Posted on 09/19/2004 9:25:02 PM PDT by Mo1
We went through a tornado watch, warning and alert last evening for two hours. I just hate it when everything turns greenish looking.
I don't know if part of it is the upcoming election, and all the crap that's going on, or what; but something just doesn't "feel" right here either...no storms, or anything, yet.
Something like a sense of foreboding in the air.
Stay safe and well, Ringy.
Oooooooooooh no. Is everybody okay?
Yes, our sky has a greenish tint this morning. I'm with you, that always means bad news. Bess doesn't want me to worry about it, but I'd rather know if I'm about to be blown away.
You too Loddy. We need to keep praying for our President.
Three die in Southeast Missouri tornado
By JIM SALTER
Associated Press Writer
Three Missouri Bootheel family members died and other relatives were injured when a tornado destroyed three homes and a farm shop near the small town Cooter, the Pemiscot County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday.
The tornado was part of a band of storms that struck parts of the state Monday night. No other deaths were reported. Cooter, a town of about 400 residents, is just a few miles north of the Arkansas border and west of the Tennessee boundary.
The tornado touched down about 7:45 p.m. Monday on property owned by Don Tims south of Cooter. Three homes on the property and a farm shop were destroyed.
Killed were Don Tims' sister Joyce Crossno, his brother-in-law Jamie Smith and his father Leroy Tims. Leroy Tims was 86; ages of the other victims were not released.
Don Tims, his wife and sister-in-law were hospitalized; their conditions were not immediately known. Three or four children in the residences were treated for minor injuries.
The Kennett Daily Dunklin Democrat said the victims were inside mobile homes.
"We had a problem finding some of the victims," Sheriff's Deputy Ferrell Stewart told the newspaper. "One was found across the roadway from the residence." The others were found about 100 feet from their homes, he said.
Parts of the mobile homes were found a mile away, Stewart said.
NY Times | 19 Oct 2004 | ROBERT PEAR
U.S. Has Contingency Plans for a Draft of Medical Workers
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.
In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.
On the one hand, the report said, the Selective Service System should establish contacts in advance with medical societies, hospitals, schools of medicine and nursing, managed care organizations, rural health care providers and the editors of medical journals and trade publications.
On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because "overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft," and that could alarm the public.
In this election year, the report said, "very few ideas or activities are viewed without some degree of cynicism."
President Bush has flatly declared that there will be no draft, but Senator John Kerry has suggested that this is a possibility if Mr. Bush is re-elected.
Richard S. Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, said Monday: "We have been routinely updating the entire plan for a health care draft. The plan is on the shelf and will remain there unless Congress and the president decide that it's needed and direct us to carry it out."
The Selective Service does not decide whether a draft will occur. It would carry out the mechanics only if the president and Congress authorized a draft.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence T. Di Rita, said Monday: "It is the policy of this administration to oppose a military draft for any purpose whatsoever. A return to the draft is unthinkable. There will be no draft."
Mr. Di Rita said the armed forces could offer bonus pay and other incentives to attract and retain medical specialists.
In 1987, Congress enacted a law requiring the Selective Service to develop a plan for "registration and classification" of health care professionals essential to the armed forces.
Under the plan, Mr. Flahavan said, about 3.4 million male and female health care workers ages 18 to 44 would be expected to register with the Selective Service. From this pool, he said, the agency could select tens of thousands of health care professionals practicing in 62 health care specialties.
"The Selective Service System plans on delivering about 36,000 health care specialists to the Defense Department if and when a special skills draft were activated," Mr. Flahavan said.
The contractor hired by Selective Service, Widmeyer Communications, said that local government operations would be affected by a call-up of emergency medical technicians, so it advised the Selective Service to contact groups like the United States Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties.
Doctors and nurses would be eligible for deferments if they could show that they were providing essential health care services to civilians in their communities.
But the contractor said: "There is no getting around the fact that a medical draft would disrupt lives. Many familial, business and community responsibilities will be impacted."
Moreover, Widmeyer said, "if medical professionals are singled out and other professionals are not called, many will find the process unfair," and health care workers will ask, "Why us?"
In a recent article in The Wisconsin Medical Journal, published by the state medical society, Col. Roger A. Lalich, a senior physician in the Army National Guard, said: "It appears that a general draft is not likely to occur. A physician draft is the most likely conscription into the military in the near future."
Since 2003, the Selective Service has said it is shifting its preparations for a draft in a national crisis toward narrow sectors of specialists, including medical personnel.
Colonel Lalich, citing Selective Service memorandums on the subject, said the Defense Department had indicated that "a conventional draft of untrained manpower is not necessary for the war on terrorism." But, he said, "the Department of Defense has stated that what most likely will be needed is a 'special skills draft,' " including care workers in particular.
That view was echoed in a newsletter circulated recently by the Selective Service System, which said the all-volunteer force had "critical shortages of individuals with special skills'' that might be needed in a crisis.
The Selective Service and Widmeyer held focus groups this summer to sample public opinion toward registration and a possible draft including medical personnel. People from a variety of professions, including doctors and nurses, were questioned.
The report summarized the findings this way:
"There was substantial resistance to the notion of a call-up of civilian professionals that would send draftees to foreign soil."
A draft of civilian professionals was seen as unworkable because "training would be inadequate to transform groups of people who had never worked together into cohesive units."
People are apprehensive about the length of service that might be required. The "occupation of Iraq has proved more costly, in terms of dollars and lives, than most Americans expected." Members of the National Guard are "serving tours of duty far longer than many ever anticipated."
People believe the government has the ability to "find whomever it needs" in a crisis, by using a "master database" if necessary.
President Bush and Mr. Kerry have said they oppose a draft. "Forget all this talk about a draft," Mr. Bush said at the second presidential debate, on Oct. 8 in St. Louis. "We're not going to have a draft so long as I'm the president."
But Mr. Kerry said, "You've got a backdoor draft right now" because "our military is overextended" as a result of policies adopted by Mr. Bush.
Bryan G. Whitman, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said: "The all-volunteer force has been working very well for 30 years. There is absolutely no reason to go back to a draft."
*chuckle*
Depends upon how one views my presence..
Some view my presence as an omen of ill tidings.
Others view it as the harbinger of humor before the storms.
*scratches head*
Me.. I just say that weirdness and chaos follow me around like ill-behaved children.
Okay, enough of the philosophical stuff, on to the fun!
Saw a woman driving a Toyota last night, not normally an odd thing except for her bumper stickers.
And her horrific driving.
Her bumper stickers proclaimed to teh world what a surrender moneky she was, declaring to all how easily cowed she is and how desperately she wants ot be a victim.
"Peace if Patriotic!" declared one.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war!" said another, using words too long for their minds to follow.
"War is not the answer" lamely stated the third.
The woman driving was hell-bent on racking up as many traffic violations as she could.
She was tailgating everyone in her path, driving in the wrong lane, failed to use directional signals, and generally drove as if there wasn't anyone behind the wheel of her car.
Upon parking her car (more or less crashing it into the back end of the car in front of her.) she stepped in front of a moving car.
When the man driving the car slammed to a halt and honked, she flipped him off and once again secure in her feeling of moral superiority, she marched into Target to shop for The Eternal only knows what..
LOL.
My Bible tells me goodness and mercy follow me.
Somedays, based on my behavior, I fear they lag far behind. :)
True, true!
I'm so restless today. Think I'll go do a few sketches, read another book.
See you later Darks. Enjoyed talking with you.
Loddy, talk to you later on Dear FRiend.
I'm so restless today. Think I'll go do a few sketches, read another book.
See you later Darks. Enjoyed talking with you.
Loddy, talk to you later on Dear FRiend.
Hic! Sorry all. :)
Understood.
Take care, I'll be.. *scratches head* I'll be somewhere about these parts.
LOL!
Have fun!
An Open Letter to Senator John F. Kerry
From Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr.
October 19, 2004
Dear Senator Kerry,
I never met my uncle Will. He was a lieutenant in the Navy during WWII. He was killed in action on his PT boat in the Pacific. For his fatal wounds, he received the Purple Heart posthumously.
The first-captain of my West Point class took a bullet through the heart while leading a South Vietnamese airborne battalion into combat. For this fatal wound, he was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.
My senior year roommate at West Point became a tunnel rat. A booby trap explosion killed him in the tunnels of Duc Pho. The army awarded him the Purple Heart posthumously. My plebe year roommate lost an eye and became permanently crippled. For his extensive wounds, he received the Purple Heart.
My battalion commander in Viet Nam was one of the bravest men I ever knew. He went out ahead of the troops in his light observation helicopter to find and kill enemy before they had a chance to fire on his men. That's how he died. For his fatal wounds, he received the Purple Heart posthumously.
My words pale in their import compared to the terse comment of a high school classmate of mine. We played lacrosse together in Baltimore. He went to the Naval Academy and upon graduation became a marine. This past July at our annual lacrosse crab feast, I asked him what he thought of your Purple Hearts. He said, "Bob, nine of us lieutenants went over there together, and only three of us came back. All three of us who survived spent at least a month in the hospital recovering from wounds we suffered in combat."
You didn't need any recovery time from your three alleged "wounds." How does one get "wounded" and yet not need to recover from those "wounds"? With wounds comes suffering. Where was your suffering? How could you merit a Purple Heart when you weren't even a casualty? You did not earn your Purple Hearts; you wrangled them from the system through deception so you could go home early and get out of eight months of combat. That is despicable and shameless. During the democratic convention, your flagrant boastful show of your "heroism" gave the impression that you had been a man in the thick of combat, when in fact, you had been a man on the very edge of it, all the while slyly conniving your way out of it. Instead of "Reporting for duty," you should have said, "Derelict in my duty." I marvel at your pomposity, and at the astonishing facility with which you present your phony war record as fact to the American people.
Let's compare your wounds with those of a West Point classmate of mine and his men. As my classmate directed artillery fire onto suspected enemy positions, shrapnel from an enemy mortar ripped into his leg. A medivac chopper took him to the Americal Division field hospital. When he returned to his company two weeks later, many new faces met him: the lieutenant who had taken over had marched the company into a u-shaped ambush resulting in two-thirds of the men being killed or wounded. Those wounded in that battle didn't have to put themselves in for the Purple Heart, Senator Kerry.
You exhibit the characteristics of a Narcissist. Narcissus, for whom this malignant character defect is named, fell in love with his image in a pool of water. As with Narcissus, your image has become the focus of your life. This image of yourself with which you are enamored, so greedy for recognition and praise, is only two dimensional: it has breadth and width, but no depth. And while your image may appear grand and heroic on the surface, there is no substance to it. My high school marine friend and my West Point classmate, true heroes, didn't take movie cameras with them to Viet Nam, but you did-with the express purpose of recording your imaginary exploits and feeding your grandiose image of yourself.
The truth is you faked combat wounds in Viet Nam, and your actions were devious and self-serving. You were a "Purple Heart hunter," just as the Swift Boat Vets say. Narcissus was an actor, and so are you.
I don't understand how any veteran, or any member of a veteran's family, or any sane-thinking American could even consider voting for you—a man who faked Purple Hearts in wartime. A man who will fake Purple Hearts for the sake of glorifying his image has no integrity and misdefines truth as whatever enhances the power and prestige of that image. A man without depth and substance stands for anything and everything-so long as his image is glorified. Narcissists such as you cannot be trusted; and they can be very dangerous, especially when they become paranoid about protecting their image, especially when they occupy positions of great authority and consequence. The issues in this election are truthfulness and character, and you lack both.
In 1971, I became a regional coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) for a short time. I and many other vets were very angry at our government. We had experienced horror, terror, trauma, and grief in a no-win war and couldn't see the reason for it. We felt betrayed by our government and our military leaders. You stepped in and became our spokesman.
What enabled you to rise to the leadership of VVAW? What caused us, back then, to respect a four-month mini-veteran of the war? The answer is your medals: your phony medals for valor and your three phony Purple Hearts. Your congressional testimony about the war began with your own assertions that you had received the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. What better spokesman than an heroic, thrice-wounded veteran! Our mistake was that we all assumed you were an honest and good man. But well before your antiwar days, you had decided to trade your integrity for the spotlight, and to barter your loyalty for vain political ambitions.
Most of us in VVAW expressed our outrage with government war policies through speeches, marches, and protests. We told the truth about what we saw and did in Viet Nam and we demanded from our leaders acknowledgement and change. You usurped the leadership of VVAW under false pretenses and dragged it in the direction of Jane Fonda and collaboration with the enemy. If, God forbid, you are elected president, in what awful direction will you and your foreign-born-and-raised wife drag our country?
Your deceit is an explicit slur upon my uncle Will's Purple Heart award, and you mock all other veterans who made the supreme sacrifice or suffered genuine wounds in combat throughout our nation's history. Your rise to prominence is based upon your abominably perverse desecration of our ideals; you have trivialized and demeaned the sacred and the solemn, and no amount of fluent sophistry or braggart pretense can cover it up.
Your conduct goes far beyond dereliction of duty. You betrayed your comrades in Viet Nam; you betrayed the trust of antiwar veterans, and now your self-fabricated credentials and continued lies contaminate the political process.
Remember the professor a few years ago who lied about being a Viet Nam veteran? His college reprimanded and suspended him for foisting such an abominable sham upon a few hundred students. I ask you in closing, Senator Kerry, what punishment is fitting for a man who fabricates medals as sacrosanct as the Purple Heart, and who continues to lie about his Viet Nam service to the entire world?
Yours truly,
Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr.
Good grief - half a day whacked here.
Have a super afternoon, Ringy.
Die computer.
My grandfather had a purple heart.
He never said how he got it, said that they were 'giving them away' in WWII.
He always was dismissive of his wartime service, said things like "The real heros are the ones who didn't come home."
And he wouldn't speak of his service again after saying that.
(Though we could coax him into retelling some minor tales, though he always spiced them up with alot of humor.)
Kerry.. kerry seems to feel he has to brag about everything.
Maybe he should be reminded that Heros don't have to remind people of their heroism.
Sounds a lot like my Gramps who got his in WWI - the war to end all wars.
Almost a hundred years later, and we are still at it.
Amazing.
Stay safe up there, Darks.
One would think that people would learn, but such is the nature of man.
Willdo.
Most of them probably don't vote, but this particular family probably does. These people are pretty well off. At least Mom's parents are. Problem is, they enable her to avoid consequences for her behavior, no matter how bad. It's always somebody else's fault.
How far are you from Gainesville?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.