I Couldn't Have Made A Right Decision

Something bad is going to happen to me.

My computer had slowed down to dead. As much as I love computers, I dreaded getting on mine. If I shut it down, start up was a 15 to 20 minute process and even then, everything took forever to load and/or process. I was right on the verge of buying a new machine, but figured that I'd try one more thing.

It cost me $20, but it was worth every penny. I had been running a couple of freeware IObit programs for quit a while, and it would clear up some problems, but eventually my computer would bog down again.

I figured I'd give it one more shot with a paid for guaranteed program before I try to figure out where to come up with the cash for a new system (there goes that big screen HDTV for another year).

I don't know what it did, how it did it, nor do I care, but everything is running at mach speed again. I think this will help with my posting being I won't have to constantly wait for the machine to catch up...yeah, Right!!!

Red Sky In The Morning

I was sooo!!!looking forward to getting home this morning. Last day of work for four days, and last night was busy. We added another well into our overloaded system and trying to re-balance all the vessels,tanks and pumps is labor intensive, a lot of walking in circles and trying to read gauges and site glasses in the dark.

This is what I came home to in my beautiful little valley.



This is 7:30 in the morning. There is a rather large fire burning in the mountains above me and there is no wind. You should see large mountains in this picture, but hell, I can barely see across the street. It kind of reminded me of we I was growing up here in the early '60's, only then it was smog.

My house in is no danger down in the slums of La Crescenta, but I think I'll just hang indoors until this dissipates.

Chris went to the "Blue House" (the Korean version of the White House) today on a "field trip", but I haven't heard from him to find out how it went, but it's Saturday there, so I think I'll jump on AIM and see if he's around.

A Week Already?

I must be getting real old because I can't believe that it's been a week since I last posted.

I received a pic from Chris last night, I guess they needed some ballast for a helo flight down to Kunsan AB. He got his first ride in a Chinook.



Those are his feet hanging off the back ramp on the way home. Lucky kid!

16 Year Old Mexican Indian Virgin Girls

HA!!! Caught you again!

This is an internet ritual for me that goes back two years.

It started with this: 14 year old Mexican indian virgin girls

Continued to this: 15 Year Old Mexican Indian Virgins

I'll tell you, they are still the largest entry page. At least 5 to 1.

For your patience, I'll give you some music.

Videos are non-existent for these two movies that were complete surprises when I first saw them.

"Phantom of the Paradise" was an extra, we went to see something else, but they stuck this movie in first. It was a combination of Faust and Phantom of the Opera with a rock sound track.

This is Jessica Harper doing two raw takes of "Special To Me".

Great voice!

You'll have to go to the link because there is no embed and seeing her sing is way better that looking at an album cover.

Phantom of the Paradise - Special To Me - Jessica Harper

This one is not really a video, just the album cover, but I love this song (and the movie), I was on the slow side of learning about this movie, but as much as I got sucked into this movie (I probably went 20-25 times), I never dressed up or went up on stage.

Something Just Doesn't Seem Right Here!

This is the 800m Womens Final at the World Champiionships in Berlin.

SAfrican in gender flap gets gold for 800 win

(You really only have to watch the first 4+ minutes)



Build, musculature, stride...It just doesn't seem to add up.

You guess. It'll take three weeks to get the results back.

Everything the Government Runs is Bankrupt!

(I tried to post this yesterday, but FoxNews can't get their embeds or links written correctly and it wasn't up on YouTube yet.)

Judge Napolitano explaining why government cannot be allowed to take over health care.

When government wants to save money, it shut down like Chicago's City Hall did yesterday.

When private enterprise wants to make more money, it works overtime.

That is going to be posted on the wall above my desk along with:

I have never been given a job by a poor person

Need a good sign for a rally you're going to try this one.

I've Got A Question

I know the owner of my company is going to cancel our insurance if ObamaCare goes through, that 8% penalty for not providing health insurance will cost him less.

What I would like to know is what happen to my dental and vision plan when the medical part is dropped? The reason we get dental and vision is it doesn't cost much to just add those onto the package, but as stand alone plans, I bet they get pricey, and would there be an insurance company left that would just be writing just these policies?

The F-22 Program Needs To Go Forward

Ran across this last night by Gen. McPeak (ret.), Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994, was a national co-chair of Obama for President.

Notice the bolding there at the end of his credentials.

Why We Need the F-22

It’s been more than half a century since American soldiers were killed by hostile aircraft. Let's keep it that way.

That is a sentiment I can get behind.

The United States relies on the Air Force, and the Air Force has never been the decisive factor in the history of war.

—Saddam Hussein,
before Desert Storm

High-end conventional war is characterized by the clash of industrial forces. It’s armored, mechanized and increasingly air-power centric. Few are equipped by training or temperament to understand the phenomenon, especially as it concerns air warfare, a relatively recent aspect of the human experience. (In this regard, Saddam Hussein had plenty of company.) But the bottom line is that in high-end conventional war, neither our Army nor Navy can be defeated unless someone first defeats our Air Force.

For high-end conventional war we’ve built an Air Force that, for now, is virtually unbeatable. Anyone looking at our air-power capabilities knows there is little hope they can concentrate conventional forces for decisive engagement of our Army or Navy. We will track them and pick them to pieces. When Saddam Hussein tried us on for size in the early-1990s, the ground war was a four-day walkover that followed the initial 39 days of aerial combat.

Any conflict comes down to "boots on the ground", but to protect those "boots", the job is a hell of a lot easier when they aren't having to keep looking up to see if something is falling from the sky on them.

I pointed out earlier that we have Air Superiority right now, but those days may be getting short.

We have forced anyone with a bone to pick with us to find an alternative to high-end, conventional war. We’ve had to invent a vocabulary for this low end: “asymmetrical” conflict, it being another poorly understood activity. But it seems clear that in this sort of war our existence is not threatened, that we can regulate the resource input. It can be expensive in men and material, but we cannot be defeated militarily.

When the enemy succeeds, it is because we do not defeat him and then weary of the fight. This is not a good outcome, but it is better—and much cheaper for us in lives and treasure—than losing a high-end, conventional conflict.

I make no excuses that we don't want a "fair" fight. I want our military to go in, kick ass, take control and then we can consider being magnanimous after our victory.

I have a stake in this and so do a lot of the people I know. Sons, daughters...if not themselves that are on the front lines around the globe, that we would like to come home safely.

You got a Su-27, well we can see you, but you can't see us...but that's not going to last very long.

The future air combat capabilities we should build are based on the F-22, a stealthy, fast, maneuverable fighter that is unmatched by any known or projected combat aircraft. But the F-22’s production run may soon come to an end at just 187 planes, well short of establishing the fleet size we need. After all, it’s expensive, and getting more so as the number contemplated has been repeatedly reduced. In an argument they seem to think makes sense, critics say the aircraft has no worthy opponent—as if we want to create forces that do have peer competitors.

Get that? The fewer we produce, the more expensive each plane is, the more we produce, the less cost per unit. Yeah they still cost a butt-load of money, but when the Russian counterpart gets out, we'll need more that 187 F-22's spread out or sitting in the wrong place is almost as useless as not having them to begin with.

It’s been more than half a century since any American soldier or Marine has been killed, or even wounded, by hostile aircraft, a period roughly coincident with the existence of the Air Force as a separate service. Even during the Korean War—the Air Force’s first engagement wearing new, blue uniforms—enemy air attack was primitive and rare. The main air battle was fought along the Yalu River, just as in Vietnam it was fought over Hanoi, and in Desert Storm, over Baghdad. Our guys on the ground had hard work to do, but when they looked up, they saw only friendly skies.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why we should wish to change this.

We've lost a lot of pilots in those fifty years, but it was always our fighters ruling the sky. Our troops on the ground were left to deal only with their troops on the ground. I'd like to keep it that way.

Bonus Stuff:

I needed another F-22 video to close this off and I found a cool one:



Also, if you are close to L.A. and you've never been to an Air Show I would recommend the Edwards Show Oct. 17 and 18. They WILL have a F-15 and F-22 there so you can marvel both their capabilities and compare something that first flew when I was graduating High School (1972) and what they can do now 36 years on.

I'll be at the Air Show on Saturday, the 17th and I'll wear my Rottie T-shirt. If you see me say hi!

News From the South (of Korea)

After a week of Chris and I just missing each other on AIM, I finally bumped into him last night.

He finally got to go the range and he qualified as "Sharpshooter".



Not Expert, but maybe next time.

An amusing thing. The Camp is shuffling the MP's to a new building, so all the MP's are getting the new place set up, but the Weapons locker is still in the old building with no one to watch it, so Chris has been assigned to the detail to baby sit the weapons.

That involves sitting outside a locked room for 3 hours.

I asked if he was armed, and he said they were going to be (and should be)...but being most of them just got out of AIT, it might be too much responsibility. Unbelievable!!! These are Army guys and gals, they have ongoing weapon training (see above), and if they were in the ME there wouldn't even be a question about it. I guess if someone starts to break into the locker, he has to call the MP's and wait 15 to 20 minutes for them to show up to draw the chalk line around his body.

Good practice for when they go into the civilian police force.

He finally tried to extend his tour, but typically when he went to do it, the computer was down. Another paycheck without the bonus.

Overall he seems to be in good spirits, but is out of touch with what's happening here at home regarding the Townhalls and the anger of the people.

A Gift

It's not often I am given a gift a good as this!

Two days ago, I wrote a piece called "Going Postal". I had been at work all night and had the news running and reading some articles on the web. Of course 90% of the news was on the Townhalls and ObamaCare, then I ran across a story on the Post Office having a huge debt this year and a projected huge debt next year.

Everyone seemed to like to compare government run Health Care with the DMV, but I never liked that. DMV is state run and I never go there. I've got AAA and they can handle just about anything I need and being I haven't had a ticket in over 25 years, I just get renewals on my license.

Using the USPS as the benchmark of governmental inefficiency just seemed to fit so much better. Hell they just raised the price of postage and they are still in the hole.

Then, yesterday, Obambi went out to do some heavy campaigning for his program and I swear he picked up Joe Biden's notes by mistake.



Bwwahahaha!!!

They let him talk without his teleprompter again.

I've got to go turn on the news now to see Gibbs "uh" his way through the backtracking on this gaffe.

The Crap Just Keep Piling Up

The congresscritters from both sides of the aisle are running scared. Their August break is a time when they are able to drop by home for a couple days and tell the great unwashed what a wonderful job they are doing for us before flying off to the Bahamas to see if "Climate Change" has made it warmer down there this year.

They are going to need that junket when they hie their butts outta town. They have found themselves caught in a maelstrom of really pissed off constituents from all over the political spectrum.

Trying to explain how a bill that hasn't been written is going to save us all just ain't flying. Like every bill this Administration has come out with, there is a basic form, but no details, and after it passes, when they fill in the details, it doesn't do anything that they told us it was going to do.

The proles are starting to wake up and demand specifics BEFORE the ObamaCare bill gets through.

It has forced the Dimi's to dig deep into "Rahm's magic bag of Chicago political tricks ™" being they've thrown out the "RACIST" card too many times and everyone is just ignoring it.

Here's a cute one that they tried to pull, but it worked too well and they got caught with their pants down:

Democrats Send Out Phony Tearjerker Letters

An Oakland County [Michigan] Democratic Party official used interns to send falsified letters to Republican county commissioners in order to persuade them to vote for a health care resolution, according to a commissioner who received one of the letters.

Shelley Taub, R-Bloomfield Township, said she received a letter on July 9 from an unidentified woman from West Bloomfield Township who said she felt that she failed as a mother because she couldn't afford health care for her ill son.

"I got this letter and it tore my heart apart," Taub said. "When I read that this woman thought she was a failure as a mother because she couldn't provide health care, I thought, 'My God, I can do that. I know so many people (in health care). I'll get this kid help.' "

Taub and her husband searched for information about the woman, found out that she actually lived in Fraser, so Taub called the home phone number and left a message.

Taub said she received a phone call that night from the mother of the woman who sent the letter who informed Taub that her daughter was not married and is a student at the University of Michigan.

The woman who sent the letter explained to Taub that she had recently finished an internship with the Oakland County Democratic Party in Bingham Farms, Taub said. The woman said she and two other interns were given sample letters and told to modify them, change the return address and send them out, Taub said.

You think that with all the people they keep telling us that are desperate for Health insurance, they could come up with a couple of real people and give them a few bucks to write their story. I guess it's one of those "Jayson Blair" moments...we know the someone is out there with close to this type of story, but dang it, it's so much bother to go out and actually find one.

Pelousi and her gang have tried to say that we're "un-American" if we don't just shut up, sit down and inhale (deeply and hold it in) their talking point platitudes.

Of course if you don't heed their warnings about rocking the boat, well they have ways to correct that behavior too:



It's a poorly lit video, but they only come out at night...at least so far.

(Can't wait for "Card Check" to start!)

As an addendum to my post below I want to put this in:

Government Medicine Should Horrify Americans
By Deroy Murdock

Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: "Maybe I should pick up smoking."

The fact that America is even considering government medicine is equally wacky. The state guides health care for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.

When Congress reconvenes I pray they start hammering out some detail on this crap sandwich real quick. Telling us to 'trust them", it "has" to be done "NOW" has worn way to thin.

The tar is being heated and the chickens plucked!

Going Postal

So government thinks it can take over Health Care and provide more service and reduce costs.

Lets look at a simple government entity with a simple goal. Taking a product and making it move from point "A" to point "B". The government has been doing this for over 200 years, and they use to do it for free.

In my lifetime the cost of a 1st class stamp has gone up 106% while wages have gone up about 30 some-odd percent, yet they still have an expected shortfall of 7 billion dollars this year.

This is your government at work. They do not worry about overhead or unprofitable details, they know they get bailed out even if they screw it up...year after year, after year....

When e-mail ate into the amount of units they had to handle, did they reduce staff? No, they promote unnecessary people to management because the Union says they can't unload someone just because the position isn't necessary any longer, or hell really wasn't needed to begin with.

Now the government wants to run Health Care?

It always works out so good. People whose income counts on taxing people who really produce something. In other words, they require me to make money so the taxes that I pay can pay their salary.

The two biggest employers in the world are:

1) The Chinese Army @ 2.3 million

2) Indian State Railways @ 1.5 million

Followed by the NHS of Britain @ 1.3 million people

Let me insert one of those obnoxious staticsical thingys in here:
(click to biggify)



Even though;

Cancer survival rates in Britain are among the lowest in Europe, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the issue yet produced

England is on a par with Poland despite the NHS spending three times more on health care.

Of course the fact that the U.S. is sitting there proudly at the top of the lists...there is something wrong with our system and it must be made to fall in line with the countries below us.

It's only fair.

There is no way way you can convince me that the government is here to help me as far as my personal life. It is written into the bill that computer models are going to decided what treatment is "recommended" to be most cost effective.

If this gets through and you want recourse that your provider didn't do the right thing at the proper time.....

SORRY, YOU CAN'T SUE THE GOVERNMENT, THEY MADE THEMSELVES EXEMPT.

Maybe They Should Have a Different Title

Representative just doesn't seem to fit anymore.

Doggett gets chilly reception

Back in Central Texas while Congress is on a month-long recess, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett faced an angry audience at a town hall meeting at an Austin Randalls grocery store Saturday.

Doggett, D-Austin, spoke at the store at Brodie and Slaughter lanes. A video of the event on YouTube shows that many in the crowd had signs denouncing President Barack Obama's proposed health care plan.

Witnesses said that when Doggett was asked whether he would support the plan even if he found that his constituents opposed it, Doggett said he would. People then began chanting "just say no" and overwhelmed the congressman as he moved through the crowd and into the parking lot.

"The folks there thought their voices weren't being heard," said Kathy Acosta, a Bastrop resident who attended the meeting at Randalls and another one later that day in her hometown. "They were angry, but they were respectful. There wasn't any violence."

Calls and e-mails to Doggett's office were not returned Sunday

They don't address the concerns of their constituents, won't answer calls or e-mails and vote the way they want to regardless.

Czar, maybe...no being used, perhaps commissar.

Aahh! We Hurt Their Feelings

And I could give a Sh*t!

It seems someone has been traveling around L.A. and putting up some posters.



I saw one of them on my way into work yesterday glued to a signal box.

I guess Earl Ofari Hutchinson saw one too, because he's disturbed by it.

“Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery,” says Hutchinson, “it is mean-spirited and dangerous.”

Oh really?!



Or this from a year ago;



FETE

Must Be Another Of Those "Rights" Things

JOBLESS GRAD SUES COLLEGE FOR 70G TUITION

She has given new meaning to a class-action lawsuit.

Trina Thompson gave it the old college try, but couldn't find work. Now she thinks her sheepskin wasn't worth her time, and is suing her alma mater for her money back.

The Monroe College grad wants the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn't found gainful employment since earning her bachelor's degree in April, according to a suit filed in Bronx Supreme Court on July 24.

Three whole months!!! I just can't imaging how in this economy that someone who is fresh out of school and no hands on experience in her field couldn't land a job right off.

/sarcasm

The 27-year-old alleges the business-oriented Bronx school hasn't lived up to its end of the bargain, and has not done enough to find her a job.

The information-technology student blames Monroe's Office of Career Advancement for not providing her with the leads and career advice it promised.

"They have not tried hard enough to help me," the frustrated Bronx resident wrote about the school in her lawsuit.

I don't know all the details involved here, but it's my blog and I can opine.

Could be she does a lousy interview. Could show up late, not dress up. Or it could even be that the college didn't prepare her adequately for the job.

I went to a Trade/Tech school "Valley College for Medical and Dental Assistants" and learned Respiratory Therapy. The school had a "Career Service", but you find out quickly that the businesses that contact these schools usually have some minor problem with holding onto employees. They either pay to little or they're just crappy places to work ("We've placed lot of graduates with this company" is a clue) and they need a constant flow of new people to replace the ones that leave after a year.

I got my job by networking on my own. Apply everywhere, use any "in" you can through teachers, family, friends, friends of friends. I had a job 2 weeks after graduation that I held for 3 1/2 years, and only left to go back to school (which is another story "The Wasted Year(s)").

There is no guarantee of employment and sometime finding a job is harder than doing it.

Tea Party Ad

(From the info on You Tube)

This resulted from a Mom in Alabama asking her high school son to help with a commercial for the Tea Party she was involved in organizing. Boy, does it slam the message home. Very impressive.
Here is her note:
"I asked Justin if he could help me make a commercial for my group's Tea Party. He sat down at the laptop for about an hour, and then brought this to me and asked, 'is this okay, Mom?' After I finished watching it, my stomach was in my throat.
Everyone that I have sent it to has really enjoyed it, so I wanted my friends to see it. I am so proud!"
A very powerful video...turn up the sound & sit back...!!!

HT: Nice Deb

Pure Patriotism: A Book Reveiw

Pure Patriotism
by Clayton Thibodeau
98 pgs.

I was contacted by the author about 3 weeks ago and offered a copy of his book "Pure Patriotism" for review. I assured him that I was a fast reader and would enjoy reading it and giving my opinion.

About now I'm sure he's written me off as a flake, but I just finished the book today.

This is not a big book in the number of pages (98), but it is a big book on thoughts and beliefs. If you are like me, you won't want to just sit down and read through this book, you will read a section (or maybe two) and mark your place, set it aside and spend some time thinking through what you've read and how it applies to your life.

The book is not "Conservative" or "Liberal", it is an overview of what patriotism towards the United States entails and he points out the pitfalls of not adhering to the basic principles that were given to us by our founders.

Like me, Clayton's deepest concern is career politicians (royalty) and the lack of interest and action by us, the people of this great country. We were given such an immense gift, but through inattention and laziness are slowly watching our freedoms be stripped slowly away.

A book I will be glad to see on my bookshelf and will pull out just to open to a page and reread and rethink the topics.

Ahhh! Bless The Irish

I'd be betting this little story would shoor to be bringing a tear to your eye.

True Irish welcome for U.S. troops at wedding party
Happy couple invite stranded G.I.'s to join wedding celebrations
By
KELLY FINCHAM
,
IrishCentral.Com Editor

U.S. soldiers were given a true Irish welcome at a wedding in Co Clare this week.

The 300 troops were stranded in Shannon last weekend after their Iraq-bound plane was grounded.

As luck would have it, they were booked into the same hotel as the wedding party for Amelia Walsh and Sean O'Neill.

And so the 300 troops were invited to join the festivities at the Clare Inn in Newmarket-on-Fergus.

The groom's uncle, Joe O'Neill said: "It didn’t take long before the combat fatigues were manoeuvring to the strains of ‘The Walls of Limerick'."

The happy couple posed for pictures with the troops earlier in the day and Eamon Walsh, the father of the bride, said the couple were "proud" to have the soldiers at their function.

Walsh said the couple invited the men in so they could experience an Irish wedding.

"They behaved in an exemplary manner at all times and if our troops behaved in the same way when they are on peacekeeping duties, I would be very proud," he said.

O'Neill, who flew in to the wedding from his home in San Francisco, said: "As the soldiers began to mingle into the private wedding party banquet area they were told by their Commanding Officer that the area was a private party and off limits.

"Common decency, and Irish hospitality however, overruled personal political opinions, and the groom, a fine young man, accepting that I might be a little prejudiced in this respect, informed the Commanding Officer that they were welcome to join the party.

"I believe the groom’s brother summed up the general feeling of wedding guests when he said, “If my own son happened to be in that situation in a foreign country, I would hope that someone would show him a bit of a good time before he had to face what they are going to," he said.

Sean and Amelia, may you have a long and happy marriage.

I Believe

By Nate Beeler
© 2009

Bill Whittle and Sarah Palin

From the first essay that I read from Bill Whittle, an essay called "Honor", many years ago, I've envied this man's ability to put into words what I knew in my heart.

The Sarah Palin "controversy" has been sticking like a trout bone in my throat since she announced that she was stepping down as Governor. I wanted to write about it, but getting all the thoughts into a few hundred words just wouldn't come to me.

Well, Bill got it down. I wish they had an embed, but they don't, so go to PJTV and watch this video:

The Media, The Left and GOP Elitists vs. Sarah Palin: A Lesson on How to Destroy a Leader

It's free, and if you've got a so-so computer like I do, pick the "Basic flash" player on the left sidebar. It's a guy talking to you from his heart, so HD isn't a factor.

While you're there, look around. They have a lot of conservative commentators there that will give you something to ponder over, or give you points the next time you get drawn into explaining your side of the debate.

Also notice that I fully endorse Mr. Whittles book, SILENT AMERICA The Second Edition Bill Whittle over on the right sidebar.