LRC picks
On presidential inauguration speeches
In which Gary North tells the truth about FDR (especially) and JFK

His [Lincoln’s] famous phrase, "with malice toward none, with charity toward all," was repudiated for the next decade by Congress during what came to be known as Reconstruction.

Actually the whole war that preceded those words showed they were a lie.

BTW, those who paint Lincoln as a Christ figure sometimes use the fact that he died on Good Friday. Yes — at the theatre, in 1865, which tells you what use he had for religion if you can’t suss that from the conduct of the war.

As noted by Fr James Tucker three days ago was the birthday of a real hero, Robert E. Lee.

If you want two images that serve as the grave markers of Kennedy’s inaugural address, think of the riderless horse and the casket, and think of the photo of that last helicopter out of Saigon.

Which you’re probably going to see in Baghdad in a few years after Mr Bush’s handlers replay Nixon’s ‘exit strategy’ of some posturing attacks on neighbouring countries followed by an ‘Iraqization’ scheme and ending with the unpopular US puppet government being overthrown, replaced in this case with a militant Muslim one now that Iraqis have good reason to hate America.

Perhaps if they can’t have a bigger empire right now the neocons would be happy with this result as a consolation prize: a perpetual ‘war on terrorism’ (against people they provoked) to stay in power and expand the state. No different really to the Galtieri junta that seized the Falklands only the stakes are higher.

From The Spectator
More on Harry hysteria: what about the gulags?
Of course the British who lived through the war are angry but at the end of the day this article gets it right: an apolitical kid sick to death of PC pseudo-niceness goes for fancy-dress shock value. Dog bites man.

The sovietization of America
As seen by Karen Kwiatkowski in the swearing-in of ‘Dear Leader’, who ‘glows’ and everything. I wonder if the ZIL company made the Благовесть* bell for which I gave a small donation to hang in Yekaterinburg where the Tsar** was killed. Based on their page title it looks like they did! Got to give them credit for adapting to the market.

America’s war is coming unglued
Military expert William Lind on Fourth Generation warfare

*Which means ‘announcement of good news’, as in the gospel including, in Luke, Благовещение, the angel bringing tidings unto Mary.

**Bad leader, good man. But not a particularly oppressive or violent ruler except for the big mistake of involvement in World War I.