I always enjoy learning about regional cuisine, from the special way Chicago makes its hotdogs, to the Philly steak sandwich. I didn't even know that Springfield had it's own unique culinary delight called the "horseshoe" sandwich. Here's the scoop on that:

Horseshoe Sandwich – The sandwich is considered the signature dish or Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham Lincoln. This sandwich will make your arteries cringe and your taste buds rejoice. The sandwich starts out with two to three slices of thick toasted bread. On top of that you have two traditional choices: a thick fried ham steak or two large hamburger patties. Then a large amount of freshly made French fries are placed onto the top of it. The secret to this sandwich is the sauce that is poured over the top. Every restaurant and chef seems to have his or her own secret cheese sauce recipe. 1928 - The sandwich was created in 1928 by the chefs at the Leland Hotel in Springfield. The name of the sandwich comes from the shape of the ham with the fries representing the horseshoe nails, and the heated steak platter as the anvil. If you order a Pony Shoe Sandwich, it is the same thing, but a smaller or half a Horseshoe portion (usually one slice of toast).

by Linda Stradley

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 Apparently this lady put a "We Support the Troops" sign outside her house to remind her of her husband who is overseas serving in Iraq. The Homeowners' Association wants to fine her $100 dollars each day that sign is up, because there is a restriction on putting up signs outside your house. Though I am sympathetic to her cause, I do recognize that the Homeowners' Association have rules to uphold, and that the lady, who has lived in the neighborhood for five years, knew the rules of her community, and had received a handbook explaining the rules and regulations. If we allow this lady to put up her sign, then somebody else can put up a "I love Satan" sign outside their house. Of course somebody will say, that's offensive, but then some nut might get offended by a "We Support the Troops" sign. I support the troops, but I also think that a clean, orderly, nice looking neighborhood should be free from clutter.   

The rest of the World does care about America. I only hope the Bush administration will accept this generous aid. If not they can always donate to the American Red Cross.

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Marines Are From Mars, Iraqis Are From Venus

by Major Ben Connable
First Marine Division G-2
30 May 2004

Introduction: Marines find themselves regularly frustrated by the behavior and reactions of the Iraqi people. There are very fundamental cultural differences between Americans and Arabs, but for a variety of reasons these differences are exaggerated between the Marine tribe and the Iraqi tribe. Our fundamental differences lead to fundamental misunderstandings. As we enter a period of ambiguity leading up to the transition, it may be helpful to look at how we deal with our Iraqi counterparts from a fresh perspective. American Marines and Iraqis are hardwired at far ends of a cultural void not by genetics, but by social conditioning.

These descriptions are necessarily simplified, skewed and hyperbolic toward the ideal to make a point. No two people are the same, not everyone lives up (or down) to the ideal.



AMERICAN MARINES:

People in general are hardwired to see obstacles or problems, find solutions for those problems, and execute those solutions. The American culture reinforces this natural instinct in what most other cultures consider an extreme manner. Americans focus on winning, achieving, succeeding, and producing. Our children learn and play aggressive, competitive sports from a very early age.

For example, football, arguably the most popular and widely played American sport is a linear, aggressive, goal-oriented endeavor that usually ends with concrete results. This is a simple construct that satisfies our basic needs. We see a problem (the other team, the goal line), we see a solution, (drive forward, score more points), and we can easily envision an end state – unambiguous victory. Ties are a disappointment, not a means to an end. In professional football we have done away with ties entirely because they don’t satisfy our Manichean need for a concrete solution.

As children, most of us are taught that lying and cheating are wrong, and that “honesty is always the best policy.” You might say that “honor” to an American means never quitting, never betraying your word, living up to a high standard of performance and behavior. “Honor” on the athletic field means playing by the rules and giving your best performance no matter what the conditions. People who give excuses for poor performance are deemed weak and are shunned.

When we are presented with challenges, we are expected to overcome them with personal initiative. People who overcome personal disaster are held up as examples to the rest of us. The worse the disaster faced, the greater the comeback, the better the story. The skier who breaks both legs in a fall and drags himself five miles for help is a hero, but it’s even better if he crawls all the way back to save his dog from an avalanche. Most Americans are generous to a fault, but we tend to lack respect for those who don’t help themselves. Most of us can (still) relate to statements like, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” “Self-made man,” “I don’t take handouts.”

We see ourselves as separate and distinct individuals. Choosing our own relationships, memberships, associations, and path in life, we see it as standard practice to move 3000 miles across the country, away from family and friends, to “start over.” If we don’t like our families, we simply dissociate ourselves from them and seek other relationships. We marry and divorce with impunity, and often without input from friends or family. We decide what is best for ourselves. If we fail, we’re generally expected to view it as our own fault. We have responsibility to take care of our parents in their old age, but we often pay someone else to take this burden off our hands.

Most Americans are lucky enough to have a fairly high standard of living compared to the rest of the world. More than ninety percent of families can afford three full meals a day for their children and nearly everyone has an opportunity to go to school. Our safety is buffered by regulatory agencies that protect us from dirty water, dirty air, and even noise pollution. Although we have many bad neighborhoods, there is little threat from brutal torture, state-sponsored mass murder, oppressive martial law, or enemy invasion across our borders. Our health care isn’t perfect, but our life expectancy is high and most of us feel good about our futures.

In fact, our ability to envision our future is one of our greatest strengths. Because most of our basic survival needs are met, we have the luxury of a long-term view. Retirement planning is a normal part of life. Most Americans envision their children going on to college, and have no reason to expect they won’t be able to fulfill this expectation even if they have to take out student loans. We save money and plan our careers.

Our system of government gives us the perception that we also have a greater role in our collective future. Although many Americans say they feel disenfranchised, our ability to vote elected officials in and out of office gives us an avenue of participation. Our anger and frustration can be vented with the pull of a lever or a letter to our congressman. The fact that the congressman writes back and will probably look into each individual case would shock most people from the developing world.

The respect for the rule of law is the foundation of our way of life. We modify our daily behavior based on the belief that it’s our responsibility to follow laws, we will be punished if we don’t follow laws, and that most other people will follow laws. Law gives order, protects us from each other and from the government, and oftentimes from ourselves. Our faith in this system of laws is reflected in the amount of time we dedicate to following the creation of law in congress and the adjudication of law in the courts. Publicly, corruption is unacceptable, and when discovered it is usually rooted out.

We take great pride in being a free people. Our unquestioning belief in our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness make us uniquely American. Unen*****bered by the shackles of tyranny, our hearts host the seeds of generosity and altruism. Most of us have an unfailing belief that we make the most of our freedom, living good lives, helping others and trying to live up to our personal standards.

Our altruism and earnestness often make us somewhat naïve. We expect that everyone else can see that our hearts are pure, and we expect them to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules that we try to live by ourselves. When we find out that people in the rest of the world necessarily live by a more survival-oriented set of rules, we’re often overly disappointed. We have trouble adjusting to other people’s way of life because we think our way of life is the ideal. We have trouble seeing things from other people’s eyes because we think they should always see things from our perspective.

Our sense of moral superiority comes from a real desire to help others and do the right thing, but it also gets in our way when we have to deal with those that live by more nebulous rules. Our earnest overtures are seen as false and naïve instead of moral and brave. Europeans cannot believe that we would sacrifice so much in Iraq just to prevent a WMD attack and to help the Iraqi people, because they would never do it themselves. If they have a hidden angle, we must have one too. Sometimes our lack of street smarts catches up to us. When we don’t live up to our own expectations on the national stage, we are our own worst enemies. The shame-fest over Abu Ghraib is a case study in American guilt.

Our national character is built on high moral concepts that not many of us live up to, but most of us aspire to. Our nature is to be strong, moral, and productive. We set the bar high.

American Marines take these characteristics and drive them to a new level. With notable exceptions, we tend to be exceptionally aggressive, mission focused, and strong believers in the American ideal. We do not accept weakness, indecision, laziness, or incompetence because we know that these things lead to death in combat. We drive ourselves past normal points of endurance, often damaging our own bodies just to reach a finish line or save a buddy. We expect no less from anyone else, a point that often leads to friction with our old high school friends, our families, and especially other Marines. We have been called extremists, and in many ways we are. Marines can best be described as “extreme Americans.”


…American Marines have unusually high expectations…

IRAQIS OF AL-ANBAR:

Although we don’t like to call ourselves “Arabs,” the Iraqi culture is an Arabic culture. We are a communal people, and our lives revolve around our family; close, extended, and tribal. The paths of our lives are less lineal than the Americans, less “A to B,” more nebulous. Our sport of choice is also football, but not the American variety.

We play the sport played extensively everywhere in the world except America. Soccer isn’t a direct, aggressive kind of sport like the game you play. In fact, we spend a lot of time kicking the ball backwards instead of towards the goal. Much time is spent on the field lining up shots, less time shooting. The goal is to win, but a tie is okay as long as it was a good tie. We often view a tie as a victory if it is against a better team.

Our perception of victory and success is often malleable to the cir*****stances. Our honor demands victory, we have trouble accepting anything less. We’re not lying to ourselves; we just adjust the standards to fit the situation. The Gulf War was a victory for Saddam because we prevented you from driving into Baghdad. Despite the fact that we were losing on the field, Fallujah is a victory because you could not finish the attack – our will to hold out defeated your will to crush our forces. If you push us into a position where we have obviously lost, we become distraught and angry, and our honor demands that we seek a victory to balance things out. This is no different from you – Americans hate losing as well. It is different from you because to us it is all that matters.

This sense of honor permeates everything we do. This isn’t the Western definition of honor; it’s more like Hispanic honor. Perception of manhood is vital, and in fact it can be a matter of life and death. A man without honor gets no wife, often no work, and in Iraq he may be shunned or killed by his family depending on how grave the offense. Defending honor is part of our cultural heritage and it is a focal point for our behavior. We protect the virtue of our women and the pride of our family. We are disgusted that American men allow their women to act and dress like “sharmuta,” or whores. If our wives dressed in public like Brittany Spears we would kill them or burn them with cooking oil.

An Iraqi man unable to support his family has no honor and must take action to counterbalance this loss. It doesn’t necessarily matter how we support our families as long as we provide. In many cases, we are pushed out the door by our wives to conduct attacks against the Coalition to regain our honor and to make money. An Iraqi woman knows that a husband without honor is worthless to her and her children.

Saddam was a terrible father, but many of us loved him as an abused child loves the parents who beat him. We still act like abused children, playing one side against the other, looking for an advantage, support, and acceptance. We will play you against your boss, against the CPA, and against the government to get what we want. Don’t expect loyalty from us, we are survivors. When we give loyalty to a cause it is to God’s cause. When we give loyalty to people it is to our family.

When we are presented with challenges, we accept the fate prescribed by God. Acceptance of fate is an Islamic trait, and it guides almost everything we do. If we are poor, then it is Gods will that we are poor. If there is a task to be completed, then by the will of God it will be completed – In Sha Allah. In many cases, except for those of us educated in Baghdad or the west, we see no reason to put extra effort into succeeding beyond the norm. Getting by is good enough because that is our lot in life. We have basic expectations and these are tied into our honor – we need food, shelter, water, electricity, and medical help just like everyone else.

Don’t expect any miraculous stories of hardship overcome, “personal best” in the Marathon, or an “I can make it on my own” attitude. These concepts are luxuries for people who live in pampered societies like America. Even when we are poor we have our families and that is enough to keep us happy. When you ask us to do something, we rarely think to ourselves, “Gee, how can I do a great job?” We are answering the call of our stomachs and our screaming wives. After that, a little coffee, some shisha, and leave us alone.

Our families make us who we are. The family is everything, and only those on the margins of society live without family support. Because we live in a developing country, and our needs are more survival oriented than yours, we have to rely on common survival techniques. People group together to survive, to protect each other, to look out for each others interests. The closer the grouping, the closer the interest of the group. Our immediate families are most important to us, then our larger families, then sub-tribe, then tribe, then tribal confederation.

Our loyalty expands and contracts based on our survival needs, but we almost always work within this construct. If you kill or imprison one of us, you have taken some of our pooled resources and reduced our chance of survival. Because we survive as a group, an attack on one is an attack on all. This is why we demand blood money for death, injury, and damage. You must replace the resource you have taken from our pool to balance things out. As long as you recognize that need, we can work together. Here’s a real-life example of how seriously we take our tribal resources:

The tribal feud started when three members of one tribe borrowed some money from a sheikh of another tribe. They had borrowed the money because they could not find jobs to support their families. After allowing sufficient time for repayment of the loan, the sheikh attempted to collect the money he was owed by taking possession of a vehicle that the three borrowers had purchased in an attempt to start a small business carting groceries from the market to surrounding towns. An argument ensued between the two groups, and the sheikh threatened to harm members of the three men’s families if they didn’t repay the money. Upon hearing this, the three men shot and killed the sheikh. The sheikh’s tribe immediately vowed revenge. Soon, all three of the borrowers had also been killed by a member of the sheikh’s tribe. The feud will continue until blood money is paid, balancing out the losses on each side. Very much like your Hatfield and McCoy’s, no?

Pooling resources and interest within a family means that there is little room for individualism. We rarely choose our own path in life. If a father owns a business, the son will almost certainly work for his father. If marriage to another tribe solves an inter-tribal conflict, we marry who we are told. Our parents pick our spouses, and we often have little or no input in who we marry. Only the rich and the elite choose their own life. This lack of individuality further reduces of our sense individual responsibility. Again, don’t expect us to act like independent Americans.

Our tribalism is tightly bound to our sense of honor. Just as honor is vital to each one of us, it is also vital to the tribe. A dishonored tribe loses “wasta” and therefore influence. Less influence means less money, less power, less ability to support the members of the tribe. Therefore, a tribe’s honor is jealously guarded as a group resource. Mistreating a sheikh of our tribe makes him less powerful, making all of us less powerful. Less power means fewer contracts, less money, less food, angrier families. We must regain this honor any way we can. Because Iraqi tradition is violent, we often choose violence to regain our honor. If you dishonor our tribe, we have to negotiate with you…. or attack you until our honor is restored.

We don’t ask for much. Our standard of living is low compared to the Western world. If you put us in the United States, most of us would fall well below your poverty level. Since the collapse of the economy last year, many of us cannot afford to feed our families without finding odd jobs, begging money from family members, or supporting the ACF. Look around – most of us live in humble homes, farming small plots with a few animals and a broken down car. If we have a big home, we may have had a good job before the war and now we have nothing and are twice as angry as our poor neighbors.

There are certainly rich people amongst us, but they don’t represent the majority. When you tell us you can improve our lives and make us rich, you have an image of your own homes in mind. Most of us cannot even imagine what your lives must be like in America, and we do not necessarily value what you value. We don’t dream of Outback Steakhouse. We are proud of our lives even if they don’t meet your expectations.

Unlike you, we do not enjoy the protection of concerned government leaders. Nobody cares if there is lead in our water or pollution in the air. Sometimes our leaders feign concern about our healthcare system, but that’s only because our harried tribal leaders take up our cry. Your system is so refined that every little whimper draws the ire of a champion congressman. Our system is so broken our raging screams barely make a sound. We must use the power of our tribes and our religious groups to effect any change, so again, if you weaken our affiliations you weaken our only hope of being heard.

Where you have been protected from invasion, martial law, and torture for nearly two centuries, we have experienced nothing but invasion, martial law, and torture for our entire lives. We have been in a state of almost constant warfare with either the US or with Iran. When we weren’t fighting you, we were fighting ourselves in the north and the south. Our sons and brothers were killed fighting to keep Saddam in power, and our lives seemed painfully short. At any time, a government official, police officer, or secret policeman could decide that we had done something wrong and have us killed. They might have to pay off some blood money, but so what?

Just as many of you have become callous about death in combat, we have grown up to be callous about death in everyday life. We are not the Baghdad elite. All of us have seen animals slaughtered and have helped pull their guts from their bodies, so blood is nothing new to us. Beatings are a part of life, pain is a part of life, and death is an ever-present part of life. If pain and death are our lot in life, we accept that as part of God’s plan. This is how we are able to accept money for a relative you have killed – we accept God’s will, and you have balanced out our resources. What can we complain about?

Because our lives are so brutal, we have almost no capacity to view the long term. Our inability to envision our own futures is our greatest weakness. We are faced with a simple hierarchy of needs. One must breathe before he can think about shelter and security, shelter and security before water, water before food, and so on. It is only by building a normal, healthy society that you can extend that focus into the long range, to think about things like education, leisure time, investment, and retirement. You have heard our complaints. We want shelter, security, water, and food. Your talk about democracy and culture and prosperity mean little to people who are simply surviving.

With this short term view, if you give us money we spend it. If you give money to one of our public officials, he’ll steal as much as he can because he doesn’t even know if he’ll have a job next week. He has to get more, now, to fulfill basic needs. He can’t see into the long term, to see the effect his corruption will have on the future of his community. He may even be a good person, but he has to look out for his family first.

What you see as corruption we see as part of the normal process of doing business. Because most jobs underpay, we always take a cut. This is built into the price of the job. Iraq follows the trend of many other Arab countries – there aren’t enough jobs for the expanding population so the government hires everyone. The government can’t afford high salaries for so many people, so the pay is low. Because the pay is low, it’s expected that you accept bribes and cheat to get by. Everyone knows the rules, even the government.

Typically, we’ll take a slice of 10% to 15% off the top of a contract or a work order. Nobody will really get too upset if we keep things in this “normal” range. If we go too far, and take 30% or higher, then we know we are stepping over the line. However, unless you catch on we’ll take what we can get. If you’re too stupid to figure out what we’re doing, it’s your fault, not ours. There is no real shame in corruption; after all, we’re looking out for our families as expected.

Corruption is natural in a country without the rule of law. We do not respect law the way you do because for us law comes from the end of a gun. In the absence of the gun, we try to respect our families and friends and live by God’s will. If the government passes laws, or you give us a transitional law, we don’t respect it because we don’t respect the government. Government to us means corruption, violence, dictatorship, and rule by fear. In the absence of fear, there is no rule.

We know that Saddam lied to us often. We feel that he did this to protect us, but also to protect himself. We have never trusted our social institutions as much as we trust our families and our friends. It all comes back to the family and tribe. If the government tells us that the Americans are going to enter our town in peace, but our cousin tells us they are coming to murder everyone and rape our women, we will almost always believe our cousin. You have made many promises to us, but kept so few. Why should we believe you? In the absence of trusted institutions, our lives are ruled by rumor, and rumor is spread by word of mouth.

In such a nebulous society, where life is a tenuous prospect, we rarely take responsibility for our own actions. “Owning up” for our poor performance or behavior would be a stupid thing to do if it reduces our chance of survival and success. If we can put off our mistakes on others, we’ll do it in a heartbeat not because we’re lazy or incompetent but to avoid damaging our honor and possibly losing our jobs. Remember, without honor and a job, we are nothing. So we break a few rules and lie about our mistakes. We don’t care about rules anyway; we do things to achieve an effect not because they’re right or wrong.

We’re masters of achieving effect. Everything we do is designed to coax, cajole, trick, or steer you into doing what we want you to do. This is a standard survival skill, one that you obviously haven’t mastered. Your naiveté never ceases to amaze us. You either take us at face value, or you get mad when we “lie.” It’s not lying if you get what you want, and we almost always get what we want from you. We are in a constant state of negotiation, and there are no permanent solutions to any problem. You pretend to be so honest, but we see you as the biggest liars of all. You promised us security, jobs, and peace. All we have is crime, unemployment, and war. Who’s the liar?

You may have noticed we have a very emotional nature. There’s no imperative to control our emotions, and in fact we’re encouraged to express ourselves. We wear everything on our sleeves, and we change our minds at will. We can be furious at you one minute when you offend us, and truly love you the next minute. Every death is a massacre, every accident a murder, every threat is an impending disaster.

Iraqis are complicated people. We can be kind, generous, and forgiving in the worst circumstances. If you are a visitor in our homes, we will feed you our last morsel of food. If you become a true friend, we will die for you. But we see no future for ourselves or for our families.

We are stuck in a rut, and we need someone who has the capacity to see a better future to guide us onto the right path. We may take your hand, or we may bite your hand because we do not trust you. It is on your head to be patient and forgiving, not ours. Do not expect us to be American Marines. If you expect too much from us, you will be disappointed. There is nothing worse than unmet expectations, my friend.

…Iraqis will never live up to the Marines’ expectations because they are Iraqis, not American Marines. We haven’t lived up to their expectations either…

Who by now has not heard of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan who died serving his country in Iraq on April 4, 2004? For several days now Mrs. Sheehan has protested the Iraq war by staging a vigil outside President Bush’s Crawford ranch. Demanding an explanation of why her son died, Mrs. Sheehan refuses to leave until the president a) comes out of his ranch to meet with her personally to explain the reasons of why we went to war with Iraq or b) flies back to Washington DC after his summer holiday. Sadly, Mrs. Sheehan has become the darling of the liberal left who are never afraid to exploit a mother’s grief for political gain.

Like most conservatives, and common sense-thinking people I believe the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime was a good thing. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who bullied his neighbors and was not afraid to use chemical weapons on his own people. Saddam Hussein was told repeatedly by the United States and the United Nations to allow weapons inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, yet he did not comply with mandates and instead stonewalled both the United Nations and the United States. When Saddam Hussein did not comply legitimate force was applied and the Iraq war was initiated. Time and time again Saddam Hussein was warned that failure to comply with UN mandates would likely lead to war. Instead of compliance he chose defiance.   

What I do not understand is why so many Americans are increasingly turning against the war? And most of these have no clue about foreign policy, national security, nor have any family member serving in the Armed Forces. Cindy Sheehan what makes you so special? Why do you believe that the president owes you an explanation? Plenty of Americans have lost their loved ones in the War on Terror. Plenty more will continue to die as long as terrorists and insurgents continue their relentless barrage against the bastion of freedom and democracy.

Casey Sheehan died a hero having assisted in liberating a people from a savage dictator. What more honorable and noble cause is there to die for? Perhaps, Mrs. Sheehan you feel cheated that he died not for Americans, but for another people. In hindsight it is easy to criticize a decision made, but working with the intelligence we had at the time, the conduct of Saddam Hussein, and what he had done in the past, we were right to go to war and enforce the UN mandate.

To ABC’s Nightline you state, "Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy...not for the real reason, because the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn't changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq...in fact it has gotten worse."

Mrs. Sheehan no doubt feels strongly about her loss, as would any mother, yet she has sadly been influenced by the liberal left and their destabilizing affect on the cohesiveness needed in a time of war. It is doubtful whether Mrs. Sheehan fully understands international politics, relations, and national security. For her loss I sympathize, yet the fact of the matter remains that nobody was betrayed. Congress and the United Nations had given tacit approval for the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein from power, and indeed it was the Clinton Administration which signed a bill stating: “That it should be the policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government.” This policy of regime change in Iraq was passed unanimously in the Senate and with an overwhelming majority in the House with both democrats and republicans in favor.

Furthermore, the Arab-Muslims Mrs. Sheehan is talking about hate not only our Middle Eastern foreign policy, but every thing about us. If there was no Israel they would still continue to hate us and our way of life. Israel is no excuse for the innocent killing of civilians. Nor is the perceived injustice which they feel being perpetrated by the United States’ Middle East policy. It is their own countries and religion which keep them subjugated, not the United States. Fantasy ideology keeps fueling these madmen, the belief that jihad and holy war will bring peace and unity to the Muslim world through and by the sword. It will never happen as long as we remain united and committed to fighting the scourge of terrorism. The only reason why it is perceived we are losing this war is because people like Mrs. Sheehan play the liberal left’s deck of cards, pandering to the gullible doves that see and hear no evil, and in the process weaken the free world’s resolve against terrorism.

As Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is time for the liberal left to wake up and recognize that we are indeed engaged in a war, and that their dissent is causing our front to collapse from within. The liberal left is calling the situation in Iraq another “Vietnam” and in a way they are right. Right in the regards that their treachery is undermining the fighting morale of our soldiers overseas, just like Jane Fonda’s crusade for Vietnam during that war. In my opinion their conduct is nothing less than sedition in a time of war and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Mrs. Sheehan you are being played by the liberal left who could care less about your son’s honorable sacrifice. We all feel your loss but let us remember the words of John Stuart Mill”

The American Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which handles passenger and luggage screening at US airports, announced that it might consider revising its restrictive policies banning scissors, ice picks, and bows and arrows on flights. Hair stylists, eskimos, and Indian chiefs can now safely fly the friendly skies once again.

 A Swedish research group at Linköpings University in Sweden conducted a study this spring analyzing the possibility of treating patients of depression via email. Kristofer Vernmark, a recent psychology graduate and a driving force behind the study, is pleased with the preliminary results. To Norrköpings Tidningar newspaper he stated: “The collected data looks good and we’ve had very positive feedback from the participants. We will conduct a follow-up session in six months.” In the email-based treatment the patient receives assistance from a depression specialist on a weekly basis.

Source: Expressen.se

No word yet of how spam and computer viruses affect the mentally challenged…

From the New York Times

JERUSALEM, Aug. 12 - A consortium of wealthy Americans has put up $14 million to compensate Jewish settlers for their Gaza Strip greenhouses, and the facilities will be handed over to the Palestinians as soon as the Israelis leave, participants in the agreement said today.

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Got this from thoolou's blog and I thought it was interesting. Can one really draw a parallel between European reconstruction after World War II and the rebuilding or Iraq? It's something worth considering.

Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe

Wednesday 08.10.05 [11:57 am]

Ran across this today. Found it very interesting. I really don't know what to make of this. I guess things never change and that there is nothing new in the world. Below are two links to two articles from the January 7, 1946 issue of Life magazine. Maybe the author of the main article, John Dos Passos, was the Robert Fisk of his day. Maybe Henry Luce had it in for Harry Truman. This is a discussion for more knowledgeable people than me. But what I really wasn't ready for in an article in Life Magazine six months after the end of World War II was a line such as this: "We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease." There are more like it. And it is all so eerily familiar. As Dr. Reynolds says, "Read the whole thing." [link]

posted by: thoolou

If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries (EU 15) than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia. Only the miniscule country of Luxembourg has higher per capita GDP than the average state in the USA. The results of the new study represent a grave critique of European economic policy.

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I just read that Margaret Hassan, the director of CARE International's Iraqi operation was beheaded in Iraq by the insurgents who had taken her captive. Once again these militants demonstrate that they have no morality, no compassion, but only evil and hatred in their hearts. That they would behead a woman of a well-respected international aid organization is inconceivable; that they would bomb the UN and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, perhaps even more so.

The people of Iraq and the world weep over the death of such a great woman, and her killers have gained nothing but eternal damnation.

''Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

-Hermann Goering at his Nuremburg trial.

By Dennis Prager

Mr. Milosevic, one of the world's most notorious mass murderers, responsible for the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, today called his war crimes trial in The Hague, the Netherlands, "a farce, pure and simple." I agree, this is a farce that shouldn't even have come to trial. The man should have been sentence by a Bosnian military tribunal and executed.

When the UN and their bureaucrats come in, any situation is bound to fail, which is one of the reasons I'm against Saddam Hussein being tried in The Hague. Can you imagine what a farce that would be? No, Mr. Hussein must be tried in Iraq by Iraqis, and executed there.

When Saddam Hussein asked that his time be served in a Swedish prison, he sure wasn't kidding. No, these pictures are not of a five-star luxury resort, but of Sweden's newest prison facility. These guys live better than I do! Remember, if you do the crime, try to do your time in Sweden!