Iraqi Cities--Iraqi Control

BAGHDAD – Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country. A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for U.S. combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities.
"The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We are now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty."

Fireworks, not bombings, colored the Baghdad skyline late Monday, and thousands attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs. Loudspeakers at police stations and military checkpoints played recordings of similar tunes throughout the day, as Iraqi military vehicles decorated with flowers and national flags patrolled the capital.

Midnight's handover to Iraqi forces filled many citizens with pride but also trepidation that government forces are not ready and that violence will rise. Shiites fear more bombings by Sunni militants; Sunnis fear that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces will give them little protection.

On a visit to Ramadi, a Sunni city 70 miles west of the capital, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, told the AP that when the sun rises on Tuesday "Iraqi citizens will see no U.S. soldiers in their cities. They will see only Iraqi troops protecting them."

The paragraphs above are only a small part of this wonderful story. Please follow this link for the rest. I can almost picture the grand party they had at Baghdad Park.

Well, I think it might be safe to say that "Today is the first day of the rest of the War." The celebrations in Iraq are a long time coming and I expect will last for some time yet.

The average Iraqi on the street had some mixed feelings today. A very deep sense of pride and patriotism comes with regaining 100% control of their cities. I can only imagine how fantastic it must feel for them today. The other emotion that grips the hearts and minds of many Iraqis is a deep-rooted fear of a possible return of the terrible sectarian killings of 2006 and 2007. How can anyone who lived through those days in Iraq not feel apprehensive now. Let us hope that the lessons learned during that time period will be remembered. I'm sure that there will be some who are not ready to quit yet, but I am also sure that they will squashed. I have to believe that the people will do whatever they have to to ensure that all the gains to date are not lost.

I am quite certain that every American, whether for or against us being there, hopes and prays that the peace holds. I am sure that almost all Iraqis feel the same way. Violence may and probably will increase somewhat in the short term but just maybe the light is visable at the end of the tunnel.

There are no words to adequately thank all of our fantastic servicepeople who had so much to do with the milestone we reached today. I know you have all heard me say this before, but I feel compelled to repeat myself: "Whenever you run into a vet, THANK them for what they do!!" You just can not fathom how much it means to them to hear it, and it doesn't cost a dime.

I just realized that this is the second post of the day. Please don't overlook the one below, it is a personal favorite of mine, and I think you will like it.

Veterans Monument in Gorham, N.H.

As you enter the center of the park in the town I grew up in, you will come upon this sight. It is the monument dedicated to all of the service members of all wars from the little town of Gorham, New Hampshire. The round stone structure in the foreground used to be a fountain and pool, but now they plant flowers in the center. Somebody probably all most drowned in it somewhere along the way. Liability you know. Too bad, I remember getting quite a bit of change out of there when I was a kid.

Left click on any of these pictures to fill your screen with an awesome view. You'll love them.


Here's a closer view. The stones covering the ground in front of the monument were each purchased and etched with the donors name. This provided the bulk of the funds for the construction of the project. It was dedicated on November 11th, 2000.


Most names have been listed twice, once in the concrete slabs and again on bronze plaques. I believe the ones on the bronze were the ones that actually saw combat duty because there are a few less of them, but I am not sure of this. I am on both. I spent quite a bit of time at this monument on the same day I visited the Vietnam Traveling Wall. I posted on that a couple of weeks ago. I have 14 relatives and over 80 friends memorialized here with me, this from a town of just over 3,000. I am in some very good company. My Dad, 5 cousins, 8 uncles, almost every male classmate from high school and a whole bunch of good friends, yes, very good company indeed!


This last picture is from the back side of the monument. I should have taken one of the entire back, but..... I imagine an update is due shortly. Gorham has many fine young men and women who have served recently, including quite a few from our local National Guard unit a couple years back. Sadly, I don't imagine the back will be half empty for long.

I hope you have enjoyed the second installment of my day of military reminiscing. I will have one more segment soon. I also visited Memorial Park in Berlin, where I live now, on the same day. You'll like the pictures I took of the various memorials there, especially the Vietnam Memorial.

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson Die

As I watched the news Thursday morning, I was saddened to hear that one of my childhood sex idols, Farrah Fawcett lost her long battle with cancer. She accomplished a lot in her 62 years here. Like most older fans, my first memories of her was of a rather ditzy blonde bomb shell, one of Charlie's Angels. It took her quite a while to cast off the image of being a dizzy blonde. She proved to America that she had much more to offer when, in 1984, we saw her in "The Burning Bed." What a great performance that was. Her last work, a documentary about the cancer that ended up killing her, was by far her best performance. It might just be because of my generation, but I'll take Farrah and the countless other sex kittens from the 60's and 70's over today's crop any day. They were so much more wholesome, and so much more earthly. The term "bimbo" was never really defined until their replacements came along.



Fast-forward to Thursday evening. I'm sitting at the bar of my favorite watering hole sipping on a White Russian and trying to keep up with the closed captions as I watch CNN news. Whoooaa! What's that, Michael Jackson was just rushed to the hospital? Yup. A short while later he's dead. Wow, I'm thinking. Two celebrities on the same day. Damn, I thought he was older than 50. I guess it's all those face-lifts and various other surgeries. I remember him as a child when it was the whole family. I thought he was pretty good back then. I even still enjoyed his music during the moonwalking and the Pepsi roasting commercials era. When he started playing around with the kids, well, that's when I quit listening. I have absolutely no use for pedophiles. He may have had enough money to stay out of jail, but I will NEVER have any doubt about his guilt. I am surprised his career managed to bounce back, it certainly wasn't because of me.

Talk about media imbalance. They never stopped covering his death until I left the bar in disgust about 4 hours later. Those fucking idiots Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were there with their ugly mugs in front of the camera. Pathetic assholes! FOUR hours talking about that damned pervert. I'll bet it lasted a lot longer than that, but when I got home, I had control of the remote! If I hadn't caught the morning news, I never would have even known that Farrah Fawcett had died the same day. Where's the fairness in that?? As far as I am concerned, good riddance. To bad Al and Jesse couldn't have caught the same ride to Hell with him!

X.O.T.U.S. (Exterminator of the United States)

PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly

You have likely all seen the gory brutality that the messiah displayed during an interview on CNBC with John Harwood when an uncommonly brazen housefly dared to interupt his swineness. Well, it seems that his dastardly devilish inhumane deed did not go completely unnoticed. The folks at PETA, although generally great pals of the messiah, have not been able to reconcile this act of brutality perpetrated against a member of the defenseless animal kingdom. They have decided to react.

The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the flyswatter in chief to try taking a more humane attitude the next time he's bedeviled by a fly in the White House.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

"We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

During an interview for CNBC at the White House on Tuesday, a fly intruded on Obama's conversation with correspondent John Harwood.

"Get out of here," the president told the pesky insect. When it didn't, he waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked it dead.

"Now, where were we?" Obama asked Harwood. Then he added: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker."

Friedrich said that PETA was pleased with Obama's voting record in the Senate on behalf of animal rights and noted that he has been outspoken against animal abuses.

Still, "swatting a fly on TV indicates he's not perfect," Friedrich said, "and we're happy to say that we wish he hadn't."

Deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House has no comment on the matter.

Follow this link to get to the entire story. Please be sure to view the clip at the bottom of the article, especially the end where our dispicable president KICKS that poor defenseless, and probably dead by then, fly under the bus. It is a temper tantrum that you will not want to miss. No wonder the people closest to him are so careful not to piss him off. Is that what REALLY happened to our Secretary of State?


From Glenn Beck, cartoon is by Rob Smith Jr. Thanks for the idea and link Kris.

Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall

This is a view of the East wing of the Traveling Wall. The left end starts while the French were still there in 1955 and runs through mid-1968 on the right end.


This is a view of the West wing of the Traveling Wall. The left end of this segment starts out in mid-1968 and continues until the last death of the war in 1975.




The Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall came to my little home town of Gorham, N.H. this weekend. I wrestled with the idea of going to see it, or not going to see it. I was afraid that if I went, I would lose the ambition to go see the real thing in D.C. After a lot of soul searching, I decided I could not pass up the opportunity to go and see it. I mean heck, I only live 6 miles away from it. I am so glad I did. I am now even more determined to get my butt down to D.C. Enough time has passed, and let's face it, or at least I have to face it, I am no longer a "spring chicken."

The lay-out of this monument is quite unique in that the beginning and the end of the war meet right in the middle. I wonder what, if any, significance should be read into that? As impressive as the wall is, what struck me the hardest was the number of panels dedicated to the lives lost in 1968, the year I was there. On the far right, the last 38 panels, and on the far left, another 36 panels are covered with the thousands of names of my fellow comrades who died while I was there. (The total number of panels is 150.)(I arrived in country on Jan. 5th 1968 and left on Jan. 4th 1969.) How many did I meet but not get to know? How many may have been just ahead or just behind me and maybe took the one meant for me? As a Huey crewchief, I was in the air most of the time. How many did we fly over, not knowing that their minutes were numbered? How many shot the very same gook just as he was about to shoot us down? To many questions. No answers. I found a quote which I can not give credit for the author, but I have to share it with you, my dear readers. Some very profound words:

"For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."





Take a close look at these numbers. America sent 3,100,000 men and women to Vietnam to fight for freedom, to keep Communism from spreading throughout South East Asia. Of that number, 58,253 died, 153,303 were wounded, and 1,802 are still missing. That, my friends, means that about 7 out of every 100 personel sent over there were very seriously physically affected. I am sure you can quadruple that percentage if you add in the severely mentally screwed up. Gee, with all that I wonder why Vietnam vets were THE FIRST to step up to the plate to make sure the Gulf War vets were HONORED and WELCOMED HOME upon their return? Why are most Vietnam Vets so damned patriotic? Why do they detest assholes that burn our flag? Why do they still care so much for a country that turned their backs on them? Why are they on that dumb bitch, Janet Napolitano's hit list? Why? Why? Why?

Because we LOVE America, THAT'S WHY!!

During the weekend, I started feeling a bit nostalgic, so I also visited the memorials in Gorham and Berlin. That brought on a whole lot more feelings and memories which I think I shall write about, perhaps in a future post. Until then friends, spread this word for me if you would, "If you love your freedom, thank a vet!" Make a habit of it, it'll actually make you feel better about yourself.

These pictures were taken with our fairly new camera. My wife has become quite good at taking pictures with it, but since she has pretty much confiscated it since we bought it, I have just started to feel comfortable with it. If you left click on the pictures, you will find that they are HUGE! And beautiful, even if I do say so myself. Here's 1 more for you. It's interesting to compare the statistics of the various wars in our history.

Flag Day 2009

Tomorrow, June 14th, 2009 is Flag Day. Please remember to display me proudly so that your friends and neighbors will know what a caring and patriotic person you are. I stand for all of the good and righteous things that is the United States of America, but, of course you already knew that. That is why you WILL adorn your home with me on my special day. Spread the word so that all Americans will know that. Thank you in advance for showing your patriotism by honoring me and, more importantly, all that I stand for.

Sincerely

The American Flag!

Climate Change Catastrophy

Are all the water pipes in D.C. lined with lead? Is there something else in the water that makes people go insane? Does the word "common sense" still exist down there? Just what in HELL are our politicians trying to do to us? Even "Stupid is as stupid does" does not fit the situation we find ourselves in these days. I sit here day after day reading and hearing about the latest schemes to destroy us and I just plain can't believe what I see and hear. This President and this congress must have spent years planning all the crap they are perpetuating on us right now, this crap can't just be off the cuff.

Of course I had heard about this whole "cap and trade" scheme prior to now, but it seems to have mushroomed into a much bigger pile of shit than it originally was. Turns out it's just another humungus way to "spread the wealth" again. Make everybody pay through the nose for energy and give a little of that money back to the workless ones. I sure hope there are millions of people planning to do something further with the "tea party" beginnings we had back in April. We the people of this once great country had best be planning NOW to oust most of the idiots next year or there is no way we will EVER get back to any semblance of normal. Here's an article that is bound to make you want to either puke or kill someone. I will be puking myself empty as soon as I hit the "post" button.

WASHINGTON – Low-income families will receive hundreds of dollars a year to help pay higher energy bills if Congress enacts the first-ever limits on the gases blamed for global warming, according to a new analysis.

But it is unclear just how much more those families will have to pay for energy.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the cost of global warming legislation working its way through the House estimates that low-income families could initially receive $161-$359 in credits or rebates, if the bill becomes law. That amount could rise to $282-$628 by 2019, depending on the family's size. (redistribution of wealth)

The money would come from the government auctioning off pollution permits to companies that release climate-altering gases. The amount of permits that will be sold will increase over time and they will become more expensive, generating $846 billion from 2010-2019, the analysis says. (I'd call that a pretty good sized new tax, wouldn't you?)

The bulk of that money — $693 billion — would be given away as free permits to companies and states to ease costs. The remainder will pay for research, the energy tax credits and rebates, and a worker assistance program that will provide benefits including lost wages and health insurance to people who lose their jobs because of the limits placed on global warming pollution.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is sponsoring the bill along with Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called it a win-win Monday, pointing out that it could actually reduce the federal deficit by a total of $24 billion over the next 10 years. Over that decade, however, the deficit is expected to total $9.3 trillion. (those fucking idiots can't really believe that bullshit, can they?)

"The Waxman-Markey bill will get our planet out of the red, while helping to put our budget back in black," Markey said in a statement. (can he really be that stupid, or does he think we are?)

President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that any effort to control the gases blamed for global warming should provide relief to lower-income households. His budget proposal called for the auctioning of 100 percent of the permits to companies, with most of the money going to poor and middle-class families to ease higher energy prices. (I don't know who's worse, him or Al Gore)

The bill before Congress would only return revenues directly to families from the sale of 15 percent of the permits. It is unclear just how much of the additional cost in energy and other goods the resulting rebate or credit will cover.

Various studies by the federal government, universities, and think tanks have found that the average household could pay an extra $98 to $1,600 a year for electricity, gas and other goods that need energy to be produced if the government requires mandatory reductions in heat-trapping gases. Lower-income households are likely to feel the burden more because they spend a greater percentage of their income on energy.

The price increases are expected to come as companies pass on the cost of buying permits and reducing the emissions linked to global warming.

The legislation calls for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, and an 83 percent cut by mid-century. (want to reduce gases, try shutting your frigging pieholes for a change! There's your reduction in emmissions!)

It will achieve that reduction by giving away and selling pollution permits to companies operating 7,400 facilities nationwide, including power plants, refineries and factories. Those companies can then reduce pollution to meet limits, or purchase excess permits from companies that have already met the threshold.

Republicans immediately said the analysis confirmed that energy prices would rise as a result of the legislation. They also said the tax credit — which would only apply to individuals making less than $23,000 and families earning less than $42,000 — means some working-class families will be left out.

"Increasing Americans' fuel and utility bills in this recession is not only bad policy, but it completely ignores the hardships millions of Americans are already facing," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, which plans to take up the bill this month. "This is dangerous legislation in desperate need of closer review."

What will really happen is that everything we buy will cost more. I can't think of any product that will be imune to price increases due to either it's manufacture, or the transportation to get it here. This bill has the potential to devastate a lot of good companies and in turn, a lot of jobs.

The saddest part is that all this shit is based on that crap about man being at fault for the shift in Earth's weather patterns, something that has been happening since the beginning of time. Talk about audacity, this is "THE AUDACITY OF CHANGE" to the Nth degree.