- Aristotle (ριστοτέλης) 384 – 322 BC, Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
On EXCELLENCE . . .
- Aristotle (ριστοτέλης) 384 – 322 BC, Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
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Saturday, July 30, 2011
"EXPERIENCE HATH SHOWN . . .
- Thomas Jefferson, 3d US President 1801-09
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Friday, July 29, 2011
HOLGER DANSKE
The group carried out about 100 sabotage operations and was responsible for around 200 executions of informers who had revealed the identity and/or the whereabouts of members of the resistance.
The group was named after the legendary Danish hero Holger Danske.
The group was formed in Copenhagen in 1942 by five men who had all fought on the Finnish side during the Winter War. By this time of the occupation resistance work carried a great deal of risk because the general public was still largely opposed to sabotage and the government was following its "co-operation" policy with the Nazis to avoid as much German intervention in Danish affairs as possible. Holger Danske, as well as the rest of the Danish resistance, was very opposed to this collaboration and continued to believe that the Danish should have resisted the invasion much more fiercely. Gunnar Dyrberg, recalls in his memoir how he had seen Danes engage in friendly conversation with the Germans immediately after the invasion and cites this as one of the reasons he later decided to enter Holger Danske with the code name Bob Herman. A fuller account of his activities as a liquidator are described in his recent autobiographical book De ensommme Ulve (The Lonely Wolves).
The group was infiltrated by the Gestapo twice but because of its loose structure (unlike BOPA) they were unable to identify all the members. A total of 64 members were executed by the Gestapo during the occupation.
Among their largest sabotage actions were the blowing up of the Forum Arena in 1943 and the attack on Burmeister & Wain in 1944.
Two of the members of Holger Danske were Jørgen Haagen Schmith and Bent Faurschou-Hviid who became famous under their aliases, Citronen (the Lemon) and Flammen (the Flame). Both led numerous sabotage operations in 1943 and 1944. They were portrayed in the 2008 movie Flame & Citron by Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen.
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Thursday, July 28, 2011
CAMEL's NOSE IS OFFICIALLY INSIDE THE TENT
One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. "Master," he said, "let me put my nose in your tent. It's cold and stormy out here." "By all means," said the Arab, "and welcome" as he turned over and went to sleep.
A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose in the tent but his head and neck also.
The camel, who had been turning his head from side to side, said, "I will take but little more room if I place my forelegs within the tent. It is difficult standing out here."
"Yes, you may put your forelegs within," said the Arab, moving a little to make room, for the tent was small.
Finally, the camel said, "May I not stand wholly inside? I keep the tent open by standing as I do."
"Yes, yes," said the Arab. "Come wholly inside. Perhaps it will be better for both of us."
So the camel crowded in. The Arab with difficulty in the crowded quarters again went to sleep.
When he woke up the next time, he was outside in the cold and the camel had the tent to himself.
BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS:
Muslim men are allowed to have as many as 4 wives. Many Muslims have immigrated into the U.S. And have brought with them their 2, 3 or 4 wives. But the U.S. Does not allow multi-marriages (bigamy) so the man lists one wife as his, and signs the other 2 or 3 up as extended family on welfare and other free Government programs!
Michigan has the highest population of Muslims in the Unites States.
When President Obama took office the United States paid several millions of dollars to have a large number of Palestinians (all Muslim) immigrated here from Palestine. Why? I have no idea, do you! We don't pay for other persons to immigrate here, and I'm sure that some of those Muslims moved into Michigan with the large current number of Muslims already established there.
PRESS 3 FOR ARABIC:
So now in Michigan when you call the Public Assistance office you are told to "Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Spanish, or Press 3 for Arabic"!
Every time you add a new language to an American program it requires an additional number of persons fluent in that language to process those persons who refuse to learn English in order to live here at an additional cost to the taxpayer! Why are we even allowing persons to immigrate here who cannot provide for themselves, and putting them in our welfare system?
This seems to have happened clandestinely; as far as I know, no public announcement, or opportunity to vote on this was offered to the American people. They're just adopting an official stance, and very likely using tax-payer money for it, in various capacities, without public knowledge or approval.
The following link takes you into the State of Michigan Public Assistance page, (as in Food Stamps etc). You won't have to scroll far before you see the assistance-letters options for . . . (get this) . . .
. . . English, Spanish, and ARABIC !!!
When did the ARABIC option sneak into our culture? Will we soon have to listen to ou r governmental offices, stores, and other venues offer us the option of "pressing 3 for ARABIC?"
Check it out for yourself:
http://www.michigan.gov/dhs/0,1607,7-124-5453_5527---,00.html>
Please inform every red-blooded American you know that this is happening. It is outrageous! The camel's nose is literally now OFFICIALLY under the tent! YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!!!
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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TOLERANCE
I think it should be the goal of every Australian to be tolerant.
Thus the Mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.
That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque, thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque.
One of the clubs could be a gay bar; "The Turban Cowboy," and for the rest of us a nude bar called "You Mecca Me Hot."
Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork, and adjacent to that an open-pit barbeque pork restaurant, called "Iraq o' Ribs."
Across the street there could be a lingerie store called "Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret" with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.
Next door to the lingerie shop there would be room for an adult sex toy shop, "Koranal Knowledge," its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store called "Morehammered."
All of this would encourage the Muslims to demonstrate the tolerance they demand of us, so the mosque problem would be solved.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011
GUNWALKER UPDATE
This is the twenty-five hundred pound gorilla in the room everyone is ignoring.
Reminder: I first alerted on OPERATION GUNWALKER back in February - the mainstream media ignored this story until May (just like they sat on the John Edwards Love Child story).
Details emerging are heinous: the Justice Dept ordered the FBI to turn a blind eye to these two convicted felons (whom gundealers reported EVERY TIME they made purchases).
A good man is dead and who knows how many Mexican cartel soldiers are armed because of some 'Good Idea Fairy' in the Holder Justice Department.
Read it - this is sickening:
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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Friday, July 22, 2011
It's Official: We are DOOMED
"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you...you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
From the Atlasphere:
Though her chosen name would one day grace the covers of major literary works, Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia on February 2, 1905.
A vibrant young girl, she often fled from the morose world around her into the radiant, optimistic world of magazine fiction. At the age of eight, she began writing her own tales, and by nine, she decided to become a professional writer.
Fiction gave her a periodic repose from the frustration of living through the Russian Revolution, the first shots of which she witnessed from the balcony of her family's apartment. Her father's chemist shop was soon seized by the new communist government, and the Rosenbaums went from a comfortable existence to one of poverty and despair.
As a young woman she studied philosophy and history at the University of Leningrad, but soon realized her future would be dim if she remained in Russia. She began to focus on finding a way to move to America.
In 1926, at the age of twenty-one, Alissa Rosenbaum left Russia forever by obtaining a passport under the guise of visiting her relatives in Chicago. She arrived in New York with only fifty dollars in her pocket, but with passion in her eyes and a new name: Ayn Rand.
After a short stay in Chicago, she left for Hollywood to pursue a career in screenwriting. An auspicious encounter with Cecil B. DeMille enabled Rand to land work as a movie extra in his film King of Kings.
While on the set, she saw a man who took her breath away — and then lost sight of him. When she finally spotted him again on a public bus, she purposely tripped (!) him to ensure he wouldn't get away. Soon afterwards, Frank O'Connor became her husband and the great love of her life.
Ayn Rand worked odd jobs for the next decade, struggling to master the English language and honing her skills as a writer. She published her first novel, We the Living, in 1936. The novel did not achieve great success, however, partly due to American intellectuals' heightened infatuation, during this time, with communist Russia.
Though disappointed, Rand pressed on with her work. She began research for the novel that would make her famous: The Fountainhead. While working in an architect's office to gather background information for the project, she also penned the novella Anthem, which she published first in England, in 1938, and then later in the United States.
The publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 created a firestorm of controversy. Ayn Rand offered to the public a kind of hero they had never seen before: Howard Roark, a brilliant, passionate architect whose conviction and commitment to rational self-interest led him to blast through the throes of mediocrity. More than a half-century after its original publication, The Fountainhead continues to sell nearly a hundred thousand copies a year, in English and in many other languages around the world.
It was Atlas Shrugged, however, that would bring Ayn Rand her greatest fame. For more than a decade, she agonized over her magnum opus that would present, in dramatic form, her philosophical system that she ultimately named "Objectivism."
Where The Fountainhead portrayed one man's triumph against collectivistic forces in society, Atlas Shrugged painted a broader picture of that society and what happens when it loses its "men of the mind." Many decades later, Ayn Rand's heroes — Dagny Taggart, Francisco d'Anconia, Hank Rearden, and John Galt — continue to inspire readers with their integrity, passion for life, and commitment to productive achievement.
Atlas Shrugged would become Ayn Rand's final statement as a novelist. After its release in 1957, she went on to write non-fiction essays explaining her philosophy of Objectivism in greater detail, always stressing the critical importance of reason, individualism, and capitalism. Through lectures, columns, and public appearances, she continued to inspire audiences with her revolutionary ideas.
During the 1960s Ayn Rand's teachings were promoted widely through the activities of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, where Ayn Rand and protege Nathaniel Branden recorded and distributed seminal audio lectures on Objectivism for use at Ayn Rand clubs and discussion groups around the world. Today such resources — and new ones, such as annual Objectivism conferences — are provided by organizations like the Ayn Rand Institute and The Objectivist Center.
Among the many admirers of Ayn Rand's novels are such luminaries as Federal Reserve Board Chairman (retired) Alan Greenspan and President Ronald Reagan. Other celebrities who cite Ayn Rand as an influence include actress Sharon Stone, Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers, rock musician Neil Peart of Rush, comedian Jerry Lewis, football star Adam Vinatieri, India's first woman astronaut Kalpana Chawla (who died in the explosion of space shuttle Columbia), celebrity golfer David Duval, ABC News Correspondent John Stossel ... the list goes on and on. Even Hillary Clinton admitted to going through "a Rand phase."
Ayn Rand died in her New York apartment on March 6, 1982. Since her death, interest in her novels and ideas has only increased. Her life and work have been featured in books, documentaries, and print publications, and she was honored posthumously with a U.S. postage stamp of her likeness in 1999.
The design of the stamp, created by artist Nick Gaetano, is an apt tribute to the life of this revolutionary thinker and champion of the human spirit. It is an image of Ayn Rand's face, set against the skyscrapers she revered in her works as the embodiment of her own life's theme: the celebration of mankind's heroic potential.
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Thursday, July 21, 2011
LET's SELL NASA!
I say "Eff THAT ! ! !" - we don't need an Inter-Galactic Muslim Outreach Program! Especially at what NASA costs: if you step back and look at the Space Agency with a critical eye, what you see is the biggest white elephant in the Known Universe, and it produces exactly ZERO in profit. In an era time when we're 14 trillion in debt and flat broke, this is simply unacceptable.
I say: SELL NASA ! ! !
Now then, every time I throw this concept out on the table, people freak out. "NASA is our most popular Government program! NASA has been successful for all these years!"
Not exactly - sure NASA is big and exciting, produces lots of nice imagery, but can you name a single wealth-producing aspect of the entire NASA operation? Beyond Tang and velcro, that is. In fact, the whole concept of thrusting tiny little payloads into space by strapping them on to huge chemical rockets required to overcome the force of gravity is so archaic, so 1940s.
There simply has got to be a better way, and there has got to be something up there we can bring back that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. We don't need a multi-bazillion-dollar orbital public relations campaign. Mine the asteroids. Recover the helium 3 reserves they've found on the moon -
In November of 2004 Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told the International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon that the moon holds about one million tonnes of helium 3: "The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of Helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth."
What we need to do is to find a way to make Space pay for itself; we need to commercialize it.
Consider: when Columbus sailed to find the New World, his operation was bankrolled by government funding - every school boy knows the story of how Queen Isabella sold her jewels to finance the operation. However, the New World was developed by private investment. Now just think; if two continents could produce as much wealth as the Americas have for five hundred years now, just imagine the wealth that awaits us in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE ! ! ! All we need is investors willing to take the risk!
Early on Wednesday 4th May 2011, in the skies above Mojave Air and Spaceport CA, SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial spaceship, demonstrated its unique reentry ‘feather’ configuration for the first time. This test flight, the third in less than two weeks, marks another major milestone on the path to powered test flights and commercial operations.
SpaceShipTwo (SS2) - named VSS Enterprise - has now flown solo seven times since its public roll-out in December 2009 and since the completion of its ground and captive -carry test program.
The Branson operation with VSS Enterprise is a huge step in the right direction, but space tourism can only go so far. Here's where we can take a cue from that intrepid researcher Hugh Hefner:
Configure spacecraft with a romper room in it like that and people will be selling their kidneys to get a ride in that bucket.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Wednesday Bird(s) HERE
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GUERRILLA WARFARE 2011
"16 Days & a Bag Drag"
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
24 HOUR HOLDOVER
Launch time got pushed back 24 hours - in any case showtime isn't until Thursday a.m. and the reindeer games don't start until Friday so you'll be hearing from me up until Thursday p.m. latest - time & internet connectivity allowing, that is.
In the past I've included material from Eeben Marlow's Military and Security Blog. Lt. Colonel Barlow served in conventional, clandestine and covert units of the South African Defence Forces. Later he founded the Private Military Company (PMC) Executive Outcomes. Until its closure in 1998, EO operated primarily in Africa helping African governments that were facing threats from insurgencies, terrorism and organized crime. His posts are insightful dispatches from the mind of a consummate military professional.
Today Lt. Col Barlow posts about the atrocious concept of "Courageous Restraint". I say atrocious because for me, the greatest war crime - once a nation has committed to war - is not to do any and everything required to complete the military mission as soon as possible, in order to minimize suffering for all involved, civilians and non-combatants included.
“COURAGEOUS CONSTRAINT” – WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING??
Having read an article about the sheer lunacy of an instruction to exercise “courageous constraint”, I have to ask myself what on earth are we doing?
Going to war is a political decision.
Making war is the military’s responsibility.
Making war and in the process minimizing collateral damage is something all soldiers accept as necessary. However, there will seldom be a situation where an enemy action provokes an own forces retaliation with zero collateral damage – unless the enemy acts away from population concentrations. Sadly, this is something the modern-day enemy does not do.
To order troops not to fire on the enemy as it risks waking up the local population is going several steps too far. By having to get permission to open fire on an armed and identified enemy laying IEDs – or face murder charges if that order is violated - is nothing other than surrender without honour . . .
. . . As it now appears that the politicians and senior commanders have lost the stomach to follow through on their decisions, perhaps the Principles of War ought should be whittled down to 2 basic principles in order to appease them.
Principle #1: Do not fire at the enemy.
Principle #2: If you observe the enemy, either run away or surrender.
When senior military commanders simply accept such orders, they are, in my opinion, not fit to command. If they lack the moral courage to stand up for their men, they ought not to be in uniform at all. If they are so lacking in moral fibre as to bend and buckle with the political whims of the politicians who drafted their mission, then they may save more lives by simply surrendering to the enemy and then disbanding the armed forces and going home . . .
This piece is brilliant - read it in it's entirety HERE
I wish to revisit what I said above; that once a nation has committed to war - not to do any and everything required to complete the military mission as soon as possible, to minimize suffering for all involved, civilians and non-combatants included. Consider: "War is Hell" - anyone who has experienced it knows this. When the military is required to deploy to your home town, it is not a nice thing - just ask the residents of Normandy about the memorable summer of 1944.
Perhaps a more appropriate example would be Libya, Spring and Summer of 2011, where well-meaning self-imposed constraints on behalf of the NATO powers have guaranteed the continued suffering of civilians and non-combatants for months now. Consider: if the purpose back in May was to prevent or limit human suffering in Libya, wouldn't it really have been more effective to have done nothing? Once having made the decision to engage in combat operations, however, to constrain ourselves to a device which diplomats and politicians can digest their dinners over - "No Fly Zone" - is to me actually a greater war crime than launching a fully-fledged military invasion designed to topple the dictator and liberate the land a la Iraq in 2003 (or France 1944 for that matter).
Your comments are invited.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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In the past I've included material from Eeben Marlow's Military and Security Blog. Lt. Colonel Barlow served in conventional, clandestine and covert units of the South African Defence Forces. Later he founded the Private Military Company (PMC) Executive Outcomes. Until its closure in 1998, EO operated primarily in Africa helping African governments that were facing threats from insurgencies, terrorism and organized crime. His posts are insightful dispatches from the mind of a consummate military professional.
Today Lt. Col Barlow posts about the atrocious concept of "Courageous Restraint". I say atrocious because for me, the greatest war crime - once a nation has committed to war - is not to do any and everything required to complete the military mission as soon as possible, in order to minimize suffering for all involved, civilians and non-combatants included.
“COURAGEOUS CONSTRAINT” – WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING??
Having read an article about the sheer lunacy of an instruction to exercise “courageous constraint”, I have to ask myself what on earth are we doing?
Going to war is a political decision.
Making war is the military’s responsibility.
Making war and in the process minimizing collateral damage is something all soldiers accept as necessary. However, there will seldom be a situation where an enemy action provokes an own forces retaliation with zero collateral damage – unless the enemy acts away from population concentrations. Sadly, this is something the modern-day enemy does not do.
To order troops not to fire on the enemy as it risks waking up the local population is going several steps too far. By having to get permission to open fire on an armed and identified enemy laying IEDs – or face murder charges if that order is violated - is nothing other than surrender without honour . . .
. . . As it now appears that the politicians and senior commanders have lost the stomach to follow through on their decisions, perhaps the Principles of War ought should be whittled down to 2 basic principles in order to appease them.
Principle #1: Do not fire at the enemy.
Principle #2: If you observe the enemy, either run away or surrender.
When senior military commanders simply accept such orders, they are, in my opinion, not fit to command. If they lack the moral courage to stand up for their men, they ought not to be in uniform at all. If they are so lacking in moral fibre as to bend and buckle with the political whims of the politicians who drafted their mission, then they may save more lives by simply surrendering to the enemy and then disbanding the armed forces and going home . . .
This piece is brilliant - read it in it's entirety HERE
I wish to revisit what I said above; that once a nation has committed to war - not to do any and everything required to complete the military mission as soon as possible, to minimize suffering for all involved, civilians and non-combatants included. Consider: "War is Hell" - anyone who has experienced it knows this. When the military is required to deploy to your home town, it is not a nice thing - just ask the residents of Normandy about the memorable summer of 1944.
Perhaps a more appropriate example would be Libya, Spring and Summer of 2011, where well-meaning self-imposed constraints on behalf of the NATO powers have guaranteed the continued suffering of civilians and non-combatants for months now. Consider: if the purpose back in May was to prevent or limit human suffering in Libya, wouldn't it really have been more effective to have done nothing? Once having made the decision to engage in combat operations, however, to constrain ourselves to a device which diplomats and politicians can digest their dinners over - "No Fly Zone" - is to me actually a greater war crime than launching a fully-fledged military invasion designed to topple the dictator and liberate the land a la Iraq in 2003 (or France 1944 for that matter).
Your comments are invited.
STORMBRINGER SENDS
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Monday, July 18, 2011
Shock Video: Taliban Execute Civilians with Machine Guns
Extreme Content Warning.
See: "Taliban Militants Killing Civilians at Pakistan Border."
We'll be seeing more reports like this as the U.S. and NATO rotate out of Afghanistan. Even at ten years in, there's much work to be done. The terrorists at the clip are likely Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant organization allied to Mullah Omar, who was the Supreme Leader in Afghanistan prior to the initial rout of the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom. Mullah Omar in turn was closely linked to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. This is why we fight.
From Donald Douglas at American Power Blog
See: "Taliban Militants Killing Civilians at Pakistan Border."
We'll be seeing more reports like this as the U.S. and NATO rotate out of Afghanistan. Even at ten years in, there's much work to be done. The terrorists at the clip are likely Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant organization allied to Mullah Omar, who was the Supreme Leader in Afghanistan prior to the initial rout of the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom. Mullah Omar in turn was closely linked to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. This is why we fight.
From Donald Douglas at American Power Blog
QUICKIE
I've got to keep it short because the Internet has been kicking in and out and on top of that I need to pack my bags and hit the road - tout de suite - so here goes:
DoubleTapper is a Hero of the Holy Land and Friend of STORMBRINGER and Theo over at Last of the Few. His site is much better than mine - he obviously spends more time at it - and as you'll recall last year we supported DoubleTapper to victory in the Foreign Milblog of the Year - check it out, he is still #1 over at Milblogging.com
As well as his military activities, DoubleTapper is involved in security work and now he has a new project - I invite you to check it out, it IS cool.
Check it out - Blogger re-did their site, made it a little more technocrat and - incredibly enough - easier to work with at the same time. Fancy that! There were some numbers there for me to crunch and this is what I came up with:
I've been doing STORMBRINGER since May 2009. In that time we've had 1,474 posts and 1,085,676 pageviews. Not sure what a "pageview" is compared to a "visit" - something to do with how much time you spend on the site, I suppose - but yes we are over one million.
1,085,676 pageviews divided by 1,474 posts = 737 visits per post.
Not bad, but not as impressive as if you do it THIS way:
1,085,676 pageviews divided by 790 days = 1,374 visits a day.
That's 9,618 pageviews a week and 41,220 pageviews a month.
On top of that STORMBRINGER is in the top one hundred on the Milblogging.com list - I'm up there at #62 - haven't cracked into the top ten yet, but this time last year all I could claim was top 2% because I was down there at #1800 or so on the list. I'm #12 on the list for Military Veteran blogs.
Not too shabby for a one-man operation full of fire-and-forget blurbs on everything and anything.
My brother (who I'm driving out of his skull because he's trying to groom me as a cultural phenomenon) says this of the STORMBRINGER Experience: "Sean Linanne is all over the place!. You need a NEW name - nobody's going to follow you, nobody's going to print your stuff if you're Sean Linnane!" Then he makes this noise like Felix Unger clearing his sinuses . . . heh . . .
I wish to thank all of you for your support and good cheer - without you, there would be no STORMBRINGER . . . and always remember:
OK now I need to bolt out of here before the Internet craps out on me again, and anyway I've got to pack . . . Peace, Out.
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
MMB HERE
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DoubleTapper is a Hero of the Holy Land and Friend of STORMBRINGER and Theo over at Last of the Few. His site is much better than mine - he obviously spends more time at it - and as you'll recall last year we supported DoubleTapper to victory in the Foreign Milblog of the Year - check it out, he is still #1 over at Milblogging.com
As well as his military activities, DoubleTapper is involved in security work and now he has a new project - I invite you to check it out, it IS cool.
Check it out - Blogger re-did their site, made it a little more technocrat and - incredibly enough - easier to work with at the same time. Fancy that! There were some numbers there for me to crunch and this is what I came up with:
I've been doing STORMBRINGER since May 2009. In that time we've had 1,474 posts and 1,085,676 pageviews. Not sure what a "pageview" is compared to a "visit" - something to do with how much time you spend on the site, I suppose - but yes we are over one million.
1,085,676 pageviews divided by 1,474 posts = 737 visits per post.
Not bad, but not as impressive as if you do it THIS way:
1,085,676 pageviews divided by 790 days = 1,374 visits a day.
That's 9,618 pageviews a week and 41,220 pageviews a month.
On top of that STORMBRINGER is in the top one hundred on the Milblogging.com list - I'm up there at #62 - haven't cracked into the top ten yet, but this time last year all I could claim was top 2% because I was down there at #1800 or so on the list. I'm #12 on the list for Military Veteran blogs.
Not too shabby for a one-man operation full of fire-and-forget blurbs on everything and anything.
My brother (who I'm driving out of his skull because he's trying to groom me as a cultural phenomenon) says this of the STORMBRINGER Experience: "Sean Linanne is all over the place!. You need a NEW name - nobody's going to follow you, nobody's going to print your stuff if you're Sean Linnane!" Then he makes this noise like Felix Unger clearing his sinuses . . . heh . . .
I wish to thank all of you for your support and good cheer - without you, there would be no STORMBRINGER . . . and always remember:
"Visit STORMBRINGER before STORMBRINGER visits YOU!"
OK now I need to bolt out of here before the Internet craps out on me again, and anyway I've got to pack . . . Peace, Out.
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
MMB HERE
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Sunday, July 17, 2011
REPORT
The Internet went out at STORMBRINGER HQ yesterday - I could have posted an announcement via my DingleBerry but I just took the opportunity to take care of other tasks. It takes three days to cut the grass around here and that's not counting scooping up the cuttings - I did it all in one day yesterday. It was a nice break from the Internet.
Speaking of breaks I will be on the road starting tomorrow and then totally off the net after Wednesday, for fifteen days. I could have set up STORMBRINGER with a series of posts on "fire and forget" but this contract came up suddenly so there was no time. Two weeks is death in the Blog-o-Sphere; I'll deal with it when I come back. Maybe with a re-invented STORMBRINGER; "New & Improved" (was it Jerry Seinfield who posited, 'How can something be 'new' AND 'improved'?).
While we're on the subject of Blog STORMBRINGER itself; Sparki pointed out that photo of Obama holding a press conference is doctored via photoshop - just goes to show, I let my guard down ONE TIME and did not validate material sent in and egg all over my face. You can go HERE and see the original shot of the current Occupier of the White House before it was photo doctored - too early in the morning for me to punish your eyes with the Imposter-in-Chief's image.
In the WW II photos, Zachery brought to our attention one plane described as a 'Ju 88 loading a torpedo':
It isn't a Ju 88, it's a Heinkel 115.
For comparison's sake, here's a JU-88:
and here's one on the ground:
I should have known this - I'll take the hit. As a reward Zachery gets some healthful cleavage gazing. For the rest of us some aircraft recognition refresher training is in order:
Junkers JU88
Heinkel HE115
Attention to detail, people - how come Zachery was the only one who caught that?
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
Speaking of breaks I will be on the road starting tomorrow and then totally off the net after Wednesday, for fifteen days. I could have set up STORMBRINGER with a series of posts on "fire and forget" but this contract came up suddenly so there was no time. Two weeks is death in the Blog-o-Sphere; I'll deal with it when I come back. Maybe with a re-invented STORMBRINGER; "New & Improved" (was it Jerry Seinfield who posited, 'How can something be 'new' AND 'improved'?).
While we're on the subject of Blog STORMBRINGER itself; Sparki pointed out that photo of Obama holding a press conference is doctored via photoshop - just goes to show, I let my guard down ONE TIME and did not validate material sent in and egg all over my face. You can go HERE and see the original shot of the current Occupier of the White House before it was photo doctored - too early in the morning for me to punish your eyes with the Imposter-in-Chief's image.
In the WW II photos, Zachery brought to our attention one plane described as a 'Ju 88 loading a torpedo':
It isn't a Ju 88, it's a Heinkel 115.
For comparison's sake, here's a JU-88:
and here's one on the ground:
I should have known this - I'll take the hit. As a reward Zachery gets some healthful cleavage gazing. For the rest of us some aircraft recognition refresher training is in order:
Attention to detail, people - how come Zachery was the only one who caught that?
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
SHAMEFUL SAGA: CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR NASSER ABDO
We call it "CHICKEN"
I haven't been tracking this story, a reader brought it to my attention; it's been going on for so long it's developed past the initial stage where a 101st Airborne Division private was claiming that his Muslim beliefs prohibit him from fighting in Afghanistan, on the grounds that Islamic law prevented him from killing other Muslims.
This is disgraceful in and of itself; that anyone world can claim any kind of naïvety about what joining the Army - the Infantry no less - means in the post- 9/11. The job description of an Infantryman is to break things and kill people. The enemy this time around happen to be Muslims - every single one of them. In fact, being a Muslim is one of their enlistment requirements. To become aware of these circumstances and develop some kind of objection AFTER signing up and going through training is what the chaplain back at 3d Special Forces Group once described as a "jailhouse conversion" - meaning even he as a man of the cloth looked at this kind of thing with a jaundiced eye.
The Department of the Army under the Obama Administration give themselves an out of an apparent moral dilemma by recognizing that “even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical or religious beliefs may change over time.”
Oh, I get it. It's all very well and fine to sign up, put on the spiffy uniform and draw pay and benefits, but when it comes time to pay the piper you can opt out because your moral, ethical or religious beliefs changed?
I've got another way to look at it. I call it "chicken."
We had a guy like this in 3d Group. Sit right back and I'll tell the tale of of Mister Walker -
It was in the mid-nineties when Warrant Officer 01 Walker - Mister Walker - showed up in Battalion, and right away I was informed by guys who had been with him in 5th Group that this was the guy we'd all heard about. What happened was during Gulf War 1 - over there in the Sandpile, just as they were getting ready to go "over the berm" - up there on the line were Egyptian formations, Saudi formations, Syrian formations, Jordanian formations; and co-located with every Arab regiment and battalion were detachments from 5th Special Forces Group.
Well, at this stage of the game Walker conveniently decides to get religion. Muslim religion; and as such he can't go and kill his fellow Muslims.
Never mind the fact that there wasn't even a Jihad flavor to the conflict - Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a secular Arab nation. All those Arab units were getting ready to roll against Saddam Hussein, and the whole thing about "A Muslim cannot go against another Muslim" wasn't an issue with the REAL Muslims.
Of course the US Army is totally Politically Correct, right, and there's no way on God's Green Earth any battalion commander is going to persecute a black Muslim for what this really was: cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Did I mention the fact that Walker was black? It doesn't matter to me, I don't see people that way, but that's what he was: a black guy in Special Forces who converted to Islam right before the whole shooting match was getting ready to kick off, claimed he couldn't bear arms against his "Muslim brothers" - who the day before were just Iraqis - and they let him get away with it, swept the whole thing under the rug.
Fast forward a bit: the whole outfit rotates back to Fort Campbell, the old chain of command transfers out and new officers rotate in. Time goes by and Walker puts in a packet for Warrant Officer school and not knowing any better, the chain of command signs off on it, and that's how his sorry ass ended up signing into 3d Group as a warrant Officer.
I say "his sorry ass" not because of what happened before, when I was not there, but what happened at 3d Group when I WAS present:
The first time I met Mr. Walker was in the Battalion Headquarters at 1st Bn / 3d Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg; this was around 1996-97. He was introduced to me, and the first thing I noticed about him was a large silver ring he wore with a strange symbol:
It wasn't as detailed as this, what it looked like to me was a Star of David surrounded by a crescent, which of course is LOADED with symbolism. A little later I noticed an SUV out in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that featured similar symbology:
The verbiage read: "Nuwuabianism, that's our Religion!"
Being the cultural kind of SF Intell guy that I was, I just HAD to look this madness up, and the Internet coughed up all kinds of good stuff: a religious system of beliefs featuring UFOs and aliens with idiosyncratic amalgam of elements from Islam, Judaism, black nationalism, and ancient astronaut writings. Also known as Ancient Mystic Order of Malchizedek, Malachi Z. York (AMOM, Nuwaubians, the Nubian Nation of Moors, Right Knowledge), the leader, (a.k.a. Dwight York) claims to be from the 19th galaxy called Illyuwn.
Your basic nutjob cult, in other words. There's all kinds of sites featuring information about Nuwaubianism; Wikipedia has a good summary of the whole Nuwaubianism phenomena but I kind of get a kick out of information straight from the whacked out source.
A 1993 FBI report surfaced calling the group a ''front for a wide range of criminal activity, including arson, welfare fraud and extortion" - fancy that - the York group has also operated under other names and organizations including Nubian Islaamic [sic] Hebrew Mission and the Ansaaru Allah Community, (an Islamic sect with doctrines similar to Nation of Islam), and the Original Tents of Kedar.
.
Dwight York a.k.a. Malachi Z. York, Issa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, in 2004 after being convicted for transporting minors across state lines in the course of sexually molesting them, racketeering, and financial reporting charges. He was sentenced to 135 years in prison.
Walker lasted less than six months as a Warrant Officer in 3d Group. What happened was the captain on his team - a great guy we'll call Captain W - saw through his sh*t and they didn't get along. Then the company commander was overseas and W was acting commander. About that time Walker decided he was too important to do things like actually show up for work - never mind doing PT or standing in formation or all the other things that soldiers do. So Captain W calls him up, says, "Where the hell are you?" Walker throws a tantrum over the phone, basically, and so W says, "RIGHT - I got yer number!" and the next thing you know Walker is being court martialed for disobeying orders and generally having a bad attitude.
Well it's extremely rare that you see an officer get court martialed for anything - especially heavy sh*t like this. What happened was they cut him a deal, pulled his warrant, busted him down to E-6, and booted him out. That's where Chief Rojo comes in.
I've written about Chief Rojo before on STORMBRINGER
- bravest man I have ever met, and one of the few I know who ever killed someone with a knife. Two people, actually, but that's another story.
As senior Warrant Officer in the battalion, Chief Rojo was tasked to handle Walker throughout his legal situation, and when the deal was cut, he was to escort him through outprocessing and then off post. The way Chief Rojo tells it, Walker explained to him all about how he was a "Nuwaubian Prince", how there was going to be a race war and the blacks were going to take over - I guess their alien technology was going to give them the edge or something - and so Chief Rojo had better be good to him and show some respect. That must have gone over with Chief like a fart in a space suit. The last thing that happened was Walker - now MISTER Walker in another sense of the word - had to be escorted off post, and this is where he baulked, apparently. You know, the old "No! I'm not going to do it!" routine that two-year-olds pull on their mothers.
Chief Rojo wasn't going to mess around. He called the MPs and while they were waiting for the MPs to show up, Walker was going on and on about how the Nuwaubians came from outer space, how the Nuwaubians were going to take over the world, how the sun dropped out of His Lordship Malachi Z. York's bumhole, etc. etc.
Apparently the MP's showed up with their handcuffs and their tasers and explained how they could do this the easy way or the hard way. All the fight went out of the Nuwaubian Prince at that point and Mister Walker left peaceably, his tail between his legs.
OK it's a funny anecdote, but just think of the trouble a toolkit like this could have stirred up overseas. The Army is not a game; the Army is FOR REAL, and trying to work with a loose cannon like this guy can get good men killed downrange. There's another way that accommodating this kind of horse hockey is dangerous.
Consider the case of the Fort Hood killer Major Nidal Hasan.
Hasan made identical claims and threatened that “adverse events” would occur if military officials didn’t accede to shariah principles. Pajamas media has a pretty good essay on how the Department of Defense's decision on this Abdo kid actually VINDICATES the Fort Hood Killer. Andrew C. McCarthy explores the concept a little further at the National Review Online: Our Sharia-Compliant Afghan War
It ain't good, people. If we - meaning we as in all of Western Civilization - don't pull our heads out of our collective, Politically Correct ass, and fast, then we stand a good chance of being steamrollered over as a culture by the dirt-worshipping bum-in-the-air crowd on one side, and the ant hive that is the Peoples Republic of China on the other.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Saturday's Bird HERE
.
I haven't been tracking this story, a reader brought it to my attention; it's been going on for so long it's developed past the initial stage where a 101st Airborne Division private was claiming that his Muslim beliefs prohibit him from fighting in Afghanistan, on the grounds that Islamic law prevented him from killing other Muslims.
PFC Nasser Abdo sought conscientious-objector status in June.
This is disgraceful in and of itself; that anyone world can claim any kind of naïvety about what joining the Army - the Infantry no less - means in the post- 9/11. The job description of an Infantryman is to break things and kill people. The enemy this time around happen to be Muslims - every single one of them. In fact, being a Muslim is one of their enlistment requirements. To become aware of these circumstances and develop some kind of objection AFTER signing up and going through training is what the chaplain back at 3d Special Forces Group once described as a "jailhouse conversion" - meaning even he as a man of the cloth looked at this kind of thing with a jaundiced eye.
The Department of the Army under the Obama Administration give themselves an out of an apparent moral dilemma by recognizing that “even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical or religious beliefs may change over time.”
Oh, I get it. It's all very well and fine to sign up, put on the spiffy uniform and draw pay and benefits, but when it comes time to pay the piper you can opt out because your moral, ethical or religious beliefs changed?
I've got another way to look at it. I call it "chicken."
We had a guy like this in 3d Group. Sit right back and I'll tell the tale of of Mister Walker -
It was in the mid-nineties when Warrant Officer 01 Walker - Mister Walker - showed up in Battalion, and right away I was informed by guys who had been with him in 5th Group that this was the guy we'd all heard about. What happened was during Gulf War 1 - over there in the Sandpile, just as they were getting ready to go "over the berm" - up there on the line were Egyptian formations, Saudi formations, Syrian formations, Jordanian formations; and co-located with every Arab regiment and battalion were detachments from 5th Special Forces Group.
Arab armies allied with Western nations in the First Gulf War.
Well, at this stage of the game Walker conveniently decides to get religion. Muslim religion; and as such he can't go and kill his fellow Muslims.
Never mind the fact that there wasn't even a Jihad flavor to the conflict - Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a secular Arab nation. All those Arab units were getting ready to roll against Saddam Hussein, and the whole thing about "A Muslim cannot go against another Muslim" wasn't an issue with the REAL Muslims.
Of course the US Army is totally Politically Correct, right, and there's no way on God's Green Earth any battalion commander is going to persecute a black Muslim for what this really was: cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Did I mention the fact that Walker was black? It doesn't matter to me, I don't see people that way, but that's what he was: a black guy in Special Forces who converted to Islam right before the whole shooting match was getting ready to kick off, claimed he couldn't bear arms against his "Muslim brothers" - who the day before were just Iraqis - and they let him get away with it, swept the whole thing under the rug.
Fast forward a bit: the whole outfit rotates back to Fort Campbell, the old chain of command transfers out and new officers rotate in. Time goes by and Walker puts in a packet for Warrant Officer school and not knowing any better, the chain of command signs off on it, and that's how his sorry ass ended up signing into 3d Group as a warrant Officer.
I say "his sorry ass" not because of what happened before, when I was not there, but what happened at 3d Group when I WAS present:
The first time I met Mr. Walker was in the Battalion Headquarters at 1st Bn / 3d Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg; this was around 1996-97. He was introduced to me, and the first thing I noticed about him was a large silver ring he wore with a strange symbol:
It wasn't as detailed as this, what it looked like to me was a Star of David surrounded by a crescent, which of course is LOADED with symbolism. A little later I noticed an SUV out in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that featured similar symbology:
The verbiage read: "Nuwuabianism, that's our Religion!"
Being the cultural kind of SF Intell guy that I was, I just HAD to look this madness up, and the Internet coughed up all kinds of good stuff: a religious system of beliefs featuring UFOs and aliens with idiosyncratic amalgam of elements from Islam, Judaism, black nationalism, and ancient astronaut writings. Also known as Ancient Mystic Order of Malchizedek, Malachi Z. York (AMOM, Nuwaubians, the Nubian Nation of Moors, Right Knowledge), the leader, (a.k.a. Dwight York) claims to be from the 19th galaxy called Illyuwn.
Your basic nutjob cult, in other words. There's all kinds of sites featuring information about Nuwaubianism; Wikipedia has a good summary of the whole Nuwaubianism phenomena but I kind of get a kick out of information straight from the whacked out source.
A 1993 FBI report surfaced calling the group a ''front for a wide range of criminal activity, including arson, welfare fraud and extortion" - fancy that - the York group has also operated under other names and organizations including Nubian Islaamic [sic] Hebrew Mission and the Ansaaru Allah Community, (an Islamic sect with doctrines similar to Nation of Islam), and the Original Tents of Kedar.
Here are some images of His Majesty:
Here he is descending from the Mother Ship:
But this one's MY favorite:
Walker lasted less than six months as a Warrant Officer in 3d Group. What happened was the captain on his team - a great guy we'll call Captain W - saw through his sh*t and they didn't get along. Then the company commander was overseas and W was acting commander. About that time Walker decided he was too important to do things like actually show up for work - never mind doing PT or standing in formation or all the other things that soldiers do. So Captain W calls him up, says, "Where the hell are you?" Walker throws a tantrum over the phone, basically, and so W says, "RIGHT - I got yer number!" and the next thing you know Walker is being court martialed for disobeying orders and generally having a bad attitude.
Well it's extremely rare that you see an officer get court martialed for anything - especially heavy sh*t like this. What happened was they cut him a deal, pulled his warrant, busted him down to E-6, and booted him out. That's where Chief Rojo comes in.
I've written about Chief Rojo before on STORMBRINGER
- bravest man I have ever met, and one of the few I know who ever killed someone with a knife. Two people, actually, but that's another story.
As senior Warrant Officer in the battalion, Chief Rojo was tasked to handle Walker throughout his legal situation, and when the deal was cut, he was to escort him through outprocessing and then off post. The way Chief Rojo tells it, Walker explained to him all about how he was a "Nuwaubian Prince", how there was going to be a race war and the blacks were going to take over - I guess their alien technology was going to give them the edge or something - and so Chief Rojo had better be good to him and show some respect. That must have gone over with Chief like a fart in a space suit. The last thing that happened was Walker - now MISTER Walker in another sense of the word - had to be escorted off post, and this is where he baulked, apparently. You know, the old "No! I'm not going to do it!" routine that two-year-olds pull on their mothers.
Chief Rojo wasn't going to mess around. He called the MPs and while they were waiting for the MPs to show up, Walker was going on and on about how the Nuwaubians came from outer space, how the Nuwaubians were going to take over the world, how the sun dropped out of His Lordship Malachi Z. York's bumhole, etc. etc.
Apparently the MP's showed up with their handcuffs and their tasers and explained how they could do this the easy way or the hard way. All the fight went out of the Nuwaubian Prince at that point and Mister Walker left peaceably, his tail between his legs.
OK it's a funny anecdote, but just think of the trouble a toolkit like this could have stirred up overseas. The Army is not a game; the Army is FOR REAL, and trying to work with a loose cannon like this guy can get good men killed downrange. There's another way that accommodating this kind of horse hockey is dangerous.
Consider the case of the Fort Hood killer Major Nidal Hasan.
Fort Hood shooter US Army Major Nical Hasan.
Hasan made identical claims and threatened that “adverse events” would occur if military officials didn’t accede to shariah principles. Pajamas media has a pretty good essay on how the Department of Defense's decision on this Abdo kid actually VINDICATES the Fort Hood Killer. Andrew C. McCarthy explores the concept a little further at the National Review Online: Our Sharia-Compliant Afghan War
It ain't good, people. If we - meaning we as in all of Western Civilization - don't pull our heads out of our collective, Politically Correct ass, and fast, then we stand a good chance of being steamrollered over as a culture by the dirt-worshipping bum-in-the-air crowd on one side, and the ant hive that is the Peoples Republic of China on the other.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Saturday's Bird HERE
.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Hezbollah Sets Up Shop in Mexico
A Tucson Police Department memo from September 2010 has been leaked onto the Internet by hackers, and it warns that Hezbollah has set up shop in Mexico. The terrorist group has linked up with the Mexican drug lords, and is even said to have a large arms stockpile in the country. Terrorist groups are looking at the raging drug war in Mexico as an opportunity to further their deadly ambitions.
The memo recalls that a member of Hezbollah was arrested in Tijuana in July 2010 who was tasked with setting up a network for the terrorist group. It also mentions the April 2010 arrest of Jamal Yousef in New York City, who told the authorities that he worked with his cousin to steal weapons from Iraq for Hezbollah. According to Yousef, a stockpile of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and anti-tank weapons is presently in Mexico.
FrontPageMag has the scary entire report. - S.L.
.
THE AMAZING KETTENKRAFTRAD
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
TALES OF THE GUN
Talking to my buddy Raul last night - we haven't seen each other in awhile so it was time to catch up and compare notes; I'm between contracts right now, Raul is doing tech work for one of the more exclusive private armies out there. We talked a bit about the scene and action around the beltway.
"Where you at these days, Sean? You're up in PA, yeah?"
"That's right. PA is cool. Nice low state taxes, they don't tax your retirement, a thriving gun culture and VERY civilized gun laws."
"That's good. Florida's like that too - I've had my concealed carry permit for about four years now."
"Yeah, I finally broke down and got legal. You remember how it was down in North Cackallacky - you didn't really need any kind of paper, especially if you were one of us. You couldn't carry it into a bar anyway, have to leave it out in the car, and you don't need paperwork down there to carry in your car."
"That's right, Sean."
"Up here in PA I can carry anywhere - ANYWHERE - except a Federal building."
"Or a school or an airport."
"Well, yeah. I'm telling you, Raul, if you MUST live north of the Mason-Dixon line, PA is the place to be."
"Not Maryland, though. Maryland SUCKS."
"Yeah, it's weird, the one place BELOW the Mason-Dixon Line you NEVER want to live in is Maryland - you can't even defend your castle down there without going to jail!"
"Lemme tell you, Sean - I was in Gaitherburg, Maryland, and usually I obey the law, but something told me that night I better carry, so I strapped on my Colt Commander's model."
The shorter slide makes concealability a little bit easier. Six rounds and one in the chamber, then an extra seven-round mag in your pocket. If you need any more than that, you're in the wrong movie.
I carry the same thing, only mine's an M1991 - absolutely utilitarian; no bells no whistles, the only thing special about Old SlabSides is the Pachmeyr grips, and they came with it that way right out of the box.
"Anyway I'm in a Burger King, right? And I'm telling the lady I want a Number 1. She looks at me and goes '¿Que?' "
"So I say it again, 'I'll have a Number 1.' "
"¿Que?"
So this time I say it in Spanish, "Dame un Numero Uno por favor."
"¿Que?"
"So now we're down to the old pointy-talkee method and I finally get my Number 1, and I'm going back outside to the car with it and there's these three M.S. 13 looking dudes in the parking lot. I'd seen them when I came in, and they're talking to each other in Spanish about how they're going to rob me, and of course I can understand every word they're saying because I was in Seventh Group, right?"
"So I pull my jacket back and whip out my piece and I figure I'm going to go to jail for the crime of defending my life because I'm in Maryland, but that's better than going to the graveyard, and I say to these guys in Spanish: 'I should have killed your fathers and your grandfathers when I had the chance last time I was back down in El Salvador, because now I have to kill YOU three here in Estados Unidas - WHO DIES FIRST?'
"Needless to say I didn't have any trouble with those boys after that."
A great example of why our Second Amendment rights must not be constrained. Now check THIS out:
OBAMA’s QUIET GUNS CRACKDOWN
While the debt-ceiling debate grips Washington, the president is discreetly beefing up gun regulations in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, going over the heads of powerful NRA lobbyists, as reported in The Daily Beast
As early as next week, Obama will begin a series of changes designed to tighten regulations and penalties under current laws.
The changes will include:
But the low-key approach hasn’t escaped the notice of the NRA, which says the administration’s tack won't help crime-fighting efforts and could backfire in next year's elections, when the gun lobby is again likely to flex its sizable political muscle.
“If they want to do something serious about stopping crime, they can do the tried-and-true rules and go after criminals. They’re not,” says Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA. “They’re collapsing prosecutions across the U.S. The idea of putting more forms on the honest people is ridiculous. They need to start on something the criminals don’t like, which is arresting and incarcerating.”
It's getting crazy out there people - every single wild-ass crazy rumor and innuendo you ever heard about Obama is coming to fruition. Read the rest of this story, all the details HERE
STORMBRINGER SENDS
"Where you at these days, Sean? You're up in PA, yeah?"
"That's right. PA is cool. Nice low state taxes, they don't tax your retirement, a thriving gun culture and VERY civilized gun laws."
"That's good. Florida's like that too - I've had my concealed carry permit for about four years now."
"Yeah, I finally broke down and got legal. You remember how it was down in North Cackallacky - you didn't really need any kind of paper, especially if you were one of us. You couldn't carry it into a bar anyway, have to leave it out in the car, and you don't need paperwork down there to carry in your car."
"That's right, Sean."
"Up here in PA I can carry anywhere - ANYWHERE - except a Federal building."
"Or a school or an airport."
"Well, yeah. I'm telling you, Raul, if you MUST live north of the Mason-Dixon line, PA is the place to be."
"Not Maryland, though. Maryland SUCKS."
"Yeah, it's weird, the one place BELOW the Mason-Dixon Line you NEVER want to live in is Maryland - you can't even defend your castle down there without going to jail!"
"Lemme tell you, Sean - I was in Gaitherburg, Maryland, and usually I obey the law, but something told me that night I better carry, so I strapped on my Colt Commander's model."
The shorter slide makes concealability a little bit easier. Six rounds and one in the chamber, then an extra seven-round mag in your pocket. If you need any more than that, you're in the wrong movie.
I carry the same thing, only mine's an M1991 - absolutely utilitarian; no bells no whistles, the only thing special about Old SlabSides is the Pachmeyr grips, and they came with it that way right out of the box.
"Anyway I'm in a Burger King, right? And I'm telling the lady I want a Number 1. She looks at me and goes '¿Que?' "
"So I say it again, 'I'll have a Number 1.' "
"¿Que?"
So this time I say it in Spanish, "Dame un Numero Uno por favor."
"¿Que?"
"So now we're down to the old pointy-talkee method and I finally get my Number 1, and I'm going back outside to the car with it and there's these three M.S. 13 looking dudes in the parking lot. I'd seen them when I came in, and they're talking to each other in Spanish about how they're going to rob me, and of course I can understand every word they're saying because I was in Seventh Group, right?"
"So I pull my jacket back and whip out my piece and I figure I'm going to go to jail for the crime of defending my life because I'm in Maryland, but that's better than going to the graveyard, and I say to these guys in Spanish: 'I should have killed your fathers and your grandfathers when I had the chance last time I was back down in El Salvador, because now I have to kill YOU three here in Estados Unidas - WHO DIES FIRST?'
"Needless to say I didn't have any trouble with those boys after that."
A great example of why our Second Amendment rights must not be constrained. Now check THIS out:
OBAMA’s QUIET GUNS CRACKDOWN
While the debt-ceiling debate grips Washington, the president is discreetly beefing up gun regulations in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, going over the heads of powerful NRA lobbyists, as reported in The Daily Beast
As early as next week, Obama will begin a series of changes designed to tighten regulations and penalties under current laws.
The changes will include:
- Strengthening the national electronic system by collecting new information to make background checks for handgun buyers simpler and faster, leaving an electronic paper trail under a law named for James Brady, Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on the President.
- A new reporting requirement that federally licensed gun shops report any person who tries to buy two long-arm weapons near the Mexican border over a five-day period.
- Tougher sentencing guidelines for straw buyers that Holder’s department pushed through procedural hoops at the U.S. Sentencing Commission earlier this year.
But the low-key approach hasn’t escaped the notice of the NRA, which says the administration’s tack won't help crime-fighting efforts and could backfire in next year's elections, when the gun lobby is again likely to flex its sizable political muscle.
“If they want to do something serious about stopping crime, they can do the tried-and-true rules and go after criminals. They’re not,” says Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA. “They’re collapsing prosecutions across the U.S. The idea of putting more forms on the honest people is ridiculous. They need to start on something the criminals don’t like, which is arresting and incarcerating.”
It's getting crazy out there people - every single wild-ass crazy rumor and innuendo you ever heard about Obama is coming to fruition. Read the rest of this story, all the details HERE
STORMBRINGER SENDS
Third Special Forces Group compound, Afghanistan
AN ASSASSIN's LOVE
There is a very interesting chapter in the book More Homicidal Humor, by Sgt. Brian Foster of the Houston Police Homicide Unit, about a man he calls Tommy T who once owned this gun. Tommy was an organized crime figure in Houston and Corpus Christi who is said to have murdered quite a few people with it. You can order the book from the author’s website, HomicidalHumor.Com
Copyright 2007
by Ed Buffaloe.
The artwork on this firearm is intense - and I don't just mean from the point of view of a metalworker's craftmanship - as such I cannot display the details without the risk of STORMBRINGER getting slapped with "Adult Site" status. To inspect the rest of this remarkable artifact, go to A Hitman's Gun homepage. Be forewarned: probably "NSFW".
Today's Bird HERE
.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
OBAMA's COLLEGE CLASSMATE SPEAKS OUT
By Wayne Allyn Root, June 6th, 2010
Barack Hussien Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent.
To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and Our country from within.
Barack Hussien Obama was my college classmate.
Yes, Wayne Allyn Root's statement below has been "Correctly Attributed" by Snopes - which is remarkable in itself seeing as Snopes has a definitive "list" to the Left -S.L.
( Columbia University , class of '83 )
He is a devout Muslim do not be fooled.
Look at his Czars . . . anti-business . . . anti-American . . .
As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from Day One: Barack Hussien Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.
Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming.
Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival . . . and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government.
Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions).
Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt.
What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?
Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants.
They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."
Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Barack Hussien Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.
Legalize 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America .
But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children,
food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security .
Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues.
It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions).
A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their
bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America.
The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful.
The ends justify the means.
Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama).
Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Barack Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Barack Hussien Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the System.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Hussien Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan . . .
Today's Bird HERE
.
To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and Our country from within.
Barack Hussien Obama was my college classmate.
Yes, Wayne Allyn Root's statement below has been "Correctly Attributed" by Snopes - which is remarkable in itself seeing as Snopes has a definitive "list" to the Left -S.L.
( Columbia University , class of '83 )
He is a devout Muslim do not be fooled.
Look at his Czars . . . anti-business . . . anti-American . . .
As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from Day One: Barack Hussien Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.
Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming.
Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival . . . and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government.
Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions).
Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt.
What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?
Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants.
They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."
Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Barack Hussien Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.
Legalize 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America .
But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children,
food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security .
Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues.
It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions).
A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their
bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America.
The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful.
The ends justify the means.
Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama).
Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Barack Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Barack Hussien Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the System.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Hussien Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan . . .
Today's Bird HERE
.
Monday, July 11, 2011
THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE . . .
Matt is a family friend over in the UK. He is a World War II vet and we respect him a lot for it. Matt likes to send things out over the email machine. Yesterday he sent me this incredible collection of World War II pictures, and I responded:
These pictures are amazing, Matt. What's incredible is I grew up hearing stories of what you guys did in the great World War II, watching it on TV and in the movies . . . The Longest Day . . . The Dambusters . . . Cockleshell Heroes . . . To Hell and Back . . . They Were Expendable . . . The Bridge Over The River Kwai . . . Patton . . . A Bridge Too Far . . . during my upbringing in Southeast Asia and then later during the course of my military service I visited so many of the places depicted in these photos and in the movies, and met and spoke with the soldiers who fought in those terrible battles: Wake Island (I've been there four times!) Okinawa (four YEARS), Kwajalien, Guam, River Kwai, Malaya, Singapore (my brother was BORN there of course - while it was still a British colony!), Hong Kong, former Yugoslavia (all over), Malta, North Africa (from Egypt to Senegal), Normandy, Belgium and of course Stuttgart . . .
Kwajalein: Japanese Kawanishi H8K seaplane after strafing.
Squad of Rufe's at Bougainville. These things were very nimble even with the pontoons.
The A6M2-N float plane version of the Zero did extremely well, suffering only a small loss in its legendary maneuverability. Top speed was not affected, however, the aircraft's relatively light armament was a detriment.
Snow on the flight deck of the USS Philippine Sea, North Pacific 1945.
HARVS on the way in. Rare gun camera shot by a P-47.
Deck crew climbing up to get the pilot out. He did. That’s a fuel tank his foot is on. Empty?
Marines disembark LST at Tinian Island.
Bougainville
Guam
Outside Bastogne
German 280mm K5 firing.
U.S. Munitions ship goes up during the invasion of Sicily. Notice the dried-out spots of salt water on the lenscover from when the photographer waded ashore.
V-1
Spitfire "tipping-off" a V1. If you've never heard of this insane tactic . . .
At first the V1's were shot down by gunfire. Optimum range was inside 200yds, which was marginal for survival. Many planes were damaged and quite a few pilots killed. Basically at such high speed and low altitude a plane had to fly though the explosion and hope. With the high risk of being blown up some of the best pilots started tipping the V1's wing, because of damage to wing tips they later developed a tactic of disrupting the airflow by placing their wing very close to the V1's wing, causing it to topple.
Not every pilot did this. At night this was not possible; the flame from the V1 blinded the pilot to everything else, though some Mosquito pilots flew past closely in front of the V1, again causing it to topple. The thought of doing this at 450mph, 4,000 feet above the ground, at night and being blinded gives me the willies.
Panzerkampfwagen VI E "Tiger"
JU 88 loading a torpedo. This is one HUGE bomber . . . AND it's on pontoons!
German "KARL" motars, Sebastopol
Reloading a KARL
BOOM!
Macchi 202v
Italian 303 Bombers over North Africa
Of course my generation of soldiers were trained & led by Vietnam vets, and we read everything we could get our hands on about the war in Indochina.
We arranged our web gear like they did - used canteen covers for mag pouches because they carry 5 instead of three . . .
The old cotton suspenders with the double straps in the back were prized over the single "Y" strap on the newer LCE because they distributed the weight more evenly - we used to cut out the padding because it absorbed rainwater like a sponge - M14 mag pouches if we could find them in the Hoo-ah stores down on Yadkin Road, and of course the ubiquitous "buttpack" - I've still got a few of them around the place.
We even modified 2 quart canteen covers for SAW magazine pouches - yes I know they didn't have 2 quarts in 'Nam and I know they didn't have M249s, the inspiration was learning from our predecessors how to modify our web gear.
They taught us how to tie things down on our LCE and on our rucks with parachute cord, to cut down on the weight of all those metal clips; they taught us about sewing claymore pouches onto the top flap so you could have a pre-prepped claymore mine with a 6-second fuze for counter-ambush 'break contact' drills - just like they did - cut back the brim on our 'boonie hats' so we could look "up" in the jungle, dogtags in our boot laces, the whole nine yards.
Then we spent 20 years training in the deserts, in many cases rehearsing on the same terrain for the war we're fighting on now, and the funny thing is it took the Army the better part of 15 years to figure out you can't maneuver too far in the desert dismounted with a huge ruck on your back. You need wheels to fight in the desert . . .
US Army Special Forces in Iraq
Those Who Came Before: World War II British SAS Long Range Desert Group, North Africa
. . . and you need to be thinking in terms of 5-gallon water cans, not 2 quart canteens - the Israelis taught us that.
By the time I retired in 2008 there were STILL one or two Vietnam vets in the service, but it was like this: I was born closer to the end of World War II (13 years) than these young sprouts coming in were to Vietnam.
I salute your generation of soldier, Matt! You guys set the standard and set the example for all to follow. You guys fought The Big One. Nothing before or since ever came close.
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
.
Today's Bird HERE
.
These pictures are amazing, Matt. What's incredible is I grew up hearing stories of what you guys did in the great World War II, watching it on TV and in the movies . . . The Longest Day . . . The Dambusters . . . Cockleshell Heroes . . . To Hell and Back . . . They Were Expendable . . . The Bridge Over The River Kwai . . . Patton . . . A Bridge Too Far . . . during my upbringing in Southeast Asia and then later during the course of my military service I visited so many of the places depicted in these photos and in the movies, and met and spoke with the soldiers who fought in those terrible battles: Wake Island (I've been there four times!) Okinawa (four YEARS), Kwajalien, Guam, River Kwai, Malaya, Singapore (my brother was BORN there of course - while it was still a British colony!), Hong Kong, former Yugoslavia (all over), Malta, North Africa (from Egypt to Senegal), Normandy, Belgium and of course Stuttgart . . .
Marines disembark LST at Tinian Island.
German 280mm K5 firing.
Spitfire "tipping-off" a V1. If you've never heard of this insane tactic . . .
At first the V1's were shot down by gunfire. Optimum range was inside 200yds, which was marginal for survival. Many planes were damaged and quite a few pilots killed. Basically at such high speed and low altitude a plane had to fly though the explosion and hope. With the high risk of being blown up some of the best pilots started tipping the V1's wing, because of damage to wing tips they later developed a tactic of disrupting the airflow by placing their wing very close to the V1's wing, causing it to topple.
Not every pilot did this. At night this was not possible; the flame from the V1 blinded the pilot to everything else, though some Mosquito pilots flew past closely in front of the V1, again causing it to topple. The thought of doing this at 450mph, 4,000 feet above the ground, at night and being blinded gives me the willies.
BOOM!
Of course my generation of soldiers were trained & led by Vietnam vets, and we read everything we could get our hands on about the war in Indochina.
We arranged our web gear like they did - used canteen covers for mag pouches because they carry 5 instead of three . . .
We even modified 2 quart canteen covers for SAW magazine pouches - yes I know they didn't have 2 quarts in 'Nam and I know they didn't have M249s, the inspiration was learning from our predecessors how to modify our web gear.
They taught us how to tie things down on our LCE and on our rucks with parachute cord, to cut down on the weight of all those metal clips; they taught us about sewing claymore pouches onto the top flap so you could have a pre-prepped claymore mine with a 6-second fuze for counter-ambush 'break contact' drills - just like they did - cut back the brim on our 'boonie hats' so we could look "up" in the jungle, dogtags in our boot laces, the whole nine yards.
Then we spent 20 years training in the deserts, in many cases rehearsing on the same terrain for the war we're fighting on now, and the funny thing is it took the Army the better part of 15 years to figure out you can't maneuver too far in the desert dismounted with a huge ruck on your back. You need wheels to fight in the desert . . .
. . . and you need to be thinking in terms of 5-gallon water cans, not 2 quart canteens - the Israelis taught us that.
By the time I retired in 2008 there were STILL one or two Vietnam vets in the service, but it was like this: I was born closer to the end of World War II (13 years) than these young sprouts coming in were to Vietnam.
I salute your generation of soldier, Matt! You guys set the standard and set the example for all to follow. You guys fought The Big One. Nothing before or since ever came close.
SEAN LINNANE SENDS
.
Today's Bird HERE
.
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