MUST BE UNANIMOUS IF THERE IS NO DISSENT

The British parliament have spoken. They have decided by a vote of 304 to nothing to hold a referendum on staying within the EU not later than the end of 2017. I'm sure it's nothing more than a pretty little stunt but it shows more jungle smarts out of the British ruling class than I expected. For years they've simply pooh poohed the idea away. Now they have to have somebody, anybody, come in and make an argument that speaks powerfully in favor of the quangos in Europe. I don't see how they can do it but then I never thought Americans would be stupid enough to vote twice for Obama. I don't know what the average Briton sees in remaining within the EU after they so thoroughly rejected the Euro which appears to have been the major reason for the EU.

I'm reading a little further afield than is my wont these days and found this article on Irish banking interesting. Reading it is troublesome and calls to mind much of what happened in Iceland and of course what just happened in Cyprus. I swear the curtains keep blowing and every glimpse behind them simply shows that there is nothing there. There's nothing at all.

If you believe, you know what to do.

CIVIL WAR LETTER HOME CHATTANOOGA TENN

                           Medical Purveyor’s Office Chattanooga Tennessee

                                                               March 8^th, 1864

My Dear Mother

         I received your kind letter today and was very glad to hear that you was well and that you were still living in hopes of meeting me in this world.  Mr. McCullough was here yesterday evening or I should have written to you then but I went with him up to the camp to see the company so that I did not have time to write.  Lt. G. B. was on guard so that I did not get to see him but I seen the rest of the boys and they were all well and all send there regards to the law abiding citizens of Liberty and Union. Some say they would reenlist but as long as there are men at home who are able to fight they say the tune of yankee doodle has no charms for them so that if the people do not want a draft they had better fill up the broken ranks very soon or we will resort to any kind of measure to force them into the ranks for it is the intention of the administration to close this war in double quick time and it will take men to do it and men we will have at any cost. I think another battle will soon be fought in this Department; which will be the conclusion of the history of this army. I have not heard from Johny since the last letter but I will try to write to him tonight and send it to him by the first mail. The veteran Regts are relearning quite fast. I think in a few days our army will be stronger than ever it was before.

The weather is quite warm here and we have had some rain but not enough to raise the river much  As my candle is nearly out I must close. The flowers are in bloom I will send you some in my next. Write soon and oftener to your affectionate son

                                                  Luther M. Beaver

A MOST UNCOMMON FLAG

Editor's Note- Near the end of his life the great science fiction author
Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national
anthem. However brief, this well circulated piece is an eye opener from
the dearly departed doctor. He wrote:

"I have a weakness. I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national
anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but
frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and
emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I
announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas.
This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the
kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting.

"Thanks, Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.
Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never
really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the
anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story
of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation
and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily
over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held
off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great
Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as
the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia.
If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great
Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an
American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a
battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander,Oliver Hazard Perry,
sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However,
the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New
England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to
abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States,
launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down
Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The
southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and
paralyze the west.

The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic states and then
attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was
taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split
in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on
the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took
Washington D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore
on September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose
guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore,
they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who
had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis
Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to
negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two
Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and
the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over
Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the
red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American
flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a
dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British
flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag
still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at
the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician
must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the
events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was
published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the
words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a
difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious
reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in
1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old
doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.

Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other
elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The
second stanza gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream

'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed,
and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a
failure. In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over
the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably
was in no mood to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this
third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more
slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling:

Oh thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,

Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it,
the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to the
words. And don't let them ever take it away .. not even one word of it."

HAVE A HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

TAKING AND DRIVING AWAY

It looks like another democratically elected lying rat is on his way to exile or perhaps something a little more traumatic. People srsly believed these fiends in human form that they would govern responsibly and fairly and not trample the minority into the blood and filth on the floors of their dungeons.

It's funny how one can always rely on the Organs of the Ministry of Truth for a fair recap of the men who have earned the support of civilized governments. I remain surprised that Mobarek was either too stupid or too ill to flee the country.

Built just 4500 years ago today,

Has Egypt or Egyptians actually done anything since then? Penicillin? Light? Railroads?

It will be interesting to see it play out. Many people worry that the world's most populous countries will have an enormous impact on the near future of the world. I'm not sure why. Egypt looks like a classic precursor of what will happen to such countries when the money runs out. The 'government' can no longer afford to subsidize food and energy and the people get restless. When the people get restless they take it out on their leaders and then on the countries around them.

Sucks to be their neighbors.  However you can read up on their really big scawy militawies.  When I was last in Egypt they told me that they would oblige us by submerging one of their deadly submarines for a naval exercise if we gave them at least a year to get ready.

I'm not afraid.

SHOOT SHOOT LOOK SHOOT

That was the mantra of the navy missile defense world back in the Cold War. We didn't have a lot of ammunition but we sure as hell didn't want one of these
hitting us or even exploding within a mile or two so we liked to be thorough. That huge missile under that huge bomber is an AS-4 nuclear armed anti-ship missile with a 350-1000 kiloton warhead.

It's probably time to employ that tactic against the police. They seem a hell of a lot more interested in their safety than they are in the safety of anybody else.

Let's be honest now. If it is good enough for them to shoot up everyone in sight,  for the safety that's in it, it's good enough for the rest of us.

HOW DEVIOUS OF US

Isn't it grand that we operate our own gulag in Castro's Cuba?

 Savoring the irony.

FUTURE SHOCK

This may be too horrible to contemplate.

I realize that there may be a tiny little technical problem with this but ask yourself, do you really think the Constitution will matter anymore by then?

VACATION SNAPS

Here are a couple of pix that came in during my vacation. The first is self-explanatory in that it's the vacation hacienda from a boat and the other is the sun setting.

That's a snap from my place on Mars. I think it is amazing.

Just so you know; I had a dozen posts that were supposed to autoposte during the interregnum but there were technical difficulties....yeah, technical difficulties. OK, so I forgot to sunset them properly before taking off.

HOME IS THE SAILOR

Home from the sea

We had a great time.

I was away from all of the news and the tubes for the last 9 days or so. It was very relaxing...except the Scrabble and the Cards Against Humanity... maybe.

I saw this picture in my email from gCaptain but I thought it served best as an allegorical picture of the impact of islam on the world. I was stationed in Arabia for many years and met and worked with many fine arabs but I am forced to admit that islam is inimical to civilization. All civilizations, not just the West. I don't doubt for one second that if the heirs of the attackers of Breslan or the slaves of God that launched 9/11 had access to atomic weapons or other WMD that they would use them in a heartbeat.

The West passed through the Enlightenment several hundred years ago but there is not one single sign that islam will ever elect to join the race.* They have not yet begun to even open their eyes to the light of reason and likely never will.

"Indeed, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year. The report noted that Arab rulers stay in office all their lives and create dynasties that inherit power, and the peoples are unable to institute change."

Read this link on arabic literacy and translation.

*The race of reason

AWAY BOARDERS

I'm off on vacation in Maine for the nonce. Back in a bit.

A QUIET ROAR

I was out today in the west and looking back over MetroParkCentralis I could swear I saw at least one and maybe two of these:

One was heading west over Lakewood and the other was flying south right over the Terminal Tower about 3 minutes later. I can't find anything on line about them being in the neighborhood though. It was a bit of time out of time.

ARSENAL OF TERRORISTS

I found this on Instanpundit and it is priceless.

Senator Ted Cruz        ✔ @SenTedCruz

Anyone know if President Obama intends to perform background checks on the Syrian rebels before providing them weapons?

THE DARKLING PLAIN

It is rare for MIT to turn such profound absurdities loose here in MassifCentralOrientalis but in this conceptual piece on the art of war in the 21st century they have done just that. It is titled, 'Adapting to Automation' and it demonstrates that when the topic turns to drones the only ones they recognize are hardware. They seem to have lost sight of the muslim application of drone warfare using wetware.

 Marvel at this gem, "...only the United States has the combination of intelligence-gathering and targeting technologies to kill a particular person or type of person anywhere, at any time." We might ask the folks in the World Trade Center or Pentagon if they concur.

You could read through it and tear out its guts. I however, have a higher destiny today. My girlfriend just gave me one of these: 

THE BUTLER DID IT

It's an interesting philosophical question for the indolent. Is there such a thing as a 'Just War' and should we fight or even be a party to any war that fails to meet the definition of 'Just War.' The idea picked up steam during the Reagan years when so many protestors were out there demanding total surrender to the Communists in the Soviet Union where justness gets its name and reputation. I think that's most of the reason the invasion of Panama was called Operation Just Cause. That, or they had some trickster who thought, Just Because, would be to obvious.

The famous warrior of the tween Big Gigantic World Wars was Smedley Butler. He wrote a book about his experiences fighting in the New World, Old World and Orient for United Fruit et al. His book is, 'War is a Racket.' Here is a quote from that book's frontpiece:

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Well, if you know anything, you know that all that chastising and civilizing was unnecessary. All of those places are fine countries and firm friends of the United States and able representatives of Civilization and the Race.*

We are looking at being drawn into a pointless and futile war in Syria now. I've written about this before but it's worth observing that no interests of the United States are served by joining the fighting in muslim countries. There is a special kind of contemptible idiot that wanders the land bleating about how evil the U.S. military is and then demanding that it throw itself into the war elsewhere and FIGHT FOR PEACE! You know. Kill people! Break Stuff!

It really is a very short book. You could read the whole thing in less than 30 minutes. Here is an excerpt that rings true today:

 

"To Hell With War!

"I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war. Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.

Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?

Money.

An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:

"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.
If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money . . . and Germany won't.
So . . . "**

Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."

Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy. And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.

Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?"

I know any number of fools that worry about what kind of government other people have. Remember the words, "Too Big To Fail?" Who in 1950 Detroit ever would have thought that 60 years later the City of Detroit would default on all of its outstanding loans and payments? I suppose one might have thought that something like that would happen if there was a great war; an Atomic War.

There was a war but you never remember it. It was Lyndon Johnson's War.

The War on Poverty.

The government pissed money away on useless projects in a mighty torrent and in the process they created a bureaucracy that defies belief. Here's the Wall Street Journal on Education Spending.

"According to the data, New York spent the most per pupil at $19,076, followed by Washington, D.C. at $18,475; Alaska, $16,674; New Jersey, $15,968; and Vermont, $15,925. Utah spent the least, $6,212 per student, followed by Idaho, $6,824; Oklahoma, $7,587; Arizona at $7,666; and Mississippi, $7,928."

I can't figure it out. Are students in Utah 3 times smarter than New York students or 3 times stupider?

*The Race of Reason

**Danegeld and Reparations

IT IS ONLY AIR

I was going to post a bit on what I bumped into yesterday while leaving the premises following brunch. After doing the obligatory research I find that I won't. Instead I'll post

a picture of a supercell in Texas from last week. That was an awesome bit of weather.

We see from news reports that Obama has ordered the U.S. Marines to deploy in Jordan along the Syrian frontier because there is some overriding reason to involve ourselves in yet another arab muslim war. I was a few months away from deploying the first time when Reagan deployed the U.S. Marines to Lebanon for no particular purpose. Since Vietnam, the President has sent Marines to act nobly in a many places around the world.

Recall that in Vietnam it began with a mission to defend an air base.

It calls to mind the beginning of the 20th century. Funny how we have lined up to repeat this insanity

again in the 21st century.

WOEFUL COUNTENANCE

I like both of these. My girl is totally onboard with deserving her fair share but other than not liking girls she pretty much rejects the rest.

Second picture taken from 2nd Amendment via Moonbattery and Maggie's Farm who was also poster of the picture of the first part.

Just think. In a decade or two the NSA will be able to read your thoughts and determine if there are any thought crimes or unauthorized thoughts in there and then Thom Cruise will make a movie about it.

DEAL OF THE CENTURY

Some days I wonder if the people that dreamed up the Liberator pistol were really on to something. There are any number of fascists out there that need a good shooting.

SPACE VANDALS

I was reading over at oldafsarge last night and he had a nice post about Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 and that made me wonder. I know why 11 matters so much and they made a movie about 13. What about the rest?

I delved into the mystery at our old friend wikipedia. Naturally, I started with Apollo 12. Who ever heard of it? The link is to the story of an unmanned lander that NASA bounced off the moon 3 times back in 1967. Very droll. It was there that I learned why we never hear about the rest of the Apollo missions. It turns out they were the very first space vandals and interplanetary hooligans.

Caught in the act. Astronaut vandalizing Surveyor Probe and stealing parts

As you can see from the photo, they already got the wheels off and came back for the panels. This is a full size picture from NASA.

What an awesome country we are.

ONE DAY IN MY LIFE

this happened:

I clipped it out of Navy Times when it appeared over 20 years ago and it adorned my freezer door ever since. I left it behind in San Diego a couple of years ago with all that remained. Jeff Bacon was kind enough to email it to me last night.

They say that a joke should never be explained but this is outside the norm since it's all jargon. The cartoon shows an extremely bad day in the life of a bridge officer. He wants a man off the bow of the ship while the conning officer is ordering the helmsman to steer a new course. The ships helicopter needs the ship to head into the wind in order to land safely while the engine room is reporting that the ship's main propulsion is compromised and with it, perhaps all power and light. The Combat Information Center is reporting that another ship out there is on a constant bearing, decreasing range which translates as, it's going to hit us. Finally, the helmsman reports that he no longer has control of the rudder since the steering machinery has failed. The Commanding Officer's attention though is taken by one really crucial bit of data. Nobody had polished all the little brass cover-plates and handles.

It's a wonderful picture about how some people get totally lost in the minutia.

 As Inspector Clouseau would say, "You raving Oriental idiot! There is a time and a place for everything, Cato!"

DATELINE: ISLETS OF LANGERHANS

In an amazing scoop, Islets News Service (INS), has found that the entire story pitched by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian about NSA domestic surveillance, is a complete fabrication. While the NSA does, in fact, spy on every single form of electronic communication known to man, it doesn't call it PRISM and it never employed Mr. Snowden.

Attorney General Holder raises fist to the sky and screams, "No Justice!" Vows to finally get to the bottom of the Vince Foster case and not hesitate to share the gory details. Claims it has nothing to do with Hillary, who, after all, was a New Zealand bee keeper famous for something or other.

In some place detached from reality, militarists in the Pentagon are pondering how to keep 13,000 American troops in Afghanistan after the pullout. The plan is for them to do something to earn their pay and they should suffer greatly for the pleasure of it. Suggestions that they patrol the border were met with howls of protest from Ottawa. We're not sure if they meant that border or the one with Iran or Pakistan.

The palace sent along a picture of His Excellency carrying his own damned umbrella. It was half open and carried below the waist. Our correspondent suspects H.E .الفائز  doesn't know how to carry a brolly in the rain.

 ROTC graduates were commissioned in San Diego last week. When I was commissioned thirty years ago, none of us had a single medal or ribbon. I'm rather pleased that so many prior enlisted are taking the scholarship and the commission. God help us though if these twits get their way. Face it. We'd look ridiculous dressed in purple uniforms:

A little bit goes a long way:

TO FEAR THE DARK

The whole entire NSA is spying on us thing is cause for alarm. I was initially curious about why they would do it so blatantly and think that mere secrecy was going to keep one of our summer patriots from bleating the news far and wide but I think I've figured it out now. The Force say they use the powers of evil to spy on our enemies. OK. Initially, I wondered what effect this had on our enemies but then it occurred to me, those drones don't just fly over those muslim terrorists all over the world based on nothing. Nope. They got good solid intelligence on those dirtbags and the drones are sort of a polite note asking them to cease to exist.

Fine. Got that. But consider. We used to have a tool called Human Intelligence that made up part of the equation in finding and bending, folding and spindling our enemies. How would you like to be the asset on the ground in muslimbackwardistan feeding good solid intelligence to the Force when they have guys in suits in air conditioned suites in Fort Meade  and Langley who can get the same intelligence you got at the risk of your life, just from listening to Achmed talking to his mom on the cell phone?

Yep. You'll know that the NSA and CIA are bearing the costs of the sequestration when you get downsized into itty bitty chunks alongside your muslim informants by a drone strike.

Some day I'll post my rules distilled from years with the military bureaucracy but for now it's enough to share the first rule.

I wouldn't trust those NSA or CIA weasels any further than the blast radius of Hellfire. Trust no one.

RED CAR

Passed this car the other day on the way to the Lake.

We weren't all that keen about following her.

OH COMMISSAR MY COMMISSAR

At the flag and general officer level it is all politics. There' no point in debating it. It was always that way. It took merit above and beyond to make it the first star but that's just the prelude to a long climb up the slippery slope of raw politics.

Pity the USAF who have just eviscerated themselves....with a little help from a harpy in the U.S. Senate. This tragedy was nominally about an Army 2 star in Japan who was relieved a week early   for "allegedly failing to report or properly investigate an allegation of sexual assault, the Army said Friday."

Set that poor bastard aside since this is the news and they seldom get the facts right anyway. Consider the second half of the article that addresses the Air Force office formerly run by a Lieutenant Colonel who was allegedly assaulting women and beaten up by one for his troubles. That office is now to be led by "Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward, who ran the U.S. portion of the allied air campaign over Libya in 2011 and is one of the Air Force's brightest stars. A command pilot with more than 3,800 flight hours, she flew aerial refueling aircraft and commanded air operations in numerous U.S. military operations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. As commander of 17th Air Force, based in Germany, she commanded the U.S. portion of the allied air campaign over Libya in 2011. Most recently she served as the Air Force's chief of safety."

What a slap in the face for a fine officer.

What was the harpy's involvement? She "remains steadfast in blocking the nomination of Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, tapped to serve as vice commander of the U.S. Space Command, over serious concerns with Helms' decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case."

 Everybody put your hands together for our new Commissar!

OLD RELIABLES

I admire the graduate's attempt to speak his own mind when given the microphone at his High School graduation ceremony where he was permitted not to speak because he was the class Valedictorian. I am filled again with hope for our times when a school system has had the full time shaping and molding of a young man's brain for 12 years and cannot rely upon the graduate to stay between the lines when given an open microphone. Some would reach for the

others throw the switch.

Good for you Remington Reimer.

LEMONADE SLAVES

Working for the man.

There should be a law against this sort of child slavery.