Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
************************
Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. I thought people went to movies to forget the outside world and not to have their world view reinforced nor receive little pep talks. Jeez. The Spartans were the Spartans. Miller re-did the battle of Thermopylae, but anything else you see there is a reflection of you and not the event, or the movie, itself. Get a grip people.
--
More on le affair Coulter.
Think Progress is doing exactly what I thought the left would---treating it like someone just dissed them before the SuperBowl. The quote says it all: “…it’s really not that scary to attack liberals.” Ann. It should be attacking liberalism, the ideology, and not the people. You used to do that. Now you just seem to want to collect scalps. Doing the former made you a great voice for the right. The latter is making conservatives look like jokes by playing down to DailyKos level.
Capt. Ed has some thoughts about it too.
[Armorer's interjection: What Captain Ed discusses is one of the reasons this space imposed the Rulez (attack the message, not the messenger) back before it was popular... and, in truth, I have to credit Jack of Random Fate and the Commissar for getting me to think about it from that perspective. Over time, I have found it to be a great vaccine against trolls. Plus, I've discovered that many normals lurk here because... we're civil. The normals don't like all the snarky bluster. Not that we don't appreciate good snark. But mostly when it's done with the touch of a master, like that Rotorhead Tuttle. And while the readership dropped for a while - it's back to earlier levels. -the Armorer]
--
Some people just refuse to be happy.
--
Follow up on the UW and Pappy Boyington scandal. Pappy’s going to get his monument.
--
Kat should’ve linked to this herself. A survey of the history of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the ‘tail’ of DoD.
--ry
*********************************
Over at Lex's place - "This better be good." It is. So, read it. H/t, Fuzzy.
Jules Crittenden being himself...
But I can say that this is quite possibly the most ridiculous thinking on Iraq I’ve heard yet. Must read for full appreciation of its precocious child-like admonishing charms.Read his thoughts here..
I read the piece in question, the LA Times Op-Ed by Harvard prof Samantha Power. On this one, I don't really agree with Jules. While Power puts in some swipes at the administration, if a touch over-stated, they aren't flat out wrong, either. And while some of her rhetoric is sloppy, the overall thrust of things she proposes are not all that unlike what I hear from the field grade officers I chat with regarding options for the way ahead in Iraq. -the Armorer
********************************
Last week-end another of Putin’s detractors had a close encounter with a deadly piece of heavy metal. No – In this case, it was not Polonium; but more akin to the type that comes in the 124/158gr. variety. Luckily, he is being patched-up at a local hospital, and wish him a speedy recovery.
What caught my attention on this piece, is that this happened just down the road from our other home down in Maryland. Why – He’s practically a neighbor of mine. – BOQ
****************
Ignore that little glitch. I didn't see Ry already linked part I on my Walter Reed story. Thanks.
[PS...I am still available for any civilian panel reviewing processes and policies - Kat]
A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
11 Comments