From the Offices of Virtual Mirage, the blog…Happy Friday
Identify the Aircraft
This Week in History
8 Dec 1914, The Royal Navy defeated the German East Asia Squadron at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. British battlecruisers outgunned opponents and could outrun them. 6 of 8 German ships were sunk. 1,871 killed including Vice-Adm Spee and his 2 sons. 215 captured. 10 British killed.
The Royal Navy has faded since those days. So has the German Navy.
Bullet Points:
* An important seasonal message from Batman: “I do not smell.”
* Pedo Joe’s non-binary drag queen nuclear waste guru Sam Brinton is accused of stealing ANOTHER bag from the airport in Las Vegas – months after a similar incident in Minneapolis.
Sam Brinton has been hit with a felony warrant for stealing luggage from an airport in Las Vegas. It’s unclear when the incident at Harry Reid International Airport occurred. In September, Brinton was charged with stealing a bag from the baggage claim at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Brinton, a non-binary drag queen, admitted to taking a Vera Bradley suitcase that did not belong to them on September 16 after previously lying to police. I can’t help but wonder if this will screw up his woman of the year for 2022 award.
* Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced today that she is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.
“In a natural extension of my service since I was first elected to Congress, I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington and formally registering as an Arizona Independent,” she wrote on Twitter Friday.
As an Arizona independent, I want to state for the record that nobody asked me before they let her in our ranks. However, this has been coming for a long time. It’s not a surprise move. I doubt that it will change much in her voting behavior.
* The Washington Post lost 500,000 paid subscribers since old Pedo Joe took office.
* Employees of the NY Times are on strike. The Times has hired scabs, writing that anyone could do those jobs.
* Why are women shocked that it is going to take up their whole wage to pay someone to babysit their children while they work full time. You are literally hiring someone full time at a med/low income job so that you can work full time at a med/low income job. It’s not rocket science.
* This week American Climate Czar John Kerry said, “it would be great if there were some U.S. taxpayer money to pay other countries climate reparations.”
* The House approved the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, which lays out fiscal year 2023 spending for the Department of Defense and would repeal the military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate, delivering a victory to Republicans who said they would refuse to support the bill if it did not.
* “…but we joke and laugh otherwise we would start screaming.”— Bukowski
Whelan – a Profile
Paul Whelan, 52, is a Marine turned corporate security executive who was convicted of espionage and is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison. A citizen of four countries — the United States, Canada, Britain and Ireland, Whelan was a former sheriff’s deputy and served several tours in Iraq as an active-duty reservist. He was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct in 2008 after being convicted of charges related to larceny, according to military and court records.
In June 2020, Whelan was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in a Russian prison for espionage, in a trial that he has argued was politically motivated and heightened tensions between the United States and Russia.
His attorney, Vladimir Zherebenkov, has said his client unwittingly received a flash drive containing “state secrets” while visiting Russia for a wedding in 2018. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Whelan was caught “red-handed,” during a spy mission.
Whelan, arrested Dec. 28, 2018, in a Moscow hotel, has said he thought the flash drive that he received from an acquaintance contained holiday photos. Whelan, his family, and the U.S. government have repeatedly stated that the charges are baseless and that he was framed.
He was f-ing around in Russia and they did him.
Identify the Aircraft:
Before my period of interest but I will hazard a guess of the Avro 504.
Think Bristol.
Then perhaps the Bristol F.2 two-seat fighter.
Yes, Bristol F2B Mk2
They were used in Mesopotamia in the 20s.
Col. T. E. Lawrence (Royal Army) set aside his commission and served as an aircraftman (enlisted) with the RAF (off and on) and is said to have worked on the F2Bs.
Whelan sounds like a bit of a shady character. Either he was played or the people he was working with are/were idiots. If they had used cryptostenogrphy and hidden the files in the “holiday photos”, his cover story might have worked and he might not have been caught.
My niece found a creative way to avoid the childcare trap. She got a medical coding certificate and will work remotely (from home).
Cryptography is a hobby of mine and so is network steganography. You can embed messages with or without a cipher into images, video, audio, and into networks. Whelan’s friends could have done any of those things but I suspect that the Russians were using him and when they had no further use, they flushed him and used that to embarrass the USA. They could have PNGd him but decided to do a show trial.
As crass as Moscow Station can be at times, their tradecraft is better than that. The Russians passed him the thumb drive – 100%.
Why waste him when they can keep the pawn for a publicized swap of something that they care about.
I understand the basics of crypto, and have always been fascinated by steganography. Reminds of the X0-Files episode “Kill Switch”.
Apparently the Russians want a spy from Germany now to trade for Whelan… Interesting… Sinema’s move it also interesting, as will be Manchin’s. That could flip the Senate the other way.
Sinema- So what…Shut up and do your job you attention hound. You and your cohorts in Congress are not celebrities or more important than any other hard-working American. Bunch of self promoter’s who believe we care what they think or say, especially since most of them are half wits, weirdos, liars, hypocrites, grifters, cheats, or traitors to their constituents and Oath.
Whelen. Not listening to the blather, most of it is BS. Griner comes home in exchange for an arms terrorist (FJB), and he’s stuck breaking rocks in a Russian prison yard. Maybe where he belongs, maybe not. Can’t know. But LL’s account shades the current narrative some, juxtaposed by Whelen’s own brothers weird commentary. Don’t get caught playing dangerous games in places other than America. (Unless you showed up on Jan 6th).
1992-2022, Even Hallmark is promoting homosexuality in their newest Christmas movies. Guess they forgot the Biblical component of the season, went mainstream disgusting dressed up in nice clothes and perfect teeth.
There is this:
https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/what-is-gac-family-and-which-hallmark-stars-are-making-the-move/
Yup. They aren’t principles until you defend them. The Left destroys everything it infiltrates. Hallmark has a massive catalog…it’s tainted now that it’s gone “woke”.
Thanks for the Whelan analysis. And now we’ve got Ginger back. Dam, those Russkies are tricky.
So, Whelan got a BCD? That casts the lad in somewhat of a different shade of gray, wot?
FAFO, etc.
That’s exactly what I was thinking…
So “That Thing” was charged with a felony. ‘Bout time. Of course it will disappear, but at least somebody made the effort.
The Post is bleeding subscribers and the writers at The Grey lady are on strike. Yawn….
30 years can be a lifetime. I’d rather be back in ’92. Or would I….?
Thanks for the skinny on Whelan. Now I don’t feel quite so bad over the prisoner swap. Mess with the bull, get the horns.
Don’t overlook the perception of equality, self worth and emancipation by those who choose to pay others to care for their offspring while they are employed. In many of those, the monetary cost is unimportant (till it exceeds their income). Too late, many realize it was a fruitless and possibly unwise choice.
Cletus Valvecore
8 Dec 1914, The Royal Navy defeated the German East Asia Squadron at the Battle of the Falkland Islands
Interesting side story was the long hunt by the British for the Dresden which must have tied up many assets that could have been used elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lViz_siltm0&ab_channel=wocomoHISTORY
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