Thanks to Salena Zito for sending this via email. I’d almost forgotten about this show.

 
Michael “A.J. Sparxx” Illions, of Conservatives with Attitude, writes about his son Cole:

Cole will be 2 years old next month and this year, thankfully, was a lot better than his first year. On September 9th, 2007, we will be holding a Walk-A-Thon in New Jersey to benefit the Hydrocephalus Association to help find a cure for this illness. Right now there is only a treatment.

I’ve created a fund-raising page for Cole and would really appreciate whatever the blogging community can do, $5, $10, anything to help me reach my personal goal of $500.00. (I hope you will post this and share the information with the readers of your blog).

We proved the Doctor’s wrong when they advised us to terminate the pregnancy because our child was going to be “very sick” and “incompatible with life.”

We chose life when the Doctor’s offered death.

Cole’s story can be found here.

Well, I told the Ron Paul supporters that I’d let them have their say after I gave them both barrels a few days ago. I’ll admit that calling them “googly-eyed unblinking freaks” wasn’t real nice but I have to do something to keep myself entertained around here. Predictably, the hate mail started arriving immediately. None of it was as frightening as the stuff I get from terrorists or the animal rights folks but some of it was amusing. To their credit quite a few of his supporters responded to my challenge and submitted reasonable endorsements of their candidate. David Ghizzoni’s stands out:

I’d be happy to respond to your concerns about Ron Paul supporters.

Its true the what you describe as “truthers” and others support Dr. Paul. No argument from me on that point. What you have to ask yourself is why do they support him. This is what gets at the root of the support for Dr. Paul, not just from the fringe as you would say but from everyday average people across the nation. He speaks truth. He has a proven track record of voting by the constitution. Finally he speaks with simple common sense to the manufactured sound bite answers of the “front runners.”

Ron Paul has garnered support from all walks of America and to me that by itself should be the best indication of the truth and sincerity of his platform. It stands for what Americans from all walks of life can rally behind. He may not share an individuals personal beliefs on an issue but he doesn’t allow that to get in the way of his duty to vote based on his oath of office.

Americans seem to have forgotten that our leaders are not there to push our personal agendas on the nation, but are there instead to prevent just that. We as Americans are not going to agree with one another on every issue, we don’t expect to. We need someone at the top who will stand for honesty and openness in their dialog with us and Ron Paul is the only candidate that is showing a predisposition to do just that.

I hope, as do many people, that just because Ron Paul gets support from people you don’t personally agree with on one or more issues, you take the time to look at his voting record in congress and if you believe in the constitution, and you believe in the greatness of our country, you will give his message a chance. Based on his merits, based on his actions, and not dismiss him out of hand based on a portion of his supporters.

Thank you for opening a dialog on this issue.

So there you go. Ron Paul still isn’t making it to my 2008 short list but David is certainly a better representative than the truthers.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News writes:

Folks, I know not all of you are against the amnesty bill in the Senate. I also know that all of you don’t approve of Googlebombs.

However, I don’t have any moral qualms about using Googlebombs and I’ve had as much as I can stand from the GOP on the illegal immigration bill. Not only is the bill that the Senate is pushing bad for the party, it’s bad for America, overwhelmingly opposed by conservatives, and it’s political suicide for the Republican Party.

So, with that in mind, I’m pulling out all the stops to try to prevent this bill from being passed.

That means, if the bill passes, I am going to organize a googlebomb aimed at any Republican Senator up for reelection in 2008 who votes for the bill and I’m to do going everything I can to see that they’re defeated in the primaries next year.

Google-Bombing Pro-Amnesty, Republican Senators Up For Election In 2008

If you agree with me, I hope you’ll link back to the post above on my blog and say you agree. If you don’t agree with me, I understand, but I still hope you’ll encourage these Senators to oppose this amnesty bill.

I don’t Googlebomb but if you want to get involved in John’s campaign that’s completely understandable. Now you know where to look.

This is a pretty sick version of the Nigerian email scam:

from: majorralphharland@freenet.de
date: may 2, 2007 7:16 PM
subject: From Major Ralph Harland
mailed-by: freenet.de

Hello, I am Major Ralph Harland, I am a British officer attached to UN peace Keeping force in Iraq, I am the commanding officer of the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, as you may know everyday, there are several cases of insurgent’s attacks and suicide bombs going on here.

We managed to Move funds belonging to some demised persons who were attacked and killed through insurgent attacks. The total amount is US$9.5 Million dollars in cash. We want to move this money to you, so that you may keep our share for us until when we shall come over to meet you.

We will take 60%, my partner and I. You take 40%. No strings attached, just help us move it out of Iraq, Iraq is a war zone.

We plan on using Diplomatic courier and shipping the money out in two large metallic boxes, using diplomatic immunity. If you are interested I will send you the full details; my aim is to find a good partner that we can trust and assist us can you be trusted?

When you receive this letter, kindly send me an e-mail here ralpharland@yahoo.co.uk , or majorralpharland@aol.co.uk signifying your interest including your most confidential telephone/fax numbers for quick communication and also your contact details. This business is 100% risk free.

Respectfully, Major Ralph Harland

I’m not the only blogger to get this piece of work.

W. Thomas Smith Jr. emails:

Dear family and friends,

Sixty-two years ago today, AP photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a photo of five U.S. Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

The 37-day Battle for Iwo (February-March 1945) was only in its fourth day when the six Americans raised the colors.

As the flag went up, thousands of Marines and sailors across the island began cheering, as did sailors witnessing the event offshore. Ships’ horns and whistles began blowing. From the main deck of USS Eldorado, a beaming Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal turned to Marine General Holland M. ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Smith and exclaimed, “Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

Rosenthal’s picture, which would become the most famous combat image of the war, ultimately won a Pulitzer.
Here it is [link]

Three of the six men who raised the flag would soon be among the nearly 7,000 Americans killed during the battle.

An unbroken line of those Marines on Iwo has continued: Survivors of the battle returned home to train new Marines. The newly trained Marines trained the next generation, then that generation trained the next, then the next, and so on.

Today, the descendents of those Marines who fought and died on Iwo Jima - having gone through the same boot camps at Parris Island and San Diego and wearing the same eagle, globe, and anchor - are now fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other corners (some unknown) of the world in the war on terror.

Semper Fidelis

Longtime BoW reader Mike S. asks:

“You used to blog a lot about your switch to Ubuntu linux. Are you still using it?”

Yep! I don’t think that I’ve used Windows at home since early 2004.

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 6.06. It’s far and away the slickest operating system I’ve ever used. When things get crazy and I’m trying to follow breaking news, blog, edit photos and video, and talk to other bloggers online, my 5 virtual desktops (see the video above) make things much more pleasant. The added security (spyware? what’s that?) and stability are also nice. I go months without rebooting. I also swap files between MS Office (work) and OpenOffice.org (home) all the time and I haven’t run into any compatibility issues. I find using XP at work to pretty unpleasant but they won’t let me uninstall it.

You can see a screenshots of my Ubuntu desktop in the Blogs of War Gallery.

If you’ve thought about trying Linux give Ubuntu 6.06 a try. It’s free and the six click install is super easy. You can see screenshots of the installation process here.

Related:
EasyUbuntu
Ubuntu Forums
Dapper Customization
Dapper Starter Guide
HOWTO Dual Boot
Planet Ubuntu
The Fridge
Ubuntu Automatix
Ubuntu Blog
Ubuntu Chat
Ubuntu Wiki

A Blogs of War reader calling himself Mansur AlIraqi has left some disturbing comments on my posts about our missing soldiers:

More of your soldiers gonna be killed in the days and weeks ahead. And then we’ll cut their penis, disembowel their intestines and slit their throats and then post the videos of the excutions/massacres on our newssite: www.kavkazcenter.com.

And this:

Many more of your soldiers gonna be killed in the days and weeks ahead. Summary of death will be as follows: we’ll cut their genitals/boobs depending on their gender, disembowel their intestines and slit their throats and then post the videos of the executions/massacres on our newssites: www.kavkazcenter.com and english.aljazeera.net.

And after Menchaca and Tucker’s bodies were recovered he had this to say:

Go on imagining inflated and overrated power of your puny government and military forces while underestimating the power and capacity of the Enemy(us)

We are agents of Supreme Being Allah and we are ready to kill or get killed to carry out His plans as He Wills.
InsAllah we’ll defeat you soon and humiliate your military in most embarrassing manner God Willing.

Learn from us military tactics and strategies and how execute them so you can overwhelm an apparently superior force through unconventional warefare.

Anyway in the words of your DefSec Rumsfield as he said to his trustworth general in the backroom of Pentagon after killing of muslims families and children by your marine corps unit in Haditha: “All is fair in love and war”

So we should remember that war is not a zero-sum game like you can play wargames on PS2 or Xbox platforms.

As who is ‘Good’ or who is ‘Evil’ is a matter of which side you belong or rather who you are.
In this relative world there are no absolute good or evil. For us you and your homosexual sensory culture represent evil. It may be vice versa in your case seeing our chaste women and disciplined brothers who resist your impositions of “western evil values” on us and our society.

Anyway let the game of Life and War continue and let God decide who is right as which side emerge victorious as per His irrestible and invincible Supreme Will which is determined as He programed the Eternity.

Allah Hu Akbar
God is Greater than the Greatest

Here’s what I know about Mansur:

I know he’s posting from Chiu-Kung-Ku-Ch’eng in Hong Kong.
He uses Windows XP, IE 7, and a screen resolution of 1024×768.
I know his IP address (219.76.215.71) and ISP.

I know something else about this guy as well but I’ll just leave it at that. The appropriate folks have been notified. Think twice before you post.

Update:
I’ve added video of E.D. Hill’s comments on the murder of Tucker and Menchaca. Mansur’s initial comments were posted before the news of their deaths was released.

Blogs of War reader Jason Mah writes:

Hi I was wondering what you think of raising the legal age of consent to join the military. In the united states the legal age to drink alchohol is 21. And the reason stated is that young people at that age is too young to make an adult choice to drink or not. So with that in mind, shouldnt the age of consent to join the military be raised?

Contrasting military enlistment standards with other, completely irrelevant, age restricted activities is a tactic commonly employed by the ineffective Left in an attempt to hamper military recruiting efforts. With that in mind I’d lower the drinking age to 18. That would frustrate the Left as well as strike a blow against the current move by Western society to extend adolescence into the mid-twenties.

Wade Zirkle at Vets for Freedom writes:

Dear John,

Today the New York Times ran an excellent op-ed by Owen West titled, The Troops Have Moved On. Owen and I were both in the Marines and in Iraq and we founded Vets for Freedom earlier this year.

I believe this Op-Ed is very important, and I think it is one that should be read far and wide. I would really appreciate if you could blog about this if you have a minute. The URL is: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/opinion/29west.html

I hope you are having a good Memorial Day.