Independence Day !!

A day to sit back with a cold beer and a hot dog and celebrate the genuis and courage of our founding fathers, 231 years ago this day....would only some of that courage and foresight be present in the leaders of today!

But this is a happy day, a day to lift a toast to the birth of a great nation, and I'll let others make the salient points for me:

"There, I guess King George will be able to read that."
-- John Hancock, after signing the Declaration of Independance

I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country’s, my God’s and Truth’s. I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American."
- Daniel Webster

"Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be."
- John Wayne

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.”
—Ronald Reagan

The Fourth of July is a special time to celebrate the freedoms we have, hard fought and won at a great cost. Well we all should enjoy this day, and every day we have to live free, for to do less would be to waste the high price paid that we might.
-Robert Stokely, father of Sergeant Michael Stokely who was KIA by IED near Yusufiyah south of Baghdad

My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings that they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Monroe, June 17, 1785

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of Liberty.
- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag."
- Author Unknown

And what would Independence Day be without a good old-fashioned dose of patriotic cheesecake?

Mmmmm...Cheesecake.....

Happy 4th of July to all!