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Wednesday Hero - SPC Roger G. Ling

Spc. Roger G. Ling

Spc. Roger G. Ling
20 years old from Douglaston, New York
Company C, 1st Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team
February 19, 2004

When Spc. Roger G. Ling’s Humvee was struck by a homemade bomb in October of 2003, he survived the attack and he worked to keep his superior officer, Lt. Matt Homa, alive. Spc. Ling was riding in the backseat of the Humvee when it was hit. It destroyed Lt. Homa’s door.

“It almost killed me. From what I’ve been told, Roger helped keep me awake until my medic arrived.” said Lt. Homa. “Ling was a good kid. You could count on him to do anything.”

Spc. Ling was killed, along with Second Lieutenant Jeffrey C. Graham of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, when their unit came under fire from insurgents in Khalidiyah, Iraq. Only two miles from where he’d survived the attack just four months earlier.

Leona Ling said she was grateful her brother came home in August of 2003 just before leaving for Iraq.

“He had to have his tonsils taken out,” she said. “It was a blessing in disguise because we got to see him again.”

In phone calls home, the soldier spoke wistfully of returning to New York and going to college. “He wanted to hear about what was going on at home and all the latest family gossip,” Leona Ling recalled.

Survivors include his father, Wai Ling, a U.S. Army veteran.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

[This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.]

Antarctica time-lapse videos

This is nothing less than spectacular. Antarctica in a year.

Here’s a time-lapse video of the Aurora Australis (”Southern Lights”).

More videos from “Antzarctica” here.

DO WANT: Chumby

Gah, I ~~want~~ need one of these! And it’s only $180! Don’t ask me to explain it, I’m having too much fun playing. Just click.

Look, I’ve already configured a Chumby with widgets but I don’t even have one!

My wannabe Chumby is below the break. I probably need to tweak the settings on some of the widgets, but it’s just a start. Play with it!

Wednesday Hero - Marine Corporal Jordan M. Moehnle

Cpl. Jordan M. Moehnle

Cpl. Jordan M. Moehnle
21 years old from Los Angeles, California
Company L, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6 (”Darkhorse” Battalion)

Cpl. Jordan M. Moehnle takes time out of leading his squad in a patrol through Fallujah’s Nazaal district to spend some time interacting with local children. Moehnle, who is on his second tour in Iraq, said the changes he has witnessed since he was last here in 2006 have been dramatic. “The city was like the Wild West, we’d put our heads and and drive down (the middle of Fallujah) and hope not to get shot,” he said. “Since we’ve been here (this year), we can stop and shoot the breeze.”

You can read more here.

USMC icon

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Heroes.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

[This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.]

Thank You Veterans

To send a message to the troops, click here. (Nope, no politics–just thanks.)

Tags: Veterans Day

The Religion of Peace™ has a content warning!

Another Day Goes By:

A music video with pictures from the worldwide islamofascist uprising. It is not meant to insult Islam, but to show the horror of people using a religion as excuse for their sick death cult. If you are a muslim and feel insulted, please answer this question: What have you done today to stop terror? (BTW: The music was recorded by a guy from Australia, who wants to remain anonymous. He is afraid of the Religion of Peace.)

Content warning: Graphic violence. Not like you didn’t already know.

Britney Spears’ Brainless Downward Spiral

Stop, Britney. Just stop. Not just at red lights, either. Stop being a dumbass. Please.

Britney Spears blew a red light at a notoriously dangerous intersection last night, with her kids in the back and a court-appointed monitor crouched down in the front. Paging K-Fed’s attorney!

The Popwreck approached the light slowly on Coldwater Canyon in Los Angeles. You then see Britney raise her cellphone to her face. It is unclear if she’s texting or making a call. She then drives into the intersection as someone outside the car screams, “Red light, red light!” Britney then turns left onto Mulholland Drive, managing to miss oncoming traffic.

There’s video at TMZ, if you care. I don’t have a need to watch someone self-destruct and endanger her children’s lives. This has become surreal.

Britney Spears runs red light with kids

Looks like it’s past the kids’ bedtime, too. :eyeroll:

Ah, what the hell. For old times’ sake!

:rofl:

Thank you, Silky Pony

I think I’ll be saving this for next year. :mrgreen:

(Yes, it pains me that it’s actually a Silky Pony ad, but I’m more than happy to enjoy this on his dime.)

Current Project Valour-IT totals

Come on, you guys, pony up. The goal is $240,000, and there’s a long way to go still!

Current totals as of 11/08/07 midnight-ish:

Hit the donation button in the sidebar or click the graphic!

Offendistan!

Just adding my contribution to the list of things that are offensive to Muslim extremists! :mrgreen:

pig on koran

Add yours to the list!

I figure, since the scheduled cyber-jihad was ~~canceled~~ pwned anyway… ;-)

Oh wait, more things that offend Muslims: King of the Hill and anti-hotlinking measures! HAHA!

stein hoist SondraKistan

100 Year Plan of Islamic Extremists

Yeah, I know–this comes as no surprise to anyone, but still…

Islamic extremists have a 100-year plan for world domination, and Americans must be prepared for the long fight, a U.S. Air Force general told East Texans on Monday.

Speaking during a Veterans Day banquet in Big Sandy, Mike McClendon said extremists want to create an economic superpower with the biggest army and strongest currency, and they want half the world’s population to reside in an Islamic state.

They plan to gain control of oil reserves and bankrupt Western countries, and they plan to create safe havens throughout the world, including some in Latin America, he said.

“They’re willing to go as long as it takes, and they are making progress,” said McClendon, who commands the Air Force’s Global Cyberspace Integration Center in Virginia.

McClendon’s office culled the information from extremist Web sites, he said. The general, a former teacher at the International ALERT Academy in Big Sandy, delivered the findings to about 450 people who attended ALERT’s sixth annual Veterans Day event Monday night.

But hey, we should just “have a dialogue” with them, right? I’m sure some Letters of Marque and Reprisal and/or some cultural “understanding” will change their minds. :eyeroll:

Thank you, Christmas junk spammer

Thanks a lot for reminding me that Christmas is seven weeks away, spammer. Jerk.

Also, you fail at spamming. You fail at life.

GIMP sucks

Can I just say, when you’re used to Photoshop, GIMP is shite. It’s true, you get what you pay for. *spit*

Sorry, open-source fanz. It suuuuucks. No Linux for me until Adobe makes PS/CS Linux-compatible (and no, I’m not interested in WINE/vmware, thanks.)

That’s all.

Just another day in Pelosi’s home district

Nope, that’s not Gaza–it’s San Francisco.

Yet another hall of shame at Zombie’s–this time from an antiwar demonstration in San Francisco on October 27th.

~~Two~~ one guess as to which Presidential troll candidate was well-represented there among the virulently anti-Semitic protestors. (Will any of the disciples express disapproval? I doubt it.)

I feel inspired to donate some more money to Project Valour-IT now.

Pakistan Watch

Troubles continue in Pakistan, and Pajamas Media has a roundup of articles on it as protestors battle police in the streets:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police fired tear gas and battered thousands of lawyers protesting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s decision to impose emergency rule, as Western allies threatened to review aid to the troubled Muslim nation. More than 1,500 people have been arrested in 48 hours, and authorities put a stranglehold on independent media.

Meanwhile, the US urges a move toward democracy.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was reviewing its assistance to Pakistan, which has received billions in aid since Musharraf threw his support behind the U.S.-led war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

At a news conference in the West Bank on Monday, Rice urged Musharraf to follow through on past promises to “take off his uniform.”

“I want to be very clear,” she said, as a team of U.S. defense officials postponed plans to travel to Islamabad for talks Tuesday because of the crisis. “We believe that the best path for Pakistan is to quickly return to a constitutional path and then to hold elections.”

But there’s more at play here than just Musharraf versus Bhutto and the people for democracy, of course. This is Pakistan, after all. I can’t help but wonder how this might be benefiting the radical Islamists and providing an “in” for them as the secular elements divide. Stanley Kurtz notes that the media has “tended to underplay, or even openly challenge, the jihadist angle” in “Al-Qaedastan,” and considers the very real possibility of civil war, and says maybe Musharraf was right in declaring a state of emergency:

Pakistan’s government has never faced armed, independent, organized, and territorially based Islamist opposition on today’s scale. That is likely to give Pakistan’s recurring political history a radical new twist. In calmer circumstances, a stable democracy guided by a secular middle-class might have headed off the specter of Islamist radicalism. Today, however, given the size and strength of the Islamist threat, and given the unique social role of Pakistan’s army, a military government may be the only real bulwark against the potential disaster of a nuclear-armed al-Qaedastan.

It would have been better if the power-sharing deal between Musharraf and Bhutto had held. If such a deal can still be rescued and genuinely made to work, that would certainly be welcome. Yet contrary to the claim that terrorism was just an excuse, I fear that Musharraf’s invocation of the state’s critical vulnerability was all too valid.

You know what they say–”he may be a dictator, but he’s our dictator.”

Obviously, a western-style democracy would be nice, but realistically, elections alone do not mean things will end up to our liking. Just look at Gaza. Or Turkey. Or yes, Iraq. And you know that tired old refrain, “Hitler was elected, too.”

Nevertheless, Musharraf’s government has just announced that parliamentary elections will still be held in January as planned:

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz announced Monday that parliamentary elections will be held in January, as scheduled.

Aziz’s comments followed a call Monday by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Pakistan to restore normal democratic and constitutional processes, and to confirm the January elections.

Reuters, meanwhile, reported that President Bush called on Musharraf to quickly return to civilian rule and release people detained under an emergency decree.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the U.S. was “deeply disturbed” by Musharraf’s emergency rule decree.

Reuters also reported that Pakistan’s National Assembly would be dissolved by Nov. 15 to make way for January elections.

Aziz, meanwhile, told reporters that Musharraf is “committed to making sure that elections are held and that the democratic process flourishes in Pakistan.

“As a result of what has happened there could be some timing differences but no decision has been made,” he said.

Ahem. Emphasis mine. “Some timing differences,” I’d guess, would leave the door open to “whenever we think it’s safe.” And honestly, I’m not sure I find that as disturbing as some others may say they do. (Frankly, I’m seeing a lot of demagoguery from self-centered pundits looking to score points against Bush, as though he’s somehow to blame for this–just as they blame him for everything else. Get over yourselves.)

Meanwhile Benazir Bhutto reacts to Musharraf’s crackdown:

The Pakistan People’s Party chief, who returned to her country last month from an eight-year self-exile under a power sharing deal with the General, warned that “subversion of democracy” could fuel further extremism.

Bhutto said the political parties will meet to share views and come up with a “consensus plan of action”.

“….certainly demonstrations will be under unless General Musharraf moves quickly to defuse the situation and restore the constitution,” she said.

“…it would be dangerous but the dangers of not doing anything are far greater. We either acquiesce to the spread of extremism and terrorism in our country. And if we don’t acquiesce then we are termed controversial and polarizing.

“But we feel that we cannot accept and acquiesce to the rise of militancy and extremism in our country, which threaten our people’s lives and so although there are risks, we have to take those risks,” Bhutto maintained.

Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s former prime minister, faces some hard decisions now that President Pervez Musharraf has assumed sweeping emergency powers.

She must decide whether to continue to seek a power-sharing deal with General Musharraf or to make a clean break from him. For the time being, she is hedging her bets.

While she has condemned the declaration of emergency rule, she has not called her supporters from the Pakistan People’s party (PPP) on to the streets - a move that would dramatically raise the stakes.

It’s not going to be easy for Pervez Musharraf to keep things from exploding without the support of Bhutto; the PPP and Musharraf need to be united to fight the Islamic extremists. If Benazir Bhutto is serious about ridding Pakistan of extremism, she would be wise (and it would only be to her long-term benefit) to not disrupt things further, even if the emergency rule holds for a while. There has already been an attempt on her life by the jihadists, and if they were to take power, she can forget about seeing “power-sharing agreements” or democracy of any kind in Pakistan.

UPDATE: Everything said more succinctly:

The State Department response — calling for immediate free elections — is idiotic. Break down Pakistan’s instability into just some of its component parts — Islamist militancy, tribal unrest, deep-seated ethnic separatism, feudal oppression, sectarian hatred, an incompetent and corrupt ruling elite, an ill-educated population, a paranoid and conspiratorial culture — and it’s far from clear that dictatorship is the disease or elections the cure.

It’s interesting that the official Indian reaction has been so careful. Said a Foreign Ministry spokesman: “We regret the difficult times that Pakistan is passing through…We trust that conditions of normalcy will soon return, permitting Pakistan’s transition to stability and democracy to continue.” New Delhi clearly realizes that Musharraf for all his faults may be preferable to any alternative. …

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