News of the day - Hyphenated-American became a US citizen

Today, On June the 30th, 2011, Hyphenated-American has joined the ranks of citizens of the Great United States of America. In the presense of hundreds of witnesses he recited the sacred oath of an American:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Only in America?

Today, I was reading an article in the Los Angeles Times, and it became obvious yet once again to me - liberals are complete and utter idiots. Not all of them, of course, but the liberals who work as journalists for major newspapers are imbeciles. They don't know squat about anything, they have a hard time adding two and two - and yet they feel superior to the rest of the world. Here is the opening passage in the article:

It was imperfectly odd. It was strangely unsettling. It was uniquely American.


On a balmy early Saturday summer evening, the U.S soccer team played for a prestigious championship in a U.S. stadium … and was smothered in boos.

Its fans were vastly outnumbered. Its goalkeeper was bathed in a chanted obscenity. Even its national anthem was filled with the blowing of air horns and bouncing of beach balls.


Most of these hostile visitors didn't live in another country. Most, in fact, were not visitors at all, many of them being U.S. residents whose lives are here but whose sporting souls remain elsewhere.

Welcome to another unveiling of that social portrait known as a U.S.-Mexico soccer match, streaked as always in deep colors of red, white, blue, green … and gray.

Ah - isn't it sweet. Your own team is booed in its own country by the non-American-Americans - and you feel strangely ecstatic about this incident. Isn't it great that those non-American-Americans hate our American team - it's so beautiful, so refreshing, so uniquely American. Undoubtedly, Bill Plaschke, the imbecile who wrote this idiotic self-congratulating article (isn't it cool when people hate team America?) feels proud about himself and the country. It's so unique when recent immigrants (possibly illegal immigrants, if I may say so), the immigrants who demand American citizenship (and handouts, and preferential treatment at jobs and university admissions) - express their solidarity with the sh*thole they crawled out and crap on American flag and American anthem. Only in America, says Bill - and you know that deep inside his soul, Bill adds - only because of people like me.

This story reminded me of a similar episode - the non-American-Americans protesting the students who dared to wear tee shirts with American flags. After all - isn't it entirely reasonable that American flags in American schools are a clear sign of disrespect towards the non-American-Americans? I am sure that Bill was pissing blood, he was so upset that some of those redneck American-Americans dared to bring in an American flag. It's so racist - he thought - so un-American to bring an American flag to an American school. It's uber-American though to boo American anthem, of course, and it's uniquely American style of patriotism.

Let's start with the obvious. As James Bennett noted - "democracy, immigration, multiculturalism… pick any two". Any country with unlimited immigration which does not try to assimilate the new-comers will eventually be torn apart if it is a democracy. People who booed American football team are not Americans - they may be aliens from Mars, they may be Mexicans, or Russians - but they are not Americans.

Secondly, the situation described by Bill is hardly unique to our country. Back in 2008, French team was also booed by non-French-French people during the game between France and Tunisia. Here is the appropriate passage from the French media:

A warm autumn evening in Paris’s Stade de France, the UFO-like landmark French stadium. Two teams : France and Tunisia, invited for a friendly game. Sixty thousand spectators, including many French youths of Tunisian or North-African descent. All in all just another ordinary football game. Only it wasn’t.


Things went sour even before the game started, when loud boos and jeers nearly covered the voice of the young Franco-Tunisian singer performing the French national anthem. Afterwards, all through the game, incessant catcalls targeted Hatem Ben Arfa, born in France to Tunisian parents, who opted to play for his birth country despite overtures from the Tunisian Federation.

Of course, this was hardly the first time when non-French-French booed the French national anthem during the football match. Back in 2001, same "uniquely American thing" happened during the game between France and Algeria.

A football match between France and Algeria provided one of the first warning shots to the French political elite from the heart of the banlieues.


As the band struck up "La Marseillaise" before the friendly match in the Stade de France, in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, the national anthem was booed. But what shocked France was that those who booed were not Algerian fans but French-born second and third-generation immigrants with French nationality. The banlieues had spoken, and the catcalls from the suburbs were telling the government that the country's model of integration had failed.

That incident took place in October 2001, six years after President Jacques Chirac was first elected, having campaigned on a platform of healing the "social fracture" of poverty and exclusion that left millions of citizens out in the cold.

And of course in 2005, same very attitude was reported from the non-French-French citizens:

In Aulnay-sous-Bois last Saturday morning, a similar scene was played out in which the elected representatives of the republic were reminded that the "social fracture" is more serious than ever, and that the young Arabs on the estates still feel alienated from a mainstream society which has abandoned them to their own devices.


The mayor of Aulnay, Gérard Gaudron, had hoped that a march would mobilise the population against the violence on the estates and bring out a sense of solidarity. But as soon as a group of city councillors and shopkeepers began singing "La Marseillaise" there were noisy complaints from the crowd.

And when one thinks about France and its issues with non-French-French, what actually comes to mind? The 2001 booing of the French national anthem was followed by massive riots on the streets of French cities in 2005, burning of 9 thousand cars and general unrest. In 2007, the non-French-French were able to burn down a library, two schools and a police station (how in the hell can you burn down a police station?!) in addition to hundreds of cars. The rioters also started to use the guns against police - which was a rather startling new development given the fact that France has pretty strict rules against the gun possession.


Bill Plaschke through his ignorance may conclude that it is uniquely American when immigrants openly and purposely disrespect the country they joined to move to. Mr.Bill Plaschke will even celebrate the early signs of the American nation being torn apart. What unfortunate is that LA Times is stupid enough to hire people like Plaschke to brainwash the readers instead of educating them. Do the owners and editors of LAT really think that the police will protect them from riots and violence which are inevitably coming? F*cking morons, all of them.

Obama's war

The  NATO coalition has been waging a war in Libya since March 19.  Let's look at some statistics. NATO is an organization of 28 states. It's combined annual military budget is more than 1 trillion dollars. The population of all NATO countries is close to 800 million people. On the other side of the conflict - Libya, a country of 6.4 million people and a nominal annual GDP of 74 billion dollars. One day of war costs the US taxpayers 285 million dollars - which is more than Libya's entire GDP. And yet, for more than 3 months, Muamar Kaddafi has been able to withstand an attack by the mightiest military machine in the world - and the current situation can be best described as "quagmire". The "days, not weeks" military campaign turned into a long and bloody affair with no light at the end of the tunnel. When looking at Obama's war, the most relevant quote that comes to mind is Napoleon's maxim - "An army of sheep, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions, led by a sheep". It is quite possible that at some point in the future (maybe eve tomorrow), a lucky missile will kill Kaddafi and bring an end to the conflict. It is also entirely plausible that some random Libyan major will decide to switch sides and bring Kaddafi's head on a platter as a gift to the rebels. Even if something like this happens in the next few weeks, one thing is certain - the entire war is a disgrace to America and its allies.

The failure of Obama's warmongering in Libya is evident to all, and it seems the White House understands that it needs to do something about it (or rather say something uplifting). A "small victorious war" turned up to be neither. Hillary Clinton, the "I am sick and tired of people who say if you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic" dissident suddenly changed her mind. Yesterday the old witch shouted the following:

I say with all respect that the Congress is certainly free to raise any questions or objections, and I’m sure I will hear that tomorrow when I testify.


But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi’s side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

In short, you either support Obama's "dumb war", or you support Kaddafi. No "ifs" of "buts", no "Dissent is Patriotic" - it's either you are with us or you are with the mass-murderer. No shades of grey here. How quickly things change. Does she really think that denouncing all critics of Obama's war she can win support of the American people?

What's more surprising to some readers is how the most "cerebral" president of all times, Barack Hussein Obama launched this small victorious war. He is a man known for taking unusually long time before reaching a decision - and he is also known to unmistakably choose the worst possible course of action.

For more than 2 weeks people in Libya were rebelling against Kaddafi, and his regime was on the brink of collapse. While this was going on, Obama was characteristically silent. At some point Kaddafi was able to regroup and pushed the rebels back. When all appeared to be lost for the Libyan revolution, Obama rushed into action and crawled on his knees to UN and the Arab League and begging them to give him permission to intervene. After the UN nabobs were generous enough to give him a nod, Obama sent the NATO bombers against Kaddafi's troops. To confirm once again my initial impression of Obama as a man of unusually feeble mind for someone with a high-school diploma, 2 weeks later he suddenly became very curious about the nature of the Libyan rebels he rushed to support and he sent CIA to investigate them. Apparently, it did not enter his mind to find this out BEFORE he rushed into war.

Even today, no one in his administration can explain whether the rebels are Islamist scum, or they are pro-American freedom fighters. I suppose we will find this out once Kaddafi is ousted - or in the immortal words of Nancy "Dumb ass" Pelosi "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

And here is food for thought - the provinces that rebelled against Kaddafi are known for sending record numbers of recruits to fight the Allies in Iraq. While Kaddafi is certainly a thug worthy of a rope around his neck, it may be that the rebels are even worse. It's rather difficult to discern why Obama decided to support the Islamists in their jihad against Kaddafi - instead of letting these two sides kill each other at will. As Henry Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq war - "It's a shame both sides cannot lose". And don't forget that even Obama's own Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates stated that Libya posed no threat to the USA whatsoever, and there was no national security issue.

But as far as Obama's behavior goes - it actually gets worse (or better depending on your perspective). For some reason, our president decided to ignore the War Power Acts in its entirety. A few years ago, when asked about Bush's possible attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities (which by all means do constitute a danger to the US security), both Barack Obama and his side-kick Joe Biden were unequivocal. Here is what future vice-president thought in 2007:

I have written an extensive legal memorandum with the help of a group of legal scholars who are sort of a stable of people, the best-known constitutional scholars in America, because for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I asked them to put together [for] me a draft, which I'm now literally riding between towns editing, that I want to make clear and submit to the United States Senate pointing out the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran. And I want to make it clear, I want it on the record, and I want to make it clear, if he does, as chairman of the foreign relations committee and former chair of the judiciary committee, I will move to impeach him."

I can only guess that the same "best-known constitutional scholars" later approved Obama's attack on Libya - and confirmed that Obama did not need the Congressional authorization to continue the war indefinitely - overriding the opinions of career lawyers. Of course, back in 2007, Obama was also unequivocal  about the limits of the president's power:

Question: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)


Answer: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

It's also amusing to read that back then, Obama even believed that the president had no right to detain American citizens. From the same source:

Question: Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?



Answer: No. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.

Quite ironically, only a few years later, Obama decided that targeted assassination of American citizens is allowed by the US Constitution. If anything, Obama's understanding of the US laws is extremely flexible - in fact one could argue that he does not care a bit about the US Constitution and instead follows the Lenin's principles of "revolutionary conscience". Here is the direct quote from the Soviet Decree from December 5th, 1917:

Местные суды решают дела именем Российской Республики и руководятся в своих решениях и приговорах законами свергнутых правительств лишь постольку, поскольку таковые не отменены революцией и не противоречат революционной совести и революционному правосознанию.

My translation:

Local Courts make legal decisions on behalf of the Russian Republic and in their decisions follow the laws of the previous governments only as long these laws are not abolished by the revolution and do not contradict the revolutionary conscience and revolutionary justice.

Read this decree carefully and think - is there any indication that Obama's legal views are drastically different from those of Lenin? If so, I would like someone to list those differences. I hope my reader keep in mind that Lenin wrote those decrees when he had absolute control of Russia - while Obama's powers are severely limited by the US armed forces, which would not let him launch the Red Terror.

Last but not least I must mention once again Obama's refusal to pursue Congressional resolution supporting the war in Libya. Indeed, he had 3 months to do that - and yet, he demonstrated no desire in convincing the Congress to provide a legal justification for the war against Libya. Indeed, his claims that the war in Libya is not a war (they call it now "kinetic military action") are not taken seriously by anyone. Why is he doing so? The answer to that is rather simple - Obama is and always was a very intellectually lazy man - he simply does not think it's worth his efforts to follow the US Constitution. Why bother with the niceties - when instead he can spend his time with the fundraisers or playing golf?!

Here is just one example of how far he can go ahead and insult our troops just by simply not bothering to check the most important details. I believe a man so intellectually sloppy cannot be smart and educated - it's just not feasible...

During his remarks to troops at Fort Drum today, the President was reminiscing about the times he has spent with the US Army's 10th Mountain Division, when he got something wrong.


"Throughout my service, first as a senator and then as a presidential candidate and then as a President, I’ve always run into you guys. And for some reason it’s always in some rough spots.

First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously."


The problem is, Jared Monti was killed in action in Afghanistan, on June 21, 2006. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, September 17, 2009. President Obama handed the framed medal to his parents, Paul and Janet Monti. He and the First Lady comforted them in the Oval Office following the ceremony.

Seriously, if you are going to make a speech and you got the urge to mention the name of a hero - would it really hurt to check his name first? And once you start putting together his other famous gaffes - the 57 American states that he visited, the 3000% decrease in insurance premiums, Austrian language - and compare him with president Bush (can you find anything that Bush said in 8 years of his presidency that was even remotely as embarrassing as what Obama blurted out in the last 2) - it's impossible to believe the media mantra about his super-human mental abilities. In fact, the facts point to something quite different.

But fear not, ladies and gentlemen, in November 2012 American people will get a chance to correct the mistake they made in November 2008. I hope this time they will take the elections seriously. I don't know about you, but I am certainly done with our first Affirmative Action president.

You can't not LOVE this man, Barack Hussein Obama

About a month ago our commander-in-chief proclaimed that Middle East has witnessed a “Teutonic shift“. Assuming that it was not a goof (Obama is known for his deep knowledge of the European history – for example he is famous for re-discovering the long-lost “Austrian language“), he was right on the money. Indeed, with the advancement of Moslem Brotherhood (a largely secular group according to Obama’s administration) in Egypt, recent re-unification between PLO and Hamas as well as success of jihadists in Libya, the Middle East is starting to look more and more as Nazi Germany. Now, granted, Teutons were a German tribe well before Hitler, but many people in Europe would not doubt recognize the meaning of Obama’s description.


In general, this president showed us all an example of a bald bold leader, not afraid to speak the truth to power. Let’s put together a few quotes from Obama – just to see the uncompromising honesty and integrity of our commander-in-chief.



“Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided…” 2008



“We should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States.” 2007



“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. ” 2008



Last but not least, Obama’s famous speech about the Iraq war. It sounds so different today – so out-of-place. One thought surely creeps in – “Did he say Iraq or Libya, Hussein or Kaddafi?”

I

don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history…
I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

2002.



By the way – the best thing about Obama is not just his sincerity and how he strives to uphold his principles. What I admire about him is that he first collects all necessary information, analyzes it, and then makes a decision. Here is a quick example – follow the sequence.



1.Libyan people rebel against Muammar Kaddafi.



2. At first, the rebellion appears to go quite successfully, but then Kaddafi counter-attacks.



3. After 2-3 weeks of weighting the odds, when the rebels’ position appear to be untenable, president Obama launches a war against Libya.



4. A few days later, president Obama asks CIA to find out and inform him who are the rebels that he went to war for.



As an engineer, I find this sequence puzzling – but then, I deal with real world, not community organizing. BTW, speaking of community organizing – can someone send me the job description for a community organizer? I’ve read Obama’s memoirs, and he went into details explaining what he did for year in Chicago – but I still don’t understand what was his actual responsibility.

Nicholas Kristof stole my idea

Many months ago I was talking to my liberal neighbor. At some point we started discussing a rather pathetic state of American education, and I shared with him a rather brilliant idea of mine. "Look neighbor," I said, "US government spends more on education that it spends on the military (back in 2008, the difference between the two was a startling 130 billion dollars a year). Our military are the best in the world, and our education is the worst in all of civilized world. And don't forget that military spending covers 1.5 million active military personnel  - and they've got aircraft careers, tanks, warplanes and nuclear missiles. On top of that, millions of retired soldiers who were wounded and are now provided free medical care. On the education side, we've got about 3.2 million teachers , and a few thousand concrete buildings. When our army goes to war, we can watch on TV how a missile flies into a chimney and blows up a whole bunch of nasty folks into smithereens. When our educators go to educate - all we got is a long list of complaints. On the military side we've got hydrogen bombs and Martin F-22 Raptor (150 million dollars a piece) - and we can kill the entire world 50 times over if we choose to. On the education side - well, our schools are a laughing stock. It is obvious that the only way to drastically improve our schools is by turning them to the military to run - because our educational professionals are not worth a bucket of warm spit".


I must confess that I was rather amazed that Nicholas Kristof somehow found out about my idea and wrote an article about it on the pages of the New York Slimes. But don't forget that Kristof is an idiot, so he could not grasp the enormity of my idea - and he f*cked it up. According to him, the US military is a little piece of socialism in America (and a well-run piece of socialism at that). He was most amazed by the day-care facilities run by military, the health-care, and as a side note, he mentioned that our soldiers don't seem to suck too badly. He was also quite taken by the rather egalitarian pay in the military, and the fact that military academies are among the best in the world. And then, in a rather stunning show of complete ineptitude (so typical of liberal quasi-intellectuals), he decided to compare our military with the private sector - which meant that he missed the entire crux of my idea.

So, Mr.Kristof, let me explain to you what you missed the first time. Our military are part of the government, so we, as taxpayers, run it as we damn please. We cannot, say, decide how much a CEO of a private corporation can make - but we set the pay for the "public servants" because they work for us. If you are in awe of our military and you want to emulate their success - then try to deal with the rest of the government. Let me remind you that our military are not unionized. They are not allowed to collectively bargain for better medical care. They cannot go on strike. Their participation in the political process is severely limited.  There are no tenures in the military and if you perform badly, you lose your job.  If a soldier disobeys direct order of his superior, he will be court-martialed. And he cannot simply call in sick and march to the capital and demand more pay. And yes, most of our soldiers are right-wing, and they had to go through blood sweat and tears to be admitted to the military.

So, if you are serious about your praise for the military, and you are concerned about the low standards of the US education, then you will join me in demanding that our educational system be run in the same fashion as our military (and probably by the same generals). We can start by immediately forbidding our teachers to participate in political activity, the unions will be abolished, the teacher pay will be not allowed to go above the pay of our military personnel. The tenure must become the thing of the past, and teachers will be hold personally responsible for their actions. And if a teacher goes on strike - he will be sent to a military jail - no ifs or buts here.

In short, Mr.Kristoff, if you want the rest of the federal, state and local government to even approach the efficiency of our military, we must treat our "civil servants" as soldiers. Let's start with the haircuts first - I've seen a few folks in the local public school who looked like they needed to see a barber. They are no hippies in the army, private!