Farewell 2007...

As we bid adieu to 2007, we must now look forward to 2008. I use the word "must" for I do so with no small degree of trepidation. The challenges are many as are the pitfalls and we, as Americans must have the courage to learn from the past in order to make the choice as to who will lead us into a most uncertain future.

Our history has indicated that we always have an individual imbued with greatness at the helm just when we need them the most. Whether that person is delivered by the hand of providence, or the times instill greatness in the person at hand is something about which I am uncertain. What I am certain of is that now is a time that demands no less than a great leader to continue our struggle, the results of which will determine the survival or the demise of our very culture. The stakes could not be higher.

The war in Iraq will be a focal point during the coming election, as it should be. It is the seminal issue of our time. It's outcome will determine whether we have the fortitude to truly change the world, or if we are destined to lose our civilization by default. The world is far too small a place to allow a monsterous ideology such as Islamofascism to continue. Iraq is the tipping point and it is up to us to decide which direction we shall take. 2007 has seen enormous progress in Iraq, but certain factions would still have us snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

As I have stated on many occasions, these security issues are central to my selection of a presidential candidate. Unless we can defeat the barbarians that are already at our gates, all else is meaningless. I wrote a little more than 3 years ago in defense of our actions in Iraq; I think that I made are as valid today as they were then.

That piece can be found here.

Happy New Year to all. May God continue to bless us.

Huckabee stands by 'Christ' comment

DES MOINES, Iowa - Mike Huckabee, a Republican relying on support from religious conservatives in Thursday's hard-fought presidential caucuses, on Sunday stood by a decade-old comment in which he said, "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

In a television interview, the ordained Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor made no apologies for the 1998 comment made at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Salt Lake City.

"It was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists," Huckabee said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He gave the speech the same year he endorsed the Baptist convention's statement of beliefs on marriage that "a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." Huckabee and his wife, Janet, signed a full-page ad in USA Today in support of the statement with 129 other evangelical leaders.

I think that this is the type of rhetoric that gives "evangelical leaders" a bad name as it has the same "subservient woman" theme that is found in the Islamic world. As for "taking the nation back for Christ"; ditto. While we are a nation that was founded on Christian principles, we are not, nor have we ever been a theocracy. This nation was founded specifically NOT to be a theocracy.

He claims that his speech was "appropriate" to a gathering of Southern Baptists, though at the time he was the Governor of Arkansas. He sounds like the punchline for every joke that we've ever heard about states like Arkansas.

Remove "Christ" and insert "Allah" and tell me this isn't the exact type of statements we hear coming from the mouths of the Islamofacists.

This guy should definitely not be president...in fact, he should never have been governor of Arkansas.

Thompson: 'Not particularly interested in running'

Hmm...I rather like his attitude:

WASHINGTON, Iowa (AP) -- Fred Thompson acknowledged Saturday he's not especially fond of running for president, but he thinks he'd be a good choice for the White House.

Asked at a town hall meeting in Burlington whether he had the desire to be president, Thompson said it wasn't his idea to seek the office, and he wasn't enamored with campaigning.

"I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don't do it," he said. "I'm not particularly interested in running for president."

I've always found people like Bill Clinton, who seems like he has been running for president since he was 12, a little off putting. The presidency should be a weight you carry, not something to which you aspire. It's about sacrificing for your country, not appetite for position.

"Nowadays, it's all about fire in the belly. I'm not sure in the world we live in today it's a terribly good thing that a president has too much fire in his belly," he said.

Thompson said that unlike his opponents, he's honest about why he's running.

"I like to say that I'm only consumed by very, very few things and politics is not one of them. The welfare of my country and my kids and grandkids are one of them," he said. "But if people really want in their president a super type-A personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night thinking about for years how they could achieve presidency of the United States, someone who could look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning -- I ain't that guy."

He seems like he has the concept of "public service", which is what the presidency is all about, pretty well down pat.

THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
The Best and the Brightest? I don't think so.

Color me unimpressed and more than a little concerned. I feel that I'm in a bad "B" movie that I'm watching while saying to myself "this couldn't really happen", but it is happening. Is this the best we can do?

John McCain: I honor him as a war hero, but I'm not ready to put him in the White House. I've just got some bad vibes there.

Mitt Romney: Doesn't inspire my imagination, he looks too much like a presidential candidate from Central Casting. I'm still thinking about the Morman thing, but I'm willing to listen.

Rudy Giuliani: May well be my own front runner, he's a tough son of a bitch that wants to kill Muslim terrorists and that's my main issue.

Barack Obama: He's black, so what?

Ron Paul: He's creepy and scary and his supporters are even more so.

Fred Thompson: Yeah, he's running...or is he just strolling? Pick up the pace Fred!

Hillary: Yeah, right.

Huckabee: One Arkansas governor as president was already way too much for me, besides he's a populist asshole. I don't like populist assholes and as far as this one goes, the more I think of him, the less I thik of him.

If I've missed anyone, they probably deserved it. We're in a battle for our very civilization and this is the best we can do?

The New York Times: "As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts"

Translation: Having been totally vested in defeat, Democrats struggle with the disturbing possibility of victory.

US is ‘worst’ imperialist

(But the Archbishop of Canterbury has the weirdest eybrows)

Feel free to read the whole thing, if you have the stomach.

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by "clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the
worst of all worlds”.

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”.

Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a “generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence”.

He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: “Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.”

Even discounting the bizarre eyebrows, which are distracting in the extreme, the Archbishop should know that one cannot make a deal with the devil, which he is clearly doing. Either that or he's a complete and total buffoon - you make the call.

It's unbearably annoying that mainstream clerics bash western civilization while ignoring the clear and present evils of Islam. Were he to make similar comments about the Islamo-Facists, he may well be murdered while the 'soul eating' western modernity allows him to babble with impunity.

As for the tiresome charge of "imperialism"; search as I may, I have failed to find any oppressed American colonies, or any American colonies whatsoever. What I have found is a long list of defeated foes who were rebuilt as a result of American benevolence.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson offers the Archbishop some wisdom - something of which VDH has a plethora and the Archbishop, obviously, has a dearth.

KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THAT HEALTHCARE IS OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM

"Al-Qaeda proclaimed a religious rationale to justify the WMD attacks it was planning. In June 2002, a Kuwaiti-born cleric named Suleiman Abu Ghaith posted a statement on the Internet saying that "al-Qaeda has the right to kill 4 million Americans" in retaliation for U.S. attacks against Muslims. And in May 2003, at the same time Saudi operatives of al-Qaeda were trying to buy three Russian nuclear bombs, a cleric named Nasir al-Fahd issued a fatwa titled "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." Interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives confirmed that the planning was serious. Al-Qaeda didn't yet have the materials for a WMD attack, but it wanted them.

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.

After 2004, the WMD trail went cold, according to Mowatt-Larssen. Many intelligence analysts have concluded that al-Qaeda doesn't have nuclear capability today. Mowatt-Larssen argues that a more honest answer is: We don't know."

Do read the whole thing. All of the signs have pointed to this and as time goes by, the signs become more pronounced - those with the means are making alliances with those with the motive and this country is in the cross-hairs.

You need to ask yourself who you want in charge as we approach the dark days ahead. I'll vote for the candidate who will kill Muslim terrorists - as many and as quickly as possible.

I keep hearing "And your little dog, too............" followed by that hideous Hillary laugh.

Man arrested for airport al-Qaida joke

BOSTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- A Washington taxi driver faces a criminal charge because he joked about being a member of al-Qaida to an airline worker in Boston.

Ermiyaf A. Asfaw, an Ethiopian national, was returning to Washington from a visit to his girlfriend Saturday when an Air-Tran check-in employee asked him about stickers on his luggage from Dubai. He told her he had been in the United Arab Emirates.

"No. I'm al-Qaida. I'm with them, and I'm here to blow things up," he said when she asked if it had been a trip for business or pleasure.

Asfaw has been charged with making a false bomb threat. A judge set bail Monday at $1,500.

"This airport is not going to tolerate this type of behavior," said Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority. "This type of action is completely dumb."

Well, I guess the authorities didn't find the joke very funny. Frankly, neither do I. I think that a good punishment would be to permanantly deport his humorous Ethiopian ass.

We already have enough people in this country already that think that 9-11 was a joke.

Burma: Thousands dead in massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

Where is the international outrage? When is the worthless UN going to do something other than issue worthless platitudes.....and have they even done that?

There's a lot of talk of peace these days on the part of the left, but when Buddhist monks, some of the most peaceful people on Earth, are being slaughtered by the hundreds and citizens by the thousands there's nothing but silence. There's a lot of talk about the "global village", but when there's an opportunity to really DO something to save innocent lives, there is nothing but paralysis.

It's still another clear example of hypocrisy in its most pathetic form.

Iraq violent death rates 'plunge'

Isn't his good news and why is it not being heralded as such? Oh yeah, the template is that we've already lost......

Poll: Most Israelis support using nukes

Approximately 72 percent of Israelis support the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, according to a Canadian survey released recently.

The survey - conducted jointly at the end of July by the Simons Foundation and Angus Reid Strategies - was answered by adults in six countries and showed that 37% of Israelis believed the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a war would be justified, while 35% believed the weapons could be justifiably used during a war.

In addition, the survey found that Israel had the lowest public support for
destroying nuclear weapons out of all the countries questioned.

Israel also had the highest percentage in favor of the country using its "power and influence in a way that serves its own interests" - approximately 55% - as opposed to "coordinat[ing] with other countries to do what's best for the world as a whole."

Nearly 72% also agreed that "nuclear weapons place Israel in a unique position, so it is not in our interest to participate in treaties that would reduce or eliminate our purported nuclear arsenal."

About three-quarters of Israelis also said they would feel safer if they knew for certain that Israel had nuclear weapons. Israel has thus far maintained its policy of nuclear ambiguity.

The organizers of the study suggested that Israel accorded greater importance to the nuclear form of defense due to the Iranian threat, Army Radio reported.

The study spanned a sample of 1,000 adults in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the US along with
Israel.

A refeshing moment of clarity from the Israelis, while in this country we invite the Iranian madman to speak at a major university and many on the American left laud him and dine with him. I fear a great price will be paid for our refusal to see the obvious and to call evil by its name.

IMAGINE WHIRLED PEAS

While I was sitting on the plane the other day, I saw this kid in his early 20s boarding. You know the type; rumpled clothes, long hair going in a multitude of directions, little glasses and a look on his face that clearly said "I'm an intellectual, and I don't give a rat's ass what knuckle-draggers such as you think of me". In another words, not unlike me in my early 20s, and that's the whole point.

He had a guitar case (of course) and on it were stickers that seemed to commemorate every thought or belief he ever had, original or not. The one that caught my eye was one that said END WAR. Actually, I see these types and their stickers and buttons all of the time, and I find them increasingly annoying. The fact that the people who sport them maintain an air of intellectual superiority while being spectacularly clueless is maddening.

The fact is, more that 3 decades ago people of my generation wanted the war to end in Southeast Asia. Hell, "End The War" seemed to be the most effective animator of my generation and it was central to our culture. Unfortunately, we were just as clueless as this young man on the airplane as to the consequences of our actions

Proponents of the war warned us that a pull-out would result in a bloodbath and the entire region would fall to the Communists. The intellectuals of the day were highly critical of our "illegal" actions in Cambodia. Well, the young people of the day, the press and the intellectuals got their way and we left Southeast Asia to their own devices. After our departure, North and South Vietnam were reunited as a Communist country and those who were fighting with us for their freedom, if they were not fortunate enough to escape, were killed. It's estimated that 2 million people were exterminated in Cambodia. 2 million people. Was this the "peace" we sought? Even now, many of my generation are quite self-congratulatory about the way "we" ended the war in Vietnam. As for the millions who were killed as a result of our quest for "peace"....well, we just don't talk about that.

From that time until the present, Vietnam has provided the enemies of this country with a blueprint of how to defeat the most powerful nation on Earth in asymmetrical conflict; keep drawing blood, even in small quantities and wait for us to accept defeat in the name of "peace.

As for the bohemian intellectual sticker people and button wearers, they have their blueprint too; oppose ANY war, regardless of the cause, and pressure the government to accept defeat in the name of "peace".

Our enemies, from within and without have learned well while we have learned nothing.

Ah, the Religion of PEACE and HARMONY.....

We do use books that call Jews 'apes' admits head of Islamic school

The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton.

And the school in question is not in Saudi Arabia....it's in London (or Londonistan, if you will).

So when are we going to admit that Islam is less a religion and more a facist political cult? They continue to use the western concepts of freedom and liberty in order to inflict their repressive and racist ideologies upon their benevolent hosts. All the while, we delude ourselves into believing that we are "embracing diversity" when, in fact, we are writing the final chapter in the history of western culture.

Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 — Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush Administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

Iran’s plan, as outlined by the ambassador, carries the potential to bring Iran into further conflict here with the United States, which has detained a number of Iranian operatives in recent weeks and says it has proof of Iranian complicity in attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called “the security fight.” In the economic area, Mr. Qumi said, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction, an area of failure on the part of the United States since American-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago.

“We have experience of reconstruction after war,” Mr. Qumi said, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis.”

Yeah, right. They just want to "help" the Iraqis reconstruct. If you're not living in fairyland, I think that it's clear that Iran's interest in Iraq clearly lies in the failure of Iraqi democracy and by extension the failure of the Bush Doctrine.

It's funny how their ends seem to coincide with those of many Democrats.

Ah yes, I am sure there is some degree of satisfaction being felt in some leftist circles - "Bush gets a well-deserved poke in the eye!" Seeing the U.S. as the house divided that those on the left have so so assiduously tried to portray, Iran not only rejects our call to stop meddling in the affairs of Iraq, but they announce plans to step up the process. They have effectively slapped President Bush, and by extension, the U.S., in the face and dared us to do anything about it. Far from being reticent about being overly hostile to the world's remaining superpower, (that, it so happens, occupies the country right next door) they ratchet up the hostility.

So thanks, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Ted Kennedy, and all of the rest of the old and new drinkers of the leftist koolade - including the media. Special thanks should go to former President Jimmy Carter and "Would-Be President" (thank God) John Kerry for some of the most shameful behavior and remarks during the "debate" over Iraq. You have sought to torpedo every chance of victory at every turn and in those cases when victory was achieved despite your efforts, you spun it as failure. In doing so, you have disgraced your country and seriously jeapordized its very future.

Did you not realize that the virual promise of capitulation you made prior to the elections would embolden our enemy and almost ensure failure? I think you realized exactly that. I think that your hatred of George W. Bush outweighs all other matters and shoves the concept of "the common good" from your field of vision. If you are not traitors, then you are so obsessed with regaining your power and so intoxicated with Bush-hatred that your actions and words are indistinguishable from treason.

PEACE: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
Absolutely Nothing!

I hear a lot of the word "peace" lately, and I hear it in the context that if we would just choose peace that we would have it, if we would just "end the war", we would usher in a time of peace. And the so-called "intellectuals" who embrace this warmed-over 60s pap have the temerity to call people like me "simplistic".

For us, it's not a choice between war and peace, it's a choice between survival and oblivion. Peace means many different things to many different people and that difference determines whose civilization lives, and whose dies. If you don't believe that the situation is at least that dire, then I'm afraid that you have not been paying attention.

To the Islamists, peace means the destruction of the United States as well as Israel and the imposition of global Islamic law. The means to that end is war and that is a choice that they have made. Don't take my word for it, take theirs. Exactly how does one make peace with people whose goal in life is the destruction of your way of life? Are we prepared to give up all we hold dear for peace, or should we think that the central theme around which they have built their life is somehow, negotiable?

Perhaps appeasement is your chosen avenue toward peace. If so, you may not realize that this was the road most traveled up to the morning of 9/11/01 at which time a massive detour sign was erected. It was written in Arabic and began "Allah Akbar". These signs have been erected all over the world since the 1970s and are still being erected on a daily basis. They are written in blood so that their meaning is unmistakable, yet you seem unwilling or incapable of heeding them.

The fact is that peace does not spring from the loins of pacifism and it is not achieved through appeasement. The world is a dangerous place where the unscrupulous prey upon the scrupulous and the unprincipled feast upon the principled and the only way to maintain honor as well as safety is through strength. The one and only reason that this country has enjoyed relative peace and safety within our shores is the terrible price that awaited anyone who dared disturb that peace or threaten our safety. Now that our peace and safety has been disturbed, the price must be paid and those who propose that we discount that price threaten not only our short-term safety but that of generations to come.

Choosing peace when your opponent has clearly and vociferously chosen war is a strategy for fools and unworthy of a great nation. Choose peace if you will, but don't be surprised if you get something far more terrible than war in the bargain.

RHETORICAL FLATULENCE

An apparent gas leak in Lower Manhattan has caused justifiable concern. As teams of people who do such things spring into action in an effort to correct the situation, Mayor Bloomberg hastens to reassure the public:

Bloomberg also said there was no indication the air was unsafe to breathe. "It may just be an unpleasant smell."

"We are waiting for the gas to pass," the mayor said.

Perhaps "dissipate" would have been a better choice of words, no?