Category: Dumbass Bullshit

For some stupid reason, those pesky tourists in Washington, DC think that thousands of Americans died so that they can cool their stank-ass hippie feet in the Rainbow Pool at the World War II Memorial. From Fox News;

Beyond the issue of whether the wading is disrespectful, such activity is against National Park Service rules that are posted at several locations around the memorial — which honors the 16 million who served in the U.S. armed forces and the more than 400,000 who died in World War II.

“Honor Your Veterans. No wading. Coins damage fountain,” the signs read.

Park Service official Mike Litterst told Fox 5 TV last week that rangers won’t arrest any of the roughly 4.4 million people who annually visit the WWII memorial who may decide to go into the fountain.

“But we do ask people … to honor the veterans, honor their sacrifice,” he said.

Aside from the respect issue, there is a health issue – ducks crap in the water, and since you’re not the first one to do this, all of the fungi from previous tourists is waiting to attach itself to your skin.

Forrest Gump and Jenny made it look romantic (yeah, I know it was a different pool of water), but you’re not a movie star – you’re just another creepy tourist. If you need to cool off, go back to your $300/night hotel room and take a shower.

So, this fellow, Bryton Mellott, thought it would be cool to post a picture of himself while he was burning the flag on Independence Day. So, yeah, he had a right to do that, but then folks who criticized him have their rights, too, and they expressed those opinions according to the Champaign, Illinois News-Gazette;

After looking at the posts, Charles said, police saw a rapidly growing number of threats toward the young man and decided to look into it more closely. Many of the posts threatened violence against Mellott and his place of employment, Wal-Mart, which fielded a large volume of calls regarding the post, according to Urbana police.

Urbana police explained their involvement in a news release Monday, stating that “the volume of responses and specificity of threat against his place of employment (a location where an act of violence would likely cause harm to others), prompted police involvement in this case.”

Charles said police spoke with Mellott and with his employer. He said they told Mellott that they “understood his freedom of speech” but explained they were concerned for his safety and believed his posts were putting others at risk.

Funny how that freedom of expression can go both ways.

Our buddy, Susan Katz Keating writes about how the Obama Administration is allowing Russian aircraft, a Tupolev-154 nicknamed “Careless” to fly over the continental United States with it’s special, advanced cameras.

The flight will be held under the auspices of the Open Skies Treaty, a 2002 international agreement that allows 34 signatory nations to fly over one another’s territory and monitor military installations.

The decision comes in the wake of a strongly worded letter to President Barack Obama from three key national security lawmakers who urged the White House to refuse Russia’s request to install upgraded sensors on its Open Skies overflight aircraft.

“In recent years, instead of using the Treaty for its intended purpose, Russia has been using its Open Skies flights to expand its espionage capabilities,” stated the June 14 letter, which was signed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX).

“Given the threat to U.S. national security and Russia’s continued failure to uphold both the spirit and letter of its commitments under the agreement, we urge you to deny this request and explore whether commercially available satellite imagery can better fulfill the goals of this Treaty,” the lawmakers wrote.

The State Department claims that the intent of the treaty is “confidence building”. It’s working – I’m now confident that the Obama Administration is a bunch of incompetent boobs.

Dennis sends us a link to the story of Mike Friend, owner of Fast Machine Gun Shoot, in Wyandotte, Oklahoma, who fired a 105mm artillery round at his range the other day. It struck the home of Gene Kelley who happened to be in another room when the round impacted;

“It’s unbelievable,” Kelley said. “Unless you were here to see it or see the pictures I’ve got, you would not believe how huge this thing is.”

No one was hurt, but Kelley said the damage could have been worse if the shell had not hit a tree limb and then the ground before striking his Wyandotte house.

The shell was fired from a 105mm howitzer at the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show, but the gun range owner insists the historic weapon was safely fired by professionals in a downward projection.

[…]

“As far as the safety end of everything, we drill every one of our shooters before it ever begins,” Friend said. “We have 30-45 minute drill.”

Yeah, this should have no repercussions in the media. I’d recommend to Mr Kelley that he get his own artillery piece so he can defend himself next time.

I’m sure that you remember Gersh Kuntzman from his debut in our conciousness when he mischaracterized his experience firing a modern sporting rifle. Well, now, apparently, he’s offended because of a song. “God Bless America” sung at baseball games bruises his sensibilities.

When Major League Baseball ordered all teams to play the patriotic jingle after 9/11, I didn’t immediately object. Standing with my fellow fans, as one, and singing a paean to our country provided catharsis, comfort and shared heartache.

But it wasn’t long before heartache became headache. The Yankees still play it at every game, but most teams, like my beloved Mets, play “God Bless America” only on Sundays or holidays. But even that’s too much.

Part of my outrage stems from ponderous Mussolini-esque introduction of the song, when fans are asked to rise, remove their caps and place them over their hearts.

“Mussolini-esque”? it would be “Mussolini-esque” if the crowd was asked to remove their helmets and fire their scary, black rifles into the air. More of that famous Kuntzman hyperbole. But, mostly, he just cares what his foreign guests think;

The song still embodies great things about America, but also our worst things: self-righteousness, forced piety, earnest self-reverence, foam.

[…]

* Foreigners!: I once went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game with a British guy named James Silver, who smiled when “God Bless America” was being played. “It’s exactly what I expect from Americans,” he said. “The self-righteousness, the patriotism. It’s always nice to see my opinions confirmed.”

I expect Brits to vote against membership in the European Union and afterwards spend the rest of their lives complaining that they left the EU. But, yeah, let’s toss out a song from being sung at a sporting event, a sporting event most British don’t even understand, because they don’t like our patriotism. I don’t care if the Brits sing “God Save the Queen” or if the Germans sing “Deutschland Über Alles, Über alles in der Welt”. So what do I care what they think of our traditions…at a sporting event, for Pete’s sake.

Our buddy, Jeff Schogol, writes in the Marine Corps Times about the issues that consumed the Marines responding to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate while those Marines sat on the runway 2000 miles away from their objective.

“We were told multiple times to change what we were wearing, to change from cammies into civilian attire, civilian attire into cammies, cammies into civilian attire,” the platoon commander, who was not identified, told the committee. “There was also some talk of whether or not we could carry our personal weapons.

“I was basically holding hard and fast to the point where we were carrying our personal weapons. Like, we’ve got a very violent thing going on the ground where we’re going, so we’re going to be carrying something that can protect ourselves. But as far as what the Marines were wearing, that continually changed, and we had to make those changes inside of the aircraft.”

Yeah, those types of issues, whether to wear uniforms, whether or not to be armed, those are the kinds of nutrolls that come from working with the State Department, typically.

“After the State Department request at the 7:30 p.m. White House meeting, the Defense Department began working the issue,” the report says. “Documents from the Defense Department show, and the FAST Platoon Commander testified it was well into the next afternoon on September 12th before the final decision was made. He testified further the Marines changed in and out of uniform and civilian clothes several times because the orders kept changing.”

I’m sure that if it happened now, they’d be deciding whether or not sleeves will be rolled up or down and insuring that a proportionate number of females were included in the force.

According to the Daily Mail, Virginia drivers have noticed scores of white trucks with United Nations markings on Virginia highways which has spurred renewed rumors of a take-over of this country by the toothless body.

Military U.N. vehicles have been spotted in Virginia, shocking motorists and sparking conspiracy theories.

The white trucks, equipped with large off-road tires, were seen being transported on Interstate 81 on Friday. They appear to be Alpine Armoring’s Pit-Bull VX SWAT Truck models.

Jeff Stern posted photos of the vehicles on Facebook, writing: ‘Can’t begin to tell you how many of these I passed today on 81 near Lexington VA. Interesting times ahead!’

I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the company that makes those trucks, Alpine Armoring, being headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.

There are reports of armed troops in Dallas, Texas;

The UN can’t even protect themselves in a third world country, I’m not much worried that they’re going to climb my mountain and take me out.

We haven’t talked about Joe Teti recently. We first wrote about him about three years ago when we were curious about his career after his co-star on Discovery Channel’s Dual Survival, David Canterbury, was canned for lying about his military career. I guess that post influenced some people to dig further into Teti’s background than I wanted to go and they found that he had not been forthcoming in regards to his training. So, for some reason, Teti decided to sue folks in North Carolina who were saying these things about him. I guess discovery before the lawsuit started going badly for him, so he dropped his lawsuit last month, withdrawing with prejudice;

At issue, apparently, was his qualification and training for the Special Forces Combat Diver Qualification Course. Here’s the certificate that he used to prove his graduation from that school;

Notice the signature for the Commandant of the school, James A. Guest. Major General Guest says that he wasn’t the commandant of the school in 1983, so he couldn’t have signed the diploma;

And, oh, yeah, his academic results;

And JFKSWCS responds;

The altered USMC DD214;

So we send our warm regards to all of the folks who triumphed in this case and we hope this is a good example for folks who think that they can sue their way through life. Discovery can be an absolute bitch.