Caption: Fear of change
Bullet Points:
** Friday the Seventeenth of November – In Italy.
** I recently discussed the German and Russian occupations of Poland during World War 2/The Great Patriotic War with a friend. The question arose – why did the Polnische Polizei (Polish National Police) collaborate with the Nazis or alternately with the Soviets. Polish policemen were offered a simple choice – collaboration or execution by both the Gestapo/SS and the NKVD. The level of cooperation of the Polish Police varied. They were still obliged to protect Polish people from thieves and bandits who existed and thrived during war and anarchy.
On the other hand, many policemen became bandits and thieves themselves, extorting civilians for bribes. But many of them were also double agents working for both Germans/Russians and the Home Army, ensuring that police actions against Polish civilians would end with failure. Twenty percent of all police officers were executed by Germans/Russians, which means they weren’t their most faithful servants.
** The Hat – The Hat is a Southern California fast-food restaurant chain specializing in pastrami dip sandwiches. This eatery, once local only to the San Gabriel Valley, has been offering its “World Famous Pastrami” to Southern California residents since 1951. Its customers consume 13 to 15 tons of pastrami per week. Even though some of you will look at me as if I’m nuts, I also like their tuna sandwich on a roll. I have them add tomatoes, onions, and pickles, and then I add some mustard. It depends on whether you want the pastrami or a healthier option. I usually visit The Hat at least once when I’m in town – after I’ve been to Tommy’s for my chiliburger.
** Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (over)
** Kamala is AOC without the skills to be a bartender. That’s not to say that Kamala was not skilled at outcall. She must have been because she followed that profession until she ran out the clock on looks/charm/physical performance, and her sugar daddies got her political jobs rather than coming out of pocket each month to pay for the condo, credit card, and Corvette.
** You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
** Boating with EdB – For those of you who have owned ocean-going boats that require anti-fouling paint, you know that the paint becomes less effective and needs to be replaced with fresh paint. How do you get the old paint off? It’s not easy.
Now, where do you buy fresh paint? The chandeliers in the United States are not allowed to sell you bottom paint that works (it is toxic to marine life), and what they will sell you at a bonus price doesn’t work. Either have a friend go to Mexico or go yourself and buy the paint you need and at least enough paint for two more boats (you can sell it at a profit in the US) to recoup your effort. The antifouling bottom paint they sell in Mexico works. It’s not as if you’re smuggling drugs, contraband Cuban cigars, or inexpensive Chinese ammunition north.
** A Bambi moment.
Worth a Listen
Identify the Aircraft
1
USAAF 490th Bomb Squadron, 341st Bomb Group, based in China – WW2
2
600+ built
3
103 built, still in military production
4
169 built
5
A cousin of #4 above
Identify the Feature Film (then and now)
End
One is B-25 Mitchell
Food – 10 of us had birthday lunch today for my brother’s wife at a Filipino restaurant a bit over an hour away. We nearly all had some version of the slow cooked pork. So tender they didn’t even give you a knife.
Yes, it’s a B-25. I have had some excellent Filipino food, but it’s always been cooked by Filipinos. Every time somebody (including one of my sons-in-law) who is not trying to top ethnic Filipino food, it somehow falls flat. There’s an art to it.
Sister and wife tried to watch closely and take copious notes while my mom made her Swedish rye bread. Somehow it never turned out to taste as good. For all I know, it’s because of changes to the ingredient mix and process based on subconscious awareness of air temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity levels that only come from years of experience of baking…
Larry. As with yourself I have had some excellent Filipino food. Have had some not so excellent Filipino food as well. Having eaten some, shall we say, exotic foodstuffs in my time (if foodstuffs is the right word to describe some of them) but the one thing I draw the line at is balut.
I knew a couple of fellows (both were married to Filipinas), back in the late 1980s-early 1990s, who owned the Whispering Pines Resort in Balibago. One of them had previously worked as a senior manager for the AMP insurance company and the other was a former tally clerk on the Melbourne waterfront. The resort had the then only Olympic sized swimming pool in Angeles City. With Sunday afternoons being a day of rest for most of the local bar girls, they were allowed free use of the pool then. As a result, each week, they descended on the pool en masse after lunch. What started off quite sedately soon degenerated, after they had had a few drinks from the bar, into debauchery. Swimsuits came off and there were soon some fifty to one hundred naked, nubile, young Filipinas yelling, shouting, laughing, frolicking in the water. Unfortunately, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in 1991, and its aftermath severely damaged the resort and pool and it closed down.
Back to balut. I knew a girl there, she worked in one of the bars just off Fields Avenue (which ran alongside the perimeter fence of the former Clark Air Force Base) and had arranged to meet her one evening at her bar, and we would then go for a few drinks at another bar called “The Little Wheel”, a short distance away. I would have dinner at the resort, then catch the free shuttle to Fields Avenue, she would have something to eat at work, and we would meet at the bar and walk to “The Little Wheel”. I duly arrived at the bar, and she leaned in to kiss me causing me to nearly throw up. Her breath, which was normally squeaky clean, tasting like Colgate toothpaste, was putrid. When I asked her what she had been eating she said she had not been very hungry, so had had a couple of balut as a snack.
I know nothing about LBFMs, or sea shanties about Zamboanga (admit nothing, deny everything, demand proof, make counter-allegations, find a scapegoat). There was an alleged incident in the PI when the Prince of Darkness worked for VP Joe Estrada. He rented the sixth floor of the Mandarin Oriental with somebody else’s credit card and staffed it with a blend of girls from Makati and Baguio. The girls were territorial, as one would expect, and he ended up with a management problem. I think that the Mandarin Oriental ended up writing off the rather large bill. The room service liquor tab alone could fund the entire Philippines Navy for a month. Who was that weird triad guy who also worked for Estrada? All the colors he wore on any given day matched. Major something. The Prince didn’t get along with him very well—an uneasy detente. But on to balut. Lips that eat balut will never kiss mine. It took time to get used to durian. The onion breath (sort of onion) can go from mild to wild.
PS – It’s a felony to bring a durian plant into the United States. Don’t try this at home.
Fields Ave… it seems everyone who was ever there never partook of its exotic indulgences. Put your ID in your shoe with a few bucks. The volcano was probably a good thing.
*
Durian… if… and that’s a big if… you get by the dead skunk on a hot Texas day mixed with sulfur it actually tastes pretty good. Don’t ask how one gets convinced to try it. However, post tasting you and your breath … well.. smell like a dead skunk mixed with sulfur on a hot Texas day.
*
Balut… I have watched it be served, watched others devour it.. never will I try it. Just looking at it was awful.
I’m sure that dead skunk and sulfur would be a big hit in the P.I.
MikeW, an officer by an act of Parliament, and I, an officer by an act of Congress, are both gentlemen. While we are aware of certain situations, as one would expect, participation is not even contemplated. Enlisted US servicemen bought baby chicks to feed to the crocks at Olongopo City as an amusement offered by Filipino hosts. Officers worked to stop the practice (as an example).
Ah yes. Durian. A somewhat, as they say, acquired taste. My wife loves them whilst I, finding the insides a little rich and creamy, can only eat so much.
Currently it is the durian season here. There are numerous little road side stalls, as well as people operating out of the backs of pick up trucks, selling them. They will cut them up and wrap them for you on the spot. You can even buy it in the supermarkets, already peeled and cutup laying on styrofoam plates/dishes and covered in clingwrap. Given the amount available they are not expensive.
You are banned from taking them into hotels, particularly the big, international ones, as the smell goes through the air conditioning system and permeates the entire building. There are those though who disregard this, and you soon know about it as the smell filters through.
Durian can even be bought in Australia. Well, in Thaitown in Sydney at least. These imported ones leave something to be desired. It appears the cold storage used to ship them does something to them, and causes them to lose taste. Also they are frequently dried out inside. Given they are expensive it is not worth buying them.
I remember LBFMs on Fields Avenue — a little bar called The Last Bohemian Field Marshal. A good place to stop for a cold beer or two after getting off shift on a hot dry season afternoon. On a related note, I remember more than a few Air Force pilots down on TDY from Korea and Japan for wargames shaming themselves at live sex shows at the Nipa Hut, and an officer from 1961st Communications Group known as “Captain Potatohead” messing around with the underage girls at The Red Baron Club.
Our Marine Crew was all Filipino and would make some genuine Filipino food once or twice a week. Really good food! They sure can make some wonderful dishes from pork.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. North American B-25 Mitchell
2. Chengdu J-10
3. Xian Y-7-100
4. Myanmar Shaanxi Y-8
5. Chinese Shaanxi Y-8
Identify the Feature Film:
Prometheus
Good going, Surly. The AI triumphs over HogbreathSS by a full hour—just when HogsbreathSS thought he could sleep in on a Saturday morning without consequences.
IDA-
1. North American B-25 Mitchell
2. Chengdu J-10
3. Xian Y-7-100
4. Myanmar Shaanxi Y-8
5. PLA Shaanxi Y-8
IDFF-
Prometheus
People entering the military as a career choice often don’t realize the competition to stay in the military.
The Navy used to practice high-year tenure for up and out. I don’t know if that’s still the case.
I started following a couple of full time sailors on youtube, and I saw what they had to do to keep their boats going and taking care of the bottom is a regular and large job. After the first time or two they find a place where the labor is cheap & experienced at redoing the bottoms and get it done there!
FWIW I knew nothing about sailboats when I started watching, when they were happy to be making 4 kts (today) on a multi thousand mile trip I realized that traveling like that was probably not for me. :-)
* very late day, very late night going over various (world-wide) events that are currently affecting the market (and vice versa) (for a change); it appears (to me) that (whoever, whatever group is behind) the Biden regime (and it sure as hell doesn’t appear to be Vladimir Vladimirovich and/or his cronies) is attempting to remove the US from the leadership of the (Free) world – I don’t think I have a terrible case of paranoia., Doc.
* carefully reading your ‘points of interrest’:
I’d just like to mention that those “chandeliers in the United States” selling bottom paint musta bin very dim bulbs indeed
* I believe “kainotophobia” (also cainotophobia and kainophobia) may result from atychiphobia and/or kakorrhaphiophobia (as I understand it)
I paid to have my hull done.
https://youtu.be/lWqweh5HJOE?si=I7EBUEUmZh92v4Hx
I notified OSHA.
I was looking for someone to walnut or sand blast. $1500 and would probably warp the aluminum because of the heat they said.
These guys drove to my house and blasted it with a slurry of ground bottle glass. Shoveled up like sand.
No damage. $300.
> why did the Polnische Polizei (Polish National Police) collaborate with the Nazis or alternately with the Soviets.
.
Because they were statistically-normal human beings, whose genetically-programmed instincts declared the supermajority to be morally correct.
About 25 years ago, we lived in Rancho Cucamonga and I worked in various other cities further west and south. I’d occasionally stop by Tommy’s either in City of Industry or El Monte. The original at Beverly and Rampart was just too much of a hassle to get to and when I did go, it became something of a quest fighting traffic, etc. Now that there’s one in Las Vegas, I can go there when visiting the dear wife’s family.
Still, the convenience of going to these other locations somehow doesn’t match the experience of a post-midnight meal at the original shack after seeing a concert (e.g. 1975 Rolling Stones) or catching a show at the Roxy (1976? Wet Willie with the ZZ Top boys at the next table). Memory is an awesome thing. Growing older just barely beats the alternative. Maybe Neil Young was right that “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
Special Forces
1964 The demolition school O’Connor and I attended was near Bad Tolz (a fun place in January/Feb) where the 10th Special Forces was located. Most of the instructors were from the 10th. Something of a cultural clash, two Privates, mainly interested in getting drunk and laid, among serious warriors. They enjoyed gently correcting some of our attitudes. They were very good teachers and we took the school part to heart. We left with a deep respect for the SF and zero desire to join. Likewise, they were happy to see our backs.
Thirty Thousand Pounds per Week?!? Good Gravy that’s a lot of pastrami! And yes, I’ve eaten there. Excellent food, almost as good as Foggia’s Deli in Long Beach. Haven’t had a Tommy’s in about 30 years….
.
WTF…..Really! The last person I heard do double-speak like that was a USAF Colonel. He gave a ten minute answer to a simple question, and said absolutely nothing while using lots of buzz-words, jargon, acronyms, and bull-scat. Amazing performance, and we talked about it for weeks.
.
#4 strikes me as a somewhat handsome aircraft. The Rooskies had a knack for making some stunning aircraft that performed like dog turds.
I thought the whole point of anti-fouling paint is that it is toxic to marine life. Anything less suggests you’ve lost the plot.
Not in California, where they don’t want anti-fouling paint to kill the creatures it’s designed to thwart.
Reporting back on my confrontation with the thug on the 31st. Stopped in the cop shop this morning to see if I had been filed on for brandishing . Didn’t happen , but I decided to file assault charges on the perp so there was a record .Got a call tonight that perp was looking for me ,,,,looks like shit leaks from the cop shop.
I am too old for this shit,, got the colt in a shoulder holster whenever I leave the house, an ar15 pistol with a brace in the truck ,,it is effectively an sbr. I am a peaceful man ,,but I am not harmless. Guess I need to stop drinking at night till this settles. But as mentioned I’m too old for this shit.
Thanks for the update. There’s no choice but to remain vigilant in the face of a threat. Stand to early in the morning when they’re more likely to strike.
“I am a peaceful man ,,but I am not harmless.” Excellent line…reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2k4QAItiSA
Looks like a good movie to see, Paul!
When I was working for the cops as a staff ass-istant, the comm center and records division were rife with corruption. Family members at the department passing intel and ‘fixing’ records for their extended families.
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So bad it was that the unit I belonged to kept separate records and separate comm channels and only after everything was done did the report go to records after we dropped a copy off at the state attorney’s office.
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I grew up in a colorless world, so much that in a diversity class I was asked what I saw in said diversity class. My answer of ‘city employees’ was not acceptable.
Amazing the level of corruption allowed to exist amongst certain minorities because of EEOC and muh diversity, even back in the 1990’s. I never bowed down to any of their dictats and religious screeds regarding muh diversity. In fact, I was famous throughout the city for being that guy who answers all the questions wrongly. Been discriminated for sex? Yep. Race? Yep. Religion? Yep. Age? Yep. Fatness? Yep. Non-Work activities? Yep. For choosing my job field? Yep. For having hereditary health issues? Yep. Everything they brought up I could answer back, forcefully as a serious ‘Yep’ right back in their squinty little eyes and with a long story to back it up, with names, places, times. Funny how I was the problem. See me as a problem? Sure, I’ll grab that mantle and wear it proudly.
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I left that place disgusted with the world. My eyes had been jacked opened and forced to see what should not be seen.
I’ll say it again (late to the game here)…Anyone voting for Harris is demented or completely devoid of a brain. Imagining THAT as President makes me want to hurl my very good Jersey Mike’s Philly Cheesesteak.
***
Boat bottom paint- I’ll have to go back through Leo’s videos over at Sampsonboat.co.uk to see what they on the Tally Ho used on the wooden hull…but they were in Port Townsend where traditional boat-building is still practiced. What happens if a boat from elsewhere moves into California waters, are there “anti-fouling bottom inspectors” who assault you on the high seas to levy fines if their phone app spectrometer detects the wrong paint? Maybe they should go to water-based.
***
Movie- Dude’s been working out, altho needs a bit of sun. Slight water level drop there (Argentina?).
What happens is when you go to renew the anti-foul paint, they make you do it in hazmat suits and treat the cleanup like you’re cleaning up a Level 4 bio lab in a leaking waste depository.
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And you pay for the disposal of the old paint, for the disposal of the materials used to remove the old paint, for the disposal of all the clothing and dropcloths and everything else.
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And you pay for all the paperwork involved. To the point of getting permission from California to actually start the process. Get permission from the place you’re going to do the removal and repair. Get permission to buy the materials (if exotic) to allow you to do the job. And get permission, if buying enough paint, to actually buy the paint. I don’t know if you actually have to buy it from a government-approved supplier, but I bet you can’t buy it from Amazon and have it shipped.
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My dad, the farseeing man that he was, had the opportunity to retire in California back in the early 70’s. His contacts there had already told him that California was quietly slipping into stupidity. So he moved us all to Florida. Which was the right idea. We happily stripped anti-fouling paint and other horrible evilness with no PPE, in the yard, out in the open, breathing fresh clean air.
Dude! Where’s my Sermonette!?
Some say AOC, like HUMA, is hot. Others say no.
I count myself amongst the others. Alex, of course, whistles a different tune.
I don’t care if she can suck all the water out of a sunken sub, she’s too crazy and insane and socialist for me to ever consider her as ‘hot.’ I’ve seen lot lizards who were more clean and sincere than AOC. Not that I ever would partake of that level of sexual stupidity.