I Very, Very Sincerely Apologize

(To the pig.)

John Murtha appeared on Hardball tonight, we have an exclusive picture.

This Is Very, Very Simple

Representative John Murtha has given an interview to Capitol Hill reporters alleging Marines murdered civilians and said of the alleged massacre: 

"“It’s much worse than was reported in Time magazine,” Murtha, a Democrat, former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “There was no firefight. There was no [bomb] that killed those innocent people,” Murtha explained, adding there were “about twice as many” Iraqis killed than Time had reported.

This is very simple. If the crimes alleged were committed, then the guilty should be charged and given their day in court.

If the incident is found to have not happened, then Representative Murtha should immediately resign his position, because he has frankly abrogated his responsibility as a member of Congress and actively charged fellow Americans with crimes that they did not commit. If Representative Murtha refuses to resign, the Congress should remove him for cause. Period. And I'll be one of the people screaming for it.

It's very, very simple.

UPDATE: I was so ticked when I wrote this that I forgot to add one thing: Representative Murtha, who likes to point out his years in the military and his great love for the troops, should know enough to keep his mouth shut when there are troops in the Field, in harms way. If he lacks the sense to keep his mouth shut and decides his politics are more important than the lives of soldiers, he does not deserve to hold the office he does.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has a really thorough roundup as well. Frankly, I would not be able to be civil to Murtha if I ever met him in person.

UPDATE: This is the website of Diana Irey. She's challenging John Murtha for the seat in Congress in that district. I will be donating - the first time ever to any candidate. I encourage people to do the same.

UPDATE: Wow, this one is getting people upset - and it should regardless of your politics. Putting fellow Americans at risk for some shoddy political gain is beneath contempt. Others blogging: Blue Star Chronicles, Flopping Aces, Mac's Mind, The Wide Awake Café, Sweetness and Light, Carry On America, California Conservative, Expose the Left , Verifrank,  Political Pitbull, Hugh Hewitt and Boots and Sabers. I only find a very few lefties linking this story, most repeating the Vietnam meme, so I won't link them at all. Suffice it to say, if you believe it's cool to kill your fellow Americans, do not even try to comment here. You will be banned - permanently. There is no appeal on this one - it is highly personal for me.

UPDATE: Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for linking. Please do take a look around the place. More here, here and here.

UPDATE: A blog named The Daily Irrelevant has pointed to a blog named "patriotboy" that used extremely selective quoting from this and several other blogs completely out of context. Not one - not one - of the blogs quoted to prove the Irrelevant's original blogger's point has said what they are accusing us of. I apologize to the Irrelevant. I missed the link to the original blog that was being pointed to.

Descent Into Silliness

Ok, I just read something by Greg Sargent. I have to say, his post is downright silly. (I'm sure I'll hear all about this from several people).

Here's why: It's a very long, very speculative description of an FBI spokesman refusing to confirm or deny what investigative tool(s) are being used in the leak investigations. Specifically, the speculation that National Security Letters might possibly, potentially, maybe, sort of, could be being used. In a way.  Or not.

But it sounds all very mysterious and very dramatic and very heroic, what with shining light into dense fog and what not.

And you know what that long post boils down to? An FBI spokesman will not discuss methodology of an ongoing investigation with a reporter.

So what? Why in the world would they discuss any aspect of an ongoing investigation with a reporter?

Just plain silly.

Happy Birthday

The Mona Lisa turns 500 years old this year. Maybe. Or something. I wonder how old that is in blog years?

Some Fencing Approved

Not enough, but some.

The Senate voted to build 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the Mexican border Wednesday and clashed over citizenship for millions of men and women who live in the United States illegally.

Amid increasingly emotional debate over election-year immigration legislation, senators voted 83-16 to add fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the southern border. It marked the first significant victory in two days for conservatives seeking to place their stamp on the contentious measure.

But, it's nice to see some things never change. When I lived in Illinois, I thought Dick Durbin was a complete tool. Which he proved yet again today:

"What we have here has become a symbol for the right wing in American politics," countered Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. He said if the proposal passed, "our relationship with Mexico would come down to a barrier between our two countries."

Maybe it's time it did, Dick.

But, it's nice to see some things never change. When I lived in Illinois, I thought Dick Durbin was a complete tool. Which he proved yet again today:

"What we have here has become a symbol for the right wing in American politics," countered Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. He said if the proposal passed, "our relationship with Mexico would come down to a barrier between our two countries."

Maybe it's time it did, Dick.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Update

Peaktalk is reporting that Minister of Immigration Verdonk has been forced to reconsider her decision to revoke Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Dutch Citizenship. It also appears that Verdonk has destroyed her own political career in the process of attempting to pull off her little power play. It appears that Verdonk was trying to get herself a tough image as the Dutch Iron Lady.

Whoops. Methinks she's a bit rusty right now….

UPDATE: Article from Spiegel which appears to have been written prior to the latest developments. It has some good reaction from various people, though. I think this was a black eye for the Dutch and I think a lot of people are unhappy about it. Talk about a bad move.

Then she switches on the TV set. The parliament is currently debating her case, and each MP who takes to the podium has nothing but criticism for the immigration minister's approach, especially her "snelheid," or speed. The parliamentary leader of the Party for Freedom and Democracy, Willibrord van Beek, asks: "Why now? Why Ali? Why this way?" Geert Wilders, an independent MP, says: "This is a dark day for our democracy."

101st Blog Of The Day

Today my ongoing project to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day brought me to The Sqiggler. There's some very interesting linkage about the NSA story. Squiggler is also quite moderate on the immigration reform kerfluffle.

Trapped inside a Tom Clancy novel - great line.

Turf War

This is a first. A homeowner in Adelanto, California called the local police to report a theft.

Someone stole his yard. The whole thing, every blade of grass, every shrub and even the sprinkler system. Wait - it gets better. The thief lived nearby and a neighbor witnessed the theft and reported where the stolen merchandise was. Police arrested the thief and returned the materials to the homeowner. We guess he liked the landscaping. A lot.

We've heard of yard sales, but this beats all.

A Real Shame

The Boy Scouts have been using a tall ship, the Argus, since 1972 to teach sailing and maritime history. Earlier this year a Coast Guard inspection revealed dry rot and rusted fittings which would require about $1.5 million dollars to repair. Unable to come up with enough money, the Boy Scouts are selling the 101-year old ship on eBay. Bidding starts at $75,000 unless a benefactor comes forward in time to save the ship.

What a shame.

More On Immigration

Some people are beginning to see the real problems with rapid influxes of illegal immigrants. I've never seen this particular problem pointed out. But now that it has been, it seems very obvious. Robert Samuelson, writing in today's Washington Post points out that there are two problems bound to intersect in the near future. Intersect like two fully loaded freight trains meeting head on.

President Bush's immigration speech mostly missed the true nature of the problem. We face two interconnected population issues. One is aging; the other is immigration. We aren't dealing sensibly with either, and as a result we face a future of unnecessarily heightened political and economic conflict. On the one side will be older baby boomers demanding all their federal retirement benefits. On the other will be an expanding population of younger and poorer Hispanics — immigrants, their children and grandchildren — increasingly resentful of their rising taxes that subsidize often-wealthier and unrelated baby boomers.

Does this look like a harmonious future?

Samuelson has just pointed out an extremely large elephant in the living room, hasn't he? We have a problem coming at us in only a few years. It will not be an easy one to solve. He points out that it is not exactly illegal immigration that is causing problems. Rather it is the disproportionate number of low skilled, poorly educated workers.

The central problem is not illegal immigration. It is undesirably high levels of poor and low-skilled immigrants, whether legal or illegal, most of whom are Hispanic. Immigrants are not all the same. An engineer making $75,000 annually contributes more to the American economy and society than a $20,000 laborer. On average, the engineer will assimilate more easily.

Testifying recently before Congress, University of Illinois economist Barry Chiswick — a respected immigration scholar — said this of low-skilled immigrants:

"Their presence in the labor market increases competition for low-skilled jobs, reducing the earnings of low-skilled native-born workers. . . . Because of their low earnings, low-skilled immigrants also tend to pay less in taxes than they receive in public benefits, such as income transfers (e.g., the earned income tax credit, food stamps), public schooling for their children, and publicly provided medical services. Thus while the presence of low-skilled immigrant workers may raise the profits of their employers, they tend to have a negative effect on the well-being of the low-skilled native-born population, and on the native economy as a whole."

Which is quite true. I've worked with a lot of immigrant engineers over the years. Many are as American as a native born person in a very short time indeed. So we are in a dilemma. The pro-illegal immigrant activists are agitating for more and more low skilled workers. An open border. What is likely to result is not a better life for them in the long run. It will result in this country regressing and being absorbed into the third world. How's that for a cheery thought.

There are striking parallels between how we've treated immigration and aging. In both cases, the facts are hiding in plain view. But we've chosen to ignore them because candor seems insensitive and politically awkward. Who wants to offend the elderly or Latinos? The result is to make our choices worse by postponing them. A sensible society would long ago have begun adapting to longer life expectancies, better health and greater wealth by making careful cuts in Social Security and Medicare. We've done little.

Unfortunately, the two problems intersect. Just coincidentally, the Census Bureau projects both the 65-and-over population and the Hispanic population to be about a fifth of the total by 2030 (the elderly population is now about 12 percent). The tax increases that will be required to pay for existing federal commitments to the elderly are on the order of 30 to 40 percent. People who don't think there will be conflicts between older beneficiaries and younger taxpayers — Hispanic or not — are deluding themselves. People who imagine there won't be more conflicts between growing numbers of poor Latinos and poor African Americans for jobs and political power are also deluding themselves.

As the president says, we need a "comprehensive" immigration policy. He's right on some elements: controlling the border; providing reliable identification cards for legal immigrants; penalizing employers that hire illegal immigrants; providing some legal status for today's illegal immigrants. But he's wrong in wanting to expand the number of low-skilled immigrants based on the fiction of U.S. labor "shortages." In his testimony, economist Chiswick rightly argued that we should do the opposite — give preferences to skilled immigrants. We should be smart about the future; right now, we're not.

And that pretty well says it all, doesn't it? We're not being smart at all. Neither are our politicians.

Sometimes We Scare Ourselves

Every once in a while we are so prescient that we almost frighten ourselves around here. It was only yesterday we predicted that Ward Churchill would not do the honorable thing and resign.

Today in Counterpunch, he confirmed our prediction. He complains of the makeup of the panel, the process they used, their lack of knowledge of the methodology of his field of study, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum nauseam.

He concludes that he rejects and will contest the findings.

Somebody give the man a guitar so he can sing an appropriate protest song. The Beatles I'm A Loser seems apt.

I'm a loser
I'm a loser
And I'm not what I appear to be
(Lennon-McCartney)

How To Boost Polls

Bill Hobbs has some very strong advice for President Bush.

George W. Bush isn't at 29 percent because he's lost support among moderates and liberals - he's at 29 percent because he has been too willing to cave in to moderates and liberals.

The recipe for restoring his popularity to above 50 percent is simple: Bush must screw the Left every chance he gets.

He goes on to give a number of examples. You know what? If you look at what just happened in Pennsylvania, Bill might just have hit this issue right on the head, too.

Sending A Message

Whether national level politicians in the Republican party are smart enough right now to understand what just happened in Pennsylvania only time will tell. The party base revolted and threw out a large number of incumbents. The people who got tossed were very senior, had an enormous amount of clout and had strong fundraising ability.

And they got tossed out on their ears in the primary. They lost to newcomers with a reform message. By the next election cycle, yo can expect massive challenges in primaries to incumbents. And a lot of incumbents are going to lose and lose big if they do not change their ways very quickly.

Brightbill, 63, a lawmaker since 1982, lost to Mike Folmer, 50, a tire salesman who served briefly on Lebanon City Council and preached a message that it's "time for Republicans to be Republicans again." Brightbill came under fire for becoming a tax-and-spend career politician.

"The people have spoken," Jubelirer, 69, said shortly after congratulating his challenger, Blair County Commissioner John Eichelberger. "They have said this is a time for change. It is a historic year."

Eichelberger, 47, said the race was about redefining the Republican Party.

Pittsburgh entrepreneur Glen Meakem, founder and former CEO of FreeMarkets, said Eichelberger's win represents a victory for people who believe the private sector — and not government — drives growth and jobs for Pennsylvania. He supported Eichelberger early.

Note that this is dramatically different from what is being done to Joe Lieberman. His challenger is being supported by the "netroots" who are the real drivers of the challenge. In other words a majority of out-of-state people are driving that effort. The Pennsylvania effort was a grassroots drive by local people. Huge difference.

Republican politicians in Washington had better be thinking about this. And changing their ways.

Talk About Timely

Almost as soon as the post about 40mm cannon shells went up this morning, this article from the Telegraph shows up. Ferry passengers were prevented from landing at the Twelve Quays ferry terminal on the Mersey after a 1,000 pound German bomb from World War Two was discovered floating near the terminal.

Two ferries carrying 250 passengers and crew were stranded for almost eight hours yesterday after a 1,000lb German wartime bomb was discovered floating in the Mersey.

It was detected by the sonar of a Royal Navy warship and last night bomb disposal experts towed it out to sea to be detonated.

Speculation is that the bomb was dislodged from it's resting place by high tides. It is believed to be a panzerbombe, a device used against shipping and fortifications. Divers marked the bomb with warnings, then set about getting it to a safe place for disposal.

At around 8.30am divers returned to the bomb, attaching a flotation bag which within 90 minutes had raised it to within 10ft of the surface.

The bomb was then securely strapped and towed into the middle of the river.

This allowed the two passenger ferries, Mersey Viking and Dublin Viking, from Belfast and Dublin respectively, to dock.

Merseyside Police and the coastguard service then assisted the Royal Navy in the operation to tow the bomb to the North Bar light in Liverpool Bay.

It was then lowered back on to the seabed and packed with plastic explosives ready for detonation.

According to a naval source, the minehunter was in the Mersey searching for the body of a missing businessman, as well as conducting a survey of the estuary bed.

As mentioned earlier - these things are still dangerous after all these years and must be disposed of properly (which basically means detonating them since they are by now too corroded to actually try to disarm).

They were lucky they found this one or it could have been a lot worse.

Palestinians Threaten US And Europe

The al Aksa Martyrs Brigade - the fancy name for the terrorist wing of the terrorist party Fatah, is threatening US and European economic and civilian interests.

The threat, the first of its kind, came as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled to hold talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin on the severe financial crisis in the PA territories. Moreover, the threat by Abbas's Fatah party came as Palestinians marked the 58th anniversary of the nakba, or catastrophe (the secular anniversary of Israel's independence).

"We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries," said a leaflet issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad."

Another faction gets even more extreme:

Another armed group affiliated with Fatah, the Abu Rish Brigades, threatened to launch a new intifada unless the international community agreed to fund the PA. "This will be a merciless intifada that will destroy everything," said Abu Haroon, a spokesman for the group in the Gaza Strip.

"We will plan and carry out more martyrdom attacks inside the Green Line regardless of the price and effort," he warned. "Those who are imposing the sanctions on the Palestinians will soon regret their decision."

This whole thing could have been settled while Arafat was still alive, but the chances have been squandered time after time after time. Maybe the world finally turning it's collective back on the Palestinians will finally bring them to reach a settlement and get on with life instead of worshiping death.

One can hope.