What will it take?

I don't know anyone who works at the Fountain Place tower in downtown Dallas. Least I don't think I do. Thankfully, I'm not sitting here today sifting through a long list of names of those killed by a terrorist's bomb this week, looking for ones I know.

But I will be soon. So will you.

The 9/11 Commission came to the correct conclusion years ago that terrorists, namely Al Qaeda, had been at war with us for some time but that we simply had not been at war with them.

They still are. But are we?

Oh, we're aware. To be sure, the FBI and CIA are.

I've lost count of the number of plots uncovered and squelched over the last eight years. But there have been six disrupted very recently. One in Philadelphia. Another in New York. One in Springfield, Ill. One in Denver. One in Quantico, Va.

And one right here in Dallas.

I just don't think we, as in you and me, are all that concerned. Why this doesn't scare the living crap out of everybody is mind-boggling.

This would-be Dallas bomber wasn't just a talker. He wasn't trying to hatch a plan.

He actually parked a truck loaded full of explosives in the Fountain Place building's underground parking garage, then moved to a secure location and attempted to detonate the bomb.

Fortunately, his bomb was a fake, provided to him by undercover FBI agents posing as an Al Qaeda cell.

"Scary" and "unnerving" are terms I've seen and heard used by people today.

Sorry, but I have to imagine that if that had happened several blocks away, in my building, I'd be a bit more than "unnerved."

No, the bomb didn't go off. No, there aren't several hundred funerals in the planning stages this weekend. So why the fuss, right?

How many more Hosam Maher Husein Smadis are there?

This guy was an illegal alien living down in tiny Italy, Texas. He was arrested 13 days before his attempt at "jihad" (aka mass murder) for having no driver's license and no insurance, yet was released the same day.

Did anyone ask if he was here legally? Did anyone check?

Probably not, because we certainly don't want to infringe on anyone's imagined "rights" by enforcing our laws.

Will the question be asked how he arrived in the U.S. two years ago? It wouldn't surprise me if he crossed the Mexican border.

Next to stories Friday about Smadi was one detailing our government's plan to cut border control agents along the Mexican border despite the fact that in the last year, agents have intercepted 530 aliens from "special interest" countries (those identified as countries that pose a terrorist threat), including three persons linked directly to terrorism.

You see, despite what far too many people want to think and say, illegals are not solely a bunch of harmless little fuzzy creatures simply seeking a better life.

And given the percentage of our border that remains unsecured, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I'd say the probability that many, many more Smadis have snuck through is rather high.

And if that's so?

An IRA terrorist once told a British official, "I only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every day."

We got lucky here this week, as did folks in five other cities. But what about tomorrow? Next week?

A friend asked me the other day, "What do you suggest we do? Live in paranoid fear? Never leave our houses?"

Not at all.

But a large number of people need to wake up to reality. This world is teeming with fanatics who want nothing more than to kill us. All of us. Conservatives and liberals. Black and white. Rich and poor.

And we seem hell-bent on making the job far easier than it should be, whether by supporting policies that make no sense or simply refusing to give a damn.

The times, they are a changin'

I'm going to vomit the next time I hear a Lib (politician or otherwise) talking about how it's time for bipartisanship ... time to work together for the good of the country.

In the last quarter-century, Democrats' desire to "work together" amounts to nothing more than a Republican capitulation away from conservative ideals to a far left socialist agenda. You'll never hear a Democrat talking bipartisanship when a Republican president (and a moderate one at that) is attempting to tackle a problem or issue or when Republican-sponsored legislation is on the table (on the few times such legislation is actually allowed to see the light of day, that is).

A died-in-the-wool socialist colleague at work was ranting the other day about Republicans balking at an Obama agenda item or cabinet nominee or something, bemoaning "the state of our economy" and how "we need to get things done for the good of the country."

I'll grant you that the economy is circling the drain (although ratcheting up the socialist policies that contributed mightily to its current state seems an awful lot to me like pouring gasoline on a fire in an attempt to extinguish said fire).

But since when are Libs concerned with "the good of the country"? I mean, if there ever is a time to "come together" or to work in unison, wouldn't A TIME OF WAR occupy the top of the list? When fanatical jihadists will stop at nothing to kill Americans?

Try as I might, I cannot recall EVEN ONE DEMOCRAT who, during the last seven or eight years, has NOT pushed this country and its men and women in uniform under the bus with everything from tired rhetoric to outright lies where foreign policy and a War On Terror being fought on two fronts is concerned.

And let's not even talk about the constant disclosure of secret information about how we're fighting that war, from ways in which we've attacked terrorists financially to militarily ... disclosures that, at any other point in this nation's history likely would have resulted in charges of treason.

So please, let's not go there any more on "for the good of the country."

*****
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pumped about having a new Secretary of the Treasury (who will be in charge of the IRS) who is an acknowledged tax cheat.

That's right. Obama's nominee, Timothy Geitner, apparently "forgot" to pay federal income taxes for a couple of years a little while back. ANY federal income taxes. On hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of course, when this bit of information was revealed after the nomination, Libs passed it off as "a simple oversight." (Much like Sandy Berger was merely "sloppy" after being caught stuffing Clinton Administration documents in the National Archives vital to the 9-11 Commission investigation into his pants and socks.)

A simple oversight? Geitner also made "a simple mistake" in trying to write off summer camps for his kids as "Daycare Expenses."

OK, my Liberal Apologist Friends. When filing your taxes this year, report your income a mere $1,000 less than what it actually was. Sign and date your return. And when audited at some point down the road, tell the IRS agent assigned to your case (who will be a Geitner employee) that you made a "simple mistake."

See if Mr. or Mrs. IRS Agent will simply smile, pat you on the head and request that you be more careful next time.

*****
I noticed a story on Drudge last week that I didn't hear mentioned in the mainstream media about a sudden outbreak of Bubonic Plague in a terrorist training camp somewhere in Africa that killed 40-some jihadists.

That the media has no apparent interest in dead terrorists isn't unusual. (Unless, of course, they somehow can tie in a "controversial" Bush policy or also report that a number of "civilians" in the school or mosque where said terrorists were operating were also killed.)

I just hope that in its zeal to release captured terrorists or to eliminate means that for seven-plus years have kept this country safe, SOMEONE in the Obama Administration is asking whether this was an traditional, rat-generated strain of Bubonic Plague or whether some careless jihadist dropped a test tube while fashioning a crude biological weapon out in the desert.

Oh wait. Silly me. I went and forgot that it's the Liberal position that we wait and PROSECUTE Mohammad AFTER he visits a plague upon one of our cities.

*****
Speaking of shutting down prisons, you had to love the "press briefing" last week when it was announced that Obama had signed the Executive Order to close Guantanamo Bay's prison.

Reporter: "What are you going to do with the prisoners there?"

Press secretary: "We still have to talk about that."

I do believe this qualifies, 100 percent, as an example of The Cart Before The Horse.

A couple of days later, some Very Smart Lib offered that the Very Bad Terrorists held at Gitmo (as opposed to the Only Slightly As Bad Terrorists, who we will release so that they can exercise their rights to rejoin the effort to kill Very Evil Americans) could be sent to a maximum security facility near Denver, where they would be kept in isolation (until, of course, ACLU attorneys can win their freedom so that they, too, can exercise their rights to rejoin the effort to kill Very Evil Americans).

Prediction: If such a transfer does occur, it will be less than a month before the New York Times or Washington Post begins reporting on the terrible conditions the Very Bad Terrorists are having to endure in solitary confinement at a prison not equipped to bestow upon them the many "rights" offered at Gitmo.

That or there will be riots among all the other inmates over the preferential treatment given the Very Bad Terrorists.

*****
Another Drudge headline I saw last night fell immediately into the category of I HAVE To Read This!

"Pelosi says birth control will help economy"

I had heard reports that hundreds of millions in the Libs' trillion-dollar economic stimulus plan was earmarked for condoms. My hunch then was right on that those hundreds of millions would go to Lib friends in Planned Parenthood. The Abortion On Demand crowd, after all, helps elect Democrats every two years.

Pelosi told some Sunday Morning "News" Show Talking Head: "Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those, one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Libs often scoff (angrily, I might add) when I and other conservatives utter the word "Socialist".

But I'll point out that China (which is a communist country for those not much into politics or world affairs) also has such a program because of a dire need to "reduce costs" to The State.

Theirs features a government-imposed limit on the size of families. They, too, teach Condoms 101 in an effort to "help" couples avoid exceeding the limit. Of course, there are many who just can't seem to get with the program. And so, Abortion On Demand has become Abortion Required.

I'd suggest to Madam Speaker that we could save a TON of money with simple surgical procedures on every woman immediately following the birth of her second child. You know. As part of our national health care. It would be free!

Now THAT would be Change You Can Believe In.

(Imported from Jan. 26, 2008)

Path to another 9/11?

Path To 9/11 gets four stars but probably not for the reason most who know me think. This is something everyone should watch (it still can be viewed free on ABC's Web site), not once but as often as needed to keep fresh in mind that there are fanatical people in this world who are committed to one thing and one thing only.

It's too bad so many remain mired in political agendas, finger-pointing and outright nutball conspiracy mindsets -- or worse, the uninformed state of denial in which none of this is real. That serves one purpose: to distract attention from what every American, every person on this earth who values his or her own life, needs to focus upon.

This movie/docudrama/whatever offered a stark reminder of one very sobering fact. In any life and death struggle (i.e. war), the side that is most committed to its cause wins. These fanatical freaks with their twisted version of Islam are more than willing to die for their purpose. Can more than a fraction in this country say the same?

Hell no, they can't. We're more concerned with doing what's "right" ... we can't listen to the enemy's phone calls, trace their bank records, look in laptops or address books or even use means far short of what common sense should tell anyone is actually extreme in questioning those who are captured. We've spent billions upon billions on intelligence-gathering methods, training that ensures we have the most capable people in place to do a job and the equipment to do that job, yet we tie their hands at every turn.

If Team A and Team B line up to play a football game, and Team A is given a strict set of rules while Team B is allowed to do whatever it pleases, who wins? Well, Team B isn't playing by any rules in this case while Team A does little more than bicker in the huddle.

That we have not endured another episode on the level of 9/11 is part testimony to the hard work that's going on behind the scenes (and I mean WAY behind the scenes, as virtually nothing positive is reported these days) and part fluke. I say fluke, because the circumstances by which America was hamstrung before 9/11 largely remain in place -- we are shrouded in an environment of CYA because there's just too damn much concern with rules that rightly (in most cases, anyway) govern a civilized society day by day but should not have a thing to do with fighting a war.

Path To 9/11 didn't make me despise Bill Clinton's administration any more than I already did. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

But it reminded me that we're at war with a global enemy whose intent is to kill as many of us as possible by using any means available. We're not going to talk them down. So we damn sure better get in the game.

(Imported from Sept. 12, 2006)