4 Mile Creek

Nearly Naked?

I gotta find the local Burberry store. 

Blizzard Warning!

We are getting socked again with snow here in "the Springs".  I love it. 

No, I'm Not Afraid to Say the Word

D-Day, June 6th, 1944, was clearly a huge, successful, turning point in WWII.  But that wasn't apparent on June 7th, 1944, or even months later.  In fact, the casualties on Omaha Beach (almost 2000) and from the inland airborne assault (almost 2500) were staggering, even to the planners of Operation Overlord.  The subsequent Battle for Normandy was even more brutal, with almost 126,000 casualties in the US forces alone.  It is widely recognized that the mistakes made during the planning and execution of Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy were many, and deadly to the forces fighting there.  From the failure of the aerial and naval bombardment to neutralize German artillery along the coast, to the scattering of airborne forces, to the complete lack of knowledge of Normandy's hedgerows (to name only the most well-known) cost the lives of hundreds, even thousands, of US and coalition soldiers.
And D-Day and the Battle of Normandy are only two examples of excessive loss of life in WWII due to improper, or poor, planning.  Kasserine Pass, the Battle of the Bulge, Anzio Beach, Tarawa....all battles that were bravely fought, but as history would show, fraught with poor planning, bad intelligence, questionable leadership, or a combination of them all. 
During the presidential campaign of 1944, neither Wendall Willkie nor Thomas Dewey (the eventual Republican Party candidate) campaigned on the promise to end America's involvement in WWII due to the Roosevelt War Department's mistakes in the war, including Operation Tiger.  In fact, they concentrated, and limited, their opposition to those New Deal policies that they disliked or disagreed with....a losing political strategy when the country was in the middle of a world war. 
Why did they do so, knowing perfectly well that they would lose?  The answer is simple; patriotism.  Wendall Willkie and Thomas Dewey were patriotic Americans first, and opposition candidates second.  They understood that the country was at war with an enemy that would destroy all that they hoped to support and defend as President.   In fact, Willkie (who lost to Roosevelt 4 years earlier in 1940), went on to support Roosevelt unconditionally as the Commander in Chief during the war, "call(ing) for greater national support for controversial Roosevelt initiatives such as the Lend-Lease Act and embarked on a new campaign against isolationism in America. On July 23, 1941, he urged unlimited aid to the United Kingdom in its struggle against Nazi Germany. That same year he traveled to Britain and the Middle East as Roosevelt's personal representative, and in 1942 visited the USSR and China in the same capacity. Also in 1943, Willkie helped to establish Freedom House together with Eleanor Roosevelt."  Shortly before the 1944 elections, Willkie suffered a heart attack, and knowing he was dying, stated that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom," he would prefer the latter.
Can you imagine any present day Democratic Candidate saying that?  Or doing what Willkie did in support of the President he lost an election to?  I can't.
I bring this up because it's apparent that there is a real disdain today in polite political circles to call someone unpatriotic.  When Senator Clinton stated: "If George Bush doesn't end this war before he leaves office, when I'm President, I will." she was unpatriotic.  In fact, I believe that such a statement is treasonous.  Giving an enemy a firm date on which to plan the surrender of US forces is treasonous.  If President Roosevelt had told the Japanese that he would ask US forces on Corregidor to hold out only so long as needed to safely extract General MacArthur, after which he would allow them, even direct them, to surrender; that would have been treasonous.   There is no difference between that statement, not made, and Senator Clinton's statement, made to a worldwide audience and sure to have reached al Queda in Iraq within hours of being made.  It's not good enough to say that such a statement was made in the heat of a presidential campaign.  Many presidential candidates have held their tongue to ensure the safety of American forces at war.  That Senator Clinton cannot, and will not, keep from issuing unpatriotic, even treasonous, statements in order to keep from providing aid and comfort to an enemy, is no surprise.  She believes such statements will provide her political advantage.  That it also provides advantage to an enemy of America, and will result in the deaths of American servicemen and women is hardly of concern for her or her supporters.  After all, they by and large loathe the military.  Not surprising, but it should be condemned.   
Maybe that condemnation needs to start here.   
And so it shall. 

Message From Al to Me, and Back

I got an email from Al Gore:

Dear Richard...

Please Al, not so formal.  My friends call me Diggs.

This is an incredible opportunity to demonstrate to Congress that we demand immediate action. And I need your help to really make this moment count. Can you commit to getting 10 friends to send their message to Congress through AlGore.com before March 21st?  The more voices I can bring to Washington, the more powerful our message will be.

And you, Al, have an incredible opportunity to demonstrate to Congress, and the world, how you feel about global warmmongering, by lowering your energy use in half, to just 10 times the amount the average American household uses!  Will you join me, Al, and promise to do just that?

There is no longer a debate about the fact that global warming is real. We're causing it.

That is true.  You and Tipper are clearly causing a huge shift in the global temps.  If the average American household is a big cause of global warming, then what can be said about a household that uses twenty times the average energy?!!?  You are causing it!  And like an alcoholic who needs to admit he's an alcoholic before he can change, I find it heartwarming that you, Al, has recognized that you are an energyaloholic, and need to change. 

The consequences are serious, and could be headed towards catastrophe if we don't fix it. And it's not too late. I don't want to imagine a future in which our children say, "What were our parents thinking"�  "Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance"� And I know you don't either.

And worse, I'd hate for my children to ask me "Why did you believe such a fatuous, insincere, blowhard like Al Gore?" because frankly, I couldn't honestly tell them that I didn't know that Al Gore the Vice President, Al Gore the presidential candidate, and Al Gore the Goracle was a lying sack of shit. 

Working together we can unite millions of people and build support for real action on a scale that has never been seen before. Help me take the first step...

Okay Al, I'll help you take the first step, on a scale that apparently you've never seen before.  Here's how you do it.  Have one of your servants reach over to that light switch, and turn it off.  Better yet, get off your fat ass and do it yourself.   

Not Surprised

Okay, so he's a complete ass and a massive hypocrite as well. 
But you, average American, better get changing your lifestyle, so that the Gores of the world can continue their selfish, arrogant, and wasteful lifestyle. 
Anyone allowing their kids to go cold at night so that Al Gore can burn through $2,000.00+ a month of energy is a moron.

If every posturing blowhard in Hollywood, Boston, San Francisco and Washington DC gave up their energy wasting mansion, we could eliminate all the coal burning electricity plants in the US. 

Deadly, Even in a Zoo

Not a mountain lion, but still deadly. 
When we hike in mountain lion territory, we hike armed.  Big cats are far more worrisome to me than big bears. 

At Least They Responded

Eight muslim women from a single family are murdered over the course of a few years, by males in the family, on the pretext of protecting the family honor. 
Response from American feminists?  "Yawn". 
Response from American Leftists?  "All cultures are equal."
Response from other muslims?  "Bitch deserved it."

More Advice

Some British financial journalist tries to give advice to fellow Englishmen (and Europeans) traveling in the US. 
The very first piece of advice he should have given was for them to understand that his advice is gleaned from one person, interacting with one very minute section of America, and that it would be ridiculous to extrapolate this to be good advice across the entire nation. 
The idea that Americans are not well-traveled is especially galling to me.  The friends I have are easily more traveled, both world-wide and within the US, than the average European.   

Funny Gore

I just saw a clip of Gore getting ready to announce his candidacy at the Oscars, only to have the music come on, letting him know his time was up.
It was just maybe ten seconds long, but thought it was funny.  It's good to see that he can laugh at himself. 
So which is the real Gore?  The stuffed shirt that we see every day, or the funny guy out on stage last night?  Who knows; like most politicians he's got too many handlers around him for us to tell the true Gore from the poll-induced Gore.
I hope the real Gore is the funny Gore.   

A Little Sharia

It's called "chop-chop square in downtown Riyadh for a reason.