Rush Limbaugh Program - November 17, 2006, Friday, Hour #1

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Nov. 17, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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November 17, 2006, Friday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	Well, don't sound so excited in there.
	Okay, Rush, time to start.
	That's the cue I get.
	You people never hear it.
	Okay, let's go.
	Okay, well, let's go.
	It's Friday.
	Let's go.
	Live from the Southern Command in Sunny, South Florida.
	It's open line Friday.
	And this is gonna be a doozy.
	This is gonna be a good lifestyle section alone today.
	Could be the entire program, ladies and gentlemen.
	It won't be, but it could be.
	All right.
	Let me give you the telephone number.
	It's 800-282-2882, and the email address is rush at EIB net.com.
	And on Friday, we change it up a bit.
	Monday through Thursday, callers are only allowed to talk about things I care about.
	I'm not gonna sit here and be bored.
	On Friday, I'll do that.
	To extend total freedom to uh people on the phone.
	So we go to the phones, the program is all yours.
	You have to look at this show as though I am a benevolent dictator.
	Nobody has the right to speak unless I grant it, and nobody has the right to be heard.
	I and so it's uh it's always fun.
	Again, 800-282-288-2.
	Folks, I had the most amazing uh well, what was I Wednesday night and third most amazing day and a half in Washington.
	Uh I want to tell you about as much of it as possible.
	Last night was the uh the Rush to Excellence tour at the Warner Theater in Washington was packed.
	Uh beautiful place, two thousand people.
	The uh proceeds for the affair did not go to me.
	I, contrary to all others in this business, take no honorario when I make any speech ever and I when I make a speech, I pay my own expenses to go there and get back, and I don't accept any honorarium.
	All the proceeds went to uh the Fisher's house or the Fisher Houses.
	Now, the Fisher houses are sort of like the Ronald McDonald houses for injured military personnel.
	They were started by a great man named Zach Fisher, who I got to know during uh uh my time with the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
	Zach Fisher and his brother were prominent uh in New York and and devoted almost all of their charitable giving to the umited states military.
	Uh Marine Corps Law Enforcement uh Foundation uh the heavily involved in the USS Intrepid Air and Space Museum in New York.
	And they've built uh something like 32 of these houses, and they are to accommodate family members of soldiers and military personnel who are wounded in action uh anywhere, uh predominantly now Iraq and uh and Afghanistan.
	So on uh on I guess yesterday morning I got up and um had uh visit to the fishes on the grounds of Walter Reed uh Army Medical Center and went to the house uh to see it, and they're just gorgeous houses.
	They are they are just they're stunningly gorgeous, and they've got lots of bedrooms and and sometimes people are in these houses for three, four, six months at a time, may go back home for a weekend or something, take care of local affairs, but they stay there while their family members are recuperating uh in the hospital.
	Some of the recuperating soldiers also stay uh in these houses.
	After a quick tour of the house, it was up to the Walter Reed Army Hospital uh itself for a visit to the wing where amputees are undergoing rehabilitation, both occupational rehab and and uh uh therapeutic rehab.
	And I folks, I tell you I've I've I've this is my first time, and these people are uh the these men and women that are in the United States Armed Forces, and I've always known this, but they're just a different breed.
	They are they're such a cut above.
	Uh I walked in there and just my my first glance around, I got a I got a lump in my throat, and I and I I am not exaggerating.
	I I I walked in that room and I and we had about five or six in our group.
	And here are people who have lost both legs above the knee, one leg and one arm, uh, shrapnel wounds all over their bodies, and they're and every darn one of them was smiling.
	And they were working hard to try to get back to um uh in fact most of them I said I would go out and talk to them and I said um uh when do you get out?
	Where do you live?
	Where do you want to get them most of them want to re-enlist.
	Not for combat, but they want to re-enlist for communications or something.
	They want to stay in the U.S. military.
	And these people uh anywhere from uh late teens to mid-20s, and they were all just smiling, and I asked every one of them I talked to you if you got what you need, and they'd look at me and kind of surprised, oh yes, yes, sir.
	We have have have everything that that we need.
	Um they were uh many of them uh listeners of this program and their family members, it was really I said I've walked in there and I almost felt unworthy to go in this room.
	And I feel that uh more and more when I'm when I'm around people uh veterans, combat in the uh in the U.S. Armed armed forces.
	I I felt like I'm not I'm not good enough to be in this room with what these and these people have I mean lost significant parts of their bodies uh defending the country and and protecting the country and performing their orders and missions and and to watch them all smiling and and uh uh laughing and going about their uh their work was just it was uh beyond touching.
	Now we we we drove over there from the uh Fisher house and we got to the uh medical center itself, and it was a pretty long hike from the front door to this wing.
	It was in one of the far quadrants of the building.
	And we got right up to where we're supposed to be, and then they put a stop on us.
	Our our uh our little entourage said, Hold on, hang on just a second, and they told us that they had to go into the into the uh amputation therapy room, rehab room, to uh make sure everything was okay in there, uh and they were ready for visitors and so on.
	Just be five minutes or so.
	So we uh we hung around, we loitered and talked to people outside in the halls, and then finally got to go ahead to go in.
	So I went in and I experienced all that I just shared with you.
	And when I got we got near the end of the tour of the people that I spoke to, and I probably spoke to ten or twelve, and there were maybe twenty people in there undergoing rehab, and they're in there all day, they're really running in shifts.
	And uh this one woman whose husband was sitting on a bed, he had lost both of his legs, he was he we lost both his legs just below his waist.
	And he's sitting on the bed and he's uh he's working on upper body exercises, and he got a big smile on his face too, and his wife comes up to me and says, uh, Mr. Limbaugh, my husband would like to meet you and um and and tell you something.
	So I walked over and he said, I wish you could have been here five minutes earlier.
	I said, Why?
	He said, because John Kerry was here.
	And I said, Well, no wonder they held us outside in a holding pattern for five minutes because Carrie was wandering around in there.
	And I wish they hadn't held us out.
	That would have been cool.
	So I asked the guy, well, would Kerry say anything to you?
	He said, No.
	I think he just walked around, he might have said a couple words to a couple people, but just walked around and looked and left.
	And the guy, the soldier said to me, I wish he would have said something to me because I wanted to say to him, Senator, I'm sorry, I'm too stupid to understand what you just said.
	And everybody just got this everybody has laughed.
	Uh it's the last thing you expect to happen in a place like this.
	But it was you talk about inspirational and motivation, and to talk about uh I mentioned this last night in uh in on uh on stage at the Warner Theater.
	Anytime I start getting down in the dumps, and we it all happens, all of us, uh uh you just think about what I saw in Afghanistan, I think about what I saw yesterday, and it it tends to put I know everything's relative, and when people get depressed, there are reasons for it, and you can't live everybody else's life in comparison to your own or live your life in comparison to theirs, but still it helps put it in in perspective.
	But it was just uh I think we're there for 45 minutes or an hour, and it was one of the most meaningful periods of time uh that I have have ever spent.
	Uh I asked them, I said, is does it bother you when people come in here?
	Do you feel like you're sort of uh uh in a circus and people wander around, no, no, we love people coming in here.
	We love to have people come in here because some of them are there for six months, some of them are in hospital beds that long before they can get out and go to places like the Fisher House or be discharged uh back to their homes.
	Uh and they were for all over the country, from San Antonio from Los Angeles and Chicago, uh, Buffalo, uh just all over the place.
	And they're just I I I I guess I'm overdoing this and saying it so often, but I couldn't get over their attitudes and their uh their their happiness and their optimism.
	It was truly uh a learning exercise for me.
	I'm just sorry that we missed Senator Carey.
	That uh that would but I guess Walter Reed think, this is not the place for that to happen.
	So another day and another time.
	As to the um as to the performance last night, uh I I think it went close to two hours, and it was just a hoot.
	I had such a great time.
	And I have to tell you, I I I received one of the most lump in my throat introductions from Chris Corps of WMAL that I can remember receiving from anybody.
	Now a lot of people have introduced me to places and they've done great jobs, and I don't mean to slight anybody here, but it was it just it had me open-mouthed.
	Uh well, I d I don't I we've got you, I don't we've got the audio.
	We're going through it now.
	I think they said if we want to play some excerpts of the thing.
	We will have the audio of the whole show uh when we update the website later this afternoon for members.
	And uh we also videotaped it.
	I'll take a look at that before I decide to uh to release it.
	Uh also their morning too Fred team that was out there, Fred uh Fred Grandy and his partner were out there that's part of a Troika, but Chris did the actual introduction to me.
	And uh I met there was a fourth WMAL host backstage who who was not part of the introduction to me, Jerry Klein, he's the pet liberal at uh WMAL, calls himself that.
	So I thought, well, hell, his side won the election.
	He's been slighted here.
	So uh I figured it was time to, you know, when I when I got out there, did a couple things.
	I brought him out to be introduced too.
	Uh because in this new spirited bipartisanship and and uh and getting along, I I wanted Jerry to participate too.
	And he works there, he's pet liberal.
	It's got to be tough for him, even though he's side uh his side won.
	But everybody at WMAL did uh did a bang up job.
	It was just uh it was just fabulous.
	I uh I had dinner at the vice president's home on Wednesday night when I arrived.
	Uh dinner for about 50 there, and uh I went over to the White House yesterday morning before going to the Fisher House and had a little session with a friend there who used to work at a think tank and uh in Carl Rove and in Carl Rove's office.
	And that was uh that was interesting to say the least.
	Uh what?
	What?
	Yeah, it was Carl Rove's office in the well, it's in the West Wing, the White House.
	Yeah, it was Carl Rose, yeah, went in there and was in there for about an hour and a half, and then I had to go over to the uh Fisher House.
	It was oh, and had lunch, I stayed at the four seasons under an assumed name, I always do that.
	And I had lunch yesterday with uh with Laura Ingram, and we're sitting there, and I I'm looking over the not too many people in there.
	It was a one o'clock, and I'm looking at it.
	I said, Is that Mac McClarty over there?
	And she said, Yeah, that's Mac McLearty.
	Mac McClarty, the first, what was he, chief of staff for Clinton?
	Uh Mac the knife, Mac Mac the Fixer.
	So he gets up, he's in there for about 30 minutes more eating his lunch and finishing.
	And as he gets up to leave, he glances over and waves and keeps walking and then stops dead in his tracks and make a right turn, head over to our table.
	He comes over, says hello to Ingram, and then says, looks at me, he says, Aren't you're that guy that uh that uh was in that Harry Thomason show that week.
	He was talking about my my appearance in Hearts of Fire, way back in the early 90s.
	Uh Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth Thomas and the husband and wife team that created the show.
	It was with Marky Post and John Ritter, and I I was in it for a whole week.
	It took a week to rehearse it and film it.
	I said, Yeah, that's me.
	I'm I'm the guy that was in Harry Thomas' show.
	Anyway, a little long here in the segment, a quick timeout, ladies, and we'll be back.
	We will continue in mere moments.
	Stay with us.
	I just I just got an email from a friend.
	Rush.
	Bo Schembeckler dies.
	Will inspire Michigan win versus Ohio State Saturday.
	Well, I guess he died just in time then.
	How about this OJ business, ladies and this book and the uh the the literal uh what would you this is there's a there's hysteria over this.
	Uh you know what the the the people that I find interesting about this, the people that are the most outraged about the OJ book and what it means for our culture are the very people themselves who have contributed to um the rot in in our culture.
	It's just hey, he was acquitted.
	The jury spoke.
	We'll have more on this as the program unfolds.
	I should also mention last night, ladies and gentlemen, you know there's always uh uh a little reception backstage before these rush to excellence performances begin.
	And uh there were all kinds of people last night, and I'm I'm in the line, people come up, say hello, we post for pictures.
	Am I halfway through?
	Here come Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele of uh of Maryland.
	And it was so great to meet him.
	He was just he was uh dignified, he's just such a presence.
	He ran such a great campaign.
	It was uh the such a disappointing uh loss, and he stayed for the show, and I I happen to remember about I guess ten or twenty minutes in.
	I said, by the way, I I had the chance to meet the Lieutenant Governor Steele, he's here tonight, and the place erupted.
	So he stood up and uh accepted his accolades, place just erupted.
	But it was a it was it was tremendous atmosphere, a lot of energy uh last night.
	All right, I predicted too, you ladies and gentlemen, that the uh economic news would all of a sudden become rosy and wonderful.
	Here we go from uh Janine Aversa from Al AP.
	Consumer confidence climbed to a two-month high as two-month high now, as good jobs, climate, lower fuel bills, and the outcome of the midterm elections brightened people's feelings about the economy and their own financial fortunes.
	The election is a week over, and we now have a little over a week over, and we have an AP story out claiming that you are enthusiastic.
	Now you're feeling better about your c we got I almost had this exact quote uh in in a in a in a program earlier this week.
	That the the people are gonna be it's gonna be reported that people now think, oh, wow, it's really great out there.
	The Democrats won.
	And well, how's housing starts at a six-year low today, but you have to dig deep to find that story.
	But though the housing starts, they haven't had a chance to rebound yet from the uh Democrat victory, but uh consumer conference, why that was you could sample that on Wednesday.
	Folks, this John Edwards situation at Walmart.
	There is something seriously wrong with this man, and I have known that there is something seriously wrong with this man for as long as he has been in public.
	There is a there that this guy has an image and an aura that uh that follows him around that is as phony as a three dollar bill.
	This story where he he outsources his Christmas shopping.
	He has a volunteer go into a Walmart in North Carolina to get one of these PlayStation 3 things.
	How about the hysteria over that?
	Hell, people are people are being robbed standing in line.
	People are being held up after they get their PlayStation 3.
	Anyway, here's Edwards, he sends in this volunteer to get this um this PlayStation 3.
	Doesn't, and here he's he's he's giving speeches all over the country, the minimum wage got to go up, and he used the volunteer.
	He wouldn't even pay somebody a minimum wage to go and stand in line, and then he had call Walmart and wanted to go to the front of the line, want to have his volunteer go to the front of the line, but the real thing about this, and Walmart issued a uh uh a statement.
	I think they've they've pulled the statement.
	Uh but Walmart uh they said in their release on the same day Edwards was criticizing the company at a conference call with union-backed activists, the volunteer staff member who had asked a Raleigh North Carolina electronics department manager who tainted a PlayStation 3 for the ex-Senators family.
	And on the on the call, the conference call talking to these union guys, Edwards repeated a story about his son Jack.
	We're talking six-year-old son here.
	His son Jack disapproving of a classmate buying sneakers at Walmart.
	There is no six-year-old that buys anything anywhere.
	The parents do, but what what is the point of this story?
	If a six-year-old can figure it out, America can definitely figure this out, Edward said, saying that Walmart's not a place to go shop.
	Walmart's done more for average Americans than the Democratic Party in all its years.
	But this is, folks, there's two things.
	Either he if this story is true, if a six-year-old Edwards kid is berating friends because they get stuff from Walmart, that's pathological.
	Can you imagine what's going on in the Edwards House?
	How does the kid know what Walmart is?
	And how does he learn to make fun of people who go there, if not for his parents?
	He's been taught to hate.
	This kid, if it's not true, if Edwards just made this up, then we have serious problems here.
	And I don't, I'm not convinced which side of this story, which version is true.
	Back in just a second.
	It's open line Friday, and we will be getting to the phones in mere moments.
	I just can't let this Edwards thing go, folks.
	This is Carrie esque.
	This is Clinton-esque.
	This is not this is not normal.
	It is not, it is not loving.
	It is it's it's duplicitous.
	I mean, here you have a man reputed to be a legitimate contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
	The Breck girl.
	Remember, too, that the Breck girl in the 2004 campaign assured people that Christopher Reeve would walk only if John Edwards or John Kerry were re-elected.
	I uh I'm trying to restrain myself here because this is simply I don't care about him trying to get a PlayStation 3.
	And I it's very typical that somebody who really thinks he's better than everybody else and prominent would call up a volunteer.
	I don't have Tom to stand along.
	I'm John Edwards.
	So send some schlub to do it.
	Don't pay him anything.
	No, no, no, no.
	You're big dead.
	No, send a volunteer.
	Don't even pay him the minimum wage.
	Which is one of the Democrats' big issue.
	Well, that's right.
	Wasn't even standing in line.
	That's that's right.
	I don't, but that's typical.
	I mean, people in power, uh, they go call Walmart.
	Hey, come uh John Edwards.
	And Walmart knows who Edwards is out there trying to destroy Walmart.
	So how would I go about getting a PS3?
	Well, uh I What?
	Who said Brian?
	What?
	Oh no, I wouldn't, no, no, no, no.
	I've got if I wanted a PlayStation, when the PlayStation 2 came out and this whole thing was happening, it was a phone call away.
	Phone call away.
	Got, in fact, I got I got yes, I got I got three of them from Los Angeles.
	That's that's where my connection is.
	I think it took two or three days.
	But um, well, I got them.
	It weren't for me.
	I've never played a PlayStation 3.
	Uh but the you guys are distracting me.
	This I'm trying to be serious with this Edwards business.
	You, you people, you know, everybody's getting revved up about the presidential election.
	You've got McCain out there, if I didn't know better, trying to sound like me.
	Uh and and you've got and you've got Rudy out there, and it's it's early.
	I I'm not gonna get into presidential handicapping business, and I'm not gonna tell you who I think I didn't even talk about this last night, because frankly, right now I'm not interested in who gets a nomination.
	It's so far off, so much is gonna happen between now and then that to get invested in it right now when I don't even think all the candidates have shown up is uh is a waste of time.
	It's it's it's part of being liberated, it's part of not carrying the water.
	You know, let these guys sick or swim on their own.
	I'm I'm uh when they do something worth prodding, I'll applaud.
	When I do something worth criticizing, uh I'll criticize it, but I'm not gonna spend the next two years pretending the presidential election is tomorrow.
	Because it isn't.
	We're gonna have more fun watching the Democrats.
	Pelosi and and the Democrat leadership.
	I I was I finally got back to hotel yesterday afternoon, about four o'clock, turned on TV for the first time all day.
	I thought I'd been speaking that night.
	I'd I'd better find out what's in the news today.
	And the first thing I see is videotape of uh of the Democrats coming out of their caucus room, heading to the microphones To announce the results of their election, I thought I was watching Mars attacks.
	You know, by the way, I ran into Pelosi gets her hair done at the four seasons.
	And I ran into her yesterday afternoon.
	She seems surprised to see me.
	But she seems surprised all the time, those wide open eyes are.
	And I didn't run into her, but she does get her hair done there.
	Anyway, now back back to this John Edwards.
	You've got a little taste here of what's coming on the remainder of the program.
	But folks, seriously now.
	You call some schlub.
	Hey, calls Walmart, says, I'm from John Edwards' office.
	I want to get Mr. Edward's son of PlayStation 3 from Walmart.
	Wants to go to the front of the line, Walmart says, nope, he can stand in line like every other regular American can.
	And I think they've pulled that statement down.
	I want you to listen to a portion of uh of a conference call.
	This is before we learned of the PlayStation 3 in the Walmart story involving the Brett Girls, a national conference call, a montage.
	We put this together of Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards talking about wages and Walmart.
	You've got to pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Walmart, but hopefully uh send their kids to college and save for retirement.
	Walmart is making a large profit, and they don't have foreign competition.
	What they are doing, though, is driving wages down significantly for uh not only workers at Walmart, but they're also driving down wages for competitors.
	Being able to earn a living wage, being able to have the health care coverage they need.
	That's that's what's at stake in this in this wake up Walmart campaign.
	Wake up Walmart campaign.
	Now, and then shortly after this, this hypocrite sends a volunteer schlub to try to crack the line at a Walmart to get his kid, a PlayStation 3, and he tells the story of his kid, his six-year-old, chiding his friends for wearing sneakers bought at Walmart.
	And Edward saw, I didn't know he's gonna call Walmart to get one of these.
	But aside from all of that, I want to focus on what nobody else is focusing on when they report the story, and that is I don't have a six-year-old, but I've been one, and I I've been around some.
	I mean, my my brother has kids, 14 to age two, so most of them have been six.
	And I don't think any one of my nephews or nieces would ever go out and make fun of a kindergarten classmate for having something at Walmart.
	There's no way a kid would know this unless the parents are out there telling him.
	What must this six-year-old, if he really if this really happened?
	See, that's I'm not sure this really happened.
	This could just be a made-up story.
	Like Kerry makes up stories on the campaign trail, all kinds of stories Carrie made up.
	Clinton's made up a few.
	And this just sounds, this just sounds tailored to appeal to these union thugs that are behind this anti-Walmart campaign who support the Brett girls trying to get.
	So they tell these unions that, yeah, my six-year-old, why, let me get the quote straight.
	Uh, repeated a story about his son Jack disapproving of a classmate buying sneakers at Walmart.
	This is supposed to impress the union guys that in the Edwards house, Walmart's getting trashed every day.
	And the Edwards kids are being raised right.
	They're being raised to hate Walmart.
	There is hate going on in the Edwards home.
	My gosh, I know kids can be vicious to one another, and I know especially kids that uh, you know, kids can be mean.
	I mean, everybody's mean and can't be, and they don't have the maturity yet to know, and they uh and it's it's entirely possible that the son of a rich guy could run around and be making fun of poor people by saying, How dare you buy your kids at Walmart when the kids' family may be able to only afford to go there.
	Um, but still, this six-year-old doesn't know diddly squat about Walmart unless he's hearing it from his parents.
	And that's the thing that nobody is talking about in this story.
	And I just I I find that of all the details of this thing the most interesting and the most curious.
	And I'm folks, I'm telling you, watch out for this guy, because there's this is not only not genuine, this is phony, and it's not it's it's it's beyond disbelievable.
	There is something seriously wrong with with this kind of combined behavior, all the elements of uh of this story.
	All right, let's let's um oh no, no, no.
	I got one more companion story to this, and it is a story from um our affiliate there, WRAF.
	No, no, it's the TV station uh in uh in in Raleigh.
	Uh the PlayStation 3 gaming console doesn't go on sale until Friday today, but people are already lining up to buy it.
	Uh outside one Carrie North Carolina store.
	The line started forming just before noon on Wednesday.
	Uh and gamers and people trying to make a buck are going to great lengths to get their hands on the latest electronic craze.
	Now, what this story is about is the guy who lives in the uh they call it the triangle area down there, and and uh he just this guy ran rings around the Breck girl in getting a PlayStation 3 and caring for the poorest among us.
	What did the Bret girl do?
	The Bret girl gets hold of a schlub volunteer, calls up, tries to get in front of the line, while Walmart knows exactly what Edwards' position on their business and their company is.
	This guy went down to the homeless shelter to a homeless shelter.
	He hired some homeless guys at a hundred dollars a day plus food to wait in line for him.
	This guy is an entrepreneur, shows true care for the poor by finding ways to appeal out of his own self-interest.
	By the way, this is how free market economics works.
	This guy, you know, you've always heard me talk about how self-interest is not selfishness.
	Self-interest is a great thing because it accomplishes a lot.
	If you're a parent, if you're a breadwinner in your family, your self-interest is the best thing in the world for your family.
	So this guy wanted a PlayStation 3, a bunch of them.
	So he goes to the homeless shelter, hires these homeless guys, hundred bucks a day plus food to stand in line for him.
	It's his own self-interest.
	He wanted it, but his time is more valuable to other things.
	It spread good cheer, it spread money to these homeless people.
	They actually had to work even though it was standing in line, but they had to work, they had to commit themselves to time.
	So he appealed to his own self-interest and their self-interest.
	Everybody mutually benefited here.
	Uh it's a win-win situation.
	In fact, while a TV station was there, the truck used to transport the men from the homeless shelter returned with food for these homeless guys.
	Abdul Salem said he and a friend came up with the idea.
	They said they planned to pay the men a hundred dollars a day, stand in line for a ticket to purchase a PS3 unit.
	It costs around six hundred dollars.
	Now, here's an average guy, I'm sure that John Edwards has contempt for him, but here's an average guy who found a way to get a PlayStation 3 without bucking the line, without asking for preferential treatment, with no hate involved, hundred dollars a day to some homeless guys, and a truck shows up to feed them while they're in line.
	Now, there is somebody with genuine compassion and free market sense.
	What what a story in the aftermath of the death of the great Milton Friedman, about whom we will speak on the program.
	By the way, we interviewed him.
	I did for the limball lettering back in 1995, and we're going to post that interview at rushlimbaugh.com.
	I think as soon as we can get it up, uh we will do that.
	Back here in just a second.
	Stay with us.
	Okay, now it's back to the phones.
	Here on the EIB network, Yell Rushball 800 282-2882.
	Randy in Savage, Minnesota.
	Your first today, and it's uh great to have you on the program.
	Thank you, Rush.
	It's great to be the inaugural uh uh call on uh this wonderful Friday, by the way, Teradetto's from the frozen tundra of Flyover Country.
	Thank you, sir.
	Yes.
	You know, your your comment about the Fisher House and so forth uh reminded me of the fact that I'm I'm friends of one of the band of brothers who happened to live back here in Minnesota.
	And in May, he went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for a reunion.
	And he came back.
	He and I spent an hour on the phone with him telling me how incredibly impressed he is with 101st Airborne that he saw.
	And he said, Randy, I don't think I could have gone through and passed the training that these guys go through.
	But what impressed him even more was the fact that he said these guys want to go back for their second and third tour of duties in Iraq, you said with injuries and wounds that would have put us out of World War II, and we would have been happy to get them.
	He was just he was so amazing in an awe of these guys, said a guy, active duty combat, Bass Stone, severely wounded in Bass Stone, and he's talking about how much he is in awe of these men today.
	Yeah, I tell you there was a guy I met last night who uh called me on this program.
	His last name was Rosell.
	And he uh uh suffered uh a leg injury, and it was determined he would never be able to get back, and he did, passed the tests for combat to get back, I think as an amputee.
	If I'm not confusing him, I hope I'm not confusing somebody here.
	I th whoever I'm talking about wrote a book about this, and it was inspirational, just the kind of person that you're talking about.
	And uh this this man Rosell was there yesterday, and my m my memory wasn't clicking uh at the time because there was uh there were a barrage of people talking to me about things, and I was trying to keep things straight, and it's a difficult hearing uh environment, and if I'm confusing it with somebody, I apologize.
	But I do know that he called this program and told a similar story about this, and uh it was he was he was talking about how uh how how great it was to be able to meet me, and you know that that's kind of stuff that it's it's the other way around for me.
	But your observation is exactly right.
	When I saw these guys at Walter Reed yesterday, uh they know th these injuries are severe.
	I mean, losing both legs or an arm and a leg uh or or an arm.
	They know they're not going back to combat, but they won't stay in.
	Um they're gonna they're they're looking forward to when one guy was engaged, uh said, What's the date?
	Don't know we're gonna set it this December.
	Uh how often how often do you get to see your girlfriend?
	Not enough, because she's working some military job in Guatemala.
	So doesn't get to see her as often as he would like, but they're gonna set a date.
	I mean they're they're looking at at their future um as robustly as anybody looks at their future.
	And when you see them, you just you you think that if it happened to you that you'd be consumed with self-pity and you'd be consumed with uh, oh my gosh, I can't live a normal life and so forth.
	And they've you know, I'm sure they go for rehabilitation for that too.
	There's probably a lot of psychological therapy, but the point is the ones I saw, and it was j it w they were just magnificent in in the way they and they did not want to be treated as anything other than uh perfectly normal human.
	They didn't want to be treated as disabled or anything else.
	Uh and they didn't want sympathy or anything.
	And that's why I asked if it was if it sometimes bothered them that people came in.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	We we love it when people come in here.
	Uh there sometimes it gets old just seeing the same old people.
	Anyway, Randy, thanks for the call.
	Jordan in Boone, North Carolina, you're next, and welcome to the EIB network, sir.
	Hey, to digos from a rush baby right now.
	Thank you, sir.
	I am 16, I'm a homeschooler.
	I own my own uh computer repair business.
	So as you can imagine, I'm quite a geek, and uh I've always known you.
	Uh I'm I'm I'm a 24-7 subscriber, so I see you on the data cam occasionally.
	I see you with your 30-inch uh cinema display from Mac and a new computer.
	Exactly right.
	Exactly right.
	Exactly.
	It's beautiful to behold.
	Um and it uh I've always wondered back in the day when computers are first coming out, what made you decide to uh to get a Mac versus a PC?
	And uh Well it's it's very simple.
	The uh uh radio station I was working at KFBK Sacramento program director there, consultant, uh was from San Francisco and had a Mac.
	And it's just what I learned on.
	And it was after I learned on it that I then saw PCs, and this was before the PC crowd had stolen the G UI from uh Apple, who stole it from Zerox or whatever, but I I I when I when I saw how many keystrokes I was gonna need to duplicate a mouse click, I said, I I uh I so I just I just started with Mac, it's what I learned on, I've become proficient at it.
	Uh and and uh I've I've I've grown to love it.
	I I think it's for what it does, it's better than anything on the market.
	And I know that they probably hate me for saying it, they're big libs at Apple.
	But uh that it's just what I started with is the basic answer, it's what I learned on.
	Well, I tell you, I mean I've done a lot of computer repair with PCs and Macs, and I don't use Macs all that often.
	I'd love to be a Mac user if I just um I'm working on saving up for that.
	But uh Well, hang on, hang on, hang on a minute.
	I've got I've got to go to a break here.
	Okay, ha hang on here and uh uh we'll continue.
	It may be a while, because I've really run up against the programming here, but don't don't uh go anywhere out there, Jordan.
	We'll be right back.
	Stay.
	Oh no.
	Oh no!
	Pollution pollution could combat global warming, and forest fires may actually cool the climate.
	Oh no!
	And it snowed when Al Gore went to Arizona or Australia for a global warming meeting.

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