We're Noble Allies. The Coral Sea, we were with you!

--Michael Patrick "Guns" Donovan

Behind the Italians and the Poles and the Irish are the Australians. Well, maybe they're all tied up there in my book. The short form is: the Australians rock! I appreciate how the Brits have been with us in Iraq and all, but hey, so are the Aussies. They were in Vietnam with us, for cryin' out loud! Hard core.

I keep hearing about how we need to work on our relationship with France and Germany. Me? My foreign policy is not very nuanced. We should do nice things to the countries that like us, tell those who don't want to help to go screw themselves, and lay a serious beating on anyone who tries to screw with us. Now, towards the top of that list of friends is Australia. So I am going to take a moment out to salute the Australians.

You gave us Mel Gibson.

You gave us Men At Work.

You gave us ladycrackerland.

You keep trying to change your national anthem to "Waltzing Mathilda". That is the most awesome thing I have ever heard of in my life. (Note to Australia: I tried, but I could not find one site hosted in your country on the first 5 pages of Google with the lyrics. Somebody get on that.)

Most Americans do not understand the awesomeness of "Waltzing Mathilda". I do. I will explain. When you hear the Cliff's Notes version of the song, please keep in mind every few years Australians try to make this song their national anthem.

"Waltzing Mathilda" is about a hobo who steals a sheep. The police corner him, and he commits suicide rather than going to jail.

You people rock!

I propose we cut a nice chunk out of Egypt's foreign aid, and give it to Australia. Now I know, Australia, you don't want to seem like a mooch. I respect that. We can just have our ambassador meet your Prime Minister on a street corner somewhere. We'll do the handshake/palm off some money move. It's good, don't feel bad about it.

Or would you rather just let us know what you could use? I'm here for you, Australia! Drop me a line, let me know what you want. We can work something out! Once again, let me just say I love Australia. Thank you for being such a great friend. God bless you all.

You see that sign up there? It says the Charlotte Banshees, not the Charlotte Juuuu-wanna!

--Coach Rivers

Let's catch up on some local news. The NAACP decided to investigate the Lobo's women's basketball team, at the request of former player Fatima Maddox. Maddox got benched for undisclosed disciplinary reasons.

Maddox asked to be released from her scholarship and went to the NAACP alleging discrimination.

Note, this story was published way back on the 4th. Read the article, then come back as I do a little analysis.

"In addition to our conversation with the student-athlete who left the team, we received four phone calls from members of the community concerned that a very talented and well-liked player appeared to be leaving unhappy," Powdrell said.

I know Albuquerque isn't a big city, but man word must have spread at the speed of light! "Ya know what, honey? I heard Fatima Maddox isn't happy at UNM. I think I'm gonna call the NAACP to get this all straightened out. I'm concerned that way."

"One of those calls came from an Anglo group of fans who said they did not feel comfortable coming forward themselves but were concerned about the atmosphere in the program. They said they noticed players on the team were treated differently and thought it should be investigated."

In New Mexico, it's passe to say "Honkey". The term is "Anglo". God, I hate that word! I am /not/ an "Anglo". I'm IRISH. We've been swapping lead with those people for centuries! My mother-in-law is French. I thought she was going to kill the last guy who called her an "Anglo".

Powdrell said Maddox harbors dreams of playing basketball professionally and did not think she could reach that goal by staying at New Mexico.

I think you're right, you should be playing someplace where basketball is more important than New Mexico. Let me know when you find that place, too. Fatima, to be totally serious here..let me help you out with something. If you want to play professionally in the future, you might want to rethink this "run to the NAACP after getting benched" tactic. Then again, maybe a pro team would love that. Maybe they'd give you a big hug and stuff after you get an investigation launched against them and whatnot. Good plan.

He said she was respectful of the coaching staff during her conversation with NAACP officials and did not appear to be driven by a grudge against Flanagan.

"The biggest issue to me at this point is that she said the discipline in the program was administered differently to Anglo and African-American players," Powdrell said.

Ok, so how does that one work? "Gee, they're really great coaches. Terrific people. They just treat us black players as second class citizens."

Ok then.

Powdrell was careful not to directly accuse Flanagan of racism but did note several other black players had transferred or were kicked off the team in the past.

"When we start looking into an issue, that's when we start to notice a pattern, and there does seem to be one here," he said.

Ok, so he's not a racist, he just has acted like one a bunch in the past? Thanks for clearing that up. Please, the local NAACP was looking for a trophy for over the fireplace.

Skip ahead three days later:

Powdrell said the NAACP never wanted to create an adversarial relationship with the school.

"The NAACP's efforts on behalf of Ms. Maddox were not intended to reflect negatively on the character or integrity of Coach Flanagan or the women's basketball team," the group said in the statement. "We recognize and respect Coach Flanagan's dedication to the program and his commitment to diversity."

Powdrell said the NAACP was mainly interested in helping Maddox get released from her scholarship and making sure black athletes had a positive experience at the school.

Must.....Save....Face! Mommy! HELP!

Coach Flanagan released her the day she asked to be. Nothing to see here folks. The NAACP decided to jump in on a college matter and make some quick political capital. It backfired, and they got smacked back...HARD.

I like the local sports guy, Bob Clark. He's from the Philadelphia area, just like me. On his show, he commented along the lines I did, but said that people shouldn't be too harsh on Fatima Maddox. After all, she's just nineteen. Haven't we all made mistakes at that age?

Yeah Bob, we have. However, those mistakes tend to run along the lines of, "I can't believe I drank that. Where did my underwear go?" NOT "Oops, I drug a major civil rights organization into my little fit, and almost ruined a good man's reputation." There's quite a bit of daylight between those two statements.

Bottom line, you do not screw around with Lobo's basketball in New Mexico. Not even if you're the NAACP.

Wait, I thought Johnny Potsmoker was MY alter ego.

--Jesse

To be totally serious, totally totally serious, I'd like to give some mad props to the hippies, leftists and whack jobs of Santa Fe. Gratz!

A while back, I heard rumblings about some sort of protest the Bush Inauguration thing. Apparently, some organization sprung up, like a mushroom from a vast pile of dung, called Not One Damn Dime. They joined up with not one red cent, as well. I guess take no wooden nickels decided to go it alone. Anyhow, they decided to protest the Bush "Coronation" by urging all the good little Bundists not to spend money today.

I want to take this moment to express my utter and complete solidarity with this mission. I totally support the concept of you people not going out to eat, or shop, or in any way interact with me. Rock. On!

Today was great! The streets were quiet. The air quality improved due to the lack of incense and patchouli at the Plaza. I went to lunch without having to wait fifteen hours as you all plowed through nine plates at the Indian buffet. I ate in peace, without having your blatherings grate my ears, or seeing you chomp your food with your mouth open. I didn't have to get indigestion by having you embarrass all involved as you tried to go "native" with the owner, either. And yes, you embarrass him, me, and yourself when you do that. Can't you folks say something simple like, "Thank you, the kheer was very good today." Why do you have to act like an extra from Gunga Din?

In any event, I am /with/ you. If I could, I'd bang a drum and help make puppets. To be honest, I'd rather bang a gong, though. Way to go! Please consider doing this one day a week (at least) for the rest of the evil vicious (insert favorite hate-flavored bile here) Bush Administration.


Thanks again leftists. You made today the best day I've had in Santa Fe, EVER!

I can't wait to go to dinner tonight. That'll be solid!

I have a fearful temper. You might as well know about it now instead of findin' out about it later. We Danahers are a fightin' people.

--Mary Kate Danaher

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. This is a secret that will shock and anger many conservative friends and fellow bloggers.

I almost didn't vote for George Bush. It literally came down to me staring at my ballot, swallowing hard, holding my freaking nose, and putting my mark next to his name. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Why? The War on Terror? The War in Iraq? The steel tariffs?

Nah, I liked all that stuff.

Bush offers St Patrick's Day welcome to Ian Paisley

Ian freaking Paisley? For St. Patrick's Day? What the...

WHAT?

Could Oliver Cromwell not get a day pass out of hell?

This guy pulls off the ultimate twofer. He insults Catholics /and/ those who like Country Music:

Line dancing is as sinful as any other type of dancing, with its sexual gestures and touching. It is an incitement to lust.

Here's another gem:

"Catholic homes caught fire because they were loaded with petrol bombs; Catholic churches were attacked and burned because they were arsenals and priests handed out sub-machine guns to parishioners; and the massive discrimination in employment and shortage of houses for Catholics were simply because they breed like "rabbits" and multiply like "vermin".

Why on earth John Kerry didn't run with this in Catholic New Mexico is beyond belief. Pictures of this clown shaking hands with Bush, then text or a sound clip of what he says to the Pope.

I'm John Kerry, I go to Communion and I approve this ad."

I would never suggest anyone do violence upon the President. I would just suggest that President Bush follow King Henry II's example.

Heil myself.

--Frederick Bronski

From the AP:

two high-school students from the Paris suburbs were expelled or suspended from school for offensive behavior during a class trip to Auschwitz.The students were photographed laughing at an exhibit of Zyklon B poison gas. One student reportedly said: “They were right to burn them,” in reference to the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews.


Sweet! I'm sure those kids are on the right path. After all, they're being educated in France. Obviously, us simple-minded Americans just can't fully understand all the nuance of that statement. They'll be fine, France, so long as you can keep them away from McDonald's. Note to France:

You helped.

Not the evil Pope. Not Cowboy Americans. You.

Your grandparents most likely got quite adept at saying, "Achtung Juden!" Your parents most likely cheered when those backwards peasants in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia got what was coming to them. You most likely celebrate every time Jewish children get blown up in Israel by your heroes. And now your children laugh at Zyklon B.

Note to the Jewish community in France:

Pack.

It's coming again. It is so coming again. This time they might not have snazzy black uniforms and swastikas, but it's coming.

Oh, and PS France...

Your grandfather overcharging the Germans on the cheap wine does /not/ make him a member of the Resistance.

That is all.

If He Were Alive, He'd Probably Forgive The Slander, Too

http://www.wideawakes.org

It’s one of the greatest lies of the last century. As it goes, Pope Pius XII was a silent partner in the Holocaust. He took no steps to help the Jews who were being slaughtered by the Nazi genocide.

It’s a nice fairytale, if you’re a psychotic leftist hater of the Church. As an added bonus, since most folks of that type are already living in fantasy land, all the absurdity seems perfectly normal. Yes, I know you people think it’s normal. I’m using my Energon Brain Decoder as we speak to read your thoughts. You obviously need to add another layer of aluminum to your hat.

Let me explain…no there’s too much. Let me sum up.

Rolf Hochhuth wrote a play in the ’60s called THE DEPUTY. In it, he portrays the Pope as a person who did nothing to stop the genocide around him.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing, the genesis of an outpouring of bile against a good and decent man. A play. The 1960’s version of “I saw it on the Lifetime Channel". That’s what they came up with.

There’s a really great website that lists the facts that shreds this piece of toilet paper of a charge against Pius XII. That’s a pretty good thing too, since I really don’t feel like listing all the rebuttals. I’ll just list a few here.

Golda Meir gave a stirring eulogy of Pope Pius XII, thanking him for his work in saving thousands of Jews during the war before the UN in 1958. Yeah, Golda Meir. She then went and planted a tree in Israel in his honor. But you know, what would Golda Meir know about anything? She’s not an important world figure, like Rolf Holchhurth.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome converts to Catholicism /after/ the war. His reason? He was so impressed by Pope Pius XII’s efforts to protect the Jews during the war. Then again, what would he know? He was only the head of the Jewish community in Rome during the war. It’s not like he wrote a play or anything.

Pope Pius XII used Vatican money to ransom the lives of many Jews. He directed his staff to set up numerous hideouts throughout Rome for Jews. There have been estimates of up to twenty thousand Jews being hidden inside the Vatican at one point or another. The Pope’s personal summer retreat, Castel Gandolfo, was even used to hide Jews. Unfortunately for posterity, not one wrote a play during this time.

While still a Cardinal, Pius XII wrote MIT BRENNENDER SORGE for Pope Pius XI. The encyclical specifically attacked Nazi ideology. Written in 1937 and smuggled into the country to be read in German churches, Allied bombers dropped copies of the encyclical into Germany to demoralize Catholic German soldiers. Sadly, it lacked in sufficient character development to be made into a play. Let’s read a little excerpt together, shall we?


4. If, then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men—the “enemy” of Holy Scripture—oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.

7. Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who “Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” (Wisdom VIII. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.

8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.


Uhh, Hitler tried to /kidnap/ the Pope. Obviously, he was concerned Pius would write a play.

Finally, a few years ago a “historian” by the name of John Cornwell wrote a book “exposing” Pius XII’s complicity in the Holocaust. We all remember “Hitler’s Pope", along with all the TV news specials, all the talking heads sadly shaking their heads in righteous shame at the Catholic Church. Case closed, right?

Sure, except for one little detail. The author of the book admitted he got it all wrong.

He got it so wrong, he couldn’t have been more wrong if he just went out and made up probate records. The fact of the matter is, the only people that did more in World War II than Pius XII to subvert the Nazis were the prisoners of Stalag 13. The only difference, of course, is Hogan’s Heroes is a fiction, a fantasy. Then again, that will fit in well with the worldview of those who believed what they did about Pope Pius XII.

For your penance, say 5 Hail Mary’s, 4 Our Father’s, and donate to St. Jude’s Hospital. And while the Church really doesn’t practice self-flagellation much anymore, please feel free to throw yourselves a good beating.

Oh I like this one... One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy's sayin', "Whadda ya want from me?'

--Tommy DeVito

I'll keep this simple, because I'm sure he'd prefer it that way. Go read Nickie Goomba. Nicky's good people, know what I'm sayin'?

He's funny.

But, I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?

Yes, you do.

If you're not reading Nickie Goomba, you're not a good person.

At my signal, unleash hell.

-- Maximus

My five year has been deeply affected by the reforms of Marius. The evolution of the Roman Army from part-time duty of the landed class to a professional standing army.

The direct effect it has in Rome: Total War is the removal of Velites, Hastati, Principes and Triarii from production. He just isn't as captivated by the Legion cohorts. I think it's because when I've explained how the Republican Army worked, he could relate to it himself. "So, I'd get big and start as a Velite. Then, if I was a good soldier I could be a Hastati." He never really makes it to Principe or Triarii. To the little guy, the Hastati is the end all, be all. Well, that or a war dog.

"You're the general, and I'm your pet war dog." So I have a pet war dog. Don't laugh, or I'll sic him on you. He's /mean/.

Rome: Total War is a good game. The folks at the Creative Assembly have a strong track record for historical strategy games starting with Shogun, and continuing with Medieval War. They are relatively painless ways to get a basic background, and develop an interest in varied eras in history. Heck, The History Channel even uses the game engine for their series "Decisive Battles". The series depicts a few battles that had a profound impact on the development of Western Civilization. One of the featured experts on the series is Victor Davis Hanson. Any time you can go from a video game to VDH, you know you're onto something good.