Dear Madam,–
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
What price do you think you’ve paid for freedom?
It’s probably not enough.
There are some universal moments we can all share. One is the parting of a family pet.
These last few days she takes no joy in life, and when I petted her last night I discovered wasted spaces where strong muscles used to cord and bunch. This morning I had to help her up to go outside. When we came back in together she stood trembling on the door stoop, looking into the living room where stark evidence of her incontinence was left for me to tidy up. She looked back at me with regret, no doubt expecting strong remonstration – she has always been, in that way at least, a good dog.
In a word… sucks.
Best to the Cap’n…
People who get overly inflamed over what they perceive as lack of proper actions (especially when they have no basis) are like hemorrhoids. They can be a real pain in the ass.
The US Fifth Fleet and US aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in the Gulf of Oman were not allowed to shoot at an Iranian Fokker F27 aircraft which on April 21 hovered for 20 minutes 900 meters over the carrier and no more than 250 meters away, even though they saw its flight crew gathering intelligence on the Eisenhower and its warship escorts.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that the US Persian Gulf command went public on the incident on April 28, a whole week later, only after Gulf military circles, amazed at the American naval and air units’ passivity in the face of hostile surveillance, threatened to break the story to local media.
This striking restraint indicates that the US Gulf and Arabian fleets are under orders to take no action – certainly not to open fire – against Iranian naval or air units, with first obtaining permission directly from Washington.
Wow, crack journalism there shippy. Never mind international laws of conflict, the fact that the Iranians were essentially doing nothing more than tourists on a cruise liner do, or the historical precedence that could easily be verified by Googling “Soviet and American Cold War at sea” to see how we usually handle such things.
Nope, let’s act enraged because “souces” are amazed at lack of action. Especially when said sources are from countries KNOWN for restraint in action…
These Gulf sources, talking to debkafile, wondered out loud if the United States would also turn a blind eye to an Iranian attack that cause the sinking of a Saudi, UAE or Israeli ship sailing in the Gulf.
Nope, never seen anyone get 1,000 lashes for porn or anything ridiculous like that in that area of the world.
Clearly the people we should be taking international relations clue from.
Clownshow.
Fundamentalists always amuse me. They have a penchant for getting into a fervor, and a tad frothy, whenever something occurs that highlights their inability to take a joke.
Islamic Fundamentalists even more so because they try to take things to the extreme, what with threats of death to the infidels and all that.
Needless to say, I find THIS immensely humorous….
Someone at Dan Savage’s blog started it, then Michael Moynihan at Reason picked it up, now I feel obliged to help push it out there. Says Moynihan:
I will be employing my tremendous skill as an illustrator, of course, and expect that my colleagues will do the same. If they refuse, they will be declared weak-kneed, namby-pamby, quisling infidels and will be shamed on this blog (Though such idle threats rarely work these days; perhaps I could threaten them with a painful death, which seems to do the trick). If readers would like to show their solidarity, please email your Mohammad masterpieces to me here: mmoynihan at reason.com. The best ones will be published on Hit & Run, which, along with the concomitant death threat, is reward enough.
beautiful. I can’t wait to see what happens…
(H/T to da Phibian)
