Category Archives: Obsessions

Dinesh the Israel hater

Posted on February 13, 2014 | 4 comments

Ten days after he indicated in a public forum that he thinks Israel is an apartheid state and a liability for the United States, and despite being called on it by PJMedia, Dinesh D’Souza hasn’t said an additional word about it—in public or on his blog.

“With a large college audience, and facing an open Israel hater and supporter of the BDS movement in [unrepentent terrorist] Bill Ayers—who of course agreed with the questioner, and condemned Israel as an apartheid State–D’Souza had a great opportunity to explain why morality compels one to support the state of Israel. D’Souza had a great opportunity to push back against the atrocious lie that Israel is an apartheid state, similar to racist South Africa. He did not do that.”

I take his silence to mean that he meant what he indicated, that he also believes Israel is an apartheid state and a liability to the U.S. He’s welcome to his opinion, of course, as I am welcome to mine and I’ve removed the link to his blog from my blogroll and will stop promoting him in any way.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obsessions

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Texas & Canada: similar GDP

Posted on February 10, 2014 | 1 comment

statesrenamed

Oregon? Israel. Illinois? Mexico. New York? Brazil. New Jersey? Russia.

“Gross Domestic Product = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports). Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world…”

How about that for some American exceptionalism?

(Click map to biggerize for easier reading.)

Via Strange Maps

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, Texana, The Economy

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When Old Ironsides shelled Da Nang

Posted on February 8, 2014 | 1 comment

usscon

It was in the spring of 1845, according to the USS Constitution Museum, at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Massachusetts, where Old Ironsides is docked nearby, still afloat after more than 200 years.

Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival was then in charge of the pride of the American Revolution’s world cruise and he ordered the shelling that redistributed some of the tile on the roofs of old Da Nang. Back then the French had dubbed it Tourane—or soup bowl—for the shape of its harbor on the South China Sea.

Percival was acting on behalf of what he thought were some unfairly detained French missionaries, though the Vietnamese emperor Thiệu Trị considered them disruptive. I alluded to the incident in my Vietnam war novel The Butterfly Rose, which focuses not only on our war there but the 19th century French invasion as well.

I didn’t give much space to the shelling, apparently done by the ship’s starboard Paixhans guns, the first naval guns designed to fire explosive shells, being preoccupied by my fictional French Foreign Legion assault on Hoi An a few miles south and almost 20 years in the future, during the American civil war.

So it’s good to see the museum website’s offering of the story and you should give it a read to appreciate just how long ago American involvement in that part of the world began—almost a hundred years older than the accepted 1950s version of most contemporary histories.

Our post WWII role as world policeman, it seems, is much older than we think.

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Posted in Civil War, Guns, Obsessions, Sailing, The Culture, War Without End

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One super bowl ad you won’t see tonight

Posted on February 2, 2014 | 1 comment

It’s a trifle provocative even for my tastes, but Daniel Defense deserves its own point-of-view and, if it wasn’t for an anti-gunner in the White House you’d probably be able to see this ad when (if) you watched the super bowl tonight.

But you won’t. Not sure whether Fox killed it or the NFL did. Could be the later.Might be they’d fear losing their tax status. That’s right. The $9.5 billion NFL is a 501 (c) 6 nonprofit, meaning they are exempt from federal taxes, if you can believe that.

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Posted in Guns, Obamalot, Obsessions, The Culture

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Image

Rule 5: Candice Huffine

Candice5

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Posted on February 2, 2014 in Obsessions, Rule 5, The Culture

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NJ Gov. Christie: End the Drug War

Posted on January 31, 2014 | Comments Off on NJ Gov. Christie: End the Drug War

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he wants to end the war on drugs, while other GOP presidential hopefuls Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas Gov. Rick Perry want to stop federal enforcement of marijuana laws and let the states decide what to do about it.

Just reducing the penalties for possession in Texas would be a good start and Perry seems to favor that. Politicians know vote getters when they see them, so that’s a hopeful sign. The drug war, after all, is largely a war on marijuana and most of the people busted, jailed, convicted and imprisoned got there for marijuana use.

I doubt we’d ever see marijuana legalized for adult use in Texas, as it has been in Washington and Colorado, but then I didn’t expect it to happen there. Or anywhere, really.

Would Christie really end the failed drug war, which mainly hits minorities and the poor (and is increasing militarization of the police) if he was elected president? Hard to say. Pols lie so often. But just saying he wants to do it is a big deal. He obviously sees it as a viable issue, or he wouldn’t stick his neck out. The times they do seem to be changing.

UPDATE:  Of course it doesn’t help that Holder’s “justice” department is investigating Christie’s administration. Probably has more to do with CC’s presidential possibilities versus the Democrats than his opposition to the drug war. But, with Wormtongue, it’s smart to be paranoid.

MORE:  The former leader of the Choom Gang, meanwhile, indicates his “justice” department will continue to go easy on marijuana use in Washington and Colorado because “we don’t have . . . the resources to police whether somebody is smoking a joint on a corner.” Curious remark, actually. They sure do have the resources (i.e. local law enforcement) in states where it remains illegal, as they have proved many times.

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Posted in Obsessions, Texana, The Culture, The Drug War

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Dershowitz: D’Souza persecution partisan malice

Posted on January 30, 2014 | 3 comments

“This is an outrageous prosecution and is certainly a misuse of resources,” charged [Harvard law professor Alan M.] Dershowitz. “It raises the question of why he is being selected for prosecution among the many, many people who commit similar crimes.

“This sounds to me like it is coming from higher places. It is hard for me to believe this did not come out of Washington or at least get the approval of those in Washington.”

Nice to see even a lefty Democrat like Dershowitz incensed over this obvious political prosecution.

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Posted in Obamalot, Obsessions, The Culture

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