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

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

  • Charges dropped against vet

    On Thursday, we discussed the case of David Sturdivant, the 64-year-old Marine veteran who took a shot at a man attempting to rob his shop and was arrested by cops who had been near filming a reality TV show. Byron sends us a link which reports that charges have been dropped against him.

    Prosecutors dropped the charges to a misdemeanor, but Sturdivant refused to plead guilty. He could have left jail two weeks ago but a guilty plead would have resulted in 12 months probation with credit for the seven months served. The deal would have let Sturdivant keep his guns – four rifles and a pistol — as well as his military disability benefits, according to the prosecutor.

    Sturdivant still faces challenges since he lost his business and his home in a fire which the police classify as “suspicious”. I think the prosecutor owes the Marine, who has been in jail since April, more than an apology. In fact, I think Fulton County voters should toss the dick out of office for his behavior in this case. Let the prosecutor lose his job.

  • Warning: Wearing an American flag T-shirt causes justifable violence

    I’m sure you remember the students who were suspended from school when they wore American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo last year at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA. Well, federal judge, James Ware has decided that the school was justified in suspending the students’ First Amendment rights, according to Kate Hicks at Town Hall;

    The judge determined that the Morgan Hill Unified School District did not violate the First Amendment and said that concerns by school officials over possible violence justified censoring the pro-American message.

    “The school officials reasonable forecast that Plaintiff’s clothing could cause a substantial disruption with school activities, and therefore did not violate the standard set forth – by requiring that Plaintiff’s change,” the judge wrote.

    I wonder if the learned judge would have reached the same conclusion had it been students wearing Mexican flag T-shirts who were suspended on, say, the Fourth of July.

    Thanks to Flagwaver and Old trooper for the link.

  • My most miserable day

    GruntSGT mentioned in the comments that he was going to try to remember the good times abut serving. I, instead, flashed on my most miserable day this 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month this 11th year.

    it was at Fort Polk, LA during the winter of 1974-75. I was on the cusp of graduating to AIT from basic training. Being Louisiana, it was raining and it was freezing cold. In the morning, we stood in the rain waiting for an opportunity to familiarize with the M2 50-caliber machine gun, which should have been exciting, but the firing positions were filled with rain water and to fire the guns, we had to sit in the near-freezing water.

    Of course, having anticipated the weather, I wore my wool longjohns, which were now soaked and clung to my rosy-pink skin. Ok, time for a 7-mile march to the next range in wet boots and soaked wool drawers.

    The next range was a demonstration of the Army’s new TOW missiles. So we climbed into the bleachers which faced right into an icy unremitting wind with no where to hide from the freezing blasts. My tiny 127-pound frame became an icicle. After three hours of that torture, it was time for lunch…finally something to restore my body heat.

    We eagerly lined up by the Meramite cans only to discover that our luncheon fare was going to be liver.

    There were decades of miserable days ahead for me during my military career, people shooting at me, riding the German autobahns in Winter with my stupid face sticking out of the commander’s hatch, the slide-for-life into an iced-over pond in December, choking down monkey meat at JOTC, but none of them rise to the “perfect storm” of the misery on that day in Fort Polk.

  • Rocks and Shoals

    Watching this crop of ‘hippies’ protesting whatever it is they are protesting has led me once again down memory lane.

    Follow along if you will?

    Until 1951 the US Navy was governed by the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy, also known as Rocks and Shoals for this bit:

    The punishment of death, or such other punishment as a court martial may adjudge, may be inflicted on any person in the naval service —

    10. Or intentionally or willfully suffers any vessel of the Navy to be stranded, or run upon rocks or shoals, or improperly hazarded or maliciously or willfully injures any vessel of the Navy, or any part of her tackle, armament, or equipment, whereby the safety the vessel is hazarded or the lives of the crew exposed to danger.

    When I was in (64-69) Rocks and Shoals was discussed freely by the old timers.

    At least as late as the ’60s corporal punishment was used in schools (and yes, I know from my own experience) .  Even my grandmother favored a willow switch to get my attention on occasion.

    I gotta wonder if this lot of occupiers has EVER been held responsible for their actions?

    Me… rather taking a swing at ’em, I’m considering finding a willow switch and putting them, one at time, across my knee.

  • Drones, Bones, and Che

    The Occupy (fill in city name) drones likely sport a few Che Guevara t-shirts and that is fitting. It seems Che was executed 44 years ago this week so some celebration of his life is, perhaps, in order.

    Big Peace has the facts and this:

    Tens of thousands of Cuban youths learned that Che Guevara’s admonitions were more than idle bombast. In Guevara, the hundreds of Soviet KGB and East German STASI “consultants” who flooded Cuba in the early 1960s found an extremely eager acolyte. By the mid-’60s, the crime of a “rocker” lifestyle (blue jeans, long hair, fondness for the Beatles and Stones) or effeminate behavior got thousands of youths yanked out of Cuba’s streets and parks by secret police and dumped in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” emblazoned in bold letters above the gate and with machine gunners posted on the watchtowers.

    Jonn is our resident Latin America expert, but amidst all the angst (quite legitimate) over our use of aerial drones the closing paragraph of the article struck me as fitting.

    One day before his death in Bolivia, Che Guevara — for the first time in his life — finally faced something properly describable as combat. He ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to their last breaths and to their last bullet. With his men doing exactly what he ordered (fighting and dying to the last bullet), a slightly wounded Che sneaked away from the firefight and surrendered with fully loaded weapons while whimpering to his captors, “Don’t shoot! I’m Che. I’m worth more to you alive than dead!” His Bolivian captors viewed the matter differently. In fact, the following day they adopted a policy that has since become a favorite among many Americans who encounter (so-called) endangered species threatening their families or livestock on their property: “Shoot, shovel, and shut up.”

     

  • Hero’s grave displays wrong award

    Our buddy, Jeff Schogol at Stares & Stripes emails us a link to an article about SFC Alwyn Cashe Who is being recommended for an upgrade of the Silver Star he was awarded for his actions in Iraq to the Medal of Honor, by one of our other buddies, Doug Sterner.

    Apparently, someone goofed up Cash’s headstone by etching the wrong award on it;

    Cashe’s family said Army officials had promised to replace the headstone with one acknowledging his Silver Star, but years have passed without any replacement arriving. The mistake is just the latest headache for the hero’s family, who have also struggled to get their deceased soldier’s awards records and medical files, as well as reimbursement for some funeral costs.

    Cashe was awarded the Silver Star for repeatedly entering a burning Bradley Fighting vehicle to rescue his troops, and the Army can’t even get his headstone straight over the years?

    Here’s the link to Stars & Stripes’ article about the battle for Cashe’s MOH.

  • I Don’t Much Care About Sports.

    To be filed under this geezer’s guidelines. This is a real, if rather public, attempt to establish my personal aims.

    Some here follow sports. I don’t! Well I do care a bit about high school level stuff.

    Pro sports are a business first. No remotely a bad thing, but I don’t follow Wall Street as a fan either.

    College level sports are almost as bad. Any given player may, or may not, be from the state fronting the team.  That’s even ignores the periodic scandal involving pay for play.

    I genuinely respect what other folks do, if they do it well… but that doesn’t mean I have to pretend interest.

    If there’s a vet involved I’ll have a go, but otherwise… not so much.

    YMMV

  • Stupid Hippie Thoughts

    One of my ninjas sent this from the facebook page of a person my ninja says is a Code Pink member from Austin;

    Yeah, I don’t think I’d publicly declare that I’m one with a convicted cop killer. But the left has some fascination with black-skinned cop killers for some reason. If you don’t know about the case, our friend Robin at Chickenhawk Express has been writing about it since I’ve known her because the murder happened in her hometown of Savannah, GA.

    I’m not totally down with the death penalty, but you wouldn’t see me emoting like this over a cop killer;

    I like the shit about it being about race…everything is about race these days. In fact I think you guys aren’t clicking my ads because you’re racists. What have you got against third generation Swedish-Americans, anyway?

    Yahoo News asked Georgians what they thought of the case and they seem divided on it;

    – Maryanne Stahl, high school teacher, Savannah

    “I won’t celebrate the execution of Davis. However, I am extremely confident that the justice system has convicted the right man. It is sad that our justice system allows for trials like this one to drag on for 20 years.

    — Colby Self, former training co-ordinator for GA Public Safety Training Center, Savannah

    “There’s never any justification for killing someone. It’s just as wrong for the state to do it as it is for murderers to do it.

    — Roy Tenent, city planner, Augusta

    “It should have been done long before now. Georgia has paid his room and board for more than 20 years. The policeman he shot didn’t get that kind of good treatment.

    The admissible facts of the case have been posted here.

    Someone sent us an opinion piece written by Lou Arcangeli, a former chief of police from Atlanta and printed in the Savannah Morning News this morning.

    And Alec Baldwin went nuts on Twitter after the execution – Somehow your support for the troops is at fault for Davis’ execution and it morphs into a call for the trial of Cheney and Rumsfeld. That Baldwin is a real deep thinker, ain’t he?