Veterans Day

Yesterday was Veterans Day. I hope that everyone took a moment to thank the amazing people who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. If you didn't - go ahead and do that today.

The Things That Make A Soldier Great - Edgar Guest

The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,
To face the flaming cannon's mouth nor ever question why,
Are lilacs by a little porch, the row of tulips red,
The peonies and pansies, too, the old petunia bed,
The grass plot where his children play, the roses on the wall:
'Tis these that make a soldier great.
He's fighting for them all.

'Tis not the pomp and pride of kings that make a soldier brave;
'Tis not allegiance to the flag that over him may wave;
For soldiers never fight so well on land or on the foam
As when behind the cause they see the little place called home.
Endanger but that humble street whereon his children run,
You make a soldier of the man who never bore a gun.
What is it through the battle smoke the valiant soldier sees?

The little garden far away, the budding apple trees,
The little patch of ground back there, the children at their play,
Perhaps a tiny mound behind the simple church of gray.
The golden thread of courage isn't linked to castle dome
But to the spot, where'er it be — the humblest spot called home.
And now the lilacs bud again and all is lovely there
And homesick soldiers far away know spring is in the air;
The tulips come to bloom again, the grass once more is green,
And every man can see the spot where all his joys have been.

He sees his children smile at him, he hears the bugle call,
And only death can stop him now — he's fighting for them all.

Happy 234th Birthday Marines!

This is a must read article for all who recognize the sacrifices the Marines have made bringing freedom around the world and security at home.

Semper Fi!

The Marines' Hymn

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job
The United States Marines.

Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By the United States Marines.

Fort Hood Martyrs

13 soldiers gave their lives for the country today when Major Malik Nadal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood today. We honor their memories.

Illegals, Democrats and House Representation

Today's news reminded me of an article I wrote regarding this very problem back in 2003.

Senate Democrats have blocked a GOP attempt to require next year's census forms to ask people whether they are a U.S. citizen.

The proposal by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter was aimed at excluding immigrants from the population totals that are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state. Critics said Vitter's plan would discourage immigrants from responding to the census and would be hugely expensive. They also said that it's long been settled law that the apportionment of congressional seats is determined by the number of people living in each state, regardless of whether they are citizens. A separate survey already collects the data.

The plan fell after a 60-39 procedural vote made it ineligible for attachment to a bill funding the census.

Take a look at my original article - unfortunately nothing has changed.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there are approximately 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the United States - and could be as high as 15 million. If these illegals are being counted into the census as being part of the population of the state - this has a direct impact on each state's representation in the House of Representatives and in turn effects the number of electoral votes each state is assigned when voting for the President of the United States. The fight for stronger border enforcement should not be ignored during this time as the mid-term elections of 2010 come closer.

Need a Flu Shot? Go to Gitmo!

Yes, it's true. Despite the flu shot shortages across the United States, our Gitmo detainees are getting vaccinated against the "Swine Flu".

The Pentagon will offer the H1N1 vaccination to detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, officials there said Friday.

The Pentagon made the decision based on U.S. government assessments that people held in detention facilities are at high risk for the pandemic, said Maj. Diana R. Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, which is in charge of holding the suspected terrorists.

"Detainees at JTF Guantanamo are considered to be at higher risk and therefore they will be offered the H1N1 vaccination," Haynie said.

"JTF Guantanamo conducts safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detainees. As such, we must provide detainees the medical care necessary to maintain their health," she said.

Wait, I'm confused. Why are the detainees (a.k.a. terrorists) getting the H1N1 shot again? Because they're at higher risk? How is that possible? Aren't they stuck on an island? Have any of them traveled to Mexico lately? Can someone explain this to me please.

It gets better.

The vaccinations will be voluntary for the detainees, who will be briefed on the virus and the vaccine prior to deciding whether to receive the latter.

This is great. I would love to see this. These terrorists will be "briefed on the virus and the vaccine". We're treating these people as reasonable, thoughtful individuals who don't have an interest in seeing all of us dead. Again, I'm confused. Didn't we pick these people up on the battlefield murdering our soldiers? Aren't they in Guantanamo because they are dangerous?

The article wraps up with the line,

Some of the detainees have already voluntarily taken the seasonal flu shot, Haynie said.

I feel better now. So while there are shortages all over the United States (and Canada) of the H1N1 vaccine and the regular old flu shot - our Gitmo guests are ahead of the game and already have gotten theirs. I'm glad to hear it.

Technical Difficulties

In case anyone was concerned why I have not been writing, please put your mind at ease. I have not given up writing (G-d forbid) rather, I have been involved in the process of immigration. Yes, a very exciting topic indeed.

I have been working on something called permanent residency. I am from the United States, but have moved to Canada - our northern neighbor. Not because I am running away from the Obama government (altho' it really is good timing), but because I got married to a Canuck. Go figure :)

Permanent residency will allow me to work and function here as a "normal" person. Currently I am not allowed to work or that would violate the terms of me living here. So generally I've been spending my time writing - up till now. My application became due and I wasn't able to procrastinate any longer... and therefore I haven't been writing on anything other than the application forms.

But the long nightmare is over. The application has been sent to the government and we'll see what happens. I should be back writing my insightful pieces very soon (as soon as I can decide on what to write - so much to choose from!)

All the best to everyone!
Shira

The 2009 Tea Party

How the information outlets are covering this gathering.

Fox News: Tea Party Express Takes Washington by Storm

CNN: Party Movement has Anger, No Dominant Leaders

UK Mail Online: Up to Two Million March to US Capitol to Protest Against Obama's Spending in 'Tea-Party' Demonstration

MSNBC: Protesters Vent at Obama, Spending

Never Forget, Never Forgive

Patrick Henry and the Land of Israel

No shockers here. The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana has called on the United Nations to unilaterally declare Palestine a state without waiting for an agreement between the Israelis and "Palestinians".

Of course we don't expect much from the European Union or the United Nations for that matter - but just to reiterate the ridiculousness of the situation. Israel has attempted again and again to make peace. Negotiations with people who have no interest in making peace.

While making these attempts at peace - Israel has weakened herself. No other country in the world would be surrounded by countries that don't recognize her existence and have called for her destruction and continue to weaken herself militarily in the hopes that something will change. To those who say that some of those surrounding countries do have peace treaties with Israel - I ask if those treaties will hold when the dictators of those countries are overthrown or if the balance of power moves away from the Jewish state. Who will guarantee Israel's safety? The United Nations?

Jews are a hopeful people. Each and every peace treaty points to that hope of peace for the future.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?
... I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
.... What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not... deceive ourselves any longer... we have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated... Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult... In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer room for hope....
It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace! Peace! but there is no peace.

Patrick Henry spoke these words over 200 years ago, but could have easily spoken them today. The lessons of history must not be ignored or relegated to books.

Jews have lived by The Book for 4000 years and have a long history of success and failure. It is when we study our history and find our strength in G-d that we succeed and when we don't... we fail. There are many Jewish leaders to learn our lessons from, but that isn't enough for some - we may also take our lessons from those non-Jewish leaders as well. Thank you Patrick Henry.

The "All-Purpose" Grandma (Revised)

Look! It's the "All-Purpose" Grandma! We can use her anywhere... in any speech... on any topic!

We'd never heard of Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama's white grandmother, before March 18, 2008 until she was invoked in Obama's race speech in Philadelphia as a way to defend a 20 year friendship with his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Insert collective gasp. He admits that this woman sacrificed for him and raised him, but then goes on to broadcast on national television the fears that she privately confided in him. Where is his sense of decency? But wait, there's more! In a follow-up radio interview Obama tries to clarify his remarks:

The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way.

Aside from the audacity of claiming that all whites are racists, what's fascinating here is that we don't actually know her views on other ethnic groups at all. We're taking his word for all of her insecurities since his campaign never made her available for comment. In fact, people who knew her were shocked by his remarks.

"I was real surprised that he indicated that," said Dennis Ching, who was a 23-year-old management trainee under Dunham beginning in 1966. "I never heard her say anything like that. I never heard her say anything negative about anything. And she never swore.

" I never heard Madelyn say anything disparaging about people of African ancestry or Asian ancestry or anybody's ancestry," Slom [Sam Slom, a Bank of Hawaii economist then, who is now a Republican state senator in Hawaii] said.

We heard about Dunham more recently within the context of the current health care debate. In an April 2009 New York Times interview, President Obama was discussing end-of-life care when we hear his grandmother invoked again.

…I mean, I’ve told this story, maybe not publicly, but when my grandmother got very ill during the campaign, she got cancer; it was determined to be terminal. And about two or three weeks after her diagnosis she fell, broke her hip….

And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question.

Is Obama saying here that it's too expensive to do surgery on "old people" if they'll only live a little while longer? What about Jane Sturm who asked about her mother who's now 105 who had a pacemaker put in five years ago? "Is there any consideration that can be given for a certain joy of living... or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?" Obama replied, "I don't think that we can make judgments on people's spirit..." but that "maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking the pain killer." In other words, we're saving money on the backs of the elderly and terminally ill patients.

Grandma was brought up once again in Colorado just last week,

What you can't do... is start saying things like, we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma… I mean, I just -- first of all, when you make a comment like that -- I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it's like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate, and have to struggle with that.

Awww. Now we're all supposed to feel bad for Obama. He lost his grandmother, how dare anyone criticize his health care plan. It’s all about him rather than the end-of-life health care rationing that's certainly coming down the road if the plan is passed through Congress. By making it personal, he’s closed the discussion.

Madelyn Dunham has become the all-purpose excuse for anything that Obama needs a pass on. He needed a way out of his predicament with Reverend Wright. He needed a pass through the health care debate and the hard questions by calling upon the memory of his grandmother and what pain he went through when having to make decisions about her health.

I wonder what the next big crisis Obama will face in the future when we'll see his grandmother invoked once again to give him cover.

Ted Kennedy, the End of an Era

Take a look at this link of Ted Kennedy's life. Lesson to be learned: Don't attempt to be a moral voice after you've murdered someone.

The "All-Purpose" Grandma

Look! It's the "All-Purpose" Grandma! We can use her anywhere... in any speech... on any topic!

We'd never heard of Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama's white grandmother, before March 18, 2008 until she was invoked in Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia as a way to defend a 20 year association with his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Insert collective gasp. He admits that this woman sacrificed for him and raised him, but then goes on to broadcast to the whole of the United States the fears that she privately confided in him. Where is his sense of decency? But wait, there's more! In a follow-up radio interview Obama tries to clarify his remarks:

The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know (pause) there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way.

Besides for the audacity of claiming that all whites are racists, what's fascinating here is that we don't actually know her views on other ethnic groups at all. We're taking his word for all of her insecurities since his campaign never made her available for comment. In fact, people who knew her were shocked by his remarks.

"I was real surprised that he indicated that," said Dennis Ching, who was a 23-year-old management trainee under Dunham beginning in 1966. "I never heard her say anything like that. I never heard her say anything negative about anything. And she never swore.

" I never heard Madelyn say anything disparaging about people of African ancestry or Asian ancestry or anybody's ancestry," Slom [Sam Slom, a Bank of Hawaii economist then, who is now a Republican state senator in Hawaii] said.

We recently again heard about Dunham more recently within the context of the health care debate currently raging. In an April 2009 New York Times interview President Obama was discussing end-of-life care when we hear his grandmother invoked again.

[The President:] Now, I actually think that the tougher issue around medical care — it’s a related one — is what you do around things like end-of-life care —

[Interviewer:] Yes, where it’s $20,000 for an extra week of life.

THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. And I just recently went through this. I mean, I’ve told this story, maybe not publicly, but when my grandmother got very ill during the campaign, she got cancer; it was determined to be terminal. And about two or three weeks after her diagnosis she fell, broke her hip. It was determined that she might have had a mild stroke, which is what had precipitated the fall.

So now she’s in the hospital, and the doctor says, Look, you’ve got about — maybe you have three months, maybe you have six months, maybe you have nine months to live. Because of the weakness of your heart, if you have an operation on your hip there are certain risks that — you know, your heart can’t take it. On the other hand, if you just sit there with your hip like this, you’re just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.

And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question.

Is Obama saying here that it's too expensive to do surgery on "old people" if they'll only live a little while longer? What about Jane Sturm who asked about her mother who's now 105 who had a pacemaker put in five years ago? "Is there any consideration that can be given for a certain joy of living... or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?" According to Obama "I don't think that we can make judgements on people's spirit..." but that "maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking the pain killer." The upshot being that we're saving money on the backs of the elderly or terminally ill patients.

Grandma's brought up once again in Colorado just last week,

What you can't do -- or you can, but you shouldn't do -- is start saying things like, we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma. I mean, come on. (Applause.) I mean, I just -- first of all, when you make a comment like that -- I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it's like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate, and have to struggle with that. So the notion that somehow I ran for public office, or members of Congress are in this so that they can go around pulling the plug on grandma?

Awww. Now we're all supposed to feel bad for Obama. He lost his grandmother, how dare the Republicans criticize his health care plan in less than glowing terms. He's made it a personal attack. It's all about him rather than the end of life health care rationing that's certainly coming down the road if the plan is passed through Congress.

Madelyn Dunham has become the catch-all, all purpose, excuse for anything that Obama needs a pass on or an excuse for. He needed a way out of his predicament with Reverend Wright. He needed a pass through the health care debate and the hard questions being asked by ordinary Americans by calling upon the memory of his grandmother and what pain he went through when having to make decisions about her health.

I wonder what the next big crisis Obama will face in the future when we'll see his grandmother invoked once again to give him cover.