India

Indian troops show their combat skills with the 8 men and a motorcycle combat assault maneuver....These elite troops patrol India's borders, the look out scouting for trouble while the assorted riflemen provide 360 firepower protection to the driver...

 

So much more fuel economical too...

 

 

 

 

 

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers

Political Commentary

In November 2008, George W. Bush was at 27 percent; 80 percent thought the country was headed in the wrong direction; 92 percent thought the economy was poor or worse. As James Carville said, if the party can't win with these numbers, it ought to go into a new line of work.

The one attribute Americans wanted most in its next president was that he be for "change." And Obama had cornered the market on change, while John McCain had voted 90 percent with Bush.

But instead of seeing the election as a repudiation of the Bush Republicans, Obama, Pelosi and Reid read it as an embrace of their wonderful selves and a national cry for more government.

Following Rahm's Rule—never let a crisis go to waste!—Obama and his party took the collapse of the banks and spreading economic chaos to attempt the greatest leap forward in federal power since World War II.

Most Americans understood candidate Obama's health care plans to mean that folks who could not afford care would be able to get it, whatever their conditions. As the plan evolved, however, it grew in the eyes of the public into precisely what the Tea Party and town-hall protesters said it was: a federal takeover of one-sixth of the economy. Bureaucrats would decide who gets what care, when and for how long. And a panoply of new taxes, fees and regulations would be imposed, producing a revenue windfall for the federal government and a quantum leap in power for federal bureaucrats.

What Massachusetts is telling the nation is what the Tea Party people was about; America doesn't want what Washington is pushing and either put it down or we remember in November.

( As they said during the Bush -Clinton campaign, "Its the economy, STUPID")

Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, sentence reduced.

The Army Clemency and Parole Board today reduced the sentence of Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna from 20 to 15 years, according to a news release from Rep. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.).

Lieutenant Behenna, who is currently serving his sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., was convicted of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative, while serving in Iraq.

Previous cases of similar or more aggravating circumstances, where the defendants were found guilty of premeditated murder, have resulted in less severe sentences, which prompted the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation to appeal to the board for a careful review of this case and relevant precedent.

A government witness, a highly respected Forensic expert, Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell, Director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y, insisted Behenna was innocent and he could prove it. His testimony would have prove that the angle of the gun shots and the blood spatter were consistent with self-defense not premeditated murder.

But after telling prosecutors what the forensic evidence showed - that Behenna was guiltless - this expert witness was sent packing. Dr.MacDonnell told Behenna's lawyer Jack Zimmerman, who had successfully represented one of the Haditha Marines, that he fully agreed with Behenna's account of what happened, essentially destroying the government’s case he had been called to support.

Incredibly, the key witness in the case was not called to testify in the case and was sent home. Before he retrieved his coat from the prosecution room he told the three prosecutors that, "The
explanation that Lt Behenna just testified to was the exact same scenario I told you yesterday. Lt Behenna is telling the truth."

 

Military justice is a funny cross between the laws of the United States, law of warfare and conduct, and military discipline. While I am no legal expert, the following is an analysis by a retired Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer:

SSG Warner and LT Behenna are now both serving time for a death of a detainee.  The trials of both men were complicated by the fact that they each knew that Ali Mansur was a suspected AQI member.  LT Behenna did have justification for the killing, but it probably wasn’t the justification that the US Army wants to hear.  Regardless, this whole event should have been stopped before it ever got started.  Another platoon should have done the detainee drop off.  The blame for the shots being fired can be laid at LT Behenna’s feet, but the death of Ali Mansur and the conviction of two US Infantrymen can be laid at the feet of the chain of command. 

Audacity of a Dope (or a blog just for the heck of it)

What a interesting week so far...politically, people in a dominantly Democrat state elect a sort of Republican (who says he is also sort of independent) to the US Senate mostly to tell the national politicians to stop whats going on in Washington, and listen to the people...Our government admits they didn't use a new anti-terror interrogation unit because OOPS nobody thought to call them? And in th middle of this our now one year learning on the job Presidente says banks suck, wall street is evil, and I am thinking what a damn liar he is, knowing a crap load of support for him as a candidate came from the very people he is "angered" with...Come to think of it, i need to re watch that Elliot Ness movie, so i can get a refresher on the Chicago way of doing things, I mean seeing as Obama and company really believe they are the Untouchables...geeez.. Its like everyone in Washington is on some mass delusional power trip and I have to wonder what they are drinking...

I watch TV when i get home, and usually flip the channel when Obama comes on, I have come to loath that looking down his nose smug attitude he has, like the picture in this blog...I call it audacity of a dope...

I can hardly stand it when I hear people on TV or the radio speak of what a giant intellect, what a impressive ly smart man Obama is. Based on the reviews of what little published accounts of his scholarly endeavors are available, i surmise I am smarter than he is...at least my thesis is available in the university library as a public document, although if I ran for office I too might seek to have it sealed, just so people cant see what goofy ideas I had at 23... I talk about running for office, and my spouse talks me out of it, not wanting to go through that again. I ran for a local office in 1992, and lost by a Coakley like margin, although had I not run, the outcome would have been the same, since the guy was running unopposed in a non-partisan office. Seemed kind of like a sham election running one person, so I ran as well, and got pretty well slammed by the BIG MEDIA in out town, who played on the fact that I was a "mere office worker" ...Well another "receptionist" is running for office here in California, Carly Fiorina.

She started out as a receptionist and ended up being CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) ...She is running for the nomination to run against Barbara (Babs) Boxer, our Senator who once whined on the Senate floor "I don't deserve to be here"..hey, no shine-ola lady...

Well, guess, i'll take the dog out for a minute, she is whining, then maybe some popcorn and then see if I can watch that movie on demand...

One darn thing after another...building a legacy of failure?

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that he was not consulted on whether Abdulmutallab should be questioned by the recently created High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG.
 
"That unit was created exactly for this purpose," Blair said. "We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have."
 
Under questioning by Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, Blair and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said they were not consulted before the decision was made to not use the high-value detainee interrogation group. Also, Michael Leiter, chief of the National Counter Terrorism Center, said he was not consulted.
 
"That is very troubling," Collins said.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was interviewed by federal law enforcement investigators when Northwest Flight 253 landed in Detroit after he allegedly tried to detonate a homemade bomb sneaked through airport security in Nigeria and Amsterdam. Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, is being held in a prison near Detroit.

Very troubling indeed

Agencies don’t talk to each other, there is no procedure or protocol in place that should be well known to everyone in the intelligence, and law enforcement communities…I mean a bomber on a plane that was trying to blow away 278 people probably should have been questioned by intelligence gatherers, rather than crime solvers…or did I miss something here?

Republican Brown wins Senate seat in Massachusetts

 

 Republican Brown wins Senate seat in Massachusetts

Was it something I said???Or didn't say??

The other day one of my longtime web based pals wrote about losing friends and a general slow down in traffic on Multiply. It started me thinking about it. Again.

Well, its official, I have 20 friends now on Multiply. And of those I would say I regularly hear from maybe  a dozen. Which means over the course of the last year and a 1/2 I have probably lost 8 people.

On the other hand, on Twitter, i am always gaining followers, same on Facebook. But those are different sites, with different demographics, and honestly more visibility than Multiply...I mean when do you see news stories about Multiply? I never have and honestly hope I don't. Because as long as Multiply is like it is, maybe, just maybe, the people you meet here are interested in maintaining some contact, for whatever reason. Maybe not anymore than elsewhere.  So, thanks for being my friends.

For those that left, I guess it was a bad match, so it probably is better for both of us you are gone.