Heart Attack Grill!

HA! Something to lighten it up a bit....


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by Das Goob! Now listen!

-"Life is hard. It's harder if you are stupid" John Wayne

Really, what is in the Spending Package (often labeled the "Stimulus Package"?)

I am trying not to let my head explode at the moment. Instead, a moment of zen.....

I will merely list the bulk of the projects in the spending bill and you can decide for yourself...which are PORK and which are actual economic stimulating items. IN order to quantify what group the spending falls into, please use Barney Frank's words as a litmus test: It should be, "Temporary, Timely, and Targeted." Please note I could only find info on $585 Billion of it....the rest is still a secret! It hasn't leaked out yet!

Good luck! ........aaaaaannnnd GO!

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$15 billion for business-loss carry-backs
$145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits
$83 billion for the earned income credit
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
$89 billion for Medicaid
$30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
$4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$1.7 billion for the National Park System
$55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
$7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
$150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
$150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
$2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
$2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
$3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
$200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
$300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
$400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
$1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
$1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
$8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$4.5 billion for electricity grid
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

I could spend hours writing about each item I think is a farce and cannot ever be thought of as "stimulus". But, I am nearly out of breath at the moment. I will tell you something, though. $79 BILLION FOR STATE FISCAL STABILIZATION FUND?!?!?!!? Are you kidding me! Let me guess, the states that are going under because they are WAY over spending and have no means to even pay their income tax returns to their constituents will get the bulk of this money, yet the states like mine, who are required by LAW to have a balanced budget, we get the middle finger. Reward the challenged....punish the prudent.

Representatives and Senators......make me sick....

by Das Goob! Now listen!

-"Life is hard. It's harder if you are stupid" John Wayne

A REAL HERO.....

You want a real American Hero story to read? We have so little lately to inspire us and reaffirm our beliefs that real heroes still exist. This story should do that and take your mind off of the clows in D.C. for a while. Stories like this helps people like me to get by from day to day. Here's the story:

Ed Freeman: A Hero of Our Country.

Imagine this: You're a 19 year old kid, critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965, LZ Xray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is halfway around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because there are no Medi-Vac markings on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were told not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the waiting Doctors and Nurses.

And, he kept coming back...... 13 more times.... and took over 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Ed originally was in the infantry in the Korean War, and due to his heroism on the battlefield, was given a field commission (enlisted to officer). While he was humble, this commission made his childhood dream of becoming a pilot possible. Almost.

The military had a rule then that people taller than 6'2" could not be pilots. The military determined Ed to be "Too Tall", a nickname that has followed him since. Luckily, in 1955, the military changed this stance and Ed was in. He learned both on fixed wing aircraft and then transferred to helicopters.

During the Vietnam War, when the reports were coming in about the insurmountable odds being faced, the commander of the air wing that Ed was a part of asked for volunteers to go in and get them. Ed was the only one that stepped forward. He and his commander saved so many that day...men that certainly would have perished had it not been for Ed.

His commander decided later on to submit him for the Medal of Honor, but did not meet the two year statute of limitations for that award. Didn't matter to Ed. He did what he thought was right, regardless of the potential for recognition. Ed is my hero.

Fortunately, the statute of limitation was removed in 1995, and in 2001, Ed Freeman received a long overdue Medal of Honor from President George H. W. Bush.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died August 20, 2008 in Boise , ID , at the age of 80.

May God rest his soul.....

Oh yeah, Paul Newman died that day too. I guess you knew that. He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman. Where is the Justice? Can you compare the two and justify the difference in press, respect, and admiration? I can't.

This guy is someone we should inspire to be like. We don't need to march in the path of bullets, but understand that his heroism should inspire us to do good for everyone.

by Das Goob! Now listen!

-"Life is hard. It's harder if you are stupid" John Wayne