Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Let’s look back at some early posts I did over the first three months of the blog. I’m going to be busy today so it’s a quick filler post thing:

Back in December the Jammie Wearing Fool predicted that the birth of Bristol Palin’s son would be the death Knell of the Trig Truther Movement, at the time I said this:

You have to think of people who follow conspiratorial type stuff as people following a religion. Excuses will be followed by clarifications but in the end the belief will not be dropped, remember William Miller and the 2nd coming.

The only thing that will be missing is the tax-exempt status. (Believe me the collection plate WILL exist).

The other McCain, Dan Riehl and Aaron Gardner prove me almost totally right but Anne Briggs proves the last sentence wrong as she didn’t use her Trig Truther fame to improve the Amazon Rankings of the book (#2,761,947 as of this morning). No collection plate there.

Speaking of a collection plate back in January I did a post on the New Quarter Sovereign coin offered by the British Royal mint and said this:

The glory of the British Empire is long past but if you want a chance to get something to remember it by the quarter sovereign is a solid and inexpensive choice. The mint is getting £47.95 each for them at the current exchange rate that works out to around $63 each for a gold coin in it’s first year of issue.

I grabbed 3 since that’s all I can afford, If I had a job I’d grab 10.

In case you forgot the design:

Same design used for all size sovereigns

Same design used for all size sovereigns

Not only has gold gone up and the Royal Mint raised its price to £65 but the exchange rathttps://datechguy.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpe is now favoring the pound so I hope you jumped on the coin when you had a chance. It’s still worth getting as a first year issue gold coin.

I posted quite a bit about Israel going into Gaza. I mentioned this about the cease fire:

It is now up to the Palestinians are they going to stop the rockets or are they going to go through all of this again. That is when we will know if the war is actually over or not. It also remains to be seen if Israel is going to be willing to go back in during an Obama administration.

Well looking at the blog The Muqata which live blogged the war along with Israellycool looking under the category “Qassam Rockets” there is not an entry newer than Jan 18th that mentions a launch. The section under “Gaza” doesn’t either.

It looks like the war is over, but once the Palestinians are done killing each other I’m sure they’ll manage to try again.

Also in January I decided I arrived because of an increase in Spam. I’ve actually had a drop in spam lately but I’ve had an increase in comments so I guess a few more people are reading me, if you are thanks.

Considering the political landscape this post is Ironic, I hit Marc Ambinder over suggesting it was a bad idea for Republicans to vote against the stimulus bill due to the 70% Obama approval. I said this:

This is the same advice that might have been given to republicans in the first two years of the Clinton administration. Not taking it gave them control of the house for the first time in 40 years.

Anyone who thinks a vulnerable republican congressman who goes along with this plan will survive a primary challenge is silly. Remember our democrat friends were the same ones who told us McCain was the man to win with.

Bold prediction time: Anyone who thinks Obama will have approval ratings in the 60’s in two years is dead wrong. They will not be above 50%. It would not surprise me to see his ratings in the low 40’s.

That one is looking pretty good (I even used the battered wife example later in the post that Glenn uses today) and the Bold prediction is not looking so bold these days. One note, the first two sentences were in a block quote, I either missed the link or I accidentally put it in the block. I can’t find the quote elsewhere online so it might be mine but I should be more careful.

Another post that looks like it could have gone up this week is this one:

The question then is why? Why make the big deal, and why the big fuss over republican votes when the democrats have the power and the votes? Easy.

They want cover, they want power but not responsibility. They want someone to blame. They remember 1994 and the Clinton Tax increase. They also know that this country is still a 51-49 country and that the blue dogs in the house are not going to keep their seats if they go too far left.

Mark my words when things get worse (they will) the congress will get worried. In 2010 with the recovery hasn’t taken place (much too soon) Democrats in congress will be trying to deflect blame and ask for patience.

Remove the word “stimulus” and replace it with “healthcare” and it could go up now.

Several “linked” posts have particular relevance today. I promoted something from comments:

his president has already made it clear that he is above the press by his actions. It is as if he is royalty and bestowing his favors on his faithful subjects. I can’t believe that the members of the press are going to be willing to take this treatment for long. Oh they will keep their mouth’s shut for a while. Their resentment will be whispered and building, but it will take only one prominent reporter on the left to say it aloud and it will come pouring out. I actually have an opinion as to which two reporters/opinion journalists will do it. But I’m keeping that to myself for now.

It will be hard for the press to re-direct their anger to conservatives when we have so little power.

I hate to admit it but I totally forgot who those reporters were, but we have seen some of this from the base and from reporters, but it is the next line that mattered:

The whitehouse will use the Blame Bush stratagem to deflect this when it comes but I think it will come.

Ok so the White house is having trouble with their base, but I didn’t think they would be so desperate to mollify the base to risk the consequences mentioned in these two posts:

The democrats are all talk and smoke on this subject. They will try to go though some motions to mollify their guys but there is no way at all they will pursue this. It is a high risk move at a time or crisis with the only upside being among fanatics.

My explanation is here, my money quotes:

You can take this to the bank: Any successful attack on American soil during an Obama administration is going to be wholly owned by not only that administration but the Democratic party…

…Any kind of trials will be drawn out affairs and would likely be still going on during a successful attack. How much worse will it be for those who failed to protect the country if those who succeeded in protecting the nation are on trial during their failure?

It was my opinion at the time that the President would offer the pardons as he cares not what the press think. From what I’ve seen about the way the press and the news has been treating not only the incoming president but the outgoing crew even in his last days, I think the smirk is going to win. He is savvy enough to know what this would do to the Democrats they will be forced to either engage their far left base or take the risk I said above. These people won’t do it and it they did it would destroy them. It will be his final victory against them.

All the risks still exist, I think this is sheer panic to change the subject. He has fallen into the final trap laid by George W. Bush.

It was interesting reading those old posts, I’ll do it again when I hit the 1000 post mark or my year anniversary.

UPDATE: I looked at the wrong column, it was 900 comments. Pass me my idiot mittens.

Happy VJ day

Posted: August 15, 2009 by datechguy in personal, war
Tags:

Today is VJ Day. The day to celebrate the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War.

This is a very important day for me as if it didn’t come when it did, there is a chance that I would be here.

My father came home from the pacific Married my mother and in 1963 the last of their children was born.

As far as I’m concerned I owe my life and the lives of all of my children to VJ day coming when it did.

To all of those who fought and to all of those who developed the weapons that won it I offer my heartfelt thanks.

Arafat really supported Terror? NO!

Posted: July 30, 2009 by datechguy in war
Tags: , ,

Via National Review we see one of the least shocking stories ever written:

“Arafat would condemn [terror] operations by day while at night he would do honorable things,” said Dahlan, who today serves as top advisor to Arafat’s successor, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

I’m sure there will be a few people on the left totally taken aback, there might even be a few that consider it old news. It’s certainly a candidate for the Capt Renault award at Hot Air.

There is real news in the next paragraph however:

Dahlan said the Abbas regime should learn from Arafat and begin to again employ calculated and carefully-tiimed terrorism as an official tactic. He said the only part of today’s terrorism he doesn’t like is that so many groups are running around attacking Israel on their own. In Dahaln’s view, all terrorism against Israel should be directed by the Palestinian Authority.

Hey lets give these people millions of dollars.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on July 24 that the United States has given $200 million to help the operations of the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA).

“I wanted personally to announce the delivery of budget support to the Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of President [Mahmoud ] Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad,” Clinton said at a video teleconference in Washington, in which she was joined from Ramallah with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

I presume that these people aren’t stupid enough to think these people actually support peace so I’m really wondering what the cause for all this nonsense is.

A tale of two men…

Posted: July 5, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: , , , ,

…who both died by the hand of the Taliban. One was a soldier Aaron Faibairn:

It appears that Aaron was one of the two soldiers killed in a large Taliban attack on a base in Paktika

This young man willing put his life on the line for his country and died on the 4th of July. Per his father’s request I will be using the tag thankyouaaron on this post.

Taken from his beheading video by Reuters.

Photo taken from his beheading video via Reuters.

The second person you likely haven’t heard of. His name was Piotr Stanczak and the Taliban beheaded him on film back in February. He wasn’t a soldier he was a geologist but died just as bravely:

Piotr Stanczak did not exhibit the slightest hint of hesitation when the Pakistani Taliban asked him to choose between execution and conversion to Islam.

Whether the Polish geologist acted out of pride or religious conviction, he decided to pay through his blood to save his faith, a choice that bewildered his killers and keep them talking about him with respect after his murder.

I would very much like to consider myself a faithful Catholic but I honestly can’t say if in the same situation I would have the same courage.

Via Tim Blair who notes:

An earlier item on Stanczak’s murder:

The video is so horrifying that some news wire agencies chose not to distribute the images.

If they’d been from Abu Ghraib, however …

For our own sakes these men need to be remembered. Both died defending beliefs and principles dear to Americans. Keep this in mind when people try to explain why radical Islam in general and the Taliban in particular should not be resisted.