If you are an Iranian American

then your work is cut out for you. 

If you are a citizen and a registered voter it's time to help keep the Republicans in charge of Congress. Vote Republican.

If the Democrats take the house Trump is probably going to be impeached. The Democrats will cease any action against Iran and the people there will be screwed.

If you are not a citizen then there is something you can do and that's to put the shoe leather to the pavement and go door to door and see if you can gather votes supporting Republican candidates. No law against that.

If you are an Iranian-American citizen and a voter you, too can slap the shoe leather down and gather votes.

If you are an American citizen registered to vote as a Democrat you can switch parties and send a message that you support our military efforts in Iran.

If your congress critter is a Democrat you can call his office and tell him to support the President. Make it clear that if they don't you will make a concerted effort to vote them out.

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A part of Iran's laundry list. Why we fight.

John Roberts FOX News compiles an impressive list of Iran’s reign of terror over the years. This can all be verified. This is why it matters.

Here’s a short list (1/2)

•November 1979: Iranian students, backed by the regime, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran — taking 66 Americans hostage in a 444-day standoff .

•April 1983: The Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed terrorist group, carried out a suicide car bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans.

•October 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 241 U.S. military personnel — including 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel — in a truck bombing at a Marine compound in Beirut.

•March 1984: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley on his way to work in Beirut, ultimately killing him the following year.

•September 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 23 innocent people — including two American service members — in a car bomb attack at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut.

•December 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 221 en route to Pakistan, diverting it to Tehran — where they brutally tortured and killed two American officials.

•June 1985: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 on its way from Athens to Rome, torturing a U.S. Navy diver before shooting him point blank in the head and tossing his body onto the Beirut airport tarmac.

•July 1989: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed U.S. Marine Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

•April 1995: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists killed eight people — including one American citizen — in a car bomb attack in the Gaza Strip.

•August 1995: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing an American and three other passengers, and wounding more than 100 others.

•February 1996: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up another bus in Jerusalem, killing three Americans and wounding three other Americans.

•March 1996: A suicide bomber linked to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups killed 20 people — including two Americans — in a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv shopping center.

•May 1996: Iran-backed terrorists killed an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounded another American citizen in the West Bank.

•June 1996: Iran-backed Hezbollah Al-Hijaz terrorists killed 19 U.S. Airmen and wounded nearly 500 others in a truck bombing at a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia.

•September 1997: Iran-backed Hamas suicide bombers blew themselves up at a shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounding seven other American citizens.

•August 1998: Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, facilitated by Iran-backed Hezbollah, simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people — including a dozen American citizens.

•August 2001: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a Jerusalem pizzeria, killing three Americans.

•January 2002: An Iran-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade terrorist killed an American-Israeli dual citizen in the West Bank.

•July 2002: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist killed five Americans in a bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

•June 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 people — including an American citizen — on a bus in Jerusalem.

•October 2003: Iran-backed Popular Resistance Committees terrorists killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in a bombing in Gaza.

•Between 2003 and 2011: Iran-backed militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq — “roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq.”

•August 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American.

•August 2006: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed American citizen and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Michael Levin during the Second Lebanon War — the only American to die in the conflict.

(2/2)

•January 2007: A dozen men affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded three others in Karbala, Iraq, after disguising themselves as U.S. soldiers and entering the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.

•March 2007: Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran, likely dying in an Iranian prison.

•July 2014: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed two American citizens serving in the IDF.

•October 2015: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed an American citizen and his wife in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank.

•December 2019: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorists killed an American civilian contractor and wounded several U.S. service members in a rocket attack at K1 Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.

•January 2020: 109 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq.

•September 2020: U.S. intelligence indicated the Iranian regime was considering a plot to assassinate the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa.

•February 2021: An Iran-backed militia fired a rocket at coalition forces in Erbil, Iraq, wounding a U.S. service member and four U.S. civilian contractors.

•July 2021: Iranian-backed militias wounded two U.S. service members in a series of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

•September 2022: An Iranian rocket attack killed an American citizen in Iraqi Kurdistan.

•November 2022: An IRGC captain orchestrated the killing of an American citizen in Baghdad.

•March 2023: An Iranian drone attack killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members and another contractor in a strike on a coalition base in Syria.

•October 2023: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 Americans in the October 7th massacre.

•December 2023: Iran-backed militias wounded three U.S. service members in an attack on Erbil Air Base in Iraq.

•January 2024: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorists killed three U.S. service members and wounded more than 40 other service members in a drone attack against the Tower 22 military base in Jordan.

•Between October 2023 and November 2024: Iran and its proxies conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, wounding more than 180 U.S. service members and killing three service members.

•November 2024: An Iranian national and IRGC asset was charged for plotting to assassinate President Trump.

•June 2025: Iran-backed militias attacked at least three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq.

520 killed, countless wounded and this doesn't include the 2977 killed on 9/11 which Iran helped fund.

This war has been LONG overdue.

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Piccolo does a good deed

I was working construction south of Seattle and my partner and I had just finished a siding contract, had our pay in out pocket and were getting ready to leave for Alaska. We dropped into a tavern for a late lunch. We were both pretty keyed up. We were headed north in my old pickup.

We walked in and I said the the bartender as we headed to a table "I'm the Pro from Dover and this here's the Ghost of Smoky Joe. He wants a Lite beer and a ham and cheese sandwich and I want a roast beef sandwich and a Heineken." I turned to the waitress nearby and said, "And I want you to know that you have about a half an hour to get your stuff packed it you want to come to Kodiak, Alaska with us."

She approached me and asked me, "Are you for real?"

I saw a brief look of desperation in here eyes and turned to my partner, "Whaddya say?"

"I don't care." he said.

What happened is we bolted lunch and took her home which was nearby. She was in and out of that house MOST riki-tik with a sleeping bag and a small backpack, threw her stuff into the bed of the pickup and hopped into the cab.

She rode with us up the Alaska Highway all the way to Kodiak. Upon arrival she was on her own.  

Later she married a Native, had a couple of kids and we lost track of her. I think she moved to either Old Harbor, Port Lions or Ouzinkie.

I always think that it was one of the few halfway decent things I have done that truly made a difference in someone's life by giving them a second chance at life.

It cost me nothing.

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So far it has been an interesting year.

In January I got a brief note from someone letting me know a woman I met in my travels had just died. I believe it was from her daughter.

I had met this woman during one of my sailboat adventures and to put it in a nutshell we had a several day fling of some sort. There was quite a spark between us but there were just too many differences between us for it to go anywhere. Still, over the years we sort of stayed in touch with a rare quick note or something several years apart.

The note from the daughter said she had mentioned me a couple of times over the years as the man that taught her to sail. In her address book there was the word 'sailor' under my address.

I was and still am humbled.

A few weeks ago I had a mental alarm that told me to get on touch with my ex-wife. I chased her phone number down and gave her a call. Her son answered and told me she was in very bad health and not expected to live much longer and would pass my greetings on to her. 

Three days later her son called me and told me she had passed and then handed the phone over to his father, her husband. He told me that she had always spoken highly of me and never said a bad word about me. He said she was glad to hear from me before she passed.

I briefly considered going out to help bury her but they are going the cremation route.

Between the two of these events I got a call from a man in his very early fifties. When he identified himself I recognized him instantly. The last time I had seen him he was just turning five. He asked me if it was OK for his mother to call me. It was and shortly after she called.

It's scary getting a call from one's past, especially from a woman. The mental questions are scary. Do I have a child out there I was unaware of? Am I getting hit for back child support? WTF is going on?

Nope. It was strictly a curiosity call. She was simply wondering what I had done over the past half century. We had a nice talk. I told her about fishing, sailing, meeting my wife and my career at sea.

I had an odd and interesting relationship with this woman. I actually met her at a K-Mart and after we chatted I simply asked her out to a movie and we wound up back at her place. 

I had just arrived in town and was looking for a place that rented by the month. When I told her that she simply said, "Stay here until you find something." It turned into about four months. 

I was up front with my status from the beginning. When I got the word I was going to head back to Alaska without warning. I would simply go and she could expect a call or a letter inside a month or two. My life was that unstable at that time.

Sure enough, she wound up coming home to my stuff missing and a note on the kitchen table. Later I called her a couple of times and for the next year or two we exchanged very occasional letters. We lost touch.

About a month later I got a quick call from her son. She had passed and I had managed to catch her during a brief period of coherence. She's seven years older than I am which puts her in her 80s.

Funny how things work. She never held it against me that I left without warning. I had been up front and made it clear. She simply said she was glad I fixed the cabinet before I left. She also thanked me for being good to her son. Go figure.

What's next? It's only the middle of April.

=====================================

I think that after I vacuum the living room I am going to go through a box of old letters and shred some of them. 

While there is nothing incriminating in them whatsoever, I just don't want to leave any 'what's that all abouts' behind.

I will leave behind all correspondence (what little of it there is) with my ex-wife. My sisters remember her fondly because she was good to them when they were little and I think they would like to know that we got along well after we divorced.

  

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Sir I have JAG on my speed dial.

Whips out phone, calls and asks "Do I have to stand at attention when reporting to my Battery Commander? Is that a legal order? Just checking.

I can picture my Battery Commander dealing with that one, AND my First Sergeant. 

My BC would have simply said "Good one!"

Top would have said, "You asshole."

The BC would have taken that one to the O club.

Top would have taken it to the NCO club.

Neither of those two men would have EVER given me an illegal order.

In fact the BC stuck up for me when I questioned a 2LT giving a rah rah go for the team class on riot control. The 2LT even breathed a word on shooting protesters. I told him that i would shoot him before I fired on Americans.

Yeah. I was a pain in the ass soldier but for some reason I made E-5 in 25 months. 

Fact is it doesn't speak highly of me. It means I was in the right place at the right time.

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A beautiful day

I got to enjoy some of it outside and then opened the windows and did some spring cleaning. I also made slow cooker chili.

The chili is sitting in the fridge and tomorrow it gets put in containers and frozen. 

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War crimes.

Hospitals, public utilities, schools and orphanages are considered off limits so long as they are not used for military purposes.

However people forget the rest of the story. The 'so long as they are not being used for military purposes' part is often forgotten. That instantly changes things.

A power  plant that supplies any electricity to any military facility or unit whatsoever loses their protection and becomes a legitimate target.

Some time ago one of the wire services had an office in a building that was also being used to store ammunition that got bombed. They complained to Israel and in so many words told the wire service to settle it with the landlord because military hardware was being stored there.

Israel bombed a hospital because it was being used for military purposes. 

Currently the left is accusing Trump and Hegseth of war crimes which is a joke.

Two faced Mark Kelly flew air cover for people bombing utilities during Desert Storm so that makes him complacent in war crimes. Maybe we ought to charge him with war crimes and then watch the left stand there agape. Of course it would be a waste of time because some federal judge would likely throw any conviction out. That's probably a big part of the reason Hegseth didn't recall Kelly and courts-martial him. I would imagine the paperwork overturning anything done to him was already filled out and sitting in some judges desk drawer.

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The A-10 Warthog is headed for the dustbin soon

and I would imagine that the Air Force is going to babble incoherently about how the replacement is twice as good and so on and so forth. My guess is the slow moving Warthog is going to be replaced by a fast mover that can't stay on site as long as the old Warthog can.

OTOH maybe drones will replace it. Technology changes incredibly fast these days. It's hard to keep up with.

While the replacement may very well wind up being a good deal, I have my doubts. OTOH I am no expert in the field of close air support.

What interests me is the A-10 has been considered obsolete for a long time now and it seems that every time something pops up the Warthog keeps showing up and tearing up ground targets like it's supposed to. 

It is the prince of close in air support.

I wonder if the Air Force bothered to ask the grunts and ground pounders what they think of it. Probably not but they should have.

Before anyone starts carrying on about the old beast being 70s technology don't forget that the BUFF (B-52) is well over 70 years old and projected to last until at least 2050. 

The M2 Browning is over 100 years old and is still being used. In fact with the WW2 leftover parts and guns we don't even have to order spare parts or new guns.

Sometimes the government screws up and does something right.

Look at the P-38 can opener, for example. The government belted one out of the park when they made that one.

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ONE GUY. One single man.

Say what you will about the war but remember nobody said a damned thing when Biden lost 13 of our guys withdrawing from Afghanistan. Nobody said anything when Clinton lost 18 of our guys in Somalia. Nobody said anything about Obama abandoning our people at Benghazi.

Yet look what Donald Trump did just to save ONE GUY!

ONE SINGLE GUY!

....and Jesus said 'a good Shepherd will leave the 99 to go and look for the one lost. Key word - A good Shepherd!

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I just read where a Swiss butcher got caught selling pork as Halal veal.

Seems he labeled it as veal and got away with it for three years and it is estimated he moved 3.1 tons of it.

He was selling inexpensive pork at veal prices to boot.

Nobody that bought it seemed to know the difference. It was discovered by a sharp-eyed inspector during a routine inspection.

He got six months and a fine. From a financial angle he probably came out on top.

For some reason I think this is hilarious.

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I see where Pete Hegseth bounced about 30 generals

which is no surprise because on Day One he called a meeting of all generals, sat them down in an auditorium and announce he was going to be getting rid of a lot of dead wood in the near future. 

Most likely they won't be replaced. He's said we're top-heavy with generals and he's probably right. I see more getting put out to pasture.

I would bet that of the 30 that have been retires that there is no shortage of Obama and Biden appointees in the ranks. 

One of the things that many generals start to think is that they are indispensable which is a joke. If a planeload of generals crashed it would not really mean a whole lot. It would mean that a bunch of colonels got promoted and things would go back to normal almost immediately.

The problem lies with some with big egos that think they are running the show and their civilian boss isn't really in charge. Guess again.

If an officer can not or will not support the orders given to him then it becomes his duty to resign or retire. Period. There's no room for foot dragging, shirking or malicious compliance. It's a black and white issue.

Another thing is the military is no place for party politics of any party. A promotion to flag rank is not a reward for being a party hack. However, like the federal courts, Obama and Biden appointed any number of federal judges that were supposed to hamstring Trump or other Republicans in case one got elected again. 

They seem to have done the same thing with their appointment of general officers. Obama and Biden appointed a number of generals based on their political views. These most likely are the generals that think they are above SecWars orders. while they may not go toe to toe with him they will undermine him every chance they get.

That leaves Hegseth with no choice but to fire them. I would and so would anyone else that has half of a brain.

One of the things the generals always seem to forget. They forget who they are working for. They are not working with Pete Hegseth. They are working for the Secretary of War.

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Looks like today has the makings of a pretty good day.

It actually was. I spent 5 hours in the Miata booming and zooming the two lane blacktop and just plain losing myself. 

 A Neighbor with a 6 speed ND had offered to let me try his out.

Curiosity intrigues me and I think I will take him up on his kind offer. 

I am not discounting any thing but you have to realize IMO that an NA Miata is as close to perfect for a sports car as an MGB. OTOH the Miata has a defroster that actually works.

Let's look at it this way. If I won the Powerball jackpot my daily driver would be a Dodge '62 half ton stepside pickup with a Slant Six, four speed (manual) transmission, manual choke no radio, heater only basic farm vehicle.  

  

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I see we lost a jet

and both aircrewmen were rescued.

I read we have flown over 13,000 sorties and so far lost six airplanes and no crewmen. Three were casualties of friendly fire on the part of the Kuwaitis. The tanker was involved in a mid air accident with another airplane that got down safely.

The other day we lost an F15E and an A-10 Warthog.

Iran claims they shot both down, we attribute the F15E to engine failure. Pretty much the same hold true for the warthog. No telling.

What is astonishing is that we have suffered so few casualties since the fighting has started. Our guys, from the janitor that sweeps the floor at the airplane factory to the flyboys in the aircraft are really quite amazing.

We can cram more death and destruction in a small jet than we could have in a B-24 and they can strike and get back to base a lot safer.

In 1943 we lost 60 aircraft with another 17 sent to the bone yard along with over 650 aviators on a single mission to bomb a ball bearing plant.

When you put it in that context it's amazing how light our casualties actually are.

Before you jump up and down, a single casualty is a tragedy. I'm just pointing out that casualties are far lower than expected so far. 

             

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Another good morning.

I decided to take my morning coffee at my favorite convenience store and my unindicted co conspirator was there behind the register.

I walked in and said to him "Trump just announced he isn't the least bit interested in the gays of Hormuz. He's only concerned with the Straits of Hormuz."

Everyone within earshot immediately looked confused but most appeared to figure it out immedately and smirked. A couple of people chuckled.

However it was not all in vain because two people went off and the rest of us were treated go a gay rights rant and a semi meltdown by somemone with TDS.

Not bad.

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Piccolo and Jimmy get stopped

Jimmy got stopped for a burned out tail light.

When the officer approached the car he held a 'sovereign citizen' sign against the glass. He refused to identify himself and was totally obnoxious to the officer that had originally planned to simply inform Jimmy he had a tail light out and to tell him he should get it fixed. The officer even had a multi tool in his pocket to help Jimmy if he happened to have a spare bulb in his glove box.

The officer, tired of Jimmy's belligerence is forced to break Jimmy's window, cut his seat belt, yard him out of the car. Jimmy bounces up and takes a swing at the officer and the scuffle escalates and ends with Ossifer Friendly tasing the living dogsnot out of him and gets carted off to jail.

He later gets a $20 fine for the tail light violation and a year in the county lockup for resisting arrest. Over absolutely nothing.

======================================

Two hours later. Same cop pulls Piccolo over for the same thing. Piccolo was on his way home after a night pf pretty hard partying.

Piccolo pulls over and gets well off the road for officer safety, shuts off the pickup, opens the window, drops his keys out the window and waits with both hands on the top of the steering wheel.

Ossifer Friendly approaches the car and shines his light and finds Piccolo sitting there with a joint in his mouth, a beer between his legs, a whisky bottle on the seat. There's also a hypodermic needle on a syringe sitting on the dashboard.

He asks Piccolo for his driver's license which he produces, returns and asks him to exit the vehicle, turn around and put his hands behind his back. Piccolo explains he has a handgun in an inside the pants holster, a switchblade in his back pocket and tells the cop to be careful of the sharps he has in his shirt pocket. The cop takes it all and hoos pic up.

He seats Pic in the back seat of the patrol car and starts driving toward the police station and he and Pic have a delightful conversation about trout fishing.

The officer stops about halfway there and announces he's had two fights that night, one with Jimmy and another with an entitled purple haired fat woman and that he just plain old didn't have the heart to throw such a nice cooperative guy like Pic in jail. 

He turns around and while driving Pic back to his pickup tells him about how to avoid the DUI checkpoint 3 miles ahead. The get to his pickup and he fishes a bulb out of his glove box and the two of then replace the burned out tail light in Pic's truck. He returns Pic's gun, switchblade and his needles. Then he told Pic the body in the trunk is starting to smell and recommends that after he buries it he plants endangered flowers on top of the grave so it is illegal to dig it up. They thanked each other and make a date to go fishing together and Pic is sent on his way.

Yeah, I know it's bull$hit but you get the point.

Most people go to jail for being stupid.

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Poor people don't understand maintenance.

Someone once told me 'poor people have poor ways'.

Lot's to be said for that. People don't understand the true cost of things. They seem to think, for example, if they can stretch the budget to make the payments then they can afford a new (or newer than the one they have) car.

They forget that it has to be maintained and taken care of. Oil changes are required at intervals to keep the engine running properly. The other fluid levels have to be maintained and checked. Oil changes run in the $50-75 range. Needless to say, oil change intervals usually land when you've had a bad month and it gets put off and often generally forgotten about for a year or so and now your engine is smoking and clattering.

Now you're handed a $4500 engine job to deal with and you put it on a credit card and get yourself in deeper.

Or windshield wipers wear out and instead of coughing up $35 to replace them you keep putting it off until the windshield is scratched up. In some states that won't pass a safety inspection so you're out another $400 that you add to the credit card.

Of course this isn't only about cars it's a general lifestyle choice.

You have to take care of things. The cost of owning something doesn't stop when you take it home with you.

=================================

Protip.

You're getting ready to make your last $500 car monthly payment on a 5 year note. This proves you have managed to cough up $500/month for the last 5 years. 

You figure you're going to keep it for another five years. 

Open an account, label it 'car payment' and drop $500/month into it. Inflation, pay raises etc. have made it easier to do now than it was 5 years ago so it's easily doable.

When you get around to needing a new car you should be able to either pay cash or put one hell of a down payment on your next vehicle.

Plan ahead.

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Islam has no place in western civilization

ESPECIALLY not in the United States. Read what I have to say carefully before you start babbling about the First Amendment. I'm pretty much a hard nosed Constitutionalist.

Muslims don't assimilate. They want to change their new home to fit them. Mamdani has already taken over a city owned building and is using it for a mosque. One of his lieutenants has already said Islam will be in every home in the United States. Another has said their goal is to destroy the Constitution and replace it with Sharia law. Other Muslim leaders have said the same things. 

There have been criticisms over people bringing their dogs into their homes. The new and improved NYC grocery store doesn't sell pork products. Restaurants have been hassled over serving pork barbecue. Muslims want to ban alcohol. 

Muslims have hassled people for eating in public during Ramadan citing that they are fasting and it annoys them. Sorry about that but I am eating my lunch where and when I want and demand to be able do it in peace. 

Imams have stated they want to replace the Constitution with Sharia Law. Islam is actually a religion of conquering. Everywhere they land they insist the locals bend to them. I have no intentions whatsoever of living under Sharia law or changing my habits to accommodate newcomers. It's their job to assimilate.

The Quran permits them to lie, cheat, steal and even murder unbelievers.

It's not a religion, it is a terrorist organization. It destroys everything it touches. It was directly responsible for 9-11. A big example of that is Iran which has supplied many groups with arms and ammunition to go after western nations in general and the United States in particular. The Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and others come to mind as I sit here. All have been given money and arms from Iran and other Muslim sources.

They have killed any number of Americans and Islam in general and Iran in particular is a clear and present danger to the United States. Period.

The United States hosts every religion in the world that I am aware of and probably some I'm not aware of. We all seem to get along together and they have all assimilated well...EXCEPT the Muslims. They get along with none of the other religions. In fact they don't even get along with themselves. Sunni and Shiite Muslims are constantly going after each other. 

One time I wished a Hindu a merry Christmas and he smiled and replied that even though he was Hindi he loved Christians offering to share their holiday with him. He was gracious.

Not so when I offered a Muslim cab driver to buy him lunch. He could have simply said he was Muslim and fasting and been halfway decent about it. Instead he got $hitty about it.

Another time I offered a Jewish subcontractor a ham sandwich (I didn't know he was Jewish) when I was making lunch at work and he graciously begged off. It later got back to me that the Jew had gone and told my supervisor I was a nice guy for offering him lunch. Gracious.

Muslims simply have no place in western civilization. For the record the first war our then fledgling nation fought was with the Barbary pirates. They were not Irish Catholics or Methodists. They were Muslims. Our dealings go way back.

Japan has told the small handful of Muslims there to go whistle and I'm sure they'll soon get the boot. Denmark and Sweden have had a bellyful of Muslims and are in the process of giving large numbers of them the boot.

England and France are screwed royally. France seem to have a number of Catholic churches falling prey to mysterious fires and although the Notre Dame fire is officially listed as being caused by a worker it would be interesting to know of the employees possible connection with Islam. The Mayor of London is a Muslim and you might just as well write England off.

My solution is to follow the leadership of the Japanese and expel any non native born Muslim. We should also designate Islam to be a domestic terrorist group and encourage the rest to leave. 

Before anyone accuses me of being a Nazi, I don't advocate camps, death chambers or any harm be done to these people. I simply want them to leave and go somewhere else. That's fair and reasonable.

This is the Islamic Doomsday clock. I figure that right now we are between 7 and 8 O'clock. They've done a damned good job at 4 O'clock. They have taken New York City!

I've said what I said. As a hard nosed Constitutionalist it was difficult for me to come to this conclusion. I have always stood on the side of liberty but it has occurred to me that those people simply want to take our liberties away from us.

Historically in the early 70s I had a leave them alone attitude toward gays. By the mid 80s I had dealings with the TG community and left them alone, preferring to treat them the same way they treated me which for the most part was civilly. I had and still have a live and let live attitude. 

Before you decide to go off on me, do your own research. You just might find I am not too far off base when I say the biggest threat to democracy is Islam. Open your eyes and look around.

Here's a list. The list is not all inclusive. It is a plain and simple fact.

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Books.

I have had two I wanted to read and just finished one of them. 

"The Filthy Thirteen" which was a memoir of a WW2 paratrooper. I finished it wondering how accurate it really was. Much of it sounded a little over the top to me regarding his run-ins with officers and NCOs.

The other one arriving soon is "The Simple Sounds of Freedom" which is about the only USGI ever to join the Russian Army.

He was captured a few days after D Day in France, escaped from the PW camp a couple of times, finally making good an escape where he worked his way east and met the Russian forces. 

Instead of asking the Russians for repatriation he simple joined the Soviet Army and fought alongside them for a while.  Later he was wounded and sent to a hospital. 

A Soviet general was visiting and found out the non-Russian was there and made arrangements to return him to the States.

I kind of like off the wall WW2 incidents. It makes for good reading. Especially when it's about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

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After 50 years I realize I miss

my old coffee boiler.

For some reason I woke up with a hankering for Old School boiled coffee. I do not know why I would like such a nasty beverage as this upon wakeup but I do want a cup or three.

I had a real chuck wagon gallon boiler for a while when I lived in a tipi and would make up a batch every few days. Surprisingly it drew many favorable comments.

Later when I lived in more civilized housing I'd make a  basic 9 cup batch with a percolator I took the guts out of.

Today I think I'm going to go to Goodwill or maybe Walmart if I feel like getting dressed up and grab a stovetop percolator and use that.

Drip coffee is OK but I do believe it is time to build me a pot of Old School cowboy coffee.

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we have gotten too lax with criminals.

I just read where some clown with 54 arrests just got arrested for murdering someone. What was he doing out on the streets to begin with? It's obvious the system isn't working if that is the case.

Back in the early 60s there was an episode of a long forgotten television show 'Car 54 where are you?'

There was an episode where Car 54s beat was the lowest crime beat in the entire city. Police officials wanted to know why and discovered that Toody and Muldoon had endeared themselves and were so useful to the community that the locals decided they were too valuable to have to waste their time doing police work so they handled it themselves. Robbers and thieves woke up on an alley outside of Car 54's beat. Here's a link to the episode. The good part is the last third of it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEridEINzw 

Needless to say, if the locals did decide to  get rid of the police and police themselves it would soon reduce things to chaos. 

However the system doesn't seem to be doing it's job and because of that I am of the mind that there are circumstances that I would cover for someone that did take the law into their own hands.

People are getting sick and tired of catch and release judges and recently after someone murdered a rapist that raped his daughter and was given no prison time simply whacked the rapist and got off.

It wasn't long ago I would have wanted to see the killer get time because I don't generally believe in extra legal justice but that has been changing over the years. If the system fails something must be done to keep things from falling into chaos.

People think the police (and by extension the courts) only protect us from criminals. The fail to realize the police protect society from itself. 

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The heaving line

Early on in my career I worked on a bunker barge. We refueled ships.

Ships don't pull into the corner Sunoco and stick the nozzle in the tank filler. The fuel is delivered to them. A barge comes alongside and ties up alongside, a barge hose is sent up, normally a 6 inch in diameter hose. The hose gets bolted to the manifold and the barge pumps the fuel into the ship. 

Anyway, there was this Korean crewed ship and the crew was pretty lazy. They just wanted us to hang on with 2 lines which is illegal. we required at least six.  

Most ships would throw down a heaving line and pull our deck lines up.  These guys made us throw our heaving line up and then after they removed it they would throw the whole thing back instead of just the end with the weighted monkey's fist.

That angered me so I busted my ass to make them bust theirs by making them pull up at least 8 lines. The bastards could have tried to make it easier for both of us but tried to be lazy and wound up doing more work because of it.

They became a monthly customer and my pard and I decided that enough was enough. we decided to fix their ass good. We started to beg, borrow or steal all the 3/8s manila we could find and spliced into one long heaving line. It was at least an entire mile long but probably closer to a nautical mile of 6000 feet long. There was a monkey's fist on one end and the other end was back spliced. 

We left the tail out of the humongous galvanized tub we coiled it up in and about 90 feet of the end with the monkey's fist out the other side. The tail we tied to the deck line and covered the tub the pile of line with a tarp to hide it from the ship's crew.

When we came alongside I threw the monkey's fist aloft and one of the deckhands caught it and started pulling it up. It went from the strange to the ridiculous to the sublime as they kept pulling more and more 3/8s inch line up. Finally they got well over a mile of heaving line up and the deck line came with it. They were rather exhausted.

They found the monkey's fist and threw it down and it was repeated that way until all six deck lines were made fast. They sure had a pile of manila line on deck. 

The fueling went efficiently and flawlessly.

After everything was finished and we sailed they dropped our deck lines and we snapped them and they landed on deck. We'd coil them after we sailed.

When the last line was off a deckhand threw us our monkey's fist back and the crew gathered to watch me have to haul all 6000 feet of line back aboard. 

I pulled back about 85 feet, pulled out my knife, cut it and we sailed off leaving them a huge rat's nest of line on their deck. Their jaws dropped.

A month later when we came up alongside them they threw a heaving line down to us made of the 3/8ths manila rat's nest we had left behind a month earlier and everything went smoothly thereafter. They probably had made about 50 to 60 heaving lines out of what we had left behind!

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Sad news.

My ex-wife just passed last night. I got the call from my former brother in law last night at 2240.

The animosity between us ended shortly after the divorce and we became friends afterwards so this is nothing to cheer about.

She passed as a result of the medications she was taking for depression which is actually what broke up our marriage in the first place. She had a choice between fighting depression at the cost of longevity and she chose to fight the depression. Personally I would have done the same thing.

She passed peacefully, thank God.

Maybe I'll eventually post part of it.

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A long term immigrant would pick up on this almost immediately.

One of my handful of immigrant friends some time back told me he learned British English in school. While he said he arrived in the States with a basic skill for communication he felt he didn't speak the American dialect as well as he should have. 

Now he speaks excellent unaccented American English. He's worked hard at it and because of that he says he's constantly still picking up little 'Americanisms' that go with the language and the culture.

I always say that when you pick up and see the humor in little things like I posted you've conquered Americanisms to the point beyond that of many native born Americans.

when an immigrant reads something like this and laughs themselves silly it's a damned good indicator that they have assimilated.

                                                       

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Shortly after the birth of our nation we fought the Barbary Pirates.

 

When the Barbary pirates were seizing our ships and ransoming their crews a hue and cry went up throughout the nation. "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute." 

Our Sailors and Marines defeated the Barbary pirates and it is mentioned in the Marine's Hymn, 'to the shores of Tripoli'.

Somewhere along the line a couple of our presidents seemed to have skipped history class or failed to let all of this sink in because Obama and Biden paid tribute to Iran in the form of handing Iran pallets of cash and releasing frozen Iranian funds. 

The entire Iranian mess goes back to Jimmy carter who didn't have the balls to slap Iran silly and end things then and there. The can got kicked down the road for the next 47 years until our current POTUS decided to pick it up and deal with it.

Apparently the president remembered what Thomas Jefferson did. 

Iran has only managed to get more dangerous over time. 

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For those of you that are interested. Spread the word.

In a previous post I mentioned that the Japanese PM had acquired a taste for SKIPPY (brand specific) peanut butter and I am going to send her a jar.

Someone asked me for contact information. 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
1-6-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8914, Japan.

I just thought of something. Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word and see if we can get a few more people to do this.

Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word.

If nothing else the Japanese security weenies will go nuts. 

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The fastest form of communication is Rumor Control.

Back in the 90s sometime the subject of rumor control was being discussed by a couple of us in tha parking lot before crew change. 

Alvin, John and I were talking about it. John and I were old salts. Alvin was sort of a newbie. John and I decided to show Alvin how well it worked. We made up a rumor and decided to spread it to see how fast it made the rounds.

The rumor was a corker. 'All barges are going to be issued sextants and navigation tools and all tankermen are being sent to the six week celestial navigation course at Piney Point.' 

The alleged reason was so anchored barge crews could check and see if their anchor was dragging.

Never mind the fact that celestial navigation isn't all that accurate. Few tankerman know anything about it.

The three of us set our watches as this was pre-cell phone. Most of us didn't have one then because they were terribly expensive. Tugs and barges did have fixed cell phones installed.

They were supposedly for official use only but like a lot of things that got stretched.

John, headed to New York Harbor, would start the rumor at exactly 1300. Alvin and I would log the time it got to us via the jungle telegraph. John would log when it got back to him which would cover his ass because he could now honestly say he had heard the rumor from someone else. There really was no way the office could trace it back to anyone.

At 1304 the barge cell phone rang and sure enough, the rumor was in full swing. By about 1308 people started calling their port captains asking "What's this $hit I heard about having to go to school at Piney Point for six weeks?"

By 1309 people had started calling their reliefs and passing the word. There were people at home that were living in places like Idaho.

About the only one of us that didn't get the word was Jimmy Beardsley because he was incommunicado because he had taken his family to see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or some damned thing and was out in space somewhere.

A couple of days later the tugs all got faxes denying everything which was really too late because the rumor died about as fast as it started. When the office denied it early on Rumor Control spread the denial almost instantly.

The next time I ran into Alvin he told me he was astonished. I told him to keep everything under his hat because if the office ever got wind of who started this there would be hell to pay. I didn't have to tell him twice.

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Trump's Pearl Harbor comment to the Japanese reporter

could probably be described as being so tasteless it was tasteful.

Fact it it was hilarious and the Japanese PM had a hard time keeping it together..

Time has passed and of the original 16.4 million American participants the estimate is that under 45,000 are still alive. The median age is about 98 years old. Estimates are that by 2030 under 8000 will be alive. For the Japanese the estimates are now under 1000. Don't ask me why this is. I believe about 7 million Japanese served.

The war has been long over and with the participants gone healing is pretty much complete.  

As a kid I brought home some anti German/Japanese things from school and my father sat me down and told me the war was long over and pointed out that the Axis military people were no different than our GIs. None of them wanted to be there. They just wanted to go home, marry the girl of their dreams and raise a few kids.

He also pointed out to me that a German that had gotten taken prisoner in North Africa and was sent to a stateside PW camp lived nearby. He had decided shortly after repatriation to Germany to move to the States because he saw it as a land of opportunity. IIRC his kids were a bit younger than me so I never hung out with them.

I'm reasonably sure that Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese Prime Minister took little or no offense to President Trump's comments whatsoever. From what I have seen she likes Americans.

In 1928 a (then) Japanese captain named Tadimichi Kuribayashi came to the States as a student/attache and lived here for about two years. He made many American friends. Kuribayashi is best known for his incredible defense of the Island of Iwo Jima. From what I have read about this man he's my favorite WW2 personality that I would want to have dinner and drinks with.

PM Takaichi has something in common with Kuribayashi. She, too spent two years in the States. She lived here working for a Colorado representative on a modest stipend and reportedly acquired a taste for Skippy peanut butter. I'm sure she knows how we are and much like Kuribayashi generally likes us. She broke both Japanese and American protocol when the President met her at the White House door. She neither bowed not took his offered hand. Instead she charged up to him and gave him a big hug. 

That tells me she know Americans when she abandoned protocol.

It would be interesting to find out what the general Japanese population thought about their PM breaking protocol. It would also be interesting to see what the average Japanese citizen thinks over his comment.

As for PM Takaichi, she obviously thought something was outright hilarious but tried to hide it. The question is what she found funny. Personally my best guess is she got hit with a double whammy. Still, I don't think she was so much amused with Trump's comment as she was watching the Japanese reporter ask a stupid question and get brought up short by President Trump. I'm sure she's more than aware that the President is a bull in a China shop and not too surprised to see him to give an answer like that.

I instinctively like that woman. I think I'll mail her a jar of Skippy peanut butter.   

  

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Circa 1970. Buying beer in New Hampshire on Sunday.

before MA repealed some of the Blue Laws in 2004.

From where I lived the NH border was about 2.5 hours, about 140 miles but gas was 19.9 cents a gallon at the Quincy Oil station the next town over. Five buck would pay for gas with some left over. a six pack was about $1.25. 

About 0930 I got a call from one of my running partners. "Hey! Let's go to NH and buy beer!"

Cool! The fact that I was as sick as a dog from Saturday night had nothing to do with it. we were going to NH to buy beer on Sunday. It was flouting a stupid MA law that made it interesting.

The state of NH had and still does have a monopoly on hard liquor sales but smaller stores sold beer. Most NH state liquor stores are on highways and there's one on I-95 just across the border. Back then the MA State police would often have an unmarked car sitting there recording license plate numbers of MA vehicles and would radio them in so the State Police could bust you for smuggling NH beer into MA. It was somewhat of a joke and one time I had been stopped and tossed. 

The whole thing was pretty much MA at it's finest. They had detailed the State Police to enforce Sunday beer smuggling. What was funny about it is that local cops along the border probably did this routinely if they had a Sunday off and wanted a beer. 

The tossing had been cursory as they were looking for a case or maybe a couple of six-packs. For some reason they didn't look under the spare where there was a GIQ, a Giant Imperial Quart. Still, it scared me into taking other action for future runs.

For you youngsters, a GIQ was the precursor to todays 40. It held 38.4 ounces.  

The run that comes to mind was pretty slick. we hadn't been caught and had no intention of spoiling a perfect record. Needless to say we avoided state stores not only because of the State Police parking there and writing down license tag numbers but because we were minors.

The state store checked IDs carefully. Of course this was well before the time of laminated picture IDs. They still issued cards. I had one I had scored at a U. Mass dorm for about $2 that was absolutely perfect. I scuffed it up by carrying it in a separate section of my wallet and actually had a fear of handing it to a cop if I was ever stopped because it was that good.

On top of that in the trunk I had a set of CA license plates scored when someone from CA moved into the neighborhood and had registered their car in MA. 

The whole thing wasn't really about the beer itself but telling the state go go to hell. Blue laws were a stupid leftover from about the time of the Pilgrims and had just been carried over. They made no sense and therefore were to be flouted. 

Anyway, the run I recall was simple. I drove. I snagged my friend and we took off after a quick refueling at the Quincy station filling the tank with Red Hat, the subgrade that ran pretty good in slant and inline 6 cylinder engines of the time. 

We wound through the side roads, grabbed the expressway and started north, connecting to I-95. The rhythm of the road felt good underneath us as the old crapcan Dodge hummed along. There was something about a Slant Six engine. They really were a good engine for the time.

We crossed the state line and shortly we saw the state liquor store and pulled in for a reconnoiter. Business was fairly slow and we only saw a couple of out of state vehicles, only one from MA and the driver's seat was empty. Most likely it was a guy inside buying a jug and his wife was sitting there. She looked fairly old IIRC. 

I saw no sign of a MA Statie looking around. We drove out and continued up I-95 for a short piece and got off the Interstate. 

In short order we saw a general store, predecessor to today's convenience stores with a Carling Black Label beer neon sign so we went down thee road about a half mile and covered our plates with CA plates, went back to the store and I bought a couple of GIQs and a big bag of ice. He didn't even ask for my license.

The GIQs went into a galvanized steel pail and were covered with ice  and wedged into the trunk in a way it would not tip over. There was already a hole in the trunk floor that was a drain from previous mishaps. Back in the day a serviceable automobile could be purchased for $50 or less, sometimes even gotten for free. Knocking a drain in the trunk was no big thing. The next place the car was likely to wind up was the boneyard. 

We pulled out of the general store and drove a quarter mile towards the Interstate and stopped. The CA plates went into the trunk and we were off and running for home. Actually it was more of a nice cruise. IIRC it was October and the leaves were turning so for a while we got off the Interstate and enjoyed the fall colors before going back into I-95. 

We then retraced our steps and as the sun was setting we enjoyed the fruits of our efforts as we swilled down a GIQ apiece in the early darkness of fall.

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This country could use an AMERICAN Foreign Legion

as a pathway to citizenship. 

Six years+ Honorable discharge=full citizenship. 

Plus a full GI bill and in-service educational opportunities. 

Legal entry required, no Green Cards necessary. Entry to the states for the purpose of enlistment permitted, however if you don't qualify you get returned to your home country. I'd also allow illegals to enlist. OTOH if they don't qualify they get handed over to ICE who POLITELY returns them to where they came from.

Maybe out embassies overseas could serve as a screening point. A couple of trained embassy Marines could administer the various pre enlistment tests.

Upon completion of the six years they are eligible to reenlist if they so desire to continue with a military career. Same benefits, rights and responsibilities as regular troops. Hell, they could even transfer to regular military units.

One more thing, a distinctive uniform badge of some sort akin to the French Foreign Legion's distinctive Kepi Blanc. It would give them a source of pride for both members and our citizenry. We could refer to them as apprentice 'citizens'.

One thing about these people is that if they wanted to come from overseas to enlist they should go to the head of the line. They could bypass the waiting lines that extend to up to 20+ years.

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