ALIEN APPEAL
Re: William Tucker’s Tesla’s
Last Triumph:
William Tucker writes that Nikola Tesla has “sunk into
obscurity.” The statement does Mr. Tucker credit, for it shows that
he is unaware of the importance Tesla enjoys in the amazing
crackpot world of the UFO enthusiasts. In that alternate universe,
Tesla’s name frequently pops up as the inventor of (suppressed)
technologies that underlie fantastic vehicles, weapons, and other
systems of all sorts. It boggles the mind.
— William Ducker
Austin, Texas
I hope one of those five remaining D.C. customers of Con Ed
scheduled to be terminated by year end is not the New York City
Transit System. Subways, elevated trains, and commuter rail lines
using third rail to gather current are run with D.C. Trains using
overhead electric catenary systems are AC.
— Stuart W. Settle
Richmond, Virginia
FAST TIMES
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s Vanity
Wares:
As I read the last line in Jeffrey Lord’s essay, my reaction was
the same as tennis great John McEnroe when confronted with a
questionable call: “You can’t be serious!”
For what is President Bush well on his way to greatness? Iraq,
Katrina, cleaning up corruption in Washington, fiscal
responsibility, greater transparency in government, addressing the
social security issue, figuring out what to do about health care,
taking care of our troops, uniting us?
It appears that his one real accomplishment is cutting taxes
primarily for the most affluent in America. Sure the stimulus
worked in the short term — it always does. But, now we are staring
at ballooning deficits and a huge national debt, much of which is
owned by people who don’t necessarily have our best interests at
heart. Does anyone really believe as the Vice President does that
they “don’t matter?”
Oh, I forgot. It’s all Bill Clinton’s fault. Sorry. Clinton
hasn’t been President for a long time. And, the Democrats were the
minority in both houses of Congress until the last election.
There used to be well known conservative principles. Now it
appears that conservative principles are whatever the GOP is
doing.
— Mike Roush
North Carolina
Mr. Lord has managed to make me laugh out loud while at the same
time providing a sobering and insightful look at the beltway and
the current “conventional wisdom” in D.C. The worst part being so
many of the faithful don’t seem to have either the intellectual
honesty to recognize it or the intellectual curiosity to question
it; so smarter than the room in their own minds I suspect laziness.
After all, in the words of a great American most people’s
historical perspective begins with the day of their birth.
Bravo!
— Stuart Reed
Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan
I guess what they said was true: the skills you acquire in high
school will serve you for the rest of your life. Especially if you
go into Washington politics.
— Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida
THEIR EGOS AGAIN
Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s Imagine
That:
Regarding ego as sometimes being a primary political motivator,
one can see that the reason Jesse Jackson attacked Obama for acting
like he’s white is that Jackson himself is green. Moreover, Jackson
should have said “acting as if he’s white” in order to avoid
grammatical errors that are sometimes used to stereotypes
blacks.
Sidney Harris once held up as a test of authenticity the
willingness to include in one’s efforts work for a cause that does
not directly help oneself. He cited the Pro-Life movement and the
ACLU as groups that do this. It would be good if Jackson and
Sharpton spoke up and demonstrated for the Swedish cartoonist now
in hiding and under government protection.
— Richard L.A. Schaefer
Dubuque, Iowa
As a sort of footnote to Ms. Fabrizio’s essay, there emerges
another pattern to liberal behavior. I read that another vacuous
celebrity, fabulously wealthy, has decided that “The View” is off
limits to radical leftists because it has a mildly conservative
cast member. I am speaking of Barry Manilow, who characterized Ms.
Hasselbeck’s views as “despicable.”
This follows on the heels of Democrats refusing to participate
in a Fox-sponsored debate relating to the race for the
Presidency.
I see two aims in this cowardly behavior. First I posit the
radical left wants field only “softballs” as if they have to
respond to penetrating questions they will be exposed for the
haughty, elitist, autocrats they are and their programs will be
shown to be as effective as they are in Cuba and were in
Russia.
Secondly, lack of spine seems to run very deep and long in the
Democrat party. They urged the north to quit the Civil War; they
quite literally surrendered thousands of Vietnamese to
concentration camps and millions of Cambodians into murder camps.
They supported a communist revolution in Nicaragua, and are now
suggesting that we surrender to terror in Iraq.
In each of these military surrenders there is clear evidence
that Democrat sympathies with the enemy made each of the wars more
terrible because the enemy knew that if they could just raise the
number of American soldiers killed the Democrats would
surrender.
My dead friends from Vietnam I’m sure, if they were able, would
thank the Democrats for freeing them from such horrible problems as
home ownership and the possibility of foreclosure, trying
desperately to find health insurance, raising children, and having
to work.
— Jay Molyneaux
FREE TO COLLECT
Re: Quin Hillyer’s The Daring
Possibility of Freedom:
I just wish Freedom extended to my wallet. I can’t remember a
single year in which Government did not expand beyond inflation and
the per capita tax burden not increase in my 35 years of paying
taxes. Even with Reagan’s and Bush’s income tax cuts, my parents
didn’t pay anything like the marginal tax rate most middle class
have today. Hilleryism is just more of what has come before. Most
of the people that will benefit from Hilleryism don’t pay any or
hardly any income taxes or even FICA for that matter. The people
that will benefit from Hilleryism the most have more Freedom than
most of us because they don’t pay for what they get. That’s Freedom
(from something) for millions of able-bodied Americans. They say
Freedom isn’t free, really? Millions would disagree.
— Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia
OVERDOSAGE
Re: Andrew Cline’s Hard to
Swallow and the “Bitter Medicine” letters in Reader Mail’s
Hillary
Knows Best: :
My God, you act surprised!?!
Of course Hillary’s going to recycle her socialistic plan, and
for (in her view) good reason, she’s assessed that those who want
Something-for-Nothing are more numerous/powerful (and backed by the
media for some unfathomable reason) than those of us who have a
sense of responsibility.
Hey gang, we’re outnumbered, it’s that simple.
And candidly, I hold the present mickey-mouse inhabitant of the
White House as a co-conspirator — Dubya’s done NOTHING to close
the border and stop the continuing flow of Illegal (NOT
“undocumented”!) Aliens. Nor, for that matter, have the majority of
wimpy Republican senators (the lower-case “s” was intentional) who
appear to be afraid of their own shadows, much less the demented
Democrats.
I hold all of the aforementioned in total, absolute contempt.
Just the thought of them, from Hillary to Bush, from Leahy to Trent
Lott, ad nauseam, make my skin crawl.
And can you imagine what our Founding Fathers must be thinking?
Where’s Barry Goldwater when we need him so badly!
— frost
Let me see if I have this correct. There are approximately 30
million uninsured people in the USA. This means there are 270
million insured people in the USA. So Mrs. Clinton wants those 270
million people to give up their insurance and join a government
health care plan in order to insure the 30 million who do not have
insurance.
Something is wrong with that picture.
Are illegal immigrants included in that 30 million? And if not,
is Hillary’s plan going to include them?
And speaking of illegal immigration, why don’t the Democrats
invite 30 million poor Chinese and 30 million poor Africans to this
country to make the illegal immigration more diverse.
— Fred Edwards
Tucson, Arizona
OIL SLICKS
Re: Michael Roush’s letter (under “Media Sanity”) in Reader Mail’s
Hillary
Knows Best:
In his letter responding to James Bowman’s column, Mike Roush
asked what the Iraq war was about if not about oil since we didn’t
find WMD and Iraq has no connection to the 9/11 attackers. I
recommend Mr. Roush read the column by James Lewis at the American
Thinker website titled “Iraq as Qaeda Bait.” It can be found
here.
It is an interesting big picture answer to why we’re in Iraq.
Especially since the Israeli bombing of a suspected nuclear
“something” sent to Syria by North Korea — it’s a reminder of
Bush’s early linking of the axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North
Korea. We’re surrounding Iran according to Mr. Lewis’ column.
That’s one reason why we’re in Iraq.
As far as the oil question, according to Mr. Greenspan, he’s the
one who brought up the oil question to Mr. Bush. He thought Iraq
was a threat to the world economy because of its threat to the
engine of the world: oil. The president rejected that as the
“reason” for going into Iraq, but wars have been fought for lesser
reasons.
All of these questions about why, who, what etc. are questions
for the historians of the future. Right now the question should be
— we are there now, what happens if we leave? I suggest all look
to Vietnam and Cambodia in the aftermath of the United States not
just leaving that area of the world, but the Democrat Congress
cutting off funds for the South Vietnamese. That legacy alone
should give the cut and runners pause. Then add to it the boost it
would give Al Qaeda to send the great Satan home with his tail
tucked between his legs, and you have a recipe for a major
disaster.
— Deborah Durkee
Marietta, Georgia
I have one simple question for Mr. Roush: if the Iraq war is all
about oil, then why is oil now at $82/barrel? We certainly didn’t
need to take over the whole country to secure the oil; it would
have been much simpler to just take over the oil fields and control
the pipelines to the ports. The rest of the country could have just
rotted if it was all about oil. If we had these new supplies in our
coffers (so to speak) oil would be down so low the corn farmers in
Iowa would be demanding we give it back.
But no, we’re trying to provide security for the whole bleeding
country! We’re building their infrastructure to better than the
Saddam era. How again does this get us the oil? And how/why are the
Iraqis making deals with the Chinese to develop OUR oil fields?
If it’s about oil, we’re abject failures. Of course, the same
could be said about a number of other bromides. We failed at
imperialism or neo-imperialism. Where is the American empire? We
failed at colonialism or neo-colonialism. In the past, the only
land we even ASKED for was that sufficient to bury our dead. And we
don’t even do that any more since we bring our dead home.
If the mandates were oil, empire, and colonies, we’ve exceeded
even abject failure. Even to describe our failures metaphors fail;
similes are found lacking.
Oh, woe is US.
— Karl F. Auerbach
Eden, Utah
LIVING STILL
Re: Alfred S. Regnery’s Single Malt
in the Blue Ridge:
I very much enjoyed Al Regnery’s account of making single malt
whisky in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It reminded me of a
similar episode in my life.
About a dozen years ago, I visited my good friend who had moved
from the Chicago area to a log home he built in the Smoky Mountains
of Tennessee. We were sitting on the porch, overlooking a Gary
Player golf course, when he said to me, “Jack, I’m going to let you
in on something — but you must promise you won’t go back to Cook
County and let a soul in on my secret.” I promised, and my friend
walked me around to a wooded area at the back of his property and
showed me a still. My friend, with the help of his new neighbors,
was making moonshine in his back yard…and everyone said it was
the best whiskey in the county.
The reason my friend didn’t want me to go back to Cook County
and blab was that he was a former FBI agent, a former Cook County
Commissioner, and the former Sheriff of Cook County. He was also
the brother of that great American patriot, Rosemary Woods.
Joe Woods (RIP) operated one hell of a still and he was one hell
of a guy!
— Jack Hughes
Chicago, Illinois
