INVASION USA

No, I'm not going to go on about illegal immigration again. I want to talk about a very interesting video I viewed recently. It was done by the Naval Surface Warfare Center and showed the Marine Corps' "Project Metropolis". http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...a_ining&nl=en

For those of you who never attended one of Uncle Sammy's Schools for Wayward Youth, the military has an acronym for everything. Taking a crap is DDEP, Directed Defecation Evacuation Procedure. And MOUT stands for Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain. Simply translated, that means city fighting, ala Stalingrad, Hue City, Grozny, Baghdad.

I guess I am dating myself here, but back in my active duty days, every MOUT site looked just like a Central European village as, before the Iron Curtain came down, this was where the high command expected to have to fight the next war.

If the government and the military truly is preparing to fight the next war, I find it pretty chilling that the Project Metropolis MOUT site looks exactly like Mainstreet, USA, complete with a big old church on the corner and a red brick schoolhouse amidst the apartments and single-family dwellings.

Our troops are actually fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and, if certain politicians get their way, will probably be fighting in Iran soon, although troop strength is so thin already they may have to take away their ships and sent in the Navy on foot. At any rate, how come Project Metropolis doesn't closely resemble typical Southwest Asian and Persian Gulf Arab cities?

Maybe it's just me, but watching the first minute or two of that video, with the Marines storming into Mainstreet, USA from an air assault, supported by Harriers, Cobras, and LVTPs, seemed positively Orwellian. Who among our possible enemies, from China to North Korea to the Gulf states, could possibly land on this continent an invasion force large enough to take over a U.S. city? Or maybe the government forsees the need to suppress its own peasants, aka "us", at some future date? Recall Stalin "collectivizing" the farms of the Ukraine via machine gunning everyone who said, "No."

Nothing against the Marines, but back in the 90's a survey was sent out amongst the jarheads stationed in California to see how many of them would confiscate firearms from the American public by force if ordered to do so.

Just some things that make me go, "Hmmmmmm."

POLITICAL CHOICES AHEAD....FECES OR DUNG?

Well, it is pretty obvious that the Republikrats learned absolutely nothing from the mid-term elections. As if they haven't turned off and spit upon their conservative base enough, look at who they are trying to run as presidential material.

In this corner we have Rudy "Da Nu Yawk Gooomball" with his fine record of banning guns and supporting gays and abortion, guaranteed conservative crowd pleasers; we won't even go into his personal life. Then there's John "The Manchurian Candidate" , one of the Keating 5 from the now forgotten Savings & Loan scandal, media "Maverick" who is real close to Billy Jeff Bubba Bob Klinton when it comes to his deeply-held "Core Values"; i.e. "I'm saying whatever the polls are saying today." Last and certainly least is Mit the pet "RINO", Republican in Name Only. Now really, has anything good come out of Taxachussettes in the past 150 years? I see he just recently joined the NRA to show his long-term deeply held convictions about the 2nd Amendment, which he just now discovered might bring him a few votes.

The only halfway decent folks the Republikrats are running are Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul, either one of which I would come back to the Republikrat Party to vote for. Neither one, of course, has a snowball's chance in Hades of even getting support. Both the mainstream media and the Republikan Party blue-blood old-money snobs loathe real conservatives, just like they did Ronald Reagan, who certainly did better than any of the flunkies they wanted to run.

And in the Red corner...hoooo boy...The Wicked Witch of the East. I do not use the term evil lightly, but in this case I find it justified. Even fellow Demonrats are getting disgusted with this megalamaniac. On the other side of the coin, we have Hussein Obama, whose claim to fame seems to be mainly, "Hey, I've never been indicted for anything." To top it all off, the Dems had a muslin Iman give the opening "prayers" at their convention. To thos who may have been living under a rock for the past 30 years, the "Religion of Peace" calls us the Great Satan, has called for us to be destroyed, and has committed numerous acts of terrorism that cost thousands of lives.

Meanwhile, let's check out who we've already got "leading" the nation. We won't even bother to beat the dead Bush horse; I have trouble even finding the hard-core Bushies who once defended him. So how about Nancy Pelosi's "The Most Ethical Congress in History"? As a short aside, how come during 8 years of scandals and mysterious deaths the press never mentioned Bill Clinton's first inagural promise to have "The Most Ethical Administration in History"?

Anyway, of the 535 boys and girls on the Hill, 36 have been accused of spousal abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 19 are bad check writers, 117 have helped bankrupt at least 2 businesses, 3 have done time for assault, 71 have such bad credit they can't get a credit card, 14 have been arrested on drug charges, 8 have been caught shoplifting, 21 are currently undergoing lawsuits, and 84 have been arrested for drunk driving. And yet they somehow know better than us peasants who have to play by the rules, and legislate how we live (they exempt themselves from the laws they pass), and can be "responsible" for billions of our tax dollars?

Anyone noticing a trend here? Like maybe the Federal Government is rapidly spinning out of control? And when given a choice to cast your vote for either feces or dung, does it really even count for anything anymore?

"The Hunt for Confederate Gold"

I just finished reading Thomas Moore’s novel “The Hunt for Confederate Gold.” The book is two books really, one part set during the fall of the Confederacy intertwined with one part set in the present. The part set in the past follows the adventures of a young Confederate officer who is charged by the Confederate treasury secretary with the task of keeping the Confederacy’s gold reserves out of the hands of the invading Yankees. The part set in the present follows a disillusioned Iraq war veteran who returns to college and ends up on a quest to find the hidden treasure before the Feds do.

I actually enjoyed the part set in the 19th century more than the present, although there is less of it in the book. That part was more of a rousing adventure, filled with danger, as the young officer must sneak the gold out of the south, aided only by a handful of military cadets. (I’m being deliberately vague here, in case you read the book.) The part set in the present is less exciting and more political. The present day heroes are neo-Confederates who have plans for the gold to secure the liberty of the Southern people.

Author Thomas Moore is apparently a true son of the South and paints a glowing picture of the Confederacy as the last great hope for human freedom. While he rightfully points out the tyrannical sins of the 19th century Union and it’s modern day Fed successors, he seems to gloss over the sins of the Confederacy. Besides affecting the slaves, slavery was an immoral institution that had to be propped up with equally immoral laws. If you can get busted for teaching a black person to read the Bible, for instance, a libertarian utopia it ain’t. Still, the book is useful in challenging the notion of many of us Yankees that the Union was absolute good and the Confederacy was absolute evil, that the war was between high-minded abolitionists and wicked slave owners. Moore points out that the Civil War, like many wars, was more about money than ideals.

All in all, I recommend “The Hunt for Confederate Gold.” It’s from Fusilier Books and available wherever fine books are sold.

Iowa Health Nazis Update

There is work afoot in the Iowa statehouse to crackdown on the state’s smokers. There are currently two competing bills, one which would allow localities to ban public smoking and one that would call for a statewide ban all together, as well as plans to raise the per pack tax on cigarettes.

However, some in the statehouse, while feeling that these bills are a good start, say that the bills don’t go far enough. State Senator Heinrich Von Schnoot (D- Ankeny) has proposed a bill that he says will provide a “final solution to the smoking problem” in Iowa. “Our anti-smoking propagan- public education campaign and other measures have been fairly successful. But now it is time for more, now it is time for action!” Von Schnoot said, banging his fist on his desk in a recent interview.

Senate File X417, “The Von Schnoot Resettlement Act” provides funding for special “health camps” for smokers as well as railcar procurement. “So these vermin wish to smoke, eh?” the senator asked, adjusting his monocle. “Then we will give them somewhere where they can really smoke.” Von Schnoot then laughed maniacally and twisted the end of his moustache. According to Von Schnoot’s proposal, Iowa smokers would be “resettled to the east” although the good senator was a bit hazy on exact locations. He did state that it would be a “nice place,” so nice in fact that resettled smokers wouldn’t want to leave it to visit home or even take time away from festivities to call loved ones. Senator Von Schnoot said, “There will be large fields for them to run in and lots of rabbits for them to chase, or whatever these scum do. But don‘t try to find the place, okay?”

So far the "Resettlement Act" has earned widespread support among legislators on both sides of the aisle. State Senator Francine Nedbetter (R- Storm Lake) said: “We look forward to working in a bipartisan manner on this important, commonsense legislation. We are committed to improving health in Iowa.” An amendment to the bill, offered by Nedbetter, would equip Iowa State Troopers with new uniform footgear, in the form of knee-high jackboots, although their current brown shirts would be retained.