With all due deference to the author, I assure you this is meant to be wholly complimentary, we offer the following analogy: Imagine, if you will, a young man in a penny arcade. He's had one too many Mountain Dews and the Whack-a-Mole game is stuck in the "On" position. The vermin keep popping up endlessly and the lad is only too happy to keep hammering them mercilessly. As we observe him, we are struck as much by his enthusiam as by his persistence. Now, imagine him a grown man. Give him a cudgel formed of his own wit and intelligence, and turn him loose on all of the nonsense that keeps popping up from the Left on topics like energy, the environment, animal rights, education, the UN, and Islamicism. Alan Caruba--one time PR man, lifelong resident of the great County of Essex in New Jersey, and now a prolific conservative columnist--is that man and this collection of essays his weapon. He's just as much fun to observe, if not quite as manic, as our caffeine-stoked kid, as he pounds away at liberal myths, mistakes, and outright lies, even though they just keep coming.

Here, for instance, is a particulary appalling example of what he's up against, -ESSAY: Greens Attack US Military (Alan Caruba, September 2001, Conservative Monitor):

"Endangered species has power to halt war training" was the headline on an article in an October 2000 edition of the Washington Times. Written by Steve Miller and datelined Fort Irwin, California, the article began "What may be one of the most formidable threats to national security today has a craggy face, scaly arms and, well, he likes a little grass now and then." He was referring to the desert tortoise.

Soldiers on the Army training center's battlefield were instructed to call a commander if a desert tortoise crawled out of a hole. At that point, the entire training exercise would stop. This insanity has been repeated on every military base in the nation in one fashion or another.

The US Defense Department oversees and controls 17 million acres of US land, down from 30 million acres after World War II. It has been losing the fight for space to train a modern military for years. When asked about the need for national security, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management (the same one that shut off water to the farmers of Klamath Valley) was quoted in the article as saying, "It is not in our purview to make a determination related to national security. Ours is to make sure the Endangered Species Act is complied with."

And, after reading that and what follows, it's hard not to agree with his conclusion:

[T]he Greens have infiltrated our military establishment, just as they have done in our nation's schools, and throughout federal and state government agencies. In every case, they have instituted and supported programs that will continue to have serious consequences for our national security and sovereignty.

It is time to identify and root out these enemies of our military. A good first step would be to rescind the DoD Office of Environmental Security. This would help to begin restoring our nation's ability to wage war effectively against its enemies at home and abroad.

Next, this nation has to rid itself of the Endangered Species Act and, ultimately, the greatest enemy of our national security, the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sure, Saddam's Fedayeen can't stop our troops from driving across the desert, but a bureaucrat and a freakin' turtle can?

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, the good auspices of web-based magazines like the excellent Enter Stage Right, and the fecundity of his own mind, you can find many of Mr. Caruba's writings on-line (see below). This book though is an entertaining compendium of his commentaries from the past couple years on the full range of issues he addresses week in and week out. It will, as he says, "mostly please people whose political choice is conservatism." Of course, on finishing, you'll wonder how anyone could ignore all the warning signs and choose otherwise. But they do, so maybe we'd all better grab mallets; here come some more moles...

(Reviewed:29-Mar-03)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

Tweet

Alan Caruba Links:

    The Caruba Organization
    -National Anxiety Center
    -The Boring Institute
    -Bookviews by Alan Caruba
    -ARCHIVES: Enter Stage Right
    -ARCHIVES: Special Report From Alan Caruba (Plain Talk)
    -ARCHIVES: Alan Caruba (Bush Country)
    -Archives of Alan Caruba (Opinion Net)
    -ARCHIVES: Alan Caruba - Archive (The Patriotist)
    -ARCHIVES: Alan Caruba (Political USA)
    -ESSAY: Alan Caruba (Capitalism Magazine)
    -ARCHIVES: Alan Caruba (Sierra Times)
FOREIGN AFFAIRS:
    -ESSAY: Is Bush Putting The Skids Under The United Nations? (Alan Caruba, March 30, 2003, ToogoodReports)
    -ESSAY: Transforming Iraq and the world: Rebuilding Iraq after the war's end won't only be a service to Iraqis, but an example to the rest of the Middle East. (Alan Caruba, 3/24/03, Enter Stage Right)
    The Dark Side Of The Muslim Mind (Alan Caruba, February 5, 2003, ToogoodReports)
    -ESSAY: Fear Itself (Alan Caruba, October 2002, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: Pardon Me, But I Don't Give a Damn about the UN? (Alan Caruba, October 2002, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: Arafat Marginalized (Alan Caruba, September 2002, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: The Rules of Engagement Have Changed (Alan Caruba, 9/11/2001, Freedom.org)
EDUCATION:
    -ESSAY SERIES: The Subversion of Education in America (Alan Caruba)
    -ESSAY: Specious science in our schools: Want to know why American kids, on the average, aren't setting the world on fire when it comes to science? (Alan Caruba, 7/15/02, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Our national education system: A $49 billion dollar disaster (Alan Caruba, 1/28/02, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Local schools? Don't make me laugh! (Alan Caruba, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Don't fund the federal education system. End it. (Alan Caruba, 7/16/01, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Illiterate America (Alan Caruba, 2/05/01, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Indoctrination, not education (Alan Caruba, 1/12/01, Enter Stage Right)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT:
    -ESSAY: Global warming: The perversion of science: You knew it had to happen (Alan Caruba, 2/24/03, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Green Wealth: Funding the enemy: Who are some of the most profitable organizations in America? (Alan Caruba, February 17, 2003, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: The great hydrogen myth (Alan Caruba, February 10, 2003, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: The utter waste of recycling (Alan Caruba, January 20, 2003, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: No, Alaska is not melting (Alan Caruba, July 8, 2002, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: 2001's green lies (Alan Caruba, December 24, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Greens say "Turn off your lights" (Alan Caruba, June 18, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Kalifornia's Fascists (Alan Caruba, May 21, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Thirty years of California's opposition to energy (Alan Caruba, April 9, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Bush is as green as Gore! (Alan Caruba, March 5, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
   
    -ESSAY: California and Kyoto (Alan Caruba, January 22, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: The knives are out for Norton (Alan Caruba, January 8, 2001, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Understanding and defeating the worldwide green threat (Alan Caruba, January 3, 2000, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: "Beyond Petroleum", Beyond the truth (Alan Caruba, January 6, 2003, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: Distracted By Green Lies (Alan Caruba, December 30, 2001, Crowley Offroad)
    -ESSAY: Greens Attack US Military (Alan Caruba, September 2001, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: Implementing Communism in America, an Acre at a Time (Alan Caruba, 21 January, 2000, Crowley Offroad)
    -ESSAY: The Green Genocide Agenda: Saving the Earth by Killing Humans (Alan Caruba, Anxiety Center Online)
OTHER:
    -ESSAY: Why we go "out there" (Alan Caruba, February 3, 2003, Enter Stage Right)
    -ESSAY: 2002's Most Dubious News Stories of the Year (Alan Caruba, Right Wing News)
    -ESSAY: Binding Words for Americans (Alan Caruba, June 2002, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: Sniper Theories & the Bigger War (Alan Caruba, October 2002, Conservative Monitor)
    -ESSAY: The Clinton Contagion (Alan Caruba, 10/31/2000, Political USA)
    -PROFILE: Caruba Proves to Be Far From Boring (Stephen Goode, 4/01/03, Insight on the News)
    -ESSAY: Most Boring of Them All?: Alan Caruba, founder of the Boring Institute, has issued his 15th annual "Most Boring Celebrities of the Year" list, headed by President Clinton. (John Elvin, December 07 1998, Insight on the News)
    -ARCHIVES: "alan caruba" (Find Articles)
    -REVIEW: of Warning Signs by Alan Caruba (W. J. Rayment, Conservative Monitor)
    -REVIEW: of Warning Signs (John Brignell, Number Watch)

Book-related and General Links: