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"I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire."--Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 1927For the past 6 years, Chris Matthews has hosted a show in which guests gleefully reported the purported success of both indigenous insurgents and foreign al Qaeda fighters in Iraq. On his network, MSNBC, that became the default setting. They were the publicity arm of al Qaeda. Car bombs led the news, successful American battles, infrastructure completion, or the like were not even news. Bagdad Bob had nothing on them. Chris would evoke the worst kind of moral equivalence by constantly posing...

French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in central Paris on the anniversary of the city's liberation from Nazi rule. The night time attack saw the bronze hands of the £250,000 statue daubed in red paint. The initials RH were also daubed on the statue, perhaps a reference to Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War to allegedly try and make peace. Instead, Churchill had him thrown in prison in 1941, and the war continued for a further four years. After the war, Hess was tried at...

On Sunday, September 3, 1939 - 70 years ago next month - Britain declared war on Germany in fulfilment of its pledge to aid Poland, invaded by the Nazis. 'I know now that it will come to me to deal with Mr Hitler,' Winston Churchill told a cousin a few days earlier. He perceived his own hour of destiny at hand. That same afternoon, he was summoned to Downing Street by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. For most of the decade Churchill had been a scourge of the Tory government. From 'the wilderness' of the Commons back benches, he denounced the...

Winston Churchill, the great and wise British statesman, once stated: If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time -- a tremendous whack. Winston was a whack'em & stack'em kind of guy -- the kind I respect and admire. Everything good in life is a direct result of piledrivers piledriving on. I piledrive at all costs. I am a piledriver. Apparently Barry O does not share my admiration of Mr. Churchill because, after...

Journalism: After the eulogies, the fact remains that "the most trusted man in America" betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.President Obama on Friday praised Walter Cronkite as a journalistic icon, calling the CBS anchor the "voice of certainty in an uncertain world." More to the point, he was the father of advocacy journalism, the patron saint of media bias. He went from reporting news to recreating it in his own image. Far from the image of the patriotic war correspondent, Cronkite was a...

HBO’s Into the Storm, dramatizing Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II, deserves close study from our statesmen, their spouses, and anyone with questions about the stakes and requirements of warfare. This Churchill, portrayed brilliantly by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, is an unapologetic conservative, a tenacious dynamo whose rhetoric and resolve protected Britain and the West from submission to tyranny. We pick up Churchill where HBO’s Emmy-winning 2002 film The Gathering Storm left off. Hitler appeaser Neville Chamberlain has been discredited, and Churchill takes over as prime minister. After the successful retreat of the British Army from Dunkirk, France, Churchill...

      May 1, 2009 A Tribute to Margaret Thatcher--30 Years On  by Robin Harris, D. Phil. WebMemo #2419 Thirty years ago, Britain embarked upon a conservative revolution that not only transformed the country but left an indelible and unmistakable impact on the rest of the world. Only two British Prime Ministers--Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher--have by force of personality and power of example done anything like this.In The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill wrote of his initial thoughts after his election as Prime Minister in May 1940: As I went to bed at about 3 a.m., I was...

Last night, Barack Obama said he had recently read an article about Winston Churchill during the London blitz. "Churchill said, 'We don't torture,' when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat," Obama said. "And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country." It was, perhaps, the most powerful anecdote of the night, and an apparently powerful moral condemnation of President Bush, an admitted admirer of Churchill who kept the...

While on the BOAC flight in June 1954 the plane's menu was not good enough for the Prime Minister so he wrote one out himself. He requested his meal be brought on two trays. He lists in his own hand: "1st Tray. Poached egg, Toast, Jam, Butter, Coffee and milk, Jug of cold milk, Cold Chicken or Meat. "2nd Tray. Grapefruit, Sugar Bowl, Glass orange squash (ice), Whisky soda." He then adds: "Wash hands, cigar." At first he had tried to amend the printed menu, but in the end wrote out his own on the other side. With his Foreign...

Economic Fundamentalists by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 16, 2009 A Baptist minister gave a sermon on economics that the ACLU and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State would surely regard as crossing the theological divide. “During the last two years, some of the most notable commercial reputations have been hopelessly destroyed,” he said. “Men in the great world of trade, who were trusted, around whose characters there hovered no cloud of suspicion, not even the shade of doubt, have proved themselves reckless of honesty and devoid of principle.” “The fiery trial has been too much for...

Eugenics … death of the defenceless The legacy of Darwin’s cousin Galton By Russell Grigg Few ideas have done more harm to the human race in the last 120 years than those of Sir Francis Galton. He founded the evolutionary pseudo-science of eugenics. Today, ethnic cleansing, the use of abortion to eliminate ‘defective’ unborn babies, infanticide, euthanasia, and the harvesting of unborn babies for research purposes all have a common foundation in the survival-of-the-fittest theory of eugenics. So who was Galton, what is eugenics, and how has it harmed humanity?...

The thrill is back! Chris Matthews got a Churchillian frisson from the Obama speech–even before the president delivered it. During the Hardball pre-game, Matthews declared this to guests Pat Buchanan and Larry O’Donnell: CHRIS MATTHEWS: Here’s the key line, I think, though there will be others. “The day of reckoning has arrived,” this is Senator, this is President Obama. “The day of reckoning has arrived. The time to take charge of our future is here.” This is Churchillian. Buchanan had a telling retort . . . View video.

It is hard to understand this deal,” said Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy. And, if the special envoy of the so-called smartest and most impressive administration in living memory can’t understand it, what chance do the rest of us have? Nevertheless, let’s try. In the Swat Valley, where a young Winston Churchill once served with the Malakand Field Force battling Muslim insurgents, his successors have concluded the game isn’t worth the candle. In return for a temporary ceasefire, the Pakistani government agreed to let the local franchise of the Taliban impose its industrial strength version of sharia across the...

What do John Lennon and Barack Obama have in common, you may ask? (There isn't enough bandwidth in the Western Hemisphere to sufficiently respond).The answer ... they both rejected Winston Churchill.Lennon did so when he publicly renounced his birth name of John Winston Lennon in favor of John Ono Lennon, although never legally. (His mother named him Winston after being overcome with an irresistible wave of patriotism as the Battle of Britain waged in 1940).Obama rejected Churchill by returning a prized bronze bust of the great statesman and wartime leader (created by Sir Jacob Epstein) that was loaned to...

Gordon Brown invoked the wartime spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he made a surprise pre-Christmas trip to the Afghanistan front line just hours after bombs killed four British troops in the area.He was flown to the top of Roshan Tower post, situated in the thick of the Helmand fighting zone – and, in so doing, out-machoed his predecessor Tony Blair, who never left the safety of a fortified British base. (edit)Downing Street aides claimed that no British Prime Minister had been as close to a major front line since Winston Churchill in the Second World War.(edit) But the...

LONDON: It seems that new history has completely forgotten one of Britain's tallest leaders — Winston Churchill. The wartime PM, who led Britain to victory in the World War II, failed to secure a place on the list of the most important people and events in UK history. In fact, Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, Captain Cook and Sir Walter Raleigh also couldn't get into the "British" list — though the Beatles found a place, the Sun reported. A team of scholars working for the History Channel has compiled the comprehensive list for a television series.

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

One in four Britons don't believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey. Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday. The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported. The survey, by UKTV Gold, also found that Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- Newly declassified British documents provide a window into heated Cabinet discussions on Iraq, Israeli-Arab relations, protecting the environment, and a secret deal on when the prime minister would step aside for his ambitious No. 2. Although many of the preoccupations are the same, these are not about Tony Blair's final months as prime minister. The Cabinet notes released Monday provide a glimpse into the back rooms of Britain's post-World War II government as the sun was setting on both the British Empire and the era of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The notebooks of Cabinet Secretary...

Every once in a while, some pollster comes up with a survey that shows what idiots Westerners can be. They especially like to pick on Americans and their rather insular attitude towards geography, being unable in large numbers to actually find Iraq on a globe or to identify the correct continent for Guyana (South America, in case anyone asks). Jay Leno has a running gag on the Tonight Show where he goes out in the street and asks people simple questions and films them getting the answers spectacularly wrong. So I have some sympathy with our friends in Britain this...

WINSTON CHURCHILL ON ISLAM - IN 1899! "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to...

1. The following was published 107 years ago in 1899. 2. It was authored by Winston Churchill who first became a household name forty years later during world turmoil leading up to WWII. 3. It was impossible for him to even imagine a fraction of the changes in technology or world politics yet to come. ~~~~~~~~~~~ "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems...

Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and not a conservative has no brains. - Winston Churchill I guess we know what old Winston would think of Chris Matthews, then. Appearing on Morning Joe today, the Hardball host turned the Churchillian maxim upside down, claiming his gut leans right but his head pulls him left.

"We will defend what is ours We shall never surrender" -Kosovo Is Serbia- Oficial Serbian Gov. bilboard

Rumsfeld Remarks at Churchill Dinner PATH TO VICTORY Refashioning Institutions for the 21st Century Remarks by Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Claremont Institute's 20th Annual Dinner in Honor of Sir Winston Churchill, November 17, 2007.This past year has certainly provided ample entertainment for those interested in politics. The activities of Congress and the unexpected blessing of an extra year of presidential campaigning fill our newspapers, televisions, and blogs. The problem is that this entertainment tends to focus on the petty and the personal, and seems to avoid a serious discussion of the emerging challenges our country and the next...

Churchill dropped from England's history syllabus Posted 9 hours 19 minutes ago Updated 4 hours 38 minutes ago Just not cricket ... the exclusion of Winston Churchill is likely to leave traditionalists aghast. (File photo) (Reuters: Toby Melville) Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says.The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said.But...

The grandson of Sir Winston Churchill will tell an Ottawa audience tonight that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous for the Middle East and for western nations. That grandson, also named Winston Churchill, will deliver his address, titled "Democracy and Freedom Under Threat," at the annual forum of Kollel of Ottawa, a centre for advanced Torah study. "If the Americans admit failure and withdraw soon from Iraq, I see the writing on the wall," Mr. Churchill told the Citizen in a phone call from Britain. "Our friends and allies in the region, as well as nations throughout the...

Sir Winston Churchill, who today would be considered the master of the one-liner, understood politicians extremely well. With this simple, timeless, but quite accurate statement, Churchill captures today’s liberal Democrats in the American Congress without ever meeting any of them: “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” The cacophony of parrot-jabber coming out of the House and the Senate is deafening and the racket doesn’t stop there. There has been plenty of blather coming from the green zone in Iraq as well. Like a herd of donkeys, some Democratic presidential hopefuls stampeded into Iraq so that they...

The rap on George W. Bush is that he can't make a rousing speech like Winston Churchill, and indeed he can't. But who can? Not Hillary, not "the husband of," not John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, or even Barack Obama, worthies all. Churchill marshaled the language and sent it off to World War II. He was sui generis, one of a kind, an orator who played rhetoric like Babe Ruth hit home runs and Brooks Robinson played third base. But Churchill, the electrifier of frightened audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, had an advantage that neither George W. nor...

On July 14, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain addressed the nation on BBC Radio. The last month had seen the complete collapse of French and British resistance to German aggression on the continent of Europe. The French Army had been decisively defeated, and the Allied armies had been evacuated back to Britain from the coastline at Dunkirk. On June 14, the Nazis had marched into Paris. In the aftermath of the string of devastating defeats that had isolated Britain and left Europe prostrate before Hitler, Churchill spoke. "Should the invader come to Britain, there will be no placid...

I was rewriting history, while walking along some cold lakeshore the other day. My thought was: if Churchill had only come to power in 1937, Chamberlain would have been installed to replace him in 1940. Had Churchill been in power, and refused to sign Munich, he would have been blamed for the outbreak of war. I can just hear the prattle in an English pub, circa 1950. "He pushed Hitler to it! Had it not been for Churchill, Hitler would have been satisfied with the Sudetenland, and England would never have had to surrender. Everything was Churchill's fault!" Today, everything...

You have a problem. It’s a problem shared by Jews in Hebron, Serbs in Kosovo, Hindus in the Kashmir, Catholics in Lebanon, and Americans walking the streets of New York. Consider the inter-connectedness of the following incidents, all of which took place in the past few months: In Indonesia, three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded. In Iraq, a Syrian Orthodox priest was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. In Somalia, a nun was shot to death as she left the hospital where she worked, tending the sick and dying. In Lebanon, just days ago, a cabinet minister was assassinated. In Britain, authorities uncovered...

A notebook kept by Sir Winston Churchill's nurse has revealed a regimented routine in his final years which included her looking after his pet budgerigar. Muriel Thomson looked after Sir Winston as he neared death and, in addition to making sure he had his cigars and whisky to hand, was expected to put the bird 'to bed'. The former prime minister was an animal lover and it seems that, towards the end of his life, his budgie was seldom far from his side, even accompanying him to dinner. "Whisky and soda, specs, cards; bird to be brought into dining room...

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)--Radical Islam poses to Western civilization a threat similar to that of the Nazis and the Soviets, Winston Churchill said Sept. 26 at Union University. Churchill -– author, journalist, former Member of Parliament and grandson of the former British prime minister -– spoke before about 1,800 people at Union’s 10th annual Scholarship Banquet to raise funds for students scholarships. “Together we have overcome far more powerful enemies than those that assail us today,” Churchill said. “I have every confidence that, in confronting this new challenge, America and Britain -– together with our allies -– can prevail and shall...

WINSTON CHURCHILL IN A SPEECH IN 1899! -- 107 years ago: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every...

Editor's note: Seldom I disregard the editorial policy of dealing exclusively with issues of my country. The recent escalation of violence in the Middle East against Israel however merits our attention for the issue goes far beyond a dispute between the Islamofundamentalists of Hezbollah and Israel; it isn't about Israel's future and safety anymore, rather a 'holy war' between deranged people and freedom; between terror and the values and liberties the civilised and rational inhabitants of this world hold dear. Someone sent the following speech -originally published March 03, 2006, which I have decided to post for it couldn't have...

Bill Engvale is a member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. For years he’s been doing a routine about stupid things that people say. Each example ends with the tag line, “Here’s your sign.” That means a big sign with STUPID written on it. Although geopolitics are not Bill’s metier, he offers a way to cut through the twaddle about the beginning of WW III. Let’s start with Howard Dean. (Remember him? He was in all the papers.) Dean cropped up today giving a fire-breathing speech to the faithful (and forlorn), screaming that we wouldn’t have these problems in the...

Thanks to the manner in which the Ivory Tower makes poster children of its most problematic professors and the zeal with which college administrators excise “dead white guys” from their curricula, Winston Churchill is probably not as well known on many American college campuses as Ward Churchill. Indeed, I found foundations, scholarships, institutes, centers and even high schools named after Great Britain’s most famous prime minister but few classes on his life and work. About the only college course on Winston Churchill that I could find on a quick Google search was one at Hillsdale. Perhaps some of the great...

A half-smoked cigar enjoyed by Sir Winston Churchill, Britain's war-time prime minister, was sold at auction for 365 pounds (670 dollars, 527 euros). Churchill had been puffing on the cigar when he arrived for a meeting in Blackpool, north-west England, on October 14, 1950, when he was leader of the Conservative Party in opposition, auctioneers Outhwaite and Litherland said. Upon being told he would not be able to smoke in the ballroom where he was due to give a speech, the politician stubbed out the cigar and handed it to a special constable standing next to him. The policeman kept...

The recent anniversaries of the Allied victory in Europe and Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech provided the kindling for the fire set by Vice President Dick Cheney's criticisms of Russia during his visit earlier this month to the former Soviet Union. Russian president Vladimir Putin responded in kind by attacking the United States in his May 10 state of the nation speech. ... Two influential pieces appeared this spring in Russia focusing specifically on Churchill's address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and the current state of relations between Washington and Moscow. In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov...

  Statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in straitjacket (photo: Eastern Daily Press) Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, recently voted the "Greatest Briton" ever, is being remembered this month in England with a statue of him in a straitjacket. "It's not only insulting, it's pathetic," Churchill's grandson Nicholas Soames, a member of Parliament, told the Sun newspaper. "It is grossly offensive to Sir Winston and his millions of admirers." The statue of Churchill in a straitjacket in the town of Norwich is the product of Rethink, a mental-health charity looking to draw attention to the stigma surrounding...

Fury at Churchill statue Storm ... statue has provoked fury     By JOHN TROUP THE family of war hero Winston Churchill yesterday slammed a statue of him in a STRAITJACKET. MP Nicholas Soames — his grandson — said: “It’s not only insulting, it’s pathetic.” Churchill is known to have suffered periods of depression which he called his “black dog”. And the charity Rethink put the lifesize statue on display in Norwich yesterday to symbolise how the mentally ill are stigmatised by society. But Mr Soames said: “This is probably a good cause in search of publicity and they have...

In one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union's policies in Europe and declares, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." Churchill's speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. Churchill, who had been defeated for re-election as prime minister in 1945, was invited to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri where he gave this speech. President Harry S. Truman joined Churchill on the platform and listened intently to his...

Churchill's speech defined the world order for the next 40 years In his "Iron Curtain" speech, delivered exactly 60 years ago, Winston Churchill brilliantly defined an era. The speech may also have lessons for the present. It was a heroic but troubled time. The world was in turmoil after the most terrible conflict in human history. On 5 March 1946 Churchill was no longer the UK's prime minister but he still enjoyed a giant reputation around the world. So US President Harry Truman himself travelled 1,000 miles to Fulton, Missouri, to hear Churchill give a speech after receiving an...

Sixty years ago this Wednesday, Winston Churchill addressed the General Assembly and urged the citizens of the United States and Great Britain to stand together. * snip * .... posthumously make Britain's prime minister during World War II an honorary citizen of Virginia. * snip * Only three other notables hold honorary state citizenship - the Marquis de Lafayette, the Revolutionary War hero; John D. Rockefeller, the oil baron who underwrote the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg; and Margaret Thatcher, another former British prime minister who also once served as chancellor of the College of William and Mary. She joined the...

Westminster College announced late on Monday that Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC program “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” will be a keynote speaker during the 60th anniversary festivities of Sir Winston Churchill's “Iron Curtain” speech. “We are very pleased that Mr. Matthews has accepted our invitation to join us for this momentous occasion,” said Rob Havers, executive director of the Churchill Memorial and Library. “His extensive experience in world affairs and his personal interest in Churchill should combine to make a fascinating presentation for our Saturday evening event.” Matthews, also host of the NBC show, “The Chris Matthews Show,” will...

For this magnificent and brilliant speech, delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons in June 1940, the Claremont Institute has announced that it will posthumously give Mr. Churchill its prestigious Mark Steyn award. (The speech is excerpted below, click here for full text.) The British people have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can. Much of the so-called Western world will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most western European countries. There’ll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands...

Sergeant Clay: Afghanistan Vet and Adopt-A-Soldier Adoptee in the UK November 22, 2005: A Fourth Hour Phone Call Download Windows Media PlayerListen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Sergeant Clay calling from the UK, the United Kingdom. Welcome, sergeant, to the program. It's an honor to have you with us. CALLER: Oh, my gosh! Hey, Rush. Professor Limbaugh, mega-mega-megadittos if ever such a thing there could be. We owe it all to you, brother. I just wanted to call and to let you know I've been listening to you since 1989, and I've been a...

Over the past few days, my beach reading has consisted of a 175-page 1976 Harvard undergraduate thesis titled "Old and New Liberalism: The British Liberal Party's Approach to the Social Problem, 1906-1914." Scintillating stuff, and I can safely say that I would have happily lived my life in comparative ignorance if it hadn't been written by a recent Supreme Court nominee, John G. Roberts.The fact that President Bush's supposedly conservative nominee chose to author his undergraduate thesis on a decidedly liberal topic is worth a few hours of August analysis. While left-wing activist groups have been preparing for an ideological...