Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, June 29, 2020

Monday Music "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring

I have been enjoying the run of songs, I never had a theme last this long, and I am  really enjoying it in a weird sort of way,   I have several more weeks in mind, perhaps longer.  As long as I can flog er work the muse, I will, and for some reason 80's music plays really plays well with this theme of songs for some reason.
     I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in December? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....


One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines and prepare yourself.
 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song that is related to Fast cars and good music in the 1980's.  What can I say, My humor is warped....just a bit. Next week will be "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden,  Now that should really cause some psych evals., hehehe, some poor ATF guy trying to explain the attraction to his mother because of Nose rings, tattoo's Leathers and bondage babes...but it is ATF people you know...... 
      I remembered this song on MTV, and I really liked it, It told a story and the video followed the song.  I would make parallels between the Western Nations and the Soviet Block with this video.   I remembered seeing the strange leather hats that the dancers wore and it wasn't until I went to Germany then to Holland and went Window Shopping that I saw the hats and remembered the strange hats from the video.   Funny what one recalls.  


"Twilight Zone" is a 1982 hit by the Dutch band Golden Earring. It was written by the band's guitarist George Kooymans, who got the inspiration from a book by Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity. "Twilight Zone" appears on their 1982 album Cut and pays tribute to the 1960s television series The Twilight Zone. It was the group's sole Top 10 Pop single on the US Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top Album Tracks chart, the band's only No. 1 hit in America.
The spoken lines in the introduction and first verse (ending with "the gun is still warm") and the backing vocals in the chorus are performed by Barry Hay. Hay also sings lead on the second half of the verses. Kooyams sings the lead for the first half of the verses and the lead in the chorus.




 This is the European version of the video, there is a bit of "T" is this version.

The music video, directed by Dick Maas, features a storyline with lead singer Barry Hay as an espionage agent who is apprehended by three henchmen (played by the other members of the band).
The music video was one of the first to feature a cinematic storyline and dance choreography and was a hit on the fledgeling MTV network, helping the song to become the second international hit for the band. Golden Earring followed the success with an extensive tour of the USA, Canada and Europe. MTV commissioned the band to shoot a movie of the final 'homecoming' concert of the tour in the Netherlands. The concert film, also directed by Dick Maas, included a brief introductory segment which was an extension of the Twilight Zone video. The concert was released in 1984 as Live from The Twilight Zone along with an album of the concert titled Something Heavy Going Down : Live From The Twilight Zone, it aired on MTV and was published as video on VHS, Beta and Laserdisc. To date this concert is regarded as one of the best live shows of the band.
The Cut album cover's iconic image of the jack of diamonds playing card being shredded by a bullet is used in the video and represents the life of the rogue agent.





Saturday, June 27, 2020

"Mad Mike" Hoare Crosses beyond the Rim..



 One of my all time favorite movies of all time.

Excellent Pic below of the Actors who were in the Movie, and I also liked the Uniforms,  The British Pattern uniform I though were really neat.  Mack and Pudge need to get off the stick and do a review of the movie.  Granted it was made in the 70's but they can get some old school/New School Perspective on the movie.

The world has lost one of its larger than life figures, Mike Hoare, aged 100.  It is unusual for a mercenary to become a household name, but Michael Hoare, better known as Mad Mike Hoare, became just that.
Personal Life
Mike Hoare was born on the 17th March 1919 in Calcutta India, to Irish parents. At an early age, his parents sent him back to England for his schooling, where he attended Margate College.




Mike Hoare (R) and Belgian Congo Armed Forces evacuating refugees after masacre. (Photo by Priya Ramrakha/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
Mike Hoare (R) and Belgian Congo Armed Forces evacuating refugees after massacre. (Photo by Priya Ramrakha/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
On completing his education, he commenced training as an accountant. Mike wanted to attend Sandhurst, but this was not possible, so he joined the Territorial Army.
At the outbreak of WWII, he joined the London Irish Rifles. Later he transferred to the 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment attached to the Royal Armoured Corps with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.
He served with distinction in Burma on the Arakan Campaign and then in India at the Battle of Kohima. He ended the war with the rank of major.
In 1945 he married Elizabeth Stott, and the couple had three children. After the war, he completed his studies and qualified as an accountant in 1948.


Original movie poster for The Wild Geese. Richmond Film Productions (West) Ltd Varius Entertainment Trading A.G.
Original movie poster for The Wild Geese. Richmond Film Productions (West) Ltd Varius Entertainment Trading A.G.
He ran several small businesses in South Africa and true to his adventurous nature, in 1954, he set off to ride a motorcycle from Cape Town to Cairo. Following this adventure, he turned his hand to sunning safaris in the Okavango Delta and in the Kalahari Desert.

Mike was also a keen sailor, and he owned a Baltic trader yacht, named Sylvia, that he sailed in the Mediterranean Sea for a few years.
In 1961 he divorced Elizabeth, and two years later, he married Phyllis Sims, an airline stewardess. The couple had two children.
Mike Hoare detested communism, and this led to the birth of his nickname. His nickname came from East German radio, who described him as a “mad bloodhound,” a moniker that delighted him, and his nickname was born.
Congo Coup
In 1961 he was introduced to Moise Tshombe. Tshombe was a Congolese politician who would later become prime minister of the Congo.
Tshombe employed Hoare to quell a rebellion in Katanga Province, which was attempting to break away from the Republic of the Congo.
Following his success in Katanga, Tshombe employed Hoare again in 1964 to head up a new military unit called 5 Commando, a part of the Armée Nationale Congolaise. Most of the 300 men in this unit were South African. The reason for creating the unit was to combat a revolt known as the Simba Rebellion.


The best-known action of this time was when 5 Commando, in conjunction with CIA operatives, Belgian paratroopers, and other formal and informal forces, worked tirelessly to save 1,600 refugees in Stanleyville from being slaughtered by the Simba rebels.
Hoare and his mixed group managed to save many lives. During this time, Hoare had given his unit the nickname “The Wild Geese,” and they became internationally famous.
This name became the title of a film released in 1978, starring Richard Burton as Colonel Allen Faulkner, a character modeled on Mike Hoare.
Seychelles Coup
All the good publicity that Hoare gained during his time in the Congo was destroyed by his humiliating failure in the infamous “Package Holiday Coup,”; an abject failure.
Hoare knew the Seychelles well, and he despised the socialist government led by President Albert René. With tacit support from the South African and Kenyan governments, Hoare recruited 46 soldiers and planned to enter the Seychelles disguised as a rugby team.

 Mad Mike Talks Africa
The men passed through customs, but one of them joined the wrong queue and panicked when questioned by customs officers. The found a dismantled AK-47 rifle in his baggage, and the man spilled the beans.
The entire plan was compromised, and in the ensuing chaos, the group hijacked an Air India plane and flew back to South Africa.
On arrival in South Africa, the entire group was incarcerated for six days. The press had a field day with the story, and Mike Hoare was heavily ridiculed with his coup attempt being dubbed the package holiday coup.
Following a conviction for the hijacking of the Air India plane, Mike Hoare was sentenced to 20 years with 10 being suspended. He served 33 months of his sentence.
Later Years
Mike Hoare spent the last years of his life writing his memoirs.  He published The Road to Kalamata, The Seychelles Affair, and Mercenary.
He passed away in a care facility in Durban South Africa on the 2nd February 2020.
Mike Hoare’s son, Chris, summed up his father’s life succinctly by saying, “Mike Hoare lived by the philosophy that you get more out of life by living dangerously, so it is all the more remarkable that he lived more than 100 years.”







s.”
 

Friday, June 26, 2020

We had a discussion about General Grant on Farcebook


I had Started working on this post Yesterday but was too tired to finish it and spent all day today running around today doing errands and going to physical therapy, apparently, I have a pinched nerve in my back......Joy....Joy.....Rapture.......


 Colorized Picture of General Grant after the battle at Cold Harbor

Apparently some of the anarchist/BLM/Communist/  destroyed General Grant's Statue on San Francisco, the guy that saved the Union that freed the slaves and pushed through the KKK acts that punished the Klan for killing the freed slaves in South Carolina.
     I had considered General Grant the first of the modern Generals. he didn't romanticize war, he wanted to end it as fast as possible.  He had a phrase he would use " You pay the butcher bill now or you pay it later when it cost more."   General Grant used strategic, tactical and logistical means and he utilized all of them in harmony to accomplish a strategic goal.  General Grant was on good terms with Admiral Farragut and General Sheridan and Sherman who gave him the far reach that he used to strike far distances away from the center of gravity that was the Army of Northern Virginia.  General Grant kept everyone focused on himself and General Lee because General Lee had made the army of Northern Virginia the center of the Confederate war effort. General Patton later used the same tactic called "hold them by the nose and kick them in the ass"  General Grant knew that the center of gravity of the Southern war effort was the Army of Northern Virginia. 
       General Grant and General Lee were 2 totally opposites, one was related to the son of a revolutionary war hero and the other was a son of a tanner.  General Grant was an ordinary man who by bulldog determination did extraordinary things.  General Grant by all measures was a failure when he was a civilian, he was called a drunkard, and if it wasn't for the charity of his father in law, he and his family would have been destitute.  I believed that his drinking was caused by his lonely posting in California without his family and dealing with an douche for a commander and Grant resigned.  
      U.S. Grant Spent the next 7 years doing whatever it took to keep his family fed then the Confederate's fired in Fort Sumter and his friend who knew about his experiences during the Mexican War persuaded Grant to seek a commission and he did and Grant became Colonel of Volunteers and the rest became History.


General Grant was under orders by President Lincoln to let Lee and his Army down Easy so he let the Officers keep their sidearms and swords and he pardons the entire army.    With the Assassination of Lincoln by Booth, the Reconstruction was far worse than it could have been, the Radical Republicans lead by Scranton who neutered Johnson, Lincolns Veep, in a successful impeachment trial which neutered him.  Scranton wanted to punish the south which Lincoln would have been able to block, but with Lincoln gone, Scranton put the screws to the south in the name of "reconstruction" which acerbated bad feelings for generations.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Epic Rant I saw on Farcebook

I saw this rant from some one on Farcebook and it was an epic rant and I can't locate the owner to give the props.  This statue is a statue of Robert E Lee.  I have a quick post of U.S Grant that we had discussed a couple days ago that I will put up in a couple of days. 



“Some of you have done NOTHING with your life and you’re mad. You have a college degree & a smart phone with access to virtually *anything* and you can barely get out of bed in the morning while you spit on people who built a whole world with nothing but a horse, map, & axe. You’ve made nothing with access to everything. You’ve conquered nothing. Hell you can’t even conquer yourself. So go tear it all down. Scream into the void how unfair it all is. It’s not that you’ve wasted your short time here. Surely not. Don’t bother with your own legacy you’re busy shitting on the long dead who aren’t here to care. Go burn down every Starbucks. That’ll show them. Torch the Target. Tear down every monument. Deface every memorial. But what have you built? What do you leave behind? So take your benzos. Watch your porn. Get Uber to drop off your dinner. Buy an adult coloring book. Have sex with strangers to ease your crippling anxiety. It’s not you. It’s the system really. It isn’t fair. Go cancel someone. Dox someone. They deserve it. You’re the good guy. Don’t write an epic novel worth building a statue to remember you. Go troll seven year old problematic tweets ever on the hunt for the boogeymen. See now you’ve accomplished something. Cancel everyone. You’re a warrior now. A real hero. And lastly whatever you do never ever take even a moment to self reflect on your own failures. Never own them. Never take a hint of responsibility. Remember you’re just a helpless victim of circumstances beyond your control. This all means nothing. Its like you weren’t even here.”

 Apparently I and people like me are "dinosaurs" and she and her"allies" are wanting me and mine to hurry up and "die" or they will encourage us into the boxcars for the gulag ride to the "reeducation camps" to either be re educated or die" for our new overlords"  I guess that is their plan.......Well I really don't see that happening.  Another point, You see her and the soy boy next to her smiling, they thing that they will be pardoned by the new overlords because they were such "good allies"  shoot, they will find themselves along with the other palefaces off to the gulags for "re-education and death like the other dinosaurs to the great plan" and the fact that they are woke ain't going to matter .  stupid idiots.  Somehow they think that we dinosaurs will just roll along with the great plan to fade away, the problem is that we are getting pretty pissed and they want to keep playing games and to us in middle America, we keep seeing our ways under attack, our traditions under attack, who we are under attack and they keep pushing and it will come to a point and one day...


One day the folks we will just get tired of the incessant pushing, insults, assaults, murders, and the government doing nothing, but mouthing platitudes and being impotent,and allowing the left to run amuck, but charge anybody from the conservative side and you wonder if the government supports the riots and the protestors and we will realize the age of the vigilante is back and it will be on like donkey Kong.  Do I want to see it.....No...but do I fear it will happen....possible if the left keep pushing like they do, the people on the right will get tired, if it and it will be on.  You will have the media clutching at pearls right now, but if someone on the right does something, the media will condemn them whereas they have not condemned the fruitcakes on the left for the same behavior first.  And most people on the right will see the double standard of the media and tune them out and the media will lose even more credibility.
 I normally take "infowars" with a huge grains of salt but Matt Bracken did a great job explaining how Antifa operates and how they work the riots and chaos and how they formed up from the initial training and more training.  the video is 48 minutes long and well worth the watch and explains how they operate and overwhelm the police and cause the destruction they do.  Also he explains what most likely will happen next.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

The First time the Soviets blinked...

 I wanted to get away from current events for a bit and go back to the historical post that I normally do on my blog because the current event stuff really pisses me off so to save my blood pressure, I changed up a bit, LOL


I have blogged a lot about Berlin, I was attached to one of the communities associated with Berlin during the cold war.  Next to my love of Stuttgart,  I have a keen attachment to that city.  One day I want to return to Berlin and Stuttgart and see how thing have changed.   Now for some background.
    After the war, Germany and Berlin was partitioned into 4 areas of responsibility by the victors of the war, The Soviets got the eastern half of Germany and the eastern half of Berlin and according to the agreement at Yalta, I believe they got the honor of capturing Berlin, Eisenhower was fine with that idea, from what I have read, he didn't want to sacrifice American lives in a symbolic gestures of capturing the German capital,  Stalin wanted that feather, he didn't care about casualties, just the bragging rights.  Eisenhower had the mindset that "sure, capture the capital, then have to give half of it back to the rest of the allies"  George Patton of course incensed that we let the Godless communist capture the capital.but I digress. Well anyway in my mind this factored in the attitude about forcing the allies out of Berlin in 1948 in Stalin's mind, the Red Army paid for for it, anyway they the Soviets already owned it. 


 I clipped the following article off one of the history magazines I have in my bookmarks.

June 25, 1948, the Soviet Union, flush with the success of driving the Nazis out of Russia, was becoming piqued at the US and British. Relations were rotten. The Soviet Communists had imported their dictatorial politics to East Germany and were losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Germans. You see, the Germans had seen years of Allied generosity and a willingness to restore democratic freedoms that Hitler had removed since the 1930s. Given a choice, the Germans were choosing the Western ideals.
The Soviets would have no part of it. Or should I say the Communists since the resistance to the West did not come from the Russian people, it came from the Communist Party which saw the clash in Berlin as a PR disaster in the making.

Soon the Communists decided that they were simply going to elbow the Americans French and the British out of Berlin altogether. ‘The transport division of the Soviet military administration is ordered to halt all passenger and freight traffic to and from Berlin tomorrow at 0600 hours because of technical difficulties. West Berlin will receive electricity only between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m….’
It escalated to April 1st, 1948, when U.S. authorities had refused to submit to Soviet inspection of military rail shipments. A fight was avoided by negotiations. But a passive aggressive stance became the tactic of the day when on June 15th, Communist forces shut down the autobahn. Their claim was that it needed repairs.

U.S. Navy Douglas R4D and U.S. Air Force C-47 aircraft unload at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift. The first aircraft is a C-47A-90-DL (s/n 43-15672).
U.S. Navy Douglas R4D and U.S. Air Force C-47 aircraft unload at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift. The first aircraft is a C-47A-90-DL (s/n 43-15672).

Although Douglas C-47 Skytrains from the 60th and 61st Troop Carrier Groups at Kaufbeuren and Rhein-Main were flying trips daily West Berlin and Royal Air Force were also flying daily trips, it was on June 26th that the so-called Berlin Airlift officially commenced.
The East Berlin authorities banned all land river and rail service to re-supply the Eastern portion of the city. The Allied occupational forces had managed to keep three 20-mile-wide air corridors into East Germany open. Give someone an inch; they’ll take a mile. In this case, it was three airstrips, and the amount of tonnage flown in this effort is to this day still nothing short of phenomenal.
One of the biggest games of chicken between the US and Russia began here. The Communists made a few miscalculations. First, they thought they would win the cooperation of the East Germans by punishing them with an embargo. Then they thought that we would stand by idly while they acted just like the dictator everyone had just been subjected to. Finally, they misjudged the airlift capacity of the Allied forces and the will to implement the plan. It was called “Operation Vittles.”
General Lucius D. Clay was the highest ranking American officer in West Germany contacted called Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, the commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.
Berliners watch a Douglas C-54 Skymaster land at Tempelhof Airport, 1946
Berliners watch a Douglas C-54 Skymaster land at Tempelhof Airport, 1946


General LeMay’s staff calculated what a resupply mission of this sort would require with the aircraft available in the theater. The 2,000 tons of coal and 1,439 tons of food per day to for 2 million inhabitants was not possible with the C-47s sitting around.
Berlin’s Lord Mayor-Elect Ernst was ready to capitulate, but was talked out of it by Americans who basically said: “have a little faith.”
All C-47s in Western Europe were ordered to stage into Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, where two large American bases sat near the East German border.
Also, four-engine Douglas C-54 Gooney Bird transports that could carry 10 tons each were ordered from Central America, the Pacific theater, Alaska, and the continental United States. Ground crews, mostly out of work German civilians loaded supplies. The RAF offered 58 Douglas C-47 Dakotas, a few Handley Page Hastings, and 40 Avro York aircraft. They used Gatow in the British sector as a base of operations.
Within days, a C-47 was landing at Tempelhof every eight minutes; well over 150 planeloads a day, but it was a fraction of what was needed. Berliners were already beginning to dig into their pantries.
A classic propaganda war ensued and this one the Soviet press could not win. The evil Communists try and starve their unwilling constituents, and the West comes to the rescue. Tempelhof Airbase in East Berlin had become ground zero at the beginning of the Cold War. It had gone from winding down to one or two flights a day to constant air traffic in and out. Reporters from the west and the east milled about watching what the Germans were calling Die Luftbrücke or air bridge.
Inside West Germany, technically skilled Russians, engineers, and equipment operators were forcibly deported to areas of need in Russia. Did they think that after the suffering of the previous years there wouldn’t be a network of people to leak this information? These people had been silently resisting for so long that it was in their blood to stand up against tyranny.
Did they think the neighbors of the Germans who were forcibly relocated would sit by and do nothing? Stalin was a one trick pony: he screwed everyone before they could screw him. Stalin thought that the tactics he used to shove competitors out of the way in post-Tsarist Russia would work in a post-WWII multi-national alliance. He thought he could force the Allies out of Germany, and he wanted a united German capital thriving under Communist rule, and eventually a united Germany under his thumb.
A U. S. Air Force C-74 Globemaster plane touched down at Gatow airfield located in southwestern Berlin, Germany on Tuesday with more than 20 tons of flour from the United States. “Operation Vittles” otherwise known as the Berlin Airlift (June 24, 1948-May 12, 1949) was a combined effort of the western allies against the Soviet Union’s blockade of all land routes into Berlin. The German children look on as the flour bags are lowered on August 19, 1948
A U. S. Air Force C-74 Globemaster plane touched down at Gatow airfield located in southwestern Berlin, Germany on Tuesday with more than 20 tons of flour from the United States. “Operation Vittles” otherwise known as the Berlin Airlift (June 24, 1948-May 12, 1949) was a combined effort of the western allies against the Soviet Union’s blockade of all land routes into Berlin. The German children look on as the flour bags are lowered on August 19, 1948
There is a psychology behind his instincts. The Germans went after Stalingrad because it was his namesake. He would try and turn the tables on Hitler and end up ruling all of Germany instead.
Only one thing stood in his way: The US and Allied airlift capability.
In August, Allies lifted 121,000 tons and West Berliners were gradually getting enough to live on comfortably. Seeing that two airfields could not carry the load, a new airport Tegel, was steamrolled in the French sector. The steamrollers had to be cut into sections and re-assembled in East Berlin because they were too large for the C-54s.
Eventually veteran Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, a World War II who organized the re-supply operations from India to China was called on. Soon he was named commander of the Combined Airlift Task Force. The first thing he did was schedule regular heavy maintenance. Engines were maintained by the Navy machine shops at Alameda Naval Air Station, California.
The bitter winter weather also strained operations. Icing was a huge problem because the volume of the supplies allowed little time for maintenance on runways.
Tunner said in an interview ‘What I found was badly needed was better timing of the flying operation….Valuable time was wasted in Berlin as crews landed, parked, shut off engines, took off for the snack bar and then strolled over to Operations to make out their return clearances. I laid down an order: No crew member was to leave the side of his aircraft while the Germans unloaded it.
Each plane would be met by an operations officer who would hand the pilot his return clearance all filled out, and a weather officer would give him the latest weather back at his home base. Mobile snack bars tended by ladies in Berlin would move to the side of each plane. Turn-around time was cut in half to 30 minutes.’
Tunner’s changes made the flights much more efficient. He forced crews to make instrument landings to avoid delays due to the weather. Plus the total route was 120 miles often through bad weather. Most of the Air Force pilots were 30 to 60 days away from home. They were mostly part-time and reserve force pilots.
‘Things like poor mail service, no curtains on the windows so crews could sleep in the daytime, and poor washing facilities took on huge proportions,’ Tunner said. He created a competition and published loading times to see if he could motivate crews to outperform each other. Remember people were still exhausted from the clean up of central Germany after the war. It’s not like there wasn’t a ton to do around airfields of a country that is trying to rebuild itself. In 1949 a 12-man crew C-54 loading crew loaded 20,000 pounds in five minutes and 45 seconds.
 
There was a shortage of trained aircraft maintenance people and crews trained for a rigorous full load take-offs day and night. At Great Falls Air Force Base in Montana, replacement pilots were trained. The narrow air corridors, the approach to the three bases inside West Germany, and the instrument landings were duplicated exactly for practice. C-54s were loaded with 64,000 pounds of sand for practice flights, and flying these re-supply missions was so strenuous and exacting that three landings were required at 70,000 pounds before a pilot qualified.
An RAF Short Sunderland moored on the Havel near Berlin unloading salt during the airlift
An RAF Short Sunderland moored on the Havel near Berlin unloading salt during the airlift
By the end of September, the Dakotas were taken off line and 225 C-54s were doing the hard work. An East German spy, stationed in an apartment house and noting the unloading of every plane at Tempelhof, was reportedly punished by authorities who thought he was just making up the tonnage totals.
Few realize how close this came to becoming a shooting war. American P-80 Shooting Stars and P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft flew escort and combat air patrols. A Soviet anti-aircraft artillery unit moved in front of the RAF field at Gatow and fired incendiary bullets at British aircraft in and around Gatow. Over 700 times Soviets made aggressive movements towards aircraft during Operation Vittles. These included dropping fake bombs, releasing barrage balloons, live firing at and near aircraft and jamming radio signals.
The airlift didn’t actually end until September 30, 1948. Total flights: 276,926, total passengers, 227,655; Total days of operation, 321; total supply tonnage 2,323,067; total taxpayer costs to Americans, $345 million, to the Brits, 17 million pounds; to the Germans, 150 million Deutschmarks; total lives: Seventy-five American and British.
By the Spring of 1949, it became obvious to the Russians that not only was the plan going to work; The Airlift was now flying in more tonnage per day than they were previously sending in by rail. During a 90 day period in 1948, the total tonnage of all US 18 domestic carriers including mail and cargo and passengers amounted to 3,119 tons. That was less than the amount of cargo carried into Berlin in one day at the operational zenith.
It was the first major loss in the Cold War for the Soviets. They had miscalculated. They couldn’t imagine the will of the Americans and British and French to spend all this time and effort just to make a point.
On May 12th, 1949, the Soviets blinked.



Monday, June 22, 2020

Monday Music" Bodies"(Let the Bodies Hit the Floor) by Drowning Pool


I have been enjoying the run of songs, I never had a theme last this long, and I am  really enjoying it in a weird sort of way,   I have several more weeks in mind, perhaps longer.  As long as I can flog er work the muse, I will, and for some reason Grunge really plays well with this theme of songs for some reason.
     I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in December? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....



One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines and prepare yourself.
 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song that is related to Fast cars and good music in the 1980's.  What can I say, My humor is warped....just a bit. Next week will be "When the Bullet hits the Bone" by Golden Earring,  Now that should really cause some psych evals., hehehe, some poor ATF guy trying to explain the attraction to his mother because of Nose rings, tattoo's and screaming at people....but it is ATF people you know......


"Bodies" (often incorrectly called "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor")is a song by the American rock band Drowning Pool and also is the lead single from their debut album Sinner. Released in May 2001, "Bodies" is Drowning Pool's signature song and has been featured in various films, TV programs, and advertisements since its release. It was also the theme song for the 2001 WWF SummerSlam pay-per-view event, as well as that of the ECW brand in 2006 to early 2008. During 2001, the song got popular, but the song was taken off radio stations after the September 11 attacks because the song was considered inappropriate in the wake of the terrorist attack.  

Considered a nu metal song,"Bodies" features a heavy use of the lyric "let the bodies hit the floor". Its lyrics build by gradually counting up from one to four, shouting the number each time, until reaching its intense chorus. Clean vocals in the song's verses make a contrast from the many harsh vocals elsewhere. The guitar structure of "Bodies" features a heavy use of the wah peda


Much like the song's radio success, the "Bodies" music video found significant airplay on various music channels in 2001. Directed by Glen Bennett, it has the band performing in what appears to be a mental institution, with Williams screaming the lyrics into the ear of a man strapped to a chair. Clips from the video were later used in the title animation for the music program Uranium

The song was used by interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in 2003. "Bodies" was repeatedly played over a 10-day period during the interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi while he was "exposed to variable lighting patterns" at the same time

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Short Pithy Post...President Trump Rally in Tulsa Oklahoma

I listened to the speech, it lasted for almost 2 hours and it was a good President Trump Campaign speech with his usual humdingers against the lying media and his stories about the ramp at West Point were hilarious!

I have been doing a lot of Pithy Post lately...


Today there Is a major  Rally in Tulsa Oklahoma for President Trump, Oklahoma is a Very Red State for President Trump, Tulsa is a Pretty safe location for a rally normally, but this isn't normal times. This is his first one after the "Kung-Flu" hit the Country.  After the various media outlets were quiet during the riots and looting and saying that it was "acceptable" for "social distance to be excused for Social justice reasons" all of a sudden were having the vapors about President Trump having a rally.  I guess if it wasn't for double standards, there would be no standards I suppose.....

Here is a clip of the National Guard moving out to positions around the convention hall.  If Antifa/Anarchist/BLM can bus enough people in, they can disrupt his rally and harass his supporters, it would be huuuge moral boost for the left and hurt the supporters of the President at the Same time.  The National Guard is called out because there has been a track record of local police being reluctant to interfere with agitators and troublemakers by orders of the mayors and the chief of Police who tend to support the left wing agitators, with and the supporters of the president being beaten up outside of the convention hall and in Chicago then candidate Trump was forced to leave the podium because of outside forces.  If they can force him to flee, it will signal major weakness to the world of a sitting President and potentially cripple his reelection campaign like what happened to Bush Senior at the Townhall when he looked at his watch and that swung the momentum in 1992.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Some MORE short Pithy thoughts...And Macks Birthday

 First off before I get started on my rant, Todays is Macks's birthday He is a Heck of a guy and a good friend and I am honored to know him and normally I would do a good throw him under the bus story for his birthday but there are time constraints on me today, but here is a good pic of Mack being Mack at Scout camp...


I'm not sure if the Frozen girls ever recovered from it btw, LOL

HAPPY Birthday Mack and Y'all know him on Farcebook and Meatspace, show him some love...Not the kind of Love like he did to the Frozen girls...that was kinda icky....LOL
 
Apparently last night the suckass Atlanta DA  Paul Howard without even waiting for the GBI report to even begin on the Burke shooting, charged the officer involved with felony murder plus 10 other charges and from what I have heard jaywalking was considered.  This was pure pandering to the mob and since he is up for reelection I guess he wanted to hang his spurs on this one.   This happened after the Mayor of Atlanta Keisha Lance Bottoms seeing her VEEP chances being burnished after dissing President Trump during the Floyd Riots had fired 6 officers 2 weeks earlier for excessive force with a taser after 2 college students threw water bottles filled with unknown substances at officers then ran  and got caught at the next light by officers who pursued on foot and they copped an attitude and had to be extracted out of their vehicle by a tazer and this was caught by video by a news crew and the cops got fired by the mayor without due process or investigation by the GBI or anybody else.  then 2 weeks later was the Burke shooting where the individual who was released out of jail for beating his kids due to kung-flu believe it or not.  was drunk in a Wendy drive through, the cars were driving around his car and the police were called.  The Officers show up, 2 white cops and they conduct a field sobriety test and the guy fails and they start to take him to jail and he decided to fight the police, and he is fighting 2 of them, they try to tase him and he takes the taser away from the police officer and runs away and as he runs away he turns and fires the tazer at the cops and the Police return fire and he is dropped.   Well the mob gets started again and the Wendy gets burned and the Mayor fires the Police officer without due Process and the DA Charges the Officer with Felony Murder and guess what....
All the night shift had the "Blue Flu" I pulled this off "Miggy's" Farcebook page.  I don't know what happened in Atlanta last night from what I heard last was that they were 580+ calls behind and they were calling for help from other agencies and they said "NOPE" the GSP said "we will handle the interstate and that is it" and the others said that they will roll for Officer down calls and that is it!"  Apparently the Police departments around Atlanta are not happy in how progressive Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the DA Howard are handling things and are reminding them of that.  If this happens tonight, I see the mob taking advantage of this.  I was talking to Mack, he was thinking that Brian Kemp would call out the National Guard and I said that he wouldn't.  If he did,she would then blame him and the GOP for the resulting mess, it is better that she be all alone in this mess for a few days and finally ask the governor for help because if he don't get that, he will get blamed for all this when the Monday morning quarterbacking by the talking heads and the media look for blame.

     Thank you to all of our friends that checked on me and Mack to make sure that we were fine, during all of this.  We live out of the city, but did appreciate the concern.  I live on one side of the southside and he lives on the otherside of the southside,

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

more pithy thoughts.....

I am continuing my pithy thoughts on current events, the Soro's funded phenomenon for the destruction of the West has continued with appearances in Europe and in the Ukraine of all places and the President inquiring"Who's are the names of those idiots so I can deport them.."   and meanwhile here in America the litmus test continues......
People are going through other people social media post looking for the proper fealty for the cause.  Like I had commented in a prior post, it is like the true believers have awoken and are looking for the non believers to stone and cast out of society..
 We are a free people and we associate with whom we want to, it is our birthright as Americans but unfortunately many Americans have been indoctrinated to believe that the United States is evil and the root of all evil in the world.   These people have never been outside the United States and have never seen what life is like outside.
Meanwhile the same people that hate the United States have created their own mini state from 6 blocks that the police backed away from from the anarchist and antifa and the same created their own state that immediately went full hippy commune and lost their food to the urban outdoormans(Homeless people) that they invited who immediately took the food and left, leaving them screeching for vegan and soy substitutes.  then a warlord took over on the 2nd day.  impressing Lawdog on the American efficiency who was used to the  African way of going 3rd world.  My attitude is that President Trump needs to leave this alone, this is a Washington State problem and a Seattle problem.  The left would love to see President Trump get mired in dealing with this.  I would leave it and show the nation the weakness of the left in CHAZ/CHOP.
Speaking of Presidential candidates, the presumptive candidate Biden has been pretty quite lately, except for some mild pandering during the funeral for the saint for the BLM movement George Floyd, Mr. Biden has been pretty quiet, and there has been a lot of guessing who his Veep might be.

We really need to come together as a people if we are going to make the challenges that we have to make together, but right now we are divided and I am concerned greatly.  I went into a local range and there were a lot of people guying guns and ammo, some were scared and others were gearing up for a fight and that concerned me.  I have smelled the elephant to use an old term as have a bunch of my friends and I don't want to experience that again and don't want to fight my fellow Americans but I don't know what will pull us away from the abyss, but I will not bent my knee and submit to tyranny.  I am hoping by Gods grace that people will see reason and not get stupid.

Monday, June 15, 2020

Monday Music "Love is a BattleField" by Pat Benatar


I have been enjoying the run of songs, I never had a theme last this long, and I am  really enjoying it in a weird sort of way,   I have several more weeks in mind, perhaps longer.  As long as I can flog er work the muse, I will, and for some reason Disco really plays well with this theme of songs for some reason.
     I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in December? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....




One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines and prepare yourself.
 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song that is related to Fast cars and good music in the 1980's.  What can I say, My humor is warped....just a bit. Next week will be "Bodies(Let the Bodies hit the Floor by Drowning Pool",  Now that should really cause some psych evals., hehehe, some poor ATF guy trying to explain the attraction to his mother because of 80's hair, and makeup.
"Love Is a Battlefield" is a song performed by Pat Benatar, and written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. It was released in September 1983 as a single from Benatar's live album Live from Earth, though the song itself was a studio recording. The song was ranked at number 30 in VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s. "Love Is a Battlefield" went on to sell over a million records.

The Bob Giraldi-directed music video features Benatar playing a rebellious teenage girl running away from her home with her father (played by actor Trey Wilson) warning her, "If you leave this house now, you can just forget about coming back!" Her mother looks on helplessly and her brother (played by actor Philip Cruise) watches sadly from an upper-story window. She later becomes a taxi dancer at a seedy club to get by in the city, outwardly New York. She writes to her brother, telling him about her exciting new life, while her father seems to feel guilty about being angry at her. Later in the video, she witnesses the club owner (played by actor Gary Chryst) harassing another dancer. Benatar rounds up the women and leads a rebellion against him. As the club owner is cornered by the women against his will, he tries to seduce Benatar only to have her throw a drink in his face. Angered by this, he tries once again to assault her but Benatar and the women overpower and defeat him, then storm out of the club dancing into the sunrise before bidding goodbye to one another, thanking Benatar for their escape. The women escape and strike out on their own and Benatar walks into the sunrise. The final scene shows Benatar sitting in the back of a bus headed for an unknown destination. The video was choreographed by Michael Peters, who appears briefly in the video.




A special dance club remix of the song was created by Jellybean Benitez. Benitez also created an edited version of his mix specifically for the video. It differs slightly in structure and instrumentation, and aside from appearing in the video, has never been commercially released.
The video was the first ever to feature the use of dialogue.The scenes featuring dialogue include the opening scene of Benatar stomping out of the house while being berated by her father and the scene featuring the pimp harassing the female dancer in which she shouts "Leave me alone!"
The video was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video and is contained on the DVD for the movie 13 Going on 30.
 
      

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Couple little projects

When I had gone to Tennessee to visit my mom and pops I had picked up a rusty metal flag and brought it home.  I wanted to fix it up so I started...
 My little mouse sander had a lot of old paint and rust to sand off 
 Started taping it off
Painted it Red.
Little flag is hung in the garage.
Based on Peter's   recommendation for an angle sight because of "Murphy' Law" if you have an optical sight, there will a possibility of the battery failing at the worst possible time. I ordered an accessory for my AR pattern rifle.
I thought the logo was creative.
They install via allen screws, and you make it "snug" and if you want, you can use some "locktite" on the screws but don't strip them or you will be ordering another set.
       
     This is the rear view, you can see the 45 degree offset.
Closeup
Front View of my rifle, the sights are "GI Standard Battle sights"
I am looking forward to going shooting and seeing how the rifle shoots.  But it I have noticed that my "Standard Rifle is heavy. and it really is no frills but it is a full size AR rifle, not a "Shortie".  My next rifle I am starting to build may be a shortie.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

What I have noticed.......And it is scary.....

I have been wanting to write this post since Sunday night, but I had to do my staple "Monday Music", that is tradition on my little corner of the internet, but it also is my work schedule and by the time I get home I am very tired and after I help prepare dinner and clean up and read some of the blogs I read, I am tired and go to bed.  I unfortunately can't blog from work where I have all these great ideas, although I was successful in catching part of oldnfo and lawdog doing a holster talk and seeing some of the guns that Old NFO has "lucked" into over the years and all I can say is *wow* but they do know their stuff but I do digress.  But anyway what is bothering me is what I am seeing going on is besides the mob taking over and the protesting is the rush to deface anything that is traditional to the United States, all monuments from our past. hell even the Monument to the 54 Regiment, the all black regiment that fought in the civil war that Mathew Broderick and Denzel Washington made famous in the movie "Glory" was was defaced by the mob. Either they don't know what they are doing or worse they do know and they don't care because this is by design because they are following the playbook of Alinsky the hero of Obama and one of the tenets of Alinsky is to smash all the traditions of a country and replace it with "acceptable" new traditions and this is all out of Marx, this is the playbook that Marx and Lenin used to take over the Russian empire.  Smash all the traditions and "replace all the moldy trappings of the house of Rominov with the new shiny Soviet system to represent the modern man" as the term went.  This is the dream that the rabid left wants.

Because of the mob and the kneeling there is a rush for purity from the mob.  You have to prove your "bonafides" and it is a sliding scale,  You are having to prove your purity to the cause for your acceptance into modern culture. I am seeing Police officer kneeling before the mob for fealty and forgiveness  and I am disgusted by this,  I am seeing fortune 500 companies rushing in supporting dollars for the cause.  There is a rush to become part of the latest social justice movement.  I am seeing people forcing others to kneel in subservience to others for imagined sins of their ancestry.  This is  frighting to me.  There are people going through other peoples social media platforms looking through their posting to see if their postings meet the sliding scale of the latest social outrage so they can get denounced on the modern version of the communist party meeting while the denouncer waves the red book in the air and denounces the offender for heresy for being not pure enough and brings the proof of their heresy in the pages of the social media post and lays it before the membership and denounces them properly so the membership can cast them out and the local commissar can record it and the offender can be cast out of the room(ostracized by their friends for not being woke enough) and sent to the gulag(fired from their job most likely  if their company is woke).  This is a great threat.  I am seeing a lot. Fortune 500 companies is posting memo's' of support as is other major companies and this is frightening. this is threatening peoples livelihood,  We are Americans, and we are being made to live in fear for fear of being denounced in our own country, because you can get fired from your job and lose your career due to the sliding scales of P.C justice.  We Live in a country that was founded of the tenets of freedom of speech and thought and association and all of this is in danger by the action of this P.C mob.  I am afraid for my son who will grow to manhood in a country that will despise him for being a white man if trends continue.  Martin Luther King said that  he wanted his children to be judged by the contents of their character , not their skin color what would he make of what is going on right now?   I am wondering where I could move to what state or country if this madness continues?
      And speaking of the mob, I am a student of history, I remember the French Revolution, the ones that started the revolution, they promised "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality" and instead delivered the "Terrors" as the people that fomented the revolution wound up feeling the "kiss" of the blade on their own neck as the people rebelled against the excesses of the tyranny of the revolution.  This is the danger of the people pushing the "defund the police movement we are seeing.  All these assclowns are wanting to remove the police, what are they expecting to see in their place?

Peace..Love...Rainbow..Unicorn.....people singing kumbaya in a circle?......what a bunch of freaking idiots.....First you liberal idiots strip guns away from the law abiding in your fair liberal paradise strongholds....so only the Police have guns..now you are protesting the police because you are protesting democratic policies ...you tracking so far?   so now you want the police to go away.you still follow the bread crumbs?....so who going to enforce the rules in your Liberal utopia?   you think everyone will be operating on the goodness of their hearts?    it don't work that way.   who is going to settle disputes between people?   who is going to protect the restraining order when psycho ex boyfriend wants to cohabitate again with ex-girlfriend..social worker can't settle that one.  or the local drug gang wants to expand their turf with the other local gang....I can go on and on...but you get the picture. The Summer will be interesting......