The Navy remembers Lt Spence Dry, USN, for his part in the secret Operation Thunderhead Trainspotting ipod

Ouija video

, a plan to send in SEALs to rescue POWs.

He died June 5th, 1972.

In the Heat of the Night ipod

His father, a WWII Skipper has kept his memory alive.

Beginning a new adventure tomorrow AM. Not sure how much posting will get done for at least a few days, while I get the “sea legs” in the new environs.

But…for those who read this: If you’re not registered at Little Green Footballs, I’d recommend you get over there and do so (Charles opens and closes the function to sign up periodically). Why? The “Spin Off Link” function that has shown up in the last few weeks. To any post, registered users can add a spin off link to the list. Doesn’t have to relate, but it can.

The “value added?” When you see a great MilBlog or troop support story, or the real gouge from the front on a website, you can slap it up there for the world to peruse. I try to grab some “best of” from my rounds and get them billing there. LGF is way past Capt Lex’s million hits, to the exposure is most excellent.  Come on, lets push the great stories out there!

More later. If the “regularly scheduled” posts are missing, come back later. Work hours will be late AM to mid evening…

Bonus tip: Drew Carey has his own libertarian leaning web site. Check out his “Living Large” videos, where they go out to find the shrinking “middle class” the news keeps reading the obits for.

Taco Bell has a great post. It begins with his teacher from prior days, sitting him down when he was commissioned as a Marine 2nd Lt and passing along a sword and .45, and the recollection of a combat Marine, who crossed those beaches.

It goes on to tell of Taco’s privledge of being part of a contingent in 1985 to visit the island and assist the vets in their return tour.

Do Not Miss This Post. Dr T and the Women rip

What a testimony to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines!

From Yahoo! News today:

Iraqi to return home, as a U.S. soldier

By CLARKE CANFIELD, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 23, 7:53 AM ET

LEWISTON, Maine – Safaa Wadi moved to this former mill city after his life was threatened in his native Iraq while serving as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. He expects to soon head back to Iraq — not as a civilian interpreter, but as a U.S. soldier.
ADVERTISEMENT

Wadi arrived in the United States in September with a special immigrant visa for Iraqi and Afghan interpreters. But with his savings nearly depleted and unable to land a decent job, Wadi enlisted in the Army. He begins training in South Carolina on Monday.

Wadi isn’t worried about returning to Iraq, where many of his countrymen considered him a traitor because he worked with American forces. His allegiance is now to the United States, he says.

“I want to serve this country because this country returned to me my life,” Wadi said. “If I had stayed in Iraq, I’d be dead now.”
[…]

If Barack can use the words of one Army captain (who I suspect has a name like “CAPT Jesse MacBeth”, for the record) to impunge the Office of the President (hey, BHO….”it will happen to you, it will happen to me, it will happen to everyone eventually…” as the song goes (not my words, but I’m not sure who did it)), then I will use one Iraqi to proclaim our success in the overall OIF campaign, fair enough?

download Written on the Wind

We in the western world have spent our lives, blessed with freedoms unheard of in many parts of the world, even today. In reading this article, I noted the several jobs this man applied to have. Isn’t it interesting what “set” of information that would have given him, especially when coupled with his statements about “aggressive use” of an airplane. Intimate working knowledge of the air traffic control system (operational timing issues would be important, as well as the “normal” communications procedures) and baggage handling (just exactly how are bags screened in for loading int he cargo holds and where there may be “penetration points”). Most of us would find a job in a professional field to compliment our already working knowledge, with hopes of gleaning more info in order to ask for, and expect, a greater payment for our understanding.

Anyhow, here’s the link to “Accused terrorist may have been planning airline attack: CSIS”

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from the Canadian Press. Get these parts:

OTTAWA – A Montreal man accused of terrorist ties displayed secretive and violent behaviour and once discussed comandeering a commercial aircraft for “aggressive ends,” Canada’s spy service alleges.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service accusations against Morocco-born Adil Charkaoui came late Friday as the federal government renewed its efforts to deport five Muslim men with alleged terrorist links.

Ottawa filed updated national security certificates against the five – including some pointed fresh assertions – following recent passage of new legislation.
[…]

Now, isn’t that interesting? Canada has passed legislation to deport those with known terrorist connections? They are a step ahead of us, who won’t even mention the word “deport” anymore for fear of a massive demonstration on our front lawn…Let’s pray, for once, an idea from Canada, is imported to the US.

Now onto the salient points of the article:

[…]
Charkaoui, a landed immigrant from Morocco, was arrested in Montreal in May 2003, accused of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent prepared to wage terror attacks against western targets.

He denies the allegations.

CSIS claims convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam has identified Charkaoui as being present at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

The newly filed documents say that in November 2001, Charkaoui described the war in Afghanistan as a battle against Islam “led by the wicked and the Crusaders.”

In June 2000, Charkaoui allegedly had a conversation with two others about their apparent desire to take control of a commercial plane for aggressive purposes.

The CSIS papers say he once applied to work in the air traffic control operations at Air Canada and, later, had an interest in working in the baggage section of Mirabel airport.

The spy service suggests the job search, taken in connection with the earlier conversation, may have been part of the “planning of an attack.”

The documents allege Charkaoui has shown violent and impulsive behaviour, once beating up a delivery man. And they say in 1999 he discussed car theft, namely that he had contacts in Morocco interested in luxury vehicles.
[…]

There you have it. Bad actor in general, connection to bad guys, and…the triple play: Wants jobs to get him “briefed in” to how things work around airliners.

As I type, the question that comes to mind is: Why deport him? Answer, I’m sure, is “we don’t have anything he acted on.” How many years before we read his name in connection with something not good?

A few moments ago, I heard a radio commentator say Chuck Colson recently said, while discussing the current state of the religious conflict world wide, that most Muslims understand their own religion and Christianity better than Christians understand their own, and the dangerous part is they are willing to die for it.

I’d like to respectfully disagree with Chuck Colson: They are willing to kill for it. That is an entirely different mental posture in place. It is offensive by it’s very definition, and I’m not including the emotionally over done emotional use of the term “offensive.” Military units and businesses go on the offensive in order to take from their competitors. Christianity, by it’s nature, is defensive, as are most other religious disciplines. Islam seeks to not just take hearts and minds, but the land beneath your feet, and all that you have worked for in your life, and then, if you resist, they will take your life. Mohammad himself did it. Jesus, Buddha, and the rest did nothing of the sort, instead they gave. And, specifically in the case of Jesus, he laid his life down for others, but did not take lives in doing so. Islam teaches and preaches the taking of life. Some who may say “well, not all Muslims are like that!” I agree. I’d also suggest there are many Christians who would deny their faith and try to avoid the “label” so as to not have to die. The fail safe in Christianity is that the zealot or the barely believing one isn’t going to try to take a life. In Islam, the zealot is going to try to take life, along with their own, but the marginally believing one will shy away from causing any harm.

In article such as the one from the Canadian Press, we see one more, all too frequent scenario where people with connections to the radical elements of the religion (that’s rapidly becoming a mis-categorization in my mind, but that’s an entire other post) are, or, as with the 9/11 19, did, seek “jobs” that allowed them the knowledge to take many lives, and not to better their financial lot in life.

This is a good segway into an article by Linda Kimball in the American Thinker: The Materialism of Communism, Socialism and Liberalism.”

The Zombies movie

buy Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

F/X video

It takes the discussion further, mostly in the vein as to why this is occurring. I especially enjoyed this quote:

“There is a madness in today’s liberal thinking. It insists on policies that tie our hands to defend ourselves while given free reign to the jihadists intent on killing us. It is dangerous because it is becoming the law, and thinking of the land in the western world. (Liberal Madness is Deadly (1/24/08))

Oh, and have a great day…

My Farsi is non-existence

• Cocoon: The Return psp
  Soldier Blue film

download Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach , but the lead to the link indicates the Iranians received some small, and they look stealthy, attack boats. Appears to have two anti-ship missile cannisters aft.

Probably harder to spot than Boghammers, too.

Anyone with better intel out there to dig up more details?

While other MilBloggers get their beauty sleep, the great news is the AEGIS/SM-3 combination has successfully engaged the failed spy satellite at about 10:30PM EST today.

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — An inoperable U.S. spy satellite orbiting about 150 miles above Earth was struck Wednesday by a missile fired from a U.S. Navy cruiser, military sources told CNN.

A Delta II rocket lifts off, carrying a reconnaissance satellite that failed hours later.

The Pentagon said the window of opportunity to strike the 5,000-pound satellite opened Wednesday, when the space shuttle Atlantis landed in Florida. The Pentagon wanted to be sure the shuttle would not be struck by any debris from a destroyed satellite.

But earlier the official said conditions had to be perfect, and that was not the case Wednesday with swells in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii running slightly higher than Navy would like.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said six- to eight-foot swells were reported in the area through Wednesday night and were not expected to come down until Friday or Saturday.
[…]

Great news. In a scenario where two fast moving objects have to make a “skin-to-skin” meeting on the end of space with a closing velocity of 22,000 mph, it happened, even while the ship wallowed about in moderate seas in the Pacific.

So, BZ to the crew of USS LAKE ERIE (CG-70) and their supporting tracking units, USS RUSSELL (DDG-73) and USS DECATUR (DDG-59)!

And, just in case you wondered, China has voiced “concerns” over this act to the US. You know, the country who already shot down a satellite, but without notification to the world community and no regard for the debris field it left in orbit to possibly damage other satellites and space vehicles. Anyhow, since they used a land based silo system, and not a mobile, sea bore one, I’m sure they are concerned, since we have engineers who can solve for an intercept between a mobile launch platform and the target.

Flight 93 is the symbol of our woken vigilance. We are supposed to be alert now, to jihadist enemies that hide amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends.

Those charged with the memorialization of Flight 93 have instead embraced an anti-spirit of Flight 93, regarding vigilance as somehow beyond the pale even of contemplation.

Listen to the words of Clay Mankamyer, one of the founders of the Flight 93 Memorial Project, describing the Project’s reaction to warnings of Islamic symbolism in the Crescent of Embrace design. They asked the accused architect Paul Murdoch about it. They agreed with him that it was “too big a stretch” to think that he had conspired to intentionally include Islamic symbolism, and so they decided that: “we’re just not going to address the issue.” They made an up-front decision NOT to look at the facts.

Here is the audio (50 seconds) followed by a transcript:

The controversy then arose. When I first heard it, it was a street preacher who had drawn attention to the similarities to the red crescent, and when you heard what he had to say about it, and looked at the design, there were without a doubt some striking similarities. He went to, I went to, Paul Murdoch and expressed some concern and wondered what they were going to do about it. Their decision was that, well, certainly everybody is going to see that any similarity is going to be just coincidental and it’s too big a stretch to think that anybody conspired to create anything but a memorial to the heroes who WON the battle that fateful morning, and so they decided that, ‘we’re just not going to address the issue.’

Mankamyer is not ideologically disposed to be politically correct. He is a conservative Christian patriot, speaking in this instance to a Christian Coalition meeting (recorded by Bill Steiner, with the knowledge and permission of those in attendance, 9-18-2007, Greensburg PA). What seems to be operating here is a generous spirit of goodwill, unwilling to believe anything bad about this architect they had all worked with and put their trust in.

Goodwill only towards the man accused of an enemy plot

The problem is that Mankamyer et al. failed to similarly give the benefit of the doubt to those who were issuing warnings about the design. If they had treated the critics as credible people too, they would have let the facts decide, and Murdoch’s dishonesty would have been quickly exposed.

When the controversy over the crescent name and shape first erupted, Murdoch denied that his giant crescent had the same shape as an Islamic crescent:

Theirs is a lunar crescent. Ours isn’t based on that.

Oh yeah? Zombie posted a “throbbing crescent” animation (no longer active) that showed otherwise, and Michelle Malkin broadcast it to the online masses. Here is a three panel re-creation:

“Throb on” shows the Tunisian crescent, matching the geometry of the Crescent of Embrace almost exactly: about 2/3rds of a circle of arc, with a circular inner arc. (Most definitely NOT a lunar crescent, which covers half a circle of arc and has an elliptical inner arc.) “Throb off” shows bare crescent site plan. (Click pic for larger image.)

All that people like Mankamyer had to do was actually look at what people were telling them and they would have known immediately that Murdoch was deceiving them. Instead, they explicitly decided that they were NOT going to look at the facts. They extended good will only to the man who was accused of perpetrating an enemy plot, while extending nothing but ill will towards his accusers.

“A shrine to Micky Mouse”

Mankamyer’s presentation includes some wrenching examples of just how willfully blind he and others have become as they continued down their chosen fact-free path. Listen to the crazy excuse he comes up with for not being concerned about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (ten seconds):

You see what we are up against though. I could come in here and say… I could draw a point from this window to that window, and it goes right to Orlando Florida and this is a shrine to Micky Mouse. [laughter]

This is clever? A Mecca-oriented crescent or arch shape is the central feature around which every mosque is built. A line across two windows does not orient anything, and the scumbags who hijacked Flight 93 did not pray to Micky Mouse five times a day.

Of course Mankamyer was intentionally offering the stupidest example he could concoct as a way of suggesting that it is just as stupid to be concerned about planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the Flight 93 crash site. If he had said that directly everyone in the room would have been disgusted, so instead he made the most disingenuous comparison he could come up with.

This is what their spirit of goodwill has degenerated into: pure malignant bias.

They all know about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent

Notice that Mankamyer does not deny the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. This squares with what Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird told Alec Rawls in July 2007: that everyone involved in the Memorial Project is fully aware that the giant crescent does in fact point within two degrees of Mecca. They all just have excuses for why they are not concerned about it.

“I won’t be concerned unless you can prove intent,” Baird said, “and it is impossible to prove intent.” i.e. Baird does not care what the facts are. There is absolutely nothing that could ever wake him up from his anti-vigilant slumber.

They all know that the public would never accept a giant Mecca oriented crescent on the crash site, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, so they lie about it. One project spokesman after another keeps declaring that factual claims like the Mecca orientation of the crescent are false and “preposterous The Freshman hd .”

How long before one of these fine upstanding citizens recognizes that it is wrong to keep lying to the public about explosive information that they all know to be true?

Mankamyer says that he would like to see a Congressional investigation

The scenes are quite astounding. Clay Mankamyer, a conservative Christian, manages to get a Christian Coalition meeting laughing about the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent. How do you ever live that down?

You start by trying. In the question and answer part of the meeting, Bill Steiner asked for an independent investigation, and Mankmyer said he would join Bill in that (10 seconds):

Bill Steiner: “The only concerns we have is that this design be fully vetted by a Congressional investigation before it goes any further.”Bill talks over Mankamyer’s reply, but Mankamyer repeats himself enough to be heard: “And I would like … I would join you in that.”

If Mr. Mankamyer would insist publicly on a Congressional investigation, it would go a long ways. So would admitting to the public that he and others in the Project are aware of the factual accuracy of the Mecca-orientation claim.

Tom Burnett Sr. is asking everyone to help him get state and Congressional investigations started. It would certainly help if at least a few people from inside the Memorial Project would start telling the truth.

“I came into this world to be a witness for truth”

The heroes of Flight 93 did not obfuscate. They faced the harsh truth of their situation and acted as love required. Mankamyer understands that. He is a genuine patriot, who dedicated himself to the memorialization of Flight 93.

Somehow–apparently at the urging of architect Paul Murdoch–he let himself be guided by presumption, finding excuses to avoid unpleasant truths. (It was in talking to Murdoch that Mankamyer and others decided it was “too big a stretch to think anyone conspired” and they should therefore “not … address the issue.”)

Facing threat of death, Jesus told Pilate that he “came into the world to be a witness for truth” (Jn 18:37). This is his most fundamental instruction to his followers: trust in truth. Never EVER put presumption ahead of witness. For those who make this mistake, it is never to late to undo it.

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Free space here to advertise your posts….

Check out Frank Gaffney’s take on Nancy. You know, it’s “Blue Light Special” time form jihadi communications. I bet some comm lines are burning up now, while they use all the bandwitdh they can, setting up operations and logistics, free from being listened to in the US. Abrogation of responsibility that comes to mind.

Training for a new job, and not sitting at a computer, nor will the work be near one, either.

Stay tuned, watch for the shot by an AEGIS BMD ship, pay attention to what Barack isn’t saying, and if you’re looking for a free bottle of water, hang out near the front row of one of his gatherings.The Omen rip

From Scientific Blogging:

This prototype plasma antenna is stealthy, versatile, and jam-resistant. Credit: T. R. Anderson and I. AlexeffNifty! Plasma antennas…Now you see them, then you don’t. Tunable to multiple frequencies…don’t rust, won’t bust with the added bonus (at NO COST!) of being jam proof! And did I mention the use of them eliminates a massive reflective surface, that would be detected be radar looking for you?Just how do they do it? The answer is here.

The March Scientific American has an article on it, in which I read that the funding by the Navy has been pulled because, so far, the beams can only be steered in one plane, and they asked for it to be done in two planes. I’m sure the wizards will figure it out one day.