Its not where you hang your HAT, it's who you hang your HAT with...
Many thanks to "AnnaZ" for showing me this "Where you been map"
create your own visited countries map or
vertaling Duits Nederlands
create your own visited states map
BTW, a little about me...
I am a Native Texan, I was born in Alice, Texas back in 1964...
I am married, no kids yet, but we have a Dalmatian that would be an accomplice in any burglary of our residence...Traitor! heheehee he'd show them where all the "good" stuff is!
Update...We had to put our first pet down on August 17th, 2007...Savannah-May was born on the 15th of April, 1996...What a painful experience, but we knew it was coming one day...I had hoped to keep her aroudn till we moved up to our new home in N.E. Texas, but that was not to be...We'll keep her remains (cremated) near till we get up there and have a nice place for her to rest...
I couldn't wait to serve my country, to which I did for 20 years in the U.S. Navy...I was (and still am) an Operations Specialist (operated radar and other communications equipment) we basically were the ones who sat in that dark room and fought the ship, when we needed to fight...
I was stationed on the USS Callaghan (DDG-994) in the mid to late 80's, and finished up in the Reserves in my hometown of record, and the rest is History...
Not till recently did I feel like saying anymore about myself till now...I figured I better write something down, or, I'd probably forget...hehehe
I enjoy the compassion and passionate discussions here on Free Republic, and have gotten to know a few folks here very well outside the anonymity of the internet...They are some of my best friends, and even the ones I may not see eye to eye with on "stuff", their opinion in my eyes is held in high regard!
And still, I am a very "hated" person!!! hehehe
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A society's first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct.
Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. This failure to fully transmit value norms to subsequent generations represents another failing of the greatest generation. - Walter Williams, Nov. 21, 2007
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 their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. -- Thomas Paine, The Crisis, December 23, 1776
“You can live a long life with books full of accolades and all sorts of “attaboy’s”, but just one “Awwww, Crap!” and that's all anyone really wants to remember...” — Stevie-D
"Perseverance and Preparedness triumph over Procrastination and Paranoia every time.” -- Stevie-D
"Success is not final; Failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts" -- Churchill
"Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum" -- "When you have their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow." -- Terry Pratchett
"On the Plains of Hesitation lie the darkened bones of countless millions, who, at the dawn of victory sat down to rest, and while resting they died." -- Adlai Stevenson (yeah, he was a liberal, but this is still an intersting quote)
"Underlying the whole scheme of civilization is the confidence men have in each other, confidence in their integrity, confidence in their honesty, confidence in their future." -- Bourke Cockran (something seriously lacking today)
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can."
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."
--Samuel Adams
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
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"We have always known this could happen. We've warned about it. We've talked about it. I regret to say, as I served on the Intelligence Committee up until last year. I can remember after the bombings of the embassies, after TWA 800, we went through this flurry of activity, talking about it, but not really doing [sic] hard work of responding." -- John Kerry, Sept. 11, 2001
"You know, we've had terrorism for a long time now. We've had the Achille Lauro, the Munich Olympics, the pipe bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta, the TWA 800, the bombing of embassies, and it's not going to disappear overnight." -- John Kerry, Sept. 24, 2001
"In my time at the White House (the situation room) was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon." -- George Stephanopoulos, Sept. 11, 2001
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And when all else fails:
