Emperor Alexander, Ret., Cashes Out

He'll consult with your bank on cyber security issues at the cut-rate price of only $600,000 per month. That's a bit of a knock-off from what he originally was asking (a cool million).

I gather that the $180,000 he's pulling down as retirement pay ($15,000/month as a O-10 with 40 years in) isn't enough to satisfy the Inner Emperor.

It might be worth it to some banks. Hiring Alexander to consult on cyber-security would be like hiring Willie Sutton to consult on preventing robberies.

Of course, one would never know whether or not Alexander is truly working for himself or if he has undisclosed ties back to the NSA. And it's a pretty safe bet that, in one way or another, he's trading on highly classified knowledge, for otherwise, why would anyone pay him that kind of coin? I'd think that there are very competent private security experts who would do the job for a tenth of that.

Grosvenor House Flies!

DH.88 Comet racer "Grosvenor House" is flying again.

From 1993:

Grosvenor House won the 1934 race from London to Melbourne, Australia, flying the course in 71 hours elapsed time. Three DH.88s were entered in the race. One didn't finish, the other came in fourth.

Of note is that the aircraft which came in second wasn't a racer. It was a KLM DC-2. By the point system set up for the race, it won on points with an elapsed time of 90 hours, 13 minutes. A Boeing 247D, which was sponsored by Warner Brothers, finished nearly three hours slower.

A “Remarkably Stupid Man to Talk to."

That was Margot Asquith's assessment of General Douglas Haig. She was the wife of British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.

Arguably, he was no better at his job.

Monday.... Make It Another Caturday

Because mostly, I have nothing:

I did make up some "mouse phart" loads last night for range use with the snubbie- 158grn LSWCs over 2.9 grns of Trail Boss. If I had straight wadcutters, I would have used them. Some very little experimentation taught me that it can be harder to do a fast match reload with wadcutters, for the tapered noses of the semi-wadcutters help guide the rounds into the chambers.

Other than that, my damned phone designated every text on it as "unread". There is no way to mass-designate them as "read", I would have had to open each one, individually, to clear it. So I just deleted everything. No reason to keep them, I could always try to subpoena them from the NSA if I really needed them.

One of the wrinkles of Google's Blogger is if you go to the list of posts for your blog, you can see everything back to the first one. But you can't search that far back. But you can search for them from the blog's home page. This became a bit of an issue because I had it in mind to tag all of the posts about Clinton from the `08 campaign. Having to do it from the home page meant that I had to open each one and edit it by adding the tag (could have done it en masse from the post listing page).

Which meant that I ended up reading every one. Which also refreshed my memory as to what a nasty and near-Rovian campaign she ran six years ago.

Hornady Recall: 9MM +P Critical Duty

Hornady Mfg Company is recalling one (1) lot of 9mm 135gr +P Hornady Critical Duty™ Ammunition, Item#90226. This lot was shipped between the dates of 6-5-14 and 7-16-14.

Item number 90226 LOT # 3141635

If you own this Lot # or have any questions regarding this recall, please call 800-338-1242. Hornady Mfg Company will make all arrangements associated with this return and replacement of the product.

Your Sunday Jet (Prop) Noise

An-22:

(H/T)

Prelude to the Guns

On August 3rd, 1914, Germany declared war on France.

Other than a skirmish the day before, things got going when the Germans invaded Belgium on August 4th as part of their Aufmarsch West II plan. The British had a treaty with Belgium, so they demanded that the Germans march the hell back out. Which the Germans declined to do, so the British Empire entered the war.

Imperial Germany had declared war on Imperial Russia on August 1st. The monarchs of the German, British and Russian empires were all related, which made the First World War a very bloody family fight (except for the French and the Americans, which were republics, and the Japanese Empire, whose monarch was likely not related to anyone outside of Japan).

OK, Mr. President. Now, What Are You Going to Do About It?

The answer is most likely "not a fucking thing."

President Barack Obama on Friday starkly criticised the CIA’s past treatment of terror suspects, saying he could understand why the agency rushed to use controversial interrogation techniques in the aftermath of 9/11 but conceding: “We tortured some folks.”

In some of the most expansive and blunt remarks on the CIA’s programme of rendition and detention he has made since coming to office, Obama said the country “crossed a line” as it struggled to react to the threat of further attacks by al-Qaida. However, he also said it was important “not to feel too sanctimonious”, adding that he believed intelligence officials responsible for torturing detainees were working during a period of extraordinary stress and fear.

People committed war crimes. People very high up, including George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, and a whole host of lesser included players, all knew that people were being tortured. They did nothing and worse, they approved of it.

The President of the United States has admitted that people working for the United States government committed war crimes. But he's also signaled that that, unlike those who committed war crimes without approval, that those who committed approved war crimes won't be held accountable.

We'll be like the Germans, in that if any of those clowns are still alive in 2070, then they'll be prosecuted.

Count on this: There will be more outrage on Capitol Hill over the CIA confessing to having spied on them than there will be to the unsurprising revelation that the CIA and the DoD committed war crimes.

By sweeping our own war crimes under the rug, we have lost the moral high ground. Much in the same way that the Catholic Church did.

Caturday; Guest Critter Edition

A snowy owl at VINS:

If you find yourself near the junction of I-91 and I-89, go up I-89 a short jaunt to Quechee, Vermont and visit VINS.

Because It's Friday

Bittern:

And she's not dragging a diesel behind her.