Misc. - the Useful Abbreviation

One has to love the ability to type “misc.” instead of miscellaneous(which is only correctly spelled here due to Windows Live Writer’s spellchecker).  It is such a useful term too – it covers everything!

Yes, I’m making an excuse to post random unconnected links to stories interesting me today:

Read about stocks jumping to new highs on Yahoo and once reading the reasons for it felt vindicated in thinking the “recovery” is all about banks and the political class – not the peons.  They love the dollar collapsing; such wonderful patriots they are.  They also love blowing bubbles and we are going to see more pop with this irresponsible behavior.  People invested in stocks don’t care about anything but reaping a quick profit and that cannot bring about any long term improvement.

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the end of Communism in Europe had begun. Lech Walesa played a critical role in this and the former leader of Solidarity says some interesting things in an interview with Spiegal Online. His warning to the politicians is one that should be heeded.

At PajamasTV, Bob Owens has a nice rant only a gun nut will appreciate – so of course I enjoyed it a great deal.  It has to do with the “cop killer” label put on the FN Five-seveN (oy, the marketing gimmick) 5.7mm pistol in the reports on the Fort Hood shootings.  This is a pistol I would love to own as I’m a fan of velocity over mass, but Owens’ arguments are sound and I have a heavier caliber pistol for the same reasons.  I’m grateful Hasan fell for the hype, things could have been far worse.

People scoff at computer virus threats while disregarding the legitimate threat.  Frankly, the chance that your PC could be given a virus that downloads child pornography is frightening.  So if anyone reading this doesn’t have a firewall and antivirus program on their PC, please install one pronto!  Being framed for something as depraved as this should be motive enough to add some security.

Terrorism and Fort Hood

UPDATED

The media reaction to Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack on his fellow troops in Fort Hood has been disturbing to me.  Political correctness is acting like a lens distorting reality the way a funhouse mirror warps a reflection. As more facts emerge about Hasan, it is clear he was a jihadi. Someone just snapping from stress by proxy (what a ludicrous excuse) doesn’t try to contact al Qaeda months before shooting a bunch of American soldiers.  He doesn’t give away his belongings first and he doesn’t frequent strip joints like the 9/11 hijackers did.  Hasan did exactly that.


Many Islamic fundamentalists believe all your sins are forgiven on martyrdom, so they tend to party in forbidden ways.  That looks hypocritical to Western eyes, but it simply points out one of our cultural differences with the Islamic world.  Over at Forbes, Tunku Varadarajan has a must read piece on our problems facing what he dubs “going Muslim.”

UPDATED:
CNN proves the distorted lens by rearranging a wounded soldier's quote to make it look like he was unsure if Hasan yelled "Allhu akbar." Mudville Gazette has the details.

It isn’t like Hasan was the first to go on a killing spree in the name of Islam after 9/11. Next week on Tuesday the “D.C. Sniper” will be executed.  Seven years ago, John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice Lee Malvo  killed 10 people. Do people even remember this?  I wonder.

A big part of the problem is how the political left and their lapdogs in the media have depicted the war on terror.  J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker puts it better than I can.  I agree with him that relativism has done a great deal of damage:  allowing corruption to flourish and weakening our will to defend ourselves. Everything depends on the American people waking up.

I question whether another 9/11 would be enough.

The Fort Hood Shootings

UPDATED: 

Hasan may be linked to the 9/11 hijackers.  The Telegraph has more on his connections including worshiping at the same mosque in Virginia at the time they attended. Simply incredible that he was kept in the military. Once again, why do I find these things in foreign papers first?


Now that it is days later, we have a more complete picture of what happened.  The shooter is a devout Muslim psychiatrist that was under suspicion of posting pro-jihadi statements online six months ago.  Major Nidal Malik Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq Afghanistan and had gotten bad reviews in his evaluations.  Hasan is American born of Palestinian parents and believed the war on terror was a war against Muslims.  He refused to have his picture taken with women. He was devout, attended a mosque – yet claimed no religion or preference in his military records. He shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before firing two handguns into a crowded room. We also know he gave away many of his belongings, something that a jihadist does before preparing for martyrdom.

So the media is spinning it as some kind of combat stress by proxy, since he has never served overseas. The media concern is over how Muslims will be treated over this, more so than the plight of the real victims.  Funny how we are always being accused of persecuting Muslims when something like this happens.  This suggest we behave otherwise, hat tip to Instapundit. *sigh* Reality has become optional in today’s age.
I’m wondering if this is a watershed moment, where it becomes very clear there are two America’s: one bent on political correctness unto insanity and the other that see’s what is really going on but feels completely muzzled by the former.

It isn’t like this is an isolated incident, we had a Muslim shooter in Utah last year, there was the black Muslim convert who fragged his squad mates in Iraq years ago, a conspiracy to attack Fort Dix, and we are beginning to see honor killings in the United States.  What we are seeing is a clash of cultures that aren’t very compatible, if at all. Ignoring that or spinning it as something else isn’t going to make the problem go away.  Individual jihadists are still jihadists.

Meanwhile, we take casualties here at home.  The soldiers were unarmed and felt far from combat when Hasan attacked them.  Because he was supposedly one of them and it happened here, they feel betrayed and violated.  We all should as this man should not have been in the military.  With his record he should have been booted out as a security risk, but PC rules all in governing now.

The soldiers who died and were wounded came from all over the country, so this truly is a national tragedy.  What makes tragedies tragic is that they are preventable and are based on the flaws of people. In this case, the many flaws of Hasan were apparent for some time. If he ever gets wakes up and comes off the ventilator keeping him alive, I predict a media circus as more facts come out – fact that won’t fit their narrative. Though I wonder if they even have a clue about what is real anymore.

President Obama’s performance still rankles me, made worse by that idiotic “shout out” attributed a Medal of Honor to a man who doesn’t have one.  There is no excuse in not knowing the difference between it and the Medal of Freedom, just as there is none for the levity shown beginning the speech. The superficiality is simply amazing with this man.  There is no question in my mind that we are less secure with him at the helm.

Mass Shooting at Fort Hood

Horrible day in Texas,  12 dead and 31 wounded by at least one other soldier.  The shooter was killed, but there are eye witness reports of a second shooter who is in custody with a third as possible accomplices. The FBI has been brought in to assist in finding out the motivations.  Fort Hood is under lock down. Please pray for all involved.

As jarring as that was, President Obama coming out to address an Interior Department conference waited minutes before speaking about it, doing pump up motivational material for the attendees -- even going as far as giving a “shout out” to one the people in the audience!  Reprehensible and disrespectful, the shootings should have been brought up immediately.  From there he rambled as he does without a teleprompter.  The man is an embarrassment to the country and to his office.