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Amen. He said what we all wish we could. The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up" Saturday during a heated exchange at a summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
Long live the King!
UPDATE: You can see the video via a link from the BBC.
She's impressed with this AO3 ..... 
Hat tip Sid.
The counter-culture, crime, nanny-stateisms, political correctness, drugs, Clintons and Bushes - just the start of a long list that we all know so well of those things the Boomer Generation slathered on our nation. But the one thing we can never let them get away with - 1970s fashion. And they made the young Phibian dress like this. Yea, it's personal.
15-Minute Lunch has the rest of the horror show of shame. If you want to know what the 70s and Boomers are really all about, check out blonde in the swimming suit picture.Hat tip ninme.
You really need a large, blank white-board to follow this little known battle during Operation TORCH. How does this make you Sailor blood flow? (as for you 1800 types - no need for details.....)
Directly after launching their planes, Massachusetts, Wichita and Tuscaloosa unfurled battle ensigns (oversize US flags), and increased battle formation speed to 25 knots. Massachusetts led the column, followed by the cruisers at 1000-yard distances. Four destroyers screened at 3000 yards ahead of the battleship. The fifteen mile track of these ships roughly matched and paralleled the northeast to southwest line between Fedala and Casablanca Author Morison's account in Volume II, Operations in North African Waters is detailed:
"At 0640, when the formation had reached a position bearing about west northwest from Casablanca, distant 18,000 yards from Batterie El Hank and 20,000 yards from battleship Jean Bart's berth in the harbor, it began an easterly run, holding the same range. Ten minutes later, one of the flagship's spotting planes reported two submarines standing out of Casablanca Harbor, and at 0651 radioed: `There's an anti-aircraft battery opening up on me from the beach. One burst came within twelve feet. Batter up!' Another spotting plane encountered `bandits' at 0652 and signaled, `Am coming in on starboard bow with couple hostile aircraft on my tail. Pick `em off - I am the one in front!' The big ships opened up on these planes with their 5" batteries at 0701, and shot one down. The other retired; and almost simultaneously battleship Jean Bart and El Hank commenced firing. The coast defense guns straddled Massachusetts with their first salvo, and five or six splashes from Jean Bart fell about 600 yards ahead of her starboard bow. Admiral Giffen (directly in charge of this group) lost no time in giving his group the `Play Ball'. Massachusetts let go her first 16-inch salvo at 0704."
Here is just a snip - you need to read it all.Leaving Massachusetts to count what shells remained in her magazines (60% depleted), Tuscaloosa, now leading Wichita, and destroyer Rhind, closed the French to 14,000 yards, Brooklyn and Augusta were still pursuing from the east. Primaguet was holed five times below the waterline from Augusta and Brooklyn, and had an 8" shell on her #3 turret. She retired about 11 a.m. and anchored off shore. Milan had taken five hits, mostly 8" shells. Milan retired and anchored. Brestois was hit by Augusta and this destroyer made her harbor, but after strafing from Ranger's planes, later sank. The three French warships outside the harbor still underway were destroyer leader Albatros, and destroyers Frondeur and L'Alcyon. These ships organized for one more torpedo foray at 1115. Tuscaloosa and Wichita reduced their effort to zig zags behind a smoke screen. Under continuous fire from El Hank, Wichita was hit about 1130 with light damage and 14 men wounded. Wichita then was missed by a three torpedo spread from a French submarine. Tuscaloosa and Wichita hit Frondeur. Down by the stern she made it back into port only to succumb to aircraft strafing. Shells hit Albatros twice at 1130 and she fought on with three guns, zigzagging in the smoke. One of Ranger's dive bombers scored with two bombs which penetrated a fire room and an engineroom. A hit from Augusta took out the other engineroom. Albatros lost all way. Only L'Alcyon got back in unscathed.
One battle - one that cold make a dozen FbF.
Grrr. Where is my fatwa Rusty? Harumph. O Allah kill Rusty Shackleford and terrorize his family.
O Allah kill Rusty Shackleford and terrorize his family.
O Allah kill Rusty Shackleford and terrorize his family.
Congrats. At least I am still banned in Pakistan. Lame comeback - but what else can I do?
Progress in Iraq? Via Michael Yon.
A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.
The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.
Oh my.When Cmdr. John Pinckney took command of the destroyer Halsey on May 18, 2006, in San Diego, he assumed the lead of a state-of-the-art American warship yet to make its maiden deployment and, with it, a crew crackling with energy.
Under its previous commander, the Halsey set a record for getting a ship certified to deploy, doing so within 200 days of commissioning. The plank-owners began training while still in the shipyard, and within months of arriving in home port, it was surge-ready.
But after Pinckney showed up, there were problems.
I'll say.During this time, it wasn’t what Pinckney did, but what he failed to do that sparked his downfall: He stayed in his stateroom during and after the fire, leaving the situation to his crew. “I never go to the scene of a casualty,” he explained.
While Pinckney stayed put, the Navy investigation concluded, the efforts to fight the fire got off to a poor start. Some sailors were too drunk to get into their firefighting gear. A few months later, the same area caught fire after the ship returned home to San Diego. The cause of that fire is still under investigation.
Pinckney acknowledged a simmering “discord” between him and his wardroom. He said the other officers didn’t support what he wanted to do. But one chief saw a CO who prized keeping junior sailors happy, a priority not wholly shared by his wardroom and mess.
Ungh. Oh....just ungh.It revealed that during and after the reception for Japanese dignitaries on Nov. 2, Pinckney repeatedly encouraged on-duty sailors to drink alcohol.
One on-duty officer told the executive officer she was just holding a beer “to placate the CO,” according to the executive officer’s statement to investigators. The XO told investigators, “I took alcohol away from one duty section member ... who got upset and indicated that the CO said it was OK.”
You know by this time word had to be filtering up the Chain of Command. Methinks C-dore 14 might have had a few suggestions for "intrusive leadership." Just uncomfortable to read. Let's peek some more...he didn’t dispute staying in his cabin while the crew reacted to the emergency. Asked to respond to accusations by the crew that he ignored repeated calls and knocks on his cabin hatch, Pinckney said he could not hear the alarm bells, or the knocking on his door from the passageway. Besides, he added, it was his policy to leave casualty response to others.
“I never go to the scene of a casualty. That’s why we have all these people who are trained. I let them do their job, I get the report, then I act,” Pinckney said.
Ship on fire? Oh, just brief me in the morning.....When they rung for the fire they only rung that on enlisted circuits,” he said. “They did not ring that throughout the ship. I live in officers’ country. I did not hear any bells.”
However, the investigation report quotes an officer who told investigators that Pinckney called down to tell that officer to stop using the 1MC to provide updates as the crew fought the fire.
Pinckney concedes that he delayed sending a report on the fire up his chain of command until the next day, but he disagreed with the investigation report’s contention that the commander failed to mention that the fire affected the critical MRG in his official communications to the destroyer squadron and strike group commanders.
Please C-dore 14, role play for me. I'm Pickney, and I just picked up the POTS line with you on the other end. You say .... Hey, at least he was on-board with the LIFE/WORK initiative..“He was very much concerned with the morale and well-being of the junior sailors, and that caused some problems in the upper levels,” he said. “He’d keep the blueshirts happy, but the chiefs and the officers were trying to get some work done.”
Standards loosened, the chief said, and the skipper emphasized recreation events such as bingo nights and extra liberty chits, which weakened duty sections. Civilian garb became more common aboard the ship.
“It kind of turned into a joke after a while,” he said, referring to the lax standards.
This train sounds, well, telling.Asked if he believes someone had it in for him, Pinckney said: “Me, personally, I do.
He admits there were problems in the wardroom. “One of the issues that was brought out was that there wasn’t a harmonious relationship between the XO, the [assistant operations officer] and myself,” he said. “There were meetings where I’d walk out and the things I’d talked about would be harshly criticized. I would hear about that through a backloop,” he said. “There would be wardroom meetings and I’d talk about the things I wanted to do, and they would strongly question those things.”
Well, no one was killed.
