Blue Star Chronicles

I just visited Empress Baggie’s blog and had a good laugh at her post about Captain Jack Sparrow. She also has a link that takes you to a post for National Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s good for a laugh.

Miladysa has a wonderful post sharing part of her father’s autobiography. It’s a wonderful story.

I have been reading Miladysa’s blog every since I found it a few days ago (after she left a comment here). It’s a beautiful blog and it’s also a great read.

Natalie ‘Lou’ - you asked for more suggestions for soldiers. I look at it as anything you send is something else they don’t have to spend their money to buy.

The post office has flat rate boxes that are very useful to send items to the troops. The boxes are $7.50. One is about the size and shape of a shirt box and the other is more square and deeper.

Items that are useful are toiletries (ie: toothbrushes, deodorant, etc.), playing cards, any kind of hand-held game and CANDY/SWEETS.

Make sure any food items you send will travel well. I know one guy over there that like Nerds. If the soldier you send it to doesn’t like whatever you send, he’ll/she’ll share it with his comrades. So you really can’t go wrong.

One thing they all like to get are phone cards. If you send phone cards, make sure they are international. A regular US phone card will get used up in just a few minutes. You can get international cards most places you buy regular phone cards. You can click on the link on the right side of this page. Cloncom.com has some good prices on calling cards.

It’s wonderful of you to want to help!

There has been a crime surge in Boston this year. In the last 6 weeks alone there have been 22 shootings in Boston. Gun related arrests are up 39% from last year and fire arm seizures are up 34% from last year.Community leaders are saying there are ‘just too many guns on the streets.’ They are talking about sophisticated surveillance systems and community awareness to attempt to ebb the tide of gun related violence that has the city under siege.

Article in the Boston Globe

Boston has very restrictive gun regulations. It is very difficult, if not impossible for the average citizen to legally obtain a permit to carry a gun or purchase a gun.

San Francisco has also experienced a surge in gun related crime. San Francisco has strict anti-gun legislation. Only 10 people in the San Francisco area have permits to carry firearms. TEN PEOPLE in all of San Francisco!

Washington DC has had a ban on law-abiding citizens owning guns legally for almost 30 years. Washington DC has been the ‘murder capital’ of the nation 14 of the past 15 years.

In 1982 Kennesaw Georgia passed a Mandatory Gun Ownership law. The head of each household is required to keep at least one firearm in the home, with just a few exceptions.

I’ve been to Kennesaw. I’ve seen people walking around there with guns on their hips, like in the old west.After 1982, Kennesaw Georgia saw a 74% drop in their crime rate. It’s murder rate has plummeted to 0.19 per year, almost non-existent. Other crimes, like rape and robberies have decreased at a similar rate.

After 1982, Kennesaw Georgia saw a 74% drop in their crime rate. r, almost non-existent. Other crimes, like rape and robberies have decreased at a similar rate.Â

After 1982, Kennesaw Georgia saw a 74% drop in their crime rate. r, almost non-existent. Other crimes, like rape and robberies have decreased at a similar rate.

Wonder why we never hear anything about the success Kennesaw Georgia has had in virtually eliminating crime in their city? Wonder why that’s not on the news. I would think these cities that have out-of-control crime rates, gang violence and surging violence would be interested in learning from communities that have successfully dealt with crime.

I guess not.

The Second Amendment guarantees the self-evident right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, their families and their property. This right is not given to the state or the city, but to the citizen.

This is a violent and brutal world. Like they say, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

Okay, I admit it, I read People Magazine sometimes.

{Please don’t tell my Mother. She’d chastise me for wasting my time with nonsense and filling my head with garbage. She’d be right of course, but still, having a good cynical chuckle at the antics of the self-absorbed-most-important-people-in-the-world highlighted in these types of publications can be entertaining. They are entertainers, after all!}

There is something about the unashamedly displaying of diamond-studded hedonism that makes it difficult to avert ones eyes.

Furthermore, I don’t begrudge celebrities their opinions or using their mega-means to showcase their opinions. They are people, like the rest of us, and have a right to their opinions. Well, they aren’t exactly like the rest of us are they?

Think of Tom Cruise pitting his ego-driven opinions against the Princeton educated Brooke Shields, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association regarding the need for medication for maladies such as post-partum depression. He made statements like, ‘It’s, uh, like, hormone driven, uh, like, you know, it’s not, uh, Scientifically proven, uh, like, to be a, you know like, a disease.’

Now that’s what I’m talking about. That’s entertaining!

Guess nobody gave Tom a script to memorize for that statement. Brooke Shields made some sort of dignified response to his allegations against her. I’m just guessing, but I think she surely has at least 20 I.Q. points on him. It’ really wasn’t a fair fight, but he picked it.

I saw a poll on the internet recently asking if we, the people, would be more inclined to spend money for products endorsed by famous celebrities.

So I asked myself, would I spend a few extra dollars to have a celebrity’s face on the packaging of whatever I’m buying? Hmmmm …. Can’t think of why I’d do that.

So I clicked ‘no’ on the poll. The poll took me to the results page and the results showed something like 98% no, 2% yes.

I would have clicked the Southern option if they’d of had it.

Not just no, but hell no.

I have been getting packages together to send to my son and his new wife overseas. Being in the military they are poor as church mice, so I send them what I can. Just everyday things are helpful and not that expensive or time consuming to get together and send.Some tips on sending packages:

Make sure you have the correct APO address.

Be sure to fill out a customs receipt at your local post office

If you are are sending food, the more airtight the better. Send vacuum-packed cookies, or you can remove air from a zip-lock bag by sucking the air through a straw.

Layers! The more layers the better. Wrap items in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and place them in zip-lock bags.

Pad items with soft usable items. Toilet paper is great for cushioning and something that will be much needed itself.

I have found the post office personnel to be very helpful when sending packages to APO addresses.

Packages can take 3 or more weeks to get to our soldiers, especially if they are deployed. So make sure they are packed well and that the contents are the type that will travel well.

Some suggestions for travel-friendly treats.

Crispy Peanut Squares

1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 cups crisp rice cereal squares
1 cup peanuts

Combine first 3 ingredients in a glass bowl; microwave on HIGH 3 to 4 minutes or until melted, stirring once. Stir in vanilla.

Fold in cereal and peanuts. Spread mixture into a lightly greased 13 x 9 inch pan. Cover and chill 1 hour or until set; cut into small squares

Spicy Pecans

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 cups coarsely chopped pecans

Cook first 6 ingredients in a skillet over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, and stir in pecans. Transfer to a lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until toasted. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Chocolate Nut Brownie Cookies

2/3 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup chopped walnuts

Beat first 4 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, beating until blended.

Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; add to mixer, beating at low spped jut until blended. Stir in morsels and nuts.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls for small cookies or 1/4 cupfuls for large cookies onto lightly greased baking sheets.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or untils et. Cool cookies on baking sheets 1 minute, and remove to wire racks to cool completely.

** These recipes aren’t original with me, but I don’t remember where I got them. But they travel well.**

Check out Samantha Speaks who has a post about deployed warriors today.

Also check out Any Soldier for more information about sending packages to our soldiers. At Treat Any Soldier you can order packages and have them sent to ‘any soldier’.

Hope this is helpful!

And another thing ….

My husband was giving me a detailed explanation about the weather earlier tonight (see post below). He really does know a lot about the weather. He used to have his pilots license, so he has a thing about weather and weather maps and the like.

When we were looking at the map on the internet, he instructs me, ’see the little red dots here?’. ‘Yes’, I reply. ‘These are right over us now, this is the worst part of the storm.’

He moves his finger over the computer screen, showing me how the storm system is shaped. ‘See how it is swirling back to the west here?’. He’s pointing to a question mark looking area all the way up in Canada, where the storm sweeps back and under into the US. I ask him what that shows. ‘This is a fierce blow’, he says.

This is the front end of a cold front he tells me, but he assures me it’s fast moving and we are directly under the worst of it at that very moment.

There’s more, but that’s the general gist of my weather tutorial for the evening.

All that said, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the detail with which he could read the map and the weather systems blowing over the length of the United States.

The little red dots in particular stuck in my mind. Considering that not an hour earlier he couldn’t find his pants.

‘Where are my other pajamas?’, he had asked me. That’s translated to mean; where is a pair of sweat pants other than the one’s I’m wearing right now?

I went back into our bedroom and picked up a pair of sweats and brought them to him in the family room. ‘Where’d you find those?’, he sounded surprised. It took me as long as it took me to walk to the bedroom and back. I had the distinct impression he’d been looking for a pair for a while.

He can read a weather map in great detail, but can’t find a pair of pants in his closet.

And that is the fundamental difference between men and women.

Just a quick glance at A Female Soldier 2’s blog, I ran across these comments to her posts. So the harassment continues.

Some examples:

You will “address the issue of comments” by doing what every other Republican milblogger does. You will censor them, because when it comes right down to it you words about “freedom” are completely hollow. For you, “freedom” is the “freedom” to agree. Or be shot. Or be set on fire with white phosphorous.

Or whatever. Enjoy your war. Your Fuhrer is sending you to Iran next. That one’s going to make Iraq look like a day at the beach.

Another:

She is not fighting for me. Her mission is eroding my freedom and making Americans less secure. The U.S. military’s actions in Iraq have at times outraged me, and they make me nervous about the retaliation to come.

More:

The U.S. should never have gone there, and we shouldn’t be there now. We have done far more harm than good. We’ve destroyed that country and triggered a firestorm of death there. That, not freedom, has been the U.S. military’s contribution to the suffering people of Iraq.

And yet more:

Ah, but these people are our friends.

http://w3t.org/?u=fc4

They send almost all of the people who take down the WTC towers and the Pentagon, but we’re their friends.

http://w3t.org/?u=fc5

p.s.: Come on, Female Soldier, show your true colors and ban me. All that junk about free speech was never anything but a bunch of window dressing, was it?

And all of these comments were from just one post!

Thanks Cao for bringing this to the attention of others.

Being new to the Blogsphere, I have been lurking around looking to see what is out there. I have gone from site to site, had one idea and then another, started to join one group, then a blogroll, the got sidetracked onto a carnival.

I went to see how the blogrolls were done and then found myself reading the blogs. I somehow stumbled upon carnivals and went to figure out how that is done and started reading blogs. Then I thought I should post links to the ones that were interesting, but lost track of where I had read what.

WOW! There’s a lot out there! I had no idea how intricate and intertwined the blog system is. Depressingly, I really am an insignificant microbe in the bigger scheme of the blogdom. Sigh.

It’s going to take me a while to get up to speed. That’s obvious. The Median Sib has a referenced a post on Blogger Etiquette 101 on Ramblings and Rhetoric. Considering my current state of confusion, this post may be particularly helpful!

A few things I found interesting AND can remember where they were:

Daddy’s Roses has an interesting post about the Young Brain with suggestions on keeping the brain sharp. Something I obviously need to take to heart.

As the mother of an American Soldier, I took particular interest in a reference to an attempt to mute a blog by a female soldier.

Cao has requested a blog burst in support of A Female Soldier 2 who has been the victim of hackers and attacks in an effort to prevent her posting. While this post is a couple of weeks old, our support and encouragement are still worthwhile. Please take a moment to offer a word of encouragement for her efforts.

As per Cao’s blog, this problem was brought to her attention by The Right Place.

A Female Solder 2 has had these sorts of comments made in response to her posts:

“This war is wrong and, because you are taking an active part in it, you are partly responsible for the deaths (both US and Iraqi).”

This is inexcusable. I hate to think an American would write something like that to one of our soldiers!

None of our sons or daughters who are serving OUR country deserve to be demeaned, blamed and harrassed in this way. I hope you’ll take the time to visit her blog and give her some encouragement.

Thanks

John Kerry said our troops are terrorizing Iraqi women and children ….Mr. Kerry, is this what you mean?

See more photos of our troops terrorizing at Tell The Truth.

The Progressives (new term for liberals) are none too happy! They support our troops! They have said so repeatedly. Their words are just being taken out of context by the evil Republicans.That is NOT what they MEANT!

This ad is making them crazy.

Howard Dean states:

The idea that we’re going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong.

John Kerry states on December 4, 2005 on Face The Nation (CBS):

There is no reason Bob that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night terrorizing kids and children, you know, women.

Barbara Boxer on Fox News Sunday on December 4, 2005:

So there’s no specific timeframe but I would say the withdrawal ought to start now, right after the elections December 15th.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at a November 30, 2005 Press Conference:

I’m Endorsing what Mr. Murtha Is Saying …. And Let’s Be Clear About What It Is Mr. Murtha Said, ‘Yes, Let’s Bring The Troops Home.

Representative John Murtha (D-PA) speaking on a Congressional Resolution on November 17, 2005:

The Deployment Of United States Forces In Iraq, By Direction Of Congress, Is Hereby Terminated And The Forces Involved Are To Be Redeployed At The Earliest Practicable Date.

I support our troops, but ……..

cartoon from Sacred Cow Burgers.