He did it! He crossed under the arch at 6:59 PM, EDT. He became the second musher in race history to finish in less than 9 days -- by just 51 seconds. In 2002, Martin Buser set the record when he crossed the finish line in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds. Mackey's finish today missed that record by less than an hour and a quarter.
That's Lance Mackey leaving Safety, the last check point on the way to Nome. With only 22 miles to Nome, and the closest musher (Hans Gatt) ten miles behind him, it appears to be all but over. This will be the fourth win in a row for Mackey, and that is a record. There are other four time winners, but none did it four times in a row. Rick Swenson has won five times, in 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1991.
This is the Finish Line on Front Street in Nome. You can see photos of Mackey in Nome in tomorrow's edition of the Alaska Daily News by clicking here.
Andy McCarthy is upset about a hit piece in the L.A. Times today attacking the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. He wrote this today on National Review Online.
Andy is not the only one upset. Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator joins the fray and discusses the duplicitous nature of the main stream media in such affairs. Hillyer calls for a declaration of war on the establishment media. You can read his post on the American Spectator Blog by clicking here.
At National Review Online, Foreign Policy Initiative executive director Jamie Fly adds: “Coyle made a name for himself by questioning whether missile defense is technically possible, contradicting a proven track record of repeated successes by the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. … Given Iran’s recent tests of missiles with increasing ranges and its successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Mr. Coyle’s questioning of the intentions of rogues such as Iran is incredibly naive.”
So, it's not just Poland and The Czech Republic that this administration has placed in jeopardy; it's us, too.
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was a German Baroque composer, organist, and teacher, best known for the Canon in D, the only canon he wrote.
In this video, the "Voices of Music" perform Pachelbel's Canon in D on original instruments. Not only are they using the original instruments, they are also using the bowing techniques from the time of Pachelbel.
Even those who profess not to enjoy classical music have heard (probably at a wedding) this piece and have to admit to its beauty.
This is the sign my friend, Martin Kennelly, Notre Dame Class of 1953, will be carrying tonight in Ft. Myers, Florida, in the vicinity of a speech to be given by Father John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University. Fr. Jenkins will speak to the Notre Dame Alumni Club of Ft. Myers, and he will not be happy to see Martin carrying his sign. For those of you unaware of the ND 88, you can check out their website at the below link.
The following is from that website and will serve as background on the ND 88:
Pro-Lifers Arrested for Peaceful, Prayerful Witness
It was mainly during the days leading up to the Commencement when those 88 pro-lifers, who were bearing a cross and/or praying the rosary and not causing any disturbance whatsoever, suddenly found themselves halted by campus security police and were then arrested and hauled off to jail in handcuffs.
This arrest and jailing of peaceful and prayerful pro-lifers at Notre Dame, which astounded so many Catholics and others around the entire nation, was done at the behest and direction of Notre Dame officials. Its security police are invested with the same state power to make arrests as are city and state troopers in Indiana.
Based on Notre Dame’s complaints that its property rights were infringed, criminal trespass charges were brought against all these defendants, many of whom hailed from out of town and had to come back to South Band weeks or months later to enter pleas of not guilty and to demand jury trials. If convicted of these charges, each of the defendants could be jailed as well as fined up to several thousand dollars.
As you may recall, Fr. Jenkins invited President Obama to deliver the commencement address to last year's graduating class at Notre Dame, causing grave concern among catholics who, in accordance with church teaching, are against the killing of unborn babies. President Obama is arguably the most pro abortion man ever to occupy the oval office. That event was covered in several posts on this Blog at the time, and you can revisit those posts at the below links.
That's Fr. John Jenkins at last year's commencement at Notre Dame next to his guest of honor, who averred that he was attempting to find "common ground" in the abortion "debate." Wonder where that would be?
Finally, here is a video that pretty much sums up the feelings of Catholics who still believe in the dogma of the church.
That's Michael Voris, a 1983 Notre Dame graduate, who went on to become an Emmy Award winning broadcaster. After viewing "The Da Vinci Code," Voris decided to produce a one hour TV program to refute the distortions about Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church presented in the film. It wasn't long before he realized that his Catholic Church, and his country, were facing daily challenges that needed to be answered. Voris decided to take a substantial withdrawal from his retirement fund and, with the help of friends and volunteers, built a television studio in Ferndale, Michigan. He called it: St. Michael's Media, after the archangel who drove Lucifer from heaven. He named his television program: "The One True Faith." It's been televised in the Detroit area since September 2006. The main criticism leveled at him by his detractors is that he is a one issue advocate, to which I say: If the one issue you advocate is LIFE, you don't need a second issue.
Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), one of the brightest stars in the GOP, spoke at Hillsdale College in January 2010, and the text of his speech was printed in the college's publication, Imprimis, which arrived by mail yesterday. The title of the speech is:Health Care in a Free Society, and nobody has spoken more eloquently or clearly on the topic.
Here are some clips:
President Obama said in December: “If we don't pass [this health care reform legislation]...the federal government will go bankrupt, because Medicare and Medicaid are on a trajectory that are [sic] unsustainable....” On first hearing, this argument appears ludicrous: We must stop the nation from going broke by enacting a program costing $800 billion or more in its first decade alone? On the other hand, if the President means what he says, there is only one way to achieve his stated goal under the new program: through deep and comprehensive government rationing of health care.
Americans take pride in self-government, which entails providing for their own well-being and the well-being of their families in a free society. In exchange for this, the promoters of government-run health care would make them passive subjects, dependent on handouts and far more concerned about security than liberty.
Americans understand that the problems facing our health care system today, real as they are, can be addressed without nationalizing one-sixth of the American economy and moving us past the tipping point toward a European-style social welfare state. They know that we can solve these problems while at the same time remaining a free society and acting consistently with the principles that have made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.
You've probably seen this on TV, but it's worth remembering. Charles Krauthammer gave her the benefit of the doubt, explaining that she "probably" meant that once people feel the "benefits" of the bill (which, if any, will be at least three years behind the taxes to pay for it) they will understand and appreciate the Bill.
Nobody is right all the time - not even Krauthammer.
Here's more on this from the The Foundry, the Blog of The Heritage Foundation.
This is from "Battle: The Story of the Bulge," by John Toland.
In a remote secluded area in the Ardennes south of the town of Meyerode, Belgium stands a monument built by Belgians dedicated to Eric Fisher Wood, Jr. Executive Officer of "A" Battery, 589th Field Artillery Battalion.
On December 16, 1944, the Battle of the Bulge broke furiously on the Ardennes front. The four (105 mm M1) howitzers of Battery A, 589th Field Artillery Battalion, 106th Infantry Division, were emplaced in the rear of the little village of Schlausenbach on the northwestern slopes of the Schnee Eifel, supporting the 422nd Infantry Regiment of the same division.
The 2nd SS Panzer Division and 6th SS Panzer Army were breaking through the American lines. The commander of "A" Battery, Captain Aloysius J. Menke had been overrun at his forward Observation Post and taken prisoner. Lt. Wood became acting battery commander. Through a gaping hole torn in the northern sector of the 106th Division's defense positions, the Germans were swarming around the left flank and rear of the infantry. Three German tanks pushed along a road, one leading and two others off the road in the draw. Lt. Wood, from his command position, shouted commands to his No. 1 piece gunner, John Gatens, who with two shots destroyed the lead tank. No. 1, was the only piece in the entire battalion which could reach the tank. The lead tank destroyed, Wood then ordered all four guns to fire on the remaining tanks that were below the hill. He did this with high elevation fire and one powder bag instead of seven. The remaining two tanks were disabled. He then swept the woods around him with short-cut fuse, breaking up the enemy's infantry support.
By nightfall the battalion was ordered to fall back. Wood, and the men of Battery A tugged until they freed their howitzers from the icy muck and loaded eighty-three rounds of ammunition for each piece in their trucks. Battery C however never got out. Battery B escaped ahead of A, and the two outfits fumbled through the dark over a narrow corduroy trail, while the enemy, with white phosphorus shells, hunted for them. They reached their new positions by dawn
The Germans were bursting through in force the morning of the 17th. The battalion commander ordered the outfit to move out again and push through Schönberg and west toward St. Vith.
On the 18th of December, the battalion pulled trails and headed for Schönberg, along with the two infantry regiments, the 422nd and 423rd. Wood got two pieces rolling and sent a third howitzer, with a crippled truck with them. "I'll meet you west of Schönberg," he told the section chief, Sgt. Barney M. Alford, "if I get there." The last howitzer was stuck so Wood stayed with its crew to get it out. By now krauts had overrun Battery B, and its howitzers were abandoned, leaving only four of the battalion’s original twelve.
The three howitzers sent ahead by Wood (the only ones of his division that made it out) crossed the Our River to fight again. They were the only artillery available to hold the right flank of the 82nd Airborne Division at the "Parker's Crossroads" (a delaying action on the northern shoulder of the Bulge that allowed the defense of the Elsenborn Ridge) effectively stalling and dooming the German offensive.
After freeing the stuck howitzer Wood and the twelve man crew rolled down a steep hill into Schönberg, Belgium. A German tank stuck its nose out, but then disappeared into the village. Germans pursuing them fired on them. As they raced through the village, immediately in front of them another German tank appeared. The situation was hopeless. The other men in the truck raised their arms in surrender, but Eric ran dodging bullets as he disappeared into the forest.
Later that afternoon a Belgian woodsman, Peter Maraite, in the woods near Meyerode cutting a Christmas tree, saw two Americans, one was a big man with single silver bars on his overcoat. He had a pistol. The other was smaller and wore no insignia of rank. He was armed with an infantryman's rifle. Peter took the two Americans to his home, fed them, allowed them warm themselves and dry their clothes. The villagers warned them that the country between Meyerode and St. Vith was full of Germans. This did not seem to discourage them. Woods said, "I'll either fight my way back to my outfit or I'll collect American stragglers and start a small war of my own."
For weeks the villagers heard sounds of gunfire from within the dense forest. Germans patrols were sent into the forest, but none returned with prisoners. Daily, wounded Germans came out of the forest. The Germans gossiped, "Those damned bandits were like ghosts, you never knew when a bullet might come your way." Days went by until the middle of January. The Americans had begun slashing back through the area, the Germans were on the run. When the Germans left, the people of Meyerode combed the woods. In a dense thicket southeast of Meyerode they found the body of an American officer, with single silver bars. Near him lay the bodies of seven German soldiers. They all had been killed at about the same time. An American graves registration team later fixed the time of death to be about 22 January, 1945. The American body was that of 1st Lt. Eric F. Wood, the leader of the small band of American guerrillas that had been harassing the Germans. He still had in his clothing, his papers and 4000 Belgian Francs, a sum that any German looter would not have overlooked. It seems that 1st Lt. Eric F. Wood, Jr. died as he lived - a free man, taking with him the last of his pursuers.
Please watch this video about Eric Fisher Wood, American Hero.
The 38th running of The Last Great Race on Earth started, officially, on Willow Lake, Alaska, this past Sunday. The lead mushers reached Rohn, checkpoint #5 this morning. You can follow the 1100 mile race to Nome at the website of the Idiatrod Insider, here, or through the Sports section of the Alaska Daily News, here.
Here are my picks for the first place male and female finishers this year:
That's Aliy Zirkle, Bib #50 this year. She was the third female finisher last year, and finished #17 overall. I just think she's ready to finish first among the ladies and in the top 10 overall.
That's Sebastian Schnuelle, Bib #35 this year. He finished second to Lance Mackey last year, and appears determined to keep Mackey from passing him this year. The above photo is Schnuelle winning the Yukon Quest last year, just ahead of fellow musher Hugh Neff. It was the closest finish ever in that 1600 km race, which ends in Fairbanks.
DOD attorneys, including prosecutors and defense attorneys of all political stripes, are of the opinion that closing Guantanamo Bay is an illogical and irresponsible political move made without the facts, and one that will cost billions. No stateside facility has the resources Guantanamo Bay does.
What DOD lawyers understand is that the defense of the nation must be decisive, just as must the justice meted out to its enemies. They take their oath to defend the nation seriously. Their very real fear is that justice will not be served by those whose sympathies lay in part with the terrorists, believing their own country responsible for all the miseries delivered on it on 9-11-2001, and after.
Everybody over 40 (or maybe 50) remembers The Mamas and The Papas, the controversial group from the 60's. This was one of their biggest hits, and they had many. Watching Mama Cass Elliot, I was reminded of what, according to Peggy Noonan (one of President Reagan's speechwriters), Ronald Reagan once said of James Cagney's performance in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan. Noonan had asked President Reagan to name his favorite movie, and Reagan answered: "Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney." Noonan asked him why (assuming his answer would be something about the great patriotism portrayed in the movie) and the president answered: "Because nobody knew he (Cagney) could dance." Well, who knew Mama Cass could dance like that?
As for the Blair House seminar, its theatrical quality was obvious even before it began...Unfortunately for Democrats, that seven-hour televised exercise had the unintended consequence of showing the Republicans to be not only highly informed on the subject, but also, as even Obama was forced to admit, possessed of principled objections — contradicting the ubiquitous Democratic/media meme that Republican opposition was nothing but nihilistic partisanship.
The confusion between lowering costs and refusing to pay the costs can have a real impact on the supply of doctors. The real costs of medical care include both the financial conditions and the working conditions that will ensure a continuing supply of both the quantity and the quality of doctors required to maintain medical-care standards for a growing number of patients.
This “reform” is not about health care, and certainly not about “controlling costs.” As with Medicare, it “controls” costs by declining to acknowledge them, or pay them. Dr. William Schreiber of North Syracuse, N.Y., told CNN that he sees 120 patients per week — about 30 percent on Medicare, 65 percent on private insurance plans whose payments take into account the Medicare reimbursement rates, and about 5 percent who do it the old-fashioned way and write a check. He calculates that, under Obamacare, for every $5 he now makes, he’ll get $2 in the future. Which suggests now would be a good time to retrain as a Realtor or accountant, or the night clerk at the convenience store.
This is from Jonah Goldberg's column on National Review Online yesterday:
The president is surrounded by acolytes of the Cult of Obama. They consider him to be a “transformational figure” who need not sully himself with the usual rules of politics. The president agrees, rejecting suggestions that he recalibrate his Olympian ambitions.
That’s not me saying that, nor one of my knuckle-dragging, baby-eating right-wing brethren. It’s Dana Milbank, the liberal Washington Post writer widely seen by most conservatives as Maureen Dowd in drag.
Milbank wrote a column on February 21 arguing that all the president’s problems can be attributed to a single factor. “Obama’s first year fell apart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters,” writes Milbank, referring to Rahm Emanuel, apparently the only senior staffer who hasn’t drunk the Obama Kool-Aid. “Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter.”
Remember, Emanuel worked for Bill Clinton when Clinton (the ultimate politician - not an ideologue) realized that to gain a second term he would have to join the rest of the country, which was located much farther to the Right than was he. The fact that Clinton made that move assured him a second term. Emanuel's present boss, though, is more ideologue than politician (even though he does lie like one) and it appears Emanuel is the only one in the White House trying to make him understand what Clinton came to understand during his first term. It's more than ironic that the man who seems to have no principles or standards that could interfere with winning political office might actually save the republic if his boss will only listen to him. Let's hope, though, that it will be too late to afford him a chance for a second term.
It's time for the 2010 running of the Iditarod. The ceremonial start is this Saturday, March 6th, in Anchorage. The official start will be the next day in Willow as always. As most readers know, this Blog originated at last year's Iditarod (where I was a volunteer) as a sort of journal for the grandkids. There are lots of good websites one can access to follow the "Last Great Race on Earth," and the Iditarod Insider is the best. Here's the latest from that source.
The first 63 posts on this Blog were about the 2009 Iditarod (and getting ready to go). The last of those posts provides a pretty good summary of the results of last year's race, and that post can be re-visited here. (Note: The music had to removed from the post.)
Due to (as they say) circumstances beyond my control, I will not be attending this year's Last Great Race on Earth, but hope to be there for the 2011 start.
That's Chuck Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa. He's not always on the right side of things (but then who is?), but he's relentlessly pursuing Attorney General Eric Holder to name the political appointees in the department of justice who (before being rewarded for working on the Obama campaign) worked pro bono (for the public good, i.e., free of charge) on behalf of the Islamic lunatics at Guantanamo whose sole purpose in life was to re-establish the caliphate throughout the free world - and kill as many of us along the way as they could.
Of course, these lawyers would tell you, immediately, that they did what they did on behalf of the Islamic lunatics because "everyone is entitled to a defense," but does that apply to enemy combatants? These same lawyers are now deciding or influencing the decisions at the department of justice as to how to deal with, for example, the Christmas Day bomber, and we already know that the decision made by Eric Holder in that case (which might now be on the verge of being changed) was to treat him as a common criminal who was entitled to a court appointed lawyer. These lawyers need not only to be identified, they need to be sent back to their Left leaning law firms where they can do us less harm. Maybe that's why Holder is clearly refusing to identify his friends (and fellow travelers), because the hue and cry for their firings would be deafening.
The Prowler posted a piece titled Nameless Abettors on the American Spectator Blog yesterday. It outlines clearly yet another scandal in this administration (how many is that now?), that has for the most part gone unnoticed. The Prowler's piece can be found here.
Keep America Safe just produced this video, which is not going over well at the Holder justice department.
That's General James T. Conway, the 34th Commandant of the Unites States Marine Corps. He showed himself a man of courage and conviction recently when testifying before Congress. He was asked his opinion on President Obama's (and Senator Joe Lieberman's) desire to repeal the "don't ask; don't tell" legislation currently in force. He is the only service chief to publicly declare his preference for the current law - because it's working.
Here's a link to the Fox News video of General Conway's testimony.
The Tigerhawk Blog has a problem with Princeton's hiring of the former White House "Green Czar." I would imagine any parent paying tuition for a son or daughter to matriculate at this the fourth-oldest college in the nation would also have a problem with it. Click here to read the post from Tigerhawk, and make sure to read the Comments.
Van Jones was featured earlier (before ending up under the Obama bus) on this Blog. Go here to revisit that post.
This should make you even more proud of your degree from a state university - any state university.
The following is from an internet search on this Ivy League university:Princeton simultaneously strives to be one of the leading research universities and the most outstanding undergraduate college in the world.
