Ron G.

What's an Ipod?

Is that one of those green things you find under your house right after you notice your kids are starting to act a little odd?

Just like homeschooling, except her pay was higher.

Nothing is mentioned about whether Miss Lottie could read or write...or cypher.

Just noticed that.

The only really safe way to travel is to travel nekkid and unconscious.

Just go to your private booth, strip, lie down on a gurney, place the mask over your face and let your friendly staff do the rest.

An ironic note to the original post is that it's been published and documented that MD's cause more deaths than guns and knives together.

Sounds to me as if they don't like competition.

"Panties not best thing in world, but next to best thing." --Old Chinese proverb

She's just another satisfied customer of the newly opened Martindale University of Female Fitness (M.U.F.F.)

A fellers gotta make a livin', don't he?

The insanity never stops...

Docs Want Kitchen Knives Banned

Sunday, May 29, 2005

There is a menace lurking in British homes — the common kitchen knife.

Citing a rash of stabbings across Britain, three physicians wrote in a British Medical Journal article published Friday that the large pointed knife beloved by chefs both professional and amateur was needlessly deadly and should be replaced by safer, blunter counterparts.

"The long pointed kitchen knife is an easily available, potentially lethal weapon, particularly in the domestic setting," wrote lead author Dr. Emma Hern of West Middlesex University Hospital (search) in London.

Short knives, Hern and her colleagues Drs. Will Glazebrook and Mike Beckett wrote, generally caused only superficial wounds, but long pointed blades slip into human flesh in a way akin to "cutting into a ripe melon."

The doctors proposed a simple solution — outlawing pointed choppers and slicers.

"Government action to ban the sale of such knives," they wrote, "would drastically reduce their availability over the course of a few years."

Reaction from professional chefs in Britain was less than enthusiastic.

"Kitchen knives are designed for a purpose," the head of the Edinburgh, Scotland, Restaurateurs Association told The Scotsman newspaper. "It would be like asking a surgeon to perform an operation with a bread knife instead of a scalpel."

In America, where deadly weapons tend to be more sophisticated, leading authorities thought the proposed British ban was cute.

"Are they going to have everybody using plastic knives and forks and spoons in their own homes, like they do in airlines?" Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (search), asked The New York Times.

"Can sharp stick control be far behind?" wondered LaPierre's erstwhile opponent, Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (search).

New York celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, not known for mincing words, was both blunt and sharp-tongued.

"This is yet another sign of the coming apocalypse," he told the Times. "Where there is no risk, there is no pleasure."

DEATH OF A MARINE

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

Sunday, May 29, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...th_of_a_marine/

Monday night, in a special Memorial Day broadcast of ''Nightline," Ted Koppel will call the roll of the more than 900 US troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past 12 months. As each name is read, viewers will see a photograph of the fallen soldier. Executive producer Tom Bettag says the program is meant to remind Americans, ''regardless of their feelings about the war, that the men and women who have given their lives in our behalf are individuals with names and faces." When ABC aired a similar "Nightline" in April 2004, it was accused in some quarters of trying to inflame antiwar sentiment for political purposes. In the event, it proved a solemn and respectful tribute, and there has been no controversy this year.

Long lists of soldiers killed in wartime can have great emotional power, as anyone who has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington can attest. However dignified and moving, though, in the end such a listing can really describe them only as a group: *They wore the uniform and died in the service of their country.* But who they were individually, how they served, what they left behind -- that is more than a catalogue of names can convey.

So here is the story behind just one of the names ''Nightline" will enumerate on Memorial Day: Sergeant Rafael Peralta of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines. He was killed in action on Nov. 15 during Operation Dawn, the epic battle to retake the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah.

What follows is chiefly based on an account by Marine Lance Corporal T.J. Kaemmerer, a combat correspondent who took part in the operation that cost Peralta his life. Reports also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Marine Corps Times, The San Diego Union Tribune, and on ABC News.

On the day he died, Rafael Peralta was 25 years old, a Mexican immigrant from San Diego who had enlisted in the Marines as soon as he became a legal resident. He earned his citizenship while on active duty and re-upped in 2004. He was a Marine to the core, so meticulous that when Alpha Company was training in Kuwait, he would send his camouflage uniform out to be pressed.

He was no less passionate about his adopted country: His bedroom wall was adorned with a picture of his boot camp graduation and replicas of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. ''Be proud of being an American," he wrote to his kid brother Ricardo, 14. ''Our father came to this country and became a citizen because it was the right place for our family to be." It was the first letter he ever wrote to Ricardo -- and the last. It arrived in San Diego the day after he died.

The Marines of the 1/3 were on the front lines in Fallujah, purging the city of terrorists in house-to-house combat. As a platoon scout, Peralta could have stayed back in relative safety. Instead, as was often the case, he volunteered to join the assault team.

On the morning of Nov. 15, one week into the battle for Fallujah, his squad had cleared three houses without incident. They approached a fourth, kicking in two locked doors simultaneously and entering both front rooms. They found them empty. Another closed door led to an adjoining room. As the other Marines spread out, wrote Kaemmerer, ''Peralta, rifle in hand, tested the handle." It wasn't locked. He threw open the door, preparing to rush in -- and three terrorists with AK-47s opened fire. He was shot multiple times in the chest and face. As he fell, severely wounded, he managed to wrench himself out of the doorway to give his fellow Marines a clear line of fire.

The gunfire was deafening. To the sound of the terrorists' AK-47s was added the din of the Marines' M16 rifles and Squad Automatic Weapon, a machine gun. The battle was raging, with Peralta down and bleeding heavily and the other Marines firing at the enemy in the back room, when, in Kaemmerer's words, ''a yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade bounced into the room, rolling to a stop close to Peralta's nearly lifeless body."

As the other Marines tried to flee, Peralta reached for the grenade and tucked it into his gut. Seconds later, it exploded with such force that when his remains were returned to his family for burial, they were able to identify him only by the tattoo on his shoulder. His five comrades-in-arms, shielded from the worst of the blast by Peralta's last act as a Marine, survived.

** ** ** **

''Right now, people are really nice and everything," Peralta's 12-year-old sister Karen told a reporter 10 days after her brother's death. ''But I know that when it comes to later on, they are going to forget him. They're going to forget about him."

No, Karen. The Marines, always faithful, do not forget their heroes. And neither does the grateful nation that pauses to honor them this week -- the nation Rafael Peralta loved so deeply, and for which he gave his last full measure of devotion.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

Trefor...

By definition a terrorist is someone who attempts to attain a goal by using schocking acts against innocent life, property and individual liberty to create fear to demoralize and control their opposition. It's a common tactic in war and always has been. The firebombings of Hamburg and Dresden by the RAF and USAF is a good example.

The "war on terrorism" seems almost like an oxymoron to me. How to you wage war against a tactic of war?

NAMBLA seeks to destroy kids lives to further their perverse agenda of self gratification. The ACLU and Morris Sleaze seek to destroy liberty via over the top tort abuse in order to further the states agenda of reducing citizens to totally dependent serfdom. Obviously, OFM was quite accurate in his assessment.

Abigail...

Now do a google on "consensus facilitaion".

Abi...

I think you're onto something. Do a Google on "Hegelian dialectic". You'll learn much.

What a FASCINATING thread!!

It seems to cut to the chase regarding indidual responsibility and the role of the state.

On one hand we have some folks who would castrate the perverts, carry firearms and use them..in short...show resistance. We'll call them the dogs.

On the other hand, we have those who think people shouldn't be armed, people should rely on "the authorities" for protection...in short...be dependent. We'll call them the sheep.

The engine powering all this is the state that releases "facts and statistics" to frighten the sheep and alarm the dogs. The states solution is to enact worthless and unenforcable legislation regarding the problem (here, it's sex offenders) to give the sheep the feeling of security. The state, further, releases "information" convincing the sheep, through lies and fake statistics, that the dogs are rabid...to further frighten the sheep of the dogs, so they won't recognize the dogs as their true protectors.

The states purose in this is to make all dependent on the state...who we'll call the wolves.

The wolves are the only ones qualified to have claws and fangs, leaving the sheep and dogs to be slaughtered while the dogs yap and the sheep bleat helplessly.

Shellon...

Your article is quite sad. I noticed it was referring to Houston and although I don't know of any evidence to substantiate this, I have to think the air people have to breathe there affects their mental state. The air is heavy with petrochemicals and heavy metal poisons from all the refineries and that HAS to be a factor. I lived there for a while and joined up with TWI there...that in and of itself says something.

I'm not an environmentalist by anyones standards, but breathing poisonous air like in the Houston area has to have some effects on things like that.

Just some mental rumination on my part.

Hey Raf...

Look at the bright side. It'll help keep the forest fires under control and you don't have those pesky sand storms like they have in west Texas.

He was LC the last year I was in Florida. I enjoyed his leadership a lot because, to me, anyway, he was approachable, not full of himself and a something of a friend.

I'm sad about his passing. Although I don't remember his daughters, I remember his wife, MaryAnn as a very lovely, gracious lady and a talented classical pianist.

He's on my very short list of Corps leaders I met along the Way who were the real deal and who I'll remember with love all my life.

What's the difference between a geek and a nerd?

BOOKS Read

I've read the labels on Jack Daniels and Jim Beam bottles. I also read the latest book of Garfield cartoons

MOVIES

Seen ALL the Ernest movies (Ernest goes to Camp, Ernest joins the Army etc.)

'PUTERS

Knows how to load Pacman and Space Invaders on a Commodore 64 and post on forums like this 'un.

I have a 70% win ratio on Spider solitaire (comes with Windows XP)

MUSIC

I love the Altans...my favorite band.

PETS

3 dogs, 22 hens, one rooster named Angus and some ducks. Donkey and goat died :(-->

WORK

I don't do 4 letter words.

MODE OF TRANSPORTATION

'90 Dodge Dakota pickup and '94 Olds

TRAVEL

I went to Harrison AR last week (in the Olds).

HOBBY

Hunting with my .50 cal Hawken, fishing, camping and making chili.

Ironically, the greatest mother of all died of testicular cancer.

We like to know we got our moneys worth out of stuff, we like to know our stuff is durable and it helps us hang onto our youth.

God help ANYONE who throws away any of my dads tools...even tho some are broken or obsolete like his Raytheon tube tester...it still works and I even have a few old tubes I can still test.

We're also sentimental. For example we like to keep the socks we wore when we hit that winning home run back in '64...still unwashed....and the pants worn when we bowled that 300 game and the undies we removed when Mille Rose Frobrush FINALLY....never mind that. You get the picture.

I just got back from the hospital with a brand new pacemaker and am off to Scout camp this afternoon. The first order of business today is to find a suitable display box for my old pacemaker so I can display it on my desk. It served me well for 11 years.

See y'uns Sunday.

The holocaust was a terrible thing, to be sure, but reading Satori's post reminded me of an old Russian thing called "pogroms against the Jews" which was practiced by Czars for centuries and ol' Joe Stalin continued the practice.

I wonder why there's no memorials or museums for that as Hitlers body count would pale in comparison...particularly to Stalin's murderous rampages.

Tho it's never been made known, I'll betcha Kruzchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev did a few to...for the sake of tradition.

Just curious.

Here in Arkinsaw, we refer to it as 'prairie chicken'. We like 'em fried, in a stew and with dumplings.

The best way to hunt them is to spot a nest in a tree, shoot it with a 12 ga (light load) and when they come running down, pop 'em with a .22.

Delicious and nutritious!!

I don't understand why obesity is such a problem.

If they're like me, they HAVE to stand and fight cuz they're too fat to run.

"Oprah?" asked Uncle Hant reflectively, "I remember her. Looks like five hundred pounds of bear liver in a plastic bag."

For those who truly love squirrel...

http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zsquir.html

Part sheep and part human.

Hmmmmmm...that reminds me of a story. Might be a true story.

A Scottish old timer in Scotland was sitting in a bar, talking to a young man. "Lad, look out there to the field. Do ya see that fence? Look how well it's built. I built that fence stone by stone with me own two hands. I piled it for months. But do they call me Angus-the-Fence-Builder? Nooo.."

"Then the old man gestured at the bar. "Look here at the bar. Do ya see how smooth and just it is? I planed that surface down by me own achin' back. I carved that wood with me own hard labour, for eight days. But do they call me Angus-the-Bar-builder? Nooo..."

Then the old man points out the window. "Eh, Laddy, look out to sea. Do ya see that pier that stretches out as far as the eye can see? I built that pier with the sweat off me back. I nailed it board by board. But do they call me Angus-the-Pier-Builder? Nooo..."

Then the old man looks around nervously, trying to make sure no one is paying attention. "But ya bugger one sheep..."