![RickRescorlaCOLArmyPhoto[1]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/2848437908_9701ac85d4_m.jpg)
There will be a lot of thoughtful posts in the blogosphere about the eighth anniversary of September 11. Here, I want to tell just one story of a man who we got to know thanks to Matt Burden and his Someone You Should Know series at Blackfive. Here is Matt’s tribute to Rick Rescorla,
Rick was a British (Cypress and Rhodesia) and American (Viet Nam) war hero. He retired as a Colonel in 1990.
Decades later, after 9/11, I had no idea that Rescorla had everything to do with denying Al Qaeda a huge victory. I wasn’t surprised that Rick had saved 2,700 people that day, and then paid the price with his life when he went back into the tower for stragglers. He knew, KNEW, it was coming down. And he went anyway…
Tenacious, strong, and leading all the way to the end.
Here is the Someone You Should Know Matt did in memory of Rick Rescorla on September 11, 2006,
Here is Greyhawk’s tribute at Mudville Gazette.
Former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Dore Gold joined me last evening to talk about his new book, The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West.
Along with his former boss and current Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, I've long admired Mr. Gold for the moral clarity he brings to these issues.
This book is filled with such moral clarity. It is a terrific overview of the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran and how they have deceived the West for more than 30 years. From Amazon,
Former U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold shows why engaging Iran through diplomacy is not only futile but also could be deadly. In the West, liberal politicians and pundits are calling for renewed diplomatic engagement with Iran, convinced that Tehran will respond to reason and halt its nuclear weapons program. Yet, countries have repeatedly tried diplomatic talks and utterly failed. In The Rise of Nuclear Iran, Gold examines these past failures, showing how Iran employed strategic deception and delay tactics to hide its intentions from the West. He argues that Western policymakers underestimate Iran s hostility toward us and explains why diplomacy will continue to backfire, no matter which party or president is in power.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
On issues large and small, I believe the Obama administration has a competence problem.
On the biggest issues, his major legislative initiatives, he has displayed little or indifferent leadership, at best. He essentially turned the stimulus and health care reform over to Nancy and the Gang in congress and they both became runaway disasters for the President. This week, he is giving a Hail Mary, joint session speech to the American people to try and rescue his healthcare reform efforts. This is not a move from a position of strength. By trying to Rham through a 1000-page bill that would shift 18% of the economy into the hands of the American government before the August recess, the president offended many and really eroded the trust people had placed in him. Change is one thing, three card monti with something as personal as healthcare is another.
On the small issues, let’s take a look at another speech this week, to America’s school children. This should have been a layup for the administration. Instead, because of arrogance and overreach, it has become yet another cluster for President Obama. In my opinion, it should not be controversial for the president to address school children. George H.W. Bush did it, Reagan did it, Clinton did too. How tough is it to tell kids to listen to their teachers, study hard and they can achieve their dreams in America. Well, that is clearly too much to ask from an administration with as large a sense of self purpose as this one. The controversy began when the Education Department published supporting materials for teachers will lesson plans for students asking questions like “what can I do to help the president”. Somebody in the department should have known better. Someone should have asked, “isn’t this creepy going too far, are we politicizing this? No, those questions weren’t asked and a simple speech has turned into another example of overreach and arrogance.
Van Jones, well he isn’t large or small, but he is incredibly revealing. How is a guy like this deemed acceptable by this administration? What did they know and what did they choose to ignore. If you believe Barack’s BFF Valerie Jarrett, they knew all about Van Jones and were thrilled to have him on the team. This is a disaster for Obama on several levels. It shows his rhetoric about a new kind of post-partisan politics to be a crock. Van Jones greatest hits include a little didy about George Bush licking a crack pipe. It shows, once again, that our president is comfortable in the company of people many, many Americans find loathsome. Like who? How about his spiritual mentor of 20-years Rev. Wright. Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Now Van Jones can be added to the Motley Crew that Barack Obama calls friends. The most fascinating thing about Van Jones isn’t what it tells us about Obama (we knew he had a soft spot for leftist radicals), it is what it says about his second protective unit, the mainstream media. The Van Jones controversy was a creation of the alternative media. Kudos to Glenn Beck for pushing this on Fox, and to Gateway Pundit for pushing in the blogosphere. A White House tzar was forced to resign in disgrace with hardly a word from the major media in the country. Few things demonstrate the media’s fealty to Barack Obama or their irrelevancy, more than the Van Jones episode.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Staff Sgt. Conrad Begaye, via the amazing Soldiers Angels Germany blog,
Ambushed near Aranas, Afghanistan, on Nov. 9, 2007, the soldiers were caught in a well-planned crossfire and needed to find cover.
Though he had been shot in the arm, Begaye took a minute to consider his options.
“It was almost like time stood still,” he said Tuesday after receiving the Silver Star for his efforts that day. “The only real option I had was over the cliff.”
So he started down into a steep ravine, telling his men to follow.
“We were sliding down and the whole time we were still taking accurate fire,” he said.
Several soldiers were wounded on the way down and one was killed. But the rest survived to fight on.
Once Begaye and his men found adequate cover, he treated the wounded, called in mortar support and rallied other soldiers who were farther back in the convoy to hold their positions. Mortar fire and reinforcements eventually drove the enemy from the field.
Five soldiers and one Marine died in the battle. Begaye, the ranking soldier after his platoon leader [then 1LT Matt Ferrara] was killed in the initial attack, said he’ll wear his medal in honor of those who didn’t make it.
“I really don’t know how I feel about getting a medal for just doing my job,” he said. “So this medal’s not for me, but for the guys who died that day.”
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
UN Report Calls for More Funds to Combat Global Warming
Here is the deeply concerned, committed eco-warrior and UN bureaucrat who would like $1 trillion of your money, annually, drinking from her bottled water at the press conference. Bwaaaaaaaaaaa.
The United Nations is calling for billions of dollars to be spent by governments to fight climate change and greenhouse gasses to stem rising global temperatures. A United Nations report released Tuesday calls for major spending of nearly $600 billion by governments to deal with the impact of global warming. The report, Promoting Development, Saving the Planet, said that up to $1 trillion a year would be needed to deal with issues of climate change in the future.
Is that all? What are they planning to with all of our that money? Pave the ocean floor?
Methane gas likely spewing into the oceans through vents in sea floor
Scientists worry that rising global temperatures accompanied by melting permafrost in arctic regions will initiate the release of underground methane into the atmosphere. Once released, that methane gas would speed up global warming by trapping the Earth’s heat radiation about 20 times more efficiently than does the better-known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
An MIT paper appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research online Aug. 29 elucidates how this underground methane in frozen regions would escape and also concludes that methane trapped under the ocean may already be escaping through vents in the sea floor at a much faster rate than previously believed. Some scientists have associated the release, both gradual and fast, of subsurface ocean methane with climate change of the past and future.
What’s my point? Simple. It’s the incredible arrogance of these Global Warming Climate Change fanatics who KNOW FOR A FACT, the debate is OVER, and we, humans, are the main cause of whatever they are calling it this week. Our impact on earth’s temps are at the margin, at best. These people are so arrogant they actually believe they can legislate the earth’s temperature. Say that again. They believe they can legislate the earth’s temperature. Here’s John Tierney at the New York Times,
President Obama and the rest of the Group of 8 leaders decreed last month that the planet’s average temperature shall not rise more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit above today’s level.
The Gorebots have exaggerated and lied for years, and now, well, in the words of the spiritual mentor to the President of the United States of America, the chickens are coming home to roost. The passing of time, not to mention scientists who didn’t stop, well, doing science, are making them look like zealots and frauds.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Navy Cross reciepient Cpl. Richard S. Weinmaster,
“According to his platoon commander, 1st Lt. George Fenton, Weinmaster, a Cozad, Neb., native, was in front of a squad-sized patrol making its way through an eight-foot wide alley bordered on each side by 10-foot tall mud-brick walls, dubbed “ambush alley” when their patrol was attacked by enemy small-arms fire and grenades.
In the midst of the firefight, Weinmaster provided accurate suppressive fire with his SAW until he noticed an incoming grenade land near his team leader, Lance Cpl. Tyler Wilkerson.
Fenton, a Fredericksburg, Va., native, explained how Weinmaster shoved Wilkerson out of the way then jumped toward the grenade to try and smother the blast. As he jumped, the grenade exploded sending the majority of its shrapnel into Weinmaster.
Despite his grave injuries, Weinmaster re-mounted his SAW and continued to provide effective suppressive fire on the enemy positions 50 yards away.
“I didn’t do anything special,” he told everyone. “Everyone on my left and right would have done the same thing. I was just in the right place at the right time.”
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
I want to say thank you to the guys from Blue Mass Group, and all the local bloggers who put politics aside to raise money for the Jared C. Monti Scholarship Fund. As most of you know by now, Raynham, MA native Jared Monti KIA in Afghanistan in 2006 and he was recently awarded the Medal of Honor for his immensely selfless service to this country.
It has been a great two weeks, focusing on something that we can all agree on and support without reservation. Our collective efforts helped generate 35 donations totaling nearly $3000 for the scholarship fund. On behalf of all participating bloggers, THANK YOU!
Last night I was joined in studio by Blue Mass Group co-founder David Kravitz. We were honored and humbled that Jared’s father Paul, along with two of Jared’s best friends, Darin Souza and Janell Holmes were able to join us as well.
Paul wants Jared remembered for the man he was, not for the soldier he was, and it’s easy to see why. As we learned last night, through some highly entertaining stories, Jared was one hell of man. His loss is a big one for the military, but more so for humanity.
JARED C. MONTI SCHOLARSHIP FUND
MAILING ADDRESS:
Jared C. Monti Scholarship Fund
c/o Bristol County Savings Bank
108 N. Main Street
Raynham, MA 02767
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.