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

Category: “Teh Stoopid”

  • Another Senior Officer Self-Terminates A Career

    Looks like yet another senior military officer has self-terminated their career.

    Lt. Gen. John Hesterman, USAF Assistant Vice-Chief of Staff, has been relieved and will retire.  He was relieved due to having an “unprofessional relationship with a junior officer”.

    Specifically, Hesterman was found to have exchanged inappropriately-worded emails with an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (from excerpts quoted, apparently female) between March 2010 and May 2011.  No other evidence of misconduct was found.

    Hesterman had recently commanded the air campaign against ISIS.

    This case may well be nothing more than an example of the appearance of impropriety vice actual misconduct.  Other accounts indicate there was more to the matter.  Dunno.

    Either way, it doesn’t matter.  For those in very senior positions – enlisted or officer – mere appearance of impropriety matters.  (It goes without saying that actual impropriety matters.)  Every damn thing leadership does is watched by subordinates; that’s inherent in accepting such an assignment.  And you can bet your last dollar that everything the CG or his/her SEA does is noticed – and that word gets around.

    Both Fox News and the Air Force Times have articles on the matter.  By reading both (neither is very long), IMO you can get a reasonable idea of what happened.

    You might have gotten a raw deal, General.  Or you might have deserved this.  But either way you did this to yourself by forgetting that you were – in essence – a public figure and under the proverbial “microscope”.

  • Yet More Idiocy at DHS

    Remember the San Bernardino shootings? You know, that cold-blooded terrorist massacre perpetrated by a US citizen and his foreign-born spouse?  The spouse who DHS allowed to enter the country in in spite of the fact that she’d made social media postings supporting violent jihad; where DHS didn’t bother even to check her social media posts because it was against DHS policy to do so; and who DHS never interviewed in person as required under Federal law before allowing them to immigrate?

    Well, looks like this one gets “curiouser and curiouser” still with respect to DHS’s actions.

    The two dead terrorists who perpetrated that attack got their weapons from a straw buyer – Enrique Martinez – who was a friend of the husband. The FBI determined this shortly after the attack.

    Martinez had a scheduled interview at the San Bernardino US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office the day after the attack. FBI officials found out about that interview; they requested that their LE counterparts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detain Martinez as a person of interest so that they could interview him about the matter.

    Unfortunately, that didn’t go too well.

    When the ICE agents went to the San Bernardino USICS office as requested by the FBI, they were refused entry. They were unable to detain Martinez.

    Yeah, you read that right.  The Federal personnel running that ICS office refused to allow Federal LE personnel acting at the request of the FBI to enter their facility and detain a person of interest in a terrorism case.

    Tell me that isn’t evidence of a seriously out-of-whack set of priorities.  In my book, when Federal immigration services personnel start ignoring requests from Federal LE to detain persons of interest in terrorist attacks something is seriously effed up.

    Fox News has an article with more details.  It’s worth reading.

    Sounds like “you got some ‘splainin’ to do”, Secretary Johnson.  Or maybe that should read “you got lots more ‘splainin’ to do”.

  • Getting Paid for Academic Idiocy

    At the University of Oregon, recently a professor conducted a study related to “climate change”.  In and of itself, that’s nothing newsworthy.

    But this one is a bit different.  As part of the project, the “research professor” in charge published a paper titled, “Glaciers, gender, and science.”  It urged other scientists “to take a ‘feminist political ecology and feminist postcolonial approach’ when researching glaciers and climate change.”

    Here’s the paper’s abstract; I’ve added emphasis to highlight some of the spectacular idiocy. (The full version of the paper can be viewed here; a PDF-format copy may be downloaded here.)

    Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change.  However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied.  This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.

    Yep, you got it:  SWJ Propaganda 101, masquerading as “science”.  Or, alternatively: an example of someone who’s figured out how to ride the “grant gravy train” by producing intellectual garbage that panders to the prejudices of those providing the funding.

    If you’re waiting for the “punch line”, here it is.  A  $412,930  National Science Foundation grant apparently at least partially funded this trash.  So if you pay Federal taxes . . . looks like your Federal taxes funded part of this lunacy.

    And if you live in Oregon, your state taxes funded the rest of it.

    Fox News has an article with more details.  It’s worth a read – unless you’re having blood pressure issues.

    Relativism has been defined as the belief that intellectually there is no distinction between sh!t and Shinola.  Based on the above, it certainly appears that both the University of Oregon and the NSF have adopted that idiotic theory.

  • Who Says Lightning Never Strikes Twice?

    Remember Tracy Dart? The “lady” out in Seattle who claimed to have cancer to raise money, but who in reality never had cancer?

    Well, who says lightning never strikes twice? Looks like some guy on the East Coast decided to do the same.

    Like Dart, he also got caught. But unlike Dart, he’s facing trial for larceny by fraud – apparently to the tune of $22,000+.  Predictably he’s pleaded “not guilty”.

    As I’ve said before: whenever someone can get free stuff simply by asking, sooner or later someone who doesn’t qualify will lie their ass off to get it. And it’s been my experience that generally happens sooner rather than later.

    Fox News has a short article with the particularrs.

    All I’ve got to say to this “fine fellow” is this:  be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

     

  • “Teh Stoopid” Really Must Be “Cheaper by the Dozen”

    Well, longtime readers probably know what’s coming next.

    Yeah, my little friend Birdie came back to visit me again.  And he tells me it seems a bunch of      Dumb, Royally Clueless      “Deft, Really Clever” folks – or at least one of that group – claims they’ve “found” me.  Again.

    I guess this time I should be somewhat flattered.  They seem to have returned to form for now.  They appear once again to be using the DRC/DRG equivalent of a Ouija board – e.g., sitting around looking at pictures of true “high-speed/low-drag” badasses while fapping furiously, all the while trying to figure out who I am – and then somehow decide that one of the photos must be me.  Then they claim that’s who I am.

    This time, according to some      Dumb and Really Grotesque       “Dandy, Really Great” folks (or at least one such “inDUHvidual”) I’m a retired Army SF officer.  I’ll spare the guy they’ve misidentified as me embarrassment he doesn’t need and not mention his name here.

    Gee.  That’s a nice thought, you     bunch of clueless jerks     guys; and it really is a compliment.  The men who make SF a career are among the best our military has; they truly are the “quiet professionals”.  Being thought one of them is an honor, even when that claim turns out not to be correct.

    Unfortunately, yeah – that’s wrong.  I can categorically assure you I am not a retired SF officer.  So once again, you DRC/DRG     clowns      “fine fellows” have fornicated Fido (AKA “screwed the pooch”).  Blown it.  Effed up.  However you want to put it, you got it wrong. Yet again.

    For at least the twelfth freaking time.

    Hell, you’ve probably actually made a baker’s dozen or more such screw-ups trying to find me by now.   Dunno for sure, but I’m relatively certain I’ve missed at least one occasion where you misidentified some guy I’ve never even met as being me.

    Obligatory recap time:   this      incredibly dense bozo (or group of bozos)      fine fellow (or group of fellows) has now erroneously identified five different Navy vets as being me – including 4 ex-SEALs (first SCPO Don Shipley, then CAPT Larry Baily, then a guy I’m intentionally not naming, and lastly MCPO Hershel Davis).  I’ve also been mistakenly-identified as a retired Navy diver (late 2015; I was kinda busy at the time and didn’t write about that one).  Another time, I was accused of being a longtime commenter here at TAH.  They’ve wrongly claimed I was a a multi-star Army GO, now unfortunately deceased.  According to them, I’ve been “identified” as a retired SF SGM; I’ve also been misidentified as a serving Army officer.  The time before last they falsely claimed I was an Army vet who served during the Eisenhower Administration (and who is also a former Brooklyn Law School Professor).  And, last time, I was supposedly a guy in Indiana who writes an occasional sports column for a paper there.

    Now this time, they claim I’m a retired Army SF officer.

    (sigh) Geez.  Best I can tell I’ve never even met any of the folks they’ve identified as being me. And I just checked the name on my driver’s license and other ID cards, so yeah: while being a retired SF officer would be great, I’m pretty damn sure they’re wrong this time too.

    Sorry, DRC/DRG – no dice. Ya blew it again. Yer still battin’ “oh-fer”.

    Sheesh.  These guys really seem to be “stuck on stupid”.  Maybe they just like it there.

    Or maybe Jethro Tull simply had them pegged 40+ years ago:

     


    (Don’t forget to “click . . . on the pic”.  [smile])

     

    Give it up, DRC/DRG.  Your antics are boring and predictable.  And while you may enjoy showing your ass to the world, do the world a favor and cover it.  It’s ugly – and offends damn near everyone.

  • This Time I’m A Bit Torqued

    My little friend Birdy came back to visit me the other day.  You know, the one who tells me what’s going on in certain circles?

    You wanna guess what little Birdy told me this time?

    Yep, you guessed it.  My feathered friend told me that an online persona reputedly associated with certain a group of Ditzy, Really Gonzo (or maybe that’s “Dorkish, Really Clueless”) fools claims they know who I am.  I’ve been “identified”!

    Again.  (Yawn.)

    Yeah, right.  And the moon is made of green cheese, too.

    But this time, they’ve actually kinda p!ssed me off.

    Oh, not because they’re anywhere remotely close to being correct.  They’re not.

    But they had the gall to mis-identify me as a member of the freaking mainstream media (MSM).  This time, they apparently think I’m a reporter for the Indianapolis Star.  I’ll refrain from naming the guy; as far as I know, despite his profession he’s done nothing to deserve grief from these “fine fellows”.

    Now that p!sses me off bigtime.  I have standards!

    I try to get things correct.  I check facts.  I don’t write crap that purports to be true and unbiased while instead actually producing half-baked, poorly-researched, and misleading propaganda masquerading as news.  When I write something, I make it very clear when I’m stating an opinion and when I’m stating what I believe to be fact.

    Once mainstream journalists did much the same.  But today?  Best I can tell, for most of the mainstream media today fact checking is optional and being unbiased gets little more than lip service.  They unabashedly slant the news and shill for their political favorites in a way that would make Goebbels or the editors of Pravda during the Cold War proud.  And to top things off, many of them today don’t even seem able to write at a junior high level.

    You know, I believe I’d rather have a brother in prison plus a sister in a whorehouse than to debase myself publicly the way many MSM journalists seem to daily.  (Although these days, I guess the sister could be the one in prison and the brother the one working in the whorehouse.  Hey, whatever.)  That’s almost as bad as being a libidiot who supports ObamaCare and the rest of the left’s current     Communist      Socialist      “Progressive” political dogma.

    Come to think of it, that last sentence probably describes 85% or more of today’s mainstream media.  (Disclaimer:  I have no idea if the guy misidentified as me is one of the few in the mainstream media today who has common sense or not.  I have never met him and am completely unfamiliar with his work.)  That’s likely at least part of the reason why I am not and almost certainly never will be a mainstream media journalist.  Plus, I never did much like dealing with dissembling tools on a daily basis – particularly when many of them are apparently so dumb they don’t even realize what they’re doing.

    OK, rant’s over; time to get back on track.  Recap time.

    This is apparently at least the 11th time the DRC claims they’ve “identified Hondo”.  And they’re still batting “oh-fer” –  e.g., they’ve been wrong every damn time.

    Previously, these Dull and Remarkably Gluteal bozos have erroneously identified 5 different Navy vets as being me – including 4 ex-SEALs (first SCPO Don Shipley, then CAPT Larry Baily, then a guy I’m intentionally not naming, and lastly MCPO Hershel Davis).  They’ve also wrongly claimed I was a a multi-star Army GO, a retired SF SGM, another longtime commenter here at TAH, a retired Navy diver (late 2015 – I was kinda busy at the time and didn’t write about that one), and a serving Army officer.  Finally, last time they falsely identified an Army vet who served during the Eisenhower Administration (and who is also a former Brooklyn Law School Professor) as me.

    And now, they seem to think I’m a freaking mainstream media journalist in Indiana.  Geez.

    Unless I’m miscounting, that totals at least 11 mistaken “identifications”.  I’m guessing the actual total is even higher, because I’m reasonably sure I’ve missed one or two somewhere along the way.

    And every last one of those “identifications” has been . . . wrong.  Sadly, pathetically wrong.

    (flip) (flip) (flip) (flip) Here’s a dollar in quarters, dipsticks. Go buy yourselves several clues. You ain’t even close this time.  You never have been.

    Or, better yet:  just give it up.  Quit wasting your time.

    Sheesh.  Talk about “stuck on stupid”.

  • Another Day, . . .

    . . . another report of a new Clintoon “private email server” security issue.  And like yesterday, this one is “Big (Effing) Deal” bad, too.

    How bad?  Well, I’ll just provide a link or two to explain that.  Here’s the first link, identifying yet another type of highly classified material that’s reportedly been found on Clintoon’s unauthorized, inadequately-secured “private email server”.  It rather goes without saying that this newly-identified type of classified information was not authorized to be stored there either.

    Now, here’s the second link to publicly-available IC documentation briefly describing that type of information.  The need for extreme protection for this type of information should be obvious to anyone with 3 or more working brain cells.

    Oh, and here’s another little bit of “good news”.  Former SECDEF and CIA Director Robert Gates believes there’s a very good chance that Clintoon’s server was accessed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence .  So anything that was there . . . is very likely no longer exactly a secret.

    Geez.  First unauthorized TS-SCI info is found stored on Clintoon’s inadequately-secured “private server”.  Next, unauthorized SAP info.   Now this.

    And all of the information stored there has likely been divulged to Russia, China, and Iran.  Great.  Just freaking great.

    Damn, what’s going to be found next on that effectively unsecured “private” server – Pentagon OPLANs?  The design specifications and blueprints for a US nuclear warhead?  At this point, given what we’ve seen found so far I’m not sure I’d be shocked even by that.

    IMO multiple people should end up doing serious time for this fiasco.  There’s simply no excuse for this degree of negligence – or deliberate disregard for the law – when handling these types of classified information.

  • More IRS IT Data “Issues”

    To paraphrase a great man: “Well, there they go again.” And this time, while it indeed involves the IRS and their IT operations it doesn’t involve screwing with conservative nonprofit groups.

    Some time ago, the IRS entered into a questionable $2.2 million contract with a law firm. The law firm was to assist with IRS audit activities – but had little experience in handling IRS audit data, and was very expensive ($1000/hour billing rate). The contract was bad enough to draw Congressional interest – and could well have been both unnecessary and contrary to Federal law, which appears to restrict performance of IRS audit functions to government employees.

    The matter apparently became the subject of some form of litigation or investigation. As a result, a Federal judge ordered the IRS to preserve the hard drive used on the personal PC of the IRS’s former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division– and individual named Samuel Maruca. Mr. Maruca (or one of his subordinates) apparently oversaw or influenced the contract in question.

    Do I really need to tell you what happened?

    Yeah, you guessed it. Contrary to the judge’s order, the IRS wiped the drive – last April, well after the judge had ordered it preserved.

    To me, it seems this means either the IRS’s IT folks are spectacularly incompetent – or someone is deliberately trying to hide something.  I can’t see any other plausible explanation for a drive ordered preserved by a Federal judge being wiped after it had been ordered preserved.

    But maybe that’s just me.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding why the IRS did this.

    Oh, did I mention that this had happened before?  In March 2014, the IRS deleted “hundreds” of backup tapes containing an estimated 24,000 emails from Lois Lerner – after they’d been subpoenaed by Congress.

    But remember: this is the “most transparent Administration in history”.  So we’ll shortly be getting a simple, straightforward explanation regarding what happened here  – right?

    Yeah, right.  If you believe that . . . please come talk to me about buying this bridge.  I’ll make ya a great deal on it.