The Happy Carpenter

Eject! Eject! Eject!

Bill Whittle has a nice long essay up that will make you feel very good, if you're a conservative, and just might give you a little food for thought if not.  Either way, well worth the read.

Not only judges and the war -- in the long run, THIS may be the most important reason to vote Republican

We're rich.  We can afford all kinds of nonsense.  Most of the world cannot, and there's got to be a limit to how much misdirected effort we can tolerate.  This is important, dammit:

Every snowstorm, hurricane, deluge or drought generates headlines, horror movies and television specials, demanding action to avoid imminent climate catastrophe. Skeptics are pilloried, labeled "climate criminals," and threatened with "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials." Britain's Royal Society has demanded that ExxonMobil stop funding researchers who say global warming is primarily the result of natural forces. Meanwhile, scientist James Hansen received $250,000 from Teresa Heinz-Kerry for insisting that warming is due to humans, and "socially responsible" investor services refuse to list or recommend corporations they deem insufficiently sensitive on the subject.

Not surprisingly, companies from Wal-Mart to BP, GE and JP Morgan have brought climate activists into their board rooms, lobbied Congress for climate and ethanol legislation, and retooled to produce new product lines intended to boost tax subsidies, favorable PR and profits. But are these actions socially responsible or in the best interests of society as a whole?

Asserting "the science is settled" ignores the debate that still rages. Proclaiming that "climate change is real" ignores Earth's constant, natural warming and cooling. Vikings raised crops and cattle in Greenland 1000 years ago, while Britons grew grapes in England. Four hundred years later, the Vikings were frozen out, Europe was gripped in a Little Ice Age, and priests performed exorcisms on advancing Swiss glaciers. The globe warmed in 1850-1940, cooled for the next 35 years, then warmed slightly again.

Detroit experienced six snowstorms in April 1868, frosts in August 1869, a 98-degree heat wave in June 1874, and ice-free lakes in January 1877. Wisconsin's record high of 114 degrees F in July 1936 was followed five years later by a record July low of 46. In 1980, five years after Newsweek's "new little ice age" cover story, Washington, DC endured 67 days above 90 degrees.

Studies by National Academy of Sciences, NOAA, Danish and other scientists continue to raise inconvenient truths that question and contradict catastrophic climate change theories, computer models and assertions. The "hockey stick" temperature graph (which claimed 1990-2000 was the hottest decade in 1000 years) was shown to be invalid; the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years; the US is yet to be hit by a major hurricane in 2006; interior Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice mass, not losing it; and Gulf Stream circulation has not slowed, as claimed in 2005.

Other recent studies conclude the sun's radiant heat and cosmic ray levels affect planetary warming and cloud formation more strongly than acknowledged by climate alarmists. That's logical. Why would natural forces that caused climate change and bizarre weather in past centuries suddenly stop working?

Why would we assume (as many climate models do) that energy, transportation and pollution control technologies will suddenly stagnate at 2000 levels, after the amazing advances of the previous century? And can we afford the Quixotic attempt to stall or prevent future climate change?

Just the current Kyoto Protocol could cost the world up to $1 trillion per year, in regulatory bills, higher energy costs and lost productivity. That's several times more than the price tag for providing the world with clean drinking water and sanitation - which would prevent millions of deaths annually from intestinal diseases.

Over 2 billion of the Earth's citizens still do not have electricity, to provide basic necessities like lights, refrigeration and modern hospitals. Instead they breathe polluted smoke from wood and dung fires, and die by the millions from lung diseases. But opposition to fossil fuel power plants, in the name of preventing climate change, ensures that these "indigenous" lifestyles, diseases and deaths will continue.

Opposition to hydroelectric projects (damming rivers) and nuclear power (radioactive wastes) likewise perpetuates endemic Third World poverty. So would a new European Union proposal to tax imports from China, India and other poor countries that are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, because this gives them an "unfair trade advantage" over EU countries that are struggling to meet their Kyoto #1 commitments.

But UK Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson insists that climate change "is one of the most pressing issues facing countries in sub-Saharan Africa." And environmental zealots blame malaria rates on climate change, to deflect charges that their callous opposition to insecticides is killing African babies.

Elsewhere, government and private studies calculate that the Protocol would cost the United States up to $348 billion in 2012. The average American family of four would pay an extra $2,700 annually for energy and consumer goods, and in US minority communities, the climate treaty would destroy 1.3 million jobs and "substantially affect" standards of living.

Yet, even perfect compliance with Kyoto would result in Earth's temperature being only 0.2 degrees F less by 2050 than under a business-as-usual scenario. Assuming humans really are the culprits, actually controlling theoretical global temperature increases would require 40 Kyoto treaties - each one more restrictive, each one expanding government control over housing, transportation, heating, cooling and manufacturing decisions. (This is the real motive behind the madness -- The Happy Carpenter.)

The real danger is that we will handcuff economies and hammer poor families, to promote solutions which won't solve a problem that the evidence increasingly suggests is moderate, manageable and primarily natural in origin.

The real catastrophe is that we are already using overwrought claims about a climate cataclysm to justify depriving Earth's most impoverished citizens of electricity and other modern technologies that would make their lives infinitely better.

Real ethics and social responsibility would weigh these costs and benefits, foster robust debate about every aspect of climate change, ensure continued technological advancement, and give a seat at the decision table to the real stakeholders: not climate alarmists - but those who have to live with the consequences of decisions that affect their access to energy, health, hope, opportunity and prosperity.  (emphasis added)

One party, the Democrats, is completely around the bend on this stuff.  The other is distressingly wobbly.  Wobbly is better than crazy.  Vote Republican.

From TownHall via Greenie Watch.

Oh those tolerant Lefties

From Greenie Watch:

One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing `climate change denial'. `David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial', she wrote. `Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.' Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the `global warming.Holocaust'.

The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.

Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. There has been no decree from on high or piece of legislation outlawing climate change denial, and indeed there is no need to criminalise it, as the Australian columnist suggests. Because in recent months it has been turned into a taboo, chased out of polite society by a wink and a nod, letters of complaint, newspaper articles continually comparing climate change denial to Holocaust denial. An attitude of `You can't say that!' now surrounds debates about climate change, which in many ways is more powerful and pernicious than an outright ban. I am not a scientist or an expert on climate change, but I know what I don't like - and this demonisation of certain words and ideas is an affront to freedom of speech and open, rational debate.

Indeed.

What was that "Never again" thing again?

You just have to wonder:  What the heck is wrong with those people?

From Penraker via John we learn that 10,000 people are dying every week in Darfur.  We're a little busy right now -- where is the rest of the world?

We are Batman

From a new found comrade Mike the Marine, and it's so obvious, America is Batman.

I couldn't agree more.  Although I'd say Canada used to be Alfred, and might be Alfred again, but right now is the Joker's (aka FRANCE's) mol, which is a downright dirty shame but true.

"...  America IS Batman. Think about it:

-We are the richest guy in town. We run Wayne Enterprises. We have more money than everybody. We can be extravagant, buying hotels and building sometimes self-important stuff on a whim. But a lot of that is not really what we’re all about… people often forget that we’re the most philanthropic guy in town, too.

- Where do we get those wonderful toys? From a lot of places actually, but we’re the only one who has them, and we use them to kick a lot of ass.

- We’ve suffered tragedy, and it was this tragedy which spurred us to action. We have overcome our worst fears and then visited them upon evil doers. Justice is what we are after, and we will not stop until the good people of Gotham don’t need the Batsignal anymore.

The rest of the Westernized World, however, is Rachel Dawes - Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend - played by Katie Holmes. How so?

- She’s a lawyer, more interested in “the process,” and under the impression that justice and vengeance are always mutually exclusive, when in actuality we know that they sometimes – not always, but sometimes - happily coincide.
..."

Just so.

KOS mining - entry #1

This has been a fun sport for a lot on the Right, so what the heck I'm jumping in too.  THIS from The Daily Kos via RWN regarding our troops in Iraq:

"The bodies of the two captured U.S. soldiers were found in Iraq - bearing signs of "barbaric torture."

How quaint.

I hope Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo will sleep well tonight, with visions of those boys' bodies and the horrible barbarities inflicted upon them dancing in their heads. Perhaps Gonzales, and Yoo, and Rumsfeld and Bush will be able to envision the same inhumanities being visited upon their family members and loved ones as they drift off to peaceful slumber.

This cannot stand. We cannot allow this administration and its incomprehensible defense of and support for torture in violation of the "quaint" Geneva Conventions to remain.

The chickens have come home to roost. As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

I thought it was "Hate the war but support the troops"?  Funny way of showing it, if you ask me.

Oh, and after getting a mountain of flack for his horrible sentiments, the Kossack posted a long semi-apology/explanation.  Too late, Jack -- the cat's out of the bag.

The amazing cruelty of the liberal mind

About 23 million people live in Taiwan.  Read this post from an oh-so-scholarly lefty to see how easily the left can send them into slavery.  I used to think that they'd feel different if it were their country being enslaved or attacked, but now I don't.  They would rationalize their own slavery.  Liberty for anyone but him and his group means nothing to that guy.

He says Chinese repression isn't so bad.  No?  Remember this, dude?

Here's the exchange: And Never the Twain Shall Meet

Rob generously gave me permission to cut-&-paste his entire blog, with the caveat I clarify he did not mean to demean the Arab people as a race or a genetically inferior people.  It's their culture that stinks, not them.  He wants to make it clear he is not a racist.  OK, so noted.  And Rob, we already knew that.   Among conservatives, one is permitted to talk about such things without apologizing in advance or kowtowing to PC shrines.  Being conservative means never having to say you're sorry ;-)   Here's the beef:

Duffy and I were involved in an email exchange this morning stemming from reports that the logjam in forming a new Iraqi government might finally be breaking. My response was less than enthusiastic. The Shiite religious party won the election. Whoever they pick is going to be a problem.

Duffy writes back as follows:

How many times have you heard me say that this was not going to be pretty, that mistakes have and will be made, that post- war

Germany

and

Japan

experienced similar difficulties as those now being experienced in

Iraq

?  It took our own country 11 years and 200+ years(and much blood both then and later) to establish and then maintain our own form of government.  There is no harder form of governance than democracy and no greater alternative. This will not happen overnight, and today's news certainly does not mean the end result is near. 

But truly it is you that is in denial, denial that there can be any progress, any hope, any ultimate belief in the innate and personal human tendency to prefer freedom over tyranny that, as history has shown, will ultimately prevail, with our support, in

Iraq

and throughout the world.  I fear that you are so blinded by your disdain, to put it lightly, of Bush that you will denigrate any progress, any positive development, any evidence of political formation. 

To me it's a shame that someone with as strong an intellect as you, someone who could offer so much in the way of constructive debate and thought, would be so uncompromising in your thinking, imho, because to do so would give an inch of credibility to Bush and his Doctrine.  I only have to look as far as your recent Rumsfeld post to see how low the discussion has devolved. 

Thankfully, in spite of great and vociferous opposition and at great cost, Bush has wisely begun us on this path of change, a path that may take one hundred years to reach its ultimate form, but it is the only path worth pursuing given the threats we face.  Let's not forget that the fight against Radicalism extends well beyond what is going on in

Iraq

, and it is in

Iraq

where the primary battle is manifesting itself.  And so much the better that it is happening there, in the den of radicalism, than over here, in NYC or

Seattle

or Philly.  That's my interpretation of reality.  Concerned, yes, but unclouded by hate.

My reply, which was going to be the main point of this post, is as follows:

Once again, you assume that because I recognize the futility of our situation in

Iraq

, I must be in favor of that futility. That’s like saying that because I tried to stop you from jumping out the window, I must not really believe you can fly.

The reason we have democracy in the West is because our culture, when it’s working properly, teaches us these assumptions:

• You can get ahead if you try hard and have talent 
• People who judge you on criteria other than merit are unjust. Prejudice is a vice, not a virtue 
• Our laws and customs are fundamentally fair and just, so I should accept outcomes even if they don’t always fit my beliefs 
• The majority will insist on fair execution of the laws and expose and punish corruption 
• Even if I am in the minority, laws protect me from unjust persecution 
• Those who believe differently from me deserve respect, even if I don’t agree with them 
• Violence is a last resort – it signifies the failure of civilization and social institutions 
• Strangers can come together and do things in their common interest without being coerced 
• Etc. 

Here, by contrast, is a short list of the beliefs and assumptions that are drummed in to the minds of most people over there, through the religion, their culture, their historical experience, the teachings of their family, the experiences they see all around them, their media, their literature and all the examples they are taught to respect:

• The social system is rigged to benefit the powerful. There is no way to advance socially or economically without entering into a corrupt arrangement with the powerful or mounting a violent challenge to power 
• Those with power will treat their opponents without mercy. Therefore, when you get power, it is both justified and necessary to treat your opponents with no mercy 
• Those with power will never give it up without a fight, because they understand what will happen to them; anyone who gives up power voluntarily is a fool who deserves what he gets 
• When power changes hands without an obvious fight or government acts in what appears to be the public interest, it must be the result of a corrupt bargain or a conspiracy and some hidden interest must be benefiting 
• The people I trust are, as follows, in order: 

1.    Immediate family

2.    Extended family

3.    Guests/hosts under the code of hospitality

4.    Clan/tribal group

5.    Other Arabs of same flavor of Islam

6.    Non-Arabs of same flavor of Islam

7.    Non-threatening non-believers

8.    Threatening or proselytizing non-believers

9.    Islamic “heretics”

If I am especially liberal-minded, I will get down to 5 on this list before becoming violently suspicious.

• Acts of trust and selflessness between people who have no formal connection with one another are deception or hypocrisy. 
• Human laws have no legitimacy beyond the ability of those in power to enforce them. If it is within your power to defy or ignore the laws, then you should do so, because laws only apply to the weak. 
• Women have nothing to say in public affairs. Societies that allow their own women to participate as equals are weak, foolish and offensive to God. Societies who encourage our women to participate socially, economically or politically are diabolical and must be opposed. 
• Those who believe differently than me offend God and have relinquished their rights to be treated with dignity. There is only reward, and no penalty, for punishing heretics 
• My self-interested interpretation of my faith, or the interpretation given to me by religious authorities in whom I unconditionally trust, justifies anything I choose to do 
• I will be lavishly rewarded in heaven for acts that are unjustifiable by normal human morality 
• Efforts to convince me to the contrary on any of these subjects are the work of the devil. If you are more powerful than me, I will pretend to pay attention, but you cannot expect me to take your ideas seriously once you have lost the ability to compel me to obey. 

If you think you can find your way to a functioning democracy from there, good luck. And good luck growing those wings before you hit the ground.

Rob has succeeded in doing what I originally set out to do in part, that is, he has created a space with as good a dialog between Left & Right as you can find.  I don't know Duffy except through some of his comments on Rob's blog, but I tend to agree with him.  What both these guys tend to ignore is the catastrophic consequences of failure to the Arab and Persian peoples.  Their culture is literally stuck in the dark ages, and if they''re not reformed/subverted (take your pick) then an awful lot of them are going to get killed, along with the residents of Tel Aviv and New York.  What Rob says here is mostly true, but not sufficient.  It's a good list of explanations of why the job has been and will be so hard, but not proof that it can't be done.  I don't understand why Rob and his ilk miss that point, not really -- I suspect a lot of it is just partisan politics.  No doubt Rob would vehemently, eloquently, and esoterically disagree with me (complete with links).

I'd also like to point out that those who say democracy can't be established at gun point have it exactly wrong -- democracy is always established at gun point.  There is usually a plurality that either doesn't care or wants the current regime to remain.  The tyrants must be driven out or killed or beaten down until they give up; they don't go away willingly.  The Soviet Union is the exception that proves the rule (although some think that jury is still out).  Others say 80 years is too long to wait for liberty.

Here is is - the difference between Right & Left vis a vis Iraq

Read this exchange:

Duffy and I were involved in an email exchange this morning stemming from reports that the logjam in forming a new Iraqi government might finally be breaking. My response was less than enthusiastic. The Shiite religious party won the election. Whoever they pick is going to be a problem.

Duffy writes back as follows:

How many times have you heard me say that this was not going to be pretty, that mistakes have and will be made, that post- war

Germany

and

Japan

experienced similar difficulties as those now being experienced in

Iraq

?  It took our own country 11 years and 200+ years(and much blood both then and later) to establish and then maintain our own form of government.  There is no harder form of governance than democracy and no greater alternative. This will not happen overnight, and today's news certainly does not mean the end result is near. 

But truly it is you that is in denial, denial that there can be any progress, any hope, any ultimate belief in the innate and personal human tendency to prefer freedom over tyranny that, as history has shown, will ultimately prevail, with our support, in

Iraq

and throughout the world.  I fear that you are so blinded by your disdain, to put it lightly, of Bush that you will denigrate any progress, any positive development, any evidence of political formation. 

To me it's a shame that someone with as strong an intellect as you, someone who could offer so much in the way of constructive debate and thought, would be so uncompromising in your thinking, imho, because to do so would give an inch of credibility to Bush and his Doctrine.  I only have to look as far as your recent Rumsfeld post to see how low the discussion has devolved. 

Thankfully, in spite of great and vociferous opposition and at great cost, Bush has wisely begun us on this path of change, a path that may take one hundred years to reach its ultimate form, but it is the only path worth pursuing given the threats we face.  Let's not forget that the fight against Radicalism extends well beyond what is going on in

Iraq

, and it is in

Iraq

where the primary battle is manifesting itself.  And so much the better that it is happening there, in the den of radicalism, than over here, in NYC or

Seattle

or Philly.  That's my interpretation of reality.  Concerned, yes, but unclouded by hate.

My reply, which was going to be the main point of this post, is as follows:

Once again, you assume that because I recognize the futility of our situation in

Iraq

, I must be in favor of that futility. That’s like saying that because I tried to stop you from jumping out the window, I must not really believe you can fly.

The reason we have democracy in the West is because our culture, when it’s working properly, teaches us these assumptions:

• You can get ahead if you try hard and have talent 
• People who judge you on criteria other than merit are unjust. Prejudice is a vice, not a virtue 
• Our laws and customs are fundamentally fair and just, so I should accept outcomes even if they don’t always fit my beliefs 
• The majority will insist on fair execution of the laws and expose and punish corruption 
• Even if I am in the minority, laws protect me from unjust persecution 
• Those who believe differently from me deserve respect, even if I don’t agree with them 
• Violence is a last resort – it signifies the failure of civilization and social institutions 
• Strangers can come together and do things in their common interest without being coerced 
• Etc. 

Here, by contrast, is a short list of the beliefs and assumptions that are drummed in to the minds of most people over there, through the religion, their culture, their historical experience, the teachings of their family, the experiences they see all around them, their media, their literature and all the examples they are taught to respect:

• The social system is rigged to benefit the powerful. There is no way to advance socially or economically without entering into a corrupt arrangement with the powerful or mounting a violent challenge to power 
• Those with power will treat their opponents without mercy. Therefore, when you get power, it is both justified and necessary to treat your opponents with no mercy 
• Those with power will never give it up without a fight, because they understand what will happen to them; anyone who gives up power voluntarily is a fool who deserves what he gets 
• When power changes hands without an obvious fight or government acts in what appears to be the public interest, it must be the result of a corrupt bargain or a conspiracy and some hidden interest must be benefiting 
• The people I trust are, as follows, in order: 

1.    Immediate family

2.    Extended family

3.    Guests/hosts under the code of hospitality

4.    Clan/tribal group

5.    Other Arabs of same flavor of Islam

6.    Non-Arabs of same flavor of Islam

7.    Non-threatening non-believers

8.    Threatening or proselytizing non-believers

9.    Islamic “heretics”

If I am especially liberal-minded, I will get down to 5 on this list before becoming violently suspicious.

• Acts of trust and selflessness between people who have no formal connection with one another are deception or hypocrisy. 
• Human laws have no legitimacy beyond the ability of those in power to enforce them. If it is within your power to defy or ignore the laws, then you should do so, because laws only apply to the weak. 
• Women have nothing to say in public affairs. Societies that allow their own women to participate as equals are weak, foolish and offensive to God. Societies who encourage our women to participate socially, economically or politically are diabolical and must be opposed. 
• Those who believe differently than me offend God and have relinquished their rights to be treated with dignity. There is only reward, and no penalty, for punishing heretics 
• My self-interested interpretation of my faith, or the interpretation given to me by religious authorities in whom I unconditionally trust, justifies anything I choose to do 
• I will be lavishly rewarded in heaven for acts that are unjustifiable by normal human morality 
• Efforts to convince me to the contrary on any of these subjects are the work of the devil. If you are more powerful than me, I will pretend to pay attention, but you cannot expect me to take your ideas seriously once you have lost the ability to compel me to obey. 

If you think you can find your way to a functioning democracy from there, good luck. And good luck growing those wings before you hit the ground.

Rob has succeeded in doing what I originally set out to do in part, that is, he has created a space with as good a dialog between Left & Right as you can find.  I don't know Duffy except through some of his comments on Rob's blog, but I tend to agree with him.  What both these guys tend to ignore is the catastrophic consequences of failure to the Arab and Persian peoples.  Their culture is literally stuck in the dark ages, and if they''re not reformed/subverted (take your pick) then an awful lot of them are going to get killed, along with the residents of Tel Aviv and New York.  What Rob says here is mostly true, but not sufficient.  It's a good list of explanations of why the job has been and will be so hard, but not proof that it can't be done.  I don't understand why Rob and his ilk miss that point, not really -- I suspect a lot of it is just partisan politics.  No doubt Rob would vehemently, eloquently, and esoterically disagree with me (complete with links).

I'd also like to point out that those who say democracy can't be established at gun point have it exactly wrong -- democracy is always established at gun point.  There is usually a plurality that either doesn't care or wants the current regime to remain.  The tyrants must be driven out or killed or beaten down until they give up; they don't go away willingly.  The Soviet Union is the exception that proves the rule (although some think that jury is still out).  Others say 80 years is too long to wait for liberty.

Rob generously gave me permission to cut-&-paste his entire blog, with the caveat I clarify he did not mean to demean the Arab people as a race or a genetically inferior people.  It's their culture that stinks, not them.  He wants to make it clear he is not a racist.  OK, so noted.  And Rob, we already knew that.   Among conservatives, one is permitted to talk about such things without apologizing in advance or kowtowing to PC shrines.  Being conservative means never having to say you're sorry ;-)

Spade a spade

I have the radio tuned to talk radio alot, so much so that much of the time I'm not really listening all that closely.  I've noticed that I can identify a liberal caller without even listening to what they're saying?  Like, they can't make declarative statements?  And always, in most cases of which I'm aware, in a general sense, tend to, for the most part, attach shall we say little devices to what one might call their sentences that rather tend, most people think, to water down the very goal of their sentence such as it is.  You know?

That, and they're always saying how much they're afraid of something.  Fear, they think, is some sort of badge of superior sensitivity.  Makes me want to stomp them.

Then, along comes The Cartoon and its related murder and mayhem, and the Left banner carriers, the Old Media MSM, won't reprint the images that are at the schwerpunkt.  TigerHawk's Cardinal Plank comments:

Much is and should be made about the seeming consensus MSM decision not to publish the Danish cartoons. Let's be clear: the MSM would not and does not hesitate to publish material profoundly offensive to virtually every other judeo-christian faith, buddhism, hinduism - you name it. But now they step up to repress cartoons lampooning islam? Why?

There really can be only one core reason. Fear. There is no commercial explanation. It would sell. No argument about cultural sensitivity makes any sense. It is pure blather. Anything to avoid acknowledging pure, unadulterated fear. They would publish without hesitation items of great offense to others because none of these others has threatened deadly violence. Not so radical islamofascists. The MSM should be going out of their way to publish these cartoons precisely to offend their repressors.

The MSM are dhimmis. They are caving to Islamist-defined standards of Islamic supremacy. Scared to publish. Freedom must be fought for, and the MSM has no will, no courage to fight. Only the blogosphere seems to.

If it looks like a duck....

Those people are cowards.  No wonder they don't understand our Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and yes, Coast Guardsmen.  I bet those al Quaeda SOB's, who got their impression of us from them, the Old Media, are plenty surprised by our stictoitivity and whatittakes.