Really, I mean REALLY???

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Sometimes I just really have problems with the one trick ponies out there…

And crap like THIS is why, this is from the Orange County Register in Kalifornia (of course)…

In the letter, Dina Kourda, on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asks the city’s street maintenance superintendent to place the sign at the site of the crash on Walnut and Yale avenues.

The sign would read, “In memory of hundreds of fish who suffered and died at this spot,” to remind tractor-trailer drivers of their responsibility to the animals who are “hauled to their deaths every day,” according to the letter provided by PETA.
Ye Gods and little fishes (literally)… Do these people HAVE lives???
We have people dying because of the administration’s lack of balls, natural disasters all over the place, and THIS is all they worry about???
And in the teach em young category… Down in Florida they’ve arrested 9 people including some coaches for gambling and setting point spread on YOUTH FOOTBALL GAMES…
Article HERE.  It’s not enough to bet on the pros or college games, but you want to teach your kids how to throw games/stay in the spread before they even get to High School??? Not that I’m cynical or anything, but I can’t help but wonder if they were trying to ‘grow’ some players they hoped would make it to college and/or the pros and give them an in…

And then there is THIS from Military.com; the continued waffling and evading from DOD over the terrorist shooting by Hasan at Ft. Hood…


Already facing intense scrutiny for its shifting narrative about the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, the Pentagon now says it will not reclassify the Fort Hood shootings as a terrorist attack over concern about biasing the case against the gunman — an argument that is getting a mixed review from legal specialists.
Late Friday, after 160 victims of the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting called on the Pentagon to label the attack terrorism instead of workplace violence as it has for the past three years, the Department of Defense said it would not reclassify the attack.
In rejecting the victims outcry, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s spokesman cited concern that having the government weigh in could bias the case against Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 42, who is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty if convicted.
When asked how Mr. Panetta plans to respond to the victims, his spokesman took a day and a half to respond, eventually emailing a statement Friday night.

“The Department of Defense is committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial proceedings of Major Nadal Hassan and for that reason will not further characterize, at this time, the incident that occurred at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in the statement. “Major Hassan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder, and 32 counts of attempted murder. As with all pending UCMJ matters, the accused is innocent until proven guilty.”

Pure frikkin BS…

Vote them ALL out Nov 6, Re-Elect NONE!!!

Teh Storm- Final update…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
We were lucky, along with most of our friends and fellow bloggers down in this area.  Winds finally abated about 0400, never really got the torrential rains either. No major issues, but still trying to figure out how wet toilet paper and 20lbs of leaves ended up on 4th floor balcony… NO friggin idea on that one…

Keep those up in the NE in your thoughts and prayers, they got hammered pretty badly.

Another one…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
LL, in comments to the sea story post said this-

I sat in the back and feasted on in-flight rations (back before MRE’s), drank their mud, and told a few war stories. But it was a long frigging trip and everything settled down as it is want to do on a P-3. Some of the crew read well used (and loved) Penthouse and others read equally loved comic books.

So we’re mid-Pacific in the middle of nowhere and I am looking out the window at the endless ocean. I ask one of the aircrewmen, “Is that what a snorkel looks like from this high up?”

OMG

Everyone just about swallowed their tongues. So they dropped a buoy or two to get a propeller signature and then went active on him.

Turns out it wasn’t Ivan, it was an Aussie on his way to RIMPAC who never expected a P-3 to be flying in the area.

Which reminded me of ‘another’ story…

This was Northern Japan, in February, in the late 70’s…  Snowing to beat hell, windy as hell…

Standing the Ready One (max 1 hour from notification to wheels in the well), we’d preflighted and slogged over to the club to grab some lunch.  As per usual, right as the food was delivered, the beepers started going off.

We drop lunch, jump in the truck and haul ass back to the ramp.  Everybody grabs what they are supposed to, we man the airplane and get in the air under an hour.

The tasking was to go 2 hours Northeast and drop a pattern and see what was there.

So we ‘bounce’ along for about an hour and a half (P-3s are NOT known for their comfortable ride) through snow showers, clouds and occasional hail.  About 1/2 hour out, we finally break through the front, and all of a sudden it is CAVU to the moon, seas laid down, and it’s actually a pretty nice day.

Spit the pattern, and we gain contact!  Damn, THIS is unusual… Somebody actually guessed right!  So we track for two hours and then get a recall notice.  Slog back to base (weather was degrading), more wind, more snow, etc…

On debrief we’re asking how did they ‘guess’ right on this one, and they only say they had a phone call.

Fast forward four months, we’re back at homebase.  I’m in the shop working on some training stuff and I get a call to report to the duty office.  Trudge down there, and here’s a Squadron Commander wanting to ‘talk’ to me.  WTF (thinking did I do something wrong, or worse, did I get ‘caught’)???  Turns out he wants to know about the flight on the sub above.  I ask him why, and he chuckles and admits HE was the one that called it in, FROM HIS AIRLINER…

He’s a senior captain for a well known airline, was flying the polar route, bored and was looking out the window.  He’s a P-3 guy, so he knows what a submarine wake looks like.   He sees one, knows roughly where our guys are (he’d drilled the previous weekend), and decides to let somebody know.  He has the forward base’s ASWOC number in his brain bag, so he does a phone patch via his base in Tokyo to the ASWOC, which is what prompted our launch!

We both start laughing at the incongruity of the situation, considering how often we launched on “BOREX” flights (hours and hours of nothing) trying to find the bad guys…

I think I told him something to the effect that he needed to look out the window more often… 🙂

Told the rest of the crew, and you can guess the reactions!!!

Teh Storm- Update 2…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
At 1730, now steady state winds 34kts, gusting 52 kts.  Very little rain.  Decided to relocate smoking area to internal hallway…  Pizza is in the oven, power is fluctuating, so this ‘may’ be the last update this evening.

It looks like Sandy took a 90 left and looks like we might have some significant weather coming in the next couple of hours.

In truly SAD news, the HMS Bounty replica has been lost off the Graveyard of Ships.  Kudos to the Coasties who went out and got 14 of 16 back… Those folks clank when they walk!

Minuteman has details up HERE.

Please keep those folks up North in your thoughts and prayers, they are getting 80+kts of wind up in NY/NJ now.

 

Teh STORM- Update…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
As of now, winds 25, gusting 35, light rain…

Birds are still flying, people are still walking their dogs, and it looks like Philly ‘wins’ the big hit with the eye of the storm…

Battened down, waiting to see what else is going to hit, but right now, we’re looking okay.  However, those up North of Philly are gonna get REAL wet…

You folks up there take care!  We’ll just continue to sit here, BSing, eating and killing time…

And my daughter reminded me…


Yes, the Old Guard is on the job…
 

"Weird" Dreams…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Okay, I know people have some strange dreams, but THIS one woke me up and I cannot get back to sleep…

Getting everything prepped for the impending weather last night, I got to bed a tad late, since I wanted to take one more check of the weather forecast.

The dream was that all my guns (ALL) my guns were laying on the table, disassembled… And I’m wearing a pair of shorts…

And there is an announcer! Who says something to the effect that I have five, count em FIVE minutes to assemble a gun before the door gets kicked open!

And the banging starts at the front door…

As I start trying to figure out what I’ve got, the announcer says only ONE gun actually has all the parts there!

And the lights go out…

So I’m holding a flashlight in my mouf, frantically pawing through parts, when I realize I DO have four 1911s, so maybe I can get ‘one’ good one!

Then the announcer says I also have to RELOAD ammo for that gun (in the five minute window).  As the banging increases!!!

The announcer says four minutes.

As I’m pawing through, I realize one 1911 frame is only missing a grip, so I grab a grip and quickly screw it on, deciding I’m going to do a 1911 one way or the other.  The matching slide is missing the sights, and the barrel.  I look and find a slide with sights, but from a different gun, and a barrel and recoil spring and guide rod.  I quickly clear the slide and confirm the firing pin is there, and put the springs and other pieces back in.  I throw the rest of the stuff into the slide, as the announcer says THREE minutes.

I look for the matching frame, only to realize it’s completely stripped to bare metal…

I sit them down and look at the reloading table, and it’s set up for .45!  Yea!!! I walk over there, and crank out 8 rounds.

The announcer says two minutes.

I take the rounds back to the table, and look for a magazine, only to realize THEY are in pieces too… so I assemble one mag, and load it with 1 extra round.

The announcer says one minute. And in a rather snarky tone, reminds me only ONE gun can be completely assembled…

And the banging gets LOUDER.

So, I’ve got a slide from one gun, a frame from another, and a magazine from a third.  But what the hell, it’s 1911 parts…

Slam the slide on the frame, throw the slide stop in, lock down the barrel bushing and slam the mag home, rack the pistol, drop the mag, add the extra round and the announcer says I cheated, so I turn around and shoot the frikkin announcer…

At that point I woke up…  And it’s 0445…

And now I can’t get back to sleep…

sigh… Morning world!!!  (COFFEEEEEE)…

Benghazi- Response=Invasion???

Posted on by March 6, 2013
A group of us old farts have been chatting back and forth on email about this for a couple of days…

Since we’re not ‘current’ on things, lot of this is speculation, but we have all been there, launched our asses before. 

—–Original Message—–
From: Wxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2012 X:XX AM
To: Xxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re- Contingencies and Response

Snake, your points are valid, but remember they don’t have the same capability in theater we did. Only 1-2 birds in Sig. And we’ve all stood watch in similar circumstances.  5th and 6th Flt, and both carriers would have been pulling binders as soon as the flash came in.

Tripoli DID launch a bird, they got in no problems other than transport from the airport.

Real question is who was watching the feeds, where they got dumped,  and who was sitting in the Pentagon battle cab.

It’s 430 nm g/t from Sig to Benghazi, so 1+30 transit at 330kts, if they pushed it up, less.  Same roughly for the Spectre.  

Spectre goes with RRF, figure 1+30 to round up everybody, arm up.  They get onsta 3+00 in.

So figure  2 hour alert, load two SLAMS another hour.  Now we’re at 3 hours. Transit and they’re onsta 4+30 in.

It’s 1800nm from 5th Flt to Benghazi, so tanker avail would be the issue, but if they limited load to two LGBs or JSOW and external drops, they could have been there in 3 hours.  That’s 8 18’s with two all up rounds, and second flight could have diverted to Sig to refuel while the first flight went direct.

SLAM/JSOW could have fired on either GPS or Laser, LGBs would have had to have Laser. And that was available until compound fell. 

And we all know that would have been at min State call, and probably OO call. Question is what was Defense/CJCS doing? Panetta was lying about the fog of war bullshit, and Dempsey has drunk the koolaid based on his earlier positions. question is who actually told them to stand down and where/how was that communicated. Somebody somewhere has that info, maybe on the high side, but it has to be there. No watch officer I ever served with would have stopped preps/alert without specific record traffic to do so.
 
Based on what we’ve been going back and forth on, I think the bottom line is they didn’t put assets in because of the perception in ME/muslim that it would have been an INVASION of Libya

Wxxxxx

I have to agree with the last line at this point. I’m pretty much convinced the reason no response was allowed was the administration (DOS and President) didn’t want to ‘appear’ to be invading Libya…  I think this is a pretty sad excuse, since almost 100 TLAMS were fired during the uprising to ‘support’ the uprising. 

There is NO question in our minds a military response was possible, and could have gotten there in time.  And Peter does a great job of dispelling the ‘conspiracy’ theory HERE about Gen Ham and the CSG RADM relief.  That is just flat ‘noise’, and an attempt to pawn the blame off on the military.

I truly hate to think that a political decision over-rode saving American lives, but at this point I don’t know what else to think.

Comments??? Are we full of it???

0300 Phone Call…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Chris Muir over at Day by Day hit a home run with this one…

Benghazi WAS the 0300 phone call, and it didn’t get answered…

 

Teh STORM…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Fact- We will probably get hit Monday with the left side of the ‘Frankenstorm’.

The weatherguessers are still ‘reviewing’ tracks, but there is consensus that the Bermuda High is going to push it into the Eastern US.

Here’s the ‘best’ prediction- 


Now the radio commentators on the other hand…

(Ahem- Best radio announcer voice)

The STORM is coming, but there is no cause for panic…

But buy generators, because the power is going to go out for DAYS…

But there is no cause for panic…

Buy toilet paper, buy bread, buy water, buy food that doesn’t need to be heated, fill your tubs, fill your trashcans, fill your…

But there is no cause for panic…

There’s going to be FLOODING, O.M.G. Elevensies…  Move to higher ground!  Move to the second floor!!!

But there is no cause for panic…


(cue breathless reporter, sounds of traffic in background)

Yes Mike, there are a LOT of folks out today, and they all seem to be intent on (sound of squealing brakes and crash in background) getting to the stores quickly.  Ahh… ummm. back to you in the studio.


And now for the latest on the STORM…


But there is no cause for panic…

Sigh…  And yes the stores WERE that stupid, along with the traffic…

Line a half a block long to get into the grocery store, hardware store parking lot was full, and so were most gas stations.

I was actually on an ammo hunt, and needed to replace my Nemesis holster for my BUG, so I bypassed all that stuff and went to the gun store. IT was packed too!!! 

And ammo prices are just STUPID HIGH!!!  One guy was complaining that he’d bought the same ammo 6 months ago for $16/box and it was now $24/box; the counter guy said their wholesale prices were up $7-8 box average, so they had no choice!

Thankfully, I’ve got enough to tide me over for a month or two…

So y’all take care, and stay dry…