The Case for Rage and Retribution

My first inclination was to just have the simple post below and let everyone keep their own thoughts on this day, but, going through my daily blogs, I came across as article quoted at Right Wing Nation that caused me to change my mind. this was just to powerful to not pass on.

The Case for Rage and Retribution
By LANCE MORROW

Posted Wednesday, Sep. 12, 2001

For once, let's have no "grief counselors" standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn't feel better.

For once, let's have no fatuous rhetoric about "healing." Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be time later for the tears of misfortune note.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury—a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation (O.J. … Elián … Chandra …) or into a corruptly thoughtful relativism (as has happened in the recent past, when, for example, you might hear someone say, "Terrible what he did, of course, but, you know, the Unabomber does have a point, doesn't he, about modern technology?").

Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.

As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity—the sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism as America to act. Anyone who does not loathe the people who did these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical for decent company.

It's a practical matter, anyway. In war, enemies are enemies. You find them and put them out of business, on the sound principle that that's what they are trying to do to you. If what happened on Tuesday does not give Americans the political will needed to exterminate men like Osama bin Laden and those who conspire with them in evil mischief, then nothing ever will and we are in for a procession of black Tuesdays.

This was terrorism brought to near perfection as a dramatic form. Never has the evil business had such production values. Normally, the audience sees only the smoking aftermath—the blown-up embassy, the ruined barracks, the ship with a blackened hole at the waterline. This time the first plane striking the first tower acted as a shill. It alerted the media, brought cameras to the scene so that they might be set up to record the vivid surreal bloom of the second strike ("Am I seeing this?"), and then—could they be such engineering geniuses, so deft at demolition?—the catastrophic collapse of the two towers, one after the other, and a sequence of panic in the streets that might have been shot for a remake of The War of the Worlds or for Independence Day. Evil possesses an instinct for theater, which is why, in an era of gaudy and gifted media, evil may vastly magnify its damage by the power of horrific images.

It is important not to be transfixed. The police screamed to the people running from the towers, "Don't look back!"—a biblical warning against the power of the image. Terrorism is sometimes described (in a frustrated, oh-the-burdens-of-great-power tone of voice) as "asymmetrical warfare." So what? Most of history is a pageant of asymmetries. It is mostly the asymmetries that cause history to happen—an obscure Schickelgruber nearly destroys Europe; a mere atom, artfully diddled, incinerates a city. Elegant perplexity puts too much emphasis on the "asymmetrical" side of the phrase and not enough on the fact that it is, indeed, real warfare. Asymmetry is a concept. War is, as we see, blood and death.

It is not a bad idea to repeat a line from the 19th century French anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: "The fecundity of the unexpected far exceeds the prudence of statesmen." America, in the spasms of a few hours, became a changed country. It turned the corner, at last, out of the 1990s. The menu of American priorities was rearranged. The presidency of George W. Bush begins now. What seemed important a few days ago (in the media, at least) became instantly trivial. If Gary Condit is mentioned once in the next six months on cable television, I will be astonished.

During World War II, John Kennedy wrote home to his parents from the Pacific. He remarked that Americans are at their best during very good times or very bad times; the in-between periods, he thought, cause them trouble. I'm not sure that is true. Good times sometimes have a tendency to make Americans squalid. The worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started.

5 Years

It's been five years since the nation was shocked into reality by the barbaric acts of men who have no qualms of killing innocent people to further their goal of dragging the world back into the seventh century.

It still seems like it happened yesterday, I don't think there is a day that passes that the images of the Twin Towers and Pentagon don't creep into my thoughts.

I recommend stopping by the "2996 Project" and reading some of the tributes to the people who's lives were cut way to short that day. (Bring a hankie)

You should also go to "Never Forgive, Never Forget", particularly if you haven't seen the video before.

2996

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers.

Dale Roe has organized this. Please stop by his site Monday and read some of the posts.

Saturday Blog

This is my Saturday and it's too damn hot (over 100) to go outside and try to do anything.

We had a long discussion on the Rott about the football coach that blindsided the kid for the alleged illegal block after the play. I went and looked at the video and played Replay Official, running it back and forth and came to the following conclusions:

1. The whistle was late, the runner went down then there was a couple of seconds till the whistle. Of course these are not professional refs, but the rules are you play til the whistle and your assignment is the guy in front of you.

2. The hit occurred simulataniously with the whistle.


3. The hit most likely wasn't illegal. From the way the white shirt went down, on his back, that would point to being blocked front or side. White shirt could probably see the runner go down and relaxed, but the other guy is focused on who to block, he dosen't watch the ball.

4. A flying forearm to the back of the head was not the way to handle this.

This was an overreaction on this Dad's part. His son got up and was heading for the sidelines, his demeanor did not indicate he felt he was wronged. His first reaction seemed to be "“Where'’s Dad going?"

The answer to these things is to put your biggest fastest guy on the supposed offender a few plays later and make sure he goes down hard.

When I first saw it on TV, I couldn't hear the whistle and the block went by so fast it was hard to see what happened and I thought it was way illegal, but you play til the whistle and the refs were a bit slow. The block may have been boaderline, but not deserving of what that Dad did.
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If you've been trying to figure out the Lebanese ambulance thing and whether it was attack by missile, machine gun, axe? I ran across a couple of sites, the first one is about every detail you could want on what is know and said, The Red Cross Ambulance Incident via zombietime. The other is a simple video, but does add to the argument that the MSM is going to have to add another layer of fact checkers to the 70,000 they claim to already have. Rocket Ride (Hezbollywood Remix)
at The Jawa Report.

It Was 61 Years Ago , Today

While the normal celebration of the victory Over Japan is August 14, the official end of the occurred today with the signing of the Unconditional Surrender of the Japanese Empire.

How times have changed. Japan attacks us, and we go all out to defeat the enemy. People died, lots of people died, but we knew this was something that had to be taken to a definite and unambiguous conclusion.

moslems attack us and we start with the navel gazing trying to figure out why they would want to do that. I do not care what their reason is, that they want my family, friends, and acquaintances dead is all the reason I need.

When someone declares war on you, you fight the fucking war to win. Afterwards you can work out the differences.

Japan hated us and were taught that we were inferior and not worthy of respect. Well, we won, so I guess we weren't inferior and Japan is now one of the most properous countries in the world and an ally. Not a bad turnout for us imperialistic Americans.

The same has to be applied to islam, as long as their creed is to subjucate us, we have to fight them until they no longer afford to attack us. Then we'll figure out how to deal with our differences.

I'm An Idiot For Living Here?

I have had to listen to the anniversary news on Katrina all day today. The thing that has fried my bacon has been all the comments over the years about how could I live in Kalifornia with all those earthquakes?

What "all those earthquakes"? The last one I felt was the Northridge 6.7 back in 1997. There have been others in the area, but a UPS truck driving down the street shakes more. It's been 9 years since my life was disrupted by the ground moving.

What about you idiots that live in the Gulf Region? Every year you have, what, maybe five hurricanes blow through. Even if they don't hit you directly, you board up, pack up and move out.

How about you that choose to live in "Tornado Alley"? You know that many are coming every year, but you're still there aren't you? You (Eloi) even build shelters to go hide in when the sirens go off. Shelters you built because you knew the chances where good that your house was going to get blown away.

There is always the North, Central and Eastern, that are totally stunned every year when the snow falls and you freeze to death or have buildings collapse due to the buildup. Not to mention the heart attacks from going out first thing in the morning to shovel the snow out of your driveway.

See, that's the nice thing about earthquakes, no warning, they hit and then they go away. I don't have to wonder whether to evacuate or not. I'm not wondering if I have enough food to wait for the snowplow (Yes,I do have earthquake supplies that I update yearly, I'm not unrealistic). I'm not hunkering in a shelter, or trying to find one because the sirens are screaming.

One of my favorite stories is that after the Northridge quake, a couple moved to Oklahoma, because they weren't going to go through any more earthquakes. They died less than a year later in a flash flood.

So, STFU. Your choice of where to live is no better than mine. I will come to your aid and I hope you come to mine. That's America. I just don't want to hear that crap about "Well, you chose to live in an earthquake zone".

I Got Good News Today

Delftsman, who blogs on emigre with a Digital Cluebat and had gone through heart surgery a few months ago, had to undergo a new round of bypass surgery. The old coot wouldn't listen to the doctors, his family, or the people that visit his site and change his evil ways of living.

Delfts was one of the first people I communicated with over at the Rott and was an inspiration to start this backwater site (so blame Misha and Delfts if you're reading this).

My prayers are for him and his family that the recovery goes as well as the surgery.

Kidnapped FoxNews Reporters Freed

FoxNews reporter Steve Centanni and his cameraman Olaf Wiig were finally released yesterday after two weeks of captiviety. While being held they were forced to state that they had converted to islam at gunpoint.

What I want to hear now is a fatwa that states their conversion is not valid being it was made under duress.

one of the important doctrines of Islam is "la ikraha fiddeen" (Qu'ran, 2:256), meaning "no compulsion (or coercion) in religion". They believe that this verse implies that no nation can coerce another nation or individuals to change their religion.

Without this ,their lives are endangered, being one who converts then "rejects" islam is appostate and is sentenced to death.

for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.'" 4:52:260

The article on their ordeal

This and That - Part II

Photo:IDF

Look carefully in the back of the picture and tell me what you see. No wonder the UNIFIL forces were scared of the Israeli forces coming after the hezzies.

IDF forces from the Golani Brigade blasted open a Hizbullah bunker overnight Saturday some 400 meters from the security fence near Rosh Hanikra, it was reported on Sunday. The bunker was discovered a mere stone's throw from a UN post.

From Israel.jpost.com

This and That

Had to mount a motor on a compressor at work today, so I just wanted to pass on a few interesting reads for today.

There is a movie coming out on ABC Sept 10-11 called "The Path to 9/11". FrontPageMag has a glowing write-up on it. The movie starts with the WTC bombing in 1993 and goes through to the events of 9/11.

HT:rightwingprof

It probably wouldn't surprise anybody to find out that the Useless Nitwits were posting intelligence on IDF positions and armament on their web site, often within 30 minutes of when they arrived at the position. What did you do in the war, UNIFIL? from the weekly Standard

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old. [emphasis-mine]

Once again HT:rightwingprof

On the other side of the pond, hezbollock's MP to parliament george galloway decided to go to Lebanon and give his congratulations to the terrorists in their victory over Israel. Go watch the video if you think you can stomach it. How much longer are the people of Britain are going to let this asshat go on supporting the destruction of their country?

Via Hot Air.

‘democracy, immigration multiculturalism … pick any two"’
American writer James C. Bennett

Also via Hot Air, some articles muliculturalismism. I particularly recommend Mark Steyn's speech which transcribed on New Sisyphus

Life Is Intruding On My Life

Haven't been posting regularly lately due to life just getting to damn busy.

I've posted about my trucks 100K overhaul, which meant I didn't have a vehicle for a couple weeks, then my water heater crapping out which, outside of the additional unexpected financial hit, extended my work day to 16 hours for a week (normal work day at the oil site plus coming home and buying supplies, mounting equipment to the wall, re-plumbing the hookups, ect.).

The thing I haven't talked about is that I have also been putting out feelers for a new job. My company hasn't produced a drop of oil since February, and I've lost faith that the owners of the company have a definite plan to get things going again. We start a work-over job on a well - get 75% of the way through - come up with a new plan - stop - move the rig - start - get 75% through - new plan.....ad infinitum. At $8 to $12K/day for a rig and crew, this is not a business plan that makes sense.. at least to a lowly site operator like me.

My search is not in panic, I have a job, but my belief is that it is better to look for a job when you don't need it, rather than have to take whatever is offered because you do not have a job and nasty phone calls are coming in about that bill that's a "little" overdue.

If anyone who passes through here knows of a job for someone who has the common sense to get a job done under all circumstances, i.e. we have the Money to do it right so fix it, or we need to make this work till we get the money and then will fix it correctly, I'm the guy you want.

As far as posts, I do have about five rants down on paper that I worked on in fits and starts, but now they're mostly old news. I thought about scanning them and posting them as a jpeg file on Photobucket, but even I have problems reading my scratching, and I know what I was thinking when I wrote it.

Right now, I think I'll just hang on to them and incorporate them into future postings when then subjects cycle through again, as I'm sure they will.

Elmo Is an Evildoer

Just cruising sites and I ran across Joel Stein's article Elmo Is an Evildoer: The self-obsessed Sesame Street Muppet is destroying all that is holy on children's TV on Jewish World Review. It had an observation I just had to pass on.

Yes, I know that children love Elmo. But children are idiots. That's why we don't let them have jobs. Could you imagine an office full of children? They'd spend all day telling dumb jokes and talking about their poop. It would be like it was before women entered the workplace.

It just cracked me up on a slow boring night at work.

The Death of Lebanon

I believe that with this latest and greatest u.n. brokered “cease-fire” we are witness to the final turn towards the death of Lebanon, the one we middle agers and older can remember, “The Switzerland of the Middle East” with Beirut known as “the Paris of the Middle East. The Lebanon that existed before the decade and a half of “civil war”, which really was outside factions fighting each other on Lebanese soil.

With the ousting of Syria in 2005, the northern part of the country was showing the beginning of rebuilding and resuming it’s former identity, but with hezbollah allowed into the government, the southern part of the country was militarized as a base to provoke and attack Israel.

Now, with the current u.n. Resolution, 1701, which for all intents and purposes is just a rewrite of u.n. Resolution 1559 that hezbollah and the Lebanese government ignored. The toothless Lebanese army has already stated that they will not attempt to disarm the terrorists, and G-d knows that the “new and improved” UNIFIL isn’t going to do anything. They will just sit there; looking south to make sure Israel doesn’t do anything, while those mysteriously appearing Katyushas arc over their heads heading south.

Lebanon is now run by hezbollah. They have cowed the countries government and have Iran backing them. The next step will be the imposition of Sharia Law, and to either dhimnify the Lebanese Christians or drive them out. I fully expect a mass exodus as life becomes unbearable for the non-muslim population.

Oh, and do not expect the hezzies to invite the Palestinians into this “New Lebanon” to become the New Palestine. That would remove these “displaced” pawns as a reason for Israels destruction; so radical islam will gain more land and still leave the pali’s in the squalor of their refuge camps.

Lebanon, once a vital and cosmopolitan country, will be turned into another Middle Eastern Shithole that will contribute nothing more but death and poverty to the region and the world.

A Win Is A Win

Raiders 16 - Vikings 13
They really didn't deserve it with the way they played, but then the Vikings should have done a better job and proved they were the better team.

After last week with the lack luster performance and few penalties, the Raiders reverted to form this week with aggressive play, but lots of stupid penalties.

Brooks (QB) didn't impress me at all. I don't know if the guys don't feel he's a leader, of he just hasn't grasped the system, but he seems to be ineffective and about a half step slow with his decisions.

The part I liked was that they gave Walter some decent play time and he didn't disappoint. He threw a couple of interceptions, but as an almunus of ASU, every QB that has come out of there has a tendency to throw 1 or 2 a game. Jake Plummer with *spit* Denver *spit* was a product of ASU.

The end of the game was horrendous, and in the regular season, the Vikings would have gone for OT, but this puts us at 2-0, which should make the team more upbeat that they play that poorly and still pull one out, at least until they meet with Coach Shell next practice.

Israel and hezbollah and Lebanon Approve u.n. Cease Fire

O.K., now what? Everyone involved with this has agreed with the cease fire, but they all have their conditions.

Israel will not leave until the Lebononese army and u.n. forces are are in place.

hezbollah will not stop firing missiles or attacking the IDF as long as they have a presence in Lebanon.

The Lebanese army can't do anything until (and unless) the u.n. forces will back them up.

The u.n. forces cannot deploy until the fighting is stopped.

Sounds like there was a whole lot of talking and paper writing to accomplish nothing....again.

The idea that Israel agreed to the cease fire amazes me. I realize hezbollah was winning the PR war with their staged picture of dead children and Fatima's house being bombed continuously (over night). There is little coverage of the Israel's having to live in basement bomb shelters and innocents, wounded of dead, for the last month due to the rockets coming from....someplace?

The optimist in me says that Israel is willing to pull back until hezbollah attacks again and then can go ahead with their plan to just take these koranimals out, but I think it will actually just turn out to be another step in the endless cycle of islamonazi provocation-Israeli responce-terrorists getting their butts kicked-u.n. call for cease fire-condemn Israel for killing "civilians"-cease fire-terrorist re-arm-islamonazi provocation.

When..not if...hezbollah breaks the cease fire, Israel should annihilate anything that looks like it has a connection and the United States should back them all the way.

“Long live Lebanon. Long live Hezbollah”

This is the attitude of the anti-war left. Despite the history of hezbollah, it has got to be our fault. Via Barking Moonbat Warning System with links to ZombieTimes so you can enjoy the vitriolic and racist messages these "peaceniks" espouse.

GuyK of Charming Just Charming has A LONG LIST OF ATROCITIES COMMITED BY MOSLEMS, as you might have guessed it's a long list, but only goes up to 2004.

To put you in a better mood after the above posts, from The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, the launching of the USS Bill Clinton

Just Dropping By

Busy, busy. Project during the day and working graveyard. Gotta sleep sometime, so not much time for other things till this weekend.

Ran across a great quote over at aish.com which does a good quick video rundown on the stir over the news photos, Photo Fraud in Lebanon.

"If you do not read a newspaper, you are uninformed.
If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed."

Mark Twain.

I Should Have Seen It Coming

I posted earlier about having my truck hitting 100K and having my mechanic go bumper to bumper on it. It was expensive, but nothing else was pressing monitarily, so I went ahead.

Sunday night while watching the Raiders go for the best record in the league (I'll enjoy it while I can), just before half time, the wife informs me there is no hot water. I drag my butt out of the recliner and go out and down into our little cellar and as I get about halfway down the stairs, I can see that there is about 1 1/2 inches of water. Yep, the water heater had decided to go.

Search the net for prices and decided to go with an on-demand tankless model and off to Home Depot.

My local Home Depot is Fort Home Depot. It has an 8 foot high wrought iron fence all around the parking lot. Besieging the ramparts are about 40 "hispanics" waving and whistling at every car that turns onto the access road.

Inside I located my heater about 8 foot up on a shelf, with a sign that says "Please ask for Assistance when getting items from these selves", so I look for assistance. No orange bibbed people within sight. After 20 minutes one wanders buy, but "Sorry, I'm in hardware", another comes by, "Sorry I'm in garden, but I'll page plumbing". Another 10 minutes go by, so it's up to the register to find a floor manager. I tell the cashier that I'm prepared to spend around $750...or not.

That managed to get some service and I was actually out of the store in just over an hour. Any trip to Home Depot I usually figure 2 hour minimum.

Driving out of the parking lot, I look across the main boulevard at the "Employment Center" that was set up to keep the day laborers out of peoples yard and costs the city $100,000/year to operate, is deserted. Not a person even on that side of the street. Boy that was a surprise...HA!

Now I get to do the fun part, sweating pipe and threading a gas line to the heater. I'm am serious about the fun part, I love to plumb. I'm sure there will be a trip or two to the local hardware store for some minor things needed, but I expect that for every job. I'll let you know how the project turns out.

Yeah, I'm Ready For Some Football

Raiders 16 Eagles 10
I like almost any sports, but football is the sport I love.

I know this was only a pre-season game, but I'm going to enjoy this game anyway.

We got shredded on Philly's first possession (the only one with their first stringers), and the Raiders tackling in the first half was horrendous (like last year), but there were a few positive signs in the game.

I tend to ignore football till the games start.
With the overlapping of the different seasons there is just to much to try to keep track of. So, seeing Art Shell back as Head Coach was an incredibly nice surprise, and having Al Davis *spit* admit that firing him the first time was a mistake really made me happy knowing he call pull out of the dementia he's been in the last 20 years.

Shell is a down to basics guy, so I expect to see improvement this year (like we could go lower, so anything is up). We won't make the Super Bowl this year, but if we are in the run for the wildcard berth, I've had a winning season.

Closed v Controlled

I was just listening to a discussion on border policy and, once again I heard the phrase "close the border". I don't know where this comes from except the extremes on both sides of this issue.

The Left uses it to indicate that conservatives hate people of a non-white Christian nature. The Nazi's use it in as a way to prove the left correct.

The actual truth is in the middle. Gee, surprise , surprise.

Most of the people in the U.S. want the borders CONTROLLED. We want to know who is here and why. You want a job and there is a job for you, come on in. You got TB, lets clear that up before you come in and take that job as a a cook at Denny's.

The argument that if someone wants to have control over who is in this country is a racist is just BS. Just let us know who you are and what you're gonna do to support yourself and everything fine. It may take a little time to do the paperwork, but wait till you go to DMV for your drivers license, you'll really find out about forever.

If a wall is what it takes to achieve this, then a wall needs to be built. Believe me, if you come here and participate in the opportunities this country makes available, your grandchildren will be thankful for this protection.