I'm off tomorrow on my annual deer hunting trip. As I'll be off in the back of beyond in Pennsylvania without phone service, much less Internet connectivity, you'll hear nary a word from me.

And for the record, I won't be looking for Bambi. I'll be looking for all those other cruel bucks who gave him a hard time.

See ya in about a week.

By now you've probably heard about Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) bill to force the President to withdraw American troops from Iraq "at the earliest practicable date." Today, House Republicans who, shall we say, disagreed with Rep. Murtha's desires, introduced a resolution (so they could defeat it) which said, simply, "It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

But this is just the backdrop to what I wanted to mention. During debate over the newly-introduced resolution, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) mentioned a phone call she had received from a Marine colonel.

He asked me to send Congress a message — stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message — that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.

Talk about plain speaking! I love you, Representative Schmidt. Would you marry me?

Update: Joining in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

I'm not a meme-ish kinda blogger, but when I saw Big D's post over at Texican Tattler, I just wanted to post one myself.

Here's the question: If you could have dinner with any three people you want, who would they be and what would you have for dinner? One deceased guest (presumably brought back to life for your meal) is allowed.

This one is easy for me. My meal partners would be my brothers, Dick and Dan, and our mother, who passed away on Thanksgiving Day of 1969 when I was 13, after she had suffered through years-long illness. It wouldn't even bother me if we could only talk about things that happened before her death, because that's what I'd really want to talk to her about, and of course, I'd want to afford my brothers the same opportunity. There are so many things I'd like to ask her about since I was just too young to get much of a feel for her attitudes, opinions and experiences before she left us.

The meal? Dan and I love to make and eat barbecue (Dick loves to eat it, too), and I can't imagine that Mama wouldn't like it as well. Add to that some corn on the cob, green beans, black-eyed peas, dinner rolls and Mama's chocolate cake.

And if we could bend the rules and add one more departed person, Dad would join us, too. I know he loved barbecue.

Yeah, it's not the sort of answer folks are looking for, but it's my honest answer. That'd make my year. Shoot, it'd make the rest of my life!

So how about you? Who'd you love to have dinner with?

When we tap out our posts and comments in the blogosphere, sometimes there's a disconnect between what we intend to type and what ends up on the page. In the case of comments, if you don't catch it before you hit the Submit button, you're usually stuck with it. If it's bad enough, you might add a follow-up correction comment, possibly with a touch of self-deprecating humor (my usual approach).

I find that homonyms give me the most trouble. I use the words "there," "their" and "they're" enough that I usually slow down and examine them as soon as I realize I've typed them, just to make sure I got it right.

I've learned to cut others some slack on issues like this. It's all too easy to let one or two of these slip in here or there (notice how I put three more homonyms in this sentence?), and even proofreading your post before publishing it doesn't guarantee you'll find the error. So I don't rag on people when they make one of these mistakes.

But there are a couple of misspellings that have become quite prominent, and it's starting to get to me. The first has been around for a long time, and that's the confusion between "lose," which is a verb, and "loose," which is an adjective. "Looser" is a valid word, so when people type it when they intend to use "loser," no spellchecker barks at them about it. But make no mistake, people, that guy on the other side of the political spectrum that you hate is not a looser, he's a loser. Your insults lose a lot of their sting when you can't manage to use the correct words.

Another word that has been seeing a lot of misuse lately is "misled." That's the past tense of "mislead." I'm sure folks miss this one because "lead" can be pronounced two ways, "leed" and "led." But you know what, folks? The past tense of "lead" is "led," so the past tense of "mislead" is "misled."

I'm far from perfect myself, so I'm not going to start dissing bloggers and commenters who can't seem to get these right. I'm just saying it bugs me.

A lot.

Despite my Texas swagger, I'm really not one to pat myself on the back. So when it comes to my military service, I'm proud of it, I think I did a good job, but I was a cog in the big machine. I did my work, sometimes it was under hazardous, stressful or inconvenient conditions, but I just did my small part to keep the millstone turning.

I say all that as a preface for honoring America's military veterans. These people, as a group, have done more for our country over the past 200+ years than any other. Sacrifice is an unavoidable element of military service, but as a group, military folks tend to focus more on the opportunities that are presented to them than the sacrifices they must make.

Veterans, during their military service, are the key promoters of American values and ethics. The earliest members of the US military provided a superb foundation for their successors to build upon, embracing the military culture of working hard, doing what's right because it's right, and loving one's country to the point of placing its welfare ahead of one's own.

If you love your country, remember that it wouldn't be what it is today without those who have served in the military. Veterans certainly didn't make America what it is today all by themselves, but without their efforts in the past, America would be faint shadow of its current greatness.

Much of what we have today, both concrete and abstract, was made possible by the efforts of America's veterans. Thank you, my brothers- and sisters-in-arms, for your service and sacrifice.

Joining James Joyner and others in honoring our fellow veterans.

I'm ashamed to admit that, at least nominally, I share the same side of the political spectrum with Pat Robertson, who said today:

I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don’t wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for his help because he might not be there.

Pat, I've got a newsflash for you: you're no Christian, and you've certainly never contemplated the Bible with any sincerity. If you had, you'd know that God's love and care for us isn't based on our actions, because we'd never deserve His help. He helps us because He loves us. He gave us His Son's life because He loves us. He'll never turn his back on us.

This statement, especially when added to other idiotic blatherings you've vomited on the public in the past, reveal you to be the sham you are. Go away and leave my religion and my end of the political spectrum to those of us who have a lick of sense.

I'll address the Intelligent Design issue later, but I just had to get this off my chest now.

Update: Stacy of Writing Right posts her fury, too, and finds a follow-up quote from Robertson:

I was simply stating that our spiritual actions have consequences and it's high time we started recognizing it. God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin...maybe he can help them.

How can any Christian listen to this man and believe he knows anything about God?

To all my Marine friends, and especially my Marine son, Happy 230th Birthday!

Dean Esmay posted that he'd heard that the Dover, PA, school board, who is currently being sued for including Intelligent Design in its science curriculum, was mostly voted out of office yesterday. Dean indicated that he hadn't confirmed that was the case, so I thought I'd ask Google News about it.

One of the links Google served up to me was this UPI article, which starts out this way:

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Pittsburgh voters ousted eight school board members who advocated the teaching of intelligent design along with the theory of evolution in biology classes.

The ninth member of the Dover Board of Education was not up for re-election, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Wednesday.

Excuse me? Why would Pittsburgh voters oust anyone from the Dover school board? My knowledge of Pennsylvania geography is far from comprehensive (I head up to Elk County every year for deer season), but this didn't sound right to me. So I did a little more research (y'know, that stuff that they don't bother with at UPI).

Sure enough, Dover lies about 150 miles east of Pittsburgh, on the outskirts of York. And just to be sure, I checked with multiple sources to confirm I had it right (gasp!).

Oh, and just to cover all the bases, I looked up the article at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the UPI apparently saw, and they report that "Challengers unseated eight out of nine Dover Board of Education members yesterday..." and further report that "The ninth member of the York County school board was not up for re-election." So it appears that some UPI nincompoop wrote an article without basic geographical knowledge, based on another article that they didn't even bother to read. Sheesh.

Yeah, this journalism thing is pretty difficult stuff. I can see why "real journalists" should have extra privileges and protections not afforded to "fake journalists" like bloggers.