Nest Empty No More

Our daughter flew from Washington DC to Medford today spend the Labor Day Holiday Weekend with us. It's nice to have her home again even if for a short time.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate on "Plame Out"

The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.




"What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein."

To read the entire column click on the title above.

(Pictures from left to right: Richard Armitage the 'big mouth" at State Department... ; Valerie Plame the CIA bureaucrat; Joe Wilson her Democratic partisan husband, and the George Tenent ... the incompetent CIA Director.)

The Gathering Storm!

As much as I want to shut out the outside world and live in the fun world of college football the threats to this country, remain and must be dealt with.

Arnaud de Borchgrave editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International writes today:

Just days before the United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to cease and desist enriching uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the West the Iranian bird. By inaugurating a "heavy-water" reactor, Iran instantly doubled its chances of acquiring nuclear weapons. Adding insult to injury, the military mullahs test-fired a new long-range missile -- the Thaqeb, or Saturn, a submarine-to-surface weapon...
Iran is now confident neither Russia nor China will go along with meaningful economic sanctions. Moscow says sanctions have never worked, ignoring those that collapsed South Africa's apartheid regime. The handwriting on the geopolitical landscape has convinced Israel and its core support in the U.S., from the neoconservatives to the Christian Right, that a military solution is inescapable...

Mr. Bush's national security advisers have also pointed out that an escalating danger of U.S.-Iran military confrontation automatically intensifies internal and regional opposition to U.S. objectives in Iraq. The president keeps reminding private interlocutors to think of how history will judge this critical period 15 to 20 years hence. He sees personal and national humiliation if he were to leave office having acquiesced to an embryonic Iranian nuclear arsenal.
So odds makers bet sometime before the end of his second term President Bush will order a massive air attack on a wide range of carefully selected targets in Iran, in partnership with Israel, and against the advice of many of his advisers. Mr. Bush is convinced a nuclear Iran would pose an intolerable threat to U.S. national security and, as one former intelligence topsider put it, "he is firm in his faith that God agrees with him on that point, and certain that history will eventually recognize and properly appreciate his courageous and visionary leadership."

To read the rest of the column click on the title above.

Pardon Scooter Libby !

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal outlines the latest in the Valerie Plame/ Joe Wilson fiasco:

Three years after the Valerie Plame kerfuffle began, it seems to be ending with a whimper--that whimper being "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Corn is the writer for The Nation, a left-wing magazine (or possibly a right-wing parody of a left-wing magazine) who got the whole thing started by parroting Joe Wilson's claims that his wife's "outing" violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Isikoff is a reporter for Newsweek. Their collaboration raises the possibility of liberal bias in the mainstream media.

First of all, "Hubris"? This comes on the heels of Tom Ricks's "Fiasco." Then there were "Slander," "Treason" and "Godless." It seems everyone wants to be Ann Coulter these days.

But we digress--for which you can hardly blame us, as the Plame kerfuffle is such a tedious affair. Nonetheless, out of an obligation to history, we shall recount the revelations from the Isikoff-Corn book, which Isikoff outlines in a story in Newsweek:

The man who "leaked" Plame's identity and her involvement in her husband's Niger junket to columnist Bob Novak and other reporters was not Karl Rove, Scooter Libby or anyone else in the White House. It was Richard Armitage, then deputy secretary of state.


Armitage's motives were not malicious. He is "a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters" and "apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity."


It was from a classified memo that Armitage learned Plame worked for the CIA. But there was no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald "found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status." (By all available evidence, Plame's covert status had expired by the time of her "outing" anyway.)


In October 2003 Armitage confessed to his boss, Colin Powell, that he was the "leaker." The State Department decided to withhold this information from the White House, because "Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source--possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy."
David Corn weighs in on the Puffington Host in which he hilariously tries to downplay the extent to which these revelations discredit his initial enthusiasm for the purported scandal:

The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework.

To say the least! As we observed on PBS 10 months ago, this was a "Seinfeld" scandal--an investigation about nothing.

Of course, much as this seemed like a sitcom, it had consequences in real life. Because Armitage did not come clean right away, many people suffered:

Millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted investigating a nonexistent crime.

Innocent White House officials were distracted from serving the country in order to participate in the investigation, which was in full swing a year ago when Hurricane Katrina struck.


Scooter Libby lost his job and was indicted for actions that never would have occurred but for the investigation.

The Democratic left, putting its faith in scandal to bring down the Bush administration, became even more fatuous and ineffective.
The only winner in this whole deal is Joe Wilson's ego--and think of the toll it's taken on his poor little superego.

Those who tried to turn the Plame kerfuffle into Watergate threw around words like "treason" and "slander" (though, interestingly, not "godless"). Armitage appears to be guilty of nothing of the sort. But it does seem that he was careless with secret information, eager to cover his own backside, and heedless of the consequences his actions had for others. So let it never be said that Richard Armitage is a profile in courage

Update: Yesterday my headline called for the pardon of Scooter Libby. Today the Wall Street Journal in an editorial calls for the Pardon of Libby. I wonder if they read my blog. Click on the title above for a link to the WSJ Editorial.

Are you Ready for Some Football?

Life is Good! On Friday I received my University of Oregon Duck Football Poster that goes up in my office with the Duck's Fall schedule. Today I revived the Oregon Ducks 06 Football Media Guide all 208 pages. Go Ducks!

2006 Oregon Duck Football Schedule

Date Opponent Location Time (PST) Results Media

Sat, Sep 02 Stanford Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m. ABC

Sat, Sep 09 Fresno State at Fresno, Calif. 7 p.m. ESPN2

Sat, Sep 16 Oklahoma Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m. ABC

Sat, Sep 30 Arizona State at Tempe, Ariz. TBA

Sat, Oct 07 California at Berkeley, Calif. 5 p.m. ABC

Sat, Oct 14 UCLA Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m.

Sat, Oct 21 Washington State at Pullman, Wash. TBA

Sat, Oct 28 Portland State Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m.

Sat, Nov 04 Washington (Homecoming) Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m.

Sat, Nov 11 USC at Los Angeles, Calif. 7:15 p.m. FSN

Sat, Nov 18 Arizona Eugene, Ore. 12:30 p.m.

Fri, Nov 24 Oregon State at Corvallis, Ore. 12:30 p.m. FSN


* Conference Games

One Week & Counting!

One Week from today the University of Oregon Ducks will open their football season at home in Autzen Stadium against the Stanford Indians, ops Cardinals. The best part is my daughter, who works and lives in Washington DC, will be flying home to go to the game with the "old man." Next Saturday we will drive the two and one half hour trip up I-5 from Medford to Eugene for the game. Go Ducks!

Football Rivalries

Last night I "grossed out my wife." On September 16 the Oklahoma Sooners, one of college footballs powers, are coming to Eugene Oregon to play the University of Oregon Duck in football. Back to last night. We had gone to the Medford Olive Garden to celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary. As we were leaving the restaurant a really big guy with tattoos came waking in wearing a brand new Oklahoma Sooners hat and I said to this perfect stranger as I held open the door "Well see you in Eugene in a few weeks" in what my wife said was an unfriendly voice. She said the guy looked at me in a quizzical way and said "ok". I thought it was funny but my wife acted like I had "called out the guy for a gun fight.... like in the old west. Go Ducks Beat Oklahoma!

22 Years Ago Today

Ronald Reagan at the Republican National Convention on August 23, 1994 accepting the parties nomination for the second time..
"None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong. It's weakness that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments. America is the most peaceful, least warlike nation in modern history. We are not the cause of all the ills of the world. We're a patient and generous people. But for the sake of our freedom and that of others, we cannot permit our reserve to be confused with a lack of resolve."

Happy 31st anniversary!

My wife and I celebrated our 31st Wedding Anniversary today. 31 years ago we were married in Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon in an outdoor ceremony. We had a folk singer with a guitar sing a John Denver son "I will Follow You." We then went to San Francisco for our honeymoon. We spent maybe $300 for the wedding. My wife made her own wedding dress. When I hear what kids are spending on their weddings today I can't believe it. Happy Anniversary Dear.

PS When we were married John Wayne was still making movies! Brannigan and Rooster Cogburn and the Lady both in 1975 and his last movie the Shootist in 1976.

Very Interesting! Update on Judge Taylor-Diggs

This from James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal:

"The federal judge who ruled last week that President Bush's eavesdropping program was unconstitutional is a trustee and an officer of a group that has given at least $125,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, a watchdog group said Tuesday," reports the New York Times:

The group, Judicial Watch, a conservative organization here that found the connection, said the link posed a possible conflict for the judge, Anna Taylor Diggs, and called for further investigation. . . .

The Web site for the group that supported the A.C.L.U., the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit, lists Judge Taylor as its secretary and a trustee. It indicates that trustees make all financing decisions for the organization, whose assets exceed $350 million and which gives grants for a variety of community projects. . . .

The executive director of the Michigan A.C.L.U., Kary Moss, said her group had received four grants totaling $125,000 from the foundation since 1999. They were a $20,000 grant in 1999 for an educational program on the Bill of Rights, $60,000 in 2000, along with the N.A.A.C.P. and other groups for education on racial profiling, $20,000 in 2002 for work on racial profiling and $25,000 in 2002 for a lawyer to work on gay rights.

The ACLU is the lead plaintiff in the case and provided legal counsel to the other plaintiffs. Yet the legal ethicists the Times interviews don't seem overly concerned. One of them, Stephen Gillers of New York University, "said he did not think there were grounds for Judge Taylor to remove herself from the case":

"The question is whether her impartiality might reasonably be questioned," Professor Gillers said, "and the fact that she sits on the board of a group that gives money to the plaintiff for an otherwise unrelated endeavor would not in my mind raise reasonable questions about her partiality on the issue of warrantless wiretapping."

It seems to us that Gillers's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In 2004 he wrote an article for The Nation, a left-wing magazine, in which he denounced Justice Antonin Scalia for going on a hunting trip with Vice President Cheney while Cheney v. U.S. District Court, a case involving the Office of the Vice President, was before the Supreme Court:

Scalia's opinion also claims that the appeal is not really about Cheney, who is sued only in his "official capacity," but about the power of the Vice President and the meaning of complex statutes. Ignored is the fact that rejection of the appeal can hurt Cheney politically in an election year if the secret records reveal a pro-industry bias in Cheney's leadership of the study group. That may also explain why Cheney stonewalled the nonpartisan General Accounting Office when it asked him for the same information.

An opposing argument could reveal these and other flaws in Scalia's logic and might well persuade a disinterested judge to reach a contrary conclusion. Judges have been disqualified for much less.

In the event, the court ruled in the vice president's favor, 7-2.

In a way Gillers is right to downplay the importance of the revelation about Taylor. Conflict-of-interest rules deal with appearances, and appearances are subjective, colored by the observer's political biases--which is why Gillers can be aghast at Scalia's friendship with Cheney but unbothered by Taylor's doling out cash to an ideological advocacy group and then ruling in its favor.

The real evidence that Taylor isn't impartial is her decision itself, which is about as careful and thoroughly grounded as a New York Times editorial, and which reaches the utterly ludicrous conclusion that the First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to engage in private communications with enemy agents during wartime. This would be no less a travesty if Taylor had never heard of the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan."

Time to Take out Iran's Nuclear Facilities

Negations will not work! Sanctions will not work even if Russia,China and the Europeans get a spine! The only workable option is air strikes combined with limited commando raids in force. An air attack is not enough. We need to have boots on the ground for a limited time in a limited area. Stay just long enough to make sure that their nuclear facilities are destroyed and gets some licks in the process. I still have not forgot about them taking over our embassy and holding our diplomats as hostages in violation of civilized law.I would warn them that any attack on our "boots on the ground" could lead to massive air strikes and the use of tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to protect our troops. The following article is from Radio Free Europe:

"A growing number of U.S. analysts, though, are convinced an attack on Iran by either the United States or Israel (or both) is inevitable. "It's very simple. Iran wants to get atomic bombs. Israel and the United States won't let that happen," says John Pike, director of a Washington-based website called GlobalSecurity.org that publishes analyses on international security issues. "And when the diplomatic track runs out -- I think sometime in the year 2007 -- the United States will launch air attacks to destroy Iran's nuclear and missile facilities."

Large-Scale Invasion?

Pike says Israel has the means and motive to carry out air strikes against Iran on its own as early as this year. But, he continues, "I think that there is a very low probability of the Israelis acting before the United States, because I think the United States and Israel share a common assessment of the state of Iran's [nuclear] program; namely, that it is premature to talk about military action this year. But 2007 to 2008 is basically the point at which…it would probably be too late to [take military action] effectively. So, I think that there would be a common assessment by Israel and by the United States that it needs to be done in 2007 -- and that the United States is the appropriate country to do it."

Most military analysts agree that a large-scale invasion of Iran by U.S. ground troops is unlikely -- particularly since so many U.S. troops are tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they would expect U.S. Special Forces or paramilitary officers in its secret service, the CIA, to infiltrate Iran before any air strikes in order to locate secret facilities.

An attack using both U.S. aircraft and missiles is the most likely scenario if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail, argues Ian Kemp, an independent London-based defense analyst. "I think if the United States was to decide upon military action [there would be] a combination of missile strikes using sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, and air strikes would probably be the preferred option. The United States has demonstrated quite clearly in recent years that it is has the capability to strike targets accurately and at a considerable distance."

Effective Air Strikes?

Pike is also confident of the efficacy of air strikes. He believes U.S. or Israeli forces could destroy all of Iran's main nuclear facilities within a matter of hours: "There are about half a dozen major nuclear facilities in Iran. They have the uranium facility at Isfahan, the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the plutonium production facility at Arak, possibly a nuclear weapons assembly facility at Parchin. There may be a dozen, or a dozen and a half other smaller facilities. All of these facilities are vulnerable to air strikes. Stealth bombers and other [U.S.] bombers staging from Diego Garcia [an island in the Indian Ocean] would basically be able to destroy all of these within a few hours of the air strikes beginning."

World Opinion

But air strikes might not totally disrupt Iran's nuclear program. "If the Iranians are anticipating that the United States is going to [take] military action, no doubt they would disperse their technology to different facilities," says Kemp. "They would try to bury such facilities under the ground. And this, then, becomes far more difficult for the United States to guarantee complete success. I think it is virtually impossible to guarantee 100 percent success."

Another concern is that Iran might retaliate against limited air strikes by launching dozens of conventional missiles into Israel. That could escalate into a conflict that could possibly eventually draw in U.S. ground forces.

Analysts agree that world opinion would be decidedly against U.S. or Israeli military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. But John Pike of Global Security.org says he thinks the U.S. administration is less concerned about world opinion than it is about the prospect of a nuclear capable Iran."

Click on the title above for a link to the article

John Wayne on DVD

A guy by the name of Neil Roughley has put together a blog with the best "darn tootin" list of John Wayne Movies on DVD. Click on the title above for a link. Here is my collection in alphabetical order (85 DVD's/120 titles):

3 Godfathers (1948)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alamo, The (1960)
John Wayne
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angel & the Badman (1947)
James Edward Grant
Laserlight,Delta
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angel and the Badman (1947)
Edward James Grant
Diamond
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Bataan (1945)
Edward Dmytryk
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Big Jake (1971)
George Sherman,John Wayne
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Big Trail, The (1930)
Raoul Walsh,Louis R. Loeffler
20th Century Fox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blood Alley (1955)
William A. Wellman,John Wayne
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brannigan (1975)
Douglas Hickox
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cahill: United States Marshal (1973)
Andrew V. McLaglen
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
Melville Shavelson
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chisum (1970)
Andrew V. McLaglen
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comancheros, The (1961)
Michael Curtiz,John Wayne
20th Century Fox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conqueror, The (1956)
Dick Powell
Universal Studios,GoodTimes,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cowboys, The (1972)
Mark Rydell
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dakota (1945)
Joseph Kane
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dark Command (1940)
Raoul Walsh
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donovan's Reef (1963)
John Ford
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
El Dorado (1967)
Howard Hawks
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting Kentuckian, The (1949)
George Waggner
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting Seabees, The (1944)
Edward Ludwig
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flame of the Barbary Coast (1945)
Joseph Kane
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flying Leathernecks (1951)
Nicholas Ray
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flying Tigers, The (1942)
David Miller
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fort Apache (1948)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great American Western, The - Vol. 02: John Wayne
Robert North Bradbury,Harry Fraser...
Platinum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greatest Story Ever Told, The (1965) - R2
George Stevens,David Lean,Jean Negulesco
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Green Berets, The (1968)
Ray Kellogg,John Wayne
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hatari! (1962)
Howard Hawks
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hellfighters (1968)
Andrew V. McLaglen
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
High and the Mighty, The - Special Collector'... (1954)
William A. Wellman
Paramount
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hondo - Special Collector's Edition - The Joh... (1953)
John Farrow
Paramount
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Horse Soldiers, The - Western Legends (1959)
John Ford
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How the West Was Won (1963)
John Ford,Henry Hathaway,George Marshall...
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Harm's Way (1965)
Otto Preminger
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Old California (1942)
William C. McGann
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Island in the Sky - Special Collector's Editi... (1953)
William A. Wellman
Paramount
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jet Pilot (1957)
Josef von Sternberg,Jules Furthman
Universal Studios,GoodTimes,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Wayne - 20 Movie Pack
Robert N. Bradbury,Lewis D. Collins...
Mill Creek Entertainment,Digital 1 Stop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Wayne, Vol. 1
James Edward Grant,Robert N. Bradbury
Platinum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Wayne: An American Icon Movie Collection - Th...
Tay Garnett,Henry Hathaway,Lewis Seiler...
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
King of the Pecos (1936)
Joseph Kane
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lady Takes a Chance, A (1943)
William A. Seiter,Henry Hathaway
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend of the Lost (1957)
Henry Hathaway
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long Voyage Home, The (1940)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Longest Day, The - Cinema Classics Collection (1962)
Ken Annakin,Andrew Marton,Bernhard Wicki...
20th Century Fox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Longest Day, The - Fox War Classics (1962)
Ken Annakin,Andrew Marton,Bernhard Wicki...
20th Century Fox,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (1962)
John Ford
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McLintock! (1963)
Andrew V. McLaglen
GoodTimes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McLintock! (1963)
Andrew V. McLaglen
Delta
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McLintock! - Authentic Collector's Edition -... (1963)
Andrew V. McLaglen
Paramount
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McQ (1974)
John Sturges
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
North to Alaska (1960)
Henry Hathaway
20th Century Fox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operation Pacific (1951)
George Waggner
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quiet Man, The (1952)
John Ford
Artisan,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quiet Man, The - Collector's Edition (1952)
John Ford,Michael Gillis
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Cecil B. DeMille
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red River (1948)
Howard Hawks,Arthur Rosson
MGM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rio Bravo (1959)
Howard Hawks
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rio Grande (1950)
John Ford
Artisan,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rio Grande - Collector's Edition (1950)
John Ford
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rio Lobo (1970)
Howard Hawks
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rooster Cogburn... and the Lady (1975)
Stuart Millar
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Allan Dwan
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sea Chase, The (1955)
John Farrow
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Searchers, The (1956)
John Ford
Warner Home Video,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Searchers, The - 50th Anniversary - Ultimate Colle... (1956)
John Ford,Nick Redman
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shootist, The (1976)
Don Siegel
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sons of Katie Elder, The (1965)
Henry Hathaway
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spoilers, The - Universal Western Collection (1942)
Ray Enright
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stagecoach (1939)
John Ford
Warner Home Video,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stagecoach - Two-Disc Special Edition (1939)
John Ford,Samuel D. Pollard
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tall in the Saddle (1944)
Edwin L. Marin
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They Were Expendable (1945)
John Ford,Robert Montgomery
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They Were Expendable (1945)
John Ford,Robert Montgomery
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three Faces West (1940)
Bernard Vorhaus
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Train Robbers, The (1973)
Burt Kennedy
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
True Grit (1969)
Henry Hathaway
Paramount,DISCONTINUED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Undefeated, The (1969)
Andrew V. McLaglen
20th Century Fox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wake of the Red Witch (1948)
Edward Ludwig
Artisan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War Wagon, The (1967)
Burt Kennedy
Universal Studios
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wings of Eagles, The (1957)
John Ford
Warner Home Video
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of the DVD's have multiple titles on them especially the "two reelers" (cheaply made westerns) he made in the 1930's before Stagecoach in 1939.

The Blame America First Crowd!

Michael Barone the editor of the Almanac of American Politics and an editor at U..S. News & World Report has a great column on the left wing elites in this country that came of age during the Vietnam War. I was in college at that time and Barone is "right on" in his anaysis. His column concludes as follows:

Today, many of our elites subject our military and intelligence actions to fine-tooth-comb analysis and find that they are morally repugnant.

We have always had our covert enemies, but their numbers were few until the 1960s. But then the elite young men who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War set out to write a narrative in which they, rather than those who obeyed the call to duty, were the heroes. They have propagated their ideas through the universities, the schools and mainstream media to the point that they are the default assumptions of millions. Our covert enemies don't want the Islamo-fascists to win. But in some corner of their hearts, they would like us to lose.

To read the entire column click on the title above for a link.

Update on Medford Oregon's Charter Cable TV Fiasco

Click on the title above for a link to a new news story in Sunday's Medford Mail Tribune.

There is also an editorial on the subject:

The cable guys get static
Charter's subscribers say new package is a double whammy
Any seasoned business person knows it's not wise to surprise your customers — especially if that surprise reduces the service they receive and increases their costs.

Charter Communications, which operates the cable television franchise for much of the Rogue Valley, is currently feeling the pain of delivering one of those unhappy surprises. Its customers found out — some through reading it first in this newspaper and some when they turned on their sets Tuesday — that just about every channel had changed and that, for some, the cost of watching the boob tube had just gone up dramatically.

This was obviously a botched operation. Charter officials said they had printed notices that were scheduled to be mailed to subscribers before the switchover, but the mailings wound up delayed and showed up in mailboxes after the change....

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/0820/edit/edit.htm

There are also a large number of letters to the editor:

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/0820/edit/let.htm

Also see previous post on the subject below.

Summer Cleaning

In the last few weeks of Summer I have been trying to get some of my household cleaning project done. Last weekend I washed all the windows inside and out in our three story house. This weekend I steam cleaned all of the carpets on all three floors. Next weekend I will tackle the garage which has "leftovers" from our son being home from college for the summer.. There is a method to my madness. I want to have everything done before the beginning of football season. I will make six trips to Eugene for Oregon Duck games. South Medford High has four home games plus the North Medford game and TV games will fill in the rest. So many games and so little time.

Downside of Summer

I know this post will put me in the "Old Fogy" category but one of the down sides of Summer is that many people dress like bums. I was out shopping today and it was about 99 degrees outside in Medford Oregon. Most of the people were wearing short shorts skimpy tee shirt and flip flops. In other words I saw a lot of skin and that is not attractive on a lot of people. Do these people ever look in the mirror? Just because it is hot is no excuse. If your figure is "not so great" a nice pair of Bermuda shorts , a nice shirt and sandals with short white sox are just as cool and can hide a lot body defects. A little ironing and washing would be nice too. Another think is tattoos. There is nothing that makes a man or woman look low class than a tattoo. Only sailors and cowboys can get away with them. Nothing is more depressing than seeing a nicely dressed woman with a tattoo on her ankle. I know tattoos are the fad, but so were bell bottom pants but you could give the pants to Good Will when the fad was over. Try doing that with a tattoo. Why do people permanently mutilate their body's? I guess I am ready for Fall and some football.

35 Years Ago This Month I got out of the U.S. Army

As I was working around the house this weekend I realized that it was 35 years ago this month that I got out of the Army. Did that make me feel old! As much as I disliked the army I was in the best shape physically I have ever been in and I was ALIVE. I was in the Army during the Vietnam war and even though I did not go to Vietnam there was a time I thought I may. There is something about being in the military in time of war that makes each moment vivid and memorable and you see the world in vivid colors rather than the pastels of life there after.

A Judge who lacks Judicial Demeanor

This from Reynolds Holding in Time Magazine:

"If you're troubled by the Bush Administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, you can't be thrilled with Thursday's opinion by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor......

But Taylor's opinion is remarkably thin on legal reasoning, leaving it vulnerable to getting reversed by the generally conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Worse, the opinion's provocative, almost dismissive, language gives weight to criticism that this decision was more about politics than the law...
It's hard to say why a federal judge wouldn't do her best work on a case of historical importance. Maybe she wanted to get the opinion out quickly, before Congress overrode her decision with a bill resolving the issue. Maybe she wanted to shape the debate, offering some zesty talking points to opponents of the eavesdropping program. As a legal matter, though, the opponents deserved better."

To read the entire Time Magazine article click on the title above for a link.

Judge Diggs-Taylor (picture above) is a Jimmy Carter appointee to the federal bench.

Rich Galen's 42nd High School Class Reunion

Rich Galen who is a self described "political hack" and who has worked for Senator Dan Quayle and House Speaker Newt Gingrich and is a frequent guest commentator on FOX NEWS. He has a blog www.mullings.com. He also sends out two or three times a week an email to subscribers with his musing or Mullings on political issues. His most recent dealt with his 42nd high school class reunion. As readers of this blog know I went to my 40th high school reunion last summer. In an case Rich gives a humorous summary of his reunion. From time to time Galen also gives travelogues of trips he takes and he does travel a lot and they are also very humorous.

One of the of the best part of the summary of his class reunion is the following which is true for me and many of our generation.

"I am not a slave to fashion. That is to say I have been wearing essentially the same outfit since seventh grade.

Back in my era, the school uniform included a button-down shirt, khakis (which we called chinos), and Bass Weejun penny-loafers for boys. Jeans were not permitted as school garb. In fact, I didn't own a pair of jeans until I was about 30.

Women (or, as they were known then, girls) were not permitted to wear slacks to school. Skirts or dresses, no higher than knee length. Girls were sometimes required to kneel so a teacher could check and make certain their skirts touched the ground and were, therefore, chaste enough to wear to Spanish II.

T-shirts were not allowed outside of gym class. Flip-flops hadn't been invented as non-locker-room-footwear yet.

Oh. Socks. White, bulky, woolen (not cotton) socks went very nicely with penny-loafers. But, it never occurred to me to come to school with loafers and no socks. That look hadn't been invented yet, either.

Nehru jackets came and went. Bellbottoms never graced my closet floor. John Travolta Saturday Night Fever outfits danced past me. I did own a three-piece suit once when I first came to Washington, but that was pushing the envelope for me, fashion-wise.

Other than having traded up to Johnson & Murphy loafers instead of Bass, I was dressed pretty much the same I had been 42 years previously."

Terrorist Profiling

Got this in an email from a colleague

To ensure we Americans never offend anyone - particularly fanatics intent on killing us -- law enforcement and security screeners are not allowed to "profile" people in public places or security checkpoints. However, they will continue to perform random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year-old congressmen with metal hips and even Medal of Honor recipients. But targeting Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40 constitutes "ethnic profiling."

Let's pause a moment and review....

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by: (a) A salesman from Utah (b) An construction worker (c) A college student on Spring Break (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the Munich Olympics by: (a) Your grandmother (b) A Midwest auto-parts dealer (c) A mom and her 6-year-old son visiting from Indiana (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by: (a) A bluegrass band (b) Dallas Cowboy fans (c) A tour group of 80-year-old women (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

During the 1980's numerous Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by: (a) A family on their way to Disney World (b) Jesse Ventura (c) A Boy Scout Troop (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by: (a) A pizza delivery boy (b) The UPS guy (c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old disabled American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by: (a) A girls' choir (b) A hardware store owner (c) A secretary (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by: (a) A Marine officer with two weeks leave (b) A plumber going to visit his mom (c) A Catholic nun (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by: (a) A college-bound freshman (b) A cardiac surgeon on his way to Houston (c) A waitress (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by: (a) A starving actress (b) A mom with a newborn (c) Twin six-year-old boys (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1995, a plot to blow up U.S.-bound international flights over the Pacific was attempted by (a) Hawaiian school kids (b) An decorated Vietnam Veteran (c) Twin sisters on their way to Paducah (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a) A local TV weatherman (b) A dad and his two sons on a ski trip (c) A widower going to visit his grandchildren (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2000, 17 sailors died in an attack on the USS Cole (DDG 67) in Yemen by: (a) A child in a stroller (b) A high school class on their way to visit Washington, DC (c) Newlyweds on their way to Miami (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked -- two flown into the World Trade Centers, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground in rural Pennsylvania. They were hijacked by: (a) A retired police officer on a mission trip to Haiti (b) A firefighter going to Maryland for training (c) An paramedic on his way to vacation in Hawaii (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002 the United States liberated Afghanistan from: (a) USAID relief workers (b) Jewish Pilgrims (c) Christian missionaries (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl and other Westerners were kidnapped and beheaded by: (a) The Peace Corp (b) Scottish clansmen (c) Cuban refugees (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002, more than 330 hostages in Beslan and 130 hostages in Moscow were murdered in sieges by: (a) Russian exchange students (b) The Red Guard (c) Church planters (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2003 the United States liberated Iraq from "The Butcher of Baghdad," but most American military personnel were killed by: (a) Iraqi school-girls (b) Street vegetable venders (c) Women without burkas (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2004, more than 200 Spanish civilians were murdered on trains by bombs in Madrid, detonated by: (a) Morning commuters (b) A three-year-old Chinese girl (c) Flamenco dancers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005 more than 50 UK citizens were killed by bombs on trains in London, detonated by: (a) Rail workers (b) Those unable to hail taxis (c) Wheelchair-bound grandmothers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005, there were hundreds of casualties, men, women and children, killed by bombs in Jerusalem, Riyadh and Amman. These innocent civilians were murdered by: (a) Construction workers (b) Farmers (c) Christian missionaries (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005, the city of Paris, and other European cities experienced an extended period of riots and destruction. The unrest was led by: (a) "Youth" (b) Soccer fans (c) Catholic nuns (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 2,500 Americans have been murdered by terrorists. 35,000 Iraqi men, women and children have also been murdered by terrorists. Most of the combat and civilians casualties were the result of bombs detonated in civilian population centers by: (a) Fruit vendors in Baghdad (b) Disgruntled transit union workers (c) Iraqi schoolteachers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2006, hundreds of Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets launched by: (a) the Salvation Army (b) remnants of the 'Jackson Five' (c) the cast of 'Friends' (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2006, a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound planes from the U.K. was attempted by (a) members of the royal family (b) Japanese tourists (c) groupies of the band 'Cream' (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

Since 2001, the FBI reports that there are major terrorist cells still in U.S. urban centers. Several of these cells have been uncovered and cell members arrested. In every case, the terrorists cell members were: (a) Southern Baptists Conventioneers (b) Lutheran Youth Groups (c) Presbyterian Elders (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

President George Bush said last week, "America is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation." The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued an immediate objection to the President's reference to "Islamic fascists". Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR protested, "We have to isolate these individuals because there is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic faith that encourages people to be cruel or to be vicious or to be criminal. Muslims world wide know that for sure." In light of this objection, we are left to ponder why every Islamic leader in the U.S., and the world, does not publicly condemn every terror action being undertaken in the name of the god of Islam. Their silence is deafening...

Between 1970 and present, there were more than 60 other notable examples of terrorism perpetrated by Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40, but we think you get the point. Singling out "Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40" is not "ethnic profiling," it's "terrorist profiling" -- acting on prolific evidence.

Anyone for Terrorist Profiling?

Oregon Duck Football Season Tickets Arrive!

My two sets of Season Tickets for University of Oregon Duck Football arrived in the mail today. Section 13 Row 20 behind the Oregon bench. First game is with Stanford in Eugene on Saturday September 2, 2006. 15 days to go and counting. I will have a special guest with me. More on that later. Go Ducks!

Charter Cable TV in Medford Oregon Upsets Customers

In a move that is sure to make more enemies than friends Charter Cable TV in Medford Oregon reshuffled their TV channel lineup. The cable TV company sells it's TV channel lineup in various tiers or groupings of channels. The first tier is called "Basic" and the second tier is called "Expanded Basic" The first is the least expensive and up until the change included all the local over the air channels ( local affiliates for ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and PBS etc) it ALSO included ,TBS, FOX NEWS,Northwest Cable News, MTV, The Hallmark Channel, The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. With the reshuffel ALL of the above non over the air channels were lost to upper tiers which cost more. In addition Charter Cable TV raised the rates of the "Basic" tier. So now for "Basic" cable TV, their customers are getting channels they could get over the air plus HSN, QVC, and C-Span 1 & 2 and some public access channels. So the poor folks, and most of them are poor, will pay more for less. If that was not bad enough Charter Cable TV failed to send out new listings of the new channel lineup to their customers before the change took place. In today's Medford Mail Tribune their excuse was they got lost "held up" between the printer and the post office. People have been calling the cable company, TV and radio stations and the newspaper with their complaints. The announced reason for the change was to group channels together so that all the news or sports channels would be numerically next to each other which is a good idea but it looks like a their ulterior motive was to raise more revenue. Anyone who knows me know I am a Capitalist who believes in Free Enterprise but this kind of action gives Capitalist a bad name. Satellite TV anyone! To read the Medford Mail Tribune's news story on the change click on the title above for a link.

As a side bar, I read about the change in the newspaper the Saturday before the change and went to Charter's web site to see if I could get the new channel lineup. No, they just had the old one as they do today two days after the change. Fortunately I have a friend who is even more obsessive than I am who stopped by Charter's office here in Medford and got a photocopy of the new channel lineup and emailed me a copy, the guy put it on spreadsheet. I then had to re program the channel labels ( names of channels) on my new big screen TV (see previous post) so for example when I go to FOX NEWS on new channel #61 it says "FOXNEWS" and not "HGTV" the old channel 61.

Happy Birthday!

To that special person, Happy Birthday and many more!

Where is the Outrage from the Islamic Community!

Where is the outrage from the Islamic community over the plot to blow up 10 civilian passenger air planes with women, & children by Islamic fascist in England.. If a extremist conservative group had been plotting such an attack I would be outraged and speak of my outrage. The Islamic community's silence is deafening.

Thursday's Lessons for Tuesday's Victors

Michael Barone of US News& World Report has another good column on the events of the past week.

On Tuesday, anti-Iraq war candidate Ned Lamont beat Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary. On Thursday, British authorities arrested more than 20 British Muslims who were plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic Ocean.

Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats' 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was a reminder that there are, as George W. Bush has finally taken to calling them, Islamic fascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life....

As for Lamont, on victory night he mentioned his policy to handle the nuclear threat posed by Iran: We should "bring in allies" and "use carrots as well as sticks." He evidently failed to notice that we deputized Britain, France and Germany to negotiate with Iran for three years and that Iran has been offered plenty of carrots and has not been threatened with many sticks. Once again, a disconnect with reality.

The Iranian mullahs and the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to destroy Israel and inflict as much damage to the United States as they can. They say so over and over again. They hate our way of life, our freedoms and our tolerance. Unfortunately, there's no obvious and easy way to handle the Iranian regime, just as there was no obvious and easy way to handle Hitler in the late 1930s.

At least Neville Chamberlain was made of sterner stuff. His Tuesday was the Munich agreement in September 1938, when he and the French persuaded Czechoslovakia to give up its borderlands to Hitler. He was cheered by vast crowds eager to avoid the horrors of war. His Thursday came in March 1939, when Nazi troops marched into Prague.

Chamberlain proceeded to build up Britain's military forces and to embark on a vigorous diplomacy to cabin Hitler in. He realized instantly that he had been, as Winston Churchill was to say in his funeral oration in the House of Commons, "deceived by a wicked man." He prepared to call Churchill, his bitter critic on Munich, into government. Chamberlain's diplomacy ultimately failed: Hitler wanted war too much. But Chamberlain stayed true to his countrymen, yielding his place to Churchill and strenuously supporting him when Britain was in peril.

Can we expect as much of our Left? It seems doubtful. Our Left criticized George W. Bush when The New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency was surveilling telephone calls from al-Qaida suspects overseas to the United States. Now it appears that the United States surveilled the British terrorists, and that they made phone calls to the United States. The Left cried foul when The New York Times revealed that the United States was monitoring money transfers at the SWIFT bank clearinghouse in Brussels. Now it appears that there was monitoring of money transfers by the British terrorists in Pakistan. On Tuesday, the Left was gleeful that it was scoring political points against George W. Bush. On Thursday, it seemed that the supposedly controversial NSA surveillance contributed to savings thousands of lives.

Joseph Lieberman is being criticized for saying, "I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us -- more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War. We cannot deceive ourselves that we live in safety today and the war is over, and it's why we have to stay strong and vigilant."

That view didn't prevail on Tuesday. But it sure made sense on Thursday.

To read the rest of the column click on the title for a link.

World Trade Center *****

This afternoon my wife and I saw the movie World Trade Center and I give it ***** out of 5 *. I am not a big fan of Oliver Stone but he does a great job with this movie. My favorite part of the movie is a true story of a retired U.S. Marine who had become an accountant. He saw what was happening at the World Trade Center on 9/11, goes out and gets a Marine hair cut, puts on his old uniform and goes to the ruins at night with a flash light. He gets past the police barricade's on the strength of his U.S. Marine uniform, when everyone else is retreating, and walks around the hell hole that was the remnants of the World Trade Center yelling "United States Marines any one alive... yell or make a tapping sound." He links up with another U.S.Marine and they hear the sound of two Port Authority Police Officer who are buried in the rubble , who are the main subject of the movie, and call for help. After the two police officers are rescued Karnes standing in the ruins says: "We're gonna need some good men out there to avenge this!" That U.S.Marine then reenlists and goes on to serve two tours in Iraq! I am not making this up.... it's true! Thanks, Oliver Stone for a movie that will tell the story of what happened to future generations. Great movie making.... John Ford and John Wayne would have been proud. Go see this movie.!!!! It WILL be in my DVD collection. To read more about the movie click on the title above for a link to the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) page on the movie. Picture above left is of the real US. Marine Dave Karnes played in the movie by Michael Shannon shown in the center picture.

Son arrives in Grand Forks North Dakota

Our son called yesterday to tell us he had arrived safely and moved into his new apartment on the campus of the University of North Dakota. He has been hired as a teaching assistant ( more like a research assistant)in the History Department. He gets a tuition waiver and enough salary to pay for his apartment and food. He will be able to work on his Masters degree without having to go into debt. He eventually wants to be a college History Professor.I know it gets cold there but he will do fine and it's a good opportunity for him. Sounds like he has a nice apartment that has cable TV and even gets FOX NEWS. I just wish he were not half a continent away. Good Luck Son.

America is special and good country .... many Democrats don't agree!

This is a column by Michael Barone of US News and World Report and the editor of the Almanac of American Politics. Click on the title above for a link to the full column.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman's narrow defeat in Connecticut's Democratic primary on Tuesday tells us something important about his party.....

he has been an American exceptionalist--a believer in the idea that this is a special and specially good country--while his party's base is increasingly made up of people with attitudes that are, in professor Samuel Huntington's term, transnational. In their view, our country is no better than any other, and in many ways it's a whole lot worse......

Through most of the 20th century, American exceptionalism has been the creed of both of our major parties. Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, for all their sophisticated knowledge of foreign cultures, were exceptionalists just as much as Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan......


Now it's different. In 2004, pollster Scott Rasmussen asked two questions relating to American exceptionalism: Is this country generally fair and decent? Would the world be better off if more countries were more like America? About two-thirds of voters answered yes to both questions. About 80% of George W. Bush voters answered yes. John Kerry voters were split down the middle, with yeses outnumbering noes by small margins....


The Connecticut primary reveals that the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved, from the lunch-bucket working class that was the dominant constituency up through the 1960s to the secular transnational professional class that was the dominant constituency in the 2004 presidential cycle....

The core constituency of the Republican Party stands foursquare for America's prosecution of the global struggle against Islamofascist terrorism--and solidly on the side of Israel in its struggle against the same forces. The core constituency of the Democratic Party wants to stand aside from the global struggle--and, as the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton at Mr. Lamont's side on election night suggests, is not necessarily on the side of Israel. It's not your father's Democratic Party.

Mr. Barone is a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and coauthor of the Almanac of American Politics (National Journal Group).

Yes, we are that "Shining City on the Hill" that Ronald Reagan used to talk about. As he said in the waning days of the Goldwater campaign in 1964 "The last best hope for freedom"

"The Gathering Storm"

Most of my extensive library is in our "movie room." However, there is a 6 volume set of books that have a place of honor in our living/dining room. It is "The Second World War" by Winston Churchill. When my children were young I would at their bed time pull up a chair in the hall between their bedrooms and read Winston Churchill's words. My kids have kidded me that their friends got to hear Dr Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" and they got Churchill's "Finest Hour" (volume 2) about the Battle of Britain. For the record I dislike Dr Seuss. As much as I like volume 2 - "Finest Hour" my favorite is volume 1 "The Gathering Storm." Churchill said the theme of this volume is "How the English-speaking people through their unwisdsom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm."

I see a great parallel today and the rise, not of Hitler, but Islamic fascist and the unwillingness of the West to confront and defeat it. We can not reason, we can not bargain, we can not bribe these Islamic fascist. We can only fight and kill and defeat them. Better now while they (Iran) do not have the nuclear bomb rather than later when they are armed with it. The 9/11 Part II - the attempt to blow up 10 American airplanes with liquid explosives - should be a wake up call to the West that the threat is real and will not go away. We either fight them now or later when they are stronger. The cease fire in Lebanon is not the end but only a "phony peace" that will not last. Better to let Israel keep on fighting and killing the Islamic fascist. This will be a long war and there is no substitute for victory.

Bush, Rice and Olmert Sell Out Israel ! "Peace in Our Time"

It's the late 1930's all over again.


JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted an emerging Mideast cease-fire deal and informed the United States of his decision, Israeli officials said Friday.

Olmert will recommend that his government approve the deal in its meeting on Sunday, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief journalists on the internal discussions.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel's expanded ground offensive would be frozen. Defense officials said it appeared the campaign would be halted.

Go Israel!

Take it to the Islamic Fascist!

9/11 Part II

The plot foiled by Britain to blow up U.S.-bound flights would been as horrific as the September 11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday.

The suspected plotters were "a couple days from a test, and a few days from doing it," according to a U.S. intelligence official. Chertoff said the plan would have involved coordinated multiple suicide bombings.

"If these plotters had succeeded in taking down multiple jets carrying hundreds of people, we would have seen a disaster on a scale comparable to 9/11 with hundreds and maybe thousands of people being killed," Chertoff said in an interview on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

He said al Qaeda might have been involved, and that the United States was in a race against "terrorist ingenuity."

The U.S. government heightened security on passenger planes, barring air travelers from carrying any liquids after Britain said it had thwarted the plot to target about 10 transatlantic flights.

GOP Voters: Like a Rock

From Washington Whispers of US News & World Report

By Paul Bedard

Posted 8/9/06

Many Democrats may hate the war in Iraq and itch to dump the president, but a new GOP survey shows that Republican base voters stand ready to jam the November polls to return their team to Congress. A three-page-survey memo obtained by Washington Whispers reveals that despite reports of some dissatisfaction with the economy, the war, and President Bush, 81 percent of Republican voters are "almost certain" to vote and an additional 14 percent say they are "very likely." It goes without saying that they'll vote Republican: By a margin of 84 percent to 6 percent, they will pull the GOP toggle switch in the voting booth. And here is something you don't hear very often: 88 percent of Republicans approve of how the prez is handling his job. What's it all mean? Analysts say that GOP voters are ready to dig in and play defense against the charges Democrats are tossing at Republican candidates.
The memo also helps to define what issues work for Republican candidates. The survey--officially tilted "Base Mobilization Survey Finds and Conclusions"--divided the issues into foreign and domestic. On the foreign side, it's all terrorism and war with polling that finds GOP voters back the war, worry about Democratic attacks on the fight against terrorism, and think the Patriot Act, moves to tighten the border, and even telephone surveillance are good things. And their favorite domestic issues aren't a surprise: They are pro-tax cuts, big on cultural values, and worried that Democrats want to put too much bureaucracy in healthcare. Another nonshocker: They don't like the media's war stories, thinking that they are too negative. Some 60 percent of the GOP base expresses "extremely high dissatisfaction" with the coverage of the war.

The Empty Nest

Our youngest child left home today to go to work as a teaching assistant in a graduate school in the Midwest while he works toward his Masters and PHD degrees in History. In the future he will probable not return home for any extended stay. Our daughter left the nest three summers ago. I was happy for him to go on his new adventure and proud for the man he has become. I was also sad to see him go. But that is the nature of life. I keep thinking of those Disney nature documentary's they used to show on TV when I was a kid where the baby birds would leave the nest for good or the mother bear would leave her cubs for the last time. This is the way of nature and it is the natural evolution of life. Nothing is as sad as seeing a healthy 27 year old child still living at home with his or her parents. We are already talking about where we will all meet for Christmas. Last year we spent Christmas at Disneyland. This Christmas, Home?, Las Vegas?, a cabin in the woods? or will we all follow the Ducks to a football Bowl Game? I will especially miss him going with me to Duck games in Eugene. Even while he was an undergrad at Willamette University in Salem he would meet me in Eugene for three or four games each season. We would have a nice lunch or dinner before or after the game and spend a few hours together. I will miss that. Take care "Big Guy."

Joe Lieberman

John McIntyre from Real Clear politics:

Nationally, the images from last night are a disaster for the Democratic Party. Perched behind Lamont during his victory speech were the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, grinning ear to ear, serenaded by the chant of "Bring Them Home, Bring Them Home." For a party that has a profound public relations and substantive problem on national security, these are not exactly the images you want broadcast to the nation...

The "Bring Them Home, Bring Them Home" chant may win congressional districts in San Francisco and Seattle as well as Democratic primaries in solidly blue states, but it is not a serious policy. Just what does "Bring Them Home" really mean? Bring them home and Ahmadinejad suddenly gives up his pursuit of nukes, Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah domesticate and forego terror? Leftists, pacifists and Pat Buchanan isolationists may be that naïve, but the majority of Americans are not...

The Democrats have an insurgency of their own that is rapidly gaining strength, and Lieberman is the first high profile victim. But in the long run the real victim will be the Democratic Party if they continue to purge the few remaining FDR/Truman/Scoop Jackson Democrats from their ranks.

(To read the entire column click on the title above for a link)

The Left's Inability to Confront Evil By Dennis Prager

On July 28, 2006, a Muslim entered the building of the Seattle Jewish Federation and shot every Jew he saw, murdering one woman and wounding five others.

On the same day, Mel Gibson was arrested on DUI charges and while intoxicated let loose with anti-Semitic invective at the Jewish police officer who arrested him.

Question: Which story has most troubled the Left?

The answer is known to any American who can hear or read.

So, the real question is: Why? Why has the shooting and murder of Jews elicited less angst from the Left than the anti-Semitic statements made by Mel Gibson when drunk?

The answers are very troubling. As Time magazine said about global warming (but never about Islamic terror), "Be worried, very worried."

We should be worried about this: The liberal world fears -- and much of it loathes -- fundamentalist Christians considerably more than it does fundamentalist Muslims.

This is as true of most Jewish liberals -- even though conservative Christians are Israel's and the Jews' most loyal supporters and even though Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates much of the Muslim world -- as it is of most other liberals, certainly including the mainstream media.

That is why Jewish writer Zev Chafets wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "On the same day Gibson got into trouble in Malibu, a fellow named Naveed Afzal Haq brought a pistol to the Jewish Federation office in Seattle and shot six women, killing one. Two days later, this personal jihad -- one of the most gory anti-Jewish crimes in American history -- got second billing on the ADL website, under "Mel Gibson's Apology for Tirade 'Insufficient.' " (For the record, the ADL later announced it had accepted Mel Gibson's apology.)

This is one more example of the greatest flaw of contemporary liberalism -- its inability to recognize and confront the greatest evils. Since the 1960s, when liberalism became indistinguishable from the Left -- e.g., when New York Times positions became indistinguishable from those of The Nation -- liberals tended to attack opponents of evil far more than those who actually committed evil. The Left (around the world) was far more antagonistic to Ronald Reagan than to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, and far more disturbed by anti-Communism than by Communism.

(To read the rest of the column click on the title above for a link)

Hiroshima 61st Anniversary

Thanks Harry Truman for dropping the A Bomb on Hiroshima. I have never been a fan of President Harry Truman but he made the right decision in dropping that bomb on Japan 61 years ago this last Sunday!

As horrible as it was it would have been much worse if the United State had to invade Japan to end WWII. Experts calculate there would have been a million deaths in taking the island of Japan.

It would have made Iwo Jima and Tarawa look like a picnics compared to the toll of taking the Japanese homeland. There would have been the deaths of Japanese men women and children in their fanatical defense of their homeland without even considering the solders, marines and sailors who would have died.

Today all over the United States there are men dyeing at home surrounded by their children and grandchildren who would not have lived had we not dropped that bomb. They would not have lived and had those children. My wife is one. Her father was in the United States Army in WWII. His hair turned from red to gray fighting up the boot of Italy. He then returned to Texas and volunteered to take the place of another man who was to be sent to the Pacific in preparation for the landings on Japan. I have read his letters he sent home hinting at where he was going. They are very haunting. His life after the war was far from perfect but he produced a son who is a PHD and a daughter who is my wife and the mother of my children. Thanks Harry Truman for making a difficult decision.

Is the West too Civil for War?

By Cathy Young | August 7, 2006 from the Boston Globe

AS WAR CONTINUES to rage in Iraq and Lebanon, appalling pictures of human suffering and death fill our front pages and television screens. Some people who have previously supported the Bush administration's foreign policy and who are generally pro-Israel are concluding that the human costs of the war on terror as currently conducted -- both in terms of direct casualties and human rights abuses -- are unacceptably high. Meanwhile, others are making the startling argument that we may have become too soft for our own good when it comes to the human costs of war.

``What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?"

Podhoretz goes on to ask if Britain and the United States could have won World War II if they ``did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki," inflicting massive civilian casualties, and he ends with this reflection: ``Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization -- its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all -- is endangering the future of our civilization as well?"

In all honesty, the question has occurred to me, too. What if Americans during World War II had been confronted daily both with reports of American casualties and with images of dead and wounded German civilians, including children and old people? What if public opinion had been as troubled by both American and German casualties as we are by American and Iraqi (or Lebanese) casualties today? Would there still be a free world to speak of?

Yet it is all too easy to move from pondering a tragic paradox to considering acts from which even the most hawkish among us would recoil in horror. Thus, Podhoretz inquires: ``What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them. . . ? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?"

Of course, the targeted slaughter of a population group -- known as genocide -- would go far beyond anything done by the Allies in World War II. Indeed, in a blogpost on the website of National Review magazine, Podhoretz reaches for comparison to the tactics of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad in Syria, who quelled uprisings by wiping out thousands. He also stresses that he is not advocating such measures: ``I am not upset -- far from it -- that they are closed off to us." He simply thinks that we should understand that our ``more civilized approach might represent a form of self-shackling" against a ruthless enemy.

(To read the rest of this column click on the title above for a link.)

Hot August Weekend

It's still early in August but you can feel the Summer slipping away. Our Son leaves for grad school in the Midwest in a few days and this was his last weekend home. Saturday night we went to the Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville for one of their outdoor classical concerts. Sarah Chang played the violin with the Britt Orchestra. I am not a big fan of this type of music but our Son wanted tickets for his birthday. We packed a picnics dinner and even had a bottle of wine. There was a large crowd. I call it the "wine and cheese" crowd who take very elaborate dinners in baskets and eat before the concert on blankets. You know, a Volvo crowd. Heck, I even saw a "Kerry/ Edwards" bumper sticker on a Volvo. I am sure George W Bush did not get many votes from this crowd. These are the kind of people that like to listened to NPR. However, I had a good time and it is good to do something different. I would like to do it again when they have a folk singer. Gordon Lightfoot will be there in a few days but unfortunately it is all sold out. Maybe next year. It is fun to listened to music under the stars and people watch.

On Sunday we did the Rogue River. Our son wanted to go rafting on the river so we drove up 11 miles past Shady Cove and dropped him off with his inflatable boat just below a dam. My wife and I then drove down the river to Shady Cove to pick him up at a park along the river. It took him about 2&1/2 hours to float the 11 miles. We took along a picnic lunch and the Sunday papers while we waited. It was pleasant and I even took along my Zen MP3 player for music. After we loaded up his boat we drove back to Medford and had pizza at Kaleidoscope Pizza. When we got home we had a nice long conversation on the telephone with our Daughter who lives in Washington DC.

Oregon Duck Football Practice Starts Today!

Practice schedule Practices open to the public; times and dates subject to change. August 7 -- 12:15-2:15 p.m. and 4:30-6:30 p.m. 8 -- 12:15-2:15 p.m. and 4:30-6:30 p.m. 9 -- 12:15-2:15 p.m. and 4:30-6:30 p.m. 10 -- 12:15-2:15 p.m. and 4:30-6:30 p.m. 11 -- 12:40-3:25 p.m. and scrimmage 12 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:55 p.m. 13 -- Off 14 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:55 p.m. 15 -- 3:35-6:05 p.m. 16 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:55 p.m. 17 -- 3:35-6:35 p.m. 18 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:15 p.m. 19 -- 1:30-4 p.m. and scrimmage 20 -- Off 21 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:55 p.m. 22 -- 3:35-6:05 p.m. 23 -- 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 4:45-6:45 p.m. 24 -- 2:30-4:30 p.m. 25 -- 3:05-6:05 p.m. and scrimmage 26 -- 4-5:30 and fan day 27 -- Off 28 -- 3:45-6:05 p.m. 29 -- 3:55-6:05 p.m. 30 -- 4:05-6:05 p.m. 31 -- 4:15-6:05 p.m. September 1 -- 2-4 p.m.

Regular season

September 2 -- Stanford, 12:30 p.m.; 9 -- at Fresno State 7 p.m.; 16 -- Oklahoma, 12:30 p.m.; 30 -- at Arizona State

October 7 -- at California, 5 p.m.; 14 -- UCLA, 12:30 p.m.; 21 -- at Washington State; 28 -- Portland State 12:30 p.m.

November 4 -- Washington, 12:30 p.m.; 11 -- at USC, 7:15 p.m.; 18 -- Arizona, 12:30 p.m.; 24 -- at Oregon State, 12:30 p.m.

General'isimo Fidel Castro Stars in "Weekend at Bernie's Part III"

HE MAY BE DEAD BUT HE IS THE LIFE OF CUBA! ( Click on the title above for a link to the Internet Movie Data Base IMDB page for the movie Part I)

The Brink of Madness by Victor Davis Hanson

When I used to read about the 1930s - the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Germany, the appeasement in France and Britain, the murderous duplicity of the Soviet Union, and the racist Japanese murdering in China - I never could quite figure out why, during those bleak years Western Europeans and those in the United States did not speak out and condemn the growing madness, if only to defend the millennia-long promise of Western liberalism.

Of course, the trauma of the Great War was all too fresh, and the utopian hopes for the League of Nations were not yet dashed. The Great Depression made the thought of rearmament seem absurd. The connivances of Stalin with Hitler - both satanic, yet sometimes in alliance, sometimes not - could confuse political judgments.

But nevertheless it is still surreal to reread the fantasies of Chamberlain, Daladier, and Pope Pius, or the stump speeches by Charles Lindbergh ("Their [the Jews'] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government") or Father Coughlin ("Many people are beginning to wonder whom they should fear most - the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.") - and it is even more baffling to consider that such men ever had any influence.

Not any longer.

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.

It is now nearly five years since jihadists from the Arab world left a crater in Manhattan and ignited the Pentagon. Apart from the frontline in Iraq , the United States and NATO have troops battling the Islamic fascists in Afghanistan . European police scramble daily to avoid another London or Madrid train bombing. The French, Dutch, and Danish governments are worried that a sizable number of Muslim immigrants inside their countries are not assimilating, and, more worrisome, are starting to demand that their hosts alter their liberal values to accommodate radical Islam. It is apparently not safe for Australians in Bali, and a Jew alone in any Arab nation would have to be discreet - and perhaps now in France or Sweden as well. Canadians' past opposition to the Iraq war, and their empathy for the Palestinians, earned no reprieve, if we can believe that Islamists were caught plotting to behead their prime minister. Russians have been blown up by Muslim Chechnyans from Moscow to Beslan. India is routinely attacked by Islamic terrorists. An elected Lebanese minister must keep in mind that a Hezbollah or Syrian terrorist - not an Israeli bomb - might kill him if he utters a wrong word. The only mystery here in the United States is which target the jihadists want to destroy first: the Holland Tunnel in New York or the Sears Tower in Chicago .

In nearly all these cases there is a certain sameness: The Koran is quoted as the moral authority of the perpetrators; terrorism is the preferred method of violence; Jews are usually blamed; dozens of rambling complaints are aired, and killers are often considered stateless, at least in the sense that the countries in which they seek shelter or conduct business or find support do not accept culpability for their actions........ (click on the title above for a link to the rest of the article in National Reviw online)

General'isimo Fidel Castro is still alive! (or Dead?)

For fun I thought I would start the Death Watch for Fidel Castro. I got the idea from a running gag from the first season of Saturday Night Live.

The death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 served as the source of one of the first catch phrases from SNL to enter the general lexicon.

Franco lingered near death for weeks before dying. On slow news days, United States network television newscasters sometimes noted that Franco was still alive, or not yet dead. The imminent death of Franco was a headline story on the NBC news for a number of weeks prior to his death on November 20.

After Franco's death, Chevy Chase, reader of the news on Saturday Night Live's comedic news segment Weekend Update, announced the dictator's death and read a quotation from Richard Nixon: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States. He earned worldwide respect for Spain through firmness and fairness.";[1] as an ironic counterpoint to this, a picture was displayed behind Chase, showing Franco standing alongside Adolf Hitler, both of them giving the "Nazi salute", a photo similar to this one: [1].

From that point on, Chase made it clear that SNL would get the last laugh at Franco's expense. "This breaking news just in", Chase would announce-- "Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead!" The top story of the news segment for several weeks running was that Generalísimo Francisco Franco was still dead. Chase would repeat the story at the end of the news segment, aided by Garrett Morris, "head of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing", whose "aid" in repeating the story involved cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting the headline. The line was also a perceived slap at then-NBC Nightly News main anchor John Chancellor, who due to his background as a foreign correspondent, felt the network should weigh its news more heavily toward world events, keeping Franco's deathwatch at the top of the headlines. Chancellor reportedly was miffed at both Chase and SNL over the running gag.

History does repeat itself!

Not a terrorist!

"It's not Islamic terrorism folks! Just a lone gunman who... you know...uh... happens to be Muslim, hates Israel and shoots random Jews."

"this very anti-Semitic shooting was a one-day story on the networks….as they chug along on Mel Gibson…It completely conforms to the Passion pattern….The worst anti-Semitism in the world seems to be in Gibson’s head, not in the Muslim world."


From Michelle Malkin's blog. (click on title above for a link.)

American Media - Decades of Cheering Castro

As news organizations update their obituaries of ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, it's worth recalling how many liberal journalists have fallen under Castro's spell over the years, sounding like paid Cuban government propagandists as they touted the "great success stories" of Castro's decades of communist rule. Peter Jennings, Katie Couric, Eleanor Clift, Kate Snow Barbara Walters lead the list. Click on the title above for a link to an outline of the Main Stream Media's Love affair with Castro

Knight spreads Wealth beyond University of Oregon

Nike chairman, Phil Knight has just agreed to gift 105 Million Dollars to Stanford University to build a business graduate school campus and some money to endow some faculty positions. Knight was an undergrad at the University of Oregon and went to grad school at Stanford. The University of Oregon is trying to get Knight to donate approximate $60 million to build a new basketball arena and has not had much success because of alleged bad feelings between Knight and Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos. Some have said Knight will not donated the money to the Ducks until Bill Moos is gone. Is Phil Knight sending a message to Bill Moos and Oregon?
(Click on title above for a link to the Portland Oregonian's front page story)

Castro- "Better Dead Than Red"

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal:
So this is what communism comes down to: a feeble near-octogenarian dictator lying in a hospital bed, bleeding from an unmentionable part of his digestive tract. As Reuters reports, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has "stepped down temporarily . . . handing over power for the first time" to Crown Prince Raul Castro...Castro has subjected Cuba's 11 million people to collectivized poverty in a police state.

Yeah, well, nobody's perfect. In his statement, Castro vows to "fight until the last drop of blood." We will be keeping an eye on his condition. May it stabilize soon.