Bullet Points
* The War in Afghanistan was interesting in that we spent ten years fighting, bleeding, and dying to fight terrorists. Then our government armed them and is now funding them. I have a son-in-law who is 100% disabled from his service in Afghanistan. Ask me how I feel …and how I feel about the corrupt traitor, Brandon.
* Could we shut down the FBI (without pay, no accrued retirement during that time period, no leave allowed) for a month to slow the spread of tyranny? It would send a message.
Instead, the acronym FBI these days seems to stand for “Friends of Biden, Inc.” – namely, the crime syndicate that does business as our nation’s First Family.
Thus, we have the spectacle of heavily armed FBI agents rounding up and humiliating the President’s political enemies, including raiding the Florida home of his once and likely future rival. Even more corrupt have been the Bureau’s efforts to cover up for or otherwise protect the serial lies, corruption, and betrayals of the “Big Guy,” his son, other relatives and business partners.
* If I enrolled at a university with a major in lesbian liturgical dance theory, could I just get a check for $10K from the Federal Govt? I mean, why take it any further than that? PS-I self-identify as a female African lesbian if that makes it easier for them to cut the check.
* It’s obvious: Open borders are bad for the American people. Under President Joe Biden, many illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans and receive taxpayer-funded benefits.
But that’s not all. Often unreported is the fact that illegal immigration is actually harmful to the illegal immigrants themselves. Open border policies incentivize the human trafficking of migrants.
This is no different under the Biden administration. In fact, according to one former White House advisor on Monday, Biden is currently running the “world’s epicenter” of child trafficking.
* An American citizen faces execution in China now that his appeal of a murder conviction has been rejected. Shadeed Abdulmateen, an inner city person, was convicted of killing his former Chinese girlfriend, and the death sentence was announced in April.
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More Sailor’s Superstitions
Forbidden woods If a shipwright planned to build a ship out of walnut or even fruitwood, he could be hanged for it. For a ship made of this wood was considered crazy and they would try to drown their crew. Therefore, this wood was never allowed to be used.
Blue Even the color blue was considered unlucky. Here it depended on the shade of the color. Navy blue was excluded from this (but it also depended on how the officer who wore this blue behaved towards the crew). If he was OK, the blue was also OK. If he was an ass, then the blue was also a bad one), because the medium to light blue was the color of mourning on a merchant ship. If the owner died, a blue stripe was painted around the hull and had to remain there for a year. If the captain or another officer died, a blue flag was flown to show other ships and the home port that he had died due to other circumstances and not because of mutiny. Some Sailors did not even allow this color in their house because it was considered the color of death. This is btw where the term “feeling blue” comes from.
Horses If a Sailor dreamt of horses at home, he had to be ready, because that meant he would be on the high seas again.
Bread Even bread was not immune to superstition. In many cultures, people tried to find a drowned person with the help of a loaf of bread containing either a candle or mercury. Supposedly, the bread would lead the seekers to the place where the drowned person lay.
If a loaf of bread was baked on board on Good Friday, it would never go bad and would protect the ship from fire.
By the way, never put a loaf of bread on the board upside down. That would bring bad luck and anger to the ship, as she might deliberately sail onto a reef to kill her crew.
****
Have you ever heard of Charley Noble? This was the enlisted man’s name for the Galley smoke stack or funnel. This name was created by the crew of Merchant Captain Charles Noble in the 18th century, who rather accidentally noticed that the stack was made of copper.
The galley of HMS Victory
The good captain was now plagued by the obsession that everything, but really everything on his ship had to shine and ordered the stack to be kept brightly polished. And in honor of him and his obsessive polishing mania, the stack became Charley Noble. Over time, it became a regular hobby among the old sailors to send out all the newcomers to look for Charley Noble. This became a lot of fun among old sailors when the newcomers tried desperately to find this man.
Ukraine War Map
Numerous developments have taken place in Ukraine during the last month, with several strikes in Russian-controlled areas. NATO ISR activity in Europe has remained heavy and consistent. This map shows NATO and Swedish ISR activity from 25th July to 25th August 2022.
Meme of the Day
Runner up for Meme of the Day
I never did have to find Charley Noble, but I did send my share of middies to the bridge to tell the OOD we were out of relative bearing grease.
“Sky hook”, Left-Handed Smoke-Shifter, and a host of other items a young Boy Scout went around camp to locate. Now I suspect they have them look for Unicorns and Rainbows while wearing a Non-Binary Gender Free-bun.
Snipe Hunt.
Every Friday night after setting up camp! Thx for the memory reset.
They actually make “Prop Wash” (for to wash the prop of a plane) and “Flight Line” which is another cleaner. Or were. Too lazy to look up if you can still buy them.
We actually had a snipe at Kwajalein when I was growing up. No idea how it got there. Same with two Blue Herons who set up a nest near the family pool (Kwaj was decidedly not, by several thousand miles, anywhere within known BH range, but there they were, raising 4-5 little heronets.)
If you live in Asia, Europe or parts of New Zealand, you can go on a snipe hunt and run a chance of actually photographing one. Catching one of the wily, fast little bastards, on the other hand, not so much.
In Navy parlance, a snipe is somebody who works in the engine room. Hunting for them takes little effort or imagination.
Yep. Heard that one before but Dad was Air Force so, well, Navy terms not so in use in household.
Though I knew one submariner who got sent looking for the Black Gang. (He got bonus points for handing over a cassette tape of some black funkadelic group. Try that today in the Modern Touchy-Feely Navy.
Ask me how I feel …and how I feel about the corrupt traitor, Brandon.
Probably much the same as me.
Back in my day the (P)regressives enjoyed, “War is good for business. Invest your son”.
Didn’t Brandon cheat death while under fire in Afghanistan when he visited the place? I can’t keep his yarns straight and they’re always complete bullshit – but as I recall that was one of them.
That was HRC…and it was a complete lie. Maybe he did say it, The Dem playbook with recycled talking points is getting seriously dogeared.
As far as I know, the only candidate that actually served in Vietnam, other than McCain, was Al Gore. He was an enlisted Engineer who never went anywhere without two guards to keep him safe. With his Dad being a long term Senator, the Army probably was making sure no harm came to his son.
Swiftboat John Kerry was in Vietnam all of three months and as a Yale bonesman, he had connections. Medal on medal on medal.
Grifters, cheats, and weasels (aka, politicians) start young, don’t they.
Forgot about him. I worked with a Frank Schmidt who was a snipe on a boat in Kerry’s unit. Said he didn’t think Kerry was any worse than some of the other officers.
“No worse” is not a ringing endorsement.
Yeah, he (Kerry) probably wasn’t, back then.
Then he bough a down-and-out Veteran’s medals, so he could make a political show of throwing them away (pretending they were his), and could still keep his own.
Every year he’s gotten to be more of a scumbag.
-Kle.
How about sending young guys to the lumber yard to get a package of knotholes, or to the hardware store to get a board stretcher?
Lots of variations for FIB out there – Felonious But Incompetent, Favoritism Before Integrity, Fumbling Buffoons Investigation….
You can buy a board stretcher at an old-school hardware store, used for stretching clothes on and it’s a board.
Dating myself but propwash was a thing when I first went in the AF. Now I guess they have to look for flightline only.
Afghanistan was a debacle, no two ways about it. Looks like Iraq is going the same way since we are evacuating people by helicopter…again.
Mr. Abdulmateen. If he is guilty then there is no problem with the verdict. The problems I have with the death penalty in the US is that it takes to long to go through the mandatory appeals process which makes it very expensive, not that it is an unfair punishment.
Wood and bad luck for seafarers. Good grief, how do you keep the rules straight.
I don’t know whether Abdulmateen is guilty or not. I’m not familiar with the case. I do know that the Chinese consider black people to be “monkeys” and executing one won’t cause much handwringing in the Middle Kingdom.
Maybe I should add that anyone who is not Han is viewed as a barbarian. However, I’ve seen black people chased from stores in China by old women wielding stick brooms saying in broken Engrish – “No monkey, no monkey!”
As I heard it, if they take a very young white child and give it years of intense training then they think it can turn out to be marginally acceptable in limited settings…while blacks are too savage to train.
Hell, I *am* Han and they tolerate me only out of politeness (read they put up with me because of my professional skills). Persons have let slip “You’re not really one of us.” (This is a blood-feud level insult to a *real* Chinese. The guy who blurted this out turned bright red and literally clapped his hand over his own mouth after realizing what he said. I pretended to not have heard him. I’m sure I had a weird expression which those guys took as me being offended, but in truth I was trying not to laugh.)
I have no idea about Abdulmateen‘s actual guilt or not, but if he truly cut the girl up then so far as I’m concerned, let him hang. No drop. Coal burning in China is a serious environmental problem. Just a random ecological reminder. My do-gooder Tourette’s pops up at the most inopportune times, alas. Frankly I’m surprised some young Chinese woman was “dating” a Negro. I’ve heard Blacks who lived in China complain that their Chinese “girlfriends” treat them like Johns, always demanding some kind of “gift”. Not surprising. Chinese view Negroes with a combination of amusement and disgust. The globohomo cult of Negrolatry has not found a home anywhere in East Asia. Which I suppose is another reason our victim-masters [1] want conflict with China (apart from the admitted appalling behavior of the PRC itself.)
[1] riffing off of the “servant master” concept, wherein the goal of leadership is not power but rather to serve the organization and the people in it. The victim master seeks and exercises power for the sake of controlling others, but whines incessantly how he’s The Real Victim.
And then there is the odious white guy. I used to shop for things like gold (for wife/kids) in Little Saigon, Orange County, CA.
I like 24K gold, not the 14K crap that round eyes find acceptable. Only the best for my dragons.
Of course, they never pass on sales tax to the State Board of Equalization ANYWHERE in Little Saigon. Sales tax was considered “profit”. I’d negotiate hard, for hours, with infinite patience, as they ground me and I ground them. At the end when all was agreed and we. settled on a final price, spit, etc., they’d tack on sales tax. I would say in relatively fluent Vietnamese, accented North, “Tôi là người Tonkinese, không phải đến từ Mỹ! Bạn không trả thuế và tôi không trả thuế. Tôi có nhìn bạn da trắng không?”
The part that threw them the most was my claim that I was from Tonkin (North Vietnam). They’d scratch off the sales tax and I’d then hand them a CREDIT CARD (another 6% loss!) Oh, the sour and bitter looks I got, but they closed the deal to the white-haired devil in the blue pinstriped suit.
It was high kabuki theater as these matters always are. Toward the very end, putting my wallet away, I’d make sure they saw the badge on my belt and handgun. It allowed them to save face and claim that the police ripped them off. Because I wore a suit, they assumed incorrectly that I was FBI. They’d mutter that. There was no ripping off, just close dealing.
I don’t know if Mike W is reading this but I’m nearly positive that he’s had similar deals.
PS – Carved jadeite was a different matter. I only bought it in mainland China at the quarry where they inevitably had an old carver who took the raw rock and turned it into art. MRSLL has some beautiful pieces of Imperial Jade, carved into dragons, phoenixes, and so forth. The price at the quarry with the old man was something that I didn’t negotiate as closely and frankly, the amount asked was always ridiculously low considering what I could resell them at. I usually tipped the old man when we were finished. Then I’d have them adorned by goldsmiths at HK. She still has them. I have no idea what the current retail is. Big $ for the very best jadeite.
Patrick Jane goes jewelry shopping.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f6FcAo9aNVE
Women should put the diamond in the safe and wear the cubic.
Most ‘really expensive’ jewelry being worn has and is most likely very good copies of the original. ‘Really expensive’ being in the pre-Brandon era around $500K or more variety.
Never understood that. Buy a really really expensive necklace for your lady and also buy the falsie so she can wear it out without worrying. But then again, back in the 1930’s it became illegal in the US to own bullion, so expensive jewelry was the only way to have physical assets.
Still, eh, fortunate that Mrs. Andrew loves blue topaz and BT looks as good as some blue sapphires.
Just outa high school, I worked in the produce department of a large grocery chain.
The produce manager had me help him set up some table displays.
He sent me for a table stretcher. I imagined a device that bridged two tables.
He sent me to ask the store manager, who sent me to the assistant manager who sent me to the head cashier. That was my first clue. My second was when she said “Honey, I think they’re having a laugh on you.”
I went back to my boss and asked him if he had a crescent wrench.
He asked why and I told him that I had found the table stretcher, but it was bolted to the back wall and I could only get three of the bolts out and it was hanging there.
Niiice comeback!
Thx.
any intel on what’s going on in iraq? i have friends there and nearby. things are dicey in ethiopia and environs. there are 2k national guardsmen from my state there as well. their tour should be ending soon, i hope. kosovo/serbia too. and skynet went self aware today, lol….
I’m headed to Africa in a week. I’ll give you an up-close when I get back.
May God watch over you, LL. Africa is NOT on my bucket list….
Be safe and God bless.
Try not to give your guardian angel a nervous breakdown.
Geez…I echo the other’s sentiments. We know you can handle yourself, but still praying for God’s overwatch.
Interesting about walnut not used in ships. Olden days boat builders would use walnut if/when they could because it is naturally resistant to rot. Has lots of natural oil. I guess they didn’t get the memo. These were coastal and inland boats built by very practical men.
They preferred seasoned oak.
Not commenting because I’d use a bunch of four letter words today.
I just read that Bruce Jenner has been kicked out of “The Big Tent” where all are welcome because “He’s just an old white man who likes to dress up.” Additionally, more categories were added to the LGBTQI+ group. More letters to remember more categories. Bruce who may or may not have had a tuck and roll is a lesbian and I think that pisses them off too.
Read the first para and couldn’t go further. Sorry.
Terribly sorry to hear of your son-in-law, LL. I think you may have mentioned it in the past, but maybe not.
This entire “Administration” is a disgrace to all Americans, thought these days there’s getting to be fewer and fewer of us….
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