Author: Zero Ponsdorf

This doesn’t really fit here, nor is  it humorous or silly. And it isn’t about a vet. YMMV or Jonn might delete?

Was about to head out today to meet with our frequent commenter Doc Bailey when I got a phone call.

It seems my freind and neighbor H was cutting down a tree yesterday and it fell on him and killed him.  He wasn’t a fool and even though it was windy I doubt he was careless. His body was found near dark. That amounts to all the current info I have. Not the proper time to be asking for details, etc.

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When we moved here to the ridge a bit over 20 years ago H was among the first neighbors we met.  Since then we have been near perfect neighbors (more on that later). When part of our roof blew off in a wind storm he showed up to help us patch it. When he was losing sheep to feral dog packs I went to help him get rid of them.

For 20 years he has been fertilizing a couple of my fields and baling hay.  When he was doing square bales I helped, No money changed hands. H actually was a farmer. Cattle, sheep, pigs, he did it.

He has a family. I’ve met most of them, and he’d lost a brother or two over the years.

I will miss him. Although we were friends of a sort, it’s far more important to me that we were good neighbors!

Another neighbor defined that  word with no small clarity:  “A good neighbor is someone who will be there at times of need, and will otherwise leave you alone.”

Navy kiss seals the year of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal

We have a late-breaking nomination for image of the year. This photograph would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. With the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta was able to win a raffle that gave her the first off-the-ship kiss, a Navy tradition, with her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell.

Associated Press (Brian J. Clark) When the couple began dating, they had to hide their status under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The 17-year-old policy was repealed in September. On Wednesday, in front of Gaeta’s entire ship and a cheering crowd, the two women made history as the first same-sex couple to share the coveted kiss.

 

Watching the first Expendables movie…

Doesn’t quite rise to a real Wannabe status, but it IS hard to ignore the geezer juices.

“Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.”  Richard Nixon January 23,  1973

“I would describe our troops as having succeeded in the mission of giving to the Iraqis their country in a way that gives them a chance for a successful future”.  Barrack Obama December 2011

Parallels are iffy things at best and I don’t want to get bogged down in quibbling over each minute detail, if you please?

Don Surber has a post up that got me thinking. He’s declared “Victory in Iraq” and that declaration troubles me.

As the United States leaves Iraq after more than 8 years of war, liberals are feeding defeat to a war-weary nation that just wants its troops to come home.

We won in Iraq. Mission Accomplished. It cost 4,500 American lives and maybe 10 times that number in Iraqi lives. The Iraqi death toll — 50,000 in 8 yearts — was a far cry from the 300,000 Iraqis killed by the Saddam Hussein regime or the million lives lost in the ill-fated Iraqi-Iranian War.

It cost taxpayers $800 billion? That works out to one-sixth of the defense spending in that time. The U.S. government now borrows $800 billion every 7 months so the argument that we drained our Treasury on this war is false and hypocritical. We drain our Treasury on “entitlement” programs.

It’s not particularly profound to want to add TIME WILL TELL to the equation.

I can’t help but wonder where we’d all be if the allies had stopped at the German border and went home?

Manning’s sexual orientation raised in hearing

The young Army intelligence specialist accused of passing government secrets spent his 24th birthday in court Saturday as his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” played an important role in his actions.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles as a gay soldier in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material.

They are NOT saying he didn’t do it? Only that his sexual proclivity made him do it?

BOHICA! If this becomes acceptable where will the line be drawn?