wombat_socho

Good summary of all the various wars, insurrections, revolts, and just downright murderous crap going on around the world, as well as various places which aren't actively at war yet but are pretty damn close. A lot of these places, you probably haven't heard of and wouldn't want to visit for a million bucks.
(Ace of Spades)

The Military's Deepening Geographic Divide - Richard Florida - Business - The Atlantic:

The map is pretty useless, and the analysis by the mapmakers was brainless.

This comment at the end of the article pretty much sums it up. What kind of wet-brained fool would try to figure anything out about the social origins and culture of the military by looking at where the bases are? Richard Florida, that's who! *facepalm* Honestly, the more I see by this guy, the less impressed I am. Commenters do an excellent job of ripping the article to shreds and suggesting more intelligent ways of looking at the question; maybe you should just read the comments first and skip the article.

I probably should have posted this yesterday, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki, but better late than never.
The annual whining in the press about the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki leaves me cold, but then, unlike most of the journalists and commentators, I actually know something about the war against Japan. I know that it didn't start with the attack on Pearl Harbor - by the time the Arizona went down on December 7, the The Rape Of Nanking was almost four years in the past. The truth of the matter is that for eight years before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the soldiers and sailors of the Japanese Empire had cut a barbaric swath of rape and pillage across Asia from Manchuria to Imphal in India, butchering prisoners of war and civilians alike. They had fought suicidally from New Guinea to Okinawa, burned Manila to the ground with 100,000 civilians trapped in it, and given no indication that they would ever surrender.

Which meant that after the fall of Okinawa, the United States was looking at the very real possibility of having to invade Japan in the same way they had invaded Guadalcanal, Leyte, Okinawa, and a dozen other islands all across the Pacific. From the most recent invasions, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, we knew that the Japanese would be dug in deep, determined to resist to the last man, and anxious to kill or wound every American that they possibly could. American casualties would be horrific, estimated to be in the millions for the first phase, Operation Olympic, alone. From the experience of Okinawa, we could anticipate that the Japanese - military and civilians, although the Japanese plans drew no distinction between the two- would suffer over 90% casualties.

And people wonder why Truman dropped the bomb? What would history say of him had he not done so? As for me, I have no sympathy for the Japanese on this account. They had it coming. There has not, to this date, been a official, written apologies to the Chinese or Philippine nations for what happened at Nanking or Manila; even after those apologies are delivered (if they ever are), I hold that apologizing for the atomic bombing of Japan is unnecessary and stupid.

Unless, of course, you actually think we should have had millions of Americans killed or wounded in the process of exterminating 90% of the Japanese nation. I refuse to speculate whether this is the case with the current Administration.

Maintenance replaced the filter while I was at class tonight. Good.
Instructor confirmed that all the Wiley Plus online problems & self-tests were indeed part of the homework. Not so good. It's only 15% of my grade, but it might be enough to knock me back from an A to a B, possibly from a B to a C - but I don't think I did that badly on the third test. Which we won't have the results of before Monday, and that's okay. Anyway, I've been avoiding the Wiley Plus online stuff because, well, I get kinda ADD when I'm sitting here in front of the computer with the intertubes RIGHT THERE. Also, I have problems with the way the WP software presents ledger entry problems. Instead of letting you fix whatever it was you got wrong, it forces you to re-do the problem with new numbers, which means you now have twice the opportunity to fuck up the problem. I've found it's just better for me to practice journal entries by actually writing them down in the ledger books I picked up from Staples. So much the worse for me.

Humidity and temp finally got into the ugly range today. I turned on the A/C when I got home, and will probably leave it on overnight until it gets down to a decent temperature & humidity again.

I don't have a whole lot to say about the McChrystal thing, except that it just goes to show that staff officers are just as big a bunch of dumb-asses as the rest of us. After fifty years of this kind of bullshit, it should be burned into the institutional DNA of all military personnel by now that the press is not your friend. Especially when they're pretending to be your buddy. And a reporter from Rolling Stone, at that. :facepalm: Well, Petraeus will have another shot at pulling the haggis out of the fire, except this time around they're blowing a pretty uncertain trumpet at the White House, and God only knows what those idiots in Congress are going to do between now and next January. The irony of the Democrats calling on the man they were busy slandering as "General Betray-us" only two years ago isn't lost on me, either. We'll see what happens.

Saturday Verse: G.K. Chesterton - Maggie's Farm: Maggie's Farm, a blog I thank RS for introducing me to, reprints one of my favorite poems not written by Kipling. It's a stirring retelling of the Battle of Lepanto, one of the pivotal battles in history and another in the series of battles that kept Islam out of Europe and ensured the survival of Christendom, which evolved into Western Civilization as we know it today. For those who want to look deeper into the battle, Victor Davis Hanson has devoted a chapter in his excellent book Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power
to it, and if that isn't enough, there's this: Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto, which is also most excellent. Buy them both! :)

I missed Simo Hayha's birthday this past Thursday. Hayha is probably the deadliest sniper in the history of modern warfare, having killed over 500 Russians with his Mosin/Nagant M/28 - over iron sights, because he felt using a scope carried too much risk of exposure. He then went on to kill another 200 Russians with his Suomi submachine gun. At the age of 34. Under weather conditions that could be charitably described as "appalling". More details at Mitch Berg's joint.
Hayha is one big reason why this mopo is so true:

Awesome video of Marines getting down to the music. Keep an eye on the Latino (Asian?) Marine dancing in front of the barracks doors with the taped windows - he does stuff I would have sworn was just not possible. Hats off to the Corps and to the editor of this vid.


(Jules Crittenden - RTWT and donate if you can.)

More info here about the most decorated officer of the Third Reich. Dude blew up a battleship, FFS.
My father used to talk about how a Lufthansa pilot bought him rounds until closing time while lecturing him on the greatness of Oberst Rudel after Dad name-dropped the author of Stuka Pilot. On the other hand, Rudel was an unrepentant Nazi, so it's not like the guy was some kind of stainless hero. On the gripping hand, the folks who designed the A-10 Warthog consulted heavily with Rudel, and we all know how that went. :)

Ladies and gentlemen, the XM-25 grenade launcher: the first weapon in history to put variable-time fuzes in the hands of the squad grenadier, thus denying the enemy the advantage of cover. (Ace, which helpfully includes a Top Ten Cool Facts about the XM-25 list.)

Went down to Accountemps and lucked out by finding an empty two hours free space on Diagonal Street around the corner from their office. Got paperwork brought up to date, talked with a staffer for about ten minutes, then headed back home. Hopefully they'll get me some work tomorrow and/or Monday.

Freshly bookmarked: Closing Velocity, a blog dedicated to missile defense. I've been a fan of BMD since the 1960s, when it was politically incorrect before PC was cool on account of the Mutual Assured Destruction orthodoxy, and this blog satisfies my need for information on the topic.