Since the dawn of modern warfare, the best way to stay alive in the face of incoming fire has been to take cover behind a wall. But thanks to a game-changing “revolutionary” rifle, the U.S. Army has made that tactic dead on arrival. Now the enemy can run, but he can’t hide.
After years of development, the U.S. Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan — the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition does not necessarily explode on impact. Instead, it can be set to detonate either in front of or behind a target, meaning it literally will go through a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.
It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet — nearly the length of eight football fields — making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today.
My wife caught the dog shivering the other day, and decided he needed to look like he was singing acapella in the Boston College Men’s Choir for some reason. Seriously hon, he is covered in fur, he doesn’t need this outfit. I half expect to come home from work to him decking out our house in disco stuff and dancing with a male chihuahua to “It’s Raining Men.” I looked the other way when he mounted a male St Bernard at the Bark Park thinking he was just being ornery, but damn….
My Niece is the little cutie with the white thing in her hair who says “It’s not awesome” at 2:30 in.
And, from December 7 to the 11th, don’t come looking for me, I will be trying to protect Azeroth from raging elementals with my friends Milbe (named after Milwaukee’s best), XBlackheart, and Dreadbeard (Claymore.)
Yesterday, an Iraq veteran named Denise called in to The Glenn Beck Program to complain about the fun she had on Veterans Day. Denise, who returned from Iraq two years ago, walked with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America (I.A.V.A.) in last Thursday’s parade in New York City and then attended a soiree at The Providence, in Midtown Manhattan, where she encountered “a spread like you wouldn’t believe.” …
But Denise found herself questioning I.A.V.A.’s motives. “Where did they get the money for all this? It was unbelievable how they treated us that day,” she said. So she took to the Internet, where she claims she found out that the I.A.V.A.—America’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars of the past decade—is supported by George Soros and MoveOn.org. “George Soros has his hand in the military,” Denise told Beck, who was only too happy for the opportunity to take a few whacks at one of his favorite punching bags.
OK, so rather than fact check the statement, he went to Paul:
I called up I.A.V.A.’s executive director and founder, Paul Rieckhoff—who served as a first lieutenant in Iraq from 2003-2004—to see if the supporters of I.A.V.A. are really as Communist as Glenn Beck says they are. “The I.A.V.A. receives no money from MoveOn.org,” he told me. “We’re happy to take MoveOn’s money if they’ll send it, and we’re happy to take Fox News’s money if they’ll send it, too. Veterans affairs shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It’s all about Americans uniting behind our veterans.”
Now, we’ve got a subtle shifting here, neither of which exonerates the author. First off, with regard to Soros himself, guess who is a sponsor of their Gala each year?
Not good enough for you? OK, well, at least when I was nominally a member, IAVA sent out their emails using Democracy in Action, as I have discussed before.
And I maintained that position right up until today when I got this absolutely absurd, biased and factually inaccurate “Congressional Report Card” email. My BS detector got off to a rip roaring start when I hovered over the link and found that it went to IAVA through “Democracy in Action.” For those not aware of this craptastic organization:
DemocracyInAction.org believes technology can be a decisive force for social change. We exist to empower those who share our values of ecological and social justice to advance the progressive agenda.
Great. So, while I paid no dues, as a Member in good standing of IAVA, I apparently support ecological and social justice initiatives in line with my progressive agenda. That sounds like me, doesn’t it?
Now, where does DIA get their money do you suppose?
So, I think they are being too cute by half here. Just because Soros might not cut a direct check to them doesn’t mean he isn’t help fund them. His son gives to them, and Soros himself gives to DIA which gives reduced charges to like minded left leaning organizations.
Now, I have stopped bashing IAVA, but this Vanity Fair article using them to bash this woman, and to bash Beck is just plain innaccurate. I’m going to hold my breath now and wait for a correction. Or, more likely, my passing out.
UPDATE: THIS POST NOW FEATURES MORE COWBELL! [We NEED your help people. Either come up with advice for us here, or we will have to hire an expert to look at the numbers and correct this creeping malaise.]
Look, everyone knows that I hate VoteVets, and that I think dicksmith is a no-talent assclown. But, I am man enough to admit that they really are quite a success story, and I don’t just mean their over 9 percent success rate in the most recent election, but rather their ability to draft up posts and get huge numbers to comment. Jonn became very concerned about this a little over a week ago, and tasked me with finding out why we were hemorrhaging readers while VoteVets was growing faster than Michael Moore at an all you can eat buffet.
My first step in approaching this situation was to start with a control period of time in which to conduct my research. I decided to arbitrarily begin with November 9th as my start date. It was a great day for VoteVets, who did a story on the missile launch, and got a comment from frequent commenter “dememe”. (This is their third most prolific commenter, tied with a spam for Uggs boots and another spam commenter for “Cheshire Wedding Photography” for 1 comment each.) This day concerned me greatly, as our post on the subject by Old Tanker only brought in 2700 percent more comments. I knew then we were in trouble.
Anyway, I looked first at VoteVets commenters, and found the following information about their commenter demographics which I put into a helpful graph form:
As you can see, in the 9 days of my study, VetVoice.com got 22 comments, which is pushing 2 1/2 comments a day. That is an astronimical number, possibly attributable to the fact that Veterans Day fell in there, and the head of VoteVets, MOH recipient Motor Pool guy Jon Soltz appeared on national TV on the 534th most watched program, Keith Olbermann. (It should be noted that Olbermann’s show “Countdown” may pass “When Chinchillas attack” from Animal Planet this week to take the 533rd position.) Of those comments, 14 were Jim Staro (who we have profiled in the past) 2 were the spam, and 6 others were other folks, like DeMeme.
What concerns me is the prolific nature of the commenters, and the vast numbers of those prolific writters. Each of them (and there are 8 if you count the spam as seperate) are writing at a clip of almost 3 comments each over 8 days.
By way of contrast, This Ain’t Hell during that same period only had 607 comments. Put again in graph form, it looks like this:
Now, if I know dicksmith, and I truly hope I don’t, he is no doubt standing on his Barbie play station desk right now giving a speech to his troops, quoting Chesty Puller:
“So they’ve got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won’t get away this time!”
It’s pretty obvious from even a cursory look at that graph that TAH is in peril of floundering like Guam during fleet week. So help us. Help us to help you. We don’t have the millions of dollars that VoteVets has, we don’t have the cult of personality that is Jim Staro, dicksmith, Tony “My name is sealed bitch” Camerino and the rest of them.
So, what can we do to fix this problem? Please comment.
For JAG:
For Spade.
In the comments Spade states:
This post needs more charts. Like ‘comments over time’ and stuff.
This is exactly the kind of comment that scared the brown into my boxers. Just reading it I started shaking and had to go take a Crying Game Shower because it just illustrates the precariousness of our position. These guys at VV are nipping at our heals, and no graph could make that as clear as this one.
Look at the surge of November 15 in particular. Now, just stop and ponder what might have happened if this tsunami of comments been on an magnitude of scale 800 percent over what it was….they would have had 72 comments to our measly 66. We are on trecherous ground my friends, and we must right this ship ASAP.
Veterans health. Since the exposure of terrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007, Congress has dumped billions into the veterans health system. But there has been little follow-up to examine the quality of care and the cost-effectiveness of efforts by the Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies.
Go ahead, you tell me what is wrong. If it takes longer than 10 seconds, just remember that these paid professionals don’t get it either…
Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board has rejected granting refugee status to Joshua Key, 32, a deserter from the U.S. army who says he is haunted by atrocities he saw committed by American soldiers in Iraq.
“I find that the claimant is neither a . . . refugee nor a person in need of protection,” ruled Ken Atkinson of the board.
The negative ruling means the Canada Border Services Agency could move to deport Key.
“Joshua Key and his book are more full of fecal matter than the honey wagon trucks sucking out the port-o-johns at Ft Polk. I’d rather have a suppository applied with a tomahawk missile than read this book again.”
From the article about his impending return:
After fleeing to Canada, Key wrote The Deserter’s Tale, a book in which he described seeing two civilians decapitated and their bodies desecrated.
“There were American soldiers kicking the heads around like soccer balls,” Key wrote.
Key told the board he joined the Army after a recruiter told him he would be assigned as a bridge builder and not deployed in combat.
His unit entered Kuwait on April 10, 2003, and within weeks, he was in Ramadi, Iraq, where he said his duties included conducting night-time raids of Iraqi homes in search of weapons.
During these raids, he said, he witnessed several instances of unjustified abuse, unwarranted detention, humiliation and looting by fellow soldiers, much of which was ignored by his superior officers. He said that at other times in Iraq, he witnessed unwarranted physical abuse, including the killing of apparently innocent civilians.
Anyway, I am glad this dirtbag is finally getting booted. About friggin time. He’s been procreating with some Canadian broad like mad, so prepare yourself for the inevitable “how could they seperate this hero from his children” story. My response would be to ask how many of you cried about thepile of fetuses that David Bellavia was forced to boogie board down in Iraq. pile of fetuses that David Bellavia was forced to boogie board down in Iraq.
(I could live to 150 years old and still be most proud of my 3 minutes as the producer of “Blue Falcon Radio”. Great moment in the history of radio.)
BTW- Here is the lying sack of shit crying on Canadian TV.
Remember a while back when I did a post where I stated I wanted the GOP to be the minority in the Senate? Let me remind you, I said:
If the GOP takes over again, and acts like they did last time, the GOP will likely go extinct as a viable option. I’m accused off all kinds of things in the comment section of my other post, and some of it is understandable, but if the GOP takes over, and doesn’t make SIGNIFICANT changes, we are through. Now, how much can the GOP do with a President Obama? Virtually nothing.
I further stated:
Screw that. I don’t trust that the GOP has learned anything. The budget ballooned under Bush and a GOP Congress. It has gone up even more since then, true. My ideal situation, a GOP minority with enough blue dogs to block anything and everything. I’d rather have a GOP majority that is smart enough to handle the reins, but I have never seen such a thing.
Yeah, and I got the shit beat out of me for saying it.
The Senate’s old bulls are preparing to beat back what they see as a direct affront to their authority: a movement by House Republican leaders and conservative senators to force Capitol Hill to end its appetite for pork….
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, along with other Senate leaders from both parties, say that earmarking is a constitutional right and senatorial privilege and show little interest in relinquishing the decades-long practice of inserting pet projects into appropriations bills…
“As I think all of you know, you can eliminate every congressional earmark and save no money,” the Republican leader said. “It’s really an argument about discretion.”
Dude learned nothing. He is of course accurate in what he says, but the fact he is saying it means he’s completely tone deaf. “Everyone else does it, so we will too.”
Great plan chief, just genius. People say DeMint lost us this election by promoting O’Donnell, Buck etc. Well, McConnell is bound and determined to beat him at that, by losing us the next three. Game, set, match.
Was spending some time at my favorite conspiracy theory website today when I noticed something I had noted before, but this time was more egregious, they just steal shit. Specifically, I was looking at this post:
Former President Says Torture Helped Thwart Attacks
by Steve Holland, Reuters
WASHINGTON — When then-President George W. Bush was asked to approve a tough interrogation technique known as waterboarding on September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he wasted little time in deciding. “Damn right,” he said.
Anyway, you see where it has the authors name and “Reuters”? Yeah, that wasn’t there before. In fact, it not only didn’t cite that as a source, but in fact claimed that this “Johnny Punish” guy was the author. So, I left a comment:
Does simply stealing an entire article from Reuters without either attribution or a link back bother you guys at all? I mean, do you just ignore copyright law and the intellectual property of others so as to reap advertising money?
That isn’t the exact quote, because like VoteVets with Jonn, Veterans Today simply deleted my comment entirely and threw in a link. So, I started looking around. Like this article here:
“I’m not a witch… I’m you.”
With these words, Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell attempted to convince voters that despite admitting to have dabbled in witchcraft and holding many extreme views, her values and views are closer to those of her state’s voters than those of the “Washington elite,” represented by her opponent, Chris Coons.
Allied Pilots Association president Dave Bates is suggesting that pilots go through a pat-down search by Transportation Security Administration personnel rather undergo the repeated radiation from the “advanced imaging technology” body scanners used at many airports.
That doesn’t mean he likes the pat-downs, which can include hand-sliding over the groin and buttocks.
While I would guess that Veterans Today authors do wile away the day dreaming of having TSA hands slipped over their groin and buttocks, that was written by a Dallas Morning News blogger, and then taken in toto to reappear at Veterans Today.
It seems the only one who produces original material is Duff, who is a) completely insane, and b) the worst photo shop artist in the history of mankind. (cf. This piece of shit here, that looks like he simply took the coyote off the acme rocket.)
Just a bunch of cowards, intellectual property thieves and lunatics.
