I’m letting Boo and Girlie Bear play with my Nerf six shot single action revolvers. I’ve been a target of opportunity several times now. On the bright side, the cats are getting a much needed workout, and from the squeals coming out of the back of the house, so is Irish Woman.
But here’s the thing that keeps going through my head:
“How can you shoot your poor old father?”
“Easy, you don’t lead him as much!”
Posted by daddybear71 on October 22, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/22/this-cant-end-well/
The owner of a tobacco store in Louisville proved the old adage “Don’t use a gun in a crime. Your victim might take it away and shoot you with it”.
The jerkoff who tried to rob the smoke shop got a bullet in the leg for his trouble, and is currently in the hospital awaiting his time in the gray bar hotel with a distinct limp.
Excuse me for a little schadenfreude here, but I hope it hurt like a son of a gun.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 22, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/22/good-for-him/
The U.S. Navy announced recently that it is drumming out 64 sailors who were caught using and/or selling a form of synthetic marijuana. Use of other drugs, such as cocaine and meth, was also found in the investigation.
Y’all should know by now that I’m a proponent of legalization of at least the milder drugs that are currently verboten in our country. I think the government needs to butt out of our private lives, let the states regulate what they want and don’t want happening within their borders, and spend the money saved on either cutting budgets or doing something that’s actually productive.
But that feeling doesn’t involve the military. Period. Dot.
In the civilian world, for the most part, one day is much like the last and the next. Most people don’t have an expectation that in the blink of an eye, every part of their world could change from boredom to bedlam with a distinct risk of someone getting maimed or killed.*
Not so with the military, whether they’re deployed or stateside, off-duty or on. Things happen in the world, and when they do, we have to know that our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are ready to go without hesitation. Yeah, service members drink, but unless you’re blind drunk, you’re not going to get someone killed in the hour or two it takes for you to sober up. If you’re high, stoned, tripping, or wired you’re going to take much longer with many more after effects that will put your mission and the people who depend on you in danger.
Bad things happen in our world every day with little to no warning for the military:
And the list goes on and on. What they all have in common is that there was no warning and no way for servicemembers to plan on when they could get high and not impact their unit when tasked to respond to them.
I cannot imagine a sailor on an aircraft carrier underway being high. How would he respond to a fire or accident on the flight deck? How would he be able to help in damage control parties? How could he safely do his job when the inevitable sudden change in work schedule happens?
So, and this hurts a lot for me to say, good for the Navy.
*Yeah, I know, such an expectation is the bedrock upon which all self-defense thinking lies, but I expect that someone who’s taking responsibility for their own safety isn’t going to eat a hash brownie and concealed carry to the grocery store for Crunch n Munch.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/21/props-to-the-navy/
Side note: Ga-Ka-Quadaffi’s escape was thwarted by bombs from a FRENCH plane. Of all the Causes of Death possible in this world, “Killed by the French” has got to rank as one of the most shameful ones, right below “Accidental Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation” and only slightly above “Death By Infection From That Tiny African Worm That Swims Up Your Wing-Wang”.
— Marko, The Munchkin Wrangler, writing about the death of Qaddafi
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/21/quote-of-the-day-42/
Yesterday, I commented on a young lady of Muslim faith who has been told that she cannot wear the hijab with her JROTC uniform. I took the position that AR 670-1, which governs the appearance of soldiers and how they wear their uniforms, needed to be upheld. I also felt that if the Army said there would be no exceptions for wearing religious articles that could be seen in uniform, then she should either hang up her ACU’s or conform.
But after I wrote that, a little voice in the back of my head kept bugging me. I half-remembered that other religious groups had, on a case by case basis, been given exceptions to the uniform standards.
So I did a little digging, and I found something.
The Army has given at least three Sikhs who wanted to serve an exception to AR 670-1. They have been allowed to go without the normal haircut or shaving, and have been allowed to wear a black turban in place of a beret and a camouflage turban under their helmet. Reports are that the soldiers have done well, and are not looking for exceptions to other standards or special treatment.
So it is possible for members of our society who have religious beliefs that require them to have overt, visible manifestations of those beliefs to serve.
Now that I realize this, my opinion on the case of this young woman changes. If other people can have an exception made, so long as they conform in every other way, why can’t an exception be made for practicing Muslim women to wear a hijab?
Above and beyond the fairness issue here, there’s a more practical issue at stake. The military is fighting wars in the mid-East, and will be in one way or another for the foreseeable future. By encouraging loyal Americans who happen to be Muslim into our armed forces, we become better prepared to fight those wars. Muslims would probably know more about the culture and language of the countries we will be fighting in, and their knowledge can be leveraged to improve the training of other soldiers. This is similar to the thousands of Eastern European immigrants who served during the Cold War, or descendents of German immigrants who served in the World Wars.
So my point is that if the Army can make an exception for Sikhs, why not Muslims? The armed forces could gain by making inroads into a community with unique skills and knowledge that could be used to improve their effectiveness in wars, and it only seems fair. That being said, the young lady in question, and other Muslims who want to serve but still wear a hijab, should consider following the example of the Sikh soldier I linked to, and wear headgear that blends in with the rest of her uniform.
What do y’all think?
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/21/rethinking/
Guys, remember, if today truly is the rapture, do something good for yourself after noticing that some of your neighbors are missing. Something like arming yourself well for Ragnarok, then visiting your local spirits vendor. What’s the point of having to fight your way through Armageddon if you can’t do it carrying your grail gun and having a bottle of your favorite booze in your ruck?
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/21/thought-for-the-day-doomsday-edition/
Mohmar “Senor Psychopath” Qaddafi was killed today. Thus ends 42 years of despotic rule over Libya. In my lifetime, he’s picked and lost fights with the U.S. Navy, bombed a bar in Berlin and killed Americans, supported terrorists throughout the Middle East and Europe, gotten bombed, arranged the bombing of an airliner that also killed Americans, and become everyone’s favorite oil-rich pariah. I expect to see reports of Chinese arms manufacturers, Italian hair dye producers, and female bodyguards weeping in the streets.
His friends in Italy and France turned on him this spring when he crossed some otherwise invisible line in putting down mass uprisings in Libya. Apparently using helicopter gunships against demonstrators is just too much for them to ignore. Their reaction probably had more to do with Al Jazeera and CNN broadcasting the video than it did with the act itself. For some reason, we went along with their plan to support a rabble with 21st century airpower. My gut tells me it’s because the Europeans told President Obama it was important that NATO do something, and NATO couldn’t use a urinal unless we were there to help them aim and flush.
So now the “kinetic action” is pretty much over. Time to pack up our close air support/ interdiction aircraft….. Wait, I’m sorry, time to bring home our aircraft that were only used to protect Libyan civilians from direct action by forces loyal to the dictator. No matter how you spin it, it’s time for us to stop helping out the new despotic regime. This is going to be a case of “Meet the new bastard, same as the old bastard”.
One thing I’d like to see, and I will be pleasantly surprised if it happens, is for President Obama to present NATO and the new Libyan regime with a bill for the pay of the pilots, crew, and staffs, the cost of fuel and munitions, and wear and tear on our aircraft. Yeah, I know, I’m ever the starry eyed optimist. But we’re not going to see one thin dime of anything from this war when it comes to improvement in American interests, and we spent a lot of money we didn’t have so that Italians could get cheaper petrol for their Deathrace 2000 reenactments along the Via Appia. It’d be nice if after two World Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Libya if someone else would kick in for the pizza and beer at the after party.
So, here’s hoping that Qaddafi is roasted slowly over a fire fueled with demon poop in his new digs in the pit, along with his fellow bastards Hussein and bin Laden. Here’s hoping that we haven’t made the same mistake we made in Iraq and all the really neat military hardware that he was sitting on doesn’t get added to the armories of people who want to see Walmarts burning. Also, here’s hoping that the rest of the world figures out how to police itself for a while. After almost 70 years of making the world safe for other people, I think it’s time we took a couple of years off. I’ve heard that it’s quite nice to not have to worry about which European/Asian/African/Whatever tribe is going to whack its neighbor next. At least that’s what George Washington said.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/21/alrighty-then/
Posted by daddybear71 on October 20, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/20/news-roundup-76/
If you ever really want to contest the Declaration of Independence, bring a lunch, so we’ll have something to eat.
A group of British barristers debated a group of American lawyers about the legality of the Declaration recently in Philadelphia. Their point was that the actions taken by the Continental Congress were treasonous, and they have a point. If any of the signers of the Declaration and other leaders of the Revolution had been captured, they would have been hanged for their trouble.
No-one has ever claimed that the decision by the American colonists in 1776 was legal under British law. That was kind of the point of the 7 years of war we fought to convince the British that continued efforts to bring us back into the fold weren’t worth the effort. We’re not saying that in this instance might makes right, but if George III was so convinced in his own divine right to rule, then he should have found a way to win the war.
Yeah, I know the debate was mostly just tongue in cheek navel gazing and an opportunity for two nations that have grown very close over the past 235 years to get together and go over an old historical point of law. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank the Lord for those cantankerous landowners and smugglers in the 18th century who decided they didn’t want their descendants to grow up in Southern Canada and started a war over it.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 20, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/20/to-my-beloved-british-cousins/
Co-Worker – We’re not doing that because that’s stupid.
Someone needs to promote that young man into management before he loses that wisdom.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 20, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/20/overheard-in-the-office/
DaddyBear’s Den 