The U.S. has had a year of trials and tribulation. Today, despite state and local governments telling us how many people we can have in our homes, we should give thanks for living in a country in which we can ignore government decrees.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Life sentences
Hamdi Firat Buyuk
Balkan Insight
A court in Ankara has handed down verdicts to nearly 500 hundred (sic)
people in the so-called Akinci Air Base Case because of their alleged roles in
a failed coup attempt in July 2016.
Akinci
Air Base in Ankara was the headquarters of the plotters and the operations of
the abortive coup attempt were managed there, including air strikes on
civilians.
…
The court handed multiple life sentences of between 16 and 79
times to pilots, military personnel and civilians who took role in the coup
attempt and the air strikes.
The court handed down the maximum punishments available and showed no leniency to the convicted coup plotters.
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/26/turkey-hands-down-aggravated-life-sentences-for-2016-plotters/
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Not that kind of people
My family of five will have Thanksgiving dinner at our daughter’s house. All three children and my wife are contributing recipes and requisite labor to make the usual Thanksgiving fare.
Last night, a neighbor dropped by to invite my wife and me for Thanksgiving dinner with him and his wife. They had planned dinner with his daughter, two sons and families, but his oldest son called yesterday evening and said he and his brother and sister thought it advisable not to have everyone together in confined circumstances, what with the current disease and his father and step-mother’s advanced age and all. The neighbor had already ordered complete Thanksgiving dinner for 10. Cancellation date had already passed.
Right now, my wife is on the phone with a niece, who said there would be no Thanksgiving dinner at my older sister’s house in Tennessee. Thirty or so people were expected, grandchildren and even a great-grandchild or three. Again, the current disease, plus two people older than 75 and one at 71.
I do not like any of this. A disease propagandized out of proportion to its severity, coupled with a population become accustomed to doing as it is told.
My family’s Thanksgiving will
be a time of, well, thanksgiving, that we have survived the government and
media attempts at making us fearful. We are not that kind of people.
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
White liberals not likely to agree with this Negro
By Jason Whitlock
I am repulsed by
the people who have worked tirelessly for more than 400 years to convince black
people that our skin color is our most prized asset and defining
characteristic.
This conceit
originally led to our physical enslavement. It has now led to our mental
enslavement.
The stewards of the
zeitgeist –i.e. the spirit, mood, characteristics of a particular time in
history –” have persuaded black people to
pursue blackness above all else, above faith, intelligence and freedom.
I object.
Passionately.
This blinding,
irrational pursuit is leading to the destruction of black people and the
destabilization of our country.
I object because I
love black people, I love America and I love God.
I
do not love the stewards of the zeitgeist, and they do not love me or any other
black person who would dare object to their racist manipulation of black
consciousness and black culture.
The root of my
disdain is biblical. Sixty years ago, the hallmark of black culture was
religious faith. It carried us through slavery, Jim Crow segregation, lynching
and was the power source of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement.
In
1965, political sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan authored what would come to
be known as the Moynihan Report, a study of The Negro Family: The Case for
National Action. Written to influence President Lyndon Johnson’s policies
regarding America’s black-white racial dilemma, the 16,000-word Moynihan Report
spelled out the devastating impact of 350 years of racial oppression on the
black family. It predicted that the growing matriarchy defining black culture
would undermine the progress of black people in a Western society built for
patriarchal families.
Today, the Moynihan
Report reads like a biblical prophecy. Fifty-five years ago, Moynihan argued
black people’s survival in America was a modern miracle.
“A
lesser people might simply have died out, as indeed others have,” Moynihan
wrote.
We didn’t die out
because of our religious faith, the world’s primary source of hope. Faith in a
higher power made our spirit unbreakable.
The Moynihan Report
was written to make the case that America should take extraordinary measures to
invest in the black nuclear family. It was written as a rebuttal of President
Johnson’s Great Society initiative. The Johnson administration disavowed the
Moynihan Report and its author. The mainstream media spent the next several
years framing Moynihan as a racist.
Over the last 55
years, the stewards of American culture have worked to disconnect black people
from our religious faith, our salvation. Black pride is our new religion. Our
skin color and the degenerate behaviors white liberals have deemed as
authentically black have become the hallmarks of black culture. There’s nothing
blacker than repeatedly saying “nigga” in public spaces or having a baby
mama/daddy or dealing drugs to survive poverty. The highest form of blackness
is being a victim of racism, especially if it involves a white cop.
According
to the stewards of the zeitgeist, George Floyd is 100 times blacker than Dr.
Ben Carson.
Black entertainers
are instructed to and rewarded for evangelizing for blackness and celebrating
black victimhood. Being a victim of a racial slight often causes the victim to
speak in tongues. Victimization is so coveted that some believers fake racial
incidents and speak in forked tongues.
Black Lives Matter
is a mega church for the religion of blackness. LeBron James and Colin
Kaepernick are pastors at the Nike denomination of BLM. It was James’ and
Kaepernick’s responsibility to change the culture of sports from worship of God
to worship of blackness.
Look at what has
happened in our lifetime. As a child, the most frequent message you would see
at a televised sporting event was a fan in the stands holding a sign reading
“John 3:16.”
For God so loved
the world, He gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may
not perish, but may have life everlasting.
Now, we are
bombarded with messages promoting the salvation of loving blackness. Some NBA
players wore jerseys with “Love Us” emblazoned on the back. Can they not
recognize their narcissism?
Loving a skin
color, loving a millionaire black athlete, loving a black rapper improves the
world? Really?
Salvation,
justice and fairness are delivered through the love of God, not through the
love of man regardless of his skin color. We used to understand this. Love,
submission and obedience to God ended slavery and Jim Crow, and they will
retard the last vestiges of American bigotry.
White liberals have
convinced black people to take God out of the equation and replace Him with
Barack Obama, LeBron James, Dr. Harry Edwards, Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives
Matter and all the other approved symbols of unapologetic blackness.
I object to this
insanity. Love of my skin color is not America’s salvation. Random white people
loving me is not the key to my happiness, freedom or success in this country.
Let us return to the days of “Read my lips”
Presumptive President-elect Joe Biden: “I’m not going to shut down the economy, period. I’m going to shut down the virus,” Biden said at a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware. “I’ll say it again. No national shutdown.”
https://tennesseestar.com/2020/11/22/biden-promises-no-nationwide-shutdown/
Link at knuckledraggin.
A headline
From Orlando Click.
‘Hundreds line up in Orlando amid coronavirus pandemic for free frozen turkeys’
And?
If the (alleged) shooter had just left his gun at home …
Statement from Mayor Dennis R. McBride, Wauwatosa, Wisc., where a 15-year-old was arrested after (allegedly) shooting up a mall and wounding several people.
Hizzonner: “Guns have no place in shopping malls or other places in which crowds of people gather. Mayfair has a strict no-gun policy. If the shooter had complied with that policy, no one would have been hurt yesterday.”
The mall “has a strict no-gun policy.” And we know bad guys always follow the rules.
Seems like that was the problem Trump was elected to fix
Washington Post: “By design, they seem meant to project a dutiful confidence, as Biden creates a government overseen by those who have run it before.” – Jake Sherman, screen grab at gunfreezone.
So now, if Them, The People, have unelected President Trump, Biden's people will quietly go about reinstalling government as before -- China, Iran, Palestinian terrorists and all other things Trump was well on the way to repairing.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Hazard pay with the NYT job?
From The Moscow Times
The NY Times says it needs a Russia Correspondent. The newspaper described the job location and conditions thusly:
“Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the
world.
“It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its
cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the West to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It has deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its influence. At home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president hides out in his villa.
“If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good
news: We will have an opening for a new correspondent …”
The Russian foreign ministry wondered, “Does the newspaper
even have the right to risk the life of a correspondent by sending them to work
in such inhuman conditions?”
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova “implied that Russian authorities responsible for issuing visas and
accreditations to foreign journalists could prohibit their entry to Russia
altogether as a way to ensure their safety.
“American journalists’ lives
also matter, even if they work for The New York Times,” Zakharova said.
And just so people will remember the NYT loves everybody:
“The New York Times is
committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce, one that reflects the varied
global community we serve. Our journalism and the products we build in the
service of that journalism greatly benefit from a range of perspectives, which
can only come from diversity of all types, across our ranks, at all levels of
the organization. Achieving true diversity and inclusion is the right thing to
do. It is also the smart thing for our business. So we strongly encourage
women, veterans, people with disabilities, people of color and gender
nonconforming candidates to apply.”
https://nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/INYT/job/Moscow-Russia/Russia-Correspondent_REQ-008536
The NYT writes and
prints that shit with a straight face.
Biden appoints Kerry as special presidential envoy for climate
Look for more of this.
“A potential Biden administration would feature former Secretary of State John Kerry as ‘Special Presidential Envoy for Climate’ reported NBC news Monday.”
Or: “Potential Biden admin shaping up to be everything you thought it would be.”
Said the presumptive President-elect: “I need a team ready on Day One to help me reclaim America’s seat at the head of the table, rally the world to meet the biggest challenges we face, and advance our security, prosperity, and values. This is the crux of that team.”
A Grimm Portland
There is something about watching six seasons of Grimm in three weeks that at certain times you look at the downtown buildings and all the residential neighborhood arts and crafts houses and say, “So that was Portland. HAHAHAHAHA!” Nice looking place, it was.
Grimm’s Portland was filled with too many monsters to list. Wessen.
Definitions.net does not have a definition for Wessen, but does have its numerical value in Chaldean numerology – 9 – and its value in Pythagorean numerology – 4. Whatever those mean.
Looking at pre-Antifa/BLM Portland is like looking at photographs of German cities in the 1920s. Dudes, what you are going to do to yourselves. Those bridges over the rivers? Gone. The fine museums? Gone. Cathedrals, music auditoria, business districts? Yeah.
They voted for the party that promised something for everyone. Well, except for those few who did not matter. In the Antifa/BLM/ world every thought is equal, unless promulgated by someone on the list of DNM (Does Not Matter), that is, Jews and other designated White People.
Meet the new boss. Same as
the old, old, old boss. – Bob Merriman, 2020.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Dead 8-ton whale, 24 cases of dynamite
What could go wrong?
Well, 50 years ago …
“The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLumsir34&feature=emb_logo
Proof that not even a Cadillac will withstand a mass of falling whale blubber.
Link at Ace of Spades HQ.
Whale courtesy of God.
Mr. Cheap
My wife and our children think it strange of me to save used tea bags. Here is a fact: Using three bags makes a pitcher of tea at the proper strength; six used tea bags, boiled for a minute or so, will make the same strength tea.
Our daughter says my saving tea bags is because I am a child of people who grew up in the Great Depression. My mother was 8 at the 1929 stock market crash, my father was 9. They were raised to waste nothing. So was I.
Use only as much of a thing as you need. If you can stretch usage of something, do so.
My father one time said to me, “You are cheap.” I made no reply, but thought, “And who raised me to be that way?”
I am low maintenance. I never bought a car or pickup that was beyond my need or expectation. I expect to get full use from everything I buy.
That used to be The American
Way. I guess I am getting old.
Biden gun plans, from their own voices
“Biden will create a $900 million, eight-year initiative to fund … evidence-based interventions in 40 cities across the country – the 20 cities with the highest number of homicides, and 20 cities with the highest number of homicides per capita.” That is, organizing “community leaders to work with individuals most likely to commit acts of gun violence, express the community’s demand that the gun violence stop, and connect individuals who may be likely perpetrators with social and economic support services that may deter violent behavior.”
https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/#
Or, talk, talk, talk, money, money, money.
Under Biden’s plans, every federal office, agency and administration is to conduct a study on how its programs address and lessen gun violence. Soon, federal employees will spend all their work hours attending mandatory classes to remind said employees their individual and collective responsibilities concerning gun violence, green energy, women, Hispanic/Latino-Americas, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Pacific Island-Americans, Trans-Gender Americans, Gay-Americans, Lesbian-Americans, Bi-Sexual Americans, Non-Gendered Americans, and groups not yet identified.
See also: http://zelmanpartisans.com/?p=49699
Saturday, November 21, 2020
If you don't have a D.A. Coe story, you weren't paying attention
Borepatch noted tonight that he has posted maybe 500 country songs, but he’d never linked to David Alla Coe’s You Never Call Me by My Name. So he left a link.
My guess is ever DA Coe fan has a story to go along with listening to the song somewhere, sometime. Here’s one.
My wife, 1-year-old son and I were driving from Grand Prairie, Texas, to Lake Grapevine to meet up with other n’eer do well newspaper types for Labor Day picnic 1977, a hot day, windows rolled down on my 1970 taxicab yellow Chevrolet Nova, with no air conditioning. I drove over a hill and into the flats below and saw sitting at a stop sign to the right a vinyl top red Cadillac, the driver wearing a straw cowboy hat and a blonde sitting dangerously close. I said to my wife, “Look at that goat roper in the Cadillac.” We got closer, and I could read the license tag: DA COE. Weeell doggies. I said, “Y’all just go ahead on with what you’re doing.”
Here is the borepatch link:
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2020/11/david-allan-coe-you-never-even-called.html
And the link to Mr. D.A. Coe hisself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAOVRkSCWmg&feature=emb_logo
EU doesn’t want Hungary to use Russian COVID-19 vaccine
From Daily News Hungary.
Now, now, now, said enlightened persons to their Eastern country cousins. You don't need to use that Russian stuff. Wait until we, the benevolent European Union, can deliver our vaccine.
“According to Reuters, the interim trial results of the Sputnik V were 92 pc effective at protecting people from the COVID-19 respiratory disease. Meanwhile, U.S. firms Moderna and Pfizer showed slightly better results, but they are not ready for mass production.”
“The European Union already signed contracts with five
vaccine makers to buy nearly 2 billion doses, but negotiations are still going
on with other producers. That means that Hungary will receive shots from the
EU, but that will not be available in early-2021. According
to azonnali.hu, that is why the government would like to import and
produce Russian vaccines to win some time.”
https://dailynewshungary.com/the-eu-does-not-want-hungary-to-use-the-russian-covid-19-vaccine/
The European Medicines Agency
has not reviewed the Russian vaccine. Sounds like the U.S. FDA deciding
European drugs are not good enough for American consumers because the US
government had not tested the drugs. Europeans taking a page from the US
playbook for a change?
Blanket, Texas
Blanket is in Brown County in Central Texas, pretty much in the center of the state. The 2010 population was 390. The largest population was 472, in 1920. Only one other time in the town’s history has the population exceeded 400, at 402 in 2000.
With a Google map search, you can get a good idea of the town. One thing you will see is, Blanket residents like white houses. Bright white houses.
The Blanket General Store makes some pretty good looking burgers, French fries, of course, and onion rings. The Store also carries Dublin sodas from the 120-year-old Dublin Bottling Works in Dublin, Texas. The bottling company advertises its sodas as “Always made from pure cane sugar.”
The high school and the junior high play six-man football. In 2014, the Blanket High School team defeated Loraine High 101-99 in a Class 1A Division 2 bidistrict playoff game.
Downtown Blanket has some old commercial buildings, faded paint clinging to old wood.
Nice looking town.
Billed as Stella’s best leaf jumps of all time
I would have said Stella’s best leaf leaps. A little alliteration now and then is good. 5.3 million views. Still watchable. Link at American Digest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3HN-MmJc4&feature=emb_logo
Writers should have done some homework
In a recent episode of CBS’ FBI, a new character transferred from Atlanta to the NYC field office said this of her time in the Georgia capital: “It was too Southern.” The character is a black woman (or, Black woman, as is written in Modern Times). Strange that a (B)black woman should find “too Southern” a city that is majority (B)black. Or, perhaps Southern (B)blacks do not meet her level of ethnicity. Or, perhaps NYC TV writers suffer from the all too common malady of cranial-rectum inversion. Oh, well. As fast as NYC is falling apart, TV writers from Up North might have to move Down South. I hope not.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Unity – a word that applies only to Democrats
And, Democrats get to define “unity.”
Virginia police chief fired after charging BLM and public officials for tearing down Confederate statue.
From Hot Air.
Investigation led Portsmouth Police Chief to lodge charges against a state legislator, several Black Lives Matter members, NAACP officials and a local school member.
“Greene had charged all of the people involved with felony injury to a monument in excess of $1,000 and conspiracy. She had the perpetrators on video using cans of spray paint and eventually toppling and destroying the statue. She had the social media records showing the state senator encouraging everyone to come down to the location and help them destroy the statue. There was even a video of the state senator telling police officers what they intended to do and saying that the police couldn’t arrest them for it.”
Link at knuckledraggin.
All charges were dropped against the perps, and Chief Greene was fired.
Democrat political cry: What
do we want? We don’t know! Tell us!
Thursday, November 19, 2020
We still have much to learn
Remember 1989, when the Soviet Union fell apart and all countries of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and those on the southern and eastern periphery of the USSR became not Communist? Marxism and Leninism were dead, as dead as the chemically doped bodies of Lenin and Stalin in the walls of the Kremlin. Those countries stumbled to presumable democracies, but the one thing they are not is Communist. Something we should have learned since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution: Communists do not give up. A dead Communist always leaves others to continue the work. Communists want power and more power and will go to any length to get power. Communists are ruthless. Americans in general do not know what ruthlessness is. Well, now we are in class, and we better learn immediately.
Trump attorney takes it to media types.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Army learns it can’t please everybody, especially women’s group complaining of ‘unfairness’ in PT test
From Military.com
“An advocacy group for women veterans sent a letter to Congress this week, urging lawmakers to stop implementation of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) until the service completes an independent study of the new assessment's potential impacts on female soldiers.
“SWAN wants an independent study to assess multiple factors, such as the probable impact of the ACFT on accessions and retention, the risks of soldier injury and, ‘particularly, its impact on the career prospects for women and older soldiers,’ according to the release.”
(That concern about “accession and retention”
means a number of women will not pass the new PT test and may not continue in
service. As far as an independent study, if SWAN gets its way on the PT test,
what other aspects of Army life will the organization decide are unfair to
women?)
Grammar bully
A Facebook video yesterday showed a golfer at the Masters on a practice round skipping a ball across a water hazard. After three skips, the ball landed on the green, went uphill, made a small left turn and then down the slope and into the hole. A hole in one, but on a practice round. And, players are not allowed to skip balls across water hazards, except in practice.
What got my attention not as
much as the shot, was the sports writer commenting on "hole-in-ones."
I looked at that and then looked at it again. No. He didn't really write that.
Well, yes, he did. You just look at it, and you say, "That's wrong." And,
"How many grammar schools did the writer not go to not to learn that
rule?"
That sort of thing is becoming more and more common as people who do not know grammar are allowed and paid big dollars to make mistakes. I have read of "state's attorney generals" and "Army sergeant majors." Another one that really gets me is "marshal law."
Writers who do not know become editors who do not know, or care. The check don't bounce. (And many could not explain that term.)
Old-time journalism had time-honored rules on grammar. After finding an error, an editor spoke to a
writer, explaining what was wrong, why it was wrong and how to fix it. These
days, an old-time journalist would be known as "that bully."
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Macedonia cracks down on criminals forced home by pandemic
From Balkan Insight.
As COVID-19 restrictions compel members of Romania’s top crime gangs to head home temporarily, officials are using the opportunity to seize as many of them as possible.
The massive crackdown was announced early on Wednesday. Soon after the nightly curfew enforced by the government to limit COVID-19 infections was lifted, the media reported hundreds of raids across the country, targeting alleged sex and drug traffickers and migrant smugglers as well as racketeers, money launderers, tax dodgers and cyberfraudsters.
One law
enforcement operation has served to dismantle a crime syndicate that trafficked
young Romanian girls to Western European countries, where they were sexually
exploited in brothels. The group started off more than a decade ago, recruiting
victims from prisons. They lured them on social media, often starting romantic
relationships with the girls, or promising fake jobs.
Another set
of raids targeted a crime gang that supplied the Austrian sex market with
Romanian girls, including minors. To recruit their victims, they also used the
so-called “loverboy” method, which involves seducing the victim to gain her
confidence before exploiting her. Austrian and EU law enforcement and judicial
authorities cooperated with Romania in this case.
Among those to be brought to book are other human traffickers, child pornographers and a group of internet scammers who defrauded over 2,000 victims abroad of more than a million euros.
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/12/romania-cracks-down-on-criminals-forced-home-by-pandemic/
12,000-pound RAF bomb explodes in Poland
Reuters Staff
WARSAW (Reuters) - The biggest World War Two bomb ever found in Poland exploded under water on Tuesday as navy divers tried to defuse it.
More than 750 people had been evacuated from the area near the Piast Canal outside the town of Swinoujscie where the Tallboy bomb used by Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) was found. It weighed nearly 5,400 kg, including 2,400 kg of explosive.
“The deflagration process turned into detonation. The object can be considered as neutralised, it will not pose any more threat,” Second-Lieutenant Grzegorz Lewandowski, the spokesman of the 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla, was quoted as saying by state-run news agency PAP.
“All mine divers were outside the danger zone.”
Swinoujscie contains a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal but a spokesman for the town’s mayor told PAP no one was injured and no infrastructure had been damaged.
The Piast Canal connects the Baltic Sea with the Oder River on Poland’s border with Germany. The bomb was dropped by the RAF in 1945 in an attack on the German cruiser Lutzow.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN26Y2J4?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter
Link at American Digest
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Shooting
Michael, my oldest, and I went shooting this afternoon at Manatee Gun and Archery Range for the Great Southwest Florida Shootout, which was put together by the owners/operators of gunfreezone.net and borepatch.blogspot.com.
Around 20 relatives and readers of the blogs attended the expenditure of several hundreds of rounds, ranging from .22-caliber to 12-guage shotgun. An actual listing includes .22 LR, .30-caliber M1 Garand, 5.56mm, .45-caliber Colt Auto, 9mm Parabellum, .30-caliber carbine and possibly some others I was not aware of.
Shooters included former military as well as those who never wore a military uniform. We all share the knowledge and conviction that Americans and all other citizens of the world are born with the right of self-defense, using whatever means necessary. And, those same means may be used to keep rights and freedoms.
I fired one of Michael's M1 Garands. I did not do nearly as well as I expected, but intend to do better at the second Great Southwest Florida Shootout, tentatively set for sometime in February.
Friday, November 13, 2020
NY Times was wrong (big surprise)
The self-proclaimed newspaper of record in 2014 proclaimed the Bible was wrong in the patriarchs’ ownership of camels. Archaeologists at Tel Aviv University had proclaimed the arrival of camels in Israel in the time of Solomon.
“(A) science reporter for the NY Times decided to make a mountain out of a molehill. ‘Camels Had No Business in Genesis’ screamed the title. ‘There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place,’ the piece claimed.”
Conclusion by the Times: Since the Bible is wrong about the patriarchs riding camels, the Bible is wrong about most other things as well.
Well, it is to laugh.
Archaeologist Joshua Berman: “But it turns out that the NY Times article was not only sensationalist but incorrect. Camels in Genesis are right where they belong. It is true that camels were not domesticated in Israel until the time of Solomon. But read Genesis carefully and you see that all its camels come from outside of Israel, from Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, where there is ample evidence of domestication of the camel during the period of the patriarchs.”
Thursday, November 12, 2020
The best-ever war story
A war story popped into my head this morning as I was waking up and deciding to get out of bed.
In Dispatches, Michael Herr says this is the best war story ever: A five-man LRRP patrol left a 1st Cav base camp for a five-day patrol. One of the patrol members staggered back into the base camp after three days, but he died before he could tell what happened.
That is a pretty good war story, but it is not the best-ever war story. Admittedly, deciding which of millions of war stories is the best is completely subjective. There can be no objective determination of the best.
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien has a chapter entitled “How to Tell a Good War Story.” That means how a hearer should determine whether a war story is a good story or bad. A good war story, O’Brien says, does not have a moral. There is no lesson learned. There are words, as few as necessary to tell the story, then “BAM!” the story is done. And, O’Brien says, at the conclusion of a good war story, no one can say “What happened then?” There can be no questions.
Here is maybe the first war story I heard in Vietnam, probably in December 1966. An armored cavalry troop on a clearing operation near the 11th Armored Cavalry base camp ran into a Viet Cong bunker complex. ACAVs and a couple of supporting tanks returned fire, quickly taking out all bunkers but one. Viet Cong inside the one bunker continued firing. Then, an M48 tank moved up to the bunker and placed the muzzle of its 90mm main gun as close to the firing aperture as possible. The gunner fired a high explosive round through the aperture. In the words of an observing soldier, “When that HE went off, man there was pieces of gook and shit all over the place.” No moral, no lesson learned, no question of “What happened then?”
Not a bad war story.
But here is the best-ever war
story: In the summer of 1968, Sgt. William Mumford, late of the 193d Light
Infantry Brigade walked up to me at Fort Meade, Md., and said: “We set up
ambush on this canal and just after midnight this boat came down the canal and this woman opened up with an AK. I wasted
that bitch, man. I wasted her.” And
he walked off.
11 November 1918, 1059-1100 hours
The silence of the guns after more than four years must have been frightening. For a few seconds, anyway.
https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-interpretation-sound-installation
The loudest silence I have ever heard occurred each time the helicopters flew away from a landing zone.
From a Biden supporter
“F*** the farmers. Honor our cities and their museums and theaters and public gardens and business people and office workers who make the welfare money we give to farmers and red states.” – Sue Mathews.
https://gunfreezone.net/dear-farmers-miners-red-staters/
(Mathews is listed as a
retired librarian, reader, traveler, gardener and feminist. I would guess her
library employment might have been in a large city.)
Luty’s homemade submachine gun
Philip Luty made his submachine guns as a political statement. But, the UK being the UK, he went to prison for his statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIhGCRIQnCA
Link at knuckledraggin.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Golan fort from Davidic era probably Geshurite
From The Times of Israel
Dating to around the time of King David 3,000 years ago, what may be the earliest fortified settlement in the Golan Heights was recently discovered during salvage excavations ahead of the construction of a new neighborhood.
The striking find is being tentatively linked to the Geshurite people, whose capital is recorded in the Bible as having been located nearby, to the north of the Sea of Galilee.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Vietnamese spend tons of money on Budapest apartments
From Daily News Hungary
While buyers from the Netherlands spent an average of 11.5 million forints (~€31,500) on real estate, Vietnamese buyers spent much more, over 60 million forints (~€164,300)
Apart from them, the Chinese and the French
also bought from the more expensive segment; the buyers of both nations spent
almost 50 million forints (~€137,000) on the purchased apartment. Austrians
mostly bought real estate near the western border of Hungary, for an average of
24 million forints (~€66,000). The average spending of Romanian buyers was only
13 million forints (~€36,000). This was among the lowest, as they mostly bought
real estate in the eastern parts of Hungary, where real estate prices are much
lower. The Dutch spent even less, and they mostly bought real estate in small
towns in Southern Transdanubia.
https://dailynewshungary.com/chinese-and-vietnamese-bought-apartments-in-budapest-by-the-dozen/
Is it not unlogical that people from two of the remaining Communist countries spend more for apartments in Hungary than do buyers from Western economies?
Monday, November 9, 2020
Democratic Latina says what she thinks, SHTF
Eva “I’m pretty and rich” Longoria: “…Latina women are the real heroines here, beating men in turnout in every state, and voting for Biden/Harris at an average rate close to three to one!”
Black SHTF: “Many of these white Latinas HATE to see Black women getting any kind of shine…” – Tariq Nasheed.
“If Eva Longoria's interview was about the latino vote, WHY TF she had to bring up black women, mfs cant do shit without bringing up black women” – Misses LACE Mamas.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/506227-eva-longoria-trump-black-women/
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Michigan State chief diversity officer salary $315,000
Jabbar Bennett will also get $700 monthly car allowance and $25,000 signing bonus.
How can those people in good conscience even take “diversity and inclusion” jobs?
Bennett in February quit a similar job at Northwestern University in Evansville, Illinois. To see accolades about Bennett’s diversity accomplishments, go here:
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2020/01/jabbar-bennett/
My first thought was that the court martial board was getting ready for the incoming Biden administration…
AKA, making the US military play by Obama rules.
From Valor Guardians.
A Marine lieutenant colonel found guilty of stealing hundreds of
dollars in merchandise from a base exchange in South Korea has escaped
punishment, according to a published report.
Lt. Col. Samuel K. Lee, 47,
was convicted Sept. 11 at Camp Foster, Okinawa, of two counts of violating
Article 121 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or larceny of non-military
property valued at $1,000 or less, the military news website Task & Purpose
reported Thursday, citing court records.
Lee, a logistics officer
for Marine Forces Korea, stole a 4K ultra high definition wire-free security
camera system, Apple Airpods with a wireless charging system, Bose
noise-canceling headphones and Estee Lauder ReNutriv Ultimate Diamond energy
cream between Nov. 1, 2019, and March 8, 2020, according to the report, which
cited Marine officials with knowledge of the charges.
A conviction for theft at
or under $1,000 could bring a bad conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and
allowances and confinement for one year, according to the manual on courts
martial.
However, the judge in the
case “did not impose punishment,” according to the Corps’ report on
court-martial dispositions for September, “consistent with the plea agreement.”
Lee remains on active duty
and is stationed at Marine Corps Forces Korea, spokesman Capt. Joseph
Butterfield wrote in an email Thursday to Stars and Stripes.
A legal scholar contacted
by Stars and Stripes said Lee escaping punishment is out of the ordinary.
“It is unusual in my mind
that a convening authority would protect an officer from punishment under these
circumstances,” Crista Kraics, a retired Marine Corps judge advocate, told
Stars and Stripes on Thursday by email.
Lee, a former Combat
Logistics Battalion 5 commander, has been in the Marines for more than 23
years, Task & Purpose reported. He earns approximately $10,000 per month,
according to military pay scales posted to the Defense Finance Accounting
Service website.
Kraics said lower enlisted
Marines typically receive harsher punishments than the one rendered in the Lee
case.
“An enlisted Marine at
Special Court Martial, even under a pretrial agreement, would likely receive a
harsher punishment and fewer agreed-upon protections for this level of
larceny,” she said.
Decisions like the one in
the Lee case “absolutely” erode morale, Kraics said.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
Let’s go waaaay back in the Wayback Machine
Dang, a searcher has to really search just to get to Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman. Put “wayback machine” in the search box and you get all kinds of references to stuff stored somewhere forever and ever. I had to look for Mr. Peabody in order to get what I wanted. You might think that if something happened more than five or 10 years ago, it really never happened. Unless someone was trying to prove the evil that lives to the right of the political center line.
While fixing breakfast this morning, my mind for some reason suddenly jumped to Your Hit Parade, which was on television from 1950-59. Funny, the 1959 date, because that is the year Mr. Peabody and Sherman made their first appearance on The Huckleberry Hound Show. I remember the TV Hit Parade for about three years. My mother and father bought a television around 1956.
Two things were in my mind about Hit Parade – Gisele MacKenzie singing I’m All Shook Up while dressed as an Egyptian Pharaohesse or Pharaohnette and lying on an apparent embalming table; and the name Snooky Lanson, who was a singer on Hit Parade. I don’t remember anything about Lanson, except “Snooky” was not a name likely to be found in Bowie or Morris counties, Texas.
Rock and roll did in Hit Parade. Until the popularity of rock, pop music was a singer backed by a big band. Rock, by contrast, was a singer backed by three guitars (lead, rhythm and bass), drums and sometimes a piano. Rock put a lot of singers out of work.
Hard to imagine a woman in diaphanous gown, lying ready for embalming and singing an Elvis Presley song. These days activists and such would find all kinds of things wrong with a supine woman in flimsy white silk, shook up or not.
Friday, November 6, 2020
If anyone doubted the king’s determination
On 22 November 1912 King Nikola of Montenegro informed the Austro-Hungarian minister in Cetinje that “if the Monarchy tries to drive me out with force, I will fight to the last goat and the last cartridge.” – Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.
Thursday, November 5, 2020
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