SUV's and Support our Troops ribbons

I drive a Toyota crew cab 4 X 4, 6 cylinder, do I drive an SUV?

Yes... you fiend!

My Explorer is on the frame of a Ford truck... also 6 cylinder, 4x4. If I have to do penance for my bad ol' car, so do you.

so this calls for self-abuse?
do you mind if I just watch?

Of course anyone who burns an American flag as a thoughtful protest of American domestic or foreign policy is a Fiend in Human Form and a Raghead Loving Commie.

But anyone who allows a flag to tatter in the breeze or who gives Old Glory to a toddler to drag in the mud is a True Patriot.

Confused or complex?

I briefly scanned this entire thread, not reading everything, but just trying to catch the flow. This quote by piffka caught my eye...



I don't care what everybody says about piffka and her volcanic temper; she sounds like my kind of woman.

I can picture piffka and myself sitting in a couple of lawn chairs overlooking the bay. We sip lemonade and talk about the weather. "Excuse me, Gus" piffka says, as she picks up her rifle and vaporizes a passing jet skier.

"Nice shot, Pif" I exclaim, as I scan the horizon for new targets.

We once stayed in Lake Havasu to visit at our old friend's new restaurant, The London Bridge Chinese Restaurant. He had fled Vietnam at the end of the war and worked three jobs at a time once he landed in Los Angeles, including cooking at some Vietnamese restaurants - which is where we met him. How's that for a long sentence? Eh, I could have made it longer, to mention he eventually had his own Vietnamese restaurant.

Anyway, we checked in to what seemed a fine motel, except there was earsplitting noise from the nearby Lake... the jet ski/jet boat thing. We went to his restaurant and before we got a word in about the motel, he insisted we stay at his house, so we did... which was an extreme courtesy to get to stay with him and his wife, but also a great relief, it was much further from that incredible noise than that motel.

He had found his ethnic chinese roots, and switched to chinese cooking - which he is very good at, but I miss all those wonderful Vietnamese meals of long ago. (digressing, back to SUV's). Pfooey on jet skis.

Jet Ski's, SUV's, Stretch Hummer Limo's, I guess it's an age thing. I'm sure that all these things would have been attractive to me at one time or another had they been available back in the day. In my community, our house sits on the edge of a huge grassy area (about 7 acres). This grassy area is a buffer between our neighborhood and a very busy and getting busier highway. We also have a tennis and basketball court on this open area. Our community property owners pay dues to maintain these open and recreational areas and the cost is climbing. Every so often, we are treated to some outsiders who use the open area for those noisy 3 and 4 wheeled things. We can't catch them, it tears up the grass, and then we have the pleasure of patching the thing up.

Every 6 to 8 years, a few home owners will ask that a playground be built next to the tennis and basketball courts. It doesn't sound like a bad idea until you realize that our current recreational areas are visited more late at night by who know who, who usually are too bagged to pick up their beer cans and other lovely items they felt compelled to use during the night. The rest of the neighborhood doesn't see it close up, so they don't always believe us when we tell them of the nights (usually around 3 in the morning on beautiful summer nights) the police have been called because 4 cars are sitting outside the tennis court/basketball court (on the lawn) with their lights shining to light up the courts and several young folk (apparently without curfews) have climbed over the high fence and are playing a spirited and vocal game of basketball.

During one of the meetings our concerns were brought up at the annual meeting and one young man (anxious for a playground) dismissed our concerns and said that is what we should expect living so close to the common area. I said I thought that was a good point and reminded him that the heavily wooded areas that backed up to the edge of his property (its a huge wooded area with houses ringing the outside) are also open area, and I suggested we have all the trees knocked down so that we could build a go-cart track in that lovely unused area. That way, the whole neighborhood would know what the older children are doing and we wouldn't have to worry until it suddenly got quite. Hell, even I was surprised to learn how many homeowners thought I was actually proposing that we do something like that. The devil is always in the details.

What kind of lemonade do you prefer, Sir Gus?

I know no one asked me what kind of lemonade I like, but Lynchburg is pretty good. At one time, I used to be a pretty good shot, so...........if three is not a crowd, I'll bring the lemonade.

Three's not a crowd on our beach. Pull up a lawn chair.

We had to lay out buoy lines to keep those stupid jet skis away -- illegal, of course, for them to do anything in the bay at all except enter & exit, we have laws against 'em. Yet they're out in front, spinning those things and racing and getting as close as the can get to moored boats & docks & swimmers!

Last summer, late in the evening, two of them fooled around a little too hard and ran into each other. First thing they do... uh-huh... yell for help.

My brother took our boat out and saved 'em. We weren't there but I'm not sure I would have been in such a hurry.

gustav sipping lemonade ? was has this world come to ? hbg

You should remember that while the Vietnam war used the draft we are no longer. Soldiers today are mercenaries, doing the job they are paid to do, carrying out a policy of imperialist aggression. Support the troops, fine, the problem is we don't support the war and never will. All the high minded nonsense about bringing freedom and democracy can never conceal the greed and self-interest behind this war. Americans are, by a majority, the most deluded, ignorant people on the planet.

They're not all hypocrites. You could have a ribbon without being a hypocrite. Others (particularly in my area of Texas) are the kind of people that think everybody should believe in "God, flag, country,...". But then they just say that and move on. These same people say we should respect the armed men's sacrifice, whereas they often are the type of person that fight in a war not because they want to sacrifice for our country, but because it's very unlikely they'll die, and the killing is easy. They are young boys that want to go out and have fun and make some easy kills out of the group of people they've been taught hate them.
Why do you think we even have enemies?
If we were to just sit tight on our butts and seal off all our borders and nothing passes except sanctioned trade (of non-war-type goods, ie jets, tanks, guns) between friendly external governments do think ANYBODY would hate us? We're ass****s. And by that I mean some people in our country that everybody else is too lazy to stop are.