tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10820485.post3972908008799742979..comments2023-11-03T09:36:22.100-04:00Comments on In From the Cold: Your Tax Dollars Take FlightGeorge Smileyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049707648660651119noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10820485.post-25864947031722444662008-08-06T04:15:00.000-04:002008-08-06T04:15:00.000-04:00Hi. You’ve got a great blog. A few weeks ago I cam...Hi. You’ve got a great blog. A few weeks ago I came back from a tour. I traveled with <A HREF="http://vip-travel.pissedconsumer.com" REL="nofollow">vip travel</A>. it was awful I will never again choose this company. Later on I browsed the net and bumped into this great site www.pissedconsumer.com. It turned out that there are lots of people who are not pleased with the company.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10820485.post-48921781812158361422008-04-02T12:03:00.000-04:002008-04-02T12:03:00.000-04:00Congressional members isolate themselves from the ...Congressional members isolate themselves from the rest of society in seemly every manner. It certainly wouldn’t hurt their legislating ability if they heard from regular citizens instead of lobbyists and their peers within their echo chamber. That is why I have changed my opinion on term limits; I now support them. We threw out our congressman after 9 terms. I told him he had become a professional politician and was not listening to his mostly moderate to conservative constituents. I have known him since 1989 and wrote him regularly. He is a nice, civil man who “grew” in office towards the left; he got too big for his britches, as my grandmother would have said.<BR/><BR/>I remember well flying in a C-47 sitting in canvas seats. Congressmen should try that once.amrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09351633653335252003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10820485.post-20162099971520640402008-04-01T22:40:00.000-04:002008-04-01T22:40:00.000-04:00Whenever one of the embassies I served in was prep...Whenever one of the embassies I served in was preparing for a congressional junket we always toyed with the idea of sending a beaten-up carpool car -- like most of us used every day -- to pick up the Codel at the airport. We always chickened out, though, knowing full well that these people voted on our appropriations bills. That, though, would hardly be their revenge had we sent a carpool vehicle to fetch them. Instead, they would have sent a message to the Secretary of State that would likely have resulted in the recall of the ambassador. Or at least that's what we all imagined. I still wish we could have sent one or two codels a Chevy without working air conditioning, and let them discover that the windows were sealed shut in the lightly armored vehicles. <BR/><BR/>For all our bravado (shared, no doubt by military and civilian officers alike) we always pulled out all the stops to make all codels comfortable and to fulfill their every desire, from presidential briefings to shopping trips for their wife (with someone from the embassy assigned as full time escort interpreter.<BR/><BR/>When I was a student at the National War College I had a classmate who worked on VIP air transport. We shared stories of codels -- he flying them, we escorting them. Alas, we both admitted we stumbled all over ourselves catering to ingrateful Congresspeople who really should have been told to take commercial air transport and buses. FFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06981706601001285694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10820485.post-43544494061819641082008-04-01T19:34:00.000-04:002008-04-01T19:34:00.000-04:00Great suggestions that will never happen for the r...Great suggestions that will never happen for the reasons you listed. Honestly, I'm surprised that someone had the balls to attempt to enforce the House's own rules on the use of the planes. Though it will never happen, the thought of a congressman with entourage waiting for the rotator at BWI or Seattle along with 200 GIs and 100 screaming kids makes me smile inside.Automatic_Wing https://www.blogger.com/profile/10174899673368042634noreply@blogger.com