SOCIALISM WITH A HUMAN FACE

In a grossly unfair and brutal (stab, stab, twist twist) fashion, I have co-opted the words of the President of the Final Czechoslovakia Republic for my own ends. Because I can and because they are both memorable and embody a desire for a little more freedom from government than the Socialists of the USSR were going to allow to anybody at the time.
On that note we turn to Congressman Mike Pompeo. He wrote a letter that you should read. It seems that one of the architects of Obamacare is a little dismayed at what a trainwreck it is and will be. I believe Max was disgruntled by this particularly terrifying face of socialism.

She's the one in charge.

REPOSTED and UPDATED.

The wheels were well off this thing before I posted this back in April but I liked characterization of the face of Obamacare given vent to here.

THIS IS BRILLIANT

The link is here.  I have copied out the best part, except for some of the comments which are pretty darned funny too.

Should this Court disagree, and feel inclined to let the parties basically pick their own designations and ban words, then the defense has a few additional suggestions for amending the speech code. First, the Defendant no longer wants to be called "the Defendant." This rather archaic term of art, obviously has a fairly negative connotation. It unfairly demeans, and dehumanizes Mr. Donald Powell. The word "defendant" should be banned. At trial, Mr. Powell hereby demands be addressed only by his full name, preceded by the title "Mister." Alternatively, he may be called simply "the Citizen Accused." This latter title sounds more respectable than the criminal "Defendant." The designation "That innocent man" would also be acceptable.

Moreover, defense counsel does not wish to be referred to as a "lawyer," or a "defense attorney." Those terms are substantially more prejudicial than probative. See Tenn. R. Evid. 403. Rather, counsel for the Citizen Accused should be referred to primarily as the "Defender of the Innocent." This title seems particularly appropriate, because every Citizen Accused is presumed innocent. Alternatively, counsel would also accept the designation "Guardian of the Realm." Further, the Citizen Accused humbly requests an appropriate military title for his own representative, to match that of the opposing counsel. Whenever addressed by name, the name" Captain Justice" will be appropriate. While less impressive than "General," still, the more humble term seems suitable. After all, the Captain represents only a Citizen Accused, whereas the General represents an entire State. 

Along these same lines, even the term "defense" does not sound very likeable. The whole idea of being defensive, comes across to most people as suspicious. So to prevent the jury from being unfairly misled by this ancient English terminology, the opposition to the Plaintiff hereby names itself "the Resistance." Obviously, this terminology need only extend throughout the duration of the trial — not to any pre-trial motions. During its heroic struggle against the State, the Resistance goes on the attack, not just the defense.WHEREFORE, Captain Justice, Guardian of the Realm and Leader of the Resistance, primarily asks that the Court deny the State's motion, as lacking legal basis. Alternatively, the Citizen Accused moves for an order in limine modifying the speech code as aforementioned, and requiring any other euphemisms and feel-good terms as the Court finds appropriate.

I always thought the law was too dry for me. Obviously, I can be wrong from time to time.

As a card caring liberal, I thought I'd include this picture since it reflects a trend I think ought to be nurtured by reasonable people of good will everywhere.

THE SOUTHERN PARTHENON

I never expected to see this.

One doesn't find them just everywhere. Not anymore. Not for several thousand years now.

SOME NEAT THINGS

There are some neat things here.

NO HONORS NO CEREMONY NO PHOTOS

The most expensive surface combatant ever built was stealthily plunged into the waters of the Kennebec River yesterday, without honors, ceremony or much in the way of photography. The one photo I can find anywhere of the launch of the $4 billion warship is this turd from the AP:

Dynamic isn't it?

The link above is to an Australian news service; the only news organization in the world that devoted a spec of coverage to the unusual incident on the rock bound coast of Maine. Nobody else was interested, not even the United States Navy. Why would they be? This stealthy 15,600 ton displacement ship, armed with 2 cannons, is the wave of the future of naval combat. Honestly, there's been more drama and fanfare over an unexpected turd in a swimming pool then the launch of this poor ship.

This is what warships of almost 14,000 ton displacement looked like 70 years ago:

USS ALBANY and her hideously expensive guns

USS CANBERRA and her hideously expensive guns + a surface to air missile system

Surface to Air Missile fired from USS CANBERRA

The USS Zumwalt will have enormous computers and command and control systems programmed by the same folks bringing us healthcare.gov and will have far fewer men and women embarked so it will save money. And THAT's the important thing. You don't save money building warships sans significant weapons for cheap you know.

A TRUE SEA STORY

A Short Vietnam Sea Story: USN KA-3B vs. Russian Trawler AGI

 

The Russian "Trawlers" (NATO designation: AGI for Auxiliary General Intelligence) with what looked like one thousand "fishing" antennas plied the Gulf of Tonkin on a daily basis...needless to say, it was a cat-and-mouse game to see what havoc they could expend towards our two carriers operating there 24 hours a day.

 

Since the U.S. government had proclaimed the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin three miles off the coast of North Vietnam and Hinan Island, People's Republic of China, to be international waters, American ships in the Gulf were bound to obey the international rules of the road for ocean navigation.

 

This meant that if the Russian ship maneuvered herself into the path of an aircraft carrier where she had the right of way, the carrier had to give way even if she was engaged in launching or recovering aircraft.

 

The navigation officer was constantly trying to maneuver the ship so that the trawler wouldn't be able to get in position to abuse the rules of the road and gain the right of way.

 

Sometimes he was successful in sucking the trawler out of position, but the room available for the ship to maneuver was limited by our on-station requirements, and sometimes the trawler was successful interrupting our flight operations.

 

The pilots of the air wing were strictly forbidden to take any action against the Russian ship, but one day CDR John Wunche, the commanding officer of the heavy tanker KA-3B detachment, had finally had enough of the Russians' antics.

 

John Wunche was a big man with bright red hair and a flaming red handlebar mustache. He was a frustrated fighter pilot whom fate and the Bureau of Naval Personnel had put into the cockpit of a former heavy bomber now employed as a carrier-based tanker.

 

CDR Wunche flew the tanker like a fighter and frequently delighted the tactical pilots by rolling the "Whale," as we all called the KA-3B tanker, on completion of a tanker mission. Consequently, John's nickname was "the Red Baron."

 

On 21 July 1967 he proved just how appropriate that name was.

 

The "Bonnie Dick" had nearly completed a recovery. The Russian trawler had been steaming at full speed to try to cut across our bow, and the bridge watch had been keeping a wary eye on the intruder. For a while it looked as if the Russian would be too late and we would finish the recovery before having to give way to the trawler. But a couple of untimely bolters extended the recovery and the Bon Homme Richard had to back down and change course to comply with the rules.

 

The LSO hit the wave-off lights when the "Whale" was just a few yards from the ramp.

 

John crammed on full power and sucked up the speed brakes for the go-around. The "Bonnie Dick" began a sharp right turn to pass behind the Russian, causing the ship to list steeply, and there, dead ahead of John, was the Russian trawler.

 

He couldn't resist. He leveled the "Whale" about a hundred feet off the water and roared across the mast of the Trawler with all fuel dumps open like a crop duster spraying a field of boll weevils. 

Atomized fuel droplets in a vast cloud surrounding >50 lit cigarettes. Just the plane to do it.

The Russian disappeared in a heavy white cloud of jet fuel spray, then reemerged with JP-4 jet fuel glistening from her superstructure and running lip-full in the scuppers. The Russian trawler immediately lost power as the ship's crew frantically tried to shut down anything that might generate a spark and ignite the fuel.

 

She was rolling dead in the water in the Bon Homme Richard's wake -- her crew breaking out fire hoses to wash down the fuel -- as the Bon Homme Richard steamed out of sight completing the recovery of the Whale.

 

The Red Baron was an instant hero to the entire ship's company.

RATIONAL DRONE POLICY

Right now the US policy for executing drone strikes is one that delivers drone strikes into every place on earth where we think we can get away with it. When you think about it, that's the same policy used by every overreaching tyranny in history. They continued to do whatever they thought they could get away with until they went one tiny little step too far. That little step was always obvious in hindsight but transparent at the time.

Germany progressed from an outright prohibition on having U-boats, a war machine or an air force, to re-militarizing the Rhineland, taking over Austria, occupying German speaking Czechoslovakia and then invading Poland. We ourselves did nothing much about any of that. We didn't even mind all that much when U-boats started attacking our shipping. It took the Japanese to bring us into war with Germany -- I guess that obviates the point I was trying to make. When Germany went all hyper-aggressive barbarous we did nothing at all.... Oh well. Except.... maybe, Japan invaded all of its neighbors from the Soviet Union on down south by Java Head while we did exactly nothing at all to stop it or rein in its excesses. We didn't do anything until they attacked the US fleet in Hawaii.  So there's that.

If our drone policy is rational, does that mean we can strike terrorist targets in Saudi Arabia? If we decide to deny ourselves the pleasure of mending fences with Saudi Arabia or Egypt, can we put warheads on foreheads in those countries too, just like we do in other benighted third world hell holes? Can we use them on Mexico and the drug cartels? "Variable this is Knife."

American attack drones coming to a neighborhood near you.  You do know that the police are flying drones here and now, don't you? Have you any knowledge of a meaningful law that prevents your local police from putting weapons on their drones? Hell! I'm surprised they haven't armed their helicopters....yet.

PEACE SIGNS FOR SALE

There are any number of towns and villages today that are hurting for revenue. INS wonders if any have considered offering a service by selling police badges to people interested in having their own unbounded authority to carry a gun anywhere; just like police. Who would stop them? I don't believe that law officers are like cosmetologists who must be certified by the state. Cosmology can't be practiced by just anyone; whole galaxies are at stake. They need a license from the State!

If a man or woman appeared before the Village Chief of Police and announced a willingness to give the town $500 if the town issued him a badge and credentials, what's a cop going to do?

It's easy enough to shield such towns and police from any bad consequences, should there be any, because that's what lawyers do. Besides, police blow the hell out of things and shoot thousands of people every year and you never hear of it putting a town or village out of business or a cop out of a job.

I know it happens. It seems every rich and powerful man or his son who is busted for high crimes and misdemeanors in LA, New York, Orange County, etc, is a special friend of the sheriff and turns out to be an official reserve deputy sheriff. I think it's interesting that the Mayor of New York City has a heavily armed bodyguard of 6 men and our poor ambassador to Libya had nobody.

How many other places in America sell the badge the way LA does? What's the going rate?

FROM THE NSA FILES

Ace investigators of INS have turned up the NSA files on a previously unsuspected group of insurgents. Below are the notes on these unsuspected national security hooligans.

The NSA. It's like they know everything. It does make me wonder why they were spying on Angela Merkel though. Outside of being an East German apparatchik, what did she ever do?

GENERAL WASHINGTON

Ripped this off from American Digest. Somehow the General got a Marine Uniform out of the deal.

Priceless!

A BONAFIDE UNITER

I was beginning to despair. All this time and mostly all I've seen is division and dissent but now I see, as plain as the nose on your face, that President Obama is a uniter after all. If we cannot lead the UN, then by all means, let us at least animate them to unite together for one overwhelmingly important purpose. Good job.

On that note, we used to have a word for the kind of people that secretly worked together and conspired to violate the law while hiding behind the facade of a secret court and actively cooperating government. The wonder to me is not that we had Snowden rat them out but that we have had no other citizens of the Republic tell the truth about them either.

If you don't keep your eye on these sort of people, who will?

A MODEST PROPOSAL

Having decisively broken our ties with Saudi Arabia for no operational or diplomatic reason, we should really consider our ties with our very worst friend in the region, Pakistan. Pakistan created, funded and supported the Taliban from the very beginning and still owns it. The Taliban's foreign minister, Sharif, is negotiating the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan through Pakistan since Afghanistan is a landlocked country and there are very few options for taking home all the weapons and other equipment we brought to fight the Taliban and prop up Taliban Interior Minister Karzi. Sharif expects another couple of billion dollars from the US to maintain the bff fiction and expand the Taliban and Pakistan's nuclear weapon stockpile for the real enemies of Pakistan.

I have a modest proposal.

Why don't we sell all of our remaining ground weapons and equipment to India and tell them it's their's FOB Kabul for a single rupee. Let them worry about getting it back to India.

India has been invaded from the north many times in the past. Now Indians can do it too! I'm sure our very good friends Pakistan and India can work out an arrangement for allowing friends to do a little drive through.

Tourist 1st Class Bramha explains to Officer Ranjit that this is nothing more than the 4th Mechanized Touring Division on its way home.

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

A health update from the INS-finest news service in the isles.

Scientist reveals deeply held NASA secret research about staying healthy at home. In this article at health.com the Scientist reveals the top 5 plants for home health. This may constitute a winter survival alert. If you don't have a plant in your home, get one!

Fresh Air

By Elizabeth Roehrig
Chemicals from building materials, furniture, and even air fresheners can make indoor air toxic, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But just getting some greenery can help, says B.C. Wolverton, PhD, a former NASA research scientist and the author of How to Grow Fresh Air.

“Houseplants give off oxygen and help remove chemicals like formaldehyde, a common indoor vapor that can cause respiratory and neurological problems, as well as cancer,” he says. These five great picks may not cure asthma, but they can help you breathe easier.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We might have gotten a little carried away....

GOT INSURANCE?

If you don't already stop by Coyote blog you should. He has some very amusing cartoons up with just a few minor tweaks of the real ads.

OUR MAN IN FOGGY BOTTOM

 Wears a flag on his coat because:
 - remind him what country he is from
 - remind him what country he represents
 - remind him which country pays his official salary
 - beat up a veteran and stole his coat unaware that it has a flag on it.

 Is looking up to:
 - President Obama
 - Vice President Biden
 - King Abdullah
 - Snake belly

 Has his hand raised in supplication
 - to God
 - to Allah
 - to pick a veteran's pocket
 - to smite a veteran

One does wonder how we ended up with a man like this not just in the Senate but at the head of DoS.

CAMPING OUT ON THE RIVER STYX

The Hoover Institute has written another splendid little article on the perils of broke-down diplomacy. It seems that our egregious failures to deal with the Syrians to Saudi Arabia's entire satisfaction engenders more dangers then we knew. Most of the 9/11 hijackers and mass murderers were Saudi citizens showing their appreciation for the "hard line" diplomatic approach of President Bush and his team of foreign policy experts. We can't seem to keep our Saudi constituents happy no matter what we do. Oh well. I didn't vote for them either.

One of the less talked about secrets I have discovered here in the Fly-Over states is that people here earnestly don't care if Iran or Syria gets the bomb. About half of the people here think it would be a good thing for one reason and the other half think it would be a good reason for another perfectly different reason. You see the problem of course. If fanatical, filled with hate salafists and 'moderate' muslims get the bomb they're going to use it on us. But, and this is the important part, those guys are just clever enough to use it on just two targets and none of us live in Washington DC or New York City so we don't care.  OK, so they might also use it on San Francisco, that den of google evil, and we perniciously persist in not caring about that place either.

Try the do it yourself nuclear bomb simulator.

UPDATE
Sucks to be you Washington DC and New York City.

AS SUBTLE AS A DIESEL LOCOMOTIVE

Earlier this month I wondered here on how the party of John McCain and Lindsey Graham would pull the ten-foot-long-blazing-sword of hate and loathing out of the Tea Party's back. They had done it before you know when the Tea Partiests had conspired to carry off both ears and the tail during the fiscal cliff negotiations of January 2013. The old grand dames of the Republican Party trilled in dismay at the upstart hostage takers of the extreme right wing and forced them to back off and play nice. The thing is of course, that the upstarts had very cleverly, and I do mean really extremely amazingly cleverly worked with the Senate minority leader and the concession they got for caving in and allowing the Budget Sequestration demanded by the President to take effect, was that the Bush Tax Cuts were made permanent and signed into law by the President.*

I thought that was absolutely brilliant legislative politics. There hasn't been anything that smooth for decades, right up until last week when the extreme right wing rethuglicans caved in to the enormous pressure of all right-thinking persons and unilaterally conceded defeat and bowed to the inevitable demands of the Senate and President and the People! Yay!  Vorwärts Marsch!  Obamacare uber alles!

You remember what the fight was about, right? All that tussling and closing down every national park in the country was because the thugs said that Obamacare was no more ready to implement the Individual Mandate than it was to implement the Employer Mandate. Now the President unilaterally decided to back off on implementing the Employer Mandate by executive fiat which is his right in any communist dictatorship run by the hard left.

Perhaps the airwaves are filled with the cries of, "I told you so!" from the likes of the people all right-thinking people love to hate, but I don't listen to that stuff either. It's stories like this lame bit of Sebelius that make me laugh. The conniptions of all of them as they scramble around trying to fix the unfixable can only get more disturbing. It's like watching an RMS Titanic repair crew racing up to the giant hole in the side of the ship with a little tub of spackle and a putty knife. It's going to be painful and cost some people everything they have and more.

I am amused by Reuters slant on the news today. Judge allows suit to go forward. Other news services pointed out that the judge did not simply dismiss the law suit as "settled." It appears that in amidst all that smoke there might be a little bit of flame that could end up burning down the whole house. Isn't it odd though that Obamacare was passed legislatively on a strict party line vote and yet only 16 states have set up the exchanges mandated for its implementation. The rest of the states decided to stick with NO. Odd that. You'd think a majority of States and thus Senators, didn't want this as law.

I just get a kick out of it all. The very best talking heads the democrats could buy/own talked themselves blue in the face demanding that Obamacare be implemented right the fuck now! But just for the little people. They didn't mean it should be implemented as written for both employers and individuals.

On balance, I think that if I was them? I'd feel like an idiot right about now.

They made a great desert and called it a garden and yet nothing grew there.

As I said at the beginning, I suspected that the Tea Partisans had a cunning plan to outwit the ponderous dull-witted House of Reid and Pelosi but I had no idea at how elegantly simple their Machiavellian thinking would turn out. They threw up what they knew could only ever be a temporary roadblock to a really crappy piece of legislation knowing that they would have to cave in when the reliable stormtroopers known hereabouts as the Democratic Ministry of Truth locked on. I had no idea that their master stroke was simply going to be to bow politely, take one step back and allow the whole train to rush by and over the cliff to its doom. Congratulations guys! I couldn't have done that better myself.

Makes me wonder how many of those program managers for the health.gov site went down on their knees every night just before bedtime and begged God for one more week of rethuglican intransigence because they knew it wouldn't work. Oh yes. They knew.

OLD CALIFORNIA

We have a number of these boxes lying around the place. They were originally filled with pears of all things.

Naturally, there is an online market for this sort of fruit crate. Probably now worth more empty then when they were shipped filled with fruit. I wonder how many of them are authentic and how many were made by guys like my friend in southern California who would make just about anything along these lines in Mexico for peanuts and then turn around and sell it on ebay for a small fortune. As I recall, his big stock in trade was ship plaques for ships scrapped long ago. He'd make a mold, pour the bronze or brass in Mexico, age and distress the wooden plaque and sell them for 10 times what it cost to make. He had a mortgage in Coronado that needed paying.

The question we had though was more basic. Why is the box of fruit described as 4/5 of a bushel? Why not the whole bushel? Was the California government taking a tithe or the church, or was it the carrying charge?

CARTOGRAPHRY

We watched a wonderful episode of the West Wing tonight. It had a bit on maps.

Africa in reality

from TheRightStuff.

It is the things you think you know that aren't so that give you the most grief. Can you believe that there are millions of ordinary people roaming the streets of the United States who actually think we should invade Africa whenever we feel like it? There are more of them than there are people who think we should maintain an army capable of militarily conquering China. Most people simply don't understand the scope of things and a world scale. This is true of just about every endeavor engaged in from warfare to pontificating about "knowing" precisely the exact temperature of the entire planet and whether or not it has increased a degree over the last 10,000 years.

Geography is real and cartography is both a science and a weapon. It can be used to inform and also to misinform. If you ever visit Les Invalides, take the time to visit the map room where the French have for centuries maintained exact scale models of all of the fortresses, their own and their enemies, on their frontier. It includes all of the geography around these fortresses so that the strengths and weaknesses can be assessed by the commanders and strategists faced with either attacking or defending them.

REAL SCIENCE OF NOTE

One of the areas of study at the Research Institute for Unlawful Knowledge is Global Climate and I like to share some of the real science from time to time. We don't necessarily draw conclusions from the data because we believe that all experiments should be fully repeatable using independent data gathered from realities common to all.

That said, the alchemists of our times have failed to scare me and this is mostly due to the kind of straight stick science used in the article above. I also like the comments with the article. It is sad to see so-called Science magazines (online and in print) eliminating their comments sections and pruning out letters and comments from those termed denialists. Real scientific progress has been measured over the bodies of Luddites and of those captured by the brilliance of a theory that is resoundingly proven to be false years later when subjected to the actual scientific method which goes a hell of a lot further than mere peer review.

Science is repeatable. If it cannot be repeated it really should be relegated to the closet next to Cold Fusion.

 In just my lifetime every single study of food and diet that blamed some food product for health issues has been found to be based on fantasy. The "SCIENCE" wasn't there after all. Every one of them was trumpeted from the rooftops and followed in the press as if it was real science. So it is with the CLIMATE. Those with models and those who like models are standing pat on their models even if not one of them can replicate reality. That's an interesting proposition for a scientist to take and it speaks poorly of them that the popular scientific journals and newspapers are so confounded by counterclaims that they have elected to simply turn a blind eye to the disagreeable scientists and their theories.

INTERESTING SLANT ON SOCIETY

Jessica has presented an interesting article about wealth, mobility and cammoflage. She postulates that the wealthy love diversity until they have kids when what they really love is the fascinating diversions that living in a city provides to people of all ages and means. I don't think very many people move to the city because they woke up one morning and decided they wanted to experience multicultural life. If that's all they wanted to do they could just ride the bus.

Being wealthy is not any kind of prerequisite for leaving behind urban schools. There's thousands of perfectly good acceptable reasons to avoid sending anybody's kids to most urban schools.

The article only takes a minute or two to read but it is excellent food for thought. I think it is the first time I've seen any MSNBCite put affordable housing in the same sentence with the idea that any affluent society that permits affordable housing is killing itself and its future affluence. People usually try their very damnedest to conceal that prospect from the neighborhoods targeted for such diversity.

When one thinks about it, government exists to selectively destroy. It doesn't create anything but it can whip up destruction of real value overnight just by hinting that there will be change. Stock markets and the Fed aside, just look at the conniptions engaged in if nice neighborhoods are put forward as favored targets for low income housing, the winter public refuges where homeless can shelter in deep winter and when there is talk about running mass transit out to a really nice suburb. People visiting me in San Diego always wondered why there were only 2 ways into La Jolla and no mass transit at all there. It's because they fought tooth and nail, relentlessly and without pity or mercy to keep it so.

Usually though, nobody every just comes out and says it.

Roads meant to move armies brought civilizations

WINTER IS COMING

I was reminded today as we drove back from the uttermost west that Winter Is Coming. With that in mind I thought I might make another tiny little modification to the fiction room and put in one or two of these

There are any number of faux window views available these days and it doesn't take much to fool a willing mind.

GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS

 Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd,
To which the fainting Traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

Would but some wing'ed Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!

Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!

And when like her, oh, Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!

------- Omar Khayyam
                The Rubaiyat
                Written in the year of our Lord 1120
 The beginning, middle and rest of the end can be found here.

THIS IS FUN

Ripped off from Bored Panda via Insty

Airplane lavatory art in the style of the late Renaissance. Do look at the rest.

 

I'VE SEEN WORSE

I've seen them do crazier things and not appear to notice the blood pouring from the "flesh wounds" they gave themselves showing us how tough they are.

Plastic not required.

THE GREAT CHAIN

The National Park Police are moving today to install the Hudson River Chain across the Hudson River at West Point, New York. The president has decided that due to the ongoing shut down of 13% of the federal government, all commerce and other traffic on the Hudson must be forbidden until further notice because Safety.

Police are currently rummaging around for the other 1600 feet of chain that appears to be missing even though the government has paid $574,000,000 over the last 219 years to keep it in storage in case it was ever needed as a river denial system.

TOUCHING THE SEA FOR THE FIRST TIME

A little piece about the almost USS GERALD FORD touching the ocean for the very first time.

Some ships sip where others dive in.

WHY PAY?

Story from MSN.COM

Karen Sizemore had apparently been a mild mannered Lowe's employee for the past 18 years, but when she saw a shoplifter run out with some merchandise, her inner Supergirl took over. The Kentucky clerk was at her register when she saw the man grab a $600 Dewalt tool kit and sprint out the door. She took off after him and chased him into the parking lot, attempting to grab the tools out of the backseat of his car. She couldn’t recover the merch, but she did get his license plate number which she says helped the police find and arrest him. Her coworkers started calling her Wonder Woman. Her bosses called her "Fired."

Sizemore says she swiftly lost her job because of her attempt to catch the thief. "Their explanation was I put myself and other people in danger and they fired me," she told WLKY-TV. "This is the thanks I get?" Lowe's released a statement explaining that she had violated company policy, which isn't enough for Sizemore: she might hire an attorney to help her get her job back.

Do you suppose the store will fail to agree to press charges for stealing since they don't appear to think the man did anything criminal?

PAINFUL REALIZATION

Reading this story and hundreds more just like it made me realize something that I had given no thought to about the veterans who returned from the war in Vietnam. They got some very bad press after Tet, right up until the end of their involvement in the war and then for another 20 years or so, they were vilified by just about every media outlet. Their shabby treatment at the hands of their countrymen and women was legendary.

How do you feel about the Park Rangers and Park Police now?

Are you going to share it with them the next time you see them?

MORE THAN A LITTLE ALARMING

We seem to be having a little trouble with our nuclear weapon overseers. It started off sioply enough with the investigation into the Deputy Commander of Strategic Command. Today we learn of the removal of the general in charge of all U.S. land-based nuclear missiles who was fired for no particular given reason.

A three-star navy admiral and a 2 star air force general given the heave-ho for things that appear to have nothing at all to do with their duties or assignments. You have to wonder how long this can go on. In the past we accept that to err was human and while we were hoping for the best we were happy to accommodate some minor personal foibles and accepted that clay feet were more the norm than not. We kind of expected total professionalism while on duty.

It does make one wonder what happened when it really mattered and the nukes started rolling around.  How many people involved got fired?

There have been a few more nuclear weapon incidents than most people realize. Lots of atomic and hydrogen bombs have fallen off aircraft or gone missing. Missiles have suffered from fairly catastrophic events such as a this Titan missile outside Damascus.

The nuclear warheads were blown hundreds of feet away when the Titan missile exploded in the silo.

I sure hope that the powers-that-be are concentrating as much on the safety of our nuclear arsenal as they are on what our admirals and generals get up to when they are not at work.

OUR REIGNING SERVANT

The Servant When He Reigneth

Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book --
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.
An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.

His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.

Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master's name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.

His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy boken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave --
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!

 

--Rudyard Kipling

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAMSEY CLARK'S BOY

A truly despicable person was sentenced to serve 50 years in a British prison, or luxury hotel; it's hard to tell which given the way Britain treats criminals. Charles Taylor, 22nd President of Liberia and thus a peer of our man in the Spite House, was found guilty of terrorism, murder, rape and using child soldiers. He was ably defended by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who also defended Saddam Hussein, Radovan Karadzic, Slobodon Milosevic, and various other devils and demons.

Various writers have tried to pen imagined distopias of such unbridled horror that the readers would be sickened. Taylor and his friend Prince Johnson left them in the shade. On some people, the veneer of civilization is very thin.

Whenever I consider that Attorney General Holder is the most racist man in America and is staffing the Justice Department with people who will remain there forever, corrupting the ebb and flow of justice in America, I can at least keep in mind that he is not a knee-jerk anti-American like Clark. Having life bureaucrats at Justice who will behave as reliably despicably as Interior Department and National Park thugs and IRS bureaucrats and EPA enforcers is really not good for America. They fail to see it but their actions actively invite contempt for the law and do you know what West Africa is best known for? Yep. Contempt for the law.

This was the outgoing cabinet after Doe took power. Doe didn't have it this easy.

TURNING OUR ATTENTION TO WORLD AFFAIRS

Enough of the domestic front; I have decided to concentrate on world affairs today.

LAW AND NAVAL OPERATIONS

It seems we have taken a few men from their places of repose and brought them aboard our warships. It is a gray area that I am glad did not come my way more than once. It would be nice to think that we have unambiguous rules for detaining unpleasant company on our warships, but we don't. What we have is known as the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations.

This is the basic introduction to complying with the applicable laws of armed conflict that are of particular interest to the naval commander. The idea is that following the rules will keep you out of jail, away from Congress, and not detained at some 3rd world government's pleasure the next time you travel the world on your blue passport. The perils inherent in waging lawfare for the naval commander are not dissimilar to those faced by intelligence agents who work in the national interest while serving abroad in 3rd world countries which all enjoy access to the International Criminal Court whose international warrants are enforced by Interpol, et al, and used to detain and arrest American citizens who happened to be involved in the Rendition operations of Obama's administration. In other words, once fingered by wikileaks as a person-of-interest who participated in rendition while serving in a 3rd world country like Italy, one can be arrested the next time one travels abroad and know, with total certainty, that neither the State Department nor the United States, will lift a finger to get you out of jail.

So we now know that dabbling in these extremely legal waters is quite perilous. Nevertheless, we don't actually give our Commanding Officers much choice now, do we. We do not. But to make sure that he at least has a chance of making it out alive, honor intact, there are a few rules:

11.3.1.4 Temporary Detention of Prisoners of War, Civilian Internees, and Other Detained Persons aboard Naval Vessels. 

International treaty law expressly prohibits “internment” of prisoners of war other than in premises on land, but does not address temporary stay on board vessels. U.S. policy permits detention of prisoners-of-war, civilian internees, and detained persons on naval vessels as follows:

1. When picked up at sea, they may be temporarily held on board as operational needs dictate, pending a reasonable opportunity to transfer them to a shore facility or to another vessel for evacuation to a shore facility.

2. They may be temporarily held on board naval vessels while being transported between land facilities.

3. They may be temporarily held on board naval vessels if such detention would appreciably improve their safety or health prospects.

Detention on board vessels must be truly temporary, limited to the minimum period necessary to evacuate such persons from the combat zone or to avoid significant harm such persons would face if detained on land. Use of immobilized vessels for temporary detention of prisoners of war, civilian internees, or detained persons is not authorized without Secretary of Defense approval.

There is more:

11.7 QUESTIONING AND INTERROGATION OF DETAINED PERSONS

Commanders may order the tactical questioning of detained persons to the extent necessary and proper to efficiently conduct military operations, including determining the strength and plans of opposing forces. Tactical questioning is defined in DOD Directive 3115.09, DOD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning, as “direct questioning by any DOD personnel of a captured or detained person to obtain time-sensitive tactical intelligence, at or near the point of capture or detention and consistent with applicable law.”

Tactical questioning is not an interrogation, but a timely and expedient method of questioning by a noninterrogator seeking information of immediate value. It may be conducted by any DOD personnel trained in accordance with subparagraph 4.6.5 of DOD Directive 3115.09. Anyone conducting tactical questioning must ensure all detained persons receive humane treatment. Additionally, if the detained person is entitled to prisonerof-war status additional restrictions on questioning apply, see paragraph 11.7.1.

If questioning beyond tactical questioning is necessary, it is considered interrogation and can only be conducted by DOD-certified intelligence or counterintelligence personnel (DOD Directive 3115.09, paragraph 3.4.2).

Generally, masters at arms or other security personnel may not actively participate in interrogations, as their function should be limited to security, custody, and control of the detainees. Interrogators may conduct debriefs of the masters at arms or other security personnel regarding the detainees for whom they are responsible.

If interrogation is necessary, in addition to securing the services of certified interrogators, reference should be made to the following:

a. Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of August 12, 1949

b. DOD Directive 3115.09 (DOD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning)

c. JP 2-01.2 (Counterintelligence)

d. Army FM 2-22.3 (Human Intelligence Collector Operations).

11.8 QUESTIONING OF PRISONERS OF WAR

Detainees who are entitled to protections as set forth in the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1949 cannot be denied rights or have rights withheld in order to obtain information. Interrogators may offer incentives exceeding basic amenities in exchange for cooperation. Prisoners of war are only required to provide name, rank, serial number (if applicable) and date of birth. Failure to provide these items does not result in any loss of protections from inhumane or degrading treatment; a prisoner of war who refuses to provide such information shall, however, be regarded as having the lowest rank of that force, and treated accordingly. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer questions may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to
unpleasant or disparate treatment.

At this moment I'm not sure yet if we have settled the legal status of the terrorists we hold in Guantanamo and elsewhere around the world. It got a bit confused when we allowed the lawyers to have their say. Some of them appear to be simple miscreants who have been swept up after being found committing some sort of crime. They get all the rights of any prisoner in the American legal system. Others are some sort of enemy combatant/detainee swept up either on the battlefield or near some place we decided was enemy territory (Abbotabad, Pakistan). We can either kill them out of hand or must treat them like prisoners of the American legal system. Our fearless leaders used to refer to it as a War on Terrorism which might tend to imply that some of them fall under the Geneva Convention as Prisoners of War.

Wouldn't it be nice though, to know what they are at this instant and what they will be when the next administration comes to power and suddenly decides that everybody who had a role in questioning these bad guys is a war criminal, subject to the American legal system of injustice too? Remember how anybody who had water-boarded these terrorists was a criminal when the democrats took power? Remember? It wasn't just the guys with the water, it was the lawyers in the Bush White House who were now guilty of being criminals and putting their names to papers that gave authority to men like the Captains of our warships and intelligence operatives to act in a way consistent with the law as they knew it at the time.

These guys out there are putting a lot of faith in the honor and integrity of men/lawyers just like Obama and to help keep them focused, they remain serene in the knowledge that John Kerry, the man who swore that every American soldier and sailor in Vietnam was a war criminal, is their Secretary of State.

METRIC TIME

Whenever I gaze with despair upon the antics of my government I wonder why they never made it law that we use metric time for the convenience that's in it.

It's exactly the kind of pointless idiocy they believe in so I can't figure out why they never pulled the trigger on it and made it our time.

THE NEWS WAS INTERRUPTED TONIGHT

I got this pop up ad tonight when I was reading the Union Tribune. I wonder how McCain feels about this.

I updated it.

UPDATE: 
The Park Rangers have closed a State Highway that winds through the park and issued citations to dozens of people for recreating in the park. The morons.

DYING ON THE BARRICADES

It is too easy to cast the U.S. Park Rangers as a bunch of willing whossnames but I don't like to do that since it hits too close to home. One has only to imagine who blindly followed orders to herd people away and the names from the past will spring to the forefront of memory. I can live with that even if I'm reluctant to portray their modern counterparts as the same kind of vermin. I do wonder though.

Who is going to be the first person killed by one of these armed Park Rangers or Police for having the temerity to cross one of these pathetic barricades being set up by Obama's new police state? 

 

Does anybody remember their names?  They were demonstrating for a 'Better World.' They had no idea it would cost them everything they had.

OPEN LETTER

Ripped off from American Digest

THE TRUTH ABOUT DEFAULT

Meet the Press, have tried to set the record straight:

NBC: Very quickly before I let you go. As you well know, there is a debt ceiling vote on the horizon. Will Republicans let this country go into default?

SEN. PAUL: I think it’s irresponsible of the president and his men to even talk about default. There is no reason for us to default. We bring in $250 billion in taxes every month, our interest payment is $20 billion. Tell me why we would ever default. We have legislation called the full faith and credit act and it tells the president, you must pay the interest on the debt. So this is a game. This is kind of like closing the World War II memorial. They all get out on TV and they say, we’re going to default. They’re the ones scaring the marketplace. We should never default.

I know I know. We kind of expect the Attorney General to uphold justice, not fight against it and we kind of expect the Secretary of the Treasury to pay our debts and not deliberately fail to pay them. You know he will though.

Me? I'm OK with this circus going on until Obama's term ends since with the Senate fully engaged in gridlock they cannot pass any other legislation and add to the damage already done. That works for me, and I figure the Park Rangers and Department of Interior will gain enough experience putting up real man-stopping barricades and laying in effective mine fields to keep the citizens out of the parks over the next 3 years that they'll have an in-depth understanding of how to secure the nation's southern border in a few years time.

GOING BACK VS GOING AGAIN

I was looking for some illustrations for a possible return engagement with the far east. I was struck by how one really can never go back. I find that I much prefer to remember some places as they were when I was last there and really don't have any desire to go again. That's just a tiny handful of places that I would prefer to remain in memory as I remember them. There's still lots of places I'll happily go back to, and new places to visit.

UNAUTHORIZED REFLECTION HALTED

In further compliance with directives emanating from the White House, the Park Service rushed to drain the reflecting pool in front of the former site of the Lincoln Memorial. Citing directives from the Grate Leader, Park Service officials announced that there would be no pondering or further reflection of the issue. Water was placed in storage for the duration.

Half-assed government job still permits some reflections to escape

WITH THE RIGHTEOUS

The National Park Police, fed up with packs of self-righteous veterans, have announced today that they are putting all the veterans memorials in storage for the duration of the the "Great Snit."

World War II Memorial dug up and placed in Storage during "Great Snit" of 2013

FROM TIME TO TIME

I wonder if the reason that the Mayan civilization disappeared had to do with a sudden irresistible urge to rid themselves of their ruling and priestly classes. I can see the peasants and slaves slowly spreading the word among themselves to seize one night, perhaps on the eve of some great event - or the morning after, to suddenly fall upon the rulers and gut them and toss them from the tops of the pyramids alongside the priests. I think they probably made a thorough job of it and got rid of the entire caste and all their families. In this kind of endeavor it is always best to be thorough.

Having rid themselves of the parasites that infested every waking moment of their lives I'm sure they turned their attention to gardening and raising herd animals and letting the mighty works of 'civil' society collapse around them and fall into disrepair and slowly succumb to the jungle. They probably continued to toil long hours and work every day to put food on the table and find time for some of the poor man's enthusiasms to pass an idle hour or two.

What we find though is that their civilization passed completely out of history without much in the way of explanation. We'll never know what happened to the jungle civilizations of middle America before the Spanish Conquistadors arrived. It's worth considering though, that those that remained found reason enough to go onwards without much care, or concern, for what became of the cities and temples that dotted the jungles from Mexico down to South America.

If we use this as a modern parable for our time, I'm sure that any number of the ruling class and priests of the higher science which is justified by consensus and blind faith, would find it unacceptable because deep in their murky hearts they know that civilization is a fragile thing and without men and women of indomitable will and enormous faith to impose it and shape it for the masses, all would perish from the earth. On the other hand it would take a rare talent to turn up even one person more comprehensively stupid and vicious then the banking class and government officials. They don't actually do anything. Where work needs to be done, they hire contractors to perform it.

I've kind of railed against the usurpation of law by men wearing badges who decide what the law will mean today or tomorrow. So far, I think it is fair to say, there has been no mechanism to turf these critters out and keep them from enforcing the law elsewhere. They suffer no consequence of their actions since their victims can only sue the cities and corporations that hired these lawmen and pay them. The city and its taxpayers will suffer monetary damages but all cities accept that they have venal, self-serving, vicious rats working for them and they set aside money every year in their budgets to pay for the legal defense of the officers and then to pay the civil judgements awarded plaintiffs when the actions of the town's police are found to be violations of the law, due process and civil rights.

Now we have another whole class of pugnacious scumbag that we are paying salary and benefits. Who are the vicious little bureaucrats that put up barricades at parks and then fight to keep them up and to keep the people out of their parks? What are their names? Who do they work for? Who ordered the barricades up and who made sure that they stayed up?

You're a citizen of the Republic. Would you order your workers to do put up such barricades? I can see me in that role. I'd call in all the supervisors and tell them that due to the inability of Congress to deal with matters fiscal in good faith and with reason, they were all to go home that instant and not return to work for any reason until called back to duty. Once they were gone I'd send all the rest of the staff home. Then I would power down the computer, turn off the lights and close the door on my way out of the building, and the email or smug voice mail message ordering me to send my people out to throw up the barricades, would lie aborning on the device; unanswered, unresponded to, and perhaps, in a little pool of shame. Because I'd forward that thing to every blogger I know so you would know who is giving such venal orders.

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION NOTICE

They'll probably do this when you're at work.

HOME AGAIN

We had a great time on our visit to Pittsburgh and east. Upon our return home along the highways of the National Defense Highway Act and Eisenhower Road Network, we were not imposed upon by our sovereign mighty government--beyond paying the tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Ohio Turnpike. Fortunately for us, the Administration did not close the highways with the same feeble excuse they used to close privately funded parks.

I guess the administration will hold off another couple of days before they close the public highways to all traffic. I mean, without the Federal Highway Administrators on the job, they're just not safe!

You know the sad thing about all these closures? Now that all these non-essential govies have the time to take off and take their kids to see the parks and monuments? They're all closed off and barricaded by the goons.

Have we figured out yet why Homeland Security needed to buy 7 billion rounds of ammunition yet?

ON THE ROAD

Back Monday.  We're going down the Ohio.

NEGOTIATING WITH THE SENATE

First. Get their attention.

UNRESTRAINED TERROR

While searching the tubes for invisible crocodiles earlier this week I found this, and I wonder,

does Hagel scare the Russians as much as he scares me?

CIVIL WAR LETTER HOME CHATTANOOGA 1864

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                                                                        Medical Purveyors Office

                                                                           Chattanooga, Tennessee

                                                                                January 24^th 1864

                                            Dear Father

                                                                 I received your kind letter of the 18^th inst this evening and was very glad to hear that you were all well and that the small pox was not spreading for I was very much afraid that some of you would get it and would be taken off before I would have the chance to see you but I hope such will not be the case for want to see all you once more in this world. I have been out all day looking at the town and getting acquainted with some of the citizens of the place. It has been very warm all day for this time of the year, the thermometer has stood at 62 degrees all day where the sun was not shining on it and I expect it has been at about 32 degrees up there. I like the country very much for it seems to be very healthy, but I expect the coming summer will not be so for there are so many dead horses and mules laying around that when warm weather comes it will cause sickness unless they are soon hauled away.

Dear Father, if I was at home I would not notice my enemies but I would do all I could to undermine them in their undertaking to injure. I hope I may soon get home and then you will see my way of doing business to be very good for I will give them all they want. I do not write any one in Liberty but you with the exception of one or two instances. Please do not notice them for moving the post office to B. L. Goodwins for it will not do any good in the end. I have not made any ink yet but I will in the morning and if it does well I will get you to send some more. I wish you would send me a box of butter and dried fruit and a hat and when I am paid I will send home money enough to pay for them and as much besides as I can. The express is regular here and now there is no danger in sending a box. I wrote a letter to you some days ago in regard to enlisting as  U.S. but since then I have decided to come home as soon as possible  and then decide what to do. I seen Jne G  today, he is well and says he is not going to reenlist but  is coming home in April and intends staying there. I have not heard anything of the Regiment going into the veteran service but I think they are not, for the Colonel is here and says it will not go into the service for any longer time then it is now. I raised the body of A. R. Crist and took it to Bridgeport Alabama and there took a receipt from W. R. Cornelius, undertaker, who is to express it from Nashville. I wrote to Ezra Crist as soon as I could but I expect he has not got the letter for the mail has been delayed at this place for some days but on what account I cannot tell. Jne Ryram was here yesterday and took a cert book for me, which he will give to you if nothing happens. He has resigned and is a citizen. I think Jne is a very nice man but will do nothing for my good. I have just heard from Knoxville and the news is that the troops have come back to that place and have gone into winter camp and that they are foreseeing a fight soon near Knoxville.

Mr Cory is here yet and is not improving very fast. Sergeant Newl Conklin has started home on a furlough. He will call to see you, please treat him well for he has treated me very well every time he has met me. Dear Father I love for you to correct me in regard my spelling for I know that I am not as careful as I should possible be for I allways write in a hurry. It is late so I must close.

Write soon to your affectionate son

                                                                L. M. Beaver. Private

                                                                Co I, 15^th Reg,

                                                                  Indiana Volunteer, Infantry

                                                          2^nd Brigade, 2^nd Division. 4^th A,C

                                                         and clerk in Medical Purveyors Office

                                                              Chattanooga, Tennessee

P.S You wished the address of our former Chaplain. It is as followes. Direct your letters as usual but without the Regiment.

Rev. Even Stevenson

La, Fayette, Indiana

In care of H.J Sample, La, Fayette, Indiana

Good night.