I have one brief comment on Governor Blagojevich and his political trials.  The people of Illinois vote.  They have chosen to keep the Daley machine in power in Chicago for more than forty years.  They are certainly aware of the corruption around the Daley machine and in the rest of the state.  They vote.  I realize that Illinois may not have the most honest elections, but, to quote Hugh Hewitt. “If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat.”  The Patrick Fitzgerald investigation needs to take its course and go where it needs to go, but the answer is to be found in the ballot box.  The people of Illinois need to remove corrupt officials wherever they find them, and then they will see a change for the better in their state.

According to Little Green Footballs Hezbollah has refused the meeting that Jimmy Carter had requested with them.  Hezbollah would not comment on the refusal, but according to the article–

“”Hezbollah does not meet with anyone from a US administration which supports Zionist terrorism,” said Mohamed Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc.”

Is there anyone out there that truly believes that there can be peace in the Middle East when numerous groups of people (such as Hezbollah) are determined to destroy Israel?  Why does Jimmy Carter believe that he can overcome centuries of hatred by talking to the people who are teaching hatred to their children in their schools?

The American Eagle Foundation has placed a beautiful video on You Tube showing the American Eagle named Challenger.  He was rescued as a baby in Louisiana after a storm and was inadvertently human-imprinted for life.  He flies during the national anthem at major sports events in order to raise awareness of these wonderful birds.  The video (and the music behind it) are beautiful.

The Tulsa World is reporting that Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Sheldon Robinson was honored for saving lives at a local Burger King.  He had just dropped off his wife and children when his cell phone rang.  It was his wife telling him that there was someone inside the restaurant holding a gun and threatening to kill everyone.  The Trooper turned his truck around, subdued the man, and controlled the situation.  No one was shot.  There is more of the story at the Tulsa World.  However, there is a lot not mentioned.  If you read the comments, you find that the man arrested was praying to allah.  There are articles around the internet at reliable places talking about this as a miniature terrorist attack.  For whatever reason, the newspaper does not emphasize that.  Again, if we deny that there are people out there who want to do us harm, we will not protect ourselves from them.  This is September 10th blindness!  Thank God for the courage of Trooper Sheldon Robinson.

According to The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room Al Franken’s campaign claims to have found another twelve uncounted ballots in the Minnesota Senate election.  The ballots come from uniformed and overseas voters and were previously unopened and counted, Franken officials said.  The Coleman campaign pointed out that the ballots were unsecured and that the chain of custody was not followed.  Different sources are giving different vote counts–the Minnesota Star Tribune currently shows Coleman with a 192 vote lead; the Franken campaign is claiming to lead Coleman by four votes.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

The New York Daily News is reporting a story about a three year old boy who wandered away from his babysitter and was lost for 21 hours in sub-freezing temperatures and was found safe Sunday.  Two of the family puppies wandered off with the child and are credited with snuggling up to him and keeping him warm in the freezing temperatures.  Every boy should have a dog or two to get him through tough situations.  I’m also sure there were many prayers involved which were answered.

The American Thinker has a link today to an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that is truly amazing.  The premise of the article is that the successful auto plants in the southern US states should be forced to follow the business model of the failed auto plants in Michigan.  After all, that would be only fair (stupid, but fair). 

This is my prediction for the auto bailout.  Congress will give the auto companies some money before January (with heavy oversight).  When the new Congress convenes in January, they will give a lot of money to the auto companies and essentially nationalize them.  The auto companies will be forced to manufacture ‘green’ cars which no one seems to be interested in buying (they will be more expensive and less practical for family use).  When the auto companies in Michigan continue to lose large amounts of money (the ‘legacy’ cost of a Detroit car is $2000 per car–making these cars less competitive), then Congress will pass ‘card check’ legislation.  Card check legislation takes away the secret ballot in union votes among workers.  Then unions (which the Democrats owe because a large percentage of their campaign contributions come from union dues) can unionize the southern US car manufactures so that they will become less competitive.  At this point, some of those companies will stop manufacturing in the US and more jobs will be lost.  This will deepen the recession (which Congress will then blame on George Bush).  I wish I were joking, but I’m not.

The Times Picayune in New Orleans reported yesterday that the Republicans are sending two Republicans to the House of Representatives from Louisiana.  The election had been delayed because of Hurricane Gustav and was held Saturday.  Anh “Joseph” Cao defeated William Jefferson (whose trial on corruption charges will probably begin in January 2009).  Joseph Cao is the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress–he came to America when he was eight.

Also, in Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District, Republican John Fleming, a physician from Minden, was elected.  He will replace retiring Congressman Jim McCrery, a Republican from Shreveport.

This is a net pick-up of one seat for the Republicans.  That’s good, but there’s another story here.  Look at the accomplishments of these men–they are successful in fields other than politics and hopefully will bring that perspective to Washington.

Cao received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Baylor University and a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University. After a stint as a Catholic seminarian, he earned a law degree from Loyola University in 2000.

As mentioned earlier, John Fleming is a doctor.

Congratulations, Louisiana for sending these men to Washington.  Hopefully they will represent you well. 

According to Wikipedia, “First They Came…” is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

National Review Online has an article by Mark Steyn on the Mumbai massacre asking why the terrorists devoted 20 per cent of their forces to attack the one Jewish center in the town.  He points out that Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy.  He was murdered because he was a Jew.

According to the article, Mark Steyn wrote in his book, America Alone

“that “reforming” Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Koran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there’ll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there’ll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Bombay in the name of Allah, and that’s just business as usual. And, if it is somehow “understandable” that for the first time in history it’s no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, “worry about image.” Not enough.”

If the killing of Jews in an indication of the rise of evil in the world (the canary in the coal mine, so to speak), we really need to pay attention to what is going on around us.

The Independent, an eastern Long Island newspaper runs a column by Jerry Della Femina.  One of his recent columns was very insightful.  Here it is.

IT’S TIME TO WITHDRAW

This was just sent to me by a friend, Andrew Benjamin, and it makes a great deal of sense.

Regardless of how you feel about the subject, you will find value in thinking carefully about this:

Every day there are news reports about more deaths. Every night on TV there are photos of death and destruction. Why are we still there?

We occupied this land, which we had to take by force, but it causes us nothing but trouble. Many of our children go there and never come back.

Why are we still there? Their government is unstable, and they have sporadic leadership.

Many of their people are uncivilized. Why are we still there?

The place is subject to natural disasters, from which we are supposed to bail them out.

There are more than 1000 religious sects, which we do not understand.

Their folkways, foods, and fads are unfathomable to ordinary Americans. Why are we still there?

We can’t even secure the borders.

They are billions of dollars in debt, and it will cost billions more to rebuild, which we cannot afford. Why are we still there?

It is becoming clear…

WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA.

The thing to remember as Barack Obama prepares to take over as the President of the United States is that he has been schooled in Community Organizing in Chicago.  The handbook for the Chicago Community Organizers was Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.  These are the rules taken from the book.  As you read them, think about how Barack Obama won the election.

1.  Power is not only what you have, but what your opponent thinks you have.  If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

2.  Never go outside the experience of your people.  The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

3.  Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent.  Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

4.  Make opponents live up to their own book of rules.  “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

5.  Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.  It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

6.  A good tactic is one your people enjoy.  “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

7.  A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag.  Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

8.  Keep the pressure on.  Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose.  “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.  It is this that will cause the opposiiton to react to your advantage.

9.  The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.  When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization.  They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied.  Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

10.  The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.  Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

11.  Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.  Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies.  Identify a responsible individual.  Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting.  “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

Alinksy was a communist who was interested in seeing America become a communist country.  He was about power–not improvement.  I believe the important events taking place in the Obama administration will not be the ones we see–they will be the behind-the-scenes deals with the UN, Iran, and other foreign countries.  Obama wants to be reelected, and he will move very carefully in areas that are visible.  I do believe, however, that his presidency will not be a positive thing for this country.  His community organization work in Chicago was not a positive thing for that city.  Chicago schools were not improved (the Annenberg Challenge funneled most of its money to radical organizations), and Chicago has one of the highest murder rates in the nation.

According to Political Radar, ABC news is reporting that the Democrats in Cogress are putting pressure on the Bush Administration to release some of the original $700 billion credit market bailout to the auto industry.  The Democrats are looking for an answer by today.

According to the article, Democrat leaders in Congress sent a letter Thursday night, telling President Bush he must commit funds from either the TARP or the federal reserve or they will be unable to pass anything in Congress.

I have my own ideas on the bailout–DON”T DO IT!  Detroit pays its auto workers twice as much as the auto workers in the states that are not unionized.  Their union contracts for retirees and workers add $2000 to the cost of every car.  This is a bad business plan.  They don’t need to be bailed out–they need Chapter 11 protection while they restructure.  Anything else is throwing good money (our money as taxpayers) after bad.  I drive a Ford–I love my Ford–but I don’t support a bailout.

Bloomberg.com has an article this morning about a Danish warship that answered a distress call in the Gulf of Yemen, rescued what are probably Somali pirates, and then sank their ship.  OK.  According to international law, ships are required to help people who are ‘distressed’ at sea.  These pirates could not be directly connected to any criminal act, so they were rescued and turned over to Yemeni officials.  (I have no idea how helpful Yemeni officials are in dealing with piracy.)  Because of weather conditions, it was impossible to tow the distressed vessel, so they sank it. 

According to TV reports, the Danish warship confiscated the weapons aboard the pirates ship.  The weapons included anti-tank rockets and machine guns,  (It’s obvious that they were only out for a Sunday sail).  The pirates had been adrift at sea for seven days, the last three days without food or water,

Charles Krauthammer has an article at National Review Online today about the significance of the agreement between Iraq and America which has just been ratified by the Iraqi government.  He points out that the only Iraqis opposed to the agreement were the followers of Moktada al Sadr (al Sadr himself is still hiding out in Iran).  The Sadrists represent 30 seats in the Iraqi Parliament out of 275.  The Sunnis were also concerned about the agreement–fearing that the US would leave too soon and leave them vulnerable to some sort of political retribution (not unheard of in Iraqi politics).

The agreement does have flexibility to it–if conditions on the ground change and US troops need to stay longer than the agreement, the Iraqi Parliament can authorize that.  Hopefully, that will not happen, but it’s good to know it is an option.

According the Charles Krauthammer, there are two main reasons that this agreement is a landmark.  First, it is a major defeat for Iran, who had hoped to destabilize Iraq in order to take it over.  Iran and Iraq have been arch enemies for a long time, and the Shiites in Iraq were considered to be influenced by Iran.  Well, the Shiites have signed the agreement.  Second, the emergence of Iraq as a democracy (with all its flaws and imperfections) is something that many experts thought impossible.  This is a step towards fighting terrorism generationally–as Iraq gains its strength and the people in it prosper, terrorism will become something they have no use for.  Countries that have stable governments, stable economies and free markets are generally too busy doing constructive things to want to tear down their societies.  Terrorism is a death cult–people who are successful are generally not interested in dying–they are more interested in accomplishing things.

This is the link to the recount page at the Minnesota Star Tribune.  It is constantly updated and has the latest recount information and county information.  The recount was supposed to be ended by today, but I am not sure that will happen.  The Franken campaign is claiming that there are 133 votes missing in Minneapolis.  The goal here (in my opinion) of the Franken campaign is to take the matter to the Senate (where a Democrat-controlled Senate) will rule in his favor.  If he does that, I suspect there will be some angry voters in Minnesota.  It will be interesting to see if the recount is declared over today.

One of the things that bothers me in the current political climate is the tendency to attack people rather than to debate issues.  For instance, one of the tenants of the left over the past eight years is that George Bush is stupid.  There is no actual basis for this attack–the man has a stellar education and the ability to fly fighter planes.  I don’t think someone who is stupid could accomplish either one of those things–yet that is what we hear.  This issues are not discussed–and it’s interesting that based on his appointments, Barack Obama may continue some of the policies of the ‘stupid’ George Bush.

I watched two videos on the internet today which illustrate the way that opinion can be swayed without actual facts or issues (or with false information).  The first video was put together by some Hollywood types to mock those who supported Proposition 8 in California.  Jack Black plays Jesus Christ, and the video is essentially a mocking of those who support traditional marriage due to religious beliefs.  The fact that same-sex couples in California already have the same rights as married couples through civil union laws is not discussed.  The battle is about the name, and that is never mentioned–instead the video is just a mockery of religion.

The second video is found at Road 90.  It was put together by PBS and WGBH to chronicle to birth of the state of Israel and the events surrounding it.  This video deals with Deir Yassin and the myths surrounding the ‘massacre’ there.  According to the article–

“Following in the footsteps of Palestinian historians such as Walid Khalidi of Harvard University and Shairf Kana’ana of Bir Zeit University in Ramallah, West Bank, they show that the massacre of Deir Yasin in 1948 was exaggerated by the Arab side. Rather than encourage resistance, this precipitated the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into neighbouring Arab countries.

As a result of this propaganda, Arab civilians panicked and fled by the tens of thousands. This was confirmed in the PBS documentary called The Fifty Years of War in which Deir Yassin survivors were interviewed”

This massacre has been used to stir up hatred for Israel since 1948.  It is an example of how an exaggerated reporting of an incident can be used to incite violence for generations.  It is the responsibility of all voting citizens in this country (and every other country in the world) to be aware of manipulation by political forces and do their own research.

Her name is Lillian Grace, and she is coming home from the hospital today.  We are all thrilled that she is doing so well.  See previous entry for an explanation of this comment!

Over the next day or two, blogging on this site will be somewhat sporadic–this morning at approximately 3:15 am, my husband and I welcomed our eighth grandchild into the world.  She was born about four weeks early and weighed in at 5 pounds 6 ounces, 17 inches long.  She is beautiful, but because she was four weeks early, at this point she is nameless.  We are referring to her as ‘a player to be named later.’  She was introduced to her big sister this afternoon in the hospital.  Mother and daughter (and big sister) are doing well and hope to be out of the hospital together on Thursday.  The new baby is small, but she is healthy, eating, and generally doing well.  This evens up the grandchildren–four boys and four girls–the boys are all handsome and the girls are all beautiful!

The stories are beginning to come out about the heroism displayed during the terror attacks in Mumbai.  Time has an article about a South African security consultant sized up the situation, reacted quickly, and saved 150 lives.  Bob Nicholls, who runs the South Africa-based security agency Nicholls, Steyn and Associates, was having dinner with five of his team on the top floor of the Taj when they were told by other South African diners that friends intending to join them for dinner hadn’t turned up because gunfire had broken out inside the hotel.   He decided that one of the conference rooms would be the safest place, so he organized the people around him, they barricaded themselves into a conference room and waited.  They stayed put until a loud blast nearby and visible smoke and fire.  At that point they escaped by way of the fire escape.  Thanks to Bob Nicholls, these people are still alive. 

William Kristol has an article in The New York Times today talking about the commentary on the terror attacks in Mumbai and how our vocabulary in describing and analyzing these attacks matters.  Islamic terror has to be identified as Islamic terror.  Not all muslims are terrorists, but when the terrorists are muslims who believe they are attaining some sort of religious goal, they have to be dealt with.  These terrorists were evidently part of a militant group protesting India’s role in Kasmir.  Their gripe had nothing to do with Americans, Brits, or Jews.  Why then were those groups their primary targets?  According to the article–

Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group that seems to be responsible for the terrorism in Mumbai, Haqqani explains, is a jihadi group of Wahhabi persuasion, “backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services.” He notes that “Lashkar-e-Taiba has adopted a maximalist agenda for global jihad.” Indeed, the political arm of the group has conveniently published a pamphlet, “Why Are We Waging Jihad?,” that lays out all kinds of reasons why the United States, Israel and India are “existential enemies of Islam.”

I really am beginning to wonder if the terrorists are simply unhappy youth trained to love violence and chaos.  I wish we could find an island somewhere that we could use as an island prison (not Cuba) where the terrorists could be left to set up their own society which would not interact at all with those of us who choose to be civilized.  We could periodically drop off food and medicine, but never land, because there would have to be no way off.  Terrorism is a crime against humanity, and until we recognize it as such, we will never be able to deal with it.  If the governments harboring terrorists will not deal with them, other governments have to.