The F-16 will always be - to me - the most "elegant, graceful fighter!
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Israel ranks the top ten air forces in the world ... Thx Ramey H!
Kate Smith's and Irving Berlin's God Bless America ... Thx Ramey H!
This has been around before several years ago but
for those who have never seen/heard it, you are in for a pleasant
experience.
A
Little Patriotic History, Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of
her time, and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing
"God Bless America " on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in
their eyes as they wiped away a tear or
two.
Here
are the facts... The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the
very first public singing of "GOD BLESS AMERICA
".
Before
you watch it, the story behind the
song:
The
time was 1940. America was in a terrible economic
depression. Hitler was taking
over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to
war.
It
was a time of hardship and worry for Americans. This was just before TV, radio
shows were HUGE, and families sat around their radios in the evenings,
listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer was bigger
than Kate Smith.
Kate
was also large; plus size, as we now say, and the popular phrase still used
today is in deference to her, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings
".
Kate
Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming
over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time. Kate was also patriotic. It hurt
her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would
bring.
She
had hope for America , and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do
something to cheer them up, so she went to song-writer, Irving Berlin (who also wrote "White
Christmas") and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good
about their country.
When
she described what she was looking for, he had just the song for her. He went to
his files and found a song that he had written,
but never published, 22 years
before back in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio
orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be
received, but both
agreed they would not take profits. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of
America.
Over
the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties
from this song.
This
video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra
and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very
first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the
background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie,
" You're In The Army Now ." At the
4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office,
reading a paper; it's
Ronald Reagan .
To
this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in
our country.
Back
in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her
fellow Americans, I doubt she realized how
successful the results would be for
Americans during those years of hardship and worry.... and for many generations
to follow.
Now
that you know the story, I hope you'll enjoy it and treasure it even
more. Many people don't know there's a lead in
to the song since it usually starts with "God Bless
America ......
"So
here's the entire song as originally
sung.
skegley.blogspot.com
Eric Garner ... Racism! _ NOT! Thx RameyH!
It turns out that almost everything bleated out by the race-mongers and the low-information media about the Eric Garner tragedy has turned out to be wrong.Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, is dead. This is a tragedy, regardless of the circumstances. We rightly mourn with his wife and children. They will never see their husband and father again, and that should break everyone's heart.
When we witness a gut-rending tragedy like this, we want to know who is responsible. Who is to blame for depriving this family of its husband and father? As the facts emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that, as tragic as this situation is, in the end the culpability for Eric Garner's death rests with Eric Garner.
To put it as simply as possible, if Mr. Garner had not broken the law and then resisted arrest, he would be alive today.
While protesters are trying to make this about race, it must be noted that the police showed up in response to complaints from black business owners. The arrest was ordered by a black officer, and the arrest itself was supervised by a black officer, a female sergeant.
A crackdown on the sale of illegal, untaxed cigarettes - called "loosies" since they are sold in singles rather than in packs - had been ordered just days before Garner's arrest by the highest ranking black police officer in the NYPD, Philip Banks.
So a black officer ordered the crackdown, black business owners called for the arrest, a black officer ordered the arrest, and a black officer supervised the arrest itself. It's also worth noting that the 23-member grand jury which refused to indict the arresting officer included nine non-white members. Ask yourself how many of those facts you have heard from any member of the race-obsessed, low-information media.
Garner had been arrested 31 times, and eight of those had been for selling loosies. His rap sheet goes back decades and includes arrests for assault and grand larceny.
At the time of his death, Garner was out on bail after being charged with multiple offenses, including illegal sale of cigarettes, marijuana possession, false impersonation and driving without a license.
So he certainly knew the law, knew he was in violation, and knew doing it again would likely lead to his arrest, a drill he'd been through dozens of times before.
There were 228,000 misdemeanor arrests in New York City in 2013, the last year for which figures are available. All of them put together led to precisely zero deaths.
Garner, all six-foot, three inches and 350 pounds of him, clearly resisted arrest, swatting away the arresting officer's hands while loudly exclaiming, "Don't touch me!" After he was taken to the ground, he growled, "This ends here!" That could be taken any number of ways, but in the heat of the moment it certainly could be read reasonably as a declaration that he was going to fight arrest until he was subdued by compelling force.
The patrolman who wrestled Garner to the ground, Daniel Pantaleo, did it by the book, using a takedown maneuver every policeman is taught at the academy. He did not, in fact, use a chokehold, which is defined by the NYPD as "any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air." Now Garner was clearly able to breathe, since that's the only way he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe."
The autopsy explicitly declares that there was no injury to Garner's windpipe or to his neck bones. This was a wrestler's headlock, not a chokehold. (As a sidenote, chokeholds, while contrary to police policy, are not in fact illegal in the state of New York when an officer uses one to restrain a resisting subject. They are not even illegal in New York City, at the insistence of liberal mayor Bill DeBlasio.) Patrolman Pantaleo was not indicted for the simple reason that he did nothing wrong.
Garner's death likely should be attributed to the fact that he himself suffered from severe asthma, something the arresting officers had no reason to know. According to Garner's friends, his asthma was severe enough that he was forced to quit his job as horticulturist for the city. He wheezed when he talked and could not walk so much as a city block without having to stop to rest. Garner "couldn't breathe" because of his asthma, not because of a chokehold.
In addition, he suffered from heart disease, advanced diabetes, hypertension, obesity and sleep apnea. Contrary to public perception, he did not die on site, nor did he die of asphyxiation. He suffered cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was declared dead about an hour later at the hospital.
So it turns out that almost everything bleated out by the race-mongers and the low-information media has turned out to be wrong. As the wisest man who ever lived wrote 3,000 years ago, "The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17).
Eric Garner and Michael Brown both fought the law, and the law won. In the end, they have no one to blame but themselves.
New York Post columnist Bob McMcanus concluded his column on Eric Garner this way:
"There are many New Yorkers - politicians, activists, trial lawyers, all the usual suspects - who will now seek to profit from a tragedy that wouldn't have happened had Eric Garner made a different decision.
"He was a victim of himself. It's just that simple."
Truly Phrnomrnal Pictures ... Thx Nana and Marge R!
Subj: Truly Phenomenal Pictures
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