The Conservative Thread: Back to Basics. Pass the Lasagna and Have a Flower!!

[Disneycrazymom]

if your check in from a school district then you may be allowed the S/D discount. It would be worth checking.

 

[#1hockeymom]

to you too, T&G.



Thanks, and you too hockeymom. I felt bad because I thought people took it as I was being selfish and greedy, and I'd hate for anyone to think of me like that. We spend about 10-13 hours a day at whatever resort we're in and only go to the parks at mid-day, so it is important to me to have a resort I like. I'll have to check into the cabins. My field is in school systems, but not as a teacher (I'm a counselor), and no one's a nurse in our fam.

We've stayed in WL twice before (which I frankly like better than some of the parks, that's how much I love it; hence the sadness), but we've visited AKL and the Poly. I was showing my mom the website earlier after I first posted about it all, and she was shocked when I showed her we'd be paying over $100 less for WL or AKL than we would have if we had booked a Moderate resort with a water view at full price, which is what my dad had been talking about doing anyway. I had tried to explain that to them earlier, but I apparently did a dopey (pardon the pun ) job. She told me she's going to talk to him tomorrow, so we'll see. Not hopeful though since he's already seen the cheapie (if you can even call that cheap! ) mod prices. I honestly would never blame him for wanting to take the opportunity to save even more money, but it's still disappointing.

Do you have a school pay stub? School ID badge?

I'm assuming you're getting one room. The Swan rooms are decently sized, the beds are AWESOME, and there is a sink in the tub/toilet area as well as one just outside that door so more than one person can get ready at a time. I"ve never been in a normal dolphin room, so I can't tell you the sink layout.

 

[Disneycrazymom]

Hockeymom - We are so alike it is scary sometimes!

 

[Dolce27]

Ok- I'm Elmo!!!!! YAYYYY!!! (said in my best Elmo sqeaky voice)

Me too! I was beginning to think that I was the oddball when everyone else began posting that they were Sponge Bob and the friend who sent me the quiz posted to be Sponge Bob...

 

[#1hockeymom]

LOL There are a few of us who keep cross posting on each other's ideas, at the same time.. in various threads! (ex. two days ago Mahnahmahnah and I found out we shared Christmas stockings and presents!) I think its THIS thread that has our common blood!


umm yeah.. we say go for the S/D!!
The Swan Dolphin Sorority *see pic in my avatar*
approves of this message

 

[#1hockeymom]

I was charlie brown... but they had no questions about wild rumpus dancing, which I DO do!

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I'm not inferring this of you, so don't take it that way, but I am such THE hotel snob. If I'm paying for a vacation (which is VERY rare for us), I want the best because who knows when I'll be going back. I completely understand what you mean and think you have no reason to apologize.

I like to absorb the atmosphere in any hotel I stay in. That's all a part of the fun for me.

Please do infer that of me! I am a hotel snob, and proud of it. I just don't have the budget to back it up. So I just have to bite my tongue and think of the good things in life when I'm staying in what I see as inferior hotels.

if your check in from a school district then you may be allowed the S/D discount. It would be worth checking.

Do you have a school pay stub? School ID badge?

I'm assuming you're getting one room. The Swan rooms are decently sized, the beds are AWESOME, and there is a sink in the tub/toilet area as well as one just outside that door so more than one person can get ready at a time. I"ve never been in a normal dolphin room, so I can't tell you the sink layout.

Yup, we share a room since it's just 3 of us. No sense shelling out the extra money for me to have my own room. Y'all have great suggestions, but unfortunately as noted in my first post on this (the one where I said I'd gladly pay the difference if I could), I was not placed in a school for this year. There just weren't any openings at the levels I had experience in. So, I have to wait until they begin doing interviews again in Feb.-March-April; thankfully there's supposed to be a bunch of openings at that time. That's the bad thing about having a specialized advanced degree. If there's no openings, you are plum out of luck in terms of employment. I've just been doing volunteering and some part-time stuff in the meantime just to get by.

 

[Mahnahmahnah]

Me too! I was beginning to think that I was the oddball when everyone else began posting that they were Sponge Bob and the friend who sent me the quiz posted to be Sponge Bob...

La, la, la, la,
La, la, la, la,
Elmo's world...............

LOL There are a few of us who keep cross posting on each other's ideas, at the same time.. in various threads! (ex. two days ago Mahnahmahnah and I found out we shared Christmas stockings and presents!) I think its THIS thread that has our common blood!


umm yeah.. we say go for the S/D!!
The Swan Dolphin Sorority *see pic in my avatar*
approves of this message

Hey! We all owe each other beers - in Germany! Or those Grey Goose concoctions - in France !

 

[#1hockeymom]

We better tell sorcerordonald she needs a bigger room!

and cheese soup in Canada... and margaritas in Mexico.. and...

 

[Disneycrazymom]

I forgot to tell you about DS car. He got hit last Sunday at Jack in the Box. They didn't stop. Exactly 1 week after he got the car for his 16th birthday. But I already complained about that part.

Thankfully we had put full coverage on it and our insurance is fixing it minus the $500 deductible. What I thought was just a bad scratch turns out to be a damaged tire, rim, side panel and door. The estimate was about $1500 in damage. (so much labor) I am just sick over it but we want DS to have the nice car he got for his birthday and he cannot drive it without the new tire and rim at all. Poor kid. State Farm says more and more people are leaving with out a note or anything. He is having as much trouble with the lesson about how people behave as he is that his car is damaged.

 

[debbieandroo]

To Saxsoon -

You were asking about Robert Gates -- I'll post a few articles from National Review and Weekly Standard to see what they think about him...

[Weekly Standard, June 2008]

Donald Rumsfeld's primary mission when he returned to the Pentagon as secretary of defense in 2001 was to transform the U.S. military to meet the missions of the new century. Today it seems more likely that it is his successor, Robert Gates, who will leave the lasting legacy.

It's not just the high-profile firings--Air Force secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Michael Moseley recently joined former Army secretary Francis Harvey, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace on the list of senior defense officials Gates has pushed out. Nor is it simply the critical promotions of General David Petraeus to replace Fallon and General Raymond Odierno to take Petraeus's place in Iraq.

What these decisions reflect is Gates's larger purpose: to make the U.S. military focus on the war they've got rather than the war they'd like to have. Though he's only been in the job for 18 months and will presumably be gone with the rest of the Bush administration next January, Gates has managed to push aside what he calls the "next-war-itis" that metastasized during Rumsfeld's reign and became almost as intractable a problem as al Qaeda or the Taliban.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. When he replaced Rumsfeld after the Republican "thumping" in the 2006 elections, Gates was widely viewed as the man who was going to end the futile fighting in Iraq, slay the neocon dragons, and return a sensible "realism" to the land. He was an intimate of "Poppy" Bush, a member of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, and a representative of the permanent Washington establishment. "They had to bring in someone from the old gang," wrote Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. "With Bob, the door is opened again to 41 and Baker and Brent." The republic would be saved by saner men.

Gates was also supposed to soothe the ruffled feathers of the generals in revolt against Rumsfeld and the "adventurism" of Bush's foreign policy. He was, in the words of William Webster, the former head of the CIA and FBI, a "consensus builder." His agenda was to restore "a whole series of relationships--with [Capitol] Hill, with other agencies and with the senior military leadership."

Where Rumsfeld has been abrasive, Gates would be smooth. "Gates is a man who believes in institutions," one of his early advisers told Fred Kaplan of Slate. "And he saw the need to repair the institution of the Defense Department."

Gates certainly promoted this image: "I saw too many instances, when I was very junior in the C.I.A. and elsewhere," he recalled in an interview, "where somebody would come in and try to impose change from the top and not listen to people. And even if they were able to implement that change in the short term, it ended the day they left office. It's really important, if you want lasting change, to involve the professionals in the institution."

But now Gates seems to be on a mission to impose change, and in a hurry. In a series of recent speeches he's taken on "the professionals" at almost every turn. Gates, as civilians who run the military ought to do, seems to be evaluating and judging the conflicting professional advice. He's listening to one set of professional voices--not just Petraeus and Odierno, but the collective voice of the younger generation of officers who have learned the hard way how to fight and win in Iraq and Afghanistan--pushing back against the other.

The "Gates Transformation" is, in many ways, a simple recognition of reality. It's been very difficult for the Pentagon, and indeed the whole of the U.S. government, to come to grips with the realities of a long war. The Rumsfeld version of transformation--a transparent battlefield, long-range precision strikes, and "rapid, decisive operations"--had a narcotic effect. And not without justification: The initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were unprecedented triumphs. But, though they were remarkable, they were not decisive. The enemy was different than we thought, not Saddam's "elite" Republican Guard tank divisions and Taliban militias but Al Qaeda in Iraq, Jaish al Mahdi and Iranian-backed "Special Groups," and the Taliban in "Pashtunistan." Counterinsurgency is more than counterterrorism, and irregular war is long and protracted rather than rapid and decisive.

The Gates Transformation is not just, as the media have cast it, about breaking the grip of the "fighter mafia" on the Air Force or holding service leadership to account and rewarding combat performance more than seniority, though those all matter. It's about reorienting the current American way of war, making the generals understand that irregular warfare is not only the most likely form of conflict but, as our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan strongly suggest, the most complex form of fighting and the highest priority in building our forces.

So while the firings and departures hog the headlines, it's the wrestling behind the curtains that matters the most. In particular, watch the debate over the soon to be released National Defense Strategy and National Military Strategy documents. The first, prepared by defense civilians, reflects the Gates Transformation. The Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared the second. They are worried by other challenges--and have already said that the defense strategy is too risky.

What matters is the manner in which the debate is conducted, and here too Gates departs from Rumsfeld. Gates is less confrontational but more decisive. And so far, despite the firings, better received for it. There are no signs yet of another "revolt of the generals." Notably, Admiral Fallon has refused to complain about his need to resign. In interviews he has reaffirmed the importance of the military's "confidence in the chain of command" and that any "perceptions" of "disloyalty" were "unsettling" to him. A civilian secretary of defense who can help generals digest bitter pills marks a true transformation in recent American military affairs.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I went back and took the quiz, and with 34 points, I'm SpongeBob too.

ETA: As for Gates, he's from my alma mater. I honestly haven't kept up with what he's said recently to have an opinion one way or the other, but I know some of the very liberal leaders at my school adored him and his appointment. So, my suspicion antennae has been up about him for awhile for no other reason than that.

 

[debbieandroo]

From National Review - Nov 2007

More about Putin than Gates, but still notable...'cause Putin + Democrats are SKEERY!!!

Behind closed doors, the October 12 meeting in Russia between Vladimir Putin and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was reportedly businesslike--as opposed to the public theatrics that immediately preceded it. Putin not only insulted his guests by keeping them waiting for more than 40 minutes, he also mocked U.S. plans to build a missile-defense radar in the Czech Republic and ten interceptors in Poland: "We may decide someday to put missile-defense systems on the moon, but before we get to that we may lose a chance for agreement because of you implementing your own plans." Putin's behavior was probably aimed at an audience of Russian nationalists who wish the Kremlin still maintained its ironfisted grip on Eastern Europe. The proposed system would protect the United States and Europe from an Iranian warhead without providing any meaningful deterrent to Russia's own nuclear arsenal. Indeed, Gates and Rice have even offered to let Russia monitor the sites. Yet Putin's bombast continues to feed a troubling nostalgia for Soviet-era imperialism. His hostility to the defense system is shared by congressional Democrats. Recently, a Senate panel voted to slash $85 million from the Bush administration's funding request for the Czech and Polish sites. It would be wrong to say that Democrats are nostalgic for the Cold War, too, but perhaps correct to suspect that they are unwilling to confront the post-Cold War world's most serious challenges.

 

[#1hockeymom]

I forgot to tell you about DS car. He got hit last Sunday at Jack in the Box. They didn't stop. Exactly 1 week after he got the car for his 16th birthday. But I already complained about that part.

Thankfully we had put full coverage on it and our insurance is fixing it minus the $500 deductible. What I thought was just a bad scratch turns out to be a damaged tire, rim, side panel and door. The estimate was about $1500 in damage. (so much labor) I am just sick over it but we want DS to have the nice car he got for his birthday and he cannot drive it without the new tire and rim at all. Poor kid. State Farm says more and more people are leaving with out a note or anything. He is having as much trouble with the lesson about how people behave as he is that his car is damaged.

ugh! What horrible timing! I bet he was crushed when he saw it. We've used State Farm for 23 years and they've always put things through quickly and easily any time we've needed to make a claim. I hope you have the same experience.

 

[debbieandroo]

Last article, this time from US News and World Report, Sept 2008

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates signaled a significant shift in the Pentagon's priorities in the Middle East that could end a five-year-long deployment and funding strategy that emphasizes military needs in Iraq over those in Afghanistan.

For months, defense officials have used a simple catchphrase to describe the military's approach to both, coined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen while speaking on Capitol Hill last year: In Afghanistan, we do what we can; in Iraq, we do what we must.

During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning, however, Gates amended what has been de facto defense policy. "With positive developments in Iraq, the strategic flexibility provided by ongoing troop reductions there, and the prospect of further reductions next year, I think it is possible in the months to come to do militarily what we must in both countries."

It is a striking statement and a measure of the progress U.S. officials believe they have made in Iraq. But it is one that will come with significant challenges--challenges that may prove difficult to balance, U.S. military officials say.

Gen. James Cartright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the same committee this morning that Iranian influence in Iraq remains a sizable concern for the U.S. military. That's particularly true since the surge has ended and the Pentagon is preparing for further drawdowns in the country, he added. Various Shiite militias, U.S. military officials point out, may try to take advantage of fewer U.S. forces in the country by stepping up strikes.

In that event, U.S. commanders on the ground in Baghdad might need reinforcements--a realistic possibility. To that end, Gates cautioned that his worry is "that the great progress our troops and the Iraqis have made has the potential to override a measure of caution born of uncertainty. Our military commanders do not yet believe our gains [in Iraq] are necessarily enduring--and they believe that there are still many challenges and the potential for reversals in the future."

The problem is that Afghanistan needs them as well, and U.S. forces are still stretched thin as GIs are diverted from Iraq in order to send them to Afghanistan. Three U.S. brigades are scheduled to head there--including one in November and another in January--to shore up forces in a country that has been rocked by increasing violence and a sharply rising casualty toll for U.S. soldiers.

What's more, the greatest concern among defense officials today is that the fate of Afghanistan depends on another ostensible U.S. ally: Pakistan. "If you asked me today where the greatest threat to the homeland lies," said Gates, "I'd tell you it's western Pakistan." Those are the country's ungoverned tribal areas that continue to offer safe haven to terrorists with, U.S. military officials add, what amounts to the tacit and occasionally explicit help of Pakistani officials and intelligence operatives.

What to do there will be the source of increasing debate among defense officials and on Capitol Hill in the months to come. Gates said more U.S. economic aid to Pakistan would "significantly advance our strategic interests," adding that the country is in "desperate economic straits." Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, bristled at this assessment, calling it the "ultimate irony" that Pakistan may get greater aid, particularly in the wake of reports that Pakistani troops have fired upon Afghan and American soldiers. "We might be paying them to shoot our helicopters," she said.

McCaskill was referring to stepped-up cross-border operations by U.S. troops into Pakistan--incursions that Pakistani leadership has said in no uncertain terms that it would not tolerate. U.S. military officials privately point out that the Pakistani leadership cannot publicly support these operations. Gates echoed this assessment as well. "I don't think they can do that," he said. But, he added that the Pakistani Army has been active in the tribal areas. And "regardless of the effectiveness of their operations, their mere presence and willingness to fight" are a help to U.S. forces.

But many defense officials remain unconvinced that the cross-border operations are a wise move. "As the Pentagon is pointing out, you don't have sufficient forces to do everything you'd like, so the question becomes: Is this the best use of our forces, going into Pakistan and trying to rout out Taliban leadership?" says Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. "Or would troops be better utilized building up indigenous Afghan security forces? It's a tough call to make," he adds. "Where's the bigger payoff?"

 

[Disneycrazymom]

Our agent is really good. The car is already at the body shop and they got the paper work from State Farm this morning. I am so hopeful DS will have his beautiful little car back by next Wednesday.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I forgot to tell you about DS car. He got hit last Sunday at Jack in the Box. They didn't stop. Exactly 1 week after he got the car for his 16th birthday. But I already complained about that part.

Thankfully we had put full coverage on it and our insurance is fixing it minus the $500 deductible. What I thought was just a bad scratch turns out to be a damaged tire, rim, side panel and door. The estimate was about $1500 in damage. (so much labor) I am just sick over it but we want DS to have the nice car he got for his birthday and he cannot drive it without the new tire and rim at all. Poor kid. State Farm says more and more people are leaving with out a note or anything. He is having as much trouble with the lesson about how people behave as he is that his car is damaged.

I'm so sorry to read this! My mom was using my then-still practically new car one day years ago, and somebody drifted out of their lane and slammed into the left side of my car. She continued a few feet to pull off the side of the road, thinking they were going to the parking lot as well to get out of the road, but then they looked in the mirror at her and tore off. It did about $1100 worth of damage; it took the paint off and bashed in part of my door and the area just above my tire. I was so angry at those people. Not only was I mad about my car, I was upset even more because my mom's neck got messed up (whiplash). She couldn't get the license plate, so they got off scott free. But I reminded myself what goes around comes around, and someday they'll have to answer for that.

 

[Tink & Goofy]

Please do infer that of me! I am a hotel snob, and proud of it. I just don't have the budget to back it up. So I just have to bite my tongue and think of the good things in life when I'm staying in what I see as inferior hotels.

I'm not a hotel snob. As long as it has clean sheets, an a/c, soft towels, hot water, and a pool and/or jacuzzi, I'm good to go.

I can't imagine smacking into someone's car and not saying anything. That's so mean and rude.
It's not because I believe in karma, because I don't. I know too many people who have gotten away with a lot of stuff to know that it doesn't always come around to bite you in the butt.

 

[MeghansMommy]

We better tell sorcerordonald she needs a bigger room!

and cheese soup in Canada... and margaritas in Mexico.. and...

My mouth literally watered when I read cheese soup. Oh my - does that sound wonderful now!

I forgot to tell you about DS car. He got hit last Sunday at Jack in the Box. They didn't stop. Exactly 1 week after he got the car for his 16th birthday. But I already complained about that part.

Thankfully we had put full coverage on it and our insurance is fixing it minus the $500 deductible. What I thought was just a bad scratch turns out to be a damaged tire, rim, side panel and door. The estimate was about $1500 in damage. (so much labor) I am just sick over it but we want DS to have the nice car he got for his birthday and he cannot drive it without the new tire and rim at all. Poor kid. State Farm says more and more people are leaving with out a note or anything. He is having as much trouble with the lesson about how people behave as he is that his car is damaged.

Isn't it a shame that people aren't honest anymore? I feel for your son. $500 is a lot of money!

Okay, I haven't been paying attention to the news, and I skipped about 30 pages of this thread (no time to catch up), but exactly who has BO chosen for his cabinet? I've heard Hillary as SoS, but has she accepted?

I don't think she'd be wise to do so if she ever plans to run for Pres again.

What was the meeting with McCain about the other day? I've kind of been in a vacuum lately with all of the home repairs and I haven't been keeping up.

Thanks!

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I'm not a hotel snob. As long as it has clean sheets, an a/c, soft towels, hot water, and a pool and/or jacuzzi, I'm good to go.

I can't imagine smacking into someone's car and not saying anything. That's so mean and rude.
It's not because I believe in karma, because I don't. I know too many people who have gotten away with a lot of stuff to know that it doesn't always come around to bite you in the butt.

Ah, I don't believe in karma that much myself. I'm thinking more along the lines of each individual person's Judgement Day, where they'll have to answer for what they did that they never made right/asked God for forgiveness for and truly were sorry about.