Open Letter to Europe

From Victor Davis Hanson.

I wish I could write stuff like this…..

Things I find while looking for other things -

I love finding little gems on the internet. Think the problems the media is having lately are new?

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers - Thomas Jefferson

Heh.

Well, ever wonder where the Welfare State is leading?

This is absolutely amazing.

Not that sex is a bad thing. But a human right? Wow. Who knew?

I think she’s onto something here -

This is a really interesting analysis.

H/T to Stephen Green

Rest in Peace

Lou Rawls has passed away. A truly great voice silenced, rest in peace.

One possible solution to an earlier post

This Blog is exceptionally well written. I check it often.

Misleading Headline Department

“Court upholds Martha Stewart’s stock trading conviction”

Since she was NOT convicted of any such thing. She was convicted of lying to a Federal Official. Which they mention in the body of the story.

Story here.

Uh oh…..

This is NOT good.

Guess who’s celebrating troop level reductions in Iraq

Murtha? Kerry? Pelosi? Nope.

The Everything You Know is Wrong Department - Continued

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana I have seen many, many comparisons of the current war in Iraq to Viet Nam made by people. So without further ado, a few myths about the Viet Nam conflict: Viet Nam was Nixon’s and the Republican’s war. Let’s see what the Wall has to say about that, shall we? This is the definitive tabulation of war death stats as near as I can determine. Just glancing through it, it clearly shows that deaths peaked in 1968 then tapered down. Since Nixon did not take office until January, 1969 there’s a bit of a problem with stating it was Nixon’s war. This is not to say the war did not continue under Nixon. I merely point out that the heaviest fighting occurred when Lyndon Johnson was the President. In fact, it was a Democrat (Johnson) who escalated the war in the first place. The casualties were disproportionately minorities. Once again, from the Wall, this is not a true statement. I calculate that close to 85% of the casualties were white, all other groups combined total just over 15%. I’m not sure what the Statistical Handbook of the US said for that time period, but I would be willing to bet that minorities made up more than 15% of the US population during that era. Most of the dead were draftees. Again, the Wall disproves this statement. Actually only about 30% of the dead were draftees. This is actually not a surprise if you understand that the draft was designed to encourage young men to enlist. By enlisting, you could theoretically get better training and a chance at a better posting. One thing that did surprise me is that the wall shows close to 700 Marine Corps dead were draftees. I always thought they were an all volunteer branch of the service. I’ll add more as I find them.

The Everything You Know is Wrong Department

This should be getting more attention.

The very first post - 6 January, 2006

Well, having ranted and raved often enough on other people’s Blogs, I decided it was time to give them a fixed target to hit. Hence, my first experiment at actually having my own Blog. I have absolutely no idea whether anyone will ever actually read this or not. Heck - I don’t even know if I have anything useful or original to say that anyone would WANT to read.

This Blog is a work in progress. I do not yet know where it is going or what it will look like in the end.

Gaius Arbo
06-January-2006