OK, this is the combat background chapter for one of the characters. He will be a geezer (like the author) when the balloon goes up in the Second Revolutionary War, but he will be well experienced.
Meet Marc Kramer, Lieutenant, US Navy...
Read this and weep. Weep for your nation's military leadership, weep for your nation's political leadership, or just weep.
There's nothing more to be said. With officers like this in charge over there, it's best we just strike our tents and leave.
BTW, the focus here is wrong. The sniper did a stupid thing and deserves military punishment for his stupidity. However, the acts of the command, going through an elaborate ceremony including the act of kissing a Quran and bowing obeisance to a Sheik is just wrong, and this would have been my title lead on the story: "US Army Command officer kisses Quran, bows to Sheik after apologizing for destroyed Quran".
We may have killed tens of thousands of the enemy and destroyed most of their resources to fight, but we have just lost the ideological war over there.
It's time to come home, or maybe to move East, kick some Iranian ass THEN come home.
Yesterday dawned bright and hot, but with the promise of good times. I had scheduled a trip North to meet the Analog Kid, and look at, maybe buy a rifle of his, and spend quality time in Cabela's.
I called for the portcullis and drawbridge, and crossed the moat, departing the Schloss Rivrdog on time, and stopped at a nearby 7-11 for a coffee and cash to go. Their cash machine is owned by Western Union, and is actually more of a money-transfer setup, where you can pay bills and send $$$ all over the world (benefits the "Immigrants", don't you know). Citibank manages the cashflow out of the machines, but my Credit Union has an agreement with Western Union/Citibank to let me use the machines 5 times a month for free.
I have a withdrawal limit on my cash (ATM) card of $600. So, I punch in half of that, and after a bit, a "exceeded your allowance" message pops up on the screen. Hmmmm. I hadn't made a transaction since the day before, and that was local also, and only $32.25 for a half-tank of fuel. But, I put it down to a glitch in the Western Union machine, which I had experienced before, BTW, and I happily paid for my java and hit the freeway, intending to get cash at some other ATM before dealing $$$ for the rifle.
About 30 minutes north of town on the Interstate, and after some strange thought exchanges (such as recording 4 new verses to "Barack the Magic Negro" (Rush Limbaugh's little ditty) on my PDA, I suddenly realized that I hadn't done an intended task, that of putting a couple of gallons of Premium fuel in my Mazda B2500 (I've heard that doing that tricks the fuel-quality sensor in the ECM, resetting the engine to give better fuel mileage). I glanced up, and Woodland, WA was coming up, and I saw a Chevron sign, so I got off the highway and topped up with a couple of gallons of Chevron Premium. As I was driving the frontage road to get back on the freeway, I spied a Fiber Federal credit union branch with a drive-up ATM. It should be a free ATM on the Credit Union Network, I thinks to myself, and I pull in there to get cash.
I get the same result as back at Western Union!. Now, my checking account had almost two grand in it (according to my Credit Union's website rendering of my account, AND my checkbook reconciliation), and my ATM-accessible savings account over a grand. Something's not right, thinks I, and I get worried, real worried that an attack on my financial holdings is in progress or has already taken place.
I call the Analog Kid and express my regrets, and tell him I must return home to deal with the crisis. He understands.
I work myself into a fair lather, mentally, while driving back south toward Portland, so I get off I-5 at Vancouver and head for my daughter's house, where there is Internet and quiet to make phone calls. The Internet reveals nothing more amiss with my account, except that the Western Union attempt is on as a withdrawal and subsequent re-deposit of the same amount, which seems strange, since I never completed the transaction, and the Fiber Federal attempted transaction doesn't even show up (and hasn't to this point, 24 hours later!).
At my daughter's place, I call some folks I know for help, lining up one major-bank IT Security wallah (a nephew) and one Credit Union executive (not my Credit Union, though) for advice. The first piece of advice I get is to try to get the status of my ATM account, which has a VISA number on it, from VISA. I call their report-a-lost card number, and they tell me I can't get info, only report a lost or stolen card, but they transfer me to another number where I CAN get info. There's a robot on the line, but it is fairly smart, and I identify myself satisfactorily to it, and give it my number. It says I entered the number wrong. That's certainly a possibility, so I do it again, this time being VERY careful to enter correctly AND check all the 16 digits before entering the last digit. I get the same message that my number is incorrect. I disconnect and look at the phone log, which shows that I put the correct ATM card number into the phone BOTH times.
So, some server, probably NOT at my credit union, has crumped it's data base, or at the least, crumped my file in it's data base, and ATM connectivity to my money is lost.
Which finally brings me to the point of this longish tale of woe.
Financial data transfer is largely unregulated, with those gummint bodies who might regulate it staying out of it for the most part. So, the data transfer business is basically the domain of freebooters (aka Pirates, aka Banks), who do things the way they want to, not the ways it might make sense to do it, and definitely not according to standardized methods with standardized recovery systems in place to mitigate data loss system-wide and promote quick recovery.
This must change. With our entire lives, fortunes and identities bound up by how data relating to them is transferred, it isn't enough to do it right MOST of the time. It has to be done right EVERY SINGLE time, and if there is a failure, the users must have full information on the nature of the crash, to include identification of the servers involved, so that the USER may make independent attempts to get corrective action if the system does not self-correct. IT departments involved in off-premise data transfer MUST be accessible to input from users, and not just their own people or other IT wonks.
As it stands, the identity and/or location of servers, or even their fact of existence, is a proprietary secret held only by those who transmit this financial data. Since the data they are transmitting is a legal extension of our property (money), we ARE involved in the transaction, and have a RIGHT to know the paths of the data stream, because, by extension, the data stream is part ours.
The fact that no one can even tell me, the end user, how the data stream works in it's total scope, is very telling. Our data transmission industry is completely out of control, and it is not beyond the range of reality to assume that terrorists know this, and are, even now, trying to subvert that stream to crash our entire economy, or at least damage it. Keeping the system secret from users does not keep the terrorists out. All it does is keep me, a denied user, from finding out who exactly to point my finger of blame at, so I point it at the whole system.
Maybe Barack the Wizard of Magik and Make-Believe will propose a Data User's Bill of Rights after he's elected.
Maybe pigs will finally fly, too.
This is utter rubbish! This is nothing less than trying to push a string from the back end.
A summer turn-around! How convenient for the candidates, who won't have to be correct about that pesky old economy thing as they push us blindfolded fools up against the wall.
The stock market will turn around based on WHAT? Where is the soaring confidence that will bring back small investors (the backbone of the market), when those same small investors have had to revert ALL their discretionary investment capital to their operating budgets, just to pay the whopping price increases demanded for vital everyday commodities such as food, fuel and energy, none of which appear in the indices that the AP's economy guru used to write that piece of rubbish.
So, lying about the economy is on the agenda of the MSM now, and therefore the agenda of their master, the Socialist Party of America, better known as the (D)emocrats. The first lie in the AssPress article is an ex-post-facto admission that we've been in a recession (when ALL the politicos from GWB to Nancy Peloser have previously denied it), and we are already pulling out of it. Excuuuuuuse me, my alarm clock must not have gone off, so I slept through a recession?
WHAT RECESSION, YOU A**HOLES?
You've all been so busy denying the recession (which was declared in these pages months ago) that you failed to realize that one actually came, and has passed?
WHAT AN UNMITIGATED PACK OF LIES!
Consider for a moment, if you will, what this means.
This means that the (D)emocrats have no actual solution to the economic disaster rolling down on us. They may not even trot out Keynesian (tax and spend) solutions, their previous tried-and-failed balderdash.
The (D)emocrats are saying that we've been in a war, and we've just won that war, and are going home.
Pull out of battle, declare victory and go home.
Hard to f**king believe, but that is what the (D)onks have just done. That makes twice they've suggested using this tactic. The first time, of course, is the War on Terror.
(D)emocrats, the Party of Make-Believe.
Obama, chief Wizard in charge of Make-Believe Miracles.
AND THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR GOVERNANCE?
My economic advice? Forget the stock market. If you make money there, it will only be taxed away from you. Instead, buy rifles and ammunition, lots of ammunition. Unlike money, with some practice, bullets may be sent to the exact place you desire, and unlike giving money to (D)emocrats, sending bullets to the right place will actually do some good, by subtracting evil.
1. Bright and early, published my post-apocalyptic short story. Weird, I haven't published any original fiction on this blog before.
2. Did the Four Esses (Shit, shine, shower, shave) and put on a suit and tie to attend the funeral of a gal (first-ever female MCSO Reserve Deputy, first female Commander of the Reserve Deputies) I dated for a while when I was between marriages back in the mid-70's. Damn, I never get used to the lone piper playing either the dirge OR "Amazing Grace", and it IS getting old meeting old work partners, etc, and saying "we have to stop meeting like this".
3. Heat wave in progress. Not all that unusual, but it is so hot and so windy that all that melting snowpack in the mountains is rushing down the rivers hereabouts, some of which are in flood with COLD, COLD water.
4.Running up North tomorrow to see Phil, the Analog Kid, about a nice Israeli Mauser he has up for sale. Dual-purpose mission, we'll meet in Cabela's at Lacey, WA, so I can drool some at non-Mauser stuff.
5. Took this little quiz thingy. Is 35 1/2 weeks very long for a semi-survivalist to be able to hole up?
I have a new definition of getting old:
Going to the funeral of a former ladyfriend.
We're the same age.
This is a story of post-apocalyptic life, love and loss. It is violent, containing graphic scenes which do not depict life as WE know it now, but, at the same time, scenes which will likely become more normal after the coming failure of our Grand Experiment, the Republic...
What do YOU do when you're totally bored the minute you get up in the morning on a hot day?
Fire off the coffee pot, check the A/C to make sure it's going to hack the program, and sit down to your puter and write a short story about post-apocalyptic small-town life, love, betrayal and violent death.
Then you try to find your editor. No luck, mine seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
Earth to Edie the Editor, come in please. No, on second thought just edit the story I sent you and get it back to me so I can publish the warped trash here tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
...too little money.
I'm 64 years old, but I think I just fell in love...
With the Remington Model 7615.
I've shot the 760 in 30-06, a patrol rifle carried in my early days as a Deputy Sheriff. It was a shoulder-pounder, and you mounted that rifle CORRECTLY before each shot or you paid the price in a massive shoulder bruise. Especially since I had a PT requirement in those days, including push-ups, and there was NO PADDING in my shoulders!
Then, some 8 years ago, my late Uncle Alex willed me a 760 in .308. It had a little less of a bite, but my Savage 99E in .308 was the better brush gun, so I sold it.
Now comes temptation. Remington has wisely put the 760 out front again, with a fine rifle in .223 (5.56 NATO). I've resisted the allure of an AR so far, even though as part of the Special Weapons Team of the Sheriff's Office in the 90's, I qualified with one. In fact I don't even own a rifle in our current military caliber. Haven't liked the poodleshooter round much. I do notice that in the obligatory hunting picture in their website, Remington poses a hunter with several poodles coyotes.
The rifle accepts AR magazines, so a 10 or 20 rounder would be perfect for militia duty. I would probably mount a tactical red-dot scope on it, but might opt for a Scout Scope if one could be mounted.
Now, if this rifle came in 7.62X39, taking AK magazines....or maybe 6.8 SPC, getting a bit ahead of the Army as they get ready to modify some M-4's for that caliber...
Portland, OR: McCain landed the "Straight Talk Express" in Portland at noon today, and immediately knelt down to kiss Pope AlGore's ring and suck up to the greenies. He probably lost the election today, losing far more conservatives than he gained lefty-greenies.
That cuts him from me, for one. He gets no support from this blog from here out.
For me to support or even vote for McCain and lie about it later, I would have to see him retract what he said today.
Let's look at what he said that turned my stomach so badly.
He came here to tout a Danish company that has located here to build parts for wind turbines, and to look "Presidential" in a state that suddenly has emerged from political obscurity to be a crossroads of election activity due to the closeness of the (D)onk race for the POTUS nomination. The company, Vestas, is currently building only the 40-yard long windmill blades, but will soon get into building the turbine masts as well.
A German company, Siemens, builds the gear reduction and alternators.
So, the CEO of Vestas, (D) Governor Ted Kulongoski and (RINO) Sen McCain are sharing the dais under a tent. McCain starts off RINO style, by lauding the (D) Guv to the skies, but it gets worse rapidly.
First off he makes the un-makeable link, calling Global Warming "Climate Change". This is ALGore's BIG Lie, since yes, there IS "Climate Change" going on, and there always will be, since the climate is never constant, it's ALWAYS either getting colder or warmer. It happens to be getting colder at the moment, but that didn't stop McCain. Climate Change is EITHER warming or cooling, but never just one or the other.
"Global Warming" doesn't sell anymore, what with the recognized-by-NOAA cool cycle in progress (although McCain lied about that too, saying NOAA's latest satellite technology confirmed global warming, when the opposite is true. The satellites, measuring at random, not at targeted locations like the hand measurements used to establish AlGore's "hockey stick", have confirmed cooling since 2000). So McCain calls it "climate change", but strangely enough, his "cure" for "climate change" is the same Ponzi-scheme carbon-credit trading that AlGore first foisted off on us as a global-warming cure after the Kyoto Protocol was refused as a treaty by the US Senate.
McCain went on to give a Mark One Model Zero AlGore speech on the horrors of Glow-Bull Warming.
He's toast, except for one glimmer of hope, but if we conservatives hang on to that shred of hope, we are fools. That would be if it's all just a mask for McCain, who knows he must have some crossover voting from the left to make it to the White House, and he has no intention of ever signing any laws concerning glow-bull warming.
Of course, if McCain will lie about Glow-Bull Warming, what else would he lie about?
When HRC or BHO lie in their campaign speeches, McCain's campaign HQ is all over them like stink on shit.
Will either HRC or BHO call him on THIS lie? Don't hold your breath.
McCain, embracing the words "climate change", which, by definition means warming AND cooling, whichever is prevalent, REFUSES to present any remedy against global cooling, which, in fact, is what is happening now. You won't see ANY remedies for global cooling presented, one, because they might not be necessary, this isn't the Middle Ages, and we know how to keep ourselves warm and grow food indoors now, and two, because such remedies offer no potential for the advance of socialism.
Now, some of you "support McCain or we are all gonna DIE" people are going to point out that McCain's carbon-trading schemes are NOT like alGore's, because they are "market-based" or some such other schlock. Horsepuckey. Bulltwaddle. There will be wealth re-distribution involved in carbon trading or it won't happen, end of story.
So, today, McCain declares himself to be a Socialist. A socialist who swears that he loves guns. Tell me, are there any other Socialists of that stripe anywhere else in the world?
I didn't think so.
I have gotten away from the You may Kiss my Ass posts in recent months. It was a mood thing, I guess, but now I'm ready to resume them.
I think I touched on this a few weeks ago, in regard to NASCAR's overboard promotion of this "charity", which, like NASCAR itself, is more of finely tuned money-extraction machine than anything else.
I know about Autism. One of my children is autistic, but because parental custody of that child was awarded by a sexist Court to my ex-wife, who badly mishandled her remedial training, the child was not allowed to reach her full potential as an adult, as both testing and promising early training experience had shown she was capable of.
Autism is now our new "Attention Deficit Disorder" or whatever they call it now. It is the "cross to bear" of the decade. Those labeled as afflicted are usually afflicted with mild to severe mental retardation, a better term that functionally describes the problem. The "autistic" are given excuses, any excuse NOT involving admitting that their brains are actually damaged.
Now, if we want to pour money into a research black hole, it should be research into brain chemistry in ALL it's minute and finite variations. A chemical map of the brain and how it is supposed to work would be very useful, because chemical analysis could then alert us to abnormalities in a child's developing brain BEFORE the prospect of reversing damage had winked out.
So, years ago, some parents of brain-damaged children who had also been inoculated against childhood diseases as the State had determined was necessary, turned out to have manifestations relating to their brain damage that was declared to be the fault of a preservative in the vaccines (this is why brain chemistry research is needed!). The company making the preservative and the companies marketing the vaccines were all hit with huge compensatory damages in the usual game of "convince the dumb jury that this is all the fault of the rich, uncaring capitalists".
Now comes the other shoe dropping. A number of parents, including two here in Portland, OR, are suing to have a finding that the preservative caused not only damage in their childrens' brains, as the court had previously found, but that it had specifically caused "autism".
Why is this an issue?
It is an issue because "autism" is the new boogeyman. It is the new boogeyman because of groups like "Autism Speaks", who are out there running a lavish corporate empire based on your sympathy.
Aha, you note, the resident ranter has come full circle.
Yes, I have, and it's time to award the "You may Kiss my Ass" award for today to....
The Fourth Circuit of Oregon! For being the go-to den of crybaby justice, the mavens of malpractice, the home of so many ambulance-chasers that they need a special parking garage just for plaintiff's attorneys. Yes, the Circuit Court of Oregon for Multnomah County, you may Kiss my Ass!
BTW, I used to be an Officer of the Court there, so I KNOW how bad they are.
...so let's move on. Only a serious move under the table or a career-ending move by Obama could change things now.
I'm now watching CNN's coverage of Obama live at a rally in Oregon, where I live, for the most part, a life of my choice under a socialistic State government. As I listen to Obama detail what's gone wrong in the USA for the Average Joe, I can't fault him on his litany:
As far as I can see, there's little to find wrong with his observations.
But that's where he stops. He is only an observer. Even if you go to his website for clarifications, you just get more observations in greater detail, but nowhere is there the text or even a synopsis of proposed legislation to fix any of the above problems for us Average Joes.
The Devil is in the Details.
When are we going to see some of those details, from either you or the DNC?
Most of the solutions to the real problems Barack Obama sees are very complex, so we Average Joes, with our Average Educations should be given as much time as possible to look at them and decide if they are actually solutions, or maybe they will be horrific new problems themselves.
So, here's my open question to Senator Barack Obama:
Sir, you are an articulate, pleasant speaker who seems to be at least in touch with the nation's feelings and maybe even most of it's problems. You also seem to be well-enough organized to run a smooth campaign that seems to have overcome considerable opposition from the Clintons. You have the undivided attention and support of the younger generation(s) of our nation. In short, you could easily win the election and become the 44th President of the United States. Would you please share with us just exactly how you intend to address the problems you have so eloquently illustrated here in my state?
You see, Senator, those of us NOT categorized as the Younger Generation were brought up to revere a political entity, NOT politicians. That entity is, of course, the Constitution. That entity properly limits what you may do to solve the nation's problems, as well as how those solutions are applied. All of us either saw President Franklin Roosevelt's frequently-un-Constitutional attempts to solve similar problems, or we studied it, back in the day when our educational establishment actually taught contemporary history as it had happened, not as it wished it might have happened.
Senator, you actually seem to have the drive and energy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I believe you actually have FDR's desire to see the end result be a greater and more prosperous United States of America. Be advised, Senator, that emulating FDR's spirit and drive isn't a bad thing, but you must pay more attention to the Constitution that FDR did, because if you don't, there are still enough of us older generation around with enough voice to remind YOU how the Founders intended your job to be done.
One of the (D)emocrats' favorite and most loyal voting blocs is the Jewish community, last I heard, estimated at 8% of the electorate. The Jewish community has traditionally ignored conservative candidates, even though in many respects (foreign policy, military) they are more conservative than those candidates.
Perhaps it is because Israel is a Socialist, Jewish nation (OK, to curb argument, maybe the Jewish description should be first, I'd accept it either way).
In Israel, the Jews permit themselves to be taxed at a horrendous rate, and have state-paid everything, just as socialists in Europe do. Their representative government is run on the European socialist model.
It is a given that the Israelis, and by extension, their diaspora here, has a great tolerance for socialism, and since the (D)emocrats are much closer to socialism than are the GOP, their choice is easy.
Is that all there is to it?
Your blogger is of Jewish heritage. My father was Jewish, and my mother was a Christian. At the start of their marriage (which lasted 51 years and was only dissolved by the death of my Mom), they agreed that neither religion would be forced upon their children. So it wasn't, and I am not Jewish. Or Christian.
That puts me into a position where I can look at this diaspora issue a bit more dispassionately than most. Ever since I've been politically aware (I was going to say astute, but realize THAT could have set off side arguments also), I've wondered about the doughty, plucky Israelis and their preference for socialism, from which political system their first European troubles came. Those would be the Czarist "Pogroms" of the 19th Century, which transcended Russia's Revolution and were subsequently brought into the Communist plan (and brought my paternal grandparents to flee to the USA). Despite their horrible treatment at the hands of the Soviet regime right up until it's demise in 1989, the Russian Jews still advocate the very political disease that brought them all their hassles. And they do so here, in the USA, as well as in Israel.
Obama is a different sort of (D)emocrat, though. Not content with being simply proto-Socialist as most of his bretheren and sisteren are, he wants to break the US political mold and start something new, something different, something extra-Constitutional as I fear.
In that "changed" mold, Obama wants to create peace and harmony between Israel and their Middle Eastern tormentors. No, their Middle Eastern blood enemies, "tormentors" is not strong enough. You see, the likes of Hezbollah, Iran, the Wahhabi throne in Saudia Arabia, Hamas and their allies, (Al-Qaeda and all the Islamist children-of-Allah mercenaries) don't just want to put pressure on Israel, they want to TERMINATE Israel, to the last Jew.
Obama thinks, in a Socialist, messiah sort of way, that he, as President of the US, can just step in, raise his arms, and order "Peace". Jimmah Carter thought exactly that, as did a few other Presidents.
The problem is, that the Jews are people of great patience. Their patience goes back thousands of years on this subject. Somewhere in the Torah, there must be an instruction that tells them that they must listen to, and at least try out the program of anyone who comes their way as a giver of "peace", even though that peace-giver is holding a sword dripping with fresh Jewish blood.
No, I doubt if the Jews will "get it" this year, either. There isn't a "clue-bat" mighty enough to smite reality into the Jews on this subject.
Sorry I asked.
If you want to know where political corruption starts, look no farther than the incumbency statistics for your local ballot.
We commit fraud vote by mail here in Oregon, so I just got my ballot for the May 20th primary. Since I am a registered Independent, I don't get to vote for any political offices unless they are legally non-partisan.
So, during a vertical moment, I perused the ballot. The vast majority of offices being voted upon are Judgeships. These are hard to vote for, because it is traditional for the judges NOT to campaign, and NOT release any of their opinions or stats on verdicts, etc. It's very hard to decide who has the temperament for the office and who doesn't.
In the Fourth Judicial District of the Circuit (superior) Court, there are fourteen judges running for re-election.
ALL FOURTEEN JUDGES ARE RUNNING UNOPPOSED !
Now, I seem to have read somewhere that 95-98% of Congressional seats up for election are re-election runs by the Congressional office-holders, and of those, over three-quarters usually get re-elected.
It's hard to wrap your mind around the totality of political corruption in this "free" nation, but these incumbency statistics give me a hint.
This Nation is led by a ruling class, an elite. You can take that to the bank.
Your politicians have already done just that.
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I wrote this post back on 5/5/08 and put it into the "to be published" stack, but failed to assign a publish date to it or even push the immediate-publish button. My bad. Sorry.
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Yesterday, the McCain campaign got into a little pissing contest (the first of many, one hopes) with the Obama campaign over McCain's remark that Hamas would love to see Obama elected.
When I heard this, (and Obama's ineffectual answer like "Oh well, he's a geezer, geezers get it wrong sometimes") I had an immediate harken back to last year, when (I'm very sure about this) Hamas actually issued such a statement that they hoped Obama would win.
I was going to skewer the Obama folk for this here, but I haven't been able to come up with the quote, which I believe was from Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon.
Am I wrong, could it have been President I'm-ding-a-ling of Iran who made the claim of support for Obama, or could it have been both of the Islamist nut jobs?
We need to lock this down. Various anti-US leaders around the globe have been mumbling thoughts about how they believe they can essentially wrap Obama around their little fingers once he's elected, for over a year now, and we need to keep a running score on those statements, and keep them in front of EVERYONE.
I'm a little weak on setting up search engines to find stuff, and the keywords I ran last night were "Nasrallah on Obama" but got nothing except articles where both might have been mentioned in the same article, but not Nasrallah extolling Obama.
A little help please?
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1. I got some help from the pro-Israel Weekly Standard. Their chief correspondent thinks Obama WOULD meet with Hezbollah MFWIC Nasrallah (yes, I did cornfuse Hamaz and Hezbollah, AGAIN!). Thanks, EllTee.
2. World News Daily had a radio interview with the top political commissar of Hamas in Gaza, and he DIRECTLY said he wanted Obama to win, and furthermore, said that was Hamas' hope. Quoted in the Conservative Voice blog.
3. Fox News recently pointed out that Obama's church (the one with the wascally wevewend Wight) has reprinted Hamas talking points in it's regular news bulletin.
4. Apparently, this all started with a CNN smear of McCain back on April 19. Full story here. Thanks, Suds.
