A Vet in Need…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
This always seems to happen around the holidays… dammit…

Mark over at Texas Fellowship has a bleg up about one of his friends who’s house burned down today.  His friend is a disabled Vietnam Vet.  The post is HERE.

If you can spare anything, it would be appreciated.  You can reach him at Greylocke at gmail dot com for information. 

Yes I do…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Sigh… I some times ‘wonder’ about some of my ‘friends’…

I got asked if I had a Christmas tree!  Yeesh…

Actually I have TWO Christmas trees…


I moved it from the back of the safe to the table and I even dusted it this year… 🙂


And here’s my other ‘tree’… Since I can’t find gumdrops for my gumdrop tree…

Sigh…

So YES I DO HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE!  So there…

You Can’t Fix Broken People With A Law…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Kenn Blanchard says it well… 9 minutes well worth your time. 



Having had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Kenn, I can only agree with what he says…

h/t John

And HERE is a website, Just Facts and their gun control link.  VERY detailed and well documented across a spectrum of gun ownership, death rates, etc.

No guns in Australia???

Posted on by March 6, 2013
All the LWLs seem to be pushing the “Australian” model of gun control.  All sweetness and light, right???

Umm… Not so much… Uncle Jay is down there right now for work, and had THIS post yesterday…

When I was down there a few months ago, I was talking to an LEO at SYD airport, he told me they’d confiscated something like 17,000+ illegal guns in the last year.  And those are JUST the ones they caught…

Figure that is 10% of the total, so 170,000 illegal guns a year, Australia is roughly 1/10th the population of the US, so if they try a ban here, that would be roughly 1,700,000 illegal guns a year…  

Sigh… Here they go again…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Again regulating, rather than legislating…

From WIRED, full article HERE.  


In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.

Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could launch an investigation.

The changes granted by Holder would also allow databases containing information about U.S. citizens to be shared with foreign governments for their own analysis.
…

The Obama administration’s new rules come after previous surveillance proposals were struck down during the Bush administration, following widespread condemnation.

In 2002, the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program proposed to scrutinize both government and private databases, but public outrage killed the program in essence, though not in spirit. Although Congress de-funded the program in 2003, the NSA continued to collect and sift through immense amounts of data about who Americans spoke with, where they traveled and how they spent their money.

The Federal Privacy Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, in order to prevent the creation of dossiers, but agencies can do an end-run around this restriction by posting a notice in the Federal Register, providing justification for the data request. Such notices are rarely seen or contested, however.

The ONLY thing transparent in this is OUR lives… sigh…

Bans…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
You really want to ban something???  Where are the calls to ban these things???  

Everyone of these ‘contributed’ to his actions…

Ban the computer maker, since they allowed him access to the internet

Ban the ISP, since that allowed him to play computer games, etc.

Ban every computer game he played, since they contributed to his state of mind

Ban every clothing maker that he wore,  including the underwear, since they allowed him to leave the house

Ban the shoe manufacturer since the shoes allowed him to leave the house

Ban the car maker, since they facilitated the shooter

Ban the mortgage company and the bank that gave the family the loans that allowed him a place to live and foment his actions

Ban every school that he attended since they didn’t teach him right from wrong

Ban every doctor that saw him, since they failed to treat him properly

I know I’m tilting at windmills here, but the crap in the media is just pissing me off… Dancing in the blood of the children who are the victims here is just plain WRONG…

A Couple of Elephants…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
The Newtown tragedy is without a doubt a horror story, and our hearts go out to those families.  No words can express our sorrow at their losses. 

But we should give those families private time to grieve; and we should NEVER mention the killer-EVER… 

Personally, I cannot believe how intrusive the media have been, questioning a third grader on what she saw???  WTF???

Having said that, as we all know, this was politicized almost immediately by Bloomberg and many others of the democrat persuasion…

The reality is this is NOT the worst school mass murder.  The Bath School disaster reported HERE, was worse.  And it was also perpetrated by a person with mental problems…

That is the first elephant in the room…

The mental health community has morphed away from actually treating and committing people due to numerous lawsuits by, among others, the ACLU.  Also, due to ‘privacy’ concerns, many institutions will not report a person with mental health problems to NICS or even to local police.  You can go find articles that point out that the ONLY way to get someone committed is to have charges filed against someone.  

This article, HERE, points out the real state of affairs in the community…

“Mental health has shrunk down to the level of short-term crisis management,” Cornell says. “If we are going to focus on prevention, we can’t think about the gunman in the parking lot and what to do with him. We have to get involved a lot earlier.”

Schools and communities “have cut their mental health services to the bone,” says Cornell. “We’re paying a price for it as a society.”

If you go back and look at the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, and Aurora shootings’ EACH of those people had problems, but those were never reported allowing them access to weapons…  The Clakamas shooter’s profile is unknown (at least to me)…

The second Elephant is security…

Many school systems rely on ‘passive’ systems like locking exterior accesses, ‘limited’ access after specific times, or camera systems.  The ‘rationale’ is they don’t want to ‘scare’ the children by having armed ‘police’ on campus.  

A few school systems use School Resource Officers (SROs) who are either retired LEOs or are LEOs specifically hired to work in schools both for security. those SROs are armed, have full police powers and are directly connected to the local police departments via radio if they need assistance/backup.

Many were funded under programs from the Federal Government after Columbine…

However, those programs were de-funded by the current administration. Full article HERE…

Government officials told the Washington Guardian on Friday night that two Justice Department programs that had provided more than $200 million to schools for training, security equipment and police resources over the last decade weren’t renewed in 2011 and 2012, and that a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier.

Meanwhile, the administration eliminated funding in 2011-12 for a separate Education Department program that gave money to schools to prepare for mass tragedies, the officials said.

A nationally recognized school security expert said those funds had been critical for years in helping schools continue to enhance protections against growing threats of violence. But they simply dried up with little notice as the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shooting tragedies faded from memory and many Americans and political leaders had their attentions diverted to elections, a weak economy and overseas dramas.

Chief Fitch, County Police Chief of St. Louis County has come out in favor of arming civilian employees, comparing it to what was done with airline pilots after 9/11. Full article HERE.

The money quotes-  Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”

And this one- “One of the first thing governments tend to cut back on in tight times are mental health services,” he said. “We know this individual has a mental health history in Connecticut, we’ve seen that in all the school shootings, and additional resources would be helpful.

L’il Chantilly over at Heels and Handguns has a good post up HERE on the five D’s for security in schools…

My personal opinion, the real issues will be ignored, some kind of gun ban will be thrown out there, and the administration and all the lefties will pat themselves on the back and go on about their lives…

And go HERE and read AOA’s response to what happened… He said it much better than I can…

Comments?  Am I wrong, I know L’il Chantilly and AOA are on the money…

Oh yeah, one more little detail.  An assault rifle (a REAL one) has a  fully automatic capability… That is already covered under NFA.  And if they DO ban their version of ‘assault’ rifle, that better include  all those LEOs and other organizations too…

Mini-Meet…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Pediem and Thot were nice enough to invite me to a bloggy get together Saturday, so I took advantage of having a ‘spare’ holiday and snuck off…

Had dinner with Heath and his lady on Friday, then spent the day with Pediem and Thot, chatting, laughing and comparing military stories…

Some folks showed up for dinner and more hilarity ensued (nurses, what can I say)…  

Good times, damn good food, and good friends, it doesn’t get any better!!! 

The "Peacocks"…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
From the mil-email and h/t to JP…

Pentagon Peacocks

No officer who fails to serve in combat as a junior or field grade officer should command any storied fighting division, no less an entire theater.

The Davis Petraeus saga is another urban legend; a myth about a great man felled by a single flaw or indiscretion. The truth is that Petraeus is a bit player in a larger, uglier drama, the political corruption the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and that exclusive four star glut that sits atop the military. And the rot didn’t start with Petraeus.

Recall Army Chief-of-Staff George Casey taking to the airways to rationalize the Fort Hood Islamist massacre in 2009. Somehow “diversity” and Muslim sensitivities were more important than twin dangers of domestic sedition or troop safety on American bases. Casey was thrown at the Sunday chat shows, like the more recent Susan Rice mendacity tour, to spin a politically correct message.

And then there was Admiral Mike Mullen leading the charge for sex with any sex a year later on the E-Ring at the Pentagon. Say what you will about booty call as a “civil right,” but gender choice is not a significant national security issue in the middle of a shooting war. The legality of relationships are social issues that should be addressed by an elected, yet too often cowardly, Congress; not the appointed military brass. And while the JCS was riding point for preferences, nobody seemed to notice, or care about, failure in all those Muslim Wars.

Indeed, a four-star public relations campaign reinvented the English language to avoid words like victory. The new word for retreat is “drawdown.” And real goals like winning or victory have been corrupted with terms like “nation building,” or worse still, military gibberish like “transition.” Euphemism is the first refuge of analytical cowards. CIA, if not the entire Intelligence Community, takes a bow here too. Only a loser needs to create another word for failure.

In the interests of such political correctness, relevant terms like Islam, Islamist, Muslim, and even terrorist have been stricken from the public vocabulary with JCS help. Witness the recent Benghazi fiasco! The debate is not over mayhem or atrocity committed in God’s name. National politicians and the military brass are arguing whether or not to use the word “terrorist” in their reports dealing with Muslim barbarities.

And consider the ‘inside baseball’ spat over doctrine to be used against the nameless enemy; the counter-terror versus counter-insurgency (COIN) debate within the military. Petraeus apologists believe that the former ISAF commander reinvented the US Army with new doctrine; and then rode the COIN horse to promotions and prominence.

In truth, COIN played little or no role in Iraq or Afghanistan for two reasons; the force ratios required by Army doctrine, impractical theory, were never achieved. And both conflicts, like most Muslim wars, are civil, not insurgent. These internecine Islamic fights are between Sunni and Shia or between autocrats and theocrats. Neither NATO nor the US Army has the charter or doctrine to resolve these or any other religious or tribal civil wars. Evolution might be the only solution to any Muslim pathology.

COIN had nothing to do with tactical “success” in Iraq or Afghanistan either, but such distractions may contribute to strategic defeat. Theoreticalillusions, even those nursed in the halls of ivy, are blinders. Theory, or more honestly, politicized military doctrine does not win wars.

Combat Petraeus-style doesn’t just presume to alter military doctrine; it presumes to alter the nature of war. Unfortunately, war is not about hearts and minds or social services; it’s about winning and losing. Kick enough azimuth and hearts always follow. Even terrorists understand this. And that understanding explains why Islamists are winning now – on a global scale.

War is a time-tested primal exercise, not a venue for intellectuals, polite politics, or poseurs. Combat is the definitive zero sum enterprise; the competent live, the inept die. With skill and luck, the righteous might prevail. But there are no guarantees.

There are no draws and you can’t spin a loss. The enemy and toxic ideology needs to be beaten first; and then the diplomatic social workers and nation builders can be deployed.

As with COIN, Petraeus has been taking bows for the “surge” in two countries, but especially, the so-called “turnaround” in Iraq. Alas, tactical success there has only two parents; bribery and the US Marine Corps.

Sunni allies were bribed for the short haul as they are bought in so many Muslim tribal cultures. This perennial CIA tactic is myopic too. When the money runs out, all you have left is another well-equipped foe. Consider the blowback in Afghanistan. All those mujahedeen that used to be romanticized, when they were fighting the Soviets, are now killing Americans with better gear.

And the US Marine victory in Fallujah had nothing to do with COIN doctrine either. The Marines took that city with the same tactics that Marshal Georgy Zhukov used to take Berlin; house-to-house fighting. What the Marines didn’t destroy in Fallujah, they killed.

David Petraeus and John Allen seem to have been a perfect fit in Tampa; sun, fun, and bimbos – military camp followers. How do senior flag officers use cyber drop boxes and send thousands of emails to married groupies and not think such behavior is compromising? Do they not know that NSA can read their mail? And those who defend all of this as “private” are correct – as long as character doesn’t matter. Character is how you behave when no one is watching.

Yet, someone is always watching. The night before the Petraeus ‘sierra’ hit the public fan, he and Broadwell were a couple at the annual Office of Strategic Services (OSS) awards dinner. “Wild” Bill Donovan and “Vinegar” Joe Stillwell must be spinning in their graves.

Jim Clapper didn’t fire the CIA chief for private behavior; Petraeus was fired for public, professional stupidity.

Nonetheless, both political parties are tripping over each other with accolades for Petraeus. They argue that drop box sex is a private, not a professional failing – which is simply another way of saying that personal integrity doesn’t matter. If character doesn’t matter, then America has the top brass that it deserves.

Or maybe we expect the Joint Chiefs to entertain, not lead; but then again, even the Village People might be embarrassed by today’s four star peacocks.

The Joint Chiefs live in a bubble. They learned nothing from the Boorda incident. Recall that Admiral Jeremy Boorda, then Chief of Naval Operations, ate his gun over a bit of ribbon. Boorda awarded himself a few valor devices that he had not earned. He had never seen combat; but the admiral embellished his chest hair at the expense of JCS reputation anyway.

The fruit salad debate may seem trivial to those who have never seen combat; but for real warriors, such pretense is an insult. The logic of awards and decorations is simple. It’s easier to pass out buttons and bows than it is to give a promotion or a pay raise. Therefore, most awards are for attendance, not achievement. Senior officers like Petraeus get awards or decorations for changing their skivvies – or their address.

Indeed, if you audit the sentiments of troops or their dependents; the cynicism about flags like Petraeus is universal. One veteran seemed to think that American senior officers resembled Muammar Gadhafi. Another underlined the Petraeus political career track with questions:

“How does an officer with no personal experience of direct fire combat in Panama or Desert Storm become a division CDR (101st Airborne) in 2003 … (and how does) a man who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant and executive officer to four stars get so far?”

Nonetheless, the men who presume to lead continue to parade on the E-Ring in drag. Petraeus alone had nearly 50 badges, awards, and decorations on his Class A blouse; yet, no Combat Infantry Badge (CIB). After West Point, between cadet and general, Petraeus attended seven (sic) schools before getting his first star.

This is a chap who probably never saw a firefight, and then at a distance, until very late in his career. Yet, he and the Joint Chiefs still need fork lifts to get dressed in the morning. Such are the hazards of softening “soldiers” at Princeton instead of hardening them in combat.

With no signs of prudence or modesty at the Pentagon, maybe Congress should mandate a limit on gold braid and other uniform claptrap; no more than two rows of fruit salad and then only ribbons for heroism or combat tours. Appearances – and restraint – matter.

America has the best grunts, sergeants, and junior officers in the world. They deserve good models, they deserve better generals. They deserve modest flags promoted for valor and achievement – warriors with personal and professional integrity. No officer who fails to serve in combat as a junior or field grade officer should command any storied fighting division, no less an entire theater.

G. Murphy Donovan is a veteran and former Intelligence officer who writes frequently about military affairs, national security, and Intelligence.

Christmas and Identity Theft…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
As a victim of identity theft, believe me this IS the time of year… 

I will tell you, you REALLY don’t want to have to deal with that.  Two plus years, changing EVERY account you own, getting involved with multiple agencies fraud units, etc… NOT fun!

And it’s becoming more and more sophisticated… THIS story out of San Diego is probably ‘a’ tip of one iceberg!


According to the release the pair ran a large-scale, sophisticated ID theft and mail theft ring out of their home where they stole the identities of more than 1,500 individuals. Much of the personal information is believed to have come from stolen real estate files. The extent of the information and items found indicate that this was a sophisticated group. The question remains: Are there more thieves that are part of this ring that have not yet been identified or prosecuted.

The release stated that investigators found numerous items involved in the ID theft scheme at the defendants’ home including computers, printers, dozens of stolen credit cards, card scanners and readers, lists describing how to make counterfeit IDs, mail, and stolen briefcases. Also found were handwritten binders with detailed personal identifying information of the victims’, credit card numbers, and credit information applied for by defendants in their names.


The “money” quote, so to speak…

“These individuals were sophisticated enough to know the local agency thresholds on the amount of money that would require an open investigation. Using this knowledge, they stayed under this dollar amount to avoid law enforcement detection,” said Chula Vista Chief of Police David Bejarano. 


Also, this is the BIG time of the year for card skimmers…

Especially when you’re traveling and not familiar with the ATM machines in other locations!

I always ‘try’ to use machines that are in bank lobbies, but as THIS story points out some of these assholes are pretty brazen!!!

Again, if something doesn’t look right, let somebody know!

I know it’s a whirlwind right now, but for your own good, check those credit card and bank statements WEEKLY at the minimum… And if you’re not sure about a purchase, call somebody!!!

FWIW, you can also get fraud watch placed on your credit cards/debit cards.  That does work, even if it is a PITA to call and pre-authorize larger purchases.  Doing that saved me about $4000 in charges against my debit card…

Other than that, Happy Holidays… sigh