Courtesy of PTG in the comments, you can now contact the nice, considerate man who did this.
N. Henry Bledsoe
President/ASM
Benefit Management Administrators, Inc.
PO BOX 17
9365 Cherry Valley Ave
Caledonia, MI 49316
Phone: 616-891-1984
Fax: 616-891-9009
Email: henry@benefitsthatfit.com
URL: http://benefitsthatfit.com
One of the most uplifting and heart-touching stories I've read in years: Keller Senior with Down Syndrome Fulfills Dream. (Salute to Jack Yoest, Charmaine's other half).
(By TIM MacMAHON / The Dallas Morning News)You absolutely must watch the video. (Just deal with the commercial message at the beginning.)The home crowd at Keller ISD Stadium rose to its feet as soon as Lyndon LaPlante jogged onto the field during the fourth quarter Friday night.
The fans went wild during LaPlante's 99-yard touchdown run, which ended with him being mobbed in the end zone by his Keller teammates.
Never mind that the pre-arranged play didn't count. It fulfilled a dream for LaPlante, a senior who has . . .
. . .Down syndrome. He maximized the moment by flashing a Heismanesque stiff arm as he crossed the goal line and hamming it up on the sideline after play resumed in Keller's 35-21 win over Richland High Schools. "Man, it was awesome!" said LaPlante, who was still cradling the game ball when his mother, Genni, woke him up Saturday morning. "Everybody said, 'Lyndon! Lyndon! Lyndon!' I was crying with chills."Keller coach Kevin Atkinson had planned for three years to get LaPlante a carry his senior season. He hoped an opposing coach would agree to allow LaPlante to take a handoff and run over to the sideline to hug his coach.
Atkinson mentioned the idea to Richland coach Gene Wier, who suggested LaPlante should score. They agreed it would happen on Keller's first offensive play of the fourth quarter and notified the officiating crew before the game.
Perhaps it was fate that a Richland punt pinned Keller on its 1-yard line, giving LaPlante as much glory as possible.
Moments earlier, LaPlante had called his father, Don, to the guardrail behind the Keller bench. "I'm goin' in! I'm goin' in!" he said.
LaPlante has been a part of Keller's program since his freshman year, when he served as the freshman team's manager. Atkinson, smitten by LaPlante's upbeat personality, promoted him to student assistant head coach the next season. LaPlante specializes in motivational speeches, which usually focus on how much he loves Keller and his teammates.
"His heart is as big as Texas," Atkinson said.
LaPlante's unofficial duties also include greeting college coaches on campus to recruit. He'll introduce himself, title and all, and chat away.
"I've played y'all on PlayStation," LaPlante has told a few coaches, "and y'all aren't very good."
Atkinson allowed LaPlante to pick a position before his sophomore season. LaPlante chose to be a running back. He dresses out and goes through noncontact drills with the backs at the beginning of every practice. He's been known to then retreat to Atkinson's golf cart for a nap.
LaPlante, No. 1 on the roster, has suited up for every varsity game the last two seasons. He gets two carries during pregame drills every week. He usually removes his shoulder pads once the game starts and concentrates on taking pictures.
With some help from his mother, LaPlante has made a photo slideshow for the team at the end of each season. One ended with a mug shot of him accompanied by four words:
"Put me in, Coach."
A few days old, but I absolutely love it (and I'm incredible grateful for his resolve): Staying in the Guard.
1st Lt. Bruce Bishop, 31, a Salt Lake County firefighter, said he’ll stay “because as I look around at the state of this nation and see all of the weak little pampered candy-asses that are whining about this or protesting that, I’d be afraid to leave the fate of this nation entirely up to them.”
If this went down as the woman alleges, then it's just simply not right: Woman Fired For Missing Work After Seeing Husband Off To War.
CALEDONIA, Mich. -- A woman who took an unpaid leave of absence from work to see her husband off to war has been fired after failing to show up for her part-time receptionist job the day following his departure."It was a shock," said Suzette Boler, a 40-year-old mother of three and grandmother of three. "I was hurt. I felt abandoned by people I thought cared for me. I sat down on the floor and cried for probably two hours."
Officials at her former workplace, Benefit Management Administrators Inc., confirmed that Boler was dismissed when she didn't report to work the day after she said goodbye to her husband of 22 years.
"We gave her sufficient time to get back to work," Clark Galloway, vice president of operations for Benefit Management, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday.
He added that other factors were involved in the decision but he declined to elaborate.
On Oct. 16, Boler went with her husband, Army Spc. Jerry Boler, 45, to an Indianapolis-area airfield, where he and others in his National Guard unit gathered to be transported to Fort Dix, N.J. The unit soon will be deployed to Iraq, where he will help guard convoys from insurgent attacks.
Suzette Boler had received permission to take off work the week leading up to her husband's departure. As a part-time employee at Benefit Management, she did not receive vacation pay and was not compensated for her time off.
When Boler returned home from Indiana on the night of Oct. 16, a few hours after leaving her husband at the airfield, she said she felt drained by the emotional ordeal.
She said she had told her bosses that she would try to return on Oct. 17 but if she could not, she would definitely be back Oct. 18, she said.
But on the afternoon of Oct. 17, she received a call from work telling her to come in the following day and get her things because she was being fired. Her pink slip said the reason was she failed to show up for work Oct. 17, a Monday, she said.
"If I had even an inkling that I would be fired for not coming in Monday, I would have been there," she said.
EXCELLENT speech by President Bush to the Joint Armed Forces Officers' Wives' group. Some highlights:
Some have argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and al Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. (Applause.)Via: Ace and John of Powerline (who has even more highlights).The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 150 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan. Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence -- the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.
No acts of ours involves the rage of killers. And no concessions, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans of murder. On the contrary; they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)
The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet, in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims -- and I quote -- "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride. (Laughter.)
...
Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It's not justified. With every random bombing and every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots or resistance fighters -- they are murderers at war with the Iraqi people, themselves. In contrast, the elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress -- from tyranny to liberation, to national elections, to the ratification of a constitution -- in the space of two and a half years. (Applause.)
There's always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder. That would be a pleasant world -- but it isn't the world in which we live. The enemy is never tired, never sated, never content with yesterday's brutality. This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory -- and we will keep our nerve and we will win that victory. (Applause.).
The whole speech can be found here.
Gee, never heard this before. Iranian Leader: Israel Will Be Destroyed.
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday.Damn.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it."There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism."
"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad said.
Ahmadinejad also repeated the words of the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the destruction of Israel.
"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, who came to power in August.
Them's fightin' words, if you ask me.
Via commenter Ayatollah Ghilmeini on LGF:
To you 2000 and any that might fall after you:I appreciate what your sacrifice means. I know that my way of life and everything I enjoy and take for granted, from power generated using imported oil safeguarded by American military power to the most generous system of laws the world has ever known right on to my personal safety in my home under the rule of law, is all possible because of a long green line called the American military.
I write to you as a man whom no army would have and who, by disposition, would make the worst of soldiers, discipline and respect for authority are simply alien concepts to me. But I am someone who has read hundreds of books of history and biographies and I know more than just something of military history. I know what I have and am grateful for it; I am grateful to you, because without you, my life would be incomparably worse.
I salute you 2000 as fallen liberators who did what all the experts said could not be done- you smashed an evil regime in less than forty days, the greatest generals of American history can all look upon you as the embodiment of the army that began at Lexington and Concord. I salute you for fighting a humane war. I salute you for doing something rare in military history, falling in the field of battle so an enemy civilian might not have to die. Not only is what you fought for more valuable than anything our enemies have to offer, you proved the worthlessness of our enemies' ideas by fighting nobly and with honor.
I salute you for fighting the toughest kind of war, a guerrilla combat, against a foe that hides among civilians. I salute you for proving every single "media expert" wrong, from the number of civilian casualties, to your ability to fight in cities without massive casualties and the fact that when the Iraqi people waved their purple fingers in the air, they validated everything you fight for and proved once again that you fight as liberators and not colonists.
I salute your injured comrades. I know that some have suffered wounds that will make them even less suited for combat than I am. After leading young and healthy lives, they will be reminded every day of what they sacrificed on the field of honor by their very day to day existence. I salute their families and loved ones who will have to deal with their suffering every day. I personally know of such suffering and would wish it on no one.
And I salute your fellow soldiers. I salute them for the having the same courage and honor as the dead and the injured. Far away from families and living in harsh conditions, many will carry the deaths and suffering of their comrades in arms as bitter memories and lifelong psychological wounds.
All I can give you is my support and these words. All I can do is tell America a simple truth: only winning this war can make such sacrifice worthwhile. Only marching out of Iraq as liberating victors hailed for delivering a nation to freedom and giving hope to all who endure tyranny on this earth can make any of this war worthwhile. Let the fear that you might march again cause dictators for 100 years to fear what you did to Saddam, his evil regime and their terrorist allies.
To the fallen, rest now. No one will ever honor me the way I will honor you; few will remember me but hundreds of years from now, you will be remembered and treasured as great. You have entered history and your deeds and courage are immortal.
The only thing worth noting in this sadistic piece of filth:
The spokesman for the American-led multinational force called on news organizations not to look at the 2,000 death as a milestone in the conflict. Lt. Col. Steve Boylan described 2,000 figure as an "artificial mark on the wall."Well said, Colonel, and thank you for saying what needed to be said...though unfortunately, I fear it will mostly fall on deaf ears."I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq," Boylan said in an e-mail. "The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
Boylan said the 2,000th service member to die in Iraq "is just as important as the first that died and will be just as important as the last to die in this war against terrorism and to ensure freedom for a people who have not known freedom in over two generations."
He complained that the true milestones of the war were "rarely covered or discussed," and said they included the troops who had volunteered to serve, the families of those that have been deployed for a year or more, and the Iraqis who have sought at great risk to restore normalcy to their country.
Boylan said they included Iraqis who sought to join the security forces and had became daily targets for insurgent attacks at recruiting centers, those who turned out to vote in the constitutional referendum, and those who chose to risk their lives by joining the government.
"Celebrate the daily milestones, the accomplishments they have secured and look to the future of a free and democratic Iraq and to the day that all of our troops return home to the heroes welcome they deserve," Boylan wrote.
I'm not even going to dignify things like this...and this, sadly, most closely illustrates the reality of those who mark this number morbidly and without honor and respect.
Jonathan V. Last of the Weekly Standard paints an eerily familiar picture: Rule America? Liberal elites ruined Britain as a hyperpower. Could America meet the same fate?
WHAT DOES MODERN HISTORY have to teach us about the age of American empire? The final chapters of the British Empire offer lessons and parallels aplenty. Empires don't last forever, and the combination of martial victory, popular ennui, and liberal anti-patriotism is a dangerous mix for a superpower.Read it all.
El cabron escapa de la justicia...otra vez... AP: Judge Says Pinochet Will Not Be Tried .
NEW YORK - The man most responsible for trying to bring former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to trial said he now thinks the one-time strongman will never pay for his alleged crimes.Alleged???"If he's been declared incompetent by justices in human rights trials, I don't see how these same courts will declare him competent for economic trials," Juan Guzman, a Chilean judge appointed to take charge of the investigation, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Guzman's comments reflect a lingering pessimism in Chile that the former dictator will be held to account for alleged crimes committed under his 1973-90 regime, during which more than 3,100 people were killed or "disappeared."
Screw "innocent 'till proven guilty..."! Call it like it is, for crying out loud!
I know this crap has been going on for several years now... first he's capable to stand trial, the next day he's not... Dementia... I can't believe he's going to find asylum in a state of mindlessness.
Let the Vietnamization of Iraq begin continue: Majority of Americans now feel Iraq war was wrong: poll.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do", according to a poll published in The Wall Street Journal.Nothing like a bunch of bunk statistical garbage to further demoralize our troops in harm's way. Not to mention that online polls are notoriously shoddy and can be manipulated to no end by repeat voters. The Kos-kidz do it all the time---knowing this crap gets published.Fifty-three percent of those asked in the Harris Interactive survey felt that "taking military action against Iraq was the... wrong thing to do", against 34 percent who thought it was correct, the newspaper said.
The percentage of people opposing the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003 was up from a figure of 49 percent in a parallel poll in September, rising above 50 percent for the first time since the surveys began.
A year before, in September 2004, both sides were even at 43 percent.
The latest poll also found that 66 percent of Americans believed President George W. Bush was doing a "poor" or "only fair" job of handling Iraq, against 32 percent who deemed it "excellent" or "pretty good".
With the number of US military fatalities in Iraq approaching 2,000, 44 percent of those polled said the situation for US troops in Iraq was getting worse, compared to 19 percent who thought it was improving.
Sixty-one percent were not confident US policies in Iraq would succeed, two points higher than in September.
The poll asked the opinions of 1,833 people online from October 11-17.
Via Matt (B-Five).
Tuskegee Airmen Suit Up, Head to Iraq
TUSKEGEE, Ala. - Lt. Col. Herbert Carter is 86 years old and ready for deployment. More than 60 years after his World War II tour with the pioneering black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, Carter's new mission will be shorter, though no less courageous.Carter is one of seven aging Tuskegee Airmen traveling this weekend to Balad, Iraq - a city ravaged by roadside bombs and insurgent activity - to inspire a younger generation of airmen who carry on the traditions of the storied 332nd Fighter Group...
The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
Colombia, U.S. Dismantle Drug Operation.
BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian and U.S. authorities shut down a drug trafficking and money laundering operation that exported about $1 million worth of cocaine every week to the United States, Europe and Asia, authorities said Saturday.Don't expect these guys to see this as a victory, let alone report the story.Ten members of the ring were arrested Friday during raids in Bogota and several cities on the Caribbean coast with cooperation from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Gen. Jorge Alirio Baron, Colombia's anti-narcotics police chief.
Baron told reporters the traffickers used mainly human carriers and container shipments to export the drugs and had a complex network of bank accounts and fake businesses in several countries to launder drug money. He said $22,000 in cash, Global Positioning System units and two dozen cell phones were seized during the raids.
Looting Breaks Out in Wilma's Wake.
CANCUN, Mexico - Mexicans and stranded tourists, hungry and frustrated after a two-day beating by Hurricane Wilma, stood in line to buy supplies Sunday or simply raided grocery or furniture stores, dragging goods from shops ripped open by the storm.Sound familiar?The hurricane's steady march toward southern Florida meant an end here to two days of howling winds and torrential rains that shattered windows, peeled away roofing and sent the ocean crashing into hotel lobbies. The sun emerged over Mexico's sugar-white Caribbean beaches.
But another kind of chaos took over, as police shot into the air to scare looters away from a shopping center, and looters responded by throwing rocks and chucks of concrete.
Downtown, officials feared looters would turn on tourists, so they quickly evacuated more than 30 foreigners from a downtown area overrun by people raiding stores. Military officials and police stood guard outside businesses and set up checkpoints to seize stolen goods.
"It's chaos," said fire official Gregorio Vergara. "They are taking things all over the city.
Interesting... Starbucks stirs things up with a God quote on cups.
Coffee drinkers could get a spiritual jolt with their java in the spring when Starbucks begins putting a God-filled quote from the Rev. Rick Warren, author of the mega-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, on its cups."They will throw them into the recycling bins, where there will be griping about separation of church and coffee and burning of tongues."
It will be the first mention of God in the company's provocative quote campaign, The Way I See It. In 2005, Starbucks is printing 63 quotes from writers, scientists, musicians, athletes, politicians and cultural critics on cups for company-run and licensed locations to carry on the coffeehouse tradition of conversation and debate.Some mention "faith in the human spirit," but none is overtly religious. Last month, Baylor University pulled Starbucks cups after objections to a quote from writer Armistead Maupin saying that "life is too damn short" to hide being gay.
Warren says the idea of a grande pitch for God as creator came to him after seeing a Starbucks quote on evolution from paleontologist Louise Leakey. Because Starbucks solicited customer contributions for 2006, Warren sent his in. On Tuesday, Starbucks spokeswoman Sanja Gould confirmed that it would be used.
The cups carry a disclaimer that the opinions "do not necessarily reflect the views of Starbucks."
They have 63 quotes on these stupid cups, and the only one that makes a media fuss is one about the Lord. Go fig.
I was just thinking this morning while I was getting ready for work how the Saddam trial was going to be covered. And lo and behold, Eric was right, Fox News has their little logo and theme music for the trial and everything.
Then I started thinking about the film coverage I've seen of the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. Those trials were handled like the serious matters they were. Even Slododan Milosevic's trial wasn't/isn't covered as throughly and appropriately as it should be... I mean, the guy was only guilty of attempted genocide and the rape and torture of countless people.
I'm just waiting for the Jay Lenos and Jon Stewarts to start making mock video clips and other foolish jokes regarding the trial. Ripping into Saddam after seeing the photos of him back when our boys found him hiding like the rat he is was one thing, but mocking the trial is something else.
Having the bubblehead morning show "newscasters" (yes, on Fox too) covering the trial is just a joke.
Aw heck, I'm just gonna let Mad Dog Vinnie take it from here: If Adolf Had Escaped The Bunker...
I ruminated over at the Jawa Report, jokingly, as to what the extent of the MSM coverage of the Saddam trial would be like. Would it be as extensive as Scott Peterson, or even Martha Stewart?Read it, mofo.Well, Fox News already has a special graphic, and theme music set up, and I hear Greta just made an appointment with the nose doctor.
The Associatedantiamerican Press, to their credit, seems to be on it as well. The only problem is, they're far more amenable to Saddam Hussein than they ever were to Peterson or Stewart. I haven't seen this type of fawning coverage of a mass murderer since Andrea Yates drowned her own children in a bathtub.
[...] Here sits a man that is probably the last on earth who deserves any hearing whatsoever, fair or not. Here is a democratically elected government trying him in a court of law, even though he doesn't deserve it, and yet in the AP's eyes, if they don't dot every i, and cross every t, then poor Saddam is going to be abused.
Take the test, punks.William Wallace Like William Wallace, chances are you have no problem charging a larger, better trained, better equipped, better armed and armored English army with a band of naked drunken Scotsmen. I'm not contesting that you have balls. It's your brain function I'm worried about.
Scottish soldier and national hero. The first historical record of Wallace's activities concerns the burning of Lanark by Wallace and 30 men in May, 1297, and the slaying of the English sheriff, one of those whom Edward I of England had installed in his attempt to make good his claim to overlordship of Scotland. After the burning of Lanark many joined Wallace's forces, and under his leadership a disciplined army was evolved. Wallace marched on Scone and met an English force of more than 50,000 before Stirling Castle in Sept., 1297. The English, trying to cross a narrow bridge over the Forth River, were killed as they crossed, and their army was routed. Wallace crossed the border and laid waste several counties in the North of England. In December he returned to Scotland and for a short time acted as guardian of the realm for the imprisoned king, John de Baliol . In July, 1298, Edward defeated Wallace and his army at Falkirk, and forced him to retreat northward. His prestige lost, Wallace went to France in 1299 to seek the aid of King Philip IV, and he possibly went on to Rome. He is heard of again fighting in Scotland in 1304, but there was a price on his head, and in 1305 he was captured by Sir John de Menteith. He was taken to London in Aug., 1305, declared guilty of treason, and executed. The best-known source for the life of Wallace is a long romantic poem attributed to Blind Harry, written in the 15th century.
Maybe I'm filtering this article through the wrong colored lenses, but the AP used the word "fail" like Condi Rice was expected to be able to do otherwise with the Russians regarding Iran --- I mean, is anybody really surprised the Ruskies are stonewalling us and refusing to take a tough stand against Iran?
What have THEY to gain from suppressing Iranian nuclear development? Rice Fails to Win Russian Support on Iran.
MOSCOW - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice failed Saturday to persuade Russia to offer new support for a hard line on Iran's disputed nuclear program, despite making a hastily arranged trip to the Russian capital. [Hey, at least SOMEBODY is making the effort, unlike our Euro-counterparts. --ed.]Ohhhhh...scary!Rice wanted Russian cooperation as the United States and its European allies try either to draw Iran back to diplomatic talks or invoke the threat of punishment from the powerful U.N. Security Council.
Despite lengthy meetings with Russian officials, including a long session alone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, it was clear Russia had not changed its opposition to using the Security Council.
Invoke the threat of the big bad Security Council! Watch out! They're gonna draft another...resolution!
I think I know what type of spectacles I'm viewing this article through... As bloggers, radioheads and TV cooks casually tout Condi's diplomatic prowess, one of her many strengths as a potential 2008 Prez contender, the MSM has her on its radar, and thus is aiming to undermine any qualities this woman possesses --- early in the game.
(Yikes. That sounded like some paranoid right-wing conspiracy, didn't it?)
I don't know what it is about this entry... I mean, it's just a meme, right?:Tagged....
Seven things I want to do before I die:No.
1. Make it back to the US
2. Raise a family
3. Be the best husband I can
4. Finish my college education
5. Visit Europe again
6. Own my own home
7. Shoot a trophy Elk, Deer and MooseSeven things I can do:
1. wiggle my ears
2. Use Chopsticks
3. Make a excellent ROCKIN meal of biscuits and gravy
4. I'm pretty good at HALO 2
5. Make a pair of black leather boots SHINE like you wouldn't believe
6. use a sewing machine
7. Completely dis-assemble and re-assemble an M4 Carbine in less than a minute.Seven things I cannot do:
1. Dance without embarrasing myself
2. Draw or Paint (I am an not artistic, I can't even get crayons right)
3. Roll my tongue
4. Understand liberalism
5. Get my dirty socks into the hamper (It's physically impossible for me to accomplish)
6. make an over-easy egg, I always break the yolk...
7. ...or a pot-roast, for that matter...i DESTROYED a piece of meat once...Seven things I say a lot :
1. "Dude, Seriously.."
2. Right on
3. Roger
4. I can't wait to get out of this country (Iraq)
5. I miss my wife.
6. Donkey, SHUT UP!!(inside joke)
7. (quietly)"Lord, give me strength, protect me and my men, keep your hand over me, help me vanquish my enemy and give me peice of mind to make good decisions. Amen"Seven things I find attractive in a female:
1. My wife, everything about her!!!!
2. (see above)
3. (see above)
4. (see above)
5. (see above)
6. (see above)
7. (see above)
It's from a soldier in the United States Army.
It really touched me to read his responses. This entry seems so incoherent, but my only reaction was, "I've got to post this."
Go read Smash's take on the intercepted letter from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to Jordanian Islamothug Abu Musab al Zarqawi: Al Qaeda's Woes.
A snippet:
Much has already been said about Zawahiri’s four-part plan for domination of the Middle East (see John Hinderaker and Austin Bay). I’ll have more to say on that later -- but first, check out this little gem that I found buried in the letter:---The enemy struck a blow against us with the arrest of Abu al-Faraj, may God break his bonds. [...] Our situation since Abu al-Faraj is good by the grace of God, but many of the lines have been cut off. Because of this, we need a payment while new lines are being opened. So, if you're capable of sending a payment of approximately one hundred thousand, we'll be very grateful to you.---
That’s right: Zawahiri is begging Zarqawi for more funds.
We’re winning.
CHELSEA - God spoke with the roar of revving motorcycle engines during a protest Tuesday by six members of a Kansas church that believes God is punishing the U.S. for protecting homosexuals by killing soldiers overseas.Good job! God bless 'em!Chelsea residents, however, believed God spoke on their behalf as the engines of more than 100 Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcycles drowned out the voices of the Westboro Baptist Church members who were allowed to protest from 1-1:30 p.m. before the 2 p.m. funeral services for Staff Sgt. John Glen Doles.
...Chelsea's main street was lined with American Flags in honor of Doles, who was killed when he and five others were ambushed by enemy fire last week in Afghanistan. He was laid to rest with honors in a small cemetery southeast of Chelsea.
Town and local law enforcement consisting of Chelsea police, the Rogers County Sheriff's Department and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol made good their intent that nothing would disrupt funeral services for the local hero and his family.
H/T: Kevin @ Wizbang
...are the source of today's problems. Jay Tea: I hate it when the PC crowd is right...
Go read it all.
Boy, 9, Swims From Alcatraz to San Fran.
SAN FRANCISCO - A nine-year-old boy has just finished a pretty tough morning swim — from Alcatraz to San Francisco.What a kick in the nuts to every prisoner who tried to brave those waters and failed.Johnny Wilson, from Hillsborough, made the 1.4-mile swim in under two hours, braving choppy morning waters and rough winds in a portion of the San Francisco bay known to have sharks as well.
Wilson's classmates were waiting for him on shore, cheering as he made it all the way to Aquatic Park.
His effort raised about $30,000 for the Red Cross Katrina Hurricane Victims Fund.
Wilson said the toughest part of the swim was the beginning, because it was cold and windy.
Oil-rich countries tap into new political power.
Challenges are coming from an increasingly assertive Venezuela and Iran and a Russia no longer dependent on Western handouts. "Oil is the new currency of foreign policy," says Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind. Iran and Venezuela are "not only less cooperative but almost gleeful that they are able to make trouble for us," Lugar says. "These are huge changes that have not been comprehended by most of the U.S. public." [...]The article focuses on three countries, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, but there's nothing really of note re: Iran
Venezuela
Lugar has asked the Government Accountability Office to study how the USA
could cope without oil from Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, has become a kind of junior Fidel Castro with oil.Chavez has been an irritant to the United States since he was elected [Elected in one of those Jimmy Carter approved kinda elections. --ed.] in 1998. Now he has more power to "use oil as a political tool," says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington.
Russia... Russia provides more than 40% of European oil and gas and has been using its clout to punish the Baltic states and Ukraine for their pro-Western policies. It is bypassing them - and depriving them of transit fees - to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany, Europe's largest consumer of Russian natural gas. [...]Yea, they're a bunch of tools, alright.Germany has been particularly deferential to Russia and joined with Moscow in opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
As Russia becomes richer, U.S. efforts to influence Russia to support tough measures to thwart the development of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea are undercut.
And Russia has been challenging U.S. efforts to promote democracy in Central Asia, backing Uzbekistan despite a crackdown on dissidents there earlier this year.
As an addendum to my earlier post, Charles nails ElBaradei and the IAEA for their "hard-earned work" to win the Nobel Appeasement Prize: The Race to Armageddon.
Today we learn that British intelligence has identified more than 360 organizations engaged in a clandestine nuclear arms race, to bring the bomb to Islamic countries: MI5 unmasks covert arms programmes. (Hat tip: NC.)The determination of countries across the Middle East and Asia to develop nuclear arsenals and other weapons of mass destruction is laid bare by a secret British intelligence document which has been seen by the Guardian.Good work, ElBaradei.More than 360 private companies, university departments and government organisations in eight countries, including the Pakistan high commission in London, are identified as having procured goods or technology for use in weapons programmes.
The length of the list, compiled by MI5, suggests that the arms trade supermarket is bigger than has so far been publicly realised. MI5 warns against exports to organisations in Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, Syria and Egypt and to beware of front companies in the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be a hub for the trade.
The disclosure of the list comes as the Nobel peace prize was yesterday awarded to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN watchdog responsible for combating proliferation. The Nobel committee said they had made the award because of the apparent deadlock in disarmament and the danger that nuclear weapons could spread “both to states and to terrorist groups”.
Again, and rightfully so: Guatemala's Indians Refuse Flood Aid.
SANTIAGO ATITLAN, Guatemala - A Guatemalan Indian community, haunted by a government-sponsored massacre during the country's brutal civil war, refused soldiers' help Monday in recovering those killed in a week of flooding and mudslides and conducted its own searches instead.I just hope they will allow foreign aid workers to assist their communities---or what's left of them.Guatemalan officials were likely to give up searching for 384 missing throughout the region. They will likely be added to the 652 people already declared dead across Guatemala from torrential rains last week associated with Hurricane Stan, raising the total number killed to more than 1,000. Another 133 people were killed in El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras.
[...] In Panabaj, a community on the outskirts of Santiago Atitlan buried by a mudflow a half-mile wide and up to 20 feet thick, residents on Sunday blocked troops who had come to help dig out victims.
"The people don't want soldiers to come in here. They won't accept it," said Panabaj Mayor Diego Esquina, who said memories are still too vivid of a 1990 army massacre of 13 villagers. In all, tens of thousands died in Guatemala at the hands of soldiers and death squads in the 1960-96 civil war.
"There is a very strong resistance in the name of maintaining their culture," said Rodolfo Pocop, 35, a Santiago Atitlan resident who represents a national Indian rights group.
All the mudslide victims were Sutujil Indians. There are only about 100,000 Sutujil Indians in the country, and all live in communities on the shores of Lake Atitlan, Pocop said.
"It was a very severe blow to this ethnic group," he said.
The Indians struggled Monday to reconcile the demands of tradition — which require that bodies be recovered and buried exactly 24 hours after dying — with the shifting fields of mud and rotting corpses.
And rightfully so: Anger at slow aid to Guatemala mudslide village.
PANABAJ, Guatemala (Reuters) - Aid trickled into a Guatemalan village devastated by a mudslide that killed some 1,400 people, and Maya Indian residents complained on Sunday the government was far too slow to react to the tragedy.The said thing is, Esquina, you're probably right.Peasants from neighboring villages brought clothing for the victims, rowing canoes across Lake Atitlan to Panabaj. The village was buried under a deadly slick of mud, rocks and trees that slid down a volcano after rains from Hurricane Stan.
A federal deputy from western Guatemala said 300 people had died in another mudslide in the town of Tacana, near the Mexican border, but that could not be confirmed.
In Panabaj, Spanish firemen arrived to look for bodies under a quagmire that is up to 40 feet deep in places and Guatemalan soldiers brought water in a truck.
But government help was little and late, local officials said. They were angry that President Oscar Berger had not visited the village four days after one of Latin America's biggest tragedies of recent years struck.
"I feel totally sad, morale is very low. We want to see the president, we want to see him here," said Diego Esquina, mayor of Santiago Atitlan municipality, which runs Panabaj.
Stan's rains triggered the mudslide as Panabaj's residents slept early on Wednesday. Mud-covered roads prevented rescuers from reaching the site for two days.
No senior government official went to the village and the mayor said racism against the Mayas might be to blame.
"It's like they are giving a message that it is because we are indigenous. That is the point. A lot of my people are saying it is because we are indigenous," Esquina said.
Santiago Atitlan was a hot spot during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. Years of abuses by soldiers helped leftist rebels recruit Indians in the town and tensions peaked in 1990 when drunken soldiers killed 13 locals.
...and she said:
(actually, she said, "yes!" since I'm the Spanglish speaker)
Proverbs 18:22:
He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.
Several great quotes from the Vatican's paper, L'Osservatore Romano: Italian Abortion Pill Angers Vatican.
Italy's first experiment with the abortion pill RU-486 is sparking controversy in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, with the Vatican paper condemning the experiment this week as an "act against life."I get so tired of the "society will revert to the old coat-hanger-in-a-back-alley method" scare-reference.The denunciation by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican paper, rekindled accusations of interference in a secular state's domestic affairs. With parliamentary elections due next spring, the Italian Catholic Church has been very aggressive in expressing its opinion on political issues.
"Yet another act against life," L'Osservatore Romano said in its Thursday edition. "Once again science is put at the service of death."
Last month Sant'Anna hospital in Turin, northern Italy, started giving out the abortion pill. On Sept. 21 — after about two weeks and after 26 women took the pill — Health Minister Francesco Storace halted the experiment, citing legal and health reasons.
[...] L'Osservatore Romano said that Turin experiment "makes abortion become an increasingly easy (method of) contraception, the most tragically effective one."
"We have arrived to such an eclipsing of conscience that we see the act of killing the most defenseless of the innocent as an act of freedom," the paper said.
In recent months the Italian Catholic Church has spoken out on issues from assisted fertility to legal right for gay couples. It has dismissed accusations that it interferes with Italy's affairs, maintaining it has a duty to express an opinion on moral issues.
The Vatican's outspokenness has in turn drawn criticism.
"The only real act against life would be the return to clandestine abortion," Daniele Capezzone, whose Radical Party is a longtime Vatican foe, said in response to L'Osservatore.
It's O.K. to be pro-choice.
The choice comes before you turn back the bed sheets. Not when the "inconvenience" or "attack on your body" comes into existence.
Hats off to the Vatican for putting in their due centesimi.
U.N. nuclear watchdog leads Nobel Peace tips:
OSLO (Reuters) - The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and its head, [Egyptian --ed.] Mohamed ElBaradei, have taken over as a bookmaker's favorite to win the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, 60 years after the U.S. atom bombing of Hiroshima.hahahaha. Sorry, shameless slaps at the U.S. for holding the title of "only civilized nation to utilize an atomic weapon in combat" always make me chuckle.
We're never gonna live that one down, are we?
Anyway, back to the show.
The Norwegian Nobel committee makes it a point of honor to prevent leaks and, under a new secrecy policy, a guardian of the prize declined even to confirm that there would be a 2005 award.You mean, it's not? Man, that seems to be the story we get State-side."No comment," said Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. But he said the committee was aware that failing to make an award would be interpreted as a statement that the world was in crisis.
Can it be awarded on a contingency basis? Say...in the event Iran/D.P.R.K. decides to set off some nuclear fireworks?
Bah. It's not right to joke. I mean, their mission is noble.
Afterall, you can't hug your children with nuclear arms.
I've been pretty quiet about the Miers nomination. Not much to say really that hasn't been said by everyone else on the right---and left.
So instead of sifting through her impressive laundry list of credentials dating back to when she was a Daisy Girl Scout, I'm gonna check out how the media is even struggling for info.
Everything not mentioned by W himself is coming from this old flame of Miers---who seems to be doubling for her press secretary---Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court.
Let's start with the title of this AP piece: Miers Joins Dallas Church Breakaway Group.
Right there, the words "joins... church BREAKAWAY group" has ambiguous connotations. Yes, the article goes on to describe her worship behavior, if you will:
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is among a group of congregants of a Dallas evangelical church who recently broke away due to differences over church rules and worship styles.IMHO, I think the AP is trying to plant a "wtf?" seed with this article in the minds of evangelical W supporters.The group of about 200, led by former Valley View Christian Church pastor Ron Key, formed their own church about a month ago and have been meeting on Sundays at a hotel in Dallas.
Miers has worshipped as a Catholic and attended Episcopalian and Presbyterian services, according to Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, who has dated Miers. She has been a congregant at Valley View for some 25 years and in 1979 was baptized by full immersion, consistent with the church's beliefs.[Who cares?!?!? --ed.]
"What? She's a Catholic? Oh no! She'll be governed by the Vatican!"
"No wait...an Episcopalian? Aren't those characters part of that church with gay bishops? Presbyterians? Oh! You mean the ones that hate Jews and support Hezbollah?"*
etc. etc. etc.
What is the point of publishing every little detail this Texas S.C. justice has to say about his ex-girlfriend?
Seriously, Strongbad.
*FYI: Those aforementioned Presbyterians are members of the PCUSA, not the OPC, PCA, EP, etc. And no, not all PCUSA churches/members are wacked out as the case may seem in those articles --- there are numerous PCUSA churches that remain true to the reformed faith and Scripture. It just seems their denominational overhead has gone off the deep-end.
