The only way to know you’re sane is if you still question your sanity.

Meh. Maybe I just need to go on a good bender.

How long until Memorial Day?

So, do us all a favor this year and DON’T VOTE if you:

• Believe the Republic is one step from Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

• Believe in the depths of your heart that Conservatives are evil fascists or Liberals are stupid commies.
• Believe that the President is a moron or the Senator doesn’t believe in anything.
• Believe that war is never the answer or that war is always the answer.
• Believe that gay marriage is a civil rights issue or that homosexuality will be the undoing of us all.
• Believe that it may be neccessary “. . . to take things away from you on behalf of the common good;” or that entirely freeing the engines of commerce from taxation is good policy.
• Believe that if Kerry wins we’re all doomed or that if Bush wins we’re all doomed.

If, in your heart of hearts, you have ever put stock in any of the above statements – for the love of all that is good and holy, abstain from voting this year. You are entirely too ignorant to govern yourself let alone have any voice in the governing of the common weal.

This is an important election. I happen to think our future rests upon the outcome; but I also know that regardless of the outcome, balance will return at some point in the future. We may have to lose tens of thousands of people, hundreds of millions of dollars and decades or centuries of political evolution but things always find a way to rebalance.

It would be nice, though, if we could make the right choice now and save ourselves lots of stuff and bother.

I’ll be voting for the President because he’s the only choice this year, because he’s the best man for the job and because I believe the march of freedom can not be helped along by appealing to the policy of the mythic past.

To move ahead you need to think ahead.

The subheading reads: “The day the war turned . . .”

OK, is it just me or does running into some expected resistance and taking some expected and light casualties not seem like such a big damn deal? So, we had to fight some scrappy little camel jockeys in bypassed urban centers. That’s why we brought along the British Army. Who better knows how to fight scrappy little ideological fighters in urban areas? They’ve been battling in Northern Ireland since the start of the modern “troubles” in the 1960s. Turn the Limeys loose, the towel heads don’t stand a chance.

Lessee, in late 1944 a totally unexpected German onslaught was unleashed in the Ardennes forest. Multiple SS and Panzer divisions plowed through thin lines of combat troops and quickly caused havoc among rear-echelon troops (cooks, mechanics, and the like). Despite complete air superiority, close air support was unavailable for the first several days of the assault due to bad weather – snow and low cloud cover. Regardess, in a matter of days, our poorly supplied and equipped troops stood their ground in pockets, slowly fought their way to encirclement of the German thrust and began the destruction of the last strong elements of the Wehrmact and the eventual march to victory in the spring of 1945.

Sound familiar? Right up to the “poorly supplied and equipped troops” part I think it does. Oh yeah, except for the “totally unexpected German onslaught” bit. We have moved hundreds of miles through enemy territory with neglible losses. We have spared the lives of tens of thousands of the enemy through our own restraint. We are about to engage the remainder of the enemy’s top notch forces – kindly coming out to battle us at their severe disadvantage – while cowardly units of suicidal terrorists roam our flanks and rear scoring minor successes from time to time but inevitably being wiped out before they can threaten again. All of this was expected and planned for and our equipment is still in complete working order with no lack of supplies. In addition, we are currently landing and unloading tons of humanitarian relief supplies to ease the suffering of civilians – and all this while combat still rages at the front.

Oh yeah, I think we ought to just throw up our hands right now. Naturally we can never stand against a bunch of sand monkeys with decades old technology fighting because some terrorist bastard has a gun to their head. Yep, no hope, no hope at all.

As my own personal idol says, “I hate you all. And if any of you truly cared about me you’d all kill yourselves.”

Now that’s just bad ass. Reminds me of William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 who mumbled that his final destination was “salt water.” What lies in wait along the way matters no more to our boys in the desert than what laid in Sherman’s path.

On that subject, I thought we’d be in Baghdad by the end of last week. I truly didn’t see any reason not to think so. What I hadn’t considered is the mind-boggling extent to which we’ve tried to preserve Iraqi lives and property. Our insistence on this point is so extreme it seems we’re even willing to endanger our own troops to ensure Iraqi well-being. That’s just amazing to me and very indicative of the sort of nation we are. Iraq is not the enemy, Saddam and his cronies are our enemy and so we have been doing our damnedest to ensure that death and destruction only comes to Saddam and his protectors. Does anyone honestly think that any other nation in history would put their own cooks and maintenance personnel at risk in order to keep advancing and eliminate the real target? Not bloody likely.

I do hope, however, that if we lose too many more prisoners or take more casualties we’ll cut loose. I doubt highly we’ve seen shock and awe. I know we’re capable of much more. How about cluster bombing a thoroughfare right through the middle of the Republican Guard? Does anyone doubt we could cut an interstate for our people, right through the middle of their armor, within a matter of hours? I reckon the Iraqis are getting the idea. You notice the two Apache pilots were having a bite to eat and something to drink while they were being interviewed. A sight different that the treatment of our POWs during the weekend.

Let them fight back. We could teach them in an instant that it’s in their own best interest not to resist. In the meantime, roll on lads. Roll on.

The Academy should have known he’d do something stupid and sure enough, he mouthed off about the President and the war. Typical BS. I had hoped he’d be lustily booed and fortunately he was, albeit with some cheers mixed in. I had expected he’d be roundly denounced and his behaviour would be largely ignored by the media – so much for that hope.

You’d think the rotund son of a bitch was some sort of hero. Standing up against the oligarchy, etc when all he really wants to do is rewrite the Constitution to further his agenda.

It occurs to me, after watching Barbra Streisand’s remarks about her happiness at living in a country where all are entitled to speak what they believe that she, and everyone like her is full of shit. Trust me, if I were to go forth and proclaim that I believe all white women with overlarge noses are part of a cabal designed to make Clinton the President for all time I do think a few liberals (not to mention everyone else) would have something to say against my freedom of speech. I know for a fact if anyone were to leap up at the Academy Awards and speak in defense of life, the Second Amendment or the Electoral College they’d be booed far more loudly and lustily than even that worthless blob of cellulite, Michael Moore.

So much for freedom of speech. Your freedom only extends as far as you toe the line of the thought police. Never forget that. Orwell got it wrong, it’s not rightists that will restrict your freedoms – it’s the do-gooders, the zealots and nanny-state nicompoops who will rob you of your right to think different.

Fight ‘em, every way you can, or one day you may wake up to find babies legally murdered by the millions, fat bastards attacking one of the original amendments of the Constitution and winning awards for it, words twisted until they have no meaning any more, democratically elected leaders compared to one of the worst tyrants and murderers in history (I don’t mean Saddam) and the worst tyrant and murderer of the 20th century (not Saddam either) celebrated for his vision.

Oh never mind, it’s already happened. Did somebody say pitchforks and torches?