Kenders' Musings

A plea from Tom Burnett Sr. to the wonderful people of Somerset



(The ad copy below is running in tomorrow’s Somerset Daily American.)



My son Tom confronted a terrible moment of truth. Faced with a plot against our nation, he and the other heroes of Flight 93 fought back, and at the cost of their lives, foiled that plot to destroy the White House or the Capitol. Now it is time for the rest of us to face our moment of truth. Flight 93 has been re-hijacked, and I am requesting that if you can, you go down to the public meeting of the Memorial Project at Somerset Courthouse Saturday, sign up to comment at the end, and demand that a proper investigation be conducted.



THIS was no accident:







The Memorial Project held an open design competition in time of war, in-

viting the entire world to enter. Guess who joined in? That group of trees that sits roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic flag is the crash site. Who do YOU think is being memorialized here?



A second Islamic feature that I also protested when I served on the Stage II jury is the minaret-like Tower of Voices, formed in the shape of a crescent, with its top cut at an angle so that its crescent arms reach up into the sky.







Upturned crescents are a standard mosque adornment in many Muslim countries.



Every iota of this original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called “redesign.” That is why Congressman Tancredo asked the Park Service this autumn to scrap the existing design entirely. Instead of getting rid of the giant crescent as Tancredo demanded back in 2005, architect Paul Murdoch only disguised it with a few surrounding trees.



Also remaining are those damned 44 glass blocks on the flight path. (There were forty passengers and crew and four Islamic terrorists on Flight 93.) The Memorial Project acknowledges the 40 blocks inscribed with the names of my son and the other heroes, and they acknowledge the three inscribed with the 9/11 date, but they pretend not to know about this one: the huge glass block that dedicates the entire site.







When this 44th glass block is pointed out, Project Partners say that it can’t be counted with the other blocks because it is not the same size. What? Because the capstone to the terrorist memorializing block count is magnificent, that is supposed to make it okay?



For every Islamic or terrorist memorializing feature of the crescent design, the Park Service has another equally phony excuse. Please read the exposé below of the Park Service’s fraudulent investigation, and please come to the meeting on Saturday to demand state and Congressional investigations into the Flight 93 memorial.



Tom Burnett Sr.

February 2008







PDF of ad copy here.



Non-locals who want to help, please contact your senators and representatives!

The crescent-topped tower



Not all of the Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial is hidden. One of the things that Tom Burnett Sr. protested from the beginning was the overtly minaret-like Tower of Voices. The Tower is formed in the shape of an extruded crescent, and even has its top but at an angle so that its crescent arms reach up into the sky, similar to the upturned crescent motif seen atop minarets all over the world:





Up tower view (left) shows the Tower of Voices to be formed in the shape of an Islamic crescent, covering about 2/3rds of a circle of arc, with a circular inner arc. The top of the tower is cut at an angle (right) so that the crescent arms reach up into the sky.



This sky-reaching crescent is a standard mosque motif, seen from the Abdul Gaffoor mosque in Singapore:







... to Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland:







... to the Uppsala mosque in Sweden:







There is no way that the Islamic shaped crescent atop architect Paul Murdoch's minaret-like tower is an accident, any more than THIS could possibly be an accident:







That's before you even get to the hidden stuff, like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent; the 9/11 date placed in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag; or the fact that the Tower of Voices turns out to be a year round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial:







Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign, which only disguised the original crescent with a few irrelevant trees.



That Islamic crescent reaching up into the sky is completely undisguised. How can anyone abide this?

I just received this breaking news alert in my email;

WASHINGTON (AP) The White House says that President Bush is expected to propose a $300 million initiative to help children trapped in struggling inner-city public schools.

WHAT??

I can't believe these kids are trapped. Where are the authorities? I propose the government send in troops RIGHT NOW to save these children immediately and capture the cretins that are holding them hostage.

What kind of country are we running here when kids are held in schools like they are some kind of terrorist at Gitmo?

I am going to go ahead at do what so many in the right hand side of the blogosphere are not doing right now and post the Larry Sinclair video where he is claiming he had homosexual sex with Barack Obama in his limo after doing coke in 1999.

Jeff Rense, a well known conspiracy theorist show host had Larry on his show recently, and you can hear the replay of the show.here.

I don't know if the allegations are true or not, and I imagine if they aren't then Mr. Sinclair will soon find himself embroiled in legal wranglings that may very well bankrupt him, if, that is he has any assets to go after.

There is some thought that this may be a hit piece from the Clinton Campaign Machine, and boyo would THAT be a bombshell of a story, and with all the things the Clintons have been involved in I wouldn't put anything past them. If it is a hit from the Clintonistas, what have they offered Mr. Sinclair, or probably more to the truth of the matter, what do they have on Mr. Sinclair that would make him open himself up to such legal ramifications like this?

Either way I am simply going to let you decide if this is an actual issue, or a smear piece by an ever more desperate campaign of criminally minded "public servants" that see a long planned return to the White House thwarted by an inexperienced Senator with a great skill at orating and a public hungry to hear the empty but promising platitudes he spews at every opportunity.

One last note; Funny how this thing came out just as South Carolina was ramping up.

With the end of Fred Thompson's campaign for President many conservatives are disheartened with this years election cycles, feeling as if they have suddenly been cast adrift in an ocean of liberal insanity, and in fact, that pretty much have been.

The list of candidates on the right are, quite simply, not conservatives, at least, not in any honest sense of the word. Oh sure, they pass the conservative sniff test on this issue or that one, but start sniffing around too much and this bunch stinks to high heaven.

I won't go into all of the gory details on this bunch, they are well known to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, unfortunately that seems to be a small number of people these days, so if you are reading this and don't know the drawbacks of the current crop of GOP hopefuls go do some research and see why the GOP is S.O.L this year.

I am not sure if this is the doing of Bush and his merry band of over spenders, or if an influx of "Neocons" (post 9-11 conservatives) had a hand in the current direction of the party, but I do know that the media coverage, favorable of the GOP open borders champion, Juan, "Come on een senor" McCain, hasn't helped.

So what happens if McCain gets the nomination? Enough conservatives are out there refusing to vote for mccain to make a Dem victory almost a given, and if that happens the dem in office will almost certainly get some sort of amnesty passed, giving the left 20 million + new voters by the time twenty twelve rolls around, pretty much assuring the republicans won't win a majority of elections for who knows how long, unless the dem in office is such a useless twit that they screw everything up beyond recognition, which is a real possibility.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that hillary becomes our next president. Regardless of what has been said, hillary is NOT going to drag our troops home with one fell swoop of her presidential pen on opening day, no matter what her nutroot base demands, and that is because the moment she does (or obama if he gets the win) Al-Q claims a victory over the great satan, recruitment goes into over drive, terror attacks go up due to a reinvigorated jihadist movement and the GOP can rightfully say that the Dems handed us a less safe world and a defeat on the field of battle.

And if there is one thing an American won't stand for it's defeat.

So if the Dems win the White House expect them to anger their nutroot base by not surrendering as a first move in office, losing support over the course of four years. Do expect them to open the border. Do expect them to raise taxes and increase entitlement programs. Do expect them to cut down the military and not go after our enemies.

And what happens if Juan "Come on een senor" McCain gets in? Don't expect him to secure the border either. I knwo he has said he would, but so did the asshats in congress that passed a bill about building a wall....yeah that's happening huh? Just because they say they're gonna do it doesn't mean it's gonna be. I do see McCain doing good for the military and fighting the war on terror, but why lock the front door and leave the back one open?

So what if romney wins? Dunno......and as for should he win that's an entirely different question.

Bush and the majority of congress had years to do the right thing. They didn't.....they spent money like drunken sailors on leave, in copious amounts that will only be eclipsed the the Dems during the next four years if they win in November. Frankly, right now, we do not deserve to lead, if you go by Bush's record, and what else can you go on? The GOP has tossed crap at us, and stood by their current batch of spendalots, and frankly they look as if they are happy with the status quo and not looking to change the direction of the party.

Maybe, JUST MAYBE, what they really need is a kick in the ass and four years to lick their wounds. Oh six taught them nothing...they seem to believe that the threat of the Dems swamping us with even more socialist programs and amnesty is enough for us to vote for folks the likes of mccain, huck and St. Rudylicious of the Perpetual Mistress, but I am hearing in discussions I am having with conservatives across the country that the GOP needs a wake up call and we, conservatives, can fix any problem tossed at us, so let hillary have the white house because she'll screw it up so badly that she very well could lose the Dems so much support in four short years that the Republicans could get their majority back.

What'd I'd like to see is Romney.....at least with romney we are in a holding pattern, power wise, and maybe at that point we can try to rebuild the trust we have lost under Sir Spendalot, but if that is the way the cookie crumbles it will be one hell of a fight for us to do so. If anyone of those other yo-yo's get in we may have, at that point, handed the country to a big government adherent anyway, and it won't matter if the CIC had an R or a D, because at the end of the day we still get a bigger government that is more intrusive and money hungry than before.

If anyone but romney is our candidate please pull the lever for whoever the Dems put up....if we're gonna hand this country over to a big government statist, I'd rather that person has a D after their name, because if they don't then conservatism won't be dead, it will have been killed by cowardly traitors who thought it better to surrender principles in a quest to win an election than actually act like the conservatives they claimed to be.

I am going, I have decided, to back Fred for President.

He is well known to the people in this country, having starred in a long running TV series.

He is a stable family man with a well documented belief in hard work.

And I even believe the one "scandal" that surrounds his name is bogus, created by an ad agency to sell, of all things, insurance.

Folks, I am backing fred Flintstone for President.

I hope you will join me.

The guy in the picture to the left is
GOING TO JAIL!!!!!!!!






So my friend Raymond Herrera, a Minuteman and MMP National Rally Spokesman and apparently a celebrity on Spanish Language TV was at a flag rally in Rancho Cucamonga when a man circled the block a couple of times. He pulled up and used profanity and then said to Raymond, in a calm and cool voice, "I am going to have you killed. I will have you parted from this world."

Raymond called the police and reported the incident. Luckily the folks at the rally had the presence of mind to snap pics and got the license plate number.

The upshot is that Raymond got an email from the investigating officer and the man making the threat has been identified. Raymond plans on pursuing this to the fullest extent of the law. The reason I am posting this is because I hope the guy or someone that knows him sees it and can show him that HE IS GOING TO JAIL!!!!

HAHA, HEE HEE, SUP NOW BEATCH?? You threatened one of the most hard working patriots I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and now you're gonna find out that THIS nation is a nation of laws. I am also betting this guy is an illegal alien.

More on this as it develops.

This is a response to Fred being labeled toxic; located here because apparently this user doesn’t want the lies exposed.



We’ll take these points one by one and I will show you why Fred’s positions he has taken are the correct choices for America.

Voted against women in the military having access to
abortion services.

Of course he did. First off women in the military should NOT be getting pregnant. They signed up for a set amount of time to serve, and they should honor that contract and worry about having kids after they get out.

Voted against stem cell research.

Of course he did. If stem cell research is so promising let private industry finance it and make a profit from they work. It is not the role of government to finance research that could very well be done by private industry.

He is against reproductive rights for women and men?

I don’t even know where that came from. Maybe from the fact that he believes that abortion is a states rights issue. While we are on the subject of reproductive rights for men, what about the fact that if a woman gets pregnant she can choose to keep the baby, making the man liable for his share of expenses even if he didn’t want a kid, but she cal also choose to abort that child, even if the man wants it?

Voted that hate crime legislation should not include sexual orientation.

Of course he did….hate crime laws are stupid. ALL crime is a hate crime. Ever heard of a love crime? Me neither. I have heard of crimes of passion, but what kind of love is involved when you hurt or kill the one you love?

Voted against using 10% of highway funds for women and minorities.

Of course he did. Those funds are supposed to be FOR THE HIGHWAYS!!!

Voted against government support of women and minority business owners.

Of course he did. That smacks of socialism. The governments job is not to artificially prop up business owners based on some arbitrary class designation.

Voted against same sex marriages.

Of course he did. This issue, like abortion, is a states right issue, one the federal government should not be involved in.

Voted no on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Of course he did. Sexual orientation is a choice, and protecting a class of people who make a choice about how to live their life is wrong. We choose who to sleep with. Just like we choose whether or not to use illegal drugs.

Voted yes on amendment to prohibit flag burning.

Actually I don’t get this one….burning the flag as a political protest should be allowed…..but so should someone kicking your ass, solely as an act of counter protesting, for burning that flag.

Voted NO on 1.5 billion a year to continue the COPS program.

Of course he did. Local policing is NOT the responsibility of the federal government.

Voted yes on limiting death penalty appeals.

Of course he did. Murderers already get 20 years worth of appeals, and that is 20 years more than they gave their victims.

Voted yes on limiting product liability punitive damages awards.

Of course he did. Tort reform is desperately needed in this country. What do you think drives up the price of everything, especially healthcare? Insurance rates. Why are insurance rates going up? The high cost of lawsuits.

Voted yes in restricting class action lawsuits.

Of course he did. Again, tort reform is needed, and class action lawsuits only feed the beast.

He denies global warming.

NO, he denies MAD MADE global Warming. The alleged consensus on global warming is bogus, with a slew of actual planetary scientists disagreeing with al gore and his fellow schemers.

Voted yes on defunding renewable and solar energy.

Of course he did. It is not the federal governments place to fund an industry that should be doing its’ own R&D. Let private companies create these energy systems and profit from selling them.

Voted yes on approving a nuclear waste repository.

Of course he did. We have to put the waste somewhere. What’s funny is so many people that scream about alternative sources of energy are also the ones that deny us the use of nuclear. To let the envirowackos have their way would put us all in mud huts eating tofu and dressing in leaves.

Voted No on allowing the reimportation of drugs from Canada.

This is a patent LIE!!!!

He DID NOT. What he did vote on was S. 812, which states “The secretary of Health and Human Services would be authorized to announce regulations allowing pharmacists and wholesalers to import prescription drugs from Canada into the United States. Canadian pharmacies and wholesalers that provide drugs for importation would be required to register with Health and Human Services. Individuals would be allowed to import prescription drugs from Canada. The medication would have to be for an individual use and a supply of less than 90-days.”

Voted NO on allowing patients to sue HMO’s and collect punitive damages.

Another damned lie.

He voted to provide federal protections, such as access to specialty and emergency room care, and allow patients to sue health insurers in state and federal courts. Economic damages would not be capped, and punitive damages would be capped at $5 million.

Voted no on including prescription drugs under Medicare.

AND YET ANOTHER DAMNED LIE!!! I am on medicare and have prescription drug coverage.

Here’s the truth;

Vote to establish a prescription drug benefit program through the Medicare health insurance program. Among other provisions, Medicare would contribute at least 50% of the cost of prescription drugs and beneficiaries would pay a $250 deductible

Voted yes on killing an increase in the minimum wage.

Of course he did. The government has no right to dictate what I get paid for my job, unless they’re the ones offering the wage. If raising the minimum wage is so great for everyone, let’s raise it to $25.00 an hour and raise everyone out of poverty. You know why we don’t do that? Because then a cheeseburger would be 25 bux. If government has the right to regulate what minimum wage is, why don’t they sue Google’s founders for only paying themselves a dollar a year?

Voted no on reducing marriage penalty instead of cutting top tax rates.

Of course he did. What’s going to spur investment into the economy that creates jobs better? Letting dick and jane pay a bit less taxes or giving a cut to the people that create businesses and hire people?

He has said he will do essentially what the current president is doing in Iraq.

Of course he did. Because the current president is kicking ass and taking names and understand that running off before the job is done is called defeat. And only our enemies or a traitor calls for our defeat on the field of battle.

Voted yes on authorizing use of force against iraq.

Yeppers he sure did….so did hillary Clinton and everyone else that had the same info from that President Bush had on Iraq.

In short, Fred Thompson is a Conservative, and all that goes along with it. I defy you to show me one other person, that is electable, running for the nomination on the Republican ticket that outshines Fred Thompson as a conservative.

You won't be able to do it. If we, as a party, don't back a true conservative candidate, we will lose the White House in Oh Eight....bank on that my friends.....a vote for anyone but Fred Thompson is a vote for socialism.

Let Freedom Ring, Vote For Fred Thompson for President.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) wouldn't give the Golden Globes a waiver for their awards ceremony, prompting the awards show to go on in a news conference style format, and may very well charge for clips used during the upcoming Oscars, but they have gladly stepped aside and let the NAACP Image Awards go right along without a hitch.

WHY????

Stopping the Golden Globes (which I really don't care about) seemed mean spirited, as it is an awards ceremony for the actors, which really have nothing to do with this fight (they didn't start it and they seem to support it-which just goes to show that actors are, for the most part, socialist minded twits) but letting the NAACP Awards go on smacks of racism.

WHy didn't the WGA stick to their guns and refuse a waiver for the NAACP Awards? Because they know that the NAACP would (wrongfully) call them racist if they did, and they don't want to deal with the bad publicity. If they had any legitimacy at all they would have refused the waiver. Unions are a hold over from an earlier era, and are highly socialist in nature.

I hope teh writers union gets busted to the curb. Then maybe we'd see some better writing come out of hollywierd.

Well I was quite shocked to be tagged with the Blogger of the World meme" making its' way around the nets by my OLD friend Mustang.

The words he wrote about me were even more surprising.

From Mustang comes the rules (or at least his version of them I think)

How this is supposed to work is that I will now identify exceptional blogs, notify the authors, and then they in turn will repeat the process. If this doesn’t give enough credit to these good writers, at least it will introduce them to my few readers. The more blog-sites one visits, the more enriched you are by the extraordinary diversity of opinion, writing style, and interests.

So thank you for this honor, Mustang. I, like you, wish we had a cash prize for this honor, but in lieu of that there is always the fun of tagging other people and making them work.

OK, here's my list;

First up is my bud Ogre who highlights government idiocy (especially in South Carolina) at Ogre's View. Ogre is perhaps the MOST Freedom loving patriot I have ever known, and sensibly espouses the most logical positions that will lead to true freedom.

Next up is John Bambenek who covers various topics at Part Time Pundit, and whose favorite hobby is poking at the Kos Kids. He is so phenomenally gifted in his hobby of choice that Kos named him Wanker of the Year-Blogosphere Division. An award that I hold in the highest esteem an am patently envious about.

Next up is the one and only Gribbit who covers politics with an astuteness honed by a very conservative stance. I am still not sure if it's a shame that there is only one Gribbit, or a damned shame that we can't clone him and save the world, but I increasingly lean towards the latter decision.

Next up is my good friend Justin, who blogs at Right On The Right and is going to be President of this country someday, and when that happens watch out, because he already promised me either Secretary of Offense (because I am more offensive than anyone else he knows) or Minister of Vice (under the belief that a Minister of something should know as much as possible about what they are Ministering about.

Just for fun I am gonna toss in Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler simnply because if you haven't seen this site you have missed the most inventive wordsmith I have ever seen, and the most patriotic, freedom loving Emperor Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy working to end the pesky rebel alliance as there possibly could be.


Finally, (and at risk of getting myself verbally reamed for doing this as it will take time out of his already too busy days to respond to it) Check out Rick Moran's Right Wing Nut House. Don't let the name fool you. The dissection of current events, both at home and abroad by Rick is one of the most astute and sensible views you will fin online, at all, period.

If you saw the debate in South Carolina tonight then you got to see exactly the brand of Whup Ass that Fred likes......now before you go supporting anyone else I just want to ask you one question;

Wouldn't it be awesome to see him open that up on hillary or barack?

YEAH....VOTE FRED!!!!

Today kids we're gonna be talking about the "Housing crises" and the feds misguided actions towards "averting" it.

I will probably piss off a few people, most likely limp wristed whining sacks of shit that don't believe in personal responsibility, but that's ok, because these are generally the same people that refuse to answer violence with violence, an attack with retaliation, so the worst that is gonna happen is they are gonna whine at me, at which point I will promptly tell them to pray to ST.FU.

People, we don't have a housing crises. What we have is a personal responsibility crises, and THAT is definitely something the government should be doing something about. Would you kids like to know WHAT the government should be doing about the personal responsibility crises? Why, it's the same thing they SHOULD be doing for the "housing crises" but aren't.....thaaaat's riiigghhhttt..........NOTHING!!!!!

What we have here is thousands upon thousands, maybe even millions, of people that saw something that looked too good to be true, and in their pursuit of the American Dream they took it. What they forgot was that the American Dream, or at least the part of it that entails owning ones own home, does not entail low interest rate loans with a balloon payment in three to five years. The American Dream of owning ones own home begins and ends with PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

You save up your down payment, usually five to ten percent of the price of the house, maybe even twenty percent, under the theory that if you have so much of your hard earned money and time put into the house you are going to be serious about taking care of it and paying it off. Then you go out and find a lender that is willing to work with you to secure the loan that you would spend the next decade or two paying off, because you, during all those years that you were saving that money for a down payment also didn't run up tons of debt on credit cards, and you paid your bills on time and drove a car you could afford the payments and insurance on, and certainly wouldn't buy a car that was the equal to the cost of 1/6 of your house or buy such extravagances as flat screen TV's, iPhones and every other gadget that Amazon shopping said was THE MUST HAVE FUCKING GADGET OF THE YEAR AND IF YOU DON'T GET ONE YOU ARE THE LAMEST PERSON ON EARTH!!!!

THAT is how it is supposed to be done, but NOOOOOOOOWWW we have a bunch of whining fucktwits unable to understand basic math or accept the responsibility for the loans they willingly signed up for, and we have a bunch of weak kneed blithering idiot morons in D.C. screaming about some "housing crises" when in reality the crisis is of their own fucking doing.

That's RIGHT!!! This is 30 years of education policy (that the feds aren't even supposed to be involved in) coming home to roost, and I lay the blame right where it belongs, WITH THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION!!!

The dumbed down, politically correct "education" system that now stresses making johnny "Feel good" rather than making sure johhny can fucking read or count has created a whole friggin society of people that won't take responsibility for their actions and expects government to bail them out when things get too deep.

And the same people that are crying that the goverment needs to help them save their houses are the very same ones that will vote for a fucking socialist twit (a democrat for those of you, as Rush says, in Rio Lindo) come november.

I am torn between suddenly becoming afflicted with a disorder that crosses Tourettes with some disorder that causes me to violently lash out at people at "random" and then wandering into some patchouli reeking coffee bar and having an "attack" and just throwing up my hands and try to get everyone to vote for the dems, quit their jobs as soon as that president is sworn in and spend all our days marching and demanding that the government take care of us.

I mean, the second situation is what we have now, but at this time all of us dumbasses that actually expected to pay for our houses ourselves are quietly toiling away, while some sunuvabitch that can't bother to figure out that when the loan agent says "balloon payment" or "rate increase" it means "HEY DUMBASS, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO PAY MORE MONEY AT A LATER DATE!!!!!!"

You see, many of these loan agents apparently said something along the lines of "Yeah, the payment goes up in three years, but THAT is when you just REFI and get your payment lowered." The loan agents never added "unless the housing market is in a slump and all these subprime loans, like yours senor sanchez, are causing havoc in the financial markets. Then you can probably totally forget about getting a refi and you may very well be stuck with a house payment that is three times what you make every month." But hey, the loan guys aren't psychics, they are just trying to make an honest living. Who knew they were gonna get stuck with a bunch of dishonest customers.

There is a reason subprime loans are subprime loans. Because the poor bastards that have shown they can't manage their finances and make too little money to support their lifestyle, such as flatscreen TVs and Cadillac Escalades are really bad loan risks. Did you ever notice you see so many people at the laundromat driving a 50 thousand dollar car? Wouldn't you buy a cheaper car and get a damned washer/dryer set? Yeah, me too.

Now the question becomes, what DO we do about this "housing crises."

Nothing. Let them lose their houses. Sure, it'd set the financial market around for a bit, but it certainly won't kill us, and it may very well teach a valuable lesson that needs to be relearned, mainly don't loan money to people that are bad at handling it. It'd also teach a valuable lesson to all those people who are clamoring for the government to get them out of the mess they made, and that lesson is "Hey, ASSHOLE, paying your bills is YOUR job, not your Uncle Sam's."

Finally it'd put a whole lot of houses on the market under foreclosure, allowing people who have not lived in a financially suicidal way to buy some investment real estate and improve their lot in life, setting a fine example for all those asshats whining for D.C. to save their homes and showing them that with some fiscal restraint and some patience they too can partake in the American Dream.

One thing though...if you do go into buying some foreclosed housing and start renting them out to the legions of suddenly houseless former home owners needing a place to stay, you might wanna do a background check and make sure they don't have a foreclosure on their record and consider not renting to them.

I hear those kinds of folks don't like to pay their own bills.

Yesterday I woke to to the news that a blogger I respected was killed in Iraq. If you read any kind of political blogs at all, right or left, you probably heard about Major Andrew Olmsted, who blogged at Obsidian Wings, The Rocky Mountain News and at his own site, AndrewOlmsted dot com.

As of this writing, at just after 1 AM PST, there are over 600 comments, and they are still pouring in. Many of them from long time readers, and many of those long time lurkers, but there are many, many comments from readers that never, until now, even heard of Major Andrew Olmsted, but they too have been shedding tears after reading the blog post he wrote to be posted in the event of his death.

Watching those comments pour in, and seeing the depth of grief from people who didn't even know him has reminded me of the closeness one attains with just the written word, even if those words are so many pixels on a computer screen.

Andrew asked that his death not be used to further a political agenda, a request that some people could not abide by, and the people that made those kinds of comments were deleted and quickly banned. Pushing a political agenda has no place at a wake, virtual or not, and showing such a lack of class only reinforces the stances of those against you, and drives away those that might agree with you.

We have lost a bright and vibrant voice, and we are all the lesser for it, no matter where we fall in the political spectrum.

I have lost friends in Iraq, and fret every day for the ones still there, and the ones that are heading back, especially my brother and one of my best friends, "Handi-Snax."

Snax once told me, "Dude, if I die in uniform, don't cry for me, I will have died for something, and doing something I love." BUt if that day ever comes that my friend has met his end I will cry, and I will rail against his death, and then I will raise a toast to a great man.

But that is not the reason for this post. The outpouring for Major Olmsted, from those that knew him and those that didn't is amazing. We share a very small globe, and this internet has brought us all one hell of a lot closer. On my sidebar is a list of other bloggers, many of them I know very well now, especially since so many of them are involved in Wide Awakes Radio. I have made a point of meeting up with those I could in my travels, and have many of them on speed dial, and talk to them on a regular basis.

I was even the best man for one of them, and had not actually met him until it was time to go to the wedding. That is how close we all are now. We can communicate with each other at our leisure, and many people online grow very close, lending each other support traditionally reserved for those closest to us.

There are several more bloggers I know that I will meet in person, and because of our blogging our first meeting will not be awkward first meetings, but simply the physical continuation of a friendship that has blossomed electronically.

When I went to Ohio to meet Gribbit our first meeting was one of old friends, and the camaraderie was instantaneous. When I met Cao and Rick Moran for dinner it felt like a gathering of old friends. Hanging out with Wild Bill felt like I was at my brothers house, and hanging out with Kit in the parking lot of a roadside diner is Oklahoma felt like I was just stopping in to say hey to an old friend.

Other bloggers I have met online, gotten to know, then met in person were the same way.

We reach out to others every day. And sometimes we forget that our words have impact, or worse yet never know it at all.

So to all of my friends online, you have touched me. You have made me laugh, cry, think, yell and smile. We have commiserated, conspired, planned, schemed and brainstormed together, offered each other comfort when it was needed, advice when it wasn't, and generally been an extended family, but a family of choice.

You know who you are, and I love you one and all (but not in a brokeback way, Wild Bill) so from me, to all of you, THANK YOU!!!!!