This is good ...

Any of our vets here who've ever choppered (or fixed-winged) into a hot LZ on SAR, in/exfilt, or resupply ops know the "pleasure" of having rounds penetrating the fuselage of the aircraft or the danger of some idiot with an RPG getting a lucky shot during landing or takeoff and making your day go to shit in a hurry. Well, for all of us who've been there, the Army's got the goods:

Kaman Aerospace Corporation and the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) recently made aviation history with the Unmanned K-MAX helicopter by successfully completing multiple guided airdrops via sling load at 10,000 ft above sea level.

...

"These airdrops prove K-MAX's ability to provide a safe, low-cost supply delivery method to the troops," said Terry Fogarty, general manager of Kaman's Unmanned Aircraft Systems product group. "The aircraft's ability to successfully perform high altitude missions contributes to the flexibility and security we can offer the Marines with K-MAX."

Kaman and industry partner Lockheed Martin Corporation [NYSE: LMT] are developing Unmanned K-MAX to meet an urgent U.S. Marine Corps requirement for cargo unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Lockheed Martin has designed the helicopter's mission management and control systems to provide the K-MAX with exceptional flight autonomy in remote environments and over long distances.

...

The big difference would be in resupply (not putting lives on the line to bring cargo to a FOB, whether by air or road) but I can see them using it for SAR behind enemy lines to extract downed airmen or wounded. I'd rather see a drone do this type of work than hunting goat fuckers with Hellfire missiles.

A little history ...

Of labor unions:

On May 2nd, 1933, the day after Labor day, Nazi groups occupied union halls and labor leaders were arrested. Trade Unions were outlawed by Adolf Hitler, while collective bargaining and the right to strike was abolished. This was the beginning of a consolidation of power by the fascist regime which systematically wiped out all opposition groups, starting with unions, liberals, socialists, and communists using Himmler’s state police.

Fast forward to America today, particularly Wisconsin. Governor Walker and the Republican/Tea Party members of the state legislature are attempting to pass a bill that would not only severely punish public unions (with exception for the police, fire, and state trooper unions that supported his campaign), but it would effectively end 50 years to the right of these workers to collectively bargain.

...

The crux of the biscuit is this:

...

When Hitler abolished unions in 1933, it was followed by a 25% drop in real wages ...

Can you afford to have your income cut by a quarter?

Link via DU.

Update:

And if you remember one thing about unions, remember this:

... The states with the highest percentage of union workers are the richest states: California, Washington and New York. The states with the fewest – Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas – are the poorest.

How hard could it be?

Most of them were politicians:

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."

...

Lotta lines been crossed in the last 10 years.

That frothy mixture ...

Of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex* opens its trap once again:

If you were worried there wouldn't be a 2012 candidate touting the pro-Crusades platform, then today is your lucky day!

"The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical," former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) told a South Carolina audience yesterday. "And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom."

...

Anybody got a tissue and a butt plug?

*Here.

Punked ...

Asshole:

This is priceless. Ian Murphy of Buffalo Beast (the site appears to be down at the moment, but twolf1 has posted both videos on MyFDL) called up Gov. Scott Walker, posing as wealthy industrialist and campaign donor David Koch. They had a 20-minute chat. Here’s an excerpt:

...

Amazing how he won't take calls from the Dem reps of the people but if he thinks it's a Koch brother he drops everything. (By the way, Walker's office confirms this is real.)

Transcript.

Shopping Day

Today is SS payday, so if ya see a buncha us old farts livin' it up you'll know why.

Shopping in The Big City this morning, Meskin food tonight. Early Bird Special, of course. Life is good.

See yas.

Update:

...a buncha us old farts...

No shit! Man, we wuz all there! Some'a them senior gals is hotties too. Yes, I scoped 'em out. I'm taking advantage of Mrs. G's cataracts while she still has 'em.

Also, the folks at Costco know damn well when we get our gummint money - they moved golf cart batteries to where even we couldn't miss 'em, right as ya walk in the door. Heh.

They're jokers too. They reset almost everything so we gotta wander around looking for the things we get every time.

Note to Costco: please, dudes, we ain't got that kinda time and ya don't hafta do that much work to confuse us.

He's all yours, Chicagoland!

Emanuel Triumphs in Chicago Mayoral Race

Thank you for taking him off our hands. Your fair city is about to get a lot windier, and the wind will be bluer too. Heh.

Thanks, Mike!

Don't know how many times I've said that over the past 6 1/2 years here but I did every time Mike Finnigan would to link to us from Crooks and Liars. Mike has directed readers here by the thousands when he finds a nugget to share with a wider audience and we here are eternally grateful. It pains me to say Mike will be leaving C & L due to work demands playing the Hammond Organism*. So, one last time I'll say "Thanks, Mike", for everything.

*Thanks to Frank Zappa.

They might be evil sonsabitchez ...

But they ain't stupid. Headlines from TPM:

Mitch Daniels To State GOP:
Drop Right-To-Work Bill

FL Gov. Gives Thumbs Up
To Public Worker Organizing

Cairo, motherfuckers!

Not far off:

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

...

Gotta love these conservative assholes. Piss 'em off and you see their true colors come out.

I probably ...

Shouldn't even touch this but it pisses me off:

...

It is not clear why the pirates killed their hostages, either accidentally during a firefight or possibly out of revenge for the Somali pirates killed by American sharpshooters in a hostage-taking in 2009.

United States naval forces had been shadowing the hijacked yacht, called the Quest, and as soon as they saw a burst of gunfire on board, American Special Operations forces rushed to the yacht in assault craft, shot one of the pirates and knifed another. But all four hostages were already dead or fatally wounded.

...

I don't see where US (any) assets should even have been used to try and save these idiots who decided to do everything wrong while fully aware of the dangers.

...

Still, in a decision that troubled friends and family members, the Quest had departed from a convoy of yachts that was assembled to ward off attacks by pirates in those waters — such maritime convoys are known as rallies — to go off on their own into some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

Mr. Adam took a security course last year from Blue Water Rallies, the organizer of the rally he had been on, and friends said he often turned off his G.P.S. instrument because pirates had learned to use them as homing devices.

...

Personally, like I say to everybody who depends on god to run their lives (and decide they know better than everybody else) and then look to somebody else to get them out of their stupid shit, "let God save 'em".

...

Indeed, for the Adams, this was as much a voyage of faith as it was one of adventure. They would load the Quest up with tons of Bibles and distribute them as they traveled the world.

“They would stop in these small islands and connect with the church there, which were in isolated places and really welcomed them,” said Richard Peace, a professor of ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary. “Scott would preach at times for them and being a doctoral student, he would teach in Bible colleges. This was really a major part of their travels.”

...

Maybe god was trying to tell you something? And, par for the course, the news media is wringing it for all it's worth.

Know what? The pirate task force watches their bases, know when they have a bowel movement. How about expending some ordnance to deal with the problem once and for all instead of putting boarding parties in danger to save a bunch of misguided Jesus freaks who basically asked for their own end?

We're paying, indirectly, for all these shipping companies paying millions of dollars in ransom and keeping the Navy on escort duty (the bright side is it's a joint task force so other countries are paying for their own shit). Let's end the problem; you know, let the Jarheads do the job they were created for instead of killing goat fuckers in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Montag for the link.

Dear Mr. Obama,

Where are you?

...

You have so much more. You have the power to overwhelm the voices calling for their defeat. You have the power to drown out the petty and the small and the divisive and the nasty among their critics, and raise that glorious oratory of yours in a cause in which you say you believe. For you, this is no effort. For you, this has no cost. Yet if you were to walk into the Capitol tomorrow you would be greeted as a hero by the heroes all around you, and they would be lifted up, and you can do that and it will cost you nothing. Nothing.

I have no confidence you'll listen, because I do get it, you know. The political calculation. The upside and downside and the electoral math.

...

Like I've said for a couple years now. Obama has no clue about leadership.

Too much fun...

...right here at the Brain today for me to do very much else! Alas, the snow is calling me to move it...

I did run across toonish looks at a couple of our biggest problems at my favorite local news site, YubaNet (Go see "Accidental Samurai Sword Stabbing". It could only happen in my county! Yeesh.)

Looks like ...

Indiana Dems are taking off too:

...

House Democrats in Indiana are leaving the state rather than vote a bill that would modify collective bargaining for some workers there, according to the Indianapolis Star.

A source told the paper that Democrats from that state's lower chamber are headed to Illinois, though the paper notes that some might go to Kentucky.

Only two of the 40 Democrats were on the Indiana House floor when the chamber convened Tuesday.

...

Cairo, motherfuckers!

Link via DU.

What you won't hear ...

That I have (this is through friends in dark places) is that this guy found an al-Qaeda installation of some sort (or proof the Inter-Services Intelligence group [Pak] was helping al-Qaeda) and the Paks wanted to shut him up (the Paks on the m/c he killed were ISI, not muggers). What I also heard is the "cleaners" who rushed from the embassy to pick him up (subsequently running over and killing an innocent [maybe] Pak) left the country on John Kerry's plane when he did, even though the Paks wanted to interview them as well.*

With that in mind, Greenwald talks about how the New York Times decided to report the story:

Earlier today, I wrote in detail about new developments in the case of Raymond Davis, the former Special Forces soldier who shot and killed two Pakistanis on January 27, sparking a diplomatic conflict between the U.S. (which is demanding that he be released on the ground of "diplomatic immunity") and Pakistan (whose population is demanding justice and insisting that he was no "diplomat"). But I want to flag this new story separately because it's really quite amazing and revealing.

...

In other words, the NYT knew about Davis' work for the CIA (and Blackwater) but concealed it because the U.S. Government told it to. Now that The Guardian and other foreign papers reported it, the U.S. Government gave permission to the NYT to report this, so now that they have government license, they do so -- only after it's already been reported by other newspapers which don't take orders from the U.S. Government.

...

And the press is supposed to be the "watchdog for the people"?

*Don't take this as condoning the op, or not, just relaying what I've heard.

Secaucus Fats* ...

Is another Fascist piece-of-shit like Snot Walker in Wisconsin:

...

The question is what this state will look like by the time he gets done with it, and people realize that the reason for a good chunk of his spending cuts is that he has continued the noble tradition started by that OTHER Christie, Christine Todd Whitman, of stiffing the state pension fund for other purposes. In Whitman's case it was for income tax cuts, from which the pension fund has never recovered, and in Christie's case it's for cooking the books.

...

*Our pal Montag coined that phrase. He claims he didn't but since he doesn't know who did, he gets credit anyway.

How it goes ...

As I sit at my desk, having my morning coffee and a smoke. The girls were doing their usual thing (the puppy has recovered nicely since her operation last week) and I turned the webcam on (whittled it down from 3 minutes to less than one).



Can't wait until she gets the staples out (next week) so I can turn 'em loose outside and let 'em get some ya-yas out.

Wisconsin: What it's really all about ...

Not unions but power plants:

...

There are two big whoppers in this section, which is passing through the zeitgeist like ships in the night.

It will allow the Koch Brothers to buy or contract to operate state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants in Wisconsin without a solicitation of bids.

This is what it is about at the end of the day, and their puppet, Governor Walker, is ready to sell the Koch Brothers the state-owned utility system of Wisconsin for pennies on the dollar for his paymasters.

Governor Walker has intentionally muddied the waters concerning unions to muddy waters hoping no one will see the wholescale give-a-way of the state-owned public infrastructure to private interests.

...

The bill contains a lot more than a union busting initiative; that's just the gravy.

Wendell Scott

I haven't done anything for Black History Month, but I just watched a show on ESPN2 that inspired me to do this. It was Wendell Scott: A Race Story. I've known about Wendell Scott for years and he's one of my heroes, but this 2011 production moved me to tears. Check your listings and try to see it.

Before I tell you a little about him, I'm gonna go out on a limb and saw it off between me and the tree trunk. Ready?

If it weren't for Wendell Scott, Barack Obama wouldn't be President.

Wendell Scott is the only black man to ever win a NASCAR Grand National, today's Sprint Cup, stock car race. The win was given to a white driver after three extra laps and he was only told he had won after the mostly white fans had left the track. He got cheated out of the trophy which the white driver, Buck Baker (I think), took home.

Once he won a steak dinner as a prize and the restaurant didn't serve blacks. A white driver went in and got it for him and gave it to him outside.

[...] According to a 2008 biography of Scott, he broke the color barrier in Southern stock car racing on May 23, 1952, at the Danville Fairgrounds Speedway. [...]

That took balls, folks.

He ran as many as five events a week, mostly at Virginia tracks. Some spectators would shout racial slurs, but many others began rooting for him. Some prejudiced drivers would wreck him deliberately. They "just hammered on Wendell," former chief NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren said. "They figured he wasn't going to retaliate." And they were right—Scott felt that because of the racial atmosphere, he could not risk becoming involved in the fist-fights and dirty-driving paybacks that frequently took place among the white drivers.

Many other drivers, however, came to respect Scott. They saw his skills as a mechanic and driver, and they liked his quiet, uncomplaining manner. They saw him as someone similar to themselves, another hard-working blue-collar guy swept up in the adrenalin rush of racing, not somebody trying to make a racial point. "He was a racer -- you could look at somebody and tell whether they were a racer or not," said driver Rodney Ligon, who was also a moonshine runner. "Didn't nobody send him [to the track] to represent his race -- he come down because he wanted to drive a damn racecar." Some white drivers became his close friends and also occasionally acted as his bodygards.

You can go read about him, but to sum it up, he raced against segregation and Jim Crow as well as other drivers on a poor man's budget because he loved racing and he beat 'em driving junk.

He was forced to retire due to injuries from a racing accident at Talladega, Alabama in 1973. He achieved one win and 147 top ten finishes in 495 career Grand National starts.

The film Greased Lightning starring Richard Pryor was loosely based on Scott's biography.

Mr. Scott was just one of many who paved the way for Barack Obama, of course, but he did it in a brave and unusual manner in a whites-only-except-for-him venue that never made the papers outside the South.

He was a brave and quiet man in a sport that didn't want him. He is now one of the Legends Of NASCAR and recognized as a pioneer.

Thanks for the inspiration and role model, Wendell, and wherever you are, put the hammer down and don't forget to turn left.

Greedy Teachers

Following up on Fixer's post:

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.