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H&I* Fires, 25 MAR 2007

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...

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I wonder if the people who are all in a tiff and want this type of preachy guerilla theatre shut down are in support of shutting this down.

Personally, if you take the preachy parts out, leave it as ‘take of this what you will but we have no take home message,’ I have no problem with the second. But it’s unlikely that it fit that description, IMO.
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Ugh. It’s things like this that puts daylight between me, and tdaxp Dan and TPM Barnett. When the Iranians do stuff like this I definitely do not see them natural long term allies in waiting.
--ry

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Analysis of the recent congressional vote and its impact, aptly titled: We who are about to die, salute you!
-kat

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Naval aviator Instapinch on the subject of "cold iron" in the context of the Big Juan. I understand what he means, after having clambered through two dark ships myself. While I never served on a naval vessel - being on a decommissioned ship I always get a sense of loneliness. Yeah, I know, anthropormorphizing again. Still - museum ships have a sense of happy purpose about them, which is why I got involved in rescuing that old warrior, the USS John Rodgers/BAM Cuitlahuac. H/t Fuzzybear Lioness

On another note - I get to clamber through another ship! I'm leaving today for Norfolk, to deliver a paper to a conference. While I'm in Norfolk, I'm going to visit the USS Wisconsin. It's been a long time since I saw an Iowa-class battleship, the last time being the New Jersey off of Lebanon. This time - I'll have a camera! And SWWBO will be spared being dragged through another hulking hunk of grey iron... -the Armorer

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Good on Laura Brown! Don't just think, act!. It's here that I note that the other laptop show in town, Project Valour-IT, delivered its 1000th laptop not that long ago. [FbL sez: There's been some confusing info given out on this. The 1000th laptop has been purchased, but not distributed yet. It's expected to be requested and disbursed in May.] I don't care how it's done, simply that it is done. Oh, and lest anyone think that we've not been noticed by Fox News - Fuzzybear had her splash at Fox right here. -the Armorer

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The Snarkatron (aka BCR) has a geography lesson - where will you pop out if you dig a hole to the other side of the earth? I'm just a short swim from... Australia. Well, at least it looks short, sorta. Okay, I really gotta get packing...-the Armorer

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Heh. Here I sit at the Kansas City airport, only to discover their netnanny has classified the Castle as... pr0nography. Sigh. Now I have to figure out who their NetNanny is and appeal the decision. Feh. -the Armorer

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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 (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's 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".

12 Comments

Free speech is important but I've noticed these days that's mostly used to bag various people for no good reason rather than anything constructive.
 
It's not just "these days". Even our illustrious founding fathers enacted sedition laws and attempted to use them against their political enemies as each faction came to power. You aren't really seeing anything new, you're just seeing in live on TV with various circus acts pantomiming it.
 
As for the Iranian attacks, what should be part of the story is the fact that it stayed quiet for so long because people did not want it to be used as a stick to beat the "act of war" drum against Iran. We are in a proxy war with Iran and the Democrats want to keep it low key until they can come to some accomodation with them. My take on it is that they are looking for a "Ford in China" moment that leads to "normalization" of relations and provides us some sort of financial leverage with Iran. The problem the democrats are having is predicting Iran's actions and how that will compute with the American populace. The Iranians are either extremely intelligent and pressing every advantage considering both the US and Britain's apparent lame duck weakened leadership with divided governing houses or they are the most ignorant people on the face of the earth, shooting themselves in the foot with continuous "acts of war". It remains to be seen how much provocation we are willing to accept.
 
Major, if you want to engage the KC Airport authority on this subject, try for a decap mission: go over the head of the net-nanny to a Commissioner of the Port Authority.
 
Heh. Here I sit at the Kansas City airport, only to discover their netnanny has classified the Castle as... pr0nography
Was it something I said?
 
Maggie, I think it's a vast left-wing conspiracy. (LOL)
 
They ain't *that* numerous. I've always considered the left wing as being half-vast...
 
You mentioned battleships.....there's always the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC.....been there, it's an awesome trip that I would recommend to anyone.
 
Oh, Armorer, please (if you can) try to get to the weird geeky parts of the ship, i.e. inside the topmost director way up high, panoramic view of firerooms and engine rooms, Central Station, magazines, steering engines, gauges and valves in fire/enginerooms, rangefinder details, gunner's locker et multiple cetera. I know we can trust you to do this anyway, just reminding and re-inforcing yer inherent lovable tendencies. Sorry, would write more, but Tammy Bruce is on the radio. She is my favorite drunken Irish Lesbian-Feminist pro-life Republican smart*ss gun-nut ailurophile. I MUST listen.
 
sandman6actual, my Dad was a plankowner on the North Carolina as a junior medical officer. I hope to get back to Wilmington some day and see her.
 
Unfortunately you can't get inside the skin of the ship, the Wisconsin is still offically on the rolls, and its locked down. Decommed ships are lonely, there is no hum of machinery, water noise or people. Just absolute quiet. Eerie really
 
Countries cooperate because they want to go in the same direction. In many, many ways, Iran and the US share that direction. That said, outrages like the current one do something else: give us reason and justification for destroying the Iranian government. If Bush would "go to Tehran," I would support him. If Bush orders to Air Force to "go to Tehran," I would support that, too.
 
© 2008 John Donovan
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