Useful Fools

Kim du Toit has an interesting way to look at John Kerry… hint: Benedict Arnold comes to mind. Check it out.

Every time a Bush hater attacks his military service record, they are slandering my dead comrades, people who died in military aviation serving their country. They are slandering me, my brother and my friends, and slandering the men and women currently in the National Guard and Reserves. There is always the implication that somehow Bush’s service was “the easy way out”. WRONG! The easy way out was to avoid service, as most of my current friends did, rather than piloting a flying coffin, the F-102! And most people of my generation did avoid service, which was also not dishonorable. Bush could have totally avoided military service also had he desired.

They say that Bush “took the easy way out” by “using his connections” to fly in the Texas Air National Guard. My childhood best friend, John Robert Kelley also took this “easy way out.” They had his memorial service in Albuquerque in July 1972 after he died in a training accident, flying a fighter jet in the New Mexico Air National Guard (the “Tacos”). Yep, that was the easy way out! John loved life. He was a fun guy, always with a prank or two, athletic and very intelligent. The last time I saw him, he was scheming how to get me a ride in his jet. Oh, and John didn’t use any connections to get into the ANG, because it wasn’t necessary. Every time I hear Bush slandered, I sadly remember this loss, and wonder at the lack of respect for the military so common on the left.
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Elizabeth Nickson has written a fine article in Canada’s National Post. Normally I don’t pay much attention to Canada, as it turned itself into an irrelevancy in almost every way… a pleasant one to visit… but about as important as Luxembourg.

But this was a fun piece of writing… and I recommend it.

A few quotes:

The Americans can have a war of ideas and we can’t discuss anything. Because anything not out of the Bigger Government playbook is called right-wing extremism, and worse Christian, and thus demonized. Meanwhile, the sleepiest country in the world, which lives next door to the most vibrant country in the world, continues to tumble into the wormhole of complete irrelevance.

and this gem:

And on Tuesday, the State of the Union. You’d have to go back to the Greeks to find theatre like that. There was the scarlet-faced Ted Kennedy stuffed into his $2,500 suit, and the harridan Hillary, her selfish little ferret face looking punched and puffy, like the schoolyard bully she is. As every policy initiative slipped from their grasp, the Democratic side of the aisle, visibly shrank. It was bliss, bliss, bliss.

and this:

Meanwhile, in the States, everyone is talking ideas. What’s working, what is not. Yes, it sounds vulgar and loud. And some of it is egregious. There are flagrant lies on the left and the right. A lot of it is bonkers. Most people in the entertainment left, for instance, firmly believe that Bush is part of some infernal conspiracy that aims to strip the planet of oil, and control its price forever. With the next breath, they charge he’s so stupid, he can’t find his feet. Some think the CIA planned 9/11 so that we would support Israel. The rhetoric is astonishing, even from the so-called sane. George Soros announced that “America under Bush is a danger to the world.” Excuse me? Does he need lithium? Columbia professor Nicholas de Genova called for “a million Mogadishus.” A Berkeley professor claims that the U.S. planned the Bali bombing. The entertainment elites specialize in using their soft power to insult their government whenever they get a microphone in their hands and don’t have a script.

At least they’re alive. Up here, with the exception of the Post, most of our press is so conciliatory and so boring, no one bothers to read or watch it.

The World Health Organization is becoming seriously alarmed at a “historically unprecedented” epidemic of the most dangerous (to humans) strain of Avian Influenza. Their 22 January 2004 bullten is titled: “Avian influenza H5N1 infection in humans: urgent need to eliminate the animal reservoir - update 5″. The full bulletin is at the end of this entry. The reason for their concern is that if H5N1 “crossbreeds” with a human flu, the result could be a human epidemic of a very deadly flu like the one that killed 500,000 people in the United States, and 20 to 40 million worldwide in 1918.

Selected quotes:

The current situation is of serious concern for human health as well as for agriculture and the poultry industry. Rapid elimination of the H5N1 virus in bird populations should be given high priority as a matter of international public health importance.

Of all the avian influenza viruses, which normally cause infection in birds and pigs only, the H5N1 strain may have a unique capacity to cause severe disease, with high mortality, in humans.

Note: The previous post on this blog implied that China was covering up Avian Influenza H5N1 infections in Guangdong. At this point, China is actively cooperating with WHO and may not have been aware of H5N1 infections at the time it exported H5N1-tainted meat. However, it did cover up SARS for several months in 2002-2003.

UPDATE from Pro-Med:

WHO Asks China to Account for 2 Tourist Deaths in Early 2003
————————————————————
China is facing allegations it may have been the source of the Asia-wide
bird flu outbreak, with the World Health Organisation seeking an
explanation of the deaths of 2 Hong Kong tourists a year ago.

The British weekly New Scientist said it believes the outbreak began in
southern China in early 2003, allegedly after a poultry vaccination scheme
went wrong. The report has put the spotlight back on the 2 tourists who
died after visiting southern China in February 2003. The WHO has asked the
Chinese government for more information as part of efforts to establish the
history of the bird flu outbreak which has been detected in 10 Asian nations.

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[UPDATE: There have been so many comments that the page has gotten too large. I have moved a copy of this page with all comments through 3/02/04 to here.

[UPDATE: Since many commenters (including vets) seem to be attacking George Bush’s service, you are also slandering my dead comrades and many current service members. Check out the link and be ashamed.]

A Vietnam Veteran’s organization has sprung up to oppose John Kerry, because Kerry used his Vietnam credentials to the benefit of the enemy in that war, which is hard to reconcile with his constant bragging about his service today. If you don’t think Kerry helped the communists, go to the site of the VVAK, and also read the history of the conflict (on this blog), and read on here. Kerry helped our enemy, it’s that simple! His actions are those of one who cared for his comrades but not for his nation!

If you are a Veteran who supports Kerry, you might want to know who financed some of his anti-American activities after he returned to the US, activities which slandered American servicemen before the US Senate. Here is her picture:

If you are a Vietnam Vet, you know who this is. Jane Fonda sits at the controls of an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, between American bombing raids. For those who are not familiar with Fonda’s treasonous acts, read this.

This is the same Jane Fonda to whom today’s Vietnamese dictatorship remains grateful, fondly labeling her “Hanoi Jane”. From their news agency, January 2003:

The 30th anniversary of Ha Noi’s Dien Bien Phu of the Air seems an appropriate moment to remember that in the midst of violent US intervention, our country enjoyed the support of Jane Fonda and millions of Americans who never came here but who shared her sentiments.

Her presence in North Viet Nam that grim winter, when the sky burnt red with explosions and anti-aircraft fire, was crucial in awakening the American peace movement.

Here is John Kerry with Jane Fonda. Contrary to claims that this was coincidental, Kerry was the lead speaker at the event where this picture was taken. Other speakers included Jane Fonda.

Here is the cover of the Kerry’s book which he tried to suppress (fairly successfully, they are very hard to find) after he decided to run for Congress, the congress which later betrayed South Vietnam, handing the communists a victory they were unable to achieve on the battlefield:

This is a disrespectful parody of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. The flag is upside down,

Here is a picture showing John Kerry sailing with the Kennedy clan, his source of what soldiers call “PI” - Political Influence. Don’t let anyone tell you that John Forbes Kerry comes from a modest background with no contacts.
.
And here is an excerpt from his Senate testimony. He claimed that our soldiers

raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

He showed his lack of understanding of the war with this:

we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point.

Of course, since the purpose of the battles was to kill the enemy, not occupy worthless hills, so naturally the US didn’t keep every hill it took!

But Jane Fonda’s hero also seemed to know all about the global geopolitical scene as a result of his time down in the trenches:

we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now….

Chinese corruption and secrecy allowed the SARS epidemic to get out of hand last year, when for several months they refused requests of international health workers to provide information on what they called “atypical pneumonia” in Guangdong province. That disease turned out to a new human viral disease, SARS, but the world’s scientists learned little about it until SARS turned up in Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Now there is a vastly more serious risk - pandemic lethal influenza - in danger of arising in Guangdong province, and the Chinese are again failing to provide adequate information! This in spite of the fact that Guangdong was the source of SARS, the infamous 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic (which killed 20-40 million people worldwide, especially young healthy adults, with 500,000 deaths in the U.S. alone). Guangdong remains the primary source of each year’s new flu variants, which cause tens of thousands of deaths just in the U.S. every year.
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As you may have noticed, this blog hasn’t been to active lately.

Two reasons:

1) I’ve been tied up with a project at work which I grossly underestimated, so instead of writing English I have been coding Java.

2) There really isn’t much going on. Sure, the Democratic Primary season is making lots of noise, little of which I find worth commenting on. But the world situation is relatively stable.

But I’ll be back!

The lack of use of WMD’s by Iraq, and our subsequent inability to find any of the weapons has been used by anti-Bush forces in all sorts of silly ways, with lots of headlines.

More interesting is the question of why Saddam apparently didn’t have WMD’s by the time of the war, and yet caused his country to suffer 12 years of UN sanctions. After all, his lack of cooperation with inspectors was the strongest evidence that he had WMDs and was the cause of continued sanctions!

When asked, shortly after capture, Saddam said he resisted the inspections (an action which kept the sanctions in force) because he didn’t want his privacy in his palaces violated!

What if he is telling the truth?
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The latest weekly Carnival of the Vanities is here. Check it out.

NOTE: This is a response to an article in an ongoing discussion at slashdot.org. The previous article is here. I have chosen to move it to the blog because Slashdot is a technical forum, while the topic is perfect for this blog.

………………………

But if you can’t at least question the justifications you are given by your administration, which keep changing as the evidence changes and legal arguments falter, then really, don’t waste my time.

This would appear to say that if I don’t find fault with the administrations reasoning, then I am wasting your time. Well, I do question the Bush administration. I wonder why whether we have been strong enough in dealing with North Korea. I wonder if we have a large enough army to deal with possible contingencies such as an Al Qaueda friendly takeover of nuclear armed Pakistan. I dislike the administrations refusal to use adequate profiling to detect terrorists.
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