I made the above graphic almost two years ago, and I just spotted it (albeit unlinked and uncredited) on BigJournalism.com (which I peruse every weekday, even if I haven’t gotten around to updating my blogroll in many months). Some might complain about the usage without acknowledgement, but I view it as the second-sincerest form of flattery.
Ben Nelson (D-NE) was going to retire in a year whether he wanted to or not. His decision not to run for reelection merely means that he’s bowing to the inevitable.
In order to recapture the Senate in 2012, the GOP needs a net gain of four seats; and the numbers look much better now than they did in 2010. Out of the thirty-three incumbent Senators up for reelection next year, only ten are Republicans. The Democrats have more than twice as many seats to defend, and it’s going to be tough… Something of which the rats are no doubt aware, given the way they’re starting to abandon ship in droves.
Waco, TX — An AWOL Soldier accused of plotting to detonate bombs in a restaurant filled with Fort Hood troops and then shoot any survivors was expected back in court Thursday to be arraigned on six new charges. Among the new charges Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo faces is trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Waco on one count of attempted murder of officers or employees of the United States, two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a federal crime of violence, and two counts of possession of a destructive device in furtherance of a federal crime of violence. …
You can read the whole thing at Military.com News (H/T: Mandy), but it here’s the part that stuck in my craw, from the very end:
Abdo, 21, was approved as a conscientious objector this year after citing his Muslim beliefs, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with possessing child pornography. He went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., in early July.
We no longer have the draft. “Conscientious objector status” is an obsolete relic of a bygone era,¹ when people were conscripted against their wills. We now have an all-volunteer fighting force. If you’re a “conscientious objector,” you don’t enlist. If you enlist, you have made an informed choice as a legal adult, and have sworn an oath. Nobody held a gun to your head. If you join up, you are not a “conscientious objector.” Period.
As for “citing his Muslim beliefs” – exactly who the fuck does he think the US Army’s been shooting at for the last ten years?! Anybody who has joined up in the last decade knows they will probably face action, and that said action will probably take place in a Muslim country and that the people against whom they will have to kill or be killed will be Muslims. Unless you’ve been living in a cave (which I suppose is possible in his case) you know that the US military has been in Afghanistan for ten straight years now, and for most of that time was in Iraq as well (not to mention “kinetic actions” against Libya, and various sundry actions taken in Yemen in elsewhere).
Anybody who enlists knows this. There is absolutely no justifiable excuse for signing up in the military now, and then complaining that you can’t fight, or that you can’t fight muslims. If those are a problem for you, you don’t enlist.
¹like labor unions and the UN.
If they are the 99%, then by my calculations, the total population of Toledo must be 6.06 (actual Toledo population according to Wikipedia is 287,208; which means that those six people are the 0.002089%).
According to the NY Post, “looking at [Occupy Wall Street] protest attendance, you might conclude that the most oppressed group in American society are white college students.” (H/T: IMAO) One meme that’s spread all over the internet recently is called “First World Problems.” More often that not, some smug leftie is the one attaching that label to any concern that Americans have which is nothing compared to the hardships facing the impoverished and starving in third world countries; well, I think I can be forgiven for looking at the signs carried by OWS protesters and thinking that most of their complaints are “First World Problems” (except for the growing number of protestors who are more accurately described as “Third Reich Problems”). You’re in debt and can’t get a good job in your field, so you want to be subsidized as you camp out on other peoples’ land and plot ways to steal and redistribute their belongings?
Yid with Lid — …Great Britain, which just went through two record cold winters is in store for some more. Scientists are predicting that Britain may be facing a mini-ice age that may last for decades. It’s partly the fault of the La Nina weather pattern… The real cause for this prediction is the Sun. It has been emitting few ultra violet rays (not that you would know by looking at Snooki). …the news about the arctic ice cap may be just as depressing. So far it has been very cold in the arctic this fall, in fact it has been coldest autumn the arctic has seen in over a decade. Because of this cold the arctic has added a Manhattan-sized chunk of ice to the ice cap every 30 seconds for the last 30 days… As our President, the EPA and many other progressives work to slow down the economy with crippling regulations to reduce “greenhouse gasses,” it seems that mother earth does not want to cooperate. …
