Hello, I am 17 years old; I took my oath and signed my contract into Active Duty Army. I ship to basic on June 29th, 2005.

Even though I am only in Delayed Entry, I have formed my own opinion on Moore, Bush, and the conflict in Iraq, et al. I’d just like to say that when you take your oath, it’s probably one of the most scary moments of your life because you know that you’re bound by obligation from that point on to (or when you ship to basic, at least) that you must perform your duties along with others at the best of your ability until your contract has expired. At least that’s what it was for me.

The thing is, when I singed those papers and took that oath, I didn’t have someone’s politics in my head. I just felt it was something that I had to do. Some people say I’m Bush’s pawn, fighting Bush’s war—well, I’m not; not in my mind. I don’t see it as an onus to be doing my part along with the best our country has to offer.

As far as Michael Moore and his tirades are concerned, I have to say that I respect him for using our constitution as it should be—and I say that loosely. I don’t appreciate his slander or hypocrisy, but this is what the soldiers, that he desecrates, fought for: the freedom to speak out about your disagreement of what your government is doing. It’s his opinion, albeit I think he does somewhat exploit the first amendment.

As for Bush—I’d have to say I’m pretty passive. Even though I’m enlisted, I’m still my own self, and I do have my own opinions. I think there’s room for improvement on his part, but I don’t feel that he’s driven our service members to their deaths.

I feel our place in Iraq is a bit stressed. I just wish that it would move along a bit smoother (reconstruction, etc), it just seems like it’s being dragged along with no real end in sight. I’m not scared to be shipped to Iraq—well, I don’t think scared is the word. I do have a fear of being put in the position of tactical assignment in a war zone, but it’s not like my CO’s are sending me out in the middle of the field as cannon fodder. I think it’s awfully pessimistic for people to say that no good whatsoever will arise from the Iraq war. As long as the people there that are fighting the battle, taking the bullets, and sleeping in the dirt agree with what they’re doing—trying to make a difference—I think that’s what matters most.

As far as politics in general within the United States… I tend to stay away from it. I like to debate, but when it’s something as heated as politics in this day and age, nothing positive comes from it. All it ends up as is brawl of words, someone calling you uninformed because you disagree with them.

And that’s that—thanks for reading what I have to say.

Regards,
Jason Theis

Well, here’s something interesting...my wife, who holds a degree from Yale in English and who spent 4 years comparing and contrasting authors for content and style, and furthermore, a woman who wrote her thesis proving that one of Shakespeare’s plays was authored by George Wilkins, took one look at Cindy Casey’s letter and said “Mike wrote that.”

And she’s out to prove it.  I turn you over to the beautiful and talented Donna Kenefick:

After reading the “letter from a grieving mother” Michael Moore posted on his site today (link here), I feel completely convinced that Moore himself wrote this letter. A quick study of the grammar, cadence, tone and content of the piece shows Moore’s hand at work and not one of a grieving parent. A step-by-step walkthrough of the letter will show the hand of Moore at work here and not one of a grieving parent.

The letter begins with a brief paragraph: “26 years ago today, Casey was 6 hours and 49 minutes old. What a joyful day that day was. The birth of our firstborn. He was so wanted and his birth was so highly anticipated. A true bundle of joy.”

Note the way the sentences are structured here. They are truncated, two of them not even containing a verb. This is CLASSIC Moore styling. Think back to his voice-overs in “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11”, many of which include short, quick quips like those seen above. For a side-by side comparison, compare the style of this letter, particularly this paragraph, to Mike’s Letter entitled “17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists) which he wrote after the election (link here). When comparing the two, note the truncations and repetitions: “Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii.”. It has the same feel and sound as the opening of the “grieving mother” letter. These quick quips are one of the hallmarks of Moore’s speaking and writing style – one not often employed by others.

The “grieving mother” continues: “One year, one month, and 25 days ago (almost to the minute) George Bush and his Crime Cabal killed Casey in Sadr City. One of them, perhaps Condi, Rummy, Bremer, or Cheney, might as well have pulled the trigger that blew off the back of Casey’s sweet head.”

I have two major problems with this paragraph. First and foremost, I highly doubt a grieving mother would be using cutesy nicknames like Condi or Rummy, or use a liberal catchphrase like the Crime Cabal. Those terms are almost exclusively used by political commentators, be they bloggers, activists or personnel. They are simply not used in everyday, common speech by everyday, common people. Secondly, can you imagine a grieving mother using the phrase “blew off the back of Casey’s sweet head”? Isn’t that far, far too graphic an image for a newly grieving mother to just pop off like this? It screams extremist to me and not something a mother would say – or even think – about a recently killed child.

The third paragraph of the letter is perhaps the most telling against the theory that a grieving parent wrote this piece. Parents in mourning, when discussing their child, almost without fail will talk about the traits of their child. They will enumerate his or her good qualities – how smart they were, how kind, how devoted, how funny. They will usually even tell a story or two to illustrate the inherent goodness of their child and to show why they are so missed. As a member of several communities which deal with this subject online, I can say firsthand that this pattern is almost universal in nature. However, the discussion or descriptions of “Casey” are completely absent from this letter. There is no section that tells us what a good son he was or how much he loved his family. There is no portion that talks about his characteristics or his achievements. There are no stories about things he used to do. No – this paragraph is completely devoid of any attachment or sentiment about the loved son who passed on only a year ago. How strange that a parent in mourning wouldn’t talk about her son even a little? How unusual to, instead of actually mourning and remembering him, the grieving mother turns immediately to bashing the administration for his death… without even once acknowledging his life?

The fourth paragraph is riddled with the same colloquialisms as the second: “Bush and the Crime Cabal”, “hypocritical mobsters of the state”, and “the great deceiver”. These simply aren’t the words of a grieving mother. They are the words of an activist, someone who uses attack phrases like this in normal conversation. Note the capital letters used in the phrase “Crime Cabal”. That’s the mark of someone who *writes* that phrase often, not just speaks it. Also notice the cuteness of the hypocritical mobsters phrase – it simply screams Michael Moore in its style and delivery. And again, there is no mention of “Casey” here – only hate and vitriol against the administration. Even Lila Libscomb showed more affection and sorrow for the passing of her son and she went on to become a full-time activist against the war. This paragraph demonstrates fully and completely that the purpose of this letter is in no way to memorialize “Casey” but to pour hate and vitriol on the administration that sent him to war. Would these be the thoughts of a grieving mother today – today of all days?

The “grieving mother” concludes with this telling paragraph: “I mourn the thousands of innocent Iraqis dead for zilch and their families. Today and tomorrow, I will honor Casey and the 1656 others killed to pad some bank accounts. Not because they died to keep America safe, free, or democratized (on the contrary, quite the opposite), nor did their murders bring freedom and democracy to Iraq (on the contrary, quite the opposite); but because they were wrongfully murdered and someone needs to be held accountable. We as people of peace need to make sure that their lives and deaths were for peace, not deception and war”

Again, the anomalies are quite clear. Note again the hatred towards the administration and the lack of memorializing for “Casey”. You would think that in closing a letter such as this a grieving mother would want to leave the reader with a sense of who her son was, but she doesn’t. With what does this “mother” leave the reader? Not just vitriol, but accusations – familiar ones at that. First there is the accusation that the war was meant to “pad some bank accounts” – do you recall Moore saying almost the same words in “Fahrenheit 9/11”? I do. How about the accusation that Iraq isn’t a democracy… despite the fact that they successfully held fair elections? Do you recall Moore and others in the liberal left saying that the voting in Iraq was a sham? I do. How about the part where “someone needs to be held accountable”? Sound familiar? It should – it was the refrain of Moore entire last book.

No… this letter is not from a grieving mother mourning the passing of her son. They are the words of Michael Moore himself, trying to further his agenda. A careful look at the phrasing and content show that quite clearly to even an untrained eye. The fact that he would stoop so low on Memorial Day of all days speaks volume about his character, and the fact that he felt he needed to fabricate a letter to achieve his goals speaks even more. Shame on you, Michael. Shame on you.

Anyone wonder why I love this woman?

Almost three years ago I made a point about Australian gun control, and I think it’s perfectly appropriate to repeat here.

If I remember correctly there were roughly 60 gun deaths in Australia last year.  According to the CIA World Factbook Australia’s population is just under 20 million.  That’s an insignificant amount of deaths by guns.  The Australians should be heralding the success of their gun control policies, that in a country of 20 million people they only have a paltry 60 gun deaths per year.  I have no figures to back this up, but I would be willing to bet money that more than 60 people die there each year from insect and animal bites.  From a strictly numerical standpoint their existing gun control laws are working exceptionally well for them.

They appear to be trying to achieve the unachievable—a country in which nobody dies from a gunshot.  And they are willing to do anything to achieve that goal, including taking pistols away from sportsmen.  As anyone who has done even the most cursory evaluation of gun control statistics in this country can tell you, this is going to do absolutely nothing to solve what miniscule gun problem they have there.  All it is going to do is deny sportsmen the instruments with which to shoot, and provide incentives for ciminals to increase their activity against an unarmed population.

I’ve been proven right so many times it isn’t even funny, and yet countries like Britain and Australia honestly believe that banning everything in the country is the best way to solve crime.  Criminals use a variety of tools in the commission of their crimes.  No matter what the tool, the common denominator in all crime is the criminal.  If you are stabbed through the heart by a sharp knife, will you be any less dead than if you were shot through the heart by a bullet?  Why is it that the United States has seen a steady decline in violent crime over the past quarter century, while all these “enlightened” countries have seen violent crime steadily increase?  The implements of crime are nothing more than its symptoms; you don’t cure a disease by treating its symptoms, you go after the cause, which is always the criminal himself.

(And for those who might have missed it the first time, here’s a rather detailed post I wrote to an Australian reader explaining the history of and justification for the Second Amendment.)

Also, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t quote Monty Python’s famous Self Defense Against Fresh Fruit sketch.

It’s funny because it’s true.  Pretty soon British criminals are going to be going after victims with a bunch of loganberries, and some moron will call for legislation to ban them.  Only when everyone is locked in a closet 24 hours a day, with a police video camera monitoring their every move, will the British people truly be considered safe.

What idiots.

Alaska Airlines said Friday it has hired Menzies Aviation to provide ramp services at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the carrier’s busiest hub, and is laying off 472 workers.

A statement issued by the airline, which is operated by Alaska Air Group Inc. of Seattle, said the move would save $13 million a year amid rising fuel costs and fierce competition.

Edward W. White, vice president of ground operations, said displaced workers will be offered “a more lucrative severance package than that specified in the current contract” with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

And what kind of severance package did they get?

He said the company’s severance offer, “in line with the severance offered to management, maintenance and fleet service employees last year,” will include two weeks of base pay for each year of service, a cash bonus of $3,000 to $15,000 based on length of service, a year of company-paid health care coverage and travel benefits for each worker and eligible dependents, plus a nine-week extension of wages and benefits as required by law.

That’s a spectacular package, far better than any I have ever gotten in my life, and I’ve been laid off multiple times before.  I have to hand it to the company for taking care of their employees this way.  So, why are they being laid off in the first place?

The airline’s news release said the Seattle decision followed a long evaluation of moneysaving and cost-cutting options and 20 months negotiations for concessions from the Machinists union.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to achieve a contract approaching the savings available from service providers,” White said.

In other words, an outside company was able to come in and offer to perform exactly the same job for cheaper than the union was willing to accept.  Or, to paraphrase Michael Moore, the union wanted $717 a week, and the non-union workers were willing to do exactly the same job for $573.  Thus, once again, proving me right when I said, “I’d rather have a non-union job that paid me $573 a week than a union job that used to pay me $717 a week before I was laid off when the factory closed down,” or in this case, the work was farmed out to a third party.  And what has the union said?

The decision was announced Friday morning before the union’s local office opened for the day, and there was no immediate comment from union leaders.

Earlier in the week, however, Bobby De Pace, president of Machinists District 143, said hiring an outside company to take over baggage handling in Seattle could mean chaos for passengers during peak travel season for the airline’s and the airport.

“The new people coming in cannot do as good a job as the ones who have been doing it,” De Pace said. “There’s a learning curve.”

Come on, let’s be real here.  This is moving baggage.  Generally speaking, you take bags from a plane, put it on a cart, then put it into a computerized baggage system, that routes the bags where they need to go.  I’m not saying that this doesn’t require a degree of skill, only that I can’t imagine the learning curve on this job is so steep that the replacement workers couldn’t get up to speed in a relatively short period of time.  The displaced baggage handlers are free, of course, to go to work for the new contractor, making exactly what they would have made had the union simply accepted the airline’s offer.  And therein lies the rub.  I would imagine that most of the displaced workers will do just that, pretty much negating the whole “learning curve” argument altogether. 

So, what is the end result we see from union meddling?  Well, all the baggage handlers lost their jobs, got laid off, and now they’re going to have to go work for less wages.  Isn’t this exactly what unions are supposed to prevent?  Did anyone make out good on this deal?  Well, yeah.  The airline will hopefully stay solvent, thus reducing even more layoffs in other areas.  The passengers will still be attracted to fly that airline because the cost cutting measures will offset the higher fuel expenses and the ticket prices will remain as low as possible.  And the union bosses will still have their jobs, won’t they? 

Who gets screwed by unions?  The workers.  Every time.