Project Hero: Lt (SEAL) Michael P. Murphy, Medal of Honor

Today, McQ, as a part of Project Hero, presents the story of Lt Michael P. Murphy.

An amazing story, and one the press all too often ignores.

Go and read the whole thing, and wonder.

Project Hero, is a worthy attempt on McQ’s part to remind us that we have heroes among us. Further, that these need to be honored as such. We at BitsBlog are proud to lend our voice to such a project.

Another link from Chuck Simmins over at the NorthShore Journal. This time, Chuck passes along the story of Spc Rachael L. Hugo, who was KIA in Iraq last week. Chuck’s taken the time to put together a sampling of the press she got.

George Soros, d.b.a. Think Progress, has his knickers is a twist because Fox dared to suggest that Al Gore has done little for world peace.  So what has Gore ever done to promote world peace?  TP goes so far as to list their purported criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize:

The prize for peace was to be awarded to the person who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses.”

So what standing armies has Gore helped to reduce?  What peace conferenes has he conducted?  To the best of my knowledge, none.

Hat tip photo: Michelle Malkin.

Addendum: (Bit)

Thing is, Fox isn’t the only one.

A few others of the 178,000 hits Google coughed up for me, in no particular order:

The Telegraph,

Our Campaigns

Vaclav Klaus, who happens to be the president of the Czech Republic

Slate 

The London Times 

Clipmarks 

Human Events

The SanFran Chronicle 

The question of course becomes, why would Soros pick Fox news, specifically, to go with?  Because it fits in with the left’s mantra about how fox news is biased and has no credibility.  He’s hoping the rest of these sources will be shamed into falling into line with him.

Soros’ largest trouble, of course, is that there are so many people who are asking these questions, and two few who are giving the answers.  The fact of the matter is, Al Gore has done nothing for world peace.  The Nobel peace prize, has been a laughingstock for the last 30 years at least.  This award to someone who has done nothing whatsoever for world peace, confirms that status, and sets it in cement.

OK, now that I’ve got your attention, see that little  button down the right side, that says “Vote For me”?

Hit the button and follow your nose.

Thanks.

Chuck Simmins passes along the story of U.S. Navy SEAL, Lt. Michael P. Murphy.

It’s worth the read.

COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ SENIOR LEADERS

Posted: 11 Oct 2007 03:36 PM CDT

COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ SENIOR LEADERS

VIDEO AVAILABLE: OPERATION NETS 10, DESTROYS TWO BOOBY-TRAPPED HOUSES

Posted: 11 Oct 2007 03:34 PM CDT

VIDEO AVAILABLE: OPERATION NETS 10, DESTROYS TWO BOOBY-TRAPPED HOUSES

UPDATE: KILLED TERRORISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR IMAM’S ASSASSINATION ARE POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED

Posted: 11 Oct 2007 01:54 PM CDT

UPDATE: KILLED TERRORISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR IMAM’S ASSASSINATION ARE POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED

Ya know, I wasn’t going to address this SCHIP hysteria for a while. I really wasn’t. But in reading Michelle’s excellent piece just now, a thought occurrs that I think should be captured. The trigger:

What if I told you I drove these three cars…

A Volvo SUV…

A GMC Suburban…

And a nice, big Ford F250 Pickup work truck…

And what if I told you, further, that I owned a large home and commercial property worth at least $400,000 in total-property for which I paid a total of $215,000?

And what if I told you, in addition, that I was resourceful enough to cobble together financing (through scholarships and other means) for private school education for four children?

And what if I told you that neither I nor my spouse were employed full-time-one of us working “intermittently” and the other “part-time”?

Would you consider my family “exactly the kind” and “precisely the type” of family that should benefit from S-CHIP, the government-subsidized health insurance program intended for the “working poor?”

Valid points. But there’s another which nobody’s dared address: Look at the stated income in Leftie apologist Paul Krugman’s article:

$45000, combined income.

I’d like to know how in the wide wide world of sports they’re managing to pay for all of this on $45k of income. There are only three possible answers: They’re not paying it on that income because they’re getting a good deal of unreported income which allows them to support this lifestyle…. else/and they are hyper-extended, credit-wise, and thereby essentially unprepared for ANY emergency. In any of these cases, there is very serious question about using these people as a poster for government takeover of health care.

If in fact the Frosts are emblematic of the type of family the Democrats think are deserving of healthcare paid for with MY money, we as a nation have bigger problems than we’re going to be able to solve by throwing your money and mine at it. We have a problem centering on honesty and responsibility.

We also have a problem with a political party willing to toss aside those concepts.  Think about it; Democrats willing to toss aside honesty and responsibility. Does the concept shock you? Me, neither.

Addendum: BBCT for the link, Michelle.

Addendum ][: (Bit) And Steyn, and Memeorandum

Addendum III: And Right Wing News 

Last July, Bitsblog re-posted a prayer appeal for Matthew Rager, who was afflicted with brain cancer.  We managed to get an update of that situation last night:

We are loading our car and hoping to leave in about an hour. Matthew got the blessing of his doctor to travel.

–

The MRI was actually better than the last one! It shows that the brain is repairing itself since the surgery. Some scar tissue that was present last time, in no longer visable. The brain has also settled and the space where the tumor used to be is smaller, the brain is settling into its new space. There is still a hole, but a very black hole, with no gray or white spaces. The brain tumor parents out there can appreciated our love for a black space.

–

Matthew is set to begin his chemo protocol on the 26th of this month. He will be taking double the dose of last time, but it will only be for five days

Encouraging news, indeed. They’re still doing fundraisers, by the way.

(What, no pleas for governmental intervention?)

I am glad indeed to see the little guy on the mend.  He’s not done with this yet, but the news is encouraging.

In the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbits are being led by Aragorn across a swamp , and are basically being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  One of the hobbits complains bitterly “What do they eat when they can’t get hobbit?”

Ironically, that was the first thing that popped into my head when I noticed Media Matters trying to jump down Ann Coulter‘s throat for her comments that “Jews need to be perfected by becoming Christians”.   The question, is translated contextualy as… what would Media Matters do, if they didn’t have a manufactured scandal of the week to be harping on?

Forgive me, but this comment from Coulter they’re complaining about, doesn’t even rise to the level of scandal, unless you’re going to make comments about Media Matters and their activities.  Several rebuttals come to mind:

• Clearly, the people it media matters are ignorant of Christian theology, though I will grant that whether this ignorance is intentional or not is an arguable point. For one thing, apparently nobody at Media Matters has learned, much less taken to heart, the commandment of Christ himself to “go and make disciples of all nations”.
• Since converting to Christianity is a volunteer action, and by no means compulsory as it is in Iran, I fail to see where Coulter’s statement rises to the level of that of the little Iranian nut job, in whose country not converting to Islam is punishable by public hanging. Further, The Iranian President represents the government there; Ann Coulter, for all of her accuracy, does not represnt the government here.
• There’s a reason that there’s a constitutional protection as regards freedom of expression and freedom of religion.  It’s so that when Media Matters wonks get into power, they don’t get their way, as regards religion.
• Her offense, in the end, is being (gasp!) Christian, and (Gasp)taking it to heart, and (Double gasp!) having the courage to put her faith into words in public.

It strikes me as a worrisome thing, that a group of someones so tone deaf as regards the links between culture and religion in the west, should be so concerned about obtaining governmental power to work its ends.  Such a thing cannot bode well for the culture, or the country that was founded on it.

Addendum I:   (David L)  

The problem here is not what Ann Coulter said, but how the show’s host, Donny Deutsch’s, characterized Coulter’s remarks    Coulter basically said that Christians look upon themselves as perfected Jews.    It wsa Deuthsch was inserted the word need.

Examine, Christians consider the Old Testament holy.   Thus they can’t condemn Jews for professing a religion based on holy text.   So therefore how do Christians account for the fact that while they consider the Jewish religion to based on holy text, that they, Christians, don’t profess to be Jewish.

Simple, Christians consider the theology of the New Testiment to be an improvement over the Old Testiment.   To believe otherwise would be to reject the Christian faith.

I am agnostic, yet even I can understand this.    Given this concept seems several stories above Deutsch’s understanding of theology, I suggest that Deutsch avoid the subject of religion on all future interviews, if his employer, CNBC, is so stupid as to let him conduct any more.

Adendum II: (Bit)  Agreed, David, but I can see this requires further explaining to some readers.  I don’t intend to get dragged into a theological argument here, but to understand Coulter’s comment you must have at least a basic understanding of what I’m about to describe to you all.

The issue is the attainment of heaven… this is what Coulter is talking about when she says “Perfected”. 

To understand this comment, you must first understand that the old testiment contains the law, which no mere human can follow perfectly.  Yet, perfection in the eyes of God is the only way into heaven. The solution?

The New testiment supercedes the old and puts a new covenant in place of the old. And they are linked… the new covenant is promised in the old… Genesis chapter 2, if I’m not mistaken. The new covenant with God is Christ’s paying for our sins on the cross, by which payment, in the eyes of God, we are now viewed as having followed the law perfectly, because we’ve been forgiven our sins… our mistakes… in Christ.  This is what is meant by having been ‘perfected’.  This is a basic premise of Christianity that one needs understand if they’re to understand the origin of Coulter’s comment, here.

It is Deutsch’s total lack of understanding of all this that leads to his confusion. 

(Assuming that his ignorence is not intentional, which is perhaps another matter altogether.)

So, this uproar over Coulter’s statements is either based in Deutsch’s ignorance, or assuming he knows all this,  is based on pure donkey dung. Neither situation seems attractive to me.

Rick Moran, of the Right Wing Nut House, whom I have been taking to the woodshed with some degree of regularity of late :

I didn’t want to write about the SCHIP imbroglio again today but frankly, I find it fascinating that simply by writing about it, I am accused of “smearing” or “swiftboating” a 12 year old boy.

Yes, well, that’s what this “debate ” has come to. The left found out, too late for supporting its own arguments, that the poster boy of shows for its latest project to socialize the United States, did not demonstrate a case of need.

Pay serious attention here:

A “smear” is a lot more than simple criticism – something no one has directed toward young Graeme Frost. A “smear” is “a usually unsubstantiated charge or accusation against a person or organization” according to Webster. Very well. Let’s give the left the benefit of the doubt and say that the original round of criticisms of Mr. and Mrs. Frost (not Graeme or any other child) were “smears” in that the Freeper who googled up the information that most conservative blogs relied on to originally comment on the issue was incorrect and flawed. Of course, it was “substantiated” to the extent that the Freeper supplied links to his information much of which was later proved to be false or exaggerated. But let’s ignore that little detail and acknowledge that the information was incorrect and further, was disseminated in order to show up the Frost’s and, by extension, the Democrats.

Where does the smear of little 12 year old Graeme Frost come in? Did anyone question his injuries? Did anyone say he was faking it? Did anyone anywhere on conservative blogs write anything that could possibly be construed as an “unsubstantiated accusation” – or any accusation at all – directed against Graeme Frost?

I’m serious about an answer because even today, I’ve gotten several emails and have seen several headlines on liberal blogs that are accusing the right of “smearing” a 12 year old kid when my investigation yesterday revealed not one single conservative blog had said one single word against Graeme Frost.

So far, no one on the left has bothered to explain how conservative blogs are smearing Graeme Frost. They use the term in their headlines and the body of their posts. They use the word in comments left far and wide on righty blogs. They use the word as if it is simply a given, as if “the smear of Graeme Frost” exists naturally in the universe and needs no explanation – sort of like the sun coming up every morning.

That’s called a consensus argument. We discussed that here, last night.

This would be mindless stupidity – if there wasn’t a purpose behind it. And since the intent all along was to cut off debate on the fact that the Democrats wish to expand SCHIP eligibility to include adults and people who by any stretch of the imagination would be seen as middle class (or even upper middle class), it has worked like a charm.

Exactly so, Rick, and this is precisely the point of the whole exercise.

And therein lies the debate. Not whether the Frosts have too much money to enjoy the coverage supplied by SCHIP but whether any family can make choices that force other families to pay for them.

Actually, Rick, I consider both of these arguments in my criticisms, and I think that you should consider them both in yours as well.

1. The whole idea of socialized medicine is to address a supposed need. We’re supposed to be helping the poor children. Well, in this case, the parents of the poster child that the Democrats chose, were not ‘poor’ at all… simply irresponsible. (You remember PARENTS, right? They used to raise kids and be responsible for their welfare before liberals came along and usurped the role to be the sole province of GOVERNMENT.) Forgive me, but any family that turns in the kind of financial wherewithal that has been reported here, does not to my mind constitute a serious need for governmental intervention when health care problems arise. Thereby, the stated reason for the call to government action, here, is revealed as utter nonsense.
2. The other half, you’ve already mentioned; By what right are funds taken from me and mine to support ANYONE, much less someone so blatantly irresponsible?
3. Some sauce for all of this is the idea that the democrats didn’t even bother doing a modicum of investigation into this situation before holding this kid up as a poster boy.  Somehow the inability to handle something basic like that does not strike a feeling of confidence in the heart of this blogger, in terms of giving them greater responsibility to deal with… possibly involving the lives and well being of me and mine .

I’m glad Graeme Frost didn’t have to suffer for his parent’s shortsightedness. And the left is right – we should leave little Graeme out of the debate. Let’s talk instead about fairness and how best to insure those who have problems getting coverage in the private sector.

Well put, and I agree. Trouble is, the right is not the group that keeps screaming, with tears streaming theatrically… “b.b.b.bbb….bbbbb but……  it’s for the children“….. Let’s be honest enough with each other to recognize that this is an attempt by the Democrats to shut down all debate on the issue. What annoys them, is that it didn’t work. So they get more strident with their charges about how we’re smearing a twelve year old by disagreeing with them.

After letting you have it with both barrels a few weeks ago, it seems only fair that I publicly agree with you, when I can see my way clear do it. This is one such case.

As always, with my writing here, it’s about the ideas. I wouldn’t bother commenting on this at all, if you didn’t understand that point, but I think you do.

In my view, Rick, you got this one right.

The first indication that you’re going to lose the culture war is when those supposedly on your side duck and cover.  And that, alas, has already begun.

Reports I have seen… even from sources I usually don’t give much credit to, would seem to be confirmed by a quick look at the website of the company involved.   Mrs Fields has apparently decided to cancel Christmas so as not to ‘offend’ anyone.

Yes, you read this correctly.  Go to the site. Do a search on the word “Christmas” and see what happens.  Now do a search for “Holiday”. Uh-huh.  The stated reason by a supervisor at the company for this lack was that they “don’t want to offend anyone.  ”

Well, I’m offended….so are a lot of other Christians. But I guess we don’t count, eh?

Al Gore, has joined Jimmie Carter and Yasser Arafat as a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize:

OSLO, Norway – (AP)-Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

The news is not a shock

James Joyner, Outside the Beltway:

This continues the trend of the Peace Prize being awarded, not for achievements in spreading peace, but to highlight the Committee’s political agenda.

Ditto James. Maybe Al can use his Nobel money to buy an exercise bike?

Addendum I: (Bit)

This despite the documented lies as found by a British Court, as we reported here yesterday.

Addendum II:  (David L)

Au contare!   Not dispite Algore’s documented lies, but because of his lies.   Remember this is the Nobel committee   The committee looks to facts as a twenty-buck hooker looks to johns.

The Cole bombing was seven years ago today, as Rusty reminds us.

We’ve learned quite a bit about that happening, and the negotiations leading up to it, since. Go and RTWT.

So, now we see Hillary Clinton saying in the Boston Globe …

“I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.”

Well, yeah, true, but that’s not going to stop you coming up with more ideas on how to spend other people’s money, Hillary. That we couldn’t afford it never stopped you and Bubba from taxing spending us to ruin before. What stopped you last time was a Republican Congress.
Today, so far, we’re talking better than $440B for her government healthcare takeover… and you know, if you’ve been reading here for any length of time she’s lowballing this figure… another $100B for her retirement takeover.. another $6B for government run transportation… matter of fact, we’re already at $724BUSD for what she’s promised so far.

No, you’re right, Hillary. We can’t afford you.

So, you’re going to spend more time pointing fingers than to address the issues brought forward, here?

If you go this low already, gang, you’ve got NOTHING.