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

Nucsnipe sends us a link to what he spent Fathers’ Day doing – cleaning up after vandals at a war memorial in Port Orchard, WA;

“If the people that desecrated this had seen what was going on in combat they’d probably have a different perspective,” said veteran Don Winslow Sr, 81.

“This crosses the line. This will be the last time,” said Mark Traylor, an Iraq War veteran.

Traylor and other volunteers, including his 17-year-old son Aaron, started cleaning up the memorial Sunday morning.

“Not how I wanted to spend Father’s Day but you know what, that’s worth it,” said Traylor.

“These people on the wall are fathers or have fathers or sons. They don’t deserve to have their names defaced,” said Aaron.

The Associated Press reports that they have documents from the Pentagon which will be released tomorrow or thereabouts in regards to the services receiving orders from Secretary of Defense to move ahead with plans to allow women into most of the specialties from which they are currently excluded;

They call for requiring women and men to meet the same physical and mental standards to quality for certain infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reviewed the plans and has ordered the services to move ahead.

The move, expected to be announced Tuesday, follows revelations of a startling number of sexual assaults in the armed forces. Earlier this year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the sexual assaults might be linked to the longstanding ban on women serving in combat because the disparity between the roles of men and women creates separate classes of personnel – male “warriors” versus the rest of the force.

That’s what is Marty, your colonels and generals are sexually assaulting women because they can’t be Rangers. You’ve got your finger on the pulse of human nature, by golly gosh.

Under the schedules military leaders delivered to Hagel, the Army will develop standards by July 2015 to allow women to train and potentially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin training as Navy SEALS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree.

Yeah, like I’ve been predicting since this discussion began in earnest recently, they’re going to “develop standards” instead of maintaining the tried and true established standards which has proved successful in combat.

The proposals leave the door open for continued exclusion of women from some jobs, if research and testing find that women could not be successful in sufficient numbers, but the services would have to defend such decisions to top Pentagon leaders.

That will happen, I’m sure. What makes our special forces special is their adherence to a strict and steady training regimen. They aren’t born that way, they just train harder than most units. But, since the traditional forces can’t grasp that simple fact, they figure they can lower the standard of training and still produce the same product. But the political masters will be pleased, I suppose, well, until the body bags start coming home and it hits them in their political wallet.

Scott sends us a link from the Ohio Department of Veterans’ Services (.pdf file) which announces that;

Ohio has a unique way of thanking these recent veterans and those who serve. It’s the Ohio Veterans Bonus, for service given during the times of the Persian Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the Ohio Veterans Bonus won’t be around forever – the deadline for Persian Gulf War era veterans to apply is December 31, 2013.

Veterans of the Iraq War era have until December 31, 2014 to apply. No deadline has been announced for veterans of the Afghanistan War era.

[...]

The bonus pays $100 a month to veterans who served in the Persian Gulf theater, or in the countries of Afghanistan or Iraq, up to a maximum of $1,000. For veterans who served elsewhere, the payment is $50 a month up to a $500 maximum. Veterans medically discharged due to injuries sustained in combat can receive $1,000, plus up to $500 for months of service elsewhere. Family members of those killed in action or who died from disease as a result of their in-theater service can receive a bonus of $5,000 plus whatever the service member was eligible for, up to a total of $6,500.

It’s not a handout – you earned it so go get it before the state wastes it on free cell phones for pimps or something.

Bob and Tman sent us this link to rapper Lil’ Wayne’s latest video. Of course, I’d be angry if it wasn’t the same type of disrespectful horseshit that I’ve come to expect from this crowd. You can watch the video at this link, but I’m not embedding these antics. This is from TMZ;

During the shoot, Wayne begins rapping in front of a giant American flag … which is released to the ground. After it’s on the floor, Wayne continues to rap … while stepping all over the stars and stripes.

The lyrics to Wayne’s song are just as controversial … “My country ’tis of thee / Sweet land of kill ‘em all and let ‘em die / God bless Amerika / This ole’ godless Amerika.”

Lil’ Wayne’s career is crashing, I guess because anyone who can speak that language can rap and there are so many untalented hacks these days, it’s hard to stand out without pissing everyone off. Of course, he’ll apologize and then someone will come along and lecture us on culture and how we don’t understand how someone can be ungrateful in a country where he can do that shit and still get paid millions of dollars. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And, oh, yeah, I’m a racist for pointing this little theater out as a publicity stunt by a no-talent jackass.

Microsoft has unveiled its follow-on to the Xbox 360 – the Xbox One.  Some of its new “features” are nothing short of a swift kick in the “package” for military gamers.

• Stationed somewhere with spotty Internet connectivity?  Well, you can still use your Xbox One – for all of 24 hours.  After that, you’ll need to wait until you can reconnect to the Internet to use it again.
• Stationed overseas and get a new game mailed to you from someone in CONUS?  Sorry.  Games will be region-locked, and can only be activated in the region in which they’re designated.  You’ll have to wait until you get back to the US to play that one.
• Stationed in Japan, Kuwait, or Afghanistan?  Again – sorry.  You can only use that new Xbox  One in the 21 countries included in Microsoft’s Xbox server network.  If you’re elsewhere, that’s just too bad.
• Oh, and the built-in microphone?  It cannot be turned off.  Security folks shipboard are gonna just love that one!

Microsoft says they “empathize”.  And they do have a work around for those in the military who, you know, deploy.  According to Don Mattrick, President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Division, “Fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360.”

That’s right, folks:  Microsoft’s “military friendly” solution is to continue to use their older, soon-to-be-obsolete-and-unsupported product.

I wish I was kidding above – but I’m not.

I’m not a gamer.  But many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are.  And this action by Microsoft – and their truly crappy attitude here – is a slap in the fact to all military gamers.

Mattrick’s e-mail address appears to be  “ donm@microsoft.com “.   His boss is Steve Ballmer; his e-mail address appears to be “ SteveB@microsoft.com “.  Perhaps they’d like to hear from military gamers what they think about the new Microsoft Xbox One.

Added by Sporkmaster:

Oh and it seems that it is getting worse for Microsoft when it turns out that the Demos for the Xbox One at the E3 convention were being run on high end PCs.

This link was on my Facebook thingie written by Heidi Yewman, one of those anti-gun nuts who think they can make a point by acting like their perception of people they don’t understand. Heidi, like I said, doesn’t like people owning guns, so she goes out and buys a gun and all of the attendant paperwork that goes along with that and then carries the gun in public. She’s such a ditz that she pulls over a cop to learn how to operate her gun, because she says she is going to “only do what is minimally required for permits, licensing, purchasing and carrying, and finally be prepared to use it for protecting myself at home or in public”. Now, I’m not sure where she lives, but she bought the gun with no training and strapped it on with no training. Like I said, she didn’t bother to ask the dealer how to use the gun she’s carrying, so she stopped a cop and asked him because she freaked out after she got home and took it out of the box – a Glock 9mm.

So the article opens with her sitting in Starbucks with her gun, shaking nervously near children, I guess because the gun might just jump out of the holster and start putting kids down on it’s own.

Her feeling is that everyone is just like her – no training on how to handle firearms and monstrously stupid. Responsible gun owners know or learn how to handle their firearm before they buy it, certainly before they carry it in public. No one tell Heidi this, because she won’t listen, but the NRA offers firearms safety classes.

Actually, I’ve read the article a couple of times and the only thing that I can figure Heidi wants to do is accidentally shoot someone because she’s doing her best in that regard. The thing is, there are millions of gun owners who carry a weapon in public who don’t shoot people everyday because they didn’t do “what is minimally required” to own the gun.

Heidi is an irresponsible twit who I hope doesn’t shoot herself, but that’s what she deserves.

Having some technical issues, so the Stolen Valor Tournament will be delayed a little bit.  I hope to get it up later today, but having some computer issues right now.  As every year, I am at Boys State this week, and the computer is acting funky.

The Stars & Stripes gives us a glimpse of what life in Afghanistan will be like when that magic 2014 withdrawal happens and the US along with it’s allies leaves Afghanistan. This is pretty complicated, so I hope I got it right; the militia loyal to the titular army chief of staff opened fire on the militia loyal to a local war lord when they were getting together to discuss elections;

Mohammad Alam Sayee, the governor of Jowzjan province, was returning to his compound in the provincial capital Sherberghan, when armed men affiliated with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum moved in on the facility, Sayee’s spokesman, Mohammad Yama Jamili said.

Dostum, a prominent military leader during the 1980s and an infamous anti-Taliban warlord in the ’90s, currently serves in the largely ceremonial role of army chief of staff.

After Sayee took refuge in his compound, tensions escalated and the two sides fired on each other, though no one was injured, according Jamili.

Of course, no one was injured – it’s just another example of how Afghans haven’t taken advantage of the opportunity to be a civilized nation and to command a professional force that will protect the citizens.

In another story, the LA Times reports that life as a boy or girl scout in Afghanistan is quite a bit different than in the rest of the world;

“I love my uniform; it makes me feel proud,” said Ayob, 18. “Scouts are like my family.”

The group’s motto, “Be prepared,” takes on special meaning here, where members risk death to attend meetings, earn “rule of law” merit badges and learn to identify roadside bombs in first aid class.

While Boy Scouts plant trees on streets traversed by Islamist suicide bombers, Girl Scouts in this conservative Muslim nation are more cloistered, volunteering in hospitals, for instance, rather than working in the open.

“With Taliban problems, it’s hard to let the girls do everything,” said Mohammad Tamim Hamkar, Afghan Scouting’s program manager.

Camping and hiking are also restricted for boys, given the security concerns. Campfire singing stopped after mullahs accused the Scouts of worshiping fire.

You can’t civilize people who resist civilization. Yes, it’s the innocents who suffer the most, but when people like Karzai, who are only interested in their own fortunes rather than the future of their nation, in charge, the future as member of the community of nations isn’t very bright.

According to the Huffington Post, Former Vice president Dick Cheney told Fox News yesterday that Ed Snowden, the NSA contractor who has been releasing a slow stream of documents he stole from government computers on a flash drive to the media, is a traitor;

“I think he’s a traitor,” Cheney said of Snowden in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

“I think he has committed crimes in effect by violating agreements given the position he had,” he continued. “I think it’s one of the worst occasions in my memory of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States.”

Cheney defended the NSA surveillance programs, claiming that the United States may have been able to prevent the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington if such monitoring practices had been in place in 2001.

“As everybody who’s been associated with the program’s said, if we had had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego — two hijackers — had been able to use that program, that capability, against that target, we might well have been able to prevent 9/11,” Cheney said.

While I agree with Cheney that Snowden is a traitor, I don’t think that the NSA program will stop any terrorist attacks, nor would it have prevented 9/11. The government is so good at ignoring pertinent information related to terrorist attacks, I’m not convinced they’re actually in the business of stopping terrorist attacks. The only terrorist attacks they’ve prevented are the ones that the Feds themselves incited.

It didn’t prevent them from stopping Richard Reid and his shoe bombs, the Times Square bomber, the underwear bomber or any of the others – those terrorists were stopped by their own incompetence.

Fox has been running interviews all morning with Snowden’s father who is trying to paint an innocent picture of his son with public opinion, which is what fathers do. But, Snowden did it to make a name for himself, and apparently, he’s been planning to do it since before he got his contractor job with Booze Allen. His father does plead with Snowden to stop releasing documents, which he should, let Congress do it it’s job for once.

Chief Tango sends us links to a story in Tuscaloosa, AL in which Milton Prentice, who was turning his life around, found himself in someone else’s apartment and a gun in his hand. The owner of the apartment disputed Prentice’ right to take his stuff and fired his own gun. Both were wounded, but met up again at the hospital;

According to the release, Prentice brought the 19-year-old to DCH Regional Medical Center. The teen had been shot in the leg.

A few minutes later, the 21-year-old arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound in the arm, the release stated. Tuscaloosa police responded to a call to the hospital at about 12:45 a.m. Saturday.

The 21-year-old shooting victim told police that two black males had attempted to rob him and that he shot the unidentified 19-year-old when he and Prentice tried to force their way into his apartment in the 2200 block of 48th St. E.

The investigating officer tied the two gunshot wounds to each. Neither wound is life threatening, which means the homeowner should get a few more hours practice every week.