Anybody remember when there were allegations made that California NG units had been used to spy on peace mom protests? Great news! According to the Army, nothing wrong happened!

National Guard internal report rejects spying allegations

Much much more to follow

The best part is, you can use these on anyone, not just Bush!

1. Mr President, who was the mastermind responsible for 9-11?

2. Mr President, where is he?

3. Mr President, you've compared the war in Iraq to WW1 and WW2. Will you compare it to Vietnam as well, or will you leave that comparison to war hero Republican Senators to make?

4. Mr President, if the war in Iraq is like WW2, why haven't taxes been increased to pay for the war, and troop strength been increased to fight the war?

More after the break

A few people have noticed my occasional references to Patriot Details, and have asked me what it means. It is a subject that deserves its own diary. In short, when a servicemember dies in the AOR, in or around Iraq or Afghanistan, he is put in the flag-draped coffin, and the Patriot Detail is the honor guard that escorts him to the plan that will take him home. My shop chief makes a point of going to these whenever he can. He is a good man. I'm not strong enough. The tragedy of it is almost too much to handle froma distance, much less from up close.

Here's a couple descriptions.

(Because I was in need of a bit of humor. Yes, I came up with all this on my own.)

As we know, there are a number of anti-war protestors in Crawford camping out near the President's ranch. Even during the daytime, this is a dangerous place, but night is much more dangerous. Of course, in general, evil men prefer the cover of darkness so they can perpretrate their evil deeds out of sight of society. This has only become more pronounced in the years since the one known to his followers as He Who Must Not Be Defamed took office. Now, of course, the vampires were always His, but what is less known is that all the werewolves and also the dementors went to his side after his rise to power. Now, BushCo's ranks include the sluagh, the banshees, and the gorgons. The heroic defenders holding their ground in Crawford need to be trained in how to defeat these horrors of the night.

It's just too stressful to post there. I can't correct all the misinformation that people have set in their heads. The Abu Ghraib and Gitmo threads are bad enough, but now the majority of the place is knocking on Cindy Sheehan using quotes from the Drudge Report like it's gospel.

Yeah, the issue was actually resolved a little over a week ago, but I've been really busy and distracted. Lotta stuff been happening recently. My bad. Figured I ought to post a diary here for all of you who followed the story closely and who probably wanted to know what all happened.

Anyway, we had a meeting, with the IG rep, the head chaplain, my First Sargeant, my shop chief, and myself present. Details below.

I can't understand it. I really can't. It's not a place I can put my mind. But after I posted to another forum the story of the pro-democracy English teacher who walked into Gitmo and rolled out, I was stunned by the responses. Admittedly, they were from people I know are wingnuts and at leasta couple of whom are batshit crazy, but still, even then, I was surprised. I can hope that it's only because they haven't seen all the evidence yet, but I have to wonder how intentionally blind someone can be.

A significant number of people I've met in the military who say they are Republican have no idea of politics or the positions of the various parties, but they believe what they're told about the Democrats not liking the military and the Republicans liking the military. Most of the people I've known who actually really think about politics, a distinct minority in the military just like in the civilian world, tend to be liberals or independents. A significant number more don't see any difference between the political parties.

I saw a headline on Yahoo News that caught my attention.

Ahmadinejad Fills Cabinet With Hard-Liners

At first I thought "well gee, that's not good, that will just increase the problems Iran has been having with the global community by dogmatically sticking to hardline positions"

And then I thought "But wait a minute, he's just doing the same thing Bush did when he took office, surrounding himself with yes-men who will rubberstamp his every move. I remember conservatives back then saying that it was a president's right to surround himself with advisors who agree with him."

And then it hit me "Well crap, that's a bad thing for America and Iran isn't it?

After the 125-item list I have beefed things up, made them more Extreme and Hard-Core then the creative re-imagining of classic Warner Bros characters, and taken a number of suggested items to pad the list even more. Now we are up to 300 poppin' fresh items, and I expect I could easily come up with more.

This was inspired by the now infamous "Skippy's List". However, that list was Army-centered, and is a few years out of date, since it refers to a deployment in Kosovo (or Bosnia, somewhere around there). So I've got a list for me, in the USAF, deployed to Iraq. Enjoy!

Original Skippy's List: http://www.skippyslist.com/

Feel free to Reccomend this diary.

This was inspired by the now infamous "Skippy's List". However, that list was Army-centered, and is a few years out of date, since it refers to a deployment in Kosovo (or Bosnia, somewhere around there). So I've got a list for me, in the USAF, deployed to Iraq. Enjoy!

I'll probably add more eventually, as I think of them

Something to keep in mind when you're arguing or debunking Creationism or "Intelligent Design" is that, in addition to knowing our side of it, the logical reasonable non-crazy science side, it also helps to know what they're claiming to believe. So here we have the Genesis account of creation, in the King James Version. After I go through it and comment on the various stages, I'll go into some of the different kinds of Creationism. Bear in mind that each of the Creationist schools of thought is convinced that it and it alone is the correct one. I went through a lot of work to put this together, recommendations are therefore appreciated. Thanks to Bible Gateway and Origins.edu for unwittingly being my sources.

Well, I see that my old nemesis Halliburton has managed to get itself back into the news. I did a lot of net research into these criminal war profiteers back in October of 2003. Figured I'd put out some of those findings that we may have forgotten about, to refresh everyone's memories on what these crooks have been up to. If anybody wants to see the thread in which I did all this research, it's from another forum and can be found here. Note the wingnut attempts to spin.

Chaplain Trouble
Further Chaplain Trouble
Continuing Trouble with Chaplains
I just talked to the IG. Went well.

I was scared shitless. I hate talking to people in situations like that, especially higher-ranking ones. I worry about everything I do or say being taken the wrong way, and my fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. Fortunately, she was understanding and cordial and I relaxed pretty soon. I brought a printout of my 14 points, and she read it in it's entirety. Once she'd been filled in on my position from my written words, I became a lot more confident and what speaking skills I have came out strong. Apparently she's the one who has been telling the chaplains to get in touch with me, and they have been saying that I haven't shown any interest in meeting with them, preferring to keep things in email. I explained to her that I'm more comfortable with email, she explained to me that she's more comfortable with face to face, and we went round and round on that part.

Update [2005-8-6 1:0:13 by jabbausaf]:
I talked to the IG, see updated story here: Chaplain Troubles: Talked to IG rep
End update
Chaplain Trouble
Further Chaplain Trouble

Well, I reported the chaplains to the IG, and I'll be talking to the IG in a couple of hours. The chaplains are now trying to patch everything up, but too little too late.

I got these emails from the chaplains today:

Update: The next part in this ongoing story is at Continuing problems with chaplains

Yesterday, in Chaplain Trouble I complained that my chaplain has been using his position as a bully pulpit for proselytizing. His method for doing this has been "Daily Devotion" emails that are supposed to be "uplifting" but come off as being "Christianity (my brand) good, everybody else bad!" Seriously, these things read like fucking Chick tracts. These emails are sent base-wide, and they haven't, in three months, figured out a way to have a specific mailing list for it. Yesterday the chaplain sent out an email attacking evolution. I sent an email back that was pretty forceful in telling him to stop. I cc'd his boss. His boss sent me an email back. I'm thinking much harder now about going to the IG, and after that, perhaps the ACLU. [Update]Well, I took the plunge, and forwarded the Major's email to the IG. See full text below.

Inspired by this thread

I wish there was some regulation for not letting a chaplain use his position as a soapbox. And for keeping him from abusing his position to send controversial views to the entire base. If anybody knows of such a regulation, feel free to pass it on to me.

In case anybody doubted Kos. Here we have the finest minds of the American Taliban spewing their bile and hate.

Look upon them, the mighty, and despair.

Taken from the website The American Taliban. I'd invite you to go and see the accompanying pictures. Yes, some of the quoted are old and others are thankfully dead. Still scary though, because the mindset in the background has not changed since McCarthyism, except that now they're in charge.

(Be advised that there are a lot of places where helpful notes were marked with asterisks, as is customary. However, the autoformatting turns whatever is between asterisks into bold, so I changed every asterisk to (asterisk). Be advised that the person or persons who were in charge of de-formatting the formatting... have been sacked.)