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

Author: Old Tanker

  • Mystery Missile Launch

    This seems a bit odd…

    (CBS) A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS’s cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.

    The Air Force and Navy are claiming it wasn’t them…

    A Navy spokesperson told KFMB it wasn’t their missile. He said there was no Navy activity reported in the area Monday evening.

    On Friday night, Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, launched a Delta II rocket, carrying an Italian satellite into orbit, but a sergeant at the base told KFMB there had been no launches since then

    Robert Ellsworth, former NATO embassador and former Deputy Sec. Def. took a guess.

    When asked, however, what he thought it might be, the former ambassador said it could possibly have been a missile test timed as a demonstration of American military might as President Obama tours Asia

    Personally, I don’t know why this administration would want to flex any muscle while the POTUS is in India/Indonesia…anyone else have a good guess?

    UPDATE: This guy has an interesting take, check out the photos…and it’s not from Monday night…
    contrail

  • Family of MOH Recipient Turned Away from White House

    Earlier Jonn had a post about the Bush’s touch of class with the Gold Star Mothers. This after Operator Dan gave us his tempered and subtle opinion of the CinC.

    Imagine my surprise when I came across this little gem

    SPOKANE, Wash. — Family of Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker was denied access to the White House’s West Wing on Saturday, a day after the World War II hero was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

    Why you might ask? Well for all the right reasons of course….

    Baker’s widow, Heidy, and grandson, Vernon Pawlik, 10, were denied entry because the boy was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. His shirt had a picture of his grandfather on it.

    Yup, violation of the dress code.

    Could this get any better? You betcha…

    Vernon Baker, of St. Maries, Idaho, was the last living black World War II Medal of Honor winner.

    The first black President couldn’t honor the last black MOH winner of WWII.

    I realize that Obama didn’t personally turn them away but what kind of culture exists at the White House that the staff didn’t feel they could make an exception for the Grandson of the last black MOH recipient of WWII after he just watched the Old Guard bury his Grandfather with all the dignity he no doubt earned…..Vernon Bakers MOH citation.

    Thank you Operator Dan, for a well timed rant, you saved me alot more typing…

    UPDATE: I almost forgot HM2 FMF-SW ret had his obit up back in July

  • A Pfc Knows better.

    We have the latest on the wikileaks dump from the Wall Street Journal today. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that it was our pal Bradley Manning.

    Investigators have found concrete evidence on computers used by Pfc. Bradley Manning that link him with the leak of classified Afghanistan war reports, a U.S. defense official said.

    As I said before, probably not a real shocker to anyone here.

    Childhood friends and acquaintances of Pfc. Manning describe him as smart, interested in current affairs, proficient with computers and not shy about sharing his opinions, which were often at odds with those around him in his hometown of Crescent, Okla.

    I guess maybe he wasn’t so proficient with computers after all…

    A search of the computers yielded evidence he had downloaded the Afghanistan war logs, the defense official said.

    …but wait! He had more documents…

    Pfc. Manning’s computers also found other classified material that has not been made public, the same official said.

    There were also names of Afghans that had been helping the US in our efforts. If any of these people or their families come to a bad end the blood is squarely on Manning and Julian Ass-mange’s hands, talk about a blue falcon extrordinairre…

    “If he did it, it was not to make money or be famous,” Mr. Davis said. “He would only do something like this if he thought it was right.”

    Well there you have it. A fucking Pfc knows better than everybody else. Where Bradley is heading I think Pfc is gonna stand for “Pillow-biter first class” Rot. In. Hell *spit*

  • Russia Violated the ’91 START treaty. Who knew???

    Well knock me over with a feather…

    From Bill Gertz at the Washington Times

    Russia continued to violate provisions of the 1991 START nuclear-arms treaty up until the agreement expired in December, raising new concerns that Moscow will violate the pending “New START” treaty now being debated for ratification in the Senate.

    So here’s a great idea…Let’s do it again!!!

    Under pressure from the Obama administration, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hope to approve the treaty and send it to the full Senate before the monthlong August recess.

    And the State Departments take on it…

    Release of the compliance report followed dispatch of an earlier State Department analysis to Congress on arms verification that concluded that Russian cheating on the new START treaty would not be significant.

    Really, they won’t cheat…..that much…
    When exactly was it that the Russians became our “friends”?

  • Clarence Wolf Guts

    The other day in a post Jonn gave us about Edith Shain . Reader 509th Bob left a comment regarding the passing of the last of the Oglala Lakota code talkers and I thought it merited it’s own post.

    Clarence Wolf Guts was the last of the Oglala Lakota code talkers. These code talkers spoke the Lakota dialect of the Souix language, the other two dialects being Nakota and Dakota.

    “He’s a very unselfish hero, always complimenting somebody else,” [Donald E.]Loudner said. “He always said to me ‘I never did anything great, I was just one of a team.’”

    Sound familiar?

    “I knew he was an important man to people because of his activities in the Army, but I didn’t know this many people had so much respect for him,” said Don Doyle, Wolf Guts’ only son. “I’m very proud of him, and I’m very grateful to them coming all the way here to pay respects to my father.”

    Most of us became familiarized with the code talkers when the government declassified material related to the code talker program in the 1990’s and a book, then movie was written regarding the code talkers called Wind Talkers. I admit, I never saw the movie because I was worried Hollywood would screw it up. The book and movie highlighted the Navajo code talkers which was a Marine program. Many people don’t realize that Indians from 15 different tribes became code talkers. Clarence was part of the Army’s code talker program and was recruited while at Ft. Rucker in Ranger training along with his cousin Iver Crow Eagle. Clarence was Maj. Gen. Paul Mueller’s personal code talker, and traveled with him and the 81st ID as the division moved from island to island in the Pacific, headed for Japan. Iver accompanied the general’s chief of staff.

    Clarence was laid to rest on June 23rd, God Bless and thank you Sir.

    Clarence Wolf Guts

    ht; 509th Bob

  • Gen. McChrystal Resigns?

    Just saw this at the Telegraph. Breaking: General Stanley McChrystal tenders his resignation.

    A senior Capitol Hill source tells me that General Stanley McChrystal had tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama and that the White House is actively discussing a replacement who could be quickly confirmed by the Senate.

    I believe someone here may like one of the possible successors.

    The source said that among the names being touted as possible successors are General James Mattis, the outgoing head of the US Joint Forces Command and due to retire after being passed over as US Marine Corps commander, and Lieutenant General William Caldwell, commander of Nato’s Training Mission in Afghanistan.

    Anyone know anything about Caldwell?

  • LA Times review of “The Speech”

    Seeing Jonn’s post below got me looking around a bit. The LA Times had there take on it but it wasn’t their insight that was so interesting. The lead photo showed Gov. Charlie Crist patroling Florida beaches for oil. The caption said..

    Gov. Charlie Crist checks a Florida beach for signs of oil

    The photo is priceless!

    Crist

    He must be worried about too much tanning oil on the beaches!!! (get it!)

    Update: Just in case you wanted to read the article here’s a link

  • Religion of Peace

    I just came across this little gem in the Daily Mail via Drudge. Seems that the 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment came home from a tour in Afghanistan and the home town had a welcome home parade for them…pretty standard stuff until protestors from MAC (Muslims Against the Crusaders) showed up.

    Around 40 members of a group called Muslims Against the Crusades (MAC) arrived with inflammatory banners featuring slogans such as ‘Butchers return’ and ‘What are you dying for? £18k’.

    As you can imagine, this went over like a fart in church.

    They were soon confronted by 100 people, some wearing English Defence League T-shirts, who shouted ‘scum’ and ‘Muslim bombers off our streets’.

    …like a REALLY rancid, foul, lingering fart in church…

    But violence flared after 200 soldiers from 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment – who lost five men in a recent tour of Afghanistan and had been granted freedom of the borough – marched past thousands of well-wishers.
    MAC supporters shouted slogans such as ‘murderers, murderers’ and ‘British troops go to hell’, while the mainly white crowd opposite, some of whom are believed to have been BNP supporters, threw frozen pork sausages and chanted ‘scum’ and ‘Allah, Allah, who the f*** is Allah?’

    Maybe if we just tried to understand….
    RoP