Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).

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I got a chance to interview LCdr Angus Topshee, the XO of HMCS Toronto a little while back, and have posted about it at The Torch. Angus is a fine officer, and for those Kiwi, Aussie, and Limey readers here, he's also the best eighth-man I've ever played with or against.

HMCS Toronto was part of Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1) these past five months, and thus participated in the first NATO mission to circumnavigate the African continent. They did a pile of stuff on their cruise, from chasing smugglers, to dicey boardings, to ad-hoc diplomacy in the Gulf of Guinea, to exercising with the South African navy, to rescuing Yemeni soldiers because an island volcano erupted underneath them.

Adventure on the high seas, join the navy and see the world, and all that... - Damian

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A little Second Amendment poll over at USA Today. Do, go vote. Right now, the "individual right" view is doing smashingly well... 130,000 (97%) pro the individual right... -the Armorer

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Oldest U.S. WWI vet dies in Ohio at 109....Maggie

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A captured-for-all-eternity-on-video snerk for all those Mike Huckabee fans out there (ht:Transmontanus)

The comic in the piece, a fellow by the name of Rick Mercer, is Canada's answer to Jon Stewart, roughly speaking. I always thought that the running "Talking With Americans" gag was a bit unfair and more than a bit mean. I say unfair, because if you came up to Trois Rivieres, Quebec or Moncton, New Brunswick, or hell, to Mel Lastman Square in front of Toronto City Hall and asked them to voice their support for the Nevada government working to preserve the Alamo, you'd probably fool a bunch of them too. And the truth of it is that we know more about you than you do about us because, well, you're bigger than we are.

Still, a "national igloo" joke shouldn't be that tough to sniff out...

I cut Mercer a *bit* of slack for his Yankee-baiting, however, because he does things like spend Christmas at a FOB in Afghanistan. And because he goes more than once. And for rants like this one, where he covers a wounded medic's back.

Anyhow, back to Huckabee...maybe something like this has no effect on your opinion of the man's fitness to lead your nation. But if Obama's going to catch flak for thinking we have a President up here north of the 49th parallel instead of a Prime Minister, I figured Huckabee's little "igloo" faux pas would be of interest as well. - Damian

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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."