Woods Walker's Link
"If you're a parent, do you drop your kids off at a concert and watch them walk off into the crowd?
If you do, from now on you'll be thinking of what happened in Manchester. Those young people — many of them young girls — killed in the terrorist bomb attack outside that Ariana Grande concert, will always be in the front of your mind.
If you're a parent, you're thinking of Manchester now.
Young girls and boys love Ariana Grande's pop music. They sing her songs as parents drive them here and there, to school or to practice.
And evil knows this, and evil killed them.
Evil taught the bomber to do what he did, whether through the words of some hateful Islamic cleric or the words of someone else. Evil planned it out carefully, making the bomb, and then selecting that spot outside the concert venue at Manchester, waiting in what terrorism experts say was a choke point, to maximize the damage.
If you're a parent, you see those children and think of your own kids, chatting, excited, singing their Ariana Grande songs to each other just before the blast.
Because killing our children is where this is now, isn't it — all our children, as ISIS terrorists claim credit for what their soldier did: Killing at least 22 and injuring at least 60 more with a bomb filled with nails and bolts."
"And others, I hope, will come to realize that there is no fighting this kind of terrorism in the West without the help of good people of the Islamic faith who are our countrymen, neighbors and friends."
On it's face I agree with this, in that this is Islam's problem and Islam must fix it. But the question is WILL they? CAN they? And most importantly do they actually WANT to? Time will tell.....and the clock is running.
"Mr. President, I have signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Iraq resolution, and I'd like to tell you a story about why I think it is the right path to take:
A few weeks ago, we were doing some work on my back porch back home, tearing out a section of old stacked rocks, when all of a sudden I uncovered a nest of copperhead snakes. Now, I'm not one to get alarmed at snakes. I know they perform some useful functions, like eating rats. And when I was a young lad, I kept snakes as pets.
I had an indigo snake, a bull snake, a corn snake and many others. I must have had a dozen king snakes at one time or another. They make great pets and you only had to feed them a mouse every 30 days.
I read all the books by Raymond C. Ditmars, who was the foremost herpetologist of his day. That's an expert on snakes. For a while, I wanted to be a herpetologist, but the pull of being a big-league shortstop outran that childhood dream.
I reminisce this way to explain that snakes don't scare me like they do some people. And I guess the reason is that I know the difference between those that are harmless and those that will kill you. In fact, I bet I may be the only senator in this body who can look at the last three inches of a snake's tail and tell you whether it's poisonous or not. I can also tell the sex of a snake, but that's another story.
A copperhead will kill you. It could kill one of my dogs. It could kill one of my grandchildren. It could kill any of my four great grandchildren. They play all the time where I found these killers. And you know, when I discovered these copperheads, I didn't call my wife Shirley and ask her advice, like I do on most things. I didn't yell for help from my neighbors or take it to the city council.
I just took a hoe and knocked them in the head and killed them.
Dead as a doorknob.
I guess you could call it a unilateral action. Or pre-emptive or even bellicose and reactive. I took their poisonous heads off because they were a threat to me.
And they were a threat to my home and my family.
They were a threat to all I hold dear.
And isn't that what this is all about?"
- Zell Miller, former Democrat Senator from Georgia
What we can do is learn from it. If he's just some wack job there isn't much we can learn to stop the next guy that loses it. But, if he fits a pattern of behavior, dress, ideology or social circle, we can.
If pro golfers with plaid pants and Nike visors are committing terrorism. Its ok to put pro golfers with plaid pants and Nike visors under the microscope and its ok and prudent to not invite them to your kids birthday party or the neighborhood BBQ.
Most pro golfers with plaid pants and Nike visors are probably fine upstanding people. They love golfing , wearing plaid pants and Nike visors. At the next PGA meeting, they should be the first to sound the alert when one of their buddies starts hinting around that they support the terrorist golfers. They should be the the ones teaching young golfers that plaid pants and Nike visors are ok but killing innocent people isn't. The most respected and senior golfers should be making sure that their literature and the golf school curriculum clearly rejects terrorism and that those that promote hurting innocent people are evil. They should be teaching that folks who don't golf, don't wear plaid pants or Nike visors are ok and should be treated with kindness and acceptance.
If they won't do these things then they can't be surprised when a pro golfer with plaid pants and a Nike visor wants to move here and gets denied.
Uh... like ISLAM? I'd say that'd be a real good starting point.