Thank you, to all our veterans.

The war is a reason for the deficits, but not THE reason.

See the graph at American Digest for the truth in red, white, and blue.

The Soviet Union didn’t collapse because of Reagan or Thatcher or missile bases or Star Wars: It collapsed because of Bulgarian blue jeans. The free market was trying to tell the Communists that Bulgarian blue jeans were ugly and didn’t fit, that people wouldn’t wear Bulgarian blue jeans — not, literally, to save their lives. But the Kremlin wasn’t listening, and the Berlin Wall came down.

from World Affairs Journal

The Math Curmudgeon has one that made me … something. Anyway, I thought it was worth sharing.

3rd Place
After walking around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

I don’t have a Guns category, so this is going in Politics/Military. Because folks there often have guns or discuss them.

Political Calculations has a blog post on whether businesses prefer Texas or California.

Texas wins.

Go see why.

And by how much.

This article is about a man trying to find the proper health care for his wife.

She had a permanent pain disease.

It tells of their frustrations with the healthcare system as it exists and what they think is good.

BAD:
Constructive Curmudgeon says

The Supreme Court just ruled that a college or university may deny a student group official status if that group does not allow homosexuals as leaders.

BAD:
Stop the ACLU says that people are going to quit signing petitions.

In an 8-to-1 decision, the high court said public disclosure of referendum petitions does not as a general matter violate the First Amendment.

We saw how well the “saying who gave $$” worked out, with Prop. 8 in California, right? (Such as this article.)

GOOD:
Bloomberg.com, in “Gun Rights Must Be Honored by States/Cities,” says:

[T]he constitutional right to bear arms … binds state and local governments, as well as federal officials…

The justices, voting 5-4, said an individual right to bear arms was among the fundamental guarantees protected against state and local interference through a constitutional amendment after the Civil War.

So Chicagoans have the right to own and use their weapons to stop criminals.

Sippican Cottage had the piece, “For Dorothy.” I recommend reading it.

I was trained to pull men whole from their mothers, like some Greek deity on a vase.

It’s about a nurse who works with soldiers.

Staff Sgt. Edward Rosa reads the Bible and extends a cigarette to Pfc. Jorge Rostra Obando, who was stunned by an explosion in Afghanistan’s Arghanab Valley. One comrade was killed and two injured in the blast. Pfc. Rostran asked the sergeant to read Psalm 91, a favorite from his childhood. (Ricardo Garcia Vilanova for The Wall Street Journal) – Photo Journal – WSJ

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-

10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

Psalm 91, NIV, from BibleGateway

66 years ago today, D-Day.

Thank you to those of you who fought during WWII… and those who have fought since.

Right on the Left Coast quotes from the Washington Examiner about the government’s working paper on the “reinvention of journalism.”

Apparently the working paper thinks that the newspapers have a right to the news they report:

Copyright protects an author’s articulation of facts, but not the facts themselves.

State law versions of the “hot news” doctrine, however, can protect a news
organization’s investment in fact gathering to a limited extent. In International News
Service (INS), the AP challenged the use of its news wire stories by INS, which
immediately rewrote the stories and distributed them to its own clients. Based on
common law misappropriation principles, the Supreme Court recognized a “quasi
property” right of very short duration in the facts that were gathered, digested, and
disseminated at great expense by the AP.

Would anyone be talking about this if there weren’t a move to federalize the press? I don’t think so.

Would the government recognize a blogger’s right to the news? Probably not. And, according to some, the bloggers wouldn’t be protected.

God help us that we are giving away our freedoms to a government which wants to run it all. (That’s totalitarianism, in case you weren’t thinking.)

All persons present should face the flag, stand at attention and salute on the following occasions:

1. When the flag is passing in a parade or review. The salute to the flag
in the moving column is rendered at the moment the flag passes.
2. During the ceremony of hoisting or lowering the flag.
3. When the National Anthem is played and the flag is displayed.
4. During the Pledge of Allegiance … I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

from Flag Co

This is a day to remember those who serve this country and those who have lost loved ones who served this country.

The photo is from Blackfive.

Quoting Thucydides,

“A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors has its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”

Right on the Left Coast offers a pungent comment on the “softening” of the Ivy Leagues toward the military.

Telegraph UK has “10 Reasons Why Barack Obama is the Most Naive President in US History.

I didn’t say it. I just showed you it was there.

“In a private fee-for-service medical system, a dead patient is a revenue loss. In the National Health Service (UK), a dead patient was a cost savings.” -Harry Bailey MD 1930-2003, Sheffield (England) University Medical School 1950-1956; Harvard Medical School 1958-1981, US Navy Medical Corps 1982-1991.

The above quote is from my late father.

from Take Me To Your Lizard

Cleveland.com has the story of Robert Jr and Sr.

The letter sat on the dresser for four years.

Robert Gilbert never opened it. He only touched the envelope when he needed to dust around it. He wanted to give it back to his son unopened.

Every time his Marine son was deployed, his son would ask, “You still got my letter?”

His dad never wanted to read what was inside an envelope marked: “Dad, open this if I am wounded. Love, Robert.”

The call to open it came March 8.

by a postliberal, Well-Meaning Opposition.

Here’s the sticking point: there seems an inability to back all the way down the road and re-look at the question Is this the right thing to do? Failing that, they are locked endlessly in the impression that ours is a moral failing, that must be addressed on moral grounds. They assume we must not like universal coverage only because it is too expensive; that we are reluctant to extend citizen’s rights to detainees only by failure of generosity and justice. They can’t think of other reasons. When we say something else they think we are just rationalizing, and are really just fearful and morally flawed.

Thus the things they say are horribly insulting and accusing. They are not generally horrible and accusing people, and are hurt when they are called on it. We must have misunderstood their intent or meaning. Longtime followers of this site know that this is where village idiots come in, and why I aspire to be one. When you are accusing others of evil motives, that is in itself reason to backtrack as far as need be to make sure you have understood.

It is fair to ask whether this unwillingness to backtrack is not a sort of intellectual sin, or a moral cowardice of its own. Often it is, and I have been strident over the years that any progressive’s refusal to consider that such a thing is even possible tells me when I am onto something. Once the door is opened to the possibility that these supposedly moral stances are suffused with more primitive tribal values, or class values, or mere fashionableness, there is going to be pain in store for any of us who walk through. But when they hear “fashionable” they think that’s not me, I’m anti-fshionable; “tribal,” they think no that’s ethnic, racial or sexual – I don’t have those prejudices. That there might be a deeper tribalism, a deeper fashionableness, does not enter their minds. They can easily reject the superficial meaning, and so are well-defended against the deeper one.

So we all pretend there is no door. I have walked through the door a few times, which is why I am postliberal. But I have little doubt there are still further doors I refuse to see as well. It’s human nature. There are always more doors, that both our faults and our virtues are influenced by factors we did not suspect.

To conclude, I give the reasons that non-liberals believe motivate them. All we neocons and neoliberals, libertarians and postliberals, think these are our real reasons. We may delude ourselves in this, and we may turn out to be nothing more than the shallow, selfish, prejudiced boors we are accused of being. But it would be wise to at least consider that we might actually believe these things.

1. These schemes seldom actually fix very much, they just make us all feel that we have done something about it.

2. Progressive plans have obvious benefits, but non-obvious consequences which are dire. The simple benefit to individuals is in the open; the complex cost to society is disguised.

3. “Cost” doesn’t mean just money. Loss of values, culture, and character are important costs.

There is much more on the website, which I will add to my daily reads. Visit Assistant Village Idiot to read the post.

Turns out, the origin is probably from Mississippi:

PJM posted about it after his Sharecropper’s Daughter picture.

The health care bill has passed.

My government now owns the auto industry, banking, and health care.

One giant step at a time into socialism.

Sorrow. Pain. Tears. Weeping.

Despair sits just outside, though. Despite the immediate tax additions, the health care aspect won’t go into effect until 2014. There is still a little time to potentially stave off the destruction of America.

But not much.

And despair crouches at the door.