Free Republic

It sounded like “sarcasm?” It was meant to be funny/lighthearted. At least that’s how I took it.

A couple of years ago I was at an event in Israel with Netanyahu in attendance. There were two towers on each side of the bleachers where we were seated, with sniper/spotter teams in each. They were constantly and openly scanning the crowd with the scopes of the rifles. Several times I looked up to see a rifle pointed in my direction.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn’t love FREEDOM enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn ,

The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
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The problem is that in 10-20 years it will be armed mini drones, robot dogs and SWAT (RoboCop) that will be coming for your guns...

bm

No, they have excellent questioning techniques, and the best intelligence system in the world. Just because he “passed” the initial questioning and gained entrance into the country, doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a suspect or wasn’t tracked. The key phrase is that “he was arrested.” And all of his contacts/methods/techniques are now known.

On one of my trips to Israel we had a Pakistani Christian missionary go with us. He was born into a muslim family in Pakistan, but is now an American citizen and spends 6 months each year back in Pakistan running a Christian church/orphanage, which puts him in constant danger when he is there. At the departure gate we were all asked a few polite questions about why we were going to Israel, but he was taken into a private room where he was questioned more thoroughly and everything was removed from all of his luggage and examined very carefully.

In my first year of college (1970) I was dating a girl who was training to be a nurse at Georgia Baptist Hospital. She attended First Baptist Church and was all excited about a new young pastor named Charles Stanley. So I went with her to hear him one Sunday when I was in town. I don’t remember much about the sermon (my mind was probably on the girl), but have listened to him (and Adrian Rogers) on the radio many times since.

Was in the Congressional Office building on Tuesday visiting Doug Collins (Georgia) office. Next to his was Veronica Escobar’s office (Congresswoman, Texas) and it had a Texas flag AND a gay pride flag on the door.

I attended a Bible College for a couple of years in the 1970s. As evangelicals we studied how to present the Gospel to atheists, agnostics and most of the cults such as Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. Yes, I believe that Christianity is exclusive and that there is only one way to get to heaven - by belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and accepting that He died to pay for your sins. Jesus said, “I AM the Way, The Truth and The Life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.” We also studied how to present the Gospel to tribes in foreign countries and we briefly studied world religions, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the Muslim invasion in America that we are now experiencing.

Redneck country boy here who grew up chasing coon hounds through the swamps of north Florida. First of either side of my family to go to college and the first commissioned officer of many who were in the service. Took me 7 years to finish. Worked full time my first three years and went to college part time. For two years I worked from 10pm until 6am at a trucking warehouse loading trucks all night. Had just enough time to get back to school, take a shower and head to class. Yes, my grades suffered. Had to stay out one semester to work and save up money to pay the bills. Then I transferred to a small college where I got a partial football scholarship and after football season, I again worked at night cleaning floors at the local JC Penny. But, at the end I got a piece of paper that allowed me to go to OCS, get a commission and on to flight school.

Told my SIL who lives in Boston “we don’t much care for the damn Yankees down here in Dixie.” He says “yeah, we don’t like em either.”

From their website:

“The Counterpart family faced an attack on our cherished team members in Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday. We mourn the loss of the security guards from the Afghan police special forces who protected us. We will never forget their sacrifices. They will be forever etched in our memories and forever part of the Counterpart family.

We also witnessed the horrific violence inflicted on our team members during Ramadan, the most holy time in the Muslim calendar. We know this attack had nothing to do with Islam. It is instead borne of hatred and ignorance and darkness. Counterpart has always stood for inclusion and learning and light. We categorically reject this senseless violence.

We will not be cowed by cowardice. Our Counterpart team stands stronger today than ever before, bolstered by the unwavering support of our team members and our wider community who offered every assist. We can never repay that debt. Instead we will move forward in gratitude: stronger and more resilient than ever before.

My best wishes and thanks to our colleagues, partners, and friends in Afghanistan and around the world,

Ann Hudock
President & CEO”
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“We know this attack had nothing to do with Islam.”

Talk about delusional...

T-37, the “flying dog whistle” At least the T-2 was pressurized. But I hated summers in Meridian. Wearing all the jet gear, flight suit, g-suit, survival vest, helmet, gloves and boots out to the airplane that was baking in 95 degrees and all of the jet engine exhaust blowing more hot air on you. Along with smoking, drinking a gallon of coffee every day, and heavy drinking on the weekends, it’s amazing that we didn’t have more heat strokes. But, all in all it was my most satisfying tour. Produced a lot of good pilots for the Navy/Marine Corps.

“You are a pilot, not a switchology master.”

OK, True Story: When I was a primary jet instructor at NAS Meridian in the mid 1980s I had a total pitot static system failure. It was at night in the goo and we had just leveled off at FL240 returning from Pensacola back to Meridian. I had a new instructor pilot with me and I was playing the part of the student. When I started to level off the VSI and altimeter kept climbing and the student IP thought I was messing with him. He said “watch your altitude.” I replied something not right, the power is at idle and I've got 5 degrees nose down, but we're still climbing. About that time the altimeter, VSI and airspeed froze up. Only took a few seconds to diagnose the problem, but now we're in the clouds at night with no airspeed or altitude indicators. Of course I declared an emergency and told Center that I didn't know what altitude I was at, but was descending to VFR conditions and to clear a path in front of me. Interesting side note is that Center thought we were still at FL240 because the altimeter was locked at that altitude and was sending the false information to the IFF transponder. We had entered the clouds at 15,000 feet and that was the forecast minimum ceiling enroute to Meridian. So I pulled power to idle and lowered to nose to about 3 degrees nose down for a controlled descent. Sure enought we broke out at about 15,000 feet and I declared VFR for the remainder of the trip to Meridian. If the clouds had been much below a 5,000’ ceiling then ejection might have been our only option.

I also knew that once I dropped gear and flaps that the landing AOA system would engage and would provide airspeed control (based on the optimum AOA for landing). Then I just had acquire the Optical Glideslope System (the “Ball”) and fly it to ground. All worked as planned and troubleshooting revealed that the pitot system heater had failed so the system had literally frozen up once we entered the clouds.

Why the long story? The point is that we overcame extreme unexpected adversity by knowing the airplane, knowing procedures, remained calm and quickly came to the correct solution. My three years as an instructor pilot made me an immeasurably better pilot because they were long hard intense days (usually scheduled for 3 flights/ 12 hour days. And if you didn't have the attitude that this student is trying to kill me in some new way that I haven't seen before, then chances are - he would.

Most of the new young airline pilots don't have anywhere near the training and experience that you and I received from our military flying. It's friggin scary when I have to get on a commuter plane and look at the young kids who are the pilots. I just thank God that I'm a Christian and say a quick prayer.

Except AOA is the PRIMARY reference when coming aboard the boat. In fact there is a lighted AOA indicator in your line of sight when you are watching the ball on approach. Once the AOA is set then your rate of descent is controlled by power. You fly a constant AOA to touchdown. That's why carrier landings are hard, you are flying the airplane to a spot on the boat (hopefully the 3 wire). There is no flaring the nose to land.

We have such short memories....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Black_Hawk_shootdown_incident

Thanks.
Just watched “A Good American” on Netflix
So sad what has become of our country.

Well then, we should ALL take UBER/LYFT to the polls on election day.

bmp

Yes, Captain John Birch, Christian missionary and spy for Chennault, and who had nothing to do with the “John Birch Society.”

My son owns a small apartment building and lives in one of the units. He had to evict two different families in the last couple of months. They have several kids, drive a much nicer car than he does, constantly stop up the toilets, demand instant repairs to anything that goes wrong, but won’t pay the rent.
Then he has to compete with HUD buying up the units around him and spending tons of (taxpayer) money to upgrade them.