The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again...

On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941.

NEVER AGAIN!

Stay vigilant…

We cannot hide. We must fight with a morally acceptable economy not one of greed and avarice, we must fight with cultural sensitivity and intelligent response, we must be prepared with a capable military, we must use diplomacy informed by history, anthropology, technology, geography.

A Day that will live in INFAMY… don’t EVER forget.

-MPM

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Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

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God Bless America! Thank you to those serving in the armed services… Pray for peace… and lets keep our heads.

We have bionic soldiers… and they rock…. bring them home when we are ready and when they have done their part.

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Game Over

Please do not bother to insert coin… you cannot continue.

Good Riddance.

But Remember, this struggle has gone on almost twice as long as WWII, and Hitler Killed himself a month before VE day… and they weren’t fighting a wide-spread, dispersed insurgency in hostile terrain and politically unstable territory… This war on terror is not “over” or “won.” But, the unifying force of Bin Laden as leader is no longer a factor. With such loss can come division. Many smaller things are more time consuming to defeat, but less of a threat. We can only hope that what we did was, in fact, not just a symbolic feat, but a strategic one as well.

Pray for peace. Prepare for war.

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Speechless….

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I found this at a local FamilyMart (a convenience store chain here in Taiwan and Japan). The Chinese characters in white are “O Ba Ma”… convenient, but they mean Good European Horse (in order of appearance “Europe Good-Horse”).

(Note: Single Serve… LETS HOPE!)

This is gold.

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On this, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, remember that nuclear war sucks for everyone. Thank you.

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God Bless America

Today is the 4th of July. It is the anniversary of the day that the United States of America declared its Independence. The people who drafted the formal Declaration of Independence had absolutely no clue what the United States would do or become. It was irrelevant. The entire purpose was to create a body of governments and lands that worked together with the people to give them the choice of how their world would be shaped and how they could shape the world.

The first bits of the text (the full text is available here)of this brilliantly crafted (though using datable language) is as follows :

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[71] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Others have cited this and the following document or repeated their wording (the French constitution uses BOTH documents as referent.)

What follows is the text of another document… written in response to the most important July 4th in U.S. History. Perhaps the most important date in U.S. History two times.. was the 4th of July. December 7th, 1941 was a date that has lived in infamy.. but July 4th has decided not just the fate of our nation, but the fate of all nations of the Earth. It was twice the date when people stood up, offered their lives and livelihoods to state that “all men are created equal.”

July 4th, 1776 was the date on which the United States declared independence from tyranny and oppression. July 4th, 1863 marked the resolution of the high water mark of another struggle, more costly in terms of morale, humanity, property, and suffering than any in the history of the United States. One in which the United states was faced with the most confounding, and ironic, moral and political dilemma it ever faced… before or since. This was the American Civil War. A misnomer because the Americas have seen many civil wars, but this one marked the beginning of “total war” in which every person, man, woman, and child was deprived and forced to participate in a complete struggle for survival… a pattern that continues to this day… But to its credit, and in this case, the United States prevailed, and became a strong, and though sometimes flawed and misguided, powerful beacon of hope and potential for the world.

I am not the same caliber of orator or speech-writer as he who wrote and gave the following, so I will let his words speak for themselves. :

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Despite the fact that our current government and many of those before it have abused the rights, privileges, heritage, and spirit of these two works, they have stood the test of time. On this 4th of July let us remember that it is the unalienable right of every person to be free and let us pray that governments of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.

God Bless America

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Let me start by saying this: Ben Stein is a political observer and an economist, among other things, but he is not a “scientist” (in terms of physical/ natural sciences, or mathematics, he is at some level what is considered a historical scientist (history, political science, economics, anthropology, and even elements of geology are historical sciences). I am a scientist. I have been criticized by my peers as being too “sciency” and having no soul.

Interestingly, I am one of the few anthropologists an/or archaeologists I know that is also deeply religious (some may not know that I was a part-time pastor once) and i have a strong belief in a creator God…. I have on the other hand done a shitload of research on chaos and emergent phenomena and the like… I have come to the scientific and religious conclusion that creation by a god cannot be excluded hypothetically. The probability that all is due to random chance is extremely low, given the cumulative effects of emergent phenomena in the chemical and biological evolution of the universe… . It seems odd to me that a scientist would argue for random chances as a final solution to questions regarding the origins of the universe and of life within that universe (among other things). They deal with the probabilities of random chance in hypothesis testing all the time… why not apply that to the “big one?”

I also disagree with the notion that Darwinism is counter to the notion of creation by “intelligent design.” Darwin, and neo-Darwinist approaches all are, in practicality, open to a “creationist” interpretation. The evolution of matter, stars, planets, and life need not be “one or the other.” It is foolish to think that things do not evolve. Hell, I evolved! I started unable to cook or clean or pay bills, but I adapted. I failed to adapt at other things (like Physics 203) so, I was selected out of certain life paths (like being an engineer). The same applies less tongue-in-cheek to more serious scientific concerns.

The problem is absolutes…. “Creationists” who want to patently reject evolution and believe strictly in an in situ formation of all that exists are not really considering the broader picture that they themselves are offered and even experience daily. Likewise “Darwinists” who patently reject the notion of a greater intelligence behind the order in the universe are failing to recognize the rational beauty of the very order they seek to explain.

Thus, though I think the message here is a bit over the top, its really no worse than Stephen Hawking believing he can disprove the existence of God through solving the riddle of the Grand Unified Theory….

Time to go set off fireworks…

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I don’t like to get too political on current people, but I sometimes think that President Obama has crossed some lines….

Instead of counting the number of times Ben Stein has slaughtered Bush, Obama, and everyone that needed it… I will just post the following figure.

At least people are starting to wake up and realize whats going on and rejecting some of these schemes…

it only takes .22 seconds to find that many mistakes?

You suck!

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