Prepare To Be Offended

I haven’t blogged in about 2 months. It hasn’t been for lack of wanting to, but I’ve been busy building PatriotRoom.com.

You really should check it out. With four writers on board there is no shortage of articles. However there is more available as you can submit your own articles and if you want you can give us your RSS feed and we will show it for all our users, helping generate traffic for you!

So go check it out…

Oh yea, this says it all…

I’m not sure who originally said this was an A-10 doing the shooting, but I doubt it. If it is, it isn’t from its famous front gun as the blast radius is far too big. I’ve seen them shoot and they are pretty damn precise. It looks more like a cluster bomb or maybe it came from an AC-130 Spectre. Who knows.

Either way, it is great.

First and foremost, I am a veteran myself. I spent 5 1/2 years in the Air Force and while technically I spent time in a combat zone I never fired a shot or was fired up myself. It is also worth mentioning that my dad spent 17 or so years in the Army, and many years in civil service before retiring a couple years ago. My wife’s dad served in Vietnam. An old friend of the family also served in Vietnam before becoming a police officer and later a police chief.

This past weekend my wife and I went to the Aviation Nation air show here at Nellis Air Force base. When I was a kid I wanted to be a fighter pilot and so every chance I get to see these men and women fly is always something special. The thing I love seeing the most is when they fly the P-51, F-15 and F-22 together in tight formation. For those that don’t know, each of these fighters represent the best the Air Force had in their era. Last year they had a F-4 in the mix, from the vietnam era. It was a sight to see.

This year was a treat as they had an E-3 Sentry, better known as the AWACS, and it was open for the public. I used to work on these things and it was the first time my wife got to see the inside of it. It was a real treat to be able to share that part of my past with her.

Beyond myself and my family though, I have high regard for anybody that wears the uniform. I don’t care if you are a clerk at a dentist office, pushing pencils in accounting or holding a rifle all day long looking for terrorists. There is no greater honor than to wear the uniform and serve your country. It takes enormous commitment and for those in harms way, courage. Every single soldier, air man, sailor and grunt out there is under paid and damn sure are under appreciated.

The news only cares about telling about the bad things that happen, focusing on people like Phil Donahue who portray them as these poor victims of an unjust war. Whether you think the war was unjust or not, that is besides the point. The vast majority of people overseas know what they are doing and are proud to be there making a difference. I’ve spent 12 weeks in both Turkey and Saudi Arabia and while I was not there during any active fighting I know what it is like to be so far away, stuck in a foreign land. I was lucky that my tours were short, but not everyone has that luxury.

The most memorable time I’ve had was coming home from my second Saudi trip and I sat next to a nice old couple. I was in uniform and the lady next to me asked if I was coming back from the middle east. I smiled and said I was. Her husband then looked at me and said “Son, thank you very much for all you are doing”. I was kind of taken aback. After all, I wasn’t a marine or soldier hiking his ass through the desert, I was a aircraft technician far behind any line. I could see the look in his eye though and I knew that it didn’t matter. I managed a smile and a thank you. I will never forget that day.

So if you see a member of the armed services be sure to just say thank you. You will be surprised how good it will make them feel. It is for them that we raise our flags each day and pledge our allegiance to this country.

For all those out there that are haters of all things military (I’m talking to you San Francisco) or those who wish to demoralize our troops (MSM…), well, that soldier will still fight for your right to be a fucking idiot and hater.

If I were George Bush, and Obama does get elected, as W is handing the keys to the white I would say “Don’t fuck up our country. Oh, and enjoy your four years, it is all you are getting”.

Wow. Found via Ace. Not only does Cashill.com make a compelling visual comparison of the two styles, they even cite several, not one, several, technical comparisons of the two books using various software packages.

Conspiracy theories aside, the comparisons are truly remarkable. See for yourself.

The SeattlePI has a story about how some models are saying that lower gas prices are a sign of bad news in the economy.

Experts say sinking prices may be predictive of a nasty recession, the theory being that as the economy worsens and people drive less, demand for gasoline will decrease, not only here, but also in developing economies such as China and India. That could send prices even lower in the near term, though it won’t jump-start the economy because the credit market is still weakening and unemployment is rising.

An interesting take. I’m no economics PhD, but that just seems crazy to me. While I’m on the subject of gas prices, the whole idea of high gas prices “hurting” everyday Americans is just ludicrous. Let me put this in perspective and I’ll use my vehicle as a test case. It is a 2005 Chevy Malibu. Not exactly a model of fuel efficiently. In the city it averages about 19-20 mpg, which is fairly common.

Now, the Department of Transportation says that 78% of Americans drive fewer than 40 miles a day[1], so let us use that 40 miles as our base. It would also be fair to say that the average gas tank is about 16 gallons. So the average American uses 2.5 gallons a day max, thus filling up every 6.4 days. With me so far? Good.

In a 28 day period (two paychecks) the average user paid roughly $307.30 based on $4.39 a gallon. Sounds pretty high right? That same person now pays an average of $192.50 based on $2.75 a gallon, which is a difference of $57.40 per paycheck.

If I get this right, paying an extra $57.40 a paycheck was hurting the average American, right? Hmm… 60 bucks is a night out at the movies. Or a nice dinner. Or a roughly 12 lunches at your favorite fast food joint. Or a video game. The point being that if an extra 60 bucks a paycheck was killing you, you have other problems.

Having said all of that, let’s remember that $57.40 is based on driving that max of 40 miles a day, which most people don’t do. It also takes into account completely filling an empty tank of gas. Again, which most people don’t do, unless you are used to running your car out of gas and pushing it to the gas station. So the real cost is more like $40-$45 a paycheck.

How is that for some perspective?

Sources:
1. Popular Science Nov. 2008 pg. 52

I thought it might be worthwhile to lighten things up a bit. A few weeks ago we got an African Grey parrot and named him Dexter. African Greys are quite the talkers and here is our first video of him doing such:

He is seven years old and most of what he says he learned before we got him (obviously). The one thing I think I contributed to was the “farting” noises However once I can get him to say something along the lines of “say no to liberals” I’ll be a happy camper. The only thing is he really takes to my wife and doesn’t particularly care for me. I keep telling my wife that if he doesn’t straighten up I’m breaking out the deep fryer…

Apparently Democrat Rep. Murtha doesn’t think so. After saying that his constituents were racist, he now says that they aren’t racist, they’re rednecks! Well hot spit, that’s just dandy.

How on earth do these morons ever get elected in the first place? Let alone reelected!?!

As far as the redneck being a racist remark goes, I’ve lived where rednecks are abundant and I would have to say that “redneck” is no more racist that “nigger”. If one redneck calls another redneck, well, “redneck” then it isn’t racist. If a black guy calls a redneck “redneck” then it is.

How’s that for ya?

It seems that Obama and his allies in ACORN are accusing the republicans and McCain of working in “collusion” with the justice department to “…create an environment of fear and intimidation”.

Even ACORN is jumping into the fray:

“We call on the McCain campaign to directly answer whether they, the Republican Party or their operatives have been conspiring with the Bush Administration to misuse the Justice Department in order to suppress voter turnout in 2008,”

ACORN president Maude Hurd said in a statement.

As if anything that an organization being investigated for voter fraud in 12+ states has any merit? You’ve got to be kidding me! It isn’t like they are “misusing” the voter registration process to further their own cause now is it?

As I said in a previous post, it is going to be a long election…

Hawaii has dropped its child health program after only seven months. Wow, only seven months? The primary reason? People who were paying for their children’s health care through an employer or other means stopped paying for it because they could now get it for free. Imagine that!?

So now take that same idea, free health care for those that don’t have it, and apply it to our entire country. Under Obama you could keep paying for your own or stop paying it (remember that few employers cover ALL employee benefits and most still make you pay some premium for family) and go for the free program. What would you do? As for myself, I’ve lived with government health care and it absolutely sucks. However it probably wouldn’t matter either way and I might as well drop my employer provided benefits since all the people getting it for free are going to end up at the same doctors and hospitals that I would and therefore negate any benefit that I would get.

The end result is that before too long everybody is on the ‘free’ health plan, for which we are all paying taxes on, and it bankrupts the nation. Swell idea.