Author: Humberto Fontova
Source: http://brookesnews.com/091602castrocemetry.html
You'll often find people with itchy noses and red-rimmed eyes ambling amidst the long rows of white crosses at Miami’s Tamiami Park on Coral Way and 107 Avenue. It's a mini-Arlington cemetery called the Cuban Memorial, and it stands in honor of the tens of thousands of murder victims of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. It is a tribute, too, to those who fell while trying to free Cuba from the barbarism that the two imposed with their Soviet overlords while America’s "best and brightest" dithered, bumbled and finally betrayed the Cuban people. The tombs are symbolic. Most of the bodies still lie in mass graves.
Some of these Cuban Memorial's visitors will be kneeling, others walking slowly, looking for a name. You may remember a similar scene from the opening frames of Saving Private Ryan. Many clutch rosaries. Many of the ladies will be pressing their faces into the breast of a relative who drove them there, a relative who wraps his arms around her spastically heaving shoulders. Try as he might not to cry himself, he usually finds that the sobs wracking his mother, grandmother or aunt are contagious. Yet he's often too young to remember the face of his martyred uncle, father or cousin — the name they just recognized on the white cross. "Fusilado" — firing squad execution — it says below it.
There are 14,000 crosses in all, symbolizing those executed on the orders of the man being swamped and feted by U.S. trade delegations from Louisiana to Nebraska to Maine. Even many of the older men walking among these crosses will be red-eyed, choked up. No denying it, we Cubans are an emotional people and not ashamed to show it, at the proper time.
The elderly lady still holds a tissue to her eyes and nose as they wait to cross the street after leaving the memorial. Her red-eyed grandson still has his arm around her. She told him about how his freedom-fighter grandfather yelled "Viva Cuba Libre!" and "Viva Cristo Rey!" the instant before the volley shattered his body. They cross the street slowly, silently, and run into a dreadlocked youth coming out of a music store. His T-shirt sports the face of her husband's cowardly executioner, Che Guevara. They turn their heads in rage toward the store window. Well, there's the murderer's face again, on a huge poster, $19.95 it says at the bottom, right next to the inscription "Fight Oppression!" You, friends, tell me how she might feel.
Another woman will go home after placing flowers under her father's cross — a father she never knew. "Killed in action, Bay of Pigs, April 18th, 1961" reads the inscription on his cross. She was 2 at the time. "We will not be evacuated!" yelled her father's commander into his radio that day, as 41,000 Red Troops and swarms of Stalin tanks closed the ring on her father and his 1,400 utterly abandoned Band of Brothers. "The Best and Brightest" all had important social engagements that day.
"We came here to Fight!" her father's commander kept yelling at the enraged and heartsick CIA man offering to evacuate them from the doomed beachhead. "Let it end here!" was his last yell, barely audible over the deafening blasts from the storm of Soviet artillery. Her 23-year-old father — an accountant in Cuba a year before, a dish washer in a Miami Hotel only two months before, and now grim-faced, thirst-crazed and delirious after three days of continuous ground combat — heard the order from his commander: "No Retreat! We Stand and Fight!" and rammed in his last clip. By then he'd long realized he'd never see his daughter's graduation.
His ammo expended, he fell among the bodies of 100 of his comrades, after mauling his communist enemies to the score of 20 to one. "Wimps! Yes, Wimps!" the woman hears Michael Moore label her father and his Band of Brothers in one of America's best-selling books. "Crybabies too!" Again, friends, you tell me how she might feel.
Castro murdered her relatives, shattered her family and plunged a nation — which had double Japan's per capita income in 1958, plus net immigration from Europe — into a pesthole that repels even half-starved Haitians. He jailed, tortured and murdered more political prisoners than pre-war Hitler, and about 20 times as many as Mussolini. He asked, pleaded and finally tried to cajole Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, the “Butcher of Budapest,” into a nuclear strike against America. Failing there, he tried to blow up Macy's, Gimbel's, Bloomingdales and Grand Central Station with more TNT than used by the Madrid subway terrorists.
Yet Fidel Castro is still hailed as "One Helluva Guy" by Ted Turner; as "Very likable, a man I regard as a friend!" by George McGovern; and "Way Too Cool!" by Bonnie Raitt, among dozens upon dozens of other accolades by dozens of other liberal scoundrels and imbeciles. Today the U.S. is his biggest food supplier.
Tens of thousands of Cubans (and dozens of Americans) fought him. "We were fighting for Cuba's freedom as well as America's defense. To call us mercenaries is a grave insult," says Alabama Air Guard officer Albert Persons about his and his Alabama comrades' heroism during the battle of The Bay of Pigs. The Kennedy administration might abandon our comrades out, they snorted. We sure as hell won't.
It was more than bluster, too. Four U.S. volunteers — Pete Ray, Riley Shamburger, Leo Barker and Wade Grey — suited up, gunned the engines and joined the fight. These were Southern boys, not pampered Ivy Leaguers, so there was no navel-gazing. They had archaic notions of right and wrong, of honor and loyalty, of who America's enemies really are. Their Cuban comrades — men they'd trained and befriended — were being slaughtered on that beachhead. Knowing their lumbering B-26s were sitting ducks for Castro's unmolested jets and Sea Furies, all four Alabama air guard volunteers flew over the doomed beachhead to lend support to their betrayed brothers in arms.
All four were shot down. All four have their names in a place of honor next to their Cuban comrades on The Bay of Pigs Memorial, plus streets named after them in Little Havana, plus their crosses at the Cuban Memorial. When Doug MacArthur waded ashore on Leyte, he grabbed a radio: "People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil – soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples." Cuban soil was similarly consecrated.
"My hatred of Bolshevism and Bolsheviks is not founded on their silly system of economics or their absurd doctrine of an impossible equality," wrote Winston Churchill. "It arises from the bloody and devastating terrorism which they practice in every land into which they have broken, and by which alone their criminal regime can be maintained." Sir Winston Churchill did not lose a single family member or close friend to that "bloody and devastating terrorism."
Yet to this day his every utterance and note is revered as an exemplar of judiciousness and heroism. But let a Cuban-American who lost half his family to Communist firing squads and prisons express the identical sentiment and he's promptly denounced by liberals as a "screaming, irrational hothead!" "Disgusting!" spat Bryant Gumbel while watching Cuban-American demonstrators in front of Elian Gonzalez's uncle's house six years ago.
Some very dedicated and selfless folks are holding a memorial service, including a Mass and vigil at the Cuban Memorial in Miami's Tamiami Park this weekend. The service is open to the public. Attend and you'll be surrounded by a sea of crosses, many heroes and heroines, along with their surviving friends and kin. If ever a group merited a memorial service, it's those here honored. Even if you're not related to any of these folks, even if their story is new to you, attend and you'll honor heroes who fought America's most rabid enemy — and for good measure poke a sharp finger into the eye of the establishment Left.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
KGB killers enjoy life in Canada
Author: Lubomyr Luciuk
Source: Winnipeg Free Press
They called themselves Chekists -- the sword and shield of the Soviet Union. They were proud of what they were. Some served as concentration camp guards. Others were executioners. Many were just clerks or cooks or those ordinary guys who mop up the mess after the torturers are done.
Over the years they had different names -- Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, SMERSH and, most notoriously, KGB. Yet their job description didn't change. They were killers. They murdered whomever their masters wanted dead. Their victims numbered in the many millions.
There were decades when they were more active, years when they were less so, but they were always there. Some of their leaders were sadists, like Nikolai Yezhov, a bisexual dwarf who told Nikita Khrushchev during a Kremlin meeting that his shirtsleeves were speckled because he had spent the night torturing an "enemy of the people." Yezhov was later shot, at Stalin's command.
In Yalta, chatting with President Roosevelt, Stalin described Lavrentii Beria, Yezhov's successor, as "our Himmler." Beria was later executed on Khrushchev's orders.
Those who live by the sword die by the sword is a sharp saying. Unfortunately, it's not always true. Not only are some veterans of Stalin's secret police alive, but they are in Canada. One could be your neighbour.
Their presence among us is not news. It has been known for years. How many there are is not certain. Probably not hundreds. Yet even one is one too many.
Remarkably, they haven't been hiding. A few have boasted publicly about what they did. One wrote a book, obligingly including a photograph posing in his NKVD lieutenant's uniform. Another described her role in a SMERSH execution squad.
An intrepid journalist broke this story in a national Canadian newspaper in April 2005. Yet after that original exposé, all followup stories were spiked. Even more intriguing is that the RCMP's war crimes unit, asked to investigate allegations about Communist collaborators in Canada, responded with the rather limp finding that they had insufficient evidence upon which to act.
That reply took more than three years to draft. Apparently when a man admits he was in the NKVD and brags about the people he did in and provides his memoirs in English in a book available in libraries across the land, the Mounties don't define that as proof of any wrongdoing. Maybe they're waiting for Hollywood to turn the manuscript into a movie.
After the Second World War, screening procedures were supposed to exclude Nazis and Communists from Canada, with no exceptions. So if a man declares he was in the NKVD and broadcasts that fact from Toronto, either he is a liar or else he lied to get into Canada, probably disguising his own complicity in war crimes by pretending to be a victim. The only other explanation for him being here is that Ottawa allowed such ruffians to immigrate. In any case, we know some Communist killers are here. Legally, they shouldn't be.
All of Stalin's minions are now elderly. Yet it's not too late to see justice done. They deserve no more mercy than they meted out. And remember, they were not forced to serve -- they volunteered. Since they have no right to be here, they should be expelled to whence they came. They can then finish out their lives as burdens upon those they served. I'd bet they won't find Moscow or Minsk as comfortable as Montreal.
Canadians are a compassionate people. Not only do we strive to do what's right, we also honour the righteous. We did in 1985, when Canada conferred honourary citizenship on Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Yet it was not the Nazis who did him in. SMERSH agents abducted Wallenberg in Budapest in January 1945, then carted him off to the notorious Lubyanka prison.
Probably no one now here was directly involved, yet all who served Stalin in those days are complicit. Whatever they did elsewhere indirectly made it possible for their comrades to kidnap and kill Wallenberg. No one wants such scoundrels here. You'd think a Conservative government would get that. Apparently they don't. They will.
Source: Winnipeg Free Press
They called themselves Chekists -- the sword and shield of the Soviet Union. They were proud of what they were. Some served as concentration camp guards. Others were executioners. Many were just clerks or cooks or those ordinary guys who mop up the mess after the torturers are done.
Over the years they had different names -- Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, SMERSH and, most notoriously, KGB. Yet their job description didn't change. They were killers. They murdered whomever their masters wanted dead. Their victims numbered in the many millions.
There were decades when they were more active, years when they were less so, but they were always there. Some of their leaders were sadists, like Nikolai Yezhov, a bisexual dwarf who told Nikita Khrushchev during a Kremlin meeting that his shirtsleeves were speckled because he had spent the night torturing an "enemy of the people." Yezhov was later shot, at Stalin's command.
In Yalta, chatting with President Roosevelt, Stalin described Lavrentii Beria, Yezhov's successor, as "our Himmler." Beria was later executed on Khrushchev's orders.
Those who live by the sword die by the sword is a sharp saying. Unfortunately, it's not always true. Not only are some veterans of Stalin's secret police alive, but they are in Canada. One could be your neighbour.
Their presence among us is not news. It has been known for years. How many there are is not certain. Probably not hundreds. Yet even one is one too many.
Remarkably, they haven't been hiding. A few have boasted publicly about what they did. One wrote a book, obligingly including a photograph posing in his NKVD lieutenant's uniform. Another described her role in a SMERSH execution squad.
An intrepid journalist broke this story in a national Canadian newspaper in April 2005. Yet after that original exposé, all followup stories were spiked. Even more intriguing is that the RCMP's war crimes unit, asked to investigate allegations about Communist collaborators in Canada, responded with the rather limp finding that they had insufficient evidence upon which to act.
That reply took more than three years to draft. Apparently when a man admits he was in the NKVD and brags about the people he did in and provides his memoirs in English in a book available in libraries across the land, the Mounties don't define that as proof of any wrongdoing. Maybe they're waiting for Hollywood to turn the manuscript into a movie.
After the Second World War, screening procedures were supposed to exclude Nazis and Communists from Canada, with no exceptions. So if a man declares he was in the NKVD and broadcasts that fact from Toronto, either he is a liar or else he lied to get into Canada, probably disguising his own complicity in war crimes by pretending to be a victim. The only other explanation for him being here is that Ottawa allowed such ruffians to immigrate. In any case, we know some Communist killers are here. Legally, they shouldn't be.
All of Stalin's minions are now elderly. Yet it's not too late to see justice done. They deserve no more mercy than they meted out. And remember, they were not forced to serve -- they volunteered. Since they have no right to be here, they should be expelled to whence they came. They can then finish out their lives as burdens upon those they served. I'd bet they won't find Moscow or Minsk as comfortable as Montreal.
Canadians are a compassionate people. Not only do we strive to do what's right, we also honour the righteous. We did in 1985, when Canada conferred honourary citizenship on Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Yet it was not the Nazis who did him in. SMERSH agents abducted Wallenberg in Budapest in January 1945, then carted him off to the notorious Lubyanka prison.
Probably no one now here was directly involved, yet all who served Stalin in those days are complicit. Whatever they did elsewhere indirectly made it possible for their comrades to kidnap and kill Wallenberg. No one wants such scoundrels here. You'd think a Conservative government would get that. Apparently they don't. They will.
On Muslim Science
TAKEN FROM:
http://www.csicop.org/sb/2002-03/inklings.html
Author: Lewis Jones
Muslim science? On the face of it, it seems as incongruous as Christian physics or Jewish oceanography. But can Islam plead a special case? A popular element along these lines has always been Islam's historical track record. When Ziauddin Sardar published his thoughts on the subject in New Scientist almost a quarter of a century ago, he titled his article, not "Can science come to Islam?" but "Can science come back to Islam?"
In the words of F.R. Rosenthal (The Classical Heritage of Islam): "Islamic rational scholarship, which we have mainly in mind when we speak of the greatness of Muslim civilization, depends in its entirety on classical antiquity . . . Islamic civilization as we know it would simply not have existed without the Greek heritage."
Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim, points out: "Islamic science was founded on the works of the ancient Greeks, and the Muslims are important as the transmitters of Greek (and Hindu) learning that may well have been lost otherwise" (Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Hippocrates, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy). And even so, "most of the translators were Christian."
Warraq writes: "There is a persistent myth that Islam encouraged science. Adherents of this myth quote the Koran and hadith [traditional sayings of Muhammad] to prove their point . . . 'Seek knowledge, in China if necessary'; 'The search after knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim.' This is nonsense, because the knowledge advocated in the previous quotes is religious knowledge. Orthodoxy has always been suspicious of 'knowledge for its own sake,' and unfettered inquiry is deemed dangerous to the faith. . . . All sciences are blameworthy that are useless for acting rightly toward God."
"Those who kill do not think they are committing any crime," said Girija Shankar Jaiswal (a lawyer who argues cases for victimized women). "They think they are becoming martyrs. They do not mind going to jail."
Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was one of the greatest scientists of medieval Islam, and his "Optics" strongly influenced Kepler. The French philologist Ernest Renan wrote: "A disciple of Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, relates that he was in Baghdad on business, when the library of a certain philosopher (who died in 1214) was burned there. The preacher, who conducted the execution of the sentence, threw into the flames, with his own hands, an astronomical work of Ibn al-Haitham, after he had pointed to a delineation therein given of the sphere of the earth, as an unhappy symbol of impious Atheism."
One is reminded of the nineteenth century English politician John Morley, discussing the life of Voltaire: "Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat."
In the twelfth century Averroes studied medicine and philosophy, and his work on Aristotle was responsible for the development of the inductive, empirical sciences. His reward was to be tried as a heretic, condemned, and exiled. Yet his name is often put forward as being at the forefront of the Islamic history of science.
Renan begged to differ: "To give Islam the credit of Averroes and so many other illustrious thinkers, who passed half their life in prison, in forced hiding, in disgrace, whose books were burned and whose writings almost suppressed by theological authority, are as if one were to ascribe to the Inquisition the discoveries of Galileo, and a whole scientific development which it was not able to prevent."
There is also a current line of thought that assumes Islamic science has been "hijacked" by fundamentalists, and that all ills can be conveniently attributed to them. But shifting the burden of anti-science to an isolated hard-core fundamentalist group evades the central issue. Taslima Nasreen had a government warrant issued for her arrest in Bangladesh (for "outraging religious feelings"), and has some experience of official Muslim displeasure. "I don't find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists," she says. ". . . I need to say that, because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems."
In New Scientist (15 December 2001), Ziauddin Sardar reported: "One particular study, sponsored by the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies (IFIAS) in Stockholm brought together Muslim scientists and scholars worldwide in seminars held between 1980 and 1983. The IFIAS study, published as The Touch of Midas, concluded that the issue of science and values in Islam must be treated within a framework of concepts that shape the goals of a Muslim society."
Sardar also reports that the early 1990s brought a shift into obscurantism by the defenders of Muslim science: "it began to be argued that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be found in the Koran. This thesis received a tremendous boost from the well-funded Saudi project, Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an (Koran). The project spanned both empirical work, involving comparisons of those verses of the Koran that deal with astronomy and embryology with the latest discoveries, and popularizations through conferences and seminars. Relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory, embryology-practically everything was 'discovered' in the Koran."
In summary: "science becomes not a problem-solving enterprise or objective enquiry, but a mystical quest to understand the Absolute. Conjecture and hypothesis have no real place; all enquiry must be subordinate to the mystical experience."
Nor are there any visible prospects that there will even be open debate in print on the subject. It is a numbing thought that there does not exist a single secular Arabic periodical. In any case, debates that revolve around the concept of heresy are unlikely to lead anywhere worth reaching.
"The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas-uncertainty, progress, change-into crimes." Those are the words of Salman Rushdie in his Herbert Reade Memorial lecture in February of 1990, while in hiding from a fatwa for blasphemy.
http://www.csicop.org/sb/2002-03/inklings.html
Author: Lewis Jones
Muslim science? On the face of it, it seems as incongruous as Christian physics or Jewish oceanography. But can Islam plead a special case? A popular element along these lines has always been Islam's historical track record. When Ziauddin Sardar published his thoughts on the subject in New Scientist almost a quarter of a century ago, he titled his article, not "Can science come to Islam?" but "Can science come back to Islam?"
In the words of F.R. Rosenthal (The Classical Heritage of Islam): "Islamic rational scholarship, which we have mainly in mind when we speak of the greatness of Muslim civilization, depends in its entirety on classical antiquity . . . Islamic civilization as we know it would simply not have existed without the Greek heritage."
Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim, points out: "Islamic science was founded on the works of the ancient Greeks, and the Muslims are important as the transmitters of Greek (and Hindu) learning that may well have been lost otherwise" (Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Hippocrates, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy). And even so, "most of the translators were Christian."
Warraq writes: "There is a persistent myth that Islam encouraged science. Adherents of this myth quote the Koran and hadith [traditional sayings of Muhammad] to prove their point . . . 'Seek knowledge, in China if necessary'; 'The search after knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim.' This is nonsense, because the knowledge advocated in the previous quotes is religious knowledge. Orthodoxy has always been suspicious of 'knowledge for its own sake,' and unfettered inquiry is deemed dangerous to the faith. . . . All sciences are blameworthy that are useless for acting rightly toward God."
"Those who kill do not think they are committing any crime," said Girija Shankar Jaiswal (a lawyer who argues cases for victimized women). "They think they are becoming martyrs. They do not mind going to jail."
Al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was one of the greatest scientists of medieval Islam, and his "Optics" strongly influenced Kepler. The French philologist Ernest Renan wrote: "A disciple of Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, relates that he was in Baghdad on business, when the library of a certain philosopher (who died in 1214) was burned there. The preacher, who conducted the execution of the sentence, threw into the flames, with his own hands, an astronomical work of Ibn al-Haitham, after he had pointed to a delineation therein given of the sphere of the earth, as an unhappy symbol of impious Atheism."
One is reminded of the nineteenth century English politician John Morley, discussing the life of Voltaire: "Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat."
In the twelfth century Averroes studied medicine and philosophy, and his work on Aristotle was responsible for the development of the inductive, empirical sciences. His reward was to be tried as a heretic, condemned, and exiled. Yet his name is often put forward as being at the forefront of the Islamic history of science.
Renan begged to differ: "To give Islam the credit of Averroes and so many other illustrious thinkers, who passed half their life in prison, in forced hiding, in disgrace, whose books were burned and whose writings almost suppressed by theological authority, are as if one were to ascribe to the Inquisition the discoveries of Galileo, and a whole scientific development which it was not able to prevent."
There is also a current line of thought that assumes Islamic science has been "hijacked" by fundamentalists, and that all ills can be conveniently attributed to them. But shifting the burden of anti-science to an isolated hard-core fundamentalist group evades the central issue. Taslima Nasreen had a government warrant issued for her arrest in Bangladesh (for "outraging religious feelings"), and has some experience of official Muslim displeasure. "I don't find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists," she says. ". . . I need to say that, because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems."
In New Scientist (15 December 2001), Ziauddin Sardar reported: "One particular study, sponsored by the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies (IFIAS) in Stockholm brought together Muslim scientists and scholars worldwide in seminars held between 1980 and 1983. The IFIAS study, published as The Touch of Midas, concluded that the issue of science and values in Islam must be treated within a framework of concepts that shape the goals of a Muslim society."
Sardar also reports that the early 1990s brought a shift into obscurantism by the defenders of Muslim science: "it began to be argued that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be found in the Koran. This thesis received a tremendous boost from the well-funded Saudi project, Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an (Koran). The project spanned both empirical work, involving comparisons of those verses of the Koran that deal with astronomy and embryology with the latest discoveries, and popularizations through conferences and seminars. Relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory, embryology-practically everything was 'discovered' in the Koran."
In summary: "science becomes not a problem-solving enterprise or objective enquiry, but a mystical quest to understand the Absolute. Conjecture and hypothesis have no real place; all enquiry must be subordinate to the mystical experience."
Nor are there any visible prospects that there will even be open debate in print on the subject. It is a numbing thought that there does not exist a single secular Arabic periodical. In any case, debates that revolve around the concept of heresy are unlikely to lead anywhere worth reaching.
"The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas-uncertainty, progress, change-into crimes." Those are the words of Salman Rushdie in his Herbert Reade Memorial lecture in February of 1990, while in hiding from a fatwa for blasphemy.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
90 Most Influential philosophers of All-Time
My Opinion Again:
1. Socrates - He Taught us to question.
2. Abraham - Father of Western Monotheism.
3. Confucius - Created the structure upon which China is modeled.
4. Jesus Christ - The Center Point of Christianity.
5. Mohammed - Father of Islam.
6. Buddha (Siddhartha Gatama) - He taught us about moderation.
7. Aristotle - A wonderful classifier of knowledge.
8. Plato - Author of the Republic.
9. Georg Hegel - Champion of the Dialectic.
10. Martin Luther - He galvanized the Reformation.
11. Voltaire - One has to love his satire.
12. St. Augustine - The central qualifier of Church orthodoxy.
13. Friederich Nietzche - Journeyed with us Beyond Good and Evil . He threw Absolute Morality on its head.
14. John Locke - Empiricist writings are crucial to Western Democracy.
15. Niccolo Machiavelli - In the Prince he described the rationale of the power holders.
16. Rene Descartes - In a sense Descartes and Cartesian thought are the basis for Modern Science.
17. Francis Bacon - A pioneer in the legal world he also stressed the importance of inductive methodology in scientific research.
18. Immanuel Kant - No, he wasn't a real 'pissant' as the Monty Python Song goes but a critical figure in our understanding of reason, ethics and aesthetics.
19. Adam Smith - He put in words the workings of the market economy.
20. John Stuart Mill - Great voice on liberty and utilitarianism.
21. Karl Marx - Birth figure of Dialectic Materialism.
22. Carl Jung - One of my favourite philosophers. Spoke about the collective unconscious and the psyche as a self regulating system.
23. John Wycliffe - Early Church reformer.
24. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Author of the Social Contract.
25. Mohandas K Gandhi - Indian Champion of Passive Resistance.
26. St. Thomas Aquinas - Wrote Summa contra Gentiles and Summa theologiae. The latter has a five point proof for the existence of God.
27. David Hume - Empiricist philosopher. Extended work of Locke and Berkley.
28. Mary Wollstonecraft - Feminist. Wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
29. Sören Kierkegaard - Danish Philosopher. Specialized in existence making choices.
30. Martin Heidegger - Changed philosophy with his classification of 'being'.
31. Baruch Spinoza - Dutch Rationalist.
32. Erasmus - Scholar. One of the leading figures in renaissance philosophy.
33. Zeno - One of the leading proponents of Stoicism.
34. Philo - Hellenistic Jewish philosopher. Works bought together Hebrew scripture and Greek writings.
35. Lao-tzu - Early Chinese Libertarian.
36. Maimonides - A wonderful voice for Jewish thought.
37. Thomas Hobbes - Political Philosopher. Famous for the Leviathan.
38. Mencius - He took the mantle of Confucius to the next level.
39. Pythagoras - Polymath. His work influenced music, math and the concept of the soul.
40. Arthur Schopenhauer - He rejected Hegel's idea and emphasized the role of human will.
41. Ludwig Wittgenstein - His Tractatus logico-philosophicus looked at the role of language in philosophy.
42. Gottfried Leibniz - Well Renowned generalist. Rationalist Philosopher.
43. Edmund Husserl - Founder of the School of phenomenology.
44. Plotinus - Father of Neoplatonism. Advocated asceticism and the contemplative life.
45. Thomas More - Humanist scholar. Wrote Utopia.
John Calvin - Church reformer. Proclaimed a Protestant Confession of Faith. Emphasized moral severity.
46. David Hume - Empiricist philosopher. Extended work of Locke and Berkley.
47. Sigmund Freud - Father of Psychoanalysis.
48. Edmund Burke - British statesman. Writings influenced the American revolution.
49. John Dewey - Philosopher and Educator. Leading thinker in pragmatism school.
50. Tom Paine - Revolutionary Philosopher. Wrote the Rights of Man.
51. Bertrand Russell - Philosopher/Mathematician/Pacifist. Wrote Principia mathematica with A.N. Whitehead.
52. Thales - Greek natural philosopher. Some see him as the first philosopher.
53. William of Ockham - Scholastic philosopher. Said that 'entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.'
54. Peter Abelard - Philosopher and scholar. Was condemned by the Church for his Nominalistic doctrines.
55. Auguste Comte - Father of Sociology.
56. Diogenes - Ancient Greek Cynic and austere ascetic.
57. Averroes - Arab philosopher. Wrote commentaries on Aristotle and effected both Jewish and Christian thought.
58. Simone de Beauvoir - French Feminist. Wrote The Second Sex.
59. Henri Bergson - French philosopher. Contrasted the fundamental reality of the dynamic flux of consciousness with the inert physical world of discrete objects. Wrote about the 'creative impulse'.
60. Boethius - Roman philosopher. Spoke about the mutability of all Earthly fortune. His book Consolation was the most widely read book for its time after the Bible.
61. Heraclitus - Early Greek philosopher. Argued that all things consist of opposites eg. hot/cold, wet/dry etc.
62. Max Weber - Sociologist and economist. Spoke about the Protestant Ethic.
George Lukacs - Marxist philosopher. Influential in literary criticism and Socialist Realism.
63. Epicurus - Greek Philosopher. Argued that pleasure is the chief good, By pleasure he meant the absence of pain.
64. Jean-Paul Sartre - French Existentialist Bulldog.
65. Avicenna - Arab Philosopher/physician. Interpreted the works of Aristotle.
66. Protagoras - Greek sophist. Presented a system of practical philosophy designed to train people for their duties as citizens.
67. Jeremy Bentham - An important Utilitarian figure.
68. George Santayana - Philosopher, writer and novelist. Wrote The Life of Reason.
69. Antonio Gramsci - Political Philosopher, Important socialist figure.
70. Baron Montesquieu - Liberal philosopher influenced French Revolution.
71. Marcus Aurelius - Roman Emperor. Stoic. Influenced both law and philosophy.
72. St Jerome - Early Christian philosopher.
73. Georges Sorel - Social philosopher. Argued that serious political opposition must resort to violence.
74. Kurt Gödel - Logician. Showed that any formal logical system adequate for number theory must contain propositions not provable in that system.
75. Thomas Kuhn - Philosopher. Historian of science.
76. Henry Thoreau - American essayist and transadentalist.
77. Willard Quine - Philosopher and logician. Challenged distinction between analysis and synthetic truths and between science and metaphysics.
78. Karl Popper - Philosopher of Science - Fasification Notion.
79. Franz Brentano - Developed doctrine of 'intentionality' characterizing mental events as involving the 'direction of the mind to an object'.
80. George Berkley - Philosopher/Anglican bishop. Argued that 'to be is to be perceived'.
81. Michel Foucalt - Modern French philosopher. Wrote Madness and Civilization and The Order of Things.
82. Seneca - Roman Stoic.
83. William James - Pragmatist. Involved in both philosophy and psychology.
84. Martin Buber - Zionist thinker and existentialist.
85. Friederich Hayek - Economist/Philosopher. Strong opponent of government intervention in free market.
86. Jurgen Habermas - Philosopher and social theorist.
87. Alfred Whitehead - Philosopher and Mathematician. Worked with Bertrand Russell on Principia mathematica.
88. Gottlob Frege - Set up a complete system for symbolic logic
89. Jacques Derrida - French Deconstructionist.
90. Thomas à Kempis - Religious writer. Wrote The Imitation of Christ (1415-1424).
1. Socrates - He Taught us to question.
2. Abraham - Father of Western Monotheism.
3. Confucius - Created the structure upon which China is modeled.
4. Jesus Christ - The Center Point of Christianity.
5. Mohammed - Father of Islam.
6. Buddha (Siddhartha Gatama) - He taught us about moderation.
7. Aristotle - A wonderful classifier of knowledge.
8. Plato - Author of the Republic.
9. Georg Hegel - Champion of the Dialectic.
10. Martin Luther - He galvanized the Reformation.
11. Voltaire - One has to love his satire.
12. St. Augustine - The central qualifier of Church orthodoxy.
13. Friederich Nietzche - Journeyed with us Beyond Good and Evil . He threw Absolute Morality on its head.
14. John Locke - Empiricist writings are crucial to Western Democracy.
15. Niccolo Machiavelli - In the Prince he described the rationale of the power holders.
16. Rene Descartes - In a sense Descartes and Cartesian thought are the basis for Modern Science.
17. Francis Bacon - A pioneer in the legal world he also stressed the importance of inductive methodology in scientific research.
18. Immanuel Kant - No, he wasn't a real 'pissant' as the Monty Python Song goes but a critical figure in our understanding of reason, ethics and aesthetics.
19. Adam Smith - He put in words the workings of the market economy.
20. John Stuart Mill - Great voice on liberty and utilitarianism.
21. Karl Marx - Birth figure of Dialectic Materialism.
22. Carl Jung - One of my favourite philosophers. Spoke about the collective unconscious and the psyche as a self regulating system.
23. John Wycliffe - Early Church reformer.
24. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Author of the Social Contract.
25. Mohandas K Gandhi - Indian Champion of Passive Resistance.
26. St. Thomas Aquinas - Wrote Summa contra Gentiles and Summa theologiae. The latter has a five point proof for the existence of God.
27. David Hume - Empiricist philosopher. Extended work of Locke and Berkley.
28. Mary Wollstonecraft - Feminist. Wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
29. Sören Kierkegaard - Danish Philosopher. Specialized in existence making choices.
30. Martin Heidegger - Changed philosophy with his classification of 'being'.
31. Baruch Spinoza - Dutch Rationalist.
32. Erasmus - Scholar. One of the leading figures in renaissance philosophy.
33. Zeno - One of the leading proponents of Stoicism.
34. Philo - Hellenistic Jewish philosopher. Works bought together Hebrew scripture and Greek writings.
35. Lao-tzu - Early Chinese Libertarian.
36. Maimonides - A wonderful voice for Jewish thought.
37. Thomas Hobbes - Political Philosopher. Famous for the Leviathan.
38. Mencius - He took the mantle of Confucius to the next level.
39. Pythagoras - Polymath. His work influenced music, math and the concept of the soul.
40. Arthur Schopenhauer - He rejected Hegel's idea and emphasized the role of human will.
41. Ludwig Wittgenstein - His Tractatus logico-philosophicus looked at the role of language in philosophy.
42. Gottfried Leibniz - Well Renowned generalist. Rationalist Philosopher.
43. Edmund Husserl - Founder of the School of phenomenology.
44. Plotinus - Father of Neoplatonism. Advocated asceticism and the contemplative life.
45. Thomas More - Humanist scholar. Wrote Utopia.
John Calvin - Church reformer. Proclaimed a Protestant Confession of Faith. Emphasized moral severity.
46. David Hume - Empiricist philosopher. Extended work of Locke and Berkley.
47. Sigmund Freud - Father of Psychoanalysis.
48. Edmund Burke - British statesman. Writings influenced the American revolution.
49. John Dewey - Philosopher and Educator. Leading thinker in pragmatism school.
50. Tom Paine - Revolutionary Philosopher. Wrote the Rights of Man.
51. Bertrand Russell - Philosopher/Mathematician/Pacifist. Wrote Principia mathematica with A.N. Whitehead.
52. Thales - Greek natural philosopher. Some see him as the first philosopher.
53. William of Ockham - Scholastic philosopher. Said that 'entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.'
54. Peter Abelard - Philosopher and scholar. Was condemned by the Church for his Nominalistic doctrines.
55. Auguste Comte - Father of Sociology.
56. Diogenes - Ancient Greek Cynic and austere ascetic.
57. Averroes - Arab philosopher. Wrote commentaries on Aristotle and effected both Jewish and Christian thought.
58. Simone de Beauvoir - French Feminist. Wrote The Second Sex.
59. Henri Bergson - French philosopher. Contrasted the fundamental reality of the dynamic flux of consciousness with the inert physical world of discrete objects. Wrote about the 'creative impulse'.
60. Boethius - Roman philosopher. Spoke about the mutability of all Earthly fortune. His book Consolation was the most widely read book for its time after the Bible.
61. Heraclitus - Early Greek philosopher. Argued that all things consist of opposites eg. hot/cold, wet/dry etc.
62. Max Weber - Sociologist and economist. Spoke about the Protestant Ethic.
George Lukacs - Marxist philosopher. Influential in literary criticism and Socialist Realism.
63. Epicurus - Greek Philosopher. Argued that pleasure is the chief good, By pleasure he meant the absence of pain.
64. Jean-Paul Sartre - French Existentialist Bulldog.
65. Avicenna - Arab Philosopher/physician. Interpreted the works of Aristotle.
66. Protagoras - Greek sophist. Presented a system of practical philosophy designed to train people for their duties as citizens.
67. Jeremy Bentham - An important Utilitarian figure.
68. George Santayana - Philosopher, writer and novelist. Wrote The Life of Reason.
69. Antonio Gramsci - Political Philosopher, Important socialist figure.
70. Baron Montesquieu - Liberal philosopher influenced French Revolution.
71. Marcus Aurelius - Roman Emperor. Stoic. Influenced both law and philosophy.
72. St Jerome - Early Christian philosopher.
73. Georges Sorel - Social philosopher. Argued that serious political opposition must resort to violence.
74. Kurt Gödel - Logician. Showed that any formal logical system adequate for number theory must contain propositions not provable in that system.
75. Thomas Kuhn - Philosopher. Historian of science.
76. Henry Thoreau - American essayist and transadentalist.
77. Willard Quine - Philosopher and logician. Challenged distinction between analysis and synthetic truths and between science and metaphysics.
78. Karl Popper - Philosopher of Science - Fasification Notion.
79. Franz Brentano - Developed doctrine of 'intentionality' characterizing mental events as involving the 'direction of the mind to an object'.
80. George Berkley - Philosopher/Anglican bishop. Argued that 'to be is to be perceived'.
81. Michel Foucalt - Modern French philosopher. Wrote Madness and Civilization and The Order of Things.
82. Seneca - Roman Stoic.
83. William James - Pragmatist. Involved in both philosophy and psychology.
84. Martin Buber - Zionist thinker and existentialist.
85. Friederich Hayek - Economist/Philosopher. Strong opponent of government intervention in free market.
86. Jurgen Habermas - Philosopher and social theorist.
87. Alfred Whitehead - Philosopher and Mathematician. Worked with Bertrand Russell on Principia mathematica.
88. Gottlob Frege - Set up a complete system for symbolic logic
89. Jacques Derrida - French Deconstructionist.
90. Thomas à Kempis - Religious writer. Wrote The Imitation of Christ (1415-1424).
African-Americans
Other than Barack Obama here is a list (in my opinion) of the 40+ Most Influential African-Americans of All-Time Martin Luther King - Clergyman and Civil rights Leader. Won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Rosa Parkes - Civil Rights figure. Actions led to Selma bus boycott.
Thurgood Marshall - First Black American to sit on US Supreme Court.
Louis Armstrong - Pioneering Jazz Musician.
Muhammed Ali - Greatest Boxer of All Time.
Harriet Tubman - Founder of Underground Railroad.
WEB Du Bois - Civil Rights Advocate.
George Washington Carver - Scientist.
Frederick Douglass - Writer, Abolitionist and Political philosopher.
Colin Powell - General and Secretary of State . First Black American to head US Armed forces.
Coretta Scott King - Civil Rights advocate.
George Washington Carver - Scientist. Specialized in Agricultural problems.
Malcolm X - African-American nationalist leader.
Benjamin Banneker - Mathematician and Astronomer.
Ralph Ellison - Author. Wrote the Invisible Man.
James Baldwin - Author. Wrote Go Tell it on the Monuntains.
Jackie Robinson - Baseball Player. First Black American to play in the Major Leagues.
Marcus Garvey - Founder of the Back to Africa Movement.
Medger Evers - Civil Rights Leader.
Jesse Owens - Athlete. Embarrassed Hitler in 1936 Olympic Games.
Nat Turner - Slave Rebellion Leader.
Duke Ellington - Jazz Musician.
Hank Aaron - Baseball's All Time Great.
Oprah Winfrey - Talk Show host and cultural phenomenon.
Maya Angelou - Writer/Poet. Wrote I know why the Caged Bird Sings.
Alex Haley - Author. Wrote the novel Roots.
Andrew Young - Politician. Former US representative to the UN.
Asa Randolph - Labour and Civil Rights Leader. Formed the first African-American trade union known as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Michael Jordan - Greatest Basketball player of All Time.
Jessie Jackson - Civil Rights leader. Former presidential candidate.
Ralph Abernethy - Clergyman and Civil Rights leader.
Arthur Ashe - Tennis great and civil rights advocate.
Toni Morrison - Nobel Prize Winner. Author. Wrote Song of Solomon.
Black Panthers (Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and gang) - Political Activists.
Jim Brown - Greatest Football star of All-Time.
Ralph Bunche - Diplomat. Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Tiger Woods - Golfing sensation. Maybe the greatest Golfer of All Time.
Chuck Berry - Rock Musician.
Whitney Young - social reformer. Wrote To Be Equal and Beyond Racism.
Bill Cosby - Comedian.
Rosa Parkes - Civil Rights figure. Actions led to Selma bus boycott.
Thurgood Marshall - First Black American to sit on US Supreme Court.
Louis Armstrong - Pioneering Jazz Musician.
Muhammed Ali - Greatest Boxer of All Time.
Harriet Tubman - Founder of Underground Railroad.
WEB Du Bois - Civil Rights Advocate.
George Washington Carver - Scientist.
Frederick Douglass - Writer, Abolitionist and Political philosopher.
Colin Powell - General and Secretary of State . First Black American to head US Armed forces.
Coretta Scott King - Civil Rights advocate.
George Washington Carver - Scientist. Specialized in Agricultural problems.
Malcolm X - African-American nationalist leader.
Benjamin Banneker - Mathematician and Astronomer.
Ralph Ellison - Author. Wrote the Invisible Man.
James Baldwin - Author. Wrote Go Tell it on the Monuntains.
Jackie Robinson - Baseball Player. First Black American to play in the Major Leagues.
Marcus Garvey - Founder of the Back to Africa Movement.
Medger Evers - Civil Rights Leader.
Jesse Owens - Athlete. Embarrassed Hitler in 1936 Olympic Games.
Nat Turner - Slave Rebellion Leader.
Duke Ellington - Jazz Musician.
Hank Aaron - Baseball's All Time Great.
Oprah Winfrey - Talk Show host and cultural phenomenon.
Maya Angelou - Writer/Poet. Wrote I know why the Caged Bird Sings.
Alex Haley - Author. Wrote the novel Roots.
Andrew Young - Politician. Former US representative to the UN.
Asa Randolph - Labour and Civil Rights Leader. Formed the first African-American trade union known as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Michael Jordan - Greatest Basketball player of All Time.
Jessie Jackson - Civil Rights leader. Former presidential candidate.
Ralph Abernethy - Clergyman and Civil Rights leader.
Arthur Ashe - Tennis great and civil rights advocate.
Toni Morrison - Nobel Prize Winner. Author. Wrote Song of Solomon.
Black Panthers (Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and gang) - Political Activists.
Jim Brown - Greatest Football star of All-Time.
Ralph Bunche - Diplomat. Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Tiger Woods - Golfing sensation. Maybe the greatest Golfer of All Time.
Chuck Berry - Rock Musician.
Whitney Young - social reformer. Wrote To Be Equal and Beyond Racism.
Bill Cosby - Comedian.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
An Exclusive Club in the White House
THE CLUB that Barack Obama now joins has traditionally been far more exclusive than just all white and all male. There has never been an Italian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Russian, Greek, Spaniard, or Hispanic elected to the White House. No descendent of the great waves of immigration from southern and eastern Europe that washed over this country in the 19th century has ever made it. Most presidential ancestors came from earlier, 18th- and 17th-century British immigrations in which the few names ending in vowels were mostly Scottish or Irish.
Michael Dukakis, of Greek ancestry, went up to the clubhouse door but wasn't allowed in. Nor have there been any Swedes, Danes, or Norwegians. Walter Mondale, of Norwegian descent, didn't come close. In more than 200 years there has never been a Jew, and only one Catholic, John Kennedy.
The genealogical background of presidents has been conspicuously narrow. Many are distant relatives of each other. The Bushes are allegedly related to 16 presidents and Franklin Roosevelt to 17.
All presidential surnames, save five, derive exclusively from the British Isles. The exceptions are the two Roosevelts and Martin van Buren from Holland; and Herbert Hoover (Huber) and Dwight Eisenhower (Eisenhauer) from Germany. And even then, both Teddy Roosevelt and FDR were only one-quarter Dutch. Most of their ancestors were English, Irish, or Scot.
Glance into the deep gene pools of our presidents and you will see the majority of their ancestors clustered into this same northwestern corner of Europe, with a few Frenchmen, mostly Protestant Huguenots, thrown in.
Even the two presidents whose presidential names were not their original surnames fall into the same ancestral corridor. President Clinton, originally William Jefferson Blythe, and Gerald Ford, originally Leslie Lynch King, took the names of stepfathers, but the old names, like the new, came from the British Isles.
There may be no more roots-conscious group in America than the Irish, and politicians are quick to claim Irish connections. The Blythes may have come over from England, but Bill Clinton said: "I've always been conscious of being Irish . . . It means a lot to me." Ireland lays claim to anywhere from 16 to 23 American presidents, depending on who is doing the counting.
Protestant Northern Ireland, however, has the edge, many presidents having descended from the traditionally feisty Scots-Irish. They originally came from the Scottish borders, where they were deeply involved with fighting the English. Recruited to put down the Catholics in Ulster, many then participated in one of the earliest mass immigrations to America, where they were in constant conflict with Native Americans. John McCain says he is descended from Scots-Irish stock.
Genealogy shops in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic are often competitive, but there was a time when both were willing to let the other have Richard Nixon.
Genealogists say that both Adamses, Taylor, Grant, Garfield, and FDR were descended from the Mayflower settlers in 17th-century Massachusetts. Nixon, Ford, and the two Bushes have Mayflower connections.
Some presidents can claim royal blood. Clinton is said to share ancestry with Henry III on his mother's side, and may be related to both presidents Harrison as well as Ford and Carter.
George Washington, FDR, both Bushes, and Coolidge are said to descend from a 15th-century Englishman named John Spencer from Warwickshire - as was Diana, the late Princess of Wales.
For the rest go to the Source of this post: Exclusive
Michael Dukakis, of Greek ancestry, went up to the clubhouse door but wasn't allowed in. Nor have there been any Swedes, Danes, or Norwegians. Walter Mondale, of Norwegian descent, didn't come close. In more than 200 years there has never been a Jew, and only one Catholic, John Kennedy.
The genealogical background of presidents has been conspicuously narrow. Many are distant relatives of each other. The Bushes are allegedly related to 16 presidents and Franklin Roosevelt to 17.
All presidential surnames, save five, derive exclusively from the British Isles. The exceptions are the two Roosevelts and Martin van Buren from Holland; and Herbert Hoover (Huber) and Dwight Eisenhower (Eisenhauer) from Germany. And even then, both Teddy Roosevelt and FDR were only one-quarter Dutch. Most of their ancestors were English, Irish, or Scot.
Glance into the deep gene pools of our presidents and you will see the majority of their ancestors clustered into this same northwestern corner of Europe, with a few Frenchmen, mostly Protestant Huguenots, thrown in.
Even the two presidents whose presidential names were not their original surnames fall into the same ancestral corridor. President Clinton, originally William Jefferson Blythe, and Gerald Ford, originally Leslie Lynch King, took the names of stepfathers, but the old names, like the new, came from the British Isles.
There may be no more roots-conscious group in America than the Irish, and politicians are quick to claim Irish connections. The Blythes may have come over from England, but Bill Clinton said: "I've always been conscious of being Irish . . . It means a lot to me." Ireland lays claim to anywhere from 16 to 23 American presidents, depending on who is doing the counting.
Protestant Northern Ireland, however, has the edge, many presidents having descended from the traditionally feisty Scots-Irish. They originally came from the Scottish borders, where they were deeply involved with fighting the English. Recruited to put down the Catholics in Ulster, many then participated in one of the earliest mass immigrations to America, where they were in constant conflict with Native Americans. John McCain says he is descended from Scots-Irish stock.
Genealogy shops in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic are often competitive, but there was a time when both were willing to let the other have Richard Nixon.
Genealogists say that both Adamses, Taylor, Grant, Garfield, and FDR were descended from the Mayflower settlers in 17th-century Massachusetts. Nixon, Ford, and the two Bushes have Mayflower connections.
Some presidents can claim royal blood. Clinton is said to share ancestry with Henry III on his mother's side, and may be related to both presidents Harrison as well as Ford and Carter.
George Washington, FDR, both Bushes, and Coolidge are said to descend from a 15th-century Englishman named John Spencer from Warwickshire - as was Diana, the late Princess of Wales.
For the rest go to the Source of this post: Exclusive
Presidential Trivia Humour
Source: Go Now
Barack Obama is the 44th U.S. president, which means there were countless presidents before him. So before we embark on this new four-year journey, which unbiased media reports tell me will be characterized by everyone’s dreams coming true and an end to all bad things, let’s look back at the presidents who came before Obama:
1: George Washington: He did not really chop down a cherry tree and tell his father the truth. This was a tale created by writer Mason Weems, who wrote a book that glorified the first president. The Bush administration is actively trying to hire him. Faulty intelligence led them to believe he is still alive.
2. John Adams: A key opponent to the Stamp Act who presided over the Alien and Sedition acts. He was also the cousin of Samuel Adams, who had a beer named after him. Guess which one more Americans admire.
3. Thomas Jefferson: The longtime bachelor once said “many and great are the comforts of the single state.” He did eventually marry, though, to a woman twice as rich as him. He’d have my vote.
4. James Madison: Napoleon Bonaparte was making short rulers all the rage. The U.S. followed suit by electing its own pocket-sized president. The shortest and smallest president was said to be the first to wear long pants rather than knee breeches. How do we know he wasn’t just wearing Jefferson’s oversized hand-me-downs?
5. James Monroe: When he ran for his second term, no one was named as an official candidate opposed to the popular Monroe. He received all but one electoral vote. That vote came from Florida, for Pat Buchanan.
6: John Quincy Adams: His election was unlike others because none of the candidates declared a party. He ran against independents Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, Henry Clay and Ralph Nader, who has run in every election since.
7: Andrew Jackson: He was a prisoner of war and killed a man in a duel. He’s like a combination of John McCain and Dirty Harry. The forceful leader vetoed more bills than anyone else, survived an assassination attempt, and his favorite hobby was cockfighting. If the presidents were in a yearbook, Jackson would be voted most likely to punch you in the face.
8: Martin Van Buren: The origin of the word “OK” is believed to come from Van Buren, who was nicknamed Old Kinderhook. He married Hannah Hoes, a relative of Van Buren’s mother — not OK, dude.
9. William Henry Harrison: Was more dead in the first 30 days than any other U.S. president, unless you count brain-dead.
10. John Tyler: Claimed to be the reason Texas became a state. But in an even greater achievement for a dude, he was 54 when he married his second first lady, a 24-year-old. This is the last time I’m going to tell you this, kids: BECOME PRESIDENT.
11. James Polk: The first “dark horse” president was remembered for keeping all of his campaign promises, at least according to Mason Weems.
12. Zachary Taylor: Once said, “It would be judicious to act with magnanimity toward a prostrate foe.” Which proves he had access to both the phrase “Don’t kick a man when he’s down” and a thesaurus.
13. Millard Fillmore: Inherited the presidency after Taylor’s death and ran for re-election with the Know-Nothing Party. He was predictably defeated by the candidate from the Nothing is Outside the Realm of Our Experience Party.
14. Franklin Pierce: I honestly forgot that this guy was president.
15. James Buchanan: His presidency featured economic recession and several states seceding from the union. Fact: On his way out, he said, “I at least meant well for my country.”
16. Abraham Lincoln: Loved the theater.
17. Andrew Johnson: The first president to be impeached didn’t feel too bad about it, considering the way the previous guy was removed from office.
18. Ulysses S. Grant: President when the 15th Amendment passed, saying no one could deny anyone the right to vote based on race. Sex, of course, but not race. He also created the first national park in 1872 — distant relatives of Rod Blagojevich immediately tried to close it.
19. Rutherford B. Hayes: His election opponent Samuel Tilden won the popular vote. Hayes, a Republican, needed only one electoral vote from three Republican-controlled states to win the presidency. If you know our electoral system well, you can probably guess that democracy prevailed and a fair election was able to proceed. I’m kidding, of course. Actually, many Democratic ballots were ruled invalid and Hayes entered the White House with the nickname “His Fraudulency.”
20. James A. Garfield: Was shot by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, but didn’t die until two months later. Doctors had the ability to save him, but his health plan at the time only covered bullets that didn’t come from an assassin.
21. Chester A. Arthur: Nicknamed “Elegant Arthur” because he was known to change his outfit several times a day. He had 15 personal groomers for his mustache alone.
22. Grover Cleveland: We’ll get to him later.
23. Benjamin Harrison: He was the first to have electricity in the White House and the first to have his voice recorded, a momentous occasion that he marked with his most notable quote, “Oh my God, is that what I really sound like?”
24. Grover Cleveland: See, here he is.
25. William McKinley: Passed the Gold Standard, which meant the dollar was backed by gold, versus what it is backed by today. (Hint: It’s worth about as much as what it’s backed by.)
26. Theodore Roosevelt: Survived an assassination attempt because he had a 50-page speech in his pocket that slowed the bullet down. For other examples of this phenomenon, see every Hollywood movie ever made where the main character is shot.
27. William Howard Taft: The fattest president in U.S. history once got stuck in the White House bathtub. His cabinet included Secretary of State Philander Knox, Ho Hos, Twinkies, cupcakes, Twizzlers ...
28. Woodrow Wilson: Made Mother’s Day a national holiday and was president when women were given the right to vote. And all I got my mother was a card. Way to set the bar too high.
29. Warren G. Harding: During prohibition, he served alcohol at weekly poker games. Was brought down by scandals from members of his administration famously saying, “I have no trouble with my enemies ... But my friends ... they’re the ones who keep me walking the floors at night.” So, let me get this straight, he was surprised that people who would drink and gamble — both of which were illegal — inside the White House also turned out to be untrustworthy?
30. Calvin Coolidge: Fact: A woman once bet “Silent Cal” she could get three words out of him. His response: “You lose.” His actual campaign motto “Keep Cool with Coolidge” was either written by an eighth-grade student council campaign manager or he really cared about global warming.
31. Herbert Hoover: The richest president during the nation’s poorest time. Hoover refused to accept his own salary, a move that all 535 members of Congress responded to immediately, and without hesitation, by asking if they could then give themselves raises.
32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The press at the time agreed not to photograph FDR in his wheelchair. In a similar measure, the modern media has agreed only to photograph Obama while he’s walking on water.
33. Harry Truman: “Give ‘em hell Harry” is best known for dropping “little boy” and “fat man” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, when Madison and Taft’s bodies had no effect, he decided to drop actual atomic bombs.
34. Dwight Eisenhower: He believed in the “domino theory” of communism, which meant that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, the others would follow in 30 minutes or less or their communism was free. How many years did this avid golfer serve as president? Foouuuuuuur! OK, actually, eight.
35. John F. Kennedy: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President Kennedy. You heard right, he only “acted” alone. Kennedy is responsible for the space race to the moon and the Civil Rights Act, which are separate, but equal, moments in history.
36. Lyndon B. Johnson: Led the nation through two wars: Vietnam and his own “war on poverty.” The latter of which was far more successful because none of them were armed.
37. Dick Nixon: Improved relations with the USSR and China, ended the military draft, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and signed the Clean Air Act and the Nuclear Weapon Non-Proliferation Treaty. But all this doesn’t overshadow his biggest mistake — making Columbus Day a national holiday. I mean, seriously, the guy found America by accident.
38. Gerald Ford: Pardoned Nixon, I assume for the Columbus Day thing.
39. Jimmy Carter: He spent his post-presidency building for homes for Habitat for Humanity. You’ll recognize those as the only homes that aren’t actively being foreclosed on.
40. Ronald Reagan: He was never actually president. He’s just that damn good an actor.
41. George H.W. Bush: Was known for three things: The phrase “read my lips, no new taxes,” his ventriloquism and raising taxes.
42. Bill Clinton: First Baby Boomer president and very likely responsible for his own personal baby boom.
43. George W. Bush: Brought global relief for AIDS victims, saving thousands of lives in Africa. Some said he was the greatest U.S. president for Africa and the fight against AIDS in history. (See, sometimes we can be nice.)
Sources: “U.S. Presidents Factbook,” “The Everything American President’s Book” and a bunch of lies I made up.
Barack Obama is the 44th U.S. president, which means there were countless presidents before him. So before we embark on this new four-year journey, which unbiased media reports tell me will be characterized by everyone’s dreams coming true and an end to all bad things, let’s look back at the presidents who came before Obama:
1: George Washington: He did not really chop down a cherry tree and tell his father the truth. This was a tale created by writer Mason Weems, who wrote a book that glorified the first president. The Bush administration is actively trying to hire him. Faulty intelligence led them to believe he is still alive.
2. John Adams: A key opponent to the Stamp Act who presided over the Alien and Sedition acts. He was also the cousin of Samuel Adams, who had a beer named after him. Guess which one more Americans admire.
3. Thomas Jefferson: The longtime bachelor once said “many and great are the comforts of the single state.” He did eventually marry, though, to a woman twice as rich as him. He’d have my vote.
4. James Madison: Napoleon Bonaparte was making short rulers all the rage. The U.S. followed suit by electing its own pocket-sized president. The shortest and smallest president was said to be the first to wear long pants rather than knee breeches. How do we know he wasn’t just wearing Jefferson’s oversized hand-me-downs?
5. James Monroe: When he ran for his second term, no one was named as an official candidate opposed to the popular Monroe. He received all but one electoral vote. That vote came from Florida, for Pat Buchanan.
6: John Quincy Adams: His election was unlike others because none of the candidates declared a party. He ran against independents Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, Henry Clay and Ralph Nader, who has run in every election since.
7: Andrew Jackson: He was a prisoner of war and killed a man in a duel. He’s like a combination of John McCain and Dirty Harry. The forceful leader vetoed more bills than anyone else, survived an assassination attempt, and his favorite hobby was cockfighting. If the presidents were in a yearbook, Jackson would be voted most likely to punch you in the face.
8: Martin Van Buren: The origin of the word “OK” is believed to come from Van Buren, who was nicknamed Old Kinderhook. He married Hannah Hoes, a relative of Van Buren’s mother — not OK, dude.
9. William Henry Harrison: Was more dead in the first 30 days than any other U.S. president, unless you count brain-dead.
10. John Tyler: Claimed to be the reason Texas became a state. But in an even greater achievement for a dude, he was 54 when he married his second first lady, a 24-year-old. This is the last time I’m going to tell you this, kids: BECOME PRESIDENT.
11. James Polk: The first “dark horse” president was remembered for keeping all of his campaign promises, at least according to Mason Weems.
12. Zachary Taylor: Once said, “It would be judicious to act with magnanimity toward a prostrate foe.” Which proves he had access to both the phrase “Don’t kick a man when he’s down” and a thesaurus.
13. Millard Fillmore: Inherited the presidency after Taylor’s death and ran for re-election with the Know-Nothing Party. He was predictably defeated by the candidate from the Nothing is Outside the Realm of Our Experience Party.
14. Franklin Pierce: I honestly forgot that this guy was president.
15. James Buchanan: His presidency featured economic recession and several states seceding from the union. Fact: On his way out, he said, “I at least meant well for my country.”
16. Abraham Lincoln: Loved the theater.
17. Andrew Johnson: The first president to be impeached didn’t feel too bad about it, considering the way the previous guy was removed from office.
18. Ulysses S. Grant: President when the 15th Amendment passed, saying no one could deny anyone the right to vote based on race. Sex, of course, but not race. He also created the first national park in 1872 — distant relatives of Rod Blagojevich immediately tried to close it.
19. Rutherford B. Hayes: His election opponent Samuel Tilden won the popular vote. Hayes, a Republican, needed only one electoral vote from three Republican-controlled states to win the presidency. If you know our electoral system well, you can probably guess that democracy prevailed and a fair election was able to proceed. I’m kidding, of course. Actually, many Democratic ballots were ruled invalid and Hayes entered the White House with the nickname “His Fraudulency.”
20. James A. Garfield: Was shot by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, but didn’t die until two months later. Doctors had the ability to save him, but his health plan at the time only covered bullets that didn’t come from an assassin.
21. Chester A. Arthur: Nicknamed “Elegant Arthur” because he was known to change his outfit several times a day. He had 15 personal groomers for his mustache alone.
22. Grover Cleveland: We’ll get to him later.
23. Benjamin Harrison: He was the first to have electricity in the White House and the first to have his voice recorded, a momentous occasion that he marked with his most notable quote, “Oh my God, is that what I really sound like?”
24. Grover Cleveland: See, here he is.
25. William McKinley: Passed the Gold Standard, which meant the dollar was backed by gold, versus what it is backed by today. (Hint: It’s worth about as much as what it’s backed by.)
26. Theodore Roosevelt: Survived an assassination attempt because he had a 50-page speech in his pocket that slowed the bullet down. For other examples of this phenomenon, see every Hollywood movie ever made where the main character is shot.
27. William Howard Taft: The fattest president in U.S. history once got stuck in the White House bathtub. His cabinet included Secretary of State Philander Knox, Ho Hos, Twinkies, cupcakes, Twizzlers ...
28. Woodrow Wilson: Made Mother’s Day a national holiday and was president when women were given the right to vote. And all I got my mother was a card. Way to set the bar too high.
29. Warren G. Harding: During prohibition, he served alcohol at weekly poker games. Was brought down by scandals from members of his administration famously saying, “I have no trouble with my enemies ... But my friends ... they’re the ones who keep me walking the floors at night.” So, let me get this straight, he was surprised that people who would drink and gamble — both of which were illegal — inside the White House also turned out to be untrustworthy?
30. Calvin Coolidge: Fact: A woman once bet “Silent Cal” she could get three words out of him. His response: “You lose.” His actual campaign motto “Keep Cool with Coolidge” was either written by an eighth-grade student council campaign manager or he really cared about global warming.
31. Herbert Hoover: The richest president during the nation’s poorest time. Hoover refused to accept his own salary, a move that all 535 members of Congress responded to immediately, and without hesitation, by asking if they could then give themselves raises.
32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The press at the time agreed not to photograph FDR in his wheelchair. In a similar measure, the modern media has agreed only to photograph Obama while he’s walking on water.
33. Harry Truman: “Give ‘em hell Harry” is best known for dropping “little boy” and “fat man” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, when Madison and Taft’s bodies had no effect, he decided to drop actual atomic bombs.
34. Dwight Eisenhower: He believed in the “domino theory” of communism, which meant that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, the others would follow in 30 minutes or less or their communism was free. How many years did this avid golfer serve as president? Foouuuuuuur! OK, actually, eight.
35. John F. Kennedy: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President Kennedy. You heard right, he only “acted” alone. Kennedy is responsible for the space race to the moon and the Civil Rights Act, which are separate, but equal, moments in history.
36. Lyndon B. Johnson: Led the nation through two wars: Vietnam and his own “war on poverty.” The latter of which was far more successful because none of them were armed.
37. Dick Nixon: Improved relations with the USSR and China, ended the military draft, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and signed the Clean Air Act and the Nuclear Weapon Non-Proliferation Treaty. But all this doesn’t overshadow his biggest mistake — making Columbus Day a national holiday. I mean, seriously, the guy found America by accident.
38. Gerald Ford: Pardoned Nixon, I assume for the Columbus Day thing.
39. Jimmy Carter: He spent his post-presidency building for homes for Habitat for Humanity. You’ll recognize those as the only homes that aren’t actively being foreclosed on.
40. Ronald Reagan: He was never actually president. He’s just that damn good an actor.
41. George H.W. Bush: Was known for three things: The phrase “read my lips, no new taxes,” his ventriloquism and raising taxes.
42. Bill Clinton: First Baby Boomer president and very likely responsible for his own personal baby boom.
43. George W. Bush: Brought global relief for AIDS victims, saving thousands of lives in Africa. Some said he was the greatest U.S. president for Africa and the fight against AIDS in history. (See, sometimes we can be nice.)
Sources: “U.S. Presidents Factbook,” “The Everything American President’s Book” and a bunch of lies I made up.
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