Yes, we KHAN!

The football team here in Jacksonville was sold last year at the end of the season. The owner is a naturalized citizen who came to the United States as a teenager. He went to school, worked hard, and built his own corporation. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the EPITOME of the American Dream – the new owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars – Shahid Khan.

This Thursday, the National Football League will kick off its 77th annual draft. By Saturday, 253 young men will be on their way to achieving their version of the American Dream. But there is one man for whom this year’s draft may be even more special. Jacksonville Jaguar’s new owner Shahid Kahn will spend his first draft inside the situation room as he continues to fulfill his own American Dream.

A native of Pakistan, Kahn came to the United States in the winter of 1967 with nothing but an acceptance letter from the University of Illinois. He found lodging at a local YMCA for $2 per night. In an interview with Forbes, Kahn explains his motivation for coming to the United States.

When asked what experiences motivated him to come to America, Kahn said, “I heard the streets were paved with gold. I found that to be true.”

On his second day, Kahn accepted his first job as a dish washer. He made $1.20 per hour. Looking back on his first job, Kahn recalls his thoughts:
“My God, what a country. I’m making more money than 99.9 percent of the people in Pakistan. This can’t get any better. Then I began engineering school, which was hard. And I would be saying, you know, if I can make this kind of money without a degree, why should I even be going to engineering school?”

Please read the rest at The Foundry! And

GO, JAGUARS!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Let there be no doubt – “Mission Accomplished”

Humans – Americans, in particular – have fairly short memories, when it comes to…well, anything, really. How many times have bell-bottom jeans been in style in YOUR memory?

This is not a post about fashion, though, it’s about American History that many of us reading this today will remember easily. Remember the invasion of Iraq after 9/11? Boy, I do. I was living on a Marine base in Hawai’i and it was an everyday topic of conversation.

Bob Tyrrell, in an article at JewishWorldReview.com has said precisely what I’ve been thinking whenever the subject comes up about the war in Iraq. Please do go read it all – here’s one paragraph to whet your appetite:

Camp Victory was the biggest of our bases. It was open to 46,000 troops at the height of operations. It had swimming pools, palaces and other improbable amenities for a military base thanks to its former inhabitant, Saddam Hussein. His presence there is shockingly diminished. Yet there remains a gaudy throne, a gift from the deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Actually, Saddam is deceased too, but there remains this appalling throne, with the tyrant’s pomade stained on its headrest. I wonder how many people he condemned to death from that throne. And more, I wonder how many condemned victims he watched die a grisly death from that throne. That is the kind of sport he enjoyed.

Really, go read it all. You won’t be sorry.

Happy 100th Birthday, Sir!

Ronald Reagan was President in the first years of my husband’s Navy career. It was a speech Reagan made in early 1983 that helped convince Duffy to enlist.

Ask around today, especially among our young people, and I think you’ll find a whole new attitude toward serving their country. This reflects more than just better pay, equipment and leadership. You the American people have sent a signal to these young people that it is once again an honor to wear the uniform. That’s not something you measure in a budget, but it is a very real part of our nation’s strength.

Those were tough, tense years for us, as a new little family was built amid worldwide upheaval. I was holding our new baby daughter in my arms watching from our front step when the Challenger exploded. The words then-President Reagan spoke touched and gave comfort to this Navy Wife.

When Governor Reagan died in 2004, and was lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda, my husband put on his uniform and drove into Washington, to stand in line as and salute his Commander-in-Chief one last time.

Happy Birthday, Sir!

The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted – it belongs to the brave.

West For President

A LOT of what’s wrong with our country is summed up in Stossel’s column today.

With permission from frustrated officials who’d watch government repeatedly fail to clean up the park, Biederman raised private funds from “businesses around the park, real estate owners, concessions and events sponsorships. … (S)ince 1996, we have not asked the city government for a single dollar.”

Sounds good to me. But not to Shirley Kressel, a Boston journalist.

I asked her what’s wrong with getting the money from private businesses, as Dan does.

“Because it goes into private pockets,” she said.

SO WHAT!

Here’s Ms. Kressel’s answer to Stossel’s question:

“Because it’s very good (for Dan) to use to use the public land for running a private business, a rent-a-park, where all year ’round there’s commercial revenue from renting it out to businesses. He keeps all that money. People don’t realize that.”

Ms. Kressel seems to have a REAL problem with capitalism. Remind you of anyone you know? Like the Current Occupant and Your Elected CongressWeasels, maybe? And at least half the people on your city council and PTA?

God, please help me keep the sense of humour you gave me…it’s getting tougher every day, but I’m workin’ on it. Amen.

Constitution Day!

On September 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed by thirty-nine brave men who changed the course of history. Thanks to my dad and Schoolhouse Rock, I’ve known the Preamble by heart since I was about 15.

The new mission in Iraq – “counsel peace and brotherhood” to eighth-century barbarians with guns, bombs and knives.

I often wonder when we’ll have the chance to elect leaders again. A Congress more willing to keep their oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

I don’t think any of them have the slightest idea what their real role in the country is. And if they do remember the oath, they prefer to ignore it and spend thier time and energy on sending taxpayer money to their constituencies and making speeches at fundraisers for re-election campaigns.

Wesley Pruden has a terrific column at JewishWorldReview.com (it’s from Friday) about the political end of Operation: Iraqi Freedom. The difference between the blather from the Current Occupant and His Merry CongressWeasels and the straight talk reported by the LEADERS on the ground in Iraq isn’t just the difference of a few words. It’s a vast gulf of ignorance which shows how completely out of touch with American Reality most of our Elected Weasels really are.

President Obama may think he is delivering on a campaign promise, to eliminate “combat missions” by the beginning of Sept. 1, 2010, but everybody else knows better, the troops most of all. While good old Joewas trying to exchange high fives with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, American troops were sealing off the village of Hawija in northernIraq while their Iraqi counterparts raided houses and detained dozens of “insurgents.” The insurgents, many armed with unsheathed knives, loaded guns and other paraphernalia of what we used to call “war,” did not look like they expected peace counseling.

The senior officers in Iraq, responsible for both the job at hand and the morale of their troops, are talking as plain as they dare. “Iraq still faces a hostile enemy, who is determined to hinder progress,” said Gen. Lloyd Austin, the newly installed commander of 50,000 remaining men who look like, talk like and fight like American soldiers. “Make no mistake, our military forces here and those of the Iraqi nation remain committed to ensuring that our friends in Iraq succeed.”

In the village of Hawaji (it sounds a little like “Hawaii,” but nobody would confuse the two), Lt. Col. Andy Ulrich employed blunter speech to buck up his troops, who could be forgiven if they think their commander in chief and his men back in Washington have had an attack of the vapors. “You are all combat troops and not doing a combat mission,” he said, “although it looks, smells, feels and hurts a lot like combat. Don’t worry about what the politicians are saying because we have a mission. The bad part is, we can’t go kicking in doors ourselves and get these guys. We’ve got to kind of convince the Iraqis to do it, but the good part is, they’re kind of willing to do it.” The colonel’s remarks were a study in subtlety, not lost on his troops.

What’s the “Approval Rating” for the Administrative Branch this week?

God, help us endure those who – under the guise of Leading – merely change the words to mean what they want them to mean. These poor fellows have no idea what “the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth” means. Help us send them home so they can study such meanings at their leisure, come November. And please help our Military do what they can when they can as they serve this Nation, until we can get some Real Leadership back for them. amen

Thomas Sowell (why yes, it is Tuesday): “…keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”

Dr. Sowell’s column at JewishWorldReview.com is written – again – with words better than mine. The ideas and ‘feelings’ and beliefs are exactly in line with my own.

Just a tidbit:

What all this means is that judges and the voting public have different roles. There is no reason why judges should “consider the basic values that underlie a constitutional provision and their contemporary significance,” as Justice Stephen Breyer said in his dissent against the Supreme Court’s gun control decision.

But, as the great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, his job was “to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not.”

Thank you, Dr. Sowell.

“When Dale Peterson enters the room, Chuck Norris bows.”

That was the comment by Infidel Tiger, a regular at Tim Blair’s place.

It was in reference to THIS ad:

This kind of politician I could actually have some respect for. The nancy-boy pinkos currently running most of the nation, particularly those in Washington, D.C? None. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Thanks for keeping real hope alive for the rest of us, Dale!