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  • This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than the enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, or the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit. My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy. - Marine Corps Rifleman's Creed.

Haditha Update: Military Judge Must Review 60 Minutes Tapes In Wuterich Court Martial

Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich is facing a court-martial for his involvement in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha, Iraq.

The prosecution in the court-martial of SSgt Wuterich had sought to subpoena portions of an interview he did with 60 Minutes.  The military judge rejected the subpoena.  The prosecution appealed the military judge’s ruling.

The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) ruled that the military judge abused his discretion in quashing the subpoena, and directed the military judge to review the tapes to determine their relevance.  Court’s opinion here.

The case will resume at Camp Pendleton, with the military judge reviewing the tapes.

yojoe out

List Of Stores Related To Guantanamo Bay And The Military Commissions

The Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law has a great compendium on stores related to the Military Commissions and the detainees at Guantanamo Bay:

11/30/2008:  A round-up of today’s opinion pieces on Guantanamo:

  • The New York Times features an op-ed by Jonathan Mahler in which he argues that the Obama administration will have to decide on how to define terrorism, perhaps moving beyond the unhelpful binary distinction between war or crime.
  • The Boston Globe features an op-ed by Sabin Willet pointing out that of the 22 cases to go to any sort of adjudicatory proceedings, only one has resulted in a conviction.  Some, such as Attorney General Mukasey argue that this means we need new rules to prosecute terrorists.  Others would point out that something went very wrong in the detentions themselves.
  • The Washington Times features a commentary by Michelle Malkin in which she expresses her disdain for the government’s attempt to lessen the injustice of continuing to hold the detainees at Guantanamo by pointing out how humane their treatment there is.
  • The Washington Post features a second op-ed piece by Jack Cloonan and Sarah Mendelson in which they argue that preventative detentions, like indefinite detentions, have no place in a future legal regime to deal with suspected terrorists.

11/29/2008:  The Washington Post features an op-ed by Jack Cloonan and Sarah Mendelson in which they argue that would be unacceptable for the Obama administration to include in its closing of Guantanamo a continuation of the indefinite detentions, even for those considered too dangerous to release.  They write that our legal system is capable of handling these cases and that it is imperative to base the new legal regime for handling terrorist suspects on the rule of law, without exceptions.

Read more »

The Importance And Morality Of Free Trade

Walter Williams has a great article on the morality of free trade,

Since there is no moral argument for preventing one person from trading with another, anti-traders shift their argument to a patriotic appeal such as suggesting that we’re losing our manufacturing sector. That doesn’t square with the facts. According to a report given by Dr. William Strauss, senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, titled “Is U.S. Losing Its Manufacturing Base?” the answer is no. In each of the past 60 years, U.S. manufacturing output growth has averaged 4 percent and productivity growth has averaged 3 percent. Manufacturing is going through the same process as agriculture. In 1900, 41 percent of American workers were employed in agriculture; today, only 2 percent are and agricultural output is greater. In 1940, 35 percent of workers were employed in manufacturing jobs; today, it’s about 10 percent. Again, because of huge productivity gains, manufacturing output is greater.

yojoe (in free-trade mode) out

H/T: Jewish World Review

Marine Corps May Lose Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle And Get Fewer MV-22 Opsreys

As previously reported, here, the future of the Marine Corps’s Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is in doubt.  Now it is being reported that a Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) study recommends that,

the armed service cancel its EFV in favor of an armored combat vehicle better suited for post-9/11 land warfare. The EFV substitute would have to possess “some modest ability to traverse water obstacles,” Wood writes, and be combined with an air-cushioned landing craft-type vehicle to “better address the evolving anti-armor and precision-guided weapons” deployed by foreign regimes.

The recommendations are designed to help shape the Marines in light of changing threats, making them a more streamlined force.

The study also recommends that the Corps reduce the number of MV-22 Osprey aircraft, which made its first deployment to Iraq in Sept 2007,  it plans to purchase,

Besides the EFV, Wood’s evaluation of a changing operational and threat environment, increasing budgetary pressures and the potential implications of distributed operations also led him to advise the Corps to revisit its decision to fully replace its CH-46E Sea Knights with MV-22s. A mix of MV-22s and a new helicopter replacement for the Sea Knight “would provide greater options and increased flexibility at less cost,” he says.

yojoe (in Corps mode) out

H/T:

Notre Dame USC First Half

ND had 9 total yards of offense in the first half. Not good Weis.

New Book By Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success

buy from amazon

Malcolm Gladwell has released his new book, Outliers: The Story of Success.  Gladwell’s previous two books were Blink and The Tipping Point.

Gladwell’s writing concentrates on the social sciences and are written for the layman.  Here is some Q&A about his new book:

1. What is an outlier?

“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I’m interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.

2. Why did you write Outliers?

Read more »

Best Phrase Of All Time: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Listening to Neil Cavuto on Fox News talking about the terror attack in Mumbai.  He has used, numerous times, the best phrase of all time, to wit,

“Its like déjà vu all over again.”

yojoe out

Washington DC Has Plan To Fix All Its Problems: Rename A Street "Taxation Without Representation Street"

imgres The residence of DC have a great new plan to solve all their woes: rename the portion of South Capitol Street between N Street and Potomac Avenue “Taxation Without Representation Street.”

That should do it.  No more problems in the District.

This should help your rate of HIV/AIDS infection, which is the highest in the nation.  (128.4 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 14 cases 100,000 people for the rest of the United States)

Murders that “are the second-leading cause of premature deaths among the District population as a whole . . .” are no longer a problem.

A 6th-place ranking in a ranking of the most dangerous cities in the United States, is no longer an issue.

And, some of the worst public schools in the nation.  Fixed.

Read more »

The United States To Fracture Into Six Parts By Early Spring

You thought the current economic news was bad; well it is about to get much worse here in the USA.  According to Igor N. Panarin, Doctor of political sciences, professor of the Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, the United States will not be so united.

Professor Panarin predicts the U.S. economy will collapse, followed closely by the United States breaking into six separate parts.

When asked why the United States would separate, he explained,

“A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

Who could argue with this?  During the next few months you need to think about which area you want to live in.

Read more »

Tropic Thunder DVD Review

Now, let’s go get those Vietcongs!

- Tugg Speedman

Tropic Thunder is the story of a group of actors making a Vietnam War movie.  The story is told in a mocumentry style, think This Is Spinal Tap.  The movie stars Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and has a  cameo role played by Tom Cruise.

The movie is the story of the filming of the memoir of a Vietnam veteran, John “Four Leaf” Tayback.  When the filming runs into some trouble, the director decides to film the movie guerrilla style. The director turns the actors lose in the jungle, where they encounter a heroine gang.

The movie plays on a number of Hollywood stereotypes. 

  • Tugg Speedman (Stiller) - action-movie star who thinks he is a better actor than he is.
  • Jeff Portnoy (Black) - comedy actor famous for his fart movies, who is addicted to heroine.
  • Kirk Lazarus (Downey) - multiple Academy Award winner, who undergoes surgery to portrays a black sergeant.

Read more »