ChuckNugent's blog

A
U.S. Marine squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon
anIraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite
side of theroad was an American Marine in a similar but less
serious state. The Marinewas conscious and alert and as first aid
was given to both men, the squadleader asked the injured Marine
what had happened.

The
Marine reported, "I was heavily armed and moving north along
thehighway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent.
We saw eachother and both took cover in the ditches along the
road.I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein is a miserable,
lowlife scumbag, andhe yelled back that Ted Kennedy is a
good-for-nothing, fat, left wingliberal drunk. So I said
that Osama Bin Laden dresses and acts like a frigid,mean-spirited
lesbian! He retaliated by yelling, Oh yea. Well, so does
Hillary Clinton!And, there we were, in the middle of the
road, shaking hands, when a truckhit us."

There is nothing like the right comment to end an argument and this story, which a friend shared with me, has it.   Enjoy!

A young boy had just gotten his driver's permit and asked his father if  they could discuss his use of the car.   

His father said he'd make a deal with his son. "You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, get your hair cut, and we'll talk about the car."     

The boy thought about that for a moment, decided he'd settle for the offer and they agreed on it.     

Would you like to be remembered in a digital time capsule for posterity?  Yahoo and Yahoo Telemundo are currently putting together a digital time capsule containing short articles, letters, notes, etc. as well as photos, drawings, video and audio files submitted by people from all over the world.  The collection period began on October 10, 2006 and will run through November 8th.The contents of this time capsule will first be projected on to the 216-foot Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Mexico, then beamed by laser into space and finally stored on digital media which will be sealed and locked away by Yahoo and not opened until its 25 anniversary in the year 2020.  Copies of the digital media will also be given to the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings archives and the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City.  The projection of the contents on the pyramid and beaming of the laser into space is supposed to be carried live on a webcast available to anyone on the Internet.

The blind carbon copy, or Bcc, is a nifty tool that lets you send an email to a large number of people without forcing them to scroll through three or four screens worth of addresses (or waste three or four pages of paper if they print their emails) before they get to the contents of the email.  The blind carbon copy is ideal for announcements that you send to everyone in your address book or for forwarding to everyone in your address book those great jokes that you receive in your email.  With the blind carbon copy you can send an email to ten thousand people and the only names that each recipient will see will be the name/email address of the intended recipient in the To: line, their name/email address and your name/email address in the From: line.  The names and email addresses of the other 9,999 recipients will not show because the blind carbon copy tool does not show them on the recipient's email.

Fall
is here and pumpkins are appearing all over the place. Since
pumpkins are to Halloween as pine trees are to Christmas it is not
surprising that they are popping up all over the place. However,
there is more to pumpkins than just Jack-O-Lanterns and pumpkin pies.
They
are also a healthy vegetable that is very tasty to boot. Our
colonial ancestors used to pour milk, honey and spices into a
hollowed out pumpkin, then replace the top and baked it in the the
hot coals of the fireplace. This was the forerunner of the pumpkin
pie with the pumpkin serving as both the base and the crust to hold
the contents. Here are two recipies for pumpkin.
While you can cook and mash a fresh pumpkin into a sauce, I find it
easier to simply buy canned pumpkin (make sure it is unseasoned –
don't use canned pumpkin pie filling) and use that.

If you are a taxpayer who is both able to claim yourself or others as
exemptions on your income tax and have paid for long distance telephone
service during the past three years, the IRS has some good news for
you. After 108 years, the U.S. Congress has finally realized that the
Spanish-American War (which officially lasted from April 25, 1898 when
the U.S. formally declared war until August 12, 1898 when the U.S.
formally signed the peace protocol ending hostilities - the actual
fighting took place during a smaller period between those two dates)
ended with the Treaty of Paris on April 11, 1899.  Given that this war
ended over a century ago, Congress finally decided to repeal the 3%
TEMPORARY tax on telephone bills that was passed in 1898 to fund the
costs of fighting the 3 month war (the tax was for the cost of fighting
the war and not for the wining and dining of our diplomats in Paris
while they discussed the positioning of comas in the peace treaty).

If you are looking for an action drama in which the main
characters are forced to overcome both internal and external obstacles to reach
their dreams then look no further than the recently released (September 2006)
movie, The Guardian, staring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. 

This is the story of the training of the U.S. Coast Guard's rescue
swimmers.  These are men and women who jump from Coast Guard rescue helicopters
into stormy seas to rescue stranded seafarers.  The job is very dangerous with
swimmers having to jump, without a parachute, from helicopters hovering at
heights of up to 50 feet above the water's surface.  As if that wasn't enough,
the rescues are usually done in the midst of violent storms and into seas strewn
with the wreckage of a ship.  Skill, strength, a cool head, team work and
courage are all needed in great quantities.

One of the common
arguments against free trade is national security.  While acknowledging
that a country benefits from free trade, many people feel that certain
restrictions on trade are necessary so as not to be left without war
material in the event of war.

However, this is not a
very good reason as, historically, nations have imported the weapons
and other material needed to wage war. During the American Revolution
the Continental Congress sent Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and
others to Europe to negotiate loans from foreign banks and
governments and then used the proceeds to purchase weapons to fight
the British. Franklin obtained from France the ship, renamed the
Bonhomme Richard, in which John Paul Jones took on and defeated the
British ship Serapis, in a battle that is celebrated by the U.S. Navy
to this day. The U.S. loaned England and France money to purchase
weapons, food and other material to fight the Germans in World War I
and the U.S. eventually entered the war partly as a result of German
submarines trying to stop the U.S. trade with England by sinking our
ships. In World War II it was trade, including large amounts of
weapons, with the U.S. that kept England from being overrun by
Germany. We also kept the Soviet Union supplied with weapons, food
and other material that enabled them to continue fighting the Germans
during World War II.

The
two largest economies in the world are the United States, which is the largest,
and China, which is the second largest.   However, when we divide the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) of each by their respective populations to see
the output available per person, the U.S. remains the largest while
China falls well below the second position it holds with its total
production.

China has the largest
population in the world and, with all those people, it is able to
produce a large output of goods and services. People are needed to
produce – Labor is a critical resource in the production
process.

Fate is a funny thing.  A person can focus on the big things only to
see those achievements largely forgotten as people remember them for
something that, at the time it was accomplished, seemed small and
inconsequential.  Other times fate will strike a person who possesses
only modest goals and catapult that person's creation to greatness.Take Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. 
Mention his name at Christmas time and practically everyone in the
world knows his story.  But, where did Rudolph come from?