Author: TSO

OK, so I went down to breakfast this morning and met two wounded guys sitting there, asked if I could join them.   Awesome dudes, Intel oriented.  Live in Maryland now.  To say we hit it off is an understatement, we were cracking up the entire time, and telling stories.  These guys love RangerUp so we talked about that, and then we went through some of our TAH highlights and giggled about Ballduster McSoulpatch and Master Sergeant Soup Sandwich.

So, we’re sitting there enjoying our time and this guy walks in with his girlfriend.  He’s one of the volunteers here.  I knew who he was because I had spent the night talking to his mother last night, who is also a volunteer at this event.  So, one of the guys at the table, SSG Rudi Gomez (who is the man) goes into the following conversation with me:

RG, nodding towards the guy that walked in, “I don’t think that dude there likes me much.”

Me: Why’s that?

RG: So last night we were all standing out there on the casino floor waiting to walk to dinner and I was checking out this poster of Sigfried and Roy, and that guy was standing next to me and I said to him “No wonder the tiger tried to bite him.”  And he says, “Whats that?”  So I say, “you can’t spend 364 days out of the year tea-bagging a tiger while wearing a bejeweled shirt and not expect the tiger to eat you on Day 365.  It’s just common sense.”  And the guy just looked at me weird and kind of walked away.  I think I might have offended him.

Me: You do know who that dude is don’t you?

RG: One of the volunteers.

Me: Yeah, but he’s also Kurt Busch, you know the NASCAR driver.

RG: WHAT??!?

Me: Yeah man, that’s Kurt Busch.

RG: Oh shit.

Our entire table was just rolling.  Our latest thing now is to just walk up to Rudi and say “Hey, remember that time you talked to Kurt Busch about tea bagging a tiger?

[For the record, Mr Busch seems like a REALLY nice guy.  I talked to him about non-tea baggin, non-tiger things last night.  And his mom is SUPER sweet as well.  Wonderful people, and though I still won’t watch NASCAR, when he comes on ESPN I will be rooting for him.]

 

BTW- Another story that had me rolling this morning was JR telling us how he once accidentally welded his hook hand to a pipe he was working on.  Only at an event like this would such stories not be completely outside the bounds of normal discussion.

OK, the Palazzo is straight up redonkulous.  In terms of Zombie attack, I am on the 17th floor, so probably safe, but this room is larger than my house.  I have 3 TVs to chose from at any given moment, I think I like the one next to the jacuzzi tub the best though.

Anyway, for those that don’t know, I am in Vegas as a guest of the Armed Forces Foundation and Mr. Sheldon Adelson who should need no introduction.   The AFF is flying in wounded troops and their families from WRAMC to show them a good time, and just remind them how much America supports them and honors their sacrifice.  JR Salzman is rolling in later, and I am about to head out to meet the private jet bringing in the guys.  They are being met by a police escort, the LV Fire Department and a host of other folks, like the President (CEO?) of Omaha Steaks, which I am happy to say I purchased someone for Christmas.  (No, not any of you.)

To say they rolled out the red carpet is an understatement.  Seriously.  I met a lovely young lady bearing a placard with my last name at the airport and said hello.  She frowned at me initially and asked me my first name.  I kid you not, I had to think about it.  She later told me I was the third person to claim the limo.  (Heh!)  As with the two other Palazzo employees I have met so far, she was wonderful.  I felt like undercover boss for some inexplicable reason.  But when I told the lady what I do for a living (writing, not making pee pee jokes) she told me all about her son whose life-long goal it is to attend the USAFA in Colorado.  Kid is studying trigonomotry. In the 10th grade.  Wants to be a aeronautical engineer.  I even gave her my card and offered to give whatever meager help I could in securing him a Congressional.

Anyway, if you aren’t a friend of mine on Facebook, you should be.  Send me a friend request, I okay almost all of them, unless you are a clearly underage girl dressed provocatively.  (In which case you are more likely a steam pipe fitter from Pittsburgh named Phil or some other non-female.)  I will be updating all through the day on what we do.

Either way, I’ll have more in the next few days as these guys and gals get spoiled rotten.  (Myself included apparently.)

Hey peeps, TSO coming to you live, 32,000 feet over Illinois, enroute to Las Vegas to be sumptuously exploited by The Man (Sheldon Adelson and the fine folks at the Armed Forces Foundation) with 50 of my wounded brothers and sisters who will be in sin city watching Army defeat Navy.   In the meantime, since this is a long flight, I figured I’d throw out geek bait.

Superbowl6Romeo sends me a ton of email, a large percent of which goes unread, because let’s be frank, those Firefly and How I Met Your Mother DVDs aren’t going to watch themselves.  Nonetheless, the other day I did click on one, entitled “The Best Dungeons & Dragons Character Alignments.”  You can lie and say you have no idea what that means, but let’s be honest for a minute, you people are no less dorks than I am.

Now, among other gems, this page states that:

Lawful Neutral
When I was a young D&D player, I thought Lawful Neutral was the most boring alignment. Then I read the Games of Thrones books and met Stannis Baratheon. There’s something very compelling about a dude who follows the law no matter how good/bad/insane the law is, with no regard for others or even himself. It might make for some (excitedly) awkward moments, like when that evil king orders the party to do something evil, like execute that princess. Sure, the rest of the party may be appalled, but Lawful Neutral ain’t care. Someone get him an axe.

Anyway, as I was reading through the piece Jonn wrote yesterday about the MRFF and religion, it got me thinking about this page S6R’d sent, and I started wondering what Character Alignment those of us who blog here would be.

I’m definitely lawful.  I don’t speed, I show up everywhere 20 minutes early, and I treat all flights like they are international and arrive at a ridiculous time.  When I see traffic arrows in a parking lot I follow them.  The thought of breaking a law actually makes me break out in a cold sweat.  The last time I broke a rule was at Ft Polk the night we moved into the box, but before the fight had actually started, and me and my buddy RoRo body breached the wire and headed out to do a leaders recon we weren’t supposed to do.  You know, just to see “enemy dispositions.”  When we got back to our FOB thing, all the lights were on, and I assumed we’d been busted.  I urged him to have us walk up to the main gate and turn our selves in.  He told me to stop being a homosexual, leaped the wire again, and acted like nothing was wrong.  No one would have cared either way I realize now, but I was so nervous I may have skid marked by BDUs.  It probably stems from The Citadel where I got busted for damn near every offense in the book.

That said, I have to admit I’d probably run over a kid enroute to catch a Stolen Valor guy.  So I guess that makes me Lawful Neutral?  I don’t know to be honest.

Jonn though, doesn’t strike me as too caught up on rules.  He’s definitely Chaotic, but is he good, evil or neutral?  Joe probably thinks he is evil, others probably thing he’s good.  I think he just doesn’t give a shit.  But, I don’t think there is a “Chaotic Doesn’t Give a Shit” category.

ArmySergeant would be lawful good.  At least in her own mind.  We might quibble on whether she’s actually good, but she believes it 100 percent.  She’s probably not going to read this as she is likely enroute to North Korea to follow up on the unicorn cave find from a week ago.  That’s just the way she is.

Anyway, what do you guys think?  What is our collective character alignment over here?

 

 

 

Crossposted with slight alterations from my other home.

Most of you probably remember Team Rubicon, but for those who don’t, here’s a recent American Legion Magazine article written about them, but if you haven’t read it yet, you can do so at this link.  (CLICK HERE TO READ IT.)

The moment he saw the destruction on TV in January 2010, former Marine scout-sniper Jake Wood knew he had to get to Haiti. He called a few friends, posted a quick note on Facebook – “I’m going to Haiti. Who’s in?” – filled some duffel bags with first-aid supplies and headed for the airport.

Team Rubicon was born.

Forty-eight hours later, Wood joined seven other volunteers – Marines, firefighters, physicians, a priest and a former Special Forces medic – at the Santo Domingo airport in the Dominican Republic and headed for the Haitian border. Six days after the magnitude-7 earthquake devastated the region, they were running a makeshift emergency room in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince’s largest hospital.

By the end of the mission, Team Rubicon had treated thousands of Haitians and started a rapid-response group that has since dispatched combat veterans to natural disasters from Alabama and Indiana to Burma and the Sudan.

“I self-responded to Hurricane Katrina with a buddy from high school, and I saw how poor the response could be when things got overwhelming,” Wood says. “No one is better qualified than veterans to do this. This is an opportunity for them to feel like a part of a team, to engage in a mission. This is the opportunity I’ve been looking for since I took off the uniform (in 2009).”

Here’s a video about that trip:

Anyway, Chase Bank has their American Giving Awards going on right now, and one of the finalists for the $2 million is Team Rubicon.  About that competition:

25 charities. $2 million. 1 star-studded television event.

The American Giving Awards are back for the second year, and we need your help deciding which charities will share in $2 million in grants! Twenty-five past Chase Community Giving charities will be honored during an emotional and entertainment-filled ceremony, and five charities will leave the stage with a share in $2 million to continue their amazing work. Here’s how you can get involved:

Voting

Voting is open, running November 27 and through December 4 on Facebook. Choose your favorite charity from among 25 inspiring past Chase Community Giving grant recipients, and vote today. You can browse through the charities by category right on the homepagebrowse through the charities by category right on the homepage.

So, sorry for the last minute appeal, but today is the last day.  Team Rubicon is the only veterans or military charity in there, so please consider logging on to your facebook and heading over to cast a vote to help this great group of folks out.

VOTE ON FACEBOOK.

 

(I should note it is only against 3 defendants, not all of them, but what is true here will be true for the rest as well most likely.  Am being told that all were tossed, the judge just handled them all separately.  Trying to get the rest of the stuff now.)

First, I’d like to look at the genius legal minds from Archslayer – The Warrior of God. One of the keenest legal minds of our generation, ney, ANY GENERATION, the Archslayer had these gems of jurisprudential omniscience to put forth on his supine masses (all 3 of them) just last month:

John Giduck has one of the first solid cases against the slayers and poser hunters on Facebook, American Legion blogs with “writers” of such low character, and idiots like their best bud Scott Hughes. The first of many lawsuits. Many more are on the way. Thanks to us and all our hard work. Yes, us; we are many.

Good, defense lawyers need to get paid.

It’s going to cost you more than just your tarnished reputations, which among the true veterans and active duty military couldn’t be much worse.

Actually, pretty sure it could be, since at the same time he was posting this, the Army was asking me to go and cover troops in Kandahar and the Sinai.

You all owe Dallas Wittgenfeld an apology for harassing him publically as you all have. It’s all documented and part of the discovery stage of a few lawsuits pending.

Um, yeah, no. It was at the 12(b)(6)* stage, not discovery. And now it’s at the “ok, let’s settle up the bill and don’t call me again” stage.

*Technically I guess in Colorado it is a 12(B)(5) motion, but it would be a (6) in federal stuff, so keeping that so you legal minds will know what I am talking about.  Failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

We are taking this one at a time, but you will all answer for your crimes; of that there is NO doubt.

D’oh!

You may want to start the apology line now for Dallas, whom you have cyber-bullied and threatened with physical harm (aren’t you so brave?) on open pages in Facebook and in your ridiculous American Legion sponsored blog. If you survive the first waves of lawsuits (which is highly unlikely) you still have to face the many others coming.

And what about me, and my legal opinion that this case would get tossed? Did the Archslayer of Legal Knowledge agree with me?

We only hope for your sakes, that you have a better lawyer than Mark C Seavey to represent you. He’s an utter ass, not to mention an idiot (oh hell, I just did). Well, to we who have read his lies it’s no secret he’s an idiot.

Yes, luckily for all involved (except Gidduck of course) they had a good lawyer.

Here’s some relevant sections of the motion to dismiss that the judge issued yesterday. Be sure to see the part where the plaintiff also has to pay all the legal fees of the Defendants.

The statements by Defendant Warrington that Plaintiff Giduck was a liar, fraud, scammer and imposter because he misrepresented his credentials are not actionable. Opining that someone is a liar, a fraud or was untruthful about his or her background, is, perhaps unfortunately, a common implement in American discourse. Such epithets are obviously statements of opinion and are protected under the rules enunciated in Milkovich and Burns….

Defendant Niblett’s statement that Plaintiff Giduck is a “piece of shit” or, a “fool,” a “fraud,” a “poser civilian,” and a “clown” are patently Niblett’s opinion and are not actionable. If every statement along these lines formed the basis for a libel or slander case, the courts of this country would be entirely devoted to the litigation of defamation claims. These are statements of opinion and are protected under the rules enunciated in Milkovich and Burns…

The statements attributed to these Defendants regarding Giduck were blunt, uncomplimentary, and probably “rhetorical hyperbole.” But they were also privileged statements of opinion protected by the First Amendment as applied in a litany of Supreme Court and Colorado appellate cases.

So, can we dispense with the legal threats now please?

On a level of douchiness, I challenge you to top this one….

Are you shitting me?

Everyone pile on.
OLBY’s Twitter
JR’s Twitter.

On a related note, JR and I are headed to Vegas this week to cover the Armed Forces Foundation’s event at The Venetian. JR is my friend and my hero, so I can assure you that I’ll have more on our trip, including pictures of us drinking many Irish libations with our wounded brothers and sisters.

In case you don’t know JR, here you go:

This one actually has to be read to be believed…

Jonn Lilyea: American Legion endorsed Mil-kook gone mad or simply a hit man (his weapon–a keyboard) for the Orwellians (which the American Legion is an intricate part of).

It didn’t take long for us to figure out just how screwed up in the head this outspoken “poser” with a keyboard was.
We saw others speaking truth about him on the internet, and it wasn’t pretty.

A classic case of embedded psychological issues breaking through to the surface with each post or comment he has made. He can’t hide his hidden side anylonger.

Couple of problems with this theory however.  The largest of which is that he cites to things about CJ Grisham not Jonn.  For instance, anyone ever heard Jonn say he was in A-Stan?

While “on duty” in Afghanistan, this sub-moron began his assaults on Dallas Wittgenfeld (a decorated Vietnam Veteran who is also a victim of PTSD). Using the same bundle of lies his Facebook counterparts – “the slayers” usedto justify their assaults on Dallas. 

The whole thing is Epic Fail and absolute humor.  Not sure if it is Wittgenfeld writing it or one of the other morons he shares a brain cell with, but there is something hilarious about a guys calling us “sub morons” and then posting pictures of the wrong person.  He’s done this a lot.  Obviously the elevator doesn’t go to the top.

Oh, and you’ll be surprised to note he is once again threatening lawsuits.  This on the heels of lying about how I was being sued (with Jonn) by Gidduck.  Good times.

 

 

Please don’t post that idiotic Facebook thing. I’m begging you.

For those who haven’t seen it, I am putting it here so this makes sense. If you copy this and post it to your Facebook, that Sally Struthers will kill and eat another child in Africa.

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above, my written consent is needed at all times! By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.

The Rome Statute deals with the International Criminal Court, not Facebook. And the UCC is not law. It’s the newer version of the one I busted on at TAH earlier:

Look, I don’t mean to be a dick (except to you Paulians, Oathkeepers and assorted other cranial rectal inversion enthusiasts) but the above stated disclaimer, (hereinafter “horseshit”) has as much legal bearing as reading the peanut and corn splatters in a port-a-john like a Rorschach test.

I don’t want to get all legal on you, but “private and legally privileged and confidential information” actually has a meaning in the law, and it doesn’t apply to shit you toss up on your Facebook. For instance, my discussion this morning about how my wife noted that Jabba the Hutt looks like a poop….yeah, not privileged. Now, there is the spousal communications privilege and the spousal/marital testimonial privilege, but when you disclose that stuff to someone else, it is no longer privileged. So, my wife’s thoughts on Hutt/Fecal similarities conveyed to me in the car might be confidential to us, but when I put them up on my Facebook for Blackfive to call me a Ghey, they lose their inherent privileged status.

So don’t be that guy.

And now, after the jump, I reward you for future good behavior with video of a half nekkid bum, a midget with a pony tail, and a chick breaking her face when her weight and gravity conspire against bamboo.
(more…)