Laura Upthegrove, raided Bahamas in 1924

Florida lady pirate and gang leader. 

Laura Beatrice Upthegrove (October 5, 1896 - August 6, 1927) was a 20th-century American outlaw, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s, along with John Ashley. From 1915 to 1924, the Ashley Gang operated from various hideouts in the Florida Everglades. The gang robbed nearly $1 million from at least 40 banks while at the same time hijacking numerous shipments of illegal whiskey being smuggled into the state from the Bahamas. Ashley's gang was so effective that rum-running on the Florida coast virtually ceased while the gang was active. Ashley's two-man raid on the West End, Grand Bahama, in 1924 marked the first time in over a century that American pirates had attacked a British Crown colony.

Laura was born October 5, 1896, in Reddick, near Ocala. At age 14, she married 26-year-old Calvin Collier and had two children with Collier by the time she was 18. In 1916, she divorced Collier and married Earnest Tillman, quickly bearing two children. In 1920, she left Tillman for John Ashley and took up a life of crime.

Upthegrove scouted for banks to rob and drove the getaway cars. On April 17, 1925, Upthegrove married Ashley Gang member and childhood friend Joe Tracy in order to avoid testifying in his trial for murdering a taxi driver. In 1924, Laura visited Tracy in a Kissimmee jail cell, attracting Ashley's jealousy. Ashley hatched a plan to storm the jail and kill Tracy, while sharing the plan with Upthegrove as a rescue. When Upthegrove learned Ashley's true intentions, she tipped off law enforcement, who met Ashley and two other gang members at a bridge near Sebastian and killed them all.

Among poor Florida crackers, they were considered folk heroes who represented a symbol of resistance to bankers, lawmen and wealthy landowners. After Ashley's death in 1924, Upthegrove hid out in Canal Point, where she owned and operated a gas station until on August 6, 1927, she died during an argument with a man trying to buy moonshine from her. In the heat of the moment, she swallowed a bottle of Lysol disinfectant and died within minutes. Her mother was present and elected not to call a doctor, because she would be better off dead.^[3] It is unclear whether it was an accident, as some claim she mistook it for a bottle of gin, but it was widely reported that she had committed suicide. She was 30 years old.

The couple were the subject of the 1973 film Little Laura and Big John, starring Fabian and Karen Black.^[4]

Upthegrove Beach, Florida, north of Port Mayaca, is named for her family.^[5]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Upthegrove

 

 

A different part of Florida

Belle Glade is in Palm Beach County. The citry was built in 1925 on Lake Okeechobee drained land. Wikipedia says the town was “destroyed three years later by a hurricane which killed thousands of people.”

From Wikipedia

“For a time during the early to mid 1980s, the city had the highest rate of AIDS infection per capita (37 cases in a population of roughly 19,000) in the United States. According to the FBI, in 2003, the city had the second highest violent crime rate in the country at 298 per 10,000 residents. In 2010, the Palm Beach County sheriff's office estimated that half of the young men in Belle Glade between the ages of 18 and 25 had felony convictions.”

Together with nearby Pahokee, Belle Grand has “sent at least 60 players to the National Football League.” Wikipedia’s list of “Notable People” contains 15 NFL players and no one from any other profession.

About 28.5 percent of families and 33 percent of the overall population lives below the poverty line. “As of 2000, Belle Glade had the tenth highest percentage of Haitian residents in the United States, at 11.50% of the populace. It also had the sixtieth highest percentage of Cuban residents nationally, at 5.98% of the population.” (Wikipedia.)

For every 100 women age 18 and over, Belle Grande has about 103 men.

Demographics: White alone, 36.3 percent; Black or African-American alone, 59.3 percent; Hispanic or Latino, 31.7 percent; White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, 8.3 percent.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bellegladecityflorida/HSG010219

 

 

                  

 

Making the world a better place, one dead commissar at a time

“Perhaps the most damning verdict on Soviet morale came from an anecdote, widely repeated around Helsinki, in which ‘three Russians, taken prisoner, ask for a last meal before they are shot. The Finns say: We’re not going to shoot you. So two of the prisoners said, ‘Well at least you are going to shoot this one’ pointing to the third, ‘he’s a commissar [i.e., a politruk].’ When the Finns said no, they said, ‘Well for heaven’s sake let us shoot him then.’”

https://quillette.com/2021/04/20/stopped-cold-remembering-russias-catastrophic-1939-campaign-against-finland/

 

 

From Gun Free Zone

 

California governor election gets, well, California-like

Caitlyn Jenner said he she (whatever) wants the job. Now, Randy Quaid is “seriously considering running for governor.” 

From Ace of Spades

“The prosecutorial corruption in California is rampant…; and I promise that if elected I will clean up the District Attorney Offices throughout the state.”

Lest we forget: “…(H)e’s fallen on hard times. He and his wife dropped out of Hollywood, made all manner of claims about persecution, even tried to escape to Canada. There was also a sex tape. Recently he’s been, shall we say, eccentric on Twitter.”

https://uproxx.com/movies/randy-quaid-california-governor-race-caitlyn-jenner/

 

 

AMA – American Mengele Association

 From NBC Out

“The American Medical Association is urging governors across the country to oppose legislation prohibiting transition-related care for minors, calling such proposals ‘a dangerous governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine.’”

From Gun Free Zone

“(T)he AMA is just a bunch of Mengeles who say all the right and politically fashionable things while advancing a radical Leftist ideology that engages in the sexual mutilation and medical torture of children, for access to money and influence.”

https://gunfreezone.net/the-american-mengele-association/

 

 

 

The death of Capt. Wasko

By Ernie Pyle

At the Front Lines in Italy, January 10th, 1944 . . .

In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas.

Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.

“After my own father, he came next,” a sergeant told me.

“He always looked after us,” a soldier said. “He’d go to bat for us every time.”

“I’ve never knowed him to do anything unfair,” another one said.

I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked.

Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed to the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden packsaddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.

The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside the dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help.

The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment, while they got a new grip. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road.

I don’t know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and ashamed at being alive, and you don’t ask silly questions.

We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay in the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.

Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead men lay all alone outside in the shadow of the low stone wall.

Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. “This one is Captain Waskow,” one of them said quietly.

Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five lying end to end in a long row, alongside the road. You don’t cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.

The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one I could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him, and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, “God damn it.” That’s all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, “God damn it to hell anyway.” He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left.

Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain’s face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: “I sure am sorry, old man.”

Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:

“I sure am sorry, sir.”

Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.

And finally he put the hand down, and then he reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.

After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.

Capt. Wasko's last letter home

Greetings;

If you get to read this, I will have died in defense of my country and all that it stands for — the most honorable and distinguished death a man can die. It was not because I was willing to die for my country, however — I wanted to live for it — just as any other person wants to do. It is foolish and foolhardy to want to die for one’s country, but to live for it is something else.

To live for one’s country is, to my mind, to live a life of service; to — in a small way — help a fellow man occasionally along the way, and generally to be useful and to serve. It also means to me to rise up in all our wrath and with overwhelming power to crush any oppressor of human rights.

That is our job — all of us — as I write this, and I pray God we are wholly successful.

Yes, I would have liked to have lived — to live and share the many blessings and good fortunes that my grandparents bestowed upon me — a fellow never had a better family than mine; but since God has willed otherwise, do not grieve too much dear ones, for life in the other world must be beautiful, and I have lived a life with that in mind all along. I was not afraid to die; you can be assured of that. All along, I prayed that I and others could do our share to keep you safe until we returned. I pray again that you are safe, even though some of us do not return.

I made my choice, dear ones. I volunteered in the Armed Forces because I thought that I might be able to help this great country of ours in it’s hours of darkness and need — the country that means more to me than life itself — if I have done that, then I can rest in peace, for I will have done my share to make the world a better place in which to live. Maybe when the lights go on again all over the world, free people can be happy and gay again.

Through good fortune and the grace of God, I was chosen a leader — an honor that meant more to me than any of you will ever know. If I failed as a leader, and I pray to God I didn’t, it was not because I did not try. God alone knows how I worked and slaved to make myself a worthy leader of these magnificent men, and I feel assured that my work has paid dividends — in personal satisfaction, if nothing else.

As I said a couple of times in my letters home, “When you remember me in your prayers, remember to pray that I be given strength, character and courage to lead these magnificent Americans.” I said that in all sincerity and I hope I have proved worthy of their faith, trust and confidence.

I guess I have always appeared as pretty much of a queer cuss to all of you. If I seemed strange at times, it was because I had weighty responsibilities that preyed on my mind and wouldn’t let me slack up to be human — like I so wanted to be. I felt so unworthy, at times, of the great trust my country had put in me, that I simply had to keep plugging to satisfy my own self that I was worthy of that trust. I have not, at the time of writing this, done that, and I suppose I never will.

I do not try to set myself on a pedestal as a martyr. Every Joe Doe who shouldered a rifle made a similar sacrifice — but I do want to point out that the uppermost thought in my mind all along was service to the cause, and I hope you all felt the same way about it.

When you remember me, remember me as a fond admirer of all of you, for I thought so much of you and loved you with all my heart. My wish for all of you is that you get along well together and prosper — not in money — but in happiness, for happiness is something that all the money in the world can’t buy.

Try to live a life of service — to help someone where you are or whatever you may be — take it from me; you can get happiness out of that, more than anything in life.

Henry T. Waskow

 

Gov. Abbott: We’ll bill Biden

From Hot Air 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is in process of reminding the Biden administration that the responsibility for securing the southern border lies with the federal government. The State of Texas has been picking up the expenses that incur. Now he is asking county judges to tally up their costs and send him the totals. Abbott says he is going to bill the federal government for the costs.

Abbott rightly tells the county judges (not a judicial position, it’s a county’s CEO) that Texans should not be paying for Biden’s border disaster. Several counties have declared states of emergency because they simply do not have the resources to cope with the situation. County and local governments do not have the personnel or funds to take care of the emergencies caused when illegal migrants are dumped into their communities due to a lack of space in shelters. Governor Abbott put Operation Lone Star into place to address border security and safety issues. He deployed air, ground, marine, and tactical border security assets to high threat areas with the mission of combatting human trafficking and drug cartel operations.

In his letter to county judges, Abbott reminded them that he also launched an investigation into reports of abuse in some of the shelters housing unaccompanied minors.

Governor Abbott will ask the Biden administration for full reimbursement to the State of Texas.

Full story: https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2021/04/27/governor-abbott-to-county-judges-send-me-your-receipts-well-bill-biden-for-border-crisis-expenses-n386075

 

Now reading

"Autobiography of Samuel S. Hildebrand, the Renowned Missouri ‘Bushwhacker’ Unconquerable Rob Roy of America; Being His Complete Confession Recently Made to the Writers, and Carefully Compiled by James W. Evans and A. Wendell Keith, M.D., of St. Francois County, Mo.; Together with All the Facts Connected with His Early History."

Fiction recommended of the same era: "The Outlaw Josie Wales" and "Woe to Live On," movie title "Ride with the Devil."

If not for the internet...

While searching for something military, I ran across the “Air Service Newsletter 1930.” Some interesting reads from events, two pilots who kept a Fokker C2 in the air for 151 hours, Jan. 1-7, 1929 in a test of air-to-air refueling; a pilot whose oxygen mask failed, the pilot regaining consciousness at 15,000 feet and regaining control of his aircraft at 13,000 feet; and an obituary for an officer who in World War I served for a time “at the concentration camps in Charlotte, N.C., and Garden City, Long Island, N.Y.” 

https://media.defense.gov/2011/Apr/22/2001330130/-1/-1/0/AFD-110422-033.pdf

One of the Fokker pilots was Maj. Carl A. Spatz, later general commanding the 8th Air Force and then the first Air Force chief of staff.

The pilot whose fighter plane went into a tail spin at high altitude was 1st Lieut. D.D. Graves, who, as a colonel commanded the 63rd Fighter Wing and was shot down Feb. 8, 1944, near Porto Santo, Italy. Graves was declared dead on Feb. 9, 1945.

As for the North Carolina concentration camp: “The Germans detained at the camp were a combination of workers from a German ship and immigrants that had been held at Ellis Island since the beginning of the war. In all, 2,500 Germans were held in the internment camp in Hot Springs; many were living right in that luxury hotel.”

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/north-carolina/german-pow-camp-hot-springs-nc/

 

 

Just thinking and observing

 Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. 

That is the result of computers for everything. Before computers, when the US made things through physical manufacturing, a quota set in, say, a steel mill was pretty much always the same. At a mill producing pipe, workers knew how many hours of labor were required to produce a specific number of pipes.

When computers were allowed to take over, service replaced production. In an eight-hour job, supervisors often found there was not enough actual work being done. In order to fill those eight hours with actual work, the number of tasks were expanded.

Yesterday, noticing the number of cars and trucks on the roads and the amount of apartments, houses and businesses going up, I decided on another rule: Traffic increases with the number of lanes provided for it.

Arguing with ducks

 The neighbor next door feeds the ducks. The ducks are wild. Feeding wild animals is not a good idea, because the animals might become dependent on humans and because animals will associate people and food. Some wild animals, the human doesn’t have food, the human becomes food.

That last part doesn’t happen with ducks. Not to my knowledge, anyway. I have never read of a herd of ducks overwhelming a human because the human did not have the accustomed bag of duck food.

It could happen with alligators, the animal most associated with Florida. You feed the alligator in the pond out back, the alligator associates food = human, which can become human = food. When we moved here almost seven years ago, the pond out back had a five-foot-long alligator. It moved somewhere else, and only last year did another alligator make an appearance. The new alligator is only a couple of feet long and has lots of growing to do before finding a new home.

The neighborhood has bobcats and coyotes, too. Alligators, bobcats and coyotes are all dog and cat eaters. Everybody here wants to keep animals separated.

This morning, two Muscovy ducks – one boy duck and one girl duck -- ate at my neighbor’s outside feeding site, a pan on the ground. Boy Muscovies are big, weighing up to 15 pounds. That is a big duck. The one eating this morning looked that big. The girl Muscovy ate a few bites and then left. The boy Muscovy ate like he had somewhere to go, soon finished all the food and returned to the pond.

A couple of years back, not long after the neighbor started feeding ducks, I was out back, checking plants growing just outside the patio screen. Two brown ducks came out of the water. The boy duck went to my right and began billing at the grass. The girl duck came up to my left, about two feet away and immediately demanded food. “You da man,” she quacked. “Where da food?” I told her I was not the man. “All humans might look alike to you,” I said, “but I am not the man.” She insisted I was the man. I looked to my right to see what the boy duck was doing. “Dang!” I exclaimed at seeing three juvenile ducks near my feet. The youngsters made a good imitation of their mother, accusing me of being the man and demanding food. We argued back and forth for a time – “You da man,” “No, I am not the man,” “You da man,” and then I gave up and went in the house.

You can’t win an argument with ducks.

Florida news from Gun Free Zone

 

Proverbs for modern times

Progressives define hate speech as speech that they hate.

Progressives want to remake the world on someone else's dime.

Progressives hold a street protest to proclaim their virtue, but others must clean up their mess.

Feminist women think the worst of men because feminist men are the worst of men.

 

In a galaxy coming to you, whether you want it or not

From Star Wars tweet: “In honor of #TransDayOfVisibiity, we’re proud to unveil an exclusive cover highlighting Terec and Ceret, trans non-binary Jedi currently featured in Marvel’s The High Republic comic. We support trans lives and we are passionate and committed to to broadening our representation in  galaxy far away. #TDOV.”

 

I can hear Han Solo now: “It’s not my fault!”

Government is destroying Canada

Canada closed the border with US last week. Canadians who winter in Florida can’t go home. Canadians who winter anywhere in the US can’t go home. 

From Maggie’s Farm:

@EmmaJoNYC

Just returned to the US from Canada and the difference in lifestyle between two western democratic and free countries is jarring. Canada is in a massive humanitarian crisis. 0 economic activity, curfews, & vaccine rationing. 1 of the happiest nations & the ppl have been broken.

People cannot even walk outside in peace. Cops heckling about mask wearing in open air, parks, etc. Breaking up couples laying on the grass. People putting prescriptions in their pockets to walk outside at night to have a "pharmacy" excuse when they are stopped.

Top specialized professions have 0 opportunity. People like engineers are holding on to jobs for dear life on a day by day basis. All people can do and are doing is basically sitting alone at home smoking government pot. It is a travesty.

To those asking, I was in MTL where I grew up. One of the most beautiful, dynamic, safest and cultured cities on earth. Now a husk of its former glory.

Part of the South that was

Comment to https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/wapo-fact-check-reveals-sen-tim-scotts-ancestors-once-owned-land-so-what/

The poor white trash version of a black person was what we now refer to as the “N-word.” They were one step below “white trash.” At the top of the non-white hierarchy were “colored gentlemen” who were usually a professional class being doctors, professors, school teacher, and lawyers, mostly. Not numerous, but they were allowed in white homes during certain occasions to socially mingle when white trash would never be allowed into a home for any reason whatsoever.

There were “white: and “black” families with very close personal bonds, and the older men in particular would be very close confidants, and you did not mess with these trusted advisor for all Hell would descend upon you. They would attain the title “Uncle” or “Aunt” which meant they were like family and had the authority of elders in that family, and again, you obeyed them and did what they told you to do, depending upon the family’s social status and rank relative to your own. I understand this authority was derived from the “white” side of the family.

My family was not white trash, but certainly of a lower caste. There were “black” people who were allowed to correct our behavior and keep us in line. I was slapped around by quite a number of older “black” men and women, and deserved every bit of it.

The texture of life was complicated. There was a lot wrong with the old South, to include a high degree of corruption, but positive attributes as well. It’s a shame that what was good about it was cast aside with the bad, but the bad needed to go.

One last thing. My ancestors on my father’s side were drafted into the Confederate Army. They did not have much choice about. One was killed, one was maimed for life, and the other deserted and somehow survived the war in hiding and on the run as if he were caught would have been executed. When people spit on and want to tear down our monuments to these people it boils my blood. I despise their intolerance and ignorance. Sometimes in life, all you get are bad choices. Choosing does not make you evil. It may mean you made a bad choice in the eyes of others who are not in your position, but it does not make you evil. I hope they are never faced with such choices.

Sorry that you got BSR genuflecting. Old people do that. – Brave Sir Robbin

 

Truth

 

Absolutely stupid

Somebody tweeting as Brittney Cooper, @ProfessorCrunk: 

“A Black girl is dead because the cops brought a gun to a damn knife fight. If you don’t know how to de-escalate teen girls who are fighting, you should not be a police officer. I said what I said.”

https://gunfreezone.net/they-may-have-gotten-out-over-their-skies-on-this-one/

Okay, Ms. Cooper. You interject yourself between two girls in a knife fight. Call or text from the hospital ER.

The Left and BLM and fellow travelers are looking for anything – anything – to throw at the police, other citizens and any government that does not toe the line, now, right f’n now.

Nine kids shot, but nobody saw a thing

'Nine teens shot at 12-year-old's birthday party in Louisiana'

By Kenneth Garger, New York Post

Nine juveniles were shot after a feud broke out at a 12-year-old child’s birthday party in Louisiana on Saturday night, authorities said.

About 60 young people were attending the gathering at a home in LaPlace when gunfire rang out at about 8:40 p.m., according to a press release from the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators believe an argument between two groups of young males sparked the shooting.

The gunshot victims were age 17 and younger. Two of them remained hospitalized as of Monday, police said, while the other seven were treated and released.

No arrests have been made and police said witnesses to the mayhem have remained mum.

“Not one person has given a formal statement,” Sheriff Mike Tregre said in a statement.

“I am asking witnesses to come forward with information to help us learn more about what happened,” he said.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/19/nine-teens-shot-at-12-year-olds-birthday-party-in-louisiana/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app

Nobody is telling the sheriff anything, so far. I didn't see nothin'. The kids shot were 17 and younger. Why is a 17-year-old at a 12-year-old's party? Sixty kids in the house pictured.

Practicing what he preached

Maj. Charles L. Kelly, World War II infantryman, Vietnam dustoff pilot, 10 April 1925-1 July 1964. 

“I will leave when I have your wounded.”

“… Kelly … rarely let bad weather, darkness, or the enemy stop him from completing” a mission. “He fought his way to the casualties and brought them out.

"On one mission the enemy forced him away from the landing zone before he could place the patients on board. An hour later he tried to land exactly the same way, through enemy fire, and this time he managed to load the patients safely. The Viet Cong showed their indifference to the red crosses on the aircraft by trying to destroy it with small arms, automatic weapons, and mortars, even while the medical corpsman and crew chief loaded the patients. One round hit the main fuel drain valve and JP-4 fuel started spewing. Kelly elected to fly out anyway, practicing what he had preached since he arrived in Vietnam by putting the patients above all else and hurrying them off the battlefield. He radioed the Soc Trang tower that his ship was leaking fuel and did not have much left, and that he wanted priority on landing. The tower operator answered that Kelly had priority and asked whether he needed anything else. Kelly said, "Yes, bring me some ice cream." Just after he landed on the runway the engine quit, fuel tanks empty. Crash trucks surrounded the helicopter. The base commander drove up, walked over to Kelly, and handed him a quart of ice cream.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_L._Kelly

 

 

 

 

Ehhh, could be

 

I haven't been keeping up

A bureaucracy new to me.

From Georgian Journal

‘US Provides Road Safety Equipment to Georgian Patrol Police’

The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) of the United States of America has provided necessary equipment for road safety insurance to the Patrol Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, - reports the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).

According to the MIA, modern equipment will help to prevent road accidents and contribute to road safety.

"For many years the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has been cooperating with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, implementing projects on significant directions such as domestic violence, cybercrime, road safety, juvenile justice, trafficking, etc", - reads the statement released by the MIA.

According to the Ministry, the equipment handover ceremony was Director of the Patrol Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Director of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

https://georgianjournal.ge/news/37001-us-provides-road-safety-equipment-to-georgian-patrol-police.html

 The INL mentioned is part of the U.S. State Department. The picture shows about a dozen sets of handcuffs, some highway flashy thingys and maybe a traffic radar set. INL reportedly does not become involved in police work in other countries, but trains foreign police on how to better do their jobs.

 

 

San Jacinto

 Today is the 185th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, in which a bunch of Texans and men from the United States defeated the Napoleon of the West in a swampy area near La Porte. The battle lasted 18 minutes. President of Mexico Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana was captured and later signed a document recognizing the Republic of Texas.

Don't Mess with Texas.

Pushing us to the edge

 Professional sports comments on Chauvin verdict.

MLB statement: “In the wake of today’s verdict, Major League Baseball hopes to contribute to the healing process by continuing to work with our players, the MLBPA and The Players Alliance to advance the values of social justice, equality, diversity and inclusion.”

NFL: “Today’s outcome in the Derek Chauvin trial in Minneapolis does not undo the loss of life. Mr. George Floyd should be here with us today. Our hearts remain with the Floyd family, and we understand the pain, anger and frustration does not go away even when justice is delivered.

“Importantly, even as we identify reasons for hope, we must continue to help move our society toward a more equal and just tomorrow. We are proud to partner with NFL players and clubs and remain committed to do the important work needed to make positive change in our society.”

NBA: "George Floyd's murder was a flash point for how we look at race and justice in our country, and we are pleased that justice appears to have been served. But we also recognize that there is much work to be done and the National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association, together with our newly-formed Social Justice Coalition, will redouble our efforts to advocate for meaningful change in the areas of criminal justice and policing."

WNBA: "This year, we have witnessed traumatizing instances of police brutality that Black Americans disproportionally experience, with the murder of George Floyd at the forefront of the conversation. While this verdict represents a step toward justice, we are reminded that justice is too often not the outcome for people of color. The WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council will continue its work to combat injustice and inequality in our country and hope this represents a true turning point for how the effects of systemic racism begin to be addressed.

"We stand with all those who have felt the deep impact of George Floyd's death."

NHL: "While we hope the end of the trial offers a chance for healing, we remain committed to actively engaging in the movement for equality and we invite our fans to join us in supporting systematic change."

NFA (National Fan Association): Play the game. Just play the f’n game.

 

Soldiers and dogs and friends gone

A high school friend died a couple of days ago. Jerry Ray was a year younger than me. He was drafted around 1968 or ’69 and served with 2nd Bn 47th Infantry, a mech infantry battalion with 9th Infantry Division. 2/47 worked some of the same areas as Blackhorse. I did a search on 2/47 and watched a couple of videos. One was Cambodia and had a few minutes of an AVLB spanning a ditch and APCs and ACAVs crossing. Kind of unusual thing most people don’t think about, there was a dog on the AVLB, standing on the bumper above the track, watching the other tracks going across the bridge. Typical RVN day for the crew dog. People might wonder about dogs and track vehicles. Let’s face it, those things are loud and they move quick when steering. But you got a dog and some humans, friendship and food. I don’t know how long it takes a dog to get used to a track vehicle, but probably no longer than a human. There is a picture in the member’s area, two Blackhorse soldiers, four dogs, a cat, and two vehicles. The soldiers have food. The dogs are like anybody’s dogs when there is food – attentive. Each dog, and the cat, realizes it will get its share, so each one is waiting its turn. Soldiers and dogs and missing friends. God bless them. And us.

(Posted about 13 months ago at 11th Armored Cavalry Veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia following the death of Jerry Ray Tigert.)

Among the things that stand out in Dickens County Texas

Y’all need to advertise for some women. For moral and morale reasons. 

Wikipedia says that for every 100 women 18 and over, Dickens County has 142 men. That’s not right, from a morality standpoint. That kind of disparity in numbers of women and men is bound to lead to drunkenness and a whole bunch of other things we are not going to get into. Despite what modern Progressives want us to believe, women have a calming effect on society, just like men have a leadership and training effect in families.

Something else on Dickens County – In 1930, the population was 8,601. The population has been going down ever since then, and in 2019 stood at an estimated 2,211. With those kinds of numbers, it is no surprise that about 17.5 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

 

 

From Valor Guardians

 

An odd story of Ukrainian ‘mercenaries’ trying to occupy an ironworks factory in Hungary

From tekdeeps.com 

“A team of strikingly bald men with a distinctly militant impression, shaved bald, was detained by the authorities.”

The company later said:

“The Ukrainian minority ownership group wanted to occupy Dunaferr with a mercenary team at night, the group said in a statement issued by the dunaujvaros.com published. On Friday night, the police readiness was huge in Dunaújváros, because a group of dozens of people wanted to go into the factory. THE To Telex Mayor Tamás Pintér said that a group of 50 security guards wanted to get into the city, but the police turned them back. Dunaferr said that after the verbal and legal aggression of recent months – as well as a number of threatening messages – István Mikó and his team were preparing for physical aggression.

“’Mikó acts on behalf of Dunaferr’s Ukrainian minority owner, Tatjana Taruta and her circles, and according to Dunaferr’s information, she was prepared to occupy the ironworks with a mercenary team recruited. A team of strikingly bald men with a distinctly militant impression, shaved bald, was arrested by authorities on Friday evening.”

Also: "Dunaferr thanked the police and state authorities, the leadership of Dunaújváros, for preventing the violence and protecting the city and the workers and Dunaferr “from this attack by an unprecedented, arbitrary and aggressive team in Hungary”. They added that they owe a huge debt of gratitude to each of our colleagues who stand up to this extraordinary situation and ensure continuous production in the factory, which is the key to Dunaferr’s survival. The announcement was concluded that production was uninterrupted despite the attack. Dunaferr has been in crisis for years. The country’s largest metallurgical-mechanical complex previously operated with a loss of tens of billions of dollars in sales of 3-4 billion, the company gradually reduced its production from June 2020, and then terminated the collective agreement of the workers. The Danube Ironworks, which has been running iron since 1954, was bought by a group of Ukrainian investors in 2004, but later became the majority owner of the company. The main owner is one of the largest Russian banks, which is the zrt. he recalled his three delegates from his board half a year ago, leaving the panel inoperable. The fourth member of the board, an Armenian entrepreneur, is in prison, and the fifth is the influential Taruta group in Ukraine, with which the Russian majority owner is at war.” 

https://tekdeeps.com/nepszava-zsoldoscsapat-wanted-to-occupy-the-ironworks-in-dunaujvaros-on-friday/

Link at Daily News Hungary

Tatjana Taruta is listed at linkedin as CEO of Gdansk Shipyard Group.

If you like your land, you can ... Not so fast there

From Gun Free Zone

In an executive order issued on January 27 to address the climate crisis, President Joe Biden ordered a pause on new oil and gas leases on public lands and created a White House office of environmental justice. He also quietly committed his administration to an ambitious conservation goal—to protect 30 percent of U.S. land and coastal seas by 2030.

That target, referred to as “30 by 30” by the conservation community, is backed by scientists who argue that reaching it is critical both to fighting climate change and to protecting the estimated one million species at risk of going extinct.

This is a visual of what the EO is going to do.

https://gunfreezone.net/leftist-utopia-always-required-genocide-genghis-khan-and-land-conservation-edition/

Uh, no

Doing some research for a story, I searched “what is the best water-cooled machine gun.” First answer from the first web site, quora dot com, from a “former Army Winter Warfare instructor for 35 years 1978-2016: “The Lewis gun.” 

The machine gun invented by Army Col. Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911 was a fine gun, used in both world wars, the Korean War and in Vietnam and every small war in between.

But, the Lewis gun is not a water-cooled gun. It is cooled by the surrounding air.

 

Basil!

John Cleese apologizes for making fun of White English people. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/comedian-john-cleese-apologises-making-fun-white-english-people

And the leftists are apoplectic. Which was probably his intent anyway.

Ever wonder about NYC's problems?

From cbcny.org. 

NYC Police Department 2020 budget: $10.9 billion. Of that, $10.5 billion was funded directly by city taxpayers.

NYC Police Department 2020 budget: $10.2 billion.

https://cbcny.org/research/was-nypd-budget-cut-1-billion

Almost $11 billion (Billion) in FY 2021. More than $10 billion this fiscal year. For a police department.

The US budget passed $1 billion in 1863, at the height of the Civil War.

 

Any questions?

THEM: Whose skull is that?

ME (raising it to my lips and taking a drink): Some guy named Phillip.

THEM: What’s in it?

ME: Vodka and orange juice.

THEM:

ME: It’s a Phillip’s head screwdriver.

(Send any complaints to borepatch. He started it.)

 

 

Reading a book

I started War and Peace this morning. I read it 50 years ago. My 75-year-old brain might gain new insights. Not that I remember anything from my 25-year-old brain. Other than a quest for beer. And conversations with intelligent women.

Eliminate CO2

The normal amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been between 1,000 and 4,000 parts per million (ppm) for more than 500 million years — the entire Phanerozoic Eon, the Eon of Life, from the first emergence of complex plants and animals until and including now. Today the CO2 concentration is ~400 ppm, one tenth of former levels. 

This alarmism is incredibly ignorant. We live in the Pleistocene Epoch, a.k.a. the Ice Ages. There have been at least 18 major glacial stadials in the Pleistocene, times when continental ice sheets have covered much of the Northern Hemisphere. Not since the Permian Epoch of 240 million years ago has Planet Earth been this cold. During all the Epochs following the Permian, save our own, Planet Earth has been 5 to 12 C warmer. The normative temperature for this planet is much warmer than today.

Life prefers warmth. Warmer is Better for living things. The most abundant life, with the greatest productivity and diversity of plants and animals, is near the Equator. The least is near the poles, and in the case of Antarctica an entire continent is entirely lifeless. A warmer planet would have longer growing seasons, more rain, more bio-productivity, and more agricultural productivity. Deserts would bloom. Life would burgeon, as it did in prior Epochs when the Earth was warmer.

The warmest period in geologic history was the Paleocene from 66 to 56 million years ago. It is speculated that the globe was 12C warmer than today. Instead of living things burning up and the seas boiling into outer space, the Paleocene was the Dawn of the Mammals. There were polar forests. The tropics were rich with new plant and animal genera, the forebears of today’s species. The Angiosperms (flowering plants) displaced the conifers and became dominant. Insects that pollinated the flowers also diversified. Birds, evolved from the extinct dinosaurs, flourished. The warmest Epoch in geologic history was the most life-abundant.

The CO2 Will Warm Us To Death Theory is total crackpottery. All of geologic history refutes it.

https://wmbriggs.com/post/35235/

Link at Western Rifle Shooters.

A comment at the site from Sean – “There are many previous civilizations that our scientists have dug up or discovered. They make educated guesses at what these peoples did, how they lived, and as to what caused them to abandon their cities/civilizations, and disappear. We can’t really know the whole truth about these long gone peoples, but we can make intelligent theories about them. I believe one truth about them, is that they engaged at some point in their history, in the kind of self-destructive arrogance based on nothing but rubbish that we see so much of now. And that is what I see for ‘modern’ man’s ending in our future. But it is only a theory, based on what logic I have."

Comment: Me -- So testified to by those who started the Tower in Babylon. "We can reach God. We can BE God."