Hoo Boy! If it weren't so darn ironic I would just cry. Have been trying to get my orders cut through our travel section. First they had to get the right fund code for Operation Enduring Freedom from our TYCOM. After a couple of days of trying to find someone who actually knew what the fund code was it was provided with out restriction. Basically, the just handed us a blank check. We could assign that code to a document with any amount we desired and the money would be obligated. This is how you get 30,000 dollar hammers. Well it isn't real money anyway. The appropriation system is all smoke and mirrors. Congress gives Big Blue an appropriation for FYXX in the annual defense appropriation bill. The Navy (Big blue) takes that appropriation and parcels it out to its Fleet Commanders. The Fleet Coms give some to thier type commanders (TYCOMS). TYCOMS give some to their ISICs (squadrons, groups, wings) and the ISICS dole it out with an eye dropper to the operating units. Mind you, every stop along the way keeps a little extra for a rainy day. Every one of these organizations is keeping some form of accounting but what was given never matches what was spent until it reaches the highest level and then the books get cooked. No actual money changes hands, no cash, no bank account, only lines of accounting which represent money. These lines of accounting only exist for one fiscal year. If there happened to be unobligated "money" in one line of accounting at the end of the year, it vaporizes like cindarella's pumpkin barouche. Why is this important? Because, it was real money when it started out in you paycheck! Instead of going to provide food and goods for your family whom you worked an honest day to provide for it went to Uncle Sugar courtesy of the IRS. I am going to digress for a moment (like I am not already in left field) and talk about the tax system for a moment.

I believe the Federal Income Tax is an abomination. The government has no right to take and redistribute an individual's money. It is theft pure and simple. Our government functioned without an income tax for many years. Our founders were dead set against the concept. Abraham Lincoln levied one to support his brutal war of aggression against the south. He suceeded in conquering the Southrons with the proceeds of his income tax (awash in the blood of 600,000 americans) but it was promplty recinded. Was it justified? Only in the sense that providing for the common defense is a legitimate function of the federal government and Lincoln maintained that he was defending the union. Today our money is used by the handful to fund programs that the federal government has no business being involved in. The big government genei got out of the bottle in the 1860s and it has only been growing more powerful ever since. If the Fed would get back to only those powers authorized by the constitution we probably could do without an income tax again. In lieu of that a flat tax would be a better system. Provided that the government remembers the even God only asked for 10%.

Well I have gotten on a subject I am really not prepared to discuss or even defend my point of view. In closing let just quote patriots of old:

To The Tyrant Never Yield!