Go Figure!

 

Everyday on my way to work I pass by a middle school.  The speed limit on the road is normally 35 mph.  As one approaches the school however, the speed limit changes to 20 mph and there are large signs with flashing lights to let you know this.  Everyone, without exception, slows immeditately to 20 mph.  Everyone that is, except the parents.  Mini-vans, SUVs, pickups and cars of every caliber loaded with children barrel ass through that speed zone with little or no regard to the flashing signs.  The irony is that the speed zone is there to protect the children, and the parents are the ones breaking the law!  Go figure!   

A Serious overview of current world war, politically neutral.  This was written by a retired attorney to his sons on May 19, 2004. 

THE WORLD SITUATION - A LETTER TO MY SONS 
 

Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,

As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation.  We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions.  I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to.
 
To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led us through pre and WW2 (1933 - 1945) up to and including our present President, I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict.  This would include just naming a few in addition to:
     President Roosevelt - W.W.II:
     President Truman - Korean War 1950;
     President Kennedy - Bay of Pigs (1961);
     President Kennedy - Vietnam (1961);
     Eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat) during the cold war (1945-1991);
     President Clinton's strikes on Bosnia (1995) and on Iraq (1996) .
 
So be sure you read this as completely nonpolitical or otherwise you will miss the point.  Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WW2).
 
The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.
 
First, let's examine a few basics:

  
1.  When did the threat to us start?
Many will say September 11th, 2001.  The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988;
First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Kohlrabi (Kohlbar) Towers Military complex 1996; Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998;
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000;
New York World Trade Center 2001; Pentagon 2001.
(Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks world wide). 
 
2.  Why were we attacked?
Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms.  The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton and Bush #2.
We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocation by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.
 
3. Who were the attackers?
In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.
 
4.  What is the Muslim population of the World? 
25% 
6.  Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful? 
Hopefully, but that is really not material.  There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference.  You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated.  There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests).

(http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm).  ((This is one hell of a site.))

Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities.  Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others.  Same with the Muslim terrorists.
They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else. The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may
be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements - killing all of us infidels.
I don't blame the peaceful Muslims.  What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?
 
6.  So who are we at war with?
There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists.
Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal.
There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.
 
So with that background, now to the two major questions
1.  Can we lose this war?
2.  What does losing really mean?
 
If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions. We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean?  It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging
our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam.
This is as far from the truth as one can get.   
What losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in the world.  The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase.  Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet.  If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years.
 
The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them. 
We would of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them. They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time.  It will be increasingly easier for them.  They already hold Spain hostage.  It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq.  Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops.  Anything else they want Spain to do, will be
done.  Spain is finished. The next will probably be France.  Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us.  However, it may already be too latefor France.
France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast. 
 
See the attached article on the French condition by Tom Segel. If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims.  If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else?  The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost.  We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost. Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and
really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning.  And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.
 
So, how can we lose the war?  Again, the answer is simple.  We can lose the  war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort.  If we are united, there is no way that we can lose.  If we continue to be divided, there is no
way that we can win. 
 
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.
 
President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously?  This is war.  For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the
civil rights we have become accustomed to.  We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.
 
And don't worry that it is a slippery slope.  We gave up plenty of civil rights during WW2 and immediately restored them after the victory and, in fact, added many more since then.  Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him?  No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil
rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war.  None of those words apply to war.  Get them out of your head. Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose.
 I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal.  It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.
 
Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying.  We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police.  These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein.  And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason.  They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq.  And still more recently
the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held.
 
Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real?
 
The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can.  To bring our country to
a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world.
 
Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or mediapeople are disloyal.  It simply means that they are absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels.  That translates into all non-Muslims -- not just in the United States, but throughout the world.  We are the last bastion of defense.
 
We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant'. That charge is valid in at least one respect.  We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands
tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world.  We can't.  If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated.

And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.
 
This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read. If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less.  They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little on the established French traditions.  The French will be fighting among themselves over what
should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve.  Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
 
Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece.  And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide,
that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power.  They have universally shown that when theyhave taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will
we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?
 
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above.  If we are united, there is no way that we can lose.  I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country.  It is
your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it. 
 
Love,
 
Dad

More About Rathergate............

September 15, 2004, 5:52 a.m.
The First Rathergate
The CBS anchor’s precarious relationship with the truth.

By Anne Morse

Critics are calling the media scandal over the Jerry Killian forgeries "Rathergate." But to thousands of Vietnam veterans, the real Rathergate took place 16 years ago when Dan Rather successfully foisted a fraud onto the American people. Then, unlike now, there was no blogosphere to expose him.

http://www.conservative.org/

http://www.conservative.org/On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.

"I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for," said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather's gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.

"You're telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?" Rather asked.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did."

Steve arrived home "in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs" knowing that "combat had made him different," Rather intoned. "He asked for help; that's unusual, many vets don't. They hold back until they explode."

Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.

Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, "Sergeant Call." "He died in my arms," Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.

Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a "fighting sergeant" who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. "Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely," Bradley said. "That is sick."

"You've got to be angry about it," Rather replied. "I'm suicidal about it," Bradley responded.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.

The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.

The truth was uncovered by B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran and author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (with Glenna Whitley). Burkett discovered that only one of the vets had actually served in combat. Steve Southards, who'd claimed to be a 16-year-old Navy SEAL assassin, had actually served as an equipment repairman stationed far from combat. Later transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Steve spent most of his time in the brig for repeatedly going AWOL.

And George Gruel, who claimed he was traumatized by the sight of his friend being chopped to pieces by a propeller? Navy records reveal that a propeller accident did take place on the Ticonderoga when Gruel was aboard — but that he wasn't around when it happened. During Gruel's tour, the ship had been converted to an antisubmarine warfare carrier which operated, not on "secret mission" along theVietnam coast, but on training missions off the California coastline. Nevertheless, Burkett notes, Gruel receives $1,952 a month from the Veterans Administration for "psychological trauma" related to an event he only heard about.

Mikal Rice — the anguished vet who claimed to have cradled his dying buddy in his arms — actually spent his tour as a guard with an MP company at Cam Ranh Bay. He never saw combat. Neither did Terry Bradley, who was not the "fighting sergeant" he'd claimed to be. Instead, military records reveal he served as an ammo handler in the 25th Infantry Division and spent nearly a year in the stockade for being AWOL. That's good news for the hundreds of Vietnamese civilians Bradley claimed to have slaughtered. But it doesn't say much for Dan Rather's credibility.

As Burkett notes, the records of all of these vets were easily checkable through Freedom of Information Act requests of their military records — something Rather and his producers simply didn't bother to do. They accepted at face value the lurid tales of atrocities committed in Vietnam and the stories of criminal behavior, drug addiction, and despair at home.

Perhaps that's because this is what they wanted to believe. Says Burkett: The Wall Within "precisely fit what Americans have grown to believe about the Vietnam War and its veterans: They routinely committed war crimes. They came home from an immoral war traumatized, vilified, then pitied. Jobless, homeless, addicted, suicidal, they remain afflicted by inner conflicts, stranded on the fringes of society."

Burkett, who did check the records of the vets Rather interviewed, shared his discoveries with CBS. So did Thomas Turnage, then administrator of the Veterans Administration, who was appalled by Rather's use of bogus statistics on the rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness among Vietnam veterans — statistics that can also be easily checked. Rather initially refused to comment, and CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said, "The producers stand behind their story. They had enough proof of who they are." For his part, CBS president Howard Stringer defended the network with irrelevancies. "Your criticisms were not shared by a vast majority of our viewers," he sniffed, adding that "CBS News and its affiliates received acclaim from most quarters . . . In sum, this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."

Sarah Lee Pilley, who ran a restaurant in Colville, Washington where the CBS crew dined while filming The Wall Within, would not agree. The wife of a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who saw combat in Vietnam, Pilley, said she "got the distinct feeling that CBS had a story they had decided on before they left New York." After interviewing 87 Vietnam veterans, CBS chose the "four or five saddest cases to put on the film," Pilley said. "The factual part of it didn't seem to matter as long as they captured the high drama and emotion that these few individuals offered. We felt all along that CBS committed tremendous exploitation of some very sick individuals."

Why would Dan Rather do such a thing? Partly because the stories of deranged, trip-wire vets is much more dramatic than the true story: That most Vietnam veterans came home to live normal, productive, happy lives. Second, Rather apparently wanted the story of whacked-out Vietnam veterans to be true — just as he now wants the Jerry Killian story to be true.

Or maybe — despite a preponderance of the evidence — he considered the sources of these tales of Vietnam atrocities "unimpeachable." As angry Vietnam veterans began calling CBS to complain about the factual inaccuracies of The Wall Within, Perry Wolff, the executive producer who wrote the documentary, claimed that "No one has attacked us on the facts." Despite the growing evidence that he'd been had, Rather also continued to defend the documentary — which is now part of CBS's video history series on the Vietnam War.

Perhaps Vietnam veterans ought to take a page out of the book of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and air television ads exposing Rather's deceits — something along the lines of: "Dan Rather lied about his Vietnam documentary. I know. I was there. I saw what happened. When the chips were down, you could not count on Dan Rather."

Certainly, we cannot count on him for the truth. During a 1993 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Rather criticized his colleagues for competing with entertainment shows for "dead bodies, mayhem, and lurid tales." "We should all be ashamed of what we have and have not done, measured against what we could do," Rather said.

Thousands of Vietnam veterans — not to mention the Bush campaign — would agree.

— Anne Morse is a writer livingin Maryland.

THE CBS APOLOGY

CBS anchor Dan Rather:

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question -- and their source -- vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where -- if I knew then what I know now -- I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

 

 

It's obvious why they don't make these like they used to........

DALLAS (Reuters) - They sure do not make things anymore like the Texas lightbulb that sold for a few cents and has burned for 96 straight years.

The North Fort Worth Historical Society will have a birthday party on Tuesday for its famous household fixture -- a lightbulb that has burned continuously since Sept. 21, 1908. The bulb was first illuminated when a stagehand at a local opera house flicked a switch and posted a sign that the light over a stage entrance was not be turned off.

"We have no idea why it has lasted so long. That is the wonderful mystery of it," said Sarah Biles, the administrator of the museum where the bulb burns, complete with its own independent power supply.

The Texas bulb is about 40 watts and made of thick glass that houses a sturdy carbon filament.

Despite having lasted 96 years so far, the Texas lightbulb does not hold the record for the longest continuously burning bulb in the world.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that honor goes to a some 4 watt bulb that has been burning at a firehouse in Livermore, California, since it was turned on in 1901.

Biles said the keepers of the Texas bulb feel no luminescence envy with the California model because their bulb has had a much more celebrated history.

The Texas bulb was touted -- wrongly -- in the 1930s as the longest burning bulb in the world. The opera house where it burned became a movie house and actors promoting films in Fort Worth would stop to admire the bulb's orange glow.

"Our bulb has a unique past and can hold its own, even if it is number two," Biles said.

DALLAS (Reuters) - They sure do not make things anymore like the Texas lightbulb that sold for a few cents and has burned for 96 straight years.

The North Fort Worth Historical Society will have a birthday party on Tuesday for its famous household fixture -- a lightbulb that has burned continuously since Sept. 21, 1908. The bulb was first illuminated when a stagehand at a local opera house flicked a switch and posted a sign that the light over a stage entrance was not be turned off.

"We have no idea why it has lasted so long. That is the wonderful mystery of it," said Sarah Biles, the administrator of the museum where the bulb burns, complete with its own independent power supply.

The Texas bulb is about 40 watts and made of thick glass that houses a sturdy carbon filament.

Despite having lasted 96 years so far, the Texas lightbulb does not hold the record for the longest continuously burning bulb in the world.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that honor goes to a some 4 watt bulb that has been burning at a firehouse in Livermore, California, since it was turned on in 1901.

Biles said the keepers of the Texas bulb feel no luminescence envy with the California model because their bulb has had a much more celebrated history.

The Texas bulb was touted -- wrongly -- in the 1930s as the longest burning bulb in the world. The opera house where it burned became a movie house and actors promoting films in Fort Worth would stop to admire the bulb's orange glow.

"Our bulb has a unique past and can hold its own, even if it is number two," Biles said.

I sent this email to Sears this morning:

Dear Sears Carpet Cleaning Service,

This letter is not a complaint, but instead a thank you.  Let me explain.

Two weeks ago I made an appointment with your carpet cleaning service to have my carpet cleaned on Saturday, just like I have twice a year now for 17 years. 

Your representative called to confirm my appointment on Friday, and advised the cleaning folks would be arriving between 11am and noon.  I was looking forward to a clean fresh carpet. 

Saturday morning I got up early and moved all my furniture out of the living room and into my dining room, and was ready to take a shower and head off to run a few errands before 11am.  Just as I was getting ready to step into the shower my phone rang.  It was one of your reps, Stephanie, advising me that the van had broke down and she was cancelling my appointment.  I was angry to say the least.  In her perky little professional voice she asked if I'd like to reschedule.  I simply said no and hung up.  I live in a very large metro area, and you folks don't have an extra van for this type of emergency? 

Now what was I to do?  I had scheduled my entire day around this one appointment - two weeks in advance, no less!  My home was turned upside down and I one of two choices:  put everything back in its respective place, or try to call another carpet cleaning company in hopes that they'd have an opening.  

I called STANLEY STEEMER.  They not only would fit me in (they pride themselves in same day service), but would be at my home between 11am and 2pm that day!  I was thrilled!  I hurried and finished my errands and raced back home.  I received a call that someone was on there way around 12:30pm. 

To make a long story short, the Stanley Steemer rep not only did an excellent job cleaning my carpet, but helped move all the furniture back before he left (another little perk that the Stanley people offer)!

In summary, I want to thank you SEARS CARPET CLEANING SERVICE for the last 17 years of service, and more recently for helping me find the STANELY STEEMER people! 

Sincerely,

A Longtime Former Client 

 

WHERE IS HANS  (SITTIN' ON THE FENCE)????