Say Anything Blog

‘Digger’ Dowling, the war legend who inspired The Great Escape, dies, aged 92

A war hero whose tunnel-digging exploits inspired the classic film The Great Escape has died, aged 92. Airman Eric “Digger” Dowling was shot down during night-time operations in April 1942 and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, becoming a legend thanks to his role in the breakout.

But the Second World War veteran survived his ordeal and died in his nursing home just one day short of his 93rd birthday last month, it emerged

Eric ‘Digger’ Dowling (left), pictured with an inmate at the Stalag Luft camp, from which he helped organise the breakout which inspired The Great Escape

Mr Dowling, from Bristol, carved out tunnels, forged documents and prepared maps for the real-life escape which inspired the 1963 film.

But his son revealed today that the father-of-two “wasn’t a fan” of the Steve McQueen epic, and thought the famous motorbike scene - which never happened - was “well over the top”.

Mr Dowling had three roles in the March 1944 escape plan, led by PoW Roger Bushell - document-forger, map-maker and, of course, tunnel-digger.

Digger Dowling with his aircrew, before they were shot down and captured

The scheme involved hollowing out three tunnels, codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry, with each entrance carefully selected to ensure it was not spotted by guards.

Tunnelling was dangerous and the roofs could cave in without warning. Despite this, Digger was not one of the men selected for the final breakout. In January 1945 the camp was evacuated because of the Russian advance and the men were marched to a second camp where they were liberated later that year.

Mr Dowling ‘wasn’t a fan’ of the Great Escape film, in which his role was played by Charles Bronson

They just don’t make many of them like this anymore! He was a notable member of “The Greatest Generation.” I found it fascinating that he played a bigger role in “The Great Escape” than the movie gave him credit for, which is typical of Hollywood rewrites of history.

Every man and woman that admires courage and daring should pause and give the guy a hand salute on this the day of his departure from this life. I know I do!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1042090/Digger-Dowling-war-legend-inspired-The-Great-Escape-dies-aged-92.html

China has made headlines in its efforts to clean smog from Beijing’s Olympic skies, but word is leaking out that the government is also making efforts to clean Christians out of the streets as the games draw near.

“There’s been a dramatic rise in cases of persecution that we’ve seen in the months leading up to the Olympics,” a staff writer for China Aid Association, Daniel Burton, told WND. “We’ve received reports that the government wants to eradicate the house church before the start of the Olympics.”

China Aid Association, an organization dedicated to helping persecuted Christians and founded by a man who escaped from China after being imprisoned for teaching Bible classes, maintains ties with China’s underground church. Those sources tell CAA that state police have taken up a new tactic: compelling discovered house church Christians in the Beijing area to sign a covenant promising not to meet from July 30 to Sept. 30, the time period the Olympics and Paralympics are being held in the city.

“Reports come from house church members who have been persecuted, and we have direct contact with them,” Burton told WND. “Police are making people sign the covenant then taking it away, so we can’t get our hands on the actual document. But it’s been reported from people that police are making them sign the covenant not to meet.”

Burton told WND that in most cases, the Beijing Public Security Bureau uses the same terror-raid tactics to stifle free associations of Christians in what the government calls the “unregistered church”: Police storm a building where a house church is meeting, arrest the pastor, disband the members and warn them not to meet again.

The government has been finding these house churches, knocking down the doors, arresting the pastors, beating and interrogating members of the church – all illegal according to China’s own religious laws – in order to get these people shut down,” Burton told WND

Christian persecution, torture and murder is not uncommon in the P.R.C., when I went there quite often in the eighties and nineties, there were often stories even in the Chinese media of Christians being shot down like dogs in the streeet in inland provinces. But, it ought to give President Bush some tiny pause on his journey to Beijing to realize that fellow Christians are being persecuted by the same government he intends to honor during his visit. Perhaps not though, after all Christians are fastly becoming the enemy of the state here and like is comon among Jews, they too are being killed around the world like so many rabid dogs.

Voice of the Marytrs has all the details of Christian persecution in China and other places in the world.

http://www.persecution.com/

For the whole story:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71508

‘Miracle’: Strangers bring drowned girl back to life.

Witness says, ‘I saw it within a foot of me, that child was dead’

Florida mother experienced what she is calling a miracle when her young daughter was presumed drowned in a pool, and three strangers brought the girl back to life.

Meagan Durocher, who will turn 2 later this month, fell into a pool at Bristol Pines in Naples, Fla., Saturday evening while attending a party for her uncle, Naples Police Officer Steve Walden.

The girl was underwater for more than a minute, according to one witness. Kathlene Durocher, Meagan’s mother thanked Naples Police Officer Benjamin Vasquez, one of the people who immediately came to the child’s aid, but has been unable to identify the other two helpers.

“They were complete strangers to me,” Durocher said yesterday in an interview with the Naples Daily News. “I don’t know who it was. I want to meet them because they saved the life of my beautiful, almost 2-year-old baby.”

Kathlene’s sister pulled Meagan out of the pool and brought her to a table. Party-goers began performing CPR on the child, but she did not respond.

“I saw it within a foot of me, that child was dead,” Walden said. “The child was purple (with) swelled eyes and swelled black lips.”

According to Vasquez, who was off-duty at the time, Meagan wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse, but he proceeded to perform CPR, even though he never had on a child before.

“She was purple as a grape,” he said. “It was amazing.”

Vasquez performed chest compressions but was unable to move in close enough to breathe for the child. He yelled for help, and a man and women that people are calling angels came to the rescue. The man breathed for Meagan while the woman took her pulse for about three minutes until the girl began breathing on her own and spitting up water.

“I was hysterical, and someone came up to me and said ‘Look at her, she’s up,’” Durocher said.

Now most people, even at SAB, will ridicule this story and insist there are natural explanations. Many liberals would want to sue the man and woman involved in the rescue for practicing medicine without a license; but a dear atheist friend of mine, a doctor, some years ago saw a young girl hit by a car, after a quick examination he was ready to declare her dead at the scene, all the clinical signs indicated death. For some reason he did not understand at the time, this atheist said aloud, “Lord if you exist bring this child back to life.” The next second and the girl took a deep breath and was not only alive, she was discharged to home that night. So, my point is, I believe in miracles and whether these people were angels in disguise or just normal people that mysteriously appeared and disappeared, only staying around long enouigh to assist in the rescue, this seems like another geniune miracle.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71522

Builder sent to jail for flood mitigation

This kind of thing drives me crazy! Citizens, even when going the extra mile to make sure they do not violate any federal regulations can still go to jail for violating regulations that do not exist.

An Idaho man is being sent to prison for meeting his local government’s demands during a subdivision development to fix a drainage problem that periodically had left the town of Driggs flooded, after federal officials then said their regulations banned such work.

The dire situation for developer Lynn Moses is being publicized by Bryan Fischer, the chief of Idaho Values Alliance, who said the “crime” for which Moses has been sentenced to 18 months in prison was, “Protecting the city of Driggs from flooding.”

Moses’ lawyer, Blake Atkin of Salt Lake City, confirmed the circumstances of the case, explaining that although the federal government repeatedly has denied having jurisdiction over the work involved, an opinion shared by the U.S. Supreme Court, Moses nevertheless was convicted on charges relating to his work on the streambed of Teton Creek, an intermittent runoff channel that has water in it for probably eight weeks out of the year.

“Worse, Mr. Moses has been convicted of ‘pollut(ing) a spawning area for Yellowstone cutthroat trout,’ despite the fact that there have been no fish in this stream bed for more than 150 years,” Fischer wrote. “[A resident] who has lived near the flood channel for 18 years, says he has never seen fish in this stream bed. And it’s not even possible for the stream bed to serve as a spawning ground since it only has water two months out of every year in the first place.”

Moses hired an engineer and contacted the federal government to obtain permission the project, and the Corps of Engineers told him there was no federal jurisdiction since it was an intermittent stream without any regular water flow.

The same conversation took place several times over the years, including in the 1990s when a Corps of Engineers staff member tried to convince a federal prosecutor to bring a case against Moses.

“The U.S. attorney told him to take a hike since the Corps had no jurisdictional authority to initiate legal action,” Fischer said. “According to former state legislator Lee Gagner, the Corps ‘discussed his process many times with him, but could not show where they had jurisdiction on the seasonal, intermittent stream,’ Gagner adds, ‘[T]o this day they do not have written rules indicating this to be true,” Fischer said.

Atkins said that very issue has been raised several times in the course of the case against Moses, but no court ruling ever has addressed it.

Then came a new a decision to pursue the case, and the conviction after jurors were told by Judge Lynn Winmill to disregard Moses’ attempts to submit the project to the Corps of Engineers and statements about U.S. government determinations regarding the channel in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, on the day Moses was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the U.S. Supreme Court released its Rapanos case, in which Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed the Clean Water Act gives the federal government jurisdiction only over “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water,” not intermittent streams.

In this climate of fear and government tyranny, no man or woman can ever feel safe from the heavy hand of a government out of control.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71452

This is just freaking nuts! In essence if the police in Connecticut suspect you might harm yourselves or others, absent any gun violations or any cause other than someone says they don’t like you, and they simply get a warrant and arrest your guns, before any crime is committed. Preventative Confistication of Guns!

Just in case, we’ll take your gun
State permits cops to seize firearms before crime is committed.

A new report to the Connecticut state legislature shows police have used the state’s unique gun seizure law to confiscate more than 1,700 firearms from citizens based on suspicion that the gun owners might harm themselves or others.

The state’s law permits police to seek a warrant for seizing a citizen’s guns based on suspicion of the gun owner’s intentions, before any act of violence or law-breaking is actually committed.

Shortly after the law was passed, Thompson Bosee, of Greenwich, Conn., had his guns and ammunition seized by police. Bosee told WND in 1999 that he suspects a neighbor, with whom he has had words regarding the neighbor’s driving on Bosee’s property, might have reported him.

“They had a warrant for my guns, they arrested my guns,” said Bosee. A member of both the NRA and the American Gunsmithing Association, Bosee said he works on his guns in his garage and is not ashamed of it.

Although Greenwich Police would not comment, they released a list of the guns and ammunition they seized from Bosee, including six handguns, three rifles, one shotgun, one submachine gun and 3,108 rounds of ammunition.

This is just nuts! No trial, no evidence that a crime was committed or that the person owning the guns had a record of violence with or without guns. Someone just says this guy scares me, he yelled at my dog, I think he’s crazy and might hurt someone. Forget presumption of innocence, get any complaint at all and they can take your guns.

I’ll bet Rob loves this one! Not!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71435

Robert Novak’s brain tumor: ‘Dire’
Veteran political columnist announces immediate retirement.

Robert Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and will retire immediately.

The political columnist called his condition “dire” and has left the paper to focus on medical treatment.

“The details are being worked out with the doctors this week, but the tentative plan is for radiation and chemotherapy,” Novak told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Novak, 77, announced his diagnosis July 27, only one week after he hit a homeless person with his Corvette. He had become ill that weekend and was admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., where doctors found a tumor in his brain.

“I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period,” Novak originally said in the statement released by Eagle Publish

One reason I find this follow-up of this story of interest is this:

according to an Associated Press report, a neuro-oncologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle said it is routine procedure for doctors to search for brain tumors on patients who have car accidents and don’t realize it.

“People get spatial and visual neglect of a certain part of their bodies and they don’t realize they’ve done what they’ve done,” said Dr. Lynne Taylor, a fellow with the American Academy of Neurology.

Considering his traffic accident victim rolled off Novak’s windshield and Novak wasn’t aware of it, I find it interesting that this can be a sign of a brain tumor and thankfully he was examined and quickly diagnosed.

Oh, I know liberals hate him and at times he even irritates conservatives, but he has been a major voice in American politics for nearly 50 years, and I hope he will recover.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71442

It is always fascinating to me when the historical record of the Bible is proven to be true and those that doubt Isarel’s historical record are shown to be not so wise.

A team of archaeologists in Israel has unearthed what’s believed to be the royal seal of an Old Testament prince who is said to have tossed the prophet Jeremiah down a well.

The stamped engraving, known as a “bulla,” was discovered earlier this year about 600 feet south of the Temple Mount, but is just now making headlines.

“We found the imprint in clay, remarkably well preserved, of a seal with the name of Gedaliah the son of Pashur,” Dr. Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, told Israel National News. “How absolutely fantastic and special this find is, can only be realized when you hold in your hand this magnificent one-centimeter piece of clay and know that it survived 2,600 years in the debris of the destruction, and came to us complete and in perfect condition.”

Gedaliah is mentioned by name in Jeremiah 38:1 as he served Judah’s King Zedekiah in the final days before Jerusalem was conquered by Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.

The prophet’s writings tell of the actions that Gedaliah and his fellow princes took against him:

“Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.” (Jeremiah 38:6)

Dr. Eilat Mazar

The letters on the seal are in ancient Hebrew.

This is actually the second recent discovery of an ancient bulla from the time of Jeremiah.

In 2005, Mazar found another seal with the name of Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, who is mentioned twice. That artifact was found in a stone structure Mazar believes was part of King David’s ancient palace.

“It’s not often,” Mazar told theTrumpet.com, “that such discoveries happen in which real figures of the past shake off the dust of history and so vividly revive the stories of the Bible

This does not prove the existence of God, but it does add to the innumerable archeological discoveries that prove the Bible is a reliable historical record.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71386

Reuters

Nobel Prize Winner, Soviet Dissident and author of the “Gulag Archipelgo,” died today at 89.

This man was a profile in courage, a giant among men, enduring prison and torture, but emerging with his back unbowed and his spirit for liberty still on fire.

This story is about a Federal Contractor that employed a Muslim operating a militant Jihadist website, which he is using to spread hate for America and to recruit home grown terrorists for Al Queda. Which is not why I am posting it here: I thought it newsworthy because the things this Muslim man says are in perfect harmony with the Qur’an, Hadith and the history of Islam. Many people love to talk about moderate Muslims and those Muslims like to deny the true nature of Islam, but this young man is at heart a true Muslim and that is why we should stop pussyfooting around with Islam here in America.

A young American Muslim has been employed by a federal contractor while running a radical website promoting al-Qaida.

The company and Khan parted ways after a local news crew showed up at his office to interview him about his jihadist website, which features graphic photos of dead U.S. soldiers and praise for al-Qaida leaders and terrorists, who he calls “martyrdom bombers.”

In one photo posted on his site, American soldiers are shown in a plane heading to Iraq above the caption, “Here they come.” A second photo posted below it shows flag-draped coffins aboard a U.S. military plane with the words, “And here they go.”

Khan, a Saudi immigrant, says the U.S. is losing the war on terror, while “the Muslims are winning.” He says a video he posted recently of “the mujahideen” blowing up a U.S. outpost in Iraq “brought great happiness to me.”

He shows no remorse even for relatives of dead American troops grieving back home. “I have no concern,” he told the New York Times in a video-streamed interview. “If they moan and groan and cry, it’s not going to change a thing.”

”They are the people of the Hellfire,” he added. “Every disbeliever will go to Hellfire.”

Khan claims the 9/11 attacks, which he replays on his website, were justified under Islamic jihad.

“Osama bin Laden did September 11th because it was an act of retaliation,” he says on his site, emphasizing the word “retaliation.”

Britain and other European states are knuckling under to Islam, changing their laws to accomodate Sharia Law within their own laws, including Sharia Courts and judges.

We too are moving towards special laws for Muslims and forcing others to respect their beliefs. We are sowing the seeds of our own destruction if we fail to understand that this man represents true Islam and these kind of people are building the terrorist cells here to strike at the heart of America; and while this new Rome (America) burns, we refuse to deal with Islam and thereby we help stoke their fires of hate.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70671

Despite Osamabama saying his appearance in Berlin and his speech was apoliotical, having nothing to do with his campaign, oddly he uses it to solicit campaign contributions.

Just Hours Later, Obama Campaign Uses Berlin Speech to Raise Campaign Cash

Shortly after 6 pm Central time—just a few hours after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, gave his speech in Berlin, which his campaign insisted was not political—his campaign manager, David Plouffe, sent out a fundraising solicitation using the speech to raise campaign cash.

TEXT OF LETTER:
“As you may have heard, Barack has been in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia this week,” reads the email, with a big red “DONATE” sign. “Today, he spoke in Berlin, Germany. In a city where a wall once divided the free from the oppressed, he talked about tearing down the walls that divide all peoples so we can address our common problems—the threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, global warming and genocide, AIDS and poverty. Watch Barack’s historic speech and share it with your friends.”

From ABC - Political Puch, by Jack Tapper
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/just-hours-late.html

‘Global Poverty Act’ to cost each citizen $2,500 or more.

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world.

The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe.

S.2433 already has been approved in one form by the U.S. House of Representatives and now has been placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar for pending debate.

WND previously reported the proposal demands the president develop “and implement” a policy to “cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief” and other programs.

Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media has published a critique asserting that while the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could “result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States” and would make levels of U.S. foreign aid spending “subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.”

GlennBeck analysis this idea.

Obama has continued to lobby for such massive expenditures on his campaign stops. During an address as recently as last week, he said, “I’ll double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to halve global poverty and to roll back disease.”

Beck and Kincaid pointed out that the plan not only commits the U.S. to the anti-poverty spending proposal, it also adopts for the U.S. the United Nations Millennium Development Goal, which includes a variety of treaties and protocols advocated by the U.N.

And there is nothing you can do about it if Obama is elected along with a fillibuster-proof Democrat Congress. I posted yesterday that Obama is running for something much higher than POTUS and the world looks ready to elect him.

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

I didn’t realize there was a global citizenship available!

“People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time,” he said.

Sounds to me like his political ambitions are considerably greater than POTUS!

One statement of his bothers me a great deal:

“The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand,”

How is he going to break them down? There cannot possibly be a breach in the wall between Islam and Christianity or Islam and Judaism, not the slightest hole. To break those walls down would require a forced ecumenism, a one-world religion and the criminalization of at least one religion, and with Islam’s influence over the U.N. they are trying to criminalyze any religion that criticizes Islam. For a Chriistian or Jew to accommodate Islam would require a denial of their own faith and so, Obama must be talking about a global government (See his world citizen statement above) and a one-world religion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25825692/

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70455

The Democrats have made a political calculation that they can weather the voter storm of protest of their allowing or even helping gas prices get over $5.00 a gallon, they are even adding 10 cents to the federal gas tax to push it over that level.

Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi oppose lifting the ban on domestic oil drilling – and they are hoping the American people will just quietly accept gas prices topping $5 a gallon or even higher.

They say the key to lowering the price is conservation.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70248

The rest of the article is about how Farah at World Net Daily, wants to attack this Congress and their policies on gasoline prices and against domestic oil drilling. One point he makes and I agree, is that Reid, Pelosi and other leading Democrats are risking the economic health of this country in favor of their Global Warming dogma which is not about global warming at all but political power; and, because they have calculated and I think in error that because socialist Europe supports anti-global warming polices that Americans are anxious to jump on board.

A Royal Marine who threw himself on to an exploding grenade to save the lives of his comrades is to receive the George Cross.

Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher stepped on a trip-wire which triggered the device during a night raid on a Taliban compound in Afghanistan. Realising that three other members of his patrol would be killed if he did not act, he launched himself forward to smother the explosion, managing to twist on to his back to let his rucksack take the full force of the blast.

The explosion hurled him across the compound leaving him stunned, bleeding profusely from the nose and almost deaf.

His rucksack was shredded and burning shrapnel from the kit he had been carrying was scattered around the area, with pieces found embedded in his helmet and body armour. Miraculously the 24-year-old Marine survived and within minutes was on his feet, refusing evacuation and demanding to be allowed to stay with the patrol. He helped set an ambush and shot dead a Taliban insurgent in the ensuing gunfight.

Lance Cpl Croucher recalled later: ‘I thought, “I’ve set this bloody thing off and I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect the others”. ‘The lads behind me would have caught a lot. I’m very tight with the other three guys. There’s been a few times when they’ve saved my bacon. ‘I figured that if I could keep my torso and head intact I’d probably survive any other injuries -  although I fully expected to lose a limb.’

The George Cross ranks alongside the Victoria Cross as the highest medal for valour. The VC is awarded for outstanding bravery ‘in the face of the enemy’ and is often regarded as more prestigious, although the GC recognises the same level of gallantry in cases where no enemy is present.

Sometimes Such Bravery Makes You Cry:

Veteran broadcaster Sarah Kennedy burst into tears live on-air during her BBC Radio 2 show today.

The 58-year-old was reading highlights from this morning’s newspapers when she broke down crying over a story about a soldier who will receive the George Cross for bravery.

Pilgrim posted some information about this, including a video, on the SAB Front Page, but I wanted to add a picture and some data for your consideration.

Media in love with Obama?
Recent polls, McCain agree: Press is twitterpated

A new poll demonstrates Americans believe by a more than three-to-one ratio that the news media is trying to help Sen. Barack Obama win the presidential election this fall, a perception that John McCain has now taken advantage of in a humorous new feature on his website.

49 percent of voters believe most reporters are trying to help Obama with their coverage.

A full 50 percent of Americans polled believe the media is making economic conditions seem worse than they really are

41 percent believe reporters are trying to make news of the Iraq war seem unfairly negative.

Only 25 percent think most reporters present fair coverage of the economy, with the same percentage believing the American people are getting an unbiased picture of Iraq.

Independents, it seems, tend to agree more with the Republicans. Half of the unaffiliated respondents (50 percent) believe reporters are helping Obama, 21 percent perceive unbiased coverage, and a mere 12 percent see a pro-McCain slant.

Of those polled, 59 percent of Republicans affirmed the United States has the world’s best economy, while a mere 18 percent of Democrats would make the same judgment.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70272