Comments for H&I* Fires 23 SEP 2007

H&I* Fires 23 SEP 2007

2007-09-24T04:52:01Z

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...

**********************************

Jesse MacBeth, poseur, felon, jailbird. His apology is hard to take, at least for me. I'm just lacking the charity gene, I guess. H/t, Kevin.

Over at Stop the ACLU, this crie-de-coeur from a college newspaper editor: ...it is my sincere hope that our readers understand our intentions were not malicious. Translation: "Waaaaaaah! I was just exercising Free Speech! I was speaking Truth To Power! You're supposed to worship me because of that!" Heh. Trust me, boyo, the withdrawal of advertising support for your cage lining fishwrap is not malicious, either. It's a lesson, and, after all, you're a student, right? The lesson? Actions, even speech, can have consequences. It's a free society. You're free to print what you want, with few restrictions, and people are free to spend their money where they want, eh? Just because you run a newpaper doesn't create an exemption there. Snerk.

Talk about flexing and adapting... the poor man's JDAM. Bill, there *may* actually be work for you... I'd be after a touch more standoff, myself.

Speaking of flexing and adapting - the FOAB compared to the MOAB. -the Armorer

*********************************

Unintended Consequences... Over at Stop The ACLU, Jay has a piece up on "idiosyncratic reasoning from a US Court." The ruling supports an Illinois statute that effectively shut down the last slaugtherhouse in the US that processed horses for overseas consumption.

Unintended consequence of that? The whole foofaraw over the slaughter of horses (something SWWBO has very *strong* feelings on) has had an interesting impact. Horse breeders are going out of business. Before the move to protect horses from slaughter for consumption, even "bad" horses (as in badly trained, lamed, poor conformance, etc) could bring in about $1,000 when sold for slaughter. Good horses went for several thousand. Really good horses still sell well, we're talking average, decent riding horses. Now, as two horse breeders have told me *this week* you can't give 'em away, and good horses are selling for $3-400, at least out here in the midwest, a condition that will continue until the market stabilizes... by reducing the herds. It's just... interesting. Any horse breeders in the readership? -the Armorer

*******************************

This just in - NYT is biased. Yeah, well, so is this place. Only I get snarked for it by MSM journalists, but when the NYT does it... hey, that's just "hard choices" and "holding people accountable..." (that last will be explained in a post for tomorrow). Stop The ACLU has a nice one-stop round-up on the topic. -the Armorer

*******************************

Jules Crittenden pats Ken Burns on the back. Wearing ninja claws. Read his review of Burn's new opus "The War" Short form of the review? Magnificent Failure. -the Armorer

*******************************
Fixed-wing jocks - you *knew* they were always envious of people like Bill and V29... -the Armorer

*******************************

]]> *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 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"

Comment from Barb on 2007-09-24

2007-09-24T14:26:28Z

I am sorry they didn't throw the book at him - defrauding the VA system for benefits he didn't earn (taking some piece away from deserving Real Vets) alone deserves more than that. 5 months is almost an insult. Except it's better than nothing, I guess. His apology, however, means less than nothing - he's a proven liar, so his word is worthless.

Comment from Trias on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T23:10:09Z

I guess the apology is a good thing. His actions were more serious than 5 months IMO but that's the way the lawbook crumbled I suppose. What annoys me is that this is still war. If this happened in WW2 I don't think he'd be doing 5 months. A sign the US legal world doesn't take it very seriously I suppose. However it's nice it's come out. Reminds people that just saying someone kills babies for breakfast doesn't mean it actually happens.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T21:41:40Z

You've ruined my day. Well! My work here is done, then. Yer day's really purty fragile, ainnit?

Comment from BillT on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T20:16:25Z

You've ruined my day. Well, I won't be the one to spoil it completely for you by telling you who wins...

Comment from BillT on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T19:03:07Z

I'd be interested in seeing the transition from forward flight to hover on the F-35. Betcha the test pilots *aren't*. It's gonna involve a seriously nose-high attitude, shooting to a point-in-space and then sinking until it gets into ground effect. All without rotor blades. *Bad* idea, in my opinion. Or not...

Comment from Maggie on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T18:40:19Z

"The War" is a *Magnificent Failure*???? I am so bummed. I was really looking forward to this. I followed the link and read the whole review. He wants us to watch it anyway and I will. I just wish I hadn't seen this. Good job Donovan! You've ruined my day.

Comment from Pogue on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T17:52:16Z

I'd be interested in seeing the transition from forward flight to hover on the F-35. The tailhook is cute, though.

Comment from BillT on 2007-09-23

2007-09-23T14:56:23Z

The poor man's JDAM? *yawn* Been there, done that. Remember me telling you guys that shrink who lived with us for a while said we weren't quite sane by *anybody's* definition of the term? *grinnn* That pic shows one of the reasons he came to that conclusion. Mortar, Air Delivery -- aka, "The MAD Bomber."