Dakota Beacon

Judge Romanick, Sandy Blunts trial judge (left) who worked with Prosecutor Feland in the Burliegh County State's Attorney's office, Cynthia Feland (center) now judge, Richard Riha (right) Cynthia Feland's boss during the Blunt trial

Although a number of other issues were examined during the hearing the decision is narrowly focused on the Wahl Memo. The recommendation is likely a reflection of the fact that the intent to withhold exculpatory evidence was not established. It is time that Judge Romanick give Sandy Blunt justice, if he can, Sandy needs his conviction overturned or a new trial.– Steve Cates

From the Decision:

“3. The Panel concludes Cynthia M. Feland did not disclose to Michael Hoffman, defense attorney for Charles Blunt, the Wahl memo, and other documents which were evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tended to negate the guilt of the accused of mitigate the offense.”

“8.       ….North Dakota Standards for Imposing Lawyer Discipline 6.12, which provides, in part, suspension is generally appropriate when a lawyer knows that material information is improperly bind withheld, and takes no remedial action, and causes injury or potential injury to a party to the legal proceeding, or causes and adverse or potentially adverse effect on the legal proceeding.

North Dakota Standards for Imposing Lawyer Discipline 6.22, which provides suspension is generally appropriate when a lawyer knows that he or she is violating a court order or rule, and causes injury or potential injury to a client or a party, or causes interference or potential interference with a legal proceeding.”

“The Hearing Panel recommends to the North Dakota Supreme Court that Cynthia M. Feland be SUSPEDED from the practice of law for sixty (60) days and that she be ORDERED to pay the costs of the disciplinary proceeding in the amount of $11,272.21.”

The pdf of the complete ND Supreme Court Disciplinary Panel Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommendation for Suspension 

At first it was a mere trickle. Then a steady seep. A little later a soft current. Then the current reaches critical velocity to enable the substrate to be washed away, the foundation undermined. At a certain point when there is nothing sustaining the structure, and not enough wealth can be expended to prevail against the onslaught, the house falls into the eroding water. The fresh paint, the manicured lawn, the expensive finishing touches – manifestation of material triumph, ultimately unable to stop the destruction.

There is at present a tension within the ascendant conservative movement. There are the laissez-faire capitalists who largely shy away from the contemporary moral questions to keep the debate on low taxes, limited government, and want to mostly be just left alone, perhaps best termed the Materialist Libertarians. On the other side of the discussion are those who believe that the moral questions as fairly narrowly constrained by the Judeo-Christian traditions of Western Civilization predominate in the arena of public debate. Many commentators fret about the possibility of an election lost as the result of excessive focus on the “divisive” questions of contemporary personal behavior. We must not ever forget the Natural Law foundation of America’s design:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”  – Declaration of Independence, 1776

The designers of America were students of those great thinkers that recognized the natural order of the universe and the innate nature of humans due to that unalterable natural order, the term “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” was not mistake, rather it had central meaning for that document:

“Not only right and wrong are distinguished by nature, but also in general all honorable and disgraceful things. For nature makes common understandings for us and starts forming them in our minds so that honorable things are based on virtue, disgraceful things on vices”- - Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The evil implanted in man by nature spreads so imperceptibly, when the habit of wrong-doing is unchecked, that he himself can set no limit to his shamelessness.”  - Marcus Tullius Cicero

“There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.” - Edmund Burke

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams

“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” - George Washington.

“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” - Alexis de Tocqueville

“The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other” -  Alexis de Tocqueville

Natural law - moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings and the nature of the world and is thus universal.  It is critical that one recognizes the primacy of culture and that freedom flourishes ONLY in societies undergirded by a moral culture that embraces the truth about the transcendent origin and destiny of all human beings. History reveals to us that an ordered, moral culture results in harmony and in the proper ordering of society and while the various institutions within the political, economic, and other spheres are important, the traditional family is the primary inculcator of the moral culture in a society.

As George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle.”

It is my firm belief that to reduce public policy to materialist questions without a strong foundation that begets an ordered and moral society is to ignore history, ignore the design of America’s freedoms, and to ultimately allow the building currents of societal decay that will assuredly result in loss of the freedoms so dear to the Materialist Libertarians.

Folks,

Kind of overcast this late summer morning. Slight breeze. Nice rain last night. Just enough to keep the hoses coiled under the faucets while everything remains green.  The raspberries are over and not much of a crop. Lots of moldy berries and moldy grapes. Very unexpected. But last night we had the first ears of this summer’s corn. Delicious. Will we get tomatoes after the pounding from the hail storm? Little fruit now but will they ripen? A very strange summer indeed.

The golden wheat field to my south was cut over the weekend. Thus, wheat harvest art for the art feature of this issue and the wheat field on the cover. There is a certain beauty that although we see lots of wheat field here in North Dakota they remain the beauty in the eye of the beholder.

Then there are the two geese and three ducks. The miracle of new life was brought home to my granddaughter with the hatching of eggs in the incubator in the apartment bath tub. Then the cute little fuzzy beings could not stay in the tub so a “temporary” arrangement was made and we put them in the “clubhouse”. Temporarily. Until arrangements could be made. But….then $18 worth of poultry fence and we seemed to have inadvertently become owners of a small flock. The flock kind of became part of the extended family, with complete dedication, following the wife who brought the food and water to them in the pen.

Then, under supervision the flock was allowed to roam about a little. At first we were afraid that the cat herd would be the untimely end of the flock. Surprise! It only took a single episode after which the cats were scared to death of the extremely aggressive geese. Then the geese started going after the poor old fat yellow dog. She never knew what hit her. Almost deaf and blind in one eye, the geese would come up behind her and bite her behind. So the flock moved to the top of the pecking order. This caused some conflict as both the dog and the cats were accustomed to following the wife around as she worked on the gardens and flower beds. At each work station, the dog would lay down, two cats would curl up with the old dog while another invariably gets in the way of actual work being done brushing against the legs of the wife and demanding affection and attention. The flock turned this idyllic scene into bedlam. Dog, cats, geese and ducks, yelping, quaking, honking, hissing, and squawking. It was entertaining to watch the whole chaotic scene but the flock started to be a little too “born free”. It turns out that they eat almost everything small enough to get into their mouths. Even pretty flowers. A few flattened bushes and flowers and confinement to the movable pen would have to be the sentence for the balance of their mortal existence.
But what of the deeper question of life and death of ducks and geese? The expectation is that I will dispatch said flock to the freezer. There to await our mid winter feasting, the, for the first time, Christmas goose? But somehow the idea of grabbing any of those fowl and wringing their necks seems foul. There will be violence. There will be flapping. There will be lots of noise. There will be lots of blood. On me.

The wife keeps inferring that the deed needs done sooner rather than later. How I wonder, can she feel like that when those creatures obviously hold her in such high esteem? I believe that stomping the flowers ended the mutual affection. So, I bought one more bag of feed, and anticipate moving the pen once or twice, to further fatten them up, before……

I will let you know next month about the impending duck/goose harvest. I am perhaps as curious as you how this all turns out.

Note BLACK SPOT (clip-on sunglasses)

In early May of 2011 I became aware of the North Dakota Highway patrol sending an officer to the home of LaVonne Geotsch of Bellfield. The office was sent as the result of Senator Curtis Olafson, Republican, of Edinburg (District 10), contacting the N.D. State Highway Patrol (HP). It seems that a letter was placed on his senate desk. A May 5, 2011 story in the Bismarck Tribune explained that according to Olafson:

“We are told if any document or message we receive has any tone that we question, we should turn it over to Highway Patrol for their attention,” Olafson said. “There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone in the Legislature, but when the tone causes you to question what they’re thinking, that’s when you hand it over to Highway Patrol, and they put their good judgment to work.”

So, what was the tone? Obviously such that the HP must be contacted and they must do something. The letter, dated March 29, 2011 from Mr. Goetsch stated:

“Dear Senator Curtis Olafson,

One of your colleagues told me you are sometimes your own worst enemy. My observation is your ego, pride and arrogance maybe the problem.

In this day and age do you really think you can keep secrets at the capitol?

So you are pro-life! Proposed amendments to HB 1450 (Draft #3) blows your cover. Page 5, after line 19 inserts tells it all about you and your pro-life stand. The lies, pretense and deception you have used on your constituents who believe you are pro-life will now be exposed by you yourself. HB 1450 will not die.

You being elected again may be another story. I for one will be glad to help educate District 10.

Sincerely,

LaVonne H. Goetsch”

In the lower right hand corner of that letter as it was submitted to the Highway Patrol by Olafson was the handwritten notation:

“Dropped off @ desk Daniel Woodard”

But the fact was that Olafson knew exactly who Daniel Woodard is. Olafson knew that Daniel Woodard was a lobbyist for the North Dakota Life League. Olafson knew exactly how to contact Woodard. Olafson and Woodard had had extensive email correspondence. Olafson did not make any attempt to contact Woodard. No, instead, Olafson spent taxpayer money to send the HP to investigate.

From the May 5, 2011 Bismarck Tribune story on the matter:

Olafson said if the letter was email or mailed, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

“If you just let people walk in there and drop whatever package or letter they want, it bypasses any level of security".

Olafson also knew that lobbyist come and go within the North Dakota Senate Chamber and are ONLY constrained from being on the Senate floor (in front of the “railing”) during, according to Senate rule 205, Duties of Sergeant-at-Arms, “the time period commencing sixty minutes before the Senate convenes on any legislative day and ending when the Senate recesses for that calendar day.” There are no rules of security that were bypassed. Olafson is making this up.

Obviously the tone was such that most any legislator would become alarmed. In fact Olafson even wrote a letter that was published by several state daily newspapers around April 20, 2011 where he clarifies his concerns:

“Many members of the North Dakota Senate felt threatened and intimidated by some of the supporters of HB1450. Some supporters will not accept the fact that many of us who are pro-life do not see the issue in extreme black-and-white terms as they do. We were told that if we didn’t fall into lockstep agreement with them, our votes would be scored and used against us in the next election.

I can think of no other issue wherein such threats and intimidation are used in the Legislature.”

Knowing of the Highway Patrol visit to Ms. Goetsch and the claim by Olafson, I made an open records request of the North Dakota Highway Patrol on May 5, 2011, in order to substantiate the “threats and intimidation” of which he was speaking, writing:

“Major Johnson,

I am writting to make an open records request of your agency.

Please provide me with any and all records between your agency and North Dakota State Senator Curtis Olafson.

Thank you,

Steve Cates”

To my great astonishment I found that Olafson had also contacted the Highway Patrol concerning The Dakota Beacon website and myself! Following is Olafson’s email of complaint.

“From: Olafson, Curtis

Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2011 6:49 AM

To: Prochniak, Col. James J.

Cc: Armendariz, Sgt. Pedro R.

Subject: Threatening comment

http://www.dakotabeacon.com/

Good morning Colonel Prochniak,

I want to bring your attention to the comment made my Lynn Bergman on the attached link wherein he labels me as a “murderer.”  I will leave it to your good judgment as to whether you feel this warrants action on the part of the Highway Patrol.  Note that they intentionally used a picture that would cast me with the worst image possible.  I believe the picture was intentionally distorted, including adding a black spot on my t-shirt.  The Dakota Beacon is published by Steve Cates.  If you deem the comment inappropriate, Mr. Cates is the one you should contact to direct that it be removed and an apology posted for allowing the comment to be posted on the site.  Thank you. 

Senator Curtis Olafson

13041 84th St NE

Edinburg, ND 58227

701-993-8240 Home

701-265-2356 Cell

(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

www.senatorolafson.com”

It seems that when I posted the letter signed by the Executive Directors of the North Dakota Family Alliance, North Dakota Right to Life, and the North Dakota Chapter of Concerned Women of America which I titled, “The Appalling Duplicity of Senator Curtis Olafson”, Mr. Bergman commented on April 29, 2011 that:

“Senator Olafson received a “C” grade in my 61st North Dakota Legislative Session Vote Analysis. Three points to make here.

1. I cannot wait to compile my 62nd Session Analysis.

2. This is a classic example of the kind of slick moves that these two-tongued ” Moderate” Republicans pull on those who believe they voted for a conservative.

3. Conservatives…you had better get infinitely more active in the Republican Party District Reorganizations currently under way. Or don’t complain when murderers stay in office.”

Later, on May 6, 2011 Mr. Bergman made the clarification that:

“Albert Einstein said “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

We have all “looked on” far too long regarding abortion in our state. It is time to take political action to reveal any folks who are in the wrong political party but will not admit it.

 

 

I regret calling a fellow Icelander a murderer; the reference should have been “accomplice to murder”. To clarify, I mean no harm to the Senator, just cannot stand by and “do nothing”.”

The fact is that Olafson has my telephone number and email address. He could have called or written to register his complaint. But…..he contacted the Highway Patrol! He wanted THEM to make me do something! Olafson wanted the HP to make me change the Beacon website! How much did that cost the North Dakota taxpayers?

This is not all.. My first exposure to the tactics of Olafson was during the 2009 Legislature. Representative Dan Ruby of Minot made a comment that Olafson took offense to. At the time I was unfamiliar with Olafson when he approached me to be an intermediary asking Ruby for a public retraction of the comment. Olafson would not contact Ruby and like a man ask for the retraction. No, he had to use someone like myself to bully by proxy. It took longer than I would like to admit but I finally understood how I was being used. Since that time I have had absolutely no respect whatsoever for Curtis Olafson as a state lawmaker.

This last legislative session his dishonest effort to kill the Human Life bill was despicable. Those of you who are regular readers of this publication know that I seldom make such overt statements about anyone in public office except the provably dishonest. This case is different. Dishonest bullies should be extricated from public office and from the Republican Party in North Dakota for the sake of honest governance. These types of people in elective office always bring grief to the party eventually. Strong language I know. But I am not alone in my recognition of this Senator’s arrogance and dishonesty. His reputation is well established in both of the legislative houses.

I await the knock on my door as Olafson uses your money to harass those that disagree with him

Amazing what happens in North Dakota when there is lots of water!

While the nation’s press and talk show hosts are having a field day devouring news of tabloid celebrities like Anthony Weiner and covering the bus tour of Sarah Palin, another – and far more important – story goes on which will wreak havoc on the American economy:  

”The new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and electric rates will skyrocket 11 percent to over 23 percent, according to a new study based on government data.” (Paul Bedard, US News, 06-08-2011)

Every dollar the EPA costs our utilities will be passed directly to consumers.  When you take this into consideration, with the leap in gasoline prices, which we can expect will begin to rise from $4/gallon to who knows where, and compute what this means to the cost of living – raising of food crops and livestock, processing and transportation, the cost of clothing which is subject to the same cost-of-production factors, it is easy to see how the EPA can bring our economy to its knees.  These government regulations are like the boulder that chased Indiana Jones through the cave.

Who will be able, given these inescapable increases, to spend “discretionary” income?  Who will have this?  Surely, the family that will be paying ever greater bills for simply maintaining its existence, heating its home, putting food on the table, using the automobile to get to work, will not be buying new furniture or dining out.  First to go will be the dispensable pleasures – entertainment, travel.  Now we see how profoundly destructive this federal over-regulation becomes as manufacturing and industry scale back accordingly, and satellite businesses – transportation, retail, services - lose ground and they, in turn, scale back – unemployment.

This is not a recipe for the recovery we must have if America is not to lose her sovereignty through insolvency.  Right now we have only ourselves to borrow from; we can only print worthless currency.  We cannot exist as a nation in this plight.  We have become “isolationist” not through military or diplomatic policy, but through default.  We can’t support a position in the world community.  America can no longer lead because we have lost our economic viability.  America can’t afford Barack Obama nor the programs he and his adherents support.

Against this somber backdrop, we survey the range of presidential hopefuls who expect to challenge him.  The impetus for the EPA regulations grows from the environmentalist panic instigated by cynical, self-serving politicians and their dupes.  Without the “green” movement the EPA might never have been born or if it had, would have been confined to cleanup of oil or chemical spills or monitoring our interstate lakes and streams.  Instead, thanks to champions like Al Gore, we have them investigating and regulating every enterprise that rears its head and all but shutting down our coal industry.  Thus every one of these dupes or villains bears responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves today.  Who are these people?

We have plenty of them on the Left, but they don’t need our attention.  Their team is headed by Barack Obama.  What must concern us is who should be leading the opposition.  Here is where talk show conservatives need to stop mindless wallowing in tabloid stories about wayward congressmen and focus on the real threat: a leaderless Republican Party.  No conservative should be willing to entertain the candidacy of those who have ever been a part of the environmentalist movement or “global warming/climate change” lobby.   

Mitt Romney:  He has signed on to the “global warming” team.  Why?  The most damning, and most plausible, reason is blatant cynicism.  He might have chosen this method of winning primaries.  By enticing Democrats to vote in Republican primaries (always a factor when a Democrat is a one-term incumbent), he offers them a position not substantially different from their own.  Why would a Democrat not vote this way?  By doing so he accomplishes three things – he 1) helps to offset and neutralize the Tea Party influence in the Republican primary; 2) if by chance Obama is turned out of office, the person challenging him will not change policy and 3) such a candidate will not bring conservatives into Congress on his coattails.  Absent this theory, it is difficult to see why Romney would have come on board the “global warming” cruise.

Newt Gingrich:  No need to expatiate.  Gingrich has been a solid “global warming” team player all along, to the extent that he mugged with Nancy Pelosi for public service messages.  Clearly he is a true believer.  Nothing new.

Chris Christie:  It is difficult to imagine where this man’s support among conservatives derives.  Aside from burnishing a “tough on spending” image he has many, many liabilities which should be red flags to any conservative or libertarian, including the label of “gun grabber” second to none.  With regard to the EPA, however, he, too, is a member of the “global warming” team.  Which negates any meaningful “budget cutting”. 

Tim Pawlenty:  Here’s a fellow with an eye for the political expediency of the day.  A former cap and trade advocate, he has repudiated that position because the wind seems to be blowing in another direction.  This rootlessness begs the question, what will he do next?  What will happen if he is faced with an implacable bureaucracy, an errant congress or a determined, energetic lobby and the liberal press?  Will his adherence to a conservative stand survive after he no longer needs the conservative vote? 

This is not a comprehensive list, of course, but some of the major players.  The ravages of the EPA pogrom against the American economy could not survive without the “global warming” team.  Remember that.  Knowing this, it is incumbent upon conservatives, especially those with a microphone or ink, that they denounce “global warming” candidates.  It should not be hard to do.  Science does not support them.  They’ve been exposed as fraud.  Conservatives need to reject them.  Instead, we have Mark Levin, who, criticizing Romney and asking listeners to support someone else, ends his segment with a white flag - the defeatist determination that if Romney is the candidate he will have to (reluctantly) support him!  What?  Did Levin not excoriate Republicans in the House for not playing the government shutdown card and calling the bluff of spendaholic Democrats?  Should they show more grit than he?  The correct view is to say to Republicans and  rest of the world:  If you do this we will not support you, we will support your defeat.  In the case of Romney, look at the chessboard.  He has pandered to the environmentalist movement.  Should this help him win the primaries through support of liberals/Democrats, he risked nothing. He will always have the “crawl back” Republicans. 

Others, too, are guilty.  Ann Coulter supports Chris Christie.  Rush Limbaugh has not condemned these “green movement” Republicans.  He has not said that they are “unacceptable”.  They are unacceptable.  We cannot accept them because they will accelerate our nation’s demise.  They are part of the problem.  Anyone who supports them, however reluctantly, is also a part of the problem.  The Republican elites need to hear it from conservatives:  if the nominee supports the “green” agenda, it will tear the party apart.  That conservatives will not come back.  Only in this way can the Republican Party - and America – be saved.
 
 - Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government and the Executive Committee of the Valley Tea Party Conservative Coalition.

As my old friends at The Spectator in London pointed out on Monday morning, I scooped the entire planet in breaking the news of Osama bin Laden’s death: “Osama bin Laden is dead, says Mark Steyn.” This was in The Spectator’s edition of June 29^th 2002, which turned out to be a wee bit premature. I jumped the gun, much like Osama’s missus in Abbottabad, but by nine years.  

Nor, to be honest, was a teensy-weensy near-decade discrepancy in the date the only problem with my scoop. Much of that Spectator piece was preoccupied with the usual assumptions about Public Enemy Number One – caves, dialysis, remote wild Pakistani tribal lands where western intelligence hasn’t a hope of penetrating unless you turn a cousin of the village headman, etc. All these assumptions prevailed until a few days ago, when it emerged that Osama, three wives and 13 children had been living in town in a purpose-built pad round the corner from the Pakistani Military Academy for over half a decade. Brunch every Sunday with a couple of generals at his usual corner table at the Abbottabad Hilton? Eggs Benedict, hold the ham?

The belated dispatch of Osama testifies to what the United States does well – elite warriors, superbly trained, equipped to a level of technological sophistication no other nation can match. Everything else surrounding the event (including White House news management so club-footed one starts to wonder darkly whether its incompetence is somehow intentional) embodies what the United States does badly. Pakistan, our “ally”, hides and protects not only Osama but also Mullah Omar and Zawahiri, and does so secure in the knowledge that it will pay no price for its treachery – indeed, confident that its duplicitous military will continue to be funded by US taxpayers.

If this were a movie, the crowds cheering “USA! USA!” outside the White House would be right: The bad guy is dead! We win! The End. But the big picture is bigger than Hollywood convention. In the great sweeping narrative, the death of Osama bin Laden is barely a ripple, while the courtesies afforded to him by the Pakistani establishment tell us something profound about the superpower’s weakness and inability to shift the storyline. Bin Laden famously said that when people see a strong horse and a weak horse they naturally prefer the strong horse. Putting a bullet through his eye is a good way of letting him know which role he’s consigned to. But the strong horse/weak horse routine is a matter of perception as much as anything else. On September 12th 2001, General Musharraf was in a meeting “when my military secretary told me that the U.S. secretary of state, Gen. Colin Powell, was on the phone. I said I would call back later.” The milquetoasts of the State Department were in no mood for Musharraf’s  I’m-washing-my-hair routine, and, when he’d been dragged to the phone, he was informed that the Bush Administration would bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if they didn’t get everything they wanted. Musharraf concluded that America meant it.

A decade later, we’re back to September 10^th. Were Washington to call Islamabad as it did a decade ago, the Pakistanis would thank them politely and say they’d think it over and get back in six weeks, give or take. They think they’ve got the superpower all figured out – that America is happy to spend bazillions of dollars on technologically advanced systems that can reach across the planet but it doesn’t really have the stomach for changing the facts of the ground. That means that once in a while your bigtime jihadist will be having a quiet night in watching “Dancing With The Stars” when all of a sudden Robocop descends from the heavens, kicks the door open, and it’s time to get ready for your virgins. But other than that, in the bigger picture, day by day, all but unnoticed, things will go their way.

In the fall of 2001, discussing the collapse of the Taliban, Thomas Friedman, the in-house thinker at The New York Times, offered this bit of cartoon analysis:

“For all the talk about the vaunted Afghan fighters, this was a war between the Jetsons and the Flintstones - and the Jetsons won and the Flintstones know it.”

But they didn’t, did they? The Flintstones retreated to their caves, bided their time, and a decade later the Jetsons are desperate to negotiate their way out.

When it comes to instructive analogies, I prefer Khartoum to cartoons. If it took America a decade to avenge the dead of 9/11, it took Britain 13 years to avenge their defeat in Sudan in 1884. But, after Kitchener slaughtered the jihadists of the day at the Battle of Omdurman in 1897, he made a point of digging up their leader the Mahdi, chopping off his head and keeping it as a souvenir. The Sudanese got the message. The British had nary a peep out of the joint until they gave it independence six decades later - and, indeed, the locals fought for King and (distant imperial) country as brave British troops during World War Two. Even more amazingly, generations of English schoolchildren were taught about the Mahdi’s skull winding up as Lord Kitchener’s novelty paperweight as an inspiring tale of national greatness.

Not a lot of that today. It’s hard to imagine Osama’s noggin as an attractive centerpiece at next year’s White House Community Organizer of the Year banquet, and entirely impossible to imagine America’s “educators” teaching the tale approvingly. So instead, even as we explain that our difficulties with this bin Laden fellow are nothing to do with Islam, no sir, perish the thought, we simultaneously rush to assure the Muslim world that, not to worry, we accorded him a 45-minute Islamic funeral as befits an observant Muslim.

That’s why Pakistani bigshots harbored America’s mortal enemy and knew they could do so with impunity. Bin Laden was a Saudi with money, and there are a lot of those about funding this and that from South Asia to the Balkans to Dearborn, Michigan. They’ve walked their petrodollars round the western world buying up everything they need to, from minor mosques to major university “Middle Eastern Studies” departments. By comparison with his compatriots, Osama squandered his dough. In that long-ago Spectator piece, I wrote, “Junior’s just a peculiarly advanced model of the useless idiot son - a criticism routinely made of Bush but actually far more applicable to Osama, who took his dad’s fortune and literally threw it down a hole in the ground.”

A lot of American policy followed it. A decade on, our troops are running around Afghanistan “winning hearts and minds” and getting gunned down by the very policemen and soldiers they’ve spent years training. Back on the home front, every small-town airport has at least a dozen crack TSA operatives sniffing round the panties of grade-schoolers. Meanwhile, at the UN, the EU, at the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in the “Facebook revolutions” of “the Arab spring”, the Islamization of the world proceeds: Millions of Muslims support bin Laden’s goal – the submission of the western world to Islam – but, unlike him, understand that flying planes into buildings is entirely unnecessary to achieving it. Will being high-flying Jetsons with state-of-the-art gizmos prove sufficient in a Flintstonizing world? The Pakistanis are pretty sure they know the answer to that.

 ©MARK STEYN 2011

Finally! It can be said that it is a beautiful spring day in North Dakota…..but, a chance of snow in the northwest corner of the state. Well at least from where I sit there is a little green grass, geese flying over, robins hopping around in the trees, patches of snow, and mud. Odd isn’t how for one or two fleeting weeks each year, mud is very beautiful? Say it out loud, “beautiful mud”, kind of has a nice sound does it not? But, don’s say it aloud around people from out of state, they would not understand. Your mental state would be questioned.
Sending the magazine to the subscribers is getting to be embarrassing. I just heard from my father in Michigan that he got his most recent magazine……THREE WEEKS AFTER IT WAS MAILED! In fact, I have had several magazines returned as undeliverable that were sent to an address less than ONE HUNDRED miles from were the magazine was sent from that returned SIX WEEKS after being mailed! It is absolutely unbelievable. On the odd occasion that someone has called to comment about this tardiness or wondering where their latest copy is, I tell them it was mailed weeks ago. There is invariably initial silence, then the, “Well OK, thanks”, and I know that they do not believe it possible. The caller likely thinks I am lying to them.
The U.S. Postal Service is the only means to mail individual magazines. I have no other options. My only recourse is to bring this to the attention of the Postal Service. The beauty of a monopoly bureaucracy is that they can (and do) pass you around and give you an unending number of people to contact with your complaint. No one can give you any answer other than we will look into it. There is no possible resolution. Eventually, because you realize the futility of your quest for sanity, and you feel yours slipping away, you throw in the towel. So, in summary, it takes as much as three weeks to mail a magazine as little as 100 miles and nothing can or will be done about it. And if you think that is cool wait until the same type of governmental bureaucracy monopoly is in charge of your health care!
The U.S. Postal Service by all indications is on an unsustainable financial trajectory. They have an incredibly strong union, and very high wages and benefits. As with the afore discussed intractable, unfixable mailing problem, nothing can be done. What is absolutely insane is that you can buy almost anything short of a new car from a vending machine. These machines are quite sophisticated these days. The can dispense after payment by credit card, coin, or bill. All stamp dispensing machines have been removed from all Bismarck Postal facilities. This fact raises the question of “Why do I have to stand in line to buy stamps from a Postal Service employee who if making the average wage of a Postal Service employee costs the Postal Service somewhere around $ 70,000 per year, when the act of selling a stamp is no more difficult than making change at the Cenex?” There was a little brouhaha in Bismarck about the possibility of shutting down the main post office. It seems that the annual rent in that Federal building was too much overhead. Idea: put in three stamp dispensers and put two front counter folks (who by the way are wonderful folks) to work sorting magazines so that they can go 100 miles in say two weeks. Two birds, one stone.
If you call the U.S. Postal Service to make such a crazy suggestion, I will guarantee you that you will have an opportunity first hand to experience the governmental bureaucracy monopoly hand-off, “we will look into it”, Kabuki dance. When you are done call Senator Conrad and thank him for voting ObamaCare into law.