First, a heartfelt thank you to our gracious host, thanks Lance, I'll try not to be too much of an arse, as our cousins across the water would say.

As for myself, I am not a man of letters or learning. Aside from a GED and several NCO Career Development courses taken while in the US Army, I am just an opinionated individual. A voracious reader and collector of books. Not just novels, all books. Text books and encyclopedias are a passion with me. Military history and general history were my first obsession, and I still haunt estate sales and used book stores looking for tomes of interest or usefulness.

And I read everything. Even when I strenuously disagree with the author.

I am also a news junkie. Surprise, surprise! I run several feeds for news services from all over the world, and yes, I think Al Jazeera is not a bad news source. Their bias is quite open and easily discerned, unlike CNN,ABC,CBS and NBC. All of whom pretend to have a detached objectivity that my 12 year old son sees through with ease.  The point being, if you want to know what is going on in the world you have to ask them what live in it. Depending solely upon TV/Cable or newspapers will leave you to be caught flatfooted and blindsided by issues that are right in front of you.

Lance covers topics from all across the spectrum, and I will try to rise to his standard. Limiting oneself to a narrow field of view is a good way to get killed, as one of my Artillery Forward Observer instructors was wont to say. And it is high time we all expanded our fields of view, for our enemies abound and are working hard to drag us all down.

                                                                                                             2Hotel9