Waiting for the meeting to start and ran across this one.
George Carlin at his best…
And lots of truth in that routine!!!
Posted from my iPhone.
In response to a number of email questions, here’s an update for y’all…
I’m making the corrections passed back by the Alpha readers, and it’s gone to edit. A cover has been selected and this is it.
The cover is an original work by one of my loyal readers, Mrs. Crankypants, who is a graphic artist in real life… And I’m very happy with the way this looks and carries the ‘theme’ of the book…
Thank you to all those who have and are providing feedback and criticism, I do appreciate it and you ARE helping make the finished product better…
I thought writing it was hard, but DAMN I’m a lousy at punctuation and sentence structures… WAY too many years writing technical publications!!! Editing all my mistakes is truly humbling and again appreciation to those who’ve provided feedback, honestly I missed damn near every one of the things y’all caught, and I can only blame the forest/TREE problem for that…
The editor I’ve picked is NOT a shooter, so I’m hoping she will catch some of the more egregious things that need further explanation; and yes, there will be an appendix with all the acronyms spelled out (along with the 10 codes)…
Can’t give a definitive publication date, but as things firm up and the editing winds down, I’ll put another update up…
Thanks for your patience!
From Johnny Jet’s travel blog…
Delta Flight 2255 from Atlanta to Los Angeles seemed to be an ordinary flight with the exception of Candy, who was the most loving flight attendant I’ve ever encountered. Besides using her southern charm to quickly defuse every situation, she began her welcome announcement by thanking the handful of uniformed soldiers on-board for serving our country. Her poignant message was followed by applause and put into perspective that none of us would be able to do what we do if it wasn’t for these brave men and women.
But this transcontinental flight turned out to be everything but ordinary. We later learned, when the captain got on the PA system about 45 minutes prior to landing, that we were transporting a fallen soldier.
Go read HERE, and bring a Kleenex or three…
Johnny is a travel editor and writer who flies more than I do, but this one impressed me. He actually took the time to this post, in addition to some earlier ones about how the airlines take care of our fallen.
United also boards military first, and I’ve given up my seat to them too… BTDT, I want them to be treated better than I was coming back…
Gleefully stolen from HERE. And Lawdog posted it HERE.
Lawdog did the words that were then taken by DS and turned into the graphic presented below…
The only thing I can say is KUDOS both to Lawdog for distilling the whole argument down to just a few well chosen words, and the folks (and DS the artist) at Hypocrisy and Stupidity of Gun Control Advocates for putting this in a graphic EVEN the left can understand…
And folks, this IS the reality of what is going on right now… Plain and simple…
Brigid has a great post up on cars and travel HERE, which brought back a lot of memories…
Back in the day, we bought/traded/swiped deployment cars…
These ‘things’ were only cars in the ‘nominal’ meaning of the word, and a passing resemblance to their automotive heritage…
Some of the more infamous ones I personally remember are the $25 Guam Bomb, bought from an outgoing crew. This thing was a late 50’s Chrysler something or other, all four fenders flapping in the breeze, and pieces of plywood nailed together to cover the missing back floorboards (and provide a ‘little’ stability to the seat cushion)… The trunk was totally rusted out, no spare, and the lock was long gone. The trunk lid was tied down with safety wire to the back bumper and never used, but it ran (kinda sorta), and you could pile 8 people in it as long as folks braced their feed on the frame rails…
Up in Misawa one year we got a ’73 Honda Civic for $50. It was a first year car, I think 50hp, and rusted all to hell and gone… And we were there on a winter deployment… Max of four people (especially in parkas), and I’m not sure the heater EVER worked! We rolled this particular car on a road trip to Aomori to see the castle, and we just got out, flipped it back over and continued on. I do remember all four side windows were broken out, but we had parkas…
Switching coasts, we did a Kef deployment, and the price went up, we paid $100 for an old 164 Volvo, all the side windows gone, and again a winter deployment, BUT they included a broom to sweep the car out with! 🙂 We drove that POS all over the place, out to the Blue Lagoon and even down to Reykjavik the one weekend we had off… Great car, other than being a ‘tad’ drafty at speed…
Bermuda didn’t have crew cars, but they had motorcycles/scooters/bikes… Suffice to say there were some ‘interesting’ days with those… Carrying golf clubs on a 100cc Kawasaki is an experience is all I’m gonna say! And the rides back from the Swizzle Inn sometimes turned into walking and pushing the bike because you couldn’t maintain your balance (and didn’t want to get a ticket for drunk driving), much less have the Doc scrub the coral out of the road rash with a wire brush!!!
Italy was another set of crew cars, and ‘quite’ the lesson learned about driving without rules… We picked up a little Fiat Abarth, for ummm… Nothing I think… The two bases were split by about 10 miles so it made quiet a few trips between the two, both on the main highway (SCARY), and the back roads…
I do remember the XO got hit by a Fiat Cinquecento that was passing a car that was passing a truck that was passing a bus that was passing a car, on a bridge! The XO was up against the guard rail and slamming on brakes when he got hit (but walked away with no injuries). AND the Polizia tried to find him at fault!!!
Sadly today most bases ban crew cars and crews are NOT allowed to drive or even rent cars in a most places (safety and all that crap)… So the folks never get a chance to get out and actually interact with the locals (buying spare parts, getting repairs made, having interesting conversations with the police)…
But there was one ‘good’ car that got borrowed! Utapao, back in the day, the AF wouldn’t give the OIC a vehicle. One got ‘liberated’ from the motor pool, painted Navy Gray and acquired a ‘stock number’ that was, I believe, the OIC’s serial number… Last trip through there it was still in use and still being serviced by the AF motor pool… 🙂
Talk about a Rut Roh moment…
Dunno if the photog survived, but the camera obviously did, well up till the last moment there…
In news closer to home, Sequestration strikes yet again…
Navy pulls plug on Patuxent River Naval Air Museum Lexingon Park, MD – By Dick Myers
Artist’s rendering of new Patuxent River Naval Air Museum <http://www.thebaynet.com/images/news/full/8AFF18391AC0CE6534806CD9CB61FEB2.jpg>
Artist’s rendering of new Patuxent River Naval Air Museum
The Navy has pulled the plug on the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum. With only a week’s notice the Navy in a letter dated September 24 informed the association that operates the museum that they were revoking a U.S. Government License that allowed the Navy to maintain the three buildings that constitute the museum. The effective date of the revocations was October 1. The Navy has also halted paying for the museum’s annual utility bill of $40,000.
In a letter to the county commissioners, Patuxent River Naval Air Museum Association (PRNAMA) President Arvid “Ed’ Forsman, Capt. USN (Ret) wrote: “The letter comes as no surprise to our Museum Association as they notified us approximately two years ago that this may eventually happen due to continued cutbacks to the DOD and Navy Budgets. Funding of other small Navy museums at other Navy sites has been terminated as well due to budget considerations.”
Forsman told the commissioners the Navy’s decision may have a silver lining. “While it is disappointing that they have terminated their relationship as a formal Navy museum, this decision will provide us with new opportunities that were not possible before this decision was made. We now have the flexibility to charge fees for the use of our museum for meetings and conferences, which we were not allowed to do previously according to Navy rules,” he wrote.
Forsman said charging rentals for events such as Change of Commands, Navy Retirement functions and community events could allow the museum to offset the lost Navy revenue. He wrote, additionally, “We will also be able to charge a small admission fee to visit the museum should it be necessary in the future.”
The lost $40,000 revenue amounts to 20 percent of the museum annual operating expenses of $180,000.
The Navy decision comes as the county is about to relaunch construction of a new facility after more than a year delay. The county rescinded the museum’s original construction contract with Broughton, a minority-owned business, when it was learned that the company had supplied “fraudulent performance bonds” according to the county Director of Finance Elaine Kramer.
In August the county accepted a new $4.8 million bid by Biscayne Contractors. The bid was $200,000 more than the original bid. The county is now awaiting approval from the state for the new bid since the state is administering the federal monies that have been received for the project. Of the bid price, the federal government will kick in $3.373 million, the state $350,000 (from a bond bill), the museum association $945,000 and the county the remainder, which represents 10 percent of the total.
I have my doubts that they will be able to succeed and the Navy ‘may’ pull the airplanes back which are the real reason the few folks that actually go there want to see… To say it’s off the beaten path is putting it mildly…
And the Early Bird is dead too… 50 years…
The Early Bird is dead
By Gordon Lubold
The Early Bird is dead and Steve Warren is the one who shot it down. The Early Bird, the compendium of news stories distributed each day to DOD officials, other government officials and journalists since 1948, is gone, Situation Report has learned. The Bird, which had ceased publication due to the shutdown, never made a comeback after the government opened and Col. Steve Warren, who heads the Pentagon’s press operations, had said it was under review. Insiders knew it was on life support, but it was Warren who wanted the plug pulled. The Bird, which had an audience of 1.5 million each month, had grown too big, was too dated – simply providing a daily snapshot at 5:40 a.m. each day when it arrived by e-mail, and the publication, which was also appeared online to authorized users, had amounted to a copyright infringement against media outlets who never saw the “clicks.”
The Bird had also become a major headache to Pentagon officials who would in effect chase their tails each day after a story ran in it. Still, it was also a valuable and begrudgingly loved publication that had turned 50 years old. Longtime staffers Taft Phoebus and Linda Lee, who were behind the Bird for years, will remain on Warren’s staff.
“This is the end of an era,” Col. Steve Warren told Situation Report. “And I will probably be the first inductee into the Public Affairs Hall of Infamy. There is a lot of anger out there.”
What killed the Bird more specifically? Three things: Concerns over copyright infringement, the advent of the Internet and thirdly, the fact that it had become, as Warren termed it, “The Early Beast.” As the Bird’s audience grew over the years, and as “clicks” reflecting interest in any one story have become of extreme importance to media outlets, Pentagon officials knew they were increasingly pilfering content. The Early Bird did not contain Internet links to news site’s home pages but was an internal document containing whole stories. Media outlets had begun asking questions of the Pentagon. Also, it was also created at a time long before the Internet provided global information in real time. When Warren was a lieutenant in Korea in the 1990s, it was the only way for commanders to know what was in The New York Times that day, for example, was through the Early Bird. Not so anymore. But the Bird, once termed by The Times as the most influential government publication, had become too influential, Warren said, “driving the entire train at the Pentagon and across the force” every day. A story in the Bird was given sometimes disproportional weight simply because it appeared there. Warren: “The Early Bird would very often dictate the day’s events for countless numbers of staffers and commanders. People would organize their day around what was in the Early Bird.”
And while it was supposed to provide “situational awareness” to commanders and other DOD officials, Warren said, it was often seen as doing public relations – containing only the stories top officials wanted people to see – instead of true SA.
It must have changed from when I was reading it on a daily basis, because there used to be quite a bit of ‘consternation’ depending on what showed up in the “Bird”…
More impacts, not very visible outside a fairly small audience; but it’s looking like death by a thousand cuts…
Dammit…
Tam pulled a couple of classics out of her pocket HERE.
I can’t do that, but I DID grab the ones on top of the nightstand…
Top to bottom-
CRKT M-16, Benchmade 154CM, Benchmade Mel Pardue, SOG Twitch II, little Victorinox pen knife…
I don’t carry the auto much, and none of these go in any bag that goes through the airline (for that I have a throwaway Kershaw Leek that I won’t miss and another old Victorinox)…
The CRKT when I’m in the woods, either of the Benchmades for a quick grab if I’m in casual clothes (the auto goes to the range every time I go)…
The SOG is kinda my dress knife… So that one is usually riding in the pocket when I’m in a coat and tie (sadly most days)…
What’s your EDC???
It’s all said and done, and Remington is the winner of the SOCOM precision sniper rifle (PSR) competition. Interestingly, in addition to a max of 5150 rifles, the 10 year contract INCLUDES 4.7M rounds of ammunition from Barnes Bullets.
The specs included: multi-caliber, and anti-personnel engagements out to 1500 yards! Of course there were protests, but Beretta lost and deliveries have started…
This rifle has already been used by ‘select’ units, and it’s effectively been through OT&E. Link HERE to the Remington page.
The next contract is the Army one out to 800 yards, to replace the M-110 (Knight Armament) and I’m betting everybody is going to jump in on that RFP too…
If you’re curious about the newer tech that is coming to special operations (that they are willing to talk about, HERE is a link to a pretty good mag/website.
And yes, I wants one… My Precioussss…. 🙂
By special request…
Really bad Halloween puns…
What do baby ghosts wear on Halloween? White Pillowcases.
Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat the fingers separately.
Where do fashionable ghosts shop for sheets? [This one is so bad that it’s actually quite good!] Bootiques.
What do you call someone who puts poison in a person’s corn flakes? A cereal killer.
What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman? Frostbite.
What do you get when you cross a werewolf and a vampire? A fur coat that fangs around your neck.
What does a vampire never order at a restaurant? A stake sandwich.
What do you call a witch in the desert? A sandwitch.
What does a vampire fear the most? Tooth decay.
Where did the vampire open his savings account? At a blood bank.
Who do vampires buy their cookies from? The Ghoul Scouts
What do you get when you cross Bambi with a ghost? Bamboo.
What do you get when you drop a pumpkin? Squash [!].
What do you call a fat Jack-O-Lantern? A plumpkin.
What do you call a ghost with a broken leg? A hoblin goblin.
Why wasn’t there any food left after the monster party? Because everyone was a goblin!
What does a skeleton order at a restaurant? Spare ribs.
Why should a skeleton drink 10 glasses of milk a day? It’s good for the bones.Why don’t skeletons like parties? They have no body to dance with.
Why did the witches’ team lose the baseball game? Their bats flew away.
How does a witch tell time? She looks at her witch watch.
What was the witch’s favorite subject in school? Spelling.
What’s the problem with twin witches? You never know which witch is which.
What do ghosts serve for dessert? Ice Scream.
What did the mommy ghost say to the baby ghost? Don’t spook until you’re spooken to.
What did the mummy say to the detective? Let’s wrap this case up.
What does the papa ghost say to his family when driving? Fasten your sheet belts.
What is a ghoul’s favorite flavor? Lemon-slime.
What’s a monster’s favorite play? Romeo and Ghouliet. [See?–they’re much more romantic than you’d guess.]
What’s a haunted chicken? A poultry-geist.
And what do you get when you goose a ghost? An hand full of sheet.
In response to Sequestration, we have a fairly significant release of information from the PLA(N). Interestingly, NOTHING in the MSM on this… Only the Daily Mail in London bothered to cover it (along with the BBC and SkyNews)…
For more than 40 years, its fleet of nuclear submarines has been shrouded in mystery.
But now, China has unveiled the older generation of vessels, which can fire destructive rockets from under the sea.
The country disclosed the fleet – one of its most secretive military programs – for the first time in four decades as a sign of its growing strength and confidence.
Full article HERE.
Anybody still think we have ANY respect in that part of the world???