From the Washington Post:
Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard that appeared at a World Series game last month so the group would not be exclusively white and male. ...
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, elevated diversity to a "strategic imperative" during his tenure as chief of naval operations. Academy leaders, on their official Web site, call diversity "our highest personnel priority."
That thinking reflects "a sea change, in that this initiative was generated from within the military, rather than imposed from without by civilian overseers," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. Thomas Wilkerson, an academy alumnus and chief executive of the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent think tank. Some alumni, he said, "have voiced concerns that it will happen at the expense of quality and combat readiness."
A military-oriented blog, CDR Salamander, reported last week that two white men had been pulled from the color guard that went to Yankee Stadium and replaced with an Asian American man and a white woman to make the group more diverse
Academy leadership disputed that account.
"No midshipman was ever given approval to attend this event and then later told they could not," said Capt. Matthew Klunder, commandant of midshipmen, in a statement Monday. He said he considered replacing two white men but chose to expand the color guard from six to eight to make it more representative of the Naval Academy.
Two of the eight could not perform because Zishan Hameed, one of the midshipmen added to the color guard, had forgotten parts of his uniform, Klunder said. The color guard marches in pairs.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
One has to wonder: did Hameed really forget his uniform, or did he realize at the last minute that he'd be marching behind the Stars & Stripes?
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen if...every white midshipman who owned had a pair (cojones or breasts, either will do) decided to say "FTS" and left their uniforms at the gate and went home?
It would be nice to think our future officers had such courage, but I'm not holding my breath.
It's unconscionable. The Constitution does not allow racial discrimination. Isn't that what we were supposed to learn from the 60s? It also bars the establishment of religion, and yet the establishment of our new state religion, Diversity, moves right along unimpeded.
The original post on the CDR Salamander blog has this to say:
ReplyDeleteFirst, talk to anyone with experience dealing with Congress. The push for all things proposed by the Diversity Bullies and the Diversity Industry is hard-run from Congress to the military. The decision was made a long time ago to sacrifice fairness and equal treatment in favor of support for budgets and weapons programs by those members of Congress who fully support the retrograde theories proposed by the Diversity Industry. If you don't do what they want - they will force it on you. Just look what happened to the Coast Guard Academy recently.
And that really sums up, I think, about the best defense of Jim Crow as you will ever get. It's the nature of the beast that cohesive minority groups, whether underrepresented or overrepresented, will seek to milk the majority for all that it can. In the case of blacks that meant defining deviancy down for those whom they lived among - so Southern whites chose not to live amongst them, and chose not to be milked.
"Academy leaders, on their official Web site, call diversity "our highest personnel priority."
ReplyDeleteDon't worry though, creating an effective Navy is among their top 20 priorities.
Diversity is the new religion.
ReplyDeleteThis should be a link to Hasan's Powerpoint presentation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/11/10/GA2009111000920.html
OT: Prominent architect ends debate with KO.
ReplyDeleteI guess the US Navy faces no conceivable competitor for at least a few decades, so they can 'embrace diversity' and the effects won't be seen for a long while, barring Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
ReplyDeleteIt's different with Army and Marine combat units though. Invade-the-World requires they be able to defeat actual enemies. Too much Diversity and eventually they'll be about as effective as the Dutch army.
One of the horrifying things about the Fort Hood massacre was the passivity of the victims, who apparently all hid or fled the gunman, allowing him to shoot over 40 people, and kill 13, with a small calibre pistol, before being stopped by civilian police (and it was very lucky he chased a victim outside, since the police are told not to go into buildings after shooters - at Columbine it took them 2 hours to go in).
Fort Hood might as well have been a high school or college campus. It's hard to imagine this 20 or 30 years ago. Attitudes like that are bound to affect battlefield performance eventually.
So they add an affirmative action addition Hameed, and he forgets part of his uniform. One of the original "non-diverse" members still has to sit out.
ReplyDeletePeter Frost in a recent post talks about "diversity" in the Roman Empire.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting passages:
"Finally, Rome, like many multi-national empires, had a policy of moving people around in order to promote a common identity and to eliminate ethnic distinctiveness. The Assyrians had perfected this policy, e.g., the deportation of the Jews to Babylon and their replacement by other peoples. The Roman authorities used their army to this end. They wished to create an atomized society where regionalism or ethnicity could not mobilize resistance to imperial rule."
"As Seccombe (1992) points out, the Roman Empire suffered from negative population growth. Not enough people married and had children to offset relatively high mortality among infants and young adults. In breaking down local collective identities, whether ethnic or regional, the Empire had created an atomized and increasingly anonymous society without the carrots and sticks that tightly knit societies use to push individuals down the path of family formation."
>>Some alumni, he said, "have voiced concerns that it will happen at the expense of quality and combat readiness."
ReplyDeleteYeah, but their concerns are completely baseless.
>>Two of the eight could not perform because Zishan Hameed, one of the midshipmen added to the color guard, had forgotten parts of his uniform,
Whoops.
"a sea change, in that this initiative was generated from within the military, rather than imposed from without by civilian overseers,""
ReplyDeleteYeah. Really, what's the difference between us and soviet union except that we happen to produce a little more wheat?
And we wonder why we can't win wars any more.
ReplyDelete"What would happen if...every white midshipman who owned had a pair (cojones or breasts, either will do)"
ReplyDeleteCojones or Breasts; well how wonderfully diverse (cough - politically correct - cough) of you!
Simon said:
ReplyDeleteOne of the horrifying things about the Fort Hood massacre was the passivity of the victims, who apparently all hid or fled the gunman, allowing him to shoot over 40 people, and kill 13, with a small calibre pistol, before being stopped by civilian police (and it was very lucky he chased a victim outside, since the police are told not to go into buildings after shooters - at Columbine it took them 2 hours to go in).
Actually, Simple Simon, while I agree with your passivity quip, there are a number of factual inaccuracies with the above.
The Muslim terrorist was armed with an FN 5.7mm hand gun. It fires a 5.7x28mm round and is dubbed the 'cop killer' because those rounds are almost rifle rounds and will go through kevlar. The Muslim was clearly a poor shot.
Secondly, most police forces are now trained as "first responders" to an active shooter to go in after the fuckers. Aggressively shooting back at the fuckers tends to deter them.
At least we'll have diverse group of citizens to put in harm's way. Forget effectiveness and war fighting capability, diversity is our number one goal.
ReplyDeleteWhat a jackass. Why not enlist 75 year old lesbian women in wheelchairs with tourette syndrome? That would be diverse. Make sure at least 50% cannot speak English. That would be diverse. Recruit more foreign born Muslims especially those who hate America, that would be diverse.
On June 4, 1942, U.S. Naval forces launched the attacks that would win the Battle of Midway against Imperial Japan. Every airman who took part did so because he had demonstrated the highest aptitude in the course of his training. There was one criteria: the ability to combine the skills and courage required to deal a blow to the enemy. There was no thought of "diversity", because the Navy knew that the outcome of the battle would turn upon having the men with the best skills that America could muster at the decisive moment.
ReplyDeleteDoes the Navy know this today? There will be another Midway, and the fate of American civilization will once again be determined when that day comes. Will Zishan Hameed be the best that America can muster, or will his place at the battle be the outcome of political pressure from whatever civilian faction he represents in today's "multicultural" U.S.A.?
Did "Zishan Hameed" get to march in a uniform "borrowed" from a comrade? That's the key question which the WaPo doesn't answer. If the low-IQ affirmative-action color guardsman forgot his uniform, he should have sat out the ceremony... but since "diversity" is the highest strategic goal, perhaps true racial discrimination was imposed by (or through) the commander of the color guard.
ReplyDeleteSo, Steve...can you consult your friends in the field of evolutionary biology and ask them if our refusal to see what is in front of us (that pc is literally killing us and will, in all likelihood continue to do so)is evidence that we have lost our survival instinct, like a declawed cat that has been kept indoors, accidentally gets out, and doesn't realize the dog coming at him is a threat to his life?
ReplyDeleteHave we grown "over-domesticated"?
Is that what something like "diversity-seeking" is all about? Is this evolution's way of pruning out the weak from our species--the weak being us, of course.
Or, is this the result of a parasite like toxo eating away our brains? Are we the toxo-infested mouse that doesn't recognize the smell of cat urine and so becomes the cat's plaything...or its dinner?
I saw the movie. The Naval Academy professor was followed from the campus by the armed terrorist. When the terrorist tried to shoot him the teacher got into a fist fight with the gunman and the Annapolis armed guards shot him down before he could hurt anyone.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher of course was Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) and the movie was Patriot Games.
In real life alas our soldiers weren't quite so efficient and brave.
Investigators feared being "crucified" if they asked questions about the Islamic killer.
ReplyDelete("Crucified" is an interesting word choice.)
I am Lugash.
ReplyDeleteAnyone catch Letterman's Top 10 last night? I only saw from #7 to #1, but apparently the Marines are 6/7 minority and around half female these days.
I am Lugash.
Try this one on for size: US Jews wait out recession in Israel:
ReplyDeleteIn an attempt to lure diaspora Jews to make Israel their permanent home, the Israeli government and Jewish organizations offer a multitude of scholarships and travel grants, allowing many to spend up to six months in Israel almost for free. The key aim is to safeguard a Jewish majority in a country where Arab citizens make up 20 percent of the population.
Can we do that here? Would the 13.5 Jewish senators, 32 Jewish Representatives (an all time record, by the way) and 2 Jewish Supreme Court justices allow us to do that here? Ruth Bader Ginsburg says that foreign law can be used to interpret the US Constitution. Maybe in this case she can use Israeli foreign law to interpret it.
Wow, today is Veterans Day.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Veterans are feeling just now.
God help the soldiers sailors airmen and marines who have to follow an unprepared officer into combat. if you are not ready for "showtime" you wont when the rubber hits the road.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't they just use civilian women in miniskirts like the Chinese did in their military parade?
ReplyDeleteI guess the US Navy faces no conceivable competitor for at least a few decades, so they can 'embrace diversity' and the effects won't be seen for a long while
ReplyDeleteDon't worry - circa 2020 [if not sooner], the Chicoms will send that fleet straight to the bottom of the Pacific [or the Atlantic, or any other ocean where they encounter it].
Of course, it's been my oft-stated prediction that the USA [as we knew it] will no longer exist in 2020, but that's a different [well, slightly different] discussion.
Just heard on the news that Barney Frank says that next year (which is only a few month's away) the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy will be repealed by the Defense Department. On the surface, it seems an innocuous thing to do (to repeal).
ReplyDeleteHowever, the coalescing of tribes rather than the assimilation of them seems to be what "diversity" means in this country, and I fear that nohwere is that more evident than in the military.
Will the military become a destination for gays as has San Francisco? Don't anyone tell me the city hasn't undergone a huge change. Some neighborhoods may have become gentrified, but that upside doesn't begin to compensate for the downside.
I'm for assimilation, not for tribal congregations. In talking to some guys in the military, they think the "Don't ask, don't tell" works well.
Fort Hood might as well have been a high school or college campus. It's hard to imagine this 20 or 30 years ago. Attitudes like that are bound to affect battlefield performance eventually.
ReplyDeleteMost people who serve in the military are not combat troops, nor do they have law enforcement training. Why would you expect (say) a computer operator for the Army to be more courageous than a computer operator for any other government organization? (I'm not being sarcastic, by the way.) Most of our military staff are not being paid to be courageous in the way you mean, nor is there a reason why they should be.
"Most of our military staff are not being paid to be courageous in the way you mean, nor is there a reason why they should be."
ReplyDeleteCourage? Heh, you first, pal. Looks like soon we'll all be George Costanza, pushing down old ladies in walkers when someone shouts "fire". I mean there's no reason not to, right?
Does the Navy realize that the word "color" in color guard refers to the regimental and national flags, or colors, and not the skin tone of the guards?
ReplyDeletewell how wonderfully diverse (cough - politically correct - cough) of you!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious - could you refer me to a non-PC comment you've made here?
OT2: Interesting take on the subject of a wronged Columbia genius found here.
ReplyDelete'About the author: Red Alerts is the home of the webs most popular Bi-racial Republican Pagan.'
That's what I call diversity.
The Muslim terrorist was armed with an FN 5.7mm hand gun. It fires a 5.7x28mm round and is dubbed the 'cop killer' because those rounds are almost rifle rounds and will go through kevlar. The Muslim was clearly a poor shot.
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that armor piercing comes at the cost of loss of "stopping power" or tissue damage or what have you. In and out, small holes. Was I mistaken?
This talk of the U.S. Naval Academy and "diversity" reminds me of an advert I saw for the former in PC Gamer magazine, featuring what I could only assume to be a group of cadets on the Academy grounds. Said group consisted of three black males, one black female and a lone white girl.
ReplyDeleteBeing as cynical as I am in these matters, my first thought was "Knoxville".
Courage? Heh, you first, pal. Looks like soon we'll all be George Costanza, pushing down old ladies in walkers when someone shouts "fire". I mean there's no reason not to, right?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't endorsing cowardice or selfish self-preservation at the expense of others.
The original post implied that one ought to expect more heroics from a random group of military staff than from the general population. I was merely pointing out that there's no reason for most members of the military, outside certain specialized services, to be inherently more heroic than others. Were any of the witnesses members of the Special Forces? Were any of them Marines? I reiterate, why would you think that an ordinary soldier, who will most likely see no more combat in his lifetime than I have in mine, should be more prepared and more inclined to heroism than an ordinary civilian?
Our Nation was forged by hard men who lived through common sense and life experience. We have devolved into a nation of soft men who live through political correctness, wishful thinking and conscious naivete. It's not too late but the hour IS late. Hard America shall return, and with it truth, common sense and liberty. Comes a strong man on a white horse.
ReplyDeleteNot to disparage the poor soldiers at Ft. Hood, but a few instances of true courage and self-sacrifice would have stopped Major Hasan before the 2 police officers showed up. Granted the few hundred soldiers there were unarmed, but if just 5 of them had rushed the gunman at the risk of their lives, I think the gunman would have been taken down.
ReplyDelete... but apparently the Marines are 6/7 minority and around half female these days.
ReplyDeleteWrong, greatly eggs-aggerated on both points.
Fort Hood might as well have been a high school. ...
You're right about that. The Army nowadays is much like American public high schools nowadays ... except that whites predominate in actual combat Military Occupational Specialties. it's not like high school, where most of the championship football and basketball teams are largely black.
Steve Wood is quite correct to note that most Army people are support troops. That's not a recent pee cee innovation. Most WWII Army personnel were support troops.
Some of you fellows are taking wild swings at something you know little about. You don't even seem to have read iSteve's pieces on the demographics of the US armed forces and military specialties.
-I guess the US Navy faces no conceivable competitor for at least a few decades, so they can 'embrace diversity' and the effects won't be seen for a long while, barring Sudden Jihad Syndrome.-
ReplyDeleteThere are conceviable, very conceviable competitors. You mean enemies, right?
"I'm curious - could you refer me to a non-PC comment you've made here?"
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that be "could you have me referred to a non-PC comment you've made here" you know, passive voice?
Just messin' with you Svig-meister!
The FN 5.7 with a 30 rd extended magazine can deliver a lot of suppressive fire so it's no wonder unarmed folks kept their heads down. Since we are at war, it would seem reasonable that officers and senior NCOs be allowed to wear sidearms on duty. Army implies armed men, after all.
ReplyDeleteOff topic
ReplyDeleteHere's a scary tool: interactive unemployment demographics
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html
I was under the impression that armor piercing comes at the cost of loss of "stopping power" or tissue damage or what have you. In and out, small holes. Was I mistaken?
ReplyDeleteNo, that's pretty much how it works.
Pajamas Media had a post on the weapon Hassan used, an FN FiveSeven. Basically it fires a very small but supersonic round (it is a pistol, there are compromises) to defeat body armor. It has the same ballistic effect as a super-charged .22 LR. It is NOT the equivalent of a .223 Remington, given the greater bullet weight of that round.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that the US Marine Expeditionary Units who engage in close-quarters combat in Afghanistan, cave/house searching, have purchased customized Kimber 1911 pattern pistols. Even though their enemies can and do wear body armor.
No pistol round can be ballistically "almost rifle rounds" because of simple physics. [Absent some freak single shots like the Thompson Contender.]
Marine commentors on various mil-sites like Mudville Gazette and Blackfive assert that Marine bases have various Marine details armed and roaming around checking things out at all times. The Marines are of course different than the Army, sacrificing MoS for "every Marine is a rifleman."
but apparently the Marines are 6/7 minority and around half female these days.
ReplyDelete9 out of 10 of the Marines on Letterman's Top 10 were minorities, and half were women.
10. Justino Vasquez ("Latin" man)
09. Jen Li (Asian woman)
08. Alana Perreira ("Latin" woman)
07. Jonathan Garcia ("Latin" man)
06. Suki Forbes (Asian woman)
05. Helen Cardenas ("Latin" woman)
04. Crystal Taylor (Black woman)
03. Wesley Alexander (Black man)
02. Leandros Rubio ("Latin" man)
01. Kenneth something (White man)
The video stopped before it got to the last Marine, but he was an actual white guy.
Military leaders claim they want a better force, and claim an emphasis on its ethnic diversity will get it for them. Rubbish. Whites who can flee diversity will flee diversity, period. These generals and admirals fail to understand that basic aspect of human nature. Fewer whites will sign up, and the average serviceman's IQ will drop like a rock. The military will also end up with a lot more negative PR cases - soldiers who commit crimes like burglary, rape and murder - and the military has enough of those already.
On second thought, maybe Whiskey/Testing99 has a point: "Jenner, 31, said Hasan was dressed casually both nights he came to the club - in jeans and a T-shirt the first night and then wearing a baseball cap the next. She recalled that he arrived at about 6:30 p.m. and stayed until 2 a.m. She said he brought in a six pack of light beer, took only a few sips from one can and gave the rest to the strippers. 'He preferred the blondes,' said Jenner, whose hair was dyed blond at the time. 'He said he was a medic and that he was being deployed soon, but mostly he wanted to ask us questions.'"
ReplyDeleteHe spent 7 hours at a strip club? Is that normal for anyone? Of course the media will now use this as proof positive that he couldn't have been a fanatical Muslim, because he went to a strip club - as opposed to a fanatical Muslim who was also a hypocrite, or a fanatical Muslim who viewed Islam as much through the lens of ethnicity as religion.
"Fewer whites will sign up, and the average serviceman's IQ will drop like a rock."
ReplyDeleteOh I don't know, do you have to be a genius to put your life on the line for Exxon's profit margin?
"He spent 7 hours at a strip club? Is that normal for anyone?"
ReplyDeleteNot sure. I once spent 4 hours in a strip club with a couple of other 25-year old guys. I think one of them stayed past 7 hours.
He is now a professor of medicine in a BigDeal university, and has published a book or two.
I dunno. I can kind of see where the Navy is coming from here. Given that we are going to be a minority white nation within the foreseeable future, racial diversity in the armed forces is looking like a necessity. Would a brown country's citizen's trust and support an all-white military? Would an all-white military want to pay in blood to protect a brown country? Seems to me like the military leaders are doing their best to deal with the predicament the civilian leaders put them in, which is what they are paid to do.
ReplyDeleteThe US military is overwhelmingly superior to any other force in the world.
ReplyDeleteOur rulers are not idiots; they must realize this. No foreign nation-state can offer a serious threat to the American progressives/neocons' position. Nor can a disorganized gang of crazed terrorists.
Inferior (i.e. "diverse") personnel will certainly weaken the US military forces' power in foreign wars, but not to the point where they can really be defeated without the complicity of their civilian bosses, who presumably have the foresight keep themselves in power or at least out of harm's way.
The true value of the military diversity policy lies in the protection it affords our rulers against the one everpresent danger to any leftist ruling class - namely, the military itself.
The class of Americans who traditionally make up the core of competent officers and NCOs are exactly those against whom the liberal elite has been waging cultural and economic war for the past several decades. If a military dominated by these people ever wakes up to this reality, they will likely take appropriate action.
On the other hand, officers and soldiers from groups which for generations have owed their position to Federal largesse are unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them.
Like most political issues, military affirmative action makes a lot more sense when we simply assume the ruling class is acting in self-interest.
Well now.... it is a color guard. :-)
ReplyDelete"I was under the impression that armor piercing comes at the cost of loss of "stopping power" or tissue damage or what have you. In and out, small holes. Was I mistaken?"
ReplyDeleteNo you are roughly right, but the most important factor is shot placement. Whether the hole is small or large a hole in vital tissue is a hole in vital tissue. If an air rifle firing a pellet is poweful enough to penetrate the chest cavity or skull then it can be used to fire a killer shot. In fact it could (possibly) kill just be penetrating enough muscle to nick an artery although that is a matter of chance and it's more important to put them down dead or alive than to kill them by (relatively) gradual bleeding out from an extremity.
Anon:
ReplyDelete"The Muslim terrorist was armed with an FN 5.7mm hand gun. It fires a 5.7x28mm round and is dubbed the 'cop killer' because those rounds are almost rifle rounds and will go through kevlar. The Muslim was clearly a poor shot.
Secondly, most police forces are now trained as "first responders" to an active shooter to go in after the fuckers. Aggressively shooting back at the fuckers tends to deter them."
1. Apparently those rounds have high penetration but low lethality, being small and fast. It's not really almost a rifle round, being only half as long as a 5.56N round. Good for shooting cops, but not for killing unarmoured people.
2. Good to hear the cops are apparently trained different now.
Steve Wood:
ReplyDelete"Most people who serve in the military are not combat troops, nor do they have law enforcement training. Why would you expect (say) a computer operator for the Army to be more courageous than a computer operator for any other government organization? (I'm not being sarcastic, by the way.) Most of our military staff are not being paid to be courageous in the way you mean, nor is there a reason why they should be."
Well I did basic training in the British Army Reserve, and they seemed to take seriously the idea that everyone is a combat soldier first. I thought the US Army was the same - that if necessary you could take troops from any part, give them a rifle and use them as infantry. Otherwise your real fighting strength is tiny compared to your paper strength and in a real war like WW2 you'd run out of soldiers very fast.
When unarmed Israeli army reservists are attacked, you tend to hear stories about how they close with and defeat the attacker, with only a small number of casualties.
Even among civilians, I think it never used to be the case that one guy with a pistol could kill so many adults - the closest parrallel would be Dunblane, where the murderer attacked a hall full of small children.
When I first heard about this massacre, I assumed it was a group of attackers armed with assault rifles (presumably army issue), not one psychiatrist with a pistol.
People seem to (a) always hide or run, even when they have the opportunity to act and (b) there seems a Hollywood(?) assumption that pistol bullets always kill or disable, that you have no chance to stop the armed gunman.
I really think that what happened says something about the culture generally, as well as the military culture. Not something good.
Steve Wood:
ReplyDelete"I reiterate, why would you think that an ordinary soldier, who will most likely see no more combat in his lifetime than I have in mine, should be more prepared and more inclined to heroism than an ordinary civilian?"
Because they voluntarily joined the *Army*? In Britain, everyone I knew who did that (except me) seemed very keen on the idea of seeing action and preferably getting to fight and kill - and this wasn't an elite unit by any means. I guess US army culture may be more different than I realised. I still suspect it may be a more recent change, though.
anon:
ReplyDelete"There are conceviable, very conceviable competitors. You mean enemies, right?"
By competitor I mean a blue water navy ready, willing and able to fight the US Navy. The Chinese and Russian submarine fleets are probably able to sink the US aircraft carriers if they wished, but show no desire to do so, just as they have no wish to fight the US in general (but are ready to do so if attacked).
I tend to agree with Bill Lind's analyses that there will probably not be any significant blue water naval combat between advanced nations for a very long time if ever. India vs Pakistan might happen again, but otherwise it will just be littoral stuff*. Ships are just so incredibly vulnerable, valuable ships aren't put in harm's way.
*China won't want to fight the US even in 2020, it's not in Chinese interests. If the US attacks China, China won't send out a surface fleet, which would be quickly sunk, but would use submarines and land based systems to sink US fleets getting too close to the Chinese mainland. I expect Russian doctrine is similar.
Can anything shock any more?
ReplyDeleteThe fact is any country whose people think it virtuous to jet off to darkest Africa to nab a couple of trophy adoptees isn't long for this earth.
The death knell was sounded in the 60s and the fifty year free ride is coming to an end.
Just messin' with you Svig-meister!
ReplyDeleteI didn't think so. :)
No harm done, you didn't have long to take a shot before I go back to ignoring you.
He spent 7 hours at a strip club? Is that normal for anyone?
ReplyDeleteFocus On Florida
Associated Press, Miami
Sept. 14, 2001
cbsnews.com
Three men spewed anti-American sentiments in a bar and talked of impending bloodshed the night before the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, a Daytona Beach strip club manager interviewed by the FBI said Thursday.
"They were talking about what a bad place America is. They said 'Wait 'til tomorrow. America is going to see bloodshed,"' said John Kap, manager of the Pink Pony and Red Eyed Jack's Sports Bar. Kap said they made the claims to a bartender and a patron.
Federal agents were investigating on several fronts in Florida on Thursday after searching homes and rental car documents and poring over flight school student records across the state...
In Daytona Beach, Kap said he told FBI investigators the men in his bar spent $200 to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks, paying with credit cards. Kap said he gave the FBI credit card receipts, photocopied driver's licenses, a business card left by one man and a copy of the Quran - the sacred book of Islam - that was left at the bar...
Before September 11, 2001: Hijackers Drink Alcohol and Watch Strip Shows, Especially towards Eve of Attacks
historycommons.org
"Oh I don't know, do you have to be a genius to put your life on the line for Exxon's profit margin?"
ReplyDeleteYou don't even know what Exxon's profit margin is. Not that much. Since you don't use any petrol products, you don't appreciate what it takes to provide them. Subsistence agriculture in Africa ain't all it's cracked up to be. Since you are typing on a computer, you probably aren't a low impact subsistence farmer.
Yeah, bite the hand that feeds.
Will the military become a destination for gays as has San Francisco?
ReplyDeleteAnd why not? It probably will be similar to what happened to post-1960s Roman Catholic seminaries, once certain regulations were relaxed. Why not?
Or perhaps we're naive to think that such practice is not already underway. It could be that many homosexuals enter the service determined to quietly and discreetly ferret out men like themselves, and then keep their relationships off the base. It's possible that many straight soldiers know of such relationships, but because the homosexuals are not blatant about it, they're ignored.
Isn't anyone interested in the diversity story SJ071 linked to? With this Columbia architecture prof., you have a probable affirmative action beneficiary who's likely had his ass kissed all his life by whites, and his condition for not punching a white woman in the mouth is that she concur in his theory of continuing "white privilege." Except the incident obviously shows black privilege, right? Anyone else's career would be instantly over for punching a woman, but for a black man, mere disagreement is sufficient "provocation" for violence. Sorry I'm a non-genius, but it seems there's an unplumbed issue of psychology here. Why would a winner in the status lottery, as distinguished from a black ditch digger, require agreement on the white privelege meme?
ReplyDelete"The fact is any country whose people think it virtuous to jet off to darkest Africa to nab a couple of trophy adoptees isn't long for this earth."
ReplyDeleteExactly what country doesn't find caring for downtrodden children virtuous?
Exxon's profit margin for 2008 was 40.6 billion dollars which was 3x more that microsoft, almost 4x more that WalMart and higher than two thirds of the COUNTRIES (not companies) in the world.
Now I'm no PHD economist, but I would hazzard to guess that they could have made my trusty computer keyboard without involving the US Army.
And BTW; how many tours of duty did you complete, Sargent Slaughter?
"Anyone else's career would be instantly over for punching a woman, but for a black man, mere disagreement is sufficient "provocation" for violence."
ReplyDeleteIt only happed two freakin' days ago, you mouthbreather!
Exxon's profit margin for 2008 was 40.6 billion dollars which was 3x more that microsoft, almost 4x more that WalMart and higher than two thirds of the COUNTRIES (not companies) in the world.
ReplyDeleteWhat fraction of the world's states would you prefer not to live in? At least 2/3rds, easily, including probably all of the ones with GDPs lower than Exxon's - Monaco, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein excluded. Exxon earned $40.6 billion (on sales of around $400 billion) because it provides a product people would prefer not to live without - including you, I'd wager.
And BTW; how many tours of duty did you complete, Sargent Slaughter?
He probably completed at least as many as a pedant who doesn't know how to spell "sergeant."
The class of Americans who traditionally make up the core of competent officers and NCOs are exactly those against whom the liberal elite has been waging cultural and economic war for the past several decades. If a military dominated by these people ever wakes up to this reality, they will likely take appropriate action.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I can't figure out as well. When do the men who protect the elites' cocooned redoubts, from which they mock their defenders' values, decide to leave with all the ammo they can carry?
"Simon said...
ReplyDeleteanon:
"There are conceviable, very conceviable competitors. You mean enemies, right?"
By competitor I mean a blue water navy ready, willing and able to fight the US Navy. The Chinese and Russian submarine fleets are probably able to sink the US aircraft carriers if they wished, but show no desire to do so, just as they have no wish to fight the US in general (but are ready to do so if attacked)."
The Chinese and Russians could easily outmatch us if they want to. Our navy of large, multi-ship carrier task-forces is as obsolete as the fleets of dreadnoughts that sallied forth to fight at Jutland. A single ballistic missle with a 300 kton warhead can obliterate one of our carrier groups in an instant, at a cost ratio of fifty or a hundred to one. And the Chinese and the Russians wouldn't hesitate to do so if they were committed to a course of war.
"He probably completed at least as many as a pedant who doesn't know how to spell "sergeant."
ReplyDeleteI was not aware the ASVAB had a spelling section.
"Exxon's profit margin for 2008 was 40.6 billion dollars which was 3x more that microsoft, almost 4x more that WalMart and higher than two thirds of the COUNTRIES (not companies) in the world. "
ReplyDeleteDo you not know the difference between profit and profit margin? Isn't the word 'margin' something of a clue? It's not the same as operating or net profits.
Simon said
ReplyDelete> Because they voluntarily joined the *Army*? <
Nowadays most kids here join for the scholarship to community college. A tour in the Air Force or even the Army beat$ a dead-end job at Blockbuster every time. This is not theory; I know half a dozen such people personally (pretty good for anecdotal comment), and I'm sure your local recruiter knows many more. Are they signing up to fight for the honor of the green uniform, or to push papers for the color of money?
Recall the various people who wanted out of the Armed Services as soon as the Iraq War started: they publicly explained that they didn't sign up to risk their lives, but only to receive an education. The kind of education I would have liked these people to receive cannot be described without the use of profanities.
"What fraction of the world's states would you prefer not to live in?"
ReplyDeleteI don't want to live at Exxon headquarters either, so that's not truly the point, now is it Sparky?
And I would not consider myself a "pedant" if I wanted to correct spelling and grammatical errors here, I could do that all day long; the point is that if you are calling "Michele" Obama the "Ivey" league graduate stupid and unqualified, it just goes to logic that you should be "smart" and "qualified."
Does it not?
People seem to (a) always hide or run, even when they have the opportunity to act and (b) there seems a Hollywood(?) assumption that pistol bullets always kill or disable, that you have no chance to stop the armed gunman.
ReplyDeleteI thought along the same lines, when I heard the details of the incident. Was there not one loose chair to pick up and throw? It's easy to theorize, not being in harm's way, but it does seem curious.