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Washington Huskies 30 - Notre Dame Fighting Irish 37
	Oct 3 1 2 3 4 OT T Washington 7 10 7 6 0 30 Notre Dame 3 13 3 11 7 37 « Next game: vs. USC Trojans, Oct 17 3:30pm ET

Jonah Goldberg likes controversy!

Jonah's column at JewishWorldReview.com has this about Polanski and the rallying cry to Free Roman that resounds from apologists and elitists and intelligentsia - you know, Our Betters:

The arguments in Polanski's defense range from lawyerly red herrings to intellectual piffle to horrendous affronts to human decency.

Roman Polanski is a pig - with apologies to the 4-footed animal. He LIKES teenagers. Let me rephrase that - he likes to have sex with teenagers, and he doesn't seem to care if they disagree with that idea.

It all boils down to the fact that Polanski is famous and talented and an Olympian artist, living above the world of mortals. Indeed, if he didn't rape that girl -- and he did -- Polanski would still be considered a pig in most normal communities. This is the man who, after all, started dating Nastassja Kinski when she was only 15 and he was in his 40s. His taste for teenage girls is an established fact.

I remember some things about being a teenager. I was just a bit older than Nastassja Kinski when she started "dating" Polanski. I thought it was pathetic, that she must have some sort of real problem if she could find someone my father's age sexy and interesting enough to "date." (I dated - and I DATED him, not "dated" him - a man who was 9 years older than me, when I was 17, but he wasn't old enough to be my father, fercryinoutloud. After a few weeks I realized he was still FAR too 'old' for me, and I broke up with him - in a typically rude teenager way.) My attitude about that huge age difference, then and now - ick. And my boyfriend never broke the law.

His defenders don't care. They are above and beyond bourgeois notions of morality, even legality.

And that's the main reason I am grateful for this controversy. It is a dye marker, "lighting up" a whole archipelago of morally wretched people. With their time, their money and their craft, these very people routinely lecture America about what is right and wrong. It's good to know that at the most fundamental level, they have no idea what they're talking about.

Mustn't muddy the water with those pesky little "Facts!"

I don't watch the news. I don't read a daily newspaper. Any news I DO hear is posted on someone's blog (and I generally read conservative and libertarian blogs), or comes from the news-on-the-half-hour on the sports-talk or talk radio stations I listen to. I also check my home-state online newspapers free content. And a couple of good friends or relatives email me with links to things they think I oughta read...and I don't mean chain mail. Military funerals, Weather or giant pythons appearing somewhere other than a zoo might get me a link to a story.

It's enough to get me by. Knowing how many thugs were shot by the police or each other, what stupid-ass thing my Representative said as she feathers her nest, and how "hard" the city council is "working" aren't priorities in my life.

As a matter of fact, I don't even need to know what the official unemployment numbers are. Numbers can lie when they're spun the right direction...and then can be spun right back the other way for a WHOLE new perspective.

I know some people out of work. I know a couple people who got work...but left the city of their choice to do so. When it's move or collect welfare, my generation tends to hit the road, I think. Then again, maybe it's not my generation. The ones I'm thinking of ARE my generation, but they're also not "city folk." They're the product of small town and rural upbringing. Are we more self-reliant at this age if we grew up without government intervention in every aspect of our lives? If so, what does that say about government intervention in every aspect of our lives?

John Stossel is one of my libertarian/ Constitutionalist heroes. From his column at JewishWorldReview.com:

OK, economic forecasters make mistakes. Fair enough. But neither the administration experts nor President Obama will acknowledge that their models and strategy are flawed. Instead, they spin the numbers and proclaim success, insisting that the plan is working even though unemployment is higher than they said it would be.

For example, Christina Romer, chief of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, preferred to emphasize that the 216,000 jobs lost in August were about half a million less than six months before. Never mind that the economic strategy hasn't restored any of those 700,000 jobs previously lost. They'd rather distract us by focusing on the slowing rate of loss rather than the losses themselves.

Lord knows these brilliant folks can't be WRONG in their predictions. Of course, I don't give them as much credit as Stossel does. I think they knew what would happen all along and lied. And since "journalism" no longer requires investigating and reporting FACTS, no one catches the lies.

UPDATE: Track-A-'Crat has written about the Road to Hell...of course, he doesn't call it that, and neither do our helpful socialist friends in government bureaurcacy, but it is what it is. Thanks, Track!

Tuesday is time for Thomas Sowell - "Do we want to become the world's largest banana republic?"

Thomas Sowell's column this morning is spot on about the dangers of brilliant people running things. I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that everyday workin' folk know more about living Life, solving Problems, and overcoming Troubles than any book- and classroom-educated Ph.D. Of course, Intelligent, Educated People with the right letters after their names, having been 'educated' far beyond their own intelligence at The Finest Centers of Learning, don't believe that for a second. Doesn't change the facts, does it?

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.

Many crucial things in life are learned from experience, rather than from clever thoughts or clever words. Indeed, a gift for the clever phrasing so much admired by the media can be a fatal talent, especially for someone chosen to lead a government.

Make no mistake about it - most people, most Americans, for that matter, are not dull or stupid. Eventually, by relying on our God-given instincts and following the principles of the Constitution of the United States, we come around, even when we've been lied to by omission or commission, even when we've been somewhat willfully blind and deaf to Reality.

Lead Balloon

Lovely Daughter asked me last week if I'd like to go to a Jaguars game for my birthday. They're playing Kansas City (kc!) and Matt Cassel is quarterback...such a nice name for such a nice boy ( /cheek-pinching old lady ). But I don't think I really do want to go, at least not enough to overcome the ambivalence I feel. While I certainly appreciate the offer, please let me explain why I hesitate.

First, we're all kinda short on cash. Expensive hobbies are not on my "gotta spend this money" list. My dryer just crapped out, repair of which is a necessary expense. Second, my birthday is just another day for me - I didn't DO anything that evening so many years ago, it's MY mother who should get the gifts and accolades, in my opinion. Third, I injured my back a few years ago...well, more than once and the first time was much more than "a few" years ago. Sitting in the stadium for several hours seems to cause spasms when I just THINK about it. And finally, I don't drink anymore, and I don't like being around drunk drunks. I don't do well in crowds in the best of conditions, and drunk, obnoxious crowds are surely going to be worse than I remember from when I DID drink. Much as I'd love to spend the day with Lovely Daughter and Handsome Son-in-law, I just don't think I'd have much fun...

I see from Mitch Albom's column at JewishWorldReview.com (updated BEFORE Yom Kippur began) that I'm not the only one avoiding such things for such reasons...

So, Lovely Daughter...can we just go eat like gluttons at Sticky Fingers instead? And if you go to the game that day, we can wait till the next week to go eat...I can wait!

You might be from Florida if...

Number 4 is my favorite, followed closely by #16 and #19.

1. You smirk when a game show's "Grand Prize" is a trip to Florida
2. You think a mountain is any hill 100 feet above sea level.
3. You think everyone from a bigger city has a northern accent.
4. You know the four seasons really are: almost summer, summer, not summer but really hot, and February.
5. You don't know what soda, cola, or pop is, "What kinda coke you want?"... regardless of brand or flavor
6. Anything under 95 is just warm.
7. You've hosted hurricane parties.
8. You understand the futility of exterminating cockroaches.
9. You can pronounce Okeechobee, Kissimmee , Ichnatucknee and Withlacoochee
10. You understand why it's better to have a friend with a boat, than have a boat yourself.
11. You get angry when people say " Florida isn't really part of the SOUTH."
12. You wear shorts and use the A/C on Christmas.
13. You recognize Miami-Dade as " Northern Cuba."
14. It's a perfect 72 degrees outside, but you run the A/C just to keep mildew from growing on your shoes.
15. You actually see someone from last nights episode of America's Most Wanted
16. Deer are smaller than your labrador
17. You're more scared of the freaks who live down the street than gators
18. You know someone who's been struck by lightning
19. You consider plywood a window treatment.
20. The term "huge fan" has nothing to do with sports.

UPDATE: In reference to yesterday's college football game, there's a player named Tyrod Taylor on one of the teams I was listening to. We were wondering...does he have a sister named Wheel Bearing?

New Addition on My Blogroll

My brother has a post at Parrothead Jeff - Las Vegas Latitude, Parrothead Attitude.

In case you don't know, Glenn was recently discovered to have a 'mass' on one of his kidneys. Throws the whole world into a bit of a spin, and I had funds standing by in case they wanted me to fly up there. Thankfully for all of us, my presence was not required (or wanted), as surgery was a resounding success and recovery is proceeding at a brisk pace. I suppose I could've gone just to get in the way and feel important, but I'm glad it worked out so well. For all of us. Glenn's Lovely Bride and Beautiful Daughter kept me in the loop, and I'm so grateful to them for that. (I am, however, disappointed I didn't get a trip West...dammit)

Now, go read Glenn's 'new' perspective - when the going gets tough, Navy Wives get tougher. Thanks, Sharon!

Michael Yon - The Kopp-Etchells Effect

My Chief sent me this link a few days back. I've just now taken the time to read and look at it.

*sigh*

"truly flabbergasting fatuities"

The headline for this post is from a column by a writer I seldom read anymore...but I cannot in good conscience ignore such FABulous snark!

Mona Charen at JewishWorldReview.com - I love this paragraph as she 'disects' The Speech By The President Of The World:

Obama is, we are told, the smartest man to sit in the Oval in many a year. And yet he is capable of truly flabbergasting fatuities like this: "In this hall, we come from many places, but we share a common future." You don't say? That's right up there with Warren Harding's declaration that "the future lies before us."

Bulls-eye.

When a tax is NOT a tax...

Here's a column - Jeff Jacoby at JewishWorldReview.com - for those of us who believe words mean things. They are a specific description meant to explain specific concepts or items. Today's word is 'tax.' George Stephanopolis looked it up! Tax: "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

BarryO has a different idea, it seems: "George," chided Obama, "the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary . . . indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now."

BarryO, when does the meaning given in Merriam-Webster become stretching??? That IS the meaning of the damn word "TAX," in proper use, clearly stated and understandable even to those of us with high school and technical school educations.

Do you need more proof of this administration's opinion of the electorate?

Then there's this: It is a myth that those who don't buy health insurance are basically free riders who unload their medical costs onto the backs of more responsible Americans. In truth, most of the uninsured are young, fit, and unlikely to need medical care. Why should they be forced to pay for expensive health insurance they don't need?

I have a theory - and since it's 'theory' I needn't use scientific principles to PROVE it - that lifelong politicians, those who wear the name Public Servant as a Badge of Righteousness, believe the Average American doesn't know what's good for him, that we're not really smart enough to pour piss out of a boot when the directions are on the heel (as my dad used to say). They live such sheltered little lives that they can't imagine anyone could survive without their help. Sad, isn't it? And sadder still is that our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should tell them this was the attitude we got from the King - and it lit the fire under the Revolution in the first place...

AND ANOTHER THING:
This has been percolating in my mind for a few days and is only now coming clear. So forgive my disjointed rambling if you can, thank you.

Glenn Beck is not The Devil Himself. Glenn Beck is a God-believing, Family-loving, Constitution-trusting American Patriot. He MUST be doing something wonderful, because the leftists take his name in vain and and spit and belittle every damn thing about him. Well, in a bit of a continuance on my previous posting (above), Patrick Henry was a bit of a hell-raisin' rabble-rouser, too - if I remember my US History at all (which I can doublecheck easily these days).

Don't know about you, but I kind of admire that in a Man.

Some good columns

I'm not feeling particularly perky today, so I'm posting links to a couple columns I found interesting.

First up is Thomas Sowell at JewishWorldReview.com, on underdogs.

Next is Jonah Goldberg's tribute to Irving Kristol.

I also found a movie review by Walter Williams...of a movie he hasn't seen...which isn't really about the movie at all, come to find out. What it is is a short lesson on history and capitalism.

Last but certainly not least is my salute to "going green" in a money-saving and time-tested manner. I grew up in a working-poor family, and being frugal is something I understand. I'm not fanatical about it, but safety, simplicity and saving money are things I believe in. So here's a column on some of the ways I use vinegar in my home. One thing I do with white vinegar that's not mentioned in this column is I put it in the little cup meant for fabric softener in the washer. Clean, fresh clothes and soft towels with no soapy buildup on the fabrics OR in my washer. UPDATE: I forgot to add that in this climate, with extreeeeme humidity and heat, fabric softener tends to make clothes stink, in my opinion. I don't know if it degrades after a little time, or what, but those scented sheets are used very seldom in this house, for things that may have a problem with static cling...so the only time I really find a need for them is in the winter!

Now I think I'll find something to eat. Y'all have a fine day, and thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday - Thomas Sowell!

When I saw the title for this column, I almost went against Pixie Place Tradition and skipped Sowell's column for today, replacing it with the always-enjoyable Mark Steyn or a video about Yom Kippur. Then I read the first couple paragraphs, and I have to post it. Despite the subject being FAR from anything in my personal life today, Sowell's writing and point of view have value.

This, for instance:

Among the things you need to know about a particular college is whether it has a real curriculum or just a smorgasbord of courses, so that it is possible to graduate knowing nothing about history, economics or science, for example. Some of the most prestigious colleges in the country are places where you can graduate completely ignorant of such fundamental subjects.

In discussing "Choosing the Right College," Sowell points to some things that aren't discussed about most institutions of learning, things it seems many people find out The Hard Way. I may yet look into finding it, just to set my mind at ease over my...umm...sneering, snarky (but hopefully well-hidden) attitude, shall we say...toward some people I know...

Second example:

"Choosing the Right College" also presents information on such things as black separatist organizations at Lafayette College, for example. Whether you are for or against such things, you need to know about them, in order to choose what you think is right for you.

I've had an attitude about "the Best" schools for a long time now, believing that giving money to a place to NOT learn anything was an exercise in foolishness and ego. To use the name of a university as a resume-booster may seem important to some...but at what cost.

More:

It also tells you whether the intellectual atmosphere is free or is hidebound with political correctness, and plagued by professors who think their job is to use the classroom as a place to sound off about their political ideology to a captive audience, even when the course is about chemistry or accounting.

Good stuff for a Tuesday morning, isn't it? Thanks for stopping by!

The Old Guy does it AGAIN!

Have I mentioned previously that I love Mark Martin? If not, here's notice - I love Mark Martin. Crusty Old Fart of NASCAR. Just love it. Him. Them.

The man is SO good at what he does, with a terrific team behind him. His FIRST win at New Hampshire puts him in the lead for the Cup...whoa! Told My Chief he needs to buy me a new twenty dollar hat...cuz I am a BIG fan.

Enough for now, back to puttering around the house.

Honeymoon in increments

My Chief and I got married in February of 1985. He wasn't a Chief then. We dressed in our cleanest Levis and running shoes, said the proper words in front of a judge in Memphis, Tennessee, then spent our last $12 on a bottle of Asti and 2 packs of smokes. I took him back to the barracks at zero dark thirty and didn't see him again till the following Tuesday.

We decided some time later that instead of the one fancy blow-out honeymoon most brides insist upon, we'd take our honeymoon in bits, over time, with little regard to the time of year. It's been nearly 25 years now, and we are off on another bit of honeymoon. Living happily ever after, now and then...

This time, we're packing up the kids and the Pixie and heading for Damascus, Virginia. My Chief and kids will ride the Virginia Creeper Trail early on Saturday, and will try to catch the Gators game later. My Pixie and I will stroll around town enjoying each other's company and the truly AUTUMN weather!

Taking Monday off to rest from the trip, I hope to be back here Tuesday morning. Those of you who MUST contact me have my cell phone number. Y'all have a FINE weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: We're back, and I'm tired. LONG weekend, but worth every muscle spasm I'm having. The Pixie is well and truly potty trained, the kids had a good time blasting down the Creeper Trail, and Grandpa seems pretty happy, too. Glad we got home before dark. Cats are fed. Now I'm resting.

"Struck deaf by ego and narcissism..."

My title for today is taken from a comment left after this article by Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator. Very astute. Not so sure Old Media has been struck deaf, or if it's a classic example of "none so blind as he who will not see." If I have an agenda to be advanced at any opportunity, I ignore any differing opinion, view, or evidence. Old Media are Old Hands at that game...and Mr. Lord provides examples.

The article itself is fairly long, but well-written and certainly worth the few minutes of time it takes. In it, Mr. Lord writes a letter to Tom Brokaw, detailing instances of non-reporting in Old Media and Brokaw's condescending remarks about the New Media (Talk Radio and the Internet) on a recent Meet the Press episode, where he was joined by Thomas Friedman.

Part of his smarmy line: And my line to them is you have to vet information. You have to test it the same way you do when you buy an automobile or when you go and buy a new flat-screen television. You read the Consumer Reports, you have an idea of what it's worth and what the lasting value of it is. You have to do the same thing with information because there is so much disinformation out there that it's frightening, frankly, in a free society that depends on information to make informed decisions.

Pathetic. This would be one reason I don't watch network television anymore.

Friedman's 'quote of the day' is this gem: "... the Internet is "an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information.""

Personally, I think they sound jealous: Since ACORN has received millions of federal tax dollars over the years, and has been connected to President Obama in terms of his rise to prominence in Illinois politics, not to mention election activities while he was running for president, one would think this a major news story. Not for the Old Media. As reported by Glenn Beck a full two days after the story broke on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, here's the record of reports on this story:

Fox News -- 19
CNN -- 3
MSNBC -- 0
ABC -- 0
CBS - 0
NBC -- 0
New York Times -- 1 (an AP story)
Washington Post -- 1 (an AP story)

One more excerpt before I go finish the dishes: In other words, across five decades of American journalistic history, the instinct of many Old Media institutions -- specifically including NBC and the New York Times -- has been to deliberately withhold the truth. To quite deliberately use their journalism skills and tools to misrepresent those whose politics they do not favor.

This is NOT the kind of reporting I thought I was learning in high school journalism. Makes me glad I didn't pursue it as a career - I really don't like being embarrassed because I've been lumped in with liars and cheats.

Tuesday - Thomas Sowell!

Were you ever told the fable about the dog who had a bone, then seeing his reflection in the river and deciding to take what he believed was a bigger bone, he dropped the bone he had in the river, and ended up with neither bone?

Thomas Sowell's column at JewishWorldReview.com:

While I was told a story in my childhood to help me understand something about the real world, today adults are being told things to reduce them to childish thinking.

Not just numbers...

...but blatant lies and half-truths and purposeful ignorance. What else can you call it when media outlets OTHER than American Mainstream (cough) Media post numbers and estimates and pictures and bits of interviews with participants...but CNN and other American networks don't even attempt to get facts, figures, pictures or TO TELL THE TRUTH once they DO get on the story.

Patriot blogger Track-A-Crat discusses his participation at his place. He says he's never experienced anything like it...and I think that's because there's not BEEN anything like it.

The Other McCain was on the scene, as was Barbara Espinosa. I'm certainly going to believe them before I believe any talking head on any American network. Oh, and don't forget Glenn Beck!

Sixty thousand...what utter rubbish.

BarryO and His Merry CongressWeasels aren't the ONLY liars, are they?

UPDATE:
Don't forget the photoshopped time-lapse video at YouTube...it's gotta be 'shopped, because Patriots/ conservatives are too stupid to grasp this brilliant concept. Aren't they?

The New Tea Party - The March on D.C.

I'll hold judgement on crowd size - but MASSIVE seems to be the gist of it, anyway. I am SO proud of this bunch of My Fellow Americans. Driven by the principles of the Constitution of the United States, they are exercising their God-given Rights and demonstrating the BRILLIANCE of the Founders.

Read all about it!

Is it physically painful for these jerks to tell the truth now and then? What the HELL does this show them to be? From the article at FoxNews...The White House on Friday claimed it was unaware of the planned rally. What a pathetic bunch of weasels this is! Did they stop maturing in middle school???

Paco, maybe your last wish could be for grown-ups who believe in the principles of the Constitution of the United States to hold the positions of authority in the country?

The 912 Project

I bet you've heard about the Tea Parties and the 912 Project. Here's some coverage - by FoxNewsChannel, no surprise - of the march on Washington today. I would love to have been there, and at some time in the future I may get to join one of these, but the time was not now for me. I walk with them in spirit, though I know how little that helps.

The 912 Project marches on Washington -- "Turn this thing around."

PATRIOT DAY -- NEVER FORGET

"Where were you when the world stopped turning, that September morn?" ~Alan Jackson

When the radio alarm went off that morning, we knew immediately something was wrong, because Rick Hamada was shook up. Marine Corps Base Kaneohe at Kailua, Hawai'i is several hours behind Ground Zero's time zone, so the planes had already struck but the Towers had not yet collapsed. Husband went to work at his squadron, daughter went to school. Around noon, Hawai'i time I went to pick up daughter and a couple friends. It took 3 1/2 hours to get back on base because every car was stopped at the gate. We didn't leave again for 3 days. Every business on base was closed and armed squads patrolled the streets.

The first guess-timates of the number of casualties were wrong.

Two thousand nine hundred ninety-six WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.

NOTE: This Tribute was posted a week or two ago (linked so you can read comments if you wish)...I have since been assigned a second name to honour, and will post that Tribute separately.

PROJECT 2,996

Remembering: 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 personally, 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'd gone 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.


This Tribute was posted earlier in this week - here's a link so you can read the comment(s).

Remembering: Brian Bilcher

Unlike Mr. Cleere, Brian Bilcher was an easy name to research. Being a member of Squad 1, FDNY means he was well-known and well-loved and remembered by so many people. Details are not difficult to come by. Many have memorialized him, and done so better than my paltry research and writing skills will do. There's a letter from his mother that made this crusty ol broad tear up some... Brian Bilcher's name graces the tribute pages and lists of every firefighting unit in the country that has posted a remembrance, I think.

Firefighter Brian Bilcher, you will never be forgotten. May God continue to bless your friends and family and your beautiful son Grant.

You dedicated your life to helping others and saving lives. You gave your life so that others may live. Thank you, your Brothers and Sisters and Friends and Co-workers... from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

And, on this anniversary of the attacks on our country, to everyone who's been on the front lines - or the rear echelon - of the Global War On Terror, fighting to protect our way of life - and our very lives - THANK YOU, too. Thanks go to your families and friends and anyone else who loves you and supports you in your efforts, whether serving on Active Duty or keeping a candle in the window to light your way home...Thank You.

Read more Tributes here.

Project 2,996: Brian Bilcher

Unlike Mr. Cleere, Brian Bilcher was an easy name to research. Being a member of Squad 1, FDNY means he was well-known and well-loved and remembered by so many people. Details are not difficult to come by. Many have memorialized him, and done so better than my paltry research and writing skills will do. There's a letter from his mother that made this crusty ol broad tear up some... Brian Bilcher's name graces the tribute pages and lists of every firefighting unit in the country that has posted a remembrance, I think.

Firefighter Brian Bilcher, you will never be forgotten. May God continue to bless your friends and family and your beautiful son Grant.

You dedicated your life to helping others and saving lives. You gave your life so that others may live. Thank you, your Brothers and Sisters and Friends and Co-workers... from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Project 2,996: James D. Cleere

NOTE: This Tribute was posted a week or two ago (linked so you can read comments if you wish)...I have since been assigned a second name to honour, and will post that Tribute separately.

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 personally, 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'd gone 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.

"...we females want to talk all the time about everything. Conflict is just another excuse to gab."

Betsy Hart at JewishWorldReview.com:

One of my own best women friends recently sent to me a piece that her husband (without comment, it turns out!) had e-mailed to her: "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" by Barbara Graham from O, the Oprah Magazine. Its subtitle says it all: "Forget everything you've heard about frankness, sharing your feelings, getting him to express his. Research into the functions of the male mind makes it clear that discussion may be the fastest way to shut down communication. (Oh, you noticed that, have you?)"

Graham sat down with psychotherapists Patricia Love and Steven Stosny. They teach extensively on gender differences, and last year co-wrote "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It."

Stosny explains that "talking about feelings, which is soothing to women, makes men physically uncomfortable. There's literally more blood flow to the muscles. They get fidgety and women think they're not listening."

"Durh!" Any woman worth her salt knows men are different than women and should NEVER be required to replace the women who are close to her in her life, just as any man worth his salt will not expect his woman to be his 'buddy.'

Now, if we could convince the super-intellectuals that there are deeply ingrained differences in the genders, that each of us is part of the Whole, not The Same, we'd be MUCH better off as a Society...not to mention that we'd have MUCH happier marriages AND children.

Chick fil A Giveaway!

Wear your favorite team logo to Chick-fil-A on Monday from 10:30am to closing time, get a FREE Original Chicken Sandwich...that would be the one buttered...with a pickle. The BEST!

Sounds good, I'll have to find my Hawai'i shirt again...or Navy...or borrow a Gator shirt from Handsome Son-in-law! Don't have one for the Northern Lights, which is MY alma mater...*sigh*

Well, I'm outta here for now, we're going for an overnight stay-cation in the camper...in the front yard. Needed to move it and open it and clean it, don't feel like fighting crowds, traffic, and drunk drivers, so here we are. Gotta love it!

Y'all stay safe. Thanks for stopping by.

UPDATE: What a yummy lunch with hubby! TONS of Gator gear and Jaguar jerseys, with a smattering of Georgia and Florida State University. Saw one Clemson, a Navy Hockey, and one Florida State College at Jacksonville (formerly Florida Community College - Jacksonville). I had the only Hawai'i shirt and My Chief was wearing the only Padres shirt I saw.

What would Bush do

Rich Lowry at JewishWorldReview.com:

But Obama will need three especially Bushian qualities if he is to spare his country a humiliating retreat or an underresourced, inconclusive slog in Afghanistan: sincerity, perseverance and courage.

I don't know about you, but those aren't qualities I've seen much in evidence recently, either in BarryO personally or in his Administration. Arrogance has replaced even the smallest hint of humility in the White House leaving no room for courage of any kind.

Uphold Volunteer Volunteerism

Read the American Spectator. This is from Tuesday, columnist Matthew Vadum:

As I wrote last week, about 60 groups including ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Color of Change, and Rainbow PUSH Coalition are trying to help the Obama administration modify the meaning of 9/11. They want to turn each Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the importance of bicycle paths, ethanol, carbon emission controls, putting solar panels on your roof, and radical community organizing. It has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign.

Might be just me, but as I read what these self-described "organizers" want 9/11 to be, I couldn't help but remember something I was told a long time ago. Wish I could quote it exactly, but it was something to the effect of - "If you're forced to do it, you are not a volunteer. Forced 'service' is slavery." (from my online dictionary: involuntary subjection to another or others. Slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control by a master)

Surrender - on the installment plan (Thomas Sowell but NOT on Tuesday)

Thomas Sowell's column, today from Townhall.com, where there are dozens of other great analyses.

From the column:

It is not just a question of looking backward. The decision to second-guess CIA agents who extracted information to save American lives is even worse when you look forward.

Years from now, long after Barack Obama is gone, CIA agents dealing with hardened terrorists will have to worry about whether what they do to get information out of them to save American lives will make these agents themselves liable to prosecution that can destroy their careers and ruin their lives.

This is not simply an injustice to those who have tried to keep this country safe, it is a danger recklessly imposed on future Americans whose safety cannot always be guaranteed by sweet and gentle measures against hardened murderers.

Those who are pushing for legal action against CIA agents may talk about "upholding the law" but they are doing no such thing. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Geneva Convention gives rights to terrorists who operate outside the law.

What IS the rationale for giving murdering terrorists more mercy than they ever showed their victims...or anyone else, for that matter.

Never Forget

It's almost time for me to post the Tribute I wrote this year for one of the 2,996 people killed in the attack on our country as part of Project 2996. It seems the 11th of September is being put forth by the Adminstration as a day of Service? Bull.

September 11th is the anniversary of the ATTACK on our country by devout members of a religion, many of whose members wish the destruction of the Western World, Civilisation as we know it. I'm not going to "serve" that section of Mankind, sorry, BarryO. They would like no better than to enslave us, and I refuse to bow to their wishes. Take your organization skills to the field where Flight 93 ended. Watch video of people jumping from the upper floors of the World Trade Center. See the heroism displayed at the Pentagon. Why would I want to forget that?

I will remember that our country was attacked. Our citizens and guests were murdered. I will NOT forget.

Little League World Series Champion CHULA VISTA!

I've had a touch of flu or something all weekend, so didn't do my usual routines...finally feeling up to sitting here and reading (despite my wishes to commiserate with Swampie about her job). My Chief had to make do for himself while I lounged on sofa and snored away in bed most of yesterday AND today. We DID watch the final game of the Little League World Series together, as has become custom, and congratulations to San Diego County's own Chula Vista!!! Woo Hoo!

When My Chief came home from his 'mandatory fun' meeting at work, he brought me a get well card and a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos. I have something to live for! These things are supposedly bad for my heart... and arteries... maybe even my brain... but they are SO good for my SOUL.


Oh, what the heck - let's see TWO non-pc commercials from my younger days...

Bob Tyrrell, founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator

Holy Crow. I knew I liked reading Bob's columns...and I know he must be good at tearing the masks off clowns and impostors, but THIS one really takes BarryO and His Band of Merry Marxists to task. Whew! Make sure you read the comments, too, especially Becky and Grzmlyk.

Here's just a taste of Bob's genius:

My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White House is a carousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts, health care, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's, callous enjoiner, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste"? This White House is a serious crisis.

Ya think???

Headache

I have a headache. Not that you give a rip one way or the other, but it is MY blog...gotta go get the Pixie in a few minutes, don't feel like doing much at all, so here's a fun column I can't seem to read all of...lots of good things in the sidebar there, and if you have a spare moment, think about those within short distance of wildfires. I'd rather have a headache.

Anyway, here's Lori Borgman at JewishWorldReview.com, on RELAXING - which is highly overrated, in my opinion:

Every fall I love reading essays by people who wax poetic about the melancholy they experience as they close up their summer cottages and return to the city. But now I'm wondering what it is they do all summer.

Had to get Teddy out of my sight...so back to BarryOCare

Robert Tracinski at JewishWorldReview.com:

I have news for the president: Brother, you ain't my keeper.
...

If the person invoking it is asking for your help, it means: you are my keeper. It is your job to work and struggle and produce wealth, so that you can support me and provide for my needs. To take a timely example, it means the union worker who wants billions of taxpayers' dollars to keep GM afloat, or who wants the UAW to be put in line in front of Chrysler's creditors, so that he can continue to collect inflated wages and a bloated pension. It is the manifesto of a leech.

...

But the way Obama means it is even worse. He does not view himself as a man in need of keeping; he views himself as the keeper. He invokes that line about being his brother's keeper in order to sell us on a health-care bill that will require all health-insurance plans to be designed and approved by a government overseer, and in which we will all be pushed into accepting health care provided by the government, on the government's terms.

...

The morality of altruism—the idea that we are our brother's keeper—is supposed to be a morality of benevolence and good will, but it actually offers men a choice between two roles: the keeper or the kept. It is the moral code of a kind of saccharine tyranny, a combination of maudlin appeals to pity and condescending authoritarianism.

...

That's the code that we need to affirm in response to Barack Obama's injunction about being our brother's keepers. We need to tell him that he is not our keeper—that we do not want to be keepers nor to be kept, but to be free and independent men.

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment

Scum at a molecular level. Liar, cheat, thief. Pompous A**hole.

Tell me, someone - anyone - why this worm deserves a kind or respectful word?

From Three Beers Later:

"Then Kennedy threw himself on top of the woman. The waitress implored Mr. Kennedy to 'Get off me!'

"Another waitress entered to find 'things all tipped over and Kennedy was on top, [the waitress] was in the middle and Dodd was on the bottom.' At that point the sandwich was disassembled." -- Washington Times

Unlike a commenter at GrouchyConsvervativePundits, I don't feel sorry for his family, either. They know what he was - commenter SwampWoman:

Of course, the fact that he was attempting to deny the healthcare to the masses that HE was the recipient of will be overlooked.

I thought of referring to Teddy as a pig, a dog, or maybe a weasel (though he WAS an Elected CongressWeasel, that's just part of a previously named Group of Scum), but reverse-anthropmorphising only makes my brain hurt for the poor creatures used as illustrations. I've made an exception with 'worm' only because it fits so well...so does maggot. From Kae's link - The Australian, some small understatement:

In 1969, Kennedy accidentally drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick in Massachusetts, killing a female companion, Mary Jo Kopechne.

The scandal deepened when it emerged that Kennedy had swum to safety from the car, leaving Kopechne, then waited until the following day to report the incident.

My final bit on this topic comes from Robert Stacy McCain:

Forgiven by the media, liberals are shameless about such things. And so, in subsequent years, Americans were often subjected to the shameful spectacle of Ted Kennedy, the Chappaquiddick swim champ, lecturing us in moralistic tones about this, that and the other.

Whenever Kennedy would inflict his pompous self-righteous liberal moralizing on us, I'd always hear Ann Coulter's immortal words: "Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment."

And so I've used that line for the last time. And the knowledge of that finality is the only sadness I feel about Ted Kennedy's death.

Read the whole thing.

A user and abuser and a taker by nature has left the building - after FAR too long and ruinous stay on this planet.

UPDATE! Piece of Work In Progress has a GREAT visual!

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)