Friday, September 29, 2017

WANNA SEE A DEAD MAN TALKING?

This is incredible. It goes without saying that this brave man is dead the second the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbullah, et al, lay their bloody hands on him. If he goes back to Palestine he'll be one of those guys with the burning tire around his neck.

HE WHO STANDS ALONE PLAYS ALONE

If this report is true it looks like the Oakland Raiders deliberately threw a game by letting the quarterback play alone on the field. I suspect it is true and that nobody will ever mention it again. Just think of all the punters and the over/unders who thought Oakland could win the game going in. Anywhere else it would be a major sports scandal. In this day and age it won't even be investigated.
A new report from The Armstrong and Getty Radio Show has sent shockwaves throughout the sports world after it was claimed that members of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders may have purposefully allowed their star quarterback to get sacked multiple times after he refused to kneel during the National Anthem.
If true, this would essentially mean that an NFL football game was illegally thrown over anger that one of the teams star white players did not believe that kneeling during the nations anthem was the correct way to protest supposed racial injustice in America.
In other words, an epic level scandal.
During the anthem, virtually the entire team was seen kneeling other than the teams coaches and star quarterback Derek Carr. Unfortunately, this may have not set well with the teams offensive line as they were apparently the players who spearheaded the entire idea to kneel as a team in the first.
Somehow you knew it would come to this, didn't you.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

NPR DREDGES THE BOTTOM

I drove over to the upper lake yesterday to get some pictures of the little dredge in action as it sucks the mud off the bottom and shoots it through a pipeline to the shore where it dries and is loaded into trucks and carried away. Naturally, NPR was on for the 3 minute drive and in that time they managed to convince me once again that they live in an entirely separate universe.

The host of whatever airs at 1100 had a guest on with him to pontificate about the state of the political divide in this country and naturally they couldn't possibly scare up somebody with an opposite and opposing view point so they had to make do with one of their own soundboards. The host asked in a roundabout way if there was any substance to the right wing (center) complaint that academe was pure liberal progressive from the administrators to the faculty to the students and the soundboard was forced into the most evasive dodging and twisting I've ever heard on the People's Radio.

He hemmed and hawed and said that it was mostly malarky because diversity and shut up. At this point I'd both had enough and reached the lake. It's interesting that the People's Radio and TV network can be relied upon 100% to ask such questions only in-house and of their own fellow travelers. Had they asked the question of Powerline or Anne Coulter or Milo or just about anybody outside the Beltway/NYC complex they would have gotten the truth. But they don't want truth, they only want vindication and your money.

In a way, the People's Radio is exactly like that little dredge sucking up pond muck and goose shit off the bottom and spilling it out somewhere else. Both the dredge and NPR pretty much suck.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

YOUR ACTUAL CRUISE MISSILE

As I've said, all the messing about with rockets and missiles in North Korea is a scam designed to distract attention from their real nuclear cruise missile program which is fully deployed and ready for instant action come the day.

Cruise missile arriving in New York City
It looks a lot like the topmost middle container on the delivery system shown above. As you can see, the delivery system is capable of multiple independent reinforced deliveries and has global reach. The actual 'missile body' costs roughly $70,000 although nuclear armed countries may get a discount. To quote somebody or other, "size and weight of the warhead is not an issue anymore."

Monday, September 25, 2017

STUPID STUPID STUPID

The Chief of Naval Operations confesses that his sailors are too incompetent to get out of the way of other ships and he has ordered all the ships we have left to turn on their installed AIS. Our ships will now have the equivalent of a man ringing the bell non-stop, shooting rockets into the air every 2 minutes and another man on the fo'c'stle shouting, "Here we Are!" That way merchant ships stand a chance of seeing us in time to maneuver to avoid colliding with us. Thanks Boss!

AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and it is a clever system in worldwide use as mandated by the International Maritime Organization to prevent collisions at sea. The navy has had it installed for over 10 years but left it switched in the "No Transmit" mode. Our sailors could see the positions and course, speed and track of all ships with AIS but we were being coy about just where we were or what we were up to. Security you know.

The CNO is being a little disingenuous when he says there's no operational need to keep us off the grid since the ship that can see you already knows where you are. He's either disingenuous, lying or a fool. You can take your pick. He says that there's no operational need to keep our locations off the grid but that's not the story they're saying at the courts-martial that have been sending navy officers to jail for the last 6 years for releasing ship movement data to Fat Leonard.

With AIS everyone knows where our ships are and where they are headed and it's like constantly updating Moscow or Beijing in real time where you are and what you're up to. You can see for yourself what AIS means for tracking ships. Go to the link and you can watch maritime movements in real time. Click on a ship icon to see what you get and this is just the freeware version. The paid version includes everything.




Admiral Richardson continued:
“That’s been an immediate action. There is this Automatic Identification System, AIS. We had, I think, a distorted perception of operational security that we kept that system secure – off – on our warships. One of the immediate actions following these incidents is that, particularly in heavily trafficked areas, we’re just going to turn it on.”
“In heavily trafficked areas like off Japan?”, asked Senator King. 
“Right. You can look outside and see the ship, so, it’s not an operational security standpoint,” said Admiral Richardson.
I think I'm just going to have say that Admiral Richardson is about as clueless as they come. What a pity, he was shaping up so well.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

BOYCOTT THE NFL

I have decided to boycott the NFL: now and forever. This is no sacrifice on my part. I haven't watched a complete game of football since 1988. I think that one of the reasons I stopped watching was because I somehow had grasped the essential meaning of this little pie chart way back then.

Average televised NFL game time breakdown
Study performed by the Wall Street Journal


Given the fire in which all men burn, why would anyone waste their time and watch football? It seems like a chump's game to me. There were, growing up, a thousand other things I'd rather be doing and those stayed with me all of my life. I could spend that time outdoors, walking, caving, biking, sailing, going to the beach, going for a drive in the country or reading a book, going to a museum, exploring the cities I lived in or just taking a nap.

I only propose a boycott after the magnificent nonsense this week where President Trump denounced the foul little orcs who disrespect our country and play for the NFL and get paid millions to come out once a week and play a game and the response by the NFL Commissioner who made a statement in reply to President Trump.


So what outrages Goodell and by extension all of the NFL team owners and players is that President Trump had the damned gall to disrespect the NFL, the stupid game and the orcs who play it and he doesn't understand what an overwhelming force for good the orcs have been.

Neat isn't it? President Trump denounces the NFL for disrespecting the United States of America and gets slapped with the wet minnow by Goodell denouncing the President for disrespecting the NFL. Well, I know who I fought for and it sure as hell wasn't the NFL or the game or even the goals of the NFL.

I'm boycotting the NFL and all of its advertisers.

Friday, September 22, 2017

STEPPED OUT FOR A LITTLE WHILE

I was stomped flat for the last week. I'm better now.


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

WALTZING MATHILDA

It's not like you heard it before.



Monday, September 11, 2017

FOUND HER

Crossed a continent to find her and did. I'm unbelievably lucky.

ENDEAVOR TO REMEMBER

This is why the world took a sudden turn.



 It was islam and it remains islam. Just think, you get to live in John III Sobieski's world and Moorish Spain and the shitty little piracies of the north coast of Africa that were known as the Barbary Kingdoms and just read about the slaves of all europe and england and how they just tolerated that until Thomas Jefferson said, "kill those bastards."

I know the navy captain who was charged with destroying 9 million gallons of napalm. It was wasted.



Sunday, September 10, 2017

TRUMP WALKS ON TYPHOONS OF HATE

I read Surber as a kind of afterthought.

He nails it with his article on Trump. The democrats are on the glide path to doom. The GOP leadership has elected to take the jet powered slope to doom. Jet powered is the way to go. One can only hope that all the McCains crash and burn on this approach to politics. I'm not sure what's wrong with electors in Arizona but they have relentlessly elected FLAKES to high office. Surely we deserve better than Flakes and McCains.

JUST A DREAM

I think I got past this stage when I turned 50. It sure woke me up a time or two for 20 years. I don't know about you but I forgot both french and fencing. I had to stab the fencing instructor and he forgot that the most dangerous swordsman is the one who doesn't have a clue about how to fence. Easy stab. French was a little bit more difficile but I managed. A nod to my curmedgeonly friend


HOW COOL IS THAT

A nearish miss by a minor planetoid with moons. It's obviously the way to travel, with satellites.


Friday, September 8, 2017

THE CARS I OWNED

I saw the purple cars at Time Waster and it reminded me. All the cars I owned:

Plymouth station wagon
Mazda RX-7
VW 1976 van
Mazda RX-7
Cutlass Supreme
BMW328i
Murano
VW Jetta 17 years now.

40 years of driving reduced to those cars for the most part plus a Blazer and various army trucks....and one jeep that the navy told me I had to give up. Jeeps are like heroin. It was hard to give it up.

TO LAUGH AND RIDICULE

These are the police or, as some would have it, the po po. Obviously, one is scared of catching black. I like the arm jewelry and wonder why more po po's don't wear fierce looking grills and man buns.


STEPPED INTO THE CLEARING

I had meant to mention one man but Jerry Pournelle died today and so there must be two men who have stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. Flying Officer Ken Wilkinson was one of the Last of the Few. There are scarcely a dozen left of the men who flew for the RAF in the Battle of Britain today and yet I lived all my life in the fading shadow of those giants. It's hard to believe I'm getting old but there it is. I was born in Germany, still occupied by the US Army 16 years after the wars end and yet when I saw the movie of the Battle of Britain at Fort Myer when it came out, there I was, convinced that I'd done that thing. Deja vu.

Jerry Pournelle was a writer that I admired. He collaborated with one of the best writers of our time on a number of books and I've read them all. He had a pretty good grasp on the future and his books reflected it. He also wrote for BYTE magazine and I used to read his column every time it showed up back in the day when Borders was still the store that ruled the Sevegram and stocked it at the door.

He maintained his approach to tech and computers all his life unlike me who just said, "STOP!" I stopped Windows at XP Pro and allow my mac to update when I feel like it. If new things are incompatible with what I run I don't run to update, I simply ignore. That said, I recently downloaded a new editing software and may actually use it in times to come. Jerry wrestled hard with tech. In a way he reminded me very much of Lex who said he preferred wrestling snakes in the cockpit to cubeville. I totally agree.

Farewell and God rest ye merry gentlemen.

ENOUGH SAID, HE'S CONTEMPTIBLE

Even elected Republicans say they’ve had enough.
“I look forward to going to every place where she appears,” Sen. John McCain of Arizona said sarcastically.
Sleazy MxCain pointed out that he didn’t write a book after losing the 2008 presidential race.
“I respect and admire and am a friend of Hillary’s,” he said. “But with these kind of things that happen in life, you’ve got to move on. You’ve got to quickly move on.”
Then again, Clinton’s first event sold out in hours, and the book vaulted to the top of Amazon's best-seller list weeks before its release, almost certain to set a 2017 record.

STREWTH!

I'm left hoping Kim has inched a little bomb closer to DC but all in all, this might just send a little wakeup to the clowns and losers that run the GOP in DC.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

AIR FORCE DOWNSELECTS THE A10

Having them crash is one way to get them off the Air Force inventory. It's not a route I would have chosen but then I'm not an Air Force 4 star. No doubt the unharmed pilots will be lofted into the air again soon in freshly revivified A10s for another run at the mountain of doom. While their justice branch moves with the ponderous tread of dinosaurs, the slow hand of doom just moves the stick a little tiny bit for enormous but quiet results. Kind of like how they "lose" at red flag competitions against people like the Turks and Dutch and claim that they need way way more $ if they expect to survive on a modern battlefield.  OTOH, the newer Russian SAMs make me think they will last about as long as snowflakes in Hell. They better hope the cruise missiles do their thing before they are called out to do their thing and gain air superiority.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

ON KOREA

I suspect that people are making some very dangerous assumptions about North Korea and Kim. I think neither he nor they care a rat's patoot about what we may or may not do in some bland sanctioning of N. Korea but we sure as hell have lost sight of what N. Korea can do to us. As another commenter elsewhere noted, in 1939 Americans saw the Japanese as short, buck-toothed, blind idiots and treated them as such when Congress embargoed Japan following the Japanese invasion of China. They learned a potent lesson when the Imperial Japanese Navy, the same one that crushed the Tsar's navy like a bug, attacked and bombed Pearl Harbor. Surprise!

If we sanction N. Korea and embargo their trade and the trade of any country that trades with them then Kim has very little left to sell.....except for Hydrogen bombs. He can sell to the highest bidder, FOB, Pyongyang and leave it to the customer to get the bombs off Peninsula. ISIS or Al Quaeda sound like likely buyers but then so does Erdogan.

We might be a little further behind in the race to renewed hostilities than we think. If I was Kim I'd be as bellicose as I wanted to be if I already had my agents sitting on hydrogen or even atomic bombs in Hawaii, San Diego, LA, San Francisco and Seattle. The US Customs people inspect less than 1/10th of 1 percent of all the shipping containers that arrive in the United States every year and they come from all over the world.

I figure if Kim is smart the bombs are in Pearl Harbor and San Diego. If he's crazy mad and vicious they're going to be in LA and San Francisco. We need to stop getting wrapped up in what we're going to do to Kim and the Norks and consider what he is going to do to us.

Oh, and all that nonsense with missiles, just misdirection for the credulous who still play 3 card monte on the sidewalk or think they know which cup the magician hid the little ball under.

I sure hope the alphabet agencies really do have orbital nuclear detectors that can track a bomb moving across the ocean and pinpoint its location. I'd look to the shipping news to see if there have been any unexplained sinkings mid-Pacific but I don't think their wet work teams are going to leave any survivors to explain that they were just innocent fishermen when they were attacked out of the blue by an LA-688I and ADCAP torpedoes.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

SPOT THE FASCIST

This is an easy exercise for civilization. See if you can spot the fascist.


Saturday, September 2, 2017

FIRE THEM ALL

Every single cop that took part in this crime needs to be convicted, lose their right to carry a firearm or ever wear a police badge again and that includes the cop in green who stood by and the other cop in blue who stood by while a brutal crime was committed by one of 'their own.' This kind of behavior is exactly why all those guys with rifles showed up last year in the confrontation that the government was having with a rancher. The public is losing or has already lost confidence in the police to actually carry out the law and is getting tired of the gestapo tactics they've decided are necessary to subdue the populace. There's a word for that kind of behavior and it is criminal.

UPDATE: I have deleted the email from the hospital POV. Too Long, Didn't View. The police camera shows it in all it's gruesome detail in under 3 minutes and it's 'focused'. Yeah, focused. Police going crazy on a citizen who is doing no more than pointing out the law. I think it happens a lot more than most people realize.

Friday, September 1, 2017

THERE'S SOMETHING MISSING

I hear that one of CNN's hosts was at the riot in Berkeley. Hear the man speak!
W. Kamau Bell, who fronts a show on CNN called the “United Shades of America,” grabbed a bullhorn at the rally and bellowed that "when the Nazis leave, as they have left…you have to stand up for the brown people, the black people, the LGBT people, the immigrants–everybody everyday!” The mob roared in approval.
 I could delve further into the full text of his shoutout for hatred but I'd rather not. I'll simply leave it to the reader to discern what he thinks is most descriptive of everybody who isn't black, brown, LGBT or an immigrant....

That's right, we're all nazis acccording to him and all those like him. And what else did he say up there in that paragraph?