Guns, Impossibly Beautiful Women, Nice Rides and Politics

I STAND WITH ISRAEL




Sunday, May 30, 2010

Sunday Morning Reads

Dave_in_PB Sez: Young Goodman Brown


By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown.

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "pr'ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself, sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year!"

"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!"

"Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons, "and may you find all well, when you come back."

"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee."

So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.

"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But, no, no! 'twould kill her to think it. Well; she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven."

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him, as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!"

His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at Goodman Brown's approach, and walked onward, side by side with him.

"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was striking, as I came through Boston; and that is full fifteen minutes agone."

"Faith kept me back awhile," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected.
Read the whole thing

Saturday, May 29, 2010

John William Finn has Passed Away



Dave_in_PB Sez: John Finn had been America's oldest surviving recipient of our Nation's Highest honor. He had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the attack on Pearl Habor. Mr. Finn passed away the other day, May 27th 2010. He was 100 years old.


Mr Finn, Sir, That was one fine life, well fought and rightly won. RIP

Via Wikipedia

By December 1941, Finn was stationed at Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. As a chief aviation ordnanceman, he was in charge of twenty men whose primary task was to maintain the weapons of a PBY Catalina flying boat squadron. On the morning of December 7, 1941, Finn was at his home, about a mile from the aircraft hangars, when he heard the sound of gunfire. Finn recalled how a neighbor was the first to alert him, when she knocked on his door saying, "They want you down at the squadron right away!", he drove to the hangars (seeing Japanese planes in the sky on the way) and found that the airbase was being attacked, with most of the PBYs already on fire.[1][4][3]

His men were trying to fight back by using the machine guns mounted in the PBYs, either by firing from inside the flaming planes or by detaching the guns and mounting them on improvised stands. In 2009 Finn explained one of the first things he did was take control of a machine gun from his squadron's painter. "I said, 'Alex, let me take that gun'...knew that I had more experience firing a machine gun than a painter."[4][3]

Finn then found a movable platform used for gunnery training, attached the .50 caliber machine gun, and pushed the platform into an open area, from which he had a clear view of the attacking aircraft. He fired on the Japanese planes for the next two hours, even after being seriously wounded, until the attack had ended. In total, he received 21 distinct wounds, including a bullet through the foot and an injury which caused him to lose feeling in his left arm.[1]

"I got that gun and I started shooting at Jap planes," Finn said in a 2009 interview. "I was out there shooting the Jap planes and just every so often I was a target for some," he said, "in some cases, I could see [the Japanese pilots'] faces."[4]

Despite his wounds, he returned to the hangars later that day, after receiving medical treatment, and helped arm the surviving American planes.[1][3]

For these actions, Finn was formally presented with the Medal of Honor on September 14, 1942, by Admiral Chester Nimitz. The ceremony occurred in Pearl Harbor on board the USS Enterprise (CV-6).[1][3]

During the remainder of World War II, he served as a Limited Duty Officer Ensign and eventually as a Lieutenant with Bombing Squadron VB-102 and aboard the USS Hancock (CV-19). He retired from the Navy in the rank of Lieutenant in September 1956.[3]

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Sunday Morning Reads




Dave_in_PB Sez: A History of Joan D'arc


It was this day in History btw that Joan of Arc captured by Burgundians at Compiegne, who sell her to the British.

Gascoigne, Bamber. “History of [HISTORY OF JOAN OF ARC ]” HistoryWorld. From 2001, ongoing. link

Insistent voices: AD 1428-1429


A sixteen-year-old peasant girl, growing up and tending the cattle at Domrémy, has for some years been hearing voices. She sometimes sees the speakers, and recognizes them as St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret. But in this winter of 1428-9 they have been giving her a very specific instruction. She must raise the siege of Orléans so that the king of France, Charles VII, can go to Reims to be anointed in the cathedral. The girl is Jeanne Darc, known in English as Joan of Arc. Her voices reflect a shrewd political perception which no one but she, it seems, has appreciated.



This perception relates to the common people's idea of their king. Thanks to a long tradition, much fostered in the previous century by Charles V, it is believed that each French king acquires a divine quality once he is anointed with the sacred oil from the Sainte Ampoule at Reims.


At present, in the middle of the Hundred Years' War, there are two rival claimants to the French crown. One is Henry VI, the young king of England, whose forces - in alliance with the Burgundians - control the entire north of France, including Reims itself. The other is Charles VII, king by rightful descent but a weak figure, confined to the region round Bourges.


Neither of these claimants has been anointed - Henry VI because he is a child of seven in England, Charles VII because he cannot get to Reims. Joan sees with the clarity of passionate faith that if Charles can fight his way to Reims to be consecrated, France will have a king again. This becomes her mission. But first she must reach Charles himself. Dressed in a man's clothes, with six male companions, she travels for eleven days to Chinon. It is two more days before her request to see Charles VII is granted. (He is often still referred to as the dauphin at this stage; he has been crowned at Poitiers in 1422, but Joan does not yet consider him a proper king).


Joan's reputation as a woman possessed must have preceded her. Charles conceals himself among his courtiers, as if to test her powers. She immediately identifies him, telling him that she wants to make war against the English so as to open his way to Reims. For three weeks Joan is examined by leading churchmen. They recommend to Charles that he use her services. He provides her with the household of a knight. She has her own squire and pages, her own painted standard and banner. She has armour and a sword, miraculously found - it is said - behind the altar in a church where she sends men to seek it.


From Orléans to Reims: AD 1429


Joan and her soldiers reach Orléans on 29 April 1429. The city has been besieged for seven months by the English, holding various fortified positions around the town. Joan's presence among the French troops - armed like a man, fighting at least as bravely as a man, famous already as possessing special powers - proves as demoralizing to the English as it is exhilarating for the French. One by one the English positions fall. By May 8 their army is in full retreat from Orléans. They withdraw to three other towns on the Loire, where they await reinforcements.


The French have driven the English from one of the three towns when reinforcements arrive in mid-June - 5000 men under the command of Sir John Fastolf. With Joan's encouragement (and the advantage of a larger army) the French overwhelm this English force at Patay on June 18. Joan now persuades Charles VII to move northeast towards Reims, about 150 miles away. Summons to the forthcoming coronation are sent out on June 25, even though the entire country as far as Reims is still ostensibly in English or Burgundian hands. The attitude of the fortified towns on the route is uncertain.


But Joan's magic continues to work. The gates of almost every town are freely opened to the coronation party. One notable exception is Troyes, where the treaty was signed in 1420 diverting the French crown into English hands; but when Joan in person leads an attack on the city, the inhabitants rapidly change their minds. Reims is reached on July 16. The city opens its gates to Charles. Preparations are made for an immediate consecration in the cathedral the following day. As Charles is anointed with the holy oil, Joan stands nearby with her banner. Then she kneels before him, and for the first time calls him her king.


Capture and trial: AD 1430-1431


For the next ten months Joan continues to campaign against the English and the Burgundians - usually with considerable success, for her reputation is now itself a powerful weapon. Paris is her one failure, in September 1429. The capital city resists both her assaults on its walls and her passionate pleas to the defenders to surrender to their rightful king. Joan's misfortunes begin in May 1430. In a skirmish against the Burgundians at Compiègne she falls from her horse and is captured. Over the next few months her fate as a captive is hotly contested. The university of Paris, shamelessly partisan for the English cause, demands that she be handed over to the Inquisition for trial as a heretic.


By January 1431 Joan is in English hands at Rouen, where she is questioned by France's deputy inquisitor. In March she is placed on trial. The most serious charge is one of presumption in claiming divine revelation and in placing more reliance on such supposed revelation than on the authority of the church; at a more frivolous level Joan is charged with immodesty in wearing male clothes and inaccuracy in suggesting that saints speak French rather than English. The charges, if proved, amount to heresy. It is important to the English that Joan is shown to be a heretic, so that doubt is cast on the consecration of Charles VII at Reims. But it is not essential that she dies.


Several attempts are made to persuade her to recant. The records of her trial and interrogations survive, revealing the sturdy commonsense with which she maintains her position. In the face of this obstinacy, she is handed over for punishment by the civil powers - a sentence of death. Hearing this, she finally yields. She is then told that she can live, but in 'perpetual imprisonment'. Three days later she retracts, maintaining once again everything that she stands for. On 30 May 1431 she is burnt at the stake as a relapsed heretic.


The death of the saint in Rouen (Joan is finally canonized in 1920) comes less than thirty months after the departure of the 16-year-old girl from her village home in Domrémy. During that short spell the political face of France has been transformed. The English in northern France, dominant during Joan's childhood, are cleared out of the country during the next few decades. And the French king, Charles VII, whom Joan coaxes and chivies to seize his destiny, reigns with great success for thirty years after her death. No other story in history, so reliably recorded, can match Joan of Arc's as an example of the power of inspiration.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Key Al Qaeda Figure Dies of Embarressment and Unexpected and Hugely Explosive Fireball, But Mostly the Unexpected and Hugely Explosive Fireball

Fox News Sez: Key Al Qaeda Figure Accidentally Blows Himself Up.

A man whom the U.S. described as a key figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula accidentally blew himself up, U.S. military officials told Fox News.

The officials say Nayif Al-Qahtani was "messing with a bomb" when it went off. U.S. officials had been watching him, but Fox News' sources insist the U.S. had nothing to do with his death.

Al-Qahtani was "a vibrant guy linked to ongoing operations planning, and his death will have an impact," one official told Fox News.

An Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula newsletter was the first to announce his death a week after the United States put terror sanctions on him. The newsletter did not say when it happened but said Al-Qahtani died in Yemen's Abyan province in the south of the country.

The State Department recently described al-Qahtani as "a liaison between Al Qaeda cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia." It said he manages Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's operations in Yemen and receives financial support from abroad to launch attacks in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is recognized for its connection to the failed 2009 Christmas Day airline attack in Detroit. Since then, Yemen's government has increased airstrikes on the group's members within its own country using intelligence support from the United States.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Troops Returning Home to Suprised Loved Ones!

Dave_in_PB Sez: Awesome! Getcher Hankies Out. I've seen some these before but someone took the time to edit these clips togeather.

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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Some Music ...

Dave_in _PB Sez: Hell on the Heart

Me: Sup Eric? How about Hell on the Heart
Eric: Sure thng David, and say Hey to your friends for me!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

An explaination ... to a kid

Dave_in_PB Sez:

My son posted the other day on facebook, a question along with the phonetic curse "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" He knows I don't like it when he posts using foul language and he deleted the post. The question, However, is valid. "Why is it when you get an A on a test you grade increases by 1.4% and if you fail a test you get a 43% hit on your grade?" They don't teach kids in California anymore. Teacher's job is to collect performance data so they can prove their own worth to the union /system. In California you get cursory concepts on a given subjet and let go to learn on your own.


Let me try to explain this liberal fantasy of an algorithim for you. Every kid should know this!


1 If you blow off the entire semester (because you're bored) but, Ace the final, Its a fail, beacuse you did not provide teacher with appropriate performance data to prove his/her ability to teach.


2 If you blow off half of the semester then Ace the final, Its a pass, You provided teacher with some data that can be used to prove he/her can teach kids to learn something.


3 If you work hard, do the work and ace the test, you will have your "A" because you have provided Teacher with appropriate performance data on his/her ability to teach.


The last Teacher I had that actually taught me anything was Mr. Hagar 7th Grade American History. Lecture ... daily and collect notes for grading I learned to appreciate our US history as well as the value of personal responsibility. Maybe it's just that we wait for that one influance to push us further.

Have a teacher you want to remember?



Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Shoe Bomber Goes Down!

Judge William Young Sez: You hate of our individual freedoms and you are nothing more than a Terrorist, a Sand Pirate if you will.

I didn't do the Sunday Morning Reads this week ... This one is well worth the time. No video as it's federal court.


[Judge William Young to Mr. Richard C. Reid] This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.


We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.


You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.


So war talk is way out of line in this court. You’re a big fellow. But you’re not that big. You’re no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and you said you’re no big deal. You’re no big deal.


What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.


It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom’s seek that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.


Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.


See that flag, Mr. Reid? That’s the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will.

Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.


REID: That flag will be brought down on the Day of Judgment and you will see in front of your Lord and my Lord and then we will know. (Whereupon the defendant was removed from the courtroom.)


YOUNG: We’ll recess. All rise.

btw: No virgins for you either!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Some Music for Saturday

Dave_in_PB Sez: Hey Zac, How about That Highway 20 Ride!
Zac: Sure David, Glad to do it!


Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Difference Between US Says a Lot!

Some Girl at UCSD sez: I'm feeling like a little Holocaust ... Well yeah kinda!

Via Ace




David Horowitz is a founder and the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, edits the conservative FrontPage Magazine, and writes for Christopher Ruddy's conservative website NewsMax.[2] Horowitz founded the right-leaning activist group Students for Academic Freedom.

YaKnow ..... There's nothing but Eggheads and Hippies at UCSD and apparent Terrorist sympathizers! FrankJ would make a day of punching hippies right in the face If she had been American you may have seen my shocked face : But it's the MSA on campus. I am not a bit surprised. Just because you can say anything you want doesn't make it right. I bet her parents moved here so their children would be shielded from that terrorist crap. A privilege it is to attend a school like UCSD (btw, my own nephew could not get in) and her statement is screw you! Horowitz shut her down at once and no one says a word. It's just sad.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Why Does Obama Scorn Israel and Mr Netanyahu?


Obama Sez: You get Nothing!


Israel is probably our closest ally in the middle east.


What a buckethead!

"Even as the United States and Israel patch up their latest rift—with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited to meet President Obama on Tuesday—considerable confusion remains about what caused it. Various reasons have been given for why the president was so incensed by the embarrassing announcement of new settlement construction during Vice President Joe Biden's trip two weeks ago. Obama was said to be particularly upset because he thought he had Netanyahu's understanding, following a similar imbroglio last fall, that Washington wouldn't be taken by surprise by such an announcement again. Other reports suggested that Biden had warned Netanyahu that U.S. troops in the region were being endangered.


But the main reason for Obama's ire, according to a senior administration official, who asked not to be named, was that Biden had gone to Israel specifically to deliver a message to Netanyahu: the main issue is now Iran and its nuclear program, and we can't allow ourselves to be distracted by other issues or to jeopardize the emerging alliance against Tehran in support of tough sanctions—an alliance which includes most of the leading Arab states. In particular, Netanyahu—who campaigned for office himself on the primacy of the Iranian nuclear issue—can't afford to allow Israel's leading defender on this issue, the president of the United States, to look as if he's weak or lacking influence. (Haaretz's Aluf Benn first suggested Biden's secret message in an essay for NEWSWEEK last week.)"

Monday, May 10, 2010

A Perfect Game

Dave_in_PB Sez: 27 up, 27 down




Suck it AROD!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Dryer Went Out Again

Dave_in_PB Sez: Dang it!

1 Thermal Fuse = 10 Bucks
1 Thermostat = 20 Bucks
1 New Kenmore Coil Element =40 Bucks

Clean Clothes = Priceless

Sunday Morning Reads

Dave_in_PB Sez: An Interview with Mark Twain Rudyard Kipling

via Library of America

An Interview with Mark Twain Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

From The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works

(Note: The “Robert” to which Mark Twain refers during his conversation with Kipling is Robert Elsmere, an 1888 novel by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.)

You are a contemptible lot, over yonder. Some of you are Commissioners, and some Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar—no, two cigars—with him, and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly that I do not despise you; indeed, I don’t. I am only very sorry for you, from the Viceroy downward. To soothe your envy and to prove that I still regard you as my equals, I will tell you all about it.

They said in Buffalo that he was in Hartford, Conn.; and again they said “perchance he is gone upon a journey to Portland”; and a big, fat drummer vowed that he knew the great man intimately, and that Mark was spending the summer in Europe—which information so upset me that I embarked upon the wrong train, and was incontinently turned out by the conductor three-quarters of a mile from the station, amid the wilderness of railway tracks. Have you ever, encumbered with great-coat and valise, tried to dodge diversely-minded locomotives when the sun was shining in your eyes? But I forgot that you have not seen Mark Twain, you people of no account! . . . Read the whole thing

Friday, May 7, 2010

Music, .... Maestro, if you please!

Dave_in_PB Sez: Some music for an early Friday Evening!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Tomatoes and Sweet Corn

Dave_in _PB Sez: When I was a kid I thought I'd end up in Vermont growing apples.

In reality its just Tomatoes and Sweet Corn on the front Porch


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Probably Some Ignorant Racist Teabagger

Bloomburg Sez: "I hope its a nasty racist anti Obamacare teabagger"

via SondraK

“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Basicly saying "I hope its a nasty racist anti Obamacare teabagger" Yea ... Thanks for that Mr. Mayor

This Azzclown of a terrorist is the one that fell asleep during his al Queda 101 Class

"[Faisal Shahzad of Shelton, Conn.] A 30-year-old American immigrant from Pakistan was taken off a plane bound for Dubai [final destination, Pakistan] late Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport and arrested in connection with a failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced. through his tears."

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Some Days are Just Like This

Dave in PB Sez: Don't ask me why. Just Pray for Barrak Obama