Monday, cloudy and chilly

and I've got a bunch of limbs to haul around front for the big trash pickup. In the meantime, something amazing has happened: even the New York Effing Times has decided Rep. Charles Rangel(So Corrupt Even They Can't Stand Him-NY) needs to be removed from his chair:
Congressman Charles Rangel was far from humbled after the ethics committee admonished him for taking corporate-paid Caribbean junkets in violation of the House ethics code. Rather, the New York Democrat berated the panel’s leaders on the House floor.

The moment was characteristic of Mr. Rangel’s arrogance throughout the investigation, which continues into more serious allegations about his official behavior. It is one more reason why Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who championed ethics reform — should stop protecting him and relieve him of his crucial role as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
First, they act like Pelosi actually meant it; second, they expected anything else from Rangel? He's been allowed to get away with this crap for so long, it must've really pissed him off to actually be told "You've been naughty." Not that the 'Ethics' Committee is being real consistent now, either:
The affair remains something of a tangled ethics web. All five junketeers were ordered to repay the costs of about $11,800, yet only Mr. Rangel was criticized. And a former counsel to the ethics committee was found to have leaked panel secrets to Carib News charity officials during the inquiry. The committee said “false and misleading” testimony from charity workers would be referred to the Department of Justice.
Yeah, we'll see if Holder actually does anything about that.


V.D. Hanson on Obama fatigue, including
3) Laureate Warmaking: Utopians cannot get away with quadrupling the number of targeted killings in Pakistan and Waziristan against suspected terrorists and their wives. Twangy Texans who believe that we are at “war” against non-uniformed enemy combatants logically order Predators assassinations against what they see as a ruthless, bloodthirsty radical Islamic “enemy” in a “them or us” fight to the finish. But, again, not so Nobel Peace laureates, who want terrorists to be Mirandized, the architects of 9/11 to be tried in civilian courts in New York, and CIA interrogators to be investigated for waterboarding known mass murderers.
Also note is taken of the fact that being considered a 'magnificent speaker' while using a teleprompter for everything hasn't worn well; surprise!


With so many in the major media and the liberals and progressives trying- fairly desperately- to tie Stack to the tea party movement, this has some interesting bits about the past of the liberals and progressives I'd not heard before. For instance,
As Kennedy began [to speak at Kansas State U.], his voice cracked, and those near the stage noticed his hands trembling and his right leg shaking.After praising [Al] Landon’s distinguished career, he said, “I am also glad to come to the home state of another great Kansan, who wrote, ‘If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.’ ” …

At first he seemed tentative and wooden, stammering and repeating himself, too nervous to punctuate his sentences with gestures. But with each round of applause he became more animated. Soon he was pounding the lectern with his right fist, and shouting out his words.
...
After I had argued that the war was clearly winnable even toward the end if we had changed our strategy, the 1972 presidential candidate who had offered to go to Hanoi on his knees commented, “What you don’t understand is that I didn’t want us to win that war.” Mr. McGovern was not alone. He was part of a small but extremely influential minority who eventually had their way.


Ace points out just how full of crap Al Gore's defense of AGW is; and boy, is that pile starting to stink. I'm just going to go with one of the nuggets:
Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.
Uh, Al? Jones, one of the biggest AGW pushers of all, admitted in an interview a week or so ago that there was no global warming over the last fifteen years; you just forgetting that, or trying to shove it down the memory hole? And, as to your 'more and stronger hurricanes, not so much. As to Jones, "What a difference 20 years makes."


More wonders from Pelosiland: Die for Me and It's bi-partisan even without votes from the other side.


I knew an awful lot of people were signing on in favor of McDonald v. Chicago, but A: hadn't heard of this guy and his reason and B: it's hard to believe he believes this:
Amar told The Wall Street Journal. “The 13th Amendment frees the slaves and there’s no compensation. It’s the biggest redistribution of property in history.” Under this interpretation, the privileges or immunities of citizenship might include the right to health care, to a living wage, or to some other welfare right fancied by today’s progressive activists.
What the Hell? Freeing slaves was 'redistribution of PROPERTY'? Is THAT how 'progressives' see this? If it truly is, then they're even bigger fools than I could have thought.


Liar, liar, progressive pants on fire. Again.


Damn. Go read this, soon as you can. The site's title isn't SFW a lot of places, rest of the site sure isn't, the article is.
Denis Avey, even at the age of 91, cuts a formidable figure. More than 6ft tall, with a severe short back and sides and a piercing glare, he combines the pan-ache of Errol Flynn with the dignity of age. This is the former Desert Rat, who, in 1944, broke into — yes, into — Auschwitz, and he looks exactly as I expected. He removes his monocle for the camera, and one of his pupils slips sideways before realigning. It is a glass eye. I ask him about it. He tells me that in 1944, he cursed an SS officer who was beating a Jew in the camp. He received a blow with a pistol butt and his eye was knocked in.


Other day I left a comment for Daniel Johnson on his 'terrorized by the Constitution' and 'America is the most violent' bull; it appears that Reasoned Discourse did indeed break out. Yesterday it showed 'pending moderator review' but today there's nothing.



And last: Damn. Double damn. I want to see the place.

Ref Shifty Powers,

James posted this, with a link you ought to click on.

I'm sorry to say I didn't hear of the death of Shifty Powers

until today, when a friend sent me an e-mail; I'm going to put the text here:

"We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said "Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn't know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall to wall back to back 24x7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

Publish Post

"A nation without heroes is nothing."
Roberto Clemente"


Added: Go here for something to bring tears to your eyes: A rifle for Shifty

A look at the past,

thanks to Five Feet of Fury. Whilst browsing through, I found a link to just what led up to the Kent State shootings; not surprisingly(I remember some bits & pieces I heard at the time), mixed in with actual protesters were communists, arsonists, vandals and people committing assault with deadly weapons.

And, a few days later, an incident I'd never heard of:
"Construction workers at the World Trade Center building site got wind of the plan. When anti-war protester assembled at the George Washington statue on Wall Street that day -- complete with Viet Cong flags -- suits and hard hats joined forces against the hippies, in one of the weirdest 70s events you've never heard of: the Hard Hat Riot.

Here's a great, brief account of what happened that day:

By noon, more than 1,000 people had gathered and the vigil had escalated to a rally, and about 200 construction workers had had enough. They made signs reading things like “America, Love it or Leave it” and got right up against the police line that separated them from the students. They obeyed it for a few minutes, but the tension got to be too much and the construction workers started chasing the students through the street, beating some of them severely with fists, clubs and crowbars. The construction worker mob fought their way into City Hall and demanded that the flag be raised to full mast again - it had been lowered to half mast to honor the dead at Kent State. Fearful of further damage from the mob, the Deputy Mayor ordered the flag to be raised. The riot eventually fizzled out on its own. Six arrests were made and more than 70 people were injured."


Speaking of the past, back in the 80's I read an article about a bunch of 'save the whales' people, and one of them mentioned when he realized his lines weren't working. He told some construction guy "The flowers are your friends!" and the guy responded "Does that mean the weed is my enemy?" Doesn't apply to the above, but I thought I'd throw it in.

Speaking of forgetting history,

or in some cases covering it up, Kevin posted this quote:

When a society loses its memory, it descends inevitably into dementia. Allowing the cultural relativists to annex the education system ultimately destroys the grown-up world, too. - Mark Steyn, The loss of societal memory

Which reminded me of something. So I went to a bookshelf and found Man-Kzin Wars VII. If you've never read any of the series, one of the basic points is that the UN, running the world, had decided that the best way to make things peaceful and everyone easy to control(they didn't put it that way, of course) was to change history and control all aspects of culture: take out of the histories mention of wars and any aggressive action, suppress any writings that hinted at fighting for something, no games allowed that used aggression to win(very bad attitude, wanting to win),the whole works. To the point that people finding old family stuff like unapproved books, weapons(VERY broadly defined), any kind of keepsake of the sort were often sent away to camps; they may have been contaminated with unapproved knowledge and had to be isolated. And they managed to mold people into a forced pacifism in which even an offhand remark of the improper kind would get you reported. And quite possibly taken away. All of which turned out to be a bit of a problem when the Kzin showed up for dinner.

Well, at the start of some chapters in this book are quotes from various people speaking of history being lost, or flatly changed. For instance:

One of the largest of all British local council libraries, at Brent, lately destroyed approximately 66,000 of its 100,000 books. The explanation which the council gave for this destruction was that the offending books were "books on war, history books and other books irrelevant to the community."

R.J. Stove, Where Ignorance is Bliss, 1993

and

My first-year politics tutorials this week dealt with Nazi foreign policy and the lead-up to the war. I decided to loosen things a bit and just generally chat....How strange that university politics students should never have heard of the little ships that took the British Expeditionary Force off the beaches in May 1940. Or de Gaulle. Or a Spitfire. No knowledge of any of it..... This was the stuff that was supposed never to be forgotten thirty, forty years ago. Next week we do the Holocaust....

Letter to the author, October 19, 1991

Or how about

One of Japan's ubiquitous television crews took to the streets last week to find out what people thought about the forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor.... Such has been the rewriting of history in Japan that many teenagers had not even heard of Peral Harbor and several expressed amazement Japan had fought a war with the United States.
Gareth Alexander "The War Japan Chose to Forget,", Press Itern, December 3, 1991

It's been a long time since I read any of these books, I can't remember if any of the others have such notes. But these alone point to something scary as hell: that there are people and groups who have made specific effort to remove some history from the record, and to slant what remains. Sometimes for reasons of pride, sometimes for shame, sometimes to push their own views and goals. Which, unsurprisingly, usually involve them and other 'enlightened' ones controlling us. All for our own good, of course.

And theirs, but the won't speak of that.

Discoveries like this make me want to start studying

archaeology:
Now, it was announced in January, a civilization has been uncovered that would have appeared just as ancient to the people who built the pyramids as the pyramids seem to us.

According to marine scientists in India, archaeological remains of this lost city have been discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India. And carbon dating says that they are 9,500 years old.

This news completely contradicts the position of most Western historians and archaeologists, who (because it did not fit their theories) have always rejected, ignored, or suppressed evidence of an older view of mankind's existence on planet Earth. Human civilization is now provably much more ancient than many have believed.
...
The vast city — which is five miles long and two miles wide — is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's National Institute of Ocean Technology, who were conducting a survey of pollution.Using sidescan sonar, which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean, they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120 feet.

Debris recovered from the site — including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture, and human bones and teeth — has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.

I'll admit to two feelings about this. The first is delight; a discovery like this is just frikkin' wonderful, a new window into the past. No telling what all might turn up.
The second is a certain amount of evil laughter at the "This is THE EARLIEST DATE for civilization and anyone who says otherwise is a fraud!" historians and archaeologists reading about this and trying desperately to figure a way to prove their numbers are right and this new discovery doesn't actually mean anything. I know there's probably not many, but they're the kind of 'scientist' who'd rather screw with facts to fit their theory and beliefs than change the theory to fit the facts, the way science is supposed to work.

In any case, this is a marvelous discovery.

Tam noted a bit of Finland history

the other day, and Existing Thing pointed out the numbers of the Winter War:
Impressive, that.

Been a bit busy

with a personal matter, so not much to write the past while. Should have something to put up either later today or tomorrow, but for now:
Dumbass union people, sucking up to Hillary Clinton.

Traitor convicted for trying to get al Qaeda help to attack this country. Wasn't convicted of treason, unfortunately, though what he was doing damn well qualifies as such.

It's discovered that if you look around you can find all kinds of useful things right on the shelf. And if you tell people "We need this", they can build it. Without spending a few billion on committees and so forth.

Kucinich proves he's a friggin' idiot(as if further proof was needed) by trusting Edwards.

Drug gangs threaten journalists. But of COURSE these people will be stopped by a 'virtual' fence.

The Brits just can't seem to help themselves about flushing their country down the toilet.

Speaking of flushing, demonstration of why Kim calls Republicans the 'Stupid Party'.

Tim Blair notes some things about Globular Warmering:
But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with."

What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.

Ah, but what weather it is!

The previous post got me thinking about writing,

and authors, which made me think about the first time I met some authors. And about how someone's work gets fiddled with over time.

That time was the Fourth World Fantasy Convention in Fort Worth, 1978. First Con I'd ever been to, and my first real trip without parents involved. The big thing that caused a friend and I to buy tickets and save up for the trip was that the Guest of Honor was a gentleman named Fritz Leiber, who wrote(among other things) the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, just about my favorite sword & sorcery fiction pieces then and now. So the chance to meet him, and maybe chase girls(shut up) sent us south.

Very nice weekend in a number of ways, though finding the hotel was not one of them(note: do NOT trust directions the con staff send you) Met Leiber(not for long, he was rather in demand as you can imagine), met Andrew Offutt and a few other writers. In the dealers room found all the Fafhrd and Mouser books(all but one collections of short stories) I didn't have and got them all, and the drawing of them in the schedule, signed by Leiber. Met the wife-to-be. And was introduced to the works of Robert E. Howard.

Yes, the creator of Conan, and Bran Mak Morn, and Kull the Conqueror and Solomon Kane and others. My previous acquaintance with his work had been glancing through those godawful comic books: no matter the weather, enemy or place Conan was always in a breechclout and boots, etc. The Con was actually dedicated to Howard and his writing, and I'd wondered why. No, I didn't take the time to dig up one of his books and read it before the Con. The introduction to the actual Howard stories came through hearing them.

Saturday night the main event was a couple of readings. Harlan Ellison read two of his shorts, one funny as hell and the other equally creepy, and then Leiber walked to the podium. Leiber was about 6'4" or so, slim, with a mane of white hair and a deep, resonant voice. He'd been an actor at one time and it showed, with the hall quiet he could be heard fairly well even without the amp. Then all the lights in the hall went down except for the candelabra on the wall behind him and the small reading lamp, and he began to read.

The story was The Phoenix on the Sword, the first of the Conan stories and one Howard said he wrote 'as if Conan were standing behind me telling the story'. And Leiber had the gift of reading so that you felt you were in the story, watching and hearing instead of just sitting and listening. It was bloody awesome. And it started me reading Howard.

His Conan was very much a wandering barbarian mercenary, pirate, thief, whatever filled his purse. When it was cold he wore furs, when it was hot and sunny he wore pants and a shirt, or a robe, whatever was found where he was. And he wore armor. Not the character I'd expected from those comics. I've still got the books I picked up after that.

That was some weekend. Meet authors, buy books and get them- and that drawing- signed by Leiber, meet wife. Definitely interesting, and with long-term consequences in a variety of ways.

(I'll throw in something about the books: Karl Edward Wagner edited some of them, and did it the right way: corrected obvious spelling errors, set it up properly for paperback format as opposed to the original pulp magazine columns, and otherwise left the stories the hell alone. Read one as originally written, and compare it to the same after it had been 'edited to make it better'; you can really tell the difference. Which is why I'm still ticked at L. Sprague de Camp)