Our Marine son is out of Iraq and back in the States!

Rejoice with us!

Halleluiah!

He’ll be home to see us in about a week.

The older you get, the more you learn that there are times when there are no answers, just choices and like in school, the questions keep getting more difficult.

Our new Skype phone arrived today and boy, is my wife pleased. We made some test calls on it and there was no warble, no echo, just plain old telephone quality. For just a tad over 50 bucks, we got a cordless phone that links with the Skype contact list on the computer. Maintain one list and the phone reflects the changes. 50 meter range indoors and supposedly 300 meters outdoors. We’ll test that later. 120 hours standby and 10 hours talk time between charges.

As soon as we purchase the dial-in numbers, we are shutting down our Gizmo/SIP phones and tossing them in a box. Skype works! I’m even building an IVR system for Flight in Winter. I’ll let you know when that is done so you can tinker with it.

Yes, I am aware that the government is twisting Skype’s arm to make it possible for them to tap the conversations, but they’re already doing that to your regular phones and cell phones.� And besides, if they want to listen to what I have to say, let them…not!� I don’t say anything wrong, but it isn’t any of their business.

In a stunning abuse of power and total lack of regard for the well-being of our men and women serving in the armed forces, the Democrats bullied the Republicans and passed a bill that will mercilessly put our troops in harms way.  Passing a funding bill that has a timeframe for ending the war in Iraq, they have effectively signaled to opposition forces when we will surrender.

Imagine two two guys meeting after school to fight and one says to the other, “I’m only going to fight for 5 minutes and then stop.”  The other will save his strength and merely taunt the other, and then when five minutes is up, he’ll pound the other into the mud.

Publicly establishing a timeframe for troop withdrawal from a war zone places my son, a Marine, and thousands of others like him at risk.  The Democrats have effectively shortened his lifespan.  Additionally, they have sent a message to the Iraqi people that, after a certain time, we will stand by and watch them get slaughtered.

The Democrats are guilty of millions of accounts of attempted murder.

Standing true to his French and Italian heritage as he left the Senate floor, one Democrat stated, “Yes, I voted to go to war, but I didn’t think it was going to be so hard.”

Apparently, Congress cannot throw a punch with its left hand unless it’s aimed at the right.

VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 — David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. Read the article

Millions of bees are disappearing across the country. They are simply leaving their hives and not returning. Millions and millions of bees are walking off the job. Estimates of close to 70% of bees in Texas have already left.

So what?

Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

The experts say they can’t figure out what is happening to the bees, but experts seem to be failing these days, don’t they?

Could it be that the bees don’t like the genetically modified food that we are now growing and eating and they refuse to pollenate it?  They refuse to take part in our self-destruction. Others tend to agree agree.

Bees are smarter than people. They know when something isn’t good for them.