Word from Winston

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without
bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not
too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with
all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may
even be a worse case: You may have to fight when there is no hope of
victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”



Sir Winston Churchill

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Sam Ryskind : Cartoonist

Words of Wisdom

From Senator Saxby Chamblis

Congress Should Not Micromanage the War

March 30th, 2007

Congress
does not need to micromanage the war, and funding for our troops should
not be delivered with strings attached.  The continuous efforts to set
a surrender date undermine our military and are contradictory to the
Senate’s unanimous support of General David Petraeus, who is currently
executing the new strategy in. We need to give that strategy a chance
to work without tying the hands of those who are carrying out that
strategy.

We have military leadership on the ground in recommending against
imposing timelines. We have civilian leaders who have significant
military experience who testified before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, and every single one of those individuals, whether they were
Republican or Democrat, has said imposing timelines is not the way to
go. A surrender date will simply embolden the enemy.

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EU Solves "Terrorism" Problem

From Little Green Footballs

The European Union has solved Europe’s problem with Islamic terrorism and jihad.

By banning the words.

The European Union has drawn up
guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam
and terrorism in their statements.

Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified
handbook which offers “non-offensive” phrases to use when announcing
anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks.

Banned terms are said to include “jihad”, “Islamic” or “fundamentalist”.

The word “jihad” is to be avoided altogether, according to some
sources, because for Muslims the word can mean a personal struggle to
live a moral life.

One alternative, suggested publicly last year, is for the term
“Islamic terrorism” to be replaced by “terrorists who abusively invoke
Islam”.

An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, “common lexicon”,
is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the
alienation of Muslims in Europe.

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The Code of Conduct

Article I: I am an American, fighting in the armed
forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to
give my life in their defense.

Article II: I will never surrender of my own free will. If in
command I will never surrender the members of my command while they
still have the means to resist.

Article III: If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all
means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to
escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

Article IV: If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my
fellow prisoners. I will give no information nor take part in any
action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will
take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed
over me and will back them up in every way.

Article V: When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am
required to give name, rank, service, number, and date of birth. I will
evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will
make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its
allies or harmful to their cause.

Article VI: I will never forget that I am an American, responsible
for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country
free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

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Senator Joe Speaks Truth

“...it is an awful irony of this debate that many
of the same people who consistently and correctly call on the United
States to do more to stop the bloodshed in Darfur now demand we abandon
the Iraqis.”

“We hear that Sunnis and Shia have been fighting for
centuries, and that no matter how tragic, we cannot possibly hope to
resolve this conflict. We have heard these arguments before. We heard
them in the 1990s about Yugoslavia. We heard them about Rwanda. Like
the euphemism of “civil war,” it is another way for us to distance
ourselves, emotionally and morally, from what is actually happening—and
from the people it is happening to. It allows us to think of these
places as a sort of abstract tragedy, in which there are no victims,
just victimizers, whom we can walk away from with impunity… The wanton
slaughter of innocent people that our soldiers are trying to stop in
Baghdad is not the inevitable product of ancient hatreds, but the
consequence of a deliberate, calculated strategy by an identifiable
group of perpetrators—first and foremost, Al Qaeda.”

“I ask my colleagues: consider what it will mean if Congress
orders our troops to pull back from this battle, just at the moment
that they are taking the initiative. Consider the consequences if we
knowingly and willingly withdraw our forces and abandon one of the few
states in the Middle East to have held free, competitive elections to
extremism and violence...”

“We cannot redeploy from our moral responsibility to the
Iraqis. It is contrary to our traditions; it is contrary to our values;
and it is contrary to our interests. And yet that is precisely what this Congress will be calling for, if we order our troops to withdraw.”

- Joseph Lieberman, addressing the United States Senate

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How Liberals Think

Hmmm

According to TheHill.com

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said Tuesday that he did not give staffer Phillip
Thompson the pistol whose possession got the aide arrested Monday when
he tried to enter the Russell Senate office building.

“I
have never carried a gun in the Capitol complex and I did not give the
weapon to Phillip Thompson, and that’s all that I think I’ll say,” Webb
told reporters.

So, Senator,

is your staffer a thief? or

is your staffer a manic bent on killing inside the Senate Offices? or

is your staffer just plain stupid?

And Senator don't forget - your staff is a reflection of you.

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Sorry Kos: FOXNEWS is Fair and Balanced

Kos at Daily Kos is annoyed by FOXNEWS - telling the truth!

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Reuters: Bias Report

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan are
beginning to draw the resentment of Afghans fed up with growing
civilian casualties and the lack of material progress in their lives,
experts say.

Resentment has posed special problems in the south, where villagers
who have suffered from Western military firepower have responded to the
Taliban's call to arms against foreign troops and the government of
President Hamid Karzai, the experts said.

David - just who are these 'experts' and what is their 'expertise'? Are they Islamic militants?, Democrats?, United Nations staff?,

Just who are these experts - you refuse to name in the openning paragraphs of your report.



An honest journalist would have named their expert source, the first time they cite the source.

Ahh!! the third paragraph ids one source:

"There is growing resentment because of the kinds of military
operations that have been carried out, not because of the international
troop presence," Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for
International Crisis Group think tank, said this week in an interview

The seventh paragraph does show some balance:

Pentagon and NATO officials cited opinion polls, however, that show a
large majority of Afghans favoring foreign troops and only a small
fraction of support for the Taliban.

on page 2 - online:

But David Edwards, a U.S. anthropologist regarded as an expert on
the origins of the Taliban, said reconstruction has been overshadowed
by rampant corruption, meager international donations and poverty in a
country where the unemployment rate is about 40 percent.

Resentment against the lack of material progress in theirs lives...has caused some Afghans to accept a paycheck from the Taliban.



But opinion polls show that the Afghan people accept the need for the NATO Troops to be in Afghanistan - Because the Afghans know the horror of living under Taliban rule.

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Prayers for Tony Snow

White House spokesman, Tony Snow, who is a survivor of colon cancer, now has liver cancer..



My dad has battled colon and liver cancer for over a decade now..



Stay strong, Tony.

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My Day: Bad News, Good News

The BAD news:
Today was my last day at - what was - my primary employer. I have been laid-off. We were formally notified that the company had lost the contract last May, and we had suffered thru 2 years of contract negotiation before that. So, this was not a surprise. Since, I had 16 years with them, my package is 26 weeks of pay.
I still have my other job. A part-time retail job, which hopefully will become full-time, while I search for another 'primary' or hopefully 'only' job.

The GOOD, I mean GREAT news:
My one and only child, has been accepted (unofficially) at New York University (NYU)!!! The kid's desire has been to go to college in NYC. The kid is bursting at the seams. My in-laws live in NYC - so the kid gets college in the same town as the grandparents. [Official acceptance letters are sent March 31st.]

The QUESTION:
How do we afford to send the kid to NYU?????

Slow News Day

I am almost bored enough to find a picture of Anna Nichole Smith in a blue dress and caption it "Is Bill Clinton the Daddy?"
Now, of course that would make Hillary Clinton, the prime suspect in the deaths.
If that was true, would Angelina Jolie, adopt the baby?
and whose campaign would get the cash?
I am almost that bored.

Then again if Harry Houdini has escaped from his casket, then Sherlock Holmes, urr I mean, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets away with 'red rum'.

But that would be like Gandalf returning from the dead or Professor Dumbledore dying.

Nope, not that bored.