This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Society

  • DC Schools should make everyone mad

    Well, here we are weeks from another school year beginning, and the Washington Post reports that, just like this time every year, DC schools – which get about 20% of their funding from federal revenues; re:your tax receipts – aren’t ready to teach students;

    One month before school starts, District officials said yesterday that half of D.C. public schools do not have all their required textbooks and half of the school buildings will not have any air conditioning on the first day of school — conditions as traditional in the city as back-to-school shopping for a new box of crayons.

    Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said an investigation found that some schools received incorrect book shipments and others have not received any books.

    An investigation? You need an investigation to know you received the wrong (or no) textbooks? I’ll bet you needed some rocket scientist to investigate, too.

    At a news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) promised that this would be the last year of such textbook debacles and said the city is updating school heating and air-conditioning systems.

    Different mayor, same old story. Fenty took control of the DC school system last Spring promising this stuff would come to an end. Yet, here we are.

    During the meeting with reporters, beads of sweat formed on Fenty’s head and dripped onto his suit jacket as he stood in a Head Start classroom at Davis Elementary School in Southeast Washington. The room, where a wad of bright pink bubble gum decorated a ceiling covered by peeling paint, was one of five classrooms with air conditioning out of 40 in the 64-year-old building, Principal Joyce Thompson said.

    So what has the school district been doing all summer?

    The District spends about $12,000 per student (about 1/4 is from federal spending). Hell, for that much money, they should just forego educating kids and just start paying them $5.77/hour to sit at home and watch TV ($12,000 works out to $5.77/hour for 52 weeks and a 40 hour work week).

    Since truancy is a big problem in DC schools (25% of students are absent without an excuse 20 days or more a year) you might as well just pay them to stay home. Apparently, the schools don’t care about the students, the parents don’t care, the city doesn’t care. Maybe it’s time for the American taxpayer to demand accountability from the District since it’s us throwing our money down a black hole that turns out illiterate pinheads at $144,000 a pop.

    We’d better do something quick, the Washington Examiner says that $200 million bucks isn’t enough to rebuild the school system’s infrastructure, according to Fenty – that’s another $3100/student.

    David Lipscomb at the Washington Times reports that things are worse than in a third world country;

    The problem was discovered last week and probably will not be fixed before the start of school on Aug. 27, said Miss Rhee, adding that the extent of the mistakes will be known within a week.

    Getting textbooks on time has historically been a problem in the District, one which Miss Rhee’s predecessor, Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, tried to prevent by installing a $3 million automated validation system.

    Additionally, Miss Rhee has issued a hiring freeze in the school system’s central office while the office is “streamlined.” Miss Rhee cited the need to outline job responsibilities after several employees could not tell her their job descriptions.

    “The vast majority of answers I got was ‘I do whatever Mr. So-and-so tells me to do,’ ” Miss Rhee said. “There’s not a clear sense of the individual personal responsibilities for ensuring specific outcomes.”

    $3 million for a tracking system that doesn’t track – school district employees that don’t know their job’s description. Yeah, I know alot of you just shrigged and said to yourselves, “Well, that’s government.” It’s time we stopped shrugging and making excuses and started storming the schools.

    The problems of this country stem from our poor and degraded schools – and the administrators who syphon every penny for more administration instead of spending money on education. I’ll bet you cash money that Clifford Janey wouldn’t spend three million bucks to organize his own home – yet, instead of making people do their jobs, he bought a machine and a system that’s apparently as useless as the people he hired.

    That’s the problem – Americans used to resist technology as a solution to every problem. Now we’re just too lazy to resist – and we blame technology for our own sloth and incompetence. Maybe if we made people earn their damn salaries instead of letting them making lame excuses about damned technology.

  • Democrats; The party about nothing

    The Seinfeld show, that famous TV comedy that claimed to be “a show about nothing” has been gone nearly a decade now. I guess that because that show was such a hit with Americans, the Democrats have decided that they’ll try being the “Party About Nothing”.

    How? Well, take John Edwards, the prettiest of all the Democrat candidates, for example. he claims that “they” are trying to shut him up. He doesn’t say which “they” he’s talking about, but he seems pretty upset about it in this video on The Politico. I guess”they” can be applied to any of Edwards’ supporters’ boogeymen/boogeywomen and he can use the speech without edits in perpetuity as the need arises. But to me it sounds a little paranoid – and shallow.

    He complained that people making over $100 million dollars don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes. That parents can’t afford to feed their children – that no one is paying any attention to his “poverty tour”.

    Maybe because people who make under $100 million don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes, either – at least not the “fair share” that John Edwards wants them to pay. Maybe because Americans are tired of hearing about starving children going to bed hungry everynight – and there’s no such thing. There are so many programs and so much tax money out there, children in poverty-stricken homes are going to bed obese.

    Maybe no one is paying attention to Edwards poverty tour because no one wants to see a rich trial lawyer with $400 haircuts sitting in some “poor family’s” home while they watch the latest releases of movies on their DVD while their microwave heats their popcorn. Maybe it’s because their ain’t no poor people suffering anywhere in this country – unless they want to suffer.

    Now, let’s go to Barack Obama. This weekend he announced that when he’s elected President, the country will drastically change the moment he takes the oath of office. Why? Because he’s Black, of course. Just because of his skin pigment, the country will change. How? Well, he doesn’t explain that part. He’s now so intellectually vacant, that he’s decided unless we vote for him, we’re all a bunch of bigots. He doesn’t have any new ideas, there’s no new plan. His only qualification worth considering is the level of melanin in his skin. Sounds racist to me.

    Now, Hillary Clinton thinks that we need a Public Service University – she claims it’ll be like the service academies. But I don’t think so. Think it’ll turn out leaders like West Point and Annapolis have turned out leaders. I don’t see it. What I see is a big pork barrel project (probably built near Johnstown, PA) that we don’t need and will flop and turn out more hippies than we already have parading out our university system. Has there been a public outcry for MORE universities? Hell, no. We have so many universities and colleges now that it’s almost part of the public education system – and the graduates are dumber than ever.Â

    These are the Democrats’ big issues this week – nothing. Not a word about our security, not a word about the economy, not a word about reducing dependence on foreign oil, no immigration solutions. Poverty that doesn’t exist, skin pigment and a boondoggle public service academy.

    At this point, Ron Paul should be whipping the dog crap out of any Democrat in the polls. Except that this Party About Nothing is the best one the media can come up with right now.

    But, of course, they’re scoring big points with Democrats. Drew Westin of the Washington Post urges Democrats to tug at their voters’ heartstrings;

    Now, perhaps you’re sure you’re a rational voter and you think that it’s just uneducated people who vote with their gut. Well, listen over the next few days to your most educated friends’ explanations of why they prefer one candidate over another. “I find him inspiring,” they gush about Sen. Barack Obama. “He tells it like it is,” they say about Edwards. “He’s boring,” they sigh about Gov. Bill Richardson. “She knows her stuff, but I just don’t like her,” they mutter about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now those are reasonable arguments.-

  • Latin immigrants to boycott illegal activity

    The “immigrants” in Prince William County, VA, in probably one of the strangest boycotts in history, are planning on ceasing illegal activity there for a week to teach the legal residents of the county a lesson, according to the Washington Examiner’s Dan Gentz;

    The Hispanic immigrant population in Prince William County is considering a major business boycott to protest a new county resolution aimed at making it easier to deport illegal immigrants and banning them from receiving some government services.

    The four-week boycott on purchases from nonimmigrant merchants would be the centerpiece of a broader, coordinated response to the resolution that may also include a one-day work stoppage.

    Details still have to be worked out and will be announced Tuesday, said Ricardo Juarez, a coordinator with Mexicanos Sin Fronteras. The boycott may be set for Aug. 27 through Sept. 23.

    Um, how does one become “Mexicans Without Borders” without a border? Mexico is a country that has borders, dumbass. So a Mexican would have to come from that political entity called Mexico that is clearly delineated with borders. Mexico is not a race.

    Reminds me of a line from a really bad movie I saw once “Yeah, I’ve been to Brazil, Honduras, Argentina – all of those Mexican countries”.

    But, to the boycott; I don’t understand that either. Ya gotta eat, so all of the boycotters will stock up the week before the boycott, and then restock after the boycott – so what’s the point? Or is there a point?

    Pamela Constable of the Washington Post reports on the disorganized organization attempts to organize;

    Latinos in Prince William County, angered and panicked by a county resolution to crack down on illegal immigrants, are swiftly banding together against what they see as an assault on their community. They vowed this week to block the resolution through a boycott, a petition drive and possibly a labor strike or lawsuit.

    At packed public meetings in three towns this week, organizers signed up volunteers, circulated petitions, set up a hotline for reports of discrimination and announced a campaign of phone calls and e-mails to county officials. They also said they would organize caravans to visit Loudoun County and other communities where Latinos feel targeted.

    So let me get this straight; these lawbreakers are going to teach the residents of Loudon and Prince William County a lesson by ceasing their illegal activity for a week? Of course, we need the debate about illegal aliens muddied by confusing legal aliens with those here illegally;

    Jose Orellana, a 24-year-old El Salvadoran who moved to Manassas Park four years ago with a permit to work, said he turned out Thursday night because of concerns about the county’s resolution.

    “It doesn’t make sense. Everybody came into this country to work and everybody pays taxes,” Orellana said.

    Um, Jose, you have a work permit – you’re here legally. You don’t have a dog in this fight. You’re defending people who didn’t bother to get the right paperwork – people we can’t keep track of. How are they paying taxes, Jose? Sales tax? Possibly. Income tax? Not likely.

    But many legal Latino residents at the three meetings said they feared the resolution would also make them targets of police harassment and official hostility. They said they believed its true aim is to make life difficult for Latinos.

    “We are all worried about these new laws,” said Marta Manzanares, 25, a legal resident from El Salvador who attended the Woodbridge meeting with her husband, a construction worker; their two small sons; and about 500 other Latinos. “Maybe our children will have to leave school and become illiterate. . . . We came out here to buy a house and have a quiet life. Maybe now we can lose that, too.”

    Come on, Marta. When has anything like that happened to legal and law abiding residents in this country? That’s just hyperbole and you know it. In fact, both the Post and Examiner stories just call the group “latins”. Loudon and Prince William County are trying to stop crime – if you’re a legal resident you have nothing to fear. When I travel in Latin America, I always carry my passport and visas and travel papers – what’s the big deal about you carrying yours?

    My wife always has her Resident Alien card in her purse and she certainly doesn’t fear being deported. Nor my step-daughter, nor her daughter. This is all bluster to confuse the discussion as a race issue when it’s a legal issue. We deport all kinds of people we catch here illegally. And Hillary Clinton panders to them, too.

    From the Post story;

    “We are like a sleeping elephant,” said Elmer Arias, president of the D.C.-based Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce. “We who are citizens have good jobs and become comfortable. We forget that we have benefited from the community and that we have the obligation to help our people.”

    Elmer, you also have an obligation to contribute to the security of the nation that has created the environment in which you can prosper and be comfortable. I’ll have pity for you when you put the national security of the United States before petty things like language and race.

  • Pledging our sacred honor

    “I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) 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.”

    Those are the last words a civilian speaks when he or she leaves the world behind and goes into the military. There is no end date (the first enlistment oath in 1775 was only good for a year), there are no extenuating conditions to avoid executing the oath on every day. It is what it is.

    In a world of empty promises and endless litigation over the meaning of “is”, it’s almost comforting to know that there are people who take this oath seriously – the people who are more committed to the ideals of liberty and freedom than many of the people they defend.

    Every once in a while, a derelict slips through – someone who just mouths the words without taking the time to understand what they’ve promised, or they have no intention of obeying their promise to the American people, or they’ve already made a pledge to serve their own selfish interests.

    That, apparently, was the case with Scott Thomas Beaucamp. He had no intention of serving the American people – instead he was serving himself. His intention was to rocket to journalistic fame clinging to the skirt of his pampered Leftist fiance` by recording “no shit” war stories that privates tell each other to whittle away the mind-numbing seemingly endless hours spent on all-night guard duty.

    The first day on active duty teaches every private that he won’t make it without his comrades. One might teach him how to put a gloss on his brand new boots, another might show him how to fold his ten socks, another might toss him a canteen to prevent dehydration in the scalding heat of the Georgia sun, another might toss him an extra twenty rounds to hold off the last few assaulting maniacs, or bandage his wounds to keep him alive until he gets to the aid station.

    A new private learns that he pledges his honor to his country, his sergeant owns his ass, but he pledges his life to his fellow soldiers. Without them, he doesn’t have a chance, without him, they don’t stand a chance.

    Beaucamps never learned that lesson. He’s spent the last few months disparaging his fellow soldiers. How could a few stories injure his comrades? Well, let’s read a particularly odious comment left on The New Republic’s “The Plank” in response to Beauchamp’s admission to his ID;

    Mosaic (14 of 263)
    posted by jeopel on 2007-07-26 09:00:04 
    Take the word “diarist,” say it to yourself a few times. What, exactly, are the truth claims made by a diarist? Hmmm.

    Now, take the known facts about military recruitment, the lowering of standards, especially the increase in moral waivers. Statistically, are known felons, sociopaths, etc., more likely to commit crimes or exercise bad moral judgment than other citizens? Hmmm.

    Pieces of a mosaic, if you will.

    Or this:

    let me clarify (43 of 263)
    posted by MrCookie1 on 2007-07-26 12:10:59
    I have no idea if Beauchamp is a hero…though the fact that he is fulfilling his military obligation in a combat zone separates him from 99.99% of Talkbackers, (nod to butchie, jackson, and my main man teccy)

    What I do know is this: He exists. He is assigned to a combat unit. His unit – or squad or battalion or whatever it is actually called – was in the area he says it was. His unit found bones of dead Iraqi children. As for the zig zagging doggy killing, that has not been verified.

    So, hero? I don’t know. Honest, it appears that he is honest, or about as honest as most of us are in this world.

    What I do know is that it is rare that posters can somehow find the courage to admit they are wrong. What I think I am seeing, especially in that reptile thomson’s posts, is the beginnings of a Swift Boating of this young man. War supporters lecture us ALL the time about supporting the troops but they have no qualms about disrespecting, accusing, and villifying a soldier who they believe may have a different political agenda.

    No one is saying this guy is a hero. He is what is says he is though. He has declared himself. I rather think I will grow old and long in the tooth before any of the “heroes” attacking him on this board will ever find the courage to do the same.

    So the short version of these two posts is; well, what do you expect from the dredges we recruit? Oh, and why don’t you chickenhawks join, too.

    Well, MrCookie1, combat soldiers are more honest than anyone on the face of the planet – lies get people killed. Propagating lies get even more people killed. Take my word, Beauchamps’ diary is packed with lies – and I know lies about soldiering. And I can back up my experience.

    And then, over at the Weekly Standard, another blog entry from Michael Goldfarb records nonesense from the Columbia Journalism Review from Paul McLeary entitled “Why do conservatives hate the troops?”. McLeary writes;

    How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.) While there are some very legitimate questions about what Beauchamp wrote, nothing, it’s worthy of note, has been proved false yet. But that hasn’t stopped the sharp knives of a slew of bloggers from coming out.

    Well, since Beachamps’ First Sergeant (he’s the ranking noncommissioned officer in Beachamps’ company, Mr. McLeary – I figured you needed to be told that by the string of ignorant crap you spewed) tells us it’s all false in his email to GI Jane;

    I can assure you that not a single word of this was true.

    Sounds definite to me.

    And, for your information, the milblog community is made up of former and current members of the military (hence the term) and their spouses – I speak as an attendee of the last Milblog Conference. You’ve never seen so many buzzcuts and heard so many “Yes, sir”s in your life (I’m betting).

    But as to your “How dare he…” question. How dare he indeed. How dare he break his oath to his country, how dare he break that unspoken oath to his comrades. I’ll let Shakespeare’s Henry V explain it to you so you might understand;

    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
    We would not die in that man’s company
    That fears his fellowship to die with us.
    This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
    And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
    But he’ll remember, with advantages,
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
    Familiar in his mouth as household words-
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

  • Edwards would double capital gains tax

    This just shows how little John Edwards learned about poverty when he was pulling down half-a-mil-a-year at a hedge fund. He claims that by raising the capital gains tax from 15% to 28%, he’ll be able to afford to give tax breaks to middle and lower-class taxpayers. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he would raise the capital gains tax rate to 28% from 15% and boost income taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year in order to finance tax cuts and other benefits for middle- and lower-income families.

    The tax proposal lays down a big marker in the 2008 campaign tax debate and is likely to spur Mr. Edwards’s main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, to detail their tax prescriptions in the coming months.

    So far, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have said only that they favor rolling back at least a portion of the Bush tax cuts that favor upper-income families, though Mr. Obama’s aides have said he’s considering raising the capital gains rate to 20%.

    Has Edwards been awake the last few years? Corporations have injected billions of dollars back into the economy by paying investors with the cash they had in reserve (Investors – that means you and me cuz we all have 401ks and IRAs in the stock market). Microsoft alone had $33 million just sitting around until President Bush made it cheaper for investors to take dividends on their stock holdings.

    To illustrate how out of touch Edwards is with reality, he continued;

    In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Edwards said Bush administration’s tax policies rewarded wealth over work, and he pledged to rewrite the tax code to benefit Main Street over Wall Street. “The great engine of growth in America isn’t the special interests or the money managers; it is the teachers and factory workers and engineers who quietly contribute every day,” he said.

    Um, dumbass, it’s the teachers, factory workers and engineers who are all invested in 401ks and 403bs and get capital gains in their investments - tax deferred distributions. All you’re doing is making companies not want to pay investors dividends to avoid the double taxation. It’s all feel good catch phrases to placate the ignorant.

    Raising capital gains tax would also impact retirees who plan on selling their houses when they retire, or anyone else selling their house. It punishes people who invest any money in any investment vehicle – you know the folks whose money drives our economy and people who plan rather than blindly spend. 

    Tax revenues are are at an all time high – even adjusted for inflation – so why would anyone want to raise taxes on anyone? There are indeed two Americas – one that wants this country to grow and get stronger, and one that wants a hand out. Edwards belongs in the latter having never had a real job in his life, having lived off the sweat of the productive. And he wants the rest of America to follow his example.

    Oh, and by the way, Edwards, making one group of people anticipate a windfall of tax deductions based on the increase of taxes on another group of people is called class warfare – it’s dividing America.

    How about, for a change, you advocate spending cuts instead tax increases – but “I’m going to take your six children off of SSI payments because their poor performance in school is their own fault not the American taxpayers’ fault” won’t fit on a bumpersticker.

  • Scott Thomas Beauchamps; shithouse scribe (Updated)

    I’ve been reading the stories from Michael Goldfarb and National Review that The New Republic published from some formerly unidentified soldier named Scott Thomas who turns out to be named Scott Thomas Beauchamps. Since these stories been published and republished across the ‘net, I won’t bother to repeat the stories this youngster wrote. I kinda figured they were bullshit stories from the get-go, but I wanted to wait and see how this played out before I said anything. Well, it’s not played out yet, but I do have a few thoughts, especially since the young man supposedly happens to be in an infantry company in which I served during  the days of yore.

    The stories I read that he claims to have penned all seem false to me – some have defended the tales with their own brand of forensic psychiatry saying that young men pumped up with testosterone and ranging about a wild country with loaded fully automatic weapons have a tendancy to do things others might not think possible. Well, that’s just horseshit, too.

    These men we send to fight our wars come from our hometowns, they’re raised in our neighborhoods, they sit next to us in our church pews, they date our daughters. They know how to act – and none that I know would intentionally run over a dog.

    In fact, after Desert Storm, when we were still trying to bring some level of civilization to the areas behind the retreatng Iraqis, my battalion commander instructed the company commanders to send their snipers out to dispatch the roving bands of stray dogs. My troops were in an absolute rage about this – one of my squad leaders got relieved when our company’s sniper couldn’t seem to kill the dogs with one shot and the squad leader confronted him, fairly agressively – too agressively for the commander’s tastes. I can prove my story, by the way, Crotchety Old Bastard was a Platoon leader in the same company and I’m sure he remembers the incident. (Update note: He does remember it.)

    And any Bradley driver who can see up over the right side and drive that 26-ton monster with enough precision to catch a dog unawares – well, the Army better not ever let him out. 1600 horses are not quiet, and 26 tons are not maneuverable.

    As far as making fun of an injured woman because of a disfigurement beyond her control, resulting from an enemy action – bullshit. If she’d been a fat cow from the ambulance platoon whose rolls of lard were hanging out the bottom of her BDU blouse, I might make a different call – but not in this case. if there’s one thing warriors respect it’s those who’ve looked the dragon in the eye and lived.

    I had a friend, Tim Martin, whose memorial you can see on my website, who was disfigured since I knew him – 1974 until his death in 1993. The whole right side of his face was melted – you can see in some of the photos. I never knew why because I never asked him. No one I know ever asked him why – because it didn’t matter. He was a rockhard soldier with a heart of gold and it didn’t matter to anyone why he was disfigured. And although Uncle Jimbo is a bit confused about when Tim was injured, he can certainly attest to Tim’s injury and the way he was treated by the people with whom he served.

    And putting a child’s skull on your head – sorry, but infantrymen never know when their next shower will be – putting an exhumed skull anywhere on your body is just unsanitary and his squad leader would’ve knocked the troop into his next rotation. I know it seems trivial to most people, but anyone who has really been an infantryman, not the kind in the movies, knows the importance of personal hygiene – and the dangers of ignoring personal hygiene.

    From reading Beauchamp’s blogs, I get the impression that the little weasel heard some stories in the latrine while he was pounding his pathetic little pecker, blew them out of proportion and then marketed them to The New Republic – which swallowed them hook, line and sinker. I guess it’s not really their fault since they wouldn’t know a track pad from shit-on-a-shingle, what with them being a bunch of chickenshit civilian pussies and all.

    Even if it did happen, and I have absolutely no reason to think that any of these shithouse rumors did happen, it shouldn’t reflect on the outstanding work that all of the other guys who have the misfortune to serve with a lying sack of dung. Heck, I served in the same division as Timothy McVeigh in Desert Storm – doesn’t mean that I’m probably going to blow up a federal building, does it?

    This mealy-mouthed little pussy will get reamed by his First Sergeant and Platoon Sergeant real well – reamed so well that you could drive an Abrams up his ass before they’re through and the truth will then come out. But the damage to our troops’ reputations has already been done – which all The New Republic wanted to do anyway – all we can do is work to repair that damage.

    Hey Alpha Company 1-18th Infantry – the beer’s on me when ya’all get to DC. Count on it.

    UPDATED: Little Green Footballs and Ace of Spades have circumstantial evidence that Beauchamps is connected to The New Republic by marriage.

    UPDATED again: GI Jane at The Foxhole has an email exchange from Beuchamps’ First Sergeant who assures us these stories are false and that Scott Thomas has “other underlying issues”. I get the impression that the boy will end up pushing Schweinfurt to Paris from the front-leaning postion. 

    (Note: GI Jane graciously offered to reproduce the email here, but I’d prefer ya’all give her your traffic – she has a great blog and ya’all deserve to read her stuff in her own house. Thanks.)

  • Links to keep you busy; Best of the Web as I see it

    First, from Don Carl out in California who emailed me this YouTube link. Apparently, our soldiers have more than al Qaeda to worry about in Iraq.

    Skye at MidnightBlue (who looks fabulous in her new silk dress, by the way) sends along a link to to her reportage (complete with photos) on the Cindy Sheehan demostration in Philly on Tuesday. Skye and the patriots who live in our nation’s first capitol apparently ran the old bag out of town like our brothers and sisters in Charlotte. Eagles up!

    For those of you who are still operating under the misapprehension that the Left still supports our troops, check out this post by Chap at Chapomatic. If the links he posts don’t make you angry, you’re a stronger person than I am. Mred at Invicible Armor berates the Democrats for recreating the fall of Saigon in Baghdad. If that’s not enough to get your blood boiling, read COBDanny’s post about the Demo candidates and the yearly Kos.

    By way of Curt at Flopping Aces, I read that  Ace at Ace of Spades thinks he knows who “Scott Thomas” is. More background on “Scott Thomas” from Chickenhawk Express, Gateway Pundit and Laughing Wolf at Blackfive. While you’re at Blackfive, see Uncle Jimbo’s post on Okinawa Jack Murtha’s latest chickenshit plan to surrender to anyone that will accept his portly being. 

    And Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that the Pentagon claims that al Qaeda is looking for unconventional weapons. Wonder where they’d get ’em from?

    GI Jane at The Foxhole has the last word on Ward Churchill.

    Mike at Lamplighter has staggering statistics on modern human trafficking.

    Scott Thomas Update: Since GI Jane commented, I’ve done some looking around and see I’m faaaaaar behind the proverbial Eight-Ball on this. Powerline  and Michele Malkin are out front.

    Wouldn’t you just know it that I was in A Co. 1/18th (Scott Thomas Beauchamps company) when they were part of the 3rd Brigade of the 24th Division (for the old troops that was after they were redesignated from the old Dollar-Ninety-Seven Brigade at Benning). I hope his first sergeant lights his young ass up.

  • Big government for tiny brains

    It was just eleven years ago Bil Clinton declared that “the era of big government has ended” after he got stomped in 1994 elections largely due to his failed attempt at a national Healthcare Plan. Now the Democrats in Congress are bringing back that era in an effort to gain political headway. According to the Washington Post;

    “We’re sitting on the doorstep of a definitional moment,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He said legislation on health care, the minimum wage, homeland security and congressional ethics would respond to virtually all the pressure points of an anxious public.

    Republican leaders plan to stand in the way, arguing that Democrats are reviving big government programs that will intrude into the free market and taxpayers’ wallets. They argue that a homeland security mandate that all maritime cargo be screened within five years will chill international trade. And the children’s health insurance expansion amounts to “a giant tax increase in an effort to expand government-run health care,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

    We’ve been through all of this before. Of course, the first thing I think when I hear that healthcare for children will be expanded is “Great!” But, then the right side of my brain asks “who’s going to pay for it?” and “what has government ever done right for anyone?” and I snap back to reality. And the reality is this; Healthcare is already expensive because of government give-aways and boondoggle programs that funnel money to corrupt healthcare agencies and insurance companies.

    I remember, about 5 years before Medicare and Medicaid existed, my two brothers and I were all sick. My mother called the doctor down the street (back when doctors actually lived among us common folk) at about 8 in the morning, an hour-or-so later, he dropped by the house, looked us all over, gave my mother some medicine for us and she paid him $5. You can’t even buy a bottle of asprin for $5 these days.

    One of the big reasons I stayed in the Army was so my kids would have health care – I figured it was part of my responsibility as a parent to make sure my kids were healthy. How stupid of me to think ahead, huh? Granted it probably wasn’t the best care, but it was as good as any HMO, if not better.

    I lived next door to a minister in a rural church a few years back. In his backyard he had a trampoline for his teenage kids to play on. One day when they were all at work or school, some of the neighbors kids decided to avail themselves of the opportunity to play on the unguarded trampoline. of course, one of the youngsters broke his arm. The minister found out about it a week later when he was served lawsuit papers from the child’s parents. The parents apologized, but admitted that they hadn’t taken advantage of the health insurance offered through the father’s work and needed to pay the child’s medical bills. So the minister’s homeowner insurance ended up paying the child’s bills. How many things in that story should be compensated for by the government – the tax payers? Too many bad choices involved, none of them compensable.

    Since when is it the responsibility of people who waited until they could afford kids to fund the poor choices of the impetuous and small-minded goofballs that start spitting out babies as soon as they reach puberty? I’ll grant you that it’s not the children’s fault, but it’s certainly not the fault of society’s real adults either. And it’s certainly not the responsibility of government.

    If government wants to start mandating healthcare, how about mandating that people have insurance for their kids from the moment of conception. But I guess government can’t legislate common sense, especially since government is bereft of common sense itself.

    But then the campaign slogan “Hey stupid! Insure your kids’ health” doesn’t get you votes, does it?