Category Archives: War Without End

Guarding the matzoh

Posted on April 13, 2014 | 2 comments

My condolences to the families of the slain. The mood at the local grocery this afternoon, as two score or more of us shopped for Passover, was uncharacteristically somber. And, for the first time in my memory, there was an armed Austin police officer seemingly guarding the matzoh. He smiled. Said he just happened to be standing near the shelves the boxes were on.

Either the store hired him off-duty or the city sent him, after what happened in the parking lot of the JCC in Kansas City. It would be more difficult for that to go down here. Our JCC is fenced and its entrance is guarded, unlike the one in KC, at least according to the pictures I saw. Perhaps this will help them remedy that. It’s always wise to expect the best but to prepare for the worst.

But the grocery is neither fenced nor normally guarded. So it was nice to see the armed officer guarding the matzoh. “Take care,” he said, as I left. “You, too,” I replied.

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Posted in Israel, Rancho Roly Poly, The Culture, War Without End

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Our uni-uniform Army

Posted on April 11, 2014 | 1 comment

I have no patience with the fools who pass themselves off as Army generals these days. If they were at all competent there wouldn’t have been two (and counting) Fort Hood massacres.

The massacres likely occurred because some general or other refuses to have gate guards wand everyone who passes through. Ties up traffic you know. But it may also have something to do with the way everyone in the Army now dresses alike—laced desert boots and all.

Used to be you could tell the riflemen (not to mention the Airborne) from the clerks and the bottle washers.

Today there’s no obvious difference and you’d best believe the pogies (the c&bw boys and girls) like it just fine that way. Must give the military police pause, wondering who they’re dealing with.

My cousin-in-law, an Army dentist (he’s moved on to private practice now) really liked the way civilians in the groceries deferred to him as if he were a combat veteran of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. He looked like one. He did, mercifully, reconstruct the jaws of some of the ones who were seriously wounded over there, but he sure as hell didn’t fight with them.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Texana, War Without End

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Inspired by the latest Fort Hood massacre

Posted on April 3, 2014 | 2 comments

You go climb every mountain.

Via Phase Line Birnam Wood

UPDATE:  The killer was a 34-year-old Spec 4. That’s a lot of years for such a low rank. He either joined late, never deserved promotion or got busted along the way.

And, no, I don’t think allowing non-police soldiers to carry loaded weapons on post is a good idea. Investing in a few metal-detector wands for every person and car that passes through the gates would be a better one.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Blogosphere, Guns, Iraq, Texana, Troops, War Without End

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Human rights at the Dictator’s Club

Posted on March 31, 2014 | 1 comment

No such notice for the starving millions of North Korea, nor the dying in Syria or the oppressed of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Nope. But five (count ’em) five anti-Israel resolutions in one day.

“Paula Shcriefer, the US representative to the UN’s Human Rights Council, …noted that ‘none of the world’s worst human rights violators, some of whom are the objects of resolutions at this session have their own stand alone agenda item at this council,” and emphasized that “only Israel, a vibrant and open democracy, received such treatment.'”

It’s the democracy part that really gets to the Dictator’s Club. Also the Jooz.

Via Weasel Zippers

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obsessions, War Without End

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Mystery planes over Amarillo

Posted on March 30, 2014 | 4 comments

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A not-so-subtle howdy-do to President Vladimir Vladimirovich?

Texas military aircraft watchers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett caught three wedge-shaped mystery birds high over Amarillo’s Rick Husband International Airport earlier this month. They ruled out B-2s for lack of the W-shape of their trailing edges. But if they’re black projects why fly them in daylight? Douglass opines:

“A weapons system isn’t a threat to an enemy unless they know it exists. Ask yourself an important question – what’s going on in the world right now?

“Who (…of late) has decided to roll back the clock to the good old days of the Cold War and MAD?

Question: How do you make your adversary take a moment of pause and rethink his military doctrine based on Cold War technology?

Answer: You give him a glimpse, a hint that we haven’t just been sitting on our hands all these years after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

Adds Aviation Week’s Ares Blog: “It’s not merely logical to expect that numerous classified aircraft programs exist: it’s almost a necessity under the principle of Occam’s Razor, because if they don’t, you have to contrive some sort of explanation for what Area 51 has been up to all these years.”

Via FoxNews.

4 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Texana, War Without End

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Bye, bye Tomahawks

Posted on March 28, 2014 | 1 comment

Not the Tomahawk Chop Atlanta Braves fans do in the face of the usual PC, maginalized-American-Indian malarky.

No, I mean the cruise missiles former President Clinton liked to throw around now and then. The Worm has cut the Tomahawks program from his defense budget.

“The cost of the Tomhawk missile program is less than $200 million per year. In perspective, that cost is less than 1/3 the cost of the hopeless Obamacare website. It is less than the cost of two foreign vacations for Michelle Obama. It is less than half the amount of money that was flushed into Solyndra…This will not end well.”

Well, we can always throw around a nuke or two. Except, uh, those are being cut, too, while Moscow likely will refuse to do the same. Push that reset button again harder, okay? Harder.

Via Gay Patriot.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, War Without End

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Go get ’em, Ted

Posted on March 7, 2014 | 3 comments

While the so-called Conservative Political Action Convention chatted up amnesty for the illegal (mainly) Mexicans who will never vote for the GOP, across the street at the Uninvited Convention, Texas Republican Sen. Ted “Abolish the IRS” Cruz was calling the president a fool on the international stage.

“After calling Iran the greatest national security threat, Cruz said that ‘under no circumstances will the nation of Iran ever be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.’ He warned of the catastrophic damage that could be done if Iran exploded a nuclear weapon over America’s atmosphere…

“After saying that ‘no rational person is interested in a shooting war between the United States and Russia,’ Cruz offered a variety of solutions to the brewing overseas conflict, saying America should ‘immediately sign a free trade agreement with Ukraine’ and export liquefied natural gas there, which would create jobs at home and lessen Russia’s ability to use its natural resources as ‘economic blackmail’…

He said Russia should have been expelled from the G8 for its actions in Crimea and Ukraine and the Magnitsky Act should be enforced. He also said that re-installing the anti-missile defense in Eastern Europe that Obama canceled in order to appease Putin and Russia should be another priority.”

Makes more sense than the piddle Barry has done: sending a few aging F-15s to NATO and a lone warship into the Black Sea while needlessly whacking individual Russians with visa restrictions.

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Posted in Obamalot, Texana, War Without End

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