Boxer might lose?!?!  In what has to be either a sign of the end times or a sign of our bright future, Senator Barbara Boxer is in a tight race against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (via the Atlantic here):

The latest Field poll looks a bit troubling for Sen. Barbara Boxer: she leads her Republican opponent, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, by just three percentage points (47% to 44%)…

San Fransisco’s City Council, in an attempt to prove themselves the absolutely dumbest people on Earth, might ban the sale of pets (via Huffington Post here):

…If the ordinance passes San Francisco could be the first city in the nation to ban the sale all pets except fish….

The IMF tells the US to slow down on spending (via the Hill here):

The United States must rein in its deficits sooner than President Barack Obama wants, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

In an annual report on the U.S. economy, the IMF said the U.S. faces a “central challenge” in implementing a “credible fiscal strategy” to ensure that public debt is put on a sustainable path without putting the economic recovery in jeopardy….

The NSA responds to the WSJ article (posted here yesterday) concerning the “Perfect Citizen” program (via the Atlantic here):

Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Siobhan Gorman, titled “US Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies,” is an inaccurate portrayal of the work performed at the National Security Agency. Because of the high sensitivity surrounding what we do to defend our nation, it is inappropriate to confirm or deny all of the specific allegations made in the article. We will, however, provide the following facts: PERFECT CITIZEN is purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract. This is a research and engineering effort. There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor. Specifically, it does not involve the monitoring of communications or the placement of sensors on utility company systems. This contract provides a set of technical solutions that help the National Security Agency better understand the threats to national security networks, which is a critical part of NSA’s mission of defending the nation. Any suggestions that there are illegal or invasive domestic activities associated with this contracted effort are simply not true. We strictly adhere to both the spirit and the letter of U.S. laws and regulations….

I’m not saying I automatically disagree that their statement is completely accurate, but we should not forget the NSA is the same agency who for years denied even having something like Echelon.

During a school assembly for students enlisting in the Marine Corps, two teachers disrupted the assembly by protesting the war (here):

…For the fifth consecutive year, school resource officer Nick Pasquarosa recognized those seniors who had enlisted in the military. “While Nick was speaking, one faculty member held up a sign saying “End war” and another female teacher stood beside her,” said Assistant Principal Ann Knell. “The two faculty members sat down and did not clap during a school-wide standing ovation for those students.”….

It’s truly unbelievable we have such dolts teaching our children.  I guess it’s sort of analogous to the blind leading the blind, but in this case the students knew better than the teachers so it’s more like… the blind leading the seeing?

Please don’t misunderstand – I could care less about their actual stance and more about the time, place, manner, and assumptions with which they decided upon this course of action.

First, it’s well known that public schools are NOT bastions of free speech, nor are they paragons of oppression either.  But through time and court precedent, educators should (and most likely do) know that the primary responsibility to the children is education.  So any free speech that disrupts that process can be prevented and/or punished.

For instance, if I went to school with a pro-drug message, I would be sent home.  If I wore a blank arm band in memory of fallen soldiers, I would likely still be sent home, but ultimately win.

Second, and in my opinion more importantly, is the arrogance with which the teachers acted.  Keep in mind, that this is their employer giving an assembly which they believe brings value to their students (clients).  Yet they still protested?  I use the term arrogance, because I think we can safely say they assumed, and possibly correctly so, that they will not be fired.

This is what really gets me.  Not only did they believe they were in the right to disrupt a school proceeding, but they seem to believe it’s about freedom.  When in reality, if any company in the world decided to gather its employees to spotlight process X, a protest would certainly be met with immediate firings.  This would also be true in a private school setting.

Yet these teachers are claiming a right to do this and that it’s a teaching moment.  I would submit to them they should use it as a learning moment it should be instead instead of arrogantly attempting to parlay this into a “teaching” opportunity.

On each Memorial Day, I try to research at least one individual act of courage to remind myself  about the nature of those we’ve lost.

This year, I read about a 19 year old, who sacrificed himself to save his fellow soldiers.  While on patrol in Iraq, their Humvee came under attack.   His job, manning the 50 cal machine gun on top of the vehicle is critical to their success.  This day however (whole thing here):

…While Private McGinnis was manning the M2 .50-caliber Machine Gun, a fragmentation grenade thrown by an insurgent fell through the gunner’s hatch into the vehicle. Reacting quickly, he yelled “grenade,” allowing all four members of his crew to prepare for the grenade’s blast.  Then, rather than leaping from the gunner’s hatch to safety, Private McGinnis made the courageous decision to protect his crew. In a selfless act of bravery, in which he was mortally wounded, Private McGinnis covered the live grenade, pinning it between his body and the vehicle and absorbing most of the explosion. Private McGinnis’ gallant action directly saved four men from certain serious injury or death….

Born on June 14th, 1987, Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis lost his life to save others on December 4th 2006, in a place very far from home, because we asked him to go.

There are those that would say this doesn’t matter all that much since we shouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place.  There are others who would argue strongly that even if you disagree, soldiers like this one are protecting our lives and our freedoms.

For me, not all wars are about saving our freedoms.  Not every use of the military…. well, even most uses of the military, does not qualify as “protecting” Americans.  Like all countries throughout history, our military is a foreign policy tool that we don’t like to use.

For me…. it’s not about protecting me or protecting our freedoms, it’s a simple as this:  our country, through our elected representatives, asked this child to go to war.  He went.

Yeah, that’s enough for me.

As a part of the marketing push for the release of a new HBO Miniseries titled The Pacific, Tom Hanks, an executive producer of the show, has been making the interview rounds.

The new series, Mr. Hanks tell us, will be different from traditional war films in that it will include American racism and terrorism.  Quoted in an interview with CNSNews when asked about his racism comments (here):

…I have talked to all sorts of people who have, in the vernacular, used incredibly racist terms about the people on the other side of the fence, and we can see all the time that comes over in the regular news media from their side, from the other side, terms that can only be viewed as racist…

Now I don’t disagree with Mr. Hanks at all in that war vets from today and yesterday tend to still hold disdain for their once mortal enemies and that they do in fact use “racist” terms and in the course of war, some have committed acts which when viewed on the sidelines can appear inhuman.

However, Mr. Hanks continues:

But let’s just take the word “racism” out of it and put “ignorance” instead, because it’s, racism, is a mere virulent form of what that ignorance is….

& here’s where Mr. Hanks & I part ways, because what he describes isn’t “ignorance” any more than any other normal emotion is ignorance.

Don’t misunderstand me – racism is one of the lowest forms of thought in existence, but using dehumanizing and racist terms during war shouldn’t necessarily be on the same continuum because it’s foundation is not one of hatred, but one of survival.

When society, asks of its people, to go to war, face death, whether for the just cause of self-defense or the noble cause of stopping the ongoing Holocaust, they ask a great deal.  While historically this might not seem true, we know that humans are not born with a desire to kill other humans.  Taking a human life, even in self defense for most people is difficult and fraught with psychological consequences.

One of the ways societies, military units, and even individuals prepare themselves to take human life in war is to devalue it through language.  The use of racist terms is one of the consequences of this behavior and serves as a coping mechanism for those asked to kill.

Additionally, the term itself is meaningless, so long as it be negative and collective.  If I think about individual combatants, they become more human than if the group is just a bunch of  ________.

Even during the beginning of the Revolutionary War, our freedom fighters would pick fights with armed British soldiers, get fired upon, then make claims of oppression & murder.  The most famous example being the “Boston Massacre“.

A mob fully angered provoked armed sentries who fired in self-defense.

One of our founding fathers, John Adams, successfully defended the 6 soldiers against trumped up murder charges.  The press and many average citizens saw the enemy that was the British solider as a terrorist and themselves as saviors of freedom.  Stated simply, for most people, we were the good guys and they were bad guys.

& the same happened during WWII.  Even with noble and just causes, we tried to dehumanize the enemy in an attempt to reconcile the need for war.

Mr. Hanks continue:

“I’d like to think that as our time has gone by and as Americans have found themselves in 2010, ignorance is being replaced by a certain amount of enlightenment and racism is going to be replaced eventually by an acceptance. It’s just taking an awfully long time.”

Here again, I agree with Mr. Hanks.  Racism is a childish ideology, but so long as people on this planet want to do others  harm, we will need to be willing to do seemingly unbearable things to stop them.  As has been stated many times over, freedom is not free.

Let’s just hope that the certain amount of enlightenment Mr. Hanks discusses includes a basic understanding of human nature, combined with enough humility to not judge others as “ignorant” when in reality all they are trying to do is reconcile their desire to see others live compared to the actions required of them when called.

On this day, in 1941, Japan struck Pearl Harbor.  Watch actual news coverage of the event:

Some color footage, including interview with people who were there:

To read the full analysis, you will likely need to register and possibly pay, but Stratfor just announced A Possible Bin Laden Sighting:

A blurry image of a person resembling Osama bin Laden appeared in Abu Yahya al-Libi’s video sermon commemorating the end of Ramadan.

I guess I failed at this as well by twittering about the rescue of the captain from the Somali pirates, but from here on out, I think the term terrorist is a much better description.

Either way, after an amusingly easy defeat of the idiotic terrorists this past weekend, they have apparently decided to step up efforst in what appears to be a direct challenge to the US administration and other world leaders.

From AP (article):

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Undeterred Somali pirates went on a hijacking spree, brazenly capturing four more ships and taking over 60 crew members hostage in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world’s fight against piracy.

Pirates have vowed to retaliate for five colleagues slain by U.S. and French forces in recent hostage rescues — and the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday he takes those comments seriously.

These brazen Somalis of course have very little faith in the US to stay the course after the  abandonment of the country in 1994 in a blown operation made famous in Blackhawk Down.

Let’s hope our resolve stays stronger this time to keep international waters safe from those that wish to do nothing more than terrorize others for monetary gain.

As FBI negotiators backed up by several naval warships attempt to secure the release of an innocent hostage on the open ocean, the terrorists are now making demands.

AP (here):

A Somali in contact with a pirate leader says the captors of a U.S. sea captain want a ransom and are ready to kill him if attacked.

How about – if you leave the hostage unarmed, we won’t kill you?