Blogger Reflection Award

I've been tagged by TMW, here are the rules: (excuse me if I don't follow them very well)
1. Copy this post (meaning the rules).
2. Reflect on five bloggers and write a least a paragraph about each one.
3. Make sure you link this post so others can read it and the rules.
4. Go leave your chosen bloggers a comment and let them know they’ve been given the award.
5. Put the award icon on your site.

"This award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy . . . of knowing them and being blessed by them."

Beakerkin,
I met Beak at Bad Eagle and we hit if off right away. He is one of the funnest people I know but to really get a taste of his humor you have to listen to him do a radio broadcast. Beak has been my best friend on the web since we battled 167, his sockpuppets and his toad, craigy b. We kicked butt!

Mr Beamish,
Beamish, (Cuz) has a nasty streak that I admire and he pisses all the right people off! I had always thought that leftism was a mental disease but I was surprised to learn that they actually were compelled to show everyone they were morons.

My three sisters,

Always on Watch,
Although she came to this game late, she has more than made up for it with her determination and research. A world class blogger more than equal to the task.

Nanc,
A well defined sense of right and wrong with the protective instincts of a momma grizzly. One of the wisest decisions I've ever made was to ask her to be my blogging partner.

The Merry Widow,
A Godly woman and a warrior for the Lord. A member of my team and a heart of gold.

I love my sisters and if you give me a hard time, watch out when the long knifes come out!

:^)


I have to add Elmer's Brother and Farmer John.

EB is always there when you need a backup.

Farmer makes my brain swell and itch.

¡A mis hermanos y hermanas!

OKAY, SO SOMETIMES HE'S

he's a little verbose...



but, some of the time he gets his point across in one or two swift words. can any of us deny that dennis has a way with words?

we love dennis at our house - and now you can enjoy his rants anytime of the day or night!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This day in history:

1923 : Dillinger joins the Navy in an attempt to avoid prosecution
1940 : Bugs Bunny's debut
1953 : Armistice ends the Korean War
19XX : Nanc was born

I hope you appreciate the trouble I went through!

My neighbors cat sure didn't. ;^)

YOU HEARD IT HERE 2ND

ward churchill, phony cigarstore indian, has finally had his comeuppance.

in an 8-1 vote, he was relieved of his tenure, "The move came after academic committees found in 2006 that Churchill was guilty of academic misconduct, including plagiarism."

although it only took the board a little over an hour to come to their decision, it was heard, ""It's been a long hard day," said Hayes. "Not an easy decision for the board."

jeesh - i have a more difficult time deciding which pair of black shoes to wear...

read the rest of the story.

thank the Great Spirit the board saw fit to release this phony man from his position to further poison the minds of our young people.

one can see from the proud look on his che loving face, he's no native of anyplace other than the hell he came from.

NOTE: native american indians DO NOT have a jawline/chin like that of this indian wannabe. may he find a job cleaning nuclear reactors in north korea...at least he'd be appreciated for his arsekissing-the-enemy-behind talents.

MY BABY BOY

will be sixteen years old next week!

i could not be more excited.

tomorrow, after work, i'll be taking our two and one of their overnight guests to take the written part of their driver's test in order for them to either obtain their student driver licenses - NONE of them did very well on the written samplers so i expect a short day.

nancson came to me last night and was telling me of one of his "concubines" who he stated is "a christian, mama" and started babbling on about how they often go to one of the ONLY drive-in theaters left in the nation!

she, two of her girlfriends and one male friend, has asked MY BABY BOY to go with them to the DRIVE-IN!

that's not even the heart of the matter - apparently, one of her parents takes them all every other week or so in order for it to be a chaperoned event. okay, here's where it gets good - nancson PLEADED with ME to go with them!

it's his first, freakin' semi-date and he wants me to go with them!

DEAR LORD! i can easily think of five hundred other things i'd rather do than go on my son's first semi-date with him!

i said, "do i have to?" he responded, "i'd love for you to go and get to know my friends." me, "why?" him, "mama, you know why..."

nope, still don't. what is it with children these days?

this could easily turn into an "oh boo" moment at any moment...

"oh boo" moment 2007.19.7

i don't know about you, but these moments are happening with such frequency that i am barely able to keep track of them.

yesterday afternoon, while cleaning the garage, nancson came out to the garage and somewhat angrily asked me, "mom, does anyone in your blogging group call you "butterball"?" he's very protective of me.

wellllllll, i said, "not to my face! why?"

"mom, some man just called asking for "butterball", and i said there was nobody here by that name. i hope it wasn't one of your friends."

a little while later as i was entering the house, he squealed, "MOMMMMMMM! the guy called back and asked for "butterball"! if he calls again, i'm going to say NO, sorry "butterball" is very busy right now, but i might have another girl in the back you could talk to! how about cupcake - you want to talk to cupcake?"

and he proceeded to ramble and mumble on about what he would say if the guy called back, some of it not pretty.

that said, i reminded him there is a "butterball" turkey plant nearby and he probably had the wrong number.

...oh boo...

"OH BOO" MOMENT 2007.8.7

this is a twofold "oh boo" moment. please be patient as i explain this seemingly unrelated tale.

okay, so we return from my mountain and all outdoor vegetation is in dire need of some tlc. i'm NOT the tee-ell-cee-er of the family, nancpop is. for those of you who have come to know and love him, please do not be disappointed in him at the outcome of this story.

first i discover some of our tomatoes have been housing tomato hornworms! OH, STINKING BOO!

two or three of these on a tomato plant can decimate the plant within a couple of days - they are voracious eaters and relentless in their pursuit of YOURS AND MY tomato plants.

it is a well-known gardener's secret that if you plant dill alongside your tomato plants, it will aid in keeping these pesky creatures away. well my dill is planted quite a distance from the 'maters.

pop hunted down every last hornworm and mashed them to smithereens - finding them is difficult because they blend in so well. while he's hunting and mashing, i'm picking fresh dill to scatter about the base of the tomato plants in an effort to hinder their relatives from coming around these parts.

when the battle was over, we sat down to have a cold one and visit. i reached over and grabbed a sprig of dill and put it in my mouth to just chew on - love it!

nancpop, in all seriousness, asks, "hmmmm, i wonder if i could put some of that dill in my next batch of bread?"

i replied, "well of course you can!"

with a straight face, he responds, "hmmmm, dill dough."

...oh boo...

Somewhat Less than Human

Sometimes a person hesitates to repeat or report certain things because of basic decency. But our MSM has low balled our enemy time and again, failing to report factual events and repeating obvious propaganda to "advance the story line".

There is no concrete evidence at this time to prove beyond doubt that all of these events actually happened. But for those of us without BDS and understanding of what is actually happening in the Middle East, we cannot dismiss them out of hand.

Michael Yon reports from Iraq:
[...]

"In one grave, soldiers recovered the heads of decapitated children, some with still partially recognizable remnants of flesh and hair. When I left the village, the digging was still ongoing, but I had seen and heard enough for the update I published the next day.
[...]
During a meeting, an Iraqi official in the room—who asked to remain anonymous—provided a narrative of how al Qaeda took control of Baqubah and much of Diyala Province. The paragraph that generated controversy follows:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Every syllable I wrote about this reported incident was in that paragraph, which offers no opinion about the veracity of his words.

Mr. Abdul Jabar had lived near the al Hamari village. He had more details about what happened there, and he was willing to go on the record. The reported incidents, wretching though they were and are, were reported “as is.”
When context is other people’s children

As I write these words just a few miles from the graves I saw, the resulting controversy about whether what the man said was true, or whether his words should have been written if the writer couldn’t verify them, seems precious. There is no imaginary line of credulity that al Qaeda might cross should it go from beheading children to baking them.

"


Please read the whole report.

I've been taged!

Players list 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, players then tags 8 people by posting their names and makes sure they know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at the tagee’s blog.

Sorry, but I won't be tagging anyone. The reason for that is that I'm at the bottom of the pyramid. Everyone I know has already participated.

But here goes:

8. I wear colored jockey shorts.

7. I was a lay minister in the Catholic church and asked to consider the Deaconate.

6. For some reason, dogs love me.

5. Pepperoni pizza is my favorite fruit.

4. I've driven one of these, over 65 mph on the Autobahn. (It was a hoot!)

3. The first computer I programed looked like this. The computer, itself, weighed 175 lbs, plus a couple of hundred more pounds more for the "portable" 3kw generator that ran it. (220 volt 3 phase). It had a laughably small memory even compared to a pocket calculator.

It was a solid state device, (transistors and crystal diodes, no vacuum tubes). The machine had a stored-program and was used for automatic computing and visual displaying of firing data (gun orders) for Field Artillery weapons and free firing missiles like the Nike-Hercules. There was no CRT, (monitor), the visual display consisted of 16 nixi-tubes which were neon bulbs with a figure 8 shaped filament that worked similar to the LCD display of a modern calculator. At the time I used it, it was the first truly "portable" computer. Other computers that could handle ballistic computation were the size of a room and weighed several tons.

One day, my commanding officer told me, "You're getting a FADAC." I didn't know what the hell a FADAC was. FADAC is the acronym for "Field Artillery Digital Automatic Computer". At the time, we were figuring firing data with slide rules and computational tables similar to trigonomic tables, functions and logarithms.

I figured that someone would give me some training, no such luck. When the FADAC arrived, I was given an operation manual and a cursory "good luck!" My commanding officer told me that, I "would" have the FADAC up and running by the end of the week.

There was a slight problem.

FADACs, were programed with a dual use program and the Army, in its infinite wisdom, had seen fit to send this FADAC to an 8"-203mm firing battery with a program for 155mm and 105mm Howitzers.

"No problem", said the CO, "Just call ordinance and they will reprogram the computer". With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I called ordinance. Ordinance informed me, yes, it was their responsibility to reprogram the computer, yes, they had the correct program on punched paper tape, no they wouldn't program the computer because they didn't have anyone that had ever did it before.

Outranked, I knew that I couldn't get ordinance to do anything they didn't want to do, back to the CO. The CO called Ordinance and got kicked upstairs to someone that outranked him. Ordinance wouldn't program the FADAC "but" they would loan us the necessary equipment and we could do it ourselves and they would tell us how to do it.

Notice that "no one knew how" but they could tell "us" how to do it! ("Us", consisted of me).

Back to the manuals!

Short story long, I did it!

I also found out that we had to check the firing data from the computer the same way we had figured it before we got the FADAC. I also found out hat we could figure the firing data faster, by hand and slide rule, quicker than we could punch it into the FADAC.

What that meant, in effect, we had another 400 lbs of almost useless equipment to lug around.

My CO decided to volunteer my services as a computer programmer to our sister units. It seems that our sister 155mm Howitzer units received their FADACs with a program to figure firing solutions for 8"-203mm Howitzers and Nike-Hercules missiles.

Now they use little hand-held, programmable, scientific calculators that are far more of a computer than FADAC could ever hope to be.

2. I haven't had a car payment since 1972 when I paid off my 1970 Gremlin.

1. I'm dyslexic.

Those that Pledged their Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor

From a speech delivered by Rush Limbaugh's Father.

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

· Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered -- and his estates in what is now Harlem -- completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

· William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home they found a devastated ruin.

· Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

· Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

· John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

· Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

· Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

· Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.

· George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

· Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

· John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: "Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country."

· William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

· Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage, he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

· Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large landholdings and estates.

· Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my home?" They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.


And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.

He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Happy Fourth of July to you all!

NAME TEN OTHER COUNTRIES

you can do this to your nation's flag without fear of retribution.

God bless this nation and God bless u.s. all as we deal with the idiocy of the left, today and everyday.

we the people thank You daily for the freedoms we all share and take for granted.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYBODY!

...whether you appreciate this great country or not.