Breaking The Code

"Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn."

So said General Douglas MacArthur in his unforgettable farewell speech to the cadets of the U.S Military Academy at West Point on May 12, 1962.

Duty. Honor. Country.

The Code. These are the words the Long Gray Line has lived by in blue and grey, khaki, and camoflage, for over two hundred years. That code is in jeopardy now, as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, never defeated in battle, is poised to surrender the Code to the selfish desires of men playing children's games.

Cadets join the academy for an excellent education, and in return commit to serve five years in uniform for their country, though many stay far longer. The USMA now would cheapen that commitment by making a rule change for athletic recruiting purposes, cutting short a cadet's commitment to his country if he commits instead to the self-aggrandizing world of professional sports. The selfish individualism of this proposal is against the core beliefs the cadets at West Point are taught to believe in.

Cadets join--or should join-- the U.S. Military Academy to serve their country and become leaders of men. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of universities that serve the more puerile needs of sports fanatics; few of them have national service as their heart, nor duty part of their soul. Yet, the Army seems willing to compromise Duty for the base edification of the selfish individual desires of boys who want to play games for money.

The tearing away of West Point's core ideology of "Duty. Honor. Country." would service the greed of a few vainglorious individuals at the expense of the selfless Corps.

A few athletes each decade might succeed for several meager seasons as a pro athlete after betraying the core values of West Point, while thousands of real cadets who joined the Corps for the right reasons graduate, live and die honorably serving out their commitments, sacrificing themselves for our freedoms on distant hostile shores.

Some say this betrayal of values is a winner for the Black Knights of West Point. They see this as a "groundbreaking rule to improve Black Knights football." They are wrong to trample on the soul of West Point in hopes of recruiting a few athletes to add a few victories to meaningless win columns. We need more people like Pat Tillman, people willing to serve their country instead of themselves. We don't need to tear these values away from one of the few institutions that still hold them in their proper place.

There are much more important victories to be gained that require far more sacrifice. West Point used to know this. It is not too late to remind them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Make Money, Screw Your Friends

We get letters,
we get letters,
we get lots and lots of...

Well, we don't actually gets lots of letters, but we do get more than you'd expect for a "B" list blog, including this gem on behalf of the California GOP.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is [name withheld] and I work for a company called Mohre Communications [sic] we have been hired by the Republican Party to get out there new rewards Credit Card. You can read more about the program at www.cagop.org <http://www.cagop.org>. The GOP needs the help of conservative bloggers to place advertisements on their sites. You can read more information and get link to sign people up at <http://posse.mohre.com/>.

Thank you,

[name withheld]

Isn't it delicious?

Republicans just pushed through a pro-shareholder bill which strips away bankruptcy protection from most Americans in favor of a predatory industry, and then asks bloggers such as myself to shill for them to apply for more credit card debit.

Yes, nothing says lovin' like putting you in a hole and pulling away the ladder.... at least according to Buffalo Bill.

What's next, the National Right to Life Committee selling RU-486 as a fundraiser?

Sorry, California GOP, but I'm not buying (or selling) this one.

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A Parent's Right to Know

You've got to give it to the NY Times and the Associated Press; they don't waste any time going for spin in an early version of the lede of this story:

The House passed a bill Wednesday that would make it illegal to dodge parental-consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions, the latest effort to chip away at abortion rights (emphasis added) after Republican gains in the November elections.

Perhaps this is just the reaction of a father, but I viewed this bill (and apparently so did the House by a 270-157 vote) as an issue of parental rights, not so much a strike against Roe v. Wade. It really is that simple: if my minor child is having surgery, any surgery, it is my right as a parent to know about it.

Period.

Perhaps what we should be asking is why 145 Democrats, 11 Republicans and 1 Independent feel that it should be acceptable for strangers to smuggle our minor children over state lines to perform elective surgical procedures.

Update: The NY Times changed their original story and lede on this subject from an AP piece (lede above, full story used here) to this one:

The House passed a bill on Wednesday making it a federal crime for any adult to transport an under-age girl across state lines to have an abortion without the consent of her parents. A vote on a similar bill is expected in the Senate later this spring or early this summer, and backers says its chances are good.

Perhaps they were concerned they were exposing their bias a bit too early?

Update 2: The AP has followed the NY Times in dumping the original lede. Apparently, AP writer Laurie Kellman's original lede was too biased for both the AP and the NY Times. I wonder how often that happens?

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Northern Culture on the Skids

As the Census Bureau notes and Kathleen Parker laments, the South is an increasingly better proposition for most folks. The reasons are simple: better job opportunities, better schools, lower taxes, and much lower real estate costs among other factors.

My wife's family is planning its own southern flight, and offers several case studies for example.

After 9/11, property prices skyrocketed in our community an hour north of NYC as people fled the city for the suburbs, a migration that still continues. Houses appraised at $150,000 in 2001 are appraised at $300,000 or more in 2005. This is great for sellers, but those already in these homes and hoping to stay are challenged with excessive (and rising) property and schools taxes they could not have expected when they budgeted for their homes just a few short years ago.

My wife's brother (We'll call him John) and sister (we'll call her Sue) each have families of their own with children not yet old enough for school. Her parents (We'll call them Bill and Helen) are closing in on retirement. We make four families altogether, living with five miles of one another. These are our stories as they are, and as they may be.

John
John is in a mid-level white collar career, commutes an hour or more each way, every day, and has seen the price of condos in his neighborhood almost double in approximately two years. His taxes have gone up as well. His wife stays home with my infant nephew during the day and works part-time at night. They are getting by, but just barely. There is a distinct chance that if they stay in the area, that both of them will have to work fulltime jobs just to make ends meet, and they will rarely see each other or their new son, who will suddenly add significant childcare costs into the equation (because of necessary fulltime employment), almost negating the second income. It will become increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace of taxes if they stay here, and all but impossible for them to move into a house or afford another child.

If John moves his family to either Charlotte or the Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) in North Carolina as he has discussed, he could get a comparable job at the same or only slightly less pay, and afford not just a condo, but a much larger home of his own with a nice yard in a good school district while paying far less in taxes, and cutting an hour or more off his total commute every day, while enabling his wife to be a full-time stay-at-home mom for their exsting child and any they may have in the future.

Sue
Sue is a stay-at-home mom with a three-year-old and an infant. Her husband bought a small but nice house several years ago and put a lot of time into making it a wonderful home. He manages a body shop, a recession-proof job that is secure, but one that doesn't have lots of room for rapid vertical growth to keep up with NY taxes. He works six, sometimes seven days a week so that Sue can stay home with their kids, and they are just scraping by.

At the moment, they are looking to move to Florida. His pay won't change much, but he has family there, will make a killing on the sale of his home, and the cost of living is much more affordable if they can learn to adapt to the climate and the possibility of hurricanes. By moving south, he thinks he can continue to provide for his family at the same level of comfort (or better) that they presently enjoy, while cutting back on his hours.

Bill and Helen
Bill is an extraordinary salesman in his field, and Helen was mostly a stay-at-home mom over their bulk of their marriage. They are able to retire, though Bill will probably continue to work for several more years because he truly enjoys what he does. Like their children John and Sue, they own a home that has doubled in value in just a few years, which has made their tax burden oppressive.

They are also tired of New York winters, and have expressed an interest in retiring to North Carolina for years, ever since Bill's parent retired to Pinehurst several decades ago on their own. They could make a handsome profit on their current four-bedroom home in New York, and afford a custom home built for their new retirement lifestyle with plenty left over for a substantial nest egg in a Carolina golf community. Another huge draw would be being nearer their children and grandchildren, and their favorite son-in-law, of course.

Me and the Missus
I'm a North Carolina native, and while I came to really love a lot about New York while I've been here, I can't afford to stay. We were new to the area and renting before 9/11/01, and the rise of housing costs afterward made the possibility of getting a decent home increasingly more remote. Add the fact that my tech-sector focused employment required the bare minimum of an hour commute to Westchester or New York City each way, each day. Compound that with now-sluggish prospects in my field up here in New York, and the Research Triangle Park starts looking really good. I've worked there before and know my commuting times will be halved while my prospects for a nice home in our price range go up astronomically. And pork barbeque. Real BBQ. Enough said.

We are Not Alone
I don't think our cases are out of the ordinary. My daughter's school administrator confirmed she is losing a substantial amount of kids to southern relocation each semester, and mostly for reasons like those cited above.

Increasingly, the middle class is bugging out of tax-hungry northern states for more favorable southern and western climes, and the middle class that remains seems to be coming under increasing stresses from above and below. The truly wealthy know how to shelter their earnings and are more resistant to ever-encroaching tax demands, while the poor tend to contribute very little, if anything at all. That is an untenable long-term situation.

Add to these tax burdens the demands of growing illegal immigrant populations in many of these northern (and western) states with their more liberal public assistance programs, and we see the almost unavoidable possibility of a northern culture in decline, while the best and brightest of the formerly northern middle class head to Atlanta, Charlotte, Birmingham, and Dallas.

I saw a comment scrawled in the dust on the back of an I-95 Southbound New Jersey-registered moving truck a few years ago, and it seemed to sum up the situation perfectly:

"Will the last person out of New York please remember to turn out the light."

I think I can promise you that the last person won't be me.

05/26/05 Update: Confederate Yankee has moved out of New York. Sue's husband has a standing job offer near Miami, and they're planning to move south at the end of the summer. John and his wife are staying put...for now. Bill and Helen are as well.

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Celebrate Earthday!

Personally, I'm going to celebrate by driving a couple hundred miles over smog-choked roads paved through woodlands, to interview for a job with a company that puts heavy metals into the environment.

Yay, earth!

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Dumbest. College. Major. Ever. Except for That One...

You thought underwater basketweaving was stupid? Try getting a Master's in Activism & Social Change, via a thread in The New Editor.

I'm thinking of turning my existing MA into a New College MFA in Creative Inquiry. That way, I can sit around with the Great Unwashed and say, "Dude, WTF?" as a professional.

I don't see "The Donald" picking these guys for The Apprentice, but a future with "The Ronald" seems all but certain.

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Shiavo and Pope are Not Real News for the American Left

You can always count on the Democratic Underground to be consistently out standing in a field, especially if a caretaker isn't there to usher them back inside the home. Mary Shaw's April 12 op-ed "Mind Control and the American Media" is a wonderful case in point.

Shaw wants us to consider the fact that the Terri Shiavo case occupied the media for a significant segment in March, and then the media transitioned rapidly into near 24-hour coverage of the last days, death, and burial of Pope John Paul II. This was apparently an unacceptable use of media time for Shaw:

"...the media has had very little to say about Iraq, where several more U.S. soldiers have been killed, the Abu Ghraib prison was attacked by insurgents, and a Belgian soldier died from "friendly fire" by U.S. troops.

"While the Schiavo case and the papal passing were certainly interesting and poignant stories, did they really merit 23 hours of coverage per day on the cable news channels, while other events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen went unreported?"

Cleary, Shaw's opinion of what constitutes "events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen" is the real topic of this article.

Shaw would apparently like to have more focus on events in Iraq. She calls for more media coverage of solider deaths, the Abu Ghraib prison attack, and a friendly fire event that killed a Belgian soldier. Do you notice a theme?

Shaw seems focused only on the negative events in Iraq, and apparently would waste no words on the successful capture of high-ranking Baathists and terrorist leaders, the increasingly rapid pace, scale, and success of raids by Iraqi forces against criminals and terrorists, nor would she mention the truly historic appointment of a former dissident Kurd to the Iraqi Presidency. No, Shaw is focused on dead soldiers, terrorist attacks, and U.S. troops killing a Belgian soldier.

There are a few problems with her proposition, starting with the simple fact that there are no Belgian troops stationed in Iraq.

One can only assume that she must have been speaking about the March 7 death of a Jr. Sgt. Gardev, a Bulgarian soldier tragically shot by U.S. forces in a friendly-fire incident while on patrol southeast of Diwaniya, Iraq.

Shaw fails to mention that just an hour after Gardev's death, a communist journalist by the name of Guiliana Sgrena was wounded, and a Italian security officer killed, when their driver ran an American checkpoint in Baghdad. That incident dominated the media for days, until physical evidence started contradicting Sgrena's hysterical claims, at which point the story quickly fizzled out in the liberal media.

The other two incidents, while tragic, don't measure up to the immediacy standard that Shaw herself wants to impose with her "events that more closely impact the lives of the average American citizen" criteria.

Sadly, over 1,500 brave men and women have died in combat in Iraq, but after two full years of combat, these loses are viewed by the media and American public as a routine, if tragic, fact of war. There are only so many ways to say that an American soldier was killed in combat, and these deaths are mentioned consistently and dutifully across all media, even if the MSM doesn't linger on these deaths as long as Shaw would apparently like. The Shiavo case, half a world closer than Iraq, was also much more immediate; as any American may one day be forced to rely on another to determine whether they should live or die. It does not get any more immediate or personal that contemplating your own demise, so by Shaw's own standards, the Schiavo case was more newsworthy for most Americans than any event in Iraq over the past month.

Which brings us to the final event Shaw would drum up airplay for, the Abu Ghraib prison attack. This was a complete tactical defeat for the terrorists, freeing not one prisoner, nor killing a single Coalition or Iraqi soldier, while heavy casualties were inflicted upon the attacking terrorist forces. This was not overlooked in the media, but with no American losses, the liberal MSM was more than willing to allow this story to become a footnote instead of a defining event. The death of the nearly three-decade leader of a religious group that has a billion followers worldwide and millions of followers in the U.S. is far more immediate and newsworthy than any event in Iraq of the past year. Once again, Shaw fails her own test.

These events are also have more immediacy than the other events Shaw would have the media focus more time on, specifically inquiries into Tom Delay's ethics, and lawsuits against Donald Rumsfeld. Both of these events are long-horizon, which could drag on far into the foreseeable future (or as long as they have merit).

Shaw says further:

"The media are in business to make money. Sensational stories like the Schiavo case and the death of the pope can easily be spun into headlines that sell papers. But the media have a moral responsibility to give us all the news of the day, even if the truth hurts."

Did Mary Shaw find out about military deaths in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib attack, and the friendly-fire death of a Bulgarian (not Belgian) soldier thorough her own private news sources? I suspect not. She obtained this information from news media, or from sources who interact with the news media. Obviously, Mary Shaw is getting the news she seeks, just not with the spin or in the amount she desires.

Perhaps she should be more straightforward and admit that what disturbs her is insufficient amounts of negative news about the Iraqi War, though I can think of better uses of Mary Shaw's time.

I'd suggest she start by learning the subtle differences between Bulgaria and Belgium.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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An Interesting Life

I happen to be in the middle of a fascinating book called Right Turns, an autobiography by former 60s student leftist Michael Medved and his eventual transition to becoming a conservative cultural critic. So far I've read from his childhood up to his marriage at 23, and it is amazing not only what he had done by that age, but who he met along the way. He's quite an interesting character, and I'm not quite halfway through.

This book is worth a look if you get a chance.

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A Few More Good Men

At a time when enlistment is low and the military has been forced to open up age restrictions, Army Sgt. Robert Stout, a Purple Heart recipient and veteran of the Iraq war wants to continue to serve his country, but a Pentagon trapped in the past may not let him. Why?

Stout is openly gay.

This brings him into direct conflict with the antiquated "don't ask, don't tell" policy still in use by the Pentagon, even though the bulk of our allies--Great Britain, Australia, Israel, etc--have had openly gay soldiers in their ranks for years. There are an estimated 65,000 gays currently serving in the U.S. military.

I'm rather disappointed in our Petagon leadership both for the obvious discrimination against a minority group willing to serve this country, and in their underlying belief that our soliders are so immature and homophobic that they cannot function with openly gay soldiers in their units. American soldiers are among the best trained, most disciplined, and professional military forces in the world. To think that they cannot cope with homosexuality when they can cope with the vastly more intense emotions of combat is assinine, and selling our soldiers short.

We've seen this kind of discrimination before from our military, but it is past time for it to stop. Our soldiers are better than that. It is time for their leadership to catch up.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Chickenhawks and Vultures

Thanks to Charles, we know that Pittsburgh IndyMedia will be meeting this weekend in Pittsburgh. Their topic is:

How can the U.S. be stopped?
Lessons from the Vietnam war

Mass protests, GI refusals and a powerful "insurgent" movement - the same things that led to the end of the war in Vietnam are what can stop the U.S. slaughter in Iraq today...

I found the concept of "stopping the U.S. slaughter" very interesting, as even if you agreed with the idea in theory at one time, the facts show that the supermajority of offensive actions killing civilians are being conducted by the insurgency, not by coalition forces.

Saddam's conventional military forces have long since been defeated, and Saddam himself just watched a Kurd elected to his former position from his prison cell. The insurgency itself has failed prevent free elections, and it's recent behavior is far more criminal than revolutionary. By trying to "stop the U.S." by supporting a powerful insurgency, these "peace activists" actually advocate extending an insurgency that only currently exists as a terrorist and criminal force.

In other words, these "peace activists" are actually encouraging far more continued slaughter by supporting the insurgency.

I've accused liberals in the past of so blindly hating President Bush that they don't seem to care who gets hurt; these people hate our president, one man, so much that they would sell tens of millions down the river hoping to cause him to fail.

When you combine this blind hatred of Bush with the complete lack of any sort of changeover plan by the left, or even an acknowledgement of the fact that the immediate withdrawal they favor would plunge an fledgling democracy into chaos and potential civil war, then you see that IndyMedia and their far left supporters are long on rhetoric and hatred, and short on well-reasoned or even remotely strategic long term planning.

IndyMedia and other liberals are against George Bush beyond logical constraints. Their heated rhetoric and short-sighted ideologies shows that they don't care who dies, American soldier or Iraqi civilian, as long as they get their desired result of an diminished George W. Bush.

Liberals have taken to calling conservatives "chickenhawks."

In return, liberals have given us vultures.

Update: Donald Sensing happens to have a post up this morning about how the liberal's hoped for powerful insurgency is giving us lessons on how not to conduct guerrilla warfare (via Instapundit). Sensing in turn, points to must-read articles by Austin Bay, Bill Roggio and Wretchard.

On a separate but related note, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda is still widely viewed as a traitor by many Americans for supporting the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It will be very interesting to looks back to the present from 5, 10, or 20 years in the future at today's crop of pro-insurgency leftists and see if they earn an even more tainted legacy than Fonda for supporting an enemy who are fighting against the common dream of the Iraqi people.

Update 2: Allen at Cox & Forkum reminds me that they've covered this ground before.

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Martinez-Shiavo Memo

I'm really glad I decided not to post on the so-called Shiavo memo. It was just gut instinct not to blog it, but it just didn't feel right. Michelle Malkin made a similar choice as well, not that it kept stupid liberals from sending her e-mail saying she was wrong for something she never wrote.

But the real blame goes to the MSM/DNC for blowing the reporting of this story in the first place (which they have yet to account for to the best of my knowledge), and to bloggers too willing to consider this on par with the forged TANG documents far too early without sufficient evidence.

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Reasons for Fear

I've been mentioning the "high end" problems with illegal immigration, mostly in the terms of economic impact and national security. Thousands of miles from the border, I can't feel what the illegal invasion feels like, nor can I imagine feeling the need to arm my spouse when I leave home.

Unfortunately, this feeling is a fact of life for some Americans who live the Mexican border. Country Store finds this odd and unsettling example in this Christian Science Monitor coverage of border life for a Naco, Arizona family:

The Garner family on Purdy Lane doesn't know exactly how many chickens, roosters, Guinea hens, or geese they own on their 5-acre farm in this dusty town on the US-Mexico border. But they know the number is smaller than the number of illegal immigrants who can be seen daily in groups of three, 10, 40, 60, and more on their property. They are often huddled in centipede form (hands on the hips of the person in front), kneeling under windows, crouched behind trees, and sleeping in their egg house.

Mr. Garner, a carpenter, his wife, and three daughters (age 10, 12, and 15) tell countless stories that are as alarming to outsiders as they are matter-of-fact to them. Theirs is a life dominated by self-defense lessons, family practice drills to huddle in the master bedroom, obligatory two-way radios for kids who walk to school, and a handgun on the hip for mom.
Although violent encounters are relatively rare, their stories tell a narrative of how surreal - and spooky - life can be for families that straddle the 1,400-mile Maginot Line known as the US-Mexican border. "You'll be weeding in your garden and turn around to see 20 of them standing in front of you, demanding water and food," says Dawn Garner, the mother.
"I come out to go to school, and they are changing their clothes under my bedroom window," says daughter Shayne.
"They leave backpacks filled with drugs on the lawn," says sister Ciara. "It's scary and creepy."

This is their daily existence, thanks to a federal government that doesn't feel that our border, or this family's lives, is worth their effort or resolve.

Update: A Mexican radio reporter was shot nine times in front of her radio station in Nuevo Laredo, a city on the Texas/Mexico border known for drug smuggling related violence. Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla was the fourth journalist shot by Mexican drug gangs in the past year; more than 30 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Nuevo Laredo so far this year.

Update 2: Two illegal aliens in New York City were just arrested for plotting to turn themselves into suicide bombers. Is the threat illegal aliens pose starting to sink in yet?

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Observations on Micheal Shiavo

I've been getting a large and consistent amount of traffic from search engines looking for information on "shiavo" or "michael shiavo." Obviously, even though Terri Shiavo is dead and cremated and soon to undergo burial, people still want to know about her life and her death, and the former husband entangled in both.

Michael Shiavo claims that his wife had a heart attack as the result of an eating disorder. Her body chemistry, enzyme levels and EKGs in the hospital emergency room never supported this claim. If experts are correct, Terri Shiavo's recently completed but as yet unreleased autopsy should be able to explain whether Terri Shiavo's brain damage was the result of a heart attack or some other means.

Michael Shiavo then sued in 1992, and won a court judgment for $300,000 for himself and $700,000 for Terri's rehabilitation. Instead of getting Terri Shiavo rehabilitation, however, he stuck her in a nursing home and denied her treatment. It was at this point, only after winning a million-dollar settlement and putting Terri into a nursing home instead of a rehabilitation facility that Michael Shiavo suddenly "remembered" Terri wanted to die.

For seven years Michael Shiavo spent Terri's rehabilitation funds trying to have her taken off her feeding tube instead of trying to get her therapy. Once successful in getting legal permission to commit the homicide of his wife, he made no known efforts to find a shorter, more humane ways to end Terri Shiavo's life than letting her starve to death.

Once Terri Shiavo was dead, Michael Shiavo would not let her parents bury her body nearby in Florida where both the Shiavo and Shindler families live. Instead, he had Terri Shiavo cremated instead of buried as her family desired, would not let the Shindler family have access to Terri's body or ashes for their daughter's memorial service.

In addition, if widely available accounts can be believed, Michael Shiavo did not want to even let the Shindler family know where or when their daughter's ashes would be buried, only providing that information under court order.

That is what we know of Michael Shiavo. Make of it what you will.

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A Well-Deserved Promotion

Karol J. Wojtyla, a field representative extraordinaire for the Almighty, took a well-deserved promotion to the head office at 9:37 PM (2:37 PM EST). His presence will be greatly missed by the millions he touched around the world.

More:
Pope John Paul II: Biography (Vatican, Short Version)
Pope John Paul II: Early Year Biography (CNN)
Pope John Paul II: The Priesthood Years (CNN)
Pope John Paul II: The Papacy (CNN)

Pope's choose their names, and this one choose to be called John Paul II.

So who was Pope John Paul ?

Choosing the Next Pope (From Riehl World View)

Update:
A list of possible candidates to be the next Pope.

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I Knew Nominating Hillary Was A Bad Idea...

From the Jerusalem Post:

A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.

The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.

"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

If they would only nominate Joe Lieberman instead in 2007, this wouldn't happen.

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