Challenge:
Take one photo, b/w or color with no editing on the theme of big and small.
Here's mine.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Challenge 28 - Big and Small
Well, I was too busy to get this up till tonight. And I sort of missed the boat on putting mine up. But here it is anyway. The challenge is found here.
Challenge:
Take one photo, b/w or color with no editing on the theme of big and small.
Here's mine.
Challenge:
Take one photo, b/w or color with no editing on the theme of big and small.
Here's mine.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Catchup - Photo Challenge 1
Waaay back in January, my sister and some friends started a photo challenge blog. I have followed it off and on for 6 months. Now that I've joined, I figured I'd try to do some of the ones from back then. I'll do the ones that appeal to me.
So, here's the first: (Click here)
So, here's the first: (Click here)
A series of three self portraits.
1.) One in color
2.) One in black and white
3.) One without you in it
And my efforts:
And my efforts:
Another challenge - 26
So, for Challenge 26, we were to photograph something outside in the theme of blue with all photos interrelated somehow. (Click here)
Can you guess my theme?
I'm not much of a photographer. I've gleaned a bit from my sister, and I'd say I am a little artistic. But this is new for me. I haven't had much time for photos this week, so these were taken this afternoon after work. Light wasn't great, but I did my best.
Halfway through, I realized I had my camera set on 3MP instead of the usual 8. I'd been taking some web photos the night before. Doh. In addition, I had a lot of problems with the camera's autofocus. With close up shots, it tended to prefer to shoot the foreground. Even though my camera has a very nice 3" screen, it's hard to tell if it's blurred. In addition, this camera has no viewfinder.
I had a hard time deciding which of the last two I preferred, so both are posted. Yah, I know it was supposed to be 3.
And here's an alternate. I was originally going to take pictures of flags, but most flags were next to houses and I got strange looks.
Can you guess my theme?
I'm not much of a photographer. I've gleaned a bit from my sister, and I'd say I am a little artistic. But this is new for me. I haven't had much time for photos this week, so these were taken this afternoon after work. Light wasn't great, but I did my best.
Halfway through, I realized I had my camera set on 3MP instead of the usual 8. I'd been taking some web photos the night before. Doh. In addition, I had a lot of problems with the camera's autofocus. With close up shots, it tended to prefer to shoot the foreground. Even though my camera has a very nice 3" screen, it's hard to tell if it's blurred. In addition, this camera has no viewfinder.
I had a hard time deciding which of the last two I preferred, so both are posted. Yah, I know it was supposed to be 3.
And here's an alternate. I was originally going to take pictures of flags, but most flags were next to houses and I got strange looks.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Photo Challenge 25
Well, I just got myself a 300 dollar camera at work for 60 on clearance. It's a nice camera too, a Cybershot H10. As part of the celebration of me getting a new camera, I thought I'd actually use it and see if I could do some decent photos.
Diana (my sister) and a couple of her friends put together a weekly photo challenge (Found here). So, here are my submissions for this week.
The goal was to "advertise a product" with 3 photos. I asked my roommate to be my subject. I told him it was an art project, which made him more than willing to offer his acting skills. I actually typed a story on the typewriter to complete the setting. Poor Edward Walker found his day ruined by the police when they found someone dead on the hood of his '57 Chevy with his business card clutched in her hand.
I took a bunch of photos as I figured out how to change the aperture settings. This is all new to me. Out of twenty, ten were too dark. The 2nd ten were not bad and out of those I came up with 3 good ones.
The product being advertised is the typewriter. The shots are in black and white because it's a classic manual typewriter. The aim was to evoke the image of a classic writer. I wanted to use natural light, so it limited the angles I could use. I think #1 is the weakest, with #2 the strongest of those below.
And here are a few alternates.
I don't like the second to last one because of the hand position. The others are more realistic. It's also too dark. The last one was done with a flash rather than natural light. You can really tell the difference.
Diana (my sister) and a couple of her friends put together a weekly photo challenge (Found here). So, here are my submissions for this week.
The goal was to "advertise a product" with 3 photos. I asked my roommate to be my subject. I told him it was an art project, which made him more than willing to offer his acting skills. I actually typed a story on the typewriter to complete the setting. Poor Edward Walker found his day ruined by the police when they found someone dead on the hood of his '57 Chevy with his business card clutched in her hand.
I took a bunch of photos as I figured out how to change the aperture settings. This is all new to me. Out of twenty, ten were too dark. The 2nd ten were not bad and out of those I came up with 3 good ones.
The product being advertised is the typewriter. The shots are in black and white because it's a classic manual typewriter. The aim was to evoke the image of a classic writer. I wanted to use natural light, so it limited the angles I could use. I think #1 is the weakest, with #2 the strongest of those below.
And here are a few alternates.
I don't like the second to last one because of the hand position. The others are more realistic. It's also too dark. The last one was done with a flash rather than natural light. You can really tell the difference.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Marquette's naming mess
Marquette University in Milwaukee and the naming mess...
Here's my take. About 2 months ago, a group of students organized a fundraising event at Marquette to raise money to help support the troops. The part of the military they were supporting? The Sniper corps. Well guess what? Marquette booted the event and wouldn't let it go on.
My grandfather always used to say, "There's the good reason and then there's the REAL reason.”
The whole Warriors issue could be settled easily. What is a Warrior? Does it have to be an Indian? No! A warrior can be just about anything, from a Zulu, to a Roman, to a US Marine. So, just change the mascot from an Indian. Make it a knight or a Roman warrior and the whole offensive mascot argument goes out the window. My alma mater's mascot is The Warrior. It's a knight, and no-one has any problem with it. Just change it away from Indians and problem solved.
The aversion to Warrior has absolutely nothing to do with Indians. The Indians are the "good" reason. It has to do with political correctness and a general disregard for anything related with the military or things militaristic. Further evidence of this can be seen in that they wouldn't even allow the word "War" to be used, such as "War Eagles."
It's so self righteous and pompous too. The liberal university board doesn't like that militaristic name or the connotations it brings with it, so they create this smoke screen and tell everyone it's because it "offends the Indians," when in actuality, the people that it truly offends is themselves and their political leanings.
So they would rather offend almost 100,000 alumni and faculty than choose a name that would be universally liked. They have their committee approved list of ten names that no-one is excited about. It's like Henry Ford used to say about the Model T, "You can have a car painted any color that you want, so long as it's black."
Most of the voters will write in Warriors too, just out of irritation. The board will disregard those write-ins and not release the tally numbers either. So a small percentage will end up choosing a name few will like, and the board will claim how "fair" they were with their decision while at the same time, claiming they were respecting the Indian community. They get to claim a bogus moral high ground while feeling good about themselves about how they just managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
Of course, if I can figure it out, so can everyone else. Marquette's "diversity" front is a sham and has more to do with people in power being offended by the United States military than any real concern about Indians.
Disgusting really. Here our military men and women put their lives at risk daily to help protect this country and their sacrifices as warriors are like filthy rags to the pompous liberals at Marquette. What really cheeses me is that they think me and others are too stupid to figure out exactly what they're doing.
Thank Heavens I'm not an alum from there. I'd be pretty damn embarrassed if I was.
[End Rant]
Here's my take. About 2 months ago, a group of students organized a fundraising event at Marquette to raise money to help support the troops. The part of the military they were supporting? The Sniper corps. Well guess what? Marquette booted the event and wouldn't let it go on.
My grandfather always used to say, "There's the good reason and then there's the REAL reason.”
The whole Warriors issue could be settled easily. What is a Warrior? Does it have to be an Indian? No! A warrior can be just about anything, from a Zulu, to a Roman, to a US Marine. So, just change the mascot from an Indian. Make it a knight or a Roman warrior and the whole offensive mascot argument goes out the window. My alma mater's mascot is The Warrior. It's a knight, and no-one has any problem with it. Just change it away from Indians and problem solved.
The aversion to Warrior has absolutely nothing to do with Indians. The Indians are the "good" reason. It has to do with political correctness and a general disregard for anything related with the military or things militaristic. Further evidence of this can be seen in that they wouldn't even allow the word "War" to be used, such as "War Eagles."
It's so self righteous and pompous too. The liberal university board doesn't like that militaristic name or the connotations it brings with it, so they create this smoke screen and tell everyone it's because it "offends the Indians," when in actuality, the people that it truly offends is themselves and their political leanings.
So they would rather offend almost 100,000 alumni and faculty than choose a name that would be universally liked. They have their committee approved list of ten names that no-one is excited about. It's like Henry Ford used to say about the Model T, "You can have a car painted any color that you want, so long as it's black."
Most of the voters will write in Warriors too, just out of irritation. The board will disregard those write-ins and not release the tally numbers either. So a small percentage will end up choosing a name few will like, and the board will claim how "fair" they were with their decision while at the same time, claiming they were respecting the Indian community. They get to claim a bogus moral high ground while feeling good about themselves about how they just managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
Of course, if I can figure it out, so can everyone else. Marquette's "diversity" front is a sham and has more to do with people in power being offended by the United States military than any real concern about Indians.
Disgusting really. Here our military men and women put their lives at risk daily to help protect this country and their sacrifices as warriors are like filthy rags to the pompous liberals at Marquette. What really cheeses me is that they think me and others are too stupid to figure out exactly what they're doing.
Thank Heavens I'm not an alum from there. I'd be pretty damn embarrassed if I was.
[End Rant]
Monday, November 01, 2004
Election tomorrow - The stakes
Tomorrow is election day.
To say I'm nervous about it is an understatement. I have a deep and horrible fear that George Bush is going to lose the election and we'll get John Kerry.
The War in Iraq is not really the big issue for me, it's the judges.
It's a duel between a candidate who says, "Judges should interpret law based on what the law says." and one who says, "Judges should interpret law based on what they feel or what their social clique believes is right."
It's more than just that activist judges have done things like made abortion and gay marriage legal, it's that they've done so by unilaterally making those decisions based not on what the law SAYS, but on their own moral agendas. Abortion and gay marriage should have been left to the states or the populace through elected officials to decide, not a unilateral on high decision by officials who are neither elected nor able to be fired for their excesses.
The liberal left has realized that what they cannot force through through an elected body like Congress or state assemblies, they can force through by going over the heads of the people and ultimately the constitution by making judicial decrees that have no basis on any semblance of the documents judges are supposed to be using to make rulings.
John Kerry threatens to destroy the fabric of what the founding fathers created in the USA by undermining the constitution with people who say they respect it, but make rulings that go against it at every turn.It is this that I see as the most important issue int his election. With 3 or 4 supreme court justices on the line, the real danger is that we could get a Court that doesn't even look at the constitution any more in it's rulings.
Forget morality, forget opinion. Rule on what our Constitution SAYS, not what they think it should say. If that venerated document is really that far off, let the people call their congressmen and let the ELECTED change it, not some unelected judge. That's not their job or calling.
Do, I'm really nervous. Will the USA choose to hold back the tide of the erosion of our foundation stones, or will they say to hell with it and let it all go to waste?
I sure hope it's the former, because the later gives me the willies.
I've been praying a lot lately, not for Bush to win, but for the population of this country to make a choice that will ultimately make the choice that will preserve at least a little of what the founding fathers fought for.
Now if we could get the Patriot Act revised a little...
On another tact, I watch Europe's utter animosity towards Bush and keep thinking he MUST be doing something right. It reminds me of the playground. All the kids out there, a lot of them doing weed and smoking, and the one lone kid taking a stand against it all. He ends up hated for it, but it doesn't make what he's doing any less right.
The United States should never put its national security in the hands of an outside body. We can argue about right decisions, but I'd much rather have a president who will preserve our sovereignty than tell us we have to "Pass a global test" before we defend ourselves.
This is most certainally true
To say I'm nervous about it is an understatement. I have a deep and horrible fear that George Bush is going to lose the election and we'll get John Kerry.
The War in Iraq is not really the big issue for me, it's the judges.
It's a duel between a candidate who says, "Judges should interpret law based on what the law says." and one who says, "Judges should interpret law based on what they feel or what their social clique believes is right."
It's more than just that activist judges have done things like made abortion and gay marriage legal, it's that they've done so by unilaterally making those decisions based not on what the law SAYS, but on their own moral agendas. Abortion and gay marriage should have been left to the states or the populace through elected officials to decide, not a unilateral on high decision by officials who are neither elected nor able to be fired for their excesses.
The liberal left has realized that what they cannot force through through an elected body like Congress or state assemblies, they can force through by going over the heads of the people and ultimately the constitution by making judicial decrees that have no basis on any semblance of the documents judges are supposed to be using to make rulings.
John Kerry threatens to destroy the fabric of what the founding fathers created in the USA by undermining the constitution with people who say they respect it, but make rulings that go against it at every turn.It is this that I see as the most important issue int his election. With 3 or 4 supreme court justices on the line, the real danger is that we could get a Court that doesn't even look at the constitution any more in it's rulings.
Forget morality, forget opinion. Rule on what our Constitution SAYS, not what they think it should say. If that venerated document is really that far off, let the people call their congressmen and let the ELECTED change it, not some unelected judge. That's not their job or calling.
Do, I'm really nervous. Will the USA choose to hold back the tide of the erosion of our foundation stones, or will they say to hell with it and let it all go to waste?
I sure hope it's the former, because the later gives me the willies.
I've been praying a lot lately, not for Bush to win, but for the population of this country to make a choice that will ultimately make the choice that will preserve at least a little of what the founding fathers fought for.
Now if we could get the Patriot Act revised a little...
On another tact, I watch Europe's utter animosity towards Bush and keep thinking he MUST be doing something right. It reminds me of the playground. All the kids out there, a lot of them doing weed and smoking, and the one lone kid taking a stand against it all. He ends up hated for it, but it doesn't make what he's doing any less right.
The United States should never put its national security in the hands of an outside body. We can argue about right decisions, but I'd much rather have a president who will preserve our sovereignty than tell us we have to "Pass a global test" before we defend ourselves.
This is most certainally true
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Election Worries
I have to be completely honest. I'm scared stiff about what might happen on Tuesday.
The US presidential race is so dang close, and there's a heck of a lot at stake. I see it as a contest of the battle of the "could be better" candidate and the "My GOD NO!" candidate.
The United States has, in a lot of ways, lost its way over the years. We have a massive, bloated government, with its fingers in every pie imaginable, while we provide outlandish socialistic benefits to our citizens that essentially make them slaves to whichever party is able to scare them the most with threats of losing the "entitlement."Worse, we have our fingers in every international pie available. The US shouldn't be the international policeman, but at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid of what the international community thinks of us. Hell, most countries are just plain jealous of us. The animosity comes from that as much as anything else.
So, on one side, we have Bush, the "conservative" who is only sort of conservative, who's seen rampant government spending on his watch, without any vetoes to stop it. Deficit spending is out of control, and his power to rein in congressional excesses has been utterly wasted. Government is growing bigger by the day and taxpayer money is being wasted and a horrendous scale, despite tax-cuts that DID help the middle class. He's a strong leader who means what he says, and does what he says he'll do, but is seen by some as unable to change his mind.
They claim he's responsible for the "rotten economy," which actually isn't ailing that badly at all, and had its roots in a time before he even became president. They say he lied, diverted the way from Bin Laden to Iraq, though the truth may be that it was more a clever ploy to create a true "front" in the war on terrorism, and force the terrorists to put resources on the ground in a country not our own, where we can more easily deal with them. Of course, few think of this possibility, and fewer still have the stomach to put up with the 1000 soldiers that have died since Iraq started (as opposed to Vietnam which lasted far longer and killed tens of thousands more.)
The Military, by a large margin love and support Bush, because, by and large, he supports them. He opposes the left wing judicial activism that uses non-law based judicial rulings to circumvent the people's voted representatives from making the laws through constitutional means. He supports tort reform to save healthcare because 150,000 a year for malpractice insurance is driving many doctors out of business.
He is Pro-life, pro-traditional marriage and detested by folks who stand on the other side of those issues.
On the other side, we have Kerry, the winner of three purple hearts and a silver star, who's military record is filled with inconsistencies and things that make military folks raise their eyebrows in suspicion. He's an antiwar protestor who allied himself with proven liars masquerading as soldiers they never were, who met with the enemy while still wearing his uniform, and tarnished the reputations of thousands his fellow solders, and yet, not once apologized for it.
His senate record is dismal on national defense, and yet, he wants to lead a military that doesn't trust him, and whom he voted against supporting at any chance he had. The military, by a huge margin, does not like Kerry because they know full well his history, and are afraid of what he'll do to them. Worse, he claims he will find more allies to fight in Iraq, and yet, those we do have are denigrated in the very same sentence for not doing enough.
He says he'll cut taxes for the middle class and raise it for the wealthy, and yet his wife who is one of the wealthiest people in the country pays a pittance on her own returns, sheltered by tax loopholes that Kerry supports. Meanwhile, he has voted against nearly every effort to lower taxes. A former lawyer with a trial attorney as a running mate, he opposes tort reform and claims to have a solution for the healthcare crises, and yet, his solution has led to rationing and poor healthcare everywhere else it's been tried.
Kerry is supported by ultra liberals and despised by pro-lifers and the religious right who see him as one of the most liberal and anti-traditional values senators in the country.
I know who I'm voting for. Its based on my own values, and on the base fact that I know what's at stake here. Iraq cannot fail. It cannot be let to be come a civil war zone by an ineffectual president who will try to set arbitrary dates (like he advocated in Vietnam) that only give the Terrorists a date on which to make their biggest counter offensive.
I cannot support a man who promises to appoint only pro abortion judges to the bench, rather than appointing men and women who will read the law and rule according to what the law SAYS rather than their own opinion.
I cannot support a man who denigrated the brave actions of our military by using generalized terms like Baby-killers to label them, and yet 30 years later tries to portray himself as a war hero, while his entire former chain of command opposes him and view him as a lying opportunist.
I cannot support a man who uses race baiting terms like Jim Crow to scare people, who truly have nothing to fear into voting for him.
Kerry has no integrity. Bush is not my favorite president, and I think he's failed in a lot of places, but he'll get my vote because if John Kerry becomes president, I'm deeply afraid for the future of this country.
The US presidential race is so dang close, and there's a heck of a lot at stake. I see it as a contest of the battle of the "could be better" candidate and the "My GOD NO!" candidate.
The United States has, in a lot of ways, lost its way over the years. We have a massive, bloated government, with its fingers in every pie imaginable, while we provide outlandish socialistic benefits to our citizens that essentially make them slaves to whichever party is able to scare them the most with threats of losing the "entitlement."Worse, we have our fingers in every international pie available. The US shouldn't be the international policeman, but at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid of what the international community thinks of us. Hell, most countries are just plain jealous of us. The animosity comes from that as much as anything else.
So, on one side, we have Bush, the "conservative" who is only sort of conservative, who's seen rampant government spending on his watch, without any vetoes to stop it. Deficit spending is out of control, and his power to rein in congressional excesses has been utterly wasted. Government is growing bigger by the day and taxpayer money is being wasted and a horrendous scale, despite tax-cuts that DID help the middle class. He's a strong leader who means what he says, and does what he says he'll do, but is seen by some as unable to change his mind.
They claim he's responsible for the "rotten economy," which actually isn't ailing that badly at all, and had its roots in a time before he even became president. They say he lied, diverted the way from Bin Laden to Iraq, though the truth may be that it was more a clever ploy to create a true "front" in the war on terrorism, and force the terrorists to put resources on the ground in a country not our own, where we can more easily deal with them. Of course, few think of this possibility, and fewer still have the stomach to put up with the 1000 soldiers that have died since Iraq started (as opposed to Vietnam which lasted far longer and killed tens of thousands more.)
The Military, by a large margin love and support Bush, because, by and large, he supports them. He opposes the left wing judicial activism that uses non-law based judicial rulings to circumvent the people's voted representatives from making the laws through constitutional means. He supports tort reform to save healthcare because 150,000 a year for malpractice insurance is driving many doctors out of business.
He is Pro-life, pro-traditional marriage and detested by folks who stand on the other side of those issues.
On the other side, we have Kerry, the winner of three purple hearts and a silver star, who's military record is filled with inconsistencies and things that make military folks raise their eyebrows in suspicion. He's an antiwar protestor who allied himself with proven liars masquerading as soldiers they never were, who met with the enemy while still wearing his uniform, and tarnished the reputations of thousands his fellow solders, and yet, not once apologized for it.
His senate record is dismal on national defense, and yet, he wants to lead a military that doesn't trust him, and whom he voted against supporting at any chance he had. The military, by a huge margin, does not like Kerry because they know full well his history, and are afraid of what he'll do to them. Worse, he claims he will find more allies to fight in Iraq, and yet, those we do have are denigrated in the very same sentence for not doing enough.
He says he'll cut taxes for the middle class and raise it for the wealthy, and yet his wife who is one of the wealthiest people in the country pays a pittance on her own returns, sheltered by tax loopholes that Kerry supports. Meanwhile, he has voted against nearly every effort to lower taxes. A former lawyer with a trial attorney as a running mate, he opposes tort reform and claims to have a solution for the healthcare crises, and yet, his solution has led to rationing and poor healthcare everywhere else it's been tried.
Kerry is supported by ultra liberals and despised by pro-lifers and the religious right who see him as one of the most liberal and anti-traditional values senators in the country.
I know who I'm voting for. Its based on my own values, and on the base fact that I know what's at stake here. Iraq cannot fail. It cannot be let to be come a civil war zone by an ineffectual president who will try to set arbitrary dates (like he advocated in Vietnam) that only give the Terrorists a date on which to make their biggest counter offensive.
I cannot support a man who promises to appoint only pro abortion judges to the bench, rather than appointing men and women who will read the law and rule according to what the law SAYS rather than their own opinion.
I cannot support a man who denigrated the brave actions of our military by using generalized terms like Baby-killers to label them, and yet 30 years later tries to portray himself as a war hero, while his entire former chain of command opposes him and view him as a lying opportunist.
I cannot support a man who uses race baiting terms like Jim Crow to scare people, who truly have nothing to fear into voting for him.
Kerry has no integrity. Bush is not my favorite president, and I think he's failed in a lot of places, but he'll get my vote because if John Kerry becomes president, I'm deeply afraid for the future of this country.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Vietnam = Iraq? The Kerry connection
Iraq equals Vietnam? We've reached that 1000 killed mark and the specter of Vietnam lurks over the horizon. Nevermind that Vietnam's bodycount was far far higher, and Iraq is far more pacified than North Vietnam ever was. Still, it's a spectre lurking nearby, and with Vietnam on the lips of Voters because Democratic Candidate John Kerry was a hero in that war.
The media likes to draw the parallel of Iraq to Vietnam. What they don't understand, or utterly ignore is that John Kerry (with the help of the press) is doing to Iraq what he did to Vietnam... turning a war that could be won into one that will be lost.
It is not the men on the ground that will lose that war for us, but the lies and misrepresentations of a man who has spent the last 30 years building a career on lies and misrepresentations. He lied about the actions on men on the ground of Vietnam. He tried to tell the American people that a victorious North Vietnam wouldn't result in massive reprisal killings. He was wrong on both counts.
That he still, in 2004, repeats his lies of the Vietnam days and twists them to fit this current struggle says a great deal of his character and political focus. Do we have any reason to believe he will act any differently to this war as president than he did to the Vietnam War, or this war as a presidential candidate?
If John Kerry is elected president, the people of Iraq need to fear for their future. The people of the United States do too.
Iraq, whether you agree with the original reasons for invading and ousting Saddam or not, is truly the new front in the war on terrorism. Al Queda, other terror organizations understand this better than any others. Their terror tactics in Iraq only punctuate this point. If a free and stable Iraq fails to congeal, there will be civil war, death on a massive scale and a whole generation of iraqies who will blame America, ripe for the picking as terrorists.
I'd like to believe that John Kerry understands this... or even cares, but his words say far different. "Set a date!" was his cry during Vietnam. Set a date we did, and sure enough, the North Vietnamese overan the south as soon as we left, and then killed millions in retrebution, and imprisoned countless others. He was irresponsible, or, he didn't care. It almost seems the later, because in 30 years, he has never apologized.
His cry for setting a date for American withdrawel remains the same now. He has even promised to set that date as president.
His date will create Vietnam in Iraq with utter certainty. The foes of freedom with take advantage of it, America will leave and it will create genocide, civil war and agony. It will make the United States even more open to attack than ever. A victory for John Kerry on November 2, 2004 will likely represent a major blow for America in the War on Terrorism.
I pray I'm wrong, but a man's actions speak louder than his words, and Kerry's actions have been shouts.
The media likes to draw the parallel of Iraq to Vietnam. What they don't understand, or utterly ignore is that John Kerry (with the help of the press) is doing to Iraq what he did to Vietnam... turning a war that could be won into one that will be lost.
It is not the men on the ground that will lose that war for us, but the lies and misrepresentations of a man who has spent the last 30 years building a career on lies and misrepresentations. He lied about the actions on men on the ground of Vietnam. He tried to tell the American people that a victorious North Vietnam wouldn't result in massive reprisal killings. He was wrong on both counts.
That he still, in 2004, repeats his lies of the Vietnam days and twists them to fit this current struggle says a great deal of his character and political focus. Do we have any reason to believe he will act any differently to this war as president than he did to the Vietnam War, or this war as a presidential candidate?
If John Kerry is elected president, the people of Iraq need to fear for their future. The people of the United States do too.
Iraq, whether you agree with the original reasons for invading and ousting Saddam or not, is truly the new front in the war on terrorism. Al Queda, other terror organizations understand this better than any others. Their terror tactics in Iraq only punctuate this point. If a free and stable Iraq fails to congeal, there will be civil war, death on a massive scale and a whole generation of iraqies who will blame America, ripe for the picking as terrorists.
I'd like to believe that John Kerry understands this... or even cares, but his words say far different. "Set a date!" was his cry during Vietnam. Set a date we did, and sure enough, the North Vietnamese overan the south as soon as we left, and then killed millions in retrebution, and imprisoned countless others. He was irresponsible, or, he didn't care. It almost seems the later, because in 30 years, he has never apologized.
His cry for setting a date for American withdrawel remains the same now. He has even promised to set that date as president.
His date will create Vietnam in Iraq with utter certainty. The foes of freedom with take advantage of it, America will leave and it will create genocide, civil war and agony. It will make the United States even more open to attack than ever. A victory for John Kerry on November 2, 2004 will likely represent a major blow for America in the War on Terrorism.
I pray I'm wrong, but a man's actions speak louder than his words, and Kerry's actions have been shouts.
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