I'll miss that guy...! I loved the way he always rode the ship straight into the wind....and consequently sailed past his opponents.

Bravo Mark! 

Must be another slow work week in Hollywood which is odd given the fact they crank out a lot of trash that celebrates dysfunctional malcontents like him.

 One of my recent favorites is actually an oldie but a goodie. "The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study In Command"  by Edwin Coddington

 Will they do one on Biden too? Wait. Who am I kidding?

Hollywood never had the talent or intelligence to make a movie about Hitler, but I'd recomend the movie "Downfall" to get an idea of what Hitler and his sycophants were all about.

It will be a long time before a movie portraying Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi-Mihn, et. all provides any level of insight as to the level of inhumanity these humans exhibited. Unfortunately Communism never experienced the unconditional surrender that totalitarianism faced at the end of WW II.  

By the way, I meant to add that I'm doing some back round research on the First North Dakota Volunteers and their participation in the U.S. - Philippine Insurgency War 1899-1902. What I'm finding while perusing the papers of the era are articles pertaining to the Boer War in South Africa side-by-side those concerning the war in the Philippines. Both were insurgencies, yet what followed in the next decade had little to do with what occured on the Western Front. 

Ironically, Carl von Clausewitz used Kantian logic to explain the nature of military conflict in his work "On War" which is closely still held as the guidon within the Western military structure.

Are conventional forces obsolete? The short answer is no. Mr. Jim Lacy recently touched upon this very topic on NRO. Here's the link.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286748/army-we-need-jim-lacey

 Honestly, I didn't think anyone would be interested.....!

 Thanks for the laugh! I needed that in the final hours of 2011!

 "Ricochevians"? That's a good one.....!

 More Hope & Change --- Sweet.

Did we notice we're bailing out Europe?  Nope, we American are too busy focusing on what "Snookie's" next antics on Jersey Shore will be.

I appeciate his "Great White Fleet," the Panama Canal, and his personal courage. However, his penchant for engaging in progressive politics falls short of traditional Republican themes.

A first strike by Iran would certainly clarify the issue; however, the U.S. has never appreciated a sucker punch (Pearl Harbor, 9/11). Valuable time and energy is wasted by countless hearings by "fact finding comittees" in an attempt to asses blame as opposed to correcting the problem.

I remember clearly the days during the Iranian hostage crisis while I was in college and also made the mistake of thinking there was going to be a major throw-down. I'm not willing to go out on a limb and provide a place, or date. Example Japan and the U.S. were at odds from approx. 1905 until 1941. The U.S. and the former Soviet Union were at odds since 1919-1989 and fortunately, nothing happened, then again the Soviet Union never had a death wish.

Lets hope that you're right and that Iran caves from within, but that said - let's hope that whoever the new boss is, that they aren't like the old boss...or worse.