Just finished watching the award-winning documentary My Child: Mothers of War, a film about the mothers of soldiers currently serving in Iraq.

Many of the families are from Texas, so this film hits close to home. The film is essentially a biography of a handful of our brave soldiers who’ve been deployed to Iraq - as seen through the eyes of their mothers. It’s a gripping personalization of the stories behind each of our American heroes.

As the producers introduced it to me…

Over half a million mothers have sent their sons and daughters to war since Sept. 11, 2001. Some of them have supported their child’s patriotic service, while others have condemned the war and its cause, angry at those responsible for sending their loved ones across the world to fight. But all of these mothers–regardless of their political sentiment or affiliation–share a common connection: an overwhelming concern for their child’s safety and a sense of powerlessness when they realize they are no longer able to protect and shelter them from danger.

The first time I watched this film, I ran through every possible emotion - from pride and patriotism to sadness and pity. The families come from every walk of life and diverse backgrounds. From a family born and raised in Texas to a family that came to America to flee a war in their own country. From those who supported the war in Iraq to those who blamed President Bush for their son’s injuries or death. From military families to anti-war activists.

It removes almost all pretense of politics from the real-life experiences these families face when their sons join the armed services. The stories are told by the mothers, each of whom are speaking as if they’re chatting with the viewer, whom they’ve known forever. They recount the days their boys were born, complete with photos and home movies through the moment their sons deployed - or in one case, quit the military. Some have returned home battered and bruised, others missing limbs. Some are still deployed while some have returned in flag-draped caskets.

The film is so well done that you feel like you’re right there when the phone rings or the knock comes to the mother’s front door. There are actual clips of press briefings by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, as well as actual footage of combat as recorded by the soldiers themselves. All of these segments intertwine to give you a unique perspective ranging from the homefront to the frontlines.

The Director, Angeliki Giannakopoulos, has done an excellent job capturing all sides of the personal toll of war. Get a copy today and watch it for yourself…

…and feel it tug at your soul.

The annual bin Laden death rumor is circulating again…

Leaked by the French.

The French defense ministry on Saturday called for an internal investigation of the leak of an intelligence document that raises the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan a month ago but said the report of the death remained unverified.
…
The daily newspaper for the Lorraine region in eastern France printed what it described as a confidential document from the French foreign intelligence service DGSE citing an uncorroborated report from Saudi secret services that the leader of the al-Qaida terror network had died.

U.S. is not confirming.

But if it is true, this is great news on two fronts. One because the animal is dead, but also because he died in such a way as to eliminate the martyrdom effect. Not like that would really mean much as the angry islamonutjobs can use anything as a pretext to mass murder.

Maybe Bill Clinton will claim he gave him typhoid…

Update: Someone reminded me of the hype surrounding a supposed “big announcement” by President Bush on Sept. 6 which turned out not to live up to the hype. Maybe this was supposed to be the big announcement, but something happened.

Update 2: There is some good (and confirmed) news out of Iraq. But don’t tune into MSM to hear about it.

There was a time and place for unions, but unions have outlived their worth. This story just further proves that point.

Domino’s Pizza delivery driver Jim Pohle could have quit when he saw a competitor offering an extra 25 cents an hour in wages and his bosses wouldn’t match it. But he decided instead to form the nation’s first pizza drivers union to successfully organize workers.

Now he represents 11 drivers as president of the American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers at the franchise where he has worked off and on for more than a dozen years. Experts say he has created a model for fast food workers wanting to organize in other locations.

This is not the kind of job that should be unionized - populated mostly by teenagers looking for some spending money or adults incapable of motivating themselves to find better employment. Unionizing them is only going to hurt the companies - most of which are small business owners who franchise.

Need more proof?

“When they declared us tipped employees and refused to pay us the Florida minimum wage of $6.40, I was kind of angry. I came home that night and I told my buddy, I said ‘We are forming a union,’” he said.

Pohle said his friend, a fellow ex-Marine, “thought I was venting steam.” But the 37-year-old, who delivers pizzas because he likes to sleep late, smoke on the job and listen to the radio, got on the Internet and found St. Louis labor attorney Mark Potashnick.

So how long before they start marching and demanding “sleeping late” and “smoking on the job” as employee “rights”?

Bottom line, this is the kind of job that if you don’t like your conditions, go find another fast food joint at which to work. This isn’t skilled labor. Unless arranging the pepperonis in just the right fashion is “skill”.

This time last year, I was in the middle of an 18 hour drive from Houston to Dallas (a drive that normally takes under 5 hours).

Here are the posts I made that day as I live-blogged our trek.

1. 4:00am Update - Roads still packed, lines still long, Rita still a bitch

2. Live blogging the Exodus

3. That’s MISTER Refugee To You

4. Nine hours later…

5. Quick Update

6. Life as a Refugee Displaced-Conservative-Caucasian-American

Some other things that happened as a result of this event…

This post was picked up by major news outlets around the world - which is interesting, as out of the thousands of posts I’ve made, it’s the one in which I really didn’t say anything.

Allman & Smash discovered my blog through the coverage I was getting from news outlets and other blogs. Since then, I’ve become part of their Blog Battalion

I wouldn’t wish a day like that on anyone. It was sweltering - temperature above 100 - and emotions were running high. I’ve spoken to many who made similar trips and most have vowed to ride the next one out. Personally, I’d probably just leave sooner.

It’s interesting to go back and read historical accounts of events like this. It’s another thing to go back and read your own personal accounts of having lived through it.

Are they actually defending the President?

Charlie Rangel:

“You do not come into my country, my congressional district, and you do not condemn my president.”

Nancy Pelosi:

“Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar but all he is an everyday thug. Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the United Nations. He demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela.”

…or are they just asking Chavez not to steal their thunder?

Update: Yep, Democrat Senator Harkin confirms it’s just about the thunder.

“Let me put it this way, I can understand the frustration, ah, and the anger of certain people around the world because of George Bush’s policies.”

Update 2: And Democrat William D. Delahunt backs him up by asserting that Bush is to blame.

But Delahunt asserted that the Bush administration’s foreign policy deserves some blame for fostering a climate where a world leader could offer such strident denunciations of the American president in front of the General Assembly.

Update 3: Right on cue, the DUmmies weigh in.

From the NYSun:

A deputy prime minister of Iraq yesterday offered a sharp contradiction of the conventional wisdom here that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda had no connection before the 2003 war, flatly contradicting a recent report from the Senate’s intelligence committee.

In a speech in which he challenged the belief of war critics that Iraqis’ lives are now worse than under Saddam Hussein, Barham Salih said, “The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told.” He went on to say, “I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam’s regime.”

A Kurdish politician who took his high school exams from inside a Baathist prison, Mr. Salih said he was the target of the alliance between jihadists, Baathists, and Al Qaeda in 2001, when a group known as Ansar al-Islam tried to assassinate him.

Now I understand why the Democrats have been so hesitant to actually publicize their plan. All this time we thought they didn’t have one when they really do. Here are the key components:

1. Raise Taxes

Rangel’s accession to the chairmanship of the committee would likely end six years of tax cuts by the Republican- controlled Congress. He said he “cannot think of one'’ of President George W. Bush’s first-term tax cuts that merit renewal.

2. Launch Investigations

3. Start Impeach Hearings

4. Cut and Run from Iraq

Back in July, I wrote about how the Democrats were applauding a Georgia court ruling striking down a common sense law aimed at preventing election fraud.

Now the House has stepped in (it’s about time!) and voted on a measure that would require voters to show proof of citizenship (The vote was 228 - 196).

The House voted Wednesday to require Americans to show proof of citizenship in order to vote…

Republican sponsors of the voter identification bill said it was a commonsense way to stop fraud at the polls. People need photo IDs to board planes, buy alcohol or cash checks, said Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Administration Committee. “This is not a new concept.”

“This is what Americans want,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., “They want safe borders and they want safe ballots.”

And right on cue, Democrats are making absurd allegations that this measure is aimed at disenfranchising minorities, the elderly and the poor.

But Democrats assailed the legislation, saying it could hurt minorities, the poor and the elderly — groups that tend to vote Democratic — who might have trouble producing a photo identification.

“This bill is tantamount to a 21st century poll tax,” said Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “It will disenfranchise large number of legal voters.”

But this argument holds no water, just like it didn’t in the Georgia case because…

…the bill stipulates that states must provide the identification cards free of charge to those who can’t afford them.

So explain to me how this amounts to a poll tax?

It doesn’t. The democrats are just lying about it because they know if it’s enacted it will reduce their ability to commit voter fraud.

Everyone’s reacting to the “one-man Axis of Crazy” Hugo Chavez temper tantrum at the U.N. today. In his speech, he called President Bush the devil, promoted the ridiculous Noam Chomsky and called for the U.N. to move its headquarters out of the U.S.

Though, I will have to agree with his last point. But why stop there? Instead of just getting the U.N. out of the U.S., why not just get the U.S. out of the U.N.?

But the Chavez tirade should come as no surprise. It’s just a repeat of his speech last November at the U.N.

The speech by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in United Nations General Assembly on Thursday turned into an anti-American show.

Chavez, who defined the US as a “terrorist state” in his speech, said Washington does not respect the UN General Assembly resolutions and asked the organization, therefore, to leave this country.

As Michelle points out:

The applause from the UN assembly. Prolonged clapping.

And in 2005…

At the end, Chavez’s remarks got the loudest applause of the summit.

The U.N. stopped being relevant a long time ago. This is just icing on the cake.

This could really change the global landscape.

Syntroleum (Nasdaq:SYNM), a leader in Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, announced today that its ultra-clean jet fuel has been successfully tested in a United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress Bomber aircraft. The plane lifted off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., with a 50/50 blend of FT and traditional JP-8 jet fuel which was burned in two of the eight engines on the plane. This marks the first time that FT jet fuel has been tested in a military flight demo, and is the first of several planned test flights. This landmark event is a result of more than four years of successful research and development efforts with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), focused on producing a high performance alternative fuel for military applications.
…
The jet fuel that was used today was produced from natural gas using Syntroleum’s proprietary FT process, but the company believes the fuel can also be produced from the vast domestic coal resources. The potential to produce these fuels from domestic resources and the opportunity for long-term supply agreements with the DOD provides a mechanism for diversifying the nation’s energy supply and increasing domestic job growth. In addition to military applications, successful testing of Syntroleum’s FT jet fuel could lead to opportunities with commercial airlines.

Not only is it clean-burning (translation: better for the environment), but it could reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

One company is already looking to build the nation’s first clean-coal power plant.

Xcel said Tuesday that it is committing $3.5 million for preliminary development of a new breed of power plant that would convert coal to gas for its fuel, delivering far fewer pollutants into the air and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

So what does this mean for us? Considering the U.S. has one of the largest reserves of coal on the planet, it means we could theoretically end our import of oil from the middle east completely.

Coal is found on every continent, and world coal reserves exceed 1 trillion tons. However, the largest reserves are found in the U.S., former Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. and former Soviet Union each have about 23% of the world’s reserves, and China has about 11%.

Today’s test wasn’t the first time our military used alternative fuels…

In 1944 General George S. Patton’s Third Army was racing across southern France. In his haste to be the first U.S. commander to cross into Germany, however, Patton overextended his supply lines. His armored columns ground to a dead stop. Faced the choice of waiting until he could be resupplied or draining the fuel of captured German vehicles, Patton chose the latter. His tanks and armored personnel carriers continued to steamroll toward Germany, powered by the German’s own ersatz gasoline – synthetic fuel manufactured from coal.

As Paul puts it:

If we continue to use coal at the same rate as we do today, we will have enough coal to last for about 285 years. That is 285 years we can tell President Ahmadinejad of Iran, to go to hell.

Would be nice.