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Mar 30, 2008

Yes, it's stupid 

I don't know if it's the chance to watch a little kid all the time now, or just my off kilter sense of humor or what, but I recently came across icanhascheezburger and it cracks me up. I've been checking it out at least twice a week these days. And this one killed me.

funny pictures

Yeah, I read a website full of fluffy critters. I'd feel ashamed if it weren't so damned funny.
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Mar 29, 2008

Glamour Shots 

Check out the photos linked at this story, courtesy of the Associated (w/terrorists) Press.

Interesting how the press suddenly regains interest in Iraq when shooting starts, not when shooting stops. More interesting is how every picture seems to be of Mookie's boys, the Mahdi Militia, down in Basra and not a one of Iraqi Army or Police (unless they're prisoners of the Militia). And in none of these pictures are Mookie's boys in a fight. In other words, these are pure, unadulterated, unabashed propaganda. My favorites are pics 17, 18, & 19, wherein these guys do their best impression of Pallywood, sighting in on nothing, while the photog captures their lion-hearted spirit with some sweet low-angle shots. Gimme a break.

Anybody want to listen for the tumbleweed blowing across the press room after Mookie's boys get their asses handed to them by US, UK, and Iraqi Army forces in the next two weeks? You probably won't hear it, but it'll be notable by it's absence.
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Mar 28, 2008

Age and guile vs youth and stupidity 

A boy in his mid-teens learned Wednesday afternoon that it is not a good idea to try to rob a former U.S. Marine at knifepoint, even if the former Marine is 84 years old, police said today.

Santa Rosa police Sgt. Steve Bair said that's what happened around 2 p.m. in the 1600 block of Fourth Street. The elderly man was walking with a grocery bag in each arm when the boy approached him with a large knife, Bair said.

The boy said, "Old man, give me your wallet or I'll cut you," Bair said. The man told the boy he was a former Marine who fought in three wars and had been threatened with knives and bayonets, Bair said.

The man then put his bags on the ground and told the boy that if he stepped closer he would be sorry. When the boy stepped closer, the man kicked him in the groin, knocking him to the sidewalk, Bair said. The ex-Marine picked up his grocery bags and walked home, leaving the boy doubled over, Bair said.
The Eric Cartman/Mike the Marine school of combat - never underestimate it.

UPDATE: Even when the press tells a good story, they still screw it up. The gent was a Screamin' Eagle Paratroop, not a Marine. Whatever. Either way, he got some... Like Allahpundit said over at Hot Air, "There’s something about an 81-year-old veteran and the phrase “And then I kicked him in the teeth” that’s simply magical."
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Mar 26, 2008

So close, yet so far away 

Amid all the hubbub about Hillary's "misspeaking" about her death-defying, world-record-breaking, headlong sprint across the tarmac when visiting Bosnia, I'd like to remind you all that she has far more experience with this than you - or even I - do. Yes, remember folks, Hillary was almost - ALMOST - a Marine.
"You're too old, you can't see and you're a woman," Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. "Maybe the dogs would take you," she recalled the recruiter saying.
In her capacity as ALMOST a Marine, she is a far better assessor of what running from snipers would look like. Far better than you, me, Sinbad, anyone. Remember what Hillary said: “I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”

Well... she ALMOST said it...

Let her keep talking and maybe she'll qualify for a CAR, too. She's ALMOST there, anyway...

UPDATE: Ohhh, beeeyoootiful.
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Mar 19, 2008

Oh for the love a... 

You HAVE GOT to be $h!##ing me.
MIDWEST CITY, Okla. (AP) - A U.S. Marine Corps reservist in Oklahoma won't be charged for ignoring police requests and wading into a protest to rescue an American Flag.

Twenty-year-old Ray Adam Modisette says he was driving out of Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City Friday when he saw a protester from the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church stuff the flag down her pants.

Police told him to stay away from the crowd but he ignored their requests and was arrested for interfering with official police process.

Midwest City Assistant City Attorney Randal Homburg says he thinks there are ground to prosecute Modisette for an act of civil disobedience. But he says police have asked him not to file charges.

Police Chief Brandon Clabes says he believes Modisette was acting emotionally.
You're damn right he was! So now a Marine attempting to defend the flag of his country (and all that it stands for) has to worry that some assclown lawyer will file charges against him at some point in the future? Look, I'm all for free speech, and so is Modisette, I'm sure. Even for hate-spewing, inbreeding, creepy Skeletor-looking slime like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptists. But this is pure lunacy.

Where the hell is this country headed? Doesn't anybody remember Rick Monday?

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Today's lesson in "pointless" 

Brought to you by... (sigh)... the United States Marine Corps...
MV-22 Ospreys headed to Iraq will soon be outfitted with a forward-firing gun, a top program official said.
...
The weapon, a 7.62mm mini-gun, is considered an interim system. The 800-pound gun — about the weight of three Marines with full combat loads — will be installed as a removable mission kit and operated by a controller inside the aircraft.
The only saving grace to the thing is that it's removable. I cannot for the life of me see a VMM squadron using these things at the cost of load and cargo space when it serves no practical function whatsoever. God help 'em when and if a gun gets bolted on permanently.

Sadly, this is the resurrected Frankenstein monster of two Commandants ago, Gen Jones, who said that the need for a forward firing gun was a "fundamental belief stemming from his Vietnam War experience." As I wondered at the time, and still wonder now, just what Vietnam was he fighting in where assault (read: troop carrier) helos had forward mounted guns? As soon as you strapped guns and rockets to a helo, you typically couldn't haul troops anymore and had turned the thing into an attack helo. In fact, what mass production troop carrying helo has EVER had a forward mounted gun? (Side note: Don't anybody dare bring up the Soviet MI-24 Hind or any of it's variants. Yes, by letter of the law, it could carry troops - eight, I think - and had a forward mounted gun. But for all practical purposes it was a ground attack platform and a damn good one. It didn't just have the gun. It had rockets, missiles, sharp sticks, etc, etc. Does anybody here think that the Osprey is fit for that role?)

As the Marines use assault helos now - the role that the Osprey has stepped into - they do not go anywhere where there might be trouble without an armed escort. There should never be such a thing as a "hot LZ" if you can help it. Those escorts should come in and clear the zone before the assault birds show up. Considering that NO OTHER ASSAULT HELO in our inventory - in over a half a century of helicopter aviation - has had a forward firing gun, and the need for one has never been great enough to strap one on and then make it carry troops too, why in the hell are we now going in that direction with the Osprey? Just because it flies like a plane up high doesn't change the fact that on approach to the LZ, it is - in fact - a helicopter. And the whole argument that it needs the gun to "keep heads down" as it leaves the LZ is preposterous. You know what a helo does when it's receiving fire from one side of an LZ? It gets up and leaves in the other direction. Now, I'm no rocket surgeon, but I'll just bet that an Osprey pilot (who used to be a helo pilot, nine times out of ten) is going to do - what a shock - the exact same thing!

Now, do I think that a gun for the Air Force version makes some sense? Yes, I do. "Why", you may ask? Ahhh. The difference lies in the mission set. Whereas the Air Force wants to send their CV-22 in as a Spec Ops insertion platform all by itself, the Marine Corps wants to use the MV-22 as an infantry assault aircraft that will typically have that entire protective package attached to it that I spoke of before. Could we send the thing in alone and unafraid? Of course we could. But if we were sending it in all by itself, it would be somewhere where there was a low threat and therefore the gun would be unneeded in the first place. Of course, the Air Force wouldn't want to drop off the "special kids" into a hot LZ either, but they would want to maintain the smallest signature possible, and therefore would be looking at that forward mounted gun as a self-escort last resort. If the Marine Corps was going to do the same thing, sure, put a gun on there - why not? But that was never the intention.

Do I think adding a gun to the Osprey is as big a mistake as taking the gun OFF Vietnam era fighter aircraft? Absolutely not. But I think it's wasteful, largely pointless, and simply one more thing for an aircrew to have to screw with during the high workload environment of putting a large aircraft into a landing zone - often a tight landing zone, at night, in some level of brownout. The Osprey has a shakey enough reputation as it is. Do we really need to be talking about strapping on new gear (and possibly new mission sets that gear allows for) before it's even finished it's first deployment? I mean, it's not like the program has been rushed along. Why start now?
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Mar 18, 2008

Great American 

Mar 15, 2008

I don't believe this actually happened... 

... and at the end I'll tell you why. From my email:
Two California Highway Patrol Officers were conducting speeding enforcement on I-15, just north of the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar. One of the officers was using hand held radar device to check speeding vehicles approaching the crest of a hill.

The officers were suddenly surprised when the radar gun began reading 300 miles per hour. The officer attempted to reset the radar gun, but it would not reset and then turned off. Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had in fact locked on to a USMC F/A-18 Hornet which was engaged in a low flying exercise near the location.

Back at the CHIPs Headquarters the Patrol Captain fired off a complaint to the USMC Base Commander. The reply came back in true USMC style:

Thank you for your letter. We can now complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Hornet had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked on to, your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it, which is why it shut down.

Furthermore, an Air-to-Ground missile aboard the fully armed aircraft had also automatically locked on to your equipment location. Fortunately, the Marine Pilot flying the Hornet recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile system alert status and was able to override the automated defense system before the missile was launched to destroy the hostile radar position.

The pilot also suggests you cover your mouths when cussing at them, since the video systems on these jets are very high tech. Sergeant Johnson, the officer holding the radar gun, should get his dentist to check his left rear molar. It appears the filling is loose. Also, the snap is broken on his holster.

Thank you for your concern.

Semper Fi.

Why don't I think this happened? Becuase if a Hornet had jammed a radar gun, it probably would have exploded in the cop's hand.

The rest I totally buy...
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Mar 12, 2008

Jackass judge update 

Nothing like the taste of fries served up by a former court official...
A Los Angeles County supervisor has called for an investigation of a court commissioner who allegedly barred a foster teen from joining the Marines because she opposed the Iraq war.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich called for the judicial review after reading a Daily News report last week of Commissioner Marilyn Mackel's decision that drew national attention on talk radio, TV and the Internet.

"The judge's denial of the foster youth's request to serve in the military because of her personal anti-war bias is wholly improper and demands a full investigation," Antonovich said Monday. "Judge Mackel has failed the test of impartiality by using the court for her own political views."
Pass the salt.
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Mar 11, 2008

GAHHHH! HIPPIES!!! 

From last night's Daily Show.


From the Daily Show? You bet yer bippy. This is what happens when a Marine goes guerrilla with a camera and a mic.

Catch the rerun tonight at 7PM on Comedy Central.

UPDATE: More hippie related info, here and here.

UPDATE II:
Rob Riggle - Pilot/Grunt/PAO/Hippie? Who knew? Make sure you check out the gallery.
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Mar 10, 2008

Assclown with gavel fails spectacularly 

The most beautiful part of this story is that the kid is still going to join the Corps anyway and the jackass judge's actions have inspired legislation making what she did impossible to do again. Too bad for the jackass lawyer that she wasn't running HIS trial. Oh, what a wondertwin act THAT would have been. By the way, wonder how ol' Jay is doing these days? Next time you see him, tell him you want fries with that...
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Mar 9, 2008

Fat Dungeon Master dead? 

Distinct possibility says... well, some folks who may or may not have a clue. Too much to hope? Probably. But I figured a post about a tubby dead traitor was better than leaving the story below this one at the top of the blog for a week.
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Mar 4, 2008

Uncool 

Dude, you're a dumbass. Not just because you get your rocks off by abusing a puppy, but because you do so while wearing the uniform of a US Marine. I haven't seen the video because it's apparently been taken off YouTube. But even if it's fake, and the puppy was already dead (as has been suggested), just look at the comments to this news story (UPDATE: Video is at this link, and after seeing it I can't tell if it is or isn't legit). You just confirmed all the nutjobbers worst suspicions about the Marine Corps.
"Cowardley men"...

"I wouldn't want these people defending me..."

"HE PROBABLY KILLED LITTLE KIDS AND PEOPLE WITHOUT ANY REASON"...
Smoothe move jackass. Granted, these people probably wouldn't like us regardless, but ya don't give them ammo.

Look, we all know that grunts are a little kooky, and blood makes the grass grow, and napalm sticks to kids, and yadda yadda yadda... but c'mon. This is unsat. Do that stuff around me and you'll get stomped.

During the fighting for Fallujah, and at certain other times in Iraq, I've heard that stray dogs have been authorized to be shot on sight because they were disease vectors. But this is something else entirely. This serves no purpose whatsoever. I hope the command down at K-Bay lands on your head, you moron.

Ugh. I need a palate cleanser...

UPDATE: More cleanser...

Ahh. Clean.
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