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We Wish You a Very Merry…
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Santa with his bag of votes.
Merry ChristMax. Max those credit cards!
Homeland Security shoots down Santa entering North American airpspace !
it’s true !
I’ll go find the link…
Happy Holidays to all the great folks at the Brad Blog that make it such a great place to visit.
Oh, nooooo! Brad’s done turn into an election contactor! Oh, nooooo!
Blackpaper, Inc.
Contactor? oh well.
Did you guys happen to miss your chance over in the comments to this funny story at the LA Times site to spank Andrew Breitbart who is posting a defense of his Right wing loonatic fantasies.
Danno and Brad, your Christmas wish is fullfilled
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays, And thanks for some very enjoyable, enlightened observations and informative reading these years at the Brad Blog.
Brad,Des,99,Lotta,Ernest,Frank,Floridiot,BigDan,
Jeannie,Blue,Soul and all the many posters that make this endeavor one of the best on the net!
Cary
The American taxpayer plays Santa to the military-industrial complex, with the President signing into law a military appropriation of $636.3 billion for FY 2010, including $128.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The never-ending “war on terror;” the gift that just keeps on giving.
…and to YOU, ShortBus! Brad, Desi, 99, Ernest, (John Gideon)~ you are modeling the best of the interactive new media potential, and harnessing it, here (to the consternation of many brutally stupid folks) for the greater good.
And on a shoe-string, too. O! how I hope to one day be your Robin Hood.
Merry whathaveyou, Dearest Bradblog(gers). So grateful for your Grace of facts, dedication to research, pointing to True North (verifiable links and sources), for fostering these open thread debates, for the defense of REASONABLE, RESPECTFUL debate that is (generally) observed and (always) nurtured here – it’s almost embarrassing how much I love this blog.
(I’m writing this to you guys before I’ve even called my parents and nothing feels wrong about that.)
Merry Solstice Substitute Holiday of your choice!
bts… does that pic mean that this site will now become bradtheballotbagmanblog.com? 🙂
Happy Holidays y’all 🙂
Breitbart’s Big Crap websites picking on childrens’ characters again, like Oscar the Grouch previously…now it’s Build A Bear:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/1...lobal-warming/
http://biggovernment.com/2009/1...-build-a-bear/
The right has a history of being preoccupied with childrens’ shows, remember the purple teletubby? Oscar the Grouch? Is it because they watch these childrens’ shows because it’s at their age level They picket movies and things like that. Never the wars. Never a “War for stopping Poverty”. Never picketing FOR health care reform for all. These people are shameful. A real cancer. They’re not good people.
“I likened their approach to ‘Amimal Farm’ caracters” – RichMo
http://biggovernment.com/2009/1...omment48608022
Mewwy Chwismas.
With best wishes…
Christmas Day 1776 dawned clear and cold, one of those blue winter days that look nice – but are not. The temperature peaked at 30 degrees, cold enough to sting ungloved hands.
…
Washington ordered a man posted at the head of each unit to read aloud Thomas Paine’s latest pamphlet, “The Crisis.” In air cold enough to see their breath, the officers read:
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman…”
One by one, each unit marched off …They crunched across week-old snow that had thawed and refrozen to a sharp glaze. Maj. John Wilkinson, following, saw the snow “tinged here and there,” he wrote, “with blood from the feet of the men who wore broken shoes.”
The wind blew from the northeast. Most Americans were farmers then, and Col. John Glover’s regiment from Massachusetts was composed of fishermen. These farmers and fishermen depended on weather for their livelihoods; they well knew what a northeast wind meant.
The wind funneled down the Delaware Valley, driving before it large ice floes that had broken from the river’s edge. As the wind increased, so did its sound, making communication difficult. Through the roar of the wind in the gathering dark one voice rang clear: the deep bass of 280-pound Henry Knox, the chief artillery officer now in charge of loading the boats.
…big, black boats used in peacetime for hauling iron and pig ore from the Durham Iron Works. 40 to 60 feet long, 8 feet wide, and even fully loaded with cannon, cattle, soldiers and crew, they sank only 30 inches.
…conditions made the crossing painfully slow. Col. John Glover’s regiment of Marblehead fishermen poled and steered the freighted boats across the current, battling their way through big ice floes that clunked heavily against the sides….their poles and gunnels wore a glaze of ice.
Washington crossed about 7 p.m. to view the landing parties. Knox recalled Washington stepping over men in the boat till he at last reached the bench where Knox sat. He said, “Shift that fat ass, Harry. But slowly, or you’ll swamp the damned boat!”
Two future Presidents of the United States crossed the river that fateful night, James Madison and James Monroe. Also along with the army were a future Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Marshall, and famous rivals Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
Besides Washington in the iconic painting of the crossing only two of the figures in the boat have been identified. Look closely at the fellow holding the flag, and you’ll see James Monroe. He was quartered in the house where Washington made the decision to cross, and served as a scout and trusted adviser to the General, but there’s nothing in the historical records to indicate he crossed in the same boat…
The other recognizable figure, pulling on an oar next to Washington, is Prince Whipple, a black patriot who has become a minor legend of the Revolution. As an early biographer said of him: “Prince Whipple was born in Amabou, Africa, of comparatively wealthy parents. When about ten years of age, he was sent by them, in company with a cousin, to America to be educated. An elder brother had returned four years before, and his parents were anxious that their child should receive the same benefits. The captain who brought the two boys over proved a treacherous villain, and carried them to Baltimore, where he exposed them for sale, and they were both purchased by Portsmouth men, Prince falling to Gen. Whipple. He was emancipated during the [Revolutionary] war, was much esteemed,..was beloved by all who knew him. In Portsmouth. where he died at the age of thirty-two leaving a widow and children.”
“In 1776,” wrote historian David Hackett Fischer in “Washington’s Crossing,” “American leaders believed it was not enough to win the war. They also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of their society and the principles of their cause. One of their greatest achievements … was to manage the war in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the American Revolution.”
After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, Washington ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same rights for which our young nation was fighting. He wrote: “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road.”
……On the last day of December 1776, Washington brought his horse to a halt before a New England regiment of his veteran troops. Their enlistments were over; they were thinking longingly of home. These men looked less like soldiers than refugees with ragged clothes stretched across bony frames.
…regimental officers called for volunteers to step forward; a drummer beat a roll. Not one man moved.
Washington wheeled his horse around in a circle …One sergeant recalled he then said:
“…you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected. But your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay but one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably can never do under any other circumstances. The present is emphatically the crisis that will decide our destiny.”
Again the drum rolled. This time there were murmurs (“I will remain if you do”) – and gradually gaunt veterans came forward till all but the lame and the nearly naked stood in a line.
=
In this season we celebrate our country’s true fellowship. Some of us have forgotten it; many of us have been confused about how to bolster it; and too few have reached out to one another and written, spoken out and marched in support.
But we are the inheritors of those who froze crossing the Delaware, marched with bloody feet behind true leaders to battle tyranny and win – and to treat the defeated with decency.
Our true heritage is the Constitution and the fundamental idea: the only way we can be free is to govern ourselves, to take care of one another.
Sources
http://www.americanrevolution.org/delxone.html
The Providence Journal
http://www.projo.com/news/conte...4.313d362.html
America’s Anti-Torture Tradition
December 17, 2005 Los Angeles Times Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm
Great comment, Fusion. But duhbaya told me that GW spoke to his troops of his greatest dilemma: Roe v Wade – how come you left out that little tidbit?