Bird Business

Stogie and Friend

My two adopted adolescent Robin birds are doing fairly well, getting enough to eat, and getting bigger and flying further.  They are still unable to take full flight, and I am hoping they will do so soon, as they are a lot of work.  Most of the work involves just watching them, to see that they don't get lost in the weeds (our former flower garden prior to the drought) or bushes.  Several times I have to retrieve one of both and return them to the top of their bird cage where I feel they are safe.  I have spent all day outside for the past three days, on bird duty.

All fifty of my bait worms are gone and I have been feeding one of them chunks of cherries.  The other has grown picky and as of today will only eat what mama bird brings him.  I hope he's getting enough food.  Tomorrow I'll visit the bait shop and stock up on worms.

The birds accept me fairly well and are not afraid of me, and sometimes use me for a roost.  See picture.

The Fall of Iraq

All appears lost in Iraq, as a Muslim army descends on Baghdad, decapitating both police and soldiers.  Drudge reports that the roads are strewn with decapitated bodies.  For all our efforts in Iraq, training and equipping their army, helping them organize democratic elections, we come down to a big fat zero in the end.  The extremists are taking over, enforcing barbaric Sharia law, and doing so rather easily, it seems.  The Iraqi military is falling like a house of cards in a strong wind.

Iraq is just another falling brick in the collapse of the Obama presidency.  What can we learn from this?  The main lessons, in my opinion, are these:

1.  Democracy and modernity are incompatible with Islam.  Therefore, any attempt to enforce modern civilization on an Islamic regime will fail.  Enforcing modernity could only succeed if Islam were first forcibly removed, and that would require killing and destruction on a massive scale.  Is it worth it?  No.  Therefore, the best alternative is to isolate ourselves from Islamic regimes, rather than attempting to democratize and modernize them.

2.  Nation building is a fool's errand.  The investment of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to transform tyrannies into democracies is a cost we cannot afford -- and the effort often fails.  If the tyrannies pose no direct threat to us, leave them to their fate.  If they attack us, our response should be their destruction, not their rehabilitation.

3.  The best defenses against Islamic barbarity are (a) energy independence and (b) the end of all Islamic immigration into the West, including encouraging those here to leave.  Islamic immigration is a demographic time bomb that will eventually eradicate western civilization and all of its great art, culture and political institutions that were developed over many centuries.  The Constitution, the Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights --  all will be replaced with barbaric Sharia law.

Britain, France and Italy are all busy replacing their populations with hordes of immigrant Muslims, and unless there is a major pushback from their traditional demographic, western civilization may eventually disappear.

The future of the world will not be progress and enlightenment, but barbarism.  Perhaps that is the natural state of man after all.

Babysitting Baby Birds: Stogie's Wildlife Rescue

One of My Baby Robins

I've been busy for the past two and a half days, babysitting two baby Robin birds that I rescued from my backyard.  I believe they simply got too big for their nest and were either blown out by the wind, or decided to explore.  In any case, my dog Bogie found them hopping about the yard, and was following them around, sniffing them, all while several adult Robins shrieked and flapped noisily overhead.  The baby birds have feathers, but cannot yet fly.

I quickly found a small box, and retrieved the baby Robins.  I put them (as well as their original nest, which I removed from the tree) in the box, and the box in the tree from which they had fallen, and hoped mom and dad would feed them.  Night was falling, so I left them there overnight.  Yesterday morning, I checked on them to find that one of them had escaped the box and was again huddling in the grass below. I decided to get more involved, so took the box from the tree and returned the escapee to his cardboard cell.  By now both birds were showing me open yellow beaks, and I knew I had to feed them or they might starve.  I was unsure that the mother bird would attempt to feed them, but my fears proved unfounded.  More about that later.

I bought earthworms from a bait shop, and canned mealworms from a pet store (as well as a bird cage), and began feeding them.  They ate well and were soon at full strength and vigor.  They were able to hop up to the box edge and sit there, and I joined them outside, to watch them and see what they might do.  They were completely unafraid of me at this point, would sit on my finger, and occasionally open their beaks to say "feed me!"  Later, when I went in the house, I noticed that adult Robins were coming to the box with beaks full of food, and feeding the little ones.  This was a relief, and lessened my worries about their chances for survival.

Bogie and Bird

One of the birds, the escapee, is more ambulatory than his brother, and began hopping about the canvas shelter area of the back patio (my dog, though curious, has shown no inclination to harm the birds).  I let him wander a bit, but always returned him to the safety of the box.  When night was falling, I transferred the birds to the bird cage, to protect them from predators (like roaming cats), and covered the cage with a towel for warmth.  They spent the night on the patio table, underneath the canvas shelter.

This morning the birds were still in fine shape, but hungry.  I fed them earthworms and mealworms, but as I sat here writing this, I can see the box through the sliding doors to the patio, and have seen the adult Robin visit the baby birds three times already.  I think the birds are a week or so from flying, and I will watch over them until they can fly and survive on their own.

Massive Influx of Illegals Unopposed by Obama -- Is It Time To Impeach Our Rogue President?

The lawlessness of Barack Obama is breathtaking in its scope.  Recently, Americans were shocked at the brazen illegality of his release of Taliban Muslim terrorists from Gitmo, or his heavy-handed use of the EPA to shut down coal plants. This week we are seeing the greatest influx ever of illegals from Mexico, overwhelming state and federal agencies who must house them, feed them and deport them -- if they can even be deported.

Obama has basically stated, in deed if not in words, that the border is open, and our immigration laws will not be enforced.  Instead of deporting the illegals, they are being put up at taxpayer costs in temporary housing at three military bases.  Two hundred thirty-thousand children are expected to be apprehended after crossing the border in the next two years, and those who avoid capture will number in the tens of thousands. Obama and Holder have promised to provide these children with lawyers to represent them, so they can sue to stay in the country.

Investors Business Daily reports that "this whole crisis is of the administration's making. Its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program two years ago prevented minors' deportation for two years, and now Obama has added two more years."  Children are invading the border because they know they will not be deported -- Obama has said so.

There are reports that the federal government has been flying families from South Texas to Arizona and El Paso, Texas, and releasing them at bus stations!  Are they supposed to deport themselves on the honor system?  What kind of insanity is this?

I have to wonder what motivates this radical, Barack Obama?  Does he realize that his presidency is a disaster, that he will be enshrined in the Hall of the Incompetent along side Jimmy Carter, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore?  Perhaps it is the knowledge of his own failure that inspires him to take revenge on those who have opposed him, like Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, by dumping illegals in her state, instead of deporting them back to Mexico.

Maybe Obama realizes that he has only two more years to impose his radical doctrines on the nation, and has decided to push the envelope.  The majority of Americans no longer think of him as the Sacred Other, as the Being of Light who would transform America into the City of Oz.  The majority now know that he is, as Clint Eastwood described him, "the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people."  Like a jilted lover, he is now out for revenge:  he will leave office despised, but not before ruining the economy and transforming America into a Third-World nation, impoverished and bankrupt.  Suffer, you bastards!

Meanwhile, the GOP seeks not to block this massive invasion of illegals, but instead to grant them amnesty and help Obama manage them, essentially committing political suicide by ensuring a permanent majority of big-government voters.  If ever the worthlessness of the Republican Party was obvious, it is now.  The Tea Party must continue its efforts -- as Daniel Greenfield noted yesterday, the New Right must be patient and focus on the long haul.  Relief from statist insanity will not come overnight.  He wrote: You don't win them [wars] in one battle. You do it by staying in the fight.

Conclusions:  There is no question that Barack Obama is a lawless, irresponsible president, and that he should be removed from office by the impeachment process.  If the Vichy GOP wins control of the Senate in November, and retains control of the House, they could stop Obama's radical agenda, and even impeach him.   Do they have the political will?  Don't count on it.

1,382 Years Without Muhammad (Thank God He's Dead)

Iranian apostates are hanged and die by slow asphyxiation to maximize

suffering.  It is a very painful death.

Muhammad died in Medina on June 8, 632 -- 1,382 years ago today. This is a day all infidels should celebrate -- the death of the most evil "prophet" who ever lived.

Millions of people have been killed in the name of this false prophet, and human misery increased to absurd levels.  Thank God Muhammad is dead; may he receive eternal punishment that is commensurate with his crimes against humanity.

Celebrate the death of Muhammad tonight!  One suggestion is below, left (found on FaceBook).

Quote of the Day: The Greatest Killing Machine In The History of Mankind

The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none.

--Mike Konrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History

Remember that when someone criticizes "Islamophobia."

D-Day Plus Seventy Years: My Uncle's Souvenirs of the Invasion of Normandy 1944

My Uncle Theo, a Texan, took part in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy in June of 1944.  He was a medic with the 2nd Armored Division and didn't land on Normandy Beach until June 7 -- D-Day + One.  When he died in 1957, he left us a suitcase filled with war mementos, collected from the invasion of Sicily (Italy) and also the Normandy invasion (France).  There were Nazi wallets, Italian uniform buttons, German, Italian and French cash and coins, German medals, a German first aid kit, German eating utensils, some unfired bullets, Nazi patches, and even a black Nazi helmet.  I still have most of these mementos, carefully preserved.

As a child going through the suit case, handling the artifacts, I could sense momentous events, Germans and Americans, horror and death. The Nazi wallets were stuffed with personal pictures of handsome young German soldiers posing with friends, family and sweethearts.  This impressed on me the reality of war.  These dead Germans were human beings, and I could feel a certain empathy for them while still hating their cause.  But if somebody had to die, I thought, better them than us.  We didn't start this war.

Uncle Theo? (Sitting)

I noticed a sour smell in the suitcase that seemed to emanate from an orange colored plastic bottle.  It had German writing on the side, so I didn't know what it was for.  Years later, a friend who spoke German told me the bottle contained a salve for rubbing on the skin after a chemical or gas attack.  Now, all these years later, I still associate that sour chemical smell with D-Day.  I still have that orange bottle, but the smell is very faint now.  My uncle's suitcase, which had absorbed much of the smell, crumbled into dust years ago.  I now store his Normandy items in a large, plastic, sealed storage box.


Looking at many pictures of D-Day, however, I get an impression that it was rainy and wet.  It was a massive logistics operation, moving men, weapons, supplies and machines onto Normandy Beach.  LST's, a small ship with doors that opened in the bow, pushed their noses up close to the beach.  A special bridge built by British engineers provided the runway from the LST bows to the beach.  The LST's opened their large doors and expelled tanks, trucks, jeeps, artillery and long lines of troops.  Funny to think that 70 years have passed since that great undertaking -- a lifetime ago.

LSTs Unloading Men, Weapons and Machines
Normandy Beach,  June 1944
(Click to see full size)

Life Magazine printed photographs of the Normandy invasion, and there is a photo of a balding, husky soldier sitting near the water's edge, next to a line of dead American soldiers, most of who drowned coming ashore.   They wore their army life jackets (actually, a doughnut shaped, inflatable tube) too low on their bodies, and the life jackets flipped them over, pointing their heads down into the water, drowning them.  The Army life jackets were poorly designed -- Navy jackets didn't do this.

My father wrote to my uncle, who was at that time "somewhere in France," sending him a clipping of the photo, and asking if it were him.  I still have his letter in response, a letter headed "In France" and dated August 17, 1944.  He wrote "About the clipping you sent [the answer] is yes, but I probably could give no details now.  You see, this division has been under rigid censorship for two years, being an arm'd [armored] division."  However, Unc is facing away from the camera, so we will never be able to prove it (but dang, it sure looks like him to me).  That's the photo above.

As the allied troops moved off the beaches and into the French interior, my uncle went with them, winning both a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for tending the wounded under heavy small arms and artillery fire, near Carentan, France.  He also won his second Purple Heart prior to the Battle of the Bulge (the first was in Sicily), when he was wounded and sent back to England to recover.

The Coast of Normandy as It Looks Today:

The American Cemetery is to the right, the last resting place for those who died on the beaches.

Some of the Artifacts Brought Back From Normandy
by My Uncle Theo, Pvt, 2nd Armored Division

Photo:  On the left is a photo I took of some of Unc's Normandy artifacts.  There's a picture of someone's sweetheart, a German First Aid kit, two wallets, a gray leather cartridge box that was affixed to a soldier's belt, a spoon/fork combination in a gray leather holder that also strapped onto a soldier's belt, that orange bottle mentioned earlier, a case that held the orange bottle, a real Nazi helmet in near-pristine condition, some wallets, a patch, some medals, a German soldier's belt bucklet, some bullets, and one more wallet.

I will make a second post of some of the pictures that my uncle found in wallets of fallen Nazi soldiers during the Normandy invasion.  These pictures, except for Alfred Schmid, have not been published anywhere before.

See post below this one for those pictures.

Pictures Taken From Fallen Nazis In the Invasion of Normandy, 1944 -- by My Uncle Who Was There

Here are some of the photos that my uncle recovered from fallen German soldiers during the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), seventy years ago.  These photos have not been published before -- they are the personal photos of German families and friends, carried by German troops who died in France on and after D-Day.  Click on each photo to see it full size.

Corporal Franz Schmid.  This photo was found in the wallet of a friend or relative at Normandy.  This soldier probably died on the Russian Front, perhaps in the Battle of Kursk.  He is painfully young in this picture.

The verbiage is from a death announcement that also bore this photo, found in the same wallet.  It was printed in German and translated by a German friend of mine.

Click to view full size.

UPDATE:  I found the German Military Graves Commission website and database online, and Franz Schmid is listed.  He did indeed die in the battle of Kursk, Russia and is buried at the German cemetery there, Besedino.  The database gives a slightly different birthdate for Franz, Oct 18, 1920 rather than Oct 20, 1920.  Here is the online record:

Unknown boy, wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth.  This pic of this young man was found in one of the wallets my uncle recovered from the body of a fallen Nazi soldier at Normandy -- probably a relative of the fallen soldier who owned the wallet.

I have been researching this uniform for a couple of hours, and have learned that the uniform is that of the the German Reichsarbeitdienst (RAD), or German National Work Service.  It is not of the Hitler Youth as I originally thought, though the jacket is almost identical, and the hat similar, to those of the Hitler Youth.  The RAD was formed in July of 1934 as the official state and party labor service.  It was an auxiliary service to the military, but was not part of the military, even though it's members wore military style uniforms.

German youth between 18 and 25 were obligated to serve six months in the RAD or other national service, and then two years in the military after that.  

The cool hat being worn by this man is a Robin Hood RAD cap.  The RAD symbol on the front of the cap is the head of a shovel.




Alfred Schmid, probably the brother of Franz Schmid above.  Papers in the wallet identified this man.  He too fell in battle, also on the Russian front.

He is wearing a dress uniform complete with white gloves and a ceremonial sword.

It appears the photograph was taken in his living room.

German soldiers in an army barracks, possibly during basic training.  They are goofing off, mugging at the camera and striking poses.  Look at one man holding crossed bayonets, and another with a bayonet in his teeth.

I wonder how many of these young men survived the war.

This photograph always seemed sad and poignant to me.  A German soldier is kissing his sweetheart, perhaps before shipping out.  His name and that of his sweetheart are unknown.

Update:  Reader Doug Kursk says the eagle on this soldier's arm indicates he was a member of the SS, presumably the Waffen SS, who went into battle like other troops.

Two German soldiers on a motorcycle -- names and location unknown.

German soldiers on a train.  The little boy among them is interesting and puzzling.

Undoubtedly someone's mom, tending chickens back home while her sons went off to fight and die in Hitler's war.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.

Some German soldier's sister, sweetheart or wife.  She was cute and had a nice smile.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.


















I have additional photos from the wallets, but not all are interesting.  There's a group of boys in Bavarian dress, playing accordions outside a shop; pictures apparently from Russia, and others.

Tomorrow's Post Will Be Interesting! Includes Photos Taken From Fallen German Soldiers (by My Uncle at Normandy)

Since it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day tomorrow, I have put some effort into my posts for that day.  I tell some personal tales of my Uncle Theo who went ashore on Normandy Beach on D-Day + 1 (and appeared in a Life photo on the beach).

Unc helped himself to the wallets of dead German soldiers, plucking them from their pockets and bringing them home as souvenirs.   These wallets contain the personal and family pictures of the German soldiers, some of which are quite poignant.  Adolf Hitler was not only the biggest SOB in modern history, he was the biggest SOB to the German people too -- sacrificing millions of their sons in an evil and ultimately, fruitless war.

The posts will publish automatically at 11:59 PM tonight and 12:00 AM tomorrow.

Tune in!

Sgt Bowe Bergdahl: Hero or Deserter? Is His Father a Muslim?

President Barack Obama's latest stunt was to negotiate the release of an American prisoner, a soldier named Bowe Begdahl who walked off his base in Afghanistan in 2009, and was immediately captured by the Taliban  They kept him as their guest for the next five years.

Before Bergdahl deserted his post, he had sent several emails to his father, complaining about America's wars in the middle east and expressing doubt as to the rightness of our mission there.  The emerging picture suggests that Bergdahl deserted and was captured under dishonorable circumstances.

Obama traded five of the most rabid Taliban leaders at Gitmo for this one low level soldier.  He did so without giving Congress 30 days notice, as the law requires.  Once again, Obama acted alone and outside the law, and his actions may result in the deaths of more American soldiers once these Taliban leaders return to the fight.

Bergdahl's father, one Robert Bergdahl, appears to be a practicing Muslim, complete with skull cap and big hairy beard.  The elder Bergdahl visited the White House for Obama's announcement of his son's release, and immediately uttered an Islamic prayer in Arabic.  He later tweeted his wish that all Gitmo prisoners would be freed, and expressed his wish in a way that suggests favorable identification with their cause.  He tweeted:

@Balkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.  God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!

So the question that is obvious is this:  Did Obama trade five highly dangerous Taliban leaders for one unworthy US soldier, one that may be both a deserter and sympathetic to the enemy?