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Doug Wiken has a post regarding the passing of Chief Justice William Rehnquist titled, Justice with Racing Stripes Croaks. Excerpt:This death unlike the thousands of deaths in New Orleans gives the Texas smirking weasel another opportunity to screw up another...

Just now during the Notre Dame - Pitt game, ABC broke in to announce that Chief Justice Rhenquist has died....

Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears. This was e-mailed to the Chief, you may have seen it, but I haven't before, & think it it well worth some attention and thought:

Meet Brian Chontosh. Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant (now Captain) in the United States Marine Corps. And a genuine hero. The Secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.

At 29 Palms in California, Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United States can bestow.

It was on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke loose. Ambush city.

The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him. So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.

Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them. Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines.

Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride, and he ran down the trench, with its mortars and riflemen, machine-guns and grenadiers.

He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.

When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more. But that's probably not how he would tell it. He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble.

The citation concluded: "By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

NOT TYPICALLY BEING REPORTED BY THE MSM ? BUT CERTAINLY WORTHY OF NOTICE.

?People sleep peaceably in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.? ? George Orwell

Gone with the Water

From an article in the October 2004 issue of National Geographic magazine:

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however?the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

Sound familiar? Read on:

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

Fortunately the casualty rate doesn't seem to be this high for NOLA, but the rest sounds spot on.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't?yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

Pretty good for a year in advance. Imagine what would have happened if the Louisiana state government, and the City of New Orleans had made some realistic emergency plans based on this sort of projection.

Like it should have been their priority, since they're the ones directly on the scene - right? As it turned out, wrong!

After nearly two years, David Kranz finally covers Tom Daschle?s homestead deduction on his DC home. But it looks like he only did so to slam Republican Karl Rove:When the majority of South Dakotans voted against Sen. Tom Daschle last...

As usual, Julie Neidlinger has it cold. It's worth reading. Keep blogging Julie....

Doug Wiken has a comment on Mount Blogmore where he downplays lying under oath when the issue of Bill Clinton?s impeachment was brought up. Then he dismisses immoral behavior:We can be appalled by Clinton?s lack of sexual discretion and can...

YIKES! Blogposts Vanish into Ether!

Something horrible happened this afternoon resulting in the deletion of all of the Chief's postings from June through the current date/time.

Even more unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be retrievable - AND - this occurred with no backup for the time in question. (I know, always do regular backups - and I DO, at least for my working files - but I didn't think to do so for my blog. Oh well.

What's the old moonbat-ish cliche? Oh yeah, this is almost like the first day of the rest of the blog - and I'll have new posts up (generally) daily.

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