When you cut too many trees…
Or there aren/t enough bathrooms for the conference attendees to use… Sigh…
Seems 60 Minutes got more than they bargained for in Sweden when they attempted to show how ‘peaceful and accepting’ the muslim refugees were…
About the only thing they didn’t do was try to rape the correspondent…
This is the truth that we need to spread so people know the truth, not the agitprop the liberals are putting out…
h/t JP
Soooo, I’m out taking a walk and run across a yard sale…
And what do I see sitting on one of the back tables? Can it be?
Something from my childhood! I see a set of aluminum glasses and a pitcher!
For 50 cents, I couldn’t resist…
Dunno what the hell I’m going to do with them, but these are practically unused! The lady said she tried to give them to her daughter, who turned up her nose at them… LOL
Heading out to LTUEÂ in Provo, UT to do some of that there larnin’…
Go read the folks on the sidebar while I refurb the ice cream machine.
Just a quick update on Rimworld- Into the Green, it’s out to beta readers now, so progress is being made. 🙂 Next steps are the cover and editor. Those will come in the next month or so.
Jon Del Arroz managed to get himself crossways with both his publisher and a couple of Cons that he’d been participating in for the last 4-5 years…
He just published his first novel a tie in to the Star Realms RPG. Well received until…
He made the mistake of coming out for President Trump and being blackballed, even though he is a Hispanic author…
You can read the sad details, HERE.
Peter’s take is HERE, and Dave Freer mentioned it at MGC, HERE.
If you’d like to support him, the cover links directly to the Amazon page.
If anybody really doubted that the SJWs (or as I refer to them POS- Perpetually Offended Snowflakes) are taking over much of the Science Fiction segment of publishing and cons, this should be an education for you…
I wish Mr. Del Arroz the best, and I hope he continues the series, albeit with a different, more INCLUSIVE publisher…
Dorothy (Wing and a Whim) has joined the ranks of published author with her first novella, Scaling The Rim…
It’s an interesting cross between science fiction, romance and interspecies dynamics…
Click on the cover to order!
Here’s the blurb-
Never underestimate the power of a competent tech…
When Annika Danilova arrived at the edge of the colony’s crater to install a weather station, she knew the mission had been sabotaged from the start. The powers that be sent the wrong people, underequipped, and antagonized their supporting sometimes-allies. The mission was already slated for unmarked graves and an excuse for war…
But they hadn’t counted on Annika allying with the support staff, or the sheer determination of their leader, Captain Restin, to accomplish the mission. Together, they will overcome killing weather above and traitors within to fight for the control of the planet itself!
Dot’s writing is evocative of her ‘local course knowledge’ of bad weather, e.g. Alaska and its impact on man or being.
I don’t normally like or read anything remotely resembling ‘romance’, but this one is actually a good story! And no, that’s not damning with faint praise, it IS GOOD!!!  🙂
Go get it and support our starving artist’s colony out here!
Edit- Sorry about the screwed up pics and dates in the first go round this morning… Apparently something ‘glitched’ in the upload. My bad… All corrected now, thanks Grog for the comm date!
By popular demand, some WWII Destroyers that my readers have connections to…
These first three are Fletcher Class DDs…
First is USS McCord, DD534, she was attached to both TF38 and TF58 under Admiral’s Halsey and Spruance.
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo NH 107248 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo NH 78955-KN from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Here’s a pic of one of my reader’s dads who served on USS McCord during the war.
USS McCord survived the war, was shifted to the ready reserve, then brought back for Korea under TF77. She was decommed in the early 1970s.
Next is USS Hazelwood, DD531
Commissioned in 1942, was the second named for Commodore John Hazelwood; a naval leader in the American Continental Navy.
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo NH68373-KN from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Underway somewhere in the South Pacific…
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo USN 1045624 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
On April 29th, 1945, she and the carrier group came under attack. She sunk two kamikazes, but a third screamed out of the clouds from astern. Although hit by Hazelwood’s fire, the enemy plane careened past the superstructure. It hit #2 stack on the port side, smashed into the bridge, and exploded. Flaming gasoline spilled over the decks and bulkheads as the mast toppled and the forward guns were put out of action. Ten officers and 67 men were killed, including the Commanding Officer, Cmdr. V. P. Douw, and 36 were missing.
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-187592 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Larry’s dad was a GMG (Gunner’s Mate, Guns) on the Hazelwood, but rate changed to YN at some later point.
USS Hazelwood was decomm’ed, but brought back in service for Korea, staying in service through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the search for USS THRESHER, and was the test ship for the DASH unmanned helicopter.
And last but not least USS Haggard, DD555
Commissioned in 1943, named for Captain Haggard of the Louisa, who fought in the Quasi-War. I was unable to find a ship’s crest or patch for her. She was part of the Taffy-2 Group (Battle of Leyte Gulf) and TG38 and TG58.
U.S. Navy bureau of Ships – Official U.S. Navy photo from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
USS Haggard was acting as a forward picket on 22 March 1945 when shortly before midnight she detected a surfaced submarine with radar, and after the submarine dived attacked with depth charges. Ten minutes later the submarine surfaced on Haggard‘s port beam. Commander Soballe brought his ship into a hard left turn toward his adversary. Haggard rammed the submarine I-371 amidships, sinking I-371 in three minutes.
On 29 April, she was proceeding to picket station and was attacked by a kamikaze making a shallow dive to starboard. The aircraft crashed close aboard and penetrated her hull near the waterline. Soon afterward, her bomb exploded in Haggard’s engine room. As water gushed through the gaping hole in the destroyer’s side and she began to settle, another suicide plane attacked, but was splashed by anti-aircraft fire. Wounded were taken by cruiser San Diego (CL-53) and destroyer Walker (DD-517) arrived to tow the stricken ship to Kerama Retto, near Okinawa.
She departed Kerama Retto 18 June 1945 and arrived Pearl Harbor via Saipan and Guam 12 July. From there she steamed to San Diego and the Panama Canal Zone, arriving at Norfolk 5 August 1945. Decommissioned 1 November 1945, Haggard was scrapped because of war damage.
And a picture of another reader’s father that served on USS Haggard.
HERE is a link to the Peripatetic Engineer’s blog, his dad also served on DDs in WWII and he recounts a story from his dad’s logs on USS Ericsson, DD 440, in the Atlantic, the Med and the Pacific. He also has links to earlier post on her in that post.
USS Ericsson was a Gleaves-class destroyer, one generation older than the Fletcher Class ships above, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named after John Ericsson, who is best known for devising and building the Civil War ironclad USSÂ Monitor. USS Ericsson was commissioned on 13 March 1941.
Here she is in camouflage paint #1 during Convoy Duty. She supported five Atlantic convoys before going to other assignments, culminating in Pacific duty in September 1945.
 They all served with honor, in some of the most trying times in the South Pacific…
And I must add this LINK, Typhoon Cobra or Halsey’s typhoon. 790 men were lost as ships sank in that typhoon during operations off the Philippines.
Is this thing working???
I wanted to take the time to put a plug in for my friend Tom Rogneby, AKA DaddyBear. Tom is one of the good guys, I know him in real life, not just through the net.
Tom’s a new, well, two years and five books new, author. And he’s GOOD! He’s got a three and soon to be four books in the Minivandians world, a book of short stories (Escort Duty), a short story in an anthology (Freedom’s Light) and a historical fiction novel (Via Serica) out.
He’s suffering from the same thing I did starting out, lack of reviews. Do yourselves a favor, get one of his books, or two, or all of them, and give him some reviews! Remember, we need to be over fifty reviews to get a wider audience and have Amazon push our books on their recommended reading list. Y’all helped me out in the past, and it worked out well for me.
Help a buddy out, okay? His author site is HERE.
What do I get out of this, you ask? Well, ‘I’ get to pre-read more of his books, as he’ll be motivated to write more!!! 🙂
I’m old enough to have grown up watching Jack Benny, Dean Martin, Flip Wilson and Red Skelton back in the day. Their humor was ‘clean’, much of it was based on physical humor and, especially with Dean Martin, often revolved around alcohol. The funny thing was Dean Martin, Brooks and the others were actually drinking apple juice  on the show!!!
And this was all in the days before all the anti-alcohol sentiments…
Anyhoo, Foster Brooks at his ‘finest’, roasting Don Rickles.
Sadly, I now send you back to the regularly scheduled BS going on out there… But at least it’s FRIDAY!!!
We’ve been here before… Under Carter…
NOT A WARM & FUZZY FEELING…..
The U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet strike fighters are the tip of the spear, embodying most of the fierce striking power of the aircraft carrier strike group. But nearly two-thirds of the fleet’s strike fighters can’t fly — grounded because they’re either undergoing maintenance or simply waiting for parts or their turn in line on the aviation depot backlog.Â
There isn’t enough money to fix the fleet’s ships, and the backlog of ships needing work continues to grow. Overhauls — “availabilities” in Navy parlance — are being canceled or deferred, and when ships do come in they need longer to refit.
Every carrier overall for at least three years has run long, and some submarines are out of service for prolonged periods, as much as four years or more. One submarine, the Boise, has lost its diving certification and can’t operate pending shipyard work.
The Navy can’t get money to move around service members and their families to change assignments, and about $440 million is needed to pay sailors. And the service claims 15 percent of its shore facilities are in failed condition — awaiting repair, replacement or demolition.Â
Congress has failed for the ninth straight year to produce a budget before the Oct. 1 start of fiscal 2017, reverting to continuing resolutions that keep money flowing at prior year levels.
The dire situation of naval aviation is sobering. According to the Navy, 53 percent of all Navy aircraft can’t fly — about 1,700 combat aircraft, patrol, and transport planes and helicopters. Not all are due to budget problems — at any given time, about one-fourth to one-third of aircraft are out of service for regular maintenance. But the 53 percent figure represents about twice the historic norm.
Sixty-two percent of F/A-18s are out of service; 27 percent in major depot work; and 35 percent simply awaiting maintenance or parts, the Navy said.
Under the continuing resolution, the senior Navy official said, another 14 ship availabilities will be deferred in 2018 — one submarine, one cruiser, six destroyers, two landing ship docks, one amphibious transport dock and three minesweepers.
At least there is some fuel, and most of the pilots and crew are able to maintain their basic quals, if not their complete readiness package, unlike when we were going cold iron on entire squadrons for 30-60 days at a time.
I just hope this can be turned around in time, before things get totally out of hand.