"It was so hot I didn't know whether to fry an egg on the sidewalk or try to find me some ice cream." (Me)

As I was thinking about the heat index of 108 degrees that we hit yesterday, I looked up at the calendar, saw that it was Thursday, August 8, 2013, and thought to myself, well, that sounds about right. I didn't say that it feels about right because you never get used to that kind of heat, but, we do have some experience here in these parts in dealing with it. I do bid you welcome and thanks for showing up here at the place were blogs come and go including ones that never really got off the ground. There have been many times when I worked hard on something but it just never passed the gut check, therefore, I used my little erasing delete function to send it to the electronic garbage disposal. Wait a minute. I hear you. What about the ones that should have gone there but somehow they made it out on the web for all the world to see? I think we refer to those kinds of issues as being institutional. You know. They come with the territory. In any event, it is good that we can have this time together. I always look forward to it even though there may be days when the elevator doesn't quite make it to the top of my floor.

My neck is getting really tired from jerking forth and back. We have the terrorists on the run. They are practically destroyed. We are winning. Hold that thought. Now we are on the run. It appears they have not been destroyed. And, I suppose the definition of winning is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, as George W. might have said it, the beholder is the Definer in Chief. Meanwhile, we are shutting down embassies here and there all over the Middle East. While I know that much of what goes on in our nation's capital has to do with spin and PR, regardless of who holds office, it does get old when these types of situations arise. Don't get me wrong. If they have credible intelligence about threats against our people and our assets, we need to act. Just don't do the sing song everyday only to change both the tune and the song the next day. That causes people to be even more skeptical. We supposedly took all of these actions to protect ourselves because of a dangerous threat, but yet the President has not spoken about it until he went on one of the late night talk shows. I don't know about you but that just doesn't seem right to me.

Let me elaborate some on my use of supposedly. This credible intelligence is connected to the spying program that many folks are concerned about. Now we discover this credible information, therefore, we need the program, so let's not do anything to jeopardize its funding. See what I mean? In fact, I read just this week about a part of this surveillance that allows our spy folks to pass along information to local policing authorities. Here's the rub. They give them the info but the police have to come up with an excuse to stop the targeted person or vehicle. The spy people are not to be implicated in any way. They supposedly have caught many bad guys using this technique and have eliminated huge amounts of drugs and contraband. Sounds good. But wait just a minute. These people were identified and targeted but the folks who did the identification are left out of the process altogether. For prosecution purposes the entire encounter by the police is where it all begins. What's wrong? After all, they are bad guys. Right? At first glance one would need to think long and hard about that document that gives us all the rights we enjoy. It's called the United States Constitution. Then, just think about this type of program being used to target political enemies or folks who do not not agree with your policies. I would tell us all that we need to keep the word supposedly handy because it is not a bad word when it comes to staying alert. That's what we all should be doing. Paying attention and staying alert. Just some food for thought from my viewing platform, the one labeled: The View From Here. Have a great day and may God add His blessings to it. Amen.   ....More later.