German Officer honored by his American adversaries during the Hurtgen Forest battles.

     I saw this article from my friend *Shelldude*'s facebook post.  I make occasional forays into the land of facebook, and I saw this.  My friend has a love of history like I do, we both spent time in Germany in the 80's.   I walked in the Hurtgen forest when I would tour Germany.  I would have a map of Western Germany on the back of my door in the barracks and on Friday afternoon, I would close my eyes and throw a dart and where ever it landed...I would go.  I quickly figured out that to hang around the barracks was an invitation to get "volunteered" for extra duty if the SDO or the CQ needs somebody for a last minute tasking......And don't even get me going on how a mid 25 year old senior enlisted SINGLE soldier is treated, vs a 18 year old married soldier that brings his wife with him.  the difference is startling....but I digress.
     Well one of my darts landed in the area near Belgium and I drove there in my car and I saw the signs and stopped there.  I had remembered the battle in one of my history books and that the Germans really bloodied the Americans there before the United Stated was victorious.  Even my division the famous Big Red One was battered there fighting the dug in Germans.

Ist Infantry Division

   I walked around the forest for a bit...and it was still dark and foreboding...I kept expecting to see either the Teutonic Knights show up or the Brother's Grimm.

    If you remember the Big Red One Movie with Lee Marvin,

I couldn't find the clip....but if you remembered the movie...there was a scene where they were in a forest toward the end of the movie...before the concentration camp scenes....They were looking for one of their soldiers that had disappeared and were calling him and he seemed to be in the trees...   That scene was kinda what it was like...the forboding forest and the  enemy could come out of anywhere.....That was the backdrop of this story.
     What I liked was the "Warrior Code"   You battle the able bodied....but you care for the injured...it was part of the Western code of battle...Only the Warriors of the West will show mercy upon an enemy....In other places in the world, they would cheerfully bayonet the wounded and desecrate the bodies.  

   This reminds us what people with Honor would do, and even though they may be the enemy, you still honor them because to do less will demean you and the only thing you will take when you cross over the river..is your name and honor...I have posted stuff about it here...the Chivalry Post and the Honor Post's.  Some of my earlier brain squeezings.  


The Hürtgen forest (also: Huertgen Forest; German: Hürtgenwald) is located along the border between Belgium and Germany in the southwest corner of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Scarcely 50 square miles (130 km²) in area, the forest lies within a triangle outlined by the German towns of Aachen, Monschau, and Düren. The Rur River runs along the eastern edge of the forest.
The Hürtgen Forest lies at the northern edge of the Eifel mountains; its terrain is characterized by plunging valleys that carve through broad plateaus. Unlike many areas of Germany in which the valleys are farmed and hilltops are wooded, the Hürtgen Forest's deep valleys are thickly wooded and the hilltop plateaus have been cleared for agriculture. The forest's rough terrain starkly contrasts with that of the adjoining Rhine Valley. Roads in the forest are few, winding, and narrow.
The rugged terrain of this area was the scene of a long, bloody, drawn-out battle during World War II, often referred to as the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, which took place over three months during a very cold winter from 19 September 1944 to 10 February 1945. Along a road that rises from the Kall River Valley to the town of Schmidt, there is still a length of tank track that melted into the road after a U.S. armored vehicle was hit and burned there.

My company leader, Lieutenant Friedrich Lengfeld has found eternal rest in grave No. 38 of the community cemetery in Düren-Rölsdorf. He was a company leader I could never forget; a true soldier, even in his dealings with the enemy. It is a tragedy that he had to die in the morning of 11/12/44. He was trying to help a severely wounded American soldier, who was crying for help after having been hit between the lines, when he himself stepped on a land mine.

On October 7, 1994 members of the 22nd Infantry Regiment Society dedicated a monument to a German Soldier from the Second World War. The monument stands near the entrance to the military cemetery in Hürtgen, Germany, the final resting place for over 2900 German Soldiers. It honors Leutnant Friedrich Lengfeld, a Company Commander in the German Army, who lost his life trying to save a wounded American Soldier.
It may possibly be the only monument erected anywhere, by former US Soldiers, to honor an act of bravery by a German Soldier, who at the time of the act, was an enemy at war with the United States.

One soldier who got out alive is retired Major Gen. John F. Ruggles of Phoenix, 86. He was then a Lieutenant Colonel serving with the 22nd Infantry Regiment. To mark the battle’s 50th anniversary in 1994, Ruggles organized an effort among veterans of the Regiment to place a monument in the forest. It’s a very different monument. Unlike other World War II tributes, this one doesn’t honor our own soldiers. This one honors an unheralded act of humanity by a 23-year-old German Infantry Lieutenant.

.
Ruggles wasn’t interested in media attention, and the monument’s dedication received no news coverage in the US. But a friend convinced him that others would like to hear the story.

The plaque on the monument erected for LT Friedrich Lengfeld.The inscription (in both English and German) reads:

No man hath greater love than he who
layeth down his life for his enemy.

IN MEMORY 
OF
LIEUTENANT FRIEDRICH LENGFELD

Here in Huertgen Forest on November 12, 1944,
Lt. Lengfeld, a German officer, gave his life
while trying to save the life of an American
soldier lying severly wounded in the “Wilde
Sau” minefield and appealing for medical aid.

PLACED AT THIS SITE ON OCTOBER 7, 1994

On November 12, 1944, Lt. Friedrich Lengfeld was commanding a beleaguered German rifle company. Like most units on both sides, he had suffered heavy casualties. Early that morning, a wounded American could be heard calling from the middle of a German minefield in a no man’s land separating the combatants.
“Help me,” the man cried. His unit had withdrawn, however, and no U.S. troops were close enough to hear. Lengfeld ordered his men not to shoot if Americans came to rescue the man. But none came. The soldier’s weakening voice was heard for hours. “Help me,” he called, again and again. At about 10:30 that morning, Lengfeld could bear the cries no longer. He formed a rescue squad, complete with Red Cross vests and flags, and led his men toward the wounded American.



He never made it. Approaching the soldier, he stepped on a land mine, and the exploding metal fragments tore deeply into his body.
.
Eight hours later Lengfeld was dead. The fate of the American remains unknown. Much of this story, unpublished in any American books on the war, is based on the eyewitness account of Hubert Gees, who served as Lengfeld’s communications runner.
.
Speaking at the monument’s dedication in Germany last October, Gees said : “Lieutenant Lengfeld was one of the best soldiers of the Hürtgen Forest. He was an exemplary company commander, who never asked us to do more than he himself was ready to give. He possessed the complete confidence of his soldiers.”

Ruggles said Lengfeld’s sense of duty went far beyond the call. “You can’t go to any greater extreme than to give your life trying to rescue someone you are fighting as your enemy in war,” he said. “Compare that to the indifference most people feel about each other today.” The bronze and concrete monument is believed to be the only one placed by Americans in a German military cemetery.
To the young Lieutenant, the voice crying out that day did not come from an enemy. Nor from an American, nor a stranger. It came from a human being in need. Something inside Lengfeld compelled him to act – a feeling so strong and enduring not even the madness of war could block it. In the heavy silence of the German forest, where thousands upon thousands met death, that glorious impulse for life is now honored.

Crime on the Rise...?

  Say it isn't so...?   Apparently there is a cause and effect..when the President and his minions in the Justice dept have invoked the image of the SJW on a federal scale.  In the past, the Justice dept was interested in Justice...Remember the lady with the scales?  Well with the petulant boy king and his followers, they have politicized the Justice dept.  By his actions, they have enabled the criminal elements.  The police are in disarray and have no morale, any white police officer in a urban setting have to wonder if they will get thrown under the bus by their chain of command and city hall to appease the mob.  No wonder the Police ain't being proactive....they are just waiting for calls.  This is a case of schadenfreude..the citizens of the urban areas wanted a "kinder and gentler police force"..well they are getting it good and hard.  the criminal elements are feeling emboldened to openly defy the law knowing that nothing will happen to them. 

     I saw the following article in the wall Street journal....The cartoons are compliments of my verious stash of cartoons in my folder in my laptop.

The nation’s two-decades-long crime decline may be over. Gun violence in particular is spiraling upward in cities across America. In Baltimore, the most pressing question every morning is how many people were shot the previous night. Gun violence is up more than 60% compared with this time last year, according to Baltimore police, with 32 shootings over Memorial Day weekend. May has been the most violent month the city has seen in 15 years.

In Milwaukee, homicides were up 180% by May 17 over the same period the previous year. Through April, shootings in St. Louis were up 39%, robberies 43%, and homicides 25%. “Crime is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said St. Louis Alderman Joe Vacarro at a May 7 City Hall hearing.

Murders in Atlanta were up 32% as of mid-May. Shootings in Chicago had increased 24% and homicides 17%. Shootings and other violent felonies in Los Angeles had spiked by 25%; in New York, murder was up nearly 13%, and gun violence 7%.

Those citywide statistics from law-enforcement officials mask even more startling neighborhood-level increases. Shooting incidents are up 500% in an East Harlem precinct compared with last year; in a South Central Los Angeles police division, shooting victims are up 100%.

By contrast, the first six months of 2014 continued a 20-year pattern of growing public safety. Violent crime in the first half of last year dropped 4.6% nationally and property crime was down 7.5%. Though comparable national figures for the first half of 2015 won’t be available for another year, the January through June 2014 crime decline is unlikely to be repeated.

The most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months.

Since last summer, the airwaves have been dominated by suggestions that the police are the biggest threat facing young black males today. A handful of highly publicized deaths of unarmed black men, often following a resisted arrest—including Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., in July 2014, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 and Freddie Gray in Baltimore last month—have led to riots, violent protests and attacks on the police. Murders of officers jumped 89% in 2014, to 51 from 27.

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, before he stepped down last month, embraced the conceit that law enforcement in black communities is infected by bias. The news media pump out a seemingly constant stream of stories about alleged police mistreatment of blacks, with the reports often buttressed by cellphone videos that rarely capture the behavior that caused an officer to use force.




Almost any police shooting of a black person, no matter how threatening the behavior that provoked the shooting, now provokes angry protests, like those that followed the death of Vonderrit Myers in St. Louis last October. The 18-year-old Myers, awaiting trial on gun and resisting-arrest charges, had fired three shots at an officer at close range. Arrests in black communities are even more fraught than usual, with hostile, jeering crowds pressing in on officers and spreading lies about the encounter.

Acquittals of police officers for the use of deadly force against black suspects are now automatically presented as a miscarriage of justice. Proposals aimed at producing more cop convictions abound, but New York state seems especially enthusiastic about the idea.

The state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, wants to create a special state prosecutor dedicated solely to prosecuting cops who use lethal force. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo would appoint an independent monitor whenever a grand jury fails to indict an officer for homicide and there are “doubts” about the fairness of the proceeding (read: in every instance of a non-indictment); the governor could then turn over the case to a special prosecutor for a second grand jury proceeding.

This incessant drumbeat against the police has resulted in what St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson last November called the “Ferguson effect.” Cops are disengaging from discretionary enforcement activity and the “criminal element is feeling empowered,” Mr. Dotson reported. Arrests in St. Louis city and county by that point had dropped a third since the shooting of Michael Brown in August. Not surprisingly, homicides in the city surged 47% by early November and robberies in the county were up 82%.

Similar “Ferguson effects” are happening across the country as officers scale back on proactive policing under the onslaught of anti-cop rhetoric. Arrests in Baltimore were down 56% in May compared with 2014.

“Any cop who uses his gun now has to worry about being indicted and losing his job and family,” a New York City officer tells me. “Everything has the potential to be recorded. A lot of cops feel that the climate for the next couple of years is going to be nonstop protests.”

Police officers now second-guess themselves about the use of force. “Officers are trying to invent techniques on the spot for taking down resistant suspects that don’t look as bad as the techniques taught in the academy,” says Jim Dudley, who recently retired as deputy police chief in San Francisco. Officers complain that civilians don’t understand how hard it is to control someone resisting arrest.

A New York City cop tells me that he was amazed to hear people scoffing that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown, only looked a “little red” after Brown assaulted him and tried to grab his weapon: “Does an officer need to be unconscious before he can use force? If someone is willing to fight you, he’s also willing to take your gun and shoot you. You can’t lose a fight with a guy who has already put his hands on you because if you do, you will likely end up dead.”

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn, discussing hostility toward the police, told me in an interview on Friday: “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m guessing it will take five years to recover.”

Even if officer morale were to miraculously rebound, policies are being put into place that will make it harder to keep crime down in the future. Those initiatives reflect the belief that any criminal-justice action that has a disparate impact on blacks is racially motivated.

In New York, pedestrian stops—when the police question and sometimes frisk individuals engaged in suspicious behavior—have dropped nearly 95% from their 2011 high, thanks to litigation charging that the NYPD’s stop, question and frisk practices were racially biased. A judge agreed, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, upon taking office last year, did too, embracing the resulting judicial monitoring of the police department. It is no surprise that shootings are up in the city.

Politicians and activists in New York and other cities have now taken aim at “broken windows” policing. This police strategy has shown remarkable success over the past two decades by targeting low-level public-order offenses, reducing the air of lawlessness in rough neighborhoods and getting criminals off the streets before they commit bigger crimes. Opponents of broken-windows policing somehow fail to notice that law-abiding residents of poor communities are among the strongest advocates for enforcing laws against public drinking, trespassing, drug sales and drug use, among other public-order laws.

As attorney general, Eric Holder pressed the cause of ending “mass incarceration” on racial grounds; elected officials across the political spectrum have jumped on board. A 2014 California voter initiative has retroactively downgraded a range of property and drug felonies to misdemeanors, including forcible theft of guns, purses and laptops. More than 3,000 felons have already been released from California prisons, according to the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles County. Burglary, larceny and car theft have surged in the county, the association reports.

“There are no real consequences for committing property crimes anymore,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Armando Munoz told Downtown News earlier this month, “and the criminals know this.” The Milwaukee district attorney, John Chisholm, is diverting many property and drug criminals to rehabilitation programs to reduce the number of blacks in Wisconsin prisons; critics see the rise in Milwaukee crime as one result.

If these decriminalization and deincarceration policies backfire, the people most harmed will be their supposed beneficiaries: blacks, since they are disproportionately victimized by crime. The black death-by-homicide rate is six times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined. The killers of those black homicide victims are overwhelmingly other black civilians, not the police. The police could end all use of lethal force tomorrow and it would have at most a negligible impact on the black death rate. In any case, the strongest predictor of whether a police officer uses force is whether a suspect resists arrest, not the suspect’s race.

Contrary to the claims of the “black lives matter” movement, no government policy in the past quarter century has done more for urban reclamation than proactive policing. Data-driven enforcement, in conjunction with stricter penalties for criminals and “broken windows” policing, has saved thousands of black lives, brought lawful commerce and jobs to once drug-infested neighborhoods and allowed millions to go about their daily lives without fear.

To be sure, police officers need to treat everyone they encounter with courtesy and respect. Any fatal police shooting of an innocent person is a horrifying tragedy that police training must work incessantly to prevent. But unless the demonization of law enforcement ends, the liberating gains in urban safety over the past 20 years will be lost.

Ms. Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of “Are Cops Racist?” (Ivan R. Dee, 2002).

Monday Music...Cindi Lauper "Girls just want to have fun"

I have been busy again, Nothing like a lot of work...

 

     They have opened the Spigot for this week and this weekend so I will be busy working and I will post when I can.  I have a couple of post that are half finished that are in the Que.  I will finish them up and post them:).  Next week I will be on a different shift, I will be range-master for Cub Day camp next week so My lead was cool with my changing shifts to accommodate the event.   The problem is that I will not be able to work overtime..and I will not be getting much sleep, Oh well the kids are more important than the money...

      I decided to roll with Cindi Lauper, When she hit MTV, she was really unusual, I liked the quirky video and the songs off the album were really good.  I still have the Album and the CD in my collection. 

She's So Unusual is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper, released on October 14, 1983 by Portrait Records. The album was re-released in 2014 to commemorate its 30th anniversary, and was called She's So Unusual: A 30th Anniversary Celebration. The re-release contains demos and remixes of previously released material, as well as new artwork.
In 1978, Lauper formed the band Blue Angel. The band soon signed a recording contract with Polydor Records; however, their debut album, Blue Angel, was a commercial failure. The band parted ways after firing their manager, who sued Lauper for $80,000 and forced her into bankruptcy.Lauper went on to sing in many New York night clubs, and caught the eye of David Wolf, who became her manager and subsequently got her signed to Portrait Records.
The album is primarily new wave-based, with many of the songs being influenced by synthpop and pop rock. Upon its release, the album received positive reviews from music critics, who noted Lauper's unique vocals. Lauper earned several awards and accolades for the album, including two Grammy Awards at the 27th Grammy Awards, one of which was for Best New Artist. She's So Unusual peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 chart and stayed in the chart's top forty for 65 weeks. It has sold over 6 million copies in the United States and 22 million copies worldwide. This makes it Lauper's best-selling album to date and one of the best-selling albums of the 1980s decade.The album was the second best-selling album in Canada by a female artist in the 1980s, behind Whitney Houston's self titled debut album, selling more than 900,000 copies. The album ranked at #487 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, and ranked at #41 on Rolling Stone's list of Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2012.
Seven singles were released from the album, with "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" becoming a worldwide hit and her first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. "Time After Time" became her first number-one hit on the chart and experienced similar success worldwide. Lauper found success with the next two singles as well, with both "She Bop" and "All Through the Night" peaking in the top five. This makes Lauper the first female singer to have four top five singles on the Hot 100 from one album. She's So Unusual was promoted by the Fun Tour throughout 1983 and 1984.

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is a song written by and first recorded in 1979 by American musician Robert Hazard. However, it is better known as a single by American singer Cyndi Lauper, whose version was released in 1983. It was the first major single released by Lauper as a solo artist and the lead-off single from her debut album She's So Unusual. Lauper’s version gained recognition as a feminist anthem and was promoted by an award-winning video. It has been covered on either an album or in live concert by over 30 other artists.
The single was Lauper's breakthrough hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming a worldwide hit throughout late 1983 and early 1984. It remains one of Lauper's signature songs and was a widely popular song during the era of its release, the 1980s. The "Rolling Stone & MTV: '100 Greatest Pop Songs': 1-50", "Rolling Stone: "The 100 Top Music Videos"" and the "VH1: 100 Greatest Videos" lists ranked the song at No. 22, No. 39 and No. 45, respectively. The song received a Grammy Award nomination for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 2013, the song was remixed by Yolanda Be Cool, taken from the 30th anniversary reissue of the album She's So Unusual.
    
With the inclusion of promotional releases, the single has seen about 40 individual versions of release. The most common is a 7" vinyl single (with varying cover artwork) released in 1983/1984 (depending on the country) and the second most common is a 12" vinyl single (also with varying cover artwork) released in 1983/1984.
The song was written by Robert Hazard, who only recorded a demo of it in 1979. He wrote it from a male point of view. For Lauper's version, she changed the lyrics with Hazard's approval. Her version appeared on her 1983 debut solo record, She's So Unusual. It is a synthesizer-backed anthem about the roles of women in society and is considered by many to be a feminist classic of the era.  Gillian G. Gaar, author of She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (2002), described the single and corresponding video as a "strong feminist statement", an "anthem of female solidarity" and a "playful romp celebrating female camaraderie."
The variety of releases of the single includes an Austrian birthday card with a 3" CD of the song inside. The song has been heavily distributed in karaoke version as well. Lauper later went on to completely re-work the song in 1994 resulting in the new hit "Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun)". The song was remade by Lauper yet again in 2005 on her The Body Acoustic album, also produced by Chertoff and Wittman with Lauper, with guest support vocals from Japanese pop/rock duo Puffy AmiYumi.

    
The release of the single was accompanied by a quirky music video. It cost less than $35,000, largely due to a volunteer cast and the free loan of the most sophisticated video equipment available at the time. The cast included professional wrestling manager "Captain" Lou Albano in the role of Lauper's father while her real mother, Catrine, played herself. Lauper would later appear in World Wrestling Federation storylines opposite Albano and guest-star in an episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, in which Albano portrayed Mario (Albano also played himself in the episode). Lauper's attorney, Elliot Hoffman, appeared as her uptight dancing partner. Also in the cast were Lauper's manager, David Wolf, her brother, Butch Lauper, fellow musician Steve Forbert, and a bevy of secretaries borrowed from Portrait/CBS, Lauper's record label.
Lorne Michaels (Broadway Video, SNL), another of Hoffman's clients, agreed to give Lauper free run of his brand new million-dollar digital editing equipment, with which she and her producer created several first-time-ever computer generated images of Lauper dancing with her buttoned-up lawyer, leading the entire cast in a snake-dance through New York streets and ending up in Lauper's bedroom in her home. The bedroom scene is a homage to the famous stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers' film A Night at the Opera.
Before the song starts, the beginning of her version of "He's So Unusual" plays.
The music video was directed by Edd Griles. The producer was Ken Walz while the cinematographer was Francis Kenny. The treatment for the video was co-written by Griles, Walz, and Cyndi Lauper. The video was shot in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in summer 1983 and premiered on television in December 1983. The choreography was by a New York dance and music troupe called XXY featuring Mary Ellen Strom, Cyndi Lee and Pierce Turner.

Rules of Bacon and other intemperate thoughts...

     I was cooking breakfest this morning and I was putting some bacon in the pan,

Yeah I know....Turkey Bacon..but trying to eat healthy

  I was cooking the bacon, had finished the grits(Yes this is the south) and was fixing to start on the eggs and the biscuits were in the toaster oven,  I was drinking coffee out of my grumpy mug..

Yeah...That is the one...

   I started thinking(Yes dangerous I know...) I have noticed the proliferation of Bacon related items.. from the Rules of Bacon:

    From posters to animals...

and various meme's

    

     I started wondering that the love of bacon is a subliminal rejection of the healthnazi's and other people that are being super busybodies that like getting all in other peoples business by telling them what they can or can't do.  I started wondering if this is the average American 's response to the big government agenda and they are doing it on a personal level.  

     I remember when I was little, bacon was just something that was eaten in the morning and there was nothing about it.  But now Bacon has its own food group. I believe that there is a pushback going on in the culture war. 

   

 Even Jesus is in on it....

What the heck is going on with Scouting? and other musings....Yes it is a rant....

Before I go on a tear, I need to show another present my brother gave me...

                                                            And the other side...

Notice the "bullet holes"

     A couple of things have happened recently and I have been dismayed by them. For those that don't know, I am a scout leader, I was a Cub scout Leader, now a Boy Scout Leader.  I was in the boy scouts in my youth and made it all the way to Life scout and working on my eagle project and ran out of time, you have to complete it by your 18th birthday.  My son is in the Boy Scouts, I want him to learn the timeless values that are taught in the Boy Scouts, I believe in the mission statement of the B.S.A. " To turn good boys into good men".
      First off..the national President Dr.  Robert Gates addressed the National annual meeting in 2015.  I have cut and pasted an exerpt of his speech in its entirety dealing with the membership issues.  I will first off post the exerpt then I will say my piece on the issue.  The entire speech link is Here

     Robert Gates Bio is Here

      
FINALLY, LET ME ADDRESS MEMBERSHIP POLICY.
I TOLD YOU A YEAR AGO THAT I WOULD OPPOSE REOPENING THIS ISSUE DURING MY TWO-YEAR TERM AS PRESIDENT OF THE BSA. I HAD HOPED THEN FOR A RESPITE DURING WHICH WE COULD FOCUS ON HEALING OUR DIVISIONS FROM THE 2013 DECISION, IMPROVING OUR PROGRAM, STRENGTHENING OUR FINANCES AND ENDING OUR DECLINE IN MEMBERSHIP.
HOWEVER, EVENTS DURING THE PAST YEAR HAVE CONFRONTED US WITH URGENT CHALLENGES I DID NOT FORESEE AND WHICH WE CANNOT IGNORE. WE CANNOT IGNORE GROWING INTERNAL CHALLENGES TO OUR CURRENT MEMBERSHIP POLICY, FROM SOME COUNCILS – LIKE THE GREATER NEW YORK COUNCIL, THE DENVER AREA COUNCIL, AND OTHERS – IN OPEN DEFIANCE OF THE POLICY, TO MORE AND MORE COUNCILS TAKING A POSITION IN THEIR MISSION STATEMENTS AND PUBLIC DOCUMENTS CONTRARY TO NATIONAL POLICY.
NOR CAN WE IGNORE THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND JURIDICIAL CHANGES TAKING PLACE IN OUR COUNTRY – CHANGES TAKING PLACE AT A PACE OVER THIS PAST YEAR NO ONE ANTICIPATED. I REMIND YOU OF THE RECENT DEBATES WE HAVE SEEN IN PLACES LIKE INDIANA AND ARKANSAS OVER DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION, NOT TO MENTION THE IMPENDING U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISION THIS SUMMER ON GAY MARRIAGE.
I AM NOT ASKING THE NATIONAL BOARD FOR ANY ACTION TO CHANGE OUR CURRENT POLICY AT THIS MEETING. BUT I MUST SPEAK AS PLAINLY AND BLUNTLY TO YOU AS I SPOKE TO PRESIDENTS WHEN I WAS DIRECTOR OF CIA AND SECRETARY OF DEFENSE. WE MUST DEAL WITH THE WORLD AS IT IS, NOT AS WE MIGHT WISH IT TO BE. THE STATUS QUO IN OUR MOVEMENT’S MEMBERSHIP STANDARDS CANNOT BE SUSTAINED.
WE CAN EXPECT MORE COUNCILS TO OPENLY CHALLENGE THE CURRENT POLICY. WHILE TECHNICALLY WE HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO REVOKE THEIR CHARTERS, SUCH AN ACTION WOULD DENY THE LIFELONG BENEFITS OF SCOUTING TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BOYS AND YOUNG MEN TODAY AND VASTLY MORE IN THE FUTURE. I WILL NOT TAKE THAT PATH.
MOREOVER, DOZENS OF STATES – FROM NEW YORK TO UTAH – ARE PASSING LAWS THAT PROTECT EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS ON THE BASIS OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION. THUS, BETWEEN INTERNAL CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL LEGAL CONFLICTS, THE BSA FINDS ITSELF IN AN UNSUSTAINABLE POSITION. A POSITION THAT MAKES US VULNERABLE TO THE POSSIBILITY THE COURTS SIMPLY WILL ORDER US AT SOME POINT TO CHANGE OUR MEMBERSHIP POLICY. WE MUST ALL UNDERSTAND THAT THIS PROBABLY WILL HAPPEN SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.
IN 2010, A FEDERAL DISTRICT JUDGE IN CALIFORNIA OVERTURNED THE MILITARY’S DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL LAW AND THE REVERSAL WAS APPLIED NATIONWIDE IMMEDIATELY. ONLY A STAY GRANTED BY THE APPEALS COURT – GRANTED, I BELIEVE, MAINLY BECAUSE WE WERE IN THE PROCESS OF CHANGING THE LAW – PREVENTED DRAMATIC DISRUPTION IN THE ARMED FORCES.
WE CANNOT PREDICT IF OR WHEN THIS MIGHT HAPPEN TO US, BUT I PERSONALLY BELIEVE OUR LEGAL DEFENSES HAVE WEAKENED SINCE THE DALE CASE. AND IF WE WAIT FOR THE COURTS TO ACT, WE COULD END UP WITH A BROAD RULING THAT COULD FORBID ANY KIND OF MEMBERSHIP STANDARD, INCLUDING OUR FOUNDATIONAL BELIEF IN OUR DUTY TO GOD AND OUR FOCUS ON SERVING THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF BOYS. WAITING FOR THE COURTS IS A GAMBLE WITH HUGE STAKES.
ALTERNATIVELY, WE CAN MOVE AT SOME FUTURE DATE – BUT SOONER RATHER THAN LATER – TO SEIZE CONTROL OF OUR OWN FUTURE, SET OUR OWN COURSE AND CHANGE OUR POLICY IN ORDER TO ALLOW CHARTER PARTNERS – UNIT SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS – TO DETERMINE THE STANDARDS FOR THEIR SCOUT LEADERS. SUCH AN APPROACH WOULD ALLOW ALL CHURCHES, WHICH SPONSOR SOME 70% OF OUR SCOUT UNITS, TO ESTABLISH LEADERSHIP STANDARDS CONSISTENT WITH THEIR FAITH. WE MUST, AT ALL COSTS, PRESERVE THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF OUR CHURCH PARTNERS TO DO THIS.
OUR OATH CALLS UPON US TO DO OUR DUTY TO GOD AND OUR COUNTRY. THE COUNTRY IS CHANGING AND WE ARE INCREASINGLY AT ODDS WITH THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE AT BOTH THE STATE AND FEDERAL LEVELS. AND, AS A MOVEMENT, WE FIND OURSELVES WITH A POLICY MORE THAN A FEW OF OUR CHURCH SPONSORS REJECT – THUS PLACING SCOUTING BETWEEN A BOY AND HIS CHURCH.
THE CHALLENGES ARE BEFORE US NOW. THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD AND OUR LEGAL COUNSEL WILL WORK TO DETERMINE OUR RESPONSES AND OUR BEST STRATEGY. WE WANT AND VALUE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ALL THIS, RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF PROTECTING OUR CORE VALUES.
THE ONE THING WE CANNOT DO IS PUT OUR HEADS IN THE SAND AND PRETEND THIS CHALLENGE WILL GO AWAY OR ABATE.
QUITE THE OPPOSITE IS HAPPENING. I KNOW MY REMARKS ON THIS SUBJECT UNSETTLE MANY OF YOU. SOME OF YOU MIGHT BE ANGRY THAT I RAISE THIS SUBJECT AND WITH WHAT I HAVE SAID. BUT THIS MOVEMENT SHAPED MY LIFE AND MY ONLY PURPOSE – MY ONLY REASON FOR ASSUMING THIS LEADERSHIP ROLE – IS TO PRESERVE THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA IN RECOGNITION OF ALL IT HAS DONE FOR THIS COUNTRY, AND ALL IT CAN AND MUST DO IN THE FUTURE. SCOUTING IS NEEDED IN THIS COUNTRY NOW MORE THAN EVER.
I ASSURE YOU THAT I HAVE NO HIDDEN AGENDA. I WANT ONLY TO APPRISE YOU OF THE NEW REALITY I SEE: THAT BOTH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL EVENTS AND PRESSURES OVER THE PAST YEAR AND LOOKING TO THE FUTURE WILL REQUIRE ACTION AT SOME POINT.
FOR NOW, I ASK THAT, IN THE DAYS AND MONTHS AHEAD, EVERYONE HERE REFLECT AND PRAY ON OUR PATH FORWARD. WE CAN ACT ON OUR OWN OR WE CAN BE FORCED TO ACT BUT, EITHER WAY, I SUSPECT WE DON’T HAVE A LOT OF TIME.
FOR ME, I SUPPORT A POLICY THAT ACCEPTS AND RESPECTS OUR DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES AND BELIEFS, ALLOWS RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS – BASED ON FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM – TO ESTABLISH THEIR OWN STANDARDS FOR ADULT LEADERS, AND PRESERVES THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA NOW AND FOREVER. I TRULY FEAR THAT ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVE WILL BE THE END OF US AS A NATIONAL MOVEMENT.
EVERY DAY, IN EVERY COMMUNITY IN AMERICA, SCOUTING IS CHANGING THE LIVES OF BOYS AND YOUNG MEN – TEACHING THEM SKILLS AND LEADERSHIP, HELPING THEM BUILD CHARACTER AND INTEGRITY. EVERY DAY, IN EVERY COMMUNITY, SCOUTING MAKES THOSE COMMUNITIES BETTER PLACES TO LIVE. WE HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 105 YEARS. I AM CONFIDENT WE WILL DO SO FOR ANOTHER 105 YEARS AS LONG AS WE STAND TOGETHER, UNITED IN OUR SINGULAR MISSION TO SERVE AMERICAN YOUTH.
I AM HONORED TO WORK WITH ALL OF YOU TO GIVE OUR YOUNG PEOPLE THE WISDOM, DIRECTION AND CONFIDENCE TO BE THE BEST THEY CAN BE.
THANK YOU.

     I have a lot of respect for Robert Gates, to broach this issue takes Guts...but I also am pissed, we are having 3% of the population(According to the CDC) totally drive the issues, we have been soo cowed into silence by the outrage machine that is the "LGBT" community.  For many years they have asked for "Tolerance" for different beliefs than the mainstream...now they are forcing their beliefs and anybody that disagreees with the issues are immediately flattened so to speak by the outrage machine that I call the "Gay Mafia"
       

They have totally cowed all opposition to their agenda.....What the hell happened to "tolerance"? 
     Now if you disagree with their assertions, they will try to destroy you, get you fired from your job...ask the former head of Mozilla and a Vermont State trooper about the outrage campaign that was launched against them by the SJW's out there.  Where is the vaunted tolerance of the left?   They are only tolerant if you agree with them, then you are "en-lighted".  If you disagree with them, then you are a homophobic knuckle draggin Neanderthal that deserves to be destroyed publicly and financially.     The same people that is driving this issue if they had any kids...they would never be in the boy scouts.  This is purely agenda driven.  the GayMafia has brought enormous social pressure on the Boy Scouts to change their policy on openly gay leaders.  I use an alias here, I try with varying success to keep my real identity under cover so there are no no splash-back with my risk adverse employer who would can me in a new york minute if somebody was to complain.  It is a shame that a persons beliefs can get him canned.  I keep wondering what happened to freedom here in America.  
    

     I am aggravated, sexuality has no business in the Boy Scouts.  I am not advocating a don't ask, Don't tell policy...it is nobody's business what the orientation of the leaders are.   The membership of the boy scouts have been dropping, for several years.  People put their kids into boy scouts to help instill in the boys a moral code that has stood the test of time.  The scout oath and law if you follow it, will help guide you through life and if you fall off the path, the knowledge of the Oath and law will help you find your way again.  Now like I said, the last few years, the membership has been falling and secular and faith based groups are getting the people moving over.  They are capitalizing on the turmoil surrounding the B.S.A.   
     Also there is another issue....The B.S.A. is reiterating a policy of No "Water-gun fights".   Really?    Watergun fights have been a B.S.A tradition since I was a boy scouts....but back then, we  also used BB guns.....Now those things hurt.....But now they are forbidding watergun fights?   What is going on?   Are we turning into a nation of pansies? The B.S.A. is soo afraid of "liability"
     We are turning into a "nerf" or a bubblewrap society, have we lost out spine?  the greatness that is America?   We were once portrayed as a nation of Individualist and rough and ready frontiersman.  We would fight anybody else if the cause was just.   Our heroes used to be John Wayne......Now they are Justin Bieber...

  
      

Monday Music "Got my mind set on you" by George Harrison

 Remember the reason for the Holidays, it honors those that made the ultimate sacrifice.  We honor them by remembering their sacrifice.  

We went to Florida to see my brother and his family.  He just came from Afghanistan  as a contractor flying helicopters.  It was glad to see him and his family.  He gave me this patch,  I will stick it with my other stuff in my bonus room.

 This song came out while I was in Europe, I heard the song at one of the stores at Robinson Barracks, I was visiting one of the little shops there when the song came on the MTV Europe station and the music caught my ear.  I liked the song and the video and went to the PX and bought the CD.  Hows that for marketing?


"Got My Mind Set on You" is a song written by Rudy Clark and originally recorded by James Ray in 1962. An edited version of the song was released later in the year as a single on the Dynamic Sound label. In 1987, George Harrison released a cover version of the song as a single, and released it on his album, Cloud Nine.

Of Harrison's three number-one singles in the US, it was the only song not written by Harrison and the only one without religious overtones. Not only was this the last US #1 hit by Harrison, but from any of the ex-Beatles in the US. When the song hit #1, it broke a three-way tie among Harrison, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr, all of whom had two #1 hit singles as solo artists (discounting Paul McCartney's work with Wings). It also happened to be the #1 single in the US the week immediately preceding the induction of The Beatles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making Harrison one of the few inductees to have an active single on the U.S. record charts at the time of induction. Billboard ranked it as the No. 3 song for 1988.
The single's B-side is "Lay His Head", a remixed version of the unreleased song from Harrison's originally intended Somewhere in England album. The 12-inch version of the single also adds an extended version of "Got My Mind Set On You".
In the UK the single spent four weeks at number two. It was kept off the number 1 spot by T'Pau's "China in Your Hand".
The song was included in the Harrison compilation albums Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 (1989) and Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison (2009). A live version was recorded for his Live in Japan (1992) album.
In 2010, AOL radio listeners chose "Got My Mind Set on You" as one of the 10 Best George Harrison Songs, appearing at number 4 on the list.

Two music videos were released for the cover version.
The first (directed by Gary Weis) starred a young Alexis Denisof vying for the heart of a girl in an amusement arcade. It featured Harrison and the band inside of a movie viewer, while the young man tries to win a toy ballerina for the girl.
The second, also directed by Weis, is Harrison sitting and playing in a study. As the song progresses, furniture and knick-knacks (like a stuffed squirrel, sentient chainsaw, and mounted stag and warthog) begin to dance along with the song. In the middle of the video, Harrison (through the use of a stunt double) performs a backflip from his chair and follows it with a dance routine before jumping back to his seat.
The second received significant airplay, and was nominated for three MTV VMAs.

Ain't got nothing......work all the time.

  This will be a short post, I have worked a lot of overtime and I am tired.   On a good note, the Ranger is Fixed!!!

   A friend of mine came over....We were able to muscle the bed in place and then I got the bolts and wires hooked up.   I am happy!!  If Chuck Norris was there, the bed would have jumped up there by itself and hooked up rather than annoy Chuck.  ( Thanks for the suggestion Momma Fargo;)

     At work (Where else...) one of the mechanic's (Same one that finds all the strange video's, every group has one...) was playing a video called "The devil went to Boston".  It is hilarious and definitely NSFW due to language.  

Please check out my blogroll, there are a lot of good people there...

Monday Music "Jump" by Van Halen

This edition of Monday Music is again out on Tuesday.   I got off work, had to swim home while driving a motorcycle...got home then took my son to the Dr's office.  The chiggers, mosquito's and ticks had a field-day with him.   He said that "I used the off...but they ate through it..."    Somehow I doubt it....Well we got home and I started working on my Ranger...First off I accomplished the repairs.

  I replaced the damaged hose and also replaced the return line for I saw it cracked.   I also used exra material to protect the hoses from rubbing.  I then tried to install my bed on the Ranger with my son..with mixed results.

  I am going to have to find an adult with upper body strength.   Oh well, will try to get it handled this weekend. 

     I decided to go with "Jump", I can't remember if I featured it in the past.  I really liked this album, I graduated in 1984. This song and the album was very well done.  Every time I hear it, this song takes me back to my senior year.   


"Jump" is a song by the American rock band Van Halen. It was released in December 1983 as the lead single from their album 1984. It is Van Halen's only single to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The song differs from earlier Van Halen songs in that it is driven by a rolling synth line (played on an Oberheim OB-Xa), although the song does contain a guitar solo, which Eddie Van Halen claims is his favorite solo he never wrote. This refers to the fact that it was spliced together from multiple takes.
"Jump" is one of Van Halen's most popular and instantly recognizable compositions, perhaps because it encompasses aspects of two genres widely associated with 1980s popular music in America: synth-driven pop and "arena"-style hard rock. David Lee Roth dedicated the song to martial artist Benny Urquidez, of whom he was a student. The song changed the future and style of Van Halen from being a predominantly hard rock band to one of more radio-oriented popular music.
     The synth line was written around 1981 by Eddie Van Halen but it was refused by the other members of the band. In 1983, producer Ted Templeman asked Roth to take a listen to the unused song idea. Riding around in the back of his 1951 Mercury, with band roadie Larry Hostler driving, Roth listened repeatedly to the song. To come up with a lyric for it, he remembered seeing a television news report the night before about a man who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off of a high building. Roth thought that one of the onlookers of such a scene would probably shout "go ahead and jump". Roth bounced this suggestion off of Hostler who agreed it was good. Instead of being about a threatened suicide, the words were written as an invitation to love. Roth later told Musician magazine that Hostler was "probably the most responsible for how it came out."

    
This stylistic change was further cemented when it seemed to create severe tensions between Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth. It has been claimed Roth wanted the band to avoid using synthesizers and focus more on traditional hard rock. This conflict eventually ended in Roth's departure from the band. In the 1995 Rolling Stone cover story on/interview with Eddie Van Halen (RS #705, dated April 6) the circumstances surrounding Roth's leaving are discussed. In this interview Eddie claims that the main reason for the split was that Roth and [long-time Van Halen producer] Ted Templeman both disliked the fact that he had built his own studio and was able to work on music away from their influence. He said that "the first thing I did up here was 'Jump' and they [Roth and Templeman] didn't like it. I said 'take it or leave it', I was getting sick of their ideas of what was commercial ... At first [Roth's solo EP] Crazy from the Heat was great because Roth laid off me a bit. Little did I know he was testing the waters. Then he called me up and asked me to go to his house and said he was going to make a Crazy from the Heat movie. He had some deal that fell through. But at the time I was depressed. I cried, then I called my brother and told him the guy quit."

Nevertheless, Roth and Templeman did work on "Jump" at Eddie's disputed new studio, with Roth providing the lyrics and the vocal melody.
Ted Templeman recalls that "'Jump' was recorded at Ed's studio. [Engineer] Donn [Landee] and Ed put the track down alone in the middle of the night. We recut it once in one take for sonic reasons. Dave wrote the lyrics that afternoon in the backseat of his Mercury convertible. We finished all vocals that afternoon and mixed it that evening".
The song thereafter secured its place among rock music's most popular songs, and is now considered by some to be one of the most influential rock songs of all time.
Live performances of "Jump" are preceded by Eddie's synthesizer solo "1984". During the reunion tour with Roth, the two songs were used for the band's encore. Roth often waved a large red flag during the synth section while the stage was still coated in dark cover lights.
According to Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, "[Eddie] Van Halen told me that he copied the synth part from 'Kiss on My List' and used it in ‘Jump.’ I don't have a problem with that at all."

   
The music video for "Jump" was directed by David Lee Roth. It is a straightforward concept, much like many of the hard rock videos of the time. It shows the band performing the song at a mock concert. It was nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards, and won "best stage performance" for the video.
The version of the song used for the video differs slightly from the album version. During the keyboard solo prior to the final refrain, David Lee Roth is heard (and seen) yelling out. He did this during the band's mock performance for the video's filming, and it is believed that afterwards he overdubbed this yell especially for the video version since it is not present in the song to begin with.[

Fast Food Facts II

This is on the scheduler thingie I use....I am at camp running a range for the Boy Scouts...again.   I have been camping 3 out of 4 weekends......I don't mind, but things around the house need to get done and my Ranger is still disassembled in the front yard.  I need to get her done so when I go camping......again I can use my truck as is proper....rather than my Mercury.    Something about ground clearance I guess...

   Here are some more fast food facts....I tripped over them surfing on the internet and quickly saved them because I knew that I would be "out of town" camping and I hate to leave my blog with something on it at least a couple of days.   I will post some pics once I have them.

-While fast food is known to make those fat rolls grow, it can actually make your brain shrink. Studies have shown that diets high in trans-fats are linked to the same brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer's disease. 

-After receiving complaints that their "footlong" sub was only 11 inches long, Subway released a statement that said ""With regards to the size of the bread and calling it a footlong, 'Subway Footlong' is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length".

-McDonald's is Brazil's largest employer.

-Nearly 90 percent of America's children eat fast food on a monthly basis, and one-third of children visit these foods on a daily basis. Mix that fast food fact with the startling statistic that fast food children gain six more pounds each year than they should, multiply that by 15 years and do you really wonder why your fat kid is fat?

-Subway is the largest restaurant chain in the world. There are more Subways in the world than McDonald's.

-When McDonald's opened an outlet in Kuwait shortly after the end of the Gulf War, the line of cars waiting to eat there was seven miles long.

-The McRib doesn't have any rib bones in it because it's actually "restructured meat" made from pig innards, tripe, heart, and scalded stomach. Then it's doused in salt and all blended in a salt water solution which acts as glue to keep the meat mixture together. This bad boy contains 70 ingredients, one of which is azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent used in the production of foamed plastics like yoga mats.

-To accommodate workers at the World Trade Center construction site, Subway created a mobile restaurant that moved up the building as they finish each floor.

-Because McDonald's initially did not want its customers to stay and socialise, they installed uncomfortable chairs to deter customers from lingering.

-When you order a Quarter Pounder (or something similar at other fast food chains), what you're really getting is a quarter pound of additives including, lanolin -made from raw wool- and castoreum, which is an extract made from the anal secretions of beaver.

-A genetically engineered hormone called rBGH is given to cows in the U.S. to increase milk production - even though its chemical by-products may be carcinogenic. Residues of rBGH have been found in meat products, such as hamburgers sold in fast food chains.

-A single McDonald's hamburger can contain beef from up to 100 different cattle.

-Pizza Hut sued Papa John's once because they thought that "fresher ingredients" didn't really make "better pizza".

-Caffeine is the most commonly used drug in the world, and high doses can have serious health effects, including muscle weakness, heart irregularities, and infertility. Children and teenagers consume more than 64 gallons of soft drinks per year.

-McDonalds chicken McNuggets come in four basic shapes; the bell, bone, boot and ball.

-Pizza Hut uses 300 million pounds of cheese each year. That's about 3% of all the cheese produced in the United States.

-The spread of E.coli and mad cow disease are just a few of the dozen examples of food-born pathogens linked to beef. Some meatpackers have considered radiating meat to kill the bacteria in tainted meat. Some scholars also claim hamburger meat may cause Alzheimer's disease.

-Arby's got its name from the acronym "R.B." which stands for "Raffel brothers" who are the founders of the restaurant.

-Eating fast food can result in high levels of insulin, which has been linked to rising incidences of Diabetes. 

-The large fries at Five Guy's are the unhealthiest fries in America. They have nearly 1,500 calories and 71 grams of fat.

-A person would need to walk nine miles to burn off the 923 calories found in Burger King's Double Whopper with cheese. French fries and a large cola brings the total calories to an amazing 1,500 calories (2/3 of an adult man's recommended daily caloric intake).

-The first 100 people who go to a new Chick-Fil-A when it opens get a free meal every week for a year.

-About two new Starbucks have opened every day since 1987.

-When it was revealed in 1990 that McDonald's used beef tallow to flavour its French fries, Hindu vegetarian customers in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, ransacked a McDonald's restaurant and smeared cow dung on a statue of Ronald MacDonald.

-You're never more than 115 miles away from a McDonald's in the continental USA.

-The original Dunkin' Donut had a handle to make dunking easier.

-French fries are the single most popular fast food in America. In 1970, French fries surpassed 
regular potato sales in the United States. In 2004, Americans ate 7.5 billion pounds of frozen French fries.

-Domino's Pizza cancelled their "30 minutes or less" guarantee because drivers kept getting into accidents while rushing to deliver pizzas. The guarantee led to at least one fatality.

-In-N-Out Burger is one of the few fast food restaurants that actually slice each potato by hand shortly before it is placed in the deep fryer.

-Dairy Queen Restaurants in Texas have a different menu from all other DQ restaurants. You can only get a Steakfinger Basket at a Texas Dairy Queen.
 .
 A 32 ounce McDonald's sweet tea has more sugar in it than two Snickers bars. A Snickers bar has 27 grams of sugar and a McDonald's Sweet Tea has 69.

-IHOP adds pancake batter to their omelettes. They claim it makes them "fluffier".

Ben and Jerry's ice cream has chunks because Ben has anosmia, which means he can't smell, so he relies on "mouth-feel" while eating.

-The invention of the meat grinder in the mid nineteenth century gave rise to the hamburger.

Currently, between 40,000 and 50,000 meatpackers, many of whom pack meat for fast food chains, are injured every year, making meatpacking one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.

-Because of the restaurant's reputation to stay open after disasters, the "Waffle House Index" was created as an informal assessment of the damage caused by a storm.

-McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes and the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. Its annual orders for French fries constitute 7.5% of America's entire potato crop.

-By the end of the twentieth century, one out of eight American workers had at some time been employed by McDonald's and 96% of Americans had visited McDonald's at least once. It was also serving an estimated 22 million Americans every day and even more abroad.
-White Castle is the first fast food restaurant.

-High-fructose corn syrup (which tricks your body into wanting to eat more and to store more fat) first appeared in 1967, and the average American now consumes 63 pounds of it a year. It is ubiquitous in fast foods. 

-Colonel Sanders' claimed that his favorite food was White Castle.

-In 1965, a college student named Fred De Luca and family friend Dr. Peter Buck started Subway in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first restaurant was called Pete's Super Submarines. Subway currently is located in 87 countries.

-The founders of Outback Steakhouse never visited Australia.