FOOLS AMUSING THE KING

I am not a Townhall subscriber but their stuff does make it over the transom from time to time as a result of my incredibly wide ranging reading problem. This item today by Michael Barone struck me as wonderful.

How is it possible that Barack Obama did not know that his beloved healthcare.gov website was a botch? That's a question many thoughtful people (including thoughtful Democrats) are asking.

We heard him say that he wouldn't have boasted that it would be as easy to use as amazon.com or obitz.com had he known that it wouldn't. I'm not "stupid enough," he said at his Nov. 14 press conference. Most Americans agree that's true.

What I heard from his own people in the White House was that the president reads only the New York Times which makes him about as well informed on any topic as your average Progressive voter.

A SECRET WHIFF OF SCANDAL

There has been a commotion in the ocean of late over the Navy allowing itself to be overcharged for services provided by contractors in ports overseas. The Navy is working hard to convince us that the Navy first noticed that it was paying what the contractors demanded as the going rate for services such as trash removal, refueling, potable water, liberty launches, sewage disposal, etc in the Far East. It appears that this scandal was perpetuated by a lone Malaysian contractor who somehow held guns to the heads of every officer on the 7th Fleet Staff and corrupted them into sending ships into ports for liberty and to refuel and top off fresh fruit and vegetables so the sailors didn't collapse from scurvy and rickets and beri beri, thoughtless low-life bastard that he is. He got away with his evil machinations for many years before somebody smelled a rat 4 years ago. [Gads the Navy is on thieves like a bolt of lightning]

The perps appear to be lonely officers of the Line who had the awesome responsibility to pick ports all over the Far East to play host for a day or three for Navy ships and sailors to take their ease, just for a bit, during the never ending long war on terror. These men were senior commanders and captains and the Navy has been firing them left and right. They even roped in the Director of Naval Intelligence and his operational commander, both, admirals of the line.

Oddly enough, it is the Navy's contracting and auditing arm that selects the Contractors who get used by the Navy when it pays port calls in various regions of the world. So far, nobody in this part of the Navy is accountable for the fact that they selected the companies the USN does business with. In the Far East this was a man called Fat Leonard. This loathsome spotty soul was lured to San Diego with false pretenses by the forces of Order who immediately jailed him and refused him bail on the likely assumption that he wouldn't hesitate to shake the dust of such a lost to law land and skip to Mexico for further movement onwards to Malaysia and home.

Yesterday, the forces of Order determined that the Contractor given these contracts in the Middle East is also overcharging the Navy after decades of close observation and paying the bills submitted by this other loathsome low-life company.

One of the officers that Order has roped in is a captain at my old duty station who used to be the XO on USS BLUE RIDGE. I remember being ordered to attend the Level III Anti-Terrorism training for COs. It was held over 2 days at the Navy Amphibious Base, Coronado, CA where one of the featured moderators was the XO of USS BLUE RIDGE. He told us that we had to adopt more aggressive ATFP postures and plan our port calls more carefully and with an eye on preserving the ship from attack. This training was provided in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the USS COLE in Yemen where some absolute idiot ordered it to stop for fuel rather than across the Red Sea in Djibouti, a port internationally famous as a place where NOTHING EVER HAPPENS.

The XO got up alongside one of the senior interrogators of the terrorist bomber captured in Yemen and spoke about putting up a waterborne barrier of floats around the 7th Fleet Flagship when it pulled into some little port nobody ever heard of. That cheesy barrier cost $450,000 for 3 days of use. The XO's immediate superior in command signed off on that necessary force protection expense without demur because it was 'necessary' and because that guy was also a 3 star admiral and Commander, 7th Fleet. The XO continued to list the necessary security expenses that his ISIC routinely approved and they were enormous to my mind. The Commanding Officer of one of the larger amphibious ships asked the XO what the rest of us were supposed to do when we had to take these security measures/expenses out of our operating budgets and didn't have the nearly infinitely deep pockets of all 7th Fleet to pay for our security expenses on deployment. The moderators said that that sounded like a personal problem.

So anyhow, the Chief of Naval Operations isn't questioning the expenses or the necessity of the expenses many long years after the services were requested and paid for. He isn't concerned with whether or not they were necessary. He isn't concerned that the officers summarily relieved of their duties and tarnished forever are innocent of any crime other than using the duly selected Husbanding Agent of the USN overseas. Nope. He does not appear to be any more concerned with that than he is in finding out who approved those contractors as the sole source providers of logistical support to the United States Navy.

The funny thing to my mind though is going to be when they turn their gimlet eye on the hideous out of control outrageous costs and fees demanded by those who provide the same logistical services to the USN's ships in their own home ports. They might look at how much Public Works charges for a crane or to rent a passenger van. They might even look at how much shipyards charge for the same sorts of support.

Then there will be Hell to pay.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Read it all and weep for a future that will envy the dead.

At this point we are already guaranteed to be the laughing stock of the future, for having entertained this nonsense for even a single year. A cautionary tale of mass hysteria, comparable to the witch-burners or the millenarian doom-cults, all the more so because we were more technologically advanced and fancied ourselves so superior to them.

 When one does read the emails of climate gate at the link and think about it, the global warming scam is just exactly like the Salem Witch Trials and the later vicious and divorced from reality day-care prosecutions of poor innocents.

The idiots that brought us Obamacare and "Peace" with Iran are working tirelessly to implement meaningful changes to the civilized world that will end the Industrial Era. They are not creating a hell on earth. They are trying to make the rest of the world look like Zimbabwe....for our own good.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Not tired

MAY BE LAST CHANCE TO SEE

Comet ISON rounding the nearest star on Thanksgiving afternoon at a distance of 750,000 miles from the sun. If it makes it around OK it will be huge as it heads outbound to the Oort Cloud.

Those of us basking in the dull red glow of the underlit storm clouds around Pittsburgh will probably strike out again.

(Credit: NASA/MSFC/Aaron Kingery)

ARE YOU A WITCH?

Democratic congressman unsure so he asks the Administrator of Obamacare at the IRS if she is a witch. Unwilling to take no for an answer he persevered and demanded to know if she has been consorting with the devil.

Rep. Gerry Connolly(D-VA) demands to know if she is a witch

I don't have to make this stuff up. These Democratic guys are a hoot.

MEET THE PURITANS OF PLYMOUTH

We sometimes think of Plymouth's Puritan Colony as some lonely and bleak outpost of England when in fact it was nothing of the sort. It was merely bleak. Once there was another little bit of England being nurtured nearby by others of a different philosophical bent.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than these Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the corn-field till evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old English mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast days, and their chief pastime the singing of psalms. Wo to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance! The selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan Maypole.*

*Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Maypole of Merry Mount

After the good people of Plymouth devastated and looted the colony, the founder of Mount Wollastan (Merry Mount was the Puritan name given the place) was dragged to Plymouth, placed in the stocks and given a mock trial after which he was marooned on the Isle of Shoals. Oddly enough, that is the very place that the good people of somewhere elected to build a monument to the first Englishman to land upon the Isles, Captain John Smith (yes, the Pocahontas one).

This stereo view picture of the monument is taken from: seacoastnh.com

I don't believe I'd like any of the good people of the Plymouth Colony. I imagine all their neighbors found them something of a trial and burden.

By the way, when viewed with a stereoscope, the picture above leaps into 3D just like the movies!

THE TRUTH SIMPLY ISN'T IN THEM

Iran's Foreign Minister announced today that the White House is lying. Quotes from The Washington Free Beacon.

“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham told the Iranian press on Tuesday.

Afkham and officials said that the White House has “modified” key details of the deal and released their own version of the agreement in the fact sheet.

Iran’s right to enrich uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon, is fully recognized under the draft released by Tehran.

What kind of idiot and moron and dishonest scoundrel puts out a translation that cannot and will not survive contact with the enemy?

You're not surprised. I can see it from here. I cannot think of anything put out by the White House staff or its resident that wasn't a complete lie when examined for truthfulness.

I DON'T BELIEVE THEM EITHER

According the the High Minister of Truth at Slate, all the attacks wherein gangs of urban youths cull members of undiversified main body and viciously attack them and knock them to the ground in a sort of gang-mob against 1 unsuspecting person kind of attack, simply doesn't exist. The Ministry of Truth reports,

A column on Slate.com reports that while the game does exist, there is no hard data to support the notion that it is a growing trend that has reached epidemic levels. It also refutes the suggestion by some news organizations that some of the attacks have been racially motivated.

The Slate piece makes reference to another piece on the patheos.com website that says, "Nobody seems to have any evidence that it's spreading, or that it's new, or that it's racially motivated."

The piece continues, "Most sources claim that it is spreading, and a number of sources claim that it is racially motivated. But how do they know? Where are they getting their data from?"

Some people rather suspect that the vicious unwarranted attacks have been going on in certain areas for a lifetime or longer but have not been reported upon previously by the Ministry of Truth. Those bastards are currently being hunted down by the forces of Law and Order and will be punished severely.

TRAIN TAKES A BULLET

A California Superior Court judge has ruled that the impossible train is stalled for now. Something about violating the law. I can't help but think of the impact of a bullet train in California where people have become used to doing exactly as they like. I think it would look a bit like this disaster except the train would be half a mile from the tracks before catching fire after some twit gets a school bus stuck on the rails.

The California high-speed train is being built by the Progressive Kleptocracy of California. I'm sure they won't let a trifle like law or a lack of financing stop them from building their track. The people deserve it.

THEY BETTER ARM THEMSELVES

REPOSTED and UPDATED

Our intentions have been revealed for all to see now. And now the Saudis will reveal that they have their own nuclear weapon stockpile compiled one warhead and bomb at a time from the wreckage of the USSR. Everything there is for sale and the Saudis have a lot of dollars.

The United States has genuine friends in the Middle East. I hope that they are gearing up for a major regional war without us. I think for a number of years those who went out of their way to ally with the US did so primarily because they viewed Iran as their major and most implacable enemy. Iraq and Saddam dreamed of being the reborn satrap of the Ottoman Empire and wanted Kuwait back in the fold but Persia was worse. From a geopolitical point of view she was very much the lion in the room and she has historic claims to the Persian Gulf and everything around it and Persians are not Arabs. Those were the good old days.

For many decades Persia has been actively waging a religious fueled and driven attack on all the Sunni emirates and Kingdoms. She has actively engaged in systematic destabilization of the State using religious means. Clausewitz would have fun with that one. If war is diplomacy by other means, what is using religious hysteria as an extension of diplomacy? Iran has been attacking all of the rest of the Middle East using its religious supremacy of the Shia muslims to goad them to overthrow the Sunni rulers and join the islamic caliphate as another islamic republic. Sort of like how the Soviet Union running the Communist International used liberals to overturn the rational leaders of the world community and become a Soviet Republic. It was very hard on the rationalists, starting with the countries of Eastern Europe. In Africa and Asia the COMINTERN used nationalism to overthrow the remains of imperial rule and then destroy the stability of whole continents.

Saudi Arabia seems like a backward and inward facing region to people that haven't been there. That's largely because it appears to give that impression. It's not at all what people in the West think. One might say the same thing about Bahrain and Kuwait and some would say it about the United Arab Emirates and Oman. What liberals fail to see is that all of those countries are very stable and well governed. In each of them the ruling family and the ruling class decided early on to hold the line on civilization and power-sharing.

They didn't fail to note that civilization itself suffered wherever in the world power-sharing was applied either by the liberals or the nationalists who fell sway to the COMINTERN. The COMINTERN had only one purpose and that was to create satraps of the Soviet Union. In the Middle East, Iran was using the Shia to overthrow stability, toss the country into chaos and then use religious fundamentalism to destroy the state and become an islamic republic.

I think it is very clear now that nobody in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world can rely upon the United States for diplomatic or military support. This is a struggle that they will have to deal with with their own resources or turn into another Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Gaza. They knew that decades ago when they agreed to band together after the first Gulf War. As Shia violence ramped up to topple the government in Bahrain the US did nothing but the Saudis sent in heavily armed troops and shots were fired and people thrown in jail.

The gloves came off in response to both the violence in Bahrain and the Arab Spring. They accept that if government cracks and lets the mob win it will destroy the state. They've seen it now with their own eyes and there is only solution. Violence will be countered with violence and repression and if you're a violent person seeking to overthrow the state you have just two remaining options, death or imprisonment.

Here in the west the liberals are going to whine about the death and imprisonment and seek to 'end the misery' and 'get the government to negotiate power-sharing agreements.' Well I think the remaining Arab rulers know that simply isn't a realistic option anymore, not with these people.

So the question is, what are we going to do to all the religious, hysteric, government and authority hating zealots created by Persia? Because another option would be to deport them. Does anyone on earth want them?

IT'S ONLY A TEST

Direct from the front lines in the Drug War, a horrible story about vicious cold blooded thuggery. Why is it so easy to believe that the judge and State sentenced this vicious criminal who ruined thousands of lives to serve just 3-5 years?

FOOL'S WAR

The New York Times notes that there is now an agreement signed by President Obama between the Obama administration and Head Taliban spokesman Karzai, requiring the United States to retain 8000-12000 soldiers in Afghanistan for another 10 years. The soldiers are there to administer the $4 billion that the US pledges to send to the Taliban every year for the next 10 years.

It will sail to ratification in the Democrat controlled Senate where Harry Reid will ensure that it receives a good solid majority vote in the Senate. So Democrats have signed us up as advisers only, for another interminable war of their own making.

It's interesting to me that the Pact will sort of almost kind of protect American service men and women from facing tribal justice administered by enemies of civilization but leaves all our contractors over there swinging in the breeze. I'm not posting that image but keep it in mind.

That's the Taliban covering our soldier's backs for another 10 years while our contractors go to jail for life if they cross the Talibani running the new Afghan Islamic Republic. Our soldiers deserve better leaders.

CONSTITUTION MUM ON AIR RAIDS

I suppose everybody in the world except me saw this when it was first aired back in September.

Whoever came up with it I think is brilliant. It absolutely captures the liberal belief that absent boots on the ground we didn't really mean to go to war when we dropped high explosives on you. This is something that the United States does every single day of the week somewhere in the world. But you know know that, otherwise you would not have voted to declare war on Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Eritra, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Lebanon et al. I remain surprised Obdurate Imbecility didn't do it to Syria. Yet.

COASTAL RIVERINE GROUP ONE

I wondered what Coastal Riverine Group ONE does and now I learn from military.com that they are in charge of port and harbor security in San Diego. How the mighty are fallen. Once upon a time, when they were known as

they did port and harbor security all over the world except Europe and parts of the east coast of the United States.

Back then they were an expeditionary security force and mostly left the security of San Diego port and harbor to the Harbor Police and the Coast Guard.

Oh well, things change and if its just coastal and riverine I suppose they can't get much beyond Point Loma on a good day.


UPDATE:
Rainbow Warrior arrived for a visit in San Diego Sunday. You remember her right? She received the unfavorable attentions of French divers while in port.

GOOGLE 5OTH ANNIVERSARY OF DR WHO

If you visit google today and click on the icon it will take you off to play a game with Dr Who and the Tardis. Enjoy.

FACEBOOK

Well, whatever brought you here, welcome. I have absolutely no idea why 152 people elected to come here direct from facebook and can't seem to find what generated it. It may have had something to do with Neptunus Lex but at this point that's just a guess. If you know, share.

Have a look around. Kick the tires. Comment if you like.

STAND YOUR GROUND

I missed posting about this, but duty lasts forever.

A story about a pair of ordinary Marines who stood their ground. It is so very worth the reading.

WHAT TOXIC POLITICS MEANT TO SAY

One cannot listen to NPR in the 21st century without the air being polluted by their talk of toxic politics in Washington. They have guest after guest on who heaps criticism and spews hatred of Republicans for creating, operating and maintaining a toxic political atmosphere that keeps the good people of the People's Democratic Party from enacting more Constitution gutting legislation that takes away your rights and gives them all to bureaucrats. I'm heartily sick of it.

The underlying presumption of the pseudo-intellectuals at NPR is that government is about compromise and that all must compromise in order to achieve what the majority want. Maybe that's what it is to them. They, for instance, are enthusiastic supporters of Venezuala's king, dictator-for-life, tyrant president who has compromised with his opposition by looting them of all they have in the name of the people. You see the same thing in Argentina, Mozambique, South Africa, most of Europe and of course, right here. Some drank the acid of Marxism and others slurped up the idiocy of Keynesian economics and transformed it in vile ways and never a peep of complaint from the neo-falangists at NPR.

I'll throw in some analogies. Take them for what you will. How exactly was it beneficial for the States and Congress to compromise for so many decades on the issue of slavery? Those who opposed slavery did so out of sincere belief and those that favored slavery also acted out of sincere belief. We had from them the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Do you feel repulsed by that or should the nation have torn itself apart over States Rights in 1820?

The lowly state of weapons technology, limited manpower and the lack of railroads would have significantly reduced the number of casualties before the South burned Washington DC to the ground and declared victory. It's amusing to think that Andrew Jackson, the slave-owning President from Tennessee and founder of the Democratic Party, could have thrown the first torch into the White House. He never hesitated to shoot men with whom he could see no compromise and launched the Trail of Tears that sent a whole people into exile.

Slavery was a toxic issue upon which men compromised because Constitution. There are other life-defining issues that will not permit men of good conscience to seek compromise because Penumbras. You may put your own names to some of them but one with which I strongly agree is, no taxation without representation. It is utterly foreign to me how this country and most of the rest of the world have decided to saddle future generations with enormous debts that pay for the foolish blandishments of a today, none of which will last until tomorrow except the debts which look like they'll last forever.

Evolution of America   courtesy of wikipedia 



PS Look at the size of the original colonies and also the Indian Territory.

A NEW GAME

Yeah, the media says it's new but I think not. What I found interesting was this story. I've never seen a story that had just 19 comments but one of them has been given an up arrow of agreement/approval over 4900 times. The 19 comments seem to capture the attitude of everybody who has seen the story without need for further embellishment. How often does that happen?

Random vicious attacks on defenseless people by van loads of murderous thugs. That's terrorism. There's plenty of room in Gitmo isn't there?

ESSENCE OF DECISION

When all is said and done it's important to remember that it was a liberal and a committed member of the Communist Party and a former Marine who assassinated President Kennedy and not just some conspiracy. The article written by a twit and published by the NYT is a rather pathetic blaze on the downward path of scholarly study and socialist intellectualism. It's hard to believe that its author is a Marshall scholar.

All day NPR has been talking with guests and amongst themselves about what a horrible Kennedy hating place Dallas was and yet the good citizens of Dallas did no more than say that they hated everything that man stood for and that is their right as citizens of this country. Honest disagreement out in the open. It took a liberal to shoot Kennedy in the back of the head.

On an ahistorical note: By today's liberal standards, John F. Kennedy would be considered the most extreme right-wing nutjob of all time by all American democrats everywhere. He was far to the right of Democrat icons such as John McCain and Barak Obama.

One of the common perceptions of the idea of military overkill that so infused the White House and its staff for the last 50 years has been the seminal book, Essence of Decision; Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is a fascinating read and it was read by every student of government and politics that I know. I suspect that everybody working in any sort of foreign or military policy billet is familiar with the book.

The author delved into some of the reasoning that affected Kennedy's decision making process as the crisis developed. One that struck me was that Kennedy wanted the Pentagon to tell him what it would take to destroy the existing missile launchers already in Cuba and all the Pentagon could come up with was what looked like a full scale invasion involving half the Continental Army Command and a good bit of the Air Force.

Kennedy kept reiterating that all he wanted was to destroy the missiles and the Pentagon insisted that in order to do that they would first have to gain total air superiority and destroy the complete Cuban Air Force and all anti-aircraft sites and then the Army would have to parachute in and land over the beaches to confirm that all the missiles were actually destroyed by physical inspection.

It makes you wonder doesn't it? What if Kennedy's CIA had armed drones that he could fly over Cuba to target and destroy the missiles without troubling the generals that ran the Pentagon?

The book has been completely rewritten since I read it in 1981 and updated with information out of the Soviet archives. I think I'll read it again.

There is a lot of talk about how the Pentagon must have been fudging the numbers required to win the War on Terrorism in both Iraq and Afghanistan. People speculate that the military generals must have been inflating the numbers of troops and strength of material needed for the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan because, they say, that's what generals do. There might be some truth to that. General Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, certainly thought that far more soldiers were required to win the war in Iraq than what Secretary Rumsfeld thought necessary. Shinseki could be said to have been both right and wrong. The number Rumsfeld authorized did the job in double-quick time and destroyed the Iraqi military and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. It just wasn't enough to let Paul Bremer do every stupid trick of misgovernment and misrule since Tsar Nicholas II  and alienated an entire country against its benefactors and liberators which is pretty much what Shinseki thought would happen anyway.

When it comes to deciding what forces are required for winning a war and occupying the defeated enemy country I'll side with whatever number the generals come up with. I just wouldn't let them have anything like those kinds of numbers until we're actually in a real shooting war. It is patently ridiculous that the US Army needs over 450,000 soldiers absent a major land war.

I wrote all the above 14 hours ago and finished when I got home with the below.

CAN YOU BELIEVE the OBAMACARE jam-it-through-at midnight-on-Christmas-Eve-Democrats have finally pulled the trigger on the nuclear option that has been hanging like the sword of Damocles for decades now? I think they said they did it because Racism. The reliable socialists and democrats overwhelming the slim thuglican minority...again.

POST RACIAL

In my first step toward running for President, I have decided to declare myself post-racial. In addition, I have decided to be diverse. Along those lines, I have decided that I'm the smartest man on the planet and thus qualified to lead the free world into darkness since I'm also culturally relevant and believe in social justice.

So I got that going for me. All I need now is your money.

IN THE NAVY

I welcome Precom Unit Gerald R. Ford to the Navy.

PCU Gerald R. Ford is moved to the outfitting dock for two years of outfitting

USS San Antonio returning to Norfolk after 10 month deployment.

USS San Antonio reflects a change in the Navy's philosophic bent regarding looking good. In my days we were accustomed to the oft heard refrain, 'work it may, shine it must.' However, in the decade since the OPNAV staff in Washington DC decided to trim costs by 'optimally' manning ships with just 2/3 as many sailors as required, the Navy has come to reflect the care and diligence lavished on the afloat forces in terms of budgets cut, manpower cuts, time at sea slashed and the hell-bent philosophy that says, let's pay contractors to do all the technical, difficult and scut work.

I wonder if the ship's vaunted stealth characteristics are enhanced by running rust or if the navy has developed radar absorbing rust. Either way, this ship won the Battle E which is more than can be said for your humble scribe.

WORLD'S END

All that remains of an old place

CIVIL WAR LETTER HOME TULLAHOMA TENNESSEE

Camp at Tullahoma, Tennessee 

Aug 11^th 1862

Dear Father and Mother,

I received a letter from both of you last night. Pa’s was dated the 16^th of last month and Ma’s was written this month but had no date to it. You state that you have not received a letter from me since the 11^th of last month which I suppose was the last I wrote to you until the 4^th of this month and I suppose you have received it by this time as the mail is straight thru now. The reason I did not write before was because the mail was stopped and I thought it was of no use to write a letter and have it lay in the office but as soon as communication was opened again I wrote to you informing you where I was and what I was doing. The letter was written on the morning of the 3^rd and in the afternoon we started on an march for this place.

We marched half the way (8 miles) in the evening and camped for the night and continued our march next morning and arrived at this place about8 o’clock (having at the rate of 4 miles an hour) but found that we were not to remain here for a long train of cars soon came rolling into town to take us to Manchester (12 miles from this place) at which place landed about 4 o’clock in the evening but had orders to come back to this place next morning which we did as orders was to be there. I suppose you have heard of the death of General McCook who was killed by a band of rebels who are skulking around thru this country. He used to be Colonel of the 9^th Ohio Regiment (a german Regiment). After he was killed the Regiment was set loose and they have hung and shot 48 of the rebels and are still in the chase of them. The General was taken out of an ambulance while on a side road and he had got ahead of the Brigade and being sick he was in t he ambulance. If he had been able to walk he would have been taken prisoner but he was not so they killed him immediately and took his aides that were with him prisoner.

We are now on full rations.

Dear Mother do not attempt for my sake to get Pa into the service for he would never stand it in the world. Dear Father do not think of leaving home to go into the service in any way for you have no idea what experiences you would have to endure while on marches especially in this country. If I was at home I think that Ed. Farnsworth would enlist or would take a good whipping he should be tarred and feathered and stoned out of the country and all like him. You may tell this if you chose.

I am glad that Lincoln has decided not have any black soldiers for I believe that if he was to allow the negroes to take up arms that 9/10 of the army would lay down their arms and go home at least I would. I would be glad to see Regiments of blacks armed with tools to build fortifications in order to save the soldiers from a great deal of hard labour that otherwise they would have to perform.

You still talk to me about getting a discharge but I must tell you that I do not at the present time want one and if I did I think that would be impossible to get one.

I am as well as I ever was in my life and I flatter myself that I am better. I was out in the country getting peaches, apples and potatoes of which I got enough for several days but run the risk of being taken prisoner by the guerillas. I don think you need fear the taking of Buell’s army although it is in a precarious situation at the present time. Our supplies and communication might be cut off and still we would not starve, as provisions seem to be plenty in this country. Give my love to all and receive the same. Your affectionate son Luther M Beaver

15 Regiment Indiana Volunteers

WHAT ARE THEY SMOKING?

The Washington State International Association of Boeing Machinists overwhelmingly voted to reject Boeing's plans to build 777X aircraft. I concede that the contract was not as favorable to them as all previous contracts but let's be painfully honest here. There is no law that says US passenger aircraft must be made in America and even if there was there are lawyers who would argue that the aircraft were "made in America" if they were flown into the US and had the Boeing label spray painted on the soft underbelly.

Weld back together, paint, stencil, return to Arabs

According to Wikipedia, this is the way they build the 787: The aft fuselage sections 47 and 48, for the 787, are fabricated at the North Charleston site. Sections 44 and 46 are manufactured by Alenia in Grottaglie, Italy. Section 43 is fabricated by Kawasaki in Nagoya,Japan. Section 45/11 is fabricated by Fuji Heavy Industries in Nagoya, Japan. Two 747 Dreamlifter Cargo planes are stationed at Boeing Charleston for transporting components of the 787.

What are they thinking?  Talk about stuck on stupid.

They lost round 1 when Boeing headquarters left Washington and went to Chicago of all places. Then they lost round two when the assembly plant opened for business in South Carolina and started delivering planes in spite of the National Labor Relations Board. Yes the planes have defects, but not in the manufacture and assembly operation in either Washington or South Carolina, to the best of my knowledge.

Boeing on May 9 rolled out of the North Charleston factory the first 787 Dreamliner to be built at the increased production rate of seven airplanes per month. Boeing’s 787 program is on track to achieve a planned 10 per month rate by year-end

I wonder if these guys have noticed that Americans don't make televisions, computers, iPhones, iPads, microchips or much of anything in America anymore. How deluded and detached from reality can one be before waking up in Detroit and wondering how you fucked that up?

UPDATE

Seattle council tells workers to take over the Boeing factory and retool it and stop making weapons.
The thing I wonder about is how do you vote for someone this stupid and where do they come from?

GOVERNMENT TRUTHINESS

To be honest, I haven't believed a word they've said in the last 30 years. Have you?

It was not supposed to be a how-to manual!

STUCK ON STUPID

It says a great deal about the qualifications of a man and his staff who can think of nothing better to do then to try to restart the peace talks between palestinians and civilized people in the Middle East.

We seriously don't have anything else to do? We have to get stuck into this pointless charade? Why?

It goes on for pages and pages and seems to distract any attention from the real news about the Middle East.

It's not like I want the idiots in charge of US foreign policy to do anything else, since what they do best, wreaks havoc on everybody else but couldn't they come up with something a little less stupidly pointless and futile? Couldn't we have new Strategic Arms Limitations Talks with Cuba? Why don't we claim these new volcanic islands forming off the coast of Pakistan and then use them for drone bases as sovereign US Territory?

Photograph from Gwadar Government/AP

The effect would be the same and nobody would seriously believe we were doing it anyway.

FRIENDS DON'T GIVE FRIENDS PLANTS

Just saying.

VANDAL RUNS AMMUK

This hardly ever happens. A USN anti-air cruiser was savaged yesterday by a drone that made it past all of the ships many defenses and hit the ship. Back when I did this I asked for the drone to be fired directly at the ship just as fast as the drone could possibly go and just a few hundred feet up because my preferred drone killing missile system used a doppler radar to track targets and it was really good at finding and tracking high speed targets heading directly at it. That eliminated one of the two major reasons that the missile systems failed to work. So, if the missile worked properly, scratch one drone.

BQM-74 drone that washed ashore in the Philippines

In this case it looks like maybe the missile got a piece of the drone but not enough to destroy it short of the ship. My missile system was a short range self-defense sort of system. The cruiser could start shooting at drones 50 miles away. I'm not sure how they got hit since they also have a LOT more missiles and guns and close-in-weapons that eat drones and missiles.

UPDATE
Here is the local TV station video report. There is no report of a missile firing but the navy has established its credibility on these sorts of issues so that doesn't much matter at this point. As Lex would say though, perhaps it was a drone trying to set the record for the closest approach to a ship.  This one tied.

Shooting missiles at ships is inherently dangerous but it needs to be done.

The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) is seen underway in 2011. Two sailors aboard Chancellorsville were injured and the ship was damaged Nov. 16 when it was hit by a BQM-74 drone, launched from a naval base at Point Magu, a Navy official said. (MC3 Alexander Tidd / Getty Images)

LIFE IN THE GOLDEN WEST

This is an awesome camera at my beach in Del Mar, California. It's worth a visit.

In this screen shot, Solana Beach starts at that cliff directly in front of you.

GOOD NIGHT FROM MY SIDE OF THE WORLD

Shamelessly ripped off from American Digest.

COMET ISON THIS WEEKEND

All those with a celestial bent may turn their gaze to heaven and hopefully spot comet ISON starting as early as this weekend. At this late hour the only advice I can give for finding its location is that it is getting closer to sun. You should probably start your viewing by not looking directly at the sun. Wait until it's dark.

THE FLOUNDER PEOPLES PARTY

The fits and conniptions of the various big fish attempting to explain that it was all just a mistake and it will be fixed now and we'll let you keep having what you had before we broke it and took it away from you is really wonderful to watch. To hear the flounder party talk you have to marvel at the intellects that elected these morons to high office. They said they were going to add coverage for 40 million people that had no existing coverage, that you could keep your existing plan and that it would not only not cost any more money, it would save money. And the good flounder of the flounder people's party believed them and voted for them again and again.

Watch the entire 2 minute clip because it captures the very essence of what just happened with health care in America. Just as the car was before the flounder got it, health care in America was a thing of beauty and the envy of the world. Flounder got it and trusted his party friends to take care of it and they ruined it. The quick thinking response is almost identical to what the flounder-in-charge just proposed yesterday and the insurance company is going to take a bath. Priceless!

Smart people know perfectly well that you cannot keep what you have, pay less and add 40 million more people to the program without losing what you had and paying a great deal more for less. So the insurance companies that were the target of the flounder have made the adjustments necessary to comply with the law that the Big Fish-in-charge says he is now going to tell his commissars to ignore for another year or so and also to ignore enforcing it on any of his friends. He also told commissars and lawmen not to put business to the torture this year but to make the fires hotter for next year when it will kick in on his new adjusted schedule. But that means that the Big Fish is telling people to just ignore the law.

I'm OK with that. The law aint what it used to be anyway. 

You folks that have employer provided health insurance, you think it will be different next year?

General Milan Štefánik's Triumphant Return

INS- MetroParkCentralis

We're delighted to see that the monument to General Milan Štefánik is once again available in MetroParkCentralis. The monument is located in the Slovak Cultural Garden hard by East Boulevard to the east.

The statue was relocated here from it's initial location at Jeptha Road which is being demolished for some long term project rooted in destroying traffic roundabouts here. The statue reappeared a couple of months ago but it has taken our correspondent some little time to get there for a picture. Next time he will take a real camera.

Welcome back.

TIE NO COAT

The won is struggling a bit and has turned to that luminary of wisdom, Al Gore of the very famous, no controlling legal authority, for help with bringing the insurance companies to heel for the fiasco that is obamacare. His Excellency King Hussein Chavez Peron seems to think that he has the discretion to selectively enforce the requirements of the law which we know as obamacare and he feels that he can tell the insurance companies to knuckle under and stop cancelling policies that don't comply with the law as written and get himself off the petard of his own hoisting.

What is it with this guy and his supporters that they just ignore laws that they decide don't matter anymore? Holden with his Civil Rights and Voting Rights selective enforcement, the IRS with it selective targeting of just those on Obama's Enemies List and the idiots at FISA and NSA who never met an unconstitutional form of spying they weren't instantly in favor of?

How do you know it's the President?

THE NEW SCOTLAND YARD

Gads, it's no wonder Conan Doyle found readers for his stories about the great consulting detective that assisted Scotland Yard with their inquiries. The locked suitcase mystery and how Scotland Yard concludes that nobody else was there at the murder of an MI6 spy.

A LITTLE TASTE OF PARADISE

The Denver Post has an interesting article on the effects of legalizing marijuana  within the great state of Colorado. I'll admit that I used to think everybody in the world except me was a pothead but I have decided that I was in error and it probably isn't more then 2 out of 3 Americans who have a bong in the closet. I'm a fairly reliable kind of guy though so it shouldn't come as any surprise that I not only find this hilarious but I tend to take the kids side. Kids everywhere have been lied to about everything forever with whoppers like, think of the starving Indian kids to transfats are good for you. Are they going to put the evils of smoking pot right there in the crack pipe next to man-made Global Warming?

I'm more outraged by old cops watching the kids from hiding with binoculars. How many other creeps are sitting beside them spying on little kids too? A 2 year undercover police operation to find legal drugs in schools? What next, jailing kids for not washing their hands after using the bathroom? What happened to visible lawmen openly patrolling the streets acting as a deterrent to crime? They got fixated on arresting kids and making airtight cases against them for committing possible misdemeanors.

A little arrested development works for me since that pretty much describes the kind of idiot that voted for Obamacare. I'm not counting as idiots the other old farts who saw it as another splendid way of milking the youth of today for the sins of our ancient past. That's schadenfreude.

Slave States vs Free States

DOWNFALL

There is another Downfall faux clip out with Hitler lamenting that his insurance was cancelled thanks to Obamacare.

Did anyone ever actually watch the movie? I never did.

BLUE BIRDS

There was a man who lived in MetroParkCentralis and missed the blue birds of his youth and didn't care much for the birds in his neighborhood.

So he made his own and put them everywhere, where they have stayed for quite some time. You see them scattered throughout the neighborhood in ones and twos, perched for the long haul.

People around here reckon you need a passport to cross over to the western bank of the formerly flaming river. I argue that you don't actually need a passport to cross over to the west.
You just need it in order to get back to this side.

THE PEOPLE'S FLOCK

I have very little respect for the 'zero-tolerance' clowns running our public schools. You know what they say about birds of a feather? Well, I think the clowns running the schools and the far left intolerant extremists fall asleep dreaming of a way to be more like this. Their front-men at the New York Times certainly wish this country was more like the People's Republic of China or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and they don't mind saying so in their paper and they don't mind being called on it.

North Korea staged gruesome public executions of 80 people this month, some for offenses as minor as watching South Korean entertainment videos or being found in possession of a Bible, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday.

What is less amusing is to have them lurch to the tumbrels shouting that you cannot believe anything you read in the paper or see on Fox News.

Oh well.

THE AIMLESS JOURNEY

CNN got this all wrong and people will get hurt. It's from CNN's international edition so it will probably only be Canadians and other foreigners like those from Somalia that end of up getting hurt. There are semi-nice places remaining deep in the core and along the lake but one passes through free fire zones to get there.

Visiting Detroit without reason has to rank up there on the scale of hiking in the mountains along the Iran/Iraq border or proselytizing the faith in Pakistan or vacationing in Mali. You could do it but you have to accept that it's a damned risky thing to do without a purpose. You know, if you were in the CIA. It is pretty telling when a story making the rounds only a week earlier comes from the Chief of the Detroit Police who announced that he was very nearly carjacked two weeks ago while driving down the mean streets of Detroit. He is a retired policeman so he is allowed to carry a gun anywhere he wants in perpetuity unlike our Canadian and most Somali visitors. One of his predecessors resigned after trying to carry a loaded gun onto an aircraft in 2003.

Here is Chief Craig on carjackings in his fair city,

"This is the one crime that really drives fear in the community," he said in August while announcing the HeatWave programmed aimed at reducing carjackings and auto theft.

Sgt. Vernal Newson of the Auto Theft and Carjacking Task Force said thieves frequently spot a vehicle they like and follow the motorist to their home or destination before committing the crime."

Visit the Detroit Airport. That's a scenic, functional and, surprisingly, a darned nice place to visit.

You know what the Chief's very first concern was after taking the job as Chief and returning to his own hometown? It's here.

 "One thing that I've been critical of, as it relates to... the way the good people in Detroit drive, some of them just blatantly run red traffic signals," Craig said in late-July. "And I don't know if they just have total disregard for traffic laws or they're afraid of being carjacked."

 What do you think now Chief? A little of both?

VETERAN'S DAY

Today, America honors its veterans from all the wars. The date was chosen some time ago and marks the end of the War To End All Wars which finally ended on the 11th of November, 1918 when the Germans agreed to an Armistice. That was probably the costliest mistake in all of human history but it did mean that the American Expeditionary Force could return home, leaving Europe in the capable hands of European politicians.

To all of our honorable veterans, Thank You!

The good people at Wells Fargo are offering all veterans one free day to use the Kiplinger Social Security Tool which normally sells for $49.95. Any veteran can use it today. The free online tool for military folks will only be available Monday at www.socialsecurityforveterans.com .

The details are described in this Washington Post article.

Have a Grand Day!

OLD GUNS MADE NEW WAYS

This is very cool. I already printed 3 of them for myself.

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT

Ripped off from A Train Wreck in Maxwell.

HAPPIE BERTHDAY MARINES

Wishing Marines everywhere a happy birthday.

WHY I WATCH THE WEST WING

Take 2 and enjoy.

THERE IS ANOTHER MAN WHO WAS THERE

The interwizz is filled with rumors of a 'purge' of senior officers in the military and the navy. It's an interesting bit of conspiracy theorizing which, frankly, hasn't interested me at all. Men are mortal and we just happen to have some that are more mortal than their predecessors. Also, there isn't the top-cover there anymore for those near the zenith of command. If it is scandal you seek, you will find it.

This article in the Washington Post caught my interest tonight because it reflects something pretty ugly about what I am hearing about the current nonsense of a single-solitary-lonely-little-contractor in far-off Malaysia who has been overcharging the navy for his services. It seems that somewhere there are men better than he who know what the real charges are for services in exotic foreign ports and it was wrong of this man to gouge the USN for services demanded by the USN who appears to have been more than willing to pay the fat man for all these years and yet now they want to renegotiate. So they threw the fat man in jail. I think he got that Egyptian film maker's cell; the one who was responsible for the non-terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Libya that killed the ambassador and three other men. He's out of jail now, for now.

The Navy gets gouged and gouged badly every single day on every contract in just about every way possible. That should come as no surprise. It can be no other way since the money is not their money and it is not your money. It is free money and those with free money are held to no account and no standard until long after the fact. In short, the alleged money aspect doesn't bother me since I worked at an acquisition command and it is all about spending the money and nothing about saving the free money or spending it wisely or getting value for the money.

Nope. What bugs me is that the case being tried in the press is one that accuses the accused of being guilty of selling classified information to the husbanding agent that will meet the ship with tugs, a pilot, line handlers, fuel oil, lube oil, sewage services, potable water, food, refrigerated storage, tour buses and drivers, sedans and vans and everything else sent in the classified Logistic Request Message sent from the ship to the Fleet Staff who turn it around and send the requirements to the embassy and the port liaison element and to the husbanding agent; a civilian foreign national with no security clearance. He gets the word on the ship's arrival in good time in order to make all those preparations. 30 days lead time is the norm for requesting Diplomatic Clearance for warships to enter foreign ports.

So anyway Vice Admiral Branch [Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance and Director of Naval Intelligence] and Rear Admiral Loveless [Director of Intelligence Operations N2/N6I], your position has been established. Don't let us detain you as you head out the door and into retirement.

But there is another man you know. He was the admiral commanding the Seventh Fleet who is the man ultimately accountable for the behavior of his subordinates and for the performance of all of those now standing accused of high crimes and misdemeanors. What about you Admiral Swift? You're the Director, Navy Staff. You set the standard for everybody wearing a navy uniform and right now your standard is looking a little tarnished.

There was also another man who steered contracts to the fat man in jail. He's in charge now.

THE REASON WHY

 
This is inscribed on the wall of the little museum at the end of Point Loma. The men who sailed here so long ago had to sail to the southern end of the world first in order to reach the coast of California.  As you read history, you sometimes forget that once, all the New World, belonged to Spain. A testament of the early voyagers to the New World in the service of their God can be found everywhere here in the New World, where the churches are plentiful and the worship of the old Gods of this land is extinct. The wealth they took from the land and the people here, led to the establishment and long continuation of a Spanish Empire that didn't utterly collapse and disappear until, the United States alone, destroyed it during the Spanish American War just a hundred and 115 years ago.

All nations wax and wane. The Reconquista lasted 781 years. It took the Spanish and Portuguese that long to finally drive the invading muslims back out of their land.



You know what was at the root of the muslim expansion all across the known world, right? The same words inscribed above in the monument at Cabrillo.  It's a pity that their light is so bloody and dark.

FORCE PROJECTION DEATH RAY

This little gem was one of the systems we used as the model for our initial Joint Capabilities documentation on a completely unsimilar program I once worked on. It was the very model of a cool, well thought out, endless funding stream sort of program that would do very well in sales to our own military and go on to a full and rich career in the Foreign Military Sales program where dictators and tyrants everywhere would delight in bringing their agitators and riotous ones up to oven temperatures just before their heads exploded.

There were a few drawbacks, naturally. The whole deliberate infliction of pain without injury was soon outed as 'waterboarding with a radar range' and the guys in the 5 sided wind tunnel were not impressed with the lab's pitiful argument that this was a force protection system. They knew it for what it was, an endless boondoggle to get another 3 inches of range out of a road portable, self-powered, self-propelled microwave.

I think a few of us also understood that it would only take about 5 minutes before Sheriff Arpaio wanted a couple and then every police force in America would need a half dozen and the next thing we knew they'd be as ubiquitous as the dreaded AR-15 and the forces of order would be compelled to use them on thugs at tea parties and degenerate book thieves.