Children of the Corn at 9-0

I have been searching for a Halloween analogy for the Hawkeyes come from behind win against Indiana today and the best I have come up with is the Children of the Corn. Fitting because this is after all Iowa where corn is king plus, another team wandered into town thinking they were meeting just a ragtag bunch of misfit kids but were then dragged out into the corn field for the ritual sacrifice.

In the third quarter the Hawks were down by ten points and Stanzi had just thrown 4 perfect passes to the Hoosier defense. Then with the Hoosiers on their own 2 yard line "He That Walks Behind the Rows" blocked an Indiana pass that bounced off four players and miraculously landed in the hands of Iowa's Tyler Sash who took the unexpected gift 86 yards for a TD.

In what is becoming typical Iowa form, a fired up Stanzi then led the Hawks to 28 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to put away the Hooseirs. Trick or Treat.

University of Iowa

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination...

You are entering the Obama Zone

Pulled from yesterdays post and updated:

Thomas Sewell; the dismantling of America Part I
From RCP

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Thomas Sewell; the dismantling of America Part II

Obama poised to cede US sovereignty

"Affordable Healthcare for America Act" All 1990 pages worth.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Alaska's Sarah Palin to Visit Iowa
From The Iowa Republican

In what has to be the irony of all ironies, The Iowa Republican reports that Sarah has been invited to speak Nov 21 at the Family Policy Center’s fall fundraiser in Des Moines. Across the street on that same night Joe Biden is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Democrats Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Sounds like a good opportunity to have a tea party.

Update: 10/30/09 Pleasant Hill, IA – Iowa Family Policy Center ACTION received word this morning that Governor Sarah Palin is unable to accept our speaking invitation due to her book tour contractual commitments, which cannot be changed.
We extended our invitation knowing she would be in the middle of her book tour and the chances of her being able to accept any invitations were extremely slim.
She has asked if she could speak at a future mutually agreeable date. She will not accept any fees for her appearance.


While we are on the subject of Alaska...
Alaska's Great Wide Open
From The Smithsonian

A land of silvery light and astonishing peaks, the country's largest state perpetuates the belief that anything is possible.

Interview with Charles Krauthammer: 'Obama Is Average':
From Speigel International

The Attack on Americanism

Illustration from The Masses. ca 1910-1920

During the same era as the illustration above, German sociologist Werner Sombart questioned why socialism never became viable in America while the rest of the world was embracing the ideology. He suggested that, “all the socialist utopias have foundered upon roast beef and apple pie." Sombart believed that Americans had no need for socialism because they were living in the land of plenty. The reality of the time however was far from a land of roast beef and apple pie. In fact if Sombert was right in his assumption then it would seem that conditions were ideal for the establishment of another socialist state.

The second industrial revolution was under way; mechanization was eliminating skilled jobs at a time when waves of unskilled immigrants were flooding into the country. Anarchist, sydicalists, and socialists existed in fairly large numbers and the new European immigrants were not strangers to the radical tradition. The social conditions included high unemployment, high levels of poverty with masses of people living in squalid urban conditions.

Many Americans were in fact foundering and yet, even with the roast beef and apple pie offered by the left, socialism still did not take hold in America. The left never jelled into a cohesive force capable of unseating the cultural norms inherent in Americans. The reason for that lies in the fact that Americans are cut from a different cloth. As Seymour Lipset wrote in "American Exceptionalism";

Born out of revolution, the United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society. Americanism, as different people have pointed out, is an "ism" or ideology in the same way that communism or fascism or liberalism are isms. As G. K. Chesterton put it: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed (not on ethnic identity).

That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. . . ." the nation's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire. The revolutionary ideology which became the American Creed is liberalism in its eighteenth- and nineteenth century meanings…

Polls show that the majority of Americans still adhere to this creed but Americanism is once again under attack. This time led by a president that openly rejects Exceptionalism.

The battle that is raging over health care and the rest of the left's agenda is not that there are problems that cold hearted conservatives would rather ignore as the left claims. It's that the majority of Americans, like our ancestors in the early 1900s, are not willing to fundamentally reorient the Ameican Creed in a new and dangerous direction to ameliorate these conditions.

The outcome of this latest attack on Americanism remains to be seen but if we hold true to our values, as a nation, we should once again emerge intact. Battered perhaps but not beaten.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave: Americas Progressive Hexagon
From The Founding Blogger

mmmm Charts and Graphs: Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group
From Gallop

Obama's Rift With the Military
From Foriegn Policy

President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review.

... President Obama has been slowly veering off into a civil-military ditch of his own digging. Despite his relative inexperience in national security matters, this was not inevitable; during the campaign President Obama showed himself to be fairly deft rhetorically in regards to civil-military relations and he carried this strong performance through the first several months of his presidency. However, in recent months he has seemed far less at ease with his wartime Commander-in-Chief role.

From the Pet Peeve Department: 'Yuppie 911': Beacons make calls for help too easy
From the Anchorage Daily News

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls. What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

I wrote several months ago about the "Washington pussies rescued from Alaska's Killer Midnight Sun." I also was incensed when the pinheads on this seasons "Survivor" opted to take pillows instead of a tarp. Perhaps I'm just being too critical but I'm convinced some people are just too stupid to survive.

Almost forgot the weekly shoutout to the Raiders: Still Suck!

Iowa Hawkeyes 8 and 0

Wow, after a defensive battle between the Hawks and the Michigan State Spartans the Spartans scored a TD to put them into the lead with less than two minutes to go. All hope was suddenly drained. Then miraculously the Hawks marched 70 uncontested yards in 11 plays and with 2 seconds on the clock QB Ricky Stanzi connected on a seven yard pass in the end zone to Marvin McNutt to win the game. I am still stunned and amazed. 8 and 0... Wow.

From the CR Gazette:

Ricky Stanzi’s slant to Marvin McNutt immediately gets its own wing in the Hawkeye Athletics Hall of Fame. It gets replayed over and over and over and over in Iowa this week, the rest of this year, maybe the rest of this half-century.

Here’s how a big a play it was: It made you briefly forget its big-picture significance, which was to keep a perfect season perfect and take Iowa to 8-0 for the first time since football was invented.

From KCRG Sports: Video Here.

BCS Standings: See #4 HERE

Graphic borrowed from the University of Iowa

Flying the North Country

The following was brought to my attention by alert reader and fellow pilot MrTex:

One rule to remember when flying the Alaska back country is to remove all those tasty bear treats before leaving your aircraft unattended. The unfortunate Super Cub pictured below fell victim to one such inquisitive ursine critter that thought he happened on a giant can of pink salmon. Heartache! See all the pictures HERE

In typical Alaskan fashion the pilot,with a little plastic wrap and a generous supply of hundred mile an hour tape, was able to effect repairs and get the plane home. A little fresh paint and this one would be good as new.
This type of innovation is not that unusual although you would probably have a hard time getting a field approval from your local AI. I had a friend that once ground looped his Cessna 180 while glacier landing in the Wrangle Mountains. He proceeded to secure the upturned wing tip with climbing rope for the flight back to Anchorage.

When the Revolution Comes to America

I have been making the claim for some time now that Obama is a radical but I have never really taken the time to explain myself. First let me describe the character of revolutions in general and then Obama’s revolution in particular.

When revolution comes to America it will not be in the form of an AK47 toting, cigar chomping, beret wearing radical. Although Obama is outwardly atypical of the radical’s persona his ends are identical. The goal of the revolutionary obviously is to overturn the status quo and replace it with some alternative.

It is probably fitting that one of Obama’s first stops was Turkey and it was humorous when he praised Turkey’s long rich history. The long rich history that Obama was paying homage to is barely a century old. Following World War I Mustafa Kemal Ataturk buried the Ottoman past , sometimes brutally, and installed a western style democracy.

Other examples include Iran during the 1920s when the Shah likewise undertook a revolutionary project to replace the Persian culture with a western culture; modernity was the buzzword of the post Ottoman Middle East. In more recent memory Iran rejected modernity and replaced it with Islam. In Africa most nations replaced imperialism with communism. In colonial America, monarchism was replaced by a liberal republic. Etc.

There is little doubt about Obama’s radical intentions but socialism has never played well in America. Therefore Obama has a special challenge before him; how to replace the status quo in America without openly declaring what will replace it. The closest that any democrat comes to full disclosure is the ubiquitous phrase “leveling the field”. (Google - level the field Obama” 25 million hits)

The first phase of the revolution requires the dismantling of the old order. Outwardly this has been largely rhetorical. America is not exceptional; America is not a Christian nation, capitalism has failed, etc. The second phase is Obama himself; the Obama blitzkrieg, all Obama all the time, the continuous campaign. World Tours, television appearances, speeches overloaded with self adulation are just tactics in the larger strategy.

It may look on the surface look like a “cult of personality” or narcissism but Obama is at least for now the face of the revolution which explains why he was so quick to accept the Nobel. It is a persona builder much like the recent attempt at using the NEA for new Obama iconography or getting the president into the classroom.

On the other side of the battlefield however, and what makes this strategy so precarious, is the persona wreckers. Rush Limbaugh was an obvious target early on. More recently, “tea baggers”, Fox News, and particularly Glen Beck have been not just criticized but openly attacked by the administration.Obama may appear thin skinned when the administration lashes out but the revolution demands it.

Like a vampire, sunlight could be fatal to the revolution so from the administrations perspective anything that damages the persona must be extinguished immediately and forcibly. Its up to the counter revolutionaries to increase the wattage on this revolution to shatter the ediface which is Obama.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Iowa Hawkeyes Ream Wisconsin 20-10: The Hawkeyes are 7-0 overall, 3-0 in Big Ten play, and number one in the conferance. This week they are ranked No. 6 in the first BCS poll, seventh in the latest Associated Press and Harris polls and eighth by USA Today. Until they get beaten its time to put the "do they deserve this ranking" to rest. Up next Michigan State.
BCS Standings

Oakland Raiders: One upset does not a winner make. Still S...!

Decline is a Choice: A must read.
From Charles Krauthammer

The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice.

UPDATE: Crass Newweek hyphenates Krauthammer's name. "Charles Kraut-hammer doesn't represent any swing voters."

From the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Department

READY TO REVOLT: Oath Keepers pledge to prevent dictatorship in United States
From The Las Vegas Review Journal

Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

Iowa Petition for Immediate Recall and Arrest of U. S. Senators Grassley and Harkin:
From In Perpetuum Rights

We, THE PEOPLE, the SOVEREIGN ELECTORS, FREEMEN, and INHABITANTS of the State of Iowa, in accordance with our Unalienable Rights forever protected by the Constitution of Iowa (1857), do so hereby COMMAND the immediate Recall of the two U.S. Senators of for the State of Iowa and thus THE PEOPLE, Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley... in violation of their Oath of Office to Protect and Defend the Rights of THE PEOPLE, as secured by the Constitution for the United States of America,...

Wouldn't it be better to just repeal the 17th Amendment?

Be Prepared: Wow, emergency rations at COSTCO and Self contained underground composite structures. Honey, can I have the credit card?

The Road to Dystopia: The Obama Fiasco.
From NRO

Barack Obama is obviously a very intelligent man, and should be a popular and successful president. But his mandate for profound reform and a steam-cleaning of the Augean Stable of Washington is being squandered. So far the change is more of the same, only worse.

The Obama administrations "change" only looks worse if you are viewing them through the lens of past "transformative" presidents such as Reagan or Roosevelt. Those presidents largely worked within the framework of American institutions and historical political norms.

Obama is, pardon the phrase, a horse of a different color. He is a radical that plans to upend the status quo and transform America into his own image. What most view as ineffectiveness or failure is in reality what a socialist revolution would look like when it finally comes, full force, to America. An Obama Fiasco? Hardly.

I'm a racist, Your a racist, Limbaughs a racist too

From the Dr. Seuss collection c1945.

MSNBC Contributor: Rush Limbaugh Would ‘Love to Say He Owns a Plantation Full of Black Men’
From Newsbusters

Iowahawk Art Contest Wrap Up

Well Salmon fans it grieves me to announce that despite your hard work and dedication the Salmon masterpiece "A Man Among Giants" fell a little short in the Iowahawk Endowment for the Arts Contest. The actual winner graciously accepted the $33.18 prize here although I must say that the content of the acceptance speech seems vaguely familiar.

My fears that the free and fair voting process may have been compromised by ACORN-like tactics and hanging chads have been put to rest in Iowahawks winners announcement.

One reader asked where the inspiration for the Salmon entry came from. I have to admit that it was stolen from the works of Andy Thomas. For my Democrat friends Mr. Thomas also has a Democratic version available.

Once again thanks your support. Now excuse me while I go cry in my morning beer.

John Murtha; King of Pork

The general response to complaints about earmarks is that they are such a minute portion of total spending that they are not worth worrying about . Last spring despite campaign promises to reign in earmarks Obama admitted "On occasion, earmarks have been used as a vehicle for waste, fraud and abuse." He then went on to sign a budget containing nearly 9000 earmarks worth about $7.7 Billion . It will be interesting to see if the president will be tougher this time around. From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

In September the Center for Public Integrity showed that last year 12 of 16 members of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, which is chaired by Johnstown Democrat John Murtha, earmarked $100 million in government work for firms linked to friendly lobbyists, contractors and contributors.

Last week the organization released a new review that found similar interactions by 10 of the 16 members now on the committee. In next year's defense spending bill, the House version contains 30 earmarks obtained by subcommittee members that direct $103 million to contractors who either employ or recently employed former personal staff members or subcommittee aides who are now lobbyists.

Its not that the money is being spent, its how its being spent that is criminal. As Obama admitted "Projects have been inserted at the eleventh hour, without review, and sometimes without merit, in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest," This scam with the taxpayers money is nothing more than a modern day spoils system.

In the USA, the granting of offices and favours among the supporters of a party in office. The spoils system, a type of patronage, was used by President Jackson in the 1830s in particular, and by Republican administrations after the Civil War. The practice remained common in the 20th century in US local government.

The term is derived from a speech after an election victory by Democratic Senator William Marcy: ‘To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.’

Wahington Times; March 2009 Obama Signs Spending Bill, Vowing to Battle Earmarks

Flotsam and Jetsam

Iowa Hawkeyes Squeak by Michigan: After a thriller Saturday night the 6 and 0 Hawkeyes edge up one place to # 12. Go HAWKS!

Oakland Raiders. Still suck!:
NFL.Com "Oakland finished with as many punts (seven) as it did first downs (124 yards net offence). That is perhaps the best example of how poorly the Raiders' offense performed."

I have refrained from offering Al Davis advice this season, for some reason he refuses to take my calls. If you are listening Al, QB JaMarcuss Russell is not yet ready for prime time!

Homesteading Alaska: A good read.
From The Anchorage Press

“Real estate is more or less the male biological clock. There is some hardwired imperative that kicks in at a certain point, the way caribou migrate and birds sing,” war correspondent and outdoor journalist Patrick Symmes wrote in Outside Magazine a year ago. “Around the start of their fifth decade, men suddenly discover gardening. They plant trees. They lay down fence lines. They construct and hold. Like a spoiled child, we say, This is mine. Mine, mine, mine. Building a cabin in the wilderness is a nearly universal dream. Honestly, if you haven’t had it at some point, there’s something wrong with you.”

Extreme Flying

Top Gun Reenactment with the Oracle Challenger and the Blue Angels. Photo Courtesy USA Today.

You are never to old to learn: Seasoned Citizen Earns Sport Pilot Certificate at 82.
From EAA.

Happy Anniversary Che
From American Thinker

Forty two years ago today, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. If the saying "What goes around comes around" ever fit, it's here.

The Afghanistan Dilemma
From Big Lizards

The Left has always hated America more than any other country, for the obvious reason: We're the world's greatest bulwark of liberty, individualism, and Capitalism against international socialism. The revolution would eventually have to go through us before it could gain world domination; so leftists decided long ago that one of their strategies had to be to inflict military defeat on the United States whenever and wherever they could.

Shock Dismay Disgust

Shock Dismay Disgust. Those were the feelings that rushed over me as I sat down for my morning coffee and opened the browser for the news of the day.There at the top of Drudge, "Obama Wins Nobel Prize..."

Shock: Certainly this has to be some kind of a joke. Perhaps it was a slow news day and Drudge picked up a story from the Onion. Unfortunately it is not a joke or a hoax or even a very bad dream. The Nobel Committee has given this somtimes esteemed award to a man simply because he has hope and vision.

Dismay: This should not be surprising I suppose, the award has gone to other visionaries such as Al Gore and Yasser Arafat. At least they were purported to have made some concrete accomplishments in changing the world. If you call making a very bad movie or terrorizing a nation as major strides towards world peace that is. From Rueters;

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations...

Disgust: That's it? He made a speech about arms control and he wins the Nobel? He has spent the last two years making speeches, some I admit are awe inspiring, and by golly he ran a great campaign but I submit, never in the history of history has one man received so much from so many for accomplishing so damn little!

Update uno: Shock, Dismay, and Disgust is beginning to roll in from unexpected places-

From Hotair: Even mainstream media stunned, skeptical over Nobel Peace prize:

Update dos: We might be disgusted and dismayed but we shouldn't be shocked. The Committee just rewarded a fellow traveler.

From John Podhoretz: The Michael Moore of Oslo

He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership.

It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s the most obvious choice, once you think about it, since Michael Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.

Update tres: From the desk of the DNC

...DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told POLITICO. "Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize...
"The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn...

Was it unpatriotic for the little boy to point out that the Emperor was bare ass naked?

Via Ace

Flotsam and Jetsam

With the much ballyhooed release of Sarah Palin’s autobiography last week I was inspired to release the long awaited, much anticipated, tome unto thyself.

The Iowa Hawkeyes continued their roll to a 5 - 0 record with a tough win over Arkansas State. My favorite sister in law, from deep in the heart of Texass, pointed out in my post last week that I can't call the school my Alma mater until I actually get a diploma. Such a smarty, but her ALMA MATER Texass A+M was crushed by the other Arkansas team this week. Sorry JJ

The Oakland Raiders: You still suck!

OK SALMON LOVERS ITS TIME TO MAN UP.

The Iowa Hawk has closed the competition and its time for the FINAL VOTING FOR THE IOWAHAWK $33.18 STEEL CAGE ART DEATH MATCH!

OK Salmon Team make your way into the election booth (HERE) and click on entry number 69. Yes#69, I know that number holds special meaning for most of you so lets go out there and reel one in for the old Salmon.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY ITS ABOUT THE GLORY!

The Salmon Submission:
"A Man Among Giants"

I'm Somebody Now!

Channeling Navin R. Johnson

Entry #69, Cedar River Salmon! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at the IowaHawk everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name on a website - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.

Update: In my excitement I almost forget...Welcome IowaHawk fans!

Update: Moved back to the top for some crass self promotion.

The Afghanistan Decision

I always thought that George Bush’s framing Afghanistan and Iraq as two wars was a mistake when Iraq was obviously an extension of the “War on Terror.” That Cheney is such a sly bastard, it’s now clear that if the Bush administration wanted to ensure that the war was brought to a successful conclusion the “two war” framing was brilliant.

It opened the door for democrats to proclaim the “good war -bad war” analogy that has now trapped Obama in a rhetorical box. He is going to find it politically hazardous to walk away when he has promised to keep his eye on the ball, fight the good war that was “ignored by the Bush administration”, and to get Bin Laden.

Insurgencies are won and lost not on the battlefield but on the home front. The French learned this in Algeria and the US learned it in Vietnam. The insurgency in Iraq was in effect al Qaida’s Tet Offensive and it almost succeeded but for the tenacity of Bush, Petraeus, and the American soldier. The insurgency in Afghanistan is now heating up not because the front was ignored but because the enemy believes that they now have an opportunity to sway a war weary American public led by a weak kneed president.

Obama will either come to realize that he has the opportunity to be remembered as the President that won the war. Or he can opt to go down the path of the slow bleed as Joe Biden has suggested and eventually pull out as the left demands. The reality is that while Obama has compared himself to every president since Abe Lincoln I don’t believe B.HO wants to be the next LBJ. After a few days of political self reflection Obama will give the commanders what they need to finish this fight.

Sunday Service

The Quitter

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.

But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight --
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.