Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps.

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;

His day is marching on!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.”

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!

There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold

These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,

That men call age; and those who would have been,

Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,

Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,

And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

And we have come into our inheritence.

– Rupert Brooke

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. – Source: memorialday.org

An article from George Will, about America’s last World War One veteran – 107 year old Frank Buckles.

Read it, and appreciate those who served – and serve – in all our wars.

Michael Barone has crunched the numbers, and come up with this conclusion:

It’s a little dangerous in interpreting polls to assume that voters’ thinking proceeds along logical lines. People who aren’t professionally involved in politics, whose knowledge comes from bits and snippets of news, can hold beliefs that are contradictory or in tension with each other. They don’t feel obliged to resolve contradictions. But even granting that, it seems to me that about half of West Virginia and Kentucky Democratic primary voters were saying that Obama lied about not knowing what Wright has been preaching and that he agrees with him a lot more than he has let on.

Now West Virginia and Kentucky are not typical primary states. They, together with Arkansas, where Hillary Clinton was First Lady for 12 years, were Obama’s weakest states in this year’s primaries. And some percentage of registered Democrats in these states have been voting Republican in recent presidential elections. Nevertheless, the negative verdict these voters render on Obama’s honesty and his relationship with Wright is likely to be typical of some significant quantum of potential Democratic voters this year. And not just in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, which he will certainly lose, but in marginal states which he must carry in order to be elected.

I find confirmation from this in a recent focus group conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by pollster Peter Hart (for whom I worked for seven years) of non-primary voters in Charlottesville, Va. As Hart and Alex Horowitz note in their analysis of reactions to Obama, “When asked to recount any two memories of the total presidential campaign so far, seven of the 12 participants cite Rev. Wright by name. So far, clips of Rev. Wright clearly are the one ‘key defining moment’ of this campaign.”

Most reporters are liberals, whose circles of friends and acquaintances have included people with views not dissimilar to those of Wright or William Ayers, the unrepentant Weather Underground bomber with whom Obama served on a nonprofit board and at whose house his state Senate candidacy was launched. Such reporters don’t find these views utterly repugnant or particularly noteworthy. But most American voters do. And they wonder whether a candidate who associates with such people agrees with them — or disbelieve him when he says he doesn’t.

Though most in the press won’t admit it, that’s a problem — for the Obama candidacy and for the whole Democratic party once it nominates him.

I think Obama’s people – as well as other leading Democrats – understand this far better than the MSM or Obama’s supporters do; thus the recent talking point that the Wright issue is pretty much out of bounds, plus absurd attempts to make the Hagee issue equivalent to the Wright issue (this AP story from today is typical of the “Hagee is the same as Wright” meme). As for the dishonesty people see in Obama – that is clear; it was an absurd lie on the part of Obama to state that he was unaware of Wright’s extremist views…everyone knows it is a lie, he knew it was a lie as he uttered it…and yet he said it, and now a large portion of the people have put down Obama as a liar. Hard to get out from under that.

Fundamentally, Democrats are forced into dishonesty because they know their policies are rejected by the broad majority of the American people – they can’t run explicitly on American weakness and kowtowing to the UN…so they talk about the need for diplomacy, as if we hadn’t been using diplomacy with great success these past 7 years (the growing alliance with India, the agreement to build SDI in Europe, the voluntary termination of Libya’s nuclear program, eg). They can’t run explicitly on high taxes…so they talk about “middle class tax cuts” and making the rich pay more. They can’t run explicitly on federally funded abortion on demand…so they talk about securing the right for women to “choose” regardless of ability to pay. On and on it goes – never saying what they really want to do…and this has bred the culture of dishonesty which convinced Obama, seemingly, that a rather stupid and bald-faced lie about Wright would go down smoothly. Well, it hasn’t – and it may cost Obama the election.

Ah, the modern, liberal world – from Australia:

A JUDGE has allowed a 12-year-old Victorian girl to start a taxpayer-funded sex swap, despite objections from the child’s father.

The girl has begun court-approved hormone treatment in the first step toward a complete gender switch.

The Family Court orders also permit the girl, who cannot be named, to apply for a new birth certificate, passport and Medicare card in a boy’s name.

The application to allow the hormone treatment was lodged by the girl’s mother.

A state government observer, an endocrinologist, a psychiatrist, a family counsellor and a lawyer acting on the child’s behalf all supported the plan.

Only her father, who lives interstate, opposed the proposed sex change, though he did not attend the final court hearing and could not afford to send a lawyer on his behalf.

The court was told he could not accept that his daughter had always seen herself as a boy and considered her too young to make such a decision.

The mother expressed sadness and deep concern for her daughter, but said she would stand by the girl.

The child’s lawyer told the court she considered the girl capable of making an informed decision.

The girl is one of the youngest patients in Australia granted permission to begin a sex swap.

The court was told early intervention was needed because the child was stressed and anxious at the prospect of starting her period and had threatened self-harm.

Hormones implanted under her skin every three months will stop her menstruating and prevent her hips and breasts growing.

A willfull little girl who is rather knee-worthy throws a trantrum and a court entertains her demand as if it were rational. This is where modern liberalism leads us, good people…and please note that for all of liberalism’s concern for the rights of defendants in criminal cases, there is no provision in liberalism to provide an attorney for girl’s father to come to court and try to inject a note of sanity into the proceedings.

Whence comes this? From several sources – but primarily from the cowardice of those who know better. Everyone knows that this child should not have a sex change. And yet, she’s going to have one…”being yourself” is a fine thing, but “beiing yourself” cannot require surgery other other major, medical interventions into your normal biology. It took a l ot of liberalism – and liberalism’s lies – to get us to this point…it’ll take a lot of Truth to turn us around and get us back to a rational society.

Powerline has it – in the form of a 1960 debate question about negotiating with the Soviets, and the responses of Kennedy and Nixon to the question. Read the whole thing, but to bottom line it – neither man was willing to meet with the Soviets without preconditions.

The basics of diplomacy are that the national leaders only meet after the ground has been cleared and there is at least some chance of a final deal being reached at the summit – to just trot over to the enemy and start talking about whatever comes to mind is a formula for disaster, and it bears no relation to the actual use of diplomacy as a means of resolving issues between States.

Obama has far too high a learning curve for us to trust him with the White House – perhaps if he’d go back to Illinois, run for governor and spend some time making real world decisions he is responsible for, that would season him enough to be entrusted with the most powerful office in the world, but as of right now, he’s got no business being President.

I strongly recommend reading this entire article, but this is the part which caught my eye:

…if you listened to their testimony, and more importantly pay attention to their actions, oil company executives simply do not believe that the price of oil is going to be $135 a barrel for the next few years. If they did, they would be punching more holes in the ground in places where it might be expensive to get the oil to market – but at $135 a barrel it would be profitable.

And then there is an odd circumstance in the oil picture that I think may suggest that we could see a break, and perhaps a violent one, in the near term for the price of oil.

Where Are All the Tankers?

For a few weeks now, observers have noticed that Iran is leasing tankers and storing oil in them. At about $140,000 a week or so, that is expensive storage. At first, conspiracy theorists were wondering if they were preparing for some kind of war or attack. But more conventionally, it may be they are having problems selling their oil. Their oil is not very high-quality, and there are only a few places that can take it and refine it. India, China, and the US are among the countries with refineries that can take Iranian oil. (And yes, George Friedman of Stratfor tells me some of it does end up in the US from time to time.)

India’s refiners are telling Iran they no longer want their oil, preferring the higher-quality oil that is readily available in the area. So Iran has to decide whether to send it to China or “repackage” it so that it can end up in the US, while they try to get refiners in India to change their minds. Thus, they are leasing tankers to store the oil they are pumping.

I called George about six this evening and asked him about the Iranian situation, as that is a lot of oil that could come on the market at some point, as well as a possible reason that oil supplies are down. George has analysts on top of this situation.

He told me, “John, it’s more interesting than that. It is not just Iran. Today we started checking on how many tankers Iran had, and soon discovered that there is a serious tanker shortage. Lease prices have soared in the past few weeks. It is clear there are a lot of speculators betting that oil is going to rise to $150 or so and are willing to pay very high prices for keeping the oil on the seas waiting for higher prices. It is a speculative boom.”

He then told me about flying into New York in the early ’80s. Outside the harbor were 30 or so tankers just sitting, waiting for prices to continue to increase as they had been doing for some time. When they did not, they all tried to get into the harbor at the same time, and of course they couldn’t. It was the top of the market. Prices dropped, and the owners of the oil had to go to the futures market to hedge what they could. I had heard that story, but George saw it with his own eyes.

Almost everyone (except the stock market) is convinced oil is going higher in the near term. As I noted above, this week’s rally was partially due to short covering by large institutions and companies which had sold production far into the future at much lower prices. They finally threw in the towel and took off their hedges.

I remember those tankers from 1980. I was only 15, but I thought it very odd that the price of oil was going through the roof while tankers were just sitting off America’s coasts, packed with oil. It was – in 2007 dollars – about $70 a barrel at that peak…and then it started to drop, and kept on dropping until it was about $20 a barrel. A similar event would mean $29 a barrel is in our future (and my view is that the reasonable price of a barrel of oil is about $35).

Could be an interesting few months in the commodities markets…

The shock here isn’t the dishonesty, but the admission of dishonesty:

I’ll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we…the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn’t say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn’t true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts…and people ate it up.

That is Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), and if you think he didn’t say it, then just go here and you can see him saying it on video.

And the people did eat it up – leftwing people…will you on the left now, finally, admit that the Democratic party is relentlessly dishonest and only interested in securing power and wealth for itself? Really, lefties, they don’t give a damn about you, or about anyone…power and wealth, wealth and power…that is all they care about, and it is all they will ever care about as long as you on the left mindlessly keep giving them your votes and your money and refuse to call them to account for their rank corruption. You wanted ’em, lefties – and now you got ’em.

What will you do in November?

HAT TIP: Wake Up America

Not a lot of money, but I’m not a rich man, either…but it is time, dear conservatives, that we stepped firmly up to the plate. Now that we’re 99% sure Obama will be the nominee and while the current lay of the political land indicates a renewed Democratic Congressional majority, we daren’t fail to do whatever we can to ensure McCain’s victory. Backing McCain is taking on the characteristic of a basic act of patriotism, because someone as ultra-left as Obama will do great harm to the United States.

Yes, I know all the objections – real and imagined – to McCain from my fellow conservatives…but that doesn’t matter in the least right now. Its a time of choosing. You can have McCain and a bit of conservatism plus a war won, or you can have Obama and pure liberalism plus a lost war.

Pick one.

If you pick correctly, then go here.