Thank You President George W. Bush...

... For not letting those jihadists kill any more of us Americans. I write this as a person who spends his working days in a target.

We Will Not Forget

September 11, 2001 - New York City, NY.

35 Seconds Over the World Trade Center

How many people should die in order for some of our fellow countrymen to not feel any discomfort? Would the allegedly virtuous among us trade the lives of the murdered Cantor Fitzgerald employees in order to make themselves feel better about themselves? How about the murdered employees of Marsh McLennan? How about the murdered employees of AON Insurance? How about the lives of the WTC janitors and support staff? How about the lives of all of those courageous firemen? How about the lives of the murdered Pentagon employees?

We now know that at our nation has used "waterboarding" on all of three al qada terrorist leaders and that the technique was successful 100% of the time. We further know that Abu Zubaida cracked after 35 seconds. The technique was used on that terrorist for all of 35 seconds, lo and behold the next day he told his interrogators that Allah had visited him and told him to cooperate. They did not use the waterboarding technique on that al qada leader for extended periods as has been demonstrated by various liberal groups here in the US.

So that's what our nation did, made some terrorist uncomfortable for 35 seconds, 35 seconds. Let me repeat that, our nation made a murderer uncomfortable for 35 seconds. Many of us had similar experiences at the local pool as children. Right on schedule Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, in his most serious sounding voice (actually a poor attempt at gravitas where nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition) would trade the lives of hundreds or even thousands of innocent Americans in order to keep the likes of Abu Zubaidat comfortable for an additional 35 seconds. Thank you Senator Reid.

Many of these, ahem, adults, claim that by waterboarding our enemies we give those enemies an excuse to torture our captured soldiers. This is an argument that is so divorced from reality that it should be relegated to junior high. We are not, nor will we in the foreseeable future be at war with Sweden. We are and likely will continue to fight barbarians who practice actual torture, not the type that I suffer through while attempting to listen Democrats discuss this issue. Our enemies use torture techniques that are appalling, including electrical shocks, hanging and beheading, they likely laugh at the very idea that 35 seconds of discomfort is being defined as torture by American Democrats. Furthermore the last American enemy to abide by what we have come to know as the Geneva Conventions were some members of the German Luftwaffe. Yes that's right, the Nazis were our last enemy to treat some of our troops humanely. It should be noted that this was not true throughout the German military or even the Luftwaffe.

We should all ask our Democratic friends (and some Republicans, hello Sen. McCain) to what extent should we endanger our lives and our way of life in order to make some feel virtuous about themselves? Who among us would trade 35 seconds of discomfort to a terrorist for any American family?

The inspiration for the title was the 1944 classic, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, the story of the Jimmy Doolittle Raid.

Paul-Bat Found in Chicago

The Chicago Sun Times has printed a Letter to the Editors (their crappy web site won't show the Letters section despite having a link to it on the home page) from a 22 year-old Ron Paul supporter from Wheaton, IL. named Ted Bodine. The "title" in the Letters section is "Censoring Ron Paul threatens democracy; How are young people today supposed to get excited about politics?" Mr. Bodine is miffed at Mr. Paul's lack of support from the press. Mr. Bodine watched the CNN coverage of the Republican debate in Manchester, NH and was shocked at the fact that Congressman Paul got such little face time and that he was not even discussed in the post-debate coverage. Mr. Bodine went on to write that he visited a CNN message board that was dominated by his fellow Paul-Bats who had also run up the Ron Paul score in an online poll. Mr. Bodine also wrote that the message board that had been overwhelmed by Paul-Bats was later taken down by CNN and he described such an action as "censorship".

First off, Mr. Bodine needs a better education, "censorship" generally involves the government not a private enterprise like CNN. I might add that I find it shocking to defend the likes of CNN but Mr. Bodine is simply wrong on this issue, CNN may not show the Ron Paul scrum but it's not as if those Paul-Bats do not have other public outlets for their craziness. Secondly, as any reader of Charles Johnson's fantastic blog Little Green Footballs knows, the Paul supporters have been overwhelming the thoroughly unscientific internet polls to give the impression that Mr. Paul has wide spread support. The actual (ahem) scientific polls consistently show Mr. Paul as the consummate also-ran with less than 1% support. The rigging of polls has included multiple hits from the same servers that only vote for Paul. It has gotten so bad that Johnson of Little Green Footballs has included Ron Paul as a choice in numerous polls including this one from last Monday that asked "Should the Bush administration lift sanctions against the terrorists of the Fatah party?" The choices are Yes, No, Undecided and Ron Paul. Mr. Paul is currently running second with 28% of the "vote".

The fact that the Sun Times printed this half-page of nonsense gives me the impression that the editors at the Sun Times are unaware of what and who surrounds the Paul candidacy or that they want undermine the actual Republican Party by making it falsely appear that this nut-case Ron Paul has wide support in the Party. Considering that the Sun Times is an average newspaper (with a great Sports section!) in this uber blue state city I would lean towards the later with a good strong dose of the former. The silly part of all of this is that Ron Paul is in the wrong party; the guy has made common cause with the 9/11 truther nuts who believe that Bush had something to with 9/11, a nutty idea that just happens to be a Democratic cause.

For More on the nutty Ron Paul and the crazy people who are supporting his candidacy see this list of Little Green Football entries on Mr. Paul.