A blog by a "sucker" and a "loser" who served her country in the Navy.
If you're one of the Covidiots who believe that COVID-19 is "just the flu", that the 2020 election was stolen, or especially if you supported the 1/6/21 insurrection, leave now.
Slava Ukraini!
Words of Advice:
"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne
"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level
and then beat you with experience.” -- Mark Twain
"Colt .45s; putting bad guys underground since 1873." -- Unknown
"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers
Think of it: The Swiss see Russia as posing more of a threat to their country than did the Soviet Union or, for that matter, either the Kaiser or the Nazis.
Today, an examination of the Ukrainian strategy of 'corrosion', that - so far - has seen it successfully fend off a larger and (theoretically, at least) more powerful invader. 1/25 pic.twitter.com/OHyiofFh7x
This is what has goen on from one industry to another. The money guys have, in thier unalloyed greed, "consolidated" industries so that fewer and fewer companies make any particular product.
We've seen this before, especially in the Great Plains, where the railroad companies and the grain elevator operators together reduced farmers to near-slavery. We've seen this before with Standard Oil.
Extraordinary exchange on Russian state TV’s top talk show about Ukraine. Military analyst & retired colonel Mikhail Khodarenok tells anchor Olga Skabeyeva “the situation for us will clearly get worse…we’re in total geopolitical isolation…the situation is not normal.” pic.twitter.com/ExMwVDszsk
There is a flavor of "Mother Russia is being stabbed in the back by NATO", but there is also a backhanded acknowledgement that the Ukrainians are becoming better armed and are far more motivated than the Russians.
Note also that they seem to have held hope that Rand Paul (who was not named) would be able to hold up American military aid to Ukraine, but they realize that hope is a forlorn one.
The Ukrainians are making far better use of their artillery. I should have made a note of where I read the story, but the synopsis is this: Thanks, in no small measure, to Starlink, the Ukrainians have been able to widely disperse their artillery pieces while having all of the tubes within range of a target act as a single battery. In effect, they can bring mass artillery fire onto a target in a very short span of time. The Ukrainian guns "shoot and scoot", which limits the ability of the Russians to engage in counterbattery fire.
It would be very interesting if the Ukrainians were able to put counterbattery radar up to protect cities.
Another thing that is helping the Ukrainians as this goes on is that NATO nations are not just sending old Warsaw Pact weapons, they are increasingly sending state-of-the-art artillery to Ukraine. This is a win-win situation in that the Ukrainians are getting better gear and the NATO nations are getting to do real-world testing on their weapons.
That article goes on to state that the Russians are stripping sailors from warships and sending them to the front, along with amalgamating paratroopers and mercenaries. Neither is a good sign for the Russians.
Republicans are blowing steam-whistles to their racist base. They are steam-whistles because the racism is not coded, it is out front for all to see. Stefanik and her ilk might as well walk around wearing white sheets. It's one thing for a bunch of neo-nazis to yammer a racist theory. it is quite another for that to be adopted by a major political party and be broadcast approvingly on a cable news channel. Stefanik, Gingrich, Tuckyo Rose, the TOFF and the rest of that sordid crowd of authoritarian racists.
More than sixty people in this country; Blacks, Hispanics and Jews, have been killed by white supremacists who were espousing that racist line of claptrap. Their blood is, in part, on the hands of the politicians and the talking heads who have been normalizing white supremacy conspiracy theory.
You know what really "negatively affected" relationships with Russia's neighbors? Invading a neighboring country with the rationalization that "they used to be part of Russia." That is a rationalization that applies to Finland, as well, and the Finns are fully aware of that.
The Russians seem to think they can still terrify their neighbors. But since, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the Russian Army has gone from being regarded as the second-best army in the world to the second-best army in Ukraine, the fear factor has been diminished.
Given the shorter range on those trucks, you'd think that the auto companies would come up with a body design that is a tad bit aerodynamic than a fucking billboard.
So, if your wife, sister or daughter dies during pregnancy, where, in the past, her life could have been saved, send the full bill for the funeral to Pro-Life Wisconson, ATTN Matt Sande. Maybe they'll chip in a few bucks to help defray the cost.
But don't bet on it.
About a week ago, I talked to a retired teacher, who had begun her career in the ealry 1970s. She said that there was a noticeable decrease in the amount of problem kids after abortion became legal. Her belief was that kids whose pregancies were not wanted knew that. While thier parents may have loved and cared for them, they knew that the basis of that love was a lie.
My prediction is that the pro-life crowd will largely oppose services for families who have unplanned/unwanted kids. Once the fetus becomes an air-breather, they will wash thier hands and walk away, because heavens to Betsy, helping people might result in having to pay taxes, and we simply cannot have any of that, can we.
Some interesting stuff: Shot-down Russian jet fighters have been found with GPS units taped to their instrument panels, apparently because the installed systems suck. Russian tank losses are not being replaced because the factories don't have parts, due to Western sanctions. And Russian soldiers are showing a distinct lack of interest in fighting.
I don't know how she's going to be able to beat this at trial; proving that she was street-racing in a residential zone should be a pretty easy lift. Especially if her co-racer testifies, which I'll bet he does.
My guess will be this will be pled out well before trial. accompanied by an eight-figure settlement to the parents.
Five range trips, two guns, four returns for service and finally, finally, I have a functioning Model 66-8.
I sighted it in and then got down to work. The failure mode for the first gun was that, when the gun got warm, it jammed. I put most of a box of .38 range ammo through it, firing double-action. The cylinder got pretty hot.
So then I put up a fresh target and switched to 158grn. .357s. I rolled the target back to 25' and put thirty rounds downrange, all double-action, going for speed more than fine accuracy, as this is, after all, a short-barreled revolver.
It works:
It it hadn't taken most of a pregnancy in time to get to this point, I'd be a lot happier.
There had better be a mechanism to immediately admit them as probationary/provisional members. But given the amount of combat power the Russians have tied up in Ukraine, it's not apparent that Russia has the ability to invade Finland, not in the way that they did eighty-two years ago.
However you slice it, without the Russians going full-on Nazi Germany and invading their neighbors using the same rationales that Hitler used to sell his invasions to his subjects, there wouldn't have been any appetite in either Finland or Sweden to join NATO.
There should be little surprise that the Russians were interested in funnelling money to politicians who were opposed to European integration. Because that weakens Europe and, let's not forget, that Russia, under Putin, is an enemy of Europe.
The Strategy Page has noted that Russian troop discipline collapsed as soon as command told the troops that they were free to loot the Ukrainians. The looting stiffened Ukrainian resistance. Reports from inside Belarus confirm the looting.
The Russians are sowing a legacy of hatred that will be harvested in Eastern Europe for the rest of this century.
The Barrett Mk.22, which the marines are adopting, will fire .338 Norma Magnum, .300 Norma Magnum, 7.62mm and, .300 Winchester Magnum. The idea is that they don't have to carry different rifles, just one, with extra barrels.
I don't know how that will work in reality. At what point do they decide which barel and ammo to take? I presume that they're not going into the field with all of that stuff, but one never knows with the Crops.
This is a Twitter thread about Ukrainians attacking Russian tanks deep inside their occupied territory.
Video of an apparent Ukrainian attack on a Russian tank on 6 May is getting much attention for the turret's attempt to go to the Moon. It should be getting a lot more attention, though, for where it happened and what this means for Russia. A short 🧵. /1 pic.twitter.com/93yZXO2E37
Collins said that chalking something on a sidewalk was "defacement". That is some primo snowflakeism. It's likely that the reason why the Bangor cops told Collins that no crime had been committed was because writing with chalk on a public sidewalk doesn't constitute vandalism.
So... Cuban communism--bad, America slavery--good, at least in DeathSantis's Florida. Whether there is merit in what Repulsive Ronnie wants to do or not, it's still state-mandated indoctrination in a particular point of view.
Which one might think that Republicans, the part of limited government involvement, would be against. But not so much.
If you go on to read the story, you'll see that it becomes pretty damned evident that "acting in good faith" is a blatant lie when it came to the conduct of the Sherff's Department. The deputies were lying in wait for the armored cars and were, in point of fact, acting like badged-up robbers.
Russian propagandists during a Victory Day concert showed a photo of American gangsters Bonnie and Clyde among pictures of Soviet residents who were separated by World War II. pic.twitter.com/dPmNVNNoWd
Oh, he may say they have no plans to do it, at this time, but you know, Gentle Reader, that's just bullshit.
Republicans like to bleat that they believe in freedom and the right to make one'sown choices, but that only seems to apply to measures against a lethal pandemic. Otherwise, they are just fine with inserting their version of religious morality into people's lives.
Which makes them different from the Taliban in Afghanistan only in a matter of degrees.
The Russian way of war, in this century, amounts to state terrorism. For there is no pretending by anyone who isn't parrotting Kremlim propaganda that they are even pretending to only hit military targets.
The gun is back from the Mothership. The first thing that I did was to take an old S&W sight-adjustment screwdriver and see whether or not I could change the elevation adjustment. I could.
I'll take it to the range one of these days. But truth be told, I'm in no rush to do so. Between the two guns, I've had four failed range trips and I am not eager to head over for trip #5. Maybe, if I lived as close as I did to one before I moved, I would.
Everything these days is a fucking fight. The gun came back by FedEx. I paid FedEx a skosh over five bucks for an evening delivery. The delivered it just after noon, not long after I had dragged my ass out of the shower after cleaning up from a hike in the woods. I threw on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt to get the delivery. FedEx gave me some story about how they have to process the invoice in order to credit me, which I don't understand, as they had no problem with dinging my credit card.
This isn't the most expensive revolver that I have ever bought. That title belongs to a Model 29 that I bought new forty years ago for $400, which would be about $1,170 in today's money. (MSRP is $1,240.} But ever since then, I've bought used guns.
I intend to use this gun hard. This one is more like a hammer than a fine piece of New England craftmanship to be carefully maintained and cherished.
But let's not honor Esper for telling the truth. He had plenty of opportunities to tell the American people what a dangerous and unhinged lunatic was sitting behind the Resolute Desk. Esper could have talked to a reporter the day after he was fired and said "look, this guy is totally unhinged" and explained why that was so. But he didn't. Esper kept his yap shut for eighteen months until he could profit the most from telling his tale. Which is a move that is almost Trumpian in its avarice.
My recommendation is that if you want to read his book, get it from your local library.
That was not exactly the smartest thing to do, cramming over two thousand people in a ballroom for a dinner. And it wasn't just that, there were oodles of other parties around the WHCD. It not only just wasn't terribly smart, it was almost Trumpian in its stupidity, given that there is yet another variant on the rise.
But that's what people want, right? The ability to make their own risk calculations? But the problem is that for a large number of people at the WHCD, going there was part of their job, or, as a former XO of mine once put it: "This event is mandatory fun. You will go and you will have a good time."
Next up on the execution block: The requirement that all children, including disabled kids, receive a free and appropriate education. After that, Titl IX in sports will be targeted. Because girls don't need to play sports, they only need to know how to cook, clean, and sew.
The GOP is showing its true roots: White, Christian, native-born men need only apply. If they have their way, those will be the only people who can go to school past the fourth grade and the only ones who will hold jobs outside of domestic and agricultural work.
Right. They mived to Chicago to be able to better suck up to Untied Airlines and now they're moving to D.C. to be better able to suck up to Ft. Fumble.
Which is why Boeing is a pretty badly-run company and has been since the crappy management of McDonnell-Douglas infected them. (Cue the 737-MAX and the Starliner.)
You had better forget about it in the pro-rape states. They have either stated that life begins at conception in their so-called trigger laws, or they soon will.
Which means that as soon as the ova that are harvested become fertilized, they become people as far as those states are concerned. If they aren't implanted in someone, that will be murder. Freezing them may also be murder. Disposing of them if they aren't needed will be murder.
So say goodbye to IVF treatments.
Also, keep this in mind about miscarriages, according to the Mayo Clinic:
If you have a miscarriage in one of the states that have been captured by the Christian Taliban, as soon as the Supremes hand down their ruling holding that pregnant women are property, your very first call upon being informed that you have miscarried should be to a good criminal defense attorney. In fact, if you are living in one of those states and you, or a woman in your life, is of an age where she couold get pregnant, you should already have made the acquaintance of a criminal defense lawyer and have their number on speedial.
It seems to be pretty clear that the Christian Taliban believes that women are essentially baby-incubation facilities and don't matter one bit outside of that context.
The story in the New York Times goes on to explain that the Russian army is one that does not provide latitude to junior officers and senior sergeants, so when there is a problem, the generals have to go assess the problem and decide how to fix it.
There is a lot of OSINT out there as to the how and why Russian comms suck, which pushes them to using unsecure radios and cell phones and how the Ukrainians have been exploiting those weaknesses.
Do you know what was an insurrection? Violently storming the Capitol to try and overturn the results of a free and fair election, now, that was a goddamned insurrection, cops beaten, people killed, offices looted and vandalized, so on and so forth. It was, in fact, a failed attempt at a coup.
Meanwhile, the Most Gullible Senator in Washington is taking comedic hits:
And, if the chatter on Twitter is even a smidgen true, her offices, and those of Lisa Murkowski, are about to receive shipments of GOP-Approved Abortion Tools.
Both Alito and his allies in the Pre-Electricity Party maintain that the draft opinion only applies to abortion. But they're lying, at least, Alito is. The others are just taking a known perjurer at his word. The same right to privacy and individual freedom was invoked in striking down laws against contraception, same-sex relations, same-sex marriage, interracial marriage and convict marriage.
But hell, intellectual honesty is not part of this particular court. They are nakedly partisan; the justices voting to overturn Roe were put on the bench for that express purpose. Most of them lied in their conformation hearings. Which, of course, begs the question: What is a confirmation hearing for, nowadays, other than to screen out those who are incompetent at lying?
At this point, anyone who still believes that the Supreme Court impartially calls balls and strikes, is either stuck in a distant past or is MR.
“One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said in an interview that the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance.” https://t.co/IXunBsiA76
The lake has dropped by fifty feet from "full pool" and is expected to drop another thirty-four feet by the end of next year. The mobsters that used the lake as a dumping ground to dispose of victims never anticipated that the evidence of their crimes would come to light.
The families of the victims, at least, will know the truth of what happened.
But as for those who depend on Lake Meade for drinking water and electity, good luck with that.
Awww. They're going to do away with the right to privacy as soon as one of the Taliban states tries to outlaw contraception, so why should their own privacy be respected?
Dear Susan Collins: Go fuck yourself. May you contract a painful, wasting disease and repeatedly die of it, you brain-dead enabler of the Christian Taliban. For this is on your head, forever.
Here's an idea: Send a case of coat-hangers to the in-state offices of Collins and Lisa Murkowski (not to the DC offices, mail gets screened there.)
There is no tool small enough to measure the difference between Putin's government and Hitler's.
Those who excuse and/or support the Russians in this country, including TuckyoRose, are no different from Charles Lindberg, Father Coughlin, Robert McCormick or Oswald Mosley.
This should have been clear to everyone that the Christian Taliban has been intent on eliminating the freedom of women to choose their own fate.
This is clear: If you support a woman's right to choose, then you cannot vote for a Republican. Full stop. No quibbles, no qualifications.
If you are fine with you or your daughter, sister, cousins or friends being forced to bear a child from rape or incest, then you ought to go look at them and said "I'm sorry if you get raped, but you're going to have to bear the child of your rapist. And, if you choose to keep the kid, remember that your rapist may try to exercise his rights as a father and then you'll e dealing with the guy who violated you for decades."
This is not hyperbole. That is the naked truth. Have the guts to go tell your daughter that if she gets raped, the consequences of being a victim of a violent criminal act will be hers to bear. The rapist might well walk away from his fifteen seconds of action, but your daughter won't.
Abortions will always be available for the rich, who can afford to jet off to Europe and pay for an abortion, just as in the pre-Roe days. But for everyone else, the Christian Taliban are saying "fuck you". Because they are so, so protective of kids up until the moment of birth. After that, well, as the preacher said:
A top-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the “ferocity” and resolve of Ukrainians face to face with their leader in a weekend visit to Kyiv undertaken in extraordinary secrecy.
...
Though all in the delegation were Democrats, the U.S. Congress has displayed a rare and, so far, lasting bipartisan resolve to back Ukraine as it battles Russia.
I've not seen any mention as to why there were no Republicans on that trip. My guess is that they are all craven, cowardly Trumpers who were afraid of rousing the ire of The TOFF by being seen in public with Speaker Pelosi, especially on a trip that is in opposition to the TOFF's BFF in the Kremlin.
This morning, I went for a hike in a forested park that is owned by a local open space association. The wind was up, a little bit. The temperature was a little lower than average for this time of year. As I walked down one of the trails, a female dove landed about fifteen yards in front of me and began foraging at the edge of the trail. I stopped to watch her, then moved up a little as she walked along the edge, stopping to nab something here and there. Eventually, I wiggled my trekking pole and she flew away.
The Sun was shining through the trees. Both the trees and the ground cover were beginning to green up. Other birds were chirping. The other sounds were the wind moving through the trees and distant traffic.
I live fairly close to two possible nuclear targets. Assuming a 800kt warhead, depending on which one gets hit, I'm in either the thermal zone or one of the overpressure zones, maybe both. It occurred to me that there is a non-zero chance that neither I, nor the park in which I was hiking, will see another spring in anything close to the same condition as today.
I sure hope that she is wrong. The West is doing what it must, there is nothing to be gained by letting a European dictator conquer his enighboring nation due to claims of lebensraum or ethnic unity. Sooner or later, such a dictator has to be dealt with, militarily, and sooner is better.
Putin is a bully. One thing life teaches everyone, eventually, is that bullies only respect a mailed fist. That was true in Arkansas Missouri and it's true here. But Russian history has shown that Russian leaders who lose wars don't survive in office for very long. It's not impossible that Putin may decide that, rather than be turfed out to a remote dacha (or be shot) that he would rather pull down the rest of the world with him.
Well, as RobertaX says, we'll probably know in eleven days.
Like Tam, NJT and I had corresponded a little bit by email. We differed politically, but that wasn't a sticking point. He seemed to be a decent guy. There's not a lot of them around, and now there's one fewer.
Sometimes, I look at the list of deceased bloggers that's in the right column. William the Coroner died in 2011, Frank James in 2015. I still miss those guys.
I know that Death comes for us all, sooner or later. That doesn't make it any easier to take.
Who were the ten Republicans in the House who were opposed to speeding up military aid to Ukraine, one might ask. They were: Andy Biggs (AZ), Paul Gosar (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Tom Massie (KY), Dan Bishop (NC), Warren Davidson (OH), Scott Perry (PA), Ralph Norman (SC), and Tom Tiffany of (WI).
But, in an earlier preliminary vote, it seems that 220 House Republicans were happy to stand with Putin, on a reflexive belief that anything Democrats are voting for must be bad.
The House adopted H. Res. 1065 – the rule for S. 3522 – Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 by a vote of 220-205. https://t.co/LfmBxj8uen
They're embracing the guy who wants to implant chips in people's brains. But they got all het up over vaccines and claims that Bill Gates was injecting microchips into their bloodstream.
I don't collect your personal data. I don't collect your email addresses, user handles, IP addresses, or any of that shit. This blog isn't monetized in any way.
Unless you have contacted me via email (or put identifying information into a comment), I not only don't know who the fuck you are or where you live, I don't give a rat's ass.
There is nothing to "opt-into" on this blog, at least as far as I'm concerned.
If you want to "opt-out", then go read someone else's blog.
Rule No. 3: If you feel the need to whine on and on about something I wrote and that I am just an angry, mean, snarky, gun-toting Democratic old bitch, do it on your own blog. Read this before making comments on politics.
Rule No. 4: Trigger warning: Adult language is used herein. Adult topics are sometimes discussed. Sooner or later, everyone will be offended here. Disclaimer notice.
Rule No. 5: Terms of Service: Political appointees of the Trump Administration may not read this blog unless they (i) post a comment confessing same and (ii) acknowledge that he is a Russian asset. This blog may not be read by those who think that SARS-CoV-2 (the "Coronavirus") is just the flu. It especially may not be read by those who approve of the 1/6/21 coup attempt.
Violation of this term is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C) and you're off to share a cell with Paul Manafort, asswipe.
Rule No. 6: Keep your comments on point. Address either the post itself or points raised in response by other comments. Random-ass shit will be deleted. So will personal attacks. Repeated violations will result in swinging of the banhammer.
An Email address that I hardly ever bother to check
If you have some deep-seated urge to write to me, try stinsongal AAATTTT gmail DAHHT kommm. I check that email address at least every other week or so.
(If you don't know how to convert that into a usable email address, then you know as much about computers as does John McCain.)
Public Key
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