[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

(Depiction of the Ft. Pillow massacre--double click to enlarge)

The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the “War Between the States.”

Well, it beats “The War of Northern Aggression” I suppose.

The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014.

“Seriously?” state NAACP president Derrick Johnson said when he was told about the Forrest plate. “Wow.”

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading the 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.

Um, actually he founded the KKK as its first Grand Dragon.

Of course no one doubts the martial skill of Gen. Forrest.  But if martial skill was all that mattered, then I suppose soon they will have license plates commemorating Gen. Erwin Rommell and Admiral Karl Dönitz, right?

And consider, for example, what Forrest did before founding the KKK.  You might recall that when black soldiers began to be used by North, the South declared that they would treat them as revolting slaves.  So when Ft. Pillow, defended in part by black soldiers, surrendered to Southern forces, they gave them no quarter.  The Encyclopedia Britannica notes that

(more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

I am going to have to admit I am fuzzy on what this actually means in terms of practical realities.  For instance, read this bit from the New York Times:

President Hosni Mubarak told the Egyptian people Thursday that he would delegate more authority to his vice president, Omar Suleiman, but that he would not resign his post, contradicting earlier reports that he would step aside and surprising hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered to hail his departure from the political scene.

In a nationally televised address following a tumultuous day of political rumors and conflicting reports, Mr. Mubarak said he would “admit mistakes” and honor the sacrifices of young people killed in the three-week uprising, but that he would continue to “shoulder my responsibilities” until September, and did not give a firm indication that he would cede political power.

Even as Mr. Mubarak spoke, angry chants were shouted from huge crowds in Cairo who had anticipated his resignation but were instead confronted with a plea from the president to support continued rule by him and his chosen aides. People waved their shoes in defiance, considered an insulting gesture in the Arab world.

So he will give some of his power, but he won’t resign.  So is this just a symbolic act?  Or is he proposing to be like the Queen of England—a figurehead only?

Honestly, it beats me, and I have little confidence that anyone in the world knows, but the Egyptian government.  But if you have insight, sound off.  Please.

Update: We’ll try this as an experiment, an “inter-blog” poll.  Dana Pico at Common Sense Political Thought is asking people how long Barack Mubarak will survive. If this works right, results from both sites will be tabulated together.

Personally I vote he will be in there for life. Which might be only two more weeks. *EG*

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update: Powerful picture added at the end.

So we saw yesterday the flame out of Representative Lee, and while I knew Gawker got it all going, I was reluctant to mention or link to them just because generally I consider them sleazy and don’t want to encourage them.   And truthfully, I didn’t even read their original report, because the story was over by the time I even heard of it.

But this morning I found myself reading it, and these paragraphs leapt out at me.

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

A spokesman for the Congressman confirmed that the email address belonged to Lee, and that he had deleted his Facebook account because our initial inquiry had him fretting about “privacy.” (A screenshot of his account before it vanished is at right.)

Isn’t it funny how people like this have to rationalize their interest in this salacious story?  They strike the pose of not caring at all about a person’s sex life, what two consenting adults do is no of their business, etc. etc., so they have to explain why it is normally that they don’t care, but here they do.

But the fact is they do care about it, in and of itself.  How do we know this?  Because their explanations don’t actually stand up to scrutiny.   (more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Remember a while back when Congress passed a law entitled the “________ Act of _________”—meaning they forgot to give a law a name or date?  Well, you might imagine there is nothing worse than that.

But, this one definitely gives it a run for its money.  Recently, the navy put out a solicitation for…  um, you have to see it to believe it:

Well, it’s good to see that they only spend our money after carefully considering the worthiness of the proposal.

Hat Tip: Hot Air.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]