Wednesday Hero 09/30/09

This Week’s Post Was Suggested By Cindy

1st Sgt. Jose San Nicolas Crisostomo
59 years old from Spanaway, Washington
August 18, 2009

Sorry for the presentation of this post, but haven’t been feeling well and don’t feel much like typing. You can read Sgt. Crisostomo’s story here and here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Another crushing victory

Last Friday it was another blowout victory for the West DePere Phantoms.

Image via Wisconsin High School Helmets (www.mghelmets.com)

Heavy rain throughout the second half didn’t put a damper on a fireworks show following West De Pere’s homecoming football game against Marinette on Friday.

And what the Phantoms accomplished on dry land long before that was a sight to behold in a 58-7 Bay Conference rout.

Derek VandenLangenberg scored on a 76-yard fumble return on the game-opening series, and Beau Bellmore followed with three of his four touchdowns as West De Pere surged to a 37-7 halftime lead.

The Phantoms (4-1, 3-1) have won four straight games since an overtime loss at Seymour in the season opener.

Against Marinette  it was the Bellmore show on offense.

The senior running back turned 19 carries into 209 yards and three touchdowns in a little more than two quarters of action, highlighted by a 69-yard dash to the end zone amid a downpour in the third quarter.

Bellmore also had a nifty 26-yard touchdown on a screen pass from Michael Linssen in the second quarter.

Bellmore, who had three catches for 37 yards, accounted for more than half of West De Pere’s 454 total yards with 246 all-purpose yards.

And on defense it “rained” turnovers.

The Phantoms forced six fumbles, blocked a punt and held winless Marinette (0-5 overall, Bay) to 121 total yards.

So what’s changed since that week 1 loss?

“We’re starting to jell a lot better. Everyone’s in sync,” Bellmore said. (Source: ‘In sync’ Phantoms crush Marinette – Green Bay Press-Gazette)

That may be an understatement.  Granted Marinette and Oconto Falls are both winless but beating them by 51 and48 respectively sends a statement.  As does all four wins being by at least 3 touchdowns leading to an average margin of victory of 37.

Make no mistake the Phantoms are on a roll since the hiccup against Seymour.

Up next: the Spartans of Luxemburg-Casco

Congress taking care of its own

Image via Wikipedia

Apparently the Dem-controlled Congress doesn’t care about taking care of the people’s business.  As pointed out below not ONE 2010 appropriations bill has been passed.  But that hasn’t stopped Congress from making sure its’ appropriations bill for next year is passed.

Having failed to send the President even one completed appropriations bill so far this year,
Congress nevertheless has made sure to fund itself while other agencies contend with temporary
funding in a continuing resolution [CR]. Fiscal year 2010 starts at midnight next week Thursday,
and without a CR non-essential government activities would shut down at that point.

…

Division A of the conference report provides $4.7 billion in funding for the fiscal year 2010
Legislative Branch appropriations bill, some $254 million, or 5.7 percent, more than last year’s
scored level. The bill funds House and Senate operations, committees, and Member offices, as
well as support agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office [CBO], the Library of
Congress, and the Capitol Police. (Source: Appropriations Alert)

Where’s the outrage?  At a time when households and businesses across the country are having to tighten their belts when it comes to spending, this Congress is INCREASING its’ funding by 5.7%!  This is ludicrous & inexcusable.

The state-run media should be asking two questions.  First why the increase?  Second why is this being done before one appropriations bill is sent to the President?

Perhaps the local media (unless it’s also state-run) should start doing its job and ask those questions of  Congressman Steve Kagen since he voted for this yesterday.  Apparently Pelosi’s puppet from the WI 8th Congressional district has no problem with this.  I wonder how many of his constituents would if they were aware of this.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New year, no budget: How Washington works! (money.cnn.com)
• Lobbyists At War Over Pentagon Appropriation (huffingtonpost.com)
• Happy New Fiscal Year: U.S. EPA Wins Big, with 33 Percent Funding Increase from Senate (treehugger.com)

Wednesday Hero 09/23/09

Lt. John Madea

Lt. John Madea holds his daughter as she is baptized with holy water from the ship’s bell of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46). This is the fourth person baptized aboard Tortuga since the ship’s christening in 1988, and her name will be inscribed inside the bell as a tradition of the U.S. Navy.

Photo Courtesy U.S. Navy
Taken By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Geronimo Aquino

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Phantoms cruise to victory

A quick start led to a rout of Oconto Falls on their home turf.

Image via Wisconsin High School Helmets (www.mghelmets.com)

West De Pere didn’t need more than a few minutes to take charge in a 56-8 rout of winless Oconto Falls on Friday in a Bay Conference football game.

A 42-yard touchdown strike from Michael Linssen to Travis Mason on third-and-long started the scoring 2½ minutes into play.

A minute later, Zac Rottier scored on a 54-yard punt return, and the Phantoms were off and running with a 15-0 lead.

“We knew we had to get off to a good start,” Mason said. “We started off strong.”

That opening sequence started a trend in which West De Pere (3-1, 2-1 Bay) alternated between scoring touchdowns on offense and on special teams or defense as it built a 42-0 halftime lead.

Linssen had a hand in two more TDs — on a 27-yard throw to Tyler Van Sistine and a 1-yard sneak — before calling it a night for the final two quarters.

Linebacker Ben Jensen and Mason, who doubles as a cornerback, each chipped in with a 30-yard interception return.

Of course getting five interceptions and a fumble makes things easier.

The Phantoms’ defense had six takeaways, including five interceptions of quarterback Alex Kratz. Four of the picks came in the first half.

“We’ve got to have that,” said West De Pere coach Bill Turnquist, whose team came into the game at minus-one in turnover ratio.

West DePere should have had a shutout but that went out the window on a miscue.

The only points for Oconto Falls (0-4 overall and Bay), which has lost 14 straight games since 2007, came on the Phantoms’ lone miscue.

Matt Samsa picked up a fumble and ran 50 yards the other way to close the gap to 42-8, putting a halt to the running clock late in the third quarter.

The running clock returned though as West DePere scored two more times.

West De Pere completed the scoring with touchdown runs of 5 yards by Rottier and 52 yards by backup quarterback Jay Tollefson. (Source: Football: West DePere starts quickly, cruises past Oconto Falls – Green Bay Press Gazette)

Next up for the Phantoms – the Marines of Marinette.

Wednesday Hero 09/16/09

This Week’s Post Is Via Gazing At The Flag

PFC Thomas Lowell Tucker
24 years old from Madras, Oregon
B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division
June 16, 2006

Flag Gazer has a great post up on the dedication of the PFC Thomas Tucker memorial.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

R.I.P. Patrick Swayze 1952 – 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Pancreatic cancer has taken a fine actor at a young age, 57.

Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into viewers’ hearts with “Dirty Dancing” and then broke them with “Ghost,” died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.

He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting “The Beast,” an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making “The Beast” because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was “considerably more optimistic” than that.

“I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking,” Swayze told ABC’s Barbara Walters in early 2009. “Two years seems likely if you’re going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I’d better get a fire under it.”

A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing.” As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.

…

“Ghost” provided yet another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensually molding pottery together to the strains of the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody.” It also earned a best-picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said she wouldn’t have won if it weren’t for Swayze.

“When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick,” Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk show “The View.”

Swayze himself earned three Golden Globe nominations, for “Dirty Dancing,” “Ghost” and 1995’s “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” which further allowed him to toy with his masculine image.

…

Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include “Urban Cowboy.”

He played football but also was drawn to dance and theater, performing with the Feld, Joffrey and Harkness Ballets and appearing on Broadway as Danny Zuko in “Grease.” But he turned to acting in 1978 after a series of injuries.

Within a couple years of moving to Los Angeles, he made his debut in the roller-disco movie “Skatetown, U.S.A.” The eclectic cast included Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormack and Billy Barty.

Swayze had a couple of movies in the works when his diagnosis was announced, including the drama “Powder Blue,” starring Jessica Biel, Forest Whitaker and his younger brother, Don, which was scheduled for release this year.

Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on “man’s greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature’s laws,” he told the AP in 2004.

Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center, People magazine reported in a cover story. (Source: “Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze dies at 57 - AP)

Here’s Swayze performing the song he co-wrote for “Dirty Dancing.”

Just remember – “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

Condolences to the Swayze family.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Patrick Swayze, ‘Dirty Dancing’ Star, Dies at 57 (nytimes.com)
• Rest in Peace, Patrick Swayze (cinematical.com)
• US film star Patrick Swayze dies (news.bbc.co.uk)

The truth on Obamacare exposed

If you don’t believe this is the final intention of Obamacare, I have some oceanfront property for you in Arizona.

No wonder Stossel is going to Fox News, state-run media can’t handle having reporters who report the truth.

Related articles by Zemanta

• John Stossel Leaving ABC for Fox Business (nytimes.com)
• ABC’s John Stossel to Fox (maciverinstitute.com)
• As CNN and MSNBC Air Obama Health Care Speech, FNC Broadcasts a Live Glenn Beck Special (mediabistro.com)

2009 NFL Season Prediction

The NFL season is underway.  I thought that this year I would attempt to look into the crystal ball and make some predictions.  Without further ado here are my uninformed predictions on the NFL season:

NFC North

While the Vikings won the division last year, the Packers are the team to beat.  The Lions are coming off the worst year in NFL history and don’t look very improved.  Chicago and Minnesota will battle for 2nd place and a wild-card berth but defense will give it to Minnesota.

1. Green Bay Packers -  Barring a major injury the Packers have the offensive fire power and an impressive new 3-4 defense that may just make them the team to beat in the NFC.

2. Minnesota Vikings (Wildcard) – Sorry Vikings fans adding Brett Favre to an offense featuring Adrian Peterson will not bring you to the promised land this year, even with a strong defense.  But the playoffs are likely.  If Favre doesn’t play all year look for it to be a .500 season.

3. Chicago Lions – Jay Cutler may be the new guy in town but did he really do much in Denver?  If he surprises and the aging defense holds it together, could make a run for 2nd place and a wild-card berth.

4. Detroit Lions – Not much improvement in a team that had the worst record in NFL history last year.  While another winless year is unlikely don’t look for many wins here.

The rest of the NFL.

NFC East

1. Dallas Cowboys

2. Philadelphia Eagles (Wild Card)

3. New York Giants

4. Washington Redskins

NFC South

1. Carolina Panthers

2. New Orleans Saints

3. Atlanta Falcons

4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC West

1. Arizona Cardinals

2. San Francisco 49ers

3. Seattle Seahawks

4. St. Louis Rams

AFC North

1. Pittsburgh Steelers

2. Baltimore Ravens

3. Cincinnati Bengals

4. Cleveland Browns

AFC East

1. New England Patriots

2. Miami Dolphins (Wild card)

3. New York Jets

4. Buffalo Bills

AFC West

1. San Diego Chargers

2. Denver Broncos

3. Kansas City Chiefs

4. Oakland Raiders

AFC South

1. Tennessee Titans

2. Indianapolis Colts (Wildcard)

3. Jacksonville Jaguars

4. Houston Texans

Playoffs

Look for the Packers to have the #1 seed in the NFC and the Steelers to the #1 seed in the AFC.

NFC Champion: Packers

AFC Champion: Titans

No prediction for the NFL Championship.

In February 2010 we’ll see how the crystal ball held up.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is This the Year the NFC Reigns Supreme? (bleacherreport.com)
• Final Pre-Season NFL Power Rankings (inquisitr.com)
• 2010 Super Bowl Odds to Win Super Bowl XLIV – NFL Futures Betting Odds (touthouse.com)

Battle lines are drawn

Tucked away in the pages of HR 3200 are details of the huge windfall proposed for unions.  Also tucked away in various bills before Congress are provisions that will force unionization on the healthcare industry.

BerryLaker explains the dirty details and how the battle lines are in place.

The battle lines will be drawn between two groups of people. It will have nothing to do with race, nothing to do with skin color, nothing to do with religious preference or nothing to do with your heritage. It will not matter how much you make or what your name is. The tensions between members or groups of different social classes will be but a memory in history.

For the people of this country, there will be only two groups of people, union and non union. Union people will have free health care the non union will pay for free health care. Union people will be first in line and same day visits for health care, non union people will be in waiting lines for days, months and God forbid years for care.

Union people will have access to free prescriptions of the best medicines and the rest will have to buy generic Tylenol. Unions will see the best medical experts, non union will talk to death panels. Unions will get surgery and non unions will get a blue pill and will be told to go somewhere and die.

It will pit unions against employers. unions against non union workers. It will pit fathers against their own sons. Mothers against their own daughters. Union members will be for their brothers and sisters in the rank and file and diss their own blood brothers and sisters of their own families. A mother or father will be on their death bed in some hospital and their son or daughter will be walking the side walk on strike for a longer break time. Cities will be divided with union members on one side of town with their nice homes and green cut lawns and the rest will live in shanty towns we read of the past or high rise complexes with broken windows and infested crime areas.

…

All this will happen in the disguise of health care for all. All this will happen before people even realize it even happened. The union bosses and the liberal left (most democrats) are seeking as much power and wealth they can get their hands on. Nothing will stop them. All for the sake of absolute power. (Source: Battle Line Drawn – BerryLaker)

It’s time to press foward Patriots, time to keep applying the pressure needed to defeat this attempted power grab.  To do that you need to keep spreading the truth about the proposed healthcare reform known as ObamaCare to your friends and neighbors.  Remember the future of this great nation is at stake.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama will not rest… (blogs.law.harvard.edu)
• Does Group Health hold answers in health-care debate? (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Who’s not invited to the healthcare reform debate? Us (myventurepad.com)
• How people feel about Health Care Reform and the Public Option (webmetricsguru.com)