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George McGovern wrote a column for The Nation “Patriotism Is Not Partisan”.

A World War II bomber pilot [B-24s flying from Italy], with a Distinguished Flying Cross, McGovern was attacked as unpatriotic, and weak on defense for his opinions on the Vietnam War.

Take the time to read his words and compare his experience with what is happening today, especially in light of those calling for liberal gravitas on security issues.

No one who compares the number of retired military officers who stood with John Kerry as compared to George Bush, and, more importantly, the success of the officers backing Kerry as opposed to those backing Bush, can reasonably assume a weakness on defense on behalf of the Democratic Party.

Abraham Lincoln’s advice: “It is much better to remain silent and let everybody think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”, is applicable to the use of force. Bush has demonstrated the weakness of America’s military as directed by Donald Rumsfeld. US enemies now know that the US is not invulnerable, an assumption they didn’t make before Bush started his preemptive war.

Something people forget is that three people have been involved in all the US disasters in the Persian Gulf area. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz all go back to the Ford administration.

They were there when the US policy was to introduce nuclear energy to Iran. They were there when the US provided weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages. They were there when the US jumpstarted Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs. How long and how much evidence is required to conclude that they are incompetent bunglers.

Every guy standing in line to get their traditional “scalping” on the first day in boot camp has more military experience than these three “national defense wizards” combined.

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I spent the day helping my neighbor with a bureaucratic plumbing problem. People usually have to irrigate to get flowers to grow here during the Summer. Many people route the water from their washing machine out to a flower bed rather than sending it to the waste treatment plant. The soap acts as a deterrent to several pests and you need the extra water on the flowers.

Well someone from the “barracks” being built behind us complained to the bureaucracy and they gave my neighbor grief, so I connected the line to the sewer.

She’s still waiting for the contractor to fix her roof from the hurricane so she doesn’t have to worry about water pouring into her living room, but these jerks want to complain about how she waters her petunias.

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Anyone who still thinks, for whatever perverse reason, that Dubya’s piracy accounts are the way to go should read this heartwarming story about 401(k) surprises for the newly retired. Maybe it’s there, and maybe not.

You might be better off investing with these guys or these, they are least required to tell you the odds of getting anything for your money.

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They should change the name of this aircraft from the Osprey to the Vampire. No matter how many times it crashes, or many people it kills, it keeps coming back to life.

I worry about it because it is scheduled as the replacement for the Special Operations aircraft that current fly over my house at low altitude on their way to the firing ranges. I would just as soon not have an unscheduled landing in my immediate vicinity.

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Lean Left has the story of Juan Carlos Merida, a Panamanian national who went out of his way to help the FBI in an investigation, and found himself on the “persons of interest” list.

There is apparently no one who can edit the list to remove people who shouldn’t be on it, and no indication whether the people on the list are good or bad.

Hint: there are a lot of American IT people unemployed by companies shipping their jobs to Asia. I’m sure that the government would be able to hire any number of them to clean up the list. These are native-born Americans who can actually receive security clearances.

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The BBC tells us that Whisky bosses search for new cat. They have put out a call for a new cat and hope to find a feline more in the mold of Towser whose “Guinness Book of Records tally of 30,000 mice still stands”

A statue has been erected in Towser’s honor in front of the distillery she protected for her 24 years.

The Beeb has gotten carried away as research shows that Towser only actually caught 28,899 mice.

For those not familiar with Britain: whisky is the spelling for the Scottish product, while whiskey indicates what Americans call rye.

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This one is for Andante at Collective Sigh, noted Chihuahua herder:

ABC News reports that a Chihuahua Terrorizes Postal Workers. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

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