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Letter from a Serviceman

From my inbox.

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea is this is a real letter or not. There is no information on Snopes.com. Either way, this is a very valid point and I wholeheartedly agree.

____________________________
This is written by a young man serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.
Thought you might find his take on the Michael Jackson
news interesting.
____________________________

Okay, I need to complain.

I was just watching the news, and I caught part of a report on Michael Jackson. As we all know, Jackson died. He was an entertainer who performed and he made millions, he spent millions, and he did a lot of things that make him a villian to many people. I understand that his death would affect a lot of people, and I respect those people who mourn his death, but that isn’t the point of my concern.

Why is it that when ONE man dies, most of America loses their minds with grief. When a man dies whose only contribution to the country was to ENTERTAIN people, the Amercian people find the need to flock to a memorial in Hollywood, and even Congress sees the need to hold a “moment of silence” for his passing?

Am I missing something here? ONE man dies, and all of a sudden he’s a martyr because he entertained us for a few decades? What about all those SOLDIERS who have died to give us freedom? All those Soldiers who, knowing that they would be asked to fight in a war, still raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitutionand the United States of America. Where is their moment of silence? Where are the people flocking to their graves or memorials and mourning over them because they made the ultimate sacrifice? Why is it when a Soldier dies, there are more people saying “good riddence,” and “thank God for IEDs?” When did this country become so calloused to the sacrifice of GOOD MEN and WOMEN, that they can arbitrarily blow off their deaths, and instead, throw
themselves into mourning for a “Pop Icon?”

I think that if they are going to hold a moment of silence IN CONGRESS for Michael Jackson, they need to hold a moment of silence for every service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They need to PUBLICLY recognize every life that has been lost so that the American people can live their callous lives in the luxury and freedom that WE, those that are living and those that have gone on, have provided for them. But, wait, that would take too much time, because there have been so many willing to make that sacrifice. After all, we will never make millions of dollars. We will never star in movies, or write hit songs that the world will listen too. We only shed our blood, sweat and tears so that people can enjoy what they have.

Sorry if I have offended, but I needed to say it. Remember these five words the next time you think of someone who is serving in the military;

“So that others may live…”

Isaac

Back on the bandwagon

I started, I stopped, I started again, I stopped a bunch more times…

This time needs to happen.

Time to lose some weight.

I’m 80lbs heavier than I was 2 years ago. I had lost that 80lbs between Jan07 and Sept07. Then I fell back into eating bad and neglecting my gym membership, and lo and behold, the 80lbs showed back up.

I had heavy friend die of heart failure earlier this year and it scared the crap out of me. Unfortunately, it got pushed to the back of my mind like most other important issues. Oh yeah – she was 40… 10 years older than me.

I’ve been eating good since Thursday (yesterday was questionable, but that’s ok. I’m going to give myself some cheat days). I’ve even gone caffeine free.

I figure if I blog about it, maybe it’ll keep me in line. I think I’m going to add a section to this blog for my updates… Food, exercise, pics… Similar to this guy: http://www.344pounds.com/

Sadly, that’s about where I’m starting. I was 339 last week. This morning, I’m down to 334.6. All water weight, I’m sure, but an ok start non-the-less.

I plan on using some tools to help:

TheDailyPlate.com (now part of LiveStrong.com) for calorie/food/weight tracking.

MotionX GPS on the iPhone to track walks, bike rides and maybe runs???? down the road… My friend Bob says theres a runner in everybody. I have yet to believe it… 

Menshealth.com has good forums with a ton of support and great downloadable workout sheets. Even an iPhone app.

Sarah’s doing WeightWatchers, so it looks like this is going to be a couples thing.

My goal – 225 in the end.

Let’s get it on!

By the way – for those non-Simpsons fans, the picture above is Fat Tony… Get it? Fat… Nevermind.

Ninja-in-Chief

Even Nate…

…needs his morning cup…

Happy Friday!

For the second time today, I’m speechless…

Time warp…

This is a cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934.

75 years later, it’s all happening again.

Click for a larger picture…

American capitalism gone with a whimper

by Stanislav Mishin, op-ed in Pravda, 27 April 2009

Link to the full text HERE

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Happy Friday!!

…And no, I’m not in The Richter Scales…

New Car

Sarah and I are in the market to buy a new car in the near future. We had thought about a minivan, or possibly a larger SUV…

Then I heard about a new car coming out next year from GM. It’s a bit smaller than we wanted, but i think it’s going to fit into our family nicely…

Here’s the press release:

The new GM (Government Motors) proudly introduces the 2010 Obama …

This car runs on hot air and broken promises. It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through tight left turns.

It comes complete with two Teleprompters programmed to help the occupants talk their way out of any violations. 

The transparent canopy reveals the plastic smiles still on the faces of all the “happy” democrat owners.

On second thought, maybe we’ll just get a gas guzzling, environmentally unfriendly, War in Iraq supporting Yukon…

Non-hybrid, of course…