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  • The Oregon Tragedy

    Someone, identified only as a 20-year old male, brought a gun into a gun-free zone, walked into an Umpqua Community College classroom full of students, and ordered everyone to state their religion.  He them began shooting them, presumably based on the responses to which religion each person was.  Up to fifteen people are reported dead, twenty wounded.  Pray for them, the wounded and the souls of those killed, and for their loved ones.

    I doubt severely whether the suspect, reportedly dead, was a white male.  Had he been, we would have heard about the “white male” shooter in short order.  The shooter’s name, undoubtedly known already, is also being withheld.  Other speculation I will not make, as too much is unknown.  Pray also for our Republic, that it can survive the corrosive sham of the Obama Administration, whose spokesman proceeded to push for the curtailment of the Constitutional liberties of a free people before a single shred of information about the shooter or the motive or the weapon was known publicly.  He and his ilk are beneath contempt.

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  • Autumn

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  • Russian AF Frogfoot Combat Loss Over Syria

     Looks like the Russians have lost their first combat aircraft over Syria. This (at the time of writing) has yet to be confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defence. The article is in Russian here but there’s video that I’ll embed below:A bit of analysis indicates that the it’s an SU-25 Frogfoot (the presence of which has been conformed by open source satellite photographs). The aircraft fires air to ground rockets twice and pops flares, possibly to evade a heat seeking surface to air missile. The video ends before it’s known if the pilot got out.

    The Frogfoot is somewhat of an analogue to the iconic A-10. Both do a similar role, close air support. The takeaway for the Russian Airforce may be that anti-ISIS forces are better armed with MANPADs than they thought.

  • Ace of Spades HQ

    Of course.Remember, all of Obama’s super-close Interesting Foreign Friends are just here to help us n stuff. At least, that’s the fantasy our daydreaming president likes to indulge.

    Source: Ace of Spades HQ

    Ace has a long post that nails the utter humiliation that Putin is handing to the US and Obama. I can’t get upset that Putin is pursuing Russia’s best interests. That’s what a leader should do.

    I just wish Obama and Kerry might think about pursuing our best interests.

    No serious person is the slightest bit surprised that Russia’s first airstrikes were against our allies in the region. Ace notes that the Free Syrian Army isn’t the great military threat to Assad. They are, however, a moral threat. The world would, Ace notes, generally welcome the FSA as the new power in Syria. But Russia wouldn’t. So of course they’ll attack the FSA. The Assad family has been an ally for years. At least Putin grasps the value of standing by an ally.

    Note as well the manner in which Putin not only pursues his objectives, but does so in a manner that is deliberately insulting to the US and Obama personally. Nothing like spiking the ball in the end zone.

     

  • The Modern Man, or Why Society is Failing at Warp Speed – Hookers & Booze

    In which Aggie eviscerates an emasculated “man” at the NYT.

    Full disclosure: I’m a stay-at-home-mom who enjoys serving her hubby food and liquor. I usually cook while barefoot, as well. Yesterday, a NYT “Fashion” section article began to do the rounds on Twitter, and as a wife, mother, and just a plain ol’ woman, I have to put in my $5 (inflation) on the subject.The title is 27 Ways to Be a Modern Man, written by Brian Lombardi. As far as I can tell, it’s not a nom de plume for a disgruntled wife. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. Mr. Lombardi makes a list of what a “modern man” does to support his masculinity. Some items on the list are given, such as #2 (never let’s others know his confidence is shot), #9 (a daughter teaches him new things all the time), and #19 (buys his wife flowers to surprise her). I can stand behind these, having witnessed them up close and personal from time to time. But most of the list?

    Source: The Modern Man, or Why Society is Failing at Warp Speed – Hookers & Booze

    FTR, on crying, yeah, birth of a kid, death of a friend or dog, and every time I watch The Sound of Music.

  • All Hands Online : Official Magazine of the U.S. Navy

    For the first time in almost 38 years, there will be no Oliver Hazard Perry (OHP) Frigate on the fleet rolls of the United States Navy. The USS Simpson (FFG 56) was decommissioned in her homeport of Mayport, Florida, Sept. 29, and represented the last frigate in the Navy’s inventory.

    Source: All Hands Online : Official Magazine of the U.S. Navy

    USS Simpson’s decommissioning also means the only ship left in commission that has sunk another ship is USS Constitution.

  • Russian Airstrike in Syria

    Via Spill

    Of course, they’re not bombing ISIS. Instead, they’re bombing non-ISIS rebels aligned against the Assad regime. You know, they guys were supporting.

  • Tuna Tours PAX

    Tuna hit PAX river, and brought his camera. Click through and enjoy a nice selection of lesser known NavAir assets.

    The longer I’m working this second career of mine, as a Government Civilian doing analysis work for the Navy, the more places I seem to travel. While Washington DC is a usual destination for me, either at the Pentagon for budget discussions with OPNAV (Naval Operations), or at the Washington Navy Yard for meetings about the status of various programs I’m involved in. The other frequent stop is Panama City Florida, where all the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) systems are developed and tested. However, I had a short trip out east last week, to one place I didn’t expect to ever visit – the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. PAX River for short.I was there for an Office of Naval Research (ONR) S&T Unmanned Underwater Systems Demonstration – PAX River 2015. If the Navy needs a capability that isn’t currently met by our weapon systems, and the technology isn’t something we can just buy off the shelf, that’s where ONR steps in. They help to develop new technologies- from the drawing board to a prototype system, then pushing them to the Program Offices at the Navy Yard or NAVAIR in PAX, for further refinement and testing.

    Source: Chant du Départ: PAX River 2015

  • Looks like Poland might be next on Putin’s menu.

    Well, maybe, after the Baltics.

    Poland

    This is simply how it’s done. Soviet… err, Russian agents infiltrate a community, and agitate that they are being oppressed by the host country. That leads to Putin raising the issue in various international forums, supposedly lending legitimacy to the claims. Eventually, it becomes an excuse for “peacekeepers” and “monitors” to occupy a region.

    Russian peacekeepers, of course. Permanently. Then hold “free and fair” elections to secede and join Russia.

    At a minimum, Russia can use this to sow instability in the region, something that works for Russia, and against Poland and her allies.

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  • NAS Whidbey Island SAR

    You might be aware that Naval Air Station Whidbey Island is home to all of the Navy’s EA-18G Growlers, and a fair chunk of its P-3/EP-3 fleet. What you may not realize is that those fleets don’t belong to NAS Whidbey. NAS Whidbey serves sort of as the landlord, housing tenant commands. In fact, the only aircraft that “belong” to the Air Station itself are a couple of MH-60S Knighthawks that provide Search And Rescue services for the tenant units.*

    While the SAR birds are primarily there to support the Growlers and Orions, fortunately, they don’t crash very often. And so through a series of agreements with local and state agencies, the SAR birds often also support civilian Search And Rescue efforts, and occasionally provide MEDEVAC flights in the area as well. Some of the terrain in Washington is extraordinary, and those are the places most likely to need Navy SAR support to supplement civilian efforts. And so, of course, those tend to be the places the NAS Whidbey Island SAR team conducts its training.

     

    *They might also still have one or two UC-12 Hurons on station as Operational Support Aircraft. The UC-12 is basically a Beech King Air.