Category Archives: Troops

Barrycades delivered to White House

This is seriously funny. Obutthead’s minions barricaded D.C. veterans memorials against visitors, strictly as a provocation in their slim-down, shut-down, what-have-you argument with the RINOs over ObamaCare’s part in the rising federal debt.

So, on Sunday, some apparent veterans (a few wearing the historic Gadsden flags adopted by the Tea Party movement, see upper right sidebar of this blog) removed the “barrycades” and carried them to the White House. With signs saying “Return To Sender.”

Of course the D.C. cops were out in force. And CNN mocked the protestors, but whoever cared what the Communist News Network had to say.

And there was more trespassing at another “barrycaded” park in Florida. Peacefully, of course.

Heh.

The Dems will now have to bring out their rag-tag Occupy troublemakers, who specialize in urinating and defecating in public. They’re so Progressive, you know.

Unless, of course, they’re too busy working part-time to pay their ObamaCare health insurance bills. Except I don’t think they’re the kind who actually work.

Via Instapundit and Breitbart News

UPDATE:  Obutthead’s private org OFA (Organizing for Action) plans a “counter protest” on Tuesday. At least they won’t have to worry about missing work.

The Dutch Army Bicycle Band

Just for laughs, I’m sure, considering they play drinking hall tunes.

Mostly brass, of course, including a variation on the ancient Serpent (the skinny over-the- shoulder horns). But they also have a couple of drums, cymbals and a glockenspiel.

I suppose when you’re in the Dutch Army you don’t see a lot of action, so you have to get your kicks where you can. Geez. They even wear puttees.

Mother

Mother was the nickname of the first rhomboid tank, a gasoline-engined British behemoth designed to cross five-foot treches in 1916. Later iterations would have top turrets until the whole evolved into what we now call a tank. (Click on the picture to biggerize it.)

As an old tanker, I’ve always been fascinated by Mother. Due to her tiny compartment (most of the interior was taken up by the engine, the side guns and their ammunition) the crew of eight must have had a dreadful time: the constant noise, the nauseous fumes, the continual vibrations. And the rocking ride.

And for all her menacing appearance, a machinegun could puncture Mother’s boilerplate “armor.” For that matter, just one intrepid infantryman with a hand grenade or two slipped through a side opening could disable the whole thing, and everyone in it.

Yom Kippur, forty years ago: Lu Yehi

Whatever it is about decadal anniversaries, they seem to affect everyone. Hence today’s commemoration of Israel’s Yom Kippur War when the Syrians, etc. attacked a few hours after sundown and into the high holy day.

It was a near thing, especially in the Golan Heights, where the relic hulks of a few destroyed Syrian and Israeli tanks remain at strategic points on the landscape as permanent reminders.

Snoopy the Goon’s preferred reminder is Lu Yehi (May it be):  “…written by our late and much beloved Naomi Shemer 40 years ago, during the war, is part of our collective inheritance and is forever associated with that war.”

Go there and listen. Here are the lyrics in English.

 

ALL WE PRAY FOR
There is still a white sail on the horizon
Opposite a heavy black cloud
All that we ask for – may it be 

And if in the evening windows
The light of the holiday candles flickers
All that we seek – may it be

May it be, may it be – Please – may it be
All that we seek – may it be.

What is the sound that I hear
The cry of the shofar and the sound of drums
All that we ask for – may it be

If only there can be heard within all this
One prayer from my lips also
All that we seek – may it be

May it be…

Within a small, shaded neighborhood
Is a small house with a red roof
All that we ask for, may it be

This is the end of summer, the end of the path
Allow them to return safely here
All that we seek, may it be

May it be…

And if suddenly, rising from the darkness
Over our heads, the light of a star shines
All that we ask for, may it be

Then grant tranquility and also grant strength
To all those we love
All that we seek, may it be

May it be…

 

 

May you have an easy fast tonight and tomorrow as you think of these things.

Save a local retailer: shop til you drop

Sad but true. But the fact is we have a consumer economy and if we don’t consume it fails. Especially since Obongo, Pelosi and Reid aren’t doing a damn thing to help. Al Q keeps hitting out at Wall Street, too dumb to realize that finance is a movable feast. As long as they leave the malls alone. But the economy is so bad that retailers are starting their Christmas sales now. Save a local retailer: Shop ’til you drop.

Via Op-For

Syria’s poison gas: Gulf of Tonkin redux?

Lost amid all the babble about Obongo’s brilliance turning to humiliation in the wink of an eye (couldn’t happen to a ruder SOB) is the alleged case for Syrian president Assad’s use of poison gas on civilians.

Come again? We are to believe this lying, prevaricating, sneering Democrat administration really has proof? Why, exactly? Because Lurch wouldn’t lie? Ha, ha. He’s made a career of lying, starting with his testimony to Congress about systematic war crimes in Vietnam.

There is this from the August 25 edition of USA Today:

“YouTube videos posted by Syrian activists of children gasping for air while being rinsed with water by barehanded medical personnel are not consistent with chemical weapons known to be in the Syrian arsenal, said Dan Kaszeta, managing director of U.K.-based security consultancy Strongpoint Security. Kaszeta worked 20 years on chemical biological and nuclear defense in the U.S. government and military.

“Kaszeta said the videos show convulsions that affect some limbs but not all; no skin burns or blisters, which would indicate mustard gas; and no vomiting. He did not have access to any of the victims and his opinions are based solely on the video.

“‘(With) sarin or nerve agents there would be much more widespread symptoms,’ he said. ‘We need physical evidence, blood, urine, tissue, a chest X-ray of one of these guys who died.'”

It wouldn’t be the first time Muslims phonied up a video. They do it all the time in Gaza. But what we really need are politicians we can believe, and that may be beyond hope. Obozo surely knows from his daily briefings that Assad can’t go to the toilet without permission from Tehran. So if he did this, then Iran is complicit and more. So why are we focusing on Syria?

But more to the point is the little matter of the Gulf of Tonkin attacks that LBJ made up (with the help of the Pentagon) to justify his war policy. And he wasn’t trying to divert attention from a lengthy string of political scandals like Obozo.

LBJ was a Democrat, too. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

UPDATE:  I’m not the only one doubting the admin’s tale: “…there are calls from many quarters for independent, scientific evidence to support the U.S. narrative that the Assad regime used sarin gas in an operation that killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 children.” Good.

There seems to be less doubt that one of Assad’s pilots dropped napalm on a schoolyard but it’s been noted that D.C. is less likely to complain about that since the U.S. military also uses napalm. Tell me again, why is poison gas worse?

Has the illegal bombing started yet?

If so, it’s proof that so long as there’s a Democrat in the White House, the snooze media couldn’t care less if he’s also a dictator who doesn’t bother seeking advance approval for military adventurism from the UN or Congress.

Unlike W., the president who did seek advance approval and got called BusHitler for it anyway. But he was a Republican.

Not that the bombing or cruise missiling we’ve been told to expect to begin today is likely to have much effect, especially not after Barry leaked his plans in advance, apparently to make sure Iran didn’t hate on him and his other Jihadi pals had time to hunker down.

“There is no credible chance the U.S. can locate or destroy Syria’s entire holding [of chemical weapons] without a massive air campaign and [G-d forbid] some kind of presence on the ground. Even if the Assad regime has not done the obvious, and used the last few months to covertly disperse a large portion of its weapons, cruise missiles simply don’t have that kind of destructive power… the military impact will be marginal at best. Moreover, anyone who has actually seen wounds from conventional artillery — or badly treated body wounds from small arms — realizes that chemical weapons do not cause more horrible wounds.”

“Or as Nancy Pelosi might say, ‘We must bomb Syria to know what is in Syria.’ We are about to find out.”

Me, I’ll be happy if none of our pilots and assorted others, including Israelis, get hurt.

Via Great Satan’s Girlfriend, Joshua Pundit, DiploMad 2.0, and Simply Jews.

UPDATE:  Barry Rubin says Obongo & Co. are bluffing, simple as that.

MORE:  Indeed, five days later, we’re still waiting for Obozo to drop a shoe, let alone a bomb.