Recently in American Exceptualism Category

...and the freakin' place was mobbed.  Easily 10 times the amount of people I've seen there any time in the past 30 years.  I took my grand-daughter with me to show her the procedure.

Voted Palin-McCain (just to piss off my kids, who hate Palin).  Not exceptionally thrilled with McLame, but he's a world apart from the Magic M'Bonga.

You have to pinch yourself. A Marxist radical, who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power, anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it's considered impolite to say so.

 - Spectator UK

For the first time ever, I got called by a pollster about 2 hours ago.

My first thought was to blow them off, but then I realized I wanted to hear the questions.

I would have to say they were very straightforward. They covered local and national races.

What is the likelihood you will vote...very, not-very, don't know.
Have you heard of (various local and national) candidates.
Do you feel favorable or not favorable to these candidates above.
If the race was held today, would you vote for...various local, Barr, Obama, or McCain.
Age, Political Affiliation...D, R, or Independent...I answered Conservative.

Pretty straight forward.

Words to Ponder...

Getting to Know John McCain - WSJ.com

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Thanx to Barcelona Pundit...

Just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people!

In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

Remember that the next time you hear 'tax the rich', or 'corporations are evil', from the libs.

Thanx to Indy

Say Uncle offers a link to the ultimate toy for boys...

Video: VIP Protection Tool

I think the author meant 'Mooseheads'.

Through Theo Spark we discover the Military Motivator....

Motivational Poster contributions...the Air Force gets beaten up.



There are several months worth in the link.  Bookmark it and keep checking back....

And for you ladies....

Husband Shoots Burglar During 911 Call....


Nobody believes you're being robbed until gunfire breaks out.

This reminds me of a joke.

A farmer calls his local cop shop to say that someone is breaking into his tool shed.  The cops tell him that they don't have anyone available to come to the farm but they'll send someone when they can.

1 minute later the farmer calls to tell the cops not to hurry, he just shot the guy.

2 minutes after that, 8 cops show up with guns drawn and capture the robber in the tool shed.

The cops complain to the farmer, "I thought you said you shot him?"

The farmer says, "I thought you said you had no one available to send".

OK, I got most of the decent pictures up. What a great day for an old squid. Frackin' freezing, but the rally was successful far beyond the organizers hopes. We easily outnumbered International Answer, the dozen code pinkos, and a score of anarchists. The park service is calling out 30,000 Eagles attending, but truthfully I think the number was more like 15000. As we hoped to get 1500, this was amazing for an arctic day. It was very hard to tell numbers - Vets were everywhere, at memorials, confronting moonbats, across the bridge in Arlington.

Amanda finds Jane Fonda's Field Office...this was at the beginning of the gauntlet that the Eagles formed...some moonbats used it to enter their gathering point. Fun was had by all.


We got there before 8AM and it was cold and dim...


People were getting their signs ready...notice the spit shield on one guy. Those things were all over.


Things really started picking up after 10AM.  Up until then, most Eagles were setting up, visiting the memorials, and getting their game plan together.  There was electricity in the air as the realization of our growing numbers started to sink in.

I was just out of frame for this picture on Michelle Malkin's site. In fact I helped that guy on the right to get up on the barrier.

One picture below shows the back of the crowd of Eagles forced up on the lawn on the Lincoln Memorial, while the picture below it shows the depth of the crowd spilling from there onto the street facing Answer at their gathering spot.  It stretched like this for a city block.  Everywhere you went on this end of the mall you would find thousands of vets.



This was at 8 in the morning, one of two lines waiting for airport-type security checks (white tent by 'three soldiers' statue) before entering the Vietnam Memorial. The lines only got longer as the day progressed. The wind chill in this picture is about 15 degrees.  The park security packed up when the moonbats marched to the Pentagon.


The moonbats were thin on the ground. If there were 5000 of them total in their various locations, I'd be surprised. How ever many of them that they were, we had them outnumbered.




This is the entire Answer gathering area from the position of another group of vets at a food kiosk in the Answer area ...about 11AM.  Geeze, pathetic.


Even here at this main Answer location beside the Lincoln Memorial, the moonbats were outnumbered by Eagles, much less anywhere else the commies went on the mall.  We surrounded the moonbats on all sides,  at the same time we were at every memorial including Walter Reed hospital and those at Arlington.  Don't believe what you read in the papers - we were there in force.


This was just one of five locations I visited in a quick walkabout and every one of them had thousands of Eagles there.  This was in front of the Lincoln Memorial.




Just a few of the memorials we guarded.  Nurses.


Korea.


WWII


Vietnam


I'll leave you with a picture taken by Amanda of some of the thousands of flags covering the site. 10,000 flags were collected across the country, signed with messages, and will be sent to Iraq.


This is a gauntlet of vets that stretched a city block along Constitution and funneled moonbats through to their gathering point. My daughter (above) and I were walking thru it when a bunch of bikers mistook my daughter for a moonbat...
"You're too pretty to be a moonbat."
"Why do you want to hate America...", etc.
She gets up into this big grizzled bikers face, points to her armband, and says, "What are you frickin' blind, don't you see this armband, what's the frickin' matter with you." (I could have warned him).
She owned them. They literally turned red with embarrassment, apologized like little kids, and offered her a prime spot in their part of the gauntlet. The gauntlet started up by the Jane Fonda memorial porta-potty.


I'd like to think that this gathering was a sharp spike in the hearts of the moonbat community.  They didn't get their way this time, and it appeared that they realized it.  They got surprise, humiliation, shame, and embarrassment in trying to confront this many veterans. This ain't 40 years ago.

Update: Jack Langer on Human Events....

Despite their fetish for the right to "dissent," the war protestors are unaccustomed to opposition, aside perhaps from a lone College Republican or two that might show up with an American flag at a campus protest. But these counter-demonstrators were different. They were combat veterans who still bristle at the memory of being jeered by these kinds of radicals when they returned from Vietnam. The marchers seemed not only nervous, but even ashamed - to prove their patriotism to the vets, they began chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" This was probably the first time that chant has ever been heard at an antiwar rally.

Then, in one final act of "resistance" before vacating the bridge, one of them burned an American flag, to the cheers of all the rest. This incident went unreported in all of the mainstream media, despite the presence on the bridge of numerous journalists and photographers.

Walking home, I reflected on what the antiwar movement has degenerated into -- a squabbling collection of aging socialists, pro-Palestinian militants, and cowardly anarchists. The Vietnam vets -- who were there just to protect our monuments and show support for the troops -- had a surprising effect on the protestors. "Fight back! Fight back!" was one of the protestors' slogans. But it was all talk. When confronted by people who actually fought and bled for their country, the protestors grew sheepish and embarrassed - I would even say humiliated.

I couldn't help but notice that the anarchists - the supposed hardcore fringe of the movement - waited until they were safely out of range of the veterans to burn a flag. Afraid of the vets, afraid of the cops, they don't seem to be good for much other than occasionally smashing storefront windows when there's no one else around.

"Whose streets? Our streets!", they chanted. Not on Saturday they weren't.

Eagles Up!

Oh, and whenever I go to Washingtoon I visit this location. This ancestor of mine was a homicidal Admiral. Just add him to a great uncle who was shot by the Black and Tan, various thieves and scoundrels, deported bog Irish, Marines and other assorted villains. On Judgment Day, when Saint Peter checks the rolls of all our families, he'll look at mine and say, "Oh Geese, that lot."


The hat was a big hit.  Four people came up to me to ask about it.  Molon Labe, you gun-grabbing moonbats.

Michelle Malkin has a huge roundup of links..

Hot Air has the video up...

I'm off at 2AM to Washington. The weather sucks at the moment, but should be drier and warmer 200 miles south.

Pictures when I get back.

We're good to go -

RedheadInfidel will be on the site tomorrow possibly, and if there is
emergency info we'll find a way to get it to you. Otherwise, you are
"cleared hot." Press on to the objective. Godspeed, good luck, and may
all of us stand proud on Saturday, as a family and as a nation.

There is a Gathering of Eagles on March 17th in DC to protect the Vietnam Memorial from a threat by some peace marchers to 'occupy' or deface it as they have done to other memorials.

Leftist activists who march to the Pentagon next month will discover that their path won't be as clear as it has been in the past.

The group, led by Cindy Sheehan, Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark and their ilk, plan to gather March 17 at the Vietnam Memorial Wall to begin a march to protest America's involvement in the Iraq war. The date marks the fourth anniversary of the war's beginning.

This time, however, protestors will see objectors if they spit on Iraqi veterans again, or throw paint on a war memorial. This time, they will encounter a buzz saw of Vietnam veterans and supporters who will gather to protect the Wall, and show their support for U.S. troops. The counter-protestors are calling themselves the Gathering of Eagles.

I hope to be there.  I've got my armbands ready and I'm only 3 hours away.  God willing and the creek don't rise. I'll keep this entry on the top for a while.

The following is an anti-anti-American campaign launched by Britain's first political web TV station - 18DoughtyStreet.com and No Pasaran

My little town had it's Veteran's Day Parade today. 2-3000 people at most. Too bad - more should be there. It was a beautiful day. Click for bigger pictures. WE SHALL KEEP THE FAITH. Oh! You who sleep in Flanders’ fields, Sleep sweet - to rise anew, We caught the torch you threw, And holding high we kept The faith with those who died. We cherish too, the poppy red That grows on fields where valour led. It seems to signal to the skies That blood of heroes never dies, But lends a lustre to the red Of the flower that blooms above the dead In Flanders’ fields. And now the torch and poppy red Wear in honour of our dead. Fear not that ye have died for naught We’ve learned the lesson that ye taught In Flanders’ fields. - Moina Belle Michael 1919

The American flag was flown in battle for the first time on this day in 1777, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Maryland. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the "Stars and Stripes" banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat to Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania, where they joined General George Washington's main force. Three months before, on June 14, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that "the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white" and that "the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.

 

Click on the picture for the original post...here for the current post. A fitting day for my day on the Rolling Victory Fast 2006. An initial setback on a long road to final victory. I’ve been a patriot since I could tie my shoes, but I guess it was made official early in Feb 1969 when I recited this at a Navy induction centre in Philadelphia: I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. I’m not sure if everyone took that oath seriously, but I did. After all, I’ve only taken two oaths in my entire life…the other being to “love, honour, and obey”. I like to think that I’ve been true to both of them.  Although the subject of the second oath nearly knee-capped me when I was looking to take a job in the sandbox….pointing out that she was too old to start waiting for me like that again. I’ve repeated the first oath at induction or graduation ceremonies for my sons. At my age, I have been able to do little to honour the memory of those who died on 911, and those who stand in harms way for me. Oh yes, I have contributed money and goods to patriotic and veteran organisations, I have voted (mostly) for conservatives when they are worthy of the name, I have stood and cheered at parades, I have supported individuals who are doing what I can no longer do, and I’ve stayed strong in the face of low-rent criticism. But I also go to a safe job each day (except for the commute up the Parkway) and come home to dinner and a safe bed (mostly) each night…thanks to those who have none of them. It doesn’t seem like enough. I Support the Troops  sounds too much like easy lip service for someone like me – I used to be a troop (well, squid anyway), and would put myself in harms way if I could.   My wife would be seriously pissed, my children would think I’d gone nuts, and my moonbat neighbors would just shrug and say “well, he is a right-wing death beast after all.”    But I’d do more if I could. And I’m damn sure that I’m not alone. Fast Day Updates: 8AM: Well, my sugar started out a bit over "high normal" when I got up this AM, so I should be good for a while. 11:30AM: Dropped 30 points...getting low. 4:05PM: Back from the range where I met Jesse, Kim, and her Bro and its dropped another 20 points...too low. Needed to eat something....in honor of this Army initiated fast, I chose beans. Um, boy, good ol' Army beans. I found a K-22 I think I'm going to get. 7:00 PM: Sugar back to normal again. That should last me for the rest of the night. As a note: With 4 years of effort, I have been able to avoid the shots and get off the pills. I regulate my sugar strictly by obsessing over my food intake....my system doesn't regulate sugar very well anymore, so I help it artificially by regulating my food intake. Actually I don't even need to check my blood as much as I used to...I can pretty much tell where my sugar is by physical sensation. As long as I feel 'good' I know I'm cool...When I feel 'bad' low, I eat...when I feel 'bad' high...I don't. Sounds strange, but the doctor says that my sugar is averaging out OK. Anything is better than taking drugs long term...them fuckers will kill you as dead as whatever disease you've got will.

Originally kicked off on my birthday and slated to run until 911, it has expanded beyond.... My day is coming up on September 4th. Labor Day. Christ, I hope we don't get invited to a picnic hurricane party. In any event, some of the kids might show...which means shooting, music, or movies. Check out the original post at the Tanker Brothers. This was developed as a pro-military action in reaction to the media-hyped, make believe hollywood "fast" undertaken by Cindy Shehan...and some very big names have participated. I'm honored to be part of it. I'll have to work out a diabetic strategy for this thing. I figure I won't eat at all but keep checking my blood sugar all day. If it drops too low, I'll go with some candy to bring it up a bit. I only generally eat one real meal a day anywho, with something at night when my sugar drops. Piece of Cake. You should check it out everyday to see who's up. (Well, not a real piece of cake, I can't eat that stuff) Update: If the weather gets any worse, I may have to shut this thing down for a bit....

Dear Euroweenies We wrenched our independence from the greatest power of the 18^th century with the blood of farmers and tradesmen and the minds of the most enlightened thinkers of the age. Eighty years later we were convulsed in a Civil war that tore away the last unhappy compromises that were crafted by the founders. We beat the Axis with an army that started the war rated behind that of Portugal...and wound up, if not the last man standing, then the last man standing with any energy left for the future. We have been the security blanket of the world for the past 60 years. We watched your favorite superpower crumble from within...and helped it to rebuild. If now we are an imperial country, it's an empire of influence...America is everywhere, whether we want to be or not and whether they want us to be or not. The Anti-Americanism that has become the vocal hobby for much of the world sounds to us like the whining of spoiled children...a whine that is solely based in the fact that we are not like them and don't wish to be. For 230 years we have tried mightily to not be Europe, to not live by European values, and to stay out of European affaires when we could. When we couldn't...it was terrible. For America to agree to give up power and influence, the countries of the world must get up to our level. It's going to be a while before that happens. There are now less than two dozen countries in the world who are even close...and I still wouldn't want to live there. You created America by allowing your best and brightest, your strongest and bravest, your most desperate and poorest to settle here. You threw out those you hated, couldn't feed, or didn't want to live with...and we took them in. We built a country like none other on the planet. We have mixed memories of the mother country, whichever it is, and that's why we came here. We might be immigrants, but our children are Americans. The UN is your organization, not ours. Please move it to Brussels where it belongs...we're tired of supporting 160 odd kleptocracies, failed kingdoms, and despots. Thanx to Anthroblogogy for the great picture. We're not going away and we're not handing our fate over to the world we struggled to get away from. Get used to it. Happy Independence Day, America....

The Old Fart Yep, and I'm wearing my Spirit of America hat. Click to enlarge if you dare.

My Dad was a functional orphan...his father had died at 4 and his mother gave him up to a foster home. She didn't enter back into his life until he was married with two kids. Always in trouble as a teen, he spent time in and out of juvenile detention and eventually started working as a printer's devil. He was a tough kid from Newark. When he yelled at my brother and I we would lean slowly to the left (in line with his broken nose) to piss him off. Drafted in '42 at age 21 he landed in the Tank Destroyers, an outfit that had fought at El Guttar in North Africa and was rebuilding and training in the South. His military career got off to a roaring good start when he got drunk, rammed his tank into the central support of a garage, and collapsed the entire thing on 4 other TDs parked inside. He got busted and never rose above private after that little lark. He loved Wales where they trained up for the invasion for 6 months, and landed in on Utah beach 1 month after D-Day. They immediately got stuck in the hedgerows and lost many TDs and friends to the nasty fighting there. During the breakout his unit was attached to the Third Army and slammed across France under Patton's gentle direction. He was wounded when his homemade ring caught on the hatch of the tank...he couldn't take cover quick enough to avoid strafing planes...and carried metal in his arm until his death. The ring stayed on his finger until the band wore thru and finally cracked. Only when we were older would he tell the stories of facing the Germans during the bulge, that terrible winter, Task Force Polk and Bacon, Moselle, Metz, Haguenau, and the lightning quick seemingly-random death that visited his buddies during 10 months of combat. He could recite their names when other things were forgotten. My middle name celebrates a guy that pulled dad out from under a Panzer during a German counter-attack...He shot at everything that moved or was above a single story until the war ended with his unit in the Russian zone. Some of his stories were even funny. He never touched a gun again...never, although he encouraged me at a very young age to take up shooting sports. After a few months of occupation (of a German girl) his unit was shipped en-masse to the US and loaded on trains for the trip to the west coast....and a front row seat at the invasion of Japan. The German girl owned a circus in Hamberg and wrote him Christmas cards until he died. It never bothered Mom (it helped that the frau gained about 400 lbs). Fortunately for me he got a boil on his neck that required treatment so they dropped him off in Indianapolis with orders to catch up later. The war ended within days. While waiting to get de-mobbed he met my mother. She was a model on her way to a gig wearing a Canton Crepe dress...and had ducked into a penny arcade to avoid the rain. There was dear old Dad on a 48 hour pass and they were married 6 weeks later. Mom wouldn't let him get into any more trouble. Every dad in the neighborhood was a combat vet when I was growing up. All of them had scars. All of them were working-class. All of them were good men who doted on their families. And all of them knew how to raise boys. Scouts was a hoot with that group of cut-throats helping out on camping trips. We all carried knives our dads had brought back...Marine and Navy kids carried K-Bars, Army kids carried bayonets, and I had a Nazi dress knife dad had scammed somewhere. I still have it. I had a great Dad and a great childhood. Thanx Dad, on Memorial Day.

A UC study noted at David's Medienkritik shows.... In the domain-specific category, the United States led with a score of 4 followed by Venezuela (3.6), Australia (2.9), Austria (2.4), South Africa (2.7), Canada (2.4), Chile (2.6), the Philippines (2.3) and Israel (2.3). On the general pride measure, people in Venezuela had a score of 18.4 (out of a possible 25), while people in the United States had a score of 17.7. Other top leaders in that category were Australia (17.5), Austria (17.4), South Africa (17), Canada (17), Chile (17.1), New Zealand (16.6) and Israel (16.2). And at the bottom of the list.... The bottom 10 nations in the survey, beginning with the last, were the eastern portion of Germany, Latvia, Sweden, Slovakia, Poland, the western portion of Germany, Taiwan, France, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. The study was taken in '96 and repeated in '04. Looking at the actual data shows that national pride in the US has actually gone up since '96. Take that, Moonbats.

The next time someone cranks on America, read what we offer the world...

America has only some 4.5% of world population but almost 40% of world spending on R & D, 50% of world industrial patents and over 60% of scientific Nobel prizes every year.

The US economy is a 12 Trillion $ juggernaut, dwarfing any and all competitors. Last year the US economy grew by 4.4%, this year it will grow by another 3.8%. This means that America added not one but two Saudi-Arabias to its economy last year alone! Every three years the US is adding an entire France to its economy.

American households now have some 49 Trillion $ in net assets, enough to buy a brand new 2005 Ferrari 612 for every man woman and child in Italy, France and Germany! Or buy the Frankfurt and Paris Stock exchanges 16 times over. Again, despite all the hype last year Americas households added to their net worth.

In Official Development Aid, the US gave 19 billion dollars in 2004, 25% of world total. This is a doubling since Bush came into office. The US gives 60% of all world food aid, saving million from hunger every day.

Unlike most nations, the ODA is only a small part of American Aid. In total, Americans (mostly the private sector) give some 60 billion $ each year, again dwarfing any other nation. Scholarships given by American Universities to poor students from the thirds world amount to 1.3 billion dollars, the same as the entire foreign aid given each year by Switzerland!

\

A poll taken in March of 2004 of some 2000 Iraqis shows that 62% believe their country is heading in the right direction, and only 23% in the wrong direction. Another poll by Mansoor Moaddel shows that 75% of Iraqis believe Iraq is better of after the US removed Saddam Hussein. The world banks figures for Iraqi GDP growth in 2004 were, 51.7%, the highest by far in the world. If this is not the impression the media has given perhaps it is because enlightened intellectuals do not think in quantities, only in anecdotes.

Good News...or at least, Good Trends. You'll need a PDF reader to see the charts.