Good Morning!

Well, with DADT all over the news, let's take a look at the minor leagues.

Most of you know I've been a lifelong member of the Boy Scouts of America. Through the past century of the BSA's existence, it's been primarily a service organization, and we try our best to teach young men how to be productive members of society through character development, social responsibility, and a sense of what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

But since about the Vietnam Era, primarily because we wear a vaguely militaristic uniform, many people out there have derided the organization as a training ground for soldiers. I could write blogs about that, but we're not going there today.

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6 comments (Latest Comment: 12/05/2010 17:05:32 by BobR)

"I think the minimum that we have to do right now for Americans that are struggling in unemployment in this economy is make sure that no American sees a tax increase. " - Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), 12/01/10

There it is friends. You can yell and scream all you want about how badly Obama is doing. You can call him an abject failure, and a sellout -- even a Nixonian conservative. I don't really care. But while you or your fellow progressive friends decide he isn't worthy of your support, try to keep in mind what he -- and ALL of us are up against.
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40 comments (Latest Comment: 12/03/2010 03:36:27 by livingonli)

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,813th day in Iraq and our 3,341st day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4429
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4290
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3570
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 201
Since Operation New Dawn: 11

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,411
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 827
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq : 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's Cost of War passing through:

$ 1, 114, 665, 175, 000 .00

We have a tale of two countries this morning. War is one of the great movers of people; vast migrations have occured among the civilian population wherever armies fight, from the ancients, to Belgium and France, and now on to Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll start in Iraq; we've been at war there in one form or another for almost 20 years now. During that time, the population has
ebbed and flowed.

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69 comments (Latest Comment: 11/30/2010 20:59:53 by BobR)

between Wikileaks and Leslie Neilson there is a lot to absorb this morning. I will be back with something soon
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8 comments (Latest Comment: 11/29/2010 16:09:31 by BobR)

Good Morning.

About a year ago now, I wrote this blog about budgeting for Christmas and the impact of the recession on our city's tree-lighting ceremony.

Well, here we are a year later, so I think it's time to review what's changed and what hasn't. Of my wish list, I have a GPS now, which I bought myself during the after-Christmas sales last year for a pittance. Still waiting for everything else.

Again, we were at the city tree-lighting ceremony last night. Thanks to my work with the Cub Scouts, we get to be front and center and lead the city in the Pledge of Allegiance every year as part of the event. And thanks to my political work in town, the mayor came right to me last night and sort of put me in charge of all the Scouts in town for the event, which was pretty neat.

In any case, this year was a little more festive than last year. Most of the vendors were still missing, but instead of the high-schoolers, we had the "Waltham City Chorus" singing our Christmas carols (very nicely, too!) and when the switch was thrown, we had City Hall, the memorial circle, and about a half-dozen trees lit up this year. Still a far cry from the past, but better than last year. Perhaps there's been a little bit of a budget turnaround.

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3 comments (Latest Comment: 11/27/2010 22:17:45 by BobR)