31. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

This is posted with the permission of SGM Gibeau

His post was in response to people getting up on their high horses about actions that some member’s of the Service have done or are alleged to  have done.

I share his views, and am a strong supporter of our Military. I feel that they are under paid and over worked, the job they do is no job at all, it’s a duty that they felt called too. I will always back our Armed Forces 110%. I wish every time someone reads, that the people in Washington are about to cut funding for the Military, they would get mad enough to write their elected officials and let them know they disapprove of these actions. Without People like SGM Gibeau this Country would not exist.

The next time you see a person in uniform, thank them for all that you have. Here is another idea, ask them how they are, what they need, how you can help them when they have to deploy, how our Country can help them.

Just thoughts.

I am a Sergeant Major in the United States Army. I have read alot of the things written here about this young man, about his freedom of religion, how he should be jailed, how he should walk, etc etc.

NONE of you are correct. First, NO soldier has the freedom of religion. No soldier has the protection of the US Constitution. Soldiers (I say soldiers, and mean this to include the Air Force, the Navy The Coast Guard and the Marines.) All soldier have the freedom to worship any way they please, up to but not including the infringement of the rights and beliefs of anothers religion. They are protected by one book, and one book only. UCMJ, or the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We are held to a much higher standard than civilians. We are expected to conduct ourselves in a manner that sets us above and apart from civilians. We are expected to have a much higher sense of honor and a much greater sense of dignity and integrity than civilians. Whether or not we believe in this war is irrelevant. We all signed up for a minimum of eight years, and MOST of us have been here (The military) longer than that. Regardless of what the media says, most of us believe in what we are doing here, because we see things that the rest of you do not and will not ever see.

I fought in the first Gulf War, in 90-91. I fought here again in 1998 when President Clinton was trying to turn attention away from his impeachment. I then fought here in this war, as well as Afghanistan. (I have actually fought in every conflict the US has been in since Panama, just to demonstrate that this is not my first rodeo…)

What the “sniper” (I doubt he actually carried the Tango identifier in his MOS, since no Military Sniper School I know of allows someone with that level of emotion and obvious rage slip through the psych evaluation…) did, according to these people was unconscionable. Legally, it falls under the guise of “action unbecoming” and that is punishable. We are not here to feel as they feel, we are here to help rebuild, maintain the peace, and assist in enforcing the law, and help the rule of law take hold. Their laws will not necessarily mirror ours. Defilement of their holiest scripture is a crime here. Therefore, the soldier will be punished. When a Foreigner goes to America, if he breaks the law there, he is punished. It is no different for us as Americans in other countries, especially for our soldiers. That is the long and short of it.

I get real sick sometimes of the things that people say and do on these forums. I read them on ocassion to get an idea of how the mood is back home. Some of you **bleep** need to crawl back under your rock, work on your manners, learn to be a real warrior, and not a keyboard warrior, pick up a rifle, a shovel, or a pen, and do some good rather than lamenting all you see wrong.

SGM Gibeau

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28. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Seems everyone wants to play the blame game about the cost of gas, the Left blame the right, saying its Bush’s fault, the right point back to Bill Clinton vetoing the law to allow us to explore and drill in parts of the USA. Then we have those who blame congress since the Left took over. Seems gas prices have gone up 67% since they took control of congress. What most people fail to understand is that Both China and India have increased their consumption of oil, so with the increase from both of those countries combined with the silly regulations that our own Government (USA) puts out, it makes it even harder to figure out who to blame. Since the Petroleum refiners in the US must meet the EPA’s federal fuex oxygenate requirement from Title ll of the Clean Act Amendments of 1990, add that with the law that refiners are required to drain all winter fuel from their tanks before replacing it with summer fuel, and this must be done by April 1^st. Now before I started reading this I had no idea there was a difference in winter/summer fuel. Now that’s just the Feds, then the states get to add their own formulas, so we have in the US more the 40 different types of fuel requirements depending on which state you happen to live in. I sit here shaking my head about this.

Now we get to the not in my backyard, most folks do not want a refinery built around them, nor do they wish to have storage tanks or tank farms as they are called built near them. So we have another strike against the cost of gas.

Now back in 2004 there were some changes made that lawmaker new was going to drive the cost of gas up, now I am no expert on this, but it has something to do with lowering the sulfuric content which cost companies more money to refine the product, which mean the price at the pump was going to go up. Add that to the fact the oil companies are going to spend more on having to meet this demand from the Feds which will mean less output from the refineries here in the states.

Now we could lay the blame on the green people, saying it’s all their fault, however that would be wrong as well.

Let’s look at the Country of Brazil, they buy flex cars, which means it can run on gas or alcohol, which is ethanol that is produced from sugar, this can been done with corn, or beets as well. So they have a choice on how they fuel their vehicles. As of 2005 in the US there were only 4 million flex cars on the road. Not sure how many we have now, but am guessing a few more.

There are more ways to produce ethanol; wood is a prime example, while its being turned into paper there is another substance that it has which is called xylan. Xylan can be fermented to produce ethanol.

So here is the question, why with just these few ways to reduce the USA dependence on oil have we not embraced these alternative fuels?

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26. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

It is the
VETERAN,
not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the
VETERAN,
not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the
VETERAN,
not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the
VETERAN,
not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

It is the
VETERAN,
not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.


It is the
VETERAN,
not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the
Veteran
who serves
under the Flag,

ETERNAL
REST GRANT THEM O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON
THEM.

While I wish I could take credit for writing this, or even thinking of something that touched me, A friend  emailed me this today.

His name is Ralph, while I do not know if he got this as a forward, it was not forward to me.

God Bless all those who have and are serving

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22. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.

Are we Americans as dumb as we appear — or — is it that we just do not think?
While the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets, the media wrings its hands and criticizes the Bush Administration for perceived errors.
Yet 70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Well, duh..why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges?

SIMPLY DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!

Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says ‘Made in China’ or ‘PRC’ (and that now includes Hong Kong), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without. Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter?

If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example, the point is.. do not wait for the government to act.

Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that’s a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor…fast!!
The downside? Some American businesses will feel a temporary pinch from having foreign stockpiles of inventory. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh
The solution ?

Let’s give them fair warning and send our own message. Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on June 4, and continue it until July 4.
That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they will at least have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.

Remember, June 4 to July 4.
EVEN BETTER. . . START NOW.

Show them we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.

If we can’t live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!

I got this emailed to me, while I am not sure of the facts or the author, it does make some sense to me. Why not give it a try?Can’t hurt. Also with the economy being tight why not just hold off on buying anything made in China till after he 4th of July.

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22. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Pretty neat, windows live offers cash back for using their search engine to shop.http://search.live.com/cashback/

How it works is pretty simple, login to your windows live account, (most hotmail accounts are free) do a live search it will bring up the stores with the price, when you click on the store link anything you buy will be eligible for cash back. While I want to know what is eligible, it’s still a neat idea.

Once again I need to give kudos to LifeHacker, if you do not have their site bookmarked you need to. http://lifehacker.com/

While I did not read the fine print, MS says when you hit the $5 mark they will send you the cash

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15. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

First and foremost I am a gamer at heart, so with that in mind, I do not like anything that uses a lot of system resources. (If I did not game I would be using a Mac)

This is by far one of the best desktop calendars I have used. Reinlender Lite, allows you to use the calendar the way you want. I am using the free version, however for 15 Euros the Pro version allows you to sync with outlook and Goggles Calendar. For myself I do not need all of that, but I may just because it’s so inexpensive around $30 USD.

Rainlender lite comes with 2 skins but if you like you can download more at http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php?option=com_rny_skins

The to do list is my favorite , the simple reason is why I am on the phone if I need to do something for whom I am talking to, I just right click and add it. Then I can tune the rest of the conversation out. Sorry I have been doing that for years.

You can download it at find.pcworld.com/60613

Huge thanks to Laura Blackwell from PC World for the heads up on this. You can also read more about it in PC Worlds, June 2008 issue.

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14. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

I have been reading more and more Oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy drugs. Seems to me there are a lot of sites that will not acknowledge the new studies that reclassified  the pill and hormone replacement therapy from “possibly carcinogenic to humans” to “carcinogenic to humans”. The reclassification concerns combined eostrogen-progestogen treatments and places the compounds used in the drugs in the same classification as tobacco and asbestos.

Now there are a ton of sites that I have visited the cover the “possibility of the pill causing breast cancer” The do not mention the new study that was released in 2006 by the World Health Organization. In fact the sites I visited seemed to be out of date.

Now I know that there are good reasons to be on the pill other then birth control, however should not each person be informed of the possible side effects? It seems that Doctors do not wish to get into this, since it would harm their business. Having not had the chance to speak with a Doctor who prescribes birth control pills or hormone replacement drugs, I do not understand why they down play the facts.

This is from the SCIENCENETDAILY

‘Pill’ causes breast cancer?
‘Measurable and statistically significant’ connection confirmed

A new study from the Mayo Clinic has concluded that there is “a measurable and statistically significant” connection between the pill and pre-menopausal breast cancer, re-enforcing the recent classification of oral contraceptives as Type 1 carcinogens.

That ruling from the International Agency for Cancer Research was supported by the report published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings this month that comes even as Breast Cancer Awareness Month is being highlighted by pink ribbons, pink soup cans and other promotional devices.

However, the study that found that the risk association was 44 percent over baseline among women who had been pregnant who took oral contraceptives prior to their first pregnancy has been, to a large degree, ignored by many media organizations.

The report, “Oral Contraceptive use as a Risk Factor for Pre-menopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis,” was authored by Dr. Chris Kahlenborn of the Altoona, Pa., Hospital’s internal medicine department and others.

Kahlenborn said the results mean that, following standards of informed consent, “women must be apprised of the potential risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer prior to commencing drug use.”

Dr. Kahlenborn focused on the younger, pre-menopausal women who had been on the pill before having their first child. He found 21 of 23 studies showed a connection between the pill and cancer, something that certainly should be alarming women.

However, as Andrea Mrozek, manager of research and communications for the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, noted in an article.

“Perhaps it is because the pill has long been the darling of feminists – a veritable icon of female empowerment. In some circles, suggesting the pill might kill you is seen as tantamount to issuing a press release that women belong in the kitchen.”

Mrozek noted that Queen’s University professor Samantha King commented just a few weeks ago that people are not asking “the hard questions about whether we’re spending [breast cancer research money] in the right way.”

That’s because, she noted, incidence rates “have remained stubbornly high … a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer was one in 22 in the 1940s, but by 2004, it was one in seven.”

Now this is just from a short search about the pill and birth control. While I am not a women I think that women and men need to be informed about the risks of taking the pill, and what could happen to your family if your wife develops breast cancer. For me I want to know everything that goes in my body.

I think it’s time we all took a hard look of what we eat, drink and put in our bodies.

The pill is just the tip of the ice berg. Take a look at the ingredients in our food compared to the ingredients in food that is prepared and eaten in Italy. While I will not do all the work for you, I will tell you that there are fewer obese people in Italy then there are here in the States.

Just more food for thought.

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9. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

I get asked what Budo is or means so I figured I would post some info about it. The info below is from the ITKF. Since they could explain it better then me.

Over the centuries Budo has sought to develop martial arts systems that do not depend on physi-cal strength, but rather, on psychological and physical techniques which maximize one’s energy and power. Budo practice enhances a person’s mental strength, scale and class in a manner that potentially enables practitioners to control an opponent without physical confrontation. Budo is the foundation of physical disciplines that pursue victory without fighting.
History of Budo development
In Japan, civil wars frequently broke out following the Tengyo Revolt in the 940’s A.D. During periods of in-ternal conflict several fighting techniques, including horseback riding, archery, naginata, swordsmanship, spires and battlefield combat were developed.
The introduction of firearms in 1543 boosted the evolution of combat systems. The traditional lacquered wood and leather armor was rendered obsolete and, without such heavy outfits, warriors were able to use quick and sophisticated techniques when engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
In the early 17th century, Ieyasu Tokugawa founded a unified government in Japan, thereafter avoiding seri-ous warfare for some 250 years. While Japanese fighting techniques originally were developed for group fighting, during the Tokugawa shogunate they were studied as a form of individual combat. Prominent ex-perts of the various fighting systems established highly developed techniques that employed not only muscle strength but mental and physical strategies and techniques within systematically organized training regimens. As a result, these bodies of knowledge evolved into different schools of martial arts.
These fighting techniques then were applied to fundamental education mainly for samurai families, while the benefits of martial arts training were studied in various academic fields. During the Kanyei era (1624 – 1643), religious scholars focused on martial arts’ spiritual benefits, which they regarded as philosophy. Confucians considered martial arts a way of preparing people who would contribute to building a strong nation. Medical researchers discovered the value of martial arts training as a form of physical education. Academic ap-proaches became a part of martial arts study. Through this process, martial arts became more than the sum of their techniques. They were refined as the way (DO) to complete human character through the study of fighting techniques (BU). At this point, martial arts developed as a cultural phenomenon.

You can read more at http://www.itkf.org/budo.html

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8. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Digsby! What is it? It’s a cool instant messenger program that works with all of the chat programs. At least all I have tried, which includes; AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat Accounts. What I found really helpful, is the small pop up box, lets you respond without having to do much, just move your cursor to the little pop up, respond and your right back doing whatever you were doing. Then there is a cool feature that lets you rename your buddys, so instead of franks99999 you can rename it Frank, or whatever you call that person. Now if thats not enough, which for me it was not, it manages your email accounts as well. You can even respond to an email when the box pops up to tell you that you have an email, if you click on it, You will go right to that email.

Below is the list of features, since I started using this last week I will not stop, its simple to set up, and real easy to use.

http://www.digsby.com/features.php

• One combined buddy list for all your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat Accounts.
• Manage multiple conversations with tabbed conversation windows. You can drag tabs out into their own windows for important conversations.
• Rename contacts with an alias so you don’t have to remember buddy names like ‘giantsfan123′.
• If one of your friends has more than one IM account you can combine them into a single merged contact to eliminate duplicate buddies.
• Send your friends SMS messages right from the IM window.
• The InfoBox lets you check everyone’s status message and profile just by moving your mouse down the list.
• Changing your status has never been easier. just one click right on the buddy list!
• Multitask while you chat. Minimize the IM window and you see popups of new IM’s. Best of all, you can reply right from the popup and get back to what you were doing.
• Log conversation history and find the information you need our search-enabled log viewer.
• And so much more.
• Manage your Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts right from digsby.
• Get popup notifications when new email arrives. Clicking a popup takes you right to the message with auto-login into webmail accounts.
• The email InfoBox gives you a snapshot of your unread messages with just one click
• Perform actions such as “Mark as Read” or “Report Spam” right from the email InfoBox.
• Send emails to your friends right from the IM window. The email is sent directly from any account digsby is tracking for you.
• Stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace account (other network support coming soon).
• Receive alerts of events such as new friend requests, messages, group invites, etc.
• The social network InfoBox gives you a real time NewsFeed of what your friends are up to. Everything from new photos, to status updates, to upcoming birthdays is just a click away.
• Set your Facebook and Twitter status right from Digs
• Customize digsby with application skins to give it a personal look and feel.
• Change the way your conversations look with themes – everything from simple AIM-style windows to 3D conversation bubbles.
• Complete control over the layout of buddies on the buddy list. Change everything from buddy icon size to whether or not to show a snippet of their away message.
• Sort your buddy list how ever you want! You can organize buddies manually, by status, by service, by name or by log size to place those you communicate with most at the top. You can even choose a secondary sorting method.
• Customizable notification system lets you choose what events you want to be alerted about and how.
• Digsby offers complete synchronization between computers and installations. Everything from the skin you chose to your pre-defined status messages follows you from place to place.
• You can place a widget on your blog, website, or social network profile so you can chat with visitors right from digsby.
• Manage multiple simultaneous file transfers from one simple transfer manager.

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6. May 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Working on a book? How about a trying to work on a budget for a civic association?

Google apps are by far the best thing on the net for free stuff. The documents that you can share with others are great. Just to name a few: word, spreadsheets, calendars as well as creating your own groups. There are a ton of things that you can get done for yourself and with others. Even if you are using them just for yourself, you can log in and work from any computer. No need to buy Microsoft word or office. www.google.com

If your one of those that has to have word on your computer, don’t pay Microsoft, use Open Office org. It’s a great program, which has just about everything that Microsoft office, except one thing, it’s free!!!!!

http://www.openoffice.org/

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