Last US veteran of WWI turns 110
02/01/2011
America’s last surviving World War I veteran turned 110 Tuesday, one of just three survivors of the Great War still alive.
Frank Buckles lied about his age in 1917 when he was 16 so he could enlist. The Army sent him to France, where he drove ambulances and motorcycles. After the armistice, he helped return German prisoners of war to their country.
Buckles was one of more than 70 million men and women worldwide who served in the “War to End All Wars,” the greatest conflict mankind had witnessed to that point.
Today, he lives with his daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan, at Gap View, W.Va.
Not what the Founders had in mind
02/01/2011
The Burning Platform blog has written an interesting if extremely pessimistic post about the future of the United States in which it argues the American Dream has been derailed by Big Government.
Placing blame on the Federal Reserve, the onerous US tax code, over-reaching involvement in other countries’ affairs, massive debt and unequal wealth distribution, The Burning Platform says the American Dream has been shattered.
“Retribution from those who have been swindled will be unexpected and violent,” it states.
While that may be a bit over the top, there is no arguing that today’s America is a far cry from what the Founding Fathers envisioned.
Summing up Egypt in a few sentences
02/01/2011
Talking heads discussing the crisis in Egypt will do whatever it takes to fill hours of airtime, but the root of the problem was summed up quite succinctly in a recent Reuters story about unrest in the port city of Suez.
Near a large portrait of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, face beaming and arms outstretched, on a road into town, Mohamed Fahim vented his anger.
“Our government is a dictatorship. A total dictatorship,” Fahim, a 29-year-old glass factory worker, told the wire service. “It’s our right to choose our government ourselves. We have been living 29 years, my whole life, without being able to choose a president.
“I’ve grown bald, and Mubarak has stayed Mubarak,” he said, rubbing his bare scalp.
