For those of you interested in what the three-day weekend is really all about, have a look at this link.  For those with firewall issues at work, I've pasted the relevant text of the link below.

As an aside, Memorial Day should be more hallowed than Veteran's Day, Armed Forces Day, and IMHO, even more than Independence Day.  Without the men and women who served you and me and "gave the last full measure of devotion" in our defense and for our futures, we would not be here, as we are now, enjoying the fruits from liberty's tree.  For myself, I am very grateful for them; I try to live my life in a way that honors their sacrifice and do what I can to ensure "that these dead shall not have died in vain."

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Memorial Day Background

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Local Observances Claim To Be First:  Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places. One of the first occurred in Columbus, Miss., April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh. Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves, as well.

Today, cities in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1866. Both Macon and Columbus, Ga., claim the title, as well as Richmond, Va. The village of Boalsburg, Pa., claims it began there two years earlier. A stone in a Carbondale, Ill., cemetery carries the statement that the first Decoration Day ceremony took place there on April 29, 1866. Carbondale was the wartime home of Gen. Logan. Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.

Official Birthplace Declared:  In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff. Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community-wide or one-time events.

By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May, as were some other federal holidays.

Some States Have Confederate Observances:  Many Southern states also have their own days for honoring the Confederate dead. Mississippi celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, and Georgia on April 26. North and South Carolina observe it on May 10, Louisiana on June 3 and Tennessee calls that date Confederate Decoration Day. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day January 19 and Virginia calls the last Monday in May Confederate Memorial Day.

Gen. Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. ... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

The crowd attending the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery was approximately the same size as those that attend today’s observance, about 5,000 people. Then, as now, small American flags were placed on each grave — a tradition followed at many national cemeteries today. In recent years, the custom has grown in many families to decorate the graves of all departed loved ones.

The origins of special services to honor those who die in war can be found in antiquity. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War over 24 centuries ago that could be applied today to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation’s wars: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

To ensure the sacrifices of America ’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The commission’s charter is to “encourage the people of the United States to give something back to their country, which provides them so much freedom and opportunity” by encouraging and coordinating commemorations in the United States of Memorial Day and the National Moment of Remembrance.

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada states: “It’s a way we can all help put the memorial back in Memorial Day.”

With the “Fairness Doctrine” the liberals and Democrats will try to make illegal the ideas against which they cannot compete, the values under which they cannot live, the freedom (of us) for which they cannot stand.  Arrogantly, they tell us it’s not about conservatism’s primary, remaining voice in talk radio, and they expect us to believe it.  Just like the bully who picked on the wrong person to fight, the Democrats and liberals are running to the teacher to falsely accuse the victim.  The gun-grab has been going on for decades and now, free-speech is under fire. 

It would be one thing, I think, if the fairness doctrine were to be evenly applied to all media.  Can you imagine MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MoveOn.org, and others being compelled to share opposing views?  The fact is, they wouldn’t.  The “opposing views” would be nothing more than a paper suit filled with a media opportunist looking to advance his or her career instead of actually standing for what’s right.  That person’s opposing view would be feeble, purposely fallacious, and made to appear weakly inadequate in the face of “complicated” issues.  The real enforcement would be against the giants of conservative radio.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but what would happen to those of you reading this blog?  Do you think the Democrats would stop at the old media with its “Fairness”?  Townhall and other conservative websites, user-groups, and blogs would be compelled by federal oversight to provide opposing views.
 
Much along the lines of my last post and a comment by trespasser williams, when only one side of an argument is presented, there is no debate, no embarrassing snares by a vigilant opponent, no outcome other than the singly presented side.   The socialist-fascists in the country want to quell all debate and silence any opposition to their views.  For decades, they have operated as though they are above the law and the little people to which it applies, demanding we give up our firearms while flagrantly carrying their own and surrounding themselves with heavily armed security guards; now they are going to try to push all debate aside and take away our First Amendment-protected speech in the process.   Indeed, there are two Americas here; there's the socialist-fascist cabal who wish to rule and preside, making laws that apply to everyone but themselves, and there's the real America.

Remember your U.S. history class; the First Amendment was created to protect political speech and press, not pornography and rap music.  Though the First Amendment shields these things also, its intent was to allow citizens the freedom to say as they pleased without repercussions from a tyrannical government.  What are the signs of a tyrannical government?  There are two:  1) a tyrannical government disarms its citizens and makes outlaws of those who choose to self-defend, and, 2) a tyrannical government punishes speech contrary to its central message or with which it doesn’t agree.  Oh, there’s a third sign; a tyrannical government tells you that its not taking these things away from you, pointing to its lapdogs as indicator of its truth, all the while carefully plucking liberty from your grasp.
 
It occurs to me as I wrap up my notes for this article that the Democrats' thirst for power is irrespective of the people over who they preside; if it's bona fide Americans, fine, if it's illegal aliens living within our borders, fine.   What matters is that the Democrats are the powerful elite standing on the shoulders of the oppressed, and it doesn't matter on who's shoulders they stand.  The liberals and Democrats have but one purpose; tyranny.
 
In my estimation the Democrats' goal is the invalidation and irrelevancy of the U.S. Constitution, the people it defends, and those who defend it.  They attack our principles and double-speak the meaning of the text into something that's not true, they put things into it that are not there (show me the Article or Amendment where abortion is protected), and they flatly ignore our wishes to return to what's there.
 
Thomas Jefferson said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

What was that?  I couldn't hear you.

"No event in American history is more misunderstood than [the invasion of Iraq]. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic." (with apologies to Richard Nixon)

As a people, some of us not acquainted with war or the histories of wars are frustrated by the slow going in Iraq.  It is unhelpful to the perception that the left-centric MSM sees fit to print, harp, and hype only the bad news and none of the good.

For instance, why haven't we heard about:

• the Iraqi government currently employing 1.2 million Iraqi people,
• the thirty-one hundred schools that have been renovated,
• the three hundred sixty-four schools being rehabbed,
• the two hundred sixty-three new schools under construction,
• the thirty-eight new schools that have been completed,
• the twenty operational universities,
• the forty-six operational colleges,
• the four research centers,
• the twenty-five Iraq students re-establishing the Fulbright program in the United States in January 2005,
• the Iraqi Navy  (such as it is: five 100-foot PT boats, thirty-four other vessels, and a Naval Infantry Regiment) being operational,
• the Iraqi Air Force (such as it is:  three squadrons each having nine recon aircraft and three US-made C-130 transports; soon to be added are sixteen UH-1 helos and four Bell Jet Rangers) being operational,
• the Iraqi counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion being operational,
• the Iraqi Police Service having over fifty-five thousand fully trained and equipped police officers, five police academies and thirty-five hundred new officers per graduating class (every eight weeks),
• the eleven hundred building projects in Iraq, of which there are three hundred sixty-four schools, sixty-seven public clinics, fifteen hospitals, eighty-three railroad stations, twenty-two oil facilities, ninety-three water facilities and sixty-nine electrical facilities,
• the ninety-six percent of Iraqi children under five years of age receiving their first two series of polio shots,
• the 4.3 million Iraqi children enrolled in primary school by mid October,
• the 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq; phone use has gone up 158%,
• the independent media consisting of seventy-five radio stations, one hundred eighty newspapers and ten TV stations,
• the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

(( source:  Department of Defense; http://www.defendamerica.mil/downloads/MNFI-Year-in-Review_2004-Fact-Sheets.pdf  ))

I don't have a good reason why we haven't heard about these things in deference to the Anna Nicole saga, Don Imus' on-air hate-speech, Rosie O'Donnell's on-air hate, the routine firing of eight U.S. Attorneys (just over eight percent of the U.S. Attorneys Reno / Clinton fired), and so on.  The evil at Virginia Tech was, of course, a very newsworthy event, even if the MSM and Democrats couldn't resist the immediate renewal of attacks on our civil rights (not the least of which the one secured by the Second Amendment).

Since we're talking about things we don't hear about, let’s talk about the casualties of the current front of the War on Terror.  We hear a lot about them, daily, trumpeted from on high as a huge price to pay - that someone else's freedom is not worth the terribly high price in human capital we're paying.  From the beginning of the War on Terror; Iraqi Front on March 20, 2003, we've lost 3,312 souls (as of April 17, 2007); this is 69 per month over forty-nine months.  Contrast to:

• WWI:  115,000 in seventeen months, or 6765 per month,
• WWII:  418,500 over four years (at .32% of the then-population, that would be 900,551 casualties today), or 8719 per month,
• Korea:  54,589 in three years, or 1516 per month,
• Vietnam:  58,148 in fifteen years, or 323 per month
• First Gulf War: 382 in five months, or 76 per month.

I don't mean to trivialize the sacrifice and honor each of these numbers represent; we would be in a much different world had those brave men and women not stood for the freedom of others.  It does put some perspective on the human cost of this war and shows just how little the left cares for the freedom of others (note that here, ‘others’ means anyone not them, including capitalistic, conservative, Constitutional Americans).

These numbers tell me the left, (by 'left', I include the Democrats, liberals, and the MSM) have lost the fortitude and stamina required to defend and protect freedom, yours, mine, or anyone’s.  Indeed, they're consistently saber-rattling about income redistribution for the poor and ardently striving for a socialistic, nanny-faced, welfare system in this country wherein they are the only ones with privilege, power, and promise.

Yet, there are people in Iraq that were oppressed by a powerful minority, abused, raped, and killed; we set them free and now they need our help to get on their feet.  Where is the Great Democrat Compassion, now?  They could very easily show their true colors for the humanity unfolding in Iraq right now.  Instead, they rush to cripple our society and force a shameful defeat in the name of petty political comeuppance for a sitting, wartime president in a bald-faced disingenuous bid for more seats in Congress.  Perhaps those are their true colors.

To those of you that elected these socialist power-mongers; did you really mean to undercut and dishonor our military and make the valiant sacrifice of those three thousand in vain; did you really mean to jeopardize the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights; did you really mean to shred the Constitution and separate yourselves from freedom, safety, and prosperity?

You should be very careful what you ask for.