TSO on the TV, and Jonn on the radio. All on one bright December morning. I feel like a proud uncle.
Of course, Jonn followed Uncle Jimbo on the radio, and TSO’s host had trouble with the word “victual” but shit… Our guys did DAMN good.
This is heady stuff folks. Can the paparrazi be far behind?
The outcry from OWS, Anarchists, progressives, the UN, NOW, LBGT groups, and our folks in DC has been deafening. Flogging is a basic human right!
Surely you’ve heard it?
Oh wait, the outcry is only in the Maldives it seems.
When the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visited the Maldives, she wasn’t expecting to make much of a splash there. Officially the Republic of Maldives is a Constitutional democracy with open elections that any Muslim can vote in (not being a Muslim happens to be against the law in the Maldives). Unofficially it’s a paranoid theocracy based on Sharia law where an Indian teacher who drew a compass had to be hurriedly evacuated after students mistook it for a cross.
The United Nations Human Rights apparatus generally tries to avoid looking too closely at human rights in Muslim countries because it knows exactly what it will find. The Maldives is a case in point. So when Navi Pillay stopped by the Maldives she followed the formula to the letter, praising the human rights progress in the Maldives and after a few minutes of that, briefly suggested that perhaps they should stop flogging women accused of premarital sex.
(…)
Despite Pillay’s careful wording, Muslims in the Maldives reacted by holding a protest that accused her of being a “racist Zionist” out to undermine Islam.
The last few years have changed my perceptions of December 7, 1941 in an odd way. Keep in mind that perceptions are not facts, but more akin to feelings.
I know that we were attacked. War was declared and our industrial and military might exacted a vengeance of Biblical proportions.
“Biblical proportions” is a somewhat over-used turn of phrase, but it’s hard to argue that what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki isn’t the nearest thing to fire and brimstone that mankind could produce in the mid 20th century.
But, at Pearl Harbor the Japanese targets were our Navy ships, and the crews were wearing uniforms.
As horrible as the attack and WWII were in general… I’ve felt a kind of nostalgia every December 7th since 9/11/01.
There are no perfect analogies, but perceptions need not be perfect.
YMMV
Two stories that makes me proud to be a Navy Vet… and not be currently serving!
Our fleet will smell like fried chicken.
Domestically produced biofuels will lessen the military’s dependence on petroleum form overseas and “make us better war fighters,” Mabus said. What it won’t do – at least in the short term – is save any money in an era of constrained budgets. The $12 million purchase equates to a per-gallon cost of about $26. Mixed 50/50 with conventional fuel, as the Navy plans to use it, the cost is around $15 a gallon, Mabus said.
Our Sailors will be well dressed for the occasion. NOT!
What’s black and white and in short supply all over? The service dress blue jumper.
For the past three months, a production problem has left the Navy shorthanded in five common sizes of the SDB jumper, the top half of the winter crackerjacks. These male-only uniforms are missing from the racks of some uniform stores, and some recruits are graduating from boot camp without jumpers in their size.
Many years ago a group of vets returned to this country. Reviled and treated by some as pariahs they sought the comradeship of fellow veterans at their local VSOs only to be told they didn’t qualify.
Over the years that did change, and that group of vets invested mightily in seeing that future vets never again faced those hurdles.
But it did leave a touch of bitterness, and likely some sore spots too easily picked at.
Like this:
Vietnam War Omitted in DAV Fundraising Letter
The omission of any reference to Vietnam in a fundraising letter from a national veterans organization has some local vets feeling left out.
The letter from Cold Spring, Ky.-based Disabled American Veterans, which includes Christmas cards depicting a World War II Soldier decorating a tree, mentions World War II and the Korean War, and veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“A veteran is a veteran is a veteran,” said Skip Haswell, president of the 500-plus-member local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, based in Beaver Falls. “Anytime somebody is soliciting and they leave (Vietnam) out in error, I resent that.”
The letter is signed by DAV National Commander Donald Samuels. The DAV website identifies him as a Vietnam War veteran. Samuels could not be reached for comment on Monday.
Tracey Burgoon, who works in the DAV fundraising department, said a donor sent the agency the picture that appears on the card. She said World War II and the Korean War were mentioned in the letter because those veterans are “the naturally aging — those who are in nursing homes now.” Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq were mentioned to address “recent wars.”
This getting boring… or something?
Obama Fundraiser and Ambassador Blames Israel for Anti-Semitism
“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”
According to the account in the Israeli paper, “The legal experts at the event were visibly stunned by Gutman’s words, and the next speaker offered a scathing rebuttal to the envoy’s remarks.”
What The F**K is traditional anti-Semitism? In the real world a fool and position would be soon parted.