FOOD FOR THOUGHT … IT MAY BE YOUR LAST MEAL

Click HERE. And don’t miss the inset window on the end.

From the good folks at FrontPageMag.Com.

Can it get any plainer? Yes? Then Check This Out.

And being it's the end of February and they're still here ...

Nuke Iran, Syria and the US Senate Now

From one damn proud American Infidel

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

In what was one of the largest “set-piece” battles of the Viet Nam War, the Battle of the Ia Drang River Valley pretty much set the tone for the NVA for not participating in anymore fights of that kind.

I worked in there after the battle and had a couple of patrols go bad fast. Aside from being a scary place, it was also a beautiful one, filled with bamboo groves, tigers and other assorted wildlife above and beyond the two-footed kind.

But for those 1st Cav troopers who fought in the aforementioned battle, I doubt beauty is a word they’d use.

This battle was chronicled in Joe Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once … and Young, which was the basis for the Mel Gibson movie by the same name.

(An aside: if anyone out there wants to know how to cover a war, check out Joe’s work. I had the honor of conversing him when I first started writing, and he’s as stand-up as they come.)

Anyway … in the movie about the battle for LZ X-Ray, chopper pilot — Bruce Crandall — stood out and he was — finally — awarded the MOH by President Bush. It was 41 years late, but better late than never. Here’s the story.

IWO JIMA

Just in case you forgot ...

Today is the day that the five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

The famous photo (which actually shows the second flag raising) was taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press.A patrol led by Lt. Harold Schreir raised a small flag on top of Mt. Suribachi. at 1020 ours.

The front four in the image are (left to right), PFC Ira Hayes, PFC Franklin Sousley, Navy Corpsman PHM 2/C John Bradley, and Cpl. Harlon Block. The back two are Sgt. Michael Strank, behind Sousley, and PFC Rene Gagnon, behind Bradley.

Three of the flag raisers, Sousley, Block, and Strank, were killed in the battle for the island, which was declared secure on March 16, 1945; 6,821 Americans had died, as had nearly the entire 21,000-man force of Japanese (1,083 POWs). Over 25,000 Marines of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisons were either killed or wounded.

After the war, Gagnon, Hayes and Bradley (the only survivors), posed for sculptor Felix W. de Weldon, who constructed the statue that became the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Inscribed on the statue's base is the tribute of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to the fighting men of Iwo Jima: "Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue." Opposite this, is the inscription: "In honor and in memory of men of the United States Marine Corps who have given their lives to their country since November 10, 1775." The Memorial was officially dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 10, 1954.

Semper Fi.

GLOBAL BS

Or, rather, global warming is BS.

The media, left, etc., et al, shout down any scientist who dares point out the realities of climate change for one big reason: the GWB (no, that means global warming business) means $BIG$ business.

Tired of the cost and the BS … or the sheer inanity of having the people of the US and the businesses that support their lifestyle pay through the nose for something that is a natural phenomena? For something that is a geologically cyclical event with — admittedly — some actionable requirements that happen to already be implemented?

Read on.

From my friends at The Patriot:

“Please join fellow Patriots and sign this petition to Stop Albert Gore and Reject the UN's Global Warming Treaty. Gore is reenergizing the movement advocating Kyoto [ Hey! Wasn't she married to John Lennon? — GPJ ]compliance. We urge you to sign this petition today, and reject Gore’s advocacy for UN control of the U.S. economy.

In order to encourage serious consideration of this issue by the Bush administration and Congress, we must collect over 100,000 signatures. Please sign and then forward this invitation to all of your family members, friends and associates.

Click here to sign this petition online.”

HEY, WHY CAN’T WE HAVE A WRECK?

The USS John F. Kennedy [CV 67], which hasn't been deployed since 2004, is the last petroleum-powered aircraft carrier in the US fleet. Virginia legislators denied the Pentagon's FY 2006 request to retire the carrier, but as Defense Industry Daily reported a year ago, attitudes changed once they were presented with the estimated $2+ billion cost of restoring her to fighting condition.

It would seem that even the Kennedy’s days of serving as a stateside training platform have come to an end, as a recent contract begins the process of decommissioning the ship.

So it seems like every other state gets a ship to sink and then dive and fish on … and this one would make for a doozy.

Get the reef people in New Jersey and New York together, as well as the dive and fishing communities in both states and I bet it could be pulled off. Lot’s of money in big sunken ships for recreation that any coastal community would like to get their hands on. Why not ours?

SISIFIED NASCAR

Maybe the old timers are right. Maybe NASCAR – in its chase for fans and TV dollars – has just gotten too damn sophisticated for itself.

Bring back the good old days, I say.

Mikey Waltrip gets busted for a fuel additive in his new Toyota. Toyota is mortified, Waltrip’s crew chief and team manager are fined and tossed … and a few days before that, the crew chiefs for Matt Kenseth, Casey Kahne, Scott Riggs and Elliot Sadler were all fined for tinkering with their cars.

What do we have to look forward to if NASCAR is going to punish ingenuity?

Parity? Jesus, that word has ruined just about every sport in which it has appeared! (Let’s not even start talking about the COT … that may very well end up a nail in the coffin.)

I have no problem with guys cheating. If you get caught before the race you start at the back of the pack … or even start a lap down. If you get caught after the race, you forfeit, plain and simple.

But this fining and suspension and BS all because some crew chiefs or owners think they can outsmart the tech inspectors is PART OF RACING. Or at least I thought it was.

And what NASCAR is doing is the same thing the SCCA did back in the 70s when the Chaparral 2J came along. You couldn’t beat the “sucker” Chaparral, so outlaw it. That was the beginning of the end of the old Can Am series, which was some of the greatest racing – and innovation in motorsport – ever.

While all kinds of cool stories are evolving … Toyota’s finally here, Montoya, Almendinger, Galliland and Rudd, plus James Hylton (the 72-year old former NASCAR champ) and more … NASCAR is playing CSI goes to Wall Street.

We wanna see racing …and if a little cheating goes on, well … hell, the sport started out as a spin off of moonshining!

Let ‘em cheat … spend your time trying to catch ‘em. Now that’d be a whole lot more fun.

BASTIONS OF FREE THOUGHT … MY ASS

The loony leftwing professors at schools like New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley, churn out liberal robots who goose step through life like Nazi Sturm Abteilung, following the latest anti-American Fuhrer.

Seig heil-ing at every weird and whacky idea – as long as it’s anti-American – the students go on and perpetuate these idiots’ philosophy after graduation (well, they usually get around to admitting the Reich wasn’t real about the time they start having to earn a living).

One of the tenets of the American educational system – the latter, in some cases, an oxymoron if ever – is teaching students how to think … not what to think. This is something at which the tenured masses fail woefully, feeling their “important” time is better spent inserting an America-is-always-wrong philosophy, rather than doing what they are morally responsible to do: teach, not preach (remember that for your next protest sign!).

And we wonder why today’s crop of erstwhile journalism school grads are guilty of the same.

So, in light of the aforementioned schools' censorship (a tool the Nazis used to perfection) of an ad in their student newspapers regarding the facts behind the Islamic jihad being waged against America … we offer them the one-finger salute.

There is something else to keep in mind: when the Nazis took over, one of the first groups they went after were the educators.

BIRDMAN

I can sit and watch hawks soar all day long, just lying on my back staring at them and wondering what it feels like.

I’ve jumped, done some freefall, hangliding and parapente, but although the latter two give you a taste of it, still it ain’t goin’-where-you-wanna-go flight. (I did try a powered chute once and that was pretty neat, but ...)

Then THIS comes along.

Thanks to my buddy Bob McK for the clip … sit back and check it out …

Where do I sign?

AN UNRESOLUTE RESOLUTION ...

... or A Look at How Liberals (and BS Democrats) Think.

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this resolution because it is - frankly - anything but resolute.”

That’s the beginning of what Rep. Adam H. Putnam had to say about the “resolution” the Dems put forth yesterday.

Give it a read.

DOH … WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THAT SOONER

The Iranians are blaming al Qaida for blowing up a busload of Revolutionary Guard en route to work yesterday.

Unless I’m missing the finer points of Middle Eastern diplomacy, this sounds like a pretty good idea, since we seem loathe to bomb Iran for helping out the al-Qaida-that-George-Bush-made-up-but-really-don’t-exist-etc., in Iraq.

One can only hope it’s US sponsored, though if I had to bet I’d say it sounds more like an SIS ops than a SOD one.

TWO FACED

Sanfran Nan opts to take a jet home and according to the LAT it's a "non-story."

They're right ... it is a non-story.

But God forbid if she was a Republican! By the LAT's coverage, you'd have thought ... well, that Anna Nicole died!

I know it's true and you libs out there know it's true.

WHY I LIKE GEORGE

The White House Press Corps gets to have a dinner with the prez in which he gets to do some payback — humorously — to a few people, subjects, etc. It’s rare when those not in the media (or on big donation lists) get to see the entire thing, and naturally, the media will only run a few seconds of it, so HERE’S the prez. Good stuff and worth watching all 11 minutes.

Every once in a while you get to see some oh-so-important journalist types facially expressing their stern objectivity. Assholes.

Anyway … a fun vid.

TALK ABOUT PICKING SCABS!

How about eating bandages?

Here’s a good reason why we need healthy oceans. As reported by Fish Update . Com

After a long search for a better way to stop extreme bleeding, the U.S. Army has purchased more than 400,000 bandages made from chitosan, a polysaccharide extracted from the exoskeletons of Icelandic shrimp.

Before deciding on the $10 million HemCon purchase last year, the Army tested fibrin bandages, collagen sponges and nanoporous ceramic powder, Wired News reported.

“The chitosan dressing has achieved over 97 percent success rates for external hemorrhage control in current combat operations,” Dr John McManus of the Army research programme for Combat Casualty Care is reported to have said.

Chitosan is a mucoadhesive, which means it gets very sticky when wet with blood. It's a derivative of chitin, the hard carbohydrate found in insect and shellfish exoskeletons, and has been used by tissue engineers as a scaffold for growing new body parts. It has also been used to deliver drugs.

Although they are edible and made from shrimp, the bandages don't taste a bit like seafood.

“We have tasted them,” said Staci McAdams, vice president of marketing at HemCon. “They aren’t gourmet.”

More importantly, they will not cause a deadly reaction in people who are allergic to shellfish. Allergic reactions are triggered by protein — chitosan is a carbohydrate.

HemCon is due to begin selling a civilian version of its flagship bandage this summer.

WELCOME HOME

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced Jan. 31 that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Cmdr. Peter Mongilardi Jr., of Haledon, N.J. He will be buried April 11 at Arlington National Cemetery.

Mongilardi departed the USS Coral Sea on June 25, 1965, in his A-4C Skyhawk on an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam. His flight encountered bad weather and enemy fire over Thanh Hoa Province, causing the wingman to lose visual and radio contact with Mongilardi. Contact was never re-established and the aircraft failed to return to the carrier.

In 1993, a joint U.S. and Vietnam archival team, lead by Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), obtained information concerning the crash while researching documents, artifacts and photographs at the Central Army Museum in Hanoi. Later that year, another joint team conducted an investigation in Thanh Hoa Province. The team interviewed two local Vietnamese citizens who recalled the crash and said the pilot died in the impact. The men led the team to the crash site. In 1994, another joint team excavated the crash site and recovered human remains and pilot-related items, including a belt tip, boot heel, pieces of flight boot and other items worn by the pilot. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used nuclear DNA in the identification of the remains.

Welcome Home, Commander Mongilardi.

CHOPPER DOWN

The fourth helicopter has been shot down by ragheads. They’ve learned something from the Iranis or Syrians, and it’s time to alter tactics and stop with the ridiculous rules of engagement that even the Iraqis don’t want.

Bloody time again.

There is NO need to lose choppers to bad guys. This ain’t Nam. Kill first, say hi to Allah and the press later.

Of course … that’s just my opinion.

BEND IT LIKE THE LIBS

Here’s what some two-dozen realexperts on terrorism — who DO NOT agree with what the Bush administration has done in Iraq — have to say about the prospect of unilateral withdrawal of our troops.

An interesting and somewhat eye-opening read … and a helluva lot more intelligent than most of the pap the mass media feeds you. (It’s from The Indianapolis Star.)

MADE MY DAY

Just read that liberal funnyman Al Franken (an asshole politically, he can definitely be funny at times), has decided to make a run for the US Senate in 2008.

From where, you ask? Why, where else but Minnesota?

Admittedly there have been some stellar Minnesotans: Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Roger Maris, Jane Russell, the Andrews sisters, Jessica Lange (oh God!) and John Madden among others.

But Minnesota also gave us Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy and most recently Keith “Jihad Jones” Ellison, who opted to be sworn in with his hand on a book that said the oath he was taking didn’t count.

Franken will be quite at home.

REMEMBER

February 1, 2003: Space shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry on mission STS-107. Cmdr. William C. McCool (Pilot), Capt. David M. Brown (Mission Specialist) and Cmdr. Laurel B. Clark (Mission Specialist) were killed in the incident, along with four other astronauts - Commander Rick D. Husband; payload commander Michael P. Anderson; mission specialist Kalpana Chawla; and Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon.