The Herald Sun reports that the spiritual leader of Australia’s Muslims, Imam of the Lakemba mosque in southwest Sydney and Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric, Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali, in a Ramadan sermon, argued that Western mores justified rape by Muslims.

Sheik Alhilali reportedly likened women who wore make-up and dressed immodestly to meat that attracted cats.

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?” the sheik reportedly said.

This is one very talented horse.

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Hat tip to Dominique Poirier.

Pfc Ira H. Hayes, Pfc Franklin R. Sousley (killed in action), Sgt Michael Strank (barely visible on Sousley’s left – killed in action), Phm2c John Bradley, Pfc Rene Gagnon, Cpl Harlon H. Block (killed in action)
(Joe Rosenthal photograph

2. BACKGROUND: THE SECOND FLAG

The significance of the Iwo Jima operation, the first US ground assault on Japanese soil, was widely recognized in advance. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had travelled to the Pacific from Washington to watch the unfolding of the largest operation in United States Naval history.

On the morning of February 23rd, Forrestal was accompanying V Amphibious Corps Commander Lieutenant General Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith to the beachead. Their landing craft had just touched shore, when the first flag went up atop the volcano. As the Marines around them cheered, Forrestal turned to General Smith, and observed: “Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years.”

Recognizing the historical significance of the colors waving in the distance, Forrestal also asked General Smith to see to it that the flag then flying atop Mount Suribachi be replaced, and the original brought back to him for preservation in the nation’s capital.

The Navy Secretary’s orders were duly transmitted down the chain of command to Col. Chandler Johnson at 2/28 headquarters. Johnson ordered Lieutenant Ted Tuttle, his Operations Assistant Officer, to find a replacement flag. “And make it a bigger one,” Colonel Johnson added.

At the same time, 2/28 HQ was beginning to be having difficulty communicating with the patrol on the mountain’s summit. Lt. Schrier’s field telephone’s battery was giving out. Johnson decided the time had come to run a wired connection up the mountain. A fire team detail from Easy Company’s 2nd platoon, made up of Sgt Michael Strank, Cpl Harlon H. Block, Pfc Ira H. Hayes, and Pfc Franklin R. Sousley was given the assignment. They wound up being accompanied by Pfc Rene Gagnon, Easy Company’s runner, who was deliverying a fresh supply of batteries from the Easy Company command post to Lt. Schrier.

Before the five Marines headed up the mountain, Lt. Tuttle arrived with a 96″ x 56″ (2.44 x 1.42 meter) flag. The new flag came from a salvage yard at Pearl Harbor. It had been rescued from one of the American ships sunk on December 7, 1941. Tuttle gave the new flag to Gagnon, and instructed him to retrieve the original. And the fire team set off on its mission.

The Marines were followed up the mountain by the press. AP wire service photographer Joe Rosenthal had heard of a flag raising, and set off up the mountain to photograph it, accompanied by Marine still photographer Bob Campbell and Marine film photographer Bill Genaust. (Rosenthal had persuaded the armed Marine journalists into coming with him.)

When Sgt Mike Strank arrived at the top, he reported to Lt. Shrier, showed him the replacement flag carried by Gagnon, and explained: “Colonel Johnson wants this big flag raised up high, so that every son of a bitch on this whole cruddy island can see it!”

Rosenthal arrived in the nick of time, a little after noon. The Marines affixed the new flag to a formidable length of Japanese drainage pipe, and Lt. Shrier coordinated the two groups of Marines, so that the new flag would be raised simultaneously with the old flag being lowered.

The photographers had a little time to pick their positions. Rosenthal (who was very short) made himself a pile of stones to stand on. The whole procedure took only a few seconds, but the second pole was very heavy (weighing more than 100 lbs. – 45.36 kg.), and it took the combined efforts of the second group of five Marines, assisted by Phm2c John Bradley, to raise it to the vertical and secure it. So quickly was one flag raised, and the other lowered, that Rosenthal never had a chance to look in his viewfinder, he could only point his camera and trip the shutter.

But in the midst of the Marines’ effort to erect that second flag, destiny intervened. The breeze suddenly caught the flag, whipping it forward, and Rosenthal’s shutter clicked at the perfect moment freezing the six men in a pose of breathtaking monumentality. It was this photograph, this single image, which best conveyed the entire American idea of WWII, the idea of American Marines, of American fighting men, working together welded into a purposeful single entity, to assert the ideals of America, to plant the flag, despite anything the enemy could throw against them.

Astonishingly, the entire scene was actually also captured on color movie film by Marine photographer Sgt Bill Genaust, who was standing literally shoulder-to-shoulder with Rosenthal. Some of the Genaust footage can be seen here. It was also incorporated in the 1949 Alan Dwan film Sands of Iwo Jima, starring John Wayne.

The original Iwo Jima flag was brought back to Colonel Johnson, who placed in in the battalion safe. The new flag lasted for only three weeks. It was quickly torn to pieces by the wind.

5th USMC Division

PART ONE

AP reports:

A drug raid on a Los Alamos scientist’s home in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the nuclear weapons lab, the FBI said Tuesday.

Police discovered the documents at the scientist’s home while making an arrest in a methamphetamine investigation, according to an FBI official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Animated illustrations of how to tie knots by Grog.

Hat tip to Seneca the Younger.

The actor Michael J. Fox was born in Canada.

In the middle of a successful career, he had the terrible misfortune to be struck down in 1991, at age 30, with Parkinson’s disease. He retired from a television series in 2000 because of the progress of his disease, but has since produced a television pilot and made guest appearances on programs.

He recently made this video advertisement for the democrat Senatorial candidate from Missouri Claire McCaskill.

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In this video, Michael J. Fox is visibly trembling, and he appeals for voter support for McCaskill, who he says “shares (his) hope for cures” through stem cell research. Fox charges that incumbent Republican Senator Jim Talent “opposes expanding stem cell research… (and) wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope.”

This charge is, of course, a tremendous oversimplification of a complex issue.

CBC story

Rush Limbaugh reported yesterday:

I have gotten a plethora of e-mails from people saying Michael J. Fox has admitted in interviews that he goes off his medication for Parkinson’s disease when he appears before Congress or other groups as a means of illustrating the ravages of the disease. So lest there be any misunderstanding, we talked about a half hour ago of the commercial that’s running for Claire McCaskill featuring Michael J. Fox on what appears to be when he’s off his meds. I have never seen him this way and I stated when I was commenting to you about it that he was either off his medication or acting. He is an actor after all, and started hearing from people, “Oh, no, I’ve seen him on TV this way, this is how the disease has affected him when he’s not on his medications.” Then the e-mails started coming in saying he’s admitted not to taking them in certain circumstances so as to illustrate how the disease affects people. All of which I understand, and I’m not even critical of that. Parkinson’s disease is hideous.

Let me just stress once again in what I said in closing this out, that I think this is exploitative in a way that’s unbecoming either Claire McCaskill or Michael J. Fox, because in this commercial for Claire McCaskill he’s using his illness in a way to mislead voters that there’s a cure for Parkinson’s disease if only Claire McCaskill gets elected, if only Jim Talent is defeated…

Mr. Fox was allowing his illness to be used as a tactic to trying to secure the election of a Democrat senator who is going to somehow, her election is going to lead to the cure for Parkinson disease via stem cell research because her opponent, Jim Talent, opposes it, which is not true.

Michael J. Fox appears also in essentially the same video on behalf of the democrat Senatorial candidate in Maryland Ben Cardin.

video

Washington Post story

I couldn’t find on the web the interviews Rush Limbaugh referred to, but I have seen Michael J. Fox appearing recently sans tremors on the television show Boston Legal, and I’m inclined to believe that what Rush Limbaugh’s email correspondents are telling him is correct.

The use of stem cell research as a campaign tactic in the way democrats use it is objectionable, because the issue is always presented in seriously misleading ways.

Avoiding federal subsidies for stem cell research is an example of government neutrality in matters of faith and morals, which liberals ought to applaud. In cases where substantial numbers of Americans differ on the basis of religious conscience, government funding should not be the preferred approach. It is perfectly possible to fund stem cell research privately, and other forms of stem cells besides embryonic can be used in research.

The great promise democrats find in this particular area of research seems to be completely related to Republican opposition to funding it federally. There is no real reason to suppose that any unique opportunity lies in this direction. If it did, doubtless private foundations and private companies would be devoting very adequate resources to it.

Everyone feels sorry for Michael J. Fox’s bad luck in life, but his deliberate and calculated efforts to exploit the sympathy of others, while cynically misstating the issues, represents a low approach to politics, demeaning to the voters and to the process.

The Taxman ad.

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also here.

On October 23, 1956, a student demonstration in Budapest demanding democracy was crushed by police and the students arrested. A crowd gathered and attempted to free the students, and the police opened fire. Street fighting became general. The Communist regime declared martial law, and called for Soviet assistance. Overnight, Soviet tanks and jets fired on demonstrators.

So began 19 days of desperate struggle by the people of Hungary in a heroic attempt to throw off the yoke of Soviet Communism. Radio Free Europe urged resistance, but John Foster Dulles and Dwight Eisenhower declined to intervene.

Uncertain numbers, but undoubtedy thousands, of Hungarians died in the fighting, more than 350 were executed by the Soviets, 26,000 were put on trial, and over 200,000 fled the country. The inscription on a campanalogical memorial for Imre Nagy, could be applied to the memory of all the Hungarian freedom fighters murdered by the Soviets: Vivos voco / Mortuos plango / Fulgura frango (I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the lightning).

Hungary regained its independence October 23, 1989, after the fall of Communism.

The Revolt

1956 And Hungary:The Memory of Eyewitnesses

An amusing little Java toy.

link

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Received via email today.

link

Lt. Harold Shrier (sitting behind Jacobs), Pfc Raymond Jacobs, Sgt. Henry Hansen (cloth cap), Unknown (lower hand on pole), Sgt Ernest Thomas (back to camera), Phm2c John Bradley (helmet above Thomas), Pfc James Michels (with carbine), Cpl Charles Lindberg (above Michels).
(Louis Lowery photograph)

1. BACKGROUND: THE FIRST FLAG

On the morning of February 23, 1945, D-Day + 4 of the Battle of Iwo Jima, on Mount Suribachi, after three days heavy bombing, naval artillery bombardment, and infantry attack, Japanese resistance seemed to have waned.

Lt. Col. Chandler Johnson, commander 2nd Battlalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division, sent two four-man patrols to explore routes up the mountain’s northern face. They successfully reached the volcano’s summit, and returned. So Chandler hastily assembled a 40 man platoon from surviving elements of the 3rd Platoon, Easy Company, augmented by 12 men from his Mortar Platoon and some members of the 60mm mortar section. Command was given to First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, along with orders to ascend the mountain, blowing up caves, and extinguishing any surviving Japanese resistance encountered on the way, and attempt to secure the top.

As an afterthought, Johnson took an American flag from his map case, handed it to Schrier, and told him, “If you get to the top, put it up.”

Staff Sergeant Louis Lowery, a photographer for the Marine Corps’ Leatherneck Magazine, asked for, and received, permission to accompany and record the ascent.

The platoon proceeded upward for forty minutes, blasting caves they passed with hand grenades, but without being attacked. Reaching the summit around ten A.M., they salvaged a length of Japanese water pipe to use for flagpole, and as Marines below cheered and Navy vessels blew signal horns in triumph, erected the first United States flag to fly on Japanese soil.

No sooner was the flag erected, then the Marine platoon found itself engaged in a firefight with a handful of Japanese survivors. It was later discovered that hundreds of Japanese, who could easily have annihilated the platoon, had killed themselves in Suribachi’s caves, many by clutching a hand grenade to their bodies.

Raymond Jacobs account

V Marine Amphibious Corps

PART TWO

Whited sepulchre Byron Calame needed to ponder for four months before coming to the astonishing conclusions, that:

1) The Federal Government’s international banking data surveillance program was legal.

2) No abuses of private date have occurred.

3) The program really was secret.

Banking Data: A Mea Culpa

Since the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, there’s a special responsibility for me to acknowledge my own flawed assessments.

My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published.

Those two factors are really what bring me to this corrective commentary: the apparent legality of the program in the United States, and the absence of any evidence that anyone’s private data had actually been misused. I had mentioned both as being part of “the most substantial argument against running the story,” but that reference was relegated to the bottom of my column.

The source of the data, as my column noted, was the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. That Belgium-based consortium said it had honored administrative subpoenas from the American government because it has a subsidiary in this country.

I haven’t found any evidence in the intervening months that the surveillance program was illegal under United States laws. Although data-protection authorities in Europe have complained that the formerly secret program violated their rules on privacy, there have been no Times reports of legal action being taken. Data-protection rules are often stricter in Europe than in America, and have been a frequent source of friction.

Also, there still haven’t been any abuses of private data linked to the program, which apparently has continued to function. That, plus the legality issue, has left me wondering what harm actually was avoided when The Times and two other newspapers disclosed the program. The lack of appropriate oversight — to catch any abuses in the absence of media attention — was a key reason I originally supported publication. I think, however, that I gave it too much weight.

In addition, I became embarrassed by the how-secret-is-it issue, although that isn’t a cause of my altered conclusion. My original support for the article rested heavily on the fact that so many people already knew about the program that serious terrorists also must have been aware of it. But critical, and clever, readers were quick to point to a contradiction: the Times article and headline had both emphasized that a “secret” program was being exposed. (If one sentence down in the article had acknowledged that a number of people were probably aware of the program, both the newsroom and I would have been better able to address that wave of criticism.)

What kept me from seeing these matters more clearly earlier in what admittedly was a close call? I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column.

The Times Public Editor, however, chose not to acknowledge:

4) That surveillance of international financial transfer data is a vitally important tool in combating terrorism.

5) That the unauthorized disclosure of secret information compromising national security in time of war constitutes espionage and treason.

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One really has to admire the monumental arrogance and unmitigated gall of the New York Times in appointing a sycophantic worm like Calame to that bogus and ersatz Ombudsman position. When the Times commits treason, its in-house watchdog slumbers contentedly for four months, then buries an apology at the bottom of his weekly column, grudgingly admitting he was “off base.” Though, it is now, as it was then, in his view, “a close call” whether the Times ought to compromise a vital counter-terrorism program (and betray its country). We readers have to understand, though, that Calame warned us when he started as Ombudsman that he was prejudiced, prejudiced in favor of The New York Times, which Calame has the astonishing mental ability to transform from the sleekest and fattest of all fat cats into “the underdog.”

We commented disfavorably on Calame’s initial support of Times’ treason here referring accurately to Byron Calame as an example of the type of invertebrate that leaves a trail on the sidewalk.

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Michelle Malkin makes the important point (which I happened to overlook) that Calame justifies his prejudice in the Times’ favor on the basis of “the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration,” and she wonders appropriately, just what vicious criticism was that? Then she reviews what the president and other administration officials actually said, exposing the emptiness, the fundamental fraudulence, of Mr. Calame’s rhetoric very nicely.