About Beck and Clemens

Bensblurb #569 8/30/10


About Beck and Clemens...
I don’t know why my reaction to the Glenn Beck thing on the Mall was a yawn, but essentially, as I commented recently in Huffington Post, “...He is surely getting through to some good folks, no doubt. He attracted a huge crowd...one that cleaned up its own trash. Nice change from the Inauguration mess. Still I think he's all truisms. When he's on O'Reilly he becomes a clown. I'd guess his flame will now die out. No harm, no foul...”

The Roger Clemens thing, however, really is foul--a foul ball. He’s being prosecuted for “testifying” falsely at a Congressional committee hearing. You know, those little circuses on Capitol Hill where our elected reps get to show off for the cameras and bore everyone else to tears.

Here’s Jonathan Tobin, in Commetary’s website: "So Roger Clemens doesn’t face 30 years in prison to save the lives of teenage athletes. The real reason is that prosecuting wealthy adult athletes generates enormous publicity, which is something that both members of Congress and federal prosecutors crave...Clemens may be a liar and scoundrel, but anyone who thinks that the effort used by the feds to nail him for his alleged sins is appropriate must ask why his case was worthy of attention when many other possible crimes — like, say, Elliot Spitzer’s money-laundering to finance his prostitution habit or voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party — were not."

Re: Recalling days of yore, or pot calling the kettle.... "We [African-Americans] are sort of a mongrel people. I mean we're all kinds of mixed up." --Barack Obama on "The View" --Reminds me of the spiteful use among southern politicians in the 1950s of the term “mongrelization.”
　
By the way, thanks to a loyal reader who forwards this puzzle about our President:

“Someone needs to work on their math... Barack Obama stated that his father “…served in WWII.” It must be true as this is what he stated in a campaign speech ("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv4jnlkxOaw").
Why haven’t any newspapers double checked this statement and called the party on this? They did for everyone else. Why not him?According to Wikipedia, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (Obama's father) was born 4/4/36 and died 11/24/82 at the age of 46. He was 5 years old when WWII started, and less than 9.5 years old when the War ended.According to Wikipedia, Lolo Soetoro (Obama's step father) was born 02 January1935 and died 02 March 1987 at the age of 52. He was 6 years old when WW 2 started, and 10 years old when it ended.That would make either of them the youngest veteran in WWII. There is one additional problem: I think he may have forgotten that his father was a citizen of Kenya. I haven’t seen this reported anywhere.”

--Nor I.

--Ben Blankenship

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We're gettiing grassed over

Bensblurb #568 Aug. 26, 2010


Stafford County getting grassed over

“We’re getting paved over!” But that was so yesterday, when some folks were trying to make it harder for builders to prosper here in Stafford.
In case you hadn’t looked around lately, we’ve been plum out of asphalt for quite a spell. And there are a lot more families wanting to sell their homes than others wanting to buy. My own home’s valuation has been cut nearly in half over the past three years although the property and my neighborhood remain quite nice.
　
It’s plain that the lengthy recession has done what our slow-growthers wanted. And it’s not likely to end anytime soon. So it’s prudent that Stafford’s current supervisors and planners are taking a second look at the county's comprehensive plan to see where it might have been too stingy.

Whatever, I suspect that homeowners in the recently developed Hills at Aquia nearby would like more new neighbors. The development, just north on U.S. 1 from Aquia Harbour, opened to great fanfare a few years back, just before the economic pinch started. Now it’s still lightly homesteaded--say 5 percent--although it’s seen a bit of welcome new construction lately.

Business owners would doubtless welcome that also. Customers have been lacking for too long now. Besides, is it my imagination or is Spotsylvania attracting a lot more taxpaying retailers nowadays? Things are whirring merrily in the Massaponax area while our pampered, rezoned Aquia Towne Center sits largely deserted, although the developer is claiming to have lots of plans. And have you seen the totally vacant Shoppes of North Stafford on 610?

Beyond immediate concerns, we should also note the county has placed more and more developable land permanently off limits. There was the acquisition of Crow’s Nest-- a "pristine" forest--together with the earlier setting aside of land for a state park in Widewater, Those, plus ever-hungry park and recreation expansionists, put the paving-over gripes in context.

My own view is that we aren’t in danger of getting too heavily populated. True, when I moved to Stafford over 30 years ago, there was only one high school for 40,000 residents. Now there are five for 125,000. And we're home to a lot of high-paid federal workers, with expanding Quantico nearby.
(Average household income in the county last year was nearly $100,000.)

Still, to get a perspective on the land beyond our built-up areas, let me suggest a drive down a couple of our lanes still pretty sparse and likely to stay that way for a good while. The tour covers country wonderfully diverse, but the roads are tricky and poorly marked. Take a map.

--Drive west on Garrisonville Road past Lake Arrowhead, then bend southward onto Hartwood Road, then come out on U.S. 17 close to the new Wal-Mart. Some 25 miles.

--Drive east on Route 3 from Ferry Farms, then hang a left at Caisson Road, then left again onto White Oak, then north on Brooke, up to the VRE station at Andrew Chapel--about 20 miles.

The latter trip especially reflects Stafford’s diversity, from the nice corn and soybean fields to the budding estate-size mansions with huge lawns alongside older hardscrapple communities and the stands of huge forests. Nowhere during those jaunts did I see a house under construction.

Even so, it’s reassuring to see that if anything, Stafford is being grassed over, not paved over.

Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com

Ground Zero Desecration, or Incoherence?

Bensblurb #567 Aug. 17, 2010

Ground Zero Desecration, or Incoherence?

He grew in wisdom and stature and...then became president. He’s since apologized to all religious beliefs foreign and domestic, except American Christians and Jews. Now he’s gone and capped it all off with a beauty of a blunder. His remarks about the mosque at Ground Zero merely continue his campaign to denigrate citizens’ positive beliefs about America‘s exceptionalism in the world.

Despite the mainstream media’s scolding us about our being motivated by bigotry in opposing the mosque there, I’d say instead that we‘re merely displaying patriotism and love of this country and its martyrs. I'd say there's also a well-based fear that too many Muslims can mean trouble in any country. As noted by a Huffington Post reader, "According to a 2007 Pew Research Center Poll entitled "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream," 60% of American Muslims refused to agree with this statement: A group of Arabs carried out the attacks against America on September 11, 2001.”

Sermonizing anyhow...

“As the controversy over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero escalates, we have had many secular sermons on the need to recognize that the vast majority of Muslims should not be confused with the terrorists. No argument there. But how much more fruitful our own debates might be if the...Mayor Bloombergs and Speaker Pelosis could extend that same presumption of decency to the American people.”--William McGurn, Wall Street Journal.

And this: “Perhaps the president should have considered the comments of Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Arifi on Egypt's Al-Rahma TV, on July 19: ‘Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. ... The Koranic verses that deal with fighting the infidels and conquering their countries say that they should convert to Islam, pay the jizya poll tax, or be killed. If the Muslims had implemented this, we would not have reached the humiliation in which we find ourselves today.’--
That's reality, not wishful thinking. This is what we're up against with the Ground Zero project and with the rapid immigration of radical Muslims. All the pronouncements to the contrary won't make it otherwise.” --Columnist Cal Thomas
Obama's Incoherence

“Have any of these people actually read The Audacity of Hope? Anyone who did would not have any trouble recognizing the problem...It’s filled with platitudinous statements such as “Republicans are usually wrong about X, but Democrats aren’t always right,” voiced in the inimitable lecturesome tone of voice from Obama with which we have all become so familiar. Incoherence and hair-splitting is nothing new with this President. However...Obama has rarely blundered into such an emotional minefield as this issue has become...By attempting to once again lecture people on how wrong most of us are on either side of an issue, Obama has exposed himself once again as a person who doesn’t engage well with the American people he seeks to lead.”--Ed Morrissey, in Hot Air.
And....
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written that Obama's clarity and successful messaging during the campaign are gone. In place is an "incoherent president," who's "with the banks, he's against the banks. He's leaving Afghanistan, he's staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds."

Finally...Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the mosque plan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released last week. In terms of party affiliation, 54 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents oppose the plan.
Thus, Democrat office holders and candidates in the November elections must be even a bit more upset than before. But hold on. Glenn Beck is coming to Washington with a rally. That should help alleviate the ugly political mood here, right? Sure.

--Ben Blankenship

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Virginia's top lawyer: Smokin'

Bensblurb # 566 Aug. 13, 2010

Virginia’s top lawyer: Smokin’

Have you heard about Virginia’s new Lawsuit Encouragement Office? Most folks have, but only via its nickname: Ken Cuccinelli.

Talk about energizing the whole legal profession here and elsewhere in the country, this guy has been cooking ever since we elected him as our Attorney General just a few scant months ago, it seems. Since taking office in Jan., as abundantly chronicled in the press, he has:

--Filed suit to obtain documents about global-warming scientist Michael Mann, who got Virginia government money while doing research at University of Virginia

--Made illegal-alien stops by Virginia’s police optional, and

--Led Virginia’s so-far successful challenge of the new health care law on constitutional grounds.

So the courthouse legal-beagle lawyers doubtless are celebrating, along with the divorce lawyers. It’s true; they must be greatly heartened by the California judge’s overthrow of that state’s recent ban on gay marriages.

And--I almost forgot--Cuccinelli earlier filed suit against Obama’s EPA to keep it from unilaterally enforcing excessive clean-air regulations on major industries. Such measures have failed to pass congressional muster, via cap-and-trade global warming legislation. Even so, EPA intends to ignore reason and plow ahead with its recession-lengthening measures next year.

Call the law! Or at least our Congress people. (Note: Sen. Jim Webb may react. He’s written a fine piece on the death of affirmative action. But forget Sen. Warner. He’s seemingly disappeared into Washington’s muck.)

Our Attorney General got a lot of heat in the spring from the academic community for querying Michael Mann’s work while in Charlottesville. But his legal inquiry was merited on the basis of Mann’s subsequent publication at Penn State of an influential but greatly exaggerated “hockey stick” graph depicting global warming as being far worse than it was.

And, following on the heels of the Arizona controversy over illegal alien laws, Cuccinelli has gotten further into that problem for Virginia, with predictable howls from the ACLU. As the AP’s Bob Lewis has written, “Police in Virginia have authority similar to those in Arizona to question suspects they stop or arrest about their immigration status, [Cuccinelli] said in an advisory opinion...that law-enforcement officers can query people in connection with criminal matters only...”

Nonetheless, our next door county neighbor, Prince William County, is acting up also. Board Chairman Corey Stewart has noted, “It is disturbing that this [newly caught] accused drunk criminal [and nun killer] was not deported after we handed him over to ICE over one year ago. It is even more disturbing that [he] was released on personal recognizance...every single day federal authorities release criminal illegal aliens -- who have committed crimes from DUI to assault -- into our neighborhoods.” The feds are in an uproar over Stewart’s charges.

Cuccinelli’s challenge to Obamacare is grounded in the fact that Virginia had the good sense to enact its own legislation permitting our citizens to opt out of any mandatory payments for health care insurance before Obamacare became law . So now the courts must act on his challenge, and may throw out the health care edict before it even takes effect. Good for him.

--Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com
　
　

Religions or Threats?

Bensblurb #565 Aug. 11, 2010

Religions or Threats?

Back in the good old days when we knew the enemy, it was pretty much black and white, in the generic not racial sense: Germany, Japan, and a bit of Italy.

As I grew older after World War II, with no real enemies in sight for us teenage Methodists, “they” became the Baptists, Church of Christ and a smidge of Episcopalians. Catholics were too rare, and peculiar, to earn our sneers.. Of course, what eventually happened was that I married one and lived happily ever after, at least for the first 54 years and counting.

But back then, we teens could see little merit in some churchgoers (1) dipping rather than sprinkling for baptisms, (2) banning accompanied music, like pianos, during their services, although they could sing beautifully, perhaps as a result, or (3) serving real wine at communion.

Of course, those were youthful biases that died with maturity, right? I hope so. For as adults we’ve known of real threats to our beliefs and way of life. There were the Soviets, the “Evil Empire” as Ronald Reagan labeled them shortly before their dissolution. Now there are the Islamists, or Muslims--and the two are both threats, right?

I don’t know. However, I have come across two Internet pieces since the controversy erupted over the 9/11 Ground Zero proposal to establish a mosque there. Are they informative or merely inflammatory? I’ll not judge, but I invite your comments.
　
　
Roger Kimball (in Pajamas Media):

“"Islam is not a movement to be engaged, it is an enemy to be defeated.”

Please, commit that to memory. Think of it every time someone tells you that Islam means “peace” or starts making excuses for the latest chapter in the annals of Islam’s war against the West.

For that’s what we’re talking about here: Islam’s war against the West. It’s not Islam’s misuse of commercial airliners, its penchant for sawing off the heads of people they disapprove of, or even its profound lack of sympathy for bacon. No, it’s Islam’s fundamental, essential incompatibility with foundational Western values like free speech, the separation of church and state, and equality under the law. Such things are not simply missing from Islam: they are positively repudiated by Islam...not “peace” but “submission,” i.e., submission to the will of Allah...

[In a recent speech, Newt Gingrich’s] key insight is that we are engaged not in a war against terror but a war against Sharia, i.e., Islamic law. Would that our current masters in Washington had as clear-eyed an appreciation of the nature of the conflict in which we are immersed...
Gingrich made two points of surpassing importance. First, some Islamists employ mass-murder attacks while others prefer a gradual march through our institutions — our legal, political, academic, and financial systems, as well as our broader culture; the goal of both, though, is the same. The stealth Islamists occasionally feign outrage at the terrorists, but their quarrel is over methodology and pace. Both camps covet the same outcome.

Second, that outcome is the death of freedom. In Islamist ideology, sharia is deemed to be the necessary precondition for Islamicizing a society — for Islam is not merely a religious doctrine, but a comprehensive socio-economic and political system. . . .

While our law forbids cruel and unusual punishments, Gingrich observed that the brutality in sharia sanctions is not gratuitous, but intentional: It is meant to enforce Allah’s will by striking example.”

One further point. The main front in the battle between the party of freedom and the party of Jihad is not unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or even in the colonized bits of Europe. It is here in the United States. The Ayatollah Khomeini used to refer to America as “the Great Satan” not because he thought America was the embodiment of evil (though he may well have thought that, too) but rather because America epitomized everything about the West that tempted good Muslims to abandon that which made them Muslims: their belief in, and adherence to, Sharia, i.e., a view of the world that embraced the will of Allah as the last word about, well, about everything. There is no “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” in Islam because Caesar, i.e., the secular realm, has no independent claims at all. Allah is it and Sharia describes the implementation of his law.
“The war is about the survival of Western civilization, and we should make no apologies for the fact that the West’s freedom culture is a Judeo-Christian culture — a fact that was unabashedly acknowledged, Gingrich reminded his audience, by FDR and Churchill. To ensure victory in the United States we must, once again, save Europe, where the enemy has advanced markedly. . . .

Our allies are the Muslims who embrace our freedom culture — those for whom sharia is a matter of private belief, not public mission. Our enemies are those who want sharia to supplant American law and Western culture. When we call out the latter, and marginalize them, we may finally energize the former.”
　
　
And this piece, as forwarded by old school buddy, Jerry Hawsey, who writes, “Folks, the following is fact, pure and simple. Having had a little exposure to the Muslim world, I can attest to that. It’s a damn shame our government has not tuned in to this...”

Islam Explained in Layman's Terms Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat.Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.Here's how it works: As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:United States -- Muslim 0.6%Australia -- Muslim 1.5%Canada -- Muslim 1.9%...
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:Denmark -- Muslim 2%Germany -- Muslim 3.7%United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%...From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:France -- Muslim 8%Philippines -- 5%Sweden -- Muslim 5%...At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in: Guyana -- Muslim 10%India -- Muslim 13.4%Israel -- Muslim 16%Russia -- Muslim 15%After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8% At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:Bosnia -- Muslim 40%Chad -- Muslim 53.1%Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:Albania -- Muslim 70%Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%...
After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%Egypt -- Muslim 90%Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%Iran -- Muslim 98%Iraq -- Muslim 97%...
100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word....
Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons."Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel." -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'...

--You can write to Jerry and I'm sure he’ll be happy to send you the whole thing. Jhawsey@sbcglobal.net


--Ben Blankenship
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Hello again

Bensblurb #564 Aug. 6, 2010

HELLO AGAIN

Still waiting around for the start of our promised “Recovery Summer?” You know, the uptick that would result from Obama’s costly “stimulus.” Surely it will arrive before folks go into the voting booth in November. But with July’s unemployment still stuck on 9.5 percent, White House terror is almost palpable.
Meanwhile, here in Virginia we’re happy with another administration trying to make things right. Richmond’s Obamacare law challenge is grounded in the fact that Virginia had the good sense to enact its own legislation permitting our citizens to opt out of any mandatory payments for health care insurance before Obamacare became law . So now the courts must act on his challenge, and may throw out the health care edict before it even takes effect.
As Time magazine recently noted: “Can the government require that citizens buy health insurance? Mandatory insurance is a key element of the health care reforms...Adding healthy people to the insurance pool spreads the cost of policies for people with health problems. Missouri's referendum rejects that mandate by asking voters whether state laws should be amended to forbid penalties for failing to have health insurance.
Missouri, by the way, did vote overwhelmingly for that very thing. Welcome aboard.

WHY NOT CRACK DOWN? I saw a short video feature on my PC that showed Russians on a gunship taking over a pirate boat, tying up its pirates on board, and then blasting the boat and everyone in it to smithereens. Then I read somewhere that those Somali (?) pirates who attacked a U.S. ship a good while ago were getting ready to go on trial here.
That reminds me of friend Walt Kreutzer’s comments on border security in my last piece in our neighborhood’s newsletter.
“[Obama’s] press secretary was asked, since the government is suing Arizona for trying to enforce the federal laws against illegal immigration, will the federal government also sue the cities that refuse to enforce the immigration laws? No response.
“A number of years ago I was assigned to escort a delegation of foreign border police. We went to Arizona, and finished up on the border in San Diego [where] one of the officers...approached me and asked is it all right if the delegation made some recommendations? I said, of course. That is when they pointed out where we should emplace our machine guns...
“Now the Secretary of Homeland Security says we cannot secure our border. With that attitude she is correct. What we need are those foreign border police from far away to bring several companies of their police force to show us how to do it.”

--But we here must be more legitimate, respond our unaccountable civil rights lawyers.

Thus, Gitmo remains open and, surprise:

Frank Wuterich, Marine, is charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty arising out of his role in the November 2005 incident during which Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. All his buddies have been freed, but not him. On 60 Minutes a year or so ago, he was badgered unmercifully by handsome, oily Scott Pelley. I wanted to smash Pelley’s face in.
　
BUT WE MUST ENFORCE THE LAW...
“This entrepreneur was a 7-year-old named Julie Murphy. Her business was a lemonade stand at the Last Thursday monthly art fair in Northeast Portland. The government regulation she violated? Failing to get a $120 temporary restaurant license.
Turns out that kids' lemonade stands--those constants of summertime--are supposed to get a permit in Oregon, particularly at big events that happen to be patrolled regularly by county health inspectors.
"I understand the reason behind what they're doing and it's a neighborhood event, and they're trying to generate revenue," said Jon Kawaguchi, environmental health supervisor for the Multnomah County Health Department. "But we still need to put the public's health first." --Oregonian
Yes, I’ve become cynical: As H.L Mencken once remarked, “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

--Ben Blankenship
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