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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Last night I was watching U-Tube videos on China. I was stunned! They have built entire cities, with towering apartment buildings that are totally abandoned. This is what happens when "Centralized Planning" runs amuck. It was mind boggling to see a real city... going on for blocks and blocks with nobody living in it. The videos went on to show how workers (coal miners) were left without promised health care plans and their retirements cancelled by the government. Then they were expected to work for one tenth of their salary. I could't believe it! Then I saw how China was Utopia when compared to North Korea. Talk about a place you don't want to go... that's North Korea. These Communist run Asian countries are only eclipsed by lawlessness and squalor of Africa. Seeing is believing. To think anybody with a handful of marbles rolling around in their heads would advocate such failed forms of government and anarchy. We as Americans live in the greatest country on earth and the Democrats want to turn it into a socialist state. Who are these people? Are they totally brain dead? |
| For those who doubt the truth behind Unidentified Flying Objects, (UFOs) search the key words below: Admiral Wilson leaked files Richard Dolan What you will find is the latest in the continuing saga of lies and coverups, designed to keep a lid on what happened at Roswell nearly seventy (70) years ago. To bring you up to date here are some of the reports that came to light that have been vigorously denied by the Air Force, Navy and Intelligence Services. In WW 2 there were "Foo Fighters" reported by both German and Allied forces in the Air War over Europe. After the war "Operation Paperclip" brought top Nazi scientists to the United States to jump start our rocket program. In the course of these V2 Plus rocket tests there were interventions by Alien craft to shoot our rockets down. The latest scaler radar sets were brought in as well as prototype anti-aircraft weapons, which attempted to shoot down the UFOs. In 1947 the famous Roswell crashes took place where Extraterrestrial craft were brought down, variously attributed to air defense weapons or thunderstorms. Still, nuclear weapons and rocket tests in the Nevada desert continued to attract UFOs, These incidents were described as most anything except what they actually were, with the most common being swamp gas and weather balloons. President Truman was so concerned by the physical evidence of crashed dishes and alien bodies that he formed a commission, Majestic 12 to look into it. In the 1950s -1960s the press (Linda M. Howe) began reporting on human abductions and cattle mutilations. Barney Hill and his wife were among the first and most sensational but others followed. It was in this period that the most closely guarded secret we had was revealed to the Soviets. This was the Atomic Bomb. It was a compromise so egregious that President Truman took extraordinary steps to make sure the UFO secret did not follow suit. For this purpose he granted his MJ 12 Commission the extraordinary power to operate outside of government oversight. The power they were given at the time included the use of lethal force. The whole program was broken down into small parts and only those with a need to know were allowed access. What this accomplished was a high level of security but kept many of the best minds in the country from helping sort out the mystery. The truth is that even after all these years of pouring over the ET crash wreckage we are still no closer to understanding the physics than when we started. When President Eisenhower took office he is said to have met with and reached an arrangement with our alien visitors. The alleged deal was bases in exchange for technology. Human abductees were to be returned unharmed. He was very concerned about the ultra-secrecy that was established to safeguard the back engineering and exchange programs and worried about a lack of oversight. Upon leaving office he warned that we be wary of the Military Industrial Complex. Some of the crash debris was seeded with industry who to this day are working to understand the materials and how some of the less threatening artifacts work. In the late 1970s a whistle-blower named Bob Lazar came forward with the claim that he was working in Area 51 at a facility named S-4 to back-engineer the propulsion system taken from one of the craft. He claimed that work was going slow and there had been accidents resulting in the deaths. He described one of the UFOs, the one known as the sports model, and described in detail his team's hypothesis on how it worked. It was an anti-gravity propulsion system that operated by bending space time. Furthermore he said the fuel was Element 115 an element that wasn't even discovered at the time. Isotopes of this element decay rapidly in a collider, which is the only means we have at present for making it. He said the real element was stable and that they had recovered several hundred pounds of it from one of the crash sites. When Bob told his friends what he was doing they were skeptical, so he took them to a surrounding mountain top on a Wednesday Night and showed the distant craft in action. He was caught on the third of these outings. So fearful did he become that he took the story to the local news. The Intelligence agencies did everything imaginable, short of murder, to discredit him, make him an example and put his credibility in question. However, he remains an icon, unshakable, and the most believable witness who has ever come forth on the Area 51 super-secret program he participated in. I've listened to his tapes and believe him to be truthful. After Lazar went public there were many others who came forward and in each case they were smeared by the DIA, CIA and Armed Services who did everything in their power to undermine their credibility and shut up those who dared breath a word about the Extraterrestrials. This became the most closely guarded secret of the century. At the core of the secret is the anti-gravity propulsion system. It appears we are no further along today than we were when Lazar first entered the hanger fifty years ago and looked in marvel at the space craft. He later witnessed the saucer hovering about outside and was told that it could actually fly over the mountains. Somehow, some test pilots had figured out how to make it go, however, it was like someone who can drive a car with no idea how the engine actually operates. Figuring out how the system works is the question of the century and whoever figures it out will have the global "cat birds seat." In describing the device, Bob said it was the size of a basketball and regardless of the load placed upon it, the motor never got hot, or even warm. This is why the whole thing is still such a closely guarded secret. All that nonsense about the public panicking over ETs is so much BS. The country that masters anti-gravity will have a power unmatched on the planet. Skipping ahead, the next major revelations came about as the result of Dr. Greer's untiring efforts to gain disclosure. Over the years he has gained the trust and respect of many both inside and outside of government. Greer has been able to convince his leakers that since the UFO program is outside the oversight of the government, it is illegal and thus has no classification authority and anyone who "Outs" it is not committing a breach of national security. They can never be charged. His work has led to many revelations but one of the most notable was a list of Agencies and Contractors who were on the inside and conducting the back engineering research. He knew there was no governmental oversight over any of these projects and so he started briefing high government officials about what was really going on. His MO was to show them the list and challenge them to see if they could gain access. This brings us to the Admiral Wilson notes. Wilson went to one of these dark contracting agencies and demanded to be read in. The contractor referred him to an approving authority which turned out to be a civilian, a security guy and a lawyer. He met with them and they refused. He was furious and made a stink. His higher-ups called him aside and threatened his rank and future if he didn't back off. His notes are testimony that the conversations took place and I recommend them to your reading. The most significant revelation contained in the notes comes, when he questioned the three "Gatekeepers" about exactly what they were guarding. They admitted they were safeguarding projects involved in the back engineering of "Off World Technology." |
| Throughout the Third World there is a culture of Corruption. It certainly exists in the West too but it isn't as culturally supported. In the Third World the family is still considered the fundamental building block of society. If somebody succeeds they are expected to share the benefits of their prosperity. For example if a woman marries well, or a man succeeds in government they are expected to share that success with their family. Anything goes with this power sharing as long as it doesn't become excessive and as a consequence the law is little impediment. In these countries the law is viewed as a constraint and most anything goes as long as you don't get caught. It is only being accused, called out and/or convicted that corrupt behavior becomes egregious. The Greeks introduced to the Western World many fine ideas one of which was this idea of Honor. They were not the greatest practitioners but sometimes a good notion takes hold even if those responsible don't take it to heart. Embodied in the concept is that a citizen of quality will obey the law because it's the right thing to do. They don't obey it because they fear the sanctions but rather see the purpose and understand the need to obey regulations that order society for the good. Such citizens see the greater needs of the whole while still understanding that self interest (greed) is a basic human trait. Now please don't take this to mean that in the West citizens operate on a higher moral plane. People in the West are just as prone to corruption as anyone else, however, the distinction is that they know better. Hillary Clinton is a classic example. While most have some vague notion of what honor is they still need the law to underpin their behavior. The distinction is that they have been exposed to how the Scientific Method (SM) works. The SM is an optimization process and what is being optimized is the idea of "Good." Good is a thought or action that improves the human condition over what might occur had no human intervention taken place. To a quality citizen a law is seen as good if it makes sense and they obey it because it seems best to do so. However, all citizens do not subscribe to what I call the "Honor Standard." For most this standard is too high. For many it lacks definition and even to the most law abiding has the tendency to deviate when self-interests come into conflict. Having said all this let me once more stress the distinction. In the West, people know corruption to be wrong in both a moral and legal sense. In Asia, they see the wrong more in a legal terms where the crime is not so much moral as a consequence of getting caught. If someone is able to further their ambitions by avoiding the sanctions of the law they are seen as "shrewd," In Third World Countries, particularly Asia, shrewd is good. It is embodied in their culture and we can send them to our Universities where they excel in parroting knowledge without really understanding what propels it. They make high marks without really buying into the contributions made by the Greeks that catapulted Western technology to where it is today. They are no more advanced culturally than they were when Alexander the Great first demonstrated the real power of the West. In third worlds MIGHT is still RIGHT. They respect military power but see only weakness in trying to rise above those baser aspects of the human condition. |
| It's the middle of April in Wisconsin, it's still cold. I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever going to warm up. This has me wondering if the Wuhan flu virus will begin to diminish in the warmer weather. That would be a blessing... that the virus only gets introduced to half the world's population instead of all of it. On the positive side we'd have more time to develop countermeasures for those of us who escaped the first round of infection. Hopefully we could take the lessons learned in Phase 1 and use them to good effect. The reason for the quarantine was to flatten the curve, and to make sure our hospitals were not overwhelmed . As soon as possible the country needs to get back to work. The virus was bad but not as bad as they billed it. Unfortunately the Democrats see the pandemic as a Godsend. It accomplished what they salivated for and couldn't accomplish on their own. The Democratic Party is the party of misery. They depend on human agony to energize their base and voila, the pandemic came along in answer to their prayers. When President Trump decides to begin relaxing the restrictions the first thing that will hit the fake news networks is the following headline. First fatality of President Trump's premature and reckless policy to reopen the United States Joe Blow, of Brooklyn New York, is the first COV-19 patient to die as the result of President Trump's cavalier relaxation policy. Joe was a military veteran who survived WW2, and a long life of service to his community..., only to succumb to the President's ineptitude. A well loved, Mr. Blow, met an untimely death, struck down at the most vulnerable time of his life. While not stated on his death certificate the cause could well have been, "political expedience." The Republicans continue to push their agenda, which puts corporate greed ahead of the health and welfare of everyone. The bottom line, is thousands of these death warrants are being delivered every day ...Blow is just the first to die unnecessarily! ....So the disgusting story will go. We live in "sick" times. |
| China is using its propaganda machine to blame someone else for the breakout of COVID 19. Their latest gambit is a report on CBS yesterday about a "Scientific Study" showing the virus originated in Europe. How lame is that? Everyone knows where it started, supposedly in a meat market in Wuhan China. Now we're beginning to hear more and more about a Level Four, biological laboratory located several blocks away. Personally I don't particularly care if it generated spontaneously at the meat market or if it broke containment in a research laboratory. I happened, and it is another in a long line of biological agents that originated in China. Unlike many I lean towards the bio-lab theory based upon my experience and knowledge of human nature. In College my wife worked in a level 3 facility at the CDC in Atlanta. She was a Summer Intern for two years. When she began she tested negative for Tuberculosis and when she left she tested positive. She had not contracted the disease but was exposed and developed an immunity. She related to me the story of one of her coworkers who liked to sneak off and smoke cigarettes in the animal house. This individual contacted a full blown case of TB. All organizations have stories of what really goes on behind the scenes and research labs are no exception. Workers don't always follow procedures and mistakes are made. Nobody wants to admit they made a mistake and the tendency is to cover it up. Creating a disciplined culture that on one hand insists on attention to detail and is intolerant of slip-shod behavior while on the other is open and forgiving of human error is a hard needle to thread. What I mean is that somebody that drops a test tube needs to know they won't be sent to the Gulag. Openness and willingness to "fess" up are crucial to containing the consequences of an error. As long as there are humans involved, accidents are going to happen and when they do getting people to raise their hand is no easy task. So I don't really see how one can expect to avoid lab workers becoming contaminated from time to time. The should report an incident when it happens but will just as likely try and cover it up. If you look at the requirements behind the various levels of a bio test facility you will quickly see a glaring problem... This is that regardless of how sensitive the work is, the workers go home every night. It would seem to me that if the work is really dangerous then the workers should remain a month in the facility....They should spend two weeks with the agent and two weeks in quarantine. After the initial two weeks they are tested for the agent and tested again upon checking out. If they become contaminated the symptoms will develop while the worker is still inside the containment facility. This measure might seem draconian but it sure beats the measures we have currently in place. Hey, if sailors can be cooped up on a submarine for months on end so can research workers in a Level 5 facility. I know, I. know, there is no such thing as a level 5 facility where people are kept separated from society for extended periods. There should be. |
| I remember how it was a lifetime ago, watching as a Huey helicopter ended final approach and hovered over our basecamp. The prop wash threw up a storm of dust and the crew stared unloading bundles of supplies. This was our home, a defensive position called a "Hard Spot," located along the Cambodian border, off a map feature called "The Angle's Wing." It was like a Mini-Firebase, except we didn't have any artillery. I noted that a guy wearing a white shirt got off carrying this big cardboard box. One of the grunts, handling resupply, motioned him towards the TOC. A few minutes later I received a message that the CO wanted to see me. It was dark inside the bunker and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. Beyond the sandbag entrance was a bank of radios and some tables and chairs. The civilian dude, I'd seen earlier, was sitting on a cot underneath the map board. "Tell the Lieutenant here, what brings you to the far reaches of the Empire," said the Captain. "Hi, I'm John Cramer from the Army's Combat Development Command (DARPA). I've brought a new product all the way from Fort Benning, for testing. He opened his box and laid on the table an electronic gadget about the size of a PRC 25 radio. Next he installed a battery and plugged in the head set. "This is an Intrusion Monitoring Device." Talking out a smaller box he dumped a couple of nuggets on the table that resembled dried up jelly beans. He turned on the electronics box and handed me the earphones. Picking up one, he squeezed it and asked, "What do you hear?" From inside the headphones I heard a distinct beep. Picking up another he squeezed the second one. "...and now?" I heard two beeps. Taking a third he squeezed and this time three beeps and then a final one... four beeps. "Is this some kind of hearing test?" He looked at me like I was a bit slow on the uptake. "This Lieutenant, is one of the Army's latest combat developments. It allows a patrol leader to have early warning of an approaching enemy." I must have rolled my eyes because he began acting like a salesman closing a pitch. "How this works is that you sprinkle these sensors along likely avenues of approach into your ambush site. For example, if you are set up on an East/West trail you might sprinkle a handful of the one-beepers to the East and some of the two-beepers to the West. If it's a crossroads then some three and four-beepers to the North and South. Then, all you have to do is listen and depending on the beeps you'll know from which direction the enemy is approaching. These nuggets have been created to give the small unit leader a "Head's Up" when the enemy is coming his way. Nothing like some advanced warning... don't you agree?" "You want me to test this stuff on my ambush tonight?" "Yes!" "So, after I get there and get set up, you want me to go for a little walk, North, South, East and West and sprinkle these turds as I go?" "That's the idea." "I have an even better one. Why don't you come with me and you can go out and sprinkle the turds. You can then reassure everyone back in the world you personally saw to their emplacement along the most traveled infiltration route in Vietnam." He missed the sarcasm but my CO didn't. "I'd like to," John replied, (he seemed sincere) "but I'm not allowed to go on combat operations. " "What's your take on all this?" I asked the CO. "Why do you think you're here?" Realizing it was a done deal, I arose to go. "Here," John offered, "Let me carry the box over to your bunker." ... Before dusk I assembled the platoon and gave the patrol order. The men weren't happy when I got to the part where we were going four (4) thousand meters. That meant that if we "Hit the Shit" we were out on a limb and on our own until daylight. We would be ambushing the main road below a heavily traveled intersection, where we'd been getting reports of enemy activity. The NVA were moving South to shore up the VC, decimated in the TET Offensive of 1968. These were main line North Vietnamese forces who were well trained and equipped. The good news was that while the trek into ambush site was long, it was a one leg straight line. There would be no juking around to avoid the "Tu Dia" signs. These were warnings posted by the VC to mark where they had their IEDs planted. "We'll be moving in two files," I told everyone. "I'll be in the middle between the point men. Once we get to the "Candy Stripe" (highway on map) we'll set up according to SOP... except for one thing. Osborn and I will planting some sensors on the approaches into the main kill zone. So be advised, we'll be outside our defensive perimeter tonight, moving around while ya'll are getting set up. I'll leave from and return to the M-60 (machine gun) positioned on the left flank. I say again, tonight there will be two of us, out front and it's going to be dark... no moon... don't be getting trigger happy." Once darkness settled I set off with the Patrol. For those who have never walked a night combat patrol the pace is extremely measured and methodical, like the slow beat on a drum. The march took about two hours before we finally reached the objective. It had been without incident and I breathed a sigh of relief because navigating on a pitch black night always had me stressed out and anxious. The men went about setting up their two man positions. Melvin Osborne, my "go to guy" was a bit slow but dependable in a pinch. I always kept him close. ever since being warned to keep an eye on him during search and clear missions we conducted in the daytime. Melvin liked the Vietnamese girls and needed adult supervision when we passed through a village. Other than that he was a very dependable soldier. So I kept Osborn, day and night, close, and took him with me if I went on recon. As I saw things coming together the two of us went to the machine gun position and walked out into the road. It was really dark out except for an occasional flare in the distance. I carried a starlight scope but it wasn't working very well. We walked South and put out the one- beep sensors. Then we walked back up the road to the intersection. A hundred meters North we sprinkled the two-beepers. Walking back to the crossroads we turned East and placed the three-beepers. Then it was back again to the crossroads and West. About a hundred meters further we sprinkled the last batch of the four-beepers. Try imagining, if you can, walking around out there, pitch black, just me and Melvin, a stones throw from the Cambodian border. It was nerve wracking, to say the least, and I was relieved when it was all over and we got safely back inside the ambush site. Now all I had to do was sit back and listen. I told my RTO we would be on a one hour watch schedule and I'd take the first shift. Putting on the head set I settled back. It was almost midnight. Suddenly I heard a series of two-beeps. I alerted, adrenaline rushing into my veins. I listened closely for the next few minutes... "beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep." Then I told Melvin to crawl along the forward line and alert everyone that the sensors were indicating movement from the North. "Tell them to get ready for trouble." After he crawled off I alerted the rear security by radio. "Possible NVA unit, moving South." This was followed by an absolute silence that seemed to drag on forever. I was about to conclude it was a false alarm when the four-beepers began tuning up. "Beep-beeb-beep-beep" sounded the repetitive sequence in my headset. OMG, more are coming from the West, maybe two enemy columns joining up. The beeping continued until they once more abruptly stopped... absolute silence. I searched with my starlight scope, waiting for the faint light of an occasional flare to amplify the image... but there was nothing to be seen, only a fuzzy non-threatening visual in a green tinted background. I took a dexedrine tablet... "This is going to be a long night. About three o'clock in the morning my RTO shook me out of a stupor. "I'm getting three beeps," he whispered in a nervous voice. I was instantly wide awake. Over and over the three beeps chimed until like before they stopped abruptly. Again, I waited for some ambient flare light and scanned with the night scope. Nothing. I yawned nervously. Looks like another sleepless night before another endless day. "What do you think Melvin," I asked? He shrugged. At daylight we took a walk to retrace our footsteps from the night before. To the South we found the sensors laying undisturbed as we'd left them. Going North it was a different story. We could find nothing. What the heck happened happened to the turds? Checking to the East we found the same situation. No petrified poop. Finally on the leg to the West we struck pay dirt. One mangled nugget lay on the side of the road. It was in two main pieces and some smaller fragments lay in a pool of green and white bile. What the heck..? When we returned to the base camp, John the civilian met me coming through the wire. "How did it go... did you have any contact?" "No, it turned out to be an uneventful evening... except for on thing." "What was that?" I handed him the remains... "The rats ate 'Um." |
| Snipers are an ugly aspect of war however they are by no means the only troubling aspect. War is a state sanctioned license to kill at a level that is mind boggling and almost unimaginable. In WW2 there were aces in aviation who shot down over 200 aircraft, there were German tank aces who destroyed over 100 enemy tanks and at Stalingrad there were Soviet snipers who recorded kills that exceeded the one hundred mark. No enemy should ever be allowed to achieve that level of skill and proficiency. Long before this happens threat individuals with this level of skill and experience should be identified and eliminated. As long as American soldiers are expected to fight on equal terms, snipers are a cost effective way for our enemies to inflict casualties and attrit our combat forces. In Vietnam, as a rifle platoon leader, I had VC and NVA shooting at me on a regular basis. Fortunately they were no better aims than most of us were. As a result, attrition by rifle or machine gun fire was not the statistic we feared most. IEDs were the most effective means the enemy had for causing casualties. Surprisingly little seems to have changed, however, snipers have a great potential for reversing that statistic. We know that US snipers have been very effective in the middle east wars. Still, when I see footage of US operations in Iraq and Afganistan, what I see looks a like the old search and clear operations we used to run in Vietnam... operations where we were walking around with targets on our chests looking for an invisible enemy, trying to avoid stepping on a booby trap. Consider how our forces would fare if we found ourselves in urban warfare facing an enemy like the Soviets. In that scenario thousands of German soldiers were killed by snipers and while the Germans never quite figured out how to counter the dilemma, the results showed how serious the threat can be given a well trained and determined enemy. It seems to me that the techniques for countering a sniper threat deserve more attention. Wether in an urban or a rural environment the principles seem the same... locate, engage and verify. Armies throughout the world who train snipers emphasize the following... conceal your location, do not remain too long in one spot after taking a shot and have backup. The Russians at Stalingrad had an ideal location for sniping. Most of the large industrial factories had been razed by bombing and artillery fire and these blown out buildings and concrete rubble offered good cover, concealment and protection. Shots at ranges of under 500 yards were commonplace. At these ranges a trained sniper seldom misses. The Germans reacted by taking cover. Mortar and artillery fire, while not used very effectively, was a common response and engendered the most fear in the Soviets. One Russian sniper was so effective the Germans were said to be considering "exceptional measures" to end his streak. When the Russians got word they suspected it would be the use of armored vehicles and took measures accordingly. Exactly how that played out I'm not aware. It is well known that commanders are loath to fight in urban areas. However, if such is ever the case there needs to be a better idea of how to eliminate the sniper threat. The US Army has already made some progress. For a long time armies have been aware of the technology referred to as Counter Batter Fire. In this scenario a radar picks up the trajectory of an incoming artillery round and thereby knows the precise point from which it was fired. This technology has been expanded into small arms fire. Sound technology as well as lasers are also being developed. It is more the integration means than the detection technology that has the most potential for improvement. While we have a remedial capability, it is not in an optimal state of development, nor is it integrated well enough into the counter fire capabilities of small units to be responsive. What is required is a "hands off "almost instantaneous integration with a company level, mortar fire direction center. A sniper is not going to hang around while we figure out where he/she is, manually coordinate responsive fires and decide if the action is worth the political consequences. For example, a shot is fired at US forces in an Urban area. The location from where the shot came is fed electronically to the mortars. In less than five seconds a half a dozen rounds are being fired at and around the enemy location. While there could be rules of engagement issues on blind fires, the munitions could be fuzed as to not penetrate into buildings where civilians might be taking refuge. Integrating a drone with a surveillance camera would show the effectiveness of the fire and a better look at the target. If warranted, heavier artillery could be followed up. This is a capability the Germans lacked at Stalingrad and one that the Army should be getting more involved in. We continue to learn little from the past and just because DARPA comes up with a new capability that is not assurance it will be implemented and used effectively. We can't seen to even apply the lessons from the past, much less really appreciate what new technology has to offer. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
