We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
A man on his Harley was riding along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, God said, 'because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.'
The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge toHawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.'
God replied, 'Your request is materialistic; think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'
The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'God, I wish that I, and all men, could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, why she snaps and complains when I try to help, and how I can make a woman truly happy.
God replied: ‘You want two lanes or four on that bridge....?"
The largest assemblage of retired senior military officers ever assembled to support a presidential candidate, almost 500, will appear in an ad on Monday in the Washington Times. There are far more who would have signed if approached. I know two former top Admirals who wanted to sign but were not reached, perhaps because they live in Hawaii now. Below are just the As through the first D. -- Oh, by the way, Obama has endorsements from five former generals and admirals.
“We, the undersigned, proudly support Governor Mitt Romney as our nation’s next President and Commander-in-Chief.”
Brigadier General Arthur Abercrombie, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General James Abrahmson, (USAF-ret)Major General Chris Adams, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral William V. Alord, Jr., (USN-ret)Brigadier General John R. Allen, (USAF-ret)Lieutenant General Teddy Allen, (USA-ret)Rear Admiral Henry C. “Cub” Amos, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General Marcus A. Anderson, (USAF-ret)Major General Joseph T. Anderson, (USMC-ret)Lieutenant General Edward G. Anderson III, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General Edgar Ratclie “Andy” Anderson, Jr., (USAF-ret)Major General Joe Arbuckle, (USA-ret)Brigadier General John C. Arick, (USMC-ret)Major General Nora Alice Astaan, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General Loring R. Astrorino, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General Richard Averitt, (USA-ret)Vice Admiral Albert Baciocco, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Garry S. Bahling, (USANG-ret)Major General Bowen Ballard, (USAF-ret)Major General James D. Bankers, (USAF-ret)Major General James F. Barnette, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General Donald E. Barnhart, (USAF-ret)Major General Robert W. Barrow, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral John R. “Jack” Batzler, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral John W. Bayless, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General Buck Bedard, (USMC-ret)Vice Admiral A. Bruce Beran, (USCG-ret)Major General John E. Bianchi, (USA-ret)Major General David F. Bice, (USMC-ret)Vice Admiral Lyle Bien, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral Linda J. Bird, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Charles L. Bishop, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral James H. Black, (USN-ret)Brigadier General William A. Bloomer, (USMC-ret)Lieutenant General Harold Blot, (USMC-ret)Lieutenant General Steve Blum, (USA-ret)General Billy J. Boles, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Peter A. Bondi, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral Pete Booth, (USN-ret)Major General John Borling, (USAF-ret)Vice Admiral Mike Bowman III, (USN-ret)Major General Thomas Braaten, (USMC-ret)Major General Edward R. Bracken, (USAF-ret)Major General Robert J. Brandt, (USA-ret)Rear Admiral Jerry C. Breast, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral Bruce B. Bremner, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Clayton “Gary” Bridges, (USAF-ret)Vice Admiral Edward S. Briggs, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Jeremiah J. Brophy, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General Richard “Tex” Brown III, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Thomas F. Brown III, (USN-ret)Brigadier General R. Thomas Browning, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General David A. Brubaker, (USAF-ret)Vice Admiral Mike Bucchi, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General Walter E. Buchanan III, (USAF-ret)Major General Dave Burord, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General Richard A. Burpee, (USAF-ret)Admiral James B. Busey, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General Kevin P. Byrnes, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General Kevin P. Byrnes, (USA-ret)Rear Admiral John F. “Jack” Calvert, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General William J. Campbell, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Jay A. “Rabbit” Campbell, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General Mike Canavan, (USA-ret)Major General Henry Canterbury, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral James J. Carey, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Chalmers R. “Hap” Carr, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Nevin Carr, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Paul Carroll, (USANG-ret)Brigadier General Fred Castle, (USAFR-ret)Rear Admiral Stephen K. Chadwick, (USN-ret)Lieutenant General James E. “Bear” Chambers, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Lawrence C. “Larry” Chambers, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral W. Lewis “Lew” Chatham, (USN-ret)Rear Admiral Geo Chesbrough, (USN-ret)Major General Carroll D. Childers, P.E., (USARNG-ret)Rear Admiral Ronald L. Christenson, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Cliton C. “Tip” Clark, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General Robert V. Clements, (USAF-ret)Vice Admiral Edward W. Clexton, Jr., (USN-ret)Brigadier General Christopher T. Cline, (USAR-ret)Major General Je Cliver, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Casey Coane, (USN-ret)Brigadier General Maralin K. Cofnger, (USAF-ret)Rear Admiral Ike Cole, (USN-ret)Brigadier General George Peyton Cole, Jr., (USAF-ret)Brigadier General Richard A. Coleman, (USAF-ret)Brigadier General John W. “Rip” Collins, (USA-ret)Lieutenant General John B. Conaway, (USAF-ret)Major General Stephen “Pat” Condon, (USAF-ret)General James T. Conway, (USMC-ret)Major General Richard M. Cooke, (USMC-ret)Major General R. Craig Cosgrave, (USANG-ret)Lieutenant General Marvin Covault, (USA-ret)Rear Admiral Bob Cowley, (USN-ret)Major General J.T. “Mike” Coyne, (USMC-ret)Rear Admiral Robert C. Crates, (USN-ret)Major General Tommy F. Craword, (USAF-ret)Vice Admiral Terry M. Cross, (USCG-ret)Brigadier General Mike Cushman, (USAF-ret)Major General John R. D’Araujo, Jr., (USA-ret)General Terrence R.
Washington Free Beacon adds: "The list comes as a Military Times survey revealed that active duty, National Guard, and military reserve members support Romney over Obama by a two to one margin."
The founder and Chairman of GoDaddy.com pledges $1-million to match your donations to the Semper Fi Fund, which aids wounded warriors. He is a proud former Marine Lance Corporal who takes the opportunity of celebrating our 237th Anniversary on November 10th and Veterans Day on November 11th to go beyond us Marines' usual pride in leading on land, sea and air to salute members of all our armed forces. They have all proved themselves worthy as proud warriors over the past decade, and the wounded need your support to rejoin and enrich us civilians with their unmatchable spirit and values.
They gave a lot. You can, at least, give a little. Thanks.
State Department to review its own Benghazi review : "Without mentioning Benghazi specifically, Geisel [State Dept. Inspector General] mentioned that the IG office has been recommending ways to increase security and crisis-response capability at diplomatic posts for some time."
Obama Uses Crucifixes To Get Catholic Votes : "In all the history of political advertizing, President Obama's new video, with Vice President Joe Biden brazenly appealing to Catholics ignorant of ObamaCare's attack on religious liberty, takes the prize for all-out gall."
They also are more willing to work: "... immigrants are quicker to jump into the rebounding job market while native-born Americans, who under federal law have more welfare options and access to unemployment benefits, are slower to find work." Immigrants are also more willing to fill the agricultural jobs. At the other extreme, many are highly educated and fill the hi-tech jobs (although often at cheaper salaries than Americans).
Meanwhile, our demobilized veterans are often struggling to find good jobs. They are willing to work, certainly have the work ethic and reliability, but need a hand up. Offer it whenever you can, please.
A friend asks, "Isn’t is surpassingly strange that no reporter, anywhere, has managed to track down a single survivor of the Benghazi attack for an interview?"
Probably a combination of they being kept under wraps by the State Dept., and there are not many reporters who are investigating Benghazigate.
LIVING WILL FORM I, __________, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept aliveindefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate beput in the hands of pinhead partisan politicians who couldn't pass ninth-gradebiology if their lives depended on it, or lawyers/ doctors/ hospitals interested in simply running up the bills.
If after a reasonable amount of time passes, and I fail to ask for: (Checkappropriate items): a Martini___, a Margarita___,a Scotch and soda___,a Bloody Mary___, a beer___, a Gin and Tonic___, a Glassof Chardonnay___, a Steak___, Lobster or crab legs___, the TVremote control___, a bowl of ice cream___, the sports page___,Sex___, or Chocolate___, it should be presumed that I won't ever getany better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct myappointed person and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in thetubes, and call it a day. At this point, it is time to call the New OrleansJazz Funeral Band to come and do their thing at my funeral, and ask all ofmy friends to raise their glasses to toast the good times we have had, and others weshould have had.
Signature:_______________________Date:_________
P.S.: I hear that in Ireland there is a Nursing Home with a Pub. The patientsare happier, and they have a lot more visitors. Some of them don't even need embalming when their time comes. If anyone knows the name of this happy place, PLEASE pass it on.
Amendment #1: Should I become incapacitated as described above, DO NOT PULL THE PLUG untilafter I have voted against Barack Obama by absentee ballot in the November 2012 election.
Amendment #2: If the plug has been pulled in violation of #1 above, transport my body to Chicago so I can still vote against Barack Obama.
After the stress of jetting around the US to keep her personal gravy train rolling, where will Michelle Obama go on vacation soon after the November 6 election, when it will still be on the taxpayers' credit cards? For a clue, here's some snapshots from her photo book of her previous vacations.
Bonus question: If she and Barack have to pay themselves for their vacations, where will that be to?
My friend at the Mellow Jihadi is the first I've seen to suggest that the former Navy SEALs who went against orders and so bravely risked and lost all, taking down so many of the enemy, deserve to receive the Presidential Medal Of Freedom (being out of military service, the Congressional Medal Of Honor doesn't apply). Surely, as well, they should receive stars in the CIA's lobby.
My only question is whether it will be President Obama who makes the award, the hypocrisy of he doing so wouldn't faze him, or President Romney, who will in the citation reveal much that is now hidden by the Obama administration and its media lackeys.
The new China looks too much like the old one : thugocracy -- Corruption in China Isn’t Just a Local Story : “the annual 2011 Hurun report on the wealthiest Chinese reveals that the top seventy members of the National People’s Congress are worth a combined total of $89.8 billion; in contrast, the net worth of the top 660 U.S. officials is only $7.5 billion.”
The pinup girl of Maggie's Farm, Marianne Matthews, who in so many ways epitomized our ideals, educated the uncouth, and lifted our spirits has died. I and you hadn't heard from her in a month or so. I just phoned the police in the city where she lived and they checked her house. She passed about a month ago. Her dear husband (87), who had been failing, is now in a nursing home. (If anyone is in the Houston area and is able to do a bit of traveling nearby, please email me via the Comments and I'll get back to you offline.)
Here's a photo she sent me in 2011, when Marianne was 82, with a, to use Marianne's description, "surrogate daughter." Marianne never had children of her own, unless you count the thousands and thousands who have known and loved her.
Marianne was a highly trained and accomplished musician, as well as a highly educated lady (Columbia). Several years ago she sent me photos of her first guitar that her father bought her as a child. Marianne also was a noted folksinger during the 1940s and 1950s. Several years ago a friend of hers rescued some tapes of her singing in the 1950s. I chose one cut, "The Last Rose Of Summer", and uploaded it and a photo of Marianne (when she was 44, taken in 1972) to Youtube. Here it is. With love to a very lovely lady. They don't make roses like that anymore. We are all saddened and diminished by her passing.
If you care to share your memories of Marianne, please Comment.
Here's the lyric to "The Last Rose Of Summer" and a bit about the poem.
'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them. Thus kindly I scatter, Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, And from Love's shining circle The gems drop away. When true hearts lie withered, And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone?
The cumulative evidence is now evident to all with even bad eyesight that Benghazi is sad proof of what conservative critics have been saying for the past four years, that President Obama, his appointees and administration lack the dedication, insight and guts to defend the United States honorably or resolutely.
Democrats were known as the Party of national security weakness for a generation after their betrayal of South Vietnam and Jimmy Carter’s callowness in the face of the Iranian radicals. Aging memories, war tiredness, and big lies from the Obama administration managed to recover some national security credibility.
Now, it’ll take another generation for Democrats to, depending upon circumstances, recover some national security credibility. How focused and resolute Republicans behave will be important. Otherwise, abandon all hope for the US.
The latest revelation of betrayal of the men on the ground fighting desperately in Benghazi makes every veteran I know furious, makes every conservative voice howl in anger, but has yet to break the silence at Yahoo News, Washington Post, New York Times. They may be trying to run out the clock to November 6. That finger in the dike will not hold, possibly before November 6 and certainly after. The maggots in the chain of command in the White House, Pentagon, State Dept., and CIA responsible deserve to have their names engraved on a prominent monument to cowardice.
When you are fighting for this country, you run to the sound of the fire and the calls for help. If someone tries to tell you not to go, and you know people are dying, you go anyway. If you don't know all the facts on the ground, as Panetta claimed, you go anyway. You go because the rule has always been that when you are in trouble and call for help, help will get there as quickly and overwhelmingly as humanly possible. You go for them because you know they would come for you. If it ever becomes known that the cavalry will not be coming to your rescue, then you will tell them where to stick it when they ask you to put your butt on the line. When the day comes, and now it may have, when it is known that we are not willing to sacrifice more casualties in an effort, no matter how futile it may be, to respond to pleas for help from the men on the line, we will no longer have men willing to put themselves on that line. Fix it now, before those men, in whom so much confidence is placed, lose confidence in us.
There are some major races in some states that are so predetermined that the opposing party has a sacrificial candidate. That's the case in California, where longtime US Senator Diane Feinstein (D) is an easy win for re-election. Feinstein is not so in-your-face obnoxious as her fellow California US Senator Barbara Boxer, and occasionally seems moderate. But, get down to the votes in the Senate and Feinstein is a party-line liberal. Her opponent on November 6 is Elizabeth Emken. In another race, Emken's personality and positions would be a winner. Feinstein has not even deigned to debate Emken.
Via a tip from Bookie (whose mother has a decades-old gripe against "lazy" Diane Feinstein), here's Emken's mock-up debate with Feinstein. If for no other reason, watch the 2-minutes so you'll be aware of Emken next time:
I have never before endorsed a Republican for President, I call for the election of Mitt Romney to the nation’s highest office.
Don Harrison is the editor of the San Diego Jewish World, widely influential in this area and widely read elsewhere. Don Harrison is what I have often called him, "an open-minded liberal." Indeed, he has often published me! He is thoroughly politically liberal, and can be counted upon to with very rare exception endorse the Democrat candidate for any office. However, in the case of Romney Vs Obama, Harrison tells me that he agonized for a long time. The deciding factors for Harrison are that Obama can't be trusted to be a firm supporter of Israel in its existential danger from the development of Iranian nuclear weapons while Romney can be trusted more, and that domestically Harrison feels that there will be enough constraints on social conservative agendas to avoid the worst fears raised by Democrats during the campaign.
I was talking with some twenty-somethings before the debate. They thought it funny to call tonight's debate as between zombies. From their viewpoint both candidate are bitten and not to be trusted, but Obama is further along in the transformation that is a US apocolypse. I chuckled, and then I saw the opening intro by debate moderator Bob Schieffer. They were correct, it's a zombie debate.
Romney avoided being cornered, by Obama or Schieffer. Projects calmness and desire for peace. Obama comes off angry and offensive. The CNN tracking of "undecideds" in Florida relatively neutral between both. That means Obama failed to paint Romney as dangerous, Romney succeeded in coming across as moderate. That makes this debate a victory for Romney, and a failure for Obama to change the game or impressions of Romney.
So, on with the debate. It shapes up as do you believe what you saw for four-years or what Obama says happened. Only Obamazombies can choose the latter.
On Libya, Romney: "We can't kill our way out of this mess." Need a comprehensive strategy. (Well, duh!)
Obama: We're able to transition out responsibly and rebuild alliances. "We did everything we can" to help the Americans in "harms way" in Benghazi. (BS meter goes off the dial.)
Romney: "Attacking me is not an agenda." Then aims head shots at Obama.
Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post offers three varying explanations for the muddle of Obama administration reactions and statements to the attack on our consulate in Benghazi: Ideological Denial, Willful Deception, and Simple Incompetence. Rubin neatly sums up each. Notice, Rubin does not say "competing" but "variations" of explanations. IMHO, all three apply. Her column is worth reading before tomorrow night's presidential debate over foreign policy, to help cut through the chaff that will surely be tossed out by Obama.
"Is there a doctor in the house?" is likely to be increasingly heard in coming years, according to one of the largest surveys ever of doctors. The Physicians Foundation contacted most of the doctors in the US and had the replies checked for statistical representativeness. Among the results:
A whopping 61 percent of doctors said they would retire today if they had the ability to do so. That's up from 45 percent in 2008.
More than 68 percent of doctors have a negative view of the current state of the medical profession. Just 3.9 percent have a "very positive" view.
Nearly three-quarters of all doctors have a pessimistic view of the future of the medical profession. Just 3.1 percent have a "very optimistic" view.
More than 59 percent of doctors have a more negative view of the medical profession as a result of ObamaCare. Just 18.5 percent of doctors have a more positive view as a result of ObamaCare.
Nearly 56 percent of doctors believe that more widespread use of health savings accounts will improve quality and reduce costs.
Nearly 73 percent of doctors believe that less government regulation will improve quality and reduce costs.
More than 35 percent of doctors have closed their practice to Medicare and/or Medicaid patients. That's up from 24 percent in 2008.
