Free Republic

Air Force One is only one of the planes that will make the trip. There are the planes that carry the limos, the Secret Service, and all the support vehicles, personnel, and communications equipment.

Then there are all the emissions that come from getting Obama from the airport to where he is going, plus all of the emissions from all of the idling local vehicles tied up in the massive traffic jams that are so much a feature of a Presidential visit to a city.

Then, there was the trip to pick up the Nobel Gong while insulting just about every co-celebratory group and entity in Norway while he was there.

Planting an entire forest wouldn’t come close to the emissions involved in this.

The DI lost control in a public situation. The evidence of his losing control is taking aggressive action toward the recruit in front of a news camera crew. There appear to be several former military people, including Marines, who seem to have forgotten just how unwise it is to even appear to lose control in front of a civilian news crew.

In so doing, the DI has brought great discredit upon both himself and the Marine Corps. ...And that is completely aside from the recruit's death in the pool on another day.

If the DI was unable to uderstand the ramifications of his actions in front of the camera in a training situation, then his is the kind of lack of judgement that I would not want to have within radio distance of any combat action I was participating in. Given the fact that the recruit was later involved in a fatal incident, I would hazard a guess that there were a whole lot of problems going on in that unit, and that the Commandant is going to have a whole raft of senior investigators all over the place in short order.

I fer darn sure would not want to have that Marine anywhere near me when the going got as tough as it did in some of the places I was in. I'd much rather have someone who had a real good grasp of the entire situation, and I'm not so certain that guy could maintain enough situational awareness to keep me and everyone around me as safe as possible.

...But perhaps that's just me...

I am a Vermonter ... which means I was born there ... and then I grew up there. After that, I spent 22 years in the military.

When I came back, Vermont was no longer what I remembered. Conservative values were shoved to the cellar by the attitudes of the folks who made their money somewhere Away, and then used that money to scarf up some Vermont real estate. Once they accomplished that, they moved right into applying the political mores of the places they had come from. That's how we got a Vermont that is now more liberal than the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island and Manhatten stomping grounds they made enough money to escape from.

They elected a transplanted Upper Westie named Howard Dean to represent them as governor.

They have George Aiken spinning in his grave so fast that he's providing a chunk of alternative energy to the Green Mountain Power grid. Calvin Coolidge is revved up to nearly as good a producer. There are many others.

That's why I decided the better option to the aggravation was to up sticks and move to the hinterlands of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

I wish Killington well, but don't see it happening yet.

Ex-governor Dean was so proud of his healthcare program in Vermont ... now it's going bust...

Could be fun...how many villages, towns, and cities all across the Chrsitian world do you think we can do this in?

Reports will be very welcome, and "progressives" deeply concerned!

I personally can't wait until the day comes when someone wants to install a large-scale commercial solar farm out in the desert and the Greener Than Thous come out of the woodwork in opposition because the solar panels will harm the desert tortoise by shading its environment!

So...I guess this means that PETA won't be supporting Mr. Kerry on November 2?

Yes...of course I believe that...well...no...not really...

This isn't about Kerry. This isn't about Berger. This is about an NCO who committed crimes on people who were under his custody and control. He violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. He allowed his subordinates to participate in his and other crimes. He violated his oath of service and his actions tainted the service of all the honorable men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

He entered a guilty plea in order to get a reduced sentence. He was given that sentence, and I sincerely hope he serves every day. I hope he serves that sentence and the U.S. Military Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, and not at some other lesser military prison.

He will not be held in a position of honor by his fellow inmates. He will be regarded as the lowest of the low, even by them.

I hope that President Bush never gives in to any sentiment that this man should be pardoned or released early.

This is an NCO who broke faith with all of his fellow service members, exposing them to the increased chance of maltreatment should they ever be captured by enemy forces.

He is fortunate that I was not the military judge who accepted his guilty plea and sentenced him.

I say all of this as a military retiree who fully understands the gravity of this man's actions, and how they caused grievious damage to our nation and to our nation's military forces.

During WWII, under a Democrat president, my dad was sent to Europe...for the duration. He understood what that meant. His family understood what that meant. He came back several months after the war ended. He was lucky...only he and seven of the other guys in his platoon who shipped over with him were still alive and well.

The guys who were supposed to be coming back from Iraq were projected to be rotated back about now. Conditions have changed. They are being extended. Assignments can change for contingencies at any time. What's so difficult to understand about that?

OK, so a bunch of those folks extended are upset. I would be, too. But my 22 years in the military would make me understand that this was something that could happen.

OK, so a lot of the deployed folks' families are upset. Mine would be, too. I hope, though, that I would have prepared them well enough to be able to weather a contingency-dictated tour extension. If I had failed to do so, that would be my fault.

Hey, we're in the middle of a war! Wars are horrible, messy events, and being caught up in one is absolutely no fun...been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Once started, wars need to be left to the commanders on the ground, politicians need to stay the heck out of the road, and pundits need to do what pundits do.

If Mr. Kerry were any kind of real veteran, he would understand this simple concept and not be working so hard to screw things up and get more American kids killed...cause sure as God made little green apples, that's exactly what he and his buds are doing. If the Democrat power figures and the media had any real loyalty to those kids and their commanders, they would be acting a heck of a lot differently than they are.

Dr. Willie Soon has some really good rebuttal information. His most recent article came to my inbox today...

http://www.techcentralstation.com/012804B.html

One of the better collections of articles arguing against the "Greener Than Thou" positions is online at...

http://www.techcentralstation.com/climatechange.html

If you're really looking for as short retort at some point, all you have to do is ask a simple question, "If you believe that humanity has a major influence on climate change, can you please explain to me why the polar caps on Mars are shrinking?" (Be sure you can back this up with reference to NASA JPL's research into the phenomenon...)

The Inuit elders, who have many, many names for different types of snow, are emphasising that it's not so much that it's getting warmer in the high Arctic as that the sun is getting stronger. These consumate cold-weather observers are quite likely onto something, even though they don't have huge climate-modeling super-computers.

My letter to the Seattle Times...

=============================

Well, seems like the impacts of the Marysville teachers' strike are coming home to roost. School vacations cut, summer vacations starts July 17, and there's no telling when the next school year will begin. Family plans are tossed into the dustbin of uncertainty. Who's damaged most by this? Why, the very children the teachers profess to love and care about so much...and by telling families not to purchase those vacation tickets yet, they're still holding the kids hostage!

Seems to me to be pretty darn reprehensible that children are hurt when adults forget how to talk civilly to one another...but maybe that's just me. Doesn't seem to matter a hill of beans to that bunch of teachers who waited until the school year was getting ready to start before going on strike. I guess their argument just wouldn't have enough impact unless the lives of all the families with kids in school were screwed up.

Oh, I know, I know...the teachers who read this will want to tell me that I don't understand, that it's all the mean old school district administrators who didn't want to make things right, that the teachers really, really wanted to be in the classroom. Rubbish! All they had to do was to decide to be in the classroom while negotiations continued. Shoot, they could have still picketed the school board after school and on weekends! They chose otherwise until a judge told them to get back to work. At least enough of them woke up at that point to decide to do the right thing.

I hold that there are two general classes of teachers...those who have jobs, and those who are professionals. I was fortunate to have very few job-holders as the teachers of my youth. It's quite apparent what most Marysville students have. I know what my attitude toward those teachers would be if I was a student...I'd be holding a full bag of hostility. Those few real professional teachers in Marysville have my heartfelt sympathy for what their job-holding colleagues have done to them.

The Marysville students and their families have my sympathies, too. They've been through a mind-numbing education nightmare, and it's not over yet. If I lived there, homeschooling or private school would be looking real attractive right now...even knowing that the District would come howling to my door that they need a levy to stay afloat when student enrollments take a dive. Just what do all those job-holding teachers think they are really teaching their students this year?

We're missing the obvious here...this happened in school, was perpetrated by the teacher and adult staff, and it was not deemed worth pursuing by the police.

If, on the other hand, the kid's parents put him in the same set of Victorian finger blocks for even a fraction of the time the government employees did, the parents would have been thrown into the slammer and the government would have taken the children from them. Can't have parents abusing the children you know!

When I see, "Abuse is a choice not a disease. Or every kid born to addicted parents would be a junkie, too."

...I am a bit irritated. Why don't you talk about this little point with the doctors and nurses who have to detox newborns whose mothers are crack addicts?

I'm a Vermonter (born and raised there) who went to UVM (Church Street was a bit less spohisticated in the 70s, but rapidly closing in on what Jonah experienced). I took my degree and spent the next 22 years in Uncle Sammy's Flying Circus. When I graduated from the Air Force, Vermont had changed so much that I moved to Washington's Olympic Peninsula, so that I could have the kind of place I grew up with...rural, open, and wonderful.

My sister and her husband still live there, and talk freely about all the change brought north from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and downstate New York. ...And they don't often have much positive to say about it.

There are still real Vermonters there...conservative folk who know how to have a real Town Meeting during Mud Season during which the citizenry run the local government. ...At least they do in the smaller rural communities where those from "Away" haven't yet taken over.

(To a Vermonter, "Away" is a very real place. "Away" is where you have to tuck in your shirt when you go to the Post Office. It sure ain't Vermont, what little is left of it!)

For what it's worth, Dean is not a Vermonter. He can never be. He was born and raised in New York.

In the Old South, he would have needed a carpet bag.

Watch this be used as the basis for at least one of the lawsuits we're likely to see seeking the overturn or do-over of the recall.

Somebody's ox get gored?

Interesting to see them howling five days before the election that they claim to be winning, inn't it?

Never ever forget...

This is the health "care" system that Dr. Dean, Dame Hillary, Dickie Gephardt and the rest of the nine "candidates" tout as being the one we should emulate here in the United States.

Do you want this for your parents, yourself, and your kids?

Come on, folks, think DYNASTY!

2004 - Clark Pres, Hillary Vice (The Clinton's tell Clark what to do and say already, don't they?)

2008 - Clark Pres, Hillary Vice

2012 - Hillary Pres, Somebody Vice

2016 - Hillary Pres, Chelsea Vice

2020 - Chelsea Pres, Somebody Vice

2024 - Chelsea Pres, Somebody Vice

2028 - Chelsea's hubby Pres, Somebody Vice

2032 - Chelsea's hubby Pres, Somebody Vice