We break into our regularly scheduled
Written by Paul Zannucci on 12:58 PMprocrastination for some funny jokes blonde.
It's easier than coming up with a real post.
MF's quick follow-up...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 9:50 AMAnd to dovetail on Terry's views, I would argue that conservatives believe that - regardless of your personal religion or lack thereof - Judeo Christian moral values should dominate American society.
Take the issue of abortion. What middle ground is there? Can you be neutral on such an issue?
If abortion results in the death of an innocent human being, why should I allow someone to be able to make the "choice" to kill another human being?
The simple point of fact is that classic liberalism - the view that people have individual freedom and individual responsibility - is the unique byproduct of Judeo-Christianity. If it's something that comes out of the left, then the communists should have been doing it (you might notice they haven't and never even tried to do it). Human dignity only exists when the Imago Dei is a presupposition of a society.
MF's first response to the shot from TB
Written by Paul Zannucci on 9:08 PMI'm not going to take my ball and go home over the "age of the earth" thing (and in fact I argue from the view of "old earth" when trying to convince someone of the Creator God of the Bible), but...
I look at the flat-out mockery that "science" has made of "the science of global warming" and compare it to the similar mockery that "science" made out of "the science of evolution." And I realize the IDENTICAL crap is going on with global warming that has gone on with Darwinian evolution for decades. It's not about "science"; it's about a philosophy or ideology that is IMPOSED onto science which is then itself then called "science."
I'm personally very open to a young earth view. I trust what the Bible says far more than I trust what the people who gave Al Gore a Nobel Prize for science say. I don't see one reason whatsoever anymore to allow "science" to dictate what I believe and what I accept to be true given the terrible history of deception and propaganda that way too many scientists have propagated in its name. They've pretty much forfeited all credibility in the "meta" issues.
To put it this way: Christians don't need the young earth view to be true to be Christians; neither do they necessarily need evolution to be false to be Christians. Atheists NEED the old earth view AND evolution to be true. So they must necessarily be entirely rabid and vicious on both fronts. Christians can and should be willing to argue with light rather than heat on the age of the universe.
Bottom line: none of us were there when God created all time, space, energy, and matter ex nihilo. And the biblical record of Genesis 1-4 is definitely open to interpretation.
I'm just sayin'.
About Webhosting and Neglecting this Site
Written by Paul Zannucci on 11:08 AMOkay, I've been really neglectful of this blog. The reason is that I have too many projects going all at once, and unfortunately that's not going to change for at least a month. I'll get here as I can, but it's going to be really tough.
In the meantime, I want to share some important information about shared hosting for any of my readers who either host their own sites or are thinking about it. Most people who use Blogger at some point feel they are ready to go buy some hosting and try their luck with a "real" site, although I personally think that Blogger sites are just fine.
Anyway, hosting your own site can bring a lot of rewards, but if you wander around webmaster sites from time to time, what you find is hoards of people who are unhappy with their shared hosting companies. If you've been a frequent follower of this site, you'll know I've had my own share of problems with this. When we moved American Sentinel to Bluehost, for instance, we were simply kicked off for using too many server resources.
So, anyway, I figure that most folks who are hosting their own sites or who are planning to are probably in the same boat that I was in and really don't know how to get a site to run well on a shared host and all the dangerous things to look for, like being overwhelmed with spam bots. Can you believe that a site I am currently hosting was getting several THOUSAND spam bot hits per day? Spammers were using almost all of my server resources.
But I'm a lot more educated on these things now than I used to be, so I've created a site where I share what I've learned, it's called Hosting Website.
On that site, I've just put up about a 4000 word article (easily navigated with anchor links), that gives you most of what you need to know in order to make your site run smoothly on cheap shared hosting. I look at the major problems and then show you how to fix them. If you are interested, follow the link below:
Shared Hosting Servers
Good Conservative Christian Web Hosting
Written by Paul Zannucci on 9:07 PMThere's a great alternative to the traditional web hosts out there, a company that is run by someone who is both conservative and Christian. How do I know? Simple. It's mine. I felt like there was a place in the market for a patriotic American hosting company.
I bet you are asking, what the heck do I know about running a hosting company? More than you might think, but that doesn't matter because I've struck a deal to use GoDaddy's servers and 24/7 customer service. I'm sort of a wholesale supplier of domain names and web hosting.
Honestly, I can't always get the domain names below what GoDaddy offers them for. But I beat them on quality hosting plans. The least expensive comes in at $3.99 per month, and that's using their world-class servers. Plus it comes with a lot of extras.
So if you want to find a hosting company that you fell comfortable supports your conservative, Christian values, give mine a try:
UShosts.us
The shot heard around the world
Written by Paul Zannucci on 5:49 PMAnd here is where it started to get really ugly. TB decided to elaborate on why he rejected the "young earth" theory.
I reject the young earth hypothesis on several grounds.
First, carbon dating has been demonstrated in a variety of contexts not related to arguing the age of the earth. Given its reliability, it's difficult to sustain a young earth theory unless one also posits a God who intentionally misleads humankind. I have heard the argument made that that's exactly the case, and one way God tests our faith: will we believe God's Word or our own eyes? But I reject the "trickster God" approach to theology. God's purpose in the Bible is self-revelation - telling humans truth about God. The moment we hypothesize that God would tell us truth in scripture but a lie in His creation, we are in the position of not knowing when or how to trust God. And that ultimately puts us in a no-win situation, because we would not be able to trust our own God-given senses and intelligence. No; start down that path and we're very quickly stuck in a briar patch with no safe exit.
Mike is right that science as we know it grew out of the Judeo-Christian worldview. It was the conviction that the creation is also God's book of revelation, when rightly understood. Scientific inquiry is intended to reveal God's majesty, not obscure or deny it. It assumes the world God created is consistent with God's truth. If verifiable evidence contradicts biblical revelation, there is a misunderstanding on our part; it cannot be because God is testing, fooling, or otherwise playing with us. That notion is distinctly unbiblical.
The issue in global warming is that science has been perverted to serve a political agenda. There's plenty of scientific evidence to disprove most of what global warming enthusiasts assert. That is to say, the science against global warming is as potent as, or more potent than the science favoring global warming. All we need is time for the truth to win out - which is what algore and friends don't want, and why they are pushing so hard for quick action.
But the dishonesty in the global warming debate is not transferrable to the age of the earth issue. There is no science to contradict the old earth proposition; only faith claims and rather tortured logic on the part of people who want to place certain biblical evidence against science. To me, this is a misuse of the Bible. The Bible does not argue for a young earth proposition. The mistake made is this: some Christian teachers and theologians argue for a young earth on the basis of counting up the generations from Adam to Jesus. Their assumption is that the Bible provides the entire history of Israel. It doesn't. The Bible tells the salvation history of Israel. It makes no effort to be comprehensive of all of Israel's history.
The Bible is a record of the saving work of God as he made the Hebrew people and called them out of the world to serve His purpose in the world. Hebrew scholars and teachers have taught for more years than there have been Christians that the Torah is God's Word to the People, recounting what the People need to know in order to know that God's Hand is upon them, and that they prosper when obedient to their Lord.
Modern readers are sometimes guilty of an anachronism: they apply modernistic and scientific approaches to ancient oral histories told by people who did not have a modernist's view of the world or a scientific approach to history. We get things mixed up by assuming numbers are just counting symbols in the Bible, when in fact we know that numbers can also be used purely symbolically, distinct from their counting function. We do that today; it was more common in pre-modern, pre-scientific cultures; it was most certainly common in ancient Israel, as well as in early Christianity. Jesus' 12 baskets of leftovers from the feeding of the multitude is most certainly an example: it is a statement about the theology of Christ being able to feed all the tribes of Israel the miraculous stuff of life, if we will only put ourselves into his hands.
I don't want to go deeper into this topic, or I won't quit writing. My point is that (1) the number of years people lived and the counting of generations in the Bible was never meant to be taken in the modern, scientific, literal way modern readers want to take it; it was literal in a different, pre-modern way: it pointed to a literal belief in a direct linkage between Adam and Abraham, Abraham and Jacob, Jacob and David; and for Christians it was extended to make a literal, direct link from David to Jesus. The point, though, was not to count generations, or to add up years since creation. It was to make the faith statement that God created the world, created the first couple, and created each of the major Jewish figures; and that Christ was the last in that sequence, all of whom, together, articulate the ongoing presence of God in human history, the history that matters, which is the history of God's saving work among His people. That's all. For the Jews, and for Christians who are no longer of this earth, human history, and geological history don't really matter - except as matters of intellectual curiosity. All we really care about is the history of God's actions in the world to save humankind, and that's what the Bible illustrates and records. Only that.
And (2) modern scientific inquiry is not at odds with that very Jewish purpose of history. The earth does not have to be young to make that history true; therefore to make the Bible true. The age of the earth is irrelevant to the relevant issue: that it is God who created it, and created it as a Garden for humankind; and has been at work to restore us to the edenic state since the beginnings of human recollection. As for evolutionary theory: I think it's fair to say, on the basis of competing science, competing interpretations of the gathered data, and gaps in scientific evidence, that it is only a theory. It has gaps that some say suggest evolutionary theory better shows how creatures adapt within their niches than how creatures jump from one niche to another. We're still looking for the evidence, without ruling out the possiblity of some kind of periodic "quantum leaps" from one state of createdness to another more complex state of createdness. If we ever demonstrate that those leaps have taken place, I'd likely argue that those leaps are further evidence of God acting miraculously and outside the ordinary rules of nature. I won't rule out God turning water to wine; I won't rule out God turning an ape into a human. We have yet to produce evidence that makes the case airtight, though. And it seems to me that any evidence of "quantum leaps" would be food for the Intelligent Design type of argument.
On the matter of science emerging from Christianity: I think that's pretty well established. And there's no question that the advances in science have come from decoupling science from faith. Faith requirements were a drag on the scientific examination of the world - as in modern Islam, medieval Christianity required scientific exploration, examination, and conclusion accord with human interpretations of scripture. That's bad science, as well as bad theology. So the decoupling was important in order for science to develop into a mature field of human inquiry. Along the way, it's also provided us some tools by which we can correct our understanding of scripture's message - if we're willing to use those tools, and explore the sometimes uncomfortable conclusions they force.
But the scientific method has advanced to the point that we now discover the relativity of the scientific method. In other words, in a a way Mike is right to say that knowledge is faith. We find over and over again that our presuppositions influence the "objective" results of scientific inquiry. It begins to look as though the scientific method is also subjective, though in a different way than is faith.
It strikes me, then, that the scientific method can lead us down any road we are predisposed to travel. In other words, our worldview will determine what we discover is "objectively" true. If that's the case, then at some point we have to reunite scientific method and Christian worldview. More properly, Judeo-Christian worldview, since Christians are (Paul assures us) but an engrafted branch on the stump of Jesse. I have been wondering if the discovery of relativity theory and the quantum world wasn't the real purpose of, the highest peak available to, decoupled science; and the next set of mountain ranges will not really be seen, let alone climbed, until science and the worldview of God revealed in the Bible (both testaments) and in the life of Jesus are joined.
I wonder what we will discover when we engage scientific inquiry with a Christian worldview? I don't mean in the pre-modern sense of requiring that science conclude what faith wants it to, but in the post-modern sense of a recognition that the assumptions one brings to the scientific enquiry help determine the discoveries one makes. Literally, that how we think determines what we can see. So if we are fully and completely the People of the Book, not anticipating a struggle between science and faith, but anticipating and looking for the ways that seeing as Christ sees, valuing the way God has disclosed He values, reveals new scientific truths that bring the world more into harmony with God's intention for creation, and enables us to do more with less negative impact on creation; in fact, enables us to do more while also ennobling God's earth. What will society, technology, human life look like when we are fully engaged in that exploration? I think, pretty good.
Back and forth, FF and me
Written by Paul Zannucci on 11:56 AMJust a joke that occurred in the midst of an argument, with the ever affable FF as the instigator:
From FF:
Old joke:
A scientist giving a public talk about the cosmos is interrupted by someone in the audience screaming hysterically. He rushes to where the person is sitting and asks what is wrong. "What you just said," she replies, "about the sun going nova and burning the earth to a cinder." "But I said that won't happen for a billion years," says the scientist, "there's no need to worry about it right now." "Oh," says the woman, regaining composure, "forgive me; I thought you said million."
From Me:
re your joke...Sometimes the strangest things are depressing to me for no good reason. I was watching something on the death of the ever-expanding universe (I don't know what the latest thoughts on that is), and I actually found myself becoming melancholy over it--as though collapsing in upon itself would have been better for me personally.
From FF:
The reason I remember that joke, which is really old, from the sixties, is that I get depressed thinking the earth might have only a million years left.
Like it matters.
An Attaboy from a New Voice and a Response
Written by Paul Zannucci on 10:28 PMFF lends his voice in this first email simply as an attaboy sort of thing for MF, who then responds anyway. I put them both in this same post...
From FF:
MF: Well said, as usual.
Science is knowledge; faith is belief. No matter what you know or think you know, the critical moment in religion is when you take "the leap of faith."
Or look at it this way: Jesus doesn't care how old you think the Earth is; He does care how you treat your neighbor now.
Follow-up from MF:
I'd have to add a couple of provisos about the statement that "science is knowledge and religion is faith."
For one thing, I would argue that faith IS a form of knowledge. I may not be able to scientifically validate that I love my mother, but I know I do anyway. And I may not be able to scientifically demonstrate that the Living God of the Bible is a real and constant actor in my life, but I still know it's true.
On the other hand, science is very often NOT "knowledge" at all. Think again about global warming and the crap that has been presented as "science."
I wrote an article about the how the limits of human knowledge impact upon the scientific project from a study I did on Immanuel Kant: (address of paper deleted)
Some basic things to realize are that science came out of Judeo-Christianity. Christianity provided the worldview necessary for science to derive its essential presuppositions. And it is no accident that the founder of the scientific method, and the discoverers of every major branch of science, were publicly confessed Christians.
There is no conflict between religion and science, when both "religion" and "science" are properly understood. Institutional religion (including Christianity) have gone quite wrong and off the track in the past, but it is now institutional science that is thoroughly and terribly off track today.
And both the scientist and the theologian should have some ultimate level of humility that he/she doesn't have all the answers about all the questions. God has told us quite a few things, but if I knew EVERYTHING I'd basically BE God.
A quick and dirty two-step theology:
1) There is a God
2) I am not Him.
We interrupt the email argument...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 9:21 PMWe interrupt our regularly scheduled posting of my email argument to bring you the following administrative notices.
First, at Annuit Coeptis, we have endorsed our first candidate, Michael Williams. Supposedly we'll have an interview from him soon.
Also, we've redesigned our Conservative Shirts site, but we don't have all the product put in yet.
Domain Name For Sale:
And, lastly, I have decided to roll the Win Congress, where we are pushing for victory in the 2010 congressional elections, into Annuit Coeptis, so there really was no reason to keep our domain name. We now have it listed for sale on Sedo. You can check out the parked domain here: Win Congress
Now back to the regularly scheduled argument.
Young Earth Creationism Argument Part 3
Written by Paul Zannucci on 6:25 PMThis is a response I missed when posting the earlier ones. This is from someone we'll call TB:
Just to mix it up a bit: I don't think social conservatives want to force behavior; maybe define - or at least argue for - some social boundaries. Not the same thing. American conservatism is, imo, oriented around personal responsibility, personal autonomy, minimalist government, and a deep recognition that this is the one place in the world where those elements can be practiced to the benefit of the individual. That last is the 'essential' we need to all agree upon, and needs to be at the heart of what it means to be patriotic. And that kind of patriotism ought (and once did) guide all of our other personal, social, and political decisions: if we don't preserve this country as the one place where the individual is sacrosanct, it will exist nowhere in the world. I think it is the 'feeling' that we're losing that commitment to the welfare of the country first, because it directly provides our individul welfare, that moves political and social conservatives toward legalisms (what Paul is calling forced behavior).
Calvin Coolidge: "Patriotism is easy to understand. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country" (1923 Memorial Day speech). That's pretty close to the view of the founders, imo. It seems to be the connection between the individual and the society that modern liberalism can't make. Seems to me liberals reverse it: patriotism means looking out for your country by looking out for yourself. The conservative puts primacy on the country's good, even at personal harm, because that's how we keep a free place for individuals in the world. The liberal puts primacy on the individual, even at harm to the country, because they don't think they are free unless all authority is removed.
Both are ranges, of course. But I think trend in those two directions.
Really, I guess originalist patriotism was most closely like modern libertarianism. But infused with biblical morality - made civic. It was simply assumed that people were christianized in outlook if not outrightly Christian, and our founders' passion for individual liberty was based on the assumption that private and public appetites would be constrained by Christian moral commitment, infused as it was into the culture.
On the other hand, there is pretty good evidence the signers of the Declaration were pretty worried about what their noble experiment became. All or nearly all expressed some sense of disappointment before they died - generally feeling that the aristocratic sense of disinterested political and social leadership they felt they represented had been overrun by plebian capitalism, which they felt was just plain crass. They ended up disappointed utopians, really, fearing the future of the Republic might be a fractious dystopia. (I think the jury is still out on that.)
Young-Earth Creationism Part 4
Written by Paul Zannucci on 6:23 PMNote: I'll hook all these together once they are done. This is the second response in a row from MF.
And to dovetail on TB's views, I would argue that conservatives believe that - regardless of your personal religion or lack thereof - Judeo Christian moral values should dominate American society.
Take the issue of abortion. What middle ground is there? Can you be neutral on such an issue?
If abortion results in the death of an innocent human being, why should I allow someone to be able to make the "choice" to kill another human being?
The simple point of fact is that classic liberalism - the view that people have individual freedom and individual responsibility - is the unique byproduct of Judeo-Christianity. If it's something that comes out of the left, then the communists should have been doing it (you might notice they haven't and never even tried to do it). Human dignity only exists when the Imago Dei is a presupposition of a society.
The first response to the no young-earth creationism edict
Written by Paul Zannucci on 6:50 PMMy first email response from dictating that no one write from a young-earth creationist perspective on the site
I'm not going to take my ball and go home over the "age of the earth" thing (and in fact I argue from the view of "old earth" when trying to convince someone of the Creator God of the Bible), but...
I look at the flat-out mockery that "science" has made of "the science of global warming" and compare it to the similar mockery that "science" made out of "the science of evolution." And I realize the IDENTICAL crap is going on with global warming that has gone on with Darwinian evolution for decades. It's not about "science"; it's about a philosophy or ideology that is IMPOSED onto science which is then itself then called "science."
I'm personally very open to a young earth view. I trust what the Bible says far more than I trust what the people who gave Al Gore a Nobel Prize for science say. I don't see one reason whatsoever anymore to allow "science" to dictate what I believe and what I accept to be true given the terrible history of deception and propaganda that way too many scientists have propagated in its name. They've pretty much forfeited all credibility in the "meta" issues.
To put it this way: Christians don't need the young earth view to be true to be Christians; neither do they necessarily need evolution to be false to be Christians. Atheists NEED the old earth view AND evolution to be true. So they must necessarily be entirely rabid and vicious on both fronts. Christians can and should be willing to argue with light rather than heat on the age of the universe. Bottom line: none of us were there when God created all time, space, energy, and matter ex nihilo. And the biblical record of Genesis 1-4 is definitely open to interpretation.
I'm just sayin'.
(note: this person did eventually "take his ball and go home.")
The 2nd email in the chain
The 1st email in the chain
By the way, sort of on this topic, I wrote a piece today on Ida: Missing Link
2nd for clarification...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 12:37 PMThe second email I sent in that series, regarding clarification of my personal stance:
And just to clarify for all who may not know me well enough, I may side with science on almost all issues, pretty much on everything except the notion that an omnipotent God can't break His own rules when He wants to; and I may not side with social conservatism a lot because I believe in personal responsibility over forced behavior; yet, still, my faith is strong and getting stronger.
I used to run an apologetics web site until I allowed myself to be run off by the fundamentalists (not the atheists, mind you, but the fundamentalists), but I will get back to that some day in the next year. I own (domain removed), and intend it to be a force to be reckoned with.
Go see email #1
So this was the email that started the battle...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 10:31 PMEmail # 1 from me, igniting the theological/philosophic argument ready to ensue...
Not naming names (name removed) but the best way to communicate with me over site errors is actually to send me an email as opposed to placing a comment in some random location on the site ; )p But I did fix the registration process.
Got us linked up a bunch of places, and we've had our best "search engine" day by far (largely owing to our gleeful skewering of Wanda Sykes). So far today we've had 171 search engine hits. We still aren't on the first 50 pages of Google for "Political News" but that may well be in the top 5 most competitive keywords out there considering how often news sites are linked from blogs. On the bright side, in addition to our search hits improving, we do come up on page 1 in Google for Annuit Coeptis now. Search engine hits will go up and down, but the overall trend should continually be upward. Linking will continue until we pass CNN...
Got annoyed at a troll and created a page called "Age of Earth." By the way, I have a great deal of flexibility on almost all issue positions, but on this one I do not. It is the official, and only, stance of Annuit Coeptis that the planet is approximately 4.5 billion years old. I'm not telling you to be a naturalist, but we don't argue about things like the age of the planet.
Fixed (name removed) and (name removed) in the sidebar. If (name removed) would like a different picture, please let me know.
At some point I added a "Most Popular Stories" to the sidebar, at least I think it was me. Hey, I said my brain was improving; I didn't say it was perfect. It will show the most popular posts from the last seven days.
Did some category work, but am still a little unsettled as to what, exactly, to do there.
Made a slight design adjustment.
Made a short blog post.
Monetized our feedburner feed with adsense--at least I think I did. That process was a bit odd. We now have 4 subscribers. I'm getting tingly.
Put up the "Help Wanted" sign, but with a little twist this time...
The Grand Debate
Written by Paul Zannucci on 3:58 PMWhile working the start up of Annuit Coeptis we were presented with a typical, irrelevant, obnoxious liberal response from a reader who said that the author of a particular article probably believed in a young Earth. The article had nothing to do with anything remotely related to that, of course, and neither the author nor I believe in a young Earth, and so I decided, just to remove all doubt, to create a page on the site dedicated to dispelling the popular notion that all Christians and conservatives believe in bad, young Earth science.
While all the writers for the site agree that the planet is approximately 4.5 billion years old, per science, we still managed to get into one whopper of a debate on that topic that then transformed into a topic regarding not only the age of the planet but also homosexuality.
Sadly, this lively and informed debate was carried out exclusively via email. Fortunately, I have saved them all. Over the next few days, I'm going to be posting these emails for everyone to see. They really make for fascinating reads.
Wrote a new piece for Annuit coeptis
Written by Paul Zannucci on 11:42 AMI'm getting more and more tired of identity politics, which has now become the accepted norm under the Obama administration. After decades of America coming to the realization that identiy politics was nothing but bad policy designed to create a sort of tyranny by elevating one portion of the population over another, we see this bad policy crashing to the forfront once again, and this time with little to no opposition.
You can read my report here: Identity Politics
New Blog
Written by Paul Zannucci on 2:23 PMAs some may know, I founded the American Sentinel blog last year which grew to some popularity. For a variety of reasons, I left the blog in the capable hands of Jay Henderson and pretty much stopped political blogging except for coming back here occasionally.
Well, for a variety of reasons, American Sentinel was forced to change it name and move to a new domain, and I have taken back ownership of the site. I will still continue to post here, though very infrequently I would imagine.
My new home base for political ranting will be here Political News
I did the site design myself. Ain't it pretty?
Is the swine flu an Obama plot?
Written by Paul Zannucci on 12:03 PM
During the Bush years, nothing could happen that didn't get blamed on Bush, be it hurricanes, 9-11, or whatever. So turn-about should be fair play, right?
This brings me to my current subject, the swine flu, which is obviously an Obama plot to kill swine, children and the elderly for the purpose of reducing carbon emissions. You can probably throw in a reduction in unemployment figures, too.
And why not? After all, if George Bush and Dick Cheney ordered planes to crash into the twin towers and the Pentagon for the purpose of going to war and raising oil prices, can't Obama and Kerry caused the swine flu to help the green industry?
Of course not, but that never stopped the left, so it shouldn't stop us.
Last blogger in the world on this one...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 10:19 AMAs usual, the libs are up to their ridiculous old tricks of demonizing their oponents, but now they've taken it a step too far. No longer is it good enough for them to simply lie about Republicans trying to destroy the planet and starve little children and the elderly. We've now become official enemies of the state according to the new version of the Homeland Security Department.
Now, anyone who is pro-life, a veteran or opposes illegal immigration is being labled a "domestic right-wing extremist." Talk about taking it to a new level. We're now not just dangerous, we're full-fledged enemies of the state. And you know what? Perhaps we should be. This administration is doing more to unravel the freedom and sovereignty that our country's forefathers fought for than all previous administrations combined.
Perhaps we should wear our new labels proudly: Domestic Right-Wing Extremist Shirts.
Don't know if this is for real or not...
Written by Paul Zannucci on 10:14 AMIt's one of those email thingies, but it has that ring of truth to it:
Having spoken to some SEAL pals here in Virginia Beach yesterday and asking why this thing dragged out for 4 days, I got the following:
1. BHO wouldn't authorize the DEVGRU/NSWC SEAL teams to the scene for 36 hours going against OSC (on scene commander) recommendation.
2. Once they arrived, BHO imposed restrictions on their ROE that they couldn't do anything unless the hostage's life was in "imminent" danger
3. The first time the hostage jumped, the SEALS had the raggies all sighted in, but could not fire due to ROE restriction
4. When the navy RIB came under fire as it approached with supplies, no fire was returned due to ROE restrictions. As the raggies were shooting at the RIB, they were exposed and the SEALS had them all dialed in.
5. BHO specifically denied two rescue plans developed by the Bainbridge CPN and SEAL teams
6. Bainbridge CPN and SEAL team CDR finally decide they have the OpArea and OSC authority to solely determine risk to hostage. 4 hours later, 3 dead raggies
7. BHO immediately claims credit for his "daring and decisive" behaviour. As usual with him, it's BS.
So per our last email thread, I'm downgrading Oohbaby's performace to D-. Only reason it's not an F is that the hostage survived.
Read the following accurate account.
Philips’ first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his country’s Navy possible, Philips threw himself off of his lifeboat prison, enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear shot at his captors — and none was taken.
The guidance from National Command Authority — the president of the United States , Barack Obama — had been clear: a peaceful solution was the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless the hostage’s life was in clear, extreme danger.
The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating raft was fired on by the Somali pirates — and again no fire was returned and no pirates killed. This was again due to the cautious stance assumed by Navy personnel thanks to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from Washington and a mandate from the commander in chief’s staff not to act until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a “peaceful solution” would be acceptable.
After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the on-scene commander decided he’d had enough. Keeping his authority to act in the case of a clear and present danger to the hostage’s life and having heard nothing from Washington since yet another request to mount a rescue operation had been denied the day before, the Navy officer — unnamed in all media reports to date — decided the AK47 one captor had leveled at Philips’ back was a threat to the hostage’s life and ordered the NSWC team to take their shots.
Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and Philips was safe.
There is upside, downside, and spinside to the series of events over the last week that culminated in yesterday’s dramatic rescue of an American hostage. Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put to rest questions of the inexperienced president’s toughness and decisiveness. Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.
What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four day and counting standoff between a ragtag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship.
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