What could go wrong...

...shamelessly reprinted from The Patriot Post email I got this morning.

Let me get this straight.

Obama's health care plan will:

• Be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it.
• Be passed by a Congress that hasn't read it (but exempts themselves from it).
• Be signed by a president who smokes (and also hasn't read it).
• Have funding administered by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes.
• Be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese.
• Be financed by a country that is nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

---

What could possibly go wrong:

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello?"

"Mrs. Sanders, please."

"Speaking."

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Dr. Jones at St. Agnes Laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other one tested positive for HIV. We can't tell which is which."

"That's dreadful! Can you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.

"Normally we can, but the new health care system will only pay for these expensive tests just one time."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The folks at Obama health care recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

"Repentence for a misspent youth"

Jonathan Rosenblum at JewishWorldReview.com:

...Western liberals were also prone to the illusion that all dilemmas of public and private life can be resolved by experts, psychotherapists and other "engineers of the human soul." The most learned of men, Berlin nevertheless insisted that intellectual elites have no business presuming that they know better than the man or woman in the street.

Really good column, telling me about a book I'd wouldn't pick up in a hundred years, written about a man I never heard of. The author is Michael Ignatieff. Wow. Explains a LOT about the way BarryO and His Band of Merry CongressWeasels and Their Friends - in the education system, the legal system, the health care system and every government bureaucracy around the country - think, and what they're headed for...not that I didn't know before, but this gives me extra insight.

Belief in a single rational solution to every problem leads as well to nasty politics. Marxists have a term for those who fail to acknowledge the rational solution: "false consciousness." False consciousness can infect entire social classes, and when it does they must either be re-educated or eliminated. In non-totalitarian regimes, ridicule replaces re-education for all those too stupid to accept the consensus. Perhaps that explains why so many writers to the Yale Law Magazine find calling George W. Bush an idiot the height of sophisticated wit. Even "jokes" about Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome son and "retarded" family are not beyond the pale.

Does your government scare you YET?

Thomas Sowell on Tuesday

This column is BRILLIANT!

Some of my favorite lines - single lines or paragraphs - compelling bits of words put together that say more than any 5 random columnists can say:

--Students are discussed largely as passive recipients of good or bad education.

But education is not something that can be given to anybody. It is something that students either acquire or fail to acquire. Personal responsibility may be ignored or downplayed in this "non-judgmental" age, but it remains a major factor nevertheless.

--The great escape of our times is escape from personal responsibility for the consequences of one's own behavior.

--There can be grave practical consequences of a dogmatic insistence on external explanations that allow individuals to escape personal responsibility. Americans can end up ruining the best medical care in the world in the vain hope that a government takeover will give us better health.

--"...there is a small minority of workers who do not rise and a large number of people who seldom work and who— surprise!— have low incomes as a result.

Seldom is there any thought that people who choose to waste years of their own time (and the taxpayers' money) in school need to change their own behavior— or to visibly suffer the consequences, so that their fate can be a warning to others coming after them, not to make that same mistake.

It is not just the "non-judgmental" ideology of the intelligentsia but also the self-interest of politicians that leads to so much downplaying of personal responsibility in favor of external explanations and external programs to "solve" the "problem."

Project 2,996: James D. Cleere

I found a reprint / repost of a Washington Post list of House Document No. 107-285, Commemorative Joint Meeting of the Congress of the United States In Remembrance of the Victims and Heroes of September 11, 2001. It gave me my idea of how to write this Tribute. You see, I volunteered to write and post a Tribute after finding my way to a site called Project 2,996. The name I was assigned belongs to a man who was...well...a man who was in one of the Towers of the World Trade Center that day.

It's a very plain-looking list, as are most of the other reprints of that long long list - no frills or fanfares, no candles or flowers or flags waving in the breeze. Most of us live lives that don't come with public fanfare or frills or parades or widely posted Tributes. The Americans killed that horrible day were mostly just like you and me...going about their business in the ways they knew best. Though they worked in a talked-about building - or compound, as there were more than 2 "towers" - their everyday lives involved the same kinds of things we all do - taking out the trash, answering the phone, losing a cell while crossing a bridge, talking to the kids, the grocer, the neighbor, folding a load of laundry, picking up a prescription, grabbing a quick bite. Ordinary...yet so very extraordinary, and now never to be forgotten.

James D. Cleere was living his life. He was 55. He was from Newton, Iowa.

He was sentenced to Death by the murderers that day because of where he was and who he was. They did not know him or care about him or his family or his friends. They didn't know how he got from Iowa to New York City, where he went to school, or what he had for breakfast every day. They only cared that he die that day because he was in that building.

I didn't know him, either. But I will never forget him.

James D. Cleere was on the 49th floor of the South Tower, in the offices of Seabury and Smith Insurance, when the hijacked Flight 175 out of Boston slammed into the building at 9:03am on September 11, 2001.

James D. Cleere - you are not forgotten.

That sucking sound you hear...is the stimulus!

Mark Steyn comments on the projects funded by the stimulus plan in his state.

Still, what do I know? Evidently, it's stimulated the sign-making industry, putting America back to work by putting up "PUTTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK" signs every 200 yards across the land. And at 300 bucks a pop the signage alone should be enough to launch an era of unparalleled prosperity, assuming America's gilded sign magnates don't spend their newfound wealth on Bahamian vacations and European imports. Perhaps if the president were to have his All-Seeing O logo lovingly hand-painted onto each sign, it would stimulate the economy even more, if only when they were taken down and auctioned on eBay.
...
...there are diminishing returns to his serial thousand-page, trillion-dollar boondoggles. They may be too long for your representatives to bother reading before passing into law, but, whatever the intricacies of Section 417(a) xii on page 938, people are beginning to spot what all this stuff has in common: He's spending your future. And by "future" I don't mean 2070, 2060, 2040, but the day after tomorrow. Democrats can talk about only raising taxes on "the rich," but more and more Americans are beginning to figure out what percentage of them will wind up in "the richest 5 percent" before this binge is over.

So, how does it feel, traveling to a Third World country without ever crossing a border?

Question about 'rights'

If you have children...I'd like your take on this topic.

Do your precious babies have unrestricted use of the computer, or possibly their own? Are they allowed on social networking sites? Do you oversee the way these sites are used by your children?

Do you (or they) consider it a violation of their right to free speech if when they post something to a page belonging to someone else they get a reply they don't like and with which they (vehemently) disagree? Do you believe children (under 18 and living in your home) have the Right to Free Speech? Is anyone - including parent - having and expressing an opinion counter to said child's opinion or view considered repression and oppression of THEIR First Amendment Right?

I'm trying very hard to keep my temper, considering the sources...but it sure is giving me the Opportunity for Growth I was told about when I first decided to change my life...lying and stretching the truth and convenient selective memory and name-calling and dragging up the past to no good end tends to make me grumpy. Your thoughts are ALWAYS welcome here, thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: Another question - when posting to the site of another, are your precious babies sure it's ok with Mom and Dad if they swear, insult, or lie to or about the person whose site they comment on - because that's just what said child is like, he/she doesn't 'care' what anyone thinks (no chit, Cherlock?) and so what?

*sigh*

Thomas Sowell, Part IV

Pretty durn good analysis. Too bad our Elected CongressWeasels aren't this thoughtful. Or down-to-earth. Or honest.

Whose Medical Decisions? Part IV:

What we also should stop to think about is the mindset behind this legislation, which is very consistent with the mindset behind other policies of this administration, whether the particular issue is bailing out General Motors, telling banks who to lend to or appointing "czars" to tell all sorts of people in many walks of life what they can and cannot do.

The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity.
...

The thing most associated with America — freedom — is precisely what must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of himself. But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom.

Thomas Sowell, Part III

A few hundred words in one column can barely scratch the surface of the discussion that NEEDS to take place and the information that NEEDS to be passed along to the American People about the "Health Care Rationing" bill. Here's the next installment from Mr. Sowell.

Please, THINK about this, people...you're not just being blind-sided, you're being lied to at every turning:

Amid all the controversies over medical care, no one seems to be asking a very basic question: Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?
...
Despite incessant repetition of the fact that millions of Americans do not have medical insurance, hardy souls who have actually read the mammoth medical care legislation being rushed through Congress have discovered all sorts of things there that have nothing whatever to do with insuring the uninsured — and everything to do with taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and their patients, and transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats.
...
Deception is not an incidental aspect of this medical care legislation, but is at the very heart of it.

Thomas Sowell, Part II

Part Two of Thomas Sowell's column:

It is not just a question of what the government will pay for. The logic of their collectivist thinking — and the actual practice in some other countries with government-controlled health care — is that you cannot even pay for some medical treatments with your own money, if the powers that be decide that "society" cannot let its resources be used that way, or that it would not be "social justice" for some people to have medical treatments that others cannot get, just because some people "happen to have money."

Fiji water ain't exactly green...unless it's from the MONEY!

I used to buy Fiji water for Lovely Daughter because I love the bottle...when we lived in Hawai'i. Now, if I have to drink water, I get it from the tap and I add Country Time lemonade packets to it. Much better and half the price. John Stossel says I might be on the right track...

Thomas Sowell Tuesday with Cal Thomas, too - Decisions, Decisions

We're going to keep beating this drum. Who do YOU think should be making decisions about YOUR medical care? Some government flunky who works for a Political Appointee of the Administration? Your own doctor, in accordance to YOUR wishes? Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com on The Man Who Would Be In Charge of the "Death Panels."

At one time, it would have been none of Dr. Emanuel's business if your physician prescribed the latest medications for you, rather than the cheaper and obsolete medications they replaced. It would have been none of his business if you preferred to have a nice hospital room with "amenities" rather than being in an unsanitary ward with inadequate nursing care, as under the National Health Service in Britain.

The involvement of government gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage to condemn other Americans' choices — and a larger involvement of government will give him the power to force both doctors and patients to change their choices.

As for a "death panel," no politician would ever use that phrase when trying to get a piece of legislation passed. "End of life" care under the "guidance" of "some independent group" sounds so much nicer — and these are the terms President Obama used in an interview with the New York Times back on April 14th.

Here's Cal Thomas:

Anyone wishing to revise America's medical system and model it after Britain and Canada ought to thoroughly examine how these health care systems function before plunging into the same pool. A reasonable conclusion is that these systems require long waits and treatments (if you can get them) that are inferior to the U.S., based on government "guidelines" that frequently approve care only if the patient is deemed "worthy of the investment."

As a symbol, Adolf Hitler has been overused, but the philosophy behind the horrors he unleashed can be found in the beliefs of some of those who would use the power of the state to determine who gets help and who doesn't.

El Campeador has this little bit of 'fluff' from FoxNews, about the FABulous care you'll get when we're all covered by British-style "health" care.

Charlotte, of Oswestry, Shropshire in England, was prescribed Tamiflu via the flu hotline, but when she didn’t feel any better, she was admitted to the hospital on July 29 where she died two days later after her lungs collapsed.

The 16-year-old girl died after being misdiagnosed with the H1N1 virus, when she really had tonsillitis, London’s Daily Mail reported.

Charlotte Hartey’s condition was diagnosed over the phone, like many other H1N1 viruses in the United Kingdom, but when complications arose from Charlotte’s real affliction – tonsillitis – the teenager died.

A post-mortem exam showed Charlotte died from “natural causes.”

Remember - BarryOCare will give you EXACTLY what the British people get. Aren't you excited??? YES WE ARE!

Fifty years since...

I have no real memory about this - I wasn't quite 4. I've been to Yellowstone - more than once - I think the first time I may have been 8 or 9, could have been 11 - but, as I said, I was so young AND had never been there at that time of the quake. My only memories are from after, and of course pictures.

Mama Nature isn't a kind, gentle, cuddly nurturer. Mother Earth can be a real killer, and has been since Time began.

from Patriot Guard Riders website

...we stand in flag lines

...we stand for hours in silence

So we can see one moment like this.............


(tip of my cap to My Chief, who sent this in an email this morning)

Tea Party Commercial

Created by a teenager...which is no surprise. Created with such passion and patriotism? While not surprising to those of us who live in the real world, it is such an inspiring work from such a young man! Good job, and thank you!
Tip of my cap to GrouchyConservativePundits!

Tax Code

There's a BRILLIANT post at Are We Lumberjacks? that explains - with a very simple analogy even I can understand - how our tax structure works.

An analogy works best when it's written from a point of view I can understand, in language I can grasp with ease. This one has ALL that!

LIFE, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...with WHO in charge of the LIFE part???

REMEMBER:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jonah Goldberg at JewishWorldReview.com:

When it comes to civil liberties, liberals are often distrustful of government power. But, for reasons that baffle me, they are quite comfortable with Uncle Sam getting into the business of deciding, or providing "guidance" on, which lives are more valuable than others. A government charged with extending life expectancy must meddle not just with our health care, but with what we eat, how we drive, how we live. A government determined to cut costs must meddle not just with how we live, but how we die.

Analysis and translation - for those of us not fluent in NewSpeak and Legalese

I heard some of this listening to Rush today. Amazing stuff. If there was a town hall happening near me, I'd print it out and take it along, pass out copies. Maybe I'll post it on the bulletin board at the laundromat!

The Health Care Bill: What HR 3200, ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” Says.
by John David Lewis.

Grandpa John's: Terminological Clarification

I offer here an outrageously funny replacement for the name BarryOCare, the socialist health care plan that shows up as a topic on fairly regular occasions - and a welcome addition to my sidebar, too!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Patriotic Readers of All Ages, from Steve Burri at Grandpa John's, I give you 'The Dingell-Barry Bill.'

Maybe more later, after I wipe the tears from my eyes and clean my monitor.

*whew*

(Thanks, Paco!)

"Drunks" by Jack McCarthy

We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms where they found us three days later when somebody complained about the smell.

We died against bridge abutments and nobody knew if it was suicide

and we probably didn’t know either except in the sense that it was always suicide.

We died in hospitals, our stomachs huge, distended and there was nothing they could do.

We died in cells, never knowing whether we were guilty or not.

We went to priests, they gave us pledges, they told us to pray, they told us to go and sin no more, but go. We tried and we died.

We died of overdoses, we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)

We died in straitjackets, in the DT’s seeing God knows what, creeping skittering slithering shuffling things.

And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.

We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take that would make us sick when we drank on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess, or maybe they just shook their heads and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy’s.

And when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde or maybe we lied to the doctors and they told us not to drink so much, just drink like me.

And we tried, and we died.

We drowned in our own vomit or choked on it, our broken jaws wired shut. We died playing Russian roulette and people thought we’d lost, but we knew better.

We died under the hoofs of horses, under the wheels of vehicles, under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks.

We died in shame.

And you know what was even worse, was that we couldn’t believe it ourselves, that we had tried.

We figured we just thought we tried and we died believing that we hadn’t tried, believing that we didn’t know what it meant to try.

When we were desperate enough or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names

and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them, never suspecting the terrifying truth, that the right words, as simple as they were, had not been written yet.

We died falling off girders on high buildings, because of course ironworkers drink, of course they do.

We died with a shotgun in our mouth, or jumping off a bridge, and everybody knew it was suicide.

We died under the Southeast Expressway, with our hands tied behind us and a bullet in the back of our head, because this time the people that we disappointed were the wrong people.

We died in convulsions, or of “insult to the brain”, we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned .

If we were women, we died degraded, because women have so much more to live up to.

We tried and we died and nobody cried. And the very worst thing was that for every one of us that died, there were another hundred of us, or another thousand, who wished that we could die, who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up because what we were enduring was intolerable and we knew in our hearts it wasn’t ever gonna change.

One day in a hospital room in New York City, one of us had what the books call a transforming spiritual experience, and he said to himself “I’ve got it .” (no, you haven’t you’ve only got part of it) ” and I have to share it.” (now you’ve ALMOST got it) and he kept trying to give it away, but we couldn’t hear it. We tried and we died.

We died of one last cigarette, the comfort of its glowing in the dark.

We passed out and the bed caught fire. They said we suffocated before our body burned, they said we never felt a thing , that was the best way maybe that we died, except sometimes we took our family with us.

And the man in New York was so sure he had it, he tried to love us into sobriety, but that didn’t work either, love confuses drunks and he tried and we still died.

One after another we got his hopes up and we broke his heart,

Because that’s what we do.

And the worst thing was that every time we thought we knew what the worst thing was something happened that was worse.

Until a day came in a hotel lobby and it wasn’t in Rome, or Jerusalem,

Or Mecca or even Dublin, or South Boston, it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ’s sake.

A day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I need him As much as he needs me (NOW you’ve got it).

And the transmission line, after all those years, was open, the transmission line was open. And now we don’t go to priests, and we don’t go to doctors and people with letters after their names.

We come to people who have been there, we come to each other. We come to try and we don’t have to die………

Because another one died Friday...that's three this year that we know personally...

Project 2996

The anniversary of the attacks on 9-11 is only 4 weeks away.

Have you forgotten?

UPDATE: I've been assigned the name of a man who was killed in the attacks, and will write a Tribute to be posted here on September 11.

Maybe you should think about doing the same?

I'd love to hear the backstory on THIS one

From the Billings Gazette, which is the daily paper my mum gets in Big Timber, we find another instance of Patriotism...but I'd sure like to know the story behind the note this Marine received! I know I'd have to be "stupid drunk" to steal anything that belonged to a Marine...ever...no matter HOW old he is!

Paco Says...

The Democrats have made, I think, two fatal errors: they have come to believe their own mendacious propaganda, and they have grossly underestimated the intelligence, and the courage, of the American people.

I agree with every word.

Paco is evidence that the smartest people in the country are NOT sitting on their bums in D.C. or writing for the New York Times. I may not agree with everything he says (can't think of an example right now, though), but his positions are well-considered, well-informed, and based on fact and experience, not what it'll get him and how much power he'll wield (PacoEnterprises notwithstanding).

Read it all.

Thomas Sowell Tuesday - Random THoughts

Random Thoughts from Thomas Sowell. I LOVE Tuesdays.

My favorites:
~Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences.

~Recently I was foolish enough to try to reason with an environmentalist. But it became obvious that he had his mind made up and didn't want to hear any evidence to the contrary. The Pope is more likely to have read Karl Marx than an environmentalist is to have read even a single book that criticized environmentalism.

~How long will it be before the public gets tired of the little know-it-all sermonettes by Barack Obama — especially since nothing that he is doing is actually working?

Patriot Guard Riders, we thank you for your service

What My Chief (retired) did with part of his Sunday...

American Flag Carried Across the Country to Marine's Daughter

PALM COAST, FL -- The daughter of a Marine who served in the Vietnam war received a surprise honor Sunday afternoon: her father's burial flag, hand delivered from California by the Patriot Guard Riders.

Sgt. Michael Gares died last week in Riverside, California of natural causes.

His daughter, 18-year-old Jennifer Gares, and her brother, Andrew, live in Flagler County and could not afford a plane ticket to fly out to his funeral.

During the funeral, which took place at Riverside National Cemetery, the Patriot Guard Riders stood in the family's place.

As a tradition, the serviceman's burial flag is handed down to a widowed spouse, a parent, or the oldest child in the family.

When the riders learned Sgt. Gares' family was in Florida and his burial flag was to be mailed back home, they stepped in, and organized a hand delivery.

"The way the vets feel, this is a flag of honor. It is treated with respect and a whole bunch of love from the combat brotherhood," said Ernest Tucker, a Vietnam Veteran.

For six days, the flag traveled on the back of motorcycles, from rider to rider, state to state.

Read the comments, too.

Shared via AddThis

UPDATE: I forgot to add...a movie that also shows true American Patriotism and respect for our Fallen Brothers is "Taking Chance," an HBO production. I don't watch movies. HBO lost me a couple decades ago. I watched this one, and it's on my Christmas list to be one of the few movies I actually own.

"Democracy" not "of the People or by the People" anymore

Mitch Albom at JewishWorldReview.com:

I would rather live in a place where people questioned what their government proposed rather than swallowing it blindly — especially a government whose members guard our tax money while taking bribes, shout morality and then get caught with their pants down, or lecture businessmen about private planes and then order a bunch for themselves.

What did Democrats expect with a bill like this? Roses and hosannas?

Byron York:

As a reporter, how does one keep from rooting for the home team? And as a government official, how does one flack for the boss while ignoring the questions any journalist should ask?

This week Douglass undertook to debunk a video going around the Internet showing Barack Obama, before he became president, endorsing a single-payer national health care system. “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan,” Obama said at a conference in 2003, as he was beginning a run for the U.S. Senate. “That’s what I’d like to see.”

A viewer might reasonably conclude that, at least in 2003, Barack Obama was a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. Not true, said Douglass. In a video posted on the White House Web site, she explained that there was a lot of “disinformation” going around these days about health care reform. Opponents of reform have been “taking sentences and phrases out of context” to create a “false impression.”

“There are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together,” Douglass said, “and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

A few years ago, Linda Douglass the journalist might have asked just how Obama’s 2003 declaration of support for single-payer health care was taken out of context. Now, Douglass the White House spokeswoman didn’t even address the question.

Jack Kelly:

On Jan. 20, 2009, after an eight year run, dissent ceased to be "the highest form of patriotism."

Now, according to those who once assured us that even violent protests against the war in Iraq were patriotic, to express dissatisfaction with President Obama's plans for health care "reform" is mob rule, or worse.

Another man's little girl...

Late soldier’s daughter gets flag after ceremony

(Created: Friday, August 7, 2009 12:23 PM MDT)

MARTIN J. KIDSTON Independent Record HELENA (AP)

With her black shoes and freckled face, her blonde hair almost red in the sun, little Riley Ehret stood quietly outside the Capitol, taking in the moment with her wide, green eyes. The 7-year-old was wearing the same black dress and the same blue ribbon she had selected for her father's funeral. Her smile, however, was something new. And so was the flag clutched tightly in her arms and the Army Commendation Medal pinned upon her dress.

"Your father's attention to detail and situational awareness allowed his platoon to effectively accomplish all assigned missions," said a soldier, standing before the girl as he read her father's commendation. "His performance reflects great credit upon himself, the 116th Brigade Combat Team, Task Force Liberty and the United States Army."

Riley's father, Spc. Travis T. Ehret, earned the commendation as an automatic rifleman serving with the Montana National Guard's 1-163rd Infantry Battalion in Iraq. Ehret served three tours in the war, standing up for the principles he believed in and the country he loved.

Then he came home, where he died of injuries suffered in a Helena bar fight that occurred on June 20 — the day before Father's Day. It was why, when Sunday came — when Father's Day arrived — Ehret didn't return Riley's call. It was why the two would never speak again. But Riley wouldn't know that for nearly two weeks, not until a sheriff's deputy came knocking at the door in Belgrade. The officer told Riley's mother, Iselin Jensen, that her ex-husband — Riley's father — had been critically injured in a bar fight and wasn't expected to recover. Breaking the news to Riley was the hardest part. "I just looked at her and said, 'Daddy got in a fight, and it's not very good, and it doesn't look like he's going to make it,'" Jensen said. "I told her, 'He'll probably end up with the angels.' We didn't know that it happened over the Father's Day weekend. Riley didn't know why he didn't call and she was upset."

Days after the fight, Ehret was flown from Helena to a Billings hospital where he died on July 2 at 10:59 a.m. He was interred at the Yellowstone County Veterans Cemetery and remembered as a loving son and father, a man of his word who was proud to defend America's freedom on the battlefield. That day, the flag went to Ehret's mother. Riley didn't have her father, and she wanted a flag of her own to remember him by.

"Her dad died off duty, and the parents are divorced, so by protocol, the flag has to go to (Ehret's) mother," said Denny Lenoir, coordinator of the state Honor Guard. "Riley was extremely sad that she didn't get to talk to her dad on Father's Day, and that she didn't get a flag at his funeral."

But Lenoir set out to change that, and on Wednesday, the state Honor Guard came to attention on the steps of the Capitol to perform a ceremony the soldiers would later describe as touching.

With their brass buttons glinting in the morning sun, Spc. Moe Mayhew, Warrant Officer Lance Heppner, and Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Schaan unfolded the flag and ran it up the pole. Holding Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger's hand, her other placed over her heart, Riley watched the ceremony with pride and wonder, her freckled face warmed by the sun. The soldiers then folded the flag, perfecting each crease, and presented it to the girl with an unflinching salute. "This flag of the United States of America was flown over the state Capitol of Helena, Montana, on Wednesday, August fifth, 2009, in honor of your father for his dedication and faithful service to the United States of America while serving in the United States Army," Bohlinger told the girl. "The people of Montana are extremely proud of your father for his courage, his bravery and his commitment to the peace of this world and to the safety of our people."

With the video cameras crowding around, the reporters standing before her, Riley didn't smile. As Bohlinger held her hand, she looked at her shoes and simply said, in the smallest of voices, "My dad loved me." As for the flag she wanted so dearly? She clutched it in her arms the way most girls hold a teddy bear. "I'll take care of it," she said, following Bohlinger on a tour of the Capitol. "I'll put it somewhere in the house. When I get there, I'll pick out a place."

My Pixie

Twenty-two months ago today, my BEEootiful Pixie was born, and our lives changed forever...again. See how tiny she was?

I am a happy Grandma Daycare, while Mama and Daddy go to work to earn the money so they can pay the rent on the place where she has her own room.

A few weeks back, we bought potty chairs, one for each house. Then I bought a couple dozen pairs of cotton training pants. This week, on Monday, we began in earnest to bring about the natural progression.

Today, we had no wet panties, no puddles on the floor to mop up, and used only two diapers - one for nap time, one for going home at the end of the day.

I am so proud. And a bit sad.

*sigh*

Beware "Government Grant" Scams

Money is tight. People are nervous. The idea that you can get 'free money' from BarryO and His Merry CongressWeasels is probably more attractive than ever before. DON'T DO IT! There are dozens - maybe hundreds - possibly thousands - of scammers out there, doing exactly what cost this woman money she could little afford to give away. May as well give cash to the 'homeless' family at the off ramp as get taken by one of these scumsuckers.

Your government is not giving you a damn thing. There's no such thing as a free ride - for the average everyday workin' American Joe or Jane, that is. Every good thing has a price...and so do the crappy ones. You know, like 'free' medical care.

Dave Ramsey says when we fall for the lies, we end up paying the Stupid Tax. Don't be as stupid as your government - and the lowlifes who aren't your government - think you are! If it sounds too good to be true, you can bet your lil blue booties it's TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

BarryOCare = DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!

Thomas Sowell (you KNOW I love him):

Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for years to be over-ruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of "bringing down the cost of medical care"?
...
What is both dangerous and mindless is rushing a massive new medical care scheme through Congress so fast that members of Congress do not even have time to read it before voting on it. Legislation that is far less sweeping in its effects can get months of hearings before Congressional committees, followed by debates in the Senate and the House of Representatives, with all sorts of people voicing their views in the media and in letters to Congress, while ads from people on both sides of the issue appear in newspapers and on television.

If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can't it stand the light of day or a little time to think about it?

Robert Tracinski:

You can see how Obama's demands undermine this whole system. To ask insurance companies to cover a patient after the tumor is diagnosed is to ask them to take on a known expense. Combine that with another Obama demand: that insurance companies can't charge higher rates for those who are at higher risk of getting sick. So if insurance companies have to take on a known expense and can't charge a higher rate for it, how are they going to pay for it? By raising everyone else's rates, redistributing their wealth to the new freeloaders.

This isn't insurance, it's welfare. And that's the whole point.

John Stossel:

I keep reading about health-care "reform," but I have yet to see anyone explain how the government can make it easier for more people to obtain medical services, control the already exploding cost of those services and not interfere with people's most intimate decisions.

You don't need to be a Ph.D. in economics to understand that government cannot do all three things. (Judging by what Paul Krugman writes, a Ph.D. may be an obstacle.)

Paul Greenberg:

Here's what some of us are looking for in a health-insurance plan: Will it allow us to choose our own doctor and our own insurance policy? Will it let those who provide our health care order the tests and treatments they consider necessary, or will it hamper them?

Do we get to consult our own physician or is our fate in the hands of Doctor Obama with his glib talk of red pills and blue pills, and how there's really no difference between them except in cost? Oh, and our president is an expert on tonsillectomies, too, and how many should be done. (When he talks medicine, he's almost as convincing as some doctors I know talking oh-so-expertly about politics.)

Another question: Will this country's great big new health-care system get all those lawyers off our doctor's back, and just let the country's physicians practice medicine? Instead of having to practice it defensively? Is there anything in this developing thousand-page mass of rules and regs that will lower the medical malpractice premiums that keep driving up the cost of health-care?

Will this bill give individuals the same tax breaks on their health insurance as businesses are now allowed? Will it let us take our insurance with us when we switch jobs or lose one? Will it encourage good health? By, say, giving discounts to those of us who don't smoke?

Issa to Emanuel: Back Off!

Methinks the Chicago Machine who've invaded Washington, D.C. may have gotten a tiny bit big for their britches...

In the press release, Issa's letter to RahmmyBaby has this beautiful paragraph:

At what point do you believe your practice of Chicago-style politics violates a public official’s right to speak out in favor of alternative policies. The American people have a right to know what role you played in developing the threatening letters to Governor Brewer and whether you intend to continue to engage in these tactics in the future.

Read this, then click the button at the bottom for the pdf version of the letter. I may print it out and tack it to my bulletin board, as a reminder that we still have a small handful of Elected Officials who aren't complete weasels. Makes me want to stand up and cheer, I tells ya!

It's Tuesday - it's Thomas Sowell

Samples from Mr. Sowell's column at JewishWorldReview.com:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."
...
Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should "do something" about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don't have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.

Useless time-wasters

I wandered over to Margo's Maid's Shadowlands. She posts some of the strangest stuff. In continuing on past her links, I came upon this. Now, I'm an expert at doing something so I don't have to DO something (which is the reason these blogs exist, isn't it?), but it hasn't come this far just yet. So far, I've managed to stick with cooking and blogging to waste my time - and yours!

"...government made more promises than its economy can easily support."

As this column notes, California is having problems that are repeating at the national level. Do YOU think our Elected CongressWeasels pay any attention to that at all?

Robert J. Samuelson:
Here's the national lesson. There's a collision between high and rising demands for government services and the capacity of the economy to produce the income and tax revenue to pay for those demands. That's true of California, where poor immigrants and their children have increased pressures for more government services. It's also true of the nation, where an aging population raises Social Security and Medicare spending. California is leading the transformation of politics into a form of collective torture: pay more (higher taxes), get less (lower services).

Rest in Peace, Captain Speicher

It's been 18 years. I didn't know this young man. We were living in this house, with a little girl and a dog and a cat. We've lived in 4 other places since then, returning to this house 6 years ago. I remember the reports, watching the tv on top of the fridge while I fixed dinner and washed dishes. I have been kinda tearful for nearly an hour now. He was one of ours...and he is missed.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- After nearly two decades, the remains of a Navy pilot from Orange Park -- the first American lost in the Persian Gulf War -- have been found in Iraq, the military said Sunday.

News4Jax.com

Thank you for your Service, Captain Speicher. We will not forget.

(Thanks, Swampie)

Go see Paco...you won't regret it

Paco has picked up many of Tim Blair's commenters, and this post shows a couple of 'em in top form! They are SO creative and quick, I am in awe.

NOTE: Do NOT drink coffee or other beverages while reading the linked post.

Lovely Daughter emails a joke...

The beautiful young woman who is the mother of My BEEootiful Pixie sent this earlier this week and I just now remembered to post it. Love it, MissKait, thank you!

Luxury cars are soon to be a thing of the past. They have always
been beyond my means but I took out a luxury car last week, just to drive
that sucker. The salesman sat in the back seat describing the car and
options.

The seats were of particular interest. He explained the seats
directed warm air to your butt during the winter and directed cool air to
your butt in the summer heat.

I stated the car must be a republican car. He asked why I thought it
was a republican car, and I explained if it were a democrat car the seats
would blow smoke up your ass year round.

One of my all time favorites

I don't have the taste for music that Paco and more educated, musical types have. Most of my favourites come from my childhood.They're not classics by any stretch of the imagination, and may even be so far from 'classy' as to prove I was poor white trash. The memories they evoke are bittersweet, knowing I can't go back but so "wishing" it could be so...

Funny, this song came out when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and I didn't hear it for DECADES...but I still know every word.

More than sausage...

Big Bad John, by Jimmy Dean, long before he began marketing sausage. Sometimes I got to stay up late to watch his show, if the Ralph the Dog muppet was on. I think I was 5.

Grandfather's family on my mum's side came from coal mining country in Ohio. This video shows why he stuck with dry land farming and teaching school out on the prairies of Montana, I think. It'd be my choice, too.

Elitist blather bringin' ya down?

Check out this post from The Other McCain. No high-falutin' university degree or blue blood needed to understand at a gut level what's going on with our economy. There was a reason The Founding Fathers kicked over the traces and fought for Liberty for ALL Americans. The attitude of "our betters" is, at molecular level, WHY this great Nation exists. We really are as intelligent, y'know. We can make our own Good Life.

Till the Socialists take it ALL away, that is, in the name of . . . "helping."

A blast from my past to cheer me back up

As a sixth and seventh grader, I had massive school-girl crushes on Peter Noone and Peter Tork.

Here's Peter Noone, a couple years ago in Ohio:


And Peter Tork, with the Monkees:


I save some of the crush for Mickey, too. Peter Tork's song "Auntie Grizzelda" doesn't seem to be one of the YouTube specials, so we'll make do with this cuz it's a better quality than some of the others.

Thomas Sowell, again...and better than ever.

Telling it like it is, Mr. Sowell hits the nail on the head about BarryO. In my simplistic 'philosophy' of life, I have a duty to make the best of every situation, to FIND the silver lining in the cloud, to be open to any opportunity for spiritual or personal growth. The Current Occupant and His Band of Thieving CongressWeasels are supplying such opportunities by the tonne.

Holy Poorhouse, Batman, we are SO screwed.

Feelin' Groovy...?

Nope. Not me. ESPECIALLY after seeing this!

I believe it's what the term "cringeworthy" was invented to describe.

Tippin' my cap to Kae for this walk down Memory Lane. And keeping with yesterday's musical interlude theme...



Do you feel old and stupid yet? Yes, I KNOW it's a song from the 60's, but nostalgia is TIMELESS, isn't it? Reminds me I'm glad I managed to mature some, with NO help from my friends.

Nostalgia is, after all, just a kind word for OLD.

Tuesday with Thomas - "Anyone who can believe that Obama did not understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe anything."

Mr. Sowell's column lays it ALL on the line...and not being a white Liberal, he knows whereof he speaks. Facts are such MESSY things, aren't they?

For those who are interested in facts — and these obviously do not include President Obama — there has been a serious study of racial profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald. Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted beyond recognition by politics.
...

What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.

To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.

Read the column.

Monday, Monday...

Can't touch that day. Amazing, isn't it, what a few recreational drugs could make possible...

Funny Stuff on Friday!

Many thanks to Margo's Maid for the link that still has me giggling!

In the sidebar is What Not To Crochet for some yarn-based amusement.

Don't miss the snark at Food Network Humor. Got me laughing, but I can't read the comments because some of 'em just make me wanna HURT PEOPLE. I think I owe Margo's Maid a thank you for that one, too. She has GREAT funny links on a regular basis...when I have time to waste.

The Pixie and I are off to the commissary for some essentials like apple juice and milk. Busy day, of course, as usual. Y'all have a fine morning, and thanks so much for stopping by!

What NOT to wear...er...so to speak

Via Paco and Something and Half of Something: A life of crime might be more difficult if you have obvious distinguishing marks. Lotta criminals seem to be lacking in the area of common sense, don't they? "Floridiot" is a GREAT word, but I don't believe the condition is exclusive to the Sunshine State.

Among other oddities in the land of non-compliance - postings from News of the Weird:

In May, police in Winder, Ga. (pop. 10,200), arrested a marijuana seller with a quite-low-tech delivery system. A wireless doorbell was hidden on a tree in woods alongside a house, and when the buzzer sounded, a bucket was lowered from a second-story window. The buyer put money in, the bucket was raised, and the dope would be sent back down. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution-AP, 5-29-09]

The St. Paul Pioneer-Press, located in America's ground zero for "New Age," reported the growing discontent of establishment New-Agers for fringe New-Agers. Who belongs? Pagans? Chiropractors? Channelers? Organic farmers? Pet psychics? One NA spiritual center owner: "I have customers who completely believe in fairies [but] will laugh at you if you believe in Bigfoot." (But we're told that "fairies" is not politically correct; it's "nature divas.") [NOTE: I'm told that the reporter probably heard "Nature Deva" and not "nature diva."] On the other hand, at least New-Agers don't have the baggage of believing in virgin birth, turning water into wine, and rising from the dead (much less celebrating it with bunny rabbits). Pioneer Press

[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
Don't know who this is, or what he's charged with, but he might possibly need to be locked up somewhere. TheSmokingGun.com

Found this in the Billings Gazette online edition:

They are NOT pets! They are not "gentle giants." Even if they're wandering through YOUR camping area! What part of "wild animal" do you not understand?
California man gored by bull bison.

And, from my home town, some pictures of the high point of the summer: Rodeo!

Great Northern Fair has something for everyone.

Busy rest of the day, late night tonight, thanks for stopping by!

Hey, Kae! Anything we can do to help?

I love Best of the Web Today from OpinionJournal.com. It was the people - the community of commenters, many of whom started blogging on their own and which I refer to fondly as Blair Nation - at Tim Blair's blog years ago that eventually set me on the path to blogging for myself.

When I saw this at BotWT, I got a bit anxious, not knowing the geographical details Down Under...so, Kae, what's the good word?

Massive quake moves New Zealand closer to Australia!

So why wouldn't they let this sleeping dog lie? Perhaps because Mr. Reyes is a dimwit.

I would not pass up this phrase as a headline. It's an overwhelming urge I refuse to resist. It's just too beautiful. Read the column, too - Jack Kelly, again at JewishWorldReview.com.

Here's another taste:

There were two problems with Ms. Feinstein's story.

The first is that the assassination plan never got off the drawing board, so there was no program on which to brief members of Congress. The second is that former CIA Director Hayden flatly denied Mr. Cheney had ordered him not to tell Congress about the plan which never got off the ground, and Mr. Panetta's boss, Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, wouldn't back up what Mr. Panetta is alleged to have said. Mr. Panetta himself has kept a discreet silence since the flap went public.

The leakers initially got the headlines they wanted, but as the facts come out, the story cannot end well for Democrats. Few Americans are outraged the CIA contemplated killing our enemies during a time of war. We're doing precisely that right now with drone missile attacks on al Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Swing voters are already uncomfortable about the attacks on the CIA, and -- should there be another terrorist attack on the U.S. -- the downside risk for Democrats is enormous. So why wouldn't they let this sleeping dog lie?

Perhaps because Mr. Reyes is a dimwit. Ms. Pelosi chose him for chairman over the far better qualified Rep. Jane Harman (D-Ca), who'd been the ranking Democrat when the GOP controlled Congress, because of her personal animosity to Ms. Harman. At the time of his elevation, Mr. Reyes didn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shia, an appalling failing in a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Your tax dollars, hard at work, paying the morons we elect. Sad, isn't it.

More on GMC, from John Stossel and Tony Blankley

No, not my brother...as BIG BROTHER and Uncle Sam's Bureaucracy continue to grow, as more and more of your individual rights and liberties are voted away, Government Medical Care will soon join Government Motors Crap as your ONLY choice for health care.

John Stossel at JewishWorldReview.com:
It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It's even crazier to do it by August.

Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend, as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system."

Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system.

These are our Elected Officials, most of whom can't buy stamps without breaking rules, don't drive, shop for groceries, or earn a living for a family, who have never run a business - even unsuccessfully! They are the LEAST competent among us, yet have the gall to believe they can make this work? No, to tell you the truth, they don't need it to work - they just need it to pass, to give them more power and control over your lives and the lives of your children and grandchildren.

Is the term "comprehensive" health care misleading? Read Tony Blankley's column, and you will be properly educated on the MEANINGS AND MISLEADINGS of what you hear about GMC:

Comprehensive, as the dictionary defines it, means "including all or everything." It is very similar in meaning to the definition of total, which the dictionary defines as "complete, thorough." If something includes everything, it is complete.

Of course, it is not surprising that NPR uses the White House talking-point word "comprehensive" rather than its synonym "total," because total health care coverage easily might sound like totalitarian health care coverage. And by the way, the dictionary defines totalitarian as "having and exercising complete political power and control." Note that pesky word complete — a synonym for comprehensive — in the definition of totalitarian.

"an ideological reorientation of American government"

Rich Lowry at JewishWorldReview.com:

ObamaCare might not work as advertised, but it will tip more people into government care and create the predicate for rationing and price controls.

There's another GMC coming...and it ain't a car company.

Be VERY afraid.

No more picture

I had a picture posted here that I received in my email - had to do with our upcoming descent into GMC (Government Medical Care). It was FUNNY. Posted quite nice, excellent likeness. But when I came back, picture was replaced by the numerical designation. When checked Google, the only reference was this blog, so I've taken it down till I can get a better copy or till something as funny comes along...though that ain't gonna be easy!

Changing and washing sheets, cleaning the bathroom, and cleaning up wet spots left by a cute lil blond Pixie has been my day so far. My Chief's taking his CDL test today, no idea when he'll be home, so I may have a Coke and something to eat while the Pixie naps, instead of doing up the dishes like I should. Sinus headache is hanging on, it's near 2 weeks now. Bleh.

Thanks for stopping by, y'all have a fine day from here on out, eh?

PS - the Pixie's Great Uncle's initials are GMC, but we don't hold that against him.

Tuesday with Thomas Sowell

Hmm...intelligent talk about 'reforming' medical care in the United States. How refreshing! Well, unless you're an all-government, all the time type guy.

Thomas Sowell's column:

None of the people who are trying to rush government-run medical care through Congress before we have time to think about it are pointing to Medicare, Medicaid or veterans' hospitals as shining examples of how wonderful we can expect government medical care to be when it becomes "universal."

As for those uninsured Americans we keep hearing about, there is remarkably little interest in why they don't have insurance. It cannot be poverty, for the poor can automatically get Medicaid.

In fact, we already know that there are people with substantial incomes who choose to spend those incomes on other things, especially if they are young and in good health. If necessary, they can always go to a hospital emergency room and receive treatment there, whether or not they have insurance.

Here, the advocates of government-run medical care say that we all end up paying, one way or another, for the free medical care that hospitals are forced by law to provide in their emergency rooms. But unless you think that any situation you don't like is a reason to give politicians a blank check for "change," the relevant question becomes whether the alternative is either less expensive or of better quality. Nothing is cheaper just because part of the price is paid in higher taxes.

Afterthought: Let's inject a bit of reality here. NO CongressWeasel that supports this legislation is doing it for the good of the Country. They're doing it because they get some kind of PERSONAL benefit from taking YOUR choices and rights away from you, under the guise of "helping."

I know about VA hospitals. I know about Medicaid. I'm going to learn about Medicare one of these days, a prospect I don't look forward to. NONE of these entities is efficient or cost-effective, not to mention SANE.

CongressWeasel's got a different reason for this legislation than the words coming out of their mouths. More of your rights and choices will go right down the terlet, as Archie used to say. To "help" your great Nation? A man who really helped a lot of people in the world once said, "This perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one permeates human affairs from top to bottom."

Weasels. Top to bottom.

The REAL Moon Walk

We lived in southern Alberta, Canada, 20 miles from the closest grocery store, 18 miles of which was dirt road. The television was on a shelf in the corner of the living/dining room. It was black and white, and there were knobs on it, no remote control in those days.

I am still in awe.

Pixie's Great Uncle used to wake me to watch every launch with him. Those of you here close to the Space Coast may not understand, but they were DAMN early for kids living in the Mountain Time Zone. Thankfully, the Walk itself was a bit later in the day.

Do YOU remember?

Mitch Albom: We yawned as we took our places around the dining tables. Someone handed out Popsicles. Then, as we licked the icy treats, our tongues turning purple or raspberry, we watched a big black-and-white TV set. The reception wasn't great in the woods of summer camp. And since the picture was coming from the moon, it was particularly fuzzy.

Still, we heard a tinny voice say "…one giant leap for mankind" and when the shadowy spaceman seemed settled on ground, we all clapped, because it felt like that's what we should do, clap for something great.

Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands

AMERICAN blood. He died with American and Vietnamese blood - not to mention the other countries the U.N. sent to Southeast Asia - still dripping from his fingers. If you don't believe me, read this blog post at American Thinker, written by Matt Peterson. From "reporter" to activist "journalist," Uncle Walter took a fall from which real journalism may never recover.

Thanks, Matt.

Walter Cronkite Has Blood on His Hands


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"Oldest man," Brit Henry Allingham dies

From the Great Falls Tribune. The Oldest Man in the World may now be Walter Breuning, a Montana man. The story is mostly about the man Allingham was. There are so few left now...the era is not 'passing' - it HAS passed.