Notre Dame Greatness

The very PICTURE of greatness, right here, right now.

Marine General Butler: "War is a Racket"

Read a great excerpt today from retired USMC General Smedley Butler, one of the few men in American history to have won the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor TWICE. Definitely a warrior, and a respected member of the military community.

He wrote a book after he finished his service entitled War is a Racket. Here's an excerpt from a speech he made in 1933 that I found very enlightening.

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"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Pryce PAC Is Major Recipient of Big Tobacco Money

Though there are plenty of reasons to vote against DeLay cronie Deb Pryce in the upcoming election, here's another: she's a major recipient of Big Tobacco money via her PAC. Guess we know whose interests she has at heart.

Musberger is Officially an Idiot

Even if it is USC... this is just more typical work by Brent Musberger, who may be the WORST sportscaster in America. Read and laugh.

The Downside of Being An ND Fan

I've been a Notre Dame fan all my life. Barring the immediate canonization of Jimmy Johnson and the hiring of Dennis Erickson as University President, I always will be an ND fan. I grew up in a small town in Michigan as one of the only Irish boosters in town - and the rest were pretty much all in my family.

Upon leaving Alma, MI, for the ivy-covered confines of Notre Dame's campus for my collegiate experiences, I lifted myself out of the mire of constant deriding for my NCAA favorites and joined an, I feel, elite group of sports fans. Notre Dame is nearly unique in the world of college football by being an independent and loving it. Naturally, it's one of the few schools that can afford to be independent by nature of its history on the field. As the team with the greatest winning percentage in the history of the game, the money does keep rolling in for this program, whether from boosters who love the school for academic or spiritual reasons, or from $12 million bowl game payouts.

I love Notre Dame football exactly the way it is. I would NEVER want ND to join a conference and remove itself from the ability to basically pick its own schedule. Notre Dame has a set of rivals that has grown over time and history. Southern California, Michigan, Michigan State, Navy (yes, as lame as that rivalry is these days, there's still a lot of history behind it), Miami, all these rivalries grew out of Notre Dame continually trying to find the best schools against which to pit its young men. Some of them go into and out of fashion, depending on who the top teams at any given period of time are (example: Miami), but some will last forever - USC and Michigan being the two most fierce.

But that very independence is what makes it hard to be a Notre Dame fan, as well. As they have rightly shucked aside attempts by the NCAA to force them into a conference, the only thing ND fans have to root for is the mythical national championship of college football. And when that possibility goes away, the rest of the season is left feeling a little bit empty. Sure, we can hope for a top 10 finish, and a major bowl game at the end of the season, but other teams have other things to shoot for as well: conference championships and the like. It can help to turn what might seem like a disappointing early letdown into a win of sorts when a team can lose early and then rally in their conference season to win their group's title.

Don't get me wrong, nothing will stop me from watching more ND football - ever. But without that title to shoot for.... is something missing? Perhaps.

And perhaps that loss of a goal stems from the fact that the college football championship is just that: mythical. There's not any true playoff with which to whittle away at the teams who survive at the end of the long season. Teams can pad their schedules with the likes of Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, Alabama-Birmingham, etc., and get into a bowl game. If a conference is weak, then that just makes it easier for a team to move on, a la West Virginia this season.

Tough to say. Anyway, I spent the evening after the ND loss to Michigan on Saturday watching old Justice League cartoons ad nauseum and that cheered me up somewhat. Now I'm thoughtful and melancholy about the situation, rather than just a brooding bastard.

And Really, What More Could I Say?

Duncan's Pirate Name

Okay, I'm a dork, but I had to do one for the boy... so here's Duncan's Pirate Name:

My pirate name is:

Iron Davy Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com. part of the fidius.org network

BP: Bad Pipeline

I received this newsletter from the Sierra Club, referring to the "success" of British Petroleum in keeping their oil out of our environment. I'll comment at the end, so if you're interested in my ravings, read on after the article.

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BP claims to be "Beyond Petroleum," but lately it seems likely they're so far beyond it that they're willing to let it leak out all over the place. Might we suggest a new tagline? How about BP: Bad Pipeline.

This week found BP in Washington, DC, testifying about their irresponsible behavior. In just the past six months, Big Oil has given ample fodder for congressional investigations. First there was the enormous oil spill in Prudhoe Bay in March -- the largest oil spill that Alaska's North Slope had ever seen. Then in August, they were forced to admit their pipeline had been so poorly maintained that it was corroding. One reporter who went out to Alaska to see it said that the pipeline had gotten so thin that it literally felt "soft to the touch." And let's not forget that oil valve in the Gulf of Mexico that turned out to have been leaking for a full year since Hurricane Katrina - - and, well, the folks at BP just forgot to tell us about that too.

What's more, today's headlines tell us that while the BP executives were testifying in Washington, they conveniently neglected to announce a 43,000 gallon oil spill this past Friday in Long Beach, California.

And this is the company that drilling advocates tout as the "Gold Standard" for potential drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? In that case, I'd really hate to see the Silver or Bronze Standard.

So when BP received a slap on the wrist from Alaska's Senator Murkowski, it wasn't for putting our environment at risk or acting like a corporate version of Dennis the Menace. Instead, she lambasted BP for jeopardizing the prospect of drilling in the Arctic. Kentucky's Senator Bunning joined in with the reproach: "I believe that this type of situation completely sets back any hope that we have to get that [Arctic drilling] bill passed by the Congress of the U.S."

It seems the Senators are catching on to what we at RAW have been saying all along: Oil drilling is messy, risky stuff. And if we're addicted to this nasty fuel, the best way out of the situation is to wean ourselves off of the substance, not drill for more of it and risk more toxic spills in our most pristine places--especially from a company whose initials could just as easily stand for Bringing Pollution.

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Here are the things that rile me about this:

1. BP got a slap on the wrist. I can't find anything that says WHAT penalty, exactly, BP has to pay or observe. I'm assuming it's just "bad feeling about the company."
   
   
2. Senators Domenici and Murkowski are more angry about BP damaging their hopes of opening the ANWR to drilling than they are that BP lied to and hid other problems from the people of the United States.

If you read the other article about this (linked in the article above), you'll see a great line from Senator Feinstein of California that smacked both Murkowski and BP at the same time: "If it were my state, I would not be as gracious as Senator Murkowski is today." Apparently this caused Murkowski to suggest the BP might not be allowed to drill in Alaska any more... to SUGGEST it.

Senator Jim Bunning called up the fact that BP has made over $70 BILLION in profits since 2000, yet this still happened. If they're able to make these profits, surely some of that money could be used to monitor this pipeline and others to make sure that they're not going to burst like they have.

Enough said. If this isn't cause to keep drillers out of ANWR, and anywhere ELSE in the world, I can't think of anything that might be. Maybe we need to add BP to our list of oil companies to boycott (along with ExxonMobil).

Arrrr! Talk Like A Pirate Day BE NEXT WEEK!

Arrr.... Go ye out and find yer pirate name, ye landlubber!

My pirate name is:

Bloody James Rackham

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com. part of the fidius.org network

Total Domination Is Always Nice

There comes a point in many college football games, maybe midway through the third quarter, when you're up against a team who's having a down year or perhaps they just aren't quite in the same league as your team, when you feel like "well, this game is a foregone conclusion. I can safely go do something else now," and you take off.

I've had a few situations like that in my time as a Notre Dame fan. Wins over Navy, Purdue, SMU, Rice, etc. weren't games that required a lot of stress on my part.

But you certainly don't expect to get that situation when you're playing PENN STATE. Yet the Irish came out of the tunnel on Saturday and thoroughly stomped the Nittany Lions in pretty much every facet of the game. If we were an SEC or Big 12 school we probably would have left our starters in for the whole game, but being Notre Dame, we didn't. We didn't have to!

I have to admit that I'm a tad bit worried about controlling Michigan's running game next weekend, as that was the one thing that was sort of working for the Nits, and Michigan is definitely a major running team. But on the other hand, we controlled the line of scrimmage most of the time and that's the key to a running game. Our linebackers are going to have to be on the top of their game next week, but I'm confident. Much more confident than I was coming into this game.

Was Penn State that bad? No. They'll come back and do have a decent run in the Big "We Can't Count." They had a similar situation that we did against Georgia Tech, where a couple early misfortunes colored the game for them. Is ND that good? Yes. Unlike PSU, ND took a bad start and turned it into a win last week, and we thoroughly trounced Penn State like nobody's business.

Michigan? Watch out!

Barney's Blog

Not often do I get really attached to a TV show. And sometimes it takes me a while to get there. But a show for which, last season, I grew to be quite a fan, is CBS's How I Met Your Mother. It's got the quirkiness of one of my long-time favorites, Friends, but with a different set of characters and situations.

Perhaps it's the situation itself that so closely mirrored my own life for a while - being friends with engaged people, chick-magnet people, and occasionally a chick or two, but never quite getting to the "relationship" point of my life. Of course, I'm very happily there now and wouldn't change it for the world! But it doesn't make watching someone else in that situation any less fun.

And when you have characters like Neil Patrick Harris's Barney on the show... what's not to love? And therein lies the jist of this message: I found Barney's blog. I'm not going to say any more... just read and laugh yourself silly, unless you happen to be easily offended. Then... read and think that I'm a fan of low-brow humor who probably shouldn't be invited to any more parties.

Markey Challenges New Ford CEO To Lead World In Auto Technology

Wonderful quote from Ed Markey, commenting on the resignation of Ford CEO Bill Ford and his replacement by former Boeing engineer Alan Mulally (Ford is still on the board of Ford):

"Ford has always acted like making a car more efficient was harder than rocket science. Now that the company has an actual rocket scientist at the helm, maybe the science of auto mechanics will not seem so difficult."

Stop the Seal Hunt

Thought it wasn't going on any more? Thought that people were beyond such things? No such luck. In fact, the annual seal hunt is bigger than ever. Besides the brutality of the hunt, in which baby seals are bludgeoned mercilessly and then occasionally skinned while still living, the hunt is starting to affect the size of the harp seal species in general. And when one species declines so vastly and quickly, other species follow behind soon.

It's time to put this barbaric practice behind us entirely and outlaw this. There's absolutely no reason for it.

Crocodile Hunter, Audience Tamer

The world lost a truly great man over the weekend, when noted conservationist Steve Irwin was killed when he was stung in the heart by a stingray in a freak accident along the Great Barrier Reef.

"Truly great man?" you ask, "That guy was a nutcase!" Well, yeah, he was. But he also called more attention to the plight of animals in the wild, habitat loss, and the importance of biodiversity than any animal show star (and almost anyone, PERIOD) ever. His fun nature, crazy antics, and willingness to show even the most ugly, disgusting animals as necessary, fascinating, and beautiful made for great TV and also taught the world a lot about how every species plays a role in the world environment.

Steve Irwin, you will be missed.

Rotten to the Corps - How the Army Corps of Engineers Destroyed New Orleans

This is a very interesting article about the Corps of Engineers, and how their projects should be held to maximum accountability for the devastation of New Orleans last year in Hurricane Katrina. It's got some great points, though I think a lot of the blame has to fall to our political system and the pork that funds such projects (which the article talks about as well).