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TEXTT2

Not if you just “don’t like it”, that’s tough, but if your browser, for some reason, is making this all look garbled, or hard to follow, with things in all the wrong place (you’ll know if it’s happening), please comment here. I have changed a few things, mostly size settings, which will cause this blog to display poorly on small screens. You people still at 640 x 480 will be the first to complain. If you’re there, SPEAK UP. If not, well…

THIS POST WILL FLOAT AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS. After that, I will delete it.

Conservative Thought.   Apply Liberally

A Brief Index

• A Letter from a Terrorist–“Why I will not release your infidel daughter”
• Bullshit!
• Here, let me fix that for ya.
• A Letter to the Editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader
• “No Regrets” Cronkite says Abandon Iraq
• Syria Coming Apart in 3…2…1…
• New Strain of AIDS Blamed on Risky Behavior (Graphic)
• In Defense of the Death Penalty
• Blogs vs. Media Giants?
• Al Gore Steps In It.
• FoxNews Poll

Key Northern Supply Route Speeds Afghan Surge | Defense Tech

In all of the hub-bub surrounding the immigration bill, we are overlooking some fundamentals, and in my opinion, chief among them is this: a guest worker program is an admission that America does not work. A guest worker program is a method of fixing a problem, or else it should not exist. And if the solution to a problem cannot be found without establishing a revolving door for second-class citizens, then we are saying that we cannot succeed as a nation of citizens–that the Constitutional system is so flawed that we must now either…

[The Right Way]
My grandfather on my father’s side came to America in 1929, and he came to stay. He became a citizen, found good work, started a family, and worked like a dog to repair ships during the war. My great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side came to America in the 1700s, and established a namesake family which had great success in architecture, including the design of Manhattan’s Central Park and most of the old city of St Louis, Missouri. These were successful immigrants, and when they arrived, they did so legally, they sought and obtained citizenship, and they stayed for the long haul.

That is the American system. You come here to stay, you pledge your allegiance, you become fully vested and invested in the success of the nation, and Voila! You are as American as anybody else.

We believe that America works that way because we believe that America works, and if you need to come to America to survive, then you need to come to America to stay.

[Bad For Workers]
A guest worker program is a Marxist wet dream. I cannot imagine a more clear way for the government of the United States to establish a class-struggle system. For a hundred years, the reality-challenged Marxists have been telling us that America is an oppressive system which sustains itself only through exploiting the poor and powerless. Well, what else could we possibly say about a “guest worker” program? You come to our country, you pick the lettuce, mow the lawn, wipe the baby’s bottom, and then you go home, because this is not your country.

[Bad For America]

This is the story of how I changed from MacOS X and Windows XP and Windows 98SE, all in use simultaneously, to a completely Ubuntu Linux home office. I’ll add details and angles as time goes by, and in case any questions should roll in (hint, hint!), so things may change.

First, Ubuntu is the name of a distribution of Linux. Linux is a free operating system, and Ubuntu is a fantastically easy-to-use version of that. Please go to the Ubuntu website and check it out. Over there, you will find a touchy-feely Kumbaya corporate philosophy and the most polished, easiest-to-use, customer-centered, stable, flexible, usable, and free operating system.

Yes, FREE.

I am not making any money from this, but I have seen the light, and I will sing the praises of this operating system for the foreseeable future. I am not advertising; I am Evangelizing, and this is a phrase which has not been popular in computer circles since the early days of the Macintosh.

[Macintosh OS]
I still love the Mac OS, and I think I will buy a copy of MacOS X when revision 5 comes out, because it is supposed to be POSIX-compliant, which basically means that it will get along with my Ubuntu.

[Windows]
Listen. I was very impressed with Windows XP. I was one of the people who loved Microsoft Windows 3.11, which sat upon MS-DOS 6.22. I suffered along with Windows 95, which was a pathetic dog

Welcome to Kabul
Kabul is an ancient city that Alexander the Great passed through in 330 B.C. while enroute to India.[8] The largest city in Afghanistan, it had a population of 435,202 in 1969.[9] Three major mountains push through the city in various directions, and the Kabul river cuts the city in half. Like other Central Asian cities, Kabul’s center is composed of ancient adobe buildings set in a rabbit-warren of narrow streets and narrower passages. This tight, teeming bazaar is divided into separate sections where large groups of specialists live in an Eastern version of the medieval guild. Leather workers, jewelers, brass workers, and carpet merchants all have their own time-honored section of the bazaar for production and sales. Individual artisans and factories also produce items for sale in the town bazaars and for export. In 1979, the government officials normally lived in the “new city” where the ministries, foreign embassies, hotels, restaurants and cafes are located. The “new city” is generally north and southwest of the center. The “microrayon” is a region in the northeast of the city consisting of Soviet-style prefabricated buildings that were produced in a Soviet-constructed factory. At the time of the invasion, these multi-storied concrete buildings pierced the skyline, and new restaurants, stores, supermarkets and garages catered to the foreign colony and the growing Afghan middle class. The city was electrified, although power was unstable and problematic. Running water was not potable, although the Japanese were constructing such a system for Kabul. Modern plumbing was confined to the new sections of the city.[10] By regional standards, Kabul was a liberal and open city where women in cosmopolitan mini-skirts contrasted with those completely covered and veiled, and discotheques blared Western and Eastern music into the early hours.

On the eve of the Soviet invasion, it was winter in Afghanistan, and the snow was belt-deep in parts of the capital. Far to the north, at 0700 on 25 December 1979, two Soviet pontoon bridge regiments began guiding their floating bridges into position on the Amu Darya River in the vicinity of Termez, a Soviet city on the Afghan border. Meanwhile, the 40th Army commander, General Lieutenant Yuri Vladimirovich Tukharinov, met with the Chief of Operations of the DRA General Staff, General Baba Jan, in Kunduz, Afghanistan to coordinate actions in the deployment area.

By noon, the Soviet forces had received their orders signed by the Soviet Minister of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitri Fedorovich Ustinov. These orders directed that the 40th Army and Soviet Air Force planes would begin crossing the borders of the DRA at 1500 (Moscow time) on 25 December. The Soviet forces began their incursion precisely at the established time. The scouts and air-assault battalion of Captain L. V. Khabarov were the first to cross. They were tasked with seizing the Salang pass, a crucial choke point on the road to Kabul (twelve Soviet scouts would die in ambush at the pass). The remainder of the 108th Motorized Rifle Division followed the troops across the pontoon bridges.

Simultaneously, Soviet Military Transport Aviation aircraft crossed the border carrying elements of the 103rd Airborne Division (commanded by General Major I. F. Ryabchenko) and the 345th Separate Parachute Regiment to airfields in the capital and nearby Bagram. It took a total of 343 flights and 47 hours to transport the paratroopers and their vehicles and gear. The first aircraft touched down at 1615 on 25 December and the last touched down at 1430 on the 27th. General Colonel I. D. Gaydaenko directed the military air transport operation. The effort did not occur without casualties. At 1933 on the 25th, an IL-76 piloted by Captain V.V. Golovchin crashed into a mountain and burned during its approach landing. All thirty-seven paratroopers and seven crew members were killed.

On the 25th, the chief Soviet advisers to the Afghan military met in Kabul. They were ordered to prevent any Afghan units, which were opposed to the Soviet presence, from approaching Kabul. Those military advisers and technicians who worked with the DRA air defense forces were directed to prevent actions against the air movement of the paratroopers by taking control of all the air defense systems and their ammunition storage bunkers. The advisers temporarily disabled some air defense systems by removing the sights or physically locking them. Consequently, the Soviet air armada flew into Afghanistan unopposed.[11]

People have asked if the unemployment figures released by the administration are on the level or if there is some trick. The answer is both. We all know that the unemployment rate is calculated from a remarkably elastic base figure, the workforce, which for some reason excludes people who are “discouraged”. Yeah, I get it, but it makes for a shifting base, which makes the numbers suspect.