AND REMEMBER:
Good friends are like stars.
You don't always see them but you always know they are there
This was too good to not forward on.............enjoy!
BLESSED ARE THE CRACKED FOR THEY ARE
THE ONES WHO LET IN THE LIGHT!
This is something we should all read. Make sure you read to the end!!!!!! Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio .... "To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short – enjoy it.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first payline.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don't worry, God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets and wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare and then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative of dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you need.
42. The best is yet to come...
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
Its estimated 93% won't share this. I'm in the 7%.
Friends are the family that we choose.
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I very quietly confided to my best friend that I was having an affair.She turned to me and asked, 'Are you having it catered'?
And that, my friend, is the definition of 'OLD'!
~ ~ ~
Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, 'How old was your husband?'
'98,' she replied: 'Two years older than me'
'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented.
She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?'
~ ~ ~
Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:
'And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?' the reporter asked.
She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'
~ ~ ~
I've sure gotten old!
I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes
I'm half blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different medications that
make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have bouts with dementia. Have poor circulation;
hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends.
But, thank God, I still have my Florida driver's license.
~ ~ ~
I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour..
But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.
~ ~ ~
An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher she had two final requests.
First, she wanted to be cremated, and second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart.
'Wal-Mart?' the preacher exclaimed. 'Why Wal-Mart?'
'Then I'll be sure my daughters visit me twice a week.'
~ ~ ~
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
~ ~ ~
Know how to prevent sagging?
Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.
~ ~ ~
It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker.
~ ~ ~
These days about half the stuff in my shopping cart says, 'For fast relief.'
~ ~ ~
THE SENILITY PRAYER:
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
~ ~ ~
Now, I think you're supposed to share this with 5 or 6, maybe 10 others.
Oh heck, give it to a bunch of your friends if you can remember who they are!
~ ~ ~
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
I don't want to brag or make anyone jealous or anything,
but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school.
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Below by David Morris
Iran, China, and Russia have all warned us that they would retaliate against the US if we take any action agains Assad in Syria.
If Russia or China decide that they want to retaliate against us, they have a world of options...the easiest of which would be to facilitate the crash of the dollar to get even with the US for selling them Treasuries and paying them back with dollars that are worth less money than what they paid in the first place.
Iran, though, is the wildcard of the bunch. Enough so that Israelis are buying gas masks in bulk, even though they've been in the crosshairs of chemical attacks for at least the last generation.
If Iran attacks us, it's not like we'll stop trading with them like we would with Russia and China. Since we don't have many positive relations with Iran that we can sever, they don't have the disincentives that Russia and China currently do.
So what could Iran do...or more accurately, what do we KNOW Iran can do and what have they said they would do?
Well, they have been exporting fighters and expertise to Muslim conflicts for decades. Their unconventional/asymetrical warfare tactics are honed and well practiced, as are their instructional methods.
And we know that their elite Quds forces have been pre-positioned in the US for quite some time. Conventional thought was that they were pre-positioned here so that Iran could quickly and easily retaliate in the event that we attacked their nuclear facilities or supported Israel in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
It's not too big of a stretch to think that now, as Iran is warning us not to interfere in Syria, that these pre-positioned assets would be a big part of any retaliation against the US.
So, again...let's not look at what they COULD do...let's look at what they've done in other conflicts and what they've said they'd do:
1. Wildfire attacks. The Japanese was unsuccessful in their firebombing attacks on US forests during WWII, but their strategy provided a roadmap for future generations.
2. Infrastructure failure from wildfires. Wildfires in areas where there are power lines can have a double effect of knocking out the electrical grid locally or regionally. As power lines heat up, they get more resistance and makes them stretch. If the lines stretch too much, they short out. As the resistance increases, not enough power gets to the end of the lines. Ash, dirt, and other sediment in the water can reduce the quantity and quality of water getting downstream for drinking and agriculture.
3. Bombings. Especially bombings combined with radio jamming and denial of service attacks on emergency call centers and first responders by robo-dialers to prevent effective responses.
4. Attacks on schools. (Think "Beslan Masaccre") Cause enough fear and schools close and parents pull their kids out of schools. Until parents figure out childcare, national GDP drops. If schools close, do teachers still get paid? If they don't get paid, their spending is going to drop and investments in the stock market by teacher retirement funds dry up.
5. Attacks on markets/currency. This could be simple kinetic attacks against exchanges, denial of service attacks against web sites or call centers, or it could be a semi-sophisticated bear raid like what triggered the 2008 market crash. It could also be a denial of service attack or full-on hacking attack on credit card networks.
6. Random acts of violence in gun free zones. This has been happening around the globe for decades. Simply declaw and defang the sheepdog and the wolves can eat as many sheep as they want.
7. Oil. Our unwillingness to become energy independent gives Iran a lot of leverage against us. Roughly 20% of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran has spent the last several years figuring out tactics to control it...even against a US Naval carrier group. Besides lining the shores and islands with anti-ship missiles, they have developed a "swarming" attack technique with small, fast, manuverable attack boats. In EVERY non-classified US naval exercise, these swarming attacks eventually defeat our ships.
8. Freighter based Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attacks. Iran has already tested ship based launching systems for EMP-specific warhead delivery. Russian arms dealers even have rocket launchers built to look like a shipping container. Bring one of these sereptuitously across the Atlantic, launch it in international waters, and we've got a serious problem.
After two years of trying to avoid involvement in a conflict that he fears could easily become a long-term quagmire, that has little popular appeal at home, and that his own Pentagon chiefs have essentially called a losing proposition, President Barack Obama stands on the edge of a unilateral military commitment in Syria.
The reasons the situation has come to this are many and varied, but the most complex one can be summarized in one word: Iran.
As the force behind the Syrian regime, Iran is the country most responsible for fueling the regime's fight, and the nation whose influence will be most enhanced if President Bashar al-Assad prevails.
Of more immediate concern, Iran also is the country with a dangerous nuclear program, and therefore the one most prone to draw the wrong conclusions if Syria's alleged use last week of its own weapon of mass destruction—chemical arms—stands unchallenged.
The Iran factor, in short, is the elephant in the room, creating an exquisite dilemma for a president who might otherwise find plenty of good reasons to keep his distance.
The Syrian fight and the killing and displacement of civilians it has wrought present big humanitarian concerns, as did the conflict in Rwanda in the 1990s. Syria's fight also presents big worries about who holds the balance of power in an important region, as did the conflict in Kosovo in the same decade. In Rwanda, the concerns didn't prompt U.S. military involvement; in Kosovo, they did, in the form of a 77-day NATO air campaign.
But largely because of Iran's role, Syria's conflict falls into a different category, one in which America's global interests are engaged. Syria has become essentially a proxy war pitting an Iranian-led axis—Iran, President Assad and their allies in the Hezbollah movement—against virtually everybody else in the Middle East.
What now makes it a broader question is the move of weapons of mass destruction to the center of the conflict. Monday's declaration by Secretary of State John Kerry that the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against its own people is "undeniable" will make it harder to avoid at least the perception of linkage to the even more serious struggle to contain Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. Obama has said it wouldn't be acceptable for Syria to use chemical weapons, just as he has said it wouldn't be acceptable for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. He now must ponder whether the credibility of the first statement will affect the credibility of the second. That question burns particularly hot as the administration considers entering nuclear talks with the government of Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, even as Iran continues to deny it has nuclear-arms ambitions.
At the same time, if American force ultimately helps oust Mr. Assad, that outcome might merely increase Iran's sense of isolation and fuel its desire for a nuclear weapon as a kind of security blanket.
All those considerations will be cranked into American decision-making on whether to launch a cruise missile strike against Syrian targets. Such a strike would be limited, designed to make the point that chemical weapons use comes at a price, rather than aimed to magically turn the military tide against Mr. Assad. Still, even a limited action would involve considerable short-term and long-run risks.
In a letter sent a few days ago to Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, who had asked for an analysis of military options in Syria, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly analyzed the effects of military action. He said that while the U.S. has the ability to knock out Syrian air power with limited strikes, such a move would do little to clean up the Syrian mess.
"It is a deeply rooted, long-term conflict among multiple factions, and violent struggles for power will continue after Assad's rule ends," he wrote. "We should evaluate the effectiveness of limited military options in this context."
Any action would carry immediate risks. Tensions with Russia, Syria's other big benefactor, would rise instantly. The chances of terrorism directed by Syria's allies against American targets would increase. Any military escalation carries the danger of expanding the war around the region.
Similarly, the long-term risks that have persuaded Mr. Obama to try to stay on the sidelines are no less real now than before. The president's biggest concerns have been twofold: First, when the U.S. gets involved in such a conflict, it would be expected to inject enough force to prevail. It's hard for a superpower to get involved halfway in any conflict. Again, the question of credibility would arise.
Second, once the U.S. wades in, it's more likely than any other country to own the mess that would follow a victory—defined here as the downfall of President Assad's regime. The forces trying to take his place include many unappetizing Islamists who share few other interests with the U.S.
Sorting through the rubble could take years.
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