Vietnamese Police Maul 2 Priests, 500,000 Protest Anti-Catholic Violence

HANOI, Vietnam, JULY 28, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Catholics organized protests in several Vietnamese cities after two priests and other laypeople were savagely beaten by police and thugs.

AsiaNews reported today that Father Paul Nguyen Dinh Phu and Father Peter Nguyen The Binh are in critical condition after the attacks.

The former has broken ribs and head injuries, and the latter was beaten into a coma and then thrown from a 2nd floor window.

The Diocese of Vinh released a statement condemning the police violence against the priests and other Catholics over the past week.

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U.S. Adviser's Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time 'to Go Home'

A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government and that it is time "for the U.S. to declare victory and go home."

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Lee Iaccoca

I haven't read his new book, but these are supposed to be excerpts from it:

'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving.

Obama is running the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble due to poor leadership in school districts.

Our borders are like sieves..

The middle class is being squeezed every which way.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.

Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC news or CNN will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America . In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I've learned one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.

Only a few people in the US know you elected a illegal alien to be President! A Muslim at that! And he jumped right in destroying the US from the inside. Osama bin Laden is smiling from ear to ear because he is winning the war on terror and you helped by voting his man in as President!

That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a "Call to Action" for people who, like me, believe in America ! It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough.'

Onstar has it's Limitations

Ted Nugent Making Way Too Much Sense

I'm not in favor of vigilante justice, but stil...

The Capital Hill Obama Card--What's in your Wallet?

Then & Now

In 2004, then Senator Barak Obama critisized the practice of hurriedly passing legislation without allowing time for reading, analysis, and deliberation. Hmmm, imagine that.

Here is the audio.




Hat-tip, Naked Emperor News.

Soldiers tell of Iraq Horrors

Condensed version below, full story here.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Soldiers from an Army unit that had 10 infantrymen accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter after returning to civilian life described a breakdown in discipline during their Iraq deployment in which troops murdered civilians, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Some Fort Carson, Colo.-based soldiers have had trouble adjusting to life back in the United States, saying they refused to seek help, or were belittled or punished for seeking help. Others say they were ignored by their commanders, or coped through drug and alcohol abuse before they allegedly committed crimes, The Gazette of Colorado Springs said.

The Gazette based its report on months of interviews with soldiers and their families, medical and military records, court documents and photographs.

"Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated," said Daniel Freeman. "You came too close, we lit you up. You didn't stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley," an armored fighting vehicle.

With each roadside bombing, soldiers would fire in all directions "and just light the whole area up," said Anthony Marquez, a friend of Freeman in the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. "If anyone was around, that was their fault. We smoked 'em."

Taxi drivers got shot for no reason, and others were dropped off bridges after interrogations, said Marcus Mifflin, who was eventually discharged with post traumatic stress syndrome.

"You didn't get blamed unless someone could be absolutely sure you did something wrong," he said

Soldiers interviewed by The Gazette cited lengthy deployments, being sent back into battle after surviving war injuries that would have been fatal in previous conflicts, and engaging in some of the bloodiest combat in Iraq. The soldiers describing those experiences were part of the 3,500-soldier unit now called the 4th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team.

Since 2005, some brigade soldiers also have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, DUIs, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides.

Marquez was the first in his brigade to kill someone after an Iraq tour. In 2006, he used a stun gun to shock a drug dealer in Widefield, Colo., in a dispute over a marijuana sale, then shot and killed him.

Marquez's mother, Teresa Hernandez, warned Marquez's sergeant at Fort Carson her son was showing signs of violent behavior, abusing alcohol and pain pills and carrying a gun. "I told them he was a walking time bomb," she said.

Hernandez said the sergeant later taunted Marquez about her phone call.

Both soldiers were wounded, sent back into action and saw friends and officers killed in their first deployment. On numerous occasions, explosions shredded the bodies of civilians, others were slain in sectarian violence — and the unit had to bag the bodies.

"Guys with drill bits in their eyes," Eastridge said. "Guys with nails in their heads."

Last week, the Army released a study of soldiers at Fort Carson that found that the trauma of fierce combat and soldier refusals or obstacles to seeking mental health care may have helped drive some to violence at home. It said more study is needed.

"We're used to seeing people who are depressed and want to hurt themselves. We're trained to deal with that," said Davida Hoffman, director of the privately operated First Choice Counseling Center in Colorado Springs. "But these soldiers were depressed and saying, 'I've got this anger, I want to hurt somebody.' We weren't accustomed to that."

At Fort Carson, Eastridge and other soldiers said they lied during an army screening about their deployment that was designed to detect potential behavioral problems.

Sergeants sometimes refused to let soldiers get PTSD help or taunted them, said Andrew Pogany, a former Fort Carson special forces sergeant who investigates complaints for the advocacy group Veterans for America.

Soldier John Needham described a number of alleged crimes in a December 2007 letter to the Inspector General's Office of Fort Carson. In the letter, obtained by The Gazette, Needham said that a sergeant shot a boy riding a bicycle down the street for no reason.

Another sergeant shot a man in the head while questioning him, lashed the man's body to his Humvee and drove around the neighborhood. Needham also claimed sergeants removed victims' brains.

Bush Administration Debated Using Military in Terrorism Arrests

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants. Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

Guess they made the right call. Any of you history buffs, didn't we use special forces to arrest communists in the US in the 1950's and/or 1960's?

Baton Rouge Police and Free Speech

A Sound Economy

In thinking about the current financial crisis and our system of banking, I would be convinced that our current system is acceptable if certain things could be established. Until they are established, I’d like to play the devil’s advocate (unless someone else would like to do that in which case I’d happily argue the other side). Here is what it would take for me to give our system my stamp of approval:

1) That we have indeed achieved material prosperity. To some this may seem obvious, and maybe it is. How do we define prosperity? Today the mass of people are dependent on either an employer or the government whereas once upon a time in America the mass of people controlled the means of production. They owned farms and small businesses. Today the mass of people live hand to mouth. Once upon a time in America people had enough capital to take care of themselves and their families on rainy days. Today there are a lot of people who can’t get decent healthcare and those who qualify for government assistance get lousy health care. I’m not expert, but I am told that, although healthcare for all is a perennial problem, once upon a time in America doctors treated for cash and for vegetables or whatever and sometimes, as true professionals should, treated the poor pro-bono. Today people by and large do not eat food. They eat a medium of nutrition shot full of chemicals with labels that make them appear to be good for them. Once upon a time in America people ate real food organically grown and chock full of the natural hormones and other benefits that science cannot even fully appreciate even today and that food science cannot duplicate. Try eating such a diet now! You can’t afford it!

2) If we have achieved prosperity that it has not been at the expense of the well-being of a segment of our population or of the population of other countries. Does the gas in our car require us to invade or swindle other countries or otherwise sell them short? Do we get our goods from the sweat of laborers in the east who are not even given enough to subsist? A little research will shock you on this point: Slave laborers in the cocoa fields who are not allowed to speak to other human beings, barely fed, and isolated in individual cells at night; Children abducted and sold into slave factories; Concentration camps in China where Christians and other dissidents are forced to labor. And we buy the stuff they produce.

3) That our prosperity is sustainable. America, 5% of the world’s population, consumes 25% of the world’s oil supply, overeats an amount of food that could feed millions and then throws away enough edible food to feed millions more, consumes more legal and illegal drugs than any other country (not sure of the exact figures), and as a general matter consumes several times what the average person consumes.

Political Groove

The USA Founded on "Biblical Principles"?

Some intelliegnt discussion of the topic here.

Questions about Meltdown (From Confero)

Sorry I have not written much about Meltdown. The fact of the matter is that I have less time to read now than I did during the Spring semester. Anyway, I'm wrapping up chapter 4 and have a couple of questions.

1. Who determines what the interest rates should be if the Fed should not be in that position?

2. How should they go about determining it? Nothing specific was provided in the book so far?

3. He cites Lehman Brothers as an example that nothing of major significance happens when we let a company go bankrupt and claims we should let the others go bankrupt. While this lets investors know where to invest it leaves the reader thinking of a couple things:

a. Will "nothing of significance" happen when 4 or 5 major financial institutions declare bankruptcy?

b. How do we, as a society, support the thousands of people without jobs? This book fails to include the humanistic side of economics.
4. Lastly, he claims that people will save money when interest rates go up. Is this likely given the fact that we are a materialistic society who lives outside our means?

Overall, I'm enjoying the book and wish McNeese mandated students to take maco- and microeconomics.

By the way, CSPAN's booktv had an interesting author, Guy Sorman, talking about his book Economics Does Not Lie. He's an economics professor from France and has written multiple economic books.

-Confero

World Domination?

If a person does the following, would you consider such positions to amount to a desire for "world domination"? or do you perhaps have a better word?:

Wanting to intervene and put down anyone who crosses our ally?

Not respecting the sovereignty of other nations (Iraq, Iran Pakistan, Afganistan etc. etc.) The country name does not matter, what matters is advocating military or other force against other countries.

Wanting to be able to decide who does and who does not get nukes.

Maybe "world domination" is too strong a word, but I happen to think it is appropriate. Such a person want to remain the strong man, the one who can push others around. It is the desire to ensure secuirty and economic prosperity through force.

IMHO, what applies to individuals applies to nations: "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword."

Good Thing the Smart Folks are Running the Country

Cause this just plain sounds dumb to me.

Here's the problem:

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.

And this is the solution?:

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Afghanistan War Resister to “Put the War on Trial”

What do we think about a soldier who does this?

What about this?

Louisiana Attorney General Signs Amicus Brief Supporting Second Amendment

Please Thank Attorney General Buddy Caldwell!

Two-thirds of the nation's attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This bi-partisan group of 33 attorneys general, along with the Attorney General of California in a separate filing, agrees with the NRA's position that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms, disagreeing with the decision recently issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Attorney General Caldwell was one of the many who agrees that the Second Amendment is a fundamental individual right and signed the amicus brief. Please call Attorney General Caldwell at 225-326-6000 and thank him for standing up in support of the Second Amendment. You may also e-mail him at AdminInfo@ag.state.la.us

All Seeing, All Knowing

In Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, Saruman made use of the Palentir, or "Seeing Stone" to see all things near and far. Eventually, he fell under the spell of Sauron and was corrupted by his evil.

Government Radio reports on Palantir Technologies, a company offering software which uses data-mining to identify potential terrorist.

Getting To Know Your Government

President Barack Obama recently appointed John Holdron to a position often referred to as the administration's "Science Czar." Here's a little background on Mr. Holdron:

Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology -- informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force.

For scanned images from his book, and more, go here.

Bush is Unamerican

Bush's trampling of the constitution is worse than we knew.

Founding Principles

This morning I listened to a Focus on the Family show on the radio while doing a couple of errands before work. They were saying a lot of things that seemed to me to be on the right track. One comment was made that I have heard a number of times and have often wondered about. They said our country, and specifically the Constitution, was based on "Biblical Principles." I've never quite understood exactly what this means. What principles and what parts of our country's government are they referring to? I can see how a Marxist government would be based on non-Christian and even anti-religious principles, but other than that I don't see how our country is any more "Biblical" than any number of other countries. In fact, I think a case could be made that the actual principles underlying our founding are in many respects less "Biblical" than a host of other countries. Any thoughts?

Is the Pope Calling for a One-world Government?

There is some buzz that the Pope calls for a “true world political authority” in his latest encyclical, CHARITY IN TRUTH. I've printed out that encyclical, but haven't had a chance to read it yet (It's about 50 pages). I think though, that the statement is being taken out of context. The pricipal of subsidiarity is, I think, well-established in the Catholic Church and can be found in Pope Leo XII's Rerum Novarum of which Charity in Truth is apparently an update (in the line of social encyclicals over the past century and a quarter). Subsidiarity holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization.

Any thoughts?

UPDATE:

Here is an article that is very much on point and I think clarifies things. Hat tip to JLW (Note this is a different piece from the Zmirak column he references below).

Could the Jingoist, Cowboy, Jew-lovin', NeoCons Have Been Right?

Those idiotic neocons said that democracy in Iraq could spread throughout the middle east. First there was Lebanon, and now Iran. What if they were right?

Christopher Hitchens:

The most exciting and underreported news of the past few weeks in Iran has been that the emerging challenger to the increasingly frantic and isolated "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. And Rafsanjani has recently made a visit to the city of Najaf in Iraq to confer with Ayatollah Ali Husaini Sistani, a long-standing opponent of the Khamenei doctrines, as well as meeting in the city of Qum with Jawad al-Shahristani, who is Sistani's representative in Iran. It is this dialectic between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites that underlies the flabbergasting statement issued from Qum last weekend to the effect that the Ahmadinejad government has no claim to be the representative of the Iranian people.

One of the apparent paradoxes involved in visiting Iran is this: If you want to find deep-rooted opposition to the clerical autocracy, you must make a trip to the holy cities of Mashad and Qum. It is in places like this, consecrated to the various imams of Shiite mythology, that the most stubborn and vivid criticism is often to be heard—as well as the sort of criticism that the ruling mullahs find it hardest to deal with.

So it is very hard to overstate the significance of the statement made last Saturday by the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qum, a much-respected source of religious rulings, which has in effect come right out with it and said that the recent farcical and prearranged plebiscite in the country was just that: a sham event. (In this, the clerics of Qum are a lot more clear-eyed than many American "experts" on Iranian public opinion, who were busy until recently writing about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the rough-hewn man of the people.)

Related notes from Michael Ledeen and Richard Fernandez.

Nothing is too Tacky for Jesus

The Elephant in the Living Room (Ch-1)

A group of people are reading Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse . I read the first chapter, which is short and though there is little discuss at this point, I'll share my thoughts thus far.

The elephant Mr. Woods is refering to (the title of his first chapter) is the Federal Reserve. People are blaming greed and the free market, but the main culprit, the Federal Reserve, is hardly mentioned except as our savior. The same people who got us into the mess and laughed at Peter Schiff(Here is a good link.) are the ones who are going to get us out? He points out that:

1) There has been no serious discussion of the Fed in public life for nearly a century
2) We were told we had to have a bailout and the money would be used to buy up bad assets or else the economy would collapse, then the money was approved and it was not used to buy up bad assets.
3) We are being asked to prop up an unsustainable system based on borrowing and consumption, instead of encouraging people to live within thier means as the market is now trying to do.
4) The two major-party candidates for president in 2008 agreed on the bailout package and the American people were offered no real choice.
5) There is nothing the Fed or the government can do to help the current situation and a great deal they can do to make the problems last longer.
6) We can't expect the situation to improve until we understand how we got here.

Woods promises a layman's overview of where the economy is and what should be done next.

Cap & Trade

This is a long article, but very important. The cap & trade cannot pass the Senate, or we are in trouble. This thing will not only damage Lousiana refineries, it will trickle down to all other parts of manufacturing and drive up prices.

Call Your Sentor! Tell him/her to not vote for this thing.


http://www.npradc.org/files/pdf/EC_Climate_Testimony_4-24-09.pdf