I'm sure they bought vouchers
 

Huh. Weird.

Ancestry.com released a bunch of military records yesterday, so I dutifully looked up my grandfathers. A guy with one of my grandfather's names who was born in 1886 in Ostra, Poland, at the age of 56, joined up on April 26, 1942. Stocky guy, from the looks of it. 5'5" and 160. Scar on his nose, according to the form he filled out.

I wonder if they let him in.

My grandfather that shared his name, by the way, joined up on September 11, 1941 in Hartford, Connecticut. He had three years of high school, and was 5'7" 142. He hadn't yet married my grandmother.

For some reason, I can't find my other grandfather, and his name is the more unusual of the two.

I'm sure they bought vouchers
 

If I had a rocket launcher...some sonofabitch would die

Do as Dick Cheney does
 

Strange, that I what I keep telling people to tell the client on each conference call...

my ruined weekend
 

So it looks like I may have torn my acl and will be holed up in a recliner all weekend.

Damnitall!

In the spirit of bi-partisanship I am thinking of doing something to further the cause of bi-partisan political rancor in our nation. This weekend I am officially going on a hunger strike to provoke the impeachment of the war criminal Bush; however, if my demands are not met by Tuesday morning of next week, I will publicly throw in the towel and hold an internet newsconference to proclaim the Democrat leadership the America-hating douchebag losers that we already know that they are.

Anyone wanna join me? I have lots of beer.

Do as Dick Cheney does
 

I once directed that line at an opposing counsel during settlement negotiations. While well-deserved, it did not advance the ball.

S_A_M

Do as Dick Cheney does
 

I did something similar. When opposing counsel realized that they had messed up a particluar provision of a contract and had no way around that fact, they asked me what I felt their position ought to be with respect to my "unreasonable" demand. I told them "I guess you're fucked." It took a day of posturing, but ultimately they concluded they were fucked.

Did someone mentiong my name? Why cut and run?
 

Historical Significance

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials

At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan , and the following day on Germany , who had not yet attacked us . It was a dicey thing . We had few allies .

France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers . Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe . Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia .

Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico , as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe .

America 's only allies then were England , Scotland , Canada , Australia, and Russia . That was about it All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel .

The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium ) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).

Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could .

Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.

Ironically, Russia saved America 's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .

Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone . . . 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers

Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America . If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.

NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WW II MOST OF YOU DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD, NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES.

All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world .

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated . They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel , and purge the world of Jews . This is their mantra . (goal)

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US , European, and Asian economies.

The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . . . . . . in Iraq . Not in New York , not in London , or Paris or Berlin , but in Iraq , where we are doing two important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades Saddam is a terrorist! Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians .

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq . We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq , which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed .

WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor . It began with the Japanese invasion of China . It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own a gain . . . a 27 year war.

WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivilant to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States ) in the 9/11 terrorist attack .

The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism .

This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay . The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be .

The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it .

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq , then we have an ally, like England , in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East . The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.

The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless some body prevents them from getting them.

We have four options:

1 . We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2 . We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran 's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

3 . We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America .

OR

4 . We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe . It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.

The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them .

Remember, perspective is every thing, and America 's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!

Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany !

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan . World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq .. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944 , the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.

In WW II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far .

The stakes are at least as high . . A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law) .

It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America , where it's safe.

Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran , Syria , Iraq , Sudan , North Korea , in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc . , but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raymond S . Kraft is a writer living in Northern California that has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did someone mentiong my name? Why cut and run?
 

Look, I know that this Kraft guy is a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion, and that therefore we should accord his policy views deep respect, but I just gotta say, he thinks Iran goes nuclear by next year?

Clearly, this guy is a pussy. We need clear-eyed assessments of the world we live in with people unafraid to make the tough decisions that lie before us, not to retreat into some tree-hugging drum-circle shit with people inclined to believe the weakest estimates of the bad guys' capabilities. Iran goes nuclear in 15 days. I know because I read it somewhere. And this guy has simply gotta wake up to the real world, before it all becomes a cinder.

Penske loss at Indy 500
 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...notebook.1059/

http://www.motorsportshalloffame.com...Penske_400.jpg

Did someone mentiong my name? Why cut and run?
 

Has Mr. Kraft also studied the domino theory as its use as justification for continued US involvement in Viet Nam?

eta: Surely, as a San Francisco insurance defense lawyer, he has. http://www.lawyers.com/bmeblaw/jsp3096173.jsp

I'm sure they bought vouchers
 

You can fill out a quick form and get your ancestors' military records. We had to do this to get my grandmother's military benefits. Of course, we then submitted them for the whole Greedy clan, and got records going back to the Civil War. Next thing I have to figure out is how to get records for the ones who fought on the British side in Canada during the War of 1812.

Confidential to the Politics Book Club
 

I ended up not buying the book, but for those of you that did, know that Laurence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, will be doing a one-man dramatization of the book in TCOTU. I don't know what that would look like, but it doesn't sound good.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

The Creation Museum in Kentucky opened over the weekend:

• Some exhibits show dinosaurs aboard Noah's Ark and assert that all animals were vegetarians until Adam committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070529/...museum_opening


Have fun debating evolution in your party's primaries.

Confidential to the Politics Book Club
 

If he's doing it at Rocky's I'm there.

Flypaper
 

1. I used to throw the "flypaper" (we went to Iraq to move the front in the "war with radical Islam" over there) argument around, but even I wasn't sure that level of cynicism existed in our foreign policy. Lately, people have been using it a lot, as both praise and criticism for the war. I wonder why when I raised it early people told me I was nuts. While that's true, I'm occasionally right.

2. Comparing Saddam and the Nazis is silly. The comparison makes the speaker sound like a fool.

Confidential to the Politics Book Club
 

Like that'll have an impact on your deciding to go.

Flypaper
 

The point of flypaper is to decrease the number of flies.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

Funny to see the Right Wing reaching out to hippies with that vegan shit. I hope this isn't a resurgence of the Jesus + Drugs = Nirvana thing that had a brief flash in the late 60s.

Drugs are good. Jesus is good. Vegans think too much. All should remain separate from each other. Together they're linguine in jalapeno and chocolate sauce.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

Maybe they'll just ask for a show of hands.

Flypaper
 

Radical Islam's ability to spit issue as it does is a great mystery. From one angle, so many of them clearly very desperately need to get laid. From another, it seems impossible to impregnate anything when you only physically interact with it to deliver it ritual beatings, maimings and, when it sasses you back, an "honor killing." Still, they seem to get the job done. You wonder when they have the time.

My theory is it's during the hours the rest of the world reads.

Flypaper
 

How does radical Islam feel about evolution?

Flypaper
 

Opaque as ever...

http://www.understanding-islam.com/r...estion&qid=255

Flypaper
 

They listened, then cried "islamophobia", blamed the Jews and beheaded a few infidels.

Flypaper
 

Fine until the 13th Century.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

I think it's time that we let Hollywood weigh in on this important debate. If we see velociraptors crawling onboard the Ark in Evan Almighty, -- and deciding (by nothing short of the Will of God) not to devour everything else on board -- then I'm willing to buy it.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

Ummmmmmm, I think the Ark was after Adam sinned. And the velociraptors probably ate all the other stuff that's now extinct. Which is WHY it's extinct. Because God's plan called for the velociraptor to eat those particular animals.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

Jez.

Now, now, Fringey. Attentive attendees at the museum learned that dinosaurs were on the Ark. Maybe it was God's plan also to have the velociraptor be there on the Ark too, and somehow decide not to feast for 40 days and 40 nights.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

They were on there a lot longer than that. After it stopped raining, it took 150 days for the water to subside to the point that the Ark could come to rest on Mt. Ararat. It was another 77 days until the dove came back carrying the olive branch in its beak. They were on that freaking Ark for 9 months. And all they got was a stupid rainbow.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

No, the velociraptors ate -- they just only ate the animals that are now extinct. So, like, the woolly mammoths checked into the Ark Motel . . . but they didn't check out. Um, and then the velociraptors died out too. Shifty may be able to help with that. Maybe one of them ate the other, and the remaining one died of old age.

Republicans, This Is Your Base
 

It all makes so much sense now. God has a plan for everything!

Flypaper
 

You shouldn't feel vindicated. It's just that as the war drags on, more and more people are willing to embrace more and more hare-brained post hoc rationalizations for it.

Like he smelled the cookie, and he's a wee young Not Bobby again. Sniff.
 

The Unicorn (written by Shel Silverstein and performed by the Irish Rovers)

A long time ago, when the Earth was green
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen
They'd run around free while the Earth was being born
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
The loveliest of all was the unicorn

The Lord seen some sinning and it gave Him pain
And He says, "Stand back, I'm going to make it rain"
He says, "Hey Brother Noah, I'll tell you what to do
Build me a floating zoo,
and take some of those...

Green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
Don't you forget My unicorns."

Old Noah was there to answer the call
He finished up making the ark just as the rain started to fall
He marched the animals two by two
And he called out as they came through
"Hey Lord,

I've got green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I'm so forlorn
I just can't find no unicorns"

And Noah looked out through the driving rain
Them unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
Kicking and splashing while the rain was falling
Oh, them silly unicorns

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Noah cried, "Close the door because the rain is falling
And we just can't wait for no unicorns"

The ark started moving, it drifted with the tide
The unicorns looked up from the rocks and they cried
And the waters came down and sort of floated them away
That's why you never see unicorns to this very day

You'll see green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
You're never gonna see no unicorns.

Flypaper
 

Until recently (when every other justification turns out to be wrong and things are going in the shitter) have people less cynical than you been willing to admit to this sort of thinking.

But really, the response is what Shifty said.

Something you won't see in the museum.
 

Bastard.

Flypaper
 

Hey - can I call it a "quagmire" yet? A couple of years ago you gave me shit for that. Just checking.

. . .and the damn fool kept yelling "push on!"
 

Hey, kids -- choose your own Slave response!

(1) That's right, Ahmed, have another bite of that halal chicken on pita -- pretty soon the guy in the bodega will laugh at you and call you an infidel when you ask for a package of Oscar Meyer bacon.

(2) Hey, if the Yankees win tonight and the Sox lose, does that mean we won't be tied with the Devil Rays?

or

(3) I knew that left-wing Podunk bastard couldn't bring up Pete Seeger without posting something from that fucking song.

Flypaper
 

Someone recently posted that Baghdad was no more dangerous than Detroit. So I ask you, would you call Detroit a quagmire?

. . .and the damn fool kept yelling "push on!"
 

I believe I actually changed the re line to "If i had a hammer" - so myeh!*




*3rd grade version of "Go F yourself"

Flypaper
 

I believe that ABBA's apartment situation is actually a "quagmire"

Where has Pretty Flower gone? Young girls plucked him, every one.
 

Excellent point.

And the answer to (2) is "no." Sorry.