My thoughts on Syria

This has been one of the busiest periods that I've been in for quite some time now, hence the lack of blogging as actively as I'd like.

That being said, I'm feeling more than a little led to get this off my chest...

For well over a decade I have believed and as of this writing I still believe that George W. Bush was the absolutely worst President in the entire history of the United States.

For the PATRIOT Act, for creating the Department of Homeland Security, for failure to strengthen our border with Mexico, for a war in Iraq with no definitive goal or even overall purpose, for all of the "bailouts" and "stimulus" that deepened the damage to our economy... for all of those reasons and more, George W. Bush will forever be one of the most destructive Presidents that America was ever cursed with.  And I have no doubt that a wiser citizenry in generations in the distant future will point to Bush the Lesser as a grim example of how broken our current system of politics is, and has been for a very long time.

I earnestly believed that Bush the Lesser's place of shame would be secure for a very long time to come.  But now...

If the United States military is directed to take action in Syria, as is looking more and more likely to happen, then Barack Obama will have become the absolutely worst President in American history.

And barring going full-tilt bonkers and launching ICBMs at Quebec, I don't see how anyone else ever would possibly topple Obama from that spot.

Syria is not something we want to get mired in.  Other countries' civil wars very rarely are.  But Syria is the meanest situation imaginable.  The ruling government are not the good guys.  The rebels are not the good guys either.  There are many good people who are caught in the middle of this: they aren't combatants at all.  Many of them are Christians who are being targeted by the rebels.  And speaking of those rebels: there is considerable evidence that they are aligned with Al-Quaeda.

Just as there is overwhelming evidence that the chemical attacks we have seen in the news were not launched by the Assad government at all.  That they might in fact have been perpetrated by the rebels.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are at best, horribly misinformed about Syria.  They are at worst, blatant liars.

And there is no reason whatsoever to involve any American money, any American equipment, or any American life with any aspect of the civil war in Syria.

There are some things in this broken world which all one can do is appeal to God in prayer about.  Things beyond the jurisdiction of any sane and rational government.  What is happening in Syria is one of those things.  There is nothing the United States as a sovereign nation can do to remedy that situation.  But there is plenty that it can do to make it worse, and nothing worse than launching a military strike in Syria.

If Obama does this, nothing good will come of it.  Nothing at all.

Nothing.

Read More

The thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative

It was thirty years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan gave a historic speech proposing, for the first time, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the United States.  The plan, once developed, would utilize ground and space-based weaponry to blast apart incoming nuclear missiles.  The basic premise was an array of missile-launching satellites around the Earth.  A far more radical design called for the deployment of platforms in orbit: either carrying anti-missile lasers or particle beams, or as part of an adaptive-optics system which would focus a surface-generated laser onto a moving target anywhere around the world (see illustration).

The official name for the concept was Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.  But for reasons apparent to everyone it was quickly labeled "Star Wars" by the mainstream press and the name stuck.

SDI gained notoriety overnight, as much from many people in the United States as from the government of the Soviet Union.  Reagan's political enemies swore and declared that "Star Wars" was a ridiculous fantasy that would never work.  Soviet officials were outraged: among other things, claiming that SDI was a violation of the SALT II treaty.

The thing is, Strategic Defense Initiative did work.  But not at all in the way that it was advertised.  And out of all of Reagan's accomplishments, it is SDI that stands as the most genius.  Because SDI didn't have to function at all as Reagan had proposed.  Instead, it was the very idea of SDI that compelled the Soviet government to pour an insane amount of money into its military budget in an effort to "catch up" with the United States.  It was money that the Russians didn't really have to begin with and the rush to build up that country's military and technology took a severe toll on an economy that was severe enough already.

In short: SDI was one of the biggest reasons for the fall of the Soviet Union.  It drastically accelerated the Russian's bankruptcy and inability to contain its own people as it had for many decades.

I'll put it in even shorter terms: Ronald Reagan is the man most responsible for ending the Cold War.  He did it with SDI.  And he did it without a single shot being fired by either side.

Like I said: genius.

There are a number of retrospectives about the thirtieth anniversary of Strategic Defense Initiative, but one of the better ones I've found is a series by Jay Nordlinger running all this week on National Review's website.  It's recommended reading for anyone interested in the very rare crossing of politics, technology and history that is SDI.

Read More

The strange Cold War bar codes across America

The "bar code" at Walker Field, Maryland

Adjacent to the runway of a Navy airfield in Maryland is a paved rectangle.  And within that area are a series of quadrilaterals painted bright white, in pairs and ascending in size.

By itself its existence would be a mystery, or at least a curiosity.  Except that it is one of dozens to be known throughout the United States, with most of those found near military bases and other restricted facilities.  Some remote locations have entire arrays of the "bar codes" stretching for miles toward the horizon.

So what are these test pattern-ish arrangements?  Based on available evidence, they seem to have been put in place by the government during the first few decades of the Cold War.  With tensions high between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the advent of high-altitude aircraft reconnaissance - and then "spy" satellites - became an important asset of military intelligence.  And as with any other system of optics those high-flying cameras needed a means of determining that they were properly focused.

The rectanglular codes, therefore, are apparently intended to calibrate the zoom and resolution of aircraft and satellite photography.  F'rinstance: letting an SR-71 use one to adjust its precision camera before sending it to fly across the Iron Curtain.

From the original article at Mail Online...

Consisting of a concrete pad measuring 78ft by 53ft and coated in a heavy black and white paint, they are decorated with patterns consisting of parallel and perpendicular bars in 15 or so different sizes.

This pattern, sometimes referred to as a 5:1 aspect Tri-bar Array, is similar to those used to determine the zoom resolution of microscopes, telescopes, cameras, and scanners.
The targets function like an optician's eye chart, with the smallest group of bars discernable marking the limit of the resolution for the camera being tested, according to the CLUI.

'For aerial photography, it provides a platform to test, calibrate, and focus aerial cameras traveling at different speeds and altitudes,' the CLUI adds.

'The targets can also be used in the same way by satellites.'

Ironic, aye?  That military secrets from fifty years ago are now wide-out in the open because of that same technology and Google Earth.  Anyone with a desktop or tablet can now view what likely had been classified top secret by the CIA.

I wonder what else might be on the ground across the fruited plain, waiting to be discovered...

Read More

Mellow Mushroom goes the extra mile for U.S. soldier's family

There is a Mellow Mushroom that opened up not long ago in nearby Burlington. I've yet to eat at that one but now I'm feeling led to. For one thing the pizza is insanely delicious. For another, after reading this next story y'all will agree: this company rocks!

The tale begins with Army National Guard Major Shawn Fulker, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida. At the moment Fulker is deployed thousands of miles from home in Afghanistan. His wife's birthday was coming up and in spite of the distance he wanted to do something nice for her. Josephine Fulker really loves the pizza at Mellow Mushroom, so Shawn e-mailed the company's corporate office and asked if one of their Jacksonville restaurants could deliver a pizza and a $50 gift card to his wife. Shawn let them know that he would gladly call the store and pay for it by credit card.

Good story so far, aye? But wait: it gets better...

Mellow Mushroom's headquarters forwarded the e-mail to the company's Fleming Island location, which went above and beyond the call of duty. First they made a special heart-shaped crust for the pizza.

Then the store manager and another employee drove out with it, stopped at a supermarket to buy balloons and a vase of flowers, and proceeded on to the Fulker home.

They delivered it all - including the $50 gift card - to Josephine.

And the store didn't charge Shawn Fulker a thing! From the story at ABC News...

John Valentino, the Mellow Mushroom franchisee who owns that location and others in Jacksonville, said his store was happy to have made the day special for the couple.

"Of course we weren't going to charge him for anything," Valentino told ABC. "Him being a serviceman and his wife being home. … Hopefully in her husband's absence we were able to help her have a great birthday while he's over in Afghanistan serving our country."

Josephine Fulker had just finished Skyping with her husband when the doorbell rang and she saw the two Mellow Mushroom employees at her door on Thursday.

"I don't know their names exactly, but they had a pizza and a big butterfly balloon and a vase of flowers with a gift card for $50 and they told me that it was from my husband. I said 'Oh my goodness.' I was surprised and excited and overwhelmed and all of that. It was so nice," she said.

It was especially nice because Shawn Fulker had already sent his wife flowers and candy earlier that day. Since he hadn't been able to check his email for a while, he had no idea that Mellow Mushroom had been working on his initial request.

The Facebook page for Mellow Mushroom at Fleming Island has gone bonkers with gratitude about their efforts for the Fulkers. Which was a very, very cool thing to have done.

And hey, Fulker and his unit also showed their thanks, all the way from Afghanistan!

It's stuff like this that renews my faith in humanity. Way to go Mellow Mushroom :-)

Read More

U.S. Government spent $100,000 determining if Jesus died for the Klingons

Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma has been digging into the details of the federal budget. Among the things our government is spending our money upon: inventing roll-up beef jerky, the study of goldfish swimming patterns and an iPhone app for scheduling coffee breaks.

And then there's this: $100,000 of taxpayer money to look into the question of whether Jesus Christ died for the Klingon race. Yeah those ridge-headed alien warriors from the Star Trek franchise.

Incidentally, all of the above examples were found in the United States military's budget.

From the story by Heather Clark at Christian News Network...

An Oklahoma senator has released a report outlining what he believes is some of the Pentagon’s most wasteful spending. Among a number of odd items includes a workshop on how Christianity would be affected if aliens were proven to exist.

Senator Tom Coburn is known to be the “waste-watcher” on Capitol Hill, as he investigates unnecessary spending in various branches of the government. On Thursday, he issued what some consider to be a laughable list of Defense Department expenditures that have nothing to do with defense.

In addition to $1.5 billion being spent... was a workshop blending Christianity with the existence of aliens.

The event, entitled “Did Jesus Die for Klingons Too?,” focused on “the implications for Christianity if intelligent life were to be found on other planets.” According to the Global Post, actors such as LeVar Burton and Nichelle Nichols were present, and an “intergalactic gala celebration” was included, at which attendees were urged to don “starship cocktail attire.”

Klingons are are a group of aliens from the fictional sci-fi television and movie series Star Trek, which originated in 1966 and continues (at least in movie format) to present day. The series deals with a band of aliens and humans that seek to solve the problems of the universe, tackling topics such as imperialism, class warfare and racism. Some episodes are also said to have addressed sexism, feminism and religion.

And to think there are some who wonder why so many Americans lately want to secede from the federal government.

$100,000 to look into salvation for the Klingons. I don't care if it's only one dollar: that's our money which has been entrusted into the public treasury... and it is a sacred trust. Even a mere cent used on such a frivolous matter is inexcusable.

But just for humor's sake...

vaD joH'a' muSHa' qo'vetlh ghaH ngeHta'Daj neH puq vaj 'lv HartaH Daq ghaH dlchDaq yln reH

(Courtesy of MrKlingon.org)

Read More

Warhammer 40K wildly popular among U.S. military personnel

Warhammer 40,000 Sixth Edition came out over two months ago and I still haven't gotten to play with the new rules! Just been busy on multiple fronts. Which makes me look positivalutely pathetic compared to what these dedicated players go through...

Slate Magazine has a terrific article about how the futuristic tabletop war game is incredibly popular among the men and women (okay, mostly men) of the United States armed forces, and especially with many who are serving overseas in places like Afghanistan (including players such as Army Sgt. Steffan McBee, pictured). Warhammer 40K's publisher Games Workshop estimates that perhaps 25 percent of its very large American player base are active-duty personnel: some of whom go to great lengths to have their stockpiles of miniatures shipped safely to their duty posts around the globe.

What's the appeal of a war game played on tabletops with plastic and metal models? Members of the armed forces enjoy the tactical thinking and execution critical to carrying out a 40K battle. But there is also the more hobby-ish aspect of assembling, painting and oftentimes customizing the models. One Marine comments that the strenuous regimented lifestyle of the Corps obligates an attention to detail that carries over well into the grim darkness of the far future that is Warhammer 40K.

It's a most excellent write-up by Alan Siegel, and one that'll have you appreciating anew what our armed service folks do to keep themselves entertained far from home. And hey, as a devout Ork player it makes me proud to be in good company with United States Marines who also enjoy a fine WAAAGH! :-)

Read More

An open letter to CNN

Look CNN...

Those are not eight "troops" that have been killed in Afghanistan. A "troop" is a GROUP of soldiers. You do not call one soldier a "troop". One soldier is a "trooper".

And in my opinion it's mighty disrespectful to not say what they really are: those were eight SOLDIERS who were killed. INDIVIDUALS who had hopes and dreams and for whatever their various reasons chose to put those dreams aside so they could serve in the armed forces.

Those who sent them to Afghanistan and other places of meaningless war might be a bunch of asshat bastards but that doesn't mean we have any right or reason to disrespect these individuals, each one as unique and precious a creation of God as any of us are, who made a choice to be a SOLDIER.

In the future please refrain from referring to soldiers as "troops", unless you mean to convey the sense of troops plural, as in groups of groups of soldiers.

Thank you.

Read More

As of two hours ago...

...at the behest of President Obama, the armed forces of the United States have officially ended the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals in the military.

Bad, bad move by the Obama administration. And I am only saying that with it being borne in mind that military life is by definition radically different from civilian life. It is not a situation that allows for attempts at social engineering. Those who enlist by and large know this. They accept it. When you sign up to serve in the armed forces you give up a significant portion of what freedoms you would have had outside the military. This is necessary for the cohesion and morale of the forces as much as it is for optimizing the individual to serve to the utmost of his or her ability. If this is not a tolerable situation for a person for whatever reason, that person does not have to enlist. There is no such thing as a draft in the modern United States and hopefully there never will be need of one ever again.

Those who think that ending "don't ask, don't tell" is some progressive step forward, fail to understand that armed forces life revolves around the needs of others and not the "needs" of self.

Expect to see fewer young people choosing to sign up to serve, if this kind of playing games with the military goes on...

Read More

Frank Buckles, the last surviving United States veteran of World War I, has passed away

            In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

                    -- Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,

                        Canadian Army

                        written near Ypres, Belgium

                        May 3, 1915

The dawn of this day will see the Great War has finally passed from any American's living memory...

Think about that: Buckles grew up talking with Civil War veterans.  And those veterans in turn, did grow up hearing stories from those who fought in the American Revolution.

Frank Buckles was the last link to a past that belongs now only to history books and secondary source material.

I pray we have not forgotten what those who came before have done for us, what they have taught us, what they have given us. 

                         

 Frank Buckles, 1917

Frank Buckles, the last living "doughboy" who volunteered to serve in the United States Army during World War I, has died.

Buckles was born in 1901.  He turned 110 on the first of this month.  He was 16 when he pestered his way (literally) into getting an Army recruiter to take him (Buckles also lied about his age and claimed to be 18).

He never saw combat, but he was proud of the fact that he tried to do his part on the front lines.  And history wasn't done with him after the armistice was signed: during World War II Buckles was doing business in the Philippines when he was captured by the Japanese.  He was a prisoner of war for three years.

Nearly 5 million people enlisted in the U.S. military from 1917 to 1918.

And now, as of this hour, they have all gone.

The last surviving Canadian soldier from World War I, John Babcock, passed away a year ago.  Two British soldiers remain with us: Claude Choules and Florence Green.  There are no surviving French or German soldiers.

Frank Buckles, 2010

Mr. Buckles, more people than you could have ever imagined, have held you in highest honor.  This morning, they are none the fewer.

Rest in peace, and go with God.  You have done well.

Click here to read more about the extraordinary life of Frank Buckles. 

Read More

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

This is part of the PowerPoint presentation that was shown to General Stanley McChrystal and other United States military officers leading operations in Afghanistan. It's supposed to clearly and concisely diagram why the situation there is so dire.

No wonder...

McChrystal, commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, quipped that "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

Daily Mail brings us the both tragic and comic story of how PowerPoint has become despised by senior members of the military.

Read More

Report: U.S. Navy sub crashed 'cuz navigator was listening to iPod

Awright, let's be clear about something: the navigator was not listening to his iPod while at his station. But he was in his cabin listening to his iPod when he was supposed to have been at his station. Which in some ways is indicative of plenty more that was wrong on this sub.

"iPranged a submarine" screams the The Sun in the United Kingdom (gotta love those wacky British headlines). It's now come to light that the collision between the United States Navy's nuclear submarine USS Hartford and the transport ship USS New Orleans in the Persian Gulf a year ago was caused by the Hartford's navigational officer off on his own "revising for an exam" while listening to tunes from his iPod when he should have been uhhh... navigating.

But wait, that's not all! Crewmen had also set up loudspeakers so that they could listen to music (presumably from their iPods) while on duty! Which as anyone who has even seen The Hunt for Red October (or better yet read the original novel) could tell you, is an act of insanity aboard a submarine dependent on multi-million dollar sonar arrays that can pick out opera singing from clear across the Pacific Ocean. The report also said that "sonar operators and radio men were missing from their posts. Others drove the attack sub while 'with one hand on the controls and their shoes off'". The Hartford's captain, Commander Ryan Brookhart, has now been relieved of duty after investigators cited more than 30 infractions which led to "an informal atmosphere" and "a weak command".

Anyone else hearing the Village People singing "In The Navy" after reading this story?

Read More

U.S. military developing zombie pigs

Those mad scientists at DARPA (who previously brought us such curiosities as the Internet) are now actively engaged in research to produce semi-undead swine.

Yeah you read that right: the Pentagon is working on zombie pigs now.

Before you reach for the nearest shotgun or chainsaw though, you should know that there's some practical applications being sought from this. The problem is severe injuries of military personnel in combat situations: massive blood loss from wounds that without immediate (and often nearly impossible) treatment leads to death or debilitating lifelong trauma that may stand a chance of being averted. So the eggheads at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) are experimenting to see if a state of hibernation can be achieved in pigs, similar to squirrels and other mammals. If it can be made to work in pigs, humans could be the next step. Artificially slowing down brain and heart functions long enough to get an injured soldier to proper treatment could save many more lives from the battlefield.

'Course, another idea to drastically lower the number of combat deaths and injuries is to stop waging wars with no damn purpose or definite goal! But, that's just me...

Read More

Pearl Harbor mystery solved: Japanese mini-sub discovered

It was sixty-eight years ago today that Pearl Harbor in Hawaii came under attack from the military forces of the Empire of Japan, propelling the United States into World War II. And we've known for awhile now that among those forces were a fleet of "mini submarines": five midget submersibles that were to enter the harbor and attempt to sink American battleships. However four of them ran aground or were destroyed before the attack and wound up playing no part in it at all.

But what of the fifth Japanese mini-sub?

There's been evidence for decades - particularly an intercepted radio transmission from the day after the ambush reporting on the success of the mini-sub - but no hard proof of the role it might have played. Historians have debated it for years.

But today history has one less mystery. The scuttled remains of the fifth Japanese mini-sub have been found three miles south of Pearl Harbor, its 800-pound torpedoes emptied and likely fired at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma and perhaps causing enough damage for the latter to capsize in in one of the most iconic destructive acts of the raid.

Amazing, isn't it? That even today, there are still things we don't know about World War II that every so often finally come to light.

Even as we remember those who fought and served and even perished in this most terrible of conflicts, let us pray that there may never again be such an occasion for enigma.

Read More

Why are local law enforcment agencies deploying high-tech sonic weapons against citizens?

Call it what you may, a law of either history or human nature. Anything can be used as a weapon... and that a thing intended as a weapon will be used as a weapon.

Concordantly, there is no reason to produce a weapon unless there is a determined possibility of using that weapon.

The San Diego Sheriff's Department is now in possession of a Long Range Acoustical Device or LRAD: a "sonic weapon" straight out of science-fiction (particularly Atlas Shrugged). This is something that has been used in Iraq against insurgents and also recently against pirates off the coast of Somalia. Quite effectively, it should be noted.

Well, now San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has been placing his new toy at town hall meetings where citizens have been coming in droves to protest "health care reform" and bigger government.

A spokesman for the San Diego Sheriff's Department claims that the LRAD will not be used as a weapon by the department, further alleging that the LRAD is only going to be used in emergency situations like warning residents during fires or floods. However, Sheriff Gore has previously acknowledged that the LRAD could be used for crowd control similar to pepper spray.

What's wrong with using a bullhorn, or a truck-mounted stereo system and microphone? What is wrong with using pepper spray? There's not the potential for life-long injury (especially to children and unborn babies) with those measures as is the case with the LRAD.

(Incidentally, the $27,000 that the San Diego Sheriff's Department used to purchase the LRAD came from a PATRIOT Act grant.)

I'm gonna say it if nobody else will: there are many agencies of the government, and San Diego Sheriff's Department is lookin' like one of 'em, that are no longer accountable to the people. To aim something obviously intended for military purposes at regular American citizens goes way beyond a simple "chilling effect" and too far into the realm of being nothing short of a full-blown scare tactic.

Let me be even more succinct: if a government boasts of having a weapon against its people, it will inevitably use that weapon against its people.

You read it here first.

Read More

Immigrants can now fast-track to citizenship through U.S. military (and what this REALLY means about America...)

According to a story at The New York Times, the United States military is about to offer American citizenship to legal immigrants if they enlist in the armed forces. Some might be eligible for citizenship in as little as six months.

The reason for this, is that the American military is admittedly "stretched thin" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So let's go review what happened a little over a millenia and a half ago, when the cost of maintaining its vast empire utterly taxed Rome's martial capability. With not nearly enough proper imperial denizens to draw upon, the Roman government eventually acquiesced to enlisting barbarians from Germania and Gaul to bolster its forces. In many cases, the foreign soldiers were offered Roman citizenship as part of a package of incentives (which could also include some lucrative latifundia).

Fifteen hundred years later, and another great world-spanning power... is now doing much the same.

Don't anybody give me any harsh looks now. I'm just the historian here.

Read More

Bush Doctrine = Epic Fail

Is there anything more pathetic than a person scrambling against time in a vain effort to ensure that history will be kind to him or her?

Perhaps only if that person happens to be a current President of the United States.

George W. Bush was at West Point yesterday, trying to spin his eight years in office as a blazing success. The most foolish man to ever occupy the Oval Office actually defended his policy of pre-emptive war (something that had never been done before in American history) and declared to the assembled cadets that "With all the actions we've taken these past eight years, we've laid a solid foundation on which future presidents and future military leaders can build."

The Decider also boasted that the present condition of the United States military is ""stronger, more agile and better prepared" than how he found it when he first took office. I am somewhat reminded of how Adolf Hitler furiously insisted that entire divisions of the German army were still awaiting his orders in the waning days of World War II. If Bush seriously believes that the American armed forces are better today than they were in 2000, then either somebody should have been fired a long time ago for giving him faulty information, or there is a severe disconnect in his gray matter from reality. I suspect the latter.

So what is the result of the Bush Doctrine? The Middle East is today more destabilized than it has been since perhaps before World War I... and there is no "order from chaos" that is apparently arising. It is the legitimate opinion of many that Al Quaeda is getting stronger because Bush let its members have a safe haven in Pakistan, which as the past few weeks have witnessed has become a far greater base for terrorism than most were ready to acknowledge. Iraq is still a much worse mess than it would have been had we just left it alone, and it will be yet decades before the final cost of that fiasco is known.

I could go into his horrible domestic policies, but I've said enough of those lately already. But I will dare say that more than any other elected official, it will have been George W. Bush who most destroyed the America that we had come to know.

(And now I'm wondering how long before the loons from "that church" in Winston-Salem arrive to proclaim Bush as the "greatest President ever" like they have done recently...)

Read More

Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers violating Posse Comitatus (and some of them will be robots!)

Couple of items that I found in the news today, that juxtaposed together make for a rather disturbing scenario...

First, the Pentagon wants 20,000 soldiers deployed inside the United States by 2011 to complement local law enforcement agencies. A move that from what I'm reading comes perilously close to blatantly violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

And as if that isn't bad enough, the Pentagon is also working with a British scientist to create robot soldiers that will be deployed without risk of "committing war crimes".

So logically, it can be deduced that in the near future there is an outstanding possibility that robot soldiers - armed with lethal firepower - will be active on the streets of your hometown.

This blog has already discussed reasons why this might not be such a hot idea. Gotta wonder if the first robotosoldier that goes nuts and kills a pregnant woman will be deemed immune from lawsuit 'cuz it malfunctioned during the course of military duty (an argument that Bill Clinton tried to use to avoid getting sued when he was President). Hey, it worked for Lon Horiuchi didn't it? I don't see any reason why it won't be applicable to a droid, either.

Read More

Ex-Iraqi rebels threaten a return to Al-Qaeda if not paid more

And now the dirty secret of whatever success "the Surge" had rears its ugly head...

Military.com is reporting that ex-rebels in Iraq are demanding more money, or else they will go back to the ranks of Al-Qaeda and begin attacking American forces again. The money that's been paying the former rebels to begin with has originated with the United States government.

So all this time we've either been funding an army of mercenaries that used to be shooting at American personnel, or we've been outright bribing them, depending on what your take on the situation is. I don't know if all of the diminished violence in Iraq can be attributed to this chicanery, but it's a safe bet that a big chunk of it will be.

I'm reminded again of the last phase of the Roman Empire, when that government was reduced to hiring barbarians to fill the ranks of its army and even paying off foreign tribes not to overrun the empire. Look at where that got 'em...

Read More

Ballard: Titanic search was cover-up for U.S. Government mission

Robert Ballard has come forward with something very interesting: his successful 1985 search for the Titanic was only a cover story for a mission from the United States Government.

The deal was: Ballard would assist the U.S. Navy in examining the wreckage of two American nuclear submarines - the Thresher and the Scorpion - that were lost at sea in the Atlantic during the 1960s. At the time, there was concern that the Soviet Union might somehow find and exploit the sunken subs. The expedition was funded by the government and upon completion, Ballard would be free to continue his quest for the Titanic. All fine and dandy... except few people expected him to find the thing! Some in the Navy were alarmed that Ballard's discovery might arouse suspicion, but because of all the publicity about the Titanic itself nobody dared question the purpose of Ballard's mission.

Head over to the National Geographic website for more on the story.

Read More

Is it a police state NOW?

How in the world does a sheriff's department in a mostly-rural west Texas county justify having in its possession an armored personnel carrier?

This was a picture taken during the raid a few weeks ago on the property of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I know there have been some serious allegations regarding this religious group. And hopefully this will be looked into with all proper due process. But think about it: all of this happened because of one anonymous phone call. That was enough to send more military-grade hardware descending on the place than is usually seen escorting Vice President Cheney on an excursion through the green zone.

It just lends itself toward making you wonder: how long has the Midland County Sheriff's Department staff had such equipment, and why did they believe they needed it to begin with?

And how many other law enforcement agencies throughout America are lusting after such toys, if they don't have them already?

I'm starting to believe that nobody should be allowed to enter into a career as a peace officer (that's what I'm calling them) until they're at least 30 years old. That's long enough to experience the world as it really is, to get knocked around some and be humbled by it. And then, go into this as a career in public service, having resolved to be someone who rises above the way the world expects to work.

'Cuz otherwise, there are too many guys out there who've been given too much power and not nearly enough discipline to know not only how to use it, but how not to use it, too. Pictures like this one are a tangible reminder of that.

And God help us if enough of these people ever get too carried away with the firepower they've been given.

Read More