U.S. dollars), only one fifteenth to one twentieth the cost of similar devices being developed in the other parts of the world.
The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) operated at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) from 1982 to 1997. TFTR set a number of world records, including a plasma temperature of 510 million degrees centigrade -- the highest ever produced in a laboratory, and well beyond the 100 million degrees required for commercial fusion. In addition to meeting its physics objectives, TFTR achieved all of its hardware design goals, thus making substantial contributions in many areas of fusion technology development.
Michael Moore, the super-liberal man who showed the ignorence of the left and helped George W. Bush win his second term, is trying to influence the Canadians against a probable conservative take over in the elections in the elections today. From his website:
Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, and certainly a well-developed sense of irony, but this is no longer funny.
(snip)
Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch in the cowboy belt?
An appetite for change has swept Canada this winter, bringing a surge in support for the country's Conservative Party. Heading into the final weekend of campaigning, the Conservative candidate for prime minister, Stephen Harper, was leading in some polls by 10 percentage points over the incumbent Liberal leader, Paul Martin. The Conservatives appeared poised to end 13 years of Liberal Party rule, a tenure marked by increasing economic prosperity but marred by a government kickback scandal and deteriorating relations with the United States.
This post is a long time coming and I have contemplated the professionalism of commenting on a previous employer and current competitor on this campus. With the Mendota Beacon under the direction of the next generation of "Beaconites", I feel that I can now comment on the news coverage of the Badger Herald.
While many students were shocked to hear of the felony hate crime charges brought against two University of Wisconsin students, representatives of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center said they were not. I'm not real surprised, quite honestly, LGBTCC Director Eric Trekell said in a phone interview a day after two UW freshmen were charged with felony hate crimes for vandalizing the door of an LGBT liaison in Ogg Hall.
Chamberlain, the fourth student involved, is a member of the U.S. Marine ROTC, and had been a student in good standing, according to ROTC officials.
Chamberlain from Crystal Lake, Ill., later confessed to writing this, the complaint states.
"I tore down a picture, I was showing off and saw a picture of two guys kissing, Chamberlain was quoted in the complaint. I am conservative and had a problem with it. Why does the photo have to be displayed in public? Keep it to yourself. I tore it down.
(snip)
"I hate f*cking liberals"
“This type of behavior is completely unacceptable,” UW ROTC Commanding Officer Scott Mobley said. “The values we emphasize include respect for all people, no matter what their background is.”
It is going to be an end of an era. The gun that Teddy Roosevelt made famous in his African Safari may never be built again.The announcement touched off a lobbying effort by city officials and union leaders who hoped to find a buyer for the plant before it closes March 31. If no buyer comes forward, it could spell the end for nearly all commercially produced Winchesters, said Everett Corey, a representative of the International Association of Machinists District 26.
(snip)
Since the plant opened in 1866, tens of millions of Winchester rifles have been produced, the bulk of which came between the late 1800s and the end of World War II, said firearms historian R.L. Wilson, who has written books about Winchester. More than six million copies of the Winchester Model 94, the company's most popular rifle, have been produced.
Wow, justice has no place in Milwaukee where the four Democratic tire slashers got off without pleading guilty! From JS Online:
The plea agreements came in the middle of jury deliberations after an eight-day
trial on felony property damage charges that carried potential 3 1/2 year prison terms upon conviction. The fifth defendant in the case was acquitted by the jury later in the afternoon.
First, this plea bargain is a joke. They get probation and only have to pay for damages. THESE MEN PREVENTED PEOPLE FROM VOTING.Michael Pratt, 33, Sowande Omokunde, 26, Lewis G. Caldwell, 29, and Lavelle Mohammad, 36, have all pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of criminal damage to property. Omokunde is Moore's son. Prosecutors will recommend probation sentences as part of the deal, and that the four together pay $5,317 in restitution for the damaged tires.
The surprise resolution was offered by prosecutors at 2 p.m., nearly 7 hours into deliberations and an hour after a jury note complained of an impasse.
If this is the case, that out-of-state political professonals were behind the election tampering, then the defense should have been forced to show evidence of this, not just bold conjecture.Defense attorneys contend that the out-of-state political professionals might be responsible for damaging the vehicles on several possible fronts, including: whipping up the state's political fervor beyond normal levels, possibly carrying out the tire-slashings themselves and concocting circumstantial evidence to cast suspicion on the local men.
Charlie Sykes is a genius. Here is his latest work of audio mastery (transcript)
It's time for a Freedom Fighter exclusive game: Find the Bin Laden Quote. I put three anti-war quotes from anti-war websites and speakers (Ms. Sheehan), and an excerpt from Bin Laden's latest video tape. It is interesting how the one that started this war on terror is starting to sound like the ones that want to stop the war. But enough opining, lets start the game...
2:For just as they botched the most important story of our time -- the Bush administration's transparently deceptive campaign to launch a war of aggression against Iraq -- the clubby mavens are now missing the crowning achievement of this vast crime: the mother of all backroom deals, a cynical pact sealed by murder, unfolding before our eyes. The Administration's true objective in Iraq is brutally simple: U.S. domination of Middle East oil.
The only people who will benefit from the war on Iraq are the elite wealthy oil men who finance Bush's election campaigns, and people like Bush who have huge personal investments in the oil industry. Oil company profits have already increased by fifty percent this year because of the war3:
[America] has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power; never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far... The US government is now ruled by murderous hypocrites... criminals who should be arrested, charged appropriately, confined behind bars... In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the dwindling multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God's devoted servants.4.
There is no problem in this solution, but it will prevent hundreds of billions from going to influential people and war lords in America - those who supported Bush's electoral campaign - and from this, we can understand Bush and his gang's insistence on continuing the war.Now, what's your Answer? 1, 2, 3, or 4?
2. (link)
3. (link)
4. (link)
My American Flag was stolen this past weekend and I am offering a 100 dollar reward for its safe return or for information leading to a safe recovery of the flag. The flag, which was featured on the cover of the Isthmus and is pictured left, has lead many a pro-troop rally and holds a special place in Conservative History in Madison.
What if: November 2, 2004. Election Day. 5 GOP activists, including the son of Mark Green, go out and slash the tires of twenty-some Democrat vans that were to be used to transport poor inner city elderly to the polling sites to vote for Kerry/Edwards. What would the consequences be?
Mac over at the Right Side of the Road reports that the radical anti-war referendum will not be on the ballots in Monona. It seems as though the anti-war folks didn't do their homework and forgot to include some important verbiage in the language of the referendum.
Do the radical activists of Monona really think that the Oval Office and Pentagon are looking to them for advice on how to handle the war in Iraq? Well, the wise people of Monona think that our expertise is misplaced. Let's call the French, borrow a white flag and give Cindy Sheehan the Congressional Medal of Honor!
After a prolonged break from blogging, I am back in high-speed internet land. For those of you who don't know, I am from a place where high-speed internet does not reach (hell, i cannot even get a cell phone signal).
Freedom Fighters:
The facebook has once again shown what it can do: it is good at connecting political foes.
Brad V. Over at LIB has a great post about the need to cut financial Aid to for college students.
Brad V. further suggests that the same "aid" the government gives students may be the cause of the raise in tuition. Jeff Jacoby, a columnist at Townhall.com has some reasons why.How about this: the federal government - instead of spending $110 billion propping up financial aid programs and the bureaucracies required to run them - initially puts all of the funds and overhead toward outright reduction of the cost of tuition across the board at state universities.
Long term, this new paradigm would be sustained by massively increasing tax deductions to cover any contributions to a person's college education costs. The
elimination of financial aid programs at the federal level would eliminate the need for the tax revenue ultimately lost through the deductions. And state universities would gain the funds lost in elimination of financial aid through the increased personal contributions to students' educations.
Tuition and fees were up 10.5 percent at state colleges and universities last year. The year before that, they were up 14 percent. Every year for nearly a quarter-century -- since before most of today's college students were born -- higher education costs have raced ahead of inflation. And far from slowing this runaway train, government aid serves only to stoke the engine.
How could it do otherwise? Every dollar that Washington generates in student aid is another dollar that colleges and universities have an incentive to harvest, either by raising their sticker price or reducing the financial aid they offer from their own funds. Higher Education Act funds "are seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking," observes Peter Wood, an anthropology professor at Boston University. "Tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents. Perhaps there are college administrators who don't see federal student aid in quite this way, but I haven't met
them." In 10 years of attending committee meetings on the university's annual tuition adjustment, says Wood, "the only real question was, 'How much can we get away with?'"
throwing more money at the problem won't help either. If financial aid is increased, tuition will raise to fill the gap, it is basic economics. It is time to make a bold move. Financial aid needs to be cut 60-70 percent AND the tax cuts listed above need to be instituted and we will start to see a difference. Without financial Aid, the University would be forced to keep tuition reasonable. Like a frequent poster on my blog said on Mark's site: "SMASH THE STATE! Revolution, not reform." Damn strait! We need a financial aid revolution, more money (reform) will not solve the problem.The median family income in Wisconsin is a little over $45,000/year. The median family income of this year's new freshmen at UW-Madison is nearly $90,000/year. Yet, the distribution of brains, talents, ambition, and creativity is independent of family income. We will ignore that fact and freeze out the children of average and low-income families at our great peril.
I found a great essay about the roots of the anti-war left.
Same basic story as today. The anti-war folks are not as much anti-war as they are anti-capitalism and anti-American. They want Socialism where we have Capitalism, they want Anarchy, where we have a Republic.During the Vietnam War the Left became synonymous with the anti war peace movement. Masquerading as a ‘peace’ movement allowed the left to avoid the scrutiny of its many critics. In reality the left’s ‘peace’ movement had very little to do with peace and much to do with an allegiance to a brand new world ruled by Marxism.
Sound Familiar? What will the consequences be to a premature Iraq pull out? Well the left sure as hell does not care. They are greedy, they care about politics, not about people. They look beyond the fact that tens of thousands of Iraqis will die at the hands of terrorists if we pull out. The same people that are helping us rebuild the country will be hung in the streets. Like Cambodia, we will ignore the problem and the MSM will pretend like it never happened.More peasants were killed during the first 3 years after America’s withdrawal from Indochina then all 13 years of the anti Communist war. Millions were ripped from their homes and force marched to re-education camps. Untold thousands of men, women, and children either perished or suffered unspeakable brutality at the hands of the new communist regimes. Thousands of boat people drowned attempting to escape the horror and tyranny of the left’s beloved reformers. Vietnam became one of the most militarized, totalitarian countries in the world.
In neighboring Cambodia, Pol Pot and his regime emptied entire cities and forced millions of refugees into the countryside to perish for lack of food, shelter, and medical care. Millions were slaughtered in the name of a Marxist revolutionary utopia. To this day The Killing Fields of Cambodia stand out as a stark symbol of man’s inhumanity to man.
Very true! Too much free time. Tuition is too cheap at this University or something, these students have to either get a job or find a harder major, because I see the same students running around campus all the time. Mommy and Daddy pay for their tuition (out-of-state liberals, I am talking about you) and their housing so they can have time to be activists.35 years removed, the anti war left still sees itself as heroic visionaries who battled oppression and sacrificed so much for a noble cause. In reality, most of the anti war radicals were pampered middle class college students with lots of time on their hands. They enjoyed freedom, liberties and a standard of living unequaled in history.
Liberals at UCONN found it necessary to silence conservative firebrand Ann Coulter yesterday during a speech she gave there. (story)
Just another example of liberal hypocrisy on College Campuses where any opinion is valid, except conservative ones.Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.
I almost forgot to announce the stupid comment of the month for November. Everyone remembers the winner last time: the fake Marine from New York City, who was pretending to be a Marine to make arguments but forgot details about his unit, his commander, and other important details.
I think you should be required to take a course in the history of popular struggle against state oppression and Fascism. We could start with Mussolini & Hitler, their targeting of immigrants and left-wing activists, then talk about the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and the struggle against Franco, move on to American expressions of Fascism like the KKK and the American Legion, and end with a discussion of real far-right racist groups that are active today, like the MinuteMen, the French National Front, and the British National Party. (emphasis added)
He thinks the AMERICAN LEGION is a fascist organization. Yes, he believes that an organization made up mostly of WWII and Korean War Veterans are fascist. Well, guess what Bill, they sacrificed more blood than you have ever seen. They lost more friends than you even have. They gave up their youth to defend this nation.
This comment is a new low for the radical anti-war left. But it is nothing new. Their anti-troop, anti-veteran, anti-ROTC campaign of terror thas been waging on this campus for a while. They hate people that are willing to die for a cause. Mostly, because the anti-war left don't have the guts to find a cause worth putting their life on the line for.
All the Bills in Madison look at soldiers and think they are smarter and more sophisticated. The Bills say that soldiers are "duped" into serving. Find me an ROTC cadet or midshipman that is only doing to for the money and I will delete this post. There is more to it than money. It is about America, about freedom, and it is about democracy.
Finally, NEVER compare the American Legion to the KKK ...you heartless idiot. Shave your beard, comb your hair, take a shower, go to the local American Legion Post and talk to the Veterans about what they went through. Go alone, let your guard down, have a few drinks, and see what the Greatest Generation did for our nation. Get a little culture in you, before I start calling you ignorant.
What does the Blogosphere say? Is Bill right? Is the American Legion a fascist institution on the same level as the KKK? Let me hear your thoughts.