“Today is a very unusual day, because we have never lived it before; we will never live it again; it is the only day we have.” William Arthur Ward
Addendum: Try not to do something so stupid that you make it your last day on earth.
From the Mail Bag
Q – Are you aware of designer drugs that are given to special operations forces?
A – You are referring to state-issued designer drugs? I can not confirm or deny.
I can confirm that at times “suicide pills” are given to people who undertake hazardous and generally ‘deniable’ missions. They’re called L (for lethal) pills that have a tough, rubbery surface. Bite down hard, and you don’t have to bite down again. Is it better than being captured and tortured? Yes. A large number of nations issue them for the same purpose and under similar circumstances to the US government.
There have been rumors that Russians in particular experimented heavily with wicked new designer drugs for military applications. They jack up your dopamine and suppress activity in the bit of gray matter responsible for empathy. The side effects are said to be profound. I have never run into people who I know have used it, nor has that information been presented to me in a classified format.
Historically, drugs have been given to soldiers/warriors from the famed “assassins” of the Middle East (hashishins), to Asians who have used opiates before suicide charges.
Philippine military officials have reported finding large quantities of methamphetamine (locally known as shabu) in the hideouts of rebel groups, such as the Maute group and the New People’s Army. Military commanders alleged that these militants were using the drugs to sustain themselves during prolonged battles.
German soldiers in WWII heavily used stimulants, primarily methamphetamine (Pervitin) for alertness and to fight fatigue, leading to widespread distribution, especially during the early Blitzkrieg, but its serious side effects later led to tighter controls; they also experimented with powerful cocktail drugs like D-IX (cocaine, oxycodone, methamphetamine) for elite troops.
Q – Do you think that the sacrifices that young men and women have made in foreign wars are worth it?
A – Let’s salute a hero today: 2 LT Tracy Lynn Alger, US Army, who made the ultimate sacrifice on November 1, 2007, from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near her vehicle in Shubayshen, Iraq. She served proudly with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), based at Fort Campbell, Ky. – Your bravery will never be forgotten.
This isn’t a photo (right) taken in uniform (obv) or next to a piece of military equipment in a dirty shithole country filled with vile people, none of whom is worth an ounce of her sweat. But I think that it more accurately reflects her personality.
LT Alger was from New Auburn, WI, whose passion was barrel racing. She attended Chetek High School and then studied graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
“Serving her country was what she wanted,” her mother said. “We had a conversation before she left that she might not be coming back, so we spent as much time together as we could. Tracy started considering the service after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. After college, she worked as a graphic artist and then as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home before her Army commission and service in the National Guard.
She moved to Fort Campbell, Ky., within the last year of her service, her mother said. Alger was in charge of convoys that transported supplies. She was a very considerate officer. She didn’t have to go on a lot of the convoys, but she wanted to serve alongside her people. She was not a stay-at-camp kind of person.
Her mother recounted that Tracy wrote her aunt a letter, which arrived on Oct. 28. “She wrote a letter that they were going into a big mission and they were concerned about it,” she said.
Alger spent many years barrel-racing, a rodeo-like event in which horse and rider are timed as they maneuver around large barrels, she said. Her horse, Tango, is boarded at her family home. She was on the rodeo team at River Falls, and before she left, she was president of the Wisconsin Girls Barrel Racing Association. “She was such a good daughter,” her mother said. “We spent a lot of time together traveling to barrel races. She was my right-hand person. We did everything together.”
Family and friends set up a memorial in her yard, including a flagpole.
If you’re an American, you are Tracy Alger, and Tracy is you.
Hank Thompson (RHT447) sent me an e-mail about SO3 Michael Monsoor, USN, Medal of Honor, the other day, and I’m combining his e-mail with the one that prompted the mailbag response. Without discussing the content of the e-mail, I did not know Petty Officer Monsoor, but I worked closely with his cousin for about two years.
We remember our fallen, who represent our best and brightest, in different ways. Petty Officer Monsoor had a Zumwalt-class DDG named for him (right), and Tracy Alger’s family put up a memorial in their front yard. I feel the same about both things because those left behind, both brothers and sisters in arms and the families, will honor their lives in their hearts and minds so long as they live.
Not to be overly dramatic, but when you go out, downrange, there is no telling whether you will return. The hope is always that if you fall or if you’re wounded, the sacrifice will be meaningful. Dear friends of mine who served out of uniform in the War on Terror (however you want to define that) and gave their last full measure of devotion don’t have the same sort of memorial as those in uniform have. Maybe a nameless star on a wall. Maybe a name on a small brass plaque in a cathedral in England. Often not even that. If you were to ask LT Alger or SO3 Monsoor whether they thought their sacrifice was worth it, I think they’d say it was.
There’s guilt that comes with surviving. I don’t want to hit it too hard, but I’ve felt it myself. It manifests differently in different people. There are times that I wish I could take their place in those gardens of stone, but life dealt me different cards, and so I do things like blog and, when I’m able, give compassionate service. These things are the very least that I can do for them.
The scum of the earth, who often identify as Democrats, spit on their memories, but then again, they’re democrats – and that tells you what I think of them. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their pubic areas and multiply twice daily.
Book Review – The Strange Death of Europe, by Douglas Murray
The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society.
This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places that cannot accept them.
Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel’s U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation, and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa, and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter, he also takes a step back to examine the broader issues behind a continent’s death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves.
He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – that paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice about what, if anything, we can do next.
Written in 2018, compare then and now.
Directed Energy
Modern militaries possess directed-energy and acoustic technologies designed to disrupt, disorient, and incapacitate targets without relying on traditional explosives or gunfire. These systems can induce intense pressure, pain, nausea, disorientation, and ear or sinus distress in those exposed — especially in confined spaces. This is why the security element of Maduro’s protection was complaining about a device that made their nose bleed, and their ears bleed as well.
One of the key advantages of these technologies is their ability to affect personnel inside hardened structures, bunkers, or buildings where conventional weapons may be less effective. Instead of destroying the structure, the goal is to neutralize what’s inside it.
This isn’t Hollywood or science fiction. Research into acoustic, microwave, and other directed-energy systems has been ongoing for decades, and some versions are already acknowledged publicly as part of modern arsenals.
Bullet Points:
** The US Embassy in Dushanbe has confirmed the suspension of the Green Card lottery program, following an announcement by the US Department of State. While applicants can still submit applications and attend interviews, no visas will be issued under the program, and all previously scheduled interviews will be rescheduled for later dates, The Caspian Post reports via Tajik media. The Embassy did not provide further details on the reasons behind the suspension. However, the decision comes after a tragic incident in the United States: the suspect in the December 13 shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, which left two people dead and around 20 injured, had entered the country through the Green Card program.
** President Trump explores paid protesters. It’s a living, I guess.
** (Reuters) Supertankers sailing to pick up Venezuelan oil for China make U-turns, ship data shows. They’ll be left with contraband Russian oil once the Venezuelan and Iranian/Persian supplies dry up. I’m sure that the Commies will be fine. Just build that bamboo wall and wall yourselves in.
** (LVRJ) Las Vegas was shedding jobs toward the end of 2025 amid a prolonged tourism slump in America’s casino capital, a new report shows. Employment in the Las Vegas area fell by 4,700 jobs from September to December. They could raise prices even higher to dissuade mooches (visitors) from coming with even more vigor than they do now.
** Size matters.
** This week, 47 years ago, the Shah of Iran was forced to flee largely because President Carter and other Western leaders naively refused to back him despite the threats of Islamists who were leading the revolution for his ouster. This, along with Carter’s failure to respond to the US embassy being taken over, paved the way for the Islamic Republic to hijack Iran and terrorize the Iranian people and the world for nearly half a century. President Obama continued the treacherous weakness in US policy (something he’s even said was a mistake, albeit years too late) and missed the opportunity to act in support of widespread protests in the 2009 Green Revolution, a radical failure in support of the Islamists.
** Alexander Hamilton, regardless of one’s opinions of his political bent, was a man who rose above the mean conditions of his birth by virtue of his own merit and talents, and was a tribute to the nation he helped create. The Broadway show Hamilton, with an all-black cast, mocks a founding father.
** Plastic surgeons can not make women (or men) smarter.
** Piercings. Explored here.
** The F-117N Seahawk was a proposed navalized, carrier-capable version of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft, designed by Lockheed’s Skunk Works to give the Navy stealth strike and air-to-air capabilities, but it wasn’t developed due to budget/program shifts. I don’t know how that stealth paint would have held up in a maritime environment.
** Greenland’s leadership is reportedly weighing direct negotiations with the United States, sidelining Denmark in a move that could trigger a constitutional crisis. The development highlights growing autonomy ambitions, U.S. strategic pressure, and a potential reshaping of power in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Sources: Reuters
Paine
Thomas Paine published 16 pamphlets from 1776 to 1783 known as The American Crisis. The works inspired the colonists during the fight for freedom from tyranny. Paine signed his pamphlets with the pseudonym “Common Sense”.
You are most likely familiar with this passage from the first pamphlet published at the start of the Revolution… “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
This passage from Pamphlet III you may not be familiar with. It addresses the importance of knowing the past…
“Were a man to be totally deprived of memory, he would be incapable of forming any just opinion; every thing about him would seem a chaos: he would have even his own history to ask from every one; and by not knowing how the world went in his absence, he would be at a loss to know how it ought to go on when he recovered, or rather, returned to it again. In like manner, though in a less degree, a too great inattention to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment in everything; while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present, we frequently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with very little trouble. It is a kind of counter-march, by which we get into the rear of time, and mark the movements and meaning of things as we make our return. There are certain circumstances, which, at the time of their happening, are a kind of riddles, and as every riddle is to be followed by its answer, so those kinds of circumstances will be followed by their events, and those events are always the true solution.”
That sounds like the common-sense idea that we must know our history so we can learn from it and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Identify the Ship
1
2
3
Can it save Greenland from the Chinese Armada?
Parting Shot
End
(1) 19th Century British DD. Maybe Ardent class?
(2) USS Fife, a Spruance.
(3) HGMS Peter Willemoes, an Iver Huitfelt class frigate.
– Kle.
Nailed #2 & #3
1 maybe HMS Cricket an early torpedo boat.
2 is USS Fife, a Spruance-class destroyer.
3 is HDMS Peter Willemoes a Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate in the Royal Danish Navy.
Yes to #2 & #3.
1 – HMS Fame British Royal Navy D-class torpedo boat destroyer
2 – USS Fife Spruance-class destroyer – Was not named for Barney
3 – Royal Danish Navy frigate HDMS Peter Willemoes
Very well done!!
Nice.
I have Friedman’s British Destroyers From Earliest Days right here
next to my head, but I didn’t have time to look through it before work. The
RN had A LOT of destroyer classes.
– Kle.
May God Bless 2 LT Tracy Lynn Alger and SO3 Michael Monsoor their families and friends.
Heavenly Father, we lift up the brave souls who have laid down their lives in service to our nation, honoring their courage and sacrifice. Embrace them in Your eternal love and grant them peace in Your presence, while comforting the families and comrades who mourn their loss. May their legacy inspire us to work for peace, cherish our freedoms, and support those who continue to serve.
I looked up and read about both of these hero’s. Thank you LL for helping us to know about these outstanding individuals and keeping their memories in our hearts.
Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
X2…something Democrats, the Left, and many modern Liberals have no comprehension.
That’s what heroes do…..
Amen
Identify the Ship:
1. HMS Fame of 1913 D-Class
2. USS Fife
3. HDMS Peter Willemoes
Exactly!
Greenland leaders are doing the same thing as the leaders of Alberta and Saskatchewan. They are ignoring the national leadership and going straight to the US. Hopefully our State Department and the Trump Administration will play fair and above board with our future partners/protectorates/states.
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Alberta had a ‘vote’ and the Albertans overwhelmingly selected to ditch ‘Oh, Canada’ and either go self-determination or become #51. And where Alberta goes, Saskatchewan will follow.
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Looking forward to welcoming our new northern brothers and sisters into the wonders of legal citizenship.
Agreed…and exactly why a Province who sees the handwriting on the wall and says ‘we’re done with this idiocy’ would want to extricate themselves for a better life. If I were an Albertian and the toss was between some twink and Trump…it’s not a difficult decision. Greenland can, and likely will, do the same if and when given the opportunity…and what’s Denmark going to do, get mad? So what. If King Frederik knew what was good for him he’d let it go…not like they’ve really cared about the place over the years.
Leaders can only lead in democracies with the consent of the governed. Which is why our rigged elections were so odious – which is why the DemoImigration scam is so offensive. That is bring put right.
.
Albertans don’t want to be governed by corrupt politicians in Ottawa. That’s painfully obvious. Greenlanders want a say in their future outside of their Danish overlords. Good for them.
Danish food is pretty decent, but fairly simple…wait until Greenlander’s get ahold of a properly prepared philly cheese steak on an Amoroso roll, they’ll jump ship in a heartbeat.
And a delicious wood fired pizza.
But Americans will reject Greenland cheese steak rolls if they use walrus and blubber…
Yeah, Carter, what a turd.
–
But one can never discount France’s role. “Hey, Pierre, can we whack this Ayatollah guy who’s causing such trouble here in La Belle France?” “No, we cannot. But we can convince that dog-turd Carter that the Shah is bad and needs to be replaced by the Ayatollah and we’ll get America to pay for it all.” “Zut allors, that will work. After all, Carter is a merde-for-brains idiot, no?”
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I wonder what Trump et al will do in Iran? Surgical bomb strikes against senior leadership? Is the Ayatollah gonna catch a 2,000lb case of boom?
–
Whatever we do, I hope we do it fast, quickly and soonest. The Regime is piling up bodies faster than they can be buried. Good people are dying right and left.
I expect a strike in Iran at any moment. Where things go after that is anyone’s guess. There are wildly differing body count numbers in Iran, but I guarantee you that Free Persia will have to be bought with blood. Then again, we figured out that is how the Liberty Tree must be watered some centuries ago.
Amen!
Paine and History: When I watch how people react these days to things, like the weather, it becomes apparent they believe the world started once they were born. Maybe that’s why schools do not teach proper history anymore, all revisionist and baloney-laden pap.
To keep the masses stupid about from whence they came. Case in point, this Hamilton play…never saw it, will never see. Yet all I have heard from those who have seen it praise it, which proves the above point; entertainment supersedes actual history yet people believe the entertainment part is more true than the actual history…especially with those sporting COEXIST stickers on their EV’s.
***
Las Vegas works when people have the time and extra money to go there. When Democrats are running things into the ground, places like Vegas feel the hurt…yet most will never correlate the reason why; that capital is transportable and TPTB have nothing to say about it when people decide enough is enough.
I don’t dislike Las Vegas, but they’re pricing themselves into oblivion, and market forces will rule the day in the end.
Supply & Demand rules the day. Watched a quick hit IG video, Milton Friedman giving a Standford U talk…a young male, fairly clean cut for the era, asks him “how free are poor people and doesn’t the government have a responsibility to help?”Friedman’s answer was exactly that, “only people are responsible for themselves, not government, which has created more problems with their welfare solutions.”
Freedom to not be taken advantage of when a business jacks up prices is personal and needs to stay that way. If PDJT eliminates so-called ‘birth right citizenship’ and the IRS, that will go a long way in restoring some freedoms.
They must be taking lessons from Disneyland…..
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the legality of two state laws that ban males who identify as transgender from participating in girls’ sports. A ruling is expected today. It will be interesting reading.
What a mess. Except for discrimination, states rights give states the power to decide things not elaborated in the Constitution. How can you cry discrimination when those involved had every opportunity to partake in sports as the gender they were born? Skating around the fact such people have serious mental problems seems to be the norm. The Supreme Court decision will definitely be interesting reading.
It comes back to some sort of recognition that males are XY and females are XX and that’s how you decide. Everybody takes a blood test. The Supremes have to dance around the “everyone is equal” thing, but we’re not all equal – none of us. Equal protection under the law, yes.
Quite. And let’s not forget another worn out liberal lament, “It’s not fair!”. No kidding, Sherlock. I’m rather fond of Westley’s line in “The Princess Bride”–
—
“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says different is selling something”.
X2 with your definition of equality
Alito asked for a definition of a male and female and the lawyer couldn’t answer.
How can you have sex discrimination when you can’t tell what sex is?
They’ll find a way, Ed.
There’s a website called “The True Size” that allows you to correct for the Mercator projection distortions we’re so used to. It’s pretty straightforward to use.
https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTQ1NDU4ODM.MzA3MTYwNw*MzMxMjE1Mzg(NjI3OTc0MQ~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTAwMjQwNzU.MjUwMjM1MTc(MTc1)MQ~!IN*NTI2NDA1MQ.Nzg2MzQyMQ)Mg~!CN*OTkyMTY5Nw.NzMxNDcwNQ(MjI1)Mw
On my system I can just paste https://thetruesize.com/ in the URL and it fills in the rest of that. I don’t know if that’s something it automagically does or if it put a cookie or something on my system that changes it.
Some sort of distortion is inevitable when you make a sphere’s surface look like a flat sheet. There are other approaches than just Mercator, each with its own distortions.
The only thing I like about Las Vegas is trying to beat my best time from highway 93 & I-15 to Boulder. So far it’s 32 minutes. There appears to be no actual speed limit enforced during this laborious pursuit.
The CA billionaire tax coving BACK to January, I wonder if that would be an an ex post facto law thing if you were already gone when the law was passed?
The rich will tie them up in court. Unconstitutional but Dems never cared about that.
> designer drugs that are given to special operations forces?
“As stewards of the taxpayers, we must spend taxpayer money responsibly.”
Translation: SOF will have to make do with regular street drugs like the rest of us.
—
Subtext: No adrenochrome harvested from children for them. We save the good stuff for Elites such as ourselves. (/sarc tag is implied, but I’m not sure about how much sarc)
Parting Shot: ‘SISU ROOSTER!…The Fight is Real’
War causalities aren’t just deaths. There are lifelong disabilities that lead to premature deaths. 2 LT Tracy Lynn Alger, US Army represented the best and brightest. The immediate impact on those who knew her we see. Less obvious are the deaths years later beyond immediate family and friends. Sorry, bit of a sermon here.
When my youngest decided to be a medic, we had a long conversation where we discussed not death, but long term disability. He clearly understood the risks he was taking. He could have been in the rear with the gear, my desire. He son wanted to follow but didn’t have his Dad’s smarts. Selfish Granddad is so happy he is a diesel mechanic.
To the point. We have few who are both able (physically and mentally) and willing to serve. We damn sure should not waste them on trivial and/or unnecessary military adventures.
“trigger a constitutional crisis”
Without getting into “should we”, I suppose I don’t understand why acquiring Greenland (or Alberta … or South America … or somalia) would constitute a Constitutional crisis. Doesn’t the acquisition of Alaska and the Louisiana Purchase set a precedent?
There’s also the Gadsen Purchase or “La Mesilla sale” – a 29,640-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effect on June 8, 1854. The purchase included lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande where the United States wanted the construction of what is now known as the Sunset Route, a transcontinental railroad which the Southern Pacific Railroad later completed in 1881–1883. This allowed for the railroad’s construction to be shorter, easier, and straighter. Without the purchase, the railroad’s construction would have taken longer and been more expensive. The purchase also aimed to resolve other border issues.
Drug use of operational forces; Definitely not designer class but a deterent to effectiveness on the long term health is the use of Khat in Africa. Not special operators by any standard of Western elite forces, but terrorist groups. Addictions are surely mechanisms of allegiance with Cartel production, trafficking and human trafficking especially. I know I’m off base of the question, but our forces meeting up with such must surely be taking this factors into account with captures or interrogations.
As for the designer class, MK ultra and other therapies are known among the intelligence communities, true? My only reference is 2 fictional sources; The Borne Series ( film not books) and a Canadian film “Killbird” which is humorous in the effects of what those higher up than i know as truth serum, and how well it works. As for the latest that’s tested and proven, “authorized” to ehance abilities of our warriors on the front lines, will the public find out through FOIA in our lifetime?
–
Beings that I’m limited to decaf only after my first cup, it’s time for another, as my Despoté has set no limit…yet.
In the 1960s there was a lot of experimentation – knowing and unknowing. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis as well as a control group without. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, to the point of death and autopsy
This is the ‘third strike’ for Iran. The first two were dems, hopefully, this time it will be different. Re the 117s, one of the local folks is an ex-117 driver who flew it in Kosovo. He said it was an absolute dog when heavily loaded, and visibility sucked. He doubted he would have been able to even land one on a carrier safely, much less take off loaded. Plus they would have to add hundreds of pounds of bracing to allow carrier ops, further limiting its carrying ability.
I’m reading a book that’s pulling me away from interaction with the blog. I’m reading it based on your recommendation and find it hard to stop.
Ed,
Is it LL’s latest perhaps?
Juan
Pretty good so far.
👍🏻
Juan