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:: Netmarcos' Notes ::

Musings and rambling commentary on current events, politics, music, and other cultural issues mixed with a few personal references.
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:: Friday, January 30, 2004 ::

Who lied about Iraq's weapons programs? Bush did it! Bush did it!. So claim many prominent democrats and several major dailies over the past week or so in the wake of early reports concerning David Kay's final report on Iraq's WMD. But then Kay frustrates Democrats by coming to Congress and telling the resto fo the story.
"Kay assigned most of the responsibility on the intelligence gathering agencies, which he said relied mostly on U.N. inspectors' reports instead of developing their own intelligence sources. "


Nice try boys, but this dog won't hunt.


:: Mark 1:19 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Jack Cashill has some pithy, sarcastic analysis of the accusations and name calling that has been directed at John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act. You should read it.Just when did John Ashcroft join the Nazi Party?

:: Mark 1:12 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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This man is not fit for duty. Kerry says threat of terrorism is exaggerated - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics
"I think there has been an exaggeration," Mr. Kerry said when asked whether President Bush has overstated the threat of terrorism. "They are misleading all Americans in a profound way."

Un-(insert dirty word here...)-believable.


:: Mark 12:51 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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There is a series of columns up on MSNBC concerning the United States' relationship with its European allies entitled "Terms of Estrangement". It might be well to read them all.

MSNBC - France: Friend or foe?

MSNBC - Britain rethinks its role

MSNBC - For Poles, the choice was easy

MSNBC - Trans-Atlantic troubles

MSNBC - To Germans, U.S. motives now suspect


:: Mark 12:42 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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David Frum's Diary on National Review Online includes a couple of letters from his readers in response to the debate over the "intelligence failures" leading up to 9/11 and Iraq. There is a lengthy, well thought out repsonse in defense of the intelligence community in general that should be read by everyone, at the top of the column, but it is the shorter peice at the end and Mr. Frum's response to it that caught my attention.
“What does the 'War on Terror' mean? Wake up America, the US has done just as much promotion of 'terrorism' as any other country. It has supplied arms and training to countless foreign guerilla groups, including Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and helped to planned coups and the assassination of foreign leaders (eg. President in Chile in 1973). If this doesn't count as terrorism what does?

“There are real answers to curtailing fundamentalist Islamic terrorists (like economic aid and education), but overthrowing these Governments and installing American puppet-'democracies' is just going to magnify the resentment.

“You cannot stop terrorism by the Orwellian-type controls suggested in this book, the only way to stop terrorism is to nullify the reasons why the terrorists are willing to commit these acts in the first place, to remove the cause that they are fighting for.”

It’s splendid to see the two most common leftist clichés smashed together into such shattering self-contradiction. On the one hand, we are told that the Chileans etc. are victims of American terrorism. Then we are told that it’s the duty of the victims of terrorism to examine their own behavior and “remove the cause” that the terrorists are fighting for. But if the right way to stop terrorism is to palliate terrorists – and if the United States is a terrorist state – then why aren’t others obliged to placate the United States by “nullifying the reasons” that the US acts as it does? The US did not in fact assassinate Salvador Allende, or even have a hand in his overthrow – but if it did, shouldn’t the reader by his own logic blame the Chileans for failing to “remove” him?



:: Mark 12:27 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Day By Day© by Chris Muir.




:: Mark 10:30 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Yet another prayer in school debate.A student senate tries to imitate the one in Washington. The ACLU is outraged.
College students often devote considerable energies to raising hell. Marshall University's Seth Murphy has discovered a novel way of doing so.
Mr. Murphy, student vice president at the West Virginia school, instituted opening prayers at Tuesday night senate meetings. He was rewarded with a shower of brimstone and, perhaps worse, he inspired opponents to organize a consciousness-raising session. On the bright side, all parties to the dispute are sharpening skills that will come in handy should they pursue postgraduate careers in culture-war combat.
Mr. Murphy started the invocations in September. 'We discuss important things,' he said, such as whether to put $50,000 up front to lure a popular rock band to campus. 'We need all the help we can get.' In an attempt to reach out, Mr. Murphy sent a letter to the dozen or so 'officially recognized' religious organizations on campus asking for volunteer invocators.
That set the fireball rolling.

:: Mark 10:26 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Thursday, January 29, 2004 ::
Go read this article and judge for yourself.
House Democrats claim prayer is 'disrespectful'

:: Mark 12:43 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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More on john Kerry's "electability". Veterans Should Politically Banish Kerry for Disgracing The Marine Corps Memorial -- Rick Erickson -- GOPUSA
Of all the reasons why John F. Kerry will not become President of the United States, the biggest reason has to be that, once he returned home from Vietnam, he betrayed his fellow servicemen who remained at war. Kerry not only allied with the likes of Hanoi Jane Fonda, but, before the United States Senate in 1971, Kerry went as far as to belittle the bravery of embattled troops by generalizing their every action in Vietnam as an atrocity.
No one questioned General George S. Patton, III, when he accused Kerry of treason in giving aid and comfort to the enemy, especially when it was revealed that North Vietnam incorporated Kerry's exploits into its communist propaganda machine. However, because of the prevalence of treason at the time and the monumental task of prosecuting Kerry and his proclaimed 'revolutionaries,' Kerry's actions went unpunished and the associated advances of communism went unhindered.
Fortunately, today's veterans and Americans who overwhelmingly support our armed forces tend to disparage those who dishonor military service and then pretend to be capable of our country's highest office. This political reality afflicted Bill Clinton, whose anti-military past kept him from winning any more than forty-nine percent of the popular vote. No wonder Kerry's presidential campaign is doing its best to subvert his estrangement from veterans and service people in general.

:: Mark 12:38 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 ::
If anyone has any doubts about John Kerry's war record, forget ablout it. It is his record after the war that is the real story.
Mackubin Thomas Owens on writes about John Kerry on National Review Online
...there is another record that John Kerry is running against, and this has to do with his very emergence as a Democratic politician: Kerry, the proud Vietnam veteran vs. Kerry, the antiwar activist who accused his fellow Vietnam veterans of the most heinous atrocities imaginable.

:: Mark 2:56 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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What constitutes a "standard of living"? How do you define success and prosperity? For some, it may mean simply that they have food and shelter. To others, if they don't have the freedom to determine the nature of the at food or shelter and the means of acquisition, no amount of wealth is sufficient. If you had a nice house and plenty of food, but no say in the outcome of your life, would you be content?
Dean: Iraqi People 'Whole Lot Worse' Now Than Under Saddam -- GOPUSA
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who desperately needs to perform well in Tuesday's primary race in New Hampshire, said on Sunday that the people of Iraq are worse off now than they were before Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
Describing the condition of their current situation with what they had under the former dictator, Dean said the Iraqi people have suffered even more since the United States went to war with Iraq last spring.
'You can say that it's great that Saddam is gone and I'm sure that a lot of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone,' remarked Dean during a 'Women for Dean' campaign rally on Sunday. 'But a lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot worse now than it was before.'


There are some in this world who would sooner starve as free men than to eat well as slaves. Howie does not, apparently, count himself among them.

:: Mark 12:09 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 ::
They like Bush, and they are not stupid is the primary message of this column in The Age, but the conclusion is even better than the title.
The price of freedom is high. You might think you would not sacrifice your life for it, but maybe you don't have to. After all, 20-year-old Americans are doing it for you, every day.


:: Mark 10:39 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Monday, January 19, 2004 ::
John Rhys-Davies has been under a hail of criticism for having the audacity to defend western culture.
I will stand by this: Western Christianised Europe has values and experience that is worth defending.

I stand with him.

:: Mark 2:41 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Oh, so that makes it completely different.israelinsider: security: Hamas prefers "bad girls" to be bombers
Female bomber Reem al-Reyashi, who blew herself up last Wednesday at the Erez Crossing, killing four Israelis, was induced to carry out the suicide attack as a punishment for cheating on her husband.

:: Mark 2:21 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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A sad note on the state of the oppressed peoples of the world on MLK day.WorldNetDaily: Slavery abounds, U.N. 'remembers'
Slavery is shockingly common in the world today: in homes, factories, farms and brothels. The most common form is bonded servitude, or holding people to work off debts with stratospheric interest rates. One widely held estimate puts the number of people in slavery at 27 million. The U.S. CIA estimates that up to 900,000 people are sold across international borders each year. The trade is illegal, and officially condemned, throughout the world. Yet it flourishes, earning perhaps $7 billion a year for its perpetrators.

:: Mark 2:17 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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News Flash! US CIA agents accused of SPYING! Hollywood rushes to the defense of source of information.Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US stars hail Iraq war whistleblower

:: Mark 2:13 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Oh! Now this is PRECIOUS!THE BUSH CONSPIRACY THEORY GENERATOR

:: Mark 2:04 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Andrew Apostolou on National Review Online claims that the Axis of Evil is Guilty as Charged.
Two years after President Bush's much bemoaned 2002 State of the Union address, the charges that he leveled against the 'Axis of Evil' have been proven. As President Bush had alleged, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in violation of their international obligations. That Bush was justified in his public indictment of these states is rarely acknowledged. That in each case Bush was vindicated by an intelligence failure is insufficiently discussed.


:: Mark 2:02 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Jed Babbin gives us just one more appalling example of the state of affairs in Europe and elswhere. This is response to an exhibit named "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" currently on display in the courtyard of Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities.
Zvi Mazel is, by all reports, a rather mild and charming man, as you would expect of a diplomat. He's Israel's ambassador to Sweden. Last week in -- of all places, the Sweden's Stockholm Museum of National Antiquities -- Ambassador Mazel lost himself in a violent outburst. The provocation? The latest evidence of a degree of European decadence unseen since the French Revolution. Art for terrorism's sake.

We are sailing straight into the maelstrom in a loosely woven basket of our own manufacture with idiotic smiles on our faces.
Please read this one.

Update:Israel Backs Art Attack


:: Mark 1:51 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Friday, January 16, 2004 ::
This must also be read and digested an to become part of our native thought process in evaluating the news coming out of Iraq...and elsewhere.
Michael Ledeen on Iraq on National Review Online
This leads inevitably to one of Jerry Bremer's favorite dicta, which is that the United States policy in Iraq must be 'even-handed.' We will not support one party, or group, or faction, against the others. We're not going to take sides. We will manage things in such a way that all Iraqis will have a fair shot at political participation, and then we will let the Iraqis decide what they want.

That doctrine is lethal to freedom in the Middle East, where none of the many active tyrants in the region has the slightest interest in even-handedness. The tyrants want to survive, and if at all possible, to win.

:: Mark 4:43 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Another excellent analysis piece from Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online
Where Americans see skill and subtlety in taking out Saddam Hussein and a costly effort to liberate a people, many Iraqis, even as they taste freedom, drive new cars, and see things improve, talk instead of humiliation, hurt pride, or anger at their own impotence ? whether whining over the morticians' make-up work on Qusay, or ashamed about Saddam's pathetic televised dental examination. Iraqis scream on camera that we should not stay another minute, but even more often whisper that we better not leave yet. Too often they seem to be mostly angry that we, not they, took out Saddam Hussein. While the tyrant's departure was a 'good' thing, it would have been even better had he killed a few thousand Americans in the process ? if only to restore the sort of braggadocio lost by the Baathist flight and antics of a mendacious Baghdad Bob.


You relly should read the whole thing. We have far too many voices in America, and the Western World in general, that cannot see, or refuse to accept, the basic cultural differences between nations. Read it; learn from it. Keep its lessons in the back of your mind the next time it is reported that the Iraqis want us out of town.

:: Mark 4:25 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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You don't say? I wonder how on earth that got in there?!
WorldNetDaily: Nuke 'yellowcake' from Iraq found?
A shipment of scrap steel believed to be from Iraq contains radioactive material known as yellowcake, according to a recycling company in the Netherlands.

:: Mark 11:08 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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DALE BUSS in the OpinionJournal - Taste column asks
"What happens when Christian stores start selling on Sunday? "


:: Mark 9:44 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Thursday, January 15, 2004 ::
Ann Coulter calls out the democrats on "THE JESUS THING".
Welcome to uExpress featuring Ann Coulter -- The Best Advice and Opinions The Universe!
...about a month ago, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released a poll showing that people who regularly attend religious services supported Bush 63 percent to 37 percent, and those who never attend religious services opposed him 62 percent to 38 percent. When you exclude blacks (as they do in Vermont), who are overwhelmingly Baptist and overwhelmingly Democratic, and rerun the numbers, basically any white person who believes in God is a Republican.

:: Mark 1:51 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Maggie has an opinion on the link between marriage and manhood.
Welcome to uExpress featuring Maggie Gallagher -- The Best Advice and Opinions The Universe!
when a man refuses to marry, what is he saying? Something like this: 'I reserve the right to find someone better in the future, which includes the right to break up this family, the right to make love and children with another woman in the future. And by the way, my money is my own. What I choose to share with you, I hope you'll be grateful for.' Naturally, no decent guy would say things like that out loud to the woman who is having his baby. But actions speak far louder than words, and so does inaction.

:: Mark 1:47 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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If you haven't had the chance to read the sentencing of Richard Reid by Judge William Young, you should.
January 30, 2003 United States vs. Reid. Judge Young: Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
Here is a sample:
Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice,individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

:: Mark 11:54 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Lileks starts out with an odd bit, but there is a point to this one, and a fine one it is. Go read it.LILEKS (James) The Bleat
So: do you think the guy who wrote that article called up this site today, hoping he’d find a foamy-mouthed point-by-point reply?

Maybe. Who cares? Let’s talk about the stars.

:: Mark 11:38 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Simply beautiful logic used in an analysis of the Bush/Rumsfeld view of reality and why it so infuriates the self-proclaimed intellectuals at home and abroad.Mark Goldblatt on White House and Intellectuals on National Review Online
The suggestion that truth wins out has been dismissed by a steady stream of continental thinkers, and their American disciples, as the height of intellectual na?vet?. In their minds, what determines truth is not correspondence with reality but political utility; we decide a proposition is true only if it directly or indirectly serves our interests. Different 'discourse communities,' accordingly, will always construct their own realities and determine their own truths. Sure, 'the moon orbits the earth' is true in Western culture. But a tribe of aborigines may decide that the moon is a goddess who comes out at night; that is their truth. The critical point is that neither of these truths is 'truer' than the other because reality is socially constructed, not objectively discernable.

:: Mark 11:09 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 ::
Welcome to uExpress featuring Maggie Gallagher -- The Best Advice and Opinions The Universe!
Follow the link and you will find a shocking exposé on non-traditional families and their effect on society. Unfortunately, the feminist hierarchy and the proponents of "same-sex unions" will not be able to accept or even comprehend the real message of the article.
Abandon your kids early enough, he implied, and fatherlessness is all they know. They won't need you. Kids adjust.


Please read it anyway. Maybe you will understand.


:: Mark 12:16 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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The news that you didn't get from Dan Rather...or any of the reporters that were on the scene either. BreakPoint | At the Foot of the Cross
Angel Tree, our Prison Fellowship program for prisoners’ children, is one of the great unheralded volunteer outreaches in America. Over the Christmas holidays these past few weeks, approximately 100,000 volunteers delivered Angel Tree gifts to more than 525,000 children of inmates.
You didn’t read about this in the newspapers, nor would I expect that you should. It’s not really that newsworthy that Christians help people in need. But there are two of our volunteers, who delivered forty presents, that I think you should have read about but didn’t. For reasons best known to themselves, the media ignored the fact that two of the volunteers were President and Mrs. George Bush. And they delivered gifts to forty inner-city kids in a church basement three days before Christmas.

:: Mark 9:21 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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:: Friday, January 02, 2004 ::
Un-FREAKIN'-believable!!Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Dean's blunt talk about race

'Dealing with race is about educating white folks,' Dean said in an interview Tuesday on a campaign swing through the first primary state where African-American voters will have a major impact. 'Not because white people are worse than black people about race but because whites are in the majority, and therefore the behavior of whites has a much bigger influence on hiring practices and so forth and so on than the behavior of African-Americans.' It is unknown whether Dean's style of education will have a big influence on either white or African-American primary voters at the expense of, say, Wesley Clark's experience with affirmative action in the military or John Edwards's Clintonesque folksiness. While the Republicans have baldly capitulated to racism in modern presidential campaigns, such as appearing at Bob Jones University and claiming we are so close to a 'colorblind' society that affirmative action programs can be dismantled, the Democrats have struggled to find a message that attracts swing white voters and loyal voters of color at the same.

:: Mark 2:31 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Ouch! Victor Davis Hanson pulls no punches in his assault on the idiocy of the "elite left".
Our Western intellectuals are sheltered orchids who are naïve about the world beyond their upscale hothouses. The Western disease of deductive fury at everything the West does provides a sort of psychological relief (without costs) for apparent guilt over privileged circumstances. It is such a strange mixture of faux-populism and aristocratic snobbery. They believe only a blessed few such as themselves have the requisite education or breeding to understand the “real” world of Western pathologies and its victims.




:: Mark 11:50 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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