This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here …but you can see it from here

Kevin sent us an article in the East Coast Magazine about a special forces master sergeant by the name of Jay Polk who cooked for the filthy hippies at Occupy San Diego until he called up for a deployment to Afghanistan. Then a few days later, he called a local preacher for some prayers because he was “worried”;

Polk had just learned of his deployment, but said that “he could not divulge anything, since it was really secretive.” Polk said his goodbyes to friends in San Diego just days before news came of his demise.

For those who may not know, it takes “days” just to get to Afghanistan. But the article is dated January 12, 2012, so looking at the casualty lists of the weeks prior to the article, there is no listing for a Jay Polk, or any other Polk;

The article also says that Polk will be buried in his hometown of Iberia, LA, but unless he was transgendered, there’s no record of an obituary by that name in Iberia;

The article explains all of that away;

The U.S. Department of Defense has not yet published news of Polk’s death, however such confirmation is commonly delayed in special forces operations.

Yuh, huh. Well, here we are more than two weeks after the article was written and still no announcement of his death. But Occupy San Diego needed a martyr more than they needed the truth;

At today’s memorial service, a Veterans for Peace member read the poem, Fidler’s Green, to honor Polk’s service in the Cavalry. He also read the Special Forces Prayer, in honor of Polk’s active duty service with the U.S. Special Operations Command.

You know if VFP is involved, there’s something fishy going on. AKO has no record of a Jay Polk. The only person on AKO whose name with that rank is even remotely like MSG Jay Polk is a MSG Jeff Polk who is retired.

The only reason I put a question mark in the title is that we don’t know if that was his real name or not. But you’ll notice the casualty list has no master sergeant listed either. It just sounds too fishy to ignore. Kevin has written to the magazine to get them off their asses to check into the story with their resources. Seems to me that a phony soldier getting the Occupy folks all upset is a bigger story than what they’ve written.

The article says that his Facebook account has been taken down, yet here it is.

Apparently, he wrote on his Facebook page that he was deploying to Syria, which has the Democratic Underground conspiracy theorists spinning. Yeah, I’m sure a real special forces soldier would reveal that tidbit on Facebook.

This tiny entry on a local page of obit announcements in San Diego after the memorial ceremony;

East Coast Magazine just this minute updated their article with a disclaimer;

Update February 3, 2012: Sgt. Polk’s death has still not been reported by the Dept. of Defense, nor has any notice of his death appeared in his family’s hometown newspaper. A source has further informed ECM that his name has not been provided for addition to a memorial that honors fallen special services soldiers. Thus at this point, it appears likely that Polk did not die in service overseas. Perhaps he faked his death, or possibly someone else posted misleading information on his Facebook account. Where is he now? If anyone has conclusive evidence, please email editor@eastcountymagazine.org.

ADDED: Apparently our buds at SOCNET are already on it.

It’s a .950 cal. rifle with a 2800 grain bullet (a grain is 1/1000th of an ounce) that travels at 2100 ft/sec.

I guess if you have stegosauruses tearing up your garden and molesting your dog, you’ll need one. Found at Ace of Spades.

I know…it’s all been about TAH this week, but, hey, we’re having a good week and working very little at it. Anyway, an American Legion Post Commander in Montana at Andrew Pearson Post 117, in Billings, George Blackard, sent us an email last night with his Post’s newsletter with this missive;

I just thought it was real nice of him to lie about us like that. And Commander, if you ever get out east to the TAH Corporate Resort, there’s a cold one waiting for you in the fridge.

I’m only posting this picture because it’ll send Joe running for the exits screaming “The Christianists are coming!!!”

I am woeful in American History that doesn’t deal with some war or another.  But today I have been watching a 2 hour special on the dustbowl, and I just saw footage of this:

Holy Shitload of Rabbits Batman. Are you kidding me with these things? I know Claymore has declared a fatwa on all squirrels, but damn. I’ll take squirrels 6 days a week from swarming jack rabbits.

The next video in the NRA/Brownells series “Life of Duty” is the story of Jim Allen who volunteered for the paratroops during World War II, was wounded by a German grenade during Operation Market/Garden, then came home and volunteered for the smokejumpers in Oregon;

Those ingrates, the Germans, are finally having to face life without Americans in their communities according to an article in The Local sent to us by Old Trooper;

Mayor Andreas Starke of Bamberg said there will be a gradual reduction of troop numbers over the next few years before the bases officially shutter.

Starke said although the closures would have “far-reaching consequences,” hurting craftsmen and other businesses who have made millions of euros from the Americans, he said it will also have benefits.

“In a crisis, there’s also a chance,” Starke said, pointing to the city’s long-running need for new student housing to support the University of Bamberg.

It’s hard to feel their pain, after those years I faced discrimination and derision from the Germans. I loved the food and the countryside and the hours I spent biking through their fields, but there was an anti-American sentiment that ran through the population that makes me smile a little bit at their confusion. I always knew this day was coming, but apparently they didn’t.

Germans might find some comfort in the fact that Panama is better than it ever was with the Americans. Of course, the Panamanians now enjoy the influx of Chinese money. Somehow I don’t think the Germans would like that option very much.

Some guy who comments here got noticed.

Now this really sucks… If his blog gets enough hits I won’t be able to steal his ideas for my own posts!

He’s going to WVU and drives a Mustang… damn hippie wannabe.

So Joe sent us this link thinking I wouldn’t post it. It’s from NorthwestOhio.com and entitled “Conservatives and racists are actually stupid, study finds” and the title is misleading. What the article actually reports is that the stupid become ideologues;

A new study bound to stir controversy found that people with a low I.Q. are drawn to prejudice, racism and a socially conservative political ideology.

I’ll admit that there are some stupid people who are racists and conservative, but that doesn’t translate to all of us conservatives. In fact, I’ve met more liberal racists than conservative racists. And the article, when it quotes the scientists who conducted this study, doesn’t mention conservatives, it only mentions “ideologies”, not being specific about which one;

The study’s lead author, Dr. Gordon Hodson, told LiveScience that people with lower intelligence scores are attracted to the “structure and order” of these ideologies because they make it easier to comprehend a complicated world.

So apparently, the study says the racist and stupid are attracted to any ideology that allows them to be intellectually vacant – just knee-jerk reactions to any given discussion.

The editor who wrote that title must be a racist and a conservative because he’s obviously stupid.

“Reality is complicated and messy,” Dr. Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia, who was not involved in the study, told The Huffington Post. “Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

Well, which ideology could be simpler than an ideology that involves supporting a government solution all of your problems, and throwing other people’s money at the solutions yet never has there been an instance of government ever solving anything? And still the support never wanes for more government solutions. Or throwing for more money at more problems.

To prove who the stupid ones are, Joe sent me this article without seeing the obvious flaws in it.

I spent a few minutes on the phone with Erik Wemple this morning who writes about the media in the Washington Post. He wanted to hear about how we took down the Leo Webb lie. So I gave you guys props;

Lilyea says he’s “85 to 90 percent sure” that it was his readers who forced the retractions. To confirm the claim, this blog has reached out to American Public Media (home of Marketplace) and to KQED and is awaiting responses.

In the meantime, Lilyea will wait for the next faker to emerge. When he launched This Ain’t Hell six years ago, he focused on Iraq war opponents who lied about having served in the military. The Internet, however, insisted that he cast a wider net. “My readers decided I should out phonies everywhere,” says Lilyea. “They’re the ones who click my ads and get my income in, so I go where they send me.”

But, to me, the big victory in this isn’t our new-found media attention, but Wemple asked me for my DD214 before he published his post. So I think we’re getting through their thick skulls. Trust but verify. I call it winning.

But read the whole article. I told him that I have the best readers in the world, that no one comes here to read my drivel, they come here to read your comments and the tips you send me. I remind myself of that every morning when I open my laptop and wonder WTF I’m going to write about today and some of you always come through for me.