Early this morning I awakened and heard the sound of rain drilling off my metal roof and falling to the deck. I reawakened some six hours later and was met with complete silence. At my house, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, silence in winter means one of two things: the total cessation of rain or . . .

Snow. My first snowfall of the season.

I looked outside to witness the largest snowflakes I’d seen in 14 years. These were not your average flakes; oh no. These were Hollywood Flakes of the first magnitude. The kind of flakes you’d envision if you were to write a book about Christmas. They were light, fluffy, Genetic Mutant kinds of flakes, ranging from an inch to almost three inches in size and girth. They were not Danny Devito flakes, they were Yao Ming flakes.

It looked to me as though people were having a massive pillow fight many hundreds of feet above my house with the resulting stuffing wafting slowly, so slowly down.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

Sometimes I feel so isolated up here and that is precisely my goal at times. I can do what I choose when I choose. I can ignore the trappings of modern society because the house is surrounded by pines and a few scattered houses. At the top of my street, for example, the owners there have two horses in a corral. In the summer, with windows open, I could hear them give the occasional distant whinny — mixed with the occasional nighttime horns from passing high elevation trains.

No intrusive, orbiting police helicopters with NightSun lights, no sirens, no thump trucks or thump cars from First, Second and Third World hiphop dipshits. No police pursuits; no fire trucks responding. No burnouts from various Rice Rockets of the two and four-wheeled variety. No public transit buses passing. No public transit whatsoever. No passing traffic. No arguments and fights from the apartment complex next door. No apartment complex within 30 miles of me. No series of continuously-barking dogs from all my next door neighbors. Only one dog nearby, and I know him. He and my local feral cat friends, of whom I am slowly winning over — along with my own “inside” cat named Mose. Not to mention my irascible raccoonie buddies.

Just total and complete silence.

Silence.

What a new and unique concept.

So I can either tune into The World via the standard http://www quotient or radio waves or, when I choose, I can simply ignore whatever I wish. Sometimes I get no choice; my DirecTV “tunes out” when the rain or the snow becomes too thick. Hence my large library of DVDs.

Today, I chose to ignore The World.

Because, for me, the falling snowflakes were miracle enough.

I guess you could call this an Escape.

Do you have an “escape?”

BZ

Besides Pearl Harbor, the Japanese also attacked other portions of sovereign American soil during World War II. Anyone hear of Operation Land Crab? Engineer Hill?

Following December 7th, 1941, on June 3rd of 1942, Japanese bombers attacked Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. In crappy weather, only half the planes found the target and little damage was done. Unalaska Island comprises only one (roughly mid-point) of a large number of islands in Alaska’s “beard chain” of islands — and is clearly SOVEREIGN United States soil.

For reference, Dutch Harbor is the port from which many boats issue when you choose to watch the Discovery Channel’s series The Deadliest Catch about current-day crab fishermen.

Three days later, Japanese then invaded the Island of Kiska on June 6, 1942 and the Island of Attu the next day. Of the 42 inhabitants who remained on Attu, all were taken to a prison camp near Otaru, Hokkaido. There, sixteen of them died.

Kiska and Attu were on soverign United States soil.

The Battle of the Aleutian Islands lasted from June 3rd, 1942 to August 15th, 1943.

In all, the United States deployed 144,000 personnel; the Japanese deployed 8,500.

The US lost 1,481 dead (2,500 wounded, sick or frostbitten) ; Japan lost 2,351 dead.

The re-capture of Attu produced some of the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific theatre, similar to the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

There were 3,929 U.S. casualties:

• 549 were killed,
• 1148 were injured,
• 1200 had severe cold injuries,
• 614 succumbed to disease, and
• 318 died of miscellaneous causes, largely Japanese booby traps and friendly fire.

This all occurred on United States soil.

Did you ever hear of it?

BZ

The United States was “blindsided” twice; first on December 7th, 1941 and then on September 11th, 2001.

To honor today, 65 years later, on 12-07-41:

On Sunday, December 7th, 1941 the Japanese blindsided U.S. Forces stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

By planning his attack on a Sunday the Japanese commander, Admiral Nagumo, hoped to catch the entire fleet in port. As luck would have it, the aircraft carriers and one of the battleships were not in port (The USS Enterprise was returning from Wake Island , where it had just delivered some aircraft. The USS Lexington was ferrying aircraft to Midway, and the USS Saratoga and USS Colorado were undergoing repairs in the United States).

In spite of the latest intelligence reports about the missing aircraft carriers (his most important targets), Admiral Nagumo decided to continue the attack with his force of six carriers and 423 aircraft.

At a range of 230 miles north of Oahu, he launched the first wave of a two-wave attack.

Beginning at 0600 hours, Nagumo’s first wave consisted of 183 fighters and torpedo bombers which struck at the fleet in Pearl Harbor and the airfields in Hickam, Kaneohe, and Ewa.

The second strike, launched at 0715 hours, consisted of 167 aircraft, which again struck at the same targets.

At 0753 hours the first wave, consisting of 40 Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bombers, 51 Aichi D3A1 “Val” dive bombers, 50 high-altitude bombers and 43 Zeros, struck airfields and Pearl Harbor within the next hour.

The second wave arrived and continued the attack.

The United States lost 2,403 persons in that attack.

Fewer than died on 9-11-2001.

And we went to official war over this incident.

Please, take a moment to remember and honor those lost on this day, lo, those 65 years ago and also to honor those who became The Greatest Generation — the generation of my father and mother — those who fought and died and sacrificed so that we can enjoy the freedoms of today.

NEVER FORGET WHEN ONE IS BLINDSIDED.

BZ

Senator Joe Lieberman sums up my feelings on the Iraq Study Group:

One thing is certain: There is no alternative to success in Iraq. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic extremists and failure is not an option. In the coming days and weeks, we must work together in a bi-partisan fashion to forge a strategy to prevail in Iraq. The freedom and security of the American people demand no less.”

Further, Lieberman commented on radio today:

“To think that Iran will help us to succed in Iraq, that makes no sense, because they don’t want us to succeed in Iraq.”

Three letters: “duh.”

The newly-approved (95-2, two Republicans against) SecDef, Robert Gates, is making mealy-mouthed appeasionist statements that should be appreciated in the UN and would make Neville Chamberlain proud, having abandoned Czechoslovia and given up the Irish Free State Navy Ports; the ISG recommends that Israel give up the Golan Heights.

Rick Santorum said:

Republicans and Democrats, Leaders in the Congress, why don’t we talk more about Iran? Why would we focus on Iran? The American public has no appetite for increasing this war. So what do we have? We have this report, which is a prescription for surrender. There is no prescription for victory in that report. Who are these Islamic Fascists? This is not just a Shia problem, but is becoming a Shia dominated field. Let us not leave out Saudi Arabia and others to foment fascism around the world. This problem is growing. Every regime is feeling the pressure and not just since 2003. We’ve seen in Arabic countries this rise, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, this rise.

People have been targeted because they were Jews. This is evil.

Likely Israel will kiss the Golan Heights goodbye and a portion of Jerusalem.

Hey; why don’t the Jews just suck it up, purchase millions of Kelty packs and hike right out of their nation?

Except that, I surmise actual advanced societies would merely be supplanted by primeval, backwards, misogynistic societies.

The solution to Iraq exists within Iran. Because Iran, we must realize, is the ultimate Puppet Master.

Rick Santorum for US Ambassador to replace Bolton?

BZ

The Koran and the AK-47.

Earlier this week Michael Medved hosted Victor Mordecai (actually, Avi Lipkin) and a local Seattle apologist for the religion of Islam whose name is unimportant.

Whilst I am sure that Pakistani is, individually, a wonderful human being who does not kick his dog or beat his wife, every word that escaped his lips was nothing more than apologist propaganda for the religion of Islam in all its forms. Michael was very careful to frame his questions in an egalitarian fashion but the Islamic respondent displayed not only his ass but his bias for all to see.

Michael has to, due to his national dissemination, be a bit careful about his framing and his statements.

My readership is comparatively minimal and therefore I can completely state my opinions as I believe them to be.

Let’s examine some basics and move to the conclusion that I make about Islam:

At this point in US history, there is a Triumvirate against us that includes Iran – Iraq – Syria and, moving into the neighborhood, Lebanon. This Triumvirate Axis has decreed: annihilate the Sunni leadership in Lebanon.

Despite there being a 28% Christian presence in Lebanon.

In terms of percentages, Islam is overall 85% Sunni and 15% Shia; that is not the case in the Middle East.

The goal of the Shiites is to create a Shia Califate.

In terms of Saudi Arabia (a nation comprised predominantly of Sunnis), Shiites believe that the Sunnis allow 2 million pagans and infidels to defile Mecca and Medina by their simple presence. That in and of itself is an egregious and unrepairable offense.

The Shiite remedy is to realize that Shiites never truly enjoyed the petroleum benefits, these ran to the Sunnis, so it remains to the Shiites to blow up and eviscerate every oil field within reach in order to weaken the economics of the Infidels. Oil only strengthens the economies of worldwide unbelievers.

Canada is self-sufficient; Europe is completely dependent upon outside oil sourcing; the United States receives 70% of its oil from the western hemisphere, 15% from Nigeria and 15% from Persian sources. The first area to completely suffer would be EUROPE, not the United States.

Let me make so clear statements now and forever:

Israel cannot live in peace alongside any Islamic nation, “Palestine” or otherwise; not because Israel will disallow peace, but because Islam will disallow peace with any Jewish state.

I would postulate this: if one were to take the “Palestinian Issue” and “Israel” out the equation, would anything else change?

I submit it would not.

Therefore the removal of Israel is NOT the “key” as the dimwitted Jimmy Carter would contend; Carter has unwittingly become the lapdog of Islam — not because he is necessarily evil but simply because he is naive and stupid — and, bottom line, an Islamic tool.

Let us review history for a moment:

In 2000 Barak and Arafat met; Israel offered the complete West Bank but, no, that was not enough. Following this refusal Arafat then instigated the Intifada. But Arafat knew inherently that he would have been executed by Hamas cells had he acquiesced to Barak’s offer.

“Allahu Akbar!” shout various Muslims.

This does NOT mean that “Allah is great.” It means that Allah is GREATER. Greater than whom? Answer, as any 7-year-old Muslim can respond: Greater than YOUR God.

And therefore Jerusalem has to be destroyed.

Any good Muslim child knows that monkeys and pigs are Christians and Jews.

In Iraq: 25 to 50 Christians are killed per day.

Christians are therefore hiking to, oddly enough, Syria.

And the Islamization of Europe continues.

Austria is already 30% Muslim.

Christmas was “canceled” in Austria due to pressure.

Osama bin Laden said in his book, Messages To The World, that there were four things to do:

• Get the United States out of the Middle East;
• That the Jihad wave had to extend throughout the Middle East;
• That Jihad had to be used as an unequivocable weapon;
• Destroy Israel.

Boys and girls in Radio Land: it doesn’t get any sharper or clearer than that.

Leaving Iraq early? Acquiescing to OBL Issue Number One.

Except for the al Qaeda Training Manual.

To Michael Medved’s Islamic apologist, I would respond in this fashion:

I couldn’t care less about what you say Islam represents, for this is the Guide:

Islam is what Islam DOES.

BZ