Except it’s not Presidents’ Day. Today is officially Washington’s Birthday, a federal holiday in the United States, celebrated on the third Monday of February. Some might consider it a “bank holiday” because it is celebrated on a Monday, when banks are typically closed.
** Question– We also celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday today as a nation. What is your overall opinion of Abraham Lincoln? What do you think would have happened differently if Lincoln had lived out his second term?
Making Sanctions Effective
Yes, it is definitely war by other means. (h/t Claudio & Strategypage) Russian oil exports account for 30 percent of government income. Western efforts to defeat or degrade these exports have largely failed. There are too many ways for Russia to circumvent the sanctions. Another problem with the sanctions is that India and China account for 90 percent of Russian oil exports. While most of that oil moved via ship, China has a pipeline from Russia for the overland delivery of 15 percent of Russian oil. The rest arrives via sea-going tankers.
For years, Russia has utilized a fleet of over 500 shadow tankers. These ships, largely operated by private contractors, transport oil to customers willing to risk being caught and censured to obtain cheaper oil. Not a lot of these outlaw tankers are caught. To do so would require a major naval effort, and the NATO countries backing the sanctions do not have enough ships or determination to try to shut down the shadow fleet.
Another advantage Russia has is the ability to offer high enough discounts to keep customers buying sanctioned oil. Dealing with the sanctions successfully has cost Russia revenue that went to discounts, bribes, and operating expenses of its shadow fleet. In the end, Russian oil still reaches customers, with Russia losing 10-15 percent of the income it received before the sanctions.
There are now financial incentives for nation-states to begin to pick off these tankers, and the glory days for both Russia and Iran could be passing.
Bullet Points:
** The U.S. military has fully withdrawn from Al-Tanf base in southern Syria, moving all its forces and assets into Jordan and handing the base over to the Syrian Armed Forces. The base, located in southern Syria near the tri-border area with Iraq and Jordan, has been one of the United States’ most strategically sensitive outposts in the region since its establishment in 2016. The base was used to support operations against ISIS and to train and assist allied local forces, particularly the Maghawir al-Thawra militia. Its position along the Baghdad-Damascus highway also gave Washington leverage over a key land corridor used by Iran to move personnel and weapons across Iraq into Syria and toward Lebanon. Over the years, Al-Tanf functioned not only as a counter-ISIS hub but also as a blocking point against Iranian influence and weapons transfers in eastern Syria.
** I’m pleased to report that I was not found in the Epstein Files. Please refrain from passing judgment or calling me a loser, since it was “a who’s who in America.”
** Many Oreo cookies sold in the United States are produced in Mexico. In 2015, Mondelez International shifted a significant portion of its production from older US factories in Chicago and Philadelphia to a facility in Salinas, Mexico. While the company is based in Chicago, the Salinas plant is a major production site for the brand.
** Despite campaigning on affordability, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing away from expanding the CityFHEPS rental voucher program amid a projected $7 billion two-year deficit, according to reports.
** A friend of mine just returned from a sailing trip to Caribbean waters off Belize and Honduras. Harrowing, but it reminded me of this cautionary tale. He had a similar experience. The cartels are hungry these days.
** Choose a side. Fear acknowledged is far less dangerous than fear denied. May the farce be with you.
A Pitch for the Air Tractor?
Why, yes, it is. I am not anti-Air Tractor, but somehow justifying the platform to launch the new, smaller Red Wolf, Gray Wolf, and Green Wolf (Wolfpack) cruise missiles seems absurd. What marketing genius came up with that pitch?
Yes, it’s an up-armored cropduster. You could launch the Under 250 lbs (approx. 113 kg) cruise missiles on literally any military aircraft that will fly, including a Reaper drone. Why the $15.4 million per airframe crop duster?
The Air Tractor replaces the $16.5 million U-28A Draco for the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) (below)
The Air Tractor cost per flight hour is $1,000. The Pilatus Draco is $500. The cost per flight hour for an F-35 is about $42,000, for reference.
The MQ-9 Reaper (UAV) has an external wing-loaded payload capacity of up to 3,000 pounds (1,361 kg). It costs $3,500 per flight hour.
Drone Wars
(h/t Claudio) Iran developed its delta-wing 200 kg propeller-driven Shahed 136 drone a decade ago, and it was first used by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen during 2019. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Iran provided Russia with Shahed 136s. By the end of 2022, Iran agreed to assist Russia in building a factory in Russia to produce a Russian version of the Shahed 136, called Geran. Until late 2024, when the Geran factory in Russia was operational, Iran manufactured the Geran and received Russian assistance in upgrading the Shaheed drones. Since 2022, Russia has used about 50,000 Shaheds and Gerans against Ukraine. In 2025, that meant Ukraine had to deal with 5,000 to 6,000 Gerans a month. Ukrainian interception methods were quite effective, and only about ten percent of the drones reached their targets. Each of these drones costs Russia about $20,000.
By 2025, a wider variety of warheads would be available, including thermobaric/fuel-air explosives, incendiary-fragmentation warheads, high-explosive warheads, high-explosive airburst warheads, and submunitions. In 2024, a 90kg warhead was introduced that combined a penetrator-shaped charge with a layer of steel balls to pierce fortified infrastructure and inflict maximum casualties.
The most recent Geran-3 is a jet-powered model (Right) that weighs 370 kg and has a top speed of nearly 600 kilometers per hour. This is three times faster than the prop-driven models and much harder for Ukrainian air defenses to deal with. Ukraine soon developed a $3,000 interceptor drone called the Wild Hornet Sting. Russia will likely respond by installing rear-facing video cameras on the Germans to alert operators to the presence of Ukrainian interceptors. The Gerans can take evasive maneuvers to avoid getting shot down. The Russians also experimented with a Geran equipped with a heat-seeking air-to-air missile.
Early in the war, most of the Gerans were detected and destroyed by a clever Ukrainian air defense system created by two Ukrainian engineers. Called Sky Fortress, it consisted of nearly 10,000 cell phones mounted on two-meter poles with their microphones activated to detect the unique sounds of propeller-driven Gerans flying nearby. All this data goes to a command post where operators can triangulate, locate, and track incoming drones, and direct groups of gun trucks, equipped with multiple machine guns and lots of ammunition, to positions the drones will pass over. The gun trucks have destroyed most of the drones they encountered. Ukraine built several hundred of these gun trucks and deployed them quickly, either on roads or cross-country, to carry out the interception. This system costs less than a single Patriot air defense missile. This drone defense system is operated by thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, and its simplicity, effectiveness, and low cost have led NATO countries to request more details from the Ukrainians, including visits to NATO countries to further explain the system. Russia responded by having their Gerans fly higher, beyond the range of the machine-guns. Ukraine went on to develop new countermeasures.
Year by year, Russia and Ukraine develop new offensive weapons to use against each other. Ukrainian air strikes use larger drones at targets deep inside Russia.
Like most Western militaries, Russia has become dependent on the use of missiles and drones instead of artillery and airstrikes. Ukraine reports that, from late 2022 through late 2024, Russia used 4,800 missiles and nearly 150,000 attack drones. The missiles are expensive, with most costing $1–2 million each, while some drones cost $20,000. More recent battlefield drone designs cost only a few hundred dollars each. It was thought that inexpensive drones would replace 155mm artillery. The range and cost of artillery shells vary from $3,000 to $100,000, depending on version and purpose. The basic 155mm shell weighs 43 kg and contains about seven kg of explosives. The standard Russian equivalent is the 152mm shell.
The only Russian sources of weapons and munitions have been Iran and North Korea, which have a feeble economy with a GDP of only $30 billion and have long been subject to economic sanctions. Iran is also sanctioned, but has oil to export and a GDP of over $400 billion. Russia has over fifty firms manufacturing over two dozen types of drones. These include three dozen models, most with a range of 40 kilometers, while about a dozen have ranges of 100 to 2,000 kilometers.
Satellite Wars
Oh, they are coming, unless the Chinese invade Taiwan before they’re able to launch them and a nuclear war reduces them to rubble behind the Bamboo Curtain. (h/t Claudio and Strategypage) This article portends the future. There is a lot of money behind UAV/Drone/Pilotless Aircraft development these days, and because I’m being drawn into that arena, I won’t comment explicitly. The money in the satellite wars for dominance in Low Earth Orbit will be much greater. President Trump is talking about doubling the War Department’s budget. The nerds at the Space Command will get a chunk of it to defend the high ground. (Are you marking my words?) It’s not as if you heard it here first, but I think the scope of effort will dwarf even what you envision. It won’t be Star Wars with people running around slashing with lightsabers. Not exactly. Not people.
Identify the Weapon
If you’re feeling ambitious, give me the caliber or gauge for each.
1.
2.
3.
4.
End
I have little knowledge of arms of this era – but here’s some guesses
1 – Charleville Model 1777 Musket .69 Calber
2 – Land Pattern Musket – Brown Bess .75 Caliber
3 – 1805 Baker Rifle .625 caliber
4 – Pedersoli Indian Trade musket 20 Ga
4 – Not Pedersoli manufactured – Or maybe it is? But it is a Indian trade musket also known as a fusil
Excellent. Yes, #4 was manufactured by Pedersoli as an Indian trade musket. They were preferred well into the 1800’s because the flintlock didn’t require a manufactured cap to ignite the charge. The Pedersoli fusils were copied by other manufacturers who wished to trade for buffalo hides and beaver pelts. Cheap alcohol was a more profitable trade item.
Up-armored cropduster itself seems crazy even before you add cruise missiles to it’s wings.
The first time I saw the military Air Tractor proposal I thought it was a joke. And I still do. The drone seems to be a much better platform for the Wolf Pack. We all understand the need to control costs but this is plane crazy. Upgrade and restart production on the battle proven A-10 would be a better plan.
I would agree. But anytime anyone talks about more A-10s, F-22s, or even B-2s it can never happen. The tooling and the talent are long gone.
Though I have a love affair with the Warthog, I’d like to see the US build a Super Warthog that we can keep in production for a long time. Build the for the Army and the USMC, not the USAF. The Air Force will continually try and spike them. Give the USMC variant arresting gear and folding wings. There are new developments in avionics that could be incorporated into the Super Warthog, but it should be designed with a close support mission in mind like the original. As I wrote, I don’t hate the Air Tractor but it can’t do anything that a Super Warthog couldn’t do. F-22s and B-2s are unreliable and are hangar queens. The Super Warthog should be built (as with the original) to fly simply with an eye toward survivability. Both the Mud Marines and the Army have rotors but they don’t have the robust flying tank characteristics of the Hog available to them organically. (USAF likes the wild blue yonder, not the mud)
I believe the (non sales-pitch) rationale for cruise missiles on the
Air Tractor is so that they have something to do when you aren’t
doing COIN. It lets them be used safely in a higher-threat environment.
It’s a better idea IMO than the big launchers for airlifters, which essentially
always have something more important they need to be doing, since we
refuse to ever buy more than about one-quarter of the number we need.
*
As for a new A-10, I would be all for it in a sane world. In the world in which
we live, you all know that the program would take 40 years to complete,
and the new aircraft would wind up costing $150mil per unit. If we were
lucky, it might at least be able to do the job.
– Kle.
Boeing would charge cost plus 25%…
The USAF gets a little bitchy whenever the Army even looks at fixed wing aircraft.
Taking a look at the Air Tractor with different eyes, how about the DA62 MPP? Didn’t we suppply Greece (and some other countries, maybe) with a few of them several years ago at a highly resonable price? In addition, I believe the cost per flight hour is half that of the Pilatus Draco.
Of course, it’s not as beautiful as a Warthog
Beauty, it’s said, is in the eye of the beholder. For one beholder the A-10 is as beautiful as the M1911, the BAR, and, dare I say it here , the MG 42. All of them do exactly what they are supposed to do: effectively, simply, and reliably. I’ve always been struck by reading the French avant garde poet and WW I soldier Apollionaire’s letter to his girlfriend, the painter Marie Laurencin, in which he said that his French 75 artillery piece reminded him of one of his poems. Like them, there was nothing on that tube that was superfluous, nothing that was strapped on, nothing that did not contribute simply and directly to accomplishing the purpose of the the hands and minds that created it.
The A10 is sadly leaving the skies over the Tucson area later this year.
I wish the Army and USMC would take it over.
I’ll miss the quite A10s flying low over my neighborhood in the morning.
The uparmored Air Tractor was supposed to be an ‘easy’ conversion of an existing airframe for low intensity/COIN missions. Which it would excel at, being highly maneuverable, able to carry a good load and relatively easy to maintain, if all it was was an armored cropduster with hardpoints.
–
Trust the .mil to copulate up an existing cropduster.
–
Yes, armoring the cockpit is a good thing. Providing better controls and instruments than a regular cropduster, again, a good thing. Going way over budget just smacks of ‘Cost Plus’ programs like what legacy aerospace is well known for.
–
And, yes, it does make sense. Basically it’s a Skyraider, with all the roles the Skyraider did, and did well. COIN? Si! Loitering? Da! Forward air control in a low intensity area without MANPADs? Yes.
Lincoln; Far away in the Black Hills he still would have joined 3 other presidents in 41′. Had he lived to serve his term, it would have been over a divided house and country. Even though the Union won the war, the scars of the divided states remain. The carnage of brothers fighting each other repeats the insurrection of Absalom and the civil war that followed then. There have been few better and far worse than Abe at the helm. Politically, economically, and socially i cannot say much, but hope to God he would have lived on to cheer his wife and enjoy seeing his 2 grandkids growing up.
I think that Lincoln was an astute politician. That is the subject of many books, not a paragraph or a sentence. Grant was not a bad man, but he was not the president that Lincoln was.
My assessment as well, best anyone can know, by action, not what some historians would like us to know. His reliance on The Bible swayed it for me, especially since we are afforded the ability yo look backwards and judge. Results are what I use, although the end does not always justify the means so some of it needs to be taken with a grain if salt.
Lincoln is one of my favorite Presidents right after Washington, although PDJT may surpass him.
But Johnson was a disaster and a Democrat (I repeat myself).
And had Lincoln lived, Johnson would not have been president.
Lincoln might have brought reconciliation.
He sought that.
Johnson did not.
LL how could you not want to add missiles to the Air Tractor? I mean, attaching missiles to everything is good. Even the daily grocery runner. It’s almost like saying you have enough knives.
*
Those muskets are difficult to identify but I did know the Indian trade musket only because it’s so well known.
*
What’s the politics behind leaving Al-Tanf in Syria? I can grasp why everyone wanted us gone. But what did we get out of the situation, promises, so forth, other than leaving? I have my doubts leaving will be beneficial long term.
*
As to Lincoln having a second term I think an interesting question is what would have occurred if Lincoln had not won the first election? How long before France and Britian would have invaded?
President Trump wants US troops out of the Middle East. He even drew down the numbers in Erbil, Kurdistan, which I found strange. I know for a fact that Iraq wants MORE US troops there. They’d be content with two full divisions in lower Iraq. There is a divergence between what they say they want and what the press reports. When I met with PM Al Sudani in September in Baghdad he was clear about what they wanted. I suspect that Syria wanted the US there too.
.
Having written that, my own personal thoughts are that we should NOT be the world’s policeman. I agree with reclaiming the Western Hemisphere including Greenland and keeping the Chinese and Russians out. That is a matter of national priority and precedence. Space is another issue entirely.
X2…let the Middle East folks fight in their own lousy sandbox, not our job, except to keep them from coming here like the last time. Not complicated. Oh, and no more Chinesium Floaty Balloons scanning America either (as ‘the brainwashed’ weirdly watched, like seeing Godzilla come down the street and freezing in wonderment only to get stomped into flattened fauna).
Sandbox fights; R and R Paul tag team would whole heartedly agree.
–
Focusing on our own and strengthening the western hemisphere, x2.
–
Had to sort through twice as many boards as I purchased today at Depot. Cali lumber, not southern pine. This is not the Trumponomics of #45. Isles still getting wider and inventories slim on the shelves. “We can order it in.” Meanwhile the wonderers are looking in the sky at the next shiny thing the MSM points the spotlight on.
Local shop here in ‘small town’ Montana brought out a build pack order for me, Hem-Fir 2x’s (4’s/6’s/8’s), all excellent. Reputable smaller yards tend to have good suppliers… vs. Home Disappointment (as one friend characterized it, but I shop there all the time) who buy in trainloads from the better priced supplier…gotta peel through the new stack towards the middle. Local shops will also take back anything you can’t or didn’t use. (Okay, NO real man takes 2x’s back for a refund…bad form…unless they are twisted like pretzels.)
Civilian Air Tractor, contracted by Texas Forrest Service working in conjunction with local volunteer departments, made a low level drop of insurance (fire retardant) on a grass fire in the “hood” last week. Thanks to the efforts of those volunteers and the Forrest Service, us residents were able to sleep in our own beds that evening.
I’m not sure a manned vehicle flying low and slow in a contested air space to launch missiles is an effective strategy.
L-3 makes both the Air Tractor and the Wolfpack family of small cruise missiles. I think that is the basis for the strategy. They want another job for the tractor to make it more indispensable.
There is a fleet based at Fort Morgan, CO. Given how dry this winter has been, they may be busy this summer.
Have to wonder if the South would have suffered as long from carpetbaggers if Lincoln had finished his second term?
Question raised over at Insty – should Vince Fosterized be replaced with Epsteinated?
I don’t think that Lincoln would have tolerated the carpetbaggers and expect that he would have repatriated many of the slaves to Liberia.
.
I think that the terms Fosterized and Epsteined could be used interchangeably with Clintoned.
“President’s Day”: Guess Hollywood will need to remake ‘Holiday Inn’, except, of course, they’ll use the ‘other’ actors to fill the roles, and “White Christmas” as first used in the movie, will be renamed “All Color Christmas”.
***
Lincoln, #2 on my list after Washington, may be similar to PDJT #45 vs. PDJT #47…learned a lot from Term #1; who he could trust…or not, how to navigate the DC Political Sphere, then make massive strides with a POA. I suspect had Lincoln been able to see his second term through I’m certain he would have been even more exceptional in righting America’s ship and shaping it for the next Administration. As GFW2 said, maybe even Mary would have not gone off the deep end (who could blame her) and seen his grand kids grow up.
***
MadMommie: Hearing in my head, “The chickens have come home to roost!”, only for the ignoramus voters who believed they are entitled to ‘freebies from nowhere’ (as they see it), only to now get to deal with reality that they installed a Marxists who will wreck everything. I blame them.
***
Total Sidebar: Sent over the transom by a brother – an IG post that could have been AI generated but here’s an ensuing story link, and the vociferous Democrat hue and cry, that indicates it was real: “https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-fume-bondi-after-photo-allegedly-shows-doj-tracking-epstein-database-searches”
–
Bondi – like her or not – has clearly been working behind the scenes, maybe some of her perceived ineptitude is a ploy (she is not a stupid woman/AG). Bondi showed up at that mess of what was supposed to be a standard oversight hearing with a DOJ ‘folder’ containing a document that tracked every member of Congress’s search history after giving them their own individual login to the unredacted Epstein files. From what I can determine – best anyone can in this day – what resulted was how every House Republican, and now Senators, went from not supporting the SAVE Act to becoming sponsors. If this is true, and these Rhino’s and Dems were scared straight, the rot is unfathomable and massively intertwined…like a rats nest assimilated to The Borg floating around the Mutara Nebula, where sensors are unreliable.
Treky talk; you’re schooling me Paul. Had to look up the Nebula. Last known location of Spock?
–
Great word art describing the not so blonde bomber over the target! Definitely an A-10 manuever.
Whenever I call our Medicare/Retired Persons Assistant thingy customer service person – usually to straighten out some mess to avoid them double-dipping – I characterize the Healthcare delivery “system” as a Nebula, meaning nothing makes sense to normal thinking people, has zero visibility, and it is by design massively complicated therefore difficult to navigate. Hence the reference. (eg. Moved from Colorado to Montana, had to call three separate “places” to fix a $21/mo Rx Insurance rate hike of $50….because we moved. Saw it for what it was, a built-in grift. It was actually fun fixing it…but beyond stupidly convoluted only ‘the government’ could conjure up. Gotta be to allow backroom thieving ‘by others’.)
‘Captain Ron’…now THAT was (is) a great movie…”Swabbie, get me another beer.” heh
Never saw it and wondered if it was a Snake Plissken AI redneck short.
I’ll probably watch now.
Campy but fun early 90’s entertainment.
This holiday gives us lots of Presidents Day sales. We used to have white sales, but that’s now considered racist. Should we call them black sales? Would companies shed more of their profit margin for the sake of a black sale and reparations for those of us who are thrilled to self-identify as negro for the sake of a bargain?
‘Sheets’…white sales are for sheets…any self-respecting house-husband knows this…and can even fold a fitted sheet. (Dad to Mom, “Why are you ironing the sheets? Seems like a lot of extra work for no reason.” heh — Side Note: He did say ONE TIME – with a funny smile on his face when mom asked how the [homemade as moms did back then] mashed potatoes were…that… “Well, you could fix the crack in the sidewalk with them, otherwise pretty good.” Mom laughed, to his relief.)
White sheets are used by the Klan. They are inherently racist. If you buy them there is the eye holes/no eye holes option. Sleeping on black sheets shows your solidarity with da hood.
Well, the NYC Marxist did manage to make the white snow black with soot because he never got rid of it, let it sit piled up. There is that win for the aggrieved segment.
Lincoln was more politician than president. The slave issue was not a hard point for Lincoln and had he been more presidential, the war of aggression would have been avoided and slavery ended in a more peaceful manner. Additionally, Lincoln was involved in using most of the federal infrastructure budget on northern railroads rather than similar improvements in the south. This was a sore point with southern businessmen as their transportation costs were sometimes charged twice. The increased cost was forced at transshipping points as southern manufacturers paid tariffs twice per northern interpretation of the laws. That was true for goods by rail or by sea.
Another overlooked point about Lincoln was that as he allowed the northern railroads to prosper, he had personal money in the railroad game similar to what we see in the uniparty individuals today.
*****
Late to the game on SMRs. In the SMR game, Valar Atomics has men from Moscow, Idaho who are demonstrating there are still young American men who can take a vision and make it come to fruition.
See US Department of War Press release “Department of War partners with Department of Energy in historic nuclear energy initiative” and The War Zone “C-17 airlifts a micro nuclear reactor for the first time in history.”
H/T Dave. Interesting points on both subjects.
Random thought about northern US states. Commenter elsewhere overheard a gal tourist from Europe (guessing western Europe) talking on the phone to someone back home. She was excitedly exclaiming that she had found an area full of ‘real men’, and that her friend should come over and try to get one.
American schoolchildren were shafted with President’s Day.
They were cheated out of learning about the Great Man.
Washington’s Birthday was on Feb 22nd and Lincoln’s on Feb 12th.
Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on Feb 22nd from 1879 until 1970.
To give federal employees a three-day weekend, in 1968 the Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved it to the third Monday in February, which can occur between February 15 and 21, starting in 1971.
(I enlisted on Friday Feb 18th 1972 and this caused my buzz cut to be delayed til Tuesday, but we cut each others hair with sewing scissors on Saturday as it was too warm marching with longer hair.)
The day soon became known as Presidents Day and provides an occasion to remember all the U.S. presidents, to honor Abraham Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays together, or any single president of choice.
When everyone is special, nobody is special.
William Henry Harrison was president for 40 days.
Barack Obama was president for 8 years.
Biden and Carter, 4 each.
None of them deserve to share a day with Washington.
George Washington was the superhero who not only led us to victory in our separation from Britain and the founding of our nation, but became its first president for two terms, turning down the opportunity to be king!
George Washington was born on February 11, 1731, Julian Calendar.
At the time, the entire British Empire, including its North American possessions, was on the Julian calendar; the Empire, not being bound to the Catholic Church, had not yet adopted the modern Gregorian calendar that Catholic countries had adopted in 1582.
Consequently, by the 1730s, the Julian calendar used by Britain and the Colonies was eleven days behind the Gregorian, because of leap year differences.
Furthermore, the British civil year began on March 25 rather than January 1, so that dates in February (such as this one) ‘belonged’ to the preceding year.
In 1752, the British Empire switched to the Gregorian calendar and since then, Americans born prior to 1752, including Washington, typically had their birthdays recognized according to the Gregorian calendar .
Since February 11, 1731, on the Julian calendar was February 22, 1732, on the Gregorian (with new year now on Jan 1), and he was alive at the time the change was made, Washington changed his birth date to February 22, 1732, to match the new calendar.
This did not affect his Social Security.
X2 Ed…
“When everyone is special, nobody is special.” X2 We tried to integrate our 4 teens into American culture by enrolling them on a community swim team. Never had lessons, ymca memberships ect. I was appalled that ” participation” ribbons were handed out. We advised our 4 that they would be improving and to focus on their personal increase. They were able to look up to their betters that excelled with a good attitude.
–
Calendar history; Didn’t know the changes were so recent. Diluting the honor by dei-ing 40+ other leaders, plus creating another paid holiday is not in best interest of our students. Great points I will try to remember. To not take the day off and do whatever the public servants may want, and keep it educationally focused would be far more patriotic.
👍
I just learned that Robert Duvall passed away in Virginia yesterday, 2/15 at 95 years of age. I enjoyed his acting craft. RIP to one of the great ones.
Open Range. The Godfather. The Killer Elite. Get Low. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Apostle.
Second Hand Lions, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, Days of Thunder, Falling Down, etc.
Even stole the scenes from Cruise in Reacher (the movie version). Man was exceptional. Oh, ‘Open Range’, plus a large pile of others (‘Get Low’ is a favorite, plus ‘Second Hand Lions’). This on top of smaller films like ‘7 Days in Utopia’ and ‘Phenomenon’ (“…because he bought her chairs!”, one of the best marital advise lines ever.)
95…a great run. RIP Mr. Duvall.
❤️
Geronimo, Colors and the small part as the cab driver in Bullitt. But he absolutely nailed the part of the Cav troop commander in Apocalypse Now. It was uncanny.
.
It somehow seems appropriate, if a bit sad, to have lost him and Gene Hackman in relatively close succession.
❤️
Did any of you take a guided tour of Walmart on Valentine’s Day? https://www.facebook.com/reel/1863857278337731
No, probably should have considering with the ‘BREAKING!!! SAVANNAH GUTHRIE’S MOM’ – Wag The Dog – charade at the top of each hour, WTP are getting all manner of Walmart insider tips from those who think we’re 3rd Graders needing their “expert” opinion and education. Unreal. How about the V-Sub seized as you Bulletpointed? Or the MN/CA Fraud? Or Rubio doing his level best to let the international boyz know what’s what now they are now playing in the Big Dog’s house? How about the SAVE ACT (not about Walmart’s price structure)…what’s happening with that? But no, there’s a glove…and all the clothes and backpack worn by the doorbell cam imbecile were WalMart purchases…and…and…breathlessly offered…Walmart is combing it’s records and video for who may have purchased them. You watch, some 78 yo in his BarcaLounger watching Happy Days reruns gets raided at 10PM because he bought a pair of gloves at Walmart last month. Oh, and this is rich from the sheriff, “the family is ruled out”. Really? But no DNA match anywhere? What a maroon.
Washington Day. Ma LSP sends love.
Lincoln: Not a fan.
—
Sorry to hear about Robert Duvall. We are diminished.