Watcher’s Council

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around…  per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

The San Franciso Chronicile, reports California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s  stirred up a hornets’ nest when he when he urged Latinos to “turn off the Spanish television set”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger knew he was setting himself up for plenty of criticism when he urged Latinos to “turn off the Spanish television set” in order to learn English faster, but it was a briar patch the Austrian immigrant was happy to leap into.

Speaking to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in San Jose Wednesday night, the governor, relaxed and seated in a chair on-stage, answered questions for more than 40 minutes on Latino-oriented issues ranging from immigration to education. Late in that session, he was asked what could be done to help Latino students, many new to the country, pass the newly required high school exit exams.

Reaction:  California reports, “Spanish-language Media Blast Governor for His Comments:” 

 SAN FRANCISCO – Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comments at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Convention this week that Latinos should turn off their Spanish-language televisions and learn English sparked strong reactions in the state’s Spanish-language media. DJs on Univision’s radio station La Kalle 105.7 FM in San Francisco said Thursday that Latinos should watch Spanish-language television and English-language television. In a state where Latinos are now becoming the majority, they added, Gov. Schwarzenegger should learn Spanish and learn more about Latino culture. Being bilingual is a benefit in California, they said, where companies seek employees who speak more than one language.

I question the Spanish language media motivations.   If their audience learns English, they become their former audience. 

Schwarzenegger certainly has the credenetials.   Schwarzenegger came here as immigrant and has been hugly successful, both as a top box office movie star and now the governor of California.   Schwarzenegger didn’t get ahead by listening  to or reading German language media. 

So who’s side is the Spanish Language mediia on?

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased – and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

It warns that celebrities must not be pandered to and allowed to hijack the BBC schedule.

That’s from a report from Gary Cleland of The Telegraph.   .

It’s not much, but it’s a start in the right direction.  After all, admitting you have a problem, is the first step in solving it.

I had a chance to get a few words in with Joe Kaufman of Americans against Hate, earlier today, and I thought I’d fire a few questions at him.

What is posted here is edited only for flow.

-1-

Q: Please note the posting as regards the Democratic Party Leaderhip and their lies about the War On Terror. Do you think significant, in light of what I’ve shown you in that post, the fact that Ellison, Reid and Pelosi are all Democrats?

A. With regards to the war in Iraq, I don’t appreciate how leaders of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have used the war for political purposes.  While Democrats are generally weak on security and embrace a ‘cut and run’ mentality, many Republicans sadly treat our troops as disposable commodities, and the fact that we’re sending more American soldiers into Iraq to die (a.k.a. the surge) attests to this fact.

Follow-on: Am I to understand that you accept the notion that the Surge has not been a success? Do you discount the reports coming back from those troops that progress is being made, and do you discount the re-up rate as evidence that they consider theirs to be a worthwhile task?

A:1. I do not believe, in any way, shape or form, that the surge has been a success, nor do I believe that it ever had a chance of being a success.  The only thing the surge has done is it has put more troops’ lives at risk, and in my opinion, losing one American in that surge was a price too high to pay.

Q: What of them all being Democrats?

A:With regard to Keith Ellison, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi all being Democrats, that means less to me than who they associate with.

Follow-on: Whom are they each associating with, that you find troubling?

A: Obviously, I am concerned about Keith Ellison’s associations with groups connected to terrorism, including CAIR, ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) and MAS (Muslim American Society).  Nancy Pelosi has had at least one meeting with CAIR, MAS and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America).  I would suggest that, if Democrats are truly serious about the war on terrorism, they would distance themselves from groups that are tied to terror.

2: Why is the press so reluctant to weigh in on these matters?

A: The press has its own liberal agenda.  However, Fox News has done a good job of representing both sides of the war.

Q: What is the significance of CAIR losing by some reports, 95% of its membership, since 9/11/01? Most particularly, how does that drop-off in support, weighed on support for Mr. Ellison?

A. According to CAIR, its membership has not dropped as much as recent reports have stated. Paid membership may be an entirely different story.  If I were a Muslim, I would be very concerned about which organization(s) I would give financial support to, especially ones that have been shown to have ties with terrorism, such as CAIR has.  Obviously CAIR’s membership numbers haven’t had an effect on Keith Ellison, as he has recently been elected to Congress with a vast majority of Minnesotan votes.

Follow-On: One gets the feeling for the possibility that this supposedly lower amount of paid membership, is a ruse.  In your opinion, is the lower “paid membership ” reflective of a drop in support, or are we merely dealing with large numbers of people who still support CAIR, but are smart enough to realize that tax records can be used to trace membership?

A: I think the fact that CAIR has been outed as a group that supports terror does play a role in the psyche of those that would normally give support to the group (financial and otherwise) or at least state their support for the group.  Muslim charities, for example, have found it much more difficult, after 9/11, to raise funds, because Muslims are fearful of the consequences of giving money to groups that eventually have their funds frozen.

Q: Clearly, groups like CAIR are not being fully kept under control.  What must we do to rein these people in?

A: CAIR does not need to be “reined in.”  CAIR and other groups like it need to be shut down.  After 9/11, any Islamist group with ties to terrorism abroad should have been shut down.  Unfortunately, our government has been lax in this area.  We can only hope that, with the naming of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT as co-conspirators to Hamas financing, things are beginning to change.

Follow-On: Do you have any evidence that suggests solid movement towards shutting down CAIR, (After all, naming an organization to be (repair of typo…terrorism linked and a danger) and acting on that information, are two vastly different things….) and if you do, do we have any evidence that the weed would not simply pop up in a different point on the sidewalk?

A: I do not have “solid evidence” to suggest that CAIR will be shut down.  However, I have spoken to numerous officials, both inside the government and intelligence, that would like to see CAIR gone.  I have been saying for the last year or so that it is only time before this happens.  When my group called for Senator Barbara Boxer to rescind an award that her office had given out to a CAIR leader and she did (rescind it), CAIR admitted that it was a major setback for the group.  From that time on, it has been all downhill for CAIR, and it’s my opinion that, within the next couple of years, their organization will no longer be in existence.

There have been instances where there have been Islamist groups that have been started from groups that have been shut down.  A prime example of this is KindHearts, which was founded by individuals connected to the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, which were both shut down in December of 2001.  KindHearts was later shut down in February of 2006. 

-0-

John Venlet opens his editor and says:

Editors at the Boston Globe implore, Please, not another Cold War.

Okay, but let’s review what the editors say as they blather on in this piece.

Bush, dedicating the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, said 100 million people died because of that ideology. Nevertheless, some of those deaths were caused by US overreaction to its conflict with the Soviet Union, the focus of Kennedy’s Cold War rhetoric in his 1961 address.

Hogwash.  The blame for the deaths of 100 million people, because of communist ideology, resides with the commies.

Correct. But since when has the world wide left, ever place the blame where it belongs?

To allow for the possibility that they were responsible for all those deaths, raises also the probability that theirs is a morally bankrupt system.  And of course, we’d never get the denizens of the Boston globe to admit that, now would we?  Tell me again, how we’re not dealing with a bias in the supposed mainstream press.

James Joyner over at OTB notes that Yasir Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize was Stolen.

He quotes several folks:

Maynard @ Tammy Bruce: “This violent criminal act is completely pointless. If Hamas had been willing to wait just a few months, the Nobel committee would have awarded them their own peace prize.”

Charles Johnson had a similar thought: “That will save the Nobel Committee the trouble of awarding Hamas the prize; they already have one!”

TigerHawk: “I think this is hilarious . . . the funniest thing Hamas has ever done.”

Carl in Jerusalem wonders, “How much would you pay for a Nobel Peace Prize on E-Bay?”

Don Surber goes him one better: “Here is hoping they sell it on e-Bay to Castro.”

Noel Sheppard warns, “this is guaranteed to evoke uncontrollable fits of laughter.”

Roger L. Simon dubs it “a joke on a joke” and “poetic justice.”

Michael P.F. van der Galiën agrees: “finally, at long last – justice is done.”

I’ll add a few more:

• Surber
  
• Reynolds
• Roger Simon
• Jules Crittenden
• Tammy Bruce
• Jihad Watch
• NewsBusters.org
• Jerusalem Post
• National Review
• GINA COBB
• Gateway Pundit
• Neptunus Lex
• Blue Crab Boulevard
• Belmont Club

Now, we’re supposed to believe that a consensus as regards global warming counts for something.  Is it noteworthy, then, that the consensus among all the people listed here is that justice was done, and that this situation is in direct result of the Oslo accords that the Carters and Clintons of the world worked so hard to bring about?

Yeah, no kidding, Ace.

Look, gang, Ace does a pretty fair job of leveling that Psychotic idiot, Greenwald. I was laughing out loud over that one for quite a while. Ann Althouse does a pretty fair job, as well… But I’d be remiss in my duties as webmaster of this site, in not making my own pronouncement on the matter:
I would put Greenwald calling anyone’s masculinity into question, on par with Greenwald’s Hero, Harry Reid, calling anyone “incompetent”, and for the same reason.
I can think of many who are more masculine. Deb Frisch, for example. Or perhaps Rosie O’Donnell…. Just as I can so easily picture anyone being more competent than Harry Reid.

(Coral Springs, FL) Tonight, June 16, 2007, Congressman Keith Ellison will be a featured speaker at the First Annual Banquet of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Minnesota). This, after CAIR had just been named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a Hamas financing case put forward by the United States government.

Ellison, less than three weeks ago, was the keynote speaker at the 4th Annual Convention of the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS-Minnesota).  While he spoke, MAS-Minnesota had on its website material discussing waging war against non-Muslims and the murdering of Jews.  The material is still located on the group’s site.

Following his appearance, Americans Against Hate (AAH) demanded that Congressman Ellison denounce MAS for its anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements or resign from office.  Ellison has remained silent on the issue.

I wonder if we should be taking as significant, the idea that Mr. Ellison And senator Harry Reid , and senator Nancy Pelosi, share a Democratic party affiliation?

I’m going to get into some heavy quoting here, but it’s to make a point.

Fox News Sunday, today:

Chris Wallace: General, we have less than a minute left. Let’s get to the bottom line here. Do you feel that we can still win in Iraq, that we can leave behind a stable, democratic government?

Gen. Petraeus: Chris, if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be leading the finest of young American men and women who are putting their lives on the line every day. In the last two weeks, I’ve gone to memorial ceremonies, one of which was for four soldiers lost in one unit, another for six soldiers lost in one unit. And I can tell you that as you sit there at that, you obviously reflect on that particular question. And again, I think that there is good prospect for progress in the months ahead, that hopefully can be matched by progress in the political and economic arenas here in Iraq, and again, can give us hope for the way ahead.

And I thought back just a bit, and recalled…(indistinct mumble) Oh…yes, here it is, at PoliPundit:

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “Listen To The Generals.” (Sen. Harry Reid, Remarks At The National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 01/19/07)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “If The President Won’t Listen To Generals, he won’t listen to the American people, who have spoken for a new direction, then perhaps he will listen to us, Congress, when we send him a supplemental bill that acknowledges reality in Iraq .” (CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” 03/26/07)

PoliPundit also points out that Dirty Harry has called both Marine general Peter Pace and Army general David Petreus “incompetent” a report which Reid himself confirms, despite the fact that Reid originally voted to confirm him:

Senate Democrats Voted Unanimously To Confirm General Petraeus. (Petraeus Nomination, Roll Call Vote #33: Approved 81-0, 01/26/07)

McQ rightly points up:

Petraeus isn’t “in touch” with what is going on in Baghdad, or he isn’t validating Harry Reid’s assertion that “the war is lost” and “the surge has failed” (before the last of its soldiers have even been deployed). Whatever happened to Reid’s “listen to the generals?”

The left, who suddenly is so concerned with context, should really try to help us understand the context in which Reid makes these judgments as opposed to the man on the ground in Iraq dealing with it every day.

And on the Pace matter, speaking of out of touch, where does Harry Reid, who as the Majority Leader in the Senate has passed nothing of significance and done nothing of note, get off calling anyone else “incompetent”.

Obviously, what we have here is someone whose job is way too big for him… someone who obviously isn’t taking his own advice about listening to the generals, including the one that he had a hand in installing.
Reid is clearly misrepresenting the situation apparently to advantage his own argument. For those of you Kos kids: Reid is lying.
Kate reports:

There is a long list of people including Senators (Carl) Levin and (Jack) Reed and others who have talked about General Pace long before I did. …The fact is, he’s not going to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, for which I’m happy,” Reid said.

Reid ripped Petraeus for an interview published in Thursday’s USA Today describing progress in Iraq.

“I have high regard for General Petraeus. When I was in Iraq, he was responsible for training the Iraqi troops. He told us it was going great. As we’ve looked back, it didn’t go so well,” Reid said. “I was a little disappointed, to say the least, today reading USA Today newspaper, where he’s saying things are going fine, kids are playing soccer. The truth is, you look at another newspaper and look at a different page of USA Today, the bloodiest three months of the war has been since the surge took place,” Reid said.

The thing is, when you bother to check on that USA Today article Petraeus didn’t exactly say things were going “fine”. Reid – as usual – is misrepresenting his comments. There were few actual comments from Petraeus in the article Reid references. This is one:

Iraq’s 135,000-strong police force continues to be plagued with problems, U.S. commanders say. Up to 70% of Iraqi police leaders have been replaced because they had ties to sectarian violence, Petraeus says.

Does that sound like “everything is fine” to you? It doesn’t to me, but obviously Senator Reid has an interest in portraying General Petraeus as untrustworthy and partisan regardless of what he actually said. Fine. If we are to believe such a weighty accusation, Reid’s own credibility ought to be fair game. He’s already been caught out once. Let’s examine a bit more of what Senator Reid had to say, for example his claim that the last three months have been “the bloodiest of the war”.

Actually Senator Reid, even if you insist on reducing our servicemen and women to Another Grim Milestone ^TM for your obscene jihad against George Bush, that one turns out not to be true either.

The bloodiest three months of the war so far were November 2004-January 2005. Get your facts straight. And simply looking at US casualties without normalizing the monthly rates for the number of people in theater produces a dimensionless figure that is inherently (one might even say purposely) misleading.

Captain Ed, passes on this tidbit:

MYTH:
General Petraeus Says The War Is A “Lost Cause”

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): Gen. Petraeus “Told” Our Troops That “They’re Fighting For A Lost Cause.” CNN BASH: “Is there something to that, an 18- and 19-year-old person in the service in Iraq who is serving, risking their lives, in some cases losing their life, hearing somebody like you back in Washington saying that they’re fighting for a lost cause?” REID: “General Petraeus has told them that.” BASH: “How has he said that?” REID: “He said the war can’t be won militarily. He said that. I mean he said it. He’s the commander on the ground there.” (CNN’s “The Situation Room,” 04/23/07)

FACT:
General Petraeus Sees “Positive” Signs in Iraq

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: “While It Is Too Early To Judge The Success Of The Surge And The Emphasis On Population Security In Iraq, We Have Seen Some Positive Results – Though The Enemy Has Certainly Sought To Overshadow Our Achievements By Carrying Out Sensational Attacks.” “… Your visible presence alongside Iraqi soldiers and police has begun to restore a sense of normalcy to many areas that have seen little other than violence over the past year. Your hard work ahs also led to the uncovering of sizable weapons caches, the detentions of a number of death squad and car bomb network members, the bringing to justice of a number of militia extremists, a decrease in the number of sectarian killings, and a renewal of commerce in many markets and neighborhoods.” (Gen. David Petraeus, Letter To Soldiers Serving In Multi-National Force-Iraq, 04/14/07)

I notice that the advice of “listening to the generals” is no longer such good advice.  At least, by Dirty Harry Reid’s lights. Nor apparently, is telling the truth.

Now why would Reid lie, so as to make the situation appear worse than it s?  Why would he go out of his way to send the message that America cannot win against the Islamo-Facists?
The hypocrisy were being exposed to here, is nothing short of the stuff of legend.

However, it gets better ; Kate goes on to examine the claims that we should be embracing the recommendations of the rock study group , and finds that reads implementations of those recommendations is also wanting , to say the very least:

Senator Reid was all in favor of “listening to the experts” so long as they were useful in bashing George Bush:

Dec. 2006: “The Iraq Study Group has done a tremendous and historic service to the American people and to the troops serving in harm’s way in Iraq. Their report underscores the message the American people sent one month ago: there must be change in Iraq, and there is no time to lose. …Like the Iraq Study Group, I urge the President to change course. He will find Congress ready and willing to work with him. The Senate will do its part next year and conduct strong oversight to ensure the President carries out an effective change in policy.

But as James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group Senator Reid lauded in December of 2006 noted, the measures Reid tried to ram through the Senate were completely contrary to the group’s recommendations:

The report does not set timetables or deadlines for the removal of troops, as contemplated by the supplemental spending bills the House and Senate passed. In fact, the report specifically opposes that approach. As many military and political leaders told us, an arbitrary deadline would allow the enemy to wait us out and would strengthen the positions of extremists over moderates. A premature American departure from Iraq, we unanimously concluded, would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions in Iraq and possibly other countries.

Baker had more to say:

The president announced a “new way forward” on Jan. 10 that supports much of the approach called for by the Iraq Study Group. He has since said that he is moving to embrace our recommendations. The president’s plan increases the number of American advisers embedded in Iraqi army units, with the goal that the Iraqi government will assume control of security in all provinces by November. It outlines benchmarks and indicates that the Iraqi government must act to attain them. He has approved ministerial-level meetings of all of Iraq’s neighbors, including Syria and Iran; the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council; and other countries.

In other words, as they had done with their parade of Generals, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid paid cynical lip service to the Iraq Study Group and then proceeded to ignore every one of their recommendations. The Democrats soon abandoned their Useful Idiots, once they could no longer be used to embarrass the administration. In retrospect, the President is the one who has listened, and Reid and Pelosi have fought him every step of the way for doing what they publicly called for him to do not six months ago.

Is this the Democrat party version of “supporting the troops”?  Why are the lies coming so fast and furiously from the Democratic Party side of the aisle?

The answer, I fear is a simple one, but breathtaking in it’s implications:

The Democratic party are invested in our losing, so heavily invested in fact that if we win, the Democrats are going to look like the traitors they are, and will be out of power for generations; Nobody will ever trust them again. Reid knows it, so he’s doing everything possible… Bald faced lies, etc… to win this PR battle.

The press, apparently, are helping in this effort; have you noticed any of the reports that I’ve cited here, being trounced upon by the mainstream media?  No, you haven’t.  The mainstream media has been sweeping these lies under the rug as quietly as possible.

The evidence that the Democrats have been lying to us, is overwhelming.

The bottom line for us, is that the Democratic party cannot be trusted with national security, or any other position of responsibility. 

Bit notes: Another Father’s day is here… and I find myself as ill equipped to deal with the day as I have been in past years, though I’ve come to understand, that is OK… that nobody else, in reality, knows how to deal with it either. It’s appropriate, I think, that I pass along something I wrote a few years ago.

-1-

I’ve always considered it something of a cruel, ironic joke, that he should have passed on, so close in the rolling year, to the day we’ve come to know as “Father’s day”… A hair longer than a week before it. There seems no particular significance to the relationships between the dates, but there’s no denying their closeness has always left me vaguely discomforted for reasons I’ve never fully worked out. Anyway;

I’ve come to understand quite a bit about my father in the last 15 years, or so. Oddly, most of my understanding came after he’d died a few years ago, and most of the revelations have been as a result of my having lived life. He’s never far from my thoughts, and so as life events unfold, I always have his guidance nearby to lean on, and his guideposts to measure by. And, as I go though this process, I’m leaning more about both who I am, and who he was.

And, oh boy has a lot ever happened since his death. Think about the changes in the last five years, in your own life. I suppose it could be fairly said that nothing has happened to me, though, that he hadn’t prepared me for. The funny part is, I didn’t know I was being prepared for it, at the time. I think he didn’t know what the future would bring, either. All he could do is impart the basic values, and hope I was able to apply them correctly. Apparently I have, for the most part.

What amazes me is how well I can hear his voice now that he’s passed on; in many ways, better than I ever could while he was alive. Those of you who have lost a parent will understand what I’m saying, here, I think. It is yet another cruel irony, I guess, that his voice seems to ring louder in my ears, in my head, now that he’s gone…. This is particularly true when value judgments come up. I suspect this is as it should be… Those being his most important lessons… But I still marvel at it all.

I also, within the last several years, find myself dimly aware that I’ve managed to pick up some of the traits he had, without trying. These are not things I’d picked up consciously… In fact, when I was seventeen, I think I might have made the choice to avoid these traits. Now at nearly three times that age, I have begun to regard adopting these things as the natural progression… That all is as it should be.

Dad was a product of his times. This is a crucial point to me of late, is the understanding of that one fact, because I still catch myself judging how I’m doing as a father, with my two boys, using his methods, and his… (what I will call for simplicity, though I mean nothing so flippant)… Style points…. As guideposts… And usually, in my estimation, coming up well short of that ideal in the judgment. It’s taken me quite a while… More time than most, I tend to think… To understand that those style points are nigh on useless given the difference between the times in which we live now, and the times then… That I have to look deeper than this. It’s something like allowing for inflation in an adjusted income figure over time, one adjusts the perception through for the times of each of us, there are more traits we share than we don’t.

I am reminded of this, today more than most days, as my two boys spend their day trying to make me feel special. I can see myself doing this at their age, and I marvel as history repeats itself. They tell me “Happy Father’s Day!” and mean it, and other than “thank you” (and a hug) I find myself unsure how to respond.

If you really want to know the truth, I’ve never been fully comfortable in the role of ‘father’, because I’m never sure I can fill the role I knew as father… Being, inside, the same scared- to- death twelve year old kid I was all those years ago. In thinking on this, I guess we, none of us, ever really grow up to the point where that small scared child is ever completely silent. We’d better hope not, anyway… That twelve year old kid is needed to keep us from falling into the Scrooge-like insanity, I think… as I wrote last Christmas. Still, we try to balance that twelve year old inside us with reality… A hellish task I don’t wish on anyone, but one we all face, I think.

An old Moody Blues tune comes into my mind, unbidden. It seems to speak to this situation rather clearly.

All my life, I
Never really knew me
’till today
Now, I know why;
I’m just another step
Along the way

…

I don’t know what I’m searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

That’s the reality that twelve year old inside us, doesn’t want to hear. But… And I don’t care if you’re a hundred and five years old; that twelve year old is still inside us, and still of a mindset that he’s waiting for his adult life to begin, and that mindset dims our vision to the reality that our adult life has ALREADY, long past begun. In many ways, I finally see this is a conflict we play out internally, all our lives. Implicit in that understanding, however, is the recognition that, for all that I held him to be when I was a child, Dad still had that twelve year old in HIM, too. Like the milestone of five years gone… Like the waking up in the morning, through the aches and pains and understanding that the grey-bearded guy in the bathroom mirror really IS me…it’s a startling discovery.

Its amazing, if you think on it for very long… All our childhood, we champ at the bit like race horses spoiling for a race to get started. Even at the very young ages, we yearn for adulthood…(“I’ll do it MYSELF, Daddy…”) When we finally do get to adulthood, we end up spending a lot of our young adult lives in this in-between stage, not fully understanding that the green flag has dropped, the race is on, and the turtle’s already got a 30 length lead, Mister Rabbit… And some of us never do make it beyond this stage at all, on ANY level.

It’s what Hayward of the Moodies was talking about in that same song I quoted before;

I lie awake for hours, I’m just waiting for the sign

When the journey we are making has begun,
Don’t deny the feeling that is stealing through your heart,
Every happy ending needs to have a start.

Perhaps I now have a working definition of a mid-life crisis; the feeling that I need to get going on things, because I’m running out of time.

Such are my thoughts this Father’s day.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. This is me saying “I get it, now… at least part of it… better than I did. We were more alike than I knew.”, and it’s my Father’s day gift. More of you survives than either of us knew… and is with me every day.

And yet, I miss you.

-0-

It’s interesting, and a little disturbing, that the words I wrote years ago, still right true today. perhaps there is something of greater prominence there, then I was aware of, what I wrote those words originally a couple of years back.  Given the feedback I received when I first posted it back in 2005 perhaps there something more in terms of universality, as well.

I keep getting the impression that the look of the site needs to be freshened up, a bit.  The more I look at other templates, however, the more I realize just why it is I settled on this one, and it’s modifications, in the first place.

* The type is actually big enough to see without straining. Frankly, the type on the majority of blogs today, particularly the ones where the owners haven’t bothered making any modifications, are just too small for anyone but those with the absolute best of eyesight and (Video) equipment.
* The colors are chosen so as to make reading relatively easy.  this is not just a personal choice thing; indeed I’ve chosen other colors if the look was the only consideration.  Too often, people go for what really looks cool at first, not realizing that the shorter wavelengths, such as blue, are inherently hard to read, because the eye doesn’t handle them as well.  When I chose the colors for this site, I was keeping that in mind , but didn’t want just plain old black and white.  A pale yellow scheme seemed a reasonable compromise.

* I’d like to add some graphics to the baseline page, but it already takes too long for anyone running a modem, anyway.

I’ve studied this for the last couple of weeks, and no matter what I am not doing, and coming back to that we were we were.  So I guess we’re stuck with this look for a while.

Of course….  if you have a “look and feel” suggestion, for this site, please feel free to leave them in comments.

Not a good day to be named Mike.  ABC News is reporting, the less than shocking news, that Mike Nifong has been disbarred:

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong has been disbarred after being found guilty of a battery of ethics violations for his handling of the Duke lacrosse investigation, a North Carolina Bar disciplinary committee announced Saturday evening.

ABC News did not provide a comment from Crystal Gail Mangum.

Hewitt notes Lott’s blathering, which I ranted on, last night:

“I’m sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people who don’t even know what’s in the bill,” Lott said. He added that the “leadership will have to be prepared to do what needs to be done.”

I will invite Senator Lott on the program next week to discuss what is in the bill and the amendment package.  I suspect he will decline, but you never know.

If there ever was a video clip which proves a person is not qualified to be president, Byron, has it on Hot Air.  Mike Gravel is on the Laura Ingram show and thinks he talking  to Dr. Laura Schlessinger.   Ingram takes it in stride, but Gravel  is about a burger short of a Happy Meal.  

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFPN) — Legendary fighter pilot, retired Brig. Gen. Robin Olds, died June 14 from congestive heart failure one month short of his 85th birthday.

General Olds, rated a triple ace for having shot down a total of 16 enemy aircraft during World War II and the Vietnam War, served his country in assignments to England, Germany, Libya, Thailand and the United States, in positions of squadron, base, group and wing commander, and assignments to Headquarters U.S. Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Triple-ace Robin Olds’ legendary leadership and heroic service to the cause of freedom have been an inspiration to our nation and our Air Force,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. “He is one of our ‘great captains’ and a pioneer of air power.

BBCT Billy, who rightly says:

From time to time, I get accused of “cheerleading” “war-mongering” around here, from people who rightfully hate war but don’t stop to sort out when there is a right and wrong of it and cannot conceive that, sometimes, the evil evident in a single criminal runs to the scale of nations and that it must be met with righteous force for the very same sake of life itself.  It is on this principle that we can isolate the concept of the warrior as a value per se, and honor them as they rise and fall around us for the right thing.