Gwen, no matter what the government does, the amount that your health care costs will not go down. The only thing that will change is who pays the bill. So tell us – which of the children in your neighborhood do you want to pay it for you?

JoCo, he is a pilot, went through Pensacola, too, and got his wings a couple of years ago. Then it was about a year training on the jet he’s flying now, and months of workups to deployment. I guess I knew they wouldn’t just strap him in a plane and say “off you go now!” but I had no idea how much training was involved. The Navy must have seen something special in your brother to send him through aviation and then medical school. You have every reason to be proud!

Thank you, Wild Man and please give your daughter a big hug for me when you see her next! As hard as it is on a parent to send a son off to war, sending a daughter must have been worse. I'm glad to hear she is safely home, and hope you got to spend some time with her!

Hey. Tell me you can’t put those words to the tune of “Pinball Wizard”. (If I have the tune right . . .) My son is on his way home! Ships move slowly, so he won’t be here for a while, but he’s out of combat. He’s still flying every day, though, so it’s back to worrying that he stays focused and pays attention to what he’s doing. I guess I’ll always think of him as the kid he was in high school. Thanks for thinking of him! I have a friend who has a family member on the ground over there now. This push comes at the end of her deployment, so we're praying extra hard for her safe return.

No, he wasn’t intentionally condescending. He’s just naturally that way. I guess a politician can get away with a condescending remark every now and then if he has a solid record. But condescending and amateur is not a good mix.

Huh. I thought it was "Pinball Wizard". But I'm pretty tone-deaf, so all those songs sound kind of alike to me.

"Having said that, I do think it was intentionally inflammatory." I think it was UNintentionally inflammatory. As I remember, it was caught on cell phone video, so Obama probably thought his comments wouldn’t go much farther than that room. He seemed to be speaking off the cuff - to a group of west coast liberals who had probably never met a Midwest conservative. That he was condescending and insulting to a large part of the population didn’t seem to matter to him.

Social Security is headed for the red this year. Democrats owe it to us to produce enough tax-paying offspring to keep it afloat. After all, they created this Ponzi scheme. I don’t have any problem letting Dems take full responsibility for the health care nightmare they want to inflict on us.

Thanks for the advice, Letters Editor! Maybe next week you could treat us to a letter telling us how often to change our oil and rotate our tires.

I'm focusing my ire on why there is funding for police to monitor the status of garage doors in Liberty when there are people living under bridges.

Of course there’s no unicorn. Two wolves out-voted him when they were deciding what to have for lunch.

"My first GM was a 1970 Chevrolet 1/2 pickup and I've not owned anything but GM since." I had no idea Detroit built them like that back then, but WOW - makes for one legendary sales story at the dealership! Was it the front half or the back half? Either way, it sounds like a good excuse for not helping someone move. “Sorry, dude, I’ve only got half a truck.”

Jazzman, If you don’t accept the grant, can you make up that amount of funding from private sources? If not, take the money. Which of your standards is more important to you – making a statement against big government, or the work your foundation does? If it’s the work your foundation does, then take the money. In short, take the money, but if you believe this makes you a hypocrite, work towards getting your foundation entirely funded by private sources. And write your Congressman asking for an end to the grant program. There are worse things than being a hypocrite, and failing the young people who count on you is certainly one.

Call it the Jobs for Government Workers bill?

“He should just tell them to shut up and get out of the way . . . ” He did. It was one of the classier remarks made by the Leader of the Free World and the Most Transparent Administration Evah. Dems control the House, the Senate and the Presidency. How much more power do they need in order to make their notions the law?

Apparently whispering’s been too busy googling letter writers for their personal info to keep up with the story. “Fleurant and another lawyer were appointed Monday to represent Laura Silsby and nine volunteers, most from a Baptist church in Idaho, after their original lawyer was fired last weekend over an allegation of bribery. “Jorge Puello, a lawyer in the Dominican Republic hired by relatives of the missionaries, said he fired Edwin Coq because the Haiti lawyer demanded $60,000 as bribes to get the missionaries out of prison.” http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-02-08-haiti-missionaries-lawyer_N.htm “The group early had been embarrassed by revelations that a man who briefly served as their legal adviser and spokesman in the Dominican Republic is wanted on people-smuggling charges in the United States and El Salvador. . . . Puello said he volunteered to help the missionaries after they were jailed and said he never met any of them before they were detained.” http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZVTviF3l7E29ePDsK9oLXmtXvnwD9DU898O0 The missionaries were arrested and then a bad lawyer got a hold of them. Sounds like an episode of “Locked Up Abroad”.

Cassady, a man’s fidelity to his wife is an indicator of his personal integrity, and a high level of integrity is a quality some people find desirable in those who hold public office. Beyond that, if Edwards had been elected to either Vice-President or (Lord help us) President, this whole mess would have been a huge distraction, or worse, a source for blackmail. I can’t believe how many people knew about the affair and kept it quiet until the Enquirer broke the story . . . proving “Men in Black” right.

Ms. Sanchez is wrong to blame the episode entirely on the religious zeal of the missionaries. And since her column is filled with questions that she either has no answer for or that she answers on pure speculation, it seems likely that she did little research beyond her preconceived notions of what motivated the missionaries. I think faith played a part, but to me this seems to be a lesson about the dynamics involved with convergent volunteers. In every disaster situation, there is an overwhelming desire to help, so people show up on-scene with nothing more than a caring heart and a strong back (and sometimes not even a strong back). I’ve heard stories of people so determined to help that they did whatever it took – including lying – to get into disaster areas in order to “do something”. I think a similar desire to help lead to the missionaries’ actions. They had the resources to get to Haiti, possibly a relationship with someone on the ground, but no real plan beyond just wanting to get children to safety. It’s too bad Ms. Sanchez didn’t dig a little deeper and include stories about other volunteers who showed up – like the group who came with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no plan of action, and subsequently became a drain on the already-scare resources until they could return to the US. I think that would have made for a more complete picture of what happened.

Paul passed his Metaphorical Writing class with flying colors. “I know the Kool-Aid girds your loins for battle” Kool-Aid? Seriously, who girds his loins with Kool-Aid? Everyone knows Kool-Aid is practically worthless as a shield against modern weapons. And V-8 is only slightly better. Paul is skating on thin ice if he thinks we’ll take his ideas to heart when he paints such a silly picture.

In my opinion DADT is a bad law. It encourages dishonesty in people that we hold to a high standard of integrity. Either allow gays in the military or ban them. But this wishy-washiness is bad policy.

"Problem No. 1: You train a new pilot at a cost of $1 million, and that pilot now has two years experience. Then the pilot is found out to be gay and is discharged." Aviators are pretty much a small, closely-knit community. I suspect something like that would be known well before winging.

GHMan, I don’t want to sound rude, but your last post makes practically no sense at all. You seem to be saying that since some parents don’t take responsibility for their children, society shouldn’t either. We change the law when it serves the public good – not to accommodate the personal circumstances of a few individuals. Speed limits are set at a rate considered safe for the road, and remain fixed throughout the day – they’re not higher during rush hour to accommodate people running late. And curfews for minors are set to provide safety for children and teens, not to accommodate employers who wish to save money by hiring underage workers for late night shifts. You also seem to have confused rights granted to adults with restrictions placed on minors. There’s a good reason minors are treated differently than adults by the law. Minors don’t have the judgment, reasoning skills, and the life experiences that adults have. We set up a separate judicial system for them, and we grant them freedom as they are able to accept the accompanying responsibilities. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’ve never raised teenagers. Otherwise you’d know that allowing them to be on the streets at all hours of the night is setting them up to get into trouble, or gives our tacit approval to their exploitation . . . by employers looking for low-cost workers or by adults who are much, much worse.

whispering, you've got to be hyperventilating over this thread. A chance to snark about both religion AND the military at the SAME TIME! It's like a freaky kind of leap year where Christmas and Veterans Day happened simultaneously just so you could release all your frustrations! Enjoy!

"Not all young peoples circumstances are equal and some are exceptionally difficult at no fault of their own. " GHMan, some people are late to work through no fault of their own. That doesn't mean we must eliminate speed limits.

Damned if you don't . . .