Military Pay

This was sent to me by Linda D. from the Left Coast.  She says that,

"We do not appreciate our military enough! Be thankful for the freedoms you have. While they are fighting for our freedoms - there are the evil so called Elite trying to take them away from us.  CINDY WILLIAMS was appointed by Obama as an Assistant Director for NATIONAL SECURITY in the Congressional Budget Office.....

Here is Ms. Williams Original Article via Yes-23.com:

Cindy Williams
The Washington Post, January 12, 2000; Page A19

This month every member of the U.S. military is getting a 4.8 percent pay raise, the biggest inflation boost the military has seen in 18 years. The ink on the paychecks is not yet dry, but already some politicians and lobbyists are clamoring for bigger raises in future years. Just this week the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported that most military people feel they are not paid fairly.

Proponents of additional hefty raises argue that even after this month’s raise, the military suffers a 13 percent “pay gap” relative to the private sector. But in fact there is no pay gap worthy of the name; our armed forces are already paid very well compared with the rest of America. It makes no sense to pour money into outsized pay raises. The 25 percent pay hike that some proponents are backing would cost taxpayers more than $12 billion a year.

The “gap” of 13 percent does not measure the relative levels of military and civilian pay. Rather, it is supposed to reflect the differences between military and private sector raises since 1982. The calculation is set up to make the differences seem as large as possible. For example, it includes the growth in what the military calls “basic pay” but not the growth in allowances for food and housing. And it compares the military and civilian raises over separate time periods. Just correcting for those two problems cuts the result in half.

Comparing raises and calling it a pay gap makes no sense anyway. If you get a 5 percent raise this year and your neighbor gets 10 percent, it hardly means your pay has fallen behind your neighbor’s: If you earned twice as much as your neighbor to start with, you still earn more than he does. Wage data show that our troops typically earn more money than 75 percent of civilians with similar levels of education and experience.

For example, after four months in the Army, an 18-year-old private earns about $21,000 a year in pay and allowances. In addition, he or she gets a tax advantage worth about $800, because some of the allowances are not taxed. That’s not bad for a person entering the work force with a high school diploma. By way of comparison, an automotive mechanic starting out with a diploma from a strong vocational high school might earn $14,000 a year. A broadcast technician or communications equipment mechanic might earn $20,000 to start but typically needs a year or two of technical college.

At the higher end of enlisted service, a master sergeant with 20 years in the Marine Corps typically earns more than $50,000 a year–better than a senior municipal firefighter or a police officer in a supervisory position, and comparable to a chief engineer in a medium-sized broadcast market. Among the officers, a 22-year-old fresh out of college earns about $34,000 a year as an ensign in the Navy–about the same as the average starting pay of an accountant, mathematician or a geologist with a bachelor’s degree. A colonel with 26 years makes more than $108,000.

In addition to these basic salaries, there are cash bonuses for officers and enlisted personnel with special skills. There are also fringe benefits: four weeks of paid vacation, comprehensive health care, discount groceries, tuition assistance during military service and as much as $50,000 for college afterward. Enlistment and reenlistment bonuses can run to $20,000 and more.

Advocates of additional big raises maintain that military people should be paid more because they are more highly qualified–they exceed national averages in verbal and math skills and percentage of high school graduations. But while these facts may help explain why the majority of our soldiers already earn more money than 75 percent of Americans, they don’t explain why their future raises should exceed civilian wage growth by a large amount.

Some advocates contend that we need a large boost in military pay because the services are finding it difficult to attract and keep the people they need. But recruiting can be improved much less expensively by pumping up advertising, adding recruiters and better focusing their efforts and expanding enlistment bonuses and college programs. Pay is not necessarily the most important factor in a person’s decision to stay in or leave the military. We might get better results by reducing the frequency of deployments, relaxing antiquated rules and improving working conditions.

Proponents of higher pay also note that military people put up with hardships such as long hours and family separations. Yet many civilian occupations make similar demands, and firefighters, police and emergency medical personnel, like many in the military, risk their lives on the job.

The report that CSIS released this week points to problems of morale and dissatisfaction across the military. But those problems are not all about pay. According to CSIS, they reflect concerns about training and leadership, the demands of frequent overseas deployments and unmet expectations for a challenging and satisfying military lifestyle. Higher pay will not fix these problems.

The writer, a senior research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was assistant director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office from 1994 to 1997.

This is an Airman's response to Cindy Williams' editorial piece in the Washington Times about MILITARY PAY, it should be printed in all newspapers across America . Ms. Cindy William wrote a piece for the Washington Times denouncing the pay raise(s) coming service members' way this year citing that she stated a 13% wage increase was more than they deserve.  A young airman from Hill AFB responds to her article below. He ought to get a bonus for this."

"Ms Williams:

I just had the pleasure of reading your column, "Our GI's earn enough" and I am a bit confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going, because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my latest earnings statement I see that I make $1,117.80 before taxes per month. After taxes, I take home $874.20. When I run that through the calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13,413.60 before taxes, and $10,490.40 after.

I work in the Air Force Network Control Center where I am part of the team responsible for a 5,000 host computer network. I am involved with infrastructure segments, specifically with Cisco Systems equipment. A quick check under jobs for "Network Technicians" in the Washington , D.C. Area reveals a position in my career field, requiring three years experience in my job. Amazingly, this job does NOT pay $13,413.60 a year. No, this job is being offered at $70,000 to $80,000 per annum............ I'm sure you can draw the obvious conclusions.

Given the tenor of your column, I would assume that you NEVER had the pleasure of serving your country in her armed forces.

Before you take it upon yourself to once more castigate congressional and DOD leadership for attempting to get the families in the military's lowest pay brackets off of WIC and food stamps, I suggest that you join a group of deploying soldiers headed for AFGHANISTAN ; I leave the choice of service branch up to you. Whatever choice you make though, opt for the SIX month rotation: it will guarantee you the longest possible time away from your family and friends, thus giving you full "deployment experience."

As your group prepares to board the plane, make sure to note the spouses and children who are saying good-bye to their loved ones. Also take care to note that several families are still unsure of how they'll be able to make ends meet while the primary breadwinner is gone. Obviously they've been squandering the "vast" piles of cash the government has been giving them.

Try to deploy over a major holiday; Christmas and Thanksgiving are perennial favorites. And when you're actually over there, sitting in a foxhole, shivering against the cold desert night, and the flight sergeant tells you that there aren't enough people on shift to relieve you for chow, remember this: trade whatever MRE's (meal-ready-to-eat) you manage to get for the tuna noodle casserole or cheese tortellini, and add Tabasco to everything. This gives some flavor.

Talk to your loved ones as often as you are permitted; it won't be nearly long enough or often enough, but take what you can get and be thankful for it. You may have picked up on the fact that I disagree with most of the points you present in your open piece.

But, tomorrow from KABUL , I will defend to the death your right to say it.

You see, I am an American fighting man, a guarantor of your First Amendment right and every other right you cherish...On a daily basis, my brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and people like you can thumb your collective noses at us, all on a salary that is nothing short of pitiful and under conditions that would make most people cringe. We hemorrhage our best and brightest into the private sector because we can't offer the stability and pay of civilian companies.

And you, Ms. Williams, have the gall to say that we make more than we deserve?

A1C Michael Bragg, Hill AFB AFNCC

Way back when, in the early 1980's, I had the privilege to serve in the USMC.  We received a 3% COLA increase that after taxes were taken out, I ended up taking home about $50 per month LESS than I did before the increase.  At that time, a Lance Corporal received $663 per month, before taxes.  On the up side, I did get "3 hots and a cot", plus "80 cent bar drinks and $2 pitchers" at the Non-Rate Club...all for the privilege of, as a banner in our ready room said...

"USMC First to Go, Last to Know, We Will Defend To The Death, Your Right To Be Misinformed!"

(1st time I saw that outside of HMM-266's Ready Room @ MCAS New River, was in the movie "Full Metal Jacket.").  So, I applaud the Airman for taking the time and trouble to set this bureaucrat right.  Furthermore, My wife also served as a Hospital Corpsman in the US Navy, while my father was in the Army Air Corps/US Air Force, my Grandfather served in WW1 in the Army...my brother Tom is a Colonel in the US Army, and has served in both Iraq (1st Gulf War, Op Iraqi Freedom), and twice in Afghanistan.  My civil war ancestor was killed (along w/4 brothers) at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, outside of Atlanta, my Revolutionary ancestor was captured at Fort Washington, on Manhattan Island and died of the plague on the HMS Jersey and was buried on Staten Island...so we're a military family from way back.

I was medically discharged on June 6, 1984. Thanks to the fine work of the VA office in Panama City, Florida, they screwed up my paper work so badly, that in the now nearly 27 years since my discharge, I've never received a dime of the pension I'm supposed to receive. A year or two ago, I figured that the government owed somewhere in the neighborhood of $20k+...someday, I'll get things unscrewed enough to actually collect...but with bureaucrats like Ms. Williams, I'm not holding my breath.



We don't pay our servicemen and women enough, nor do we offer them enough in terms of retirement, just so that sanctimonious asshats like Ms. Williams can write derogatory opinion pieces trying to drum up support to strip them of needed pay raises.

National Day Of Prayer Cancelled By Barack Obama to Appease Muslims...

The following was sent to me by a friend.

• In 1952 President Truman established one day a year as a "National Day of Prayer."
• In 1988 President Reagan designated the First Thursday in May of each year as the National Day of Prayer.
• In June 2007 (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declared that the USA "Was no longer a Christian nation."
• This year (actually, 2009) President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse Of "not wanting to offend anyone.

• On September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was Held on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House There were over 50,000 Muslims in D.C. that day. HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!  I guess it doesn't matter if "Christians" are offended by this event - We obviously don't count as "anyone" anymore. 

The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot beconverted, they should be annihilated.

This is not a Rumor Go to the website to confirm this info: http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com/

The words of 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, Who are called by my Name,Will humble themselves And pray, And seek my face, and Turn from their Wicked ways, Then will I hear from Heaven And will forgive their Sin and will heal Their land."

While I'm not personally, a Christian, this country was founded by very religious men and women who established the concept of religious freedom for all those who would come here.  Our Constitution and laws are based upon the Christo-Judaic ethic of Western civilization.  To believe otherwise is to fly in the face of 403 years of American history.  Mr. Obama's appeasement of a religion that only recognizes strength...not appeasement, and Mr. Obama is appeasement of Muslims will not work...they will only demand more and more.  Calls for Sharia to be enforced from coast to coast have already begun...

Paraprosdokians

A paraprosdokian sentence consists of two parts where the first is a figure of speech and the second an intriguing variation of the first. They're used typically for humorous or dramatic effect. Enjoy these!

• Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
• Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
• The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.
• If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong. (This one is great, I'll have to use it often.)
• We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
• Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
• The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
• How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
• Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand at the edge of a pool and throw fish.
• I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
• Women will never be equal to men till they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they're sexy.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• You don't need a parachute to skydive, but you do need one to skydive again .
• The voices in my head may be fake, but they have good ideas!
• Hospitality is making your guests feel like they're at home, even if you wish they were.
• I scream the same way whether I'm about to be eaten by a shark or seaweed touches my foot.
• Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.
• There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
• You're never too old to learn something stupid.

Father & Son Interview on CNN

Here's a brief interview of Ron & Rand Paul on CNN with John King.

An Open Letter to Kathleen Sebelius: You Lied About ObamaCare

In an AOL opinion piece, Kathleen Sebelius is shilling yet again for ObamaCare.  Her column is filled with the lies and distortions that the Democratic Party, Barack Obama and Mrs. Sebelius have used since the introduction of this twisted piece of legislation.

Mrs. Sebelius, you lied to America during the legislative process that foisted this horrendous piece of legislation upon this country. You said repeatedly that this would save the country billions...you lied. Your own Medicare actuary has said that the "cost curve" will bend...upwards, not down. You lied when you said that Americans would be able to keep their health insurance, to quote Mr. Obama, "if they liked it." By the White House's own admission, 53% of all health insurance plans DONT MEET THE PROVISIONS OF THIS LAW! You lied again when you said that millions of people would sign up for the subsidized plans...as yet, fewer than 250,000 people have..

Your own department is reporting that,

...The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in July that it would now be insuring 375,000 people who had been previously shut out of the insurance market due to pre-existing conditions. But the administration recently admitted that only about 8,000 people with preexisting conditions had actually signed up. That's about 2 percent of the projected enrollment. {emphasis is mine, ed.}


A July report from the nonpartisan agency predicted that by 2016, four million people would defy the mandate and pay the fine for remaining uninsured. All told, according to CBO, about 21 million people will be uninsured in 2016 -- most of whom will be exempt from the fines altogether.

This week you granted more than 500 more waivers to companies and organizations that will exempt those groups to the provisions of this law...a law that you, yourself are exempt from having to participate in.  Since passage of this bill last March, you have granted waivers to more than 180 organized labour unions...Here's the list and here are some the largest exmptions:  

The Teamsters Union, which hailed Obama last March for "enacting historic health care reform, providing health insurance to millions of Americans who don't have it and controlling costs for millions more who do," obtained waivers for 17 different locals.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which celebrated the passage of Obamacare as "an achievement that will rank among the highest in our national experience," secured waivers for 28 different affiliates.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers -- which exulted after the health care law's passage that "finally, affordable and comprehensive health care coverage will be available for millions of working Americans" -- saw eight of its affiliates win shelter from the Obamacare wrecking ball.

The Communications Workers of America, which sent its workers to lobby for Obamacare on Capitol Hill as part of the left-wing billionaire George Soros-funded Health Care for America Now front group, snagged a waiver that will spare a hefty 19,000 of its members from the onerous federal mandate.

And the Service Employees International Union, which poured $60 million into Democratic/Obama coffers in 2008 and millions more into the campaign for the federal health care takeover, added four new affiliates to the waiver list: SEIU Local 2000 Health and Welfare Fund, representing 161 enrollees; SEIU 32BJ North Health Benefit Fund, representing 7,020 enrollees; SEIU Local 300, Civil Service Forum Employees Welfare Fund, representing 2,000 enrollees; and SEIU Health & Welfare Fund, representing 1,620 enrollees.

That's in addition to three other previous SEIU waiver winners: Local 25 SEIU in Chicago with 31,000 enrollees; Local 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund with 4,544 enrollees; and SEIU Local 1 Cleveland Welfare Fund with 520 enrollees. This brings the total number of Obamacare-promoting SEIU Obamacare refugees to an estimated 45,000 workers represented by seven SEIU locals.

When will you stop lying, Mrs. Sebelius? When? The House of Representatives voted by a bipartisan, and substantial majority to repeal this horrible law. Remember, this law is why your party suffered record losses in the House of Rep's...and this law will see you lose even more seats in 2012...when 23 Senators are up for reelection...

Stop lying and stop shilling for this bad piece of legislation. Stop Lying.

ObamaCare: Obama Lied!

ObamaCare won't allow you to keep your insurance "if you like it," nor will it keep costs down.  Video:



H/T Don Surber

Obama's Idea of Deficit Reduction

If you take Mr. Obama's words from his SOTU address last week, his idea of reducing the deficit is...miniscule.  He proposes a SPENDING FREEZE, instead of substantive cuts.  This way, he'd save (and this sounds like a lot on it's face) $400,000,000,000.00 over ten years.  That amounts to a whole $40 billion a year in savings.

That's just a drop in the bucket.  This years deficit alone is $1,500,000,000,000.00, which is 4 times the entire amount, and more than 30 times as much.  The entire federal budget was more than 85 times that amount.  Mr. Obama in his first 2 years of governing has run up a debt of more than $3,000,000,000,000.00 alone.  $40 billion dollars doesn't even amount to a "drop in the bucket."  Charles Krauthammer calls it a "spillage error."

Last November's election saw record losses by the party that has added $5 trillion dollars to the debt in 4 years.  Voter's gave the Democratic party's majority a well deserved  spanking after they ran in 2006 and 2008 as a party of fiscal responsibility. 

The November election sent a clear message to Washington: less government, less debt, less spending. President Obama certainly heard it, but judging from his State of the Union address, he doesn't believe a word of it. The people say they want cuts? Sure they do - in the abstract. But any party that actually dares carry them out will be punished severely. On that, Obama stakes his reelection.

No other conclusion can be drawn from a speech that didn't even address the debt issue until 35 minutes in. And then what did he offer? A freeze on domestic discretionary spending that he himself admitted would affect a mere one-eighth of the budget...And of course, once again, there is the magic lure of a green economy created by the brilliance of Washington experts and politicians. This is to be our "Sputnik moment," when the fear of the foreigner spurs us to innovation and greatness of the kind that yielded NASA and the moon landing.

Apart from the irony of this appeal being made by the very president who has just killed NASA's manned space program, there is the fact that for three decades, since Jimmy Carter's synfuel fantasy, Washington has poured billions of taxpayer dollars down a rat hole in vain pursuit of economically competitive renewable energy.

While the dream of alternative fuel sources is fresh, think about the Spanish disaster.  They blew $800 million dollars (a huge amount to their stuggling economy that's about  1/20th the US') on a disasterous attempt to shore up it's "green economy."  Then, there's the $6 billion ethonol stupidity that was supposed to reduce the cost of fuel and has only increased world wide food costs.  Even Al Gore now admits that that was a mistake.

He served up an insignificant spending cut, yet another (if more modest) stimulus, and a promise to fight any Republican attempt to significantly shrink the size of government.

Indeed, he went beyond this. He tried to cast this more-of-the-same into a call to national greatness, citing two Michigan brothers who produce solar shingles as a stirring example of rising to the Sputnik moment.

"We do big things," Obama declared at the end of an address that was, on the contrary, the finest example of small-ball Clintonian minimalism since the days of school uniforms and midnight basketball.

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

This president will fight any attempt by the GOP to actually cut spending in any significant amount. This will hurt the country profoundly.  I can only hope that in 2012, he is defeated, but I'll not under estimate the ability of the GOP to FUBAR things up between now and then.

Mystery Man or Manchurian Candidate?

Here's something I received from a reader...it asked some serious questions...and poses some things to ponder upon...

Obviously this is an old question but this is more detail than I've seen before. You would at least expect some professor to step out and say he remembers him. The great mystery..............WHO IS HE? Ever wondered why no one ever came forward from Obama's past saying they knew him, attended school with him, was his friend, etc. Not one person has ever come forward from his past.

VERY, VERY STRANGE...

This should really be a cause for great concern. To those who voted for him, you have elected the biggest unqualified fraud that America has ever known. Sort of adds credence to the idea of The Manchurian Candidate thing happening here!

Let's face it. As insignificant as we all are ... someone whom we went to school with remembers our name or face ... someone remembers we were the clown or the dork or the brain or the quiet one or the bully or something about us.

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News said the same thing during the 2008 campaign. He questions why no one has acknowledged the president was in their classroom or ate in the same cafeteria or made impromptu speeches on campus. Stephanopoulos also was a classmate of Obama at Columbia -- the class of 1984. He says he never had a single class with him. While he is such a great orator, why doesn't anyone in Obama's college class remember him? And, why won't he allow Columbia to release his records?

NOBODY REMEMBERS OBAMA AT COLUMBIA!

Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him. Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at

Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. EVER!  Nobody recalls him. Root adds that he was also, like Obama,

"Class of '83 political science, pre-law" and says, "You don't get more exact or closer than that." Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! And five years ago, nobody even knew who he was.

The guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York , the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him."

 Obama's photograph does not appear in the school's yearbook and

Obama consistently declines requests to talk about his years at Columbia , provide school records, or provide the name of any former classmates or friends while at Columbia .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Allyn_Root#column-one

 NOTE: Root graduated as Valedictorian from his high school, Thornton-Donovan School , then graduated from Columbia University in 1983 as a Political Science major in the same class that Barack Hussein Obama was supposed to have been in.

Some other interesting questions..

• Why was Obama's law license inactivated in 2002?
• Why was Michelle's law license inactivated by Court Order?

It is circulating that according to the U.S. Census, there is only one Barack Obama but 27 Social Security numbers and over 80 aliases.

The Social Security number he uses now originated in Connecticut where he is never reported to have lived.

No wonder all his records are sealed!

I'm generally not one to jump on the truther/birther bandwagon...but Mr. Obama has never really answered any questions about his past...any time someone poses such questions to him, they're instantly labeled racists, which has finally debased that label to the point where it can  (mostly) be ignored. 

Blood Libel: Soros' Guilt...

During WW2, George Soros as a young man of 14, helped send Jews to death camps and further, he helped confiscate their property.  That's how he started...by stealing from Jews whom the Nazi's murdered...

KROFT: (Voiceover) And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.
Mr. SOROS: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.
KROFT: In what way?
Mr. SOROS: That one should think ahead. One should understand and–and anticipate events and when–when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a–a very personal experience of evil.
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not–not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t–you don’t see the connection. But it was–it created no–no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets–that if I weren’t there–of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would–would–would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the–whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the–I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.

This is a man who has absolutely no scruples on manipulating economies, and currencies to make billions of dollars.  He has funded organizations that are not just pushing a socialist agenda, but are pushing a totalitarian agenda...all in order for him to make money.  He's spent huge amounts of money blocking offshore drilling...only to get a $2 billion dollar grant to drill for oil off of Brazil...

Failure of Logic: Keynesian Economics

Why Keynesian Economics and the Obama Economic model are a failure...I've always thought that the definion of insanity is repeating the same thing over and  over and expecting a different outcome...Keynesian economics failed during the Great Depression and directly contributed to another 7 years of depression following the small recovery of 1934 that was smothered by FDR's economic policies in 1935.

The Obama administration has basically admitted that the "Stimulus Package" was an utter failure...and has contributed to the extension of the current recession.  His SOTU address has asked for more of the same...how long will it take this president to realize that his policies are hurting the economy?  When will this administration realize that business creates jobs, not government?

Political Protests: The Tea Party Difference

Here's the real differencen in political protests...

H/T Instapundit

Reason TV: Still Unfocused on Jobs

Here's Reason TV's report on the "laser-like focus" on jobs...

SOTU: The Tea Party Response

By

Michelle Bachman

Congresswoman

Minnesota 6th District

Good evening, my name is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota's 6th District.
Two years ago, when Barack Obama became our President, unemployment was 7.8 percent and our national debt stood at what seemed like a staggering $10.6 trillion dollars.

We wondered whether the President would cut spending, reduce the deficit and implement real job-creating policies.

Unfortunately, the President's strategy for recovery was to spend a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus program, fueled by borrowed money.

The White House promised us that all the spending would keep unemployment under 8 percent.

Not only did that plan fail to deliver, but within three months the national jobless rate spiked to 9.4 percent. And sadly, it hasn't been lower for 20 straight months. While the government grew, we lost more than 2 million jobs.

Let me show you a chart.

Here are unemployment rates over the past ten years. In October 2001, our....national unemployment rate was at 5.3 percent. In 2008 it was at 6.6 percent. But, just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1 percent.
Today, unemployment is at 9.4 percent with about 400,000 new claims every week.

After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the $410 billion spending bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have.

But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt, unlike anything we have seen in the history of our country.

Deficits were unacceptably high under President Bush, but they exploded under President Obama's direction, growing the national debt by an astounding $3.1 trillion-dollars.

What did we buy?

Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that tells us which light bulbs to buy, and which will put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's healthcare bill.

ObamaCare mandates and penalties will force many job creators to stop offering health insurance altogether, unless yours is one of the more-than-222 privileged companies or unions that has received a government waiver.


In the end, unless we fully repeal ObamaCare, a nation that currently enjoys the world's best healthcare may be forced to rely on government-run coverage that will have a devastating impact on our national debt for generations to come.

For two years President Obama made promises just like the ones we heard him make tonight. Yet still we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.

Here are a few suggestions for fixing our economy:

The President could stop the EPA from imposing a job-destroying cap-and-trade system.

The President could support a Balanced Budget Amendment.

The President could agree to an energy policy that increases American energy production and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

The President could also turn back some of the 132 regulations put in place in the last two years, many of which will cost our economy $100 million or more.

And, the President should repeal ObamaCare and support free market solutions like medical malpractice reform and allow all Americans to buy any healthcare policy they like anywhere in the United States.

We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burdens on job creators.

America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas.

But, thanks to you, there's reason to hope that real spending cuts are coming. Last November you went to the polls and voted out big-spending politicians and you put in their place men and women with a commitment to follow the Constitution and cut the size of government.

I believe that we are in the early days of a history-making turn.

Please know how important your calls, visits and letters are to the maintenance of our liberties. Because of you, Congress responded and we are starting to undo the damage that's been done.

We believe in lower taxes, a limited view of government and the exceptionalism of America. And I believe America is the indispensible nation.

Just the creation of this nation was a miracle. Who's to say that we can't see a miracle again?

The perilous battle that was fought in the Pacific, at Iwo Jima, was a battle against all odds, and yet the image of the young G.I.s in the incursion against the Japanese immortalizes their victory. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

Our current debt crisis we face today is different, but we still need all of us to pull together. We can do this.
And that's the hope we hold tonight as Americans. We will push forward to reclaim the greatness of our country and to proclaim the liberty upon which we were founded.

And we will do so because we the people will never give up on this great nation.

God bless you, and God bless America.
_______________________


Via LA Times

SOTU Address

In his SOTU Address, Mr. Obama never actually talked about the dismal current state of the union.  He talked about continuing his current spending policies while only wanting "tinkering" with ObamaCare, not repealing it altogether.

Clean Energy:

We’re issuing a challenge. We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo Projects of our time.

With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. We need to get behind this innovation.
Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.

It's too bad Mr. Obama hasn't learned from the Spanish clean energy debacle...the Spanish government has spent billions and billions of Euro's only to lose the vast majority.  Professor Peter Grossman wrote a paper entitled, “The History of U.S. Alternative Energy Development Programs: A Study of Government Failure.” in which he details the failure of every single government energy program starting with the 1950's "investment" in nuclear energy.
ObamaCare:

Now, I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses.


What I’m not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

Ann Althouse, an Obama voter has this take on Mr. Obama's signature legislation:

He'll work together with Republicans, but only if they offer little tweaks to the big overhaul he rammed through, with no consideration for their opinion, when they didn't hold the seats in Congress.

Emphasis is mine.  Even the Associated Press was confused at just exactly what Mr. Obama meant in his speech. 

"The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other. Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech. . . . But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.”

High Speed Rail:  Mr. Obama wants billions dollars in new spending on high speed rail.  In California, in order not to lose federal funding, they have opened the first section of track...without a station and it literally goes from nowhere to nowhere...and have already spent $5 billion on it.


So...a meaningless speech outlining more spending without meaningful cuts anywhere.  If the past two years is any sort of meter, his "targeted investment" will merely be billions in political payoffs to cronies.  In 2012, if unemployment doesn't fall below 8%, and his "laser-like focus" on job creation is a big a failure as his economic policies, he'll be a one term president, like James Earl Carter.

In the next 18 months, you'll see the MSM focus on any possible GOP contenders and work very hard to tear them down. 

Winning the Future

Obama's 2012 Campaign Logo:



Sara Palin on Obama's WTF moments in the SOTU:

“Well, speaking of last night, that was a tough speech to sit through and try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas in how it is he believes government is going to create jobs. Obviously, government growth won’t create any jobs. It’s the private sector that can create the jobs. His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, you know, “Winning the Future,” and I thought OK, that acronym, spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech.”

The JournoList Membership

UPDATE 2 Nov, 2011:  While I was at work...I got an Instalanche on this as well as a link from A. Althouse. I have added information that found in the comments of Ms. Althouse's blog comments.  Thanks all.  Please feel free to hit the tip jar (naked plea...).


Here is a long list of those people who belonged to JournoList and the news organizations they were/are employed by.  POLITICO.com has a number of them...which shows just how far left Politico has gone.  When it was launched it was a centrist new reporting organization, but it has become yet another MSM style mouth piece for the left.  The shooting last week in Tucson is merely another nail in it's MSM leftist coffin.

JournoList: 151 Names Confirmed (with News Organizations)

Source List Included

07/29/2010

BuckeyeTexan

Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 2:25:42 PM by BuckeyeTexan

1. Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, TheAmerican Prospect
2. Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal
3. Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO
4. Mike Allen - POLITICO
5. Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America
6. Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic
7. Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation
8. Ryan Avent - Economist
9. Dean Baker - The American Prospect
10. Nick Baumann - Mother Jones
11. Josh Bearman - LA Weekly
12. Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report
13. Ari Berman - The Nation
14. Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute
15. Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University
16. Brian Beutler - The Media Consortium
17. Lindsay Beyerstein - Freelance journalist
18. Joel Bleifuss - In These Times
19. John Blevins - South Texas College of Law
20. Sam Boyd - The American Prospect
21. Ben Brandzel - MoveOn.org, John Edwards Campaign
22. Shannon Brownlee - Author, New America Foundation
23. Will Bunch - Philadelphia Daily News
24. Rich Byrne - Playwright
25. Jonathan Chait - The New Republic
26. Lakshmi Chaudry - In These Times
27. Isaac Chotiner - The New Republic
28. Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
29. Michael Cohen - New America Foundation
30. Jonathan Cohn - The New Republic
31. Joe Conason - The New York Observer
32. Lark Corbeil - Public News Service
33. David Corn - Mother Jones
34. Daniel Davies - The Guardian
35. David Dayen - FireDogLake
36. Brad DeLong - The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkeley
37. Ryan Donmoyer - Bloomberg News
38. Adam Doster - In These Times
39. Kevin Drum - Washington Monthly
40. Matt Duss - Center for American Progress
41. Gerald Dworkin - UC Davis
42. Eve Fairbanks - The New Republic
43. Henry Farrell - George Washington University & Crooked Timber
44. Tim Fernholz - American Prospect
45. Dan Froomkin - Huffington Post, Washington Post
46. Jason Furman - Brookings Institution
47. James Galbraith - University of Texas at Austin
48. Kathleen Geier - Talking Points Memo
49. Todd Gitlin - Columbia University
50. Ilan Goldenberg - National Security Network
51. Arthur Goldhammer - Harvard University
52. Dana Goldstein - The Daily Beast
53. Andrew Golis - Talking Points Memo
54. Jaana Goodrich - Blogger
55. Merrill Goozner - Chicago Tribune
56. David Greenberg - Slate
57. Robert Greenwald - Brave New Films
58. Chris Hayes - The Nation
59. Don Hazen - Alternet
60. Jeet Heer - Canadian Journolist
61. Jeff Hauser - Political Action Committee, Dennis Shulman Campaign
62. Michael Hirsh - Newsweek
63. James Johnson - University of Rochester
64. John Judis - The New Republic, The American Prospect
65. Foster Kamer - The Village Voice
66. Michael Kazin - Georgetown University
67. Ed Kilgore - Democratic Strategist
68. Richard Kim - The Nation
69. Charlie Kireker - Air America Media
70. Mark Kleiman - UCLA The Reality Based Community
71. Ezra Klein - Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect
72. Joe Klein - TIME
73. Robert Kuttner - American Prospect, Economic Policy Institute
74. Paul Krugman - The New York Times, Princeton University
75. Lisa Lerer - POLITICO
76. Daniel Levy - Century Foundation
77. Ralph Luker - Cliopatria
78. Annie Lowrey - Washington Independent
79. Robert Mackey - New York Times
80. Mike Madden - Salon
81. Maggie Mahar - The Century Foundation
82. Dylan Matthews - Harvard University
83. Alec McGillis - Washington Post
84. Scott McLemee - Inside Higher Ed
85. Sara Mead - New America Foundation
86. Ari Melber - The Nation
87. David Meyer - University of California at Irvine
88. Seth Michaels - MyDD.com
89. Luke Mitchell - Harper’s Magazine
90. Gautham Nagesh - The Hill, Daily Caller
91. Suzanne Nossel - Human Rights Watch
92. Michael O’Hare - University of California at Berkeley
93. Josh Orton - MyDD.com, Air America Media
94. Rodger Payne - University of Louisville
95. Rick Perlstein - Author, Campaign for America’s Future
96. Nico Pitney - Huffington Post
97. Harold Pollack - University of Chicago
98. Katha Pollitt - The Nation
99. Ari Rabin-Havt - Media Matters
100. Joy-Ann Reid - South Florida Times
101. David Roberts - Grist
102. Lamar Robertson - Partnership for Public Service
103. Sara Robinson - Campaign For America's Future
104. Alyssa Rosenberg - Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive
105. Alex Rossmiller - National Security Network
106. Michael Roston - Newsbroke
107. Laura Rozen - POLITICO, Mother Jones
108. Felix Salmon - Reuters
109. Greg Sargent - Washington Post
110. Thomas Schaller - Baltimore Sun
111. Noam Scheiber - The New Republic
112. Michael Scherer - TIME
113. Mark Schmitt - American Prospect, The New America Foundation
114. Rinku Sen - ColorLines Magazine
115. Julie Bergman Sender - Balcony Films
116. Adam Serwer - American Prospect
117. Walter Shapiro - PoliticsDaily.com
118. Kate Sheppard - Mother Jones
119. Matthew Shugart - UC San Diego
120. Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight.com
121. Jesse Singal - The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly
122. Ann-Marie Slaughter - Princeton University
123. Ben Smith - POLITICO
124. Sarah Spitz - KCRW
125. Adele Stan - The Media Consortium
126. Paul Starr - The Atlantic
127. Kate Steadman - Kaiser Health News
128. Jonathan Stein - Mother Jones
129. Sam Stein - Huffington Post
130. Matt Steinglass - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
131. James Surowiecki - The New Yorker
132. Jesse Taylor - Pandagon.net
133. Steven Teles - Yale University
134. Mark Thoma - The Economists' View
135. Michael Tomasky - The Guardian
136. Jeffrey Toobin - CNN, The New Yorker
137. Rebecca Traister - Salon
138. Tracy Van Slyke - The Media Consortium
139. Paul Waldman - Author, American Prospect
140. Dave Weigel - Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent
141. Moira Whelan - National Security Network
142. Scott Winship - Pew Economic Mobility Project
143. J. Harry Wray - DePaul University
144. D. Brad Wright - University of NC at Chapel Hill
145. Kai Wright - The Root
146. Holly Yeager - Columbia Journalism Review
147. Rich Yeselson - Change to Win
148. Matthew Yglesias - Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly
149. Jonathan Zasloff - UCLA
150. Julian Zelizer - Princeton University
151. Avi Zenilman - POLITICO

UPDATE:  Instalanche!  Thanks Glenn!

Please feel free to take a look around and come back.  Also, please hit the tip jar if you can at all afford to do so.

I'm Serial

It seems that with record low temps and near record snow fall, that not nearly as many people are taking Climate Change very seriously any more....even Al Gore is down in the dumps,



But serially, it seems that Climate Change apathy has descended upon the world.  James Delingpole of the UK's Guardian notes. that, 

Bob Ward is sad. Very, very sad. “Why won’t anyone listen to us any more?” he wails at the Guardian’s Komment Macht Frei.


One or two helpful commenters have tried to explain the reason. But unfortunately, as Richard North has noted, at Komment Macht Frei freedom of speech is not encouraged. See how many of their comments have been deleted.

At Watt's Up With That, Ryan Maue comments on NASA GISS' press release on this subject,

Here is NASA’s press release, which apparently wasn’t sufficiently disseminated for certain segments of the climate establishment. According to Hansen, 2010 differed from 2005 by less than 2 hundredths of a degree F (that’s 0.018F). They have to admit an inconvenient truth:

One of the problems with focusing on annual rankings, rather than the longer trend, is that the rankings of individual years often differ in the most closely watched temperature analyses — from GISS, NCDC, and the Met Office — a situation that can generate confusion.

Confusion?

“Certainly, it is interesting that 2010 was so warm despite the presence of a La Niña and a remarkably inactive sun, two factors that have a cooling influence on the planet, but far more important than any particular year’s ranking are the decadal trends,” Hansen said.

Wait a minute, wait a minute: a remarkably inactive sun …

“The three official records vary slightly because of subtle differences in the way we analyze the data, but they agree extraordinarily well,” said Reto Ruedy, one of Hansen’s colleagues at GISS who helps analyze global surface temperatures.

Subtle differences? Extraordinary agreement?

Invariably, a great deal of attention centers on each year’s ranking, but it is critical to focus on the decade-long trends that matter more, the GISS scientists emphasize. On that time scale, the three records are unequivocal: the last decade has been the warmest on record. “It’s not particularly important whether 2010, 2005, or 1998 was the hottest year on record,” said Hansen. “It is the underlying trend that is important.”

Well, then stop issuing press releases which tout the rankings, which are subject to change ex post facto. You never know what year is number 1 due to those “subtle differences”, which apparently aren’t that important anyways.

In my humble opinion, I think that MSM's reporting of "climate change" is basically bullshit.  It's merely another way for the left to gain control of national/global economies in order to "share the wealth".  Socialism/Communism under another guise.  If you look at the reporting of this over the past 120 or so years, MSM (of the time) has been behind the curve by 10-15 years.  100 years ago, it was about the coming Ice Age.

But when one looks back at the history of climate reporting, you find a remarkably consistent and recurring theme. The global temperature has cycled from cold to warm to cold to warm again over the last 120 years. The media cycles of impending climatic doom mirror the climate cycles themselves, but with a roughly ten- to fifteen-year lag. It seems whenever the world warms, the volume of global warming stories increases to match the trend. Conversely, when the climate cools the major media outlets pull on their long johns and warn us of the next ice age. However, it takes many years for the media to catch up to what the climate is actually doing.


On February 24, 1895, the New York Times reported: “Geologists think the world may be frozen up again.” The story wondered “whether recent and long continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period.”

In 1912, shortly after the sinking of the Titanic by an iceberg, the New York Times reported on a professor from a Cornell University: “Professor Schmidt warns us of an encroaching ice age.” On the very same day, the Los Angles Times reported: “Fifth ice age is on the way. … Human race will have to fight for its existence against the cold.”

This, I think, is mainly because "journalists" really have no clue of the science and statistics behind it all.  Most journalists are scientifically illiterate and just haven't a clue on how to collate the data.  For the past 150 million years or so, the planet has undergone long periods of glaciation, interspersed with warm periods.  The Midieval Warm period was so warm, the English were growing wine grapes in central England.  If the era we currently live in now is that warm, why aren't there vinyards all over northern Europe?  It's because it's just not warm enough...I expect in a decade or so...as the planet again cools a bit...as it has been doing since 1998 (at least according to "hide the decline" data) the media will again be trumpeting headlines and stories like this from the 1970's:

On November 15, 1969, Science News quoted meteorologist Dr. J. Murray Mitchell Jr.: “How long the current cooling trend continues is one of the most important problems of our civilizations. … If the cooling continues for another 200 to 300 years the Earth could be plunged into an ice age.” On January 11, 1970, the Washington Post reported: “Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age. … Better get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters, the worst may be yet to come.” Fortune reported in February 1974: “It is the root cause of a lot of that unpleasant weather around the world and they warn that it carries the potential for human disasters of unprecedented magnitude.” (Sound familiar?) On June 24, Time wrote: “Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.” Newsweek said on April 28, 1975: “The Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. … [Meteorologists were] Almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.”

While I'm not a scientist, I am reasonably intelligent, and can understand complex concepts, I can read the data that's coming out of NASA and UEA...and see that basically the science is bullshit.  The world, as we know it through recorded history, has undergone periods of warming and cooling...and will continue to do so for as long as the planet exists.

Burial at Sea

by

LtCol George Goodson, USMC (Ret)

In my 76th year, the events of my life appear to me, from time to time, as a series of vignettes. Some were significant; most were trivial. War is the seminal event in the life of everyone that has endured it. Though I fought in Korea and the Dominican Republic and was wounded there, Vietnam was my war.

Now 42 years have passed and, thankfully, I rarely think of those days in Cambodia, Laos, and the panhandle of North Vietnam where small teams of Americans and Montangards fought much larger elements of the North Vietnamese Army. Instead I see vignettes: some exotic, some mundane:

*The smell of Nuc Mam.
*The heat, dust, and humidity.
*The blue exhaust of cycles clogging the streets.
*Elephants moving silently through the tall grass.
*Hard eyes behind the servile smiles of the villagers.
*Standing on a mountain in Laos and hearing a tiger roar.
*A young girl squeezing my hand as my medic delivered her baby.
*The flowing Ao Dais of the young women biking down Tran Hung Dao
*My two years as Casualty Notification Officer in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

It was late 1967. I had just returned after 18 months in Vietnam. Casualties were increasing. I moved my family from Indianapolis to Norfolk, rented a house, enrolled my children in their fifth or sixth new school, and bought a second car.

A week later, I put on my uniform and drove 10 miles to Little Creek, Virginia. I hesitated before entering my new office. Appearance is important to career Marines. I was no longer, if ever, a poster Marine. I had returned from my third tour in Vietnam only 30 days before. At 5'9", I now weighed 128 pounds - 37 pounds below my normal weight. My uniforms fit ludicrously, my skin was yellow from malaria medication, and I think I had a twitch or two.

I straightened my shoulders, walked into the office, looked at the nameplate on a Staff Sergeant's desk and said, "Sergeant Jolly, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Goodson. Here are my orders and my Qualification Jacket."

Sergeant Jolly stood, looked carefully at me, took my orders, stuck out his hand; we shook and he asked, "How long were you there, Colonel?" I replied "18 months this time." Jolly breathed, "you must be a slow learner Colonel." I smiled.

Jolly said, "Colonel, I'll show you to your office and bring in the Sergeant Major. I said, "No, let's just go straight to his office." Jolly nodded, hesitated, and lowered his voice, "Colonel, the Sergeant Major. He's been in this job two years. He's packed pretty tight. I'm worried about him." I nodded.

Jolly escorted me into the Sergeant Major's office. "Sergeant Major, this is Colonel Goodson, the new Commanding Office. The Sergeant Major stood, extended his hand and said, "Good to see you again, Colonel." I responded, "Hello Walt, how are you?" Jolly looked at me, raised an eyebrow, walked out, and closed the door.

I sat down with the Sergeant Major. We had the obligatory cup of coffee and talked about mutual acquaintances. Walt's stress was palpable. Finally, I said, "Walt, what's the hell's wrong?" He turned his chair, looked out the window and said, "George, you're going to wish you were back in Nam before you leave here. I've been in the Marine Corps since 1939. I was in the Pacific 36 months, Korea for 14 months, and Vietnam for 12 months. Now I come here to bury these kids. I'm putting my letter in. I can't take it anymore." I said, "OK Walt. If that's what you want, I'll endorse your request for retirement and do what I can to push it through Headquarters Marine Corps."

Sergeant Major Walt Xxxxx retired 12 weeks later. He had been a good Marine for 28 years, but he had seen too much death and too much suffering. He was used up.
Over the next 16 months, I made 28 death notifications, conducted 28 military funerals, and made 30 notifications to the families of Marines that were severely wounded or missing in action. Most of the details of those casualty notifications have now, thankfully, faded from memory. Four, however, remain.

MY FIRST NOTIFICATION

My third or fourth day in Norfolk, I was notified of the death of a 19 year old Marine. This notification came by telephone from Headquarters Marine Corps. The information detailed:
*Name, rank, and serial number.
*Name, address, and phone number of next of kin.
*Date of and limited details about the Marine's death.
*Approximate date the body would arrive at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.
*A strong recommendation on whether the casket should be opened or closed. The boy's family lived over the border in North Carolina, about 60 miles away. I drove there in a Marine Corps staff car. Crossing the state line into North Carolina, I stopped at a small country store / service station/ Post Office. I went in to ask directions.

Three people were in the store.. A man and woman approached the small Post Office window. The man held a package. The Storeowner walked up and addressed them by name, "Hello John. Good morning Mrs. Cooper."

I was stunned. My casualty's next-of-kin's name was John Cooper! I hesitated, then stepped forward and said, "I beg your pardon. Are you Mr. and Mrs. John Cooper of (address.) The father looked at me - I was in uniform - and then, shaking, bent at the waist, he vomited. His wife looked horrified at him and then at me. Understanding came into her eyes and she collapsed in slow motion. I think I caught her before she hit the floor.

The owner took a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer and handed it to Mr. Cooper who drank. I answered their questions for a few minutes. Then I drove them home in my staff car. The storeowner locked the store and followed in their truck. We stayed an hour or so until the family began arriving.

I returned the storeowner to his business. He thanked me and said, "Mister, I wouldn't have your job for a million dollars." I shook his hand and said; "Neither would I."  I vaguely remember the drive back to Norfolk. Violating about five Marine Corps regulations, I drove the staff car straight to my house. I sat with my family while they ate dinner, went into the den, closed the door, and sat there all night, alone. My Marines steered clear of me for days. I had made my first death notification.

THE FUNERALS

Weeks passed with more notifications and more funerals. I borrowed Marines from the local Marine Corps Reserve and taught them to conduct a military funeral: how to carry a casket, how to fire the volleys and how to fold the flag.

When I presented the flag to the mother, wife, or father, I always said, "All Marines share in your grief." I had been instructed to say, "On behalf of a grateful nation...." I didn't think the nation was grateful, so I didn't say that.

Sometimes, my emotions got the best of me and I couldn't speak. When that happened, I just handed them the flag and touched a shoulder. They would look at me and nod. Once a mother said to me, "I'm so sorry you have this terrible job." My eyes filled with tears and I leaned over and kissed her.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

Six weeks after my first notification, I had another. This was a young PFC. I drove to his mother's house. As always, I was in uniform and driving a Marine Corps staff car. I parked in front of the house, took a deep breath, and walked towards the house. Suddenly the door flew open, a middle-aged woman rushed out. She looked at me and ran across the yard, screaming "NO! NO! NO! NO!"I hesitated. Neighbors came out. I ran to her, grabbed her, and whispered stupid things to reassure her. She collapsed. I picked her up and carried her into the house. Eight or nine neighbors followed. Ten or fifteen later, the father came in followed by ambulance personnel. I have no recollection of leaving.The funeral took place about two weeks later. We went through the drill. The mother never looked at me. The father looked at me once and shook his head sadly.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

One morning, as I walked in the office, the phone was ringing. Sergeant

Jolly held the phone up and said, "You've got another one, Colonel." I nodded, walked into my office, picked up the phone, took notes, thanked the officer making the call, I have no idea why, and hung up. Jolly, who had listened, came in with a special Telephone Directory that translates telephone numbers into the person's address and place of employment.

The father of this casualty was a Longshoreman. He lived a mile from my office. I called the Longshoreman's Union Office and asked for the Business Manager. He answered the phone, I told him who I was, and asked for the father's schedule.

The Business Manager asked, "Is it his son?" I said nothing. After a moment, he said, in a low voice, "Tom is at home today." I said, "Don't call him. I'll take care of that." The Business Manager said, "Aye, Aye Sir," and then explained, "Tom and I were Marines in WWII."

I got in my staff car and drove to the house. I was in uniform. I knocked and a woman in her early forties answered the door. I saw instantly that she was clueless. I asked, "Is Mr. Smith home?" She smiled pleasantly and responded, "Yes, but he's eating breakfast now. Can you come back later?" I said, "I'm sorry. It's important. I need to see him now."

She nodded, stepped back into the beach house and said, "Tom, it's for you."

A moment later, a ruddy man in his late forties, appeared at the door. He looked at me, turned absolutely pale, steadied himself, and said, "Jesus Christ man, he's only been there three weeks!"

Months passed. More notifications and more funerals. Then one day while I was running, Sergeant Jolly stepped outside the building and gave a loud whistle, two fingers in his mouth... I never could do that… and held an imaginary phone to his ear.

Another call from Headquarters Marine Corps. I took notes, said, "Got it." and hung up. I had stopped saying "Thank You" long ago. Jolly, "Where?" Me, "Eastern Shore of Maryland. The father is a retired Chief Petty Officer. His brother will accompany the body back from Vietnam."

Jolly shook his head slowly, straightened, and then said, "This time of day, it'll take three hours to get there and back. I'll call the Naval Air Station and borrow a helicopter. And I'll have Captain Tolliver get one of his men to meet you and drive you to the Chief's home."

He did, and 40 minutes later, I was knocking on the father's door. He opened the door, looked at me, then looked at the Marine standing at parade rest beside the car, and asked, "Which one of my boys was it, Colonel?"

I stayed a couple of hours, gave him all the information, my office and home phone number and told him to call me, anytime.

He called me that evening about 2300 (11:00PM). "I've gone through my boy's papers and found his will. He asked to be buried at sea. Can you make that happen?" I said, "Yes I can, Chief. I can and I will."

My wife who had been listening said, "Can you do that?" I told her, "I have no idea. But I'm going to break my ass trying."

I called Lieutenant General Alpha Bowser, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, at home about 2330, explained the situation, and asked, "General, can you get me a quick appointment with the Admiral at Atlantic Fleet Headquarters?" General Bowser said," George, you be there tomorrow at 0900. He will see you.

I was and the Admiral did. He said coldly, "How can the Navy help the Marine Corps, Colonel." I told him the story. He turned to his Chief of Staff and said, "Which is the sharpest destroyer in port?" The Chief of Staff responded with a name.

The Admiral called the ship, "Captain, you're going to do a burial at sea. You'll report to a Marine Lieutenant Colonel Goodson until this mission is completed."

He hung up, looked at me, and said, "The next time you need a ship, Colonel, call me. You don't have to sic Al Bowser on my ass." I responded, "Aye Aye, Sir" and got the hell out of his office.

I went to the ship and met with the Captain, Executive Officer, and the Senior Chief. Sergeant Jolly and I trained the ship's crew for four days. Then Jolly raised a question none of us had thought of. He said, "These government caskets are air tight. How do we keep it from floating?"

All the high priced help including me sat there looking dumb. Then the Senior Chief stood and said, "Come on Jolly. I know a bar where the retired guys from World War II hang out."

They returned a couple of hours later, slightly the worst for wear, and said, "It's simple; we cut four 12" holes in the outer shell of the casket on each side and insert 300 lbs of lead in the foot end of the casket. We can handle that, no sweat."

The day arrived. The ship and the sailors looked razor sharp. General Bowser, the Admiral, a US Senator, and a Navy Band were on board. The sealed casket was brought aboard and taken below for modification. The ship got underway to the 12-fathom depth.

The sun was hot. The ocean flat. The casket was brought aft and placed on a catafalque. The Chaplin spoke. The volleys were fired. The flag was removed, folded, and I gave it to the father. The band played "Eternal Father Strong to Save." The casket was raised slightly at the head and it slid into the sea.

The heavy casket plunged straight down about six feet. The incoming water collided with the air pockets in the outer shell. The casket stopped abruptly, rose straight out of the water about three feet, stopped, and slowly slipped back into the sea. The air bubbles rising from the sinking casket sparkled in the in the sunlight as the casket disappeared from sight forever.

The next morning I called a personal friend, Lieutenant General Oscar Peatross, at Headquarters Marine Corps and said, "General, get me out of here. I can't take this anymore." I was transferred two weeks later.

I was a good Marine but, after 17 years, I had seen too much death and too much suffering. I was used up.

Vacating the house, my family and I drove to the office in a two-car convoy. I said my goodbyes. Sergeant Jolly walked out with me. He waved at my family, looked at me with tears in his eyes, came to attention, saluted, and said, "Well Done, Colonel. Well Done." I felt as if I had received the Medal of Honor.

A veteran is someone who, at one point, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of ‘up to and including their life.' That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

ObamaCare: What Else It Does...

Here is some more info on ObamaCare:

THE CARE BILL HB3200

• Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally.
• Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.
• Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).
• Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)
• Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors' fees.
• Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to the patient's age.
• Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.
• Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an "end-of-life planning" seminar every five years. (Death counseling..)
• Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.

"Finally, it is specifically stated that this bill will not apply to members of Congress. Members of Congress are already exempt from the Social Security system, and have a well-funded private plan that covers their retirement needs. If they were on our Social Security plan, I believe they would find a very quick 'fix' to make the plan financially sound for their future."   Honorable David Kithil Marble Falls, Texas

 They had to pass it before we could find out what was in it, said Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House.  We keep finding loathsome provisions in this bill.  I suspect that repeal will easily pass through the House, as it did a week or so ago...and may very well pass through the Senate.  After all, there are 23 Democratic Senators who are up for re-election next year.  ALL of those Senators voted to pass  this bill.  Many are up for a very tough reelection fight.  After all, if Russ Feingold, a Senator from Wisconsin, one of the most liberal states of the union can be defeated over his vote on this...pretty much all of them can be. 

Obama, will veto it...but it may very well be passed over his veto...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education Bubble & Professional Certification

Recently, I've been considering on whether or not to take a certification class.  It's expensive, though not long, approximately 3, 8 weeks classes, then a test for certification.  The problem is that I don't have the $4,500.00 to $5,500.00 dollars to pay for it.  I think that I can "qualify" for educational tuition assistance (another term for "government money"), but I'm not entirely certain that it would be worth it.  The class would merely give me "credentials" that I can do a particular facet of work...the classes I'm looking are are for a certification in "project management".

Villanova  University and the Boston University Corporate Education Center are the two schools I'm looking at.  The courses are all online, which from my point of view makes things vastly easier as I won't have to juggle work and classes.  But would it be worth it to get yet another piece of paper?  With the past year's vast underemployment, my family savings are, literally, gone, so I don't have money saved for this sort of thing.  On the other hand, I might be able to actually get a job in construction project management if I do? 

Has anyone out there actually taken a class like this?  Is it worth the money?  Here's the Villanova course outline:

Overview:
http://www.universityalliance.com/info1/UA_PDFs/Villanova/T2-Disciplines/Villanova_ProjMgmt_T2.pdf

Syllabus
http://www.universityalliance.com/Info1/Curriculum/Villanova/Villy%20Course%20PDFs/EssentialsofProjectManagement.pdf
http://www.villanovau.com/Content/Docs/MasteringProjectManagement.pdf
http://www.universityalliance.com/info1/Curriculum/Villanova/ProjectManagement/ProjectManagementProfessionalPMPPrep.pdf

Possible 4th class:
http://www.villanovau.com/Content/Docs/SixSigmaGreenBelt.pdf
http://www.villanovau.com/Content/Docs/AdvancedStrategicProjectManagementPractices.pdf

Any input would be greatly apprecited, as I'd hate to actually scrounge up the money to pay for this only to find out that it's not worth the dollars.

Another Madman Firing Indiscriminately

by Rick McKee of the Augusta Journal

How The Left VIews The Tea Party

By Jeff Danziger, WaPo

Climate of Hate: Progressive Chapter

With Jared Lougher's "alleged" shooting spree in Arizona being pinned on the conservative movement by pretty much everyone left of centre, here's laundry list of "Progressive" attacks on conservatives.  I wanted to copy and paste the lengthy list and all the pictures...but it would have taken far too long.  Please hit the link and take a long look at Progressive hatred of conservatives.

But here's video from the last election...



Here's an assault on a Tea Party movement member.

January 20, 2005. At Seattle Central Community College, Army recruiter Sgt. Jeff Due and his colleague, Sgt. 1st Class Douglas Washington were surrounded by an angry mob of 500 anti-war students. The recruiters’ table was destroyed; their handouts torn apart. The protesters threw water bottles and newspapers at the soldiers, shouted profanities, and wielded their fists. The far Left Students Against War had been agitating to kick the recruiters off campus. The college administration refused to punish the mobsters.

UPDATE:  From Ed Driscoll a compendium of Leftist celeb's who have said they would inflict violence upon conservatives. 

1. Flashback: Ebert’s Site Praises Left-wing Bush Assassination Film
2. Flashback: Kathy Griffin Says 2011 is 16-year-old Willow Palin’s ‘year to go down’
3. Flashback: Alec Baldwin threatens to Stone Henry Hyde, kill children
4. Flashback: Joy Behar wants that ‘bitch’ Sharron Angle to go ‘to hell’
5. Flashback: Aaron Sorkin happy when hunters shoot each other
6. Flashback: Playboy Magazine’s Hate-F**k List of Conservative Women
7. Flashback: Montel Williams Urges Michele Bachmann to kill herself
8. Flashback: Perez Hilton Calls Miss California a ‘c*nt’
9. Flashback: Jeff Wells Praises metaphor of ‘Hobo’ film blasting wealthy with shotgun
10. Flashback: Sean Penn Calls Reagan’s Alzheimer’s ‘Justice’
11. Flashback: George Clooney Mocks Charlton Heston’s Alzheimer’s
12. Flashback: Rosie O’Donnell Calls bush ‘war criminal’ who must ‘be held accountable’

Progressive's you live in a glass house...so stop throwing stones...

Conservatism, What We Believe

I received a very interesting email that includes in parable form, the simplest description of what conservatism is at root.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.
The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"
She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."
Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the conservative side of the fence."

If anyone who reads this has a better explanation of the very basic differences between conservatism and liberalism or progressive or neocon pray tell in the comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you ever wondered what side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.
If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it.
A liberal will delete it because he's "offended."