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It's President Bush

Posted by Bill Lewis on Monday, July 31, 2006 10:55:43 PM
Just a little pet peeve: the MSM, notably newspapers and magazines like Newsweek have a tendency to refer to President Bush by simply his last name. ("Bush did this", Bush did that"etc.)

Can't they have just a tad of decorum and call him President Bush or even The President?

We used to have respect for the office even if we couldn't stand the man in it. I know they do this do denigrate the man, but it just makes them look small, petty and childish. Some professionalism might be in order.

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Global Warming

Posted by Bill Lewis on Monday, July 31, 2006 4:54:10 PM
 

It’s been hot as hell lately, although probably no hotter than previous summers. It just seems that way the older I get.

Of course the heat brings up the topic of global warming. Are we on the verge of an apocalyptic meltdown of the polar ice? Are cities on the coasts going to be submerged? Or is it just part of a larger cycle that the earth has been going through for eons?

I certainly have no idea, but one of the things that befuddles me is the implication that we could do something about this if we really cared. My one question to this is what could we do? I mean really….exactly what could we do? I don’t mean changing the light bulbs and buying a smaller car, I mean how can we realistically convert our energy dependency on hydrocarbons to something else within the ten years or so that is left before the “tipping point”; the moment when all efforts are for naught?

For the life of me I cannot see any measures in sight to substantially change our energy sources in my lifetime. Maybe in 20, 30 or 50 years someone will figure out how to use lima beans to fuel cars, but that tipping point would long be passed.

Even if we Americans were to attempt some draconian measures, why would we think that countries like China would do the same thing? My sense of the proposed treaties in the past were pretty good at putting the major onus on us.

So I’m confused. If we can’t do anything about it, I guess it’s best to just adjust as well as possible. If we really can do something, I’d sure love to hear some realistic ideas about that. So far all I’ve heard is overheated rhetoric.

It’s fun for Al Gore to try to scare us to death, but what are the workable solutions?

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Mel Gibson

Posted by Bill Lewis on Sunday, July 30, 2006 10:49:10 PM
Mel Gibson is getting keelhauled at the Huffington Post and a few other places over his DUI arrest and apparent anti-Semitic comments.

If the comments are true, and they seem to be, he was pretty out of control, and his devils were wagging their tongues pretty hard.

I've always liked Mel Gibson. He seems like a straight shooter, as much as any Hollywood personality that I know only from TV interviews. I've enjoyed most of his films, and Braveheart is one of my favorites of all time.

His spontaneous outburst with the cops may end up costing him far more than the fine, if what I've ever heard about Hollywood and Gibson is true. He's likely to pay a price for this one for a long time.

But here's the point: We all have little devils in us. Me, you and Mel Gibson. For all the politically correct posturing of racial and ethnic and sexual diversity and harmony, deep inside we just ain't that perfect. Maybe Mel Gibson does have some anti-Semitic feelings that he has worked hard to eliminate, but under the influence, they just came out. Anybody who has ever been drunk enough and honest enough will admit that things sometimes come from a drunk's mouth they would never say sober in a hundred years.

There is nothing I know of in Mel Gibson's actions that suggest to me he is a hater. Until I learn of such things, I'm willing to give him a pass on this one. Stay sober Mel.
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Hezbollah Cowards

Posted by Bill Lewis on Sunday, July 30, 2006 1:52:47 PM

The Ottawa Citizen  is reporting a dispatch from a Canadian UN observer which suggests Hezbollah terrorists were deliberately using the UN outpost the Israeli air force attacked as a shield.

True to form, Hezbollah continues to use such tactics. Firing rockets from civilian areas, near hospitals and mosques insures any counterattack will bring civilian casualties. These scum have no concern for the Lebanese people.

When will the Lebanese wake up and see their real enemy in within?

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Shades of Vietnam?

Posted by Bill Lewis on Saturday, July 29, 2006 8:25:01 PM
Editor and Publisher is reporting data from a recent Gallup Poll:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002914438
According to the poll, 52% of adult Americans want U.S. troops our of Iraq within a year, while 19% want immediate withdrawal. In 1970, poll results were 48% and 23% respectively for a similar withdrawal from Vietnam.

Clearly, there is a loss of public support for the war in Iraq. Just as in Vietnam, things are not going as well as hoped. There is, however, some danger making such comparisons as this poll.

By 1970, the United States had combat troops in Vietnam for five years. By the beginning of that year, over 40,000 Americans had been killed.  The time frame of 1965-70 had seen not only the Tet Offensive but also the assassinations of both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. This country was in a turmoil as it had not seen since the Civil War. There was a military draft.

In 1970, it was almost impossible not to know someone in the military. Today, few members of the public can make such a claim. The public disconnect with the military has never been greater. Far fewer Americans are directly effected by this war than during Vietnam.
 
Rhetorical cliche's aside, I would really like to know why we are more quickly turning against a war that is far more critical to our continued security than was Vietnam.

We left Vietnam under duress, but the war stayed in Southeast Asia. If we leave Iraq in duress, why would the war not simply follow us home?
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What Choice Israel?

Posted by Bill Lewis on Saturday, July 29, 2006 1:28:19 PM
I find it interesting that Israel is being pilloried for its reaction to the Hizbollah attacks. The focus in the MSM seems to be the so-called havoc Israel is wreaking in residential areas in Lebanon. The fact that Hizbollah terrorists are hiding and firing from these same neighborhoods seems lost in the conventional wisdom of the media.

Hizbollah is using the same tactics perfected by the Viet Cong years ago. These tactics have become the working model of Muslim terrorists throughout the Middle East. American troops fight against this tactical model every day in Iraq and Afganistan. This model surely will be used at every opportunity by terrorist groups.

If a terrorist army was operating in Canada, near our border, and if the Canadian government claimed it had no control over them, we'd have a similiar situation. If those terrorists started lobbing rockets into Chicago, we would be crossing that border with battalions of Marines to take them out. As we routed the terrorists from the populated areas where they would hide, we would suffer the same outcry from the media.

Terrorists do not fight fair. They will never stand and fight like a conventional army. Fighting them will always be a brutish and nasty fight. Innocent people will die, but fight them we always must do.

Israel is doing the right thing...
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