Bowling for Howard Dean

US Marine threatened with decapitation

A U.S. Marine has been captured and will be decapitated unless certain prisoners held in occupation prisons are released.

John Kerry wants to make situations like this a police action while President George Bush wants to destroy them. My guess is that the decapitators will be hoping that the cops are called instead of a surprise GBU-32 bomb showing up in the middle of the night in their bedroom, but that is just a guess. They should pray that John Kerry is elected while the rest of us pray that George Bush wins 4 more years.

UPDATE : Hugh Hewitt has a letter from a US Marine that speaks for me also
- posted by Paul @ 7:58 PM

Love In A Time Of Danger

This is a first. I have never posted someone's else complete post from another blogger. That is about to change.

From Right Thinking Girl

Sean does not like it when I call him a 9/11 Victim. He tells me he's not a victim. His coworkers who died were victims. His wife of ten years was a victim. He was just there when it happened.

When we are together, I ask him questions about her. He is patient with me, explaining their relationship, not diminishing it just because she is no longer here, which I appreciate. I listen, trying to understand how it must feel to be in his skin and to live through that day and the thousand days that have passed. A few weeks ago, while in New York, I sat on the counter of his modern kitchen while he poured glasses of red wine. On the fridge was a snapshot of his wife and their son taken in Central Park that September. She's tiny, with a brown ponytail, bright brown eyes, and a natural, genuinely happy grin. I didn't feel like an interloper, exactly. Maybe an observer. A witness. Had things been different, she is the kind of woman who might be one of my best friends.

Instead, I'm dating her husband.

I knew I had fallen in love with him and his life - his beautiful son, his beautiful apartment with the astonishing views, his thoughts and mind and heart, all of it, everything - when I woke up one Saturday morning to a knock on the door. I grabbed a sweater to throw over my pajamas and went to the door, and there he was, like the continuation of a very nice dream. Unexpectedly, he had flown down on the breakfast flight from New York. I threw my arms around him, and told him I was exhausted and to come nap with me. After that, we've known that this was not a trivial thing.

I realize that I am getting into something that is both wonderful and daunting. Every time 9/11 is mentioned, I see the crinkles around his eyes tighten up, just for a second. It's personal to him, and by extention, it's personal to me. The other night he called me at three in the morning. I stay up late, so I didn't mind, but I knew he had to be at work early the next morning. As soon as I saw his name on my caller ID I answered, "Hey, is everything okay?"

He said yes. I guess I already know him well enough to not press him. I said okay and asked what he was doing. He deflected the question, and asked what I was doing. I told him I was writing and watching television and doing yoga and thinking about baking some butterscotch cookies for him when I go up to New York on Saturday. He was very quiet. I said, "Are you okay?"

And then he said, "I had a nightmare."

I shut off the television.

He started to tell me that he had a nightmare that she had jumped. She was standing in the window, in her little pantsuit and pumps, looking down. It was flames or freefall. Then he was there, beside her, and he was asking her to try and get out, then she fell suddenly, into the vast blue nothingness with a loud scream. When he woke up he was sick. He hadn't had a nightmare in a long time, nearly a year. I told him it was okay. He said that he was afraid that she was in pain when she died. That she was burned or crushed or .... jumped. I told him that she wasn't in pain. It was fast, it was very fast, I say - because what else can I say? I start to cry. I don't know that his wife didn't die a horrible painful death - and neither does he. He doesn't know how she died because they did not find enough of her to determine that. We talk for a long time. He tells me he feels guilty and that he should have gone inside the South Tower and gotten her out of there. I remind him, gently, that he was lucky to get out of his own building - the North Tower - alive. He didn't know that the building would topple. He didn't know that she wasn't on her way out. There was nothing he could have done. He is quiet, so I keep saying it. "There is nothing you could have done. It's not your fault."

After half an hour, he is calm. He tells me that he loves me. I say, "I know you do. I love you too." Sean is quiet. I can imagine him perfectly. He's in bed, the crimson coverlet kicked to the foot of the bed while the cream colored comforter is up to his waist. He's kept the lights off, the phone is against his ear. The sheers are down over the windows, though the curtains are pulled back. Through the gauze, the lights of the city filter in. He is thinking about his wife, and me, and this new life. Finally I can hear him shift in bed, rolling over to his left side, probably. He says, "Thank you for listening to me."

I wipe a few tears out of my eyes. "It's my pleasure. I love listening to you."

"It's us now," he says in a rush. "Isn't it?"

The breath is knocked out of me. I say "Yes."

We say goodnight and hang up. I walk around my house, thinking about the conversation. I feel suddenly very angry and very sad. The fight against terrorism isn't just happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. It's still happening here at home, in places like Virginia and New York City. It's being waged in the 3,000 families who aren't finished grieving over their loved ones and who will never be finished grieving. It's being waged every time a wife wakes up to the crying baby who will never know his father, and every time a man wakes up in a cold sweat dreaming that his wife jumped to avoid being burned alive. The war on terror isn't some make believe idea. It's real. And I say this as somebody who knows firsthand just how real it is.

- posted by Paul @ 7:57 PM

Americas Holding Inc. needs 75,000 new employees earning $45,000 to $75,000 a year. They are so desperate for employees that they are offering full scholarships at vocational schools. Let's say that together FULL SCOLARSHIPS TO EARN $1000 A WEEK

Nissan cannot find bilingual engineers, Nissan is also finding it difficult to attract experienced financial analysts to vet the company's benefits, projects and processes. Computer-assisted drafters or CAD operators is also going unfilled. Nursing is another area that is going in search of qualified applicants.

Part of the problem is that kids are coming out of public High Schools without the proper math needed to be able to tackle today's complex technology.

Yet to hear John Kerry and the rest of the Democrats, Jobs are only available if you can flip a hamburger. The jobs mentioned above is from one area, Nashville Tennessee. If I was a betting man, I would bet that they are not the only city in the U.S. that cannot fill high paying jobs.

Maybe it is because our schools only teach basic hamburger flipping instead of basic math. We all know who controls our schools and who they donate time and dollars to elect.
- posted by Paul @ 10:26 AM

Flip flop
- posted by Paul @ 3:20 PM

Flip flops
- posted by Paul @ 3:20 PM

I have been trying to not watch or even listen to the killing of our fellow American Nick Berg. That was short lived. Wife and I was on the way home last night and we had the Michael Savage radio show on and he played the audio of the screaming and what sounding like gurgling sounds coming from Nick as he was murdered in cold blood . To say I am pissed is being nice. I am angry at the US media for promoting the Arabs side, while ignoring for the most part those who would behead each and everyone of us, including our children. I am angry at John Kerry and the Democrats for degrading our military. I am angry at Ted Kennedy for telling me that Nick's beheading is equal to putting underwear on someone's head. I now wonder if Mary Jo screamed and made gurgling sounds while she was being killed/murdered ( pick your own word if you like ) at Chappaquiddick.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ( guess Al-Qaida was/is in Iraq after all ) was the one that killed one of us in cold blood. I hate this feeling of total frustration of being able to do nothing, so I have decided to put my money where my anger is

The United States is offering $10 million dollars for the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Make that $10 Million + my $50 - just let me know where to send the money to the person that helps the U.S. capture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

- posted by Paul @ 11:45 AM

This is the 10th edition of the weekly Carnival of the Bush Bloggers.

Here is what some Bush bloggers are writing about on their own sites:

The Pink Flamingo Bar and Grill

The Countertop Chronicles

Useful Fools

18 year old Breyer Blog

How Do You Spell That?

Bush bloggers on the Blogroll for Bush have until this Friday night to submit an blog entry for next week's Carnival of the Bush Bloggers!
- posted by Paul @ 6:41 PM

it isn't what you think
- posted by Paul @ 9:08 AM

waffles anyone
- posted by Paul @ 7:56 PM