The Dark Side of World War II

Every now and then, I run across something on the internet which is a must-read for everyone. Jacob G. Hornberger's "Repatriation — The Dark Side of World War II" is one of those must-read items.

I am currently working to verify some of the horrific claims of this article, including the executions of 2 million Russian POWs returned to Stalin, as well as the continued detention in gulags by Stalin of 50,000 Allied POWs.

With friends like Stalin, we didn't need enemies.

UPDATE: Silly me. I did a Google search on repatriation +"World War II" +stalin and got over 37,000 hits. After I checked a few of the websites, this looks VERY legitimate.

I think Patton was right. We should have attacked the Soviet Union immediately after World War II.

Quote of the day

"The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes..." - Dave Barry

Editorial of the day

I am glad to see John Stossel is off the education kick. Don't get me wrong: Stossel was right to go after the education establishment. But education is not the only problem in the world.

In his editorial today, "Exaggerating Dire 'Scientific' Warnings", Stossel goes after junk scientists, and how they politicize their causes in order to get government funding.

Give 'em hell, John!

Quote of the day

In honor of federal income taxes being due next Monday, here is something for all of us taxpayers:

"The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." - James Dale Davidson

Is it any wonder that Republicans seem so much more liberal nowadays?

Editorial of the day

Dennis Prager makes some good observations today in "Why the low jobless rate challenges Left and Right".

Specifically, he notes how the low unemployment rate works against the Left's arguments for a socialist state and higher taxes, especially when you consider how poorly socialist Europe is doing now.

On the other hand, the low unemployment rate also works against the Right's argument that illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs.

But Prager's final observation is a classic:

"And those on the left need to cheer the unemployment data. But they can't do that until they love the low unemployment figures even more than they hate George Bush and his tax cuts."

Quote of the day

"Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works." - Carl Sagan

Editorial of the day

It's a slow news day today. All the editorials seem to be reruns of existing opinions.

Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

The Gospel of Judas

With the release of "The Gospel of Judas", I decided it was time to discuss my religious views.

I believe Jesus was a great philosopher. Whether he was any more divine than you or I is debatable. I believe what he had to say was more important than whether he performed miracles or rose from the dead. If one requires magic tricks in order to accept wisdom, then one is looking in the wrong places for wisdom.

That being said, I have always considered the story of Christ to be incomplete. For example, Judas never made sense to me. How could you drop your life in order to follow a man whom you believed to be the son of God, only to betray him later? This would only make sense if Judas had a change of heart about Jesus. But if that was the case, why would Judas commit suicide later? Another change of heart?

It might be explainable if Jesus had done something to anger Judas, but nothing like that is mentioned in the Gospels. So we are left with a crime, but no motivation.

Which brings us to "The Gospel of Judas". In it, Jesus asks Judas to betray him, so that Jesus can fulfill prophecy. THAT makes sense. In "The Last Temptation of Christ", Judas is presented the same way. In that film, Judas is shown as Jesus' best friend, which is WHY he betrays him (because Christ did not trust the others as much as he did Judas). Again, that makes sense.

Perhaps Judas' motivation was left out of the Bible strictly as an oversight. Or perhaps "The Gospel of Judas" provides the real motivation. I lean towards the latter answer.

Quote of the day

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Editorial of the day

While I don't agree with Tony Snow, his editorial today ("Immigration Is An Overrated Issue") does show the other side of the immigration issue.

Where I agree with Snow most is that immigration does provide a legitimate economic benefit. That is why I support expanding the number of legal immigrants into the U.S.

I draw the line at illegal immigration. We need to secure the borders.

Quote of the day

"...in the lexicon of the political class, the word "sacrifice" means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it." - George Will

Editorial of the day: The Pig Book is out!

Citizens Against Government Waste has released it's 2006 Congressional Pig Book, which is a must-read for taxpayers of this country. They even provide a nice little searchable database of almost 10,000 pork projects which your tax dollars are funding this year.

If you are still angry after recently finishing your taxes this year, you may want to avoid this book for awhile. Finding out you are spending $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum may not be good for your blood pressure. (Did I mention the Sparta Teapot Museum is NOT in Iraq? It is in Sparta, North Carolina.)

Here is CAGW's summary of the pork situation:

"For fiscal 2006, appropriators stuffed 9,963 projects into the 11 appropriations bills, a 29 percent decrease over last year’s total of 13,997. Despite the reduction in the number of earmarks, Congress porked out at record dollar levels with $29 billion in pork for 2006, or 6.2 percent more than last year’s total of $27.3 billion. In fact, the total cost of pork has increased by 29 percent since fiscal 2003. Total pork identified by CAGW since 1991 adds up to $241 billion."

In all fairness, I do take exception to some of the items listed as pork. There are many items they list which involve energy research, which I think the government should help to fund. Even though the research may be located in specific parts of the country, I do not object. It is important, and it needs to be done. A good example:

"$79,745,000 for projects in the state of Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Harry Reid (D-Nev.), including: $14,300,000 for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ($5,000,000 to study the deep burn-up of nuclear fuel and other fuel cycle research, $3,400,000 for the study of hydrogen fuel cell and storage, $3,400,000 to research the solar-powered thermo-chemical production of hydrogen, and $2,500,000 for photonics research and the evaluation of advanced fiber optics for hybrid solar lighting); $3,400,000 for the National Center on Energy Management and Building Technology..."

Kudos to Harry Reid on those worthwhile projects. However, then he has to go and screw it up:

"...$3,500,000 for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s virtual- site office; $2,500,000 for Altair Nanotech; $1,000,000 for materials reliability at the University of Nevada- Reno Center; and $250,000 for the Mojave Bird Study. Due to previous concerns regarding the safety of birds in the area, an environmental impact report, released in July of 2004, revealed that the death toll on red-tailed hawks and other bird species in the area would be minimal following the construction of a wind farm. According to an article published by Judith Lewis in LA Weekly, the local Audubon groups that led the attack on the Pine Tree Wind Farm offered to pay for a meticulous study that would focus specifically on the songbirds. However, the government insisted on conducting their own study using taxpayer dollars to fund the project."

So we could have had the private sector fund a study, but instead "Dirty Harry" would rather spend my money? Harry, get your damned hands out of my wallet!

In all fairness, I shall also pick on the Republicans, since they are in majority of Congress, as well as pork. One senator who spends way too much time in Washington and not enough time in his home state of Alaska is Ted Stevens:

"$47,326,000 for projects in the state of Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), including: $12,733,000 for Western Arctic Parklands; $7,000,000 for Alaska conveyance; $4,000,000 for a visitors center at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge; $1,100,000 for the Matunuska-Susitna Borough; $750,000 for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park; $450,000 for the Bering Sea Fisherman’s Association; $400,000 for the Ketchikan Wood Technology Center; $150,000 for the Alaska Whaling Commission; and $98,000 for the Alaska Sea Otter Commission."

Let's save the whales and send Ted Stevens home!

Quote of the day

"Character, not circumstances, makes the man." - Booker T. Washington

Something for Cynthia McKinney to remember. The fact she is a member of Congress does NOT make her any better than the police officer she decided to strike. What she showed was a lack of character.

Come to think of it, this might be wise for ALL members of Congress to remember.

Editorial of the day

Ruben Navarrette makes some good points in his editorial "Undeniable Realities on Immigration".

The one point he makes that got me to thinking:

"Undeniable Reality No. 4: There will always be jobs for illegal immigrants because many Americans want to enjoy upper-class luxuries on middle-class salaries. Like the man who called in to a radio show I was on and volunteered that -- as a single parent -- he had hired an illegal immigrant to baby-sit his kids while he worked. The caller said he paid the nanny about $6 per hour, but that hiring a U.S. citizen might cost him twice as much. Multiply this guy by millions and you start to get the picture."

Do you realize what we have here? Economic slave labor. As Navarrette points out later:

"Undeniable Reality No. 6: Mexican workers are going to continue to come to the United States -- legally if possible, illegally if necessary -- as long as they can earn 15 to 20 times more in this country than they can back home. In many villages in Mexico, workers might earn just $3 to $6 per day. In the United States, they might earn $60 per day for farm work or $90 per day for construction work. Ask yourself: What would you be willing to do to make 20 times what you make now?"

Welcome to slavery, 21st century style.

That brings us to the question of which is worse: being a slave and living better, or being free and suffering? 11 million illegal immigrants have answered with the first choice. I cannot say I blame them.

This is why I don't have a problem with these people staying here IF we can document them AND if we secure the borders.

Quote of the day

"Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision." - Dick Armey

Parents, police, and voters. At least the first two are doing their jobs.

Voting is called a civic duty. That does NOT mean show up at the polling place every 2-4 years and pull some levers blindly. If your boss showed up at work once a year to give you your annual review, how accurate do you think your review would be?

The voters rule this country. Too often, they take that responsibility lightly. My rule of thumb is this: If you don't know who you're voting for, or why you are voting for them, then don't vote.

Don't vote just because MTV tells you to go and vote.

If you don't have the time to learn about the issues and the candidates, then you have no business being at a polling place. Leave the voting to people who know what is happening.

By the way, if someone gets elected who makes your life miserable, don't complain. You are the one who decided to ignore politics.

Editorial of the day

One of the most important lessons anyone can learn is distinguishing facts from theories. Facts are true, whereas theories only MAY be true. When facts don't support theories, we need to either eliminate or change the theories.

Unfortunately, people often treat theories as facts. This is why we still have things like affirmative action and gun control today.

Thomas Sowell covers this in depth today in his editorial "Are Facts Obsolete?".

If I may be so bold as to answer Dr. Sowell's question, the answer is "no". However, if humanity doesn't realize this, humanity may become obsolete.

Quote of the day

“Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; great minds rise above them.” - Washington Irving

Editorial of the day

That Mark Steyn is a pretty smart guy. He nails down a lot of truths in "Don't deny that some Muslims are hot for jihad".

Among them:

"...you couldn't help noticing it was followers the anti-war crowd seemed to be short of on the third anniversary [of the Iraq War]. The next weekend half a million illegal immigrants -- whoops, sorry, half a million fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community-- took to the streets, and you suddenly realized what a big-time demonstration is supposed to look like. These guys aren't even meant to be in the country and they can organize a better public protest movement than an anti-war crowd that's promoted 24/7 by the media and Hollywood."

Another:

"But there are two kinds of persons objecting to the war: There's a shriveled Sheehan-Sheen left that's in effect urging on American failure in Iraq, and there's a potentially far larger group to their right that's increasingly wary of the official conception of the war. The latter don't want America to lose, they want to win -- decisively."

That is enough to whet your appetite.

The wisdom of my wife

Sometimes, my wife will say something incredibly wise. Yesterday was one of those times:

ME: Why are people so stupid?
HER: Because they can be.

Think about it: In the past, evolution would gladly show stupid people the door out of this existance. Now, homo sapiens have evolved to the point where stupidity no longer affects their survival ability.

I don't think this is a good sign for humanity.

Fortunately, there is hope. When they get too stupid (like being deaf, walking along train tracks, and text messaging on your cell phone, all at the same time), evolution is still there to intervene.

To my daughter Kestra

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To my daughter Kestra, I say: Bear with me.

To everyone else, Kestra is a wise old soul trapped in the body of an 8 year old. When she was born, I saw in her eyes a wisdom that you normally only see in a senior citizen. It was almost as if she was thinking, "Back in this world again."