Dad gets a word in edgewise

They asked for it, they got it...but can they handle it?

2010-12-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

As of December 22 of this year, the long standing policy implemented by President Bill Clinton known as "Don't ask, don't tell", was rescinded. Ostensibly, the gay and lesbian service men and women who have been "serving in silence", can now serve openly without fear of censure or discrimination. While this sounds very inclusive and accepting in theory, it will prove to be much stickier to put into practice. As the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, General John Amos has stated, there will be distractions. The Commandant, and every other leader within all the forces, will have a great deal of beaurocratic crap to wade through while at the same time, providing leadership to troops who will be dealing with issues related to their own personal prejudices and how it affects their performance. While surveys of service members have indicated that many will remain closeted despite the ability to come out, there will be those that will open up about their orientation. Like it or not, there will be problems.
While I am, for the most part, supportive of the idea that gays should not be discriminated against in most any capacity, and I am confident that most gay service members are consumate professionals that will not allow knowledge of their orientation to affect the performance of their duties, I wonder if the "gay community" at large is ready for this change. Is the "gay lobby" ready? Will those who scream the loudest for gays to be allowed to do whatever they want, wherever they want and that the rest of the world must deal with it, be willing to accept the limitations that open military service will place on gays who enlist? Will they accept that there are standards of uniform and behavior which are sacrosanct amongst the military services? Or will they take this "victory" and demand more? Will calls for changes to the uniform be next? Will they expect a "rainbow service ribbon" to be added to the available awards? Will they demand that bases allow pride parades? Amongst special interest groups, this tends to be the standard routine.
Another front that will be under scrutiny due to this change is religion in the services. Will Chaplains be required to perform same sex union ceremonies at bases located in states that have legal gay marriage? What about Catholic Chaplains? Will they be prevented from espousing the doctrine of their faith simply because it conflicts with the new military policy? These are all important questions.
It remains to be seen how this all shakes out, but I am sure of this one thing: It will be far from a smooth road from where we are, to the point where gays and lesbians truly serve openly in any of our country's military services.

But try telling that to a liberal.

From the mouths of babes!

2010-11-15T00:31:00.000-08:00

I saw this post on The Looking Spoon, a conservative humor blog I found through I own the World, and I just had to feature it here. This little girl has a serious future in politics. At least in some lobbyist/activist capacity. She has poise, direct delivery and by gum, she's talking sense. Somebody cut her speech in with highlights (lowlights) from Obama's varying remarks on the right to choose made mostly during his campaign, and despite the fact that she's a 12 year old kid and he's our Harvard Law School educated President...she has him dead to rights.

Hey Chris and Wendy Jeub, here's your next debate student!

An open letter to the election winners.

2010-11-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

I address this to all those who, after today, will hold the many offices that are up for grabs nationwide. You hold in your hands, as of this moment, an incredible opportunity and a responsibility to your individual constituents and the nation in general. You have the chance to begin restoring liberty to our country. It will be your task to work to undo the policies that your predecessors, whatever party they were from, put in place that have screwed things up. It will be your job to enact new policies, ones that your constituents want enacted.

This is the heart of the matter. You must do what the people want done. The time of the special interest politician is over. Thanks in part to Obama's outright flaunting of his socialist intentions, the average voter is going to be far more watchful of his elected officials than he was 2 years ago. That, coupled with the current state of our nation, and all of your various promises to create jobs, curb spending, etc, places a heavy weight upon your collective shoulders. While it is very nice and sweet to talk about bi-partisanship and all that touchy-feely stuff, you must remember that your job is to rescue your fellow Americans from the job and economy crushing policies that have been enacted and those that are in the works, such as cap and trade. If those incumbents that remain can smell what's cooking, maybe they'll get back to work before the year is out and extend the Bush tax cuts (it's not a cut anymore since it's been law for 10 years, but I digress).

Lest you think that I am speaking only to the "tea-party" and "tea-party inspired" types, this goes for you Democrats who may win your offices also, especially those of you who took great pains to distance yourself from the President and Speaker Pelosi etc. You made the distinction for yourselves by purporting to be fiscally conservative, now you've got to live it. The electorate will demand it. If you fail your people, I suspect recall proceedings will abound. You have the chance to revive the principles of governance that the founding fathers laid out for us. And despite what the so-called progressives want to tell you, these principles are as sound today as ever they were. More to the point, a return to those founding guidelines is what the people want. If you've forgotten what our forefathers had in mind, go here. If you've forgotten why we started this great Republic, go here. We'll wind up back in the same boat we were in 1773 before we lashed out against the tyrant.

Today the nation will speak...

Are you listening?

Yes, they can...but should they?

2010-08-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

As I sit here, 2500 or so miles from Ground Zero, the sight of the World Trade Center and the scene of the worst terrorist attack ever perpetrated on U. S. soil, the pundits on T.V. weigh in on the appropriateness of building a Mosque 6 blocks away. Protests have been held, spokesmen and women have waxed eloquent (and not so eloquent) on why it should or should not be built. People on both sides have been labeled and demonized by the other side, and motives have been questioned. Many words have been said on this subject, and I will add my words here in my own space. This is my opinion and that is all that it is, but nobody has ever accused me of keeping an opinion to myself, and I won't start now.
As many of you might expect, I am against building this Mosque in this location. In my opinion, it is more than the insensitivity that is immediately apparent, it is the mystery that surrounds the principal partners who are funding the mosque. There has been no disclosure of where the bulk of the funding for this building will come. If there has been one lesson learned from our investigations of Muslim charities in the last 9 years, it is that much of the money flowing from these "charities" was, in reality, being used to fund terrorist activities. In light of this fact, I would think that the builders would wish to fully disclose their money sources, if only to avoid the suspicion that would follow.
Furthermore, even if you make the assumption that those associated with this project have only outreach and bridge-building at heart, placing this mosque so close to GZ will draw attention from those who are the enemy. They'll make a point of praying there, they'll hatch future plots there with other like-minded Muslims and despite the best intentions, it will become a den of terrorists.
If you go to the other extreme, the initial name of this project, Cordoba House, calls to mind the mosque that was built in Cordoba, Spain as a symbol of conquest. I personally feel that there is no coincidence in that name choice. It has been demonstrated over and over that Muslims build mosques as symbols of triumph over the infidel.
Proponents of the mosque immediately throw out the "hate card" and call us religious bigots, and racists. They claim religious discrimination, paying no attention to the fact that nobody's worship rights or ability is compromised as there are numerous mosques in the nearby neighborhoods and as it stands, many Muslims have been praying in the building already without benefit of having a shining new building (victory flag) on the spot.

Apparently the old Burlington coat factory is good enough for Allah.

There are those that compare building the mosque near GZ to allowing the building of a Neo Nazi center near the site of Auschwitz or Dachau. The immediate response is to say "9-11 doesn't compare to the Holocaust, so the analogy is wrong". But I disagree. Auschwitz or Dachau, in and of themselves, were not the entirety of the Holocaust, but were sites of acts of the Holocaust. I contend that Ground Zero is our Auschwitz, our Dachau. It is the site of the beginning of the infidel-ocide. (Write that one down, it's not a word, but it should be). It's not really the first site in which we infidels were mass-murdered by Jihadi Muslims, but it is the first site in the largest Nation of Infidels. It is the beginning of their attempt to conquer the seat of western civilization. So yes, I'm going with the analogy.
Please understand that I don't condemn all Muslims as Jihadis and I know it seems like I paint with a broad brush here, but unfortunately for the peace-loving Muslims of the world, the difference between Islam and Radical Islam is merely a question of shade.

The Q'uran makes it the same color.

Enough already!!

2010-05-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

Can we just, once and for all, dispense with the Nazi, "show me your papers" crap? Arizona bill 1070 contains specific language barring racial profiling. This is spelled out thus:

FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).

Lawful contact. Exactly that and only that. Just like any other person, only when stopped for some other lawful reason, can identification be demanded. Just like you and me, resident aliens are required to have identification on their persons. If I were stopped for speeding, and had no driver's license, I would be cited and expected to provide proof of my identity. If there existed reasonable suspicion of another crime, I would be detained and subject to further scrutiny.

That's it in black and white. But let's bring the Nazi comparison completely to it's knees thusly:

In Europe, from 1933 to 1945, the Nazis killed some 21 Million people. In 2010 Arizona, folks who are illegally in this country will be deported...back to their home country. In 1930s Europe, the Jews (and many others) were rousted from their own homes, first relocated to the ghettos (Jewish only slum neighborhoods; incidentally this is the origin of that word) and ultimately shipped to concentration camps where they were summarily executed or eventually worked to death. Let's compare that again:

Sent back to the place from which they illegally came

Uprooted from their homes and shipped off to their death.

These two things:

The 2010 Census

2010-03-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

I just completed the federally mandated waste of time known as the 2010 census. I've been waiting for this one with some anticipation though, since having read This story from March 9th at Michelle Malkin.com. I followed the advice there and indeed checked "Some other race" and added the word American. Naturally I had to make an addendum to the form due to my family size, (when you have 15 kids, you're ALWAYS having to make additions to forms) so I typed up a little note in Word and for those 4 kids and also listed them as:

Race: American

It's a tiny gesture, but a meaningful one. I'm tired of having my tax dollars spent for ridiculous social programs where race and ethnicity are factors. I used to listen to a talk show where the host always suggested that on any documents where they ask those pesky ethnic, racial and gender identifying survey questions that you should lie, thereby making the information meaningless. I thought that was a good idea, but in this case the answer is not a lie, just a more specific designation. I urge anyone who reads this to do the same, unless of course you like contributing to the racial division in this country by identifying yourself and allowing the real racists in this country to add you to the statistics they use to further divide us. You want a color blind, racially equal society? Stop allowing the government to make an issue of it. I did.

Remember: In the boxes above, check the some other race box and pencil in American.

Stop letting identity politics define how your government serves you.

Two good uses of 2.5 Million dollars

2010-02-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'll admit it. I only watched the Superbowl for the commercials and the halftime show. The Who rocked!! I have never been much of a big sports fan, but I do appreciate the skill it takes to be a professional athlete.

As for those commercials, one of which was steeped in controversy because of it's subject matter. I mean, really, how DARE they put a pro-life spot in the Superbowl? This is how they dare:

Imagine that! A mom talking about how much she loves her son. And not one mention of abortion or stopping abortion or Roe v. Wade. Not one mention about the feminist movement or anti-feminism. Yeah I can see what all the controversy was about. Clearly Mrs. Tebow was "punished" with her Heisman trophy winning son. Gads.
That makes my wife and I SERIOUS gluttons for punishment. Hmm. Thinking about it makes me want to go home and "punish" her some more ;)

And then there was probably the funniest commercial of the bunch:

Who doesn't love Betty White? Seriously, she's got more funny in her little finger than about 80% of the comedians out there. Best laugh I've had in awhile.

And then there was the really best part, in two parts:

The wife says I'm just old, but c'mon, it's the freakin' Who fer cryin' out loud!

Oh...yeah, I guess it's pretty good that the Saints won too. If you care about that sort of thing. Um..Go Saints...?

Just one Dad's opinion.

STOP! THIEF!!

2010-01-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

What we have here is a thief. This guy was photographed at the George R. Brown Convention center at the Annise Parker for Houston Mayor Victory Party on 12/12/2009.

For those of you not familiar with military uniforms or awards, the problem we have here is manyfold. First, the uniform he's wearing indicates that he is a Brigadier General. This is highly unlikely as he too young to have attained that ranking without having the sort of stellar career path that would have made him somewhat famous. Add to that the unauthorized "soulpatch" and goatee (granted, he would likely be retired, but someone who served that long would never disgrace the uniform this way) and you begin to smell the rat. Furthermore, the medals and other decorations he's wearing are completely out of this world for any member of any U.S. military service. Consider these blunders:

He sports a Combat Infantryman's Badge. The manner in which these are awarded, couple with the fact that he has apparently won two, would indicate that he served as an infantryman during the Korean war. If you failed history, that was in the early 1950s.

He has US Jump wings, HALO wings (specialized parachuting), air assault wings and a pathfinders badge. Not to mention he has at least 3 British decorations. Add to that two Silver stars, a Bronze star and a Purple heart and you've got a guy who makes General Patton look like an Admin clerk. This man needs to be brought to justice. His actions dishonor and disgrace all the true heroes who have spilled their blood for this nation. Under the stolen valor act this guy could face prison time. Intrepid Mil Bloggers have tracked down his Friendster page and also his LinkedIn profile It's time for any of you few that read me to take a look and see if you know this guy. If you do, contact me or one of these worthy bloggers:

Blackfive
Boston Maggie
Bouhammer
Bring the Heat, Bring the Stupid
CDR Salamander
From My Position
Hooah Wife
Kiss My Gumbo
Little Drops
A Soldier’s Perspective
This Ain’t Hell

and pass along any info you may have on this imposter. The brave souls of the Mil Blogging community will see that this guy gets what's coming to him (Legal-wise that is).

Do the Right Thing

Note to self:

2010-01-06T06:07:00.000-08:00

Dude, where's my profiling?

2010-01-05T04:25:00.000-08:00

Are we over ourselves now? Have the American people at large finally come to the conclusion that we really need to look at the individual when it comes to screening of airline passengers? I seriously hope that we have. Once again, the guy who blew up his own junk on Christmas day on the flight to Detroit (istan) was not an 87 year old Asian grandmother in a wheelchair. Once again, he was a young, muslim from a country with a large muslim population and he had just been to Yemen. He paid cash at the gate in Amsterdam and had no baggage or identification? Yet he was allowed onto a flight bound for one of our nation's most populous cities. What saved us? He screwed it up! We owe the lives of the 200+ passengers on flight 253 and who knows how many on the ground to Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's inablility to properly assemble his crotch bomb.
TSA, instead of reacting as you normally do, (and already have), by adding extra steps to EVERYONE'S screening process, why not just take into account those who are actually likely to be possible Jihadists and give them the extra pat down? Throw in those other folks who are acting suspiciously or are otherwise suspect and there you have it. Oh yeah, and get those various "watch lists" cross-referenced so that if someone's name is on ANY of those lists, it puts up a red flag. If you pull them aside, someone can then sort out if this person needs to be further delayed or detained. You know what else would be really nifty? Once you've gotten some questionable person off to the side for a secondary or tertiary screening, have a little gumption and give them a good strip searching. Have the balls to actually conduct a serious security screening for anyone getting on a flight into this country and let's see them get a scrotum bomb into one of our planes. Pay attention when a guy's own dad calls the embassy and warns them that his kid is going all radical Islam and get on the ball with the preventative measures. Starting with profiling for the proper likely suspects. Then you won't have to send dopey Janet Napolitano out to stick her foot in her mouth on CNN.
The system didn't work, Al Qaida's servant just failed in his task.

So much for his 72 virgins.

Justice in the North West

2009-12-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

Maurice Clemmons has been shot dead by police. As it should be. He has reaped what he sowed when he murdered 4 police officers. Three of his family members have been arrested for aiding and abetting Clemmons in evading the pokice. After an initial standoff at a house from which Clemmons eventually escaped before SWAT could fully surround it, Clemmons was killed when an alert police officer spotted a stolen vehicle that was linked to Clemmons. He was then confronted by Clemmons who would not drop the weapon he was holding. End of Story.
I for one, am pretty disappointed by Mike Huckabee's failure to take responsibility in this whole thing considering the fact that it was he who commuted the sentence for this scumbag. I was also pretty disappointed when I found out about his extensive record of pardoning and commuting sentences for other hardcore criminals. I'm pulling my HuckPAC button from my other blog.
A small measure of justice has been served here. A little late, but a measure none the less.

Just this Dad's opinion.

A.C.O.R.N. is at it again...

2009-11-23T02:56:00.000-08:00

and it looks like our California's Attorney General, former Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown is complicit in the shenanigans. At least according to audio that was played tonight on LA talk station KFI. Andrew Breitbart was filling in tonight for John Bachelor and he pimped his upcoming expose of some 20,000 documents that were disposed of by ACORN in a dumpster outside their San Diego offices. A private investigator, doing the work that Jerry Brown's people should be doing, uncovered these documents in a dumpster after witnessing an ACORN lackey dumping them late at night. Although the full content of these documents will be made known in a serialized release by Breitbart, the investigator, interviewed via telephone, made known that at the very least, these papers contained boatloads of personal info from thousands of ACORN's clients including loan applications, immigration paperwork, and foodstamp applications. There are other, even more damning documents to come, and Breitbart and his team of citizen journalists are going to bring all the dirt. This coupled with an audio clip in which the Director of ACORN San Diego, tells local democratic party officials that the AG, instead of investigating ACORN, he is really investigating Breitbart and the team that conducted the video stings of ACORN offices nationwide.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The story has broken over at Big Government.com. See it here

A man without a plan...

2009-11-19T00:43:00.000-08:00

When the President took office, he immediately whipped out his pen and signed the order to close the Guantanamo bay detention center. He was in a rush to kiss the asses of his liberal base and he set in motion a process that he had no idea how to carry out. He now acknowledges that he won't be able to make his original deadline as he moves to simultaneously bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York to stand federal trial as though he were a citizen and get arrangements made to stuff the rest of the current Gitmo detainees into a nearly empty supermax facility in Illinois. This last being touted as another of the stimulus package's batch of "saved or created jobs" which will rescue this small town from extinction.
Of course, one has to understand that Gitmo just has to be closed. I could describe the hellish conditions faced by these detainees, but I think you would derive a much clearer picture of what REALLY goes on in Gitmo from the following video by the inimitable Steven Crowder:

Seriously though, as if our country doesn't have enough crap to face from the enemies without, we have the President and his cronies rushing to either release dangerous enemy combatants so that they can return to their Jihad, or to bring them right onto our own soil, thus drawing attention to them and their rhetoric and putting them right in amongst our people, likely spurring an attempt to free them or another terror attack just to show us how vulnerable we are.
Either way, this will turn out to be not only a mistake, but a smear of our troops and our nation. I doubt that the puppeteers on the left would have it any other way.

I didn't expect that I could say this....

2009-11-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

I think that President Obama handled the speech at the Fort Hood memorial service today just about as well as he could have. He denounced the shooter without actually bringing up Jihad or Islam, but managed to say that no religion would condone such an act and no loving God would look favorably upon it. Some have criticized him for not being more condemning but I think that, given the solemn nature of the event, he kept the proper tone. This is, of course, in stark contrast to his earlier assertions not to jump to conclusions and of course the "Authorities" first claims that this had no connections to terrorism. The MSM was all too quick to call it PTSD and not only that but "secondhand" PTSD somehow contracted from listening to stories that his patients told him. Now that we know that PTSD was not a factor and that he was, in fact, a Jihadist, more is being revealed about just how long his tendencies were evident to those around him. Should the 50 slide PowerPoint presentation he gave on why Muslims should be granted conscientious objector status due to the religious conflicts that they would have with fighting other Muslims have been a clue? This occurred in his final year of residency as a psychiatrist. He presented this to his superiors and approximately 25 of his peers. Yet nothing was made of it. At least nothing that made it to his service record. UPDATED: Now it appears that several of his peers had wanted to report him as psychotic, but were afraid to do so for fear of being labeled as racists. Political correctness strikes again. I think its time that the word "racist" and all the other "ist" suffixed words be re-evaluated. In this day and age of self-victimization, these identifying labels have been given too much power. Its time that we stop ignoring common sense and logic in favor of being called an "ist".

Just one dad's opinion.

Happy 234th Birthday!!!

2009-11-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

10 November 1775, in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, the U.S. Marine Corps was born. My brethren, both past and present have held the line and protected our freedoms ever since. With all due respect to the Army and the Navy and the fledgling Air Force, there is no service like the Marine Corps. The smallest of all the branches, we have always done more with less and succeeded with the Army's hand me downs since we began. First in, last out.

Semper Fi, my brothers!

Shooting at Ft. Hood

2009-11-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

This afternoon in Fort Hood, Texas, a gunman later identified as Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire on a group of soldiers and civilians in a medical waiting room. The death toll stands at 12 with 31 people wounded. Major Hasan worked on the base as a mental health professional recently having been transferred from the Walter Reed medical center in Washington DC. While it was originally reported that Hasan had been killed, possibly by his own hand, it was later revealed in a press conference that he was indeed alive, in stable condition and in custody. The civilian security officer who shot Hasan, stopping his rampage was also initially reported to have been killed, but is now reported to be in stable condition and being hailed as a hero.
While much about this incident and the motives behind it still remains unknown, several sources have provided information that may shed some light. Federal law enforcement officials have told the AP that Hasan came to their attention as much as six months due to internet postings that equated suicide bombers with soldiers falling on a grenade to save their comrades. No official investigation regarding these postings was ever opened. A former colleague, Retired Col. Terry Lee, who spoke with Fox News' Shepard Smith on the air this afternoon told of Hasan making numerous statements regarding Muslims "rising up against the aggressors" and arguing with fellow soldiers who expressed support for the wars. The shooters cousin, Nader Hasan, also spoke with Smith today calling his cousin a "good American". Other sources point to Hasan having recently received a poor performance review, and a possible upcoming deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq as possible factors in Hasan's actions today. His cousin states that his family was unaware of any deployment orders, but that Hasan had previously sought legal redress to leave the Army before his contract was completed. He sought to use harassment he had suffered after 9/11as a reason for leaving, but was told by his lawyer that the Army would not release him from his contract early due to the investment they had made in his education.
As the details of this incident and the backstory of Major Hasan begins to unfold, it remains to be seen how the mainstream media will handle the story. In my perusal of three major news sites, Fox, MSNBC and CNN, only Fox and MSNBC make mention of the fact that Hasan is a Muslim. CNN in fact devotes several paragraphs of one story to explaining how mental health care professionals can themselves become depressed vicariously through listening to patients horror stories such as ones told by soldiers returning from war. While Hasan's Islamic faith may not have been the driving force in this attack, it cannot be ignored as a factor. If history is any indication however, many of the mainstream media outlets will ignore any possible connection between his faith and his actions, or at the very least, gloss it over. Much to their credit, the Council on American Islamic Relations, an organization with dubious underpinnings of it's own, immediately condemned the act as "cowardly" and stated that no political or religious ideology could justify such an act.
I , for one, will be watching the media closely on this one.