Disgusting: Iran's Capture of a High-Tech Drone

I am so disgusted with Obama.  One of our high-tech, stealth drones was somehow captured by Iran, apparently in one piece and good working order.  Obama could have either sent in commandos to retrieve the drone, or could have had them destroy it to keep it out of enemy hands.  But he did nothing.

Iran is expected to sell the drone to Russia or China so they can reverse engineer the drone and one of our strategic advantages will be lost to our potential enemies.

What I want to know is this:  why aren't such devices equipped with a self-destruct charge that could be triggered remotely?  Then we could destroy captured drones without having to put our commandos in harm's way.

"Five Feet of Fury" Has a Newly Tweaked Blog Banner

I often tweak photos in Photoshop just to learn some new tricks and techniques.  A week or so ago, I noticed that Kathy Shaidle's blog banner didn't look quite right.  The chrome-like lettering on the car grille didn't have the right perspective.  It should appear to conform to the angle of the grille and appeared to be just hanging there.  So I fixed it, using a better and bolder font and sent her my suggested correction.  She finally swapped it out for the old one and now it looks better.

See for yourself:  Original on top, my amended version on the bottom:

The Republican Debate in Des Moines, Iowa

Last night I watched the Republican debate in Des Moines, Iowa.  It was only the second time I watched one of these debates.  This was the 12th debate.  It was eye-opening in many ways.

Here are my impressions:
1.  Newt Gingrich is a powerful debater and speaker and would destroy Obama in any debate.  He looked and sounded very presidential.  This guy could dispute the law of gravity and make a compelling case for it.  He did a good job of explaining his prior involvement in controversial issues.  His belief in man-made global warming is of continuing concern to me, but of the bunch, I would give him the highest marks.   I like him better than Romney.  His credibility with me:  up a lot.

2.  Mitt Romney is also a good speaker and debater and justified Massachusetts' socialized health care experiment as within the purview of the 10th Amendment, i.e. powers retained by the states.  On this he is absolutely correct.  Socialized medicine is a bad idea, but if any state wants to enact bad ideas (like this and gay marriage), they have a Constitutional right to do so. (The federal government, he stressed, has no Constitutional right to impose socialized health care on the states.  Right again.)  Further, the people of Massachusetts wanted socialized medicine by a margin of 3 to 1.  Romney had little choice or power to resist the popular will.  His credibility with me:  up somewhat.

3.  Rick Perry wasn't scintillating, but showed none of the mental confusion described for prior debates.  He seemed reasonably presidential, but did not excite me with the possibilities.  My impression of him:  up very slightly, but based only on the fact that he didn't fall on his face.

4.  Rick Santorum didn't say much that I remember.  He said his venture into politics was inspired by listening to tapes of Newt Gingrich speeches.  He would make a good VP pick.  His credibility with me is about the same as before the debate:  a good guy, but far from convincing that he is ready for the top spot.

5.  Ron Paul continues to be the kindly grandfather of the Republican Party; you love him even though you think he's getting a bit senile or going batty in his senior years.  He continued to insist that the USA withdraw from the world and stop being "the world's policeman."  He is partially right.  We had no business in Libya and our "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan was a fool's errand.  No more of that expensive foolishness. His credibility with me is unchanged, and I still don't want him to be the Republican candidate.

6.  Michele Bachmann was a disappointment.  She relied on cheap pot-shots, slogans and sound bites to argue that she is the only "consistent conservative" and therefore worthy of the top spot.   She made the debate into a struggle for "one upmanship," did not show any real insight into the major issues.  Her credibility with me is down.

Based on this one debate, I would say the ticket should be Newt Gingrich/Rick Santorum as the president/vice president ticket for 2012.

And if that doesn't work, vote "anyone but Obama" and you won't go far wrong.

Did Hollywood Shooter Shout "Alihu Akbar"? Did Lincoln Free the Slaves?

Self-delusion takes many forms, and Americans are hardly immune to replacing reality with myths and fantasies.

Yesterday, some schmuck in Hollywood walked down the street firing random shots from a handgun, wounding one person.  The police arrived on the scene and promptly shot him dead.  (Thank God for the police, who always man the skirmish line between civilization and chaos.)

Now some people are saying the 26 year old man, one Tyler Brehm, was shouting the Muslim war cry "Alihu Akbar" as he fired the shots.  If true, none of the mainstream media are reporting this aspect of the incident.  We have all noted how the MSM filters the news, deliberately omitting facts that could have a bearing on public opinion and the safety of the American people.  Never mentioning the Muslim connection to crimes is at the top of their list.  Many reports still refuse to mention Major Nidal Hassan's radical Muslim ties in the Fort Hood shooting and massacre.  They refer to it as "workplace violence" instead of what it was, Islamic violence based on religious beliefs in jihad.  It was Hassan's belief in Islam that compelled him to commit mass murder.

I don't know if Tyler Brehm was a Muslim or not.  He could very well have been nuts, acting out a scenario he learned from somewhere (probably not the MSM).   However, this latest incident proves that many Americans have an irrational belief in reality-alteration:  if you refuse to admit unpleasant truths, well then they just aren't true after all.  Islam isn't violent unless we SAY Islam is violent, external reality notwithstanding.

Conservatives, as a whole, aren't any better than liberals in this regard.  This was made clear this week when Zo of Zo-Nation, of Pajamas Media, called for the permanent furling of the Confederate flag.  Such foolish comments always set off a round of nasty debates on the Civil War:  who was right?  What was the reason for the war?  The short and sweet answer is that the South was right and the North completely, irrefutably and indelibly wrong.

Many conservatives continue to insist that Abraham Lincoln was the second coming, a great prophet of racial equality, human rights and enlightenment, who had no choice but to fight the Civil War in order to free the slaves, because he was just so darned moral and righteous.  He wasn't.  What he was, was a ruthless politician who hated blacks and loved high taxes and a strong central government.  His rule was a reign of terror.  The mass death and destruction didn't bother him.  He was concerned with the larger questions, like, "Let the South secede?  Who will pay my tariff?"

Lincoln is a historic fraud whose statue in Washington D.C. should be jackhammered into rubble and thrown into the Potomac.  He was the antithesis of everything that conservatives are supposed to believe in, and there's the rub.  We love limited government, the rule of law and the Constitution, yet we worship a man who was the exact opposite of our ideal.

Lately I have been arguing with "conservatives" over at YouTube over Zo's unfortunate claim that it is "time to furl the Confederate flag."  Needless to say, I weighed in, dispelling the Northern myth with facts, only to receive in return some rather vicious, insulting and hateful responses.  "Conservatives," like liberals, get mightily pissed when their shining myths are replaced with the cold and sober truth.  Will that make me shut up?  Not on your life.

Facts About the U.S.S. Arizona and the Attack on Pearl Harbor -- Inside the Wreck (Facts, Photos, Videos)

The Arizona Underway

I saw an interesting documentary on the History Channel last night.  It was about the days following December 7, 1941; what FDR thought and did, how he dealt with Congress, how he wrote his simple but inspiring speech delivered to the American people a few days later.

Many ships were damaged or sunk during the Japanese air raid, but only the Arizona and the Utah were put permanently out of action.  The wrecks of both remain sunken at Pearl Harbor.

The Arizona was launched in 1915 and commissioned in 1916, though she saw no action during the First World War.  Between the wars she was used mainly for training and was berthed in California. During the 1930s, the ship was modernized.  In April 1940 the ship was ordered to Hawaii to act as a deterrent for Japanese aggression, a plan which regrettably failed.

During the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941, the Arizona was sunk by a Japanese bomb that penetrated the forward deck, possibly through an open hatch.  The bomb ignited ammunition magazines in the forward deck, causing a huge explosion that rapidly sunk the ship, killing 1,177 officers and sailors.  Due to the dangers of recovering bodies from the ship, the dead were left within and the Arizona became their tomb.

The USS Arizona After Modernization
in 1935

The mangled superstructure of the ship towered above the surface of the water for many months, until it was removed for spare parts and salvage.  In 1962, the Arizona Memorial was built over the Arizona's sunken hull in Pearl Harbor, with a marble wall with the names of the Arizona dead inscribed thereon.  I have been to that wall and it is a touching and sobering sight.

No one is allowed to dive on the Arizona except those authorized by the U.S. Navy or U.S. Park Service.  No one is allowed to retrieve artifacts from the wreck, as it is an official military grave.  The Park Service has filmed inside the wreck to learn how to preserve and protect the integrity of the site.  Below is a video taken of scenes inside the wreck.  It shows a telephone on a desk, desks with lamps, a closet with hangers and Navy pants hanging from one; a bathroom with a cup on a sink with a tube of toothpaste in it.  Other divers have reported seeing other artifacts on the deck: a cooking pot, a desk fan, bottles of aftershave, a medicine case containing a razor, disposable blades, and a shot glass.  In one film (see list below) I saw a Coca Cola bottle with the top broken off.

Strange to see all the detritus of human life as it was in 1941, suggestive of the lives so suddenly taken.




Other photos worth your time:
Raw footage of another dive to the deck of the Arizona, showing artifacts on the deck.
US Military History Files - Many Pearl Harbor photos rarely seen by the public.
The Memorial Wall in the Arizona Memorial.
Another Photo of the Memorial Wall.
History of the USS Arizona
Photo of wrecked Arizona (after all fires extinguished), its superstructure extending from surface of the water
A series of photos of December 7, 1941, including battleship row and Japanese planes

70 Years After Pearl Harbor (Rare Color Video of the Attack)

 

Seventy years have passed since the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  December 7, 1941 was, as President Roosevelt described it, a date that will live in infamy. 

Seventy years.  A lifetime ago. The ship still sits on the bottom of the channel there, sunk by Japanese bombs all those years ago.  The bones of most of its dead are still inside the ship. I recently saw a television show that showed a submersible robot sent into the wreck to film inside the ship.  There was a closet with its door open, and inside hung three or four Navy officer's jackets, still on their hangers.  They looked imminently wearable.  Strange that they had survived the conflagration and seven decades under water. God bless the men and women who died in the attack, both military and civilian.  May we never forget.

Merry Christmas from Bogie and Missy! (Warning: Sickeningly Cute Pets Photoshop)

Wake us when the eggnog's ready...

This is a Photoshop of my two pets. The original picture of them relaxing on a pillow on the sofa is real, but I changed the pillow color from blue to beige, Photoshopped a couple of Santa hats onto them and added the fireplace as a background.

Need a holiday Photoshop?  Email me the picture you want and how you want it changed (in general, no need to be overly specific).  I can put your blog or website message in it too, all for a small contribution to this blog (say, $25).

You can also take the graphic to Target or any department store that handles pictures and use it to make your family Christmas cards.  (I can duplicate the image with the name of your family for no extra charge.)

Herman Cain Quits Presidential Race

Not surprisingly, Cain quit the presidential race yesterday, stating that he was "suspending his campaign."  He pointed to the cloud hanging over him from sexual misconduct allegations, as well as his inability to raise enough money to be competitive.

The Democrat media found a weak spot and exploited it for all it was worth, and succeeded in removing Cain from the race.  They hanged him, but he provided the rope.

Note how the biased mainstream media operates in the realm of politics.  They search earnestly for any kind of scandal or pseudo-scandal that they can exploit against Republican candidates but are generally silent and protective of Democrat candidates.  Bill Clinton was a horn-dog on steroids, but his encyclopedic sexual peccadilloes were ignored by the mainstream press.  Obama's radical and dope connections have also been ignored by the media.

A scandal is only a scandal if it is reported in the press, over and over again.  A scandal is not a scandal if no one ever speaks or writes about it.

So who is the Tea Party pick for president now?  Or does it matter?  It appears we will be stuck with an establishment, big-government Republican, either Mitt (Socialized Medicine) Romney or Newt (Global Warming) Gingrich.

Obama's War on Private Enterprise

If you have a business, do you expand, offer new product lines, hire more people?

It largely depends on whether the economy is growing or shrinking, whether the president and his cabinet believe in free enterprise or see it as an enemy to be defeated. If the latter, businesses will hold off on expansion until conditions are more favorable.

Barack Obama is seen more and more as a president who hates private enterprise, sees the profit motive as evil and business as something to thwart. Ed Lasky, writing in the American Thinker today, quotes Obama's line from "Dreams From My Father": that while he was employed in the private sector, Obama felt like he was "a spy behind enemy lines."

This kind of insane thinking is common on the left. Business is the enemy.  So those who want consumer goods, e.g. appliances, homes, cars, clothes, food, furniture etc are forced to deal with this "enemy."  Well the enemy is definitely in retreat, General Obama.  Business is producing a lot less of these goodies nowadays, because people can't afford them as easily as they used to.  When business is the enemy there are no jobs.

Lasky explains why.

Spicing Up a Boring Week With Freddy Fender!

I'm bored. The mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear facilities were fun, but I need something more. Aha! Then I thought of Freddy Fender.

Freddy sang "Tex-Mex" style and one of his songs that I love is "Rancho Grande." I always loved it but didn't understand a single word; now I am taking Spanish and have the highest grade in the class (I got 100% right on my last midterm). Now I understand the words to "Rancho Grande." Here's Freddy singing it live, followed by "Before the Next Teardrop Falls."  (Freddy was born in Texas and was a U.S. Marine, but valued his Mexican heritage mucho.)



"Rancho Grande" is a traditional Ranchero song, very popular in Mexico, and often performed by Mariachi bands. Freddy, however, altered the song with a new verse of his own making:

Cuando se muere mi suegra,
Que la entieren boca abajo,
Que si quiere salirse,
Que se vaya más abajo

It translates: When my mother-in-law dies, let them bury her upside down, so if she wants to get out, she'll just go further down.

Nasty! I liked my mother-in-law, but I guess Freddy didn't like his.