My thoughts this morning are particularly disjointed, but what the hell.  

About a dozen years ago I was dining alone in some Memphis rib place, reading the local paper.  All these years later I remember the news item about the Tennessee legislature (or, maybe it was just the  Memphis city council?) dealing with the issue of flag burning.  They made beating people who burned the American flag a misdemeanor, with a fine of  about $1.  I'm not making that up.  What brought that to mind this morning is London Mayor Ken Livingstone. No man did more to sanction the hateful teachings that led to the recent spate of bombings than he.  Period. See where I'm going?  Elected politicians are immune from reckless behavior in Britain, and the United States.  It's silly to expect lawmakers to enable the lynching of themselves, but what's wrong with giving the act scofflaw status (pay attention here  Jim McDermott) ?  I mean, all effected are liberals, and conservatives control congress. 

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In 1942 the  Chicago Tribune chose to reveal that our cryptologists had cracked the Japanese Naval Code.  Had even a single Japanese agent seen that article, it's likely this headline would have appeared soon after.

Fleet sunk at Midway, thousands dead
Roosevelt sues for peace as Japs head for California

Of course, incredibly, the Japanese never did discover that great secret, because every Japanese American had been isolated in internment camps.  [Pause for wailing and verbal whaling] I'm just saying a truth here.  Now we have the problem of 80% of our mosques having been built and sponsored by the Saudis, all preaching the radical Saudi Wahabi version of Islam.  Am I saying we ought to intern all Islamos?  Hell no.  This war we're in will not end with a treaty down the road.  It will end when everybody in the world embraces Islam, or when there is no Islam.  Lots of words to be said between there and here, but that had better be our mindset. We can begin by shutting down every one of those mosques, and deporting every know radical who belongs.  Deport into an active volcano. Or, pass one of those misdemeanor laws.

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One more thing while I'm on a roll.  I'm amused that, to the extent the Hollywood film industry criticizes Joseph Stalin, it's usually for the brutal way he prosecuted the war against Hitler's invaders.  Russian soldiers were routinely sent to certain death, in obviously hopeless charges against vastly superior forces.  If one so much as flinched, Stalin's political squads shot them dead on the spot.  Units were told that surrender was not an option.  Either die doing your damnedest, or face summary execution.  Of course defeat meant the end of the Soviet Union, and the execution of several million communists (sigh), but Hitler did not prevail when he probably should have. From a military and nationalistic view, this seems to have been Stalin's only real success as the head of the Soviet state. Just a thought about waging war with an intractable enemy. It's a bitch.