This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Ex-PH2

  • Military Chaplains Picket Weinstein’s HQ

    On a bright, clear Monday morning, a large group of military chaplains gathered together at the headquarters of Michael Weinstein to protest the mischief being done by the self-appointed RAHIC through his insistence on removing Christian religious symbols from military bases.  They noted that he has been targeting just about anything that even vaguely resembles a cross, including two sticks blown down in a windstorm, while completely ignoring other denominations.

    Deeming it gravely unfair to focus on one religious group alone, they have formed a Syneaudde Premarius to get signatures on a petition to force him to acknowledge all branches of religious persuasions or give up his campaign and stop whining.

    A group at a roundtable discussion included the following indignant dignitaries:

    Rev. Vic Vickers, the Vicar of Viccmoor Parish

    Rev. Juan del Bautisto, Eglisia de los Muertos

    Rabbi Shlomo Herschell

    Dr. D. B. Cooper, DDV

    Asriel Biegattmie, Pagan Society/Wiccans United

    Corbyrne Maelwrydd, Thornborough Druidic Campagne

    Deogredde de Mantua, Knights of Malta

    Sprig Musumba Diego, Nicenian Pastafarians

    Dilbe Agnew, High Priestess, Isle of Lesbos Temples

    “We feel that he’s discriminating against less well-known sects like ours,” said Her Priestessness Dilbe Agnew. “It’s unfortunate that, in these times of open societies, someone like Michael Weinstein is picking on one group only, the poor old Christians who’ve been picked on for 2,000 years. Even the Romans gave us the occasional nod, y’know.”

    “We’d like to point out that focusing on a single view of divine divinity is unfair to the other orders,” said Ms. Bigattmie, waving her wand around. “We witches have had our share of misery, but it’s all fluffy bunny stuff now, and it’s because of him and his obsession with crosspieces. He probably pickets factories that put crosshairs in targeting scopes, too.”

    Thornborough Druidic Campagne spokes-Druid Maelwrydd agreed while he was handing out leaflets about portable stone circles. “We’ve been hanging mistletoe on every base at winter solstice for years, and he’s never once shown up to picket the bull sacrifice. It’s the only time of year we eat a lot of meat, too. His negligence is noted. We don’t think he’s even remotely earning that nearly half-million big ones  that he gets as a paycheck. That money could buy a lot of bulls and oak groves, you know.  Maybe our stuff isn’t so spectacular, but we’re open to everyone. Those stone circles are everywhere. We just build a fire, sing some songs, roast wienies, and chase away the Dark Forces at Hallowe’en. How cool is that? And he’s ignoring us. It’s  completely unfair.”

    What the group of protesters is looking for is fair representation in Mr. Weinstein’s campaign of snubbing, picketing, and dissing religious preferences.

    “Either it’s all of us, or he stops his exclusive targeting now,” Sprig Diego said. “We Pastafarians welcome everyone at the table, especially on Pasta Carbonara night. We’ve sent invitations to him to join us and hear our side of the plate, but he’s ignored all of us. That hurts our feelings.”

    When asked for an opinion about Mr. Weinstein’s preference for sniping at crosses and wanting those images removed, Vicar Vic Vickers speculated that it may have had something to do with not getting as many toys during the holidays as he was expecting when he was 10 years old.

    Rabbi Shlomo Herschell seconded that opinion, reflecting that “a lot of adult angst has to do with not getting that pink Barbie bicycle you were expecting.” He added. “It’s sad, but true. Must have hit Mr. Weinstein the hard way.”

  • The 100th Bomber Group – World War II

    This week’s movie is a video of the Bloody 100th Bomber Group from WWII, B-17 pilots and crews, flying their bombing missions starting in 1943, and continuing into March 1944, to destroy German factories and rail lines and shipyards, and  at the end of the war, the bombing Berlin and Dresden.

    The B-17, also known as the Flying Fortress because of its armor and amraments, was as tough as the A-10 is now. At first, they flew missions with fighter planes that turned back at the European shoreline, but later, they were accompanied by US fighter planes and British Spitfires.Tough planes, tough crews, flying in unheated, nonpressurized planes, in cramped quarters that can only be politely termed sardine cans because they were packed to the walls with gunnery, ammo, instruments and armor, leaving barely enough room for the gunners to maneuver and shoot.

    The US Army Air Force alternated bombing missions with the RAF. The USAAF ran missions during the daytime while the Brits ran them at night.  The loss numbers during bombing missions were staggering, up to 90% of planes and crews, because of the Luftwaffe’s attacks and flak fields. The missions ran 8 to 9 hours, minimum, in cabin temperatures of -40f to -60f.

    These guys and the Brits bombed Berlin into rubble, but that didn’t end the war. They next went after Dresden, which was full of refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet troops on the eastern front.

    There is a brief shot toward the end of a Luftwaffe pilot bailing out of his damaged plane at 24,000 feet. Some Luftwaffe pilots were so desperate to stop the bombers that they rammed them as a last resort.

    It ended in March 1944, 73 years ago. Some of them got together for this video.

    It is 45 minutes of video, worth every minute of your time.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olsAMx0fPq0

  • In Regards to the Military

    Well, well, well. Just look what popped up in the news on Reuters this morning, and look at which attention-whoring ‘attorney’ is right up front there, in the thick of it, grinning like an ape at the cameras.  

    Attention-whoring at its finest, isn’t it? And yes, I could do some real cat-dancing on Gloria, but that’s a waste of time.

    Something I learned awhile back is that the more you posture for attention, the more likely people are to respond in an uncivilized, vile way.  Uncivilized behavior seems to be the usual response of the current younger generation, somewhere between 18 and 28 years old. I blame their parents for it, parents and schoolteachers both, and anyone else who let them get away with it.

    Those two women with Allred may have a valid bone to pick, or maybe not. If, as one of them says, the photo she submitted to Marines United was of her fully dressed, not inappropriately provocative, that’s not quite the same thing as posting online images of yourself in your birthday suit.

    But let’s take a hard look at this. Rough talk and pure vulgarity is not something new in the world. I have yet to find a man with a permanently prissy mouth who had anything but a limp backbone. Cursing is as old as human speech. Denying that aspect of our history is refusing to face reality. Even the most mild-mannered fellow can be moved to sputter ‘sonuvabitch!’, if it’s appropriate. He might apologize afterwards, which is fine, but I’d take no offense.  I’ve been known to let fly myself.

    My response to this childish nonsense is simple: if you don’t want to be hammered by a bunch of uncivilized slobs with mouths like sewers, then do not assume they’ll like you just for you. If you are dumb enough to post nekkid photos of yourself online, you have a problem. Exhibitionism is a mental disorder. Putting ‘nekkid-look-at-me!!!’ images of yourself online is a symptom of exhibitionism.  Did you not think about the consequences before you put that crap online? Or did you even think, period?

    There are far too many people with internet access looking for someone they can prey on. Posting that crap online puts you right in their laps. Some of them, as we already know, are not the kind of people you want as next-door neighbors.

    The only time anyone should see you buck nekkid is when your parents bring you home from the hospital after your mother finally pushed you out and she’s changing your diapers, or when you’re in the privacy of your home and your signif other and you are engaged in bodyslamming each other.

    When someone insists on nekkid photos of you, you should kick his/her ass out of your life and find someone else. And change the locks on the doors.

    Since you can’t change human nature with lectures and powerpoint snooze sessions, it’s way past time the military drops that useless crap and focuses on doing its job – defending this country – instead of doing each other.

    In regard to the prissy responses by all levels in the militarty, grow up. It was bad enough in the 1960s, but the internet has magnified it.

    And yes, I do mean MILITARTY.

    You’re a bunch of tarts, hypocrites, and scabrous whoremongers. You talk out of both sides of your mouths. I don’t believe anything you say. While you DORKS at the top are barking your protests and trying to cover your laps as well as your asses, you really do need to admit that you are exactly as bad as the lower levels.

    Wanna see that photo of GEN “Chipmunk” Petraeus and his rank-climbing, whining ex- girlfriend Broadwell again?

    You mean if I lay for you, I’ll get promoted? Gee, I already took the Miltest and the rate test and passed both of them. I get promoted with or without you, slimeball. Why should I drop my undies for you, you piece of whale’s offal? Oh, wait, if I DON’T lay for you, that makes me a lesbian, huh? Sure, okay. What else you got, dimwit?

    When you in the Militarty  decide to stop lying and admit that YOU — both men and women — use sex to get ahead, let me know.  You’re wasting my tax money.

  • EU court backs Belgium’s rejection of visa to Syrians

    The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has backed a Belgian decision to refuse a humanitarian visa to a Syrian family.  The family of five, from Aleppo, had applied for a 90-day visa at the Belgian embassy in Lebanon, so they could later seek asylum in Belgium.

    The Court rejected the Advocate General’s advice and decided that EU law did not require member states to allow visas to people whose ultimate aim is asylum.

    The ruling is a significant victory for Belgian migration minister Theo Francken who has argued that EU member states alone should have the power to issue visas.  Common sense had prevailed, he said.  “NGOs wanted to open EU borders in embassies abroad,” but the Court had been very clear that humanitarian visas were a national competency.

    Now the complaint from a researcher at the Netherlands’ Center for Migration Law at Radboud University is that it will increase trafficking in undocumented migrants.

    Excuse me – increase it?  Isn’t it rather hefty right now?

    The full BBC News article is here:  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39190976

    I’m sure there will be a lot of loud, unhappy noises from people who don’t understand the idea behind having secure borders to keep the Very Bad Guys out of your living room. But a huge number of undocumented ISers were recruited from the Eurozone. Some are being recruited here. Some of them may now be in Mosul still holding hostage the citizens who lived there and can’t run away – something on the order of 750,000 people. Frankly, considering the most recent events both here in the US and in Europe, and the Swedish media’s not reporting violent disruptions going on in that country, I think that any sovereign nation has the right to refuse.

    This is not going to come to a tidy end, either.

  • More News from Norkiland…

    … and I guess we’d better take Fatty Kim da T’ird (aka ND: tBF) seriously.  Per this article from BBC News, the Norks have launched four (4) ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Sunday evening at 22:36GMT, or whatever your time zone is.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39175704

    No, this is not a good thing.  They were launched from Tongchang-ri near the northern Nork border and went about 1,000 KM (620 miles) before dropping into the ocean. There’s a map with the article, and I will update this if there is anything new on Monday.  He seems to be improving his missile systems exponentially.

    It’s obvious Fatty Kim da T’ird wants to be the Big Cheese in the koi pond, but he’s making his neighbors to the South quite nervous, never mind what he’s doing to the Japanese who are certainly not his enemy.  Someone needs to sew his ass shut, in my opinion.

    His dad must be so proud.

     

  • EU Lawmakers Remove LePen’s Immunity

    European Union lawmakers overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to lift the EU parliamentary immunity of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen for tweeting violent images of the Islamic State (IS) group.

    The offence being considered is “publishing violent images,” which under certain circumstances can carry a penalty of three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros ($79,650).

    Le Pen’s immunity shielded her from prosecution; lifting it would permit legal action against her.

    Le Pen, a member of the European parliament, is under investigation in France for posting three graphic images of IS group executions on Twitter in 2015, including the beheading of the United States journalist James Foley.

    Responding to a request from the French judiciary, the EU lawmakers in the legal affairs committee voted to lift her immunity. The preliminary decision was confirmed Thursday by a large show of hands in the EU Parliament.

    Le Pen and members of her anti-immigration National Front party have denounced the move in Brussels as a political witch hunt to destabilise her presidential campaign.
    “Showing and naming the horror of Islamism allow us to fight against it,” Florian Philippot, the vice president of Le Pen’s far-right party, told Reuters.

    Tight presidential race

    Le Pen, locked in an increasingly tight three-way race to succeed Francois Hollande this spring, has already seen her earnings as MEP cut for a separate case involving alleged misuse of EU funds.

    She has called for a moratorium on judicial investigations until the election period has passed.

    Polls indicate Le Pen looks set to win the first round of the two-stage election, but that she would lose in the final second-round runoff. They clearly show that her legal battles seem to have little effect on her supporters.

    Le Pen’s immunity has been lifted before, in 2013. She was then prosecuted in 2015 with “incitement to discrimination over people’s religious beliefs”, for comparing Muslims praying in public to the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two.

    Prosecutors eventually recommended the charges be dropped.  – (France24 with Reuters)

    N.B.:I copied the text of the article from France24 because I don’t know how long they’ll keep it on their website.  The link is below, includes the video, which is in English. The Siemens ad is in French. You can get the French version by going to France24 in French at this link:   http://www.france24.com/en/20170302-eu-parliament-lifts-le-pen-immunity-islamic-state-violence-tweets

    In regard to her campaign for France’s presidency, LePen seems to be hitting the same notes as our current CiC, Pres. Trump, following the same paths he took, by visiting farmers. Now since the French are noted for two specific things, wine and food, this makes sense, and les fermiers do appreciate her appearances, noting that unlike LePen, the other candidates are mostly passing them by.  Does that sound familiar?

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-farmers-idUSKBN16627O

    Why is this important to us? Well, for one thing, France is a NATO ally, and as with the US elections last year, when you ignore les camionneurs, les fermiers, et les marchands ou les commerçants, you ignore the biggest tax base in your electorate.  

    I have said previously that the political pendulum is slowly beginning its swing to the right. Should LePen be elected and Frexit becomes a reality, ask yourself what else may follow. There is a failure on the part of some NATO members to carry their share of the financial burden.  If those members cannot be persuaded to do so now, what will happen down the road?

  • Navy to Convert NS Great Lakes to NAS Great Lakes

    In an unexpected reversal from the late-1990s divestiture of government property, the Dept. of the Navy has announced its intention to purchase Waukegan National Airport for the purpose of creating an inland Navy/Marine Corps pilot training facility. Civilian housing in the area will be purchased and demolished for safety reasons, and two schools close to the airport, H. R. McCall Elementary and Prairie Trail School will become NATTU (Naval Air Technical Training Unit) schools. The Domino’s Pizza at the end of the northeast runway will be preserved and expanded to provide a full 24-hour kitchen for Navy, Marine Corps, and  Coast Guard personnel.

    The purpose of this move is to provide training facilities lost with the closing of NASGlenview, a pre-World War II Naval Air Station used for training Navy pilots prior to their deployment.  Due to an unfortunate lack of foresight, NASGlenview was sold and converted to civilian housing developments during the BRAC. The current residents have angrily refused to even consider giving up their expensive, comfortable homes, regardless of prime offers by the Navy.

    In a search for an aviation facility currently in operation, the choice was between Waukegan National Airport at Waukegan, IL, and Kenosha Regional Airport at Kenosha, WI, 30 miles to the north of NSGreat Lakes. Both airports have a 30-foot high elevated embankment at the end of their main runways, meant to avoid impacts with civilian vehicle traffic. According to one enthusiastic light sport pilot who uses the Waukegan airport regularly, it’s “almost  like taking off from an aircraft carrier deck.”  The Navy settled on Waukegan National because of its 6 mile distance from NSGreat Lakes.

    The basic aviation training program for NAVAIRCADs and MARAIRCADs will be held at McCall Elementary and Prairie Trail schools, which will also offer daycare as well as standard K-12 classes for the children of Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard families. The aviation program will include pilot qualifications in rotor and fixed wing aircraft, as well as aviation equipment handling, maintenance, fuels, and aviation engineering classes in “A”, “B” and “C” schools.  The US Coast Guard unit currently operating from its Waukegan National Airport and Waukegan Harbor facilities will be expanded, with NASGreat Lakes as its base of operations on the western shores of Lake Michigan.

    Expansion of runways and facilities includes future plans to accommodate heavy gunships such as RATO C-130 Hercs, as well as lighter warplanes like the A-10 (Warthog). In addition, plans are on the table for a Lexington-class carrier strike force consisting of an aircraft carrier, two diesel-powered destroyer escorts, one guided missile frigate and a destroyer, to ply the waters of Lake Michigan, as well as installing a SEAL training facility at the former nuclear power generating station at Beach Park, IL. There is also a discussion underway regarding reviving a diesel-powered submarine now in mothballs as a training ship for future submariners.

  • Pres. Trump Chooses Science Advisor

     

    I’ve been waiting to find out who will be Pres. Trump’s science adviser. It appears to be physicist Dr. William Happer, a physicist currently teaching at Princeont University, and former Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science from 1991–1993. He’s no slouch as a scientist. His work for the Air Force on the sodium guidestar laser  platform for the military’s missile defense program provided information on the tropopause layer in the upper atmosphere, which is where atmospheric wave fronts distort both starlight and laser emissions, and where heat either begins to leak into space or does not, depending on how much and what kind of gas is blocking heat radiation.

    The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere, where we live and where weather takes place, and the stratosphere. The layers above that are the stratosphere, where stratocirrus clouds form as floating clouds of ice, the mesosphere, the thermosphere and the top, very thin layer, the exosphere. Beyond that is space.

    Dr. Happer’s view of the whole climate thing clashes badly with the PC crowd’s notions about it, mostly because during the development of the sodium guidestar, he had to learn the physics and chemistry of the troposphere and the tropopause, and the layers above the troposphere.

    I’ve tried to photograph Mars with a Superzoom camera attached to a tripod, and believe me, the wind distortion in the layers above the troposphere is intense. The best shot I got was a red squishy blob. I’ll have to try again later. If it’s really busy up there, bustling along like a bat out of hell ahead of a storm front, even the Moon has wiggles in it, all caused by high speed atmospheric wind at high altitudes distorting the image. And frankly, when I shot the photo attached to this article last summer, the sky really was that deep, clear blue. It was late afternoon ahead of a storm.  Where’s the pollution?

    As it is, I’m quite sure that Dr. Happer knows far more about the physics and contents of those high layers of air than the people who’ve tried to turn weather and climate into some sort of cultist ideology.

    And that includes that moronic, greedy, fraudster sideshow barker, Al Gore. I was particularly intrigued by the jackass at George Mason University last year who wanted ‘climate deniers’ (whatever that is) persecuted under the RICO Act.

    Some pimple-brained Australian music teacher living in Austria back in 2012 wanted anyone to get the death penalty who disagreed with the then-popular ideology of global warming. He published his opinion on the website of the University of  Graz, where he was teaching. Shortly after that, the embarrassed University publicly rejected what he said and he had to publicly recant his diatribe.  https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/prof-richard-parncutt-death-penalty-for-global-warming-deniers/

    A few years ago, Greenpeace tried entrapment on Dr. Happer in a sting, getting him to give his view of the climate’s properties to them through a false e-mail address. That backfired on them.

    I think he’s the right person for the job. I think he has what it takes to open reasoning dialog on this contentious subject, instead of allowing only one side to be heard. Since the media kowtows to the incipient cultism coming out of the leftist crowd, I want to see what happens when requiring the publication of real results instead of mulched numbers is required to get grant money, especially since it’s easy enough for us plebes to get the raw, unaltered data from public websites.

    Science is not ideology. Ideology does not accept opposition or dissenting views. Real science does.  This whole thing about ‘climate this and that’ has taken on the characteristics of cultism. The noisy crowd on the left side of the fence scream and holler loudly at you if don’t agree with whatever their stance is on the climate, but if you try to pin them down about the chemistry, physics and biology of the whole thing, they can’t give you answers. They can’t tell you anything about weather.

    And frankly, I don’t think they even like rain because they hate getting wet. But they want their veggies, which require rain, lots of it. They want your tax money spent on silly, useless, daydream programs instead of on keeping reservoir dams in good repair, because it never rains in Southern California. Oh, that rain? The forecast was for two inches, period. The total so far has been well beyond that, so much so that the Andersonville Dam spillway, per a twitterpated photo, is operating in full force now. 3 to 6 inches of rain at the lower levels in California translates to 30 to 66 inches of new snow in the Sierras.

    That is going on now.  The National Weather Service has forecast heavy snow in the Lake Tahoe area with a high avalanche danger until Tuesday in an area of the Sierra Nevada from Yuba Pass to Ebbetts Pass. Forecasters say the winter storm could drop up to 5 feet of snow in areas above 7,500 feet. Lower elevations could see between 8 and 24 inches of snow.

    In regard to CO2 levels in the atmosphere, Dr. Happer would likely agree on the following simple statement. This planet we live on is a closed biosystem. It is symbiotic in nature, with animals of all kinds from tiny insects to humans to elephants depending on plants as a basic source for food and shelter, and plants depending on animals at all levels for the one thing they need the most: CO2 – carbon dioxide. Plants combine the carbon dioxide, produced by earth activities and by animals, with water to produce sugar, a/k/a sap, which is what they live on. I learned that in the 3rd grade, a very long time ago.

    This doesn’t count noxious trace gases in the atmosphere, such as nitrous oxide, ozone, chlorine and phosgene. Dr. Happer has said that we need to find ways to reduce those noxious gases.  I would add that we desperately need to find more ways to be more accurate in forecasting weather events, and we need to spend money on real projects like strengthening levees and dikes on major waterways like the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to avoid disastrous episodes of flooding like the 1993 floods.  $15 billion in damages could have been prevented if the levees hadn’t failed.  https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/floods/papers/oh_2/great.htm

    Biology is really very simple. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. We in the animal kingdom are as dependent on the plant kingdom for our existence as plants are on dependent on us for theirs. If there is insufficient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support plant life, plants will die off and the entire animal kingdom, right down to the smallest insect, will die off.