Three days of below 32 degrees and winds gusting to 50mph and the leaves flumped or flounced… Or said F-this, I’m outta here… anyhoo, they’re all now on the ground, in about 24 hours.
The spots of white down the center of the pic from the tree to the right side are six inch high rocks that outline a bed, just to give you an example of how DEEP the leaves are…
Oh yeah, the red arrow is a squirrel that was hunkered down in the leaves. Scared the crap outta me when it jumped up and hauled ass… Sigh…
Now waiting for it to warm up enough to get out there and rake them up (or hope to hell there is a nice strong wind in the next couple of days, then they will be somebody else’s problem).
Over 200 yesterday in a ‘combo pack’… Russian, Chinese, ??? beats the hell outta me…
A little ‘sample’ Engrish is obviously a second thir somewhere down the language list.
Literally from ‘Cletus’- Post writing is also a excitement, if you be familiar with afterward you can write if not it is difficult to write
‘Simone’- No matter if some one searches for his required thing, thus he/she wants to be available that in detail, therefore that thing is maintained over here.
‘Houston’- I have learn several just right stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how a lot attempt you put to create the sort of wonderful informative website.
And those are just a few that are in Engrish… Sigh…
And my new hat came in today. Wish I’d had it yesterday!
Working on the last chapter of TGM- Sunset. Hope to have it out to the Alpha readers this weekend. 🙂
Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month…
Words that bring a chill to anyone who studies history… 9,000,000 overall war dead, 21,000,000 wounded, 117,000 Americans dead and 5,700,000 civilians estimated dead…
At 5 a.m. that morning, November 11th, 1918, Germany, out of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The decision was made to hold the notification of the signing until 1100 to provide the symmetry that we know today.
It all started on June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
It led to trench warfare, biowarfare, with the gassing of troops on both sides, and battles across Europe and the Mediterranean, including the infamous Battle of Gallipoli, searing that name for every in the history of Australia and New Zealand, HERE.
Germany, France, Britain, and other countries lost pretty much an entire generation of young men, and scars from WWI still mar the landscape in Europe. Supposedly the war to end all wars, sadly became merely a prelude to WWII, around 20 years later.
My dad served in WWI as a rifle and pistol instructor at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana, because he was an expert with rifle and pistols prior to joining the Army. He also suffered from Influenza during the time, and that may have contributed to his early death in 1959.
The first unknowns were selected from among the British, French, and American war dead.
Following the custom inaugurated by other allied countries in World War I the Congress on March 4, 1921, approved a Resolution providing for the burial in Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Amphitheater on Armistice Day 1921 of an unknown and unidentified American soldier of World War I. The Secretary of War delegated to the Quartermaster Corps the duty of selecting the Unknown Soldier and accordingly the Quartermaster General directed the Chief, American Graves Registration Service in Europe to select from among the burials of America’s Unknown Dead the bodies of four who fell in the combat area in order that one from among them could be anonymously designated as the one for burial in accordance with the provisions of the Resolution. Four bodies of Unknown Soldiers were selected, one from each of the following cemeteries Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Somme and St. Mihiel–and brought to Chalons where they were placed in the Hotel de Ville. The fact that the bodies selected were those of Americans was determined by the location of place of death, original burial and uniforms. The utmost care was taken to see that there was no evidence of identification on the bodies selected and no indication that their identity could ever be established.
After the four bodies were arranged in the Hotel de Ville, the next step was the matter of selecting the one from among them to represent all the Unknown American Dead. This ceremony though simple was most impressive. In view of his outstanding service, Sergeant Edward Younger, on duty with the American Forces in Germany, was given the honor of making the final selection. On Monday morning, October 24, 1921, at 10 :00 A.M. in the presence of The Quartermaster General, the Commanding General of the American Forces in Germany, the Mayor of Chalons-sur-Marne, high officers of the French Army, distinguished French citizens and eminent American and French civilians the selection was made. While a French military band played an appropriate air, Sergeant Younger slowly entered the room where the four caskets were placed. Passing between two lines formed by the officials he silently advanced to the caskets, circled them three times and placed a spray of white roses on the third casket from the left. He then faced the body, stood at attention, and saluted. He was immediately followed by officers of the French Army who saluted in the name of the French people.
TODAY is the day to thank those veterans, and say a prayer for those currently serving in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. To my fellow veterans, I would propose the toast, “Absent Comrades”, for those who did not make it home.
And to the families- No one says thank you for your sacrifice. So let me say thank you to all of the significant others that hold the fort down while we go on long deployments. Thank you for putting up with all the moves. Thanks to all of the dependents who step up and do the extra chores around the house. When the veteran is deployed the budget has to be stretched. The significant other becomes the banker. Thanks to all of the families that hope for only good news. Thank you families for your service.
And to my shipmates in the P-3 all those years, and those onstation today in the P-8 and other airframes from all services…
http://knuckledraggin.com/ blew up on him yesterday…
Posting this as a PSA…
The blog was up but I couldn’t post or do anything but moderate comments. Luckily, I already had the day’s posts scheduled.
My host was outdated so they had to transfer the entire site over to a new one, then the domain name has to be transferred and that’s where I’m at now. They said it could take up to 24 hours, so it may be down through Monday. Hopefully I can get posts up for Tuesday.
Because everything will be changed on my end, especially my posting window, things are going to be funky for a while until I get everything ironed out. Posting will be light probably for the rest of the week once it does come back up. New format and all that on my end, you know.
So he is aware, and working with his provider on it.
Why is the media and the left working their asses off to protect Eric Ciaramella?
Is he the ‘whistleblower’? Based on any number of articles, most probably…
Some interesting background, HERE, and some interesting pushback from NBC on whether the rules had changed, HERE. Public Law 101-12, the Whistleblower Protection Act, does NOT provide for anonymity for the whistleblower, only that there can be no reprisals against him/her from the employer. Nothing about not allowing the name to become known.
Yet Facebook is deleting any articles or mention of his name, citing harm-
So I put up a simple one line post- Why is facebook protecting Eric Ciaramella? An hour later, it was gone…
Facebook says it is deleting the name of the person who has been identified in conservative circles as the whistleblower who triggered a congressional impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s actions.
The company said Friday that mention of the potential whistleblower’s name violates Facebook’s “coordinating harm policy,” which prohibits material that could identify a “witness, informant, or activist.”
Full article, HERE. And Breitbart, HERE, which is actually a feed to Facebook… Interesting…
And his lawyer Zaid is apparently a piece of work, and avowed Never Trumper too…
Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys representing the intelligence community whistleblower at the center of the Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry, tweeted conspicuously in January 2017 that a “coup has started” and that “impeachment will follow ultimately.”
And I’m not even getting into the whole cluster with Schiff’s staff ‘assisting’ the whistleblower, etc… But it is enough to make one wonder… NO first hand info, all second/third hand, VERY professionally written/footnoted/etc. Looked more like something a lawyer would do rather than an actual complaint, etc…
And now Schiff et al are saying the whistleblower is no longer needed, yada, yada, maybe because they don’t want him questioned about who/how he came to find out the ‘information’ he supposedly got.
Where does this crap end???
Edit- Schiff will not allow the Republicans to call the whistleblower as a witness. Kangaroo court anyone???
Apparently the scheduler decided to post this yesterday morning too… sigh… Sorry about that!
Interesting article in Military Times about stolen valor and its impact…
It was a sweet assignment right up my writing alley: A narrative about the D-Day invasion to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Allied attack that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. My newspaper, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, published an open invitation for those who had taken part in the grand and awful amphibious assault to contact us and share their stories. In the military-rich Hampton Roads region, we struck gold: From the pilots who flew the paratroopers to the infantrymen who stormed the beaches, I was able to relate the entire D-Day narrative chronologically, all through veterans’ eyes.
I have personally encountered two actual cases, oddly enough about the Mayaguez rescue, when the guy KNEW I had been there. He swore his squadron was there, and took a round through the vertical stabilizer (it was actually VP-17). My buddy asked me why I didn’t go off on him, and honestly, it was because I felt sorry for the poor bastard… He wasn’t hurting me. The other one was a supposed Vietnam Vet, 173rd Airborne, who begged at the Vietnam Memorial. He got a LOT of donations, and had his spiel down pat. I found out later from a Park Ranger, it turned out the guy had been kicked out of boot camp, and never even served, he saw an easy way to feed his habit, and made out for probably four years…
BUT, there are any number that have ripped off the VA and other military assistance groups. I find this unconscionable, and I truly hope they get prosecuted for it. And it’s not just the ‘little’ people.
Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) has also been guilty of it. Blumenthal received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, obtaining first educational deferments, and then deferments based on his occupation. In April 1970 Blumenthal enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, and he served in units in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut from 1970 to 1976, attaining the rank of sergeant. During his 2010 Senate campaign, news reports that Blumenthal had claimed that he’d served “in Vietnam” created a controversy. Blumenthal denied having intentionally misled voters, but acknowledged having occasionally “misspoken” about his service record. He later apologized for remarks about his military service he said had not been “clear or precise”.
LBJ was another one with some ‘strange’ service… Commissioned as a LCDR, (a tad odd, with no indication of any qualifications), he was ordered to the Pacific to ‘observe operations’ from his duty station of the Undersecretary of the Navy. He ended up with a Silver Star under ‘questionable’ circumstances, just for being on an airplane that took damage. Article, HERE. And he only served a little over 7 months of ‘active duty’, before being ordered back to Congress.
US victims of Mexican cartel massacre range from 8-month-old twins to 43-year-old mother
This happened Monday in northern Mexico, article HERE.
It’s time to take off the gloves… From a friend who is conversant with the situation south of the border…
On Mexico…Tourism, Commerce, and War
**
It’s time to get ‘real’ about the U.S. Government’s relations with the the country of Mexico!
The deaths of several U.S. citizens yesterday in a drug cartel shoot-out in the Mexican state of Sonora, less than one hundred miles south of the U.S. (Arizona) Mexican border should be a wake-up call for anyone who remains in denial about what a clear and present danger Mexico and its ruling drug cartels is to the United States and its citizens.
Recent (in)actions and malfeasance by Mexico President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador (“AMLO” to those American hipsters who are ‘woke’ by applying cute nicknames to their cultural heroes – about whom they know nothing except that they seem ‘cool’ and ‘woke’ themselves) after the arrest and subsequent release of ‘El Chapo’s’ son in Culican, Mexico, last month, are evidence that he has ceded effective control of the social and political apparatus in Mexico to the bloodthirsty terrorists who control the drug trade there and in the United States.
There are simple elements to this situation that can no longer be ignored and swept aside by for purposes of political expediency or potential gain. There is enough blame to go around on both sides. There are also short and long term solutions to the problem.
SHORT TERM:
1. The killings of the American family (including small children!) are proof positive that Americans are not safe in Mexico. The U.S. State Department should immediately begin an official process to discourage American citizens from non-essential travel into Mexico. In addition, it should remind the thousands of Americans who are living as expatriates in Mexico that their lives are in potential danger and the American Government can do little to protect them. American tourism is the heartbeat of the national economy of Mexico and any significant reduction of such will have an immediate crippling effect on their economy which would require the government of Mexico (if there is one) to make some hard choices.
2. The president should immediately take steps to deploy the National Guard (and in the case of California – whose governor will refuse such an order – the U.S. military itself) along the U.S. Mexico border to ‘seal’ the border and restrict entry to only those foreign citizens who have official visas to enter the U.S. This is a legitimate national security issue confronting the President of the United States and he has every right to do this. Who in America will object to such action with any veracity?
3. Redouble (re-triple?) the efforts by the U.S. agencies responsible for the interdiction of illegal drugs in such efforts. If Congress refuses to fund such efforts, President Trump should go around them and declare a national emergency and spend whatever it takes to fund these efforts.
LONG TERM:
1. The U.S. government (Executive and Legislative branches) needs to come to grips with the reality that with no demand, there would be no supply of illegal drugs and the cartels would forced to market their products elsewhere. One way of dealing with this is to make the sale and distribution of illegal drugs in the U.S. a felony (not subject to being pleaded down to a misdemeanor by a prosecutor). We are already in the next national election cycle. Let us see those on the political left defend the sale and distribution of illegal drugs with no effective penalty consequence on national TV. Simply put, support for the use of illegal drugs in the U.S. is tantamount to the support of the drug cartels (and their methods) in Mexico.
2. American companies have shown that they either cannot or will not cease to manufacture products in Mexico and bring them in for sale to the United States at the ultimate expense of jobs for Americans. Trump has tried the outmoded concept of ‘moral suasion’ with these companies with no positive result – indeed he has been subjected to public ridicule for it. It’s time for him to once again impose meaningful tariffs on goods brought in from Mexico to the effect of discouraging American companies from manufacturing there. Tariffs DO work (like a sledgehammer driving a nail!), draconian as they may seem by those squinty-eyed economists at Harvard who proclaim from their ivory towers that “this isn’t how we do it anymore.”
3. Going back to ‘AMLO’ and his hand-wringing and ham-handed ways of governing Mexico: If he can’t bring the lawless drug cartels under control with his own law enforcement and military, then he should turn to the U.S. for help (Is there any doubt who would prevail in a gun-fight between some cartel thugs and American military special operators?)
4. China is also part of this problem. Manufacturers of synthetic drugs (Fentanyl, etc.) are partnering with the drug cartels to use their channels of distribution to flood the U.S. with their products. Trump should place this on his punch-list of issues he has with President Xi and move it up in terms of priority. Xi and his dictatorship (BTW, to those still starry-eyed about our relationship with China, that’s what their form of government is) could put a stop to this in a heartbeat if they had the incentive to do so.
5. Finally, the American people (including those on the left who see illegal drug use as a cute, harmless manifestation of a liberal, progressive attitude that somehow sets them apart from the staid old, boring, ‘unwoke’ lifestyle of their conservative counterparts) need to come to the understanding that illegal drug use by their friends and acquaintances – as benign as it may seem at the moment – has consequences that began many miles and passages of time away from that moment. The people who profit from the activities of the cartels are smart and ruthless. They will not stop with controlling the drug trade; they want complete control of the Mexican political and economic apparatus to the end of having control of the activities of all legal businesses (they are now targeting even avocado growers!) in Mexico. How long will it be before the successors to ‘El Chapo’ will be negotiating with Ford and General Motors about the terms and conditions about new manufacturing plants in Mexico? How long will it be before they are occupying the Mexican seat at the U.N. or the Embassy of Mexico in Washington? How long will it be before they have seats on the Board of J.P. Morgan Chase or Bank of America?
There may not have yet been a ‘Pearl Harbor’ type incident (although the survivors of the family killed in Sonora yesterday will see that as such), but Americans must come to the realization that we are at war with insidious outside hostile forces (Mexico, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – all of which are dictatorships), that want to destroy America and its historic values by non-military means if possible. The question for each American is, do we fight back, or simply lie down and take an ass-beating from these people?
I can’t find anything he says to disagree with… And stay the hell out of Mexico. No vacations, no running across the border to shop, zip, nada…
