Thursday, January 8, 2009

I used to...

"I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk." Steve Martin
Nice golf .... at the top of the world

http://www.joost.com/33882f7/t/Nordvegen-Golf-Norway

http://www.joost.com/33882f7/t/Nordvegen-Golf-Norway#id=3388g16

rantburg


Semper Fi

Sometimes when old Marines die they do fade away into unmarked graves in Potter's Field.
Such might have been the case for Gaspar Musso, USMC 925050, who fought in the Battle of Tinian in the Marianas Islands in 1944 and who died Nov. 15 at age 84 in a Brooklyn nursing home.
Enter Police Officer Susan Porcello, a PBA delegate at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge and one of those big-hearted New Yorkers who still make this the best city on Earth.
"No way was I going to let this brave old Marine who fought for his country in WWII get buried in Potter's Field," she says.
... "When my partner, Eddie Ennis, and I arrived at his apartment Gaspar seemed a little bit down about himself," Porcello says. "He said he felt alone in the world. We talked to him a bit and as I looked around his tidy apartment I noticed that he had served in the military - the Marines to be exact."
Porcello asked him about family and friends. "Look around you, what do you see?" Musso said. "I have no family or friends."
To which Porcello said, "Well, I'm your friend."
... "I told him I'd be back to visit him and take him to a senior center where he could make some friends," said Porcello, who comes from a big Italian family with a mom, dad, three sisters and a brother.
"I told him I was making him my 'Grandpa,' and if he liked, he could spend Thanksgiving with my family. Eddie and I discussed alternating holidays with Gaspar so he wouldn't be alone for any of them."
Two days later Musso was placed in critical care. Porcello asked hospital staff where he'd be buried if he didn't make it. "Potter's Field," said one administrator.
"This infuriated me," said Porcello. "There was no way I was going to let a man who fought for our country be buried in Potter's Field. Not on my watch!"
Porcello told the hospital to keep her apprised of Musso's condition. She had a local priest visit him. Porcello even asked NYPD's Missing Person's Squad to search for next of kin.
No luck.
Musso had been an only child to Anthony and Marie Musso, both deceased. He had no other relatives. Musso's only friend, an upstairs neighbor, had died the year before.
... She transferred him to Caton Park Nursing Home, where he was treated extremely well. She visited him often, learning that Musso was born May 7, 1924, joined the USMC in December 1943, finished training at Camp Lejune in March 1944 and was fighting with the 2nd Marines on Tinian Island by July 1944.
"I visited Gaspar on Nov. 13, bringing him rosary beads, a Bible, and his reading glasses," she said.
"The next day, Nov. 14, I returned and found Gaspar sitting up in a chair, dressed in his own clothes. Looking great."
Porcello washed his hands and face, trimmed his nails and eyebrows and asked if he was coming to her house for Thanksgiving. "I'm trying!" he said. He also asked Porcello to bring him a Christmas wreath for his room.
The next morning Porcello received a phone call saying that Gaspar Musso had died peacefully in his sleep.
No way was she going to let her good friend be toe-tagged and buried in Potter's Field.
Porcello paid out of her own pocket for a wake at McLaughlin's on Third Ave. and a mass at St. Patrick's Church in Bay Ridge, where a crowd of good-hearted cops from the 68th Precinct filled the pews, six serving as pallbearers. Sgt. Angel Rosa of the 68th, also a Marine, arranged for a USMC honor guard at Musso's funeral.
Then taps blew over Gaspar Musso, United States Marine, as he was buried next to his mother at Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island.
With the dignity he deserved.

( from wizbang.org )

So....how do we find our way in the dark

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

http://www.komonews.com/younews/37241889.html?vid=a

The fallshttp://www.komonews.com/younews/37241889.html?vid=a

nice

Random Picture -001


The Ways....

From wizbang.org

What Is Happening To My Target Rich Administration?Posted by HughSPublished: January 6, 2009 - 7:29 PM
I have to confess that President elect Obama has me seriously worried for reasons that I would never, in my wildest expectations, have predicted as recently as one month ago.
Blogger tigerhawk has noted that Obama is lurching to the center with his cabinet appointments in a way to make his administration look like a political Rorschach test that liberal and moderate Republicans might pass with flying colors. This doesn't necessarily make me happy but it is considerably less troubling than what was anticipated.
Notwithstanding the exceptions of Tom Daschle and the odious Carol Browner, the much anticipated line up of the usual liberal suspects has been infiltrated by some very moderate and right leaning types that I could actually tolerate in a Democrat administration. We have:
Gates at Defense: A+
Geithner at Treasury: A+
Clinton at State: B+ (Does the Secretary of State actually do anything that doesn't go through Defense and the CIA first?)
Summers at the National Economic Council: A- (Added grade consideration for being fired by Harvard)
Daschle at Health and Human Services: F- (He'll be calling in all the chits for national healthcare)
Retired Marine Gen. James Jones at National Security Advisor: A
Holder at Justice: Wild Card
Napolitano at DHS: F (Sadly, amnesty is here to stay. Congress will have no say in this travesty as policy will be implemented by bureaucratic fiat)
Panetta at CIA: A+ (This was a head scratcher at first, but then the light came on: he's going to let the CIA continue to do its thing. Panetta's just there to make sure Obama doesn't get impeached. Think of him as Obama's Tom Hagen, the consigliere)
The Executive Office and its appointments make such easy and inviting targets but perhaps conservatives should concentrate, as they did in 1994, on the real den of iniquity: Congress. They're off to the usual bad start already.

List of ways - he is starting to look like us...

1 - Obama: trillion-dollar deficits for years to come
Argh:
Obama said Tuesday the deficit appears on track to hit $1 trillion soon. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top economic aides, Obama said: “Potentially we’ve got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on.”
He wants Congress to approve a stimulus plan of about $775 billion.
The federal deficit was about $455 billion when the last fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2008.
(Via Instapundit )


Nice.....thats one.