So you feel bad for the Guantanamo detainees?

A good friend of mine recently forwarded a copy of the following letter to a "concerned citizen" from Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently, the federal government initiated a new program to address some of the concerns related to Guantanamo detainees. This official letter describes the new "LARK" program which enlists the help of these concerned citizens. Please provide a copy to any of your friends who may also be concerned about the treatment of Guantanamo detainees.


The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

Dear Concerned Citizen:

Thank you for your recent letter expressing concern about our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like you, we are creating the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter. Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome this character flaw. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless you feel that this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him. He has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code that he considers appropriate, but I'm sure that over time they will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka. Just remind them that it is all part of respecting his culture and his religious beliefs.

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you inform us of the proper way to do our job. Take good care of Ahmed and good luck!

Cordially,
Don Rumsfeld

(For those who take things way too seriously, this letter is a parody.)

Blackmail!

Click on the title for a perfect example of the blatant blackmail of Islamic leaders, this one in London.

The message: Get out of Iraq or we will continue to terrorize and kill your civilians.

This is the teaching of their "religion": "Do what I say or I will...

• Cut off your finger
• Chop off your hand
• Cut out your tongue
• Cut off your ____ (pick a body part)
• Kill members of your family
• Blow up innocent civilians."

Ooops. I forgot. None of us are innocent. We are all infidels - we don't believe as they do. So we shall become either dhimmis, or Allah wants us dead. With free speech like that, we won't have any free speech.

Today it's get out of Iraq. What was it before 9/11? What will it be next when we leave Iraq?

This is blackmail, pure and simple. It should be rewarded with redoubled efforts to practice whatever profiling is necessary to get every one of these uncivilized, slimy vipers off the streets. By the way, this is the same character that was congratulating the Islamic highjackers after 9/11.

What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do

Every so often there are periods in our lives when we don't know what to do. I'm not speaking of not knowing whether to wear brown shoes or black shoes, or what to have for dinner. I mean the big stuff. Like "my career field is a dead end, but I don't know one that is any better." Or "this 'ol town has run its' course in my life, it's time to move on, but I don't know where to go." (Sounds like the lyrics of a country song!)

First, if you believe there is a God anywhere near the vicinity of this universe, pray. This "step of faith" has several benefits. It taps the main power in the universe on your behalf. It increases your faith, especially if you make it a habit and look for results. And finally, it helps you focus on what you really want, because knowing you usually get what you pray for, you will be careful to pray for what you really want.

If you are close to completing your education, i.e. your bachelors' degree, finish it, even if the last credits you take are not in the perfect career field. If you get in the habit of changing direction in school, you may become a perpetual student. I admit, some folks enjoy being a perpetual student. Most don't. After your initial degree, you will have more time to be a perpetual student of life - focusing on the things that REALLY interest you.

During this time, your other primary area of focus is to identify, list, and prioritize the things you need to do to learn what you want to do. For example, if you have no idea what career field you really want - nothing seems particularly attractive, make the college career counselor your best friend. Take aptitude and interest inventories - again. Focus your energies in finding a career field in something you enjoy doing. The other option is spending most of your waking hours doing something you don't care much about as a means to enjoy a very few number of hours of your life. Granted, a job or career need not be an end in itself. Life does not need to revolve around your job. But, especially for a single person, a job is the center of life, and for 95% of us, it consumes 80% of our waking hours. The quirk in this is that the jobs that are most fun don't pay much. 99% of beach bums, ski bums, vagrants, groupies, artists, and musicians get paid very little.

Once you discover your top three career fields, you may discover a knowledge or experience gap between those fields and your degreed education and work experience. That is where the twin gems of "networking" and "transferable job skills" come in. You need networking to get your foot in the door, and you need to identify your transferable job skills to get hired. And since this new job is in your recently chosen "hot button" career, you will (hopefully) be motivated to do whatever it takes to get up to speed to do your job, or to work your way up the ladder from your entry level position.

For example, in the field of city planning an entry level position could be an administrative assistant, a zoning inspector, code enforcement officer, or a planning technician. The pay for these positions range from the low $20,000's to the low $30,000's. The majority of the intermediate positions typically require a bachelors or master's degree in the specific field of planning, or closely related field such as public administration, urban design, or architecture. A website that lists planning jobs around the nation is the American Planning Association web site at www.planning.org. Each state chapter also lists job openings on the web. These chapter sites are also accessible through the web site.

Most people who implement a career change understand that they have two big challenges: lower initial pay than the career field they left, and a steep learning curve that will require lots of motivation, energy, dedication, and a few years of time.

Another thing to remember is that for many, the journey is the destination. The journey can be a very fulfilling endeavor. Often time for many, simply reaching a static goal results in disappointment. It is stimulating and healthy to continue reaching for new experiences, both in your career and in your location.

Islam a Lamb or a Viper?

Here is an e-mail concerning the recent London bombings prominently displayed on the CNN website:

"We utterly condemn those atrocities. We condemn those responsible. Islam is a peaceful religion and it teaches peace. Those who are responsible must be brought to justice, no matter what religion or what country they belong to. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have suffered in this atrocity. We the Scottish Muslims stand United and our prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been killed and all those injured in this atrocity. We appeal to the authorities that those who are responsible must be brought to justice. " Tahir Mohammed; Glasgow, Scotland

Based on what I know about Islam, current events, and CNN, the following observations are made:

• CNN, as most left-leaning media outlets, is a pawn of Islam
• The e-mail does not represent the truth about Islam; if spoken sincerely, it is an oddity; if spoken insincerely, it is a purposeful deception.
• The hundreds of terrorist acts over the last two decades have virtually all been committed by (pick one) grandmothers, boy scouts, Muslims.
• Therefore, Islam (pick one) is a peaceful religion, bakes cookies and gives them to little children, is a religion that frequently practices and condones terrorism as a means to exert their influence over those not sharing their faith.

It is interesting to note that most of the Islamic blogs and e-mails (see Jihad Watch website http://jihadwatch.org/) following the London bombings either congratulated themselves or complained about possible retribution against fellow Muslims. Rarely did they express sorrow for the victims or rage at the perpetrators.

Intelligence reports indicate at least 24 terrorists were involved in setting up and setting off the blasts. How many additional "sympathizers" do you think were needed to keep the plot a secret from British intelligence?

I am wary of Muslims. No, I am more than wary. Islam itself is not far from being a terrorist organization. I suspect that many of the "peaceful" among them are PR front people - the lobbying and fund raising arm, so to speak. And they have well-earned their reputation. Those who sincerely claim to be "peaceful" certainly do not appear to be in the Islamic mainstream.

PS: A great article about what we in the US should be doing differently and unapologetically is summarized by Michelle Malkin in a recent commentary http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20050713.shtml