Adopt-a-Platoon

Recently, I have received two different emails from Adopt-a-Platoon requesting that anyone who is able to adopt one or two more soldiers to please do so as soon as possible. There has recently been a large rotation of troops and they have received requests from hundreds of soldiers and/or their families to be a part of the Adopt-a-Platoon program.

I have an adopted soldier through Adopt-a-Platoon, as well as two through Soldiers' Angels. I would love to take on more, but I just can't at this time, so I am asking my faithful readers to consider adopting a soldier or two. It is a fantastic way to show your support for our troops and since I'm unable to attend the weekly rallies at Walter Reed, this is my way of doing my part. (Plus, it's great knowing that I can make a soldier's day just by sending a goofy card or a care package!)

So, if you would like to adopt a soldier, please go to

or
.
I promise you won't be sorry that you did!

ACLU Founders-Did You Know?

Many people believe that the ACLU is a great organization whose chief reason for existence is to help the "little guy." Well, that is certainly what they would like their public persona to be, but Gribbit at Stop the ACLU shows us just one of the founders of the ACLU and her true colors!

Ronald Reagan Quotes

"Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."

"Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."

"It is up to us...to work together for progress and humanity so that our grandchildren, when they look back at us, can truly say that we not only preserved the flame of freedom, but cast its warmth and light further than those who came before us."

"There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace."

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

A New Ovarian Cancer Treatment

To date, most chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, has been done intravenously. The medications have to travel throughout the blood stream before they would even reach the cancer cells. This "new" treatment is intraperitoneal. A port is put into the abdomen and the chemotherapy drugs are put directly into the abdomen and literally "sloshed" around using saline solution so that the organs and abdominal cavity are literally washed in the medication. It is said that this treatment will add an additional 16 months to the woman's life. I hope this is true.

My mom was diagnosed in 1999 with stage C-3 ovarian cancer (one step from inoperable). And though she had chemotherapy it was prior to the use of this treatment. She went through traditional chemo, surgeries and finally radiation treatments that literally ruined her abdominal organs. She lost her battle a little over four years later (July 21, 2003). Eight months after her death, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer. This is a type of cancer that is often misdiagnosed as ovarian as it mimics ovarian, but it is treated in the same way. What made matters so difficult for us and the whole situation harder to deal with, is that there is/was no cancer in either family.

My mother-in-law, however, has been treated in this new way. It was not an easy treatment. She had to wear roomy clothing because it would expand her abdomen for hours afterwards until the saline and medications could be absorbed by her body. After the medications were in and the while the saline was going in, she had to lay with her head lower than her feet. She then had to turn from one side to the other every 20 minutes in order for the medication and saline to bathe her entire abdomen. It is because of the way this treatment is done, that so many women have not been able to withstand it. But, if it adds months to a woman's life, it has to be worth it because the mortality rate for ovarian cancer is so high.

On average, 22,000 women are diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and of those, 16,000 will die within 3 to 5 years. Most of the time ovarian cancer is not diagnosed until it is in an advanced stage because there are no definitive warning signs and there is no early detection test. So, for me, any increase in life span is wonderful because not only does it affect my mother-in-law, but it could very well affect my daughters as well as myself.

Early detection would be the best deterrent against ovarian cancer mortality, but there is no test at this time. Through donations and corporate funding there is research being done. A charity that works locally here in Ohio is OROC. (OutRun Ovarian Cancer) There are also several national charities including, The National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.

Some information from Reuters.

A Horrible Tragedy Compounded

No one knows how it happened, but as of 2 a.m., when I finally went to bed, the word was that 12 of the 13 miners had been found alive. This morning, when I got up at 6 a.m., the news was tragic. It was that only one was alive and in critical condition while the other 11 had perished.

The families had been joyous. They were singing "How Great Thou Art" to praise the Lord that the miners were alive. Three hours later, shock and disbelief as they are notified that the news had been false and that their loved ones had died in the mine. Apparently it took that long to correct the notification because they wanted to make sure they knew definitively about all 12 of the miners.

One young man, 27-year-old Randal McCloy, is in critical condition. He is fighting for his life while his fellow miners are being brought to the surface. It is believed that the 11 died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but that has not been confirmed. The canister re-breathers had been used, but it was not enough for the men to survive. It was found they had tried to barricade themselves in a small space, but even that was not enough to hold off death while they waited for rescuers to find them.

Speculation is that a mine worker overheard a conversation between a rescue worker and the command center. At that point, they had pulled Randal McCloy out and they were trying to get him to the hospital. It is because they had pulled one out alive that this mine worker believed that they must all be alive. That false hope spread like wildfire. Jubilation was turned to shock and despair as word came through that just the one man survived.

My heart goes out to all of these families and this close-knit community. Now comes the inevitable finger-pointing and the investigation into the 208 violations sited against this mine in 2005 and how this tragedy may have been avoided.

UPDATE: 1/4/06 8:15 a.m.-Randal McCloy in critical, but stable condition. He has a partial collapse of a lung, dehydration, and hypothermia. There is no evidence of broken bones nor of carbon monoxide poisoning at this point.
8:36 a.m.-Doctor's report. He does not have hypothermia. He is dehydrated. He is moving and responding to stimuli, though he is again sedated to keep him comfortable while he is still attached to the ventilator. Despite the ventilator, he is breathing spontaneously. He is also suffering from prolonged immobility and some carbon monoxide in his blood. He is still listed as critical.

What Happened to the Democratic Party

What happened to the Democratic party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and John F. Kennedy? They all stood for something and stood up for America. They knew the importance of protecting the United States and did what was necessary to keep us safe. Some things weren't very good ideas historically (the Japanese internment camps), but they only had the security of our way of life in mind.

These days it's all about how to make the Republican president look bad. Much of the Democratic leadership inflame their followers with lies and innuendo. It does not matter if the information is true. They have come to the conclusion that if they say something loud enough and long enough it will be considered the truth and sadly it seems to work.

JB Williams at The Conservative Voice has an opinion on what the Democratic party has become and that is Anti-America. Or if you are Pro-America, you are anti-Democrat.

Today, being pro America - supporting America, its founding principles, its fundamental ideals, its policies and its national interests, most likely means that you are anti-Democrat. No matter how hard the Democratic Party works to drive Bush or Republican approval rating into the toilet, the effort just doesn’t seem to take root with the American people. Even when Democrats are successful in undermining public support for their political opponents in the polls, those polls indicate that their own ratings drop even faster and farther in that effort.

They speak of Bush's terrible poll numbers, but they don't talk about their own. Did you know that the approval rating for Democratic congress was only 33% in November 2005? And that the disapproval rating was 47%? Yes, Bush's approval ratings were abysmal at that time, but he was still slightly higher than Democratic congress at 35%. The disapproval of the Democrats may be directly related to the lack of support for so many issues that the average American feels are important.

The simple fact is, most Americans are not anti-religion or religious speech, not anti-capitalism or free market society, not anti-military or national security, not federal dependents and not interested in relying upon any commune to raise their young or determine their place or worth in society. Today, this also means that they are not Democrats…

Though Democrats bristle at any suggestion that they are in any way anti-American, the fact is, their agenda is at odds with nearly every American principle today and average people able to see that, just can’t get over it, no matter how bad the alternatives might appear.

If you understand and support our mission in Iraq, you are anti-Democrat. If you seek to secure our borders, you are anti-Democrat. If you support hunting and killing terrorists on foreign soil to avoid another 9/11, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe in a free market capitalist economy, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe in limited federal government, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe that a right to life itself is the first personal liberty, you are anti-Democrat. If you have more faith in the US than the UN, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe in national sovereignty and autonomy, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe in free religious expression in the public square, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe in personal property rights, you are anti-Democrat. If you believe our justice system is based upon equal application of existing laws, not an unbridled extension of our legislative branch, you are anti-Democrat.

But if you believe in most or all of these things, you are most importantly pro-America. If you fight to support and defend true American ideals, even just at the polls, you are by definition, a true patriot, one who loves, supports and defends his/her nation and its principles. And you are not a Democrat today…no matter where your voter registration card might be filed.

It seems by almost every comment coming out of the mouths of the Democratic leadership that they want Bush to fail and in turn that they want America to fail. They claim to support the troops and be for "everyman," but their words and actions are showing this to be a false claim.

Today’s Democratic Party platform is based almost exclusively on anti-American ideals and sentiments. What was once the party of the average American has evolved into the party of the average anti-American. Today’s Democrats don’t only hate George Bush - I could live with that… They hate everything America is, has ever been or was ever intended to be, their policy platform says so and that, I can not live with. Neither can most Americans…

In the central federal government they trust, not the people. In communal socialist principles they believe, not the free right to self-determination. They can’t even support the most fundamental personal liberty of all, the right to life, let alone the liberty to pursue one’s own happiness without the constant interference of the federal government.

While our soldiers fight and die for freedom abroad, they attack our soldiers, their missions, their commanders and the military leadership as a whole, here at home. They attack the earned assets of investors who create jobs in search of profits. They attack corporations who employ Americans in the production of their products and services. None of these ideas or negative sentiments are American. Yet they are the foundation of today’s Democratic Party platform.

Luckily the public in general is no longer listening to the Democratic machine or the DNC. They may still classify themselves as Democrats, but they are for so many things that the current Democratic leadership is against. The proof may come at the end of the year when the 2006 mid-term elections take place.

The point is this… no matter what the polls of the liberal propaganda machines say, being pro-America today equals being anti-Democrat. Even Democrats know it, though they can’t afford to admit it. Instead, in their minds, pro-American means mindlessly pro-Bush.

So I look for the trend of removing democrats from office to continue in 2006 and 2008 and until such time that the DNC decides to distance itself from the anti-American policies and sentiments of the secular socialists currently running roughshod over their party.

Fortunately, the average American is not as foolish as the DNC has bet. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that anti-American is as anti-American does. Regardless of their rhetoric, their policies remain anti-America on almost every issue. As long as it does, real Americans will continue to remove them from office with some pleasure. A few liberal Republicans along the way too…

We will have to see what this new year brings. I believe that Iraq will soon learn to stand on their own and our soldiers will come home. The economy will still be on the rise and the interest rates will be reaching a plateau in the near future. And I truly hope that the American people will show that they have more faith in themselves and American values than they do in the Democratic party.

A Day Without News

I decided to take a day off from the news. I haven't done that in a very long time. I usually have the news on as soon as I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night. (Well, off and on all day.)

Today, I watched a couple movies with my older daughter: The Pianist and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. And the fun, yet goofy shows on TLC: What Not To Wear and 10 Years Younger. They are fun to watch because it's not me! I would love to get a make-over, but I would prefer to do it without the humiliation of those shows!

It was a very nice break, but I'm sure that I will be back to the news tomorrow morning. I wouldn't want to start going through withdrawls.

2006 Predictions

The Anchoress has her predictions for 2006 up and they are great. I have my list of wishes, but she goes to a further extent in predicting many happenings.

11) Howard Dean will not be DNC chair by the end of the year. He will be replaced by affable eye candy of some sort, capable of bumper-sticker-speak. John Kerry will make all sorts of noises about running again for the WH, but at the last possible moment, he will declare himself uninterested due to his deep committment to the people of Massachusetts. A quick search through his Beacon Hill garbage will reveal a bloody horse’s head.

We need to make note of the different predictions by our favorite bloggers so that at the end of 2006 we can see just who had the clearest crystal ball!

The Care And Feeding Of Moonbats

Mr. Right at The Right Place has an excellent article for all of those who may have purchased (or adopted) a moonbat this holiday season. There is very important information on care and feeding, as well as a brief history of the moonbat.

The Responsible Pet Owner

The first, most important thing for all responsible moonbat owners to do is to have their pets spayed or neutered immediately to help control the moonbat population. This is especially important during election cycles, as they tend to go into heat at such times. Attempts to increase their numbers can be loud, obnoxious and quite dangerous to civilized societies. Remember, the world has more than enough moonbats already, so be responsible and help us to keep their numbers in check.

So please be sure to read the entire article as it may be mean the difference between lunacy and sanity for your family. Protect the ones you love.

Hopes

I've never been one to make New Year's Resolutions, but I do have hopes for the new year. There are the personal hopes and then there are the hopes for our country.

I'll share my hopes for the country:

1) The Iraqis are able to take over the security of their country and hold on to their freedom.
2) All the National Guard is able to come home.
3) Most of the soldiers stationed in Iraq are able to come home. (I know it can't be all of them.)
4) Saddam is found guilty and his punishment is to be stoned or whipped by a member of each family he has harmed. Okay, so that's really horrid, but I'm sure the Iraqis would love to show him the same "mercy" he showed their families!
5) George and "the boys" in DC would get their act together and stop spending so much of our money on crap!
6) Pelosi, Byrd, Kennedy, Kerry, Feinstein, Clinton, Biden, Durbin, Landrieu, Levin, Rockefeller, Boxer, Reid, Schumer, Leahy, and Feingold all lose their senate seats! I know, it's a lot, but you should be able to dream big!
7) The "leaks" are linked back to specific reporters and their democratic cohorts in Washington and they are all found guilty of treason.

I'm sure there are more and I will probably think of them later, but this is a good start!

UPDATE: How could I forget to add the lunatic in Iran and the need to lock him up in a rubber room and throw away the key?!

UPDATE #2: Fox News will realize what a slimy, leftist creature Wesley Clark is and will no longer use him as a commentator. (the man has the eyes of a snake!)