2004 Presidential Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

(it speaks for itself)

All across America, we gather this week with the people we love, to give thanks to God for the blessings in our lives. We are grateful for our freedom, grateful for our families and friends, and grateful for the many gifts of America.

On Thanksgiving Day, we acknowledge that all of these things, and life itself, come from the Almighty God. Almost four centuries ago, the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest feast to thank God after suffering through a brutal winter.

President George Washington proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, and President Lincoln revived the tradition during the Civil War, asking Americans to give thanks with "one heart and one voice."

Since then, in times of war and in times of peace, Americans have gathered with family and friends and given thanks to God for our blessings. Thanksgiving is also a time to share our blessings with those who are less fortunate.

Americans this week will gather food and clothing for neighbors in need. Many young people will give part of their holiday to volunteer at homeless shelters and food pantries.

On Thanksgiving, we remember that the true strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of the American people. By seeking out those who are hurting and by lending a hand, Americans touch the lives of their fellow citizens and help make our nation and the world a better place.

This Thanksgiving, we express our gratitude to our dedicated firefighters and police officers who help keep our homeland safe. We are grateful to the homeland security and intelligence personnel who spend long hours on faithful watch.

And we give thanks for the Americans in our armed forces who are serving around the world to secure our country and advance the cause of freedom. These brave men and women make our entire nation proud, and we thank them and their families for their sacrifice. On this Thanksgiving Day, we thank God for His blessings and ask Him to continue to guide and watch over our nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, president of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, Nov. 25, 2004, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship to reinforce the ties of family and community and to express gratitude for the many blessings we enjoy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-ninth.

GEORGE W. BUSH






(Thanks for the Memory to Ricky V at Vices and Virtues)

More for Which to Give Thanks

Rossi Wins Washington Gubernatorial Race.

There's still hope for the Northwest.

Thjanks for the Memory to Ricky V. at Vices and Virtues.

My Favorite Thanksgiving Quote

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

Thanks are given to all of you for making me feel important. And Thanks be to God for all he's done for me.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

The Answer My Friend, is Blowin' in the (Chill) Wind

Thanks for the Memory to Ace of Spades HQ.

Bridget Johnson over at the Wall Street Journal asks a very good question regarding the slaying of Theo Van Gogh:

Where is the Hollywood Outrage?

A very good question indeed.

His murder was motivated by his film exposing muslim treatment of women. He was killed for his art and for his opinion. So where are the Hollywood celebrities speeaking out against this act of censorship? When are we going to hear Tim Robbins speaking of a chill wind? When will the Dixie Chicks be holding a benefit concert in his memory?

Or is it just possible that all those well-paid celebrities safe in their luxury homes inside gated estates, with their money and their clout and the adulation of fans and peers, have just been playing the censorship card as a political ploy to advance their ends, and wouldn't recognize, nor give a Rattus Norvegensis's furry posterior, about real oppression unless it crept up and bit them in a sensitive spot?

Just asking.

Oh Danny Boy

Oh Danny Boy, the Blogs, the Blogs, they nailed ye,
Your story on false documents relied.
Your ratings shot, your reputation’s failed ye,
‘Tis you, ‘tis you, must go because ye lied.

But you hang on, though no one now believes you,
Old records typed in far too new a font.
You tell us we can still believe their substance:
Oh Danny Boy, your little ploy, ain’t what we want.

But when ye go, ye swore ye’d take Bush with ye,
His image soiled by mud that you had slung.
Though he prevailed, ye’d not concede his victory,
Refused to call the states that he had won.

Now CBS must face the music with ye,
Your Sixty Minutes is going to expire.
Your anchor job is looking kind of shaky,
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, ye should retire.

(Originally Posted at 1:58 PM, November 9, 2004)
UPDATE:

Thanks for the Memory to Ace of Spades HQ.

'Nuff Said.

Did I Mention That Dolphins Are My Favorite Animals?

Thanks for the Memory to Vic at Darth Apathy for one more reason why:

Dolphins defend swimmers from shark

From correspondents in Whangarei, New Zealand
November 23, 2004

A GROUP of swimmers has told how a pod of dolphins protected them from a great white shark off the north-eastern coast of New Zealand.

Flipper ... the aquatic mammal star of the TV series would have been pround of the dolphins' heroic actions in New Zealand.

Rob Howes and three other lifeguards were on a training swim about 100m offshore at Ocean Beach near Whangarei when the dolphins raced in and herded the group together.

"They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Mr Howes said.

When he tried to drift away from the group, two of the bigger dolphins herded him back.

He then saw why. A 3m great white shark was cruising toward the group about two metres below the surface.

"I just recoiled. It was only about two metres away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," he said, adding he then realised the dolphins had moved in to protect the swimmers.

The group were surrounded by the dolphins for 40 minutes before they were able to reach the shore.

Another lifeguard, Matt Fleet, was patrolling nearby in a rescue boat when he saw the dolphins' unusual behaviour.

When he dived out of the boat to join the group he also saw the great white.

Fleet said he was keen to get out of the water after the sighting, but didn't panic.

"I just kept looking around to see where it was."

The incident happened about three weeks ago, but Mr Howes and Mr Fleet said they had kept the story to themselves until they had a chance to catch up and confirm what they had seen.

Auckland University marine mammal research scientist Doctor Rochelle Constantine said dolphins were normally vigilant in the presence of sharks.

I've always had a soft spot for the Delphinids, especially true Dolphins, but including Orcas. In fact, in general I appreciate the pack hunters, though again, Dolhpins (and wolves) are at the top of my list. This just reinforces that fondness.

Holiday Traditions

Most of us grew up with certain traditions, or at the very least (and not always happiest), recurring Holiday themes. When you get married, you bring some with you, you learn some of your spouses, you compromise between the two lists, and you create a few new ones of your own.

One non-traditional, "recurring holiday theme" that I have become adamantly loathe to is the ever-creeping earlier and earlier commercialization of the holidays. earlier this year I blogged on Christmas decorations being in Ross as a sign of the Earth's impending demise. I just detest it. One of the reasons I moved back to Oregon was because I hated living somewhere with one single, albeit sunny, season. I LIKE seasons, whether sports, hunting, or cliatic. I like holidays associated with seasons, and I like to observe them IN their respective seasons. It helps mark the passing of time, it makes each season, each year, more meaningful. My twelve years in San Diego are a blur, with few seasonal changes to act as chronological landmarks. So I am resistant to the idea of observing Christmas until I have finished onserving Thanksgiving, let alone Labor Day!

But the feared redhead and I have established one holiday tradition that forces me to bend this rule, and in this case, I believe it's worth it. Every yuear, we assemble at least one shoebox, preferrably two, for Operation Christmas Child. This is a project of Samaritan's Purse, a Christian mercy organization run by Franklin Graham (Billy's son). They do awesome work. The way OCC works is that you take a shoebox (we buy one of the plastic ones from Target, that way the box itself is still useful after the project), and fill it with toys, candy, and toiletry items for a child. You specify the gender and age group for which you fallied the box, and drop it off at a participating location (usually chrches). The boxes are packed and shipped all over the world -- Mexico, Afghanistan, Iraq, all over Asia and Africa, Latin America, even reservations here in the US. The children receive them at Christmas on behalf of the donor and God (no bones about it, it's a Christian charity). Anyone who has read my blog knows I'm as enthusiastic about private charity as I am skeptical of government largess.

In order to get them to the kids by Christmas, they have to be assembled and dropped off the weekend before Thanksgiving. So I have to make an exception and think about Christmas before the Friday after Thanksgiving. But again, for the good this does, it's worth it. That lesson was driven home this year, when our finances prevented us from participating until the last minute. We'll have to ship the box to OCC headquarters in North Carolina since we missed the drop cutoff.

But even the extra postage is well spent.

11/22/1963

Today marks the forty-first anniversary of the death of, arguably, one of the men who most influenced Western thought in the Twentieth Century. He also happened to be one of the men I admired most greatly, so it seems fitting that in the first year of my blog, I should mark his passing.

Though most of the world recognizes his name when they hear his initials, his friends called him "Jack".

He was a war veteran, and his service influenced much of his later thought.

His romance with his wife was the stuff movies are made about.

He was a thinker, a man of convictions, whose words stir the soul, stimulate the mind, and challenge the will into acts of conviction.

And so I bid him Rest in Peace. He has shaped the way I think, as he has many others I know. Here's looking forward to meeting you on the other side, Jack.



C.S. Lewis
November 29, 1898 - November 22, 1963

(Bumped to the top for the rest of the day. Read below for other entries.)

The Only Books in Heaven

Continuing on with today's C.S. Lewis theme...

I can't find the exact quote, but Lewis once made a comment to the effect that the only books we'll have in our library in heaven will be those we lent to friends, and that every bit of damage they had done to them would have become beautiful calligraphy or woodcuts.

With that in mind, I present a link to the most recent entry over at Strengthen the Good:

The C.S. Lewis Bilingual Gymnaziumin

This is a high school in Bratislava, Slovakia, where the students study in their native language and in English. The students call English "the language of freedom."

And, even more appropriately, they aren't asking for cash. They're asking for books.

There's an indepth list of desired books over at STG. I plan on donating a Lewis tome or two. Go see what you can do.

The First Casualty of War

My good friend Mary emailed me an article from the New York Times in which the cameraman who filmed the shooting in Fallujah is interviewd. I presume it was in response to my previous post on the Marine involved in the shooting. I adore Mary, she's a good friend, but we do not see eye to eye on everything. Nonetheless, I felt it only fair to give another viewpoint consideration. The article is sad, and thought provoking, but ultimately does not change my perception that this young Marine is being treated as a scapegoat and that the incident is being blown way out of proportion. To explain why, I shall add my responses to the article in italics:

Captives: Cameraman Details Marine's Role in Mosque Shooting

November 22, 2004
By JAMES GLANZ and EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21 - A marine who appears to shoot and kill an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in an NBC News video was not aware that the incident was being recorded, and moments later approached the cameraman with seemingly remorseful words - "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" - according to the first public description of the events by the cameraman, Kevin Sites, since his brief and somewhat ambiguous initial report.

Now, at first this seems pretty damning. But I began to wonder -- did the Marine specifically say he didn't know he was being filmed, or was he referring to something else? Bear that in mind as the article continues.

No weapons were visible inside the Falluja mosque where the shooting took place, on Nov. 13, and the wounded Iraqi made no sudden or threatening moves before the marine shot him, Mr. Sites writes on his Web site, kevinsites.net, in an entry posted Sunday night.

By whose definition or criteria is Mr. Sites judging the threat present or absent in the terrorists actions? Again, bear this question in mind as we continue.

Mr. Sites, a freelance photojournalist who had been hired by NBC News, made it clear that as a veteran of covering wars around the globe, he understood the ugliness and
complexity of battle. Nevertheless, he said of the incident in the mosque, "it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right."

Not to detract from Mr. Sites' credentials as a war correspondent, but that's a far cry from being a war fighter. What he sees and how he interprets it is different from the man who actually must make the decision to kill or not.

His account also raises new questions about another group of marines who entered the mosque just before Mr. Sites and fired on the prisoners - they had been left there, already wounded, after a battle the day before. Mr. Sites was so surprised that the prisoners he had seen there the day before had been attacked again that he informed a Marine lieutenant of the fact before the final shooting - the one he captured on tape - took place.


The video obtained by Mr. Sites has received sensational play around the world, particularly in the Arab news media.


Mr. Sites calls the posting on his Web log an "Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of the 3.1," or the Third Battalion, First Marines. "Since the shooting in the mosque, I've beenhaunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw," he wrote, "or explain the process by which the world came to see them as well."

He begins by writing, "I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat." [neither are you a soldier who actually has to make a decision on the split second, but someone who can record events, then judge them in hindsight.] Despite his attempt to be fair, he said, since then Falluja video was broadcast on Nov. 15, he has been "shocked to see myself painted as some kind of antiwar activist." Mr. Sites has received abuse and death threats on some Web sites, and has shut down the discussion section of his own.


He said the marines he was embedded with arrived at the mosque on Nov. 13, and after a series of other events, he heard shooting inside. The other set of marines emerged and were asked by a lieutenant, "Did you shoot them?"

What other events? Do they have any relevance to what happened next? And if so, why is the Times less descriptive of them than of the antecedent events within the mosque? I have long been skeptical of the NYT's journalistic dispassion, and I am disinclined to believe they are giving both sides of the story equal treatment.

"Roger that, sir," a marine responded. But when the lieutenant asked, "Were they armed?" the marine just shrugged, Mr. Sites wrote.

Inside, Mr. Sites said he was was surprised to see the wounded men from the battle the day before, now shot again. "There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere," he wrote.

And just how close an inspection was he able to make in the heat of battle? Or is this just his impression?

He was videotaping some of the wounded men when, in the background, a marine yelled that one of the others was "faking he's dead."

"Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of the his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi," Mr. Sites wrote. "There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging."

It doesn't take a lunge or much of a reach to pull the pin on a grenade. That has happened over there. Again, the question of experiencial perspective and definition of "threatening" are key here. The Marine had an extremely limited amount of time in which to react, in which to make a life or death decision. Had he hesitated and the man truly been a threat, it might very well have been that Marine, his buddies, even Mr. Sites. I dare Mr. Sites to state he could have made the decision any better had roles been exchanged.

Then the marine fired. "There is a small spatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down," Mr. Sites wrote, in what was apparently a suggestion that the man had been alive.

"Well," another marine said, "he's dead now."

Mr. Sites wrote that he could feel "the deep pit of my stomach." The marine who fired, who had been angrily shouting, suddenly changed his tone.

"The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread," Mr. Sites wrote.

I should think so. That's pretty common after battle, from what I have been taught. Furthermore, if, as Mr. Sites claims, the Iraqi wasn't a threat, and the Marine only realized this after the shooting was over, you can be sure he would feel remorse.

Furthermore, might this realization also explain the Marines comment, "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" much better than the assumption that he was referring to the presence of the camera?

"I can't know what was in the mind of the marine," he wrote. "He is the only one who does."

This is true. And this is why those of us who have not had to bear the burden of uniform would do well to be circumspect in our criticism. If the Marine is proven to have violated the UCMJ or the ROE's, he will be disciplined. I for one am glad that those responsible for executing such discipline have a fuller perspective on events than I.

UPDATE:

Blogfather Rusty is not as understanding towards Sites as I.

Talk About Wagging the Dog!

Thanks for the Memory to the Llama Butchers.

Apparently the Power Behind the Throne has his own blog.

Talking Turkey

I probably should wait until tomorrow or Wednesday to post this (I won't be blogging on Thanksgiving) in order to stretch my blog mileage, but it's in my mind so I think I'll toss it out there now.

As some of you may know, I love to cook. After the History channel, my favorite network is the Food Network (Alton Brown is a GOD!). But come Thanksgiving, something happens to the network that is, well, disturbing. In the spirit of Thanksgiving and Cuisine, they attempt to show you all these nifty gourmet variatons on traditional dishes -- Pumpkin Soup, Cranberry Souffle', etc.

Blasphemy.

Don't get me wrong -- many of these dishes sound wonderful. But for Thanksgiving dinner, there are certain dishes that just must be there or I feel... incomplete.

However, I am NOT opposed to adding a slightly new twist to the dish, as long as it's the same dish. In fact, I've come up with a few myself. I submit them for your approval (The ones in italic are the ones I'll be cooking this year):

Pumpkin Pie:
For a twist, use gingerbread cookie dough for the crust. make sure to wrap the crust in foil or it will burn.

Cranberry sauce:
The twist here is to use Orange Juice and Apple cifer in equal parts instead of water and sugar. Add some cinnamon, a dash of vanilla, some orange zst, and a shot of Grand Marnier.

Cornbread Stuffing (We always called it dressing):
Replace the white bread croutons with sourdough. Make sure you saute the onions and celery in butter, and us STOCK, NOT BROTH!!!!!

Turkey:
This one's from The Feared Redhead, with some added help from Alton. Brine the Turkey, butter the skin and add salt, pepper, herbs and spices. Put an apple and an onion, both cut in half, in the cavity, along with a bay leaf and a rosemary sprig, and inject the bird all over with cognac and champagne (or non-French substitutes).

Enjoy. Tell me if you try any of them.

Much Fallujah 'Bout Nothing

I'm probably the very last of the conservative bloggers to blog on the incident involving the US Marine who shot a wounded Iraqi in Fallujah. In part this was becaue I wanted to see where the story went. Well, it's pretty well documented now, and as equally well blogged upon, so I think I'll just make a couple of observations, then refer you to other blogger who, I believe, have answered the salient points in a manner that I find both eloquent and akin to my own opinion.

First of all, my observatiuon is that if this Marine's actions violated either the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ or the ROE's for Iraq, he deserves any disciplinary action coming to him. But if he didn't, he should not have his good name dragged through the mud.

So did he? Well, with regards to Geneva, Smallholder over at Naked Villainy has that covered.

The UCMJ or the ROE's? Well, I don't know enough about them, and we won't know until the investigation is complete, but Mean Mr. Mustard has a few thoughts on the investigation.

There's also the question of basic civility, and what a reasonable human being should have been expected to do. In that regard, none of us who have not been in combat has any point of reference from which to judge this Marine's actions. But Ace of Spades relays the thoughts of those who have been there -- and are even now.

All three are worth reading.

Fundamentalist Atheists

Thanks for the Memory to Jacques Vader.

Jacques, a right ballsy fellow himself, links to an article by one of our northern neighbors who has the temerity to defend the rights of the Right.

The best quote in the Coren article is this one:

After U.S. President George Bush's re-election last week, one rather glib Canadian pundit opined: "Half of the United States wants to be like Canada, the other half like Iran."

How awfully clever. Yes that's right, 150 million Americans want to amputate limbs as a form of punishment and sponsor international terrorism.

Remind you of anything?

Coren also makes this observation:

But in Canada this is accepted as intelligent analysis. [Don't be too hard on your country, sir, we have plenty of that going around down here too] It is what we have come to expect from the influential minority group known as The Secular Left. They dominate political parties, are well organized and are vehemently intolerant. They are also incapable of listening to the inherent contradictions in their own arguments.

Sounds like an ideal description of Fundamentalism, doesn't it? The irony is, that's what many on the left have become -- Fundamentalist Atheists -- but can't see that the comparison they make between different religions might just apply to their anti-religion.

My Mother Has a Flag.

It was presented to her "on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation".

My grandmother has one like it.

My sister will some day receive one too.

My wife never will. And I cannot express to you sufficiently how much I regret that. I would dearly have loved to serve in the Navy just like my father and my grandfather and my brother-in-Law. But God in His infinite wisdom saw fit to let me be born with a body that disqualified me. To borrow from St. Paul, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." How ironic that one who has such admiration for the military would not be allowed to join its ranks. How glad for all of us that we have had so many over the years whose ability and willingness were present in equally sufficient proportion.

I probably should have written these words on Veteran's Day, but it was not that holiday that inspired these thoughts. To be honest, they're thoughts that have haunted me my entire adult life. But what brought them to the fore was the opportunity I had last night to watch perhaps the year's finest hour of television: a PBS documentary called Arlington: Field of Honor. The show chronicled a day in the operations of Arlington National Cemetary, interspersed with a report on the history of the place. They focused on the honor guard and the pains they take to honor our dead, in their uniforms, conduct, and demeanor, as well as showing several funerals conducted that day, ending with a funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. Many have called this the most moving scene in the documentary, but for me, it was the funeral of a Navy veteran whose only attendees were his widow and the "Arlington Lady" who was there to assist her. It was during this funeral that the words of the flag presentation were aired. That's where I lost it. The rest of the documentary was beautiful, and poignant, but that moment was the most personal for me.

When thinking of phrases spoken throughout our history to honor our war dead, several spring to mind. "Last full measure of devotion." "Above and beyond the call of duty." I could go on. But for me, forever, the ones that will mean the most are, "on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation."

May they be eternally true.

At Least Let the Body Cool, for Pete's Sake!

I just received the following spam:

YASSER ARAFAT, REPLY NOW..

P.O. BOX 223
SECRETARIATE DISTRICT RAMALLAH,
RAMALLAH WESTBANK PALESTINE.

ATTN:


You may be surprise to receive such an offer from somebody you does not know before or have even met face to face with, but do not take because of this an underestimate the potentials of the business that I am about to reveal to you.

Let me start by introducing my humble self; My name is Barrister Hossian Bin Sharif, I am Barrister and the Attorney to the Late President of Palestine {YASSER ARAFAT} who peacefully passed away on Thursday 11th Nov. 2004 at French military hospital, where he had been treated for illness since Oct. 29. He died at 3:30 am in the hospital. MY HIS GENTLE SOUL REST IN PEACE.

Before the death of this great Man, he held a property with a Prime financial firm in Indonesia, which I have all the deposit documents in my possession and this company does not know the content of this property, except the director of the firm. This property is a sealed consignment containing the sum of $ 5,500,000 Million USD{Five Million Five Hundred Thousand USD}

I will not disclose the whole information to you now, because of some security measure, but if you are willing to assist me and act as the heir to the deceased President Arafat and to claim the money from the Financial company management, I will intimate you on what to do and will provide you with all the documentations, proving that you are the rightful beneficiary to this property. I have discussed everything with the Director of the security company and he has personally advice that I should not participate as supposed in this business, to avoid suspicion and monitoring my interactions because of the unfortunate incident that occurred to our president and that i should look for a reliable, trustworthy and honest person who can assist and i prayed over this before i send you this mail.

I will like to make it clear for you and to your notice that this money is not in connection with terrorism, money laundering/drug money or any illegal act. The fund is 100% legal and trouble free. So you should not entertain any fear or what so ever, as I have all the comprehensive documents that will prove to you my words, everything have been planned concretely before involving you.

I will tell you more about this, upon your acceptance message agreeing to assist to carry out this venture.

I AM WAITING FOR YOUR SOONEST MESSAGE. REPLY TO THIS SECURE EMAIL ADDRESS: barristersharif@yahoo.com


Sincerely Yours,
Barrister Hossian Bin Sharif. {ESQ}


At some point, I may actually update this with some snarky comments. For now, I think its amusement value is self-evident.

Happily Wrong

Yesterday the Feared Redhead and I went to a "Holiday Craft Faire" after church at the Lane County Fairgrounds. All your typical holiday craftsy stuff. Most of it was disappointing in that it wasn't handcrafted, but prefab stuff being resold by local merchants. Unlike most guys, I don't mind homespun, simple, corny holiday craftsiness, but mass-produced kitzch makes me break out.

Fortunately there were a few exceptions, including a couple of local wineries. One of them, Chateau Bianca (outside Dallas, OR), was offering tastings, including one of their port. I don't like port, and said as much. Port reminds me too much of raisin juice. The winery owner assured me that this port was different. But since he charged a $2 Dollar tasting fee for his port ( the other wines were free to taste), I decided to just believe him and leave it at that.

However, over the course of the conversation, I said somehting he liked, and he decided that teaching me a lesson was more inportant than his two dollars. He comped the port sample.

I stand corrected.

Most of the ports I'd tried had been tawny. This was a ruby port. It was sweet, but it didn't have that raisiny aftertaste I usually associate with port. It still tasted like wine, though much sweeter.

I think I shall be buying a bottle soon.

Less Moore

Thanks for the Memory to The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

Apparently, at least one mother of a Marine killed in Iraq resents Michael Moore's comments regarding the election.

Eva Savage of Livingston, Tenn., has a message for filmmaker Michael Moore: You don't speak for me.

Nor for us, Mrs. Savage. But I think I do speak for many of us when I say:

Thank you for raising the kind of man your son grew up to be. His sacrifice makes the world better for the rest of us, and will not go unremembered nor unappreciated. He was Semper Fidelis, we're Semper Memoris -- Eternally grateful.

When Is A Vanity Plate Not Just A Vanity Plate?

When it Looks like this:



UPDATE:
This post was originally published on Nov. 5th. I wanted to say somehting for Veteran's Day, but couldn't think of anyhting else that said it any better.

The Feared Redhead and I were sitting in Burrito Boy last night, having Carne Asada tacos, when I looked out and noticed that the car parked next to ours had a plate just like this one. There was only one other table with customers at it, so I asked the gentleman at the table if it was his, and it was.

He earned it while serving in the airborne in Vietnam. I didn't ask what kind of wound or how, but he did offer the information that it still hurts.

So I went to the trouble of thanking him for his service and his sacrifice. I let him know that I understand that "Freedom isn't free" is more than a cliche slogan, that I understand the price of freedom, and the huge debt of gratitude and honor that we owe to all veterans, especially those who are wounded or killed in the service of the Republic.

I asked him how often anyone acknowledges his service because of his plate, and he told me it isn't often. I found that, quite frankly, not just sad but downright wrong.

How much time and trouble would it be, really, for someone to pause in a grocery store parking lot, or with the window rolled down at a stop sign, and just utter two simple, single-syllable words: Thank you. Hell, you have to exhale anyway, why not take the miniscule extra effort to use that breath to form a simple phrase that, quite frankly, people like the gentleman in Burrito Boy have coming to them? And how much better would you feel about yourself, and your country, if you bothered to do it? Is it just possible you might actually think about the words you're speaking, and the reason for them, and the significance of that reason, and might just be a little more thankful that you live on free soil, freedom purchased by those who offered their "Last Full Measure of Devotion"?

That's not much to ask for, is it folks? So when you see a plate like the one above, remember that it cost its owner something more than just the registration fees. And remember that they paid that cost on all our behalf.

Win-Win Situation

Thanks for the Memory to Ace of Spades HQ.

A worthy cause indeed:

Hey! Conservatives! Tired of listening to liberals whine about how apocalyptic Bush's reelection is? Hey! Liberals! Convinced that Bush is going to ruin America?

Now there's an organization for both of you!

HELP THEM LEAVE!

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE FOR "DISENFRANCHISED" CITIZENS

I don't think it's real, but darnit, don't I wish!