Month: November 2005

“…while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind you – bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave in them.”

Woodrow Wilson’s words, given at a speech in Philadelphia before an audience of naturalized Americans (May 10, 1915) should be drummed into our national consciousness. That is the model of the American melting pot, true assimilation. To those who would legally immigrate: “Bring your best, leave the junk behind.” To those who would steal across our borders: a swift boot in the rear and “Don’t come back!” should be their only greeting.

Let me concentrate for a small space on how the principle voiced by Wilson above is being undercut in nearly every local community, whether it has legal/illegal immigrants or not via federal messing about in local school districts.

Imagine, if you will, a small town in the Ozarks with a relatively huge population of green card (and not-so-green card *cough*) workers from Mexico and Central America. Their children are all-legally here or not-welcome in the public schools and offered ESL classes and Spanish-language aides and tutors because, well, because the feebs say so.

Now, in spite of the fact that ESL classes and such crutches as usually implemented rarely work to aid children in becoming Americans (or maybe that’s the point of ESL?), these positions MUST be filled and paid for, some with funds “laundered” through federal and state agencies (which all take their “cut” to pay for the “service”) and others from local funds. And finding qualified people can mean an expensive bidding war in locales where Spanish isn’t commonly spoken.

But how does this affect the majority of students? In many cases, the foreign-language students (and from personal experience in the particular Ozark school I’m thinking of, specifically Spanish-speaking students) are encouraged to maintain their private little language clique. Resources are taken up and classes are dumbed down. I’m not talking theory here, folks. It’s what happens. Think about it. Your children getting less than they ought in part because their class must be taught at the level of the lowest level of understanding of the least-English-speaking child in the room.

OK, I’m heading into an edu-rant, here. “Social promotion” is the name of the game. And “mainstreaming” foreign language-speaking children in their age group instead of their skill/comprehension level, while at the same time spending vast amounts of resources in ESL and tutoring and placing “aides” (often merely “native speakers” with a high school diploma or G.E.D.* as translators), is stupid. “Social promotion”-of which this is but a variant-of all kinds is stupid.

And what of discipline? heh At least in the school I’m thinking of, someone *cough* had the perspicacity to make a list of all the vulgar, obscene and profane phrases in Spanish he knew and give it to the principal for the tachers and staff to have as a reference (a student sent to the office with “#5 Spanish list” on the note was in deep caca-heh). But how quickly, given some of the political indoctrination (some in the ESL “class” itself) were the students to pull the “discrimination” card when called on misbehavior?

PDQ.

(Of course, mainstreaming+social promotion is also being used with people with severe learning disabilities. Another way to drag down average and gifted students’ education experience. Again-belongs in an edu-rant. 🙂

Now, I know there are some ESL and mainstreaming programs that work. But they MUST be tightly focused on the principle outlined by Woodrow Wilson in his 1915 speech-with a small edit as an address to one people group:

“…while you bring [your country] with you, you come with a purpose of leaving [your country] behind you – bringing what is best of [its] spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave in [it].”

Build a wall, a fence, and make gates for folks to enter. Let those gates be these:

• Enter with permission
• Undergo a check for past criminal behavior and health
• Learn English and American history
• Become a citizen or leave after a designated time
• Conform to American law and custom, retaining your customs as they will fit and forsaking the laws of the country you leave.

Lacking any of these, here’s the door; it swings both ways. Don’t let it hit ya where the Lord split ya.

Linked at Euphoric Reality, Don Surber, The Political Teen, Committees of Correspondence and The Uncooperative Blogger.

Update: Anti-Christian Rampage by 2,000 Muslims

“I have come to realize Islam is a good religion, it is a good way of life.”-Harry Reid, asshat senator from Neon City

“The world is divided into two spheres, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. The latter, the Land of Warfare, is a country belonging to infidels which has not been subdued by Islam.“-from Why I Am Not A Muslim, by Ibn Warraq

News Flash! Islamics hate little old ladies!

…And all other men, women and children who do not bend the knee to their moon god.

Yeh, yeh: Dog bites man. *yawn* Old news. And usual disclaimers abound: “Not all Muslims are savage butchers, mutilators-of-women, rapists and goat lovers. (But those who aren’t are unlikely to even speak out against those who are, and their silence consents to the savagry.)”

The latest?

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’

AL-QAEDA has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London.

Gee. What took them so long?

Frankly, unless Muslims begin rising up en masse worldwide (there is some small hope) to condemn and openly harrass, pursue, capture and execute the murdering lying savage pigs that comprise Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups, I’m perfectly willing to lump all who have not openly and honestly condemned terrorism in with the terrorists.

Oh, and that includes the denizens of Demoncrappic Underpants, Moooove-on.orgy, most of the Mass Media Podpeople and every other Loony Left Moonbat and Academia Nut around.

Update: do note Dan Kauffman’s post, Intifada of Eurabia Day 17:

“The violence in France, Denmark, Belgium, and Germany appears to have spread to Greece…”

Linked at Don Surber, Common Folks, Common Sense, Stop the ACLU, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Random Numbers, Basil’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Tar Pit, The Uncooperative Blogger

Technorati : Al-Qaeda, Greece, Intifada, Islam, Queen of England, Religion of Peace
Del.icio.us : Al-Qaeda, Greece, Intifada, Islam, Queen of England, Religion of Peace

[NOTE: Go ahead and consider any Saturday post an “Open Trackback” post for the weekend.]

A grab bag of thoughts from all around…

Jerry Pournelle shared some thoughts on honoring our service men and women, including this:

“…the GI Bill today is much lower than it was after World War II, or the Korean War. It is easy to show that the GI Bill paying for retraining — in academic colleges, commerce colleges, trade schools, technical colleges, all of those — was one of the best investments this nation ever made, putting some serious adults young and old into the higher education system.

There are bills pending in Congress that would increase the GI Bill for today’s veterans. They have been cut back “to save money”. Let me say that if we can afford a trailer and payments to people whose only justification is that they were in the path of a hurricane, why cannot we afford benefits for those who put themselves in harm’s way at the call of their country?”

Read the whole thing.

“Dedication Is Visible Among new Soldiers” at military.com (from a Christian Science Monitor article) is good news on more than one front.

“Wal-Mart Boycott Ends with Apology” (from WallyWorld) at Stop the ACLU relates how pressure from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights helped put “Merry Christmas” officially back in Wal-Mart greeters’ allowed repertoire of greetings and “Christmas” back in the search terms at Wal-Mart’s website. heh

It was linked below (in Wednesday’s Open Trackback post), but DO NOT MISS Norman Podhoretz’ article, “Who is Lying About Iraq?“

And did you catch “The French Connection” at The American Thinker?

And DO catch TMH’s Bacon Bits’ “Will Paris (and Washington) Go to School on l’Intifada?”

Semi-random quotes:

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” -G.K. Chesterton

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” -John Stuart Mill

“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth.” -R. L. Dabney

“Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide.” -James Burnham

Linked at Don Surber, Common Folks, Common Sense, Stop the ACLU, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Random Numbers, Basil’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Tar Pit, The Uncooperative Blogger

Technorati : France burns, GI Bill, Iraq, L’Intifada, Plame, Veterans Day, military service

I had supposed someone might ask about the sperm whale in my sidebar by now…

Well, I had noticed a number of bloggers (GM Roper comes readily to mind) who have taken to placing images of animals that’re in their TTLB Ecosystem “evolutionary ranking” somewhere near their TTLB listing. GM, of course, chose an African Elephant in full dudgeon.

Given my own political persuasions and the state of both the major parties (as well as all the minor pitty-patty parties-heh), I couldn’t find a large mammal that’d suit and evoke association with my own political leanings.

Oh, let me clarify something: as disappointing as some of the current administration’s acts have been, I still actively support the Bush administration. (Heck, I support the Blunt administration-admittedly sometimes with embarrassment-in my home state.) And given the fact that the Democrats want to drive the country off a precipice at 90mph (and accelerating!), the fact that Republican politicians prefer to head off the same precipice at a more sedate 45mph almost always wins my vote. Reluctantly, in many cases.

You see, I am really a classical Liberal Conservative. I believe in conserving the values that the Founders and Framers held, as much as is possible, and, even more, in restoring those that have been neglected, actively harmed or simply lost. Vales like teue freedom of speech and press , not some vague, anything goes (or not, according to the tastes of the ruling elite) “freedom of expression”-no, I’d like the words of the First Amendment to mean something concrete. You know, rather like it did to the Founders and Framers of this (onetime?) republic.

I’d like to see the Republic restored. Yes, a choking off and weeding out of Federal fingers in every pie (I almost wrote, “every eye” cos it sure seems like feebs are poking anyone they want… anywhere they want-The Martha Rule, ya know. Anarcho-tyranny).

I’d very much like to see less licensing by various governments of activities the Constitution assures us are Rights. (A “right” that is licensed is no longer a right. It has become a priviledge which can be taken away at the edict of a government bureaucrat.)

I’d like to see the concepts of freedom and liberty once more associated with responsibility and duty.

I’d like to see charity no longer dispensed by the government to those that government bureaucrats and politicians must keep down on the welfare plantation in order to justify jobs and power. Better charity were given freely, too, than via coercion at the end of a gun barrel. (Just try to defy the IRS to the end, and that’s what it comes down to.) Robbery is robbery, whether the robber paints himself as a Robin Hood or a welfare politician/bureaucrat.

I’d like to see those who say they believe and uphold and serve to protect the Constitution… do so.

The group of those who are serious about that task does not seem to include a number of politicians-of either major party-to make one good fist.

So, I’m a sperm whale, not a raging bull elephant or a jackass (or, possibly with Billary, a hinny ass).

Here are a few books to put on your wishlist for Christmas…

TheFairTax Book and

America’s Best Kept Secret Fairtax: Give Yourself a 25% Raise

State of Fear

Do As I Say (Not As I Do) : Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

The Shadow of Saganami (The Saganami Island)

At All Costs (The Honor Harrington)

The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set

Linked @ Choose Life ; Jo’s Cafe; Stuck on Stupid; The Uncooperative Blogger; Basil’s Blog

Technorati : C.S. Lewis, David Weber, Fair Tax, FairTax, Honor Harrington, Liberal Hypocrisy, Michael Crichton, Narnia, Narnia Chronicles

I never see unrequested popups or popunders when I surf, and rarely see ads (Opera’s good to me that way), so this was news to me…

FTC Shuts Down BlogSpot Spyware Ring, and Spyware Operation Shut Down by the FTC.

Hmmm… seems “a massive spyware operation that allegedly used Google Inc.’s BlogSpot service to trick millions of computer users into downloading spyware and adware programs.” _1_ Hmmm, popup ads offered “free lyric files, browser upgrades and ring tones” to sucker naïve users into loading spyware onto their systems.

And a big distro venue for these scum was Blogspot, which “was being used to spread spyware and adware programs such as ‘Search Miracle,’ ‘Miracle Search,’ ‘EM Toolbar,’ ‘EliteBar,’ and ‘Elite Toolbar.’”

Gee, I just cleaned some-a that off a naïve user’s computer the other day. (An older 900Mhz machine barely running XP and dragged to a painful crawl by 371 pieces of spyware and 12 Trojan dialers. *sheesh*)

Nice to know the FTC is doing something useful for a change. I wonder if the creeps who were doing this will get as much time as Martha did for “lying” to investigators? (Remember: the witness whose testimony was critical to Martha’s conviction—NOT for insider trading, which she could not have done, but for “lying”—was later charged with perjury in his testimony… Good going, feds.)

Oh. Well. Regardless, whatever these guys get in punishment/fines won’t be enough. Confiscation of EVERYTHING these guys and their families have now or ever might have down to seven generations might be enough in the way of fines, but boiling in oil wouldn’t be enough of a punishment for these creeps…

*mutter, mutter, gripe, complain*

But the naïve users who infested themselves with spyware and were exposed to potential theft of personal information? Well, God love ‘em, they got what they deserved.

You know how it works…

The rules are simple:

1. ANY post (or posts) you wish to feature here, just include a link to this post in each post you trackback here with, and

1. Trackback away!

If you need some help doing trackbacks, just see the Wizbang! Standalone Trackback Pinger or Kalsey’s Simpletracks.

Did I say “OTB festival”? Here are more Open Trackback bloggers:

Note: the Open Trackback Alliance Blogroll indicates which blogs are offering OTB’s on which days—Saturday is day 7.)

And the Open Trackback Provider Blogroll:

Add this Blogroll to your site
Hit me with your best shot!

Trackbackposted at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Don Surber’s “Dean’s Dot.Com Bust & Open Post”, Stop the ACLU and TMH’s Bacon Bits

Trackback URL for this post: http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2005/11/saturday-open-trackbacks-festival.html

This is a repost of my Memorial Day post of May 30, 2005. The poems quoted below were each in response to WWI and are equally appropriate, IMO, on Veterans Day, honoring both those who have given their lives in defense of freedom and those who willingly laid down their lives in service, but fortunately still serve us with their living examples of courage, sacrifice, honor and duty. To all our Veterans and your families, those who have served and those who continue in active service: Thank you all.

(Note: because our volunteer military personnel literally do lay down their lives in service to our country—hopefully to take them up again when their duty is done—this post is focused on the ultimate gift of duty and honor.)

Compare and contrast…
A Canadian response to WWI events:
In Flanders Fieldsby
John McCrae, May 1915

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Here’s a later response by an American reader of “In Flanders Fields”…

We Shall Keep the Faith

by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead
.Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Now, what’s the comparison, the contrast? Well, not so much between the more famous “In Flanders Fields” and the less-well-known (today, at least) “We Shall Keep the Faith” but between the two poems and… attitudes today toward those who have fallen in service to their country. Today, large numbers of Americans hold such sacrifice in disdain. Indeed, many have attended and participated in “demonstrations” that have celebrated the terrorist savages who seek to kill not only American servicemen and women but civilian non-combatans as well.

Moina Michael’s now less-well-known poem was instrumental in establishing “Decoration Day” (now Memorial Day) and in establishing the (apparently dying) tradition of wearing a poppy in honor of our fallen military. That McRae’s poem is “better” art, I’ll not dispute. But Moina Michael’s poem has a heart that’s sadly missing in all too many Americans today who cannot comprehend, let alone echo these lines:

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies

Would that we too teach our children well, that duty and honor and sacrifice are due our deepest respect and support.

untilthen.swf
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And DO visit GCS Distributing for some more moving tributes to those who serve and have served in the armed forces.Linked at Stop the ACLU, at Don Surber, Cathouse Chat, TMH’s Bacon Bits, and at NIF, of course—a massive linkage post, as usual. 🙂

November 11 …or Armistice Day, as it was once called, because the end of World War I came on “…the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month…”

So, today’s Open Trackback Festival under the auspices of the Open Trackback Alliance is in honor of all those military veterans who have served to preserve our freedom here and promote freedom abroad.

Thank you.

Open trackbacks to this post? The rules are simple:

1. ANY post (or posts) you wish to feature here, just include a link to this post in each post you trackback here with, and
2. Trackback away!

If you need some help doing trackbacks, just see the Wizbang! Standalone Trackback Pinger or Kalsey’s Simpletracks.

Other Open Trackback Alliance bloggers with open trackback posts today are Stray Dog and Those Bastards! (See the Open Trackback Alliance Blogroll in my sidebar for a full list of OTA participants and the schedule of open trackback posts.)

I’m looking for some good reads today, just like the last time, folks, so roll ‘em on in! (Especially as related to Veterans Day, but this is an open trackbacks post, so feel free!)
(And Veterans: do take note of this FREE MEAL “Thank You” at Golden Corral. h.t. Adam’s Blog 🙂

Linked at Cao’s Open Trackback Friday, Mudville Gazzette, Don Surber, Cathouse Chat and TMH’s Bacon Bits. Oh, and NIF, of course—the largest single set of interesting linkage around, it seems. 🙂

It’s Thursday, which means Stop the ACLU Blogburst, of course.
 
But I already posted on that (my wish for a Christmas present for the U.S.A. with Jay’s 10-point hit list below the fold), so here’s a brief list of articles/posts I’ve found interesting this week. Some have come to my attention via the 20 trackbacks in my inaugural Open Trackback Alliance post yesterday. I hope to discover some more great reads when I host another Open Trackback Alliance open trackback fest tomorrow, along with Stray Dog and Those Bastards!

So, to things that’ve caught my eye:

All the posts in my inaugural Open Trackback Alliance post yesterday, of course. Especially the geeky news from NIF that MSI is adding the Creative Audigy2 sound chipset to its motherboards—well, some of them. Creative’s patches aren’t my all-around favs for producing/playing back midi (that TWC nod goes to Roland), but the Audigy2 chipset/patches are quite good. Nice.
 
On L’affaire Plame, see The CIA Disinformation Campaign,  Powerline’s “The Three Years of the Condor“, and  Joseph Wilson IV: The French Connection. (Kinda makes one wonder if France is getting all it deserves… yet.) Someone(s) really need to wonder very, very loudly why Fitzgerald didn’t press Plame and Wilson for testimony. Surely they’d have some inside—and pertinent—info, eh? Since Wilson’s a known—and proven—liar it seems that make for some easy indictments for something or other.
 
This point/counterpoint mini-debate on the FairTax vs. the Flat Tax proposals is a must-read intro for anyone who wants to get a grasp on that debate. I’m strongly on the “strike down the 16th amendment and institute the Fair Tax” side of the argument, but you need to get a handle on this crucial issue, cos taxes are at the point where they are a National Security issue. Seriously. Dig into it for an understanding.
 
While you’re at Townhall.com, check out, “Don’t know much about history,” “Facing the facts” (read down a few ‘graphs) and “Ammunition for poverty pimps“.
 
ALWAYS stop in at Stop the ACLU on Thurdsays, at the very least. And while you’re there, check out

 
Well, there’s certainly a lot more out there, guys n dolls (including France Burns; Chirac sends the kiddies to their rooms), but we’ll save some for later, eh?

Linked at Stuck on Stupid’s Pre Veterans’ Day Blogfest