Amen, Oli. As a Navy vet and with a son serving on board The USS Kearsarge, I am proud to say thank you to all my fellow veterans. God bless us all; past, present and future. To those survivors of heroes who gave the ultimate sacrifice - there are no words to express the respect and gratitide I have for you and your families. God bless The United States of America and all service members & families. (Insert sharply snapped salute here!)

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War.

The newspaper, Kommersant, identified the man as Colonel Shcherbakov and said he was responsible for unmasking a Russian spy ring in the United States in June whose arrests humiliated Moscow and clouded a "reset" in ties with Washington.

The betrayal would make Shcherbakov one of the most senior turncoats since the fall of the Soviet Union and could have consequences for Russia's proud Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and its chief, former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

Kommersant said Shcherbakov, whose first name it did not give, had been responsible for "illegal spying" in the United States, meaning spies operating under deep cover without diplomatic immunity.

To all my fellow Boardmember comrades in arms this Veteran's Day - we did what we had to do; we survived to continue our contribution. Whether it was Vietnam or some another combat theater or just on base, thank you.

yes it is

Thank you, veterans. And, olivant, thank you for serving your country, and the good Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Viet Nam.

Thanks for the reminder. I think the phrase "Never Forget" takes on more significance today than it has at any previous point in my life. It seems fear, hatred, ignorance and bigotry are becoming more accepted. Elected officials are overtly playing upon prejudices and boldly making claims about repealing Constitutional Amendments, denying civil rights and lying about beheadings in deserts.

My older boy told me on 11/1 that it was "No-shave November," so I accepted his challenge not to shave for the month. he dropped ot a couple days ago. i suspect a girlfriend didn't approve. so it leqves me with the makings of a beard, which I just may keep for a while. I haven't had a beard in 7 years, and have noticed a lot of gray around the chin.

My husband last shaved his beard off after 19 years last summer. It proved quite unpopular with the ladies in the house. He did grow a goatee, but hasn't gone back to full beard.

The Col. is not allowed to have one with his job.

Mig, hope The Colonel had a good Vet's Day. Thank him for his service!

He did thanks Mark. I hope you and your son did to. We went to Applebees for dinner so he could get his free dinner. There was an older gentleman there wearing his uniform and you should've seen all the ribbons he had. He had a purple heart medal.

God bless him. That's great. Hope you enjoyed your night out.

Take Flag Down

DENAIR, Calif. -- A Stanislaus County school is forcing a student to take an American flag off of his bike.

Thirteen-year-old Cody Alicea put the flag there as a show of support for the veterans in his family. But officials at Denair Middle School told him he couldn't fly it. He said he was told some students had complained.

So now the eighth-grader folds up the flag and puts it in his backpack while he is in class. His father, Robert Kisner, said his son should not have to put the flag away.
"He's got that flag on his bike because he's proud of where he comes from," Kisner said. But the superintendent said he's trying to avoid tension on campus.

"(The) First Amendment is important," Superintendent Edward Parraz said. "We want the kids to respect it, understand it, and with that comes a responsibility." Parraz said the campus has recently experienced some racial tension. He said some students got out of hand on Cinco de Mayo....

The school board reversed its position earlier and the kid is free to hang the flag from his bike again.

The quick reversal leads me to believe that the woman board member who enacted the ban had acted beyond her scope of office.

How the hell could a school board decree a student can't wave the country's flag while they (the board) flies the same flag from a pole in front of the school?

hopefully she was fired for being a dumbass and violating kid first amendment right. i mean its not he was waiving the nazi flag or the confederate flag.

Madonne! You can't fire elected officials in America.

At a 2 minutes silence on Thursday in London, some Muslim "activists" burned poppies,chanted "death to English soldiers" and brandished all sorts of banners......


Its not the first time thses horrible fuckers have done this sort of thing here. Of course these people all live here and claim benefits in this country. If they hate us so much why don't they go home and live in a cave in Pakistan or something....???

That would make too much sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

Cold season is on us. All of my lot are sniffing,snotting and coughing......

Yak!

I just saw that an updated Billy Joel Biography will be airing Thursday night @ 10 eastern and 9 central on The Biography Channel. I know there are fellow Billy fans here on the board!

Cool, thanks. Access Hollywood had him on the past two nights; not sure if it's from the Biography or not, but it was interesting.

I watched a couple minutes of the AH interview. He said he wrote "New York state of mind" in 15 minutes. He actually was on a greyhound coming back to New York, which was a line of the song. And "Piano Man" really is more or less autobiographical. "The waitress practicing politics" was his first wife.

Cool stuff to know, thanks. I also read that he recently opened a motorcycle shop in Oyster Bay...its called 20th Century Cycles. He also released his musical catalog to be featured in an upcoming version of Rock Band...all because a critic sarcastically joked about Joel's music on RockBand would be terrible. Billy, being the ever stubborn artist and never backing down from anyone or anything, called his agent the next day to release his songs. If I remember correctly, it all started as a result of a Joel joke told on "The Office" sitcom?

christie brinkley?

No, Brinkley was his second wife.

No, it was a lady named Elizabeth. They never had children and she was Billy's first manager as well. He wrote "Just the Way You Are" for her for a Valentine's day gift. After their divorce, Billy kept her brother on as an accountant or something and the guy swindled Joel out of tens of millions of dollars...not exactly sure how much but it was A LOT!

Yup. I think he also wrote "She's always a woman" for her as well.

For his third wife's Valentine's Day gift, he gave her a pony and Justin Bieber tickets. His fourth wife hasn't been born yet .

By BECKY BOHRER The Associated Press updated 1 hour 34 minutes ago 2010-11-18T00:54:07
JUNEAU, Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Wednesday apparently has become the first U.S. Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign, defeating her Tea Party rival after a painstaking, week-long count of hand-written votes.

The victory completes a remarkable comeback for the Republican incumbent after her loss in the party primary to Joe Miller.