End the War on Freedom

"One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine." -- Sir William Osler

"An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex." -- Aldous Huxley

Non Sequitur - Preemptive Strike - cartoon commentary on what "preemptive strike" really means. Hehe. [smith2004]

MoPaul via The Libertarian Enterprise - Making the world safer - cartoon commentary on Bushnev's war on Iraq. Hehe. [tle]

Rense.com - Quotations To Consider - many good quotes, some of which I've never seen before. My favorites: [birdman]

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." -- Albert Einstein

"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." -- Marcus Tullius

Jeff Head - Dragon's Fury - High Tide, the third volume in Mr. Head's World War III series, is now available in Adobe eBook format (2347K). Trade paperback and Microsoft Reader eBook formats coming in April. As happened when I bought volume II last July, Amazon made me wait overnight between paying and downloading. And I had to configure Opera to use the eBook application for the download. This confused me until I went to the installation troubleshooting page. Part of the cost of using a non-standard browser, I guess. Still, the eBook came faster, and cost less than paper. Don't think I'm sick enough today to spend the whole day reading; the floors need mopping, and the clothes need washing. But I'll want to.

I read The Turner Diaries yesterday afternoon, while lying in bed nursing a cold. It was a pretty matter-of-fact account of the creation of an American Aryan nation, though the word "Aryan" only appeared once or twice. The writer's hatred of Jews and blacks was apparent pretty early on, but it wasn't said in a hateful way. In the end, however, they nuked Israel and Russia and created a "wasteland" where China used to be. There was no real discussion of the form of government the author wanted to establish in his new all-white world. Everything in the story was run by the Revolutionary Command, and failure to complete ordered missions was a capital offense. He didn't seem to want much in the way of individual liberty, however. My guess is that he would peg the Nolan Chart at full-tilt authoritarian. Not great writing, and almost no character development, but enough action to keep me reading in my cold-infested haze.

Bill Whittle - History - I've only read the beginning of this. As usual for Mr. Whittle, it's well written. I will attempt to read it with an open mind, but, just as he won't convince me that the War of Northern Aggression was just, I doubt he'll bring me around to his view that the killing was justified of 361-and-counting Iraqi civilians and they-won't-tell-us-how-many American, British, and Iraqi soldiers. No, this is mass murder by the U.S. government, for which they should all swing. [kimdutoit]

This war is an abject and utter failure. What everyone thought would be a quick, decisive victory has turned into an embarrassing series of reversals. The enemy, -- a ragtag, badly-fed collection of hotheads and fanatics -- has failed to be shocked and awed by the most magnificent military machine ever fielded. Their dogged resistance has shown us the futility of the idea that a nation of millions could ever be subjugated and administered, no matter what obscene price we are willing to pay in blood and money.

The President of the United States is a buffoon, an idiot, a man barely able to speak the English language. His vice president is a little-seen, widely despised enigma and his chief military advisor a wild-eyed warmonger. Only his Secretary of State offers any hope of redemption, for he at least is a reasonable, well-educated man, a man most thought would have made a far, far better choice for Chief Executive.

We must face the fact that we had no business forcing this unjust war on a people who simply want to be left alone. It has damaged our international relationships beyond any measure, and has proven to be illegal, immoral and nothing less than a monumental mistake that will take generations to rectify. We can never hope to subdue and remake an entire nation of millions. All we will do is alienate them further. So we must bring this war to an immediate end, and make a solemn promise to history that we will never launch another war of aggression and preemption again, so help us God.

So spoke the American press. The time was the summer of 1864.

Leonard Spencer at Serendipity - The Incredible 9-11 Evidence We've All been Overlooking - a theory about the first WTC crash. It was a military plane, not a 767, and it fired three missiles into the building just before hitting it. I think I need a fresh jar of salt. [birdman]